Chapter Text
Jason stood on the street corner, head tilted up and eyes squinting so he could see the signs a little better. They were right at twenty-third street here, so if he turned left it’d take them into Coventry. But if they kept going straight…
“This way,” Jason decided.
Cass tilted her head, not saying anything.
It made Jason take a step back. He stuck his hand into his pocket and fiddled with the cool rock he’d found on the ground a few blocks back. “Well, that’s right, isn’t it?”
She shrugged. “You’ll find out.”
“Cass.”
“Jason. This is so you can learn.”
“Yeah, but if I pick the wrong way—”
“Then you’ll learn how to fix it.”
He heaved out a sigh. Yeah, the whole point of this training was so he could get better with finding his own way around Gotham by himself, but he still felt so weirdly nervous about it. Even though Cass was right by his side the whole time, he wasn’t used to being able to call the shots. All he ever did these days was follow around after someone bigger than him everywhere they went.
That wasn’t what he wanted it to be like for forever, though. He wanted to be able to figure things out on his own again. And even though Cass gave him really big challenges when they were training, he knew she always made sure they were safe, too. She’d never let Jason do something that was actually dangerous.
He kept that thought right in the front of his brain as he led them across the street and kept marching down the same block. It was Sunday afternoon, and there were a lot of different people walking on the sidewalk: a guy in a business suit, an old lady with a cart full of groceries, a pair of joggers. There were even a couple other kids skipping around with someone beside them who was maybe their mom.
Jason kept walking ahead with Cass following right behind him. It was probably still cheating a little bit to have someone with him, but there weren’t many places in Gotham where Jason could go actually by himself without someone getting all worried about an eight-year-old kid without a grownup with him, so this was how it had to be.
And it turned out to be pretty good anyway. After just one more block, Jason could see a black metal gate at the end of the intersection. There were also a bunch of trees, a whole big stretch of grass…
With a bright smile on his face, he turned back to look up at Cass. “That’s it! Robinson Park!”
“Yep.” She squeezed him into a tight hug. “Good job, baby brother.”
It made his smile get even bigger. He’d done it! And it wasn’t just the first time, either. This was his fifth little trip like this, sometimes with Cass, sometimes with Tim. Babs had also made a fun little computer quiz for him with a bunch of Gotham landmarks. Now, if he ever got kidnapped again, he’d actually be able to find his way to somewhere useful.
“But we’re not going in the park,” Cass said.
“No?”
“Nope. This way.”
She took him by the hand and led him around the corner, down a quieter street that had some stores and restaurants along it. Halfway down, they stopped at a place that was painted bright blue on the outside. Through the window, you could see piles and piles of candy in a bunch of see-through containers. There was a shelf near the front that had little bags and tubs that were all empty, waiting to be filled with whatever people picked.
It looked really cool and fun, but…
“I don’t need a– a prize or something,” Jason said as his face started to get warm. “I’m doing this practice because I want to.”
“I know.” Cass gave his hand a squeeze. “But we can have candy anyway.”
Well, if she put it like that…
Jason followed her into the store, and she grabbed a couple of big tubs, one for each of them. Then, he spent the next few minutes filling it up with all the different stuff that he wanted: fuzzy peaches and blue whales and sour soothers. There was a type of candy that looked like Lego blocks, and Cass got a different tub for those so he could maybe try to build with them while he ate everything else. At the counter, she got them both massive jawbreakers and that’s what Jason started sucking on as they left the store.
“Alfred is picking us up outside the mall,” Cass said. She was still taking the lead, and Jason didn’t mind following after her this time. It made it so he could concentrate on his candy better.
“Okay. That means you’re staying for dinner, right?”
“Yes. After, you could show me your katas.”
“Okay!” With a little spring in his step, Jason started walking faster. “I’m doing really good on those, too. Dad told me.”
“Knew you would.” She gave him another hug.
He grinned around his jawbreaker. Yeah, his training was going super well lately. He could feel himself getting stronger almost every day, and his brain was picking things up really fast. It was fun to be learning all this stuff: new fighting moves, new languages, the getting around thing.
“Hey, where’s Tim taking me on Wednesday to practice? What neighbourhood?”
She shook her head. “Not telling. That’s cheating.”
“Oh, c’mon!”
She booped his nose. “Nope.”
“Ugh, fine. I’m still gonna do a good job with him, though.”
“You will.”
With another smile, he went back to his jawbreaker. Yeah, he probably didn’t need to know exactly where Tim was planning for them to go after he picked Jason up from school on Wednesday. Mostly, Jason just wanted to know so he could try to get another treat like today (even though he didn’t need one). No matter what it’d end up being, he felt really confident that it was going to go good.
That’s why it really sucked when it wasn’t Tim waiting at the Pathways playground after school on Wednesday. It was Bruce.
Jason jogged over right away, not even caring anymore about the soccer game that Joey wanted to start up. This wasn’t what the plan for today was supposed to be, so that meant that maybe…
“Is Tim okay?”
Bruce pulled Jason into a quick hug. “He’s fine. We’ve just had a change of plans.”
Jason stared back. A ‘change of plans’ didn’t happen out of nowhere. There had to be a reason for it. And Bruce was looking a little extra tense and alert right now. His eyes kept scanning the playground over and over again.
“Let’s get into the car and I’ll tell you about it when we get home,” he said.
Jason followed him out of the playground, past Mrs. Ahmad who checked Jason off the sign-out list. He waited until they were getting into the car before he complained. “You know, it just makes me even more worried if you don’t tell me what’s going on.”
Bruce sighed as he closed his door. Then he turned around in his seat so he could look straight at Jason. “There’s been some chatter. Seems like word has spread from when the alternate Jason was here. Some people were interested to learn that the Red Hood had made an appearance in Gotham again.”
“Oh. And, uh, probably not anyone who actually likes Red Hood, huh?”
“No.” Bruce huffed out a laugh. “You, ah, had a gift for stirring up trouble.”
With a grin, Jason shrugged. Yeah, he’d liked being a shit-disturber. There were a lot of people he pissed off, including Batman! Red Hood had disappeared way over a year ago, but a lot of people would want to know if he came back.
“But wait, what does that have to do with Tim not picking me up from school?”
“I want to make sure you’re safe, Jay.”
Jason stared at his dad. “Okay, but I’m not Red Hood anymore. And I shrank down fifteen years! That’s, like, the best disguise ever.”
Bruce shook his head. “There’re still those rumours from a few months ago. Some people think Jason Wayne has a connection to him.”
“Wait, cause those two goons who kidnapped me thought I was my own kid?! Barely anyone else thinks that! You said!”
“It does seem to be mostly unsubstantiated rumours,” Bruce agreed, “but even the most fringe theories carry a risk. I just want to play it safe for a little, that’s all.”
Jason crossed his arms. “So… No Tim picking me up on Wednesdays?”
“Not for a little bit, at least.”
“Right.” Jason looked out the window. He was pretty sure the whole ‘letting him figure out his own way around Gotham’ thing was out, too.
“And it’s probably best if we keep the after-school playground visits to a minimum.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Then Bruce reached out and put his hand on Jason’s knee. “You’re still safe at school, Jason; Pathways has excellent security. It’s just better to control as many variables as possible.”
“I’m not scared.” Not really. Yeah, he didn’t really want to go wandering around the Bowery all by himself with a giant ‘Jason Wayne’ sign on him, but he knew he wasn’t actually in that much danger. And he knew Bruce would always keep him safe.
Bruce started the car and was turning onto the road by the time Jason figured out what to say.
“It just sucks. I used to be able to keep myself safe.”
Bruce gave him a look in the rearview mirror. “I know, bud. And I know following some different rules might not be very fun.”
Jason nodded. He liked it when Tim came to pick him up. He liked being able to play with his friends after school.
“It won’t be for very long,” Bruce said. “We’ll figure out which players might be looking for Red Hood, and that’ll help us determine how to handle it. Most likely, the chatter will die down soon enough on its own.”
Yeah, it probably would. Red Hood had only been seen for maybe two nights after being gone for over a year. It probably wouldn’t take long before everyone just forgot about it all over again.
After all, the real Red Hood was gone for forever. Better if everyone thought that, too.
It was the next day when Jason found out more. He was down in the cave, working on a cool new design for a grappling hook that he wanted to try. The laptop Bruce had given him for his birthday worked really good for this kind of thing, and it was also great that Jason could do his own thing while other people were on the Batcomputer or wherever.
It meant he could listen in on a ton of stuff.
“I still don’t think we should even be trying to make deals with a loose cannon,” Dick said. “Since when is that how we do things?”
Bruce just grunted and didn’t actually say anything back.
Dick blew out a heavy sigh. “Bruce.”
“It’s not about giving in to demands,” Babs’ voice said from the computer. “It’s about learning more information.”
“That’s—”
And then Tim’s voice interrupted everyone else, and it was coming from right beside Jason. “Hey, are you working on that grapple hook thing? Can I see?”
Jason hunched his shoulders and lowered his laptop lid, but it was already too late. Tim had seen the design.
“Wait, is that…”
“It’s a grapple hook!”
“Really?” Tim raised an eyebrow. “Looks a lot like a Minecraft pickaxe to me.”
“Ugh, fine!” Jason leaned back in his chair so Tim could see the whole thing. “I thought it’d be cool to make one that looked like a Minecraft tool. But… I know no one would actually want to use it.”
No one except Jason, who wasn’t allowed out in the field yet.
Tim stared at the design for a bit longer, clicking through all the specs that Jason had worked on. They were all good; maybe Jason wasn’t even close to as smart as he used to be with the engineering stuff, but he was getting pretty good at using the 3D printer.
“You should make it for Bruce,” Tim said. “He won’t recognize it and he’ll use anything as long as you paint it black and slap a bat on it.”
Jason grinned. “Yeah? Do you think it’s ready to print?”
“Let me finish checking it over.”
Jason let him. It meant he could listen in on the thing with Bruce and Dick and Babs some more. He slid off of his chair to let Tim get closer to the laptop, and then he started wandering a little closer to the platform where Batcomputer was.
Babs was in the middle of talking. “I’m doing what I can, but I’m not a miracle worker.”
“And you’re sure you’ve combed through everything,” Bruce said.
“Of course I’m sure. Dick, are you sure you heard was Mask’s henchmen were saying?”
Jason’s breath caught, and before he could hear anything else, Tim noticed what he was doing.
“Jay.” He left the laptop and started to walk towards Jason.
“I— I’m not doing anything bad!”
Tim paused. “You’re not. Just—”
“Boys?” Bruce suddenly turned away from the computer, freezing both Jason and Tim with his stare. “What’s going on? Jay, I thought you were busy with your project.”
Jason pulled himself up as tall as he could. “That’s not important if you guys are talking about Black Mask. What’s going on with him? Did he— He didn’t hurt you, Dick, right?”
Dick seemed totally fine, but he was really good at hiding things so that didn’t always mean anything. And had Tim been trying to keep Jason busy with other stuff just now so he wouldn’t notice what was going on over here? They weren't supposed to be doing that anymore, but if there was something they were hiding, how would Jason even know?
“I’m fine, Jay. I promise.” Dick gave Jason’s shoulder a squeeze. “Just— I had a run-in with some of Mask’s crew last night. They were wanting me to contact Red Hood.”
Even though he wasn’t actually Red Hood anymore, Jason felt his stomach flop. “So… he’s the one who was looking for Red Hood?”
“Yeah.” Bruce put his arm around Jason, pulling him into a hug. “But remember we’re going to keep you safe, Jay. No matter what.”
It helped a lot, even though Jason knew that no one could say for sure what Black Mask was going to do; it was just like Dick said.
“It does mean we should be even more careful,” Bruce said. “I’ll still take you to school, but I’ll be staying close throughout the day just to keep an eye on things.”
“I’ll be monitoring the building cameras throughout the day, too,” Babs added.
“And we’ll still be going home right afterwards. If you want to play with your friends, they’re going to have to come here.”
Jason scrunched his face up. That all sucked. “For how long?”
“Well…”
“Until the Red Hood rumours die down,” Babs said. “Although we’re trying to find another way to shorten that. Does the name ‘Achilles’ mean anything to you, Jason?”
He stared. “Yeah. It’s, uh, the Greek guy. And the body part that’s the same spot.” What the hell did that have to do with Black Mask?
“We’re thinking it’s referring to a weapon of some kind,” Dick said. “Probably referencing the Greek character.”
“A weakness?” Tim guessed.
“Maybe. Anyway, that’s what Mask’s goons were asking Nightwing for yesterday.”
Jason thought about it. “Oh. So… they think you have it, Dick?”
Bruce hummed. “Think of the connections, Jay.”
Jason scowled. “Just tell me.” It was one thing to have his dad help him practice this kind of detective stuff when it was just the two of them, but Jason didn’t want to do it when everyone else was here. He knew he was way worse at it now that he used to be; why put on a fucking show about it?
“Alright.” Bruce smoothed out a wrinkle in Jason’s t-shirt. “Mask’s people couldn’t find Red Hood for obvious reasons, so their next step would be reaching out to known associates.”
“It was an open secret that Red Hood was working with us,” Dick said. “Mask’s team wanted Nightwing to pass on the message."
“Oh. So… what message?” Jason straightened his shoulders a little, still staying in the hug Bruce was giving him.
“They want Achilles, whatever it is, and they’re under the impression that Red Hood has it.”
“Or that Red Hood created it,” Tim added.
Babs frowned. “Why would Jason tell Mask about something in the first place if he’s the one who made it?”
“To piss him off?” Dick grinned over at Jason. “That was basically Jay’s M.O. with Mask.”
Jason returned the smile, but only a little bit. It was always hard for him to think about this stuff. It made him a little sad to see how much had changed, and it also was just… hard. To remember how he used to think and plan. His brain didn’t work the same way anymore.
“But wouldn’t, um… Wouldn’t Mask just try to kill me instead of asking around for a weapon? That’d be easier, wouldn’t it?”
The only reply Jason got to that was a big heavy silence. Bruce’s arm that was hugging him got all frozen and tight.
Jason felt his face flush. Obviously, he’d said something dumb or wrong and no one wanted to call him out on it. This was exactly why he didn’t want to do any of this detective shit in front of everyone.
“Well, whatever. You guys have all my files. You can figure it out.” Jason had been hooking some of his stuff into the Cave even before he’d been shrunk down, and after that he’d brought his whole system over. Back then, he’d thought he’d do a lot of work with all of it. Like, follow up on his old cases and pass on intel and stuff.
That was before he’d realized just how much everything was going to change. Now, he couldn’t understand most of the stuff he’d written from before and he needed his dad spoon-feeding him even basic skills. It probably wasn’t even that Tim had been trying to keep him from listening in on this; it was just that everyone already knew that Jason wasn’t gonna be any good at helping them.
At least everyone else could understand all of Jason’s old shit. In that way, Black Mask was actually kind of right.
But Babs was shaking her head. “We don’t have everything. Your record-keeping was spotty at best, and there are some very noticeable holes.”
Then Tim made a little humming sound.
Bruce and Dick turned to look at him.
“What?” Babs asked.
“It’s just— are you sure the problem’s with Jay’s old records? All his financial stuff is airtight. Like, even more detailed than how I do mine.”
“I’m not skipping over things,” Babs said with a scowl.
“No, just…” Tim shrugged and then turned to Jason.
“Well, I don’t know!” Jason could feel his face getting hot. “I don’t even remember how I used to do all that.”
He was relearning, but it was going slow because it was honestly super boring and kind of complicated. There were weird codes and a bunch of stuff about banking that he didn’t understand anymore. It was probably hard for his eight-year-old brain to even figure it out, just like it was hard for him to keep his room clean and not take things literally so much.
And even when he was finally old enough again to understand it, he was gonna be different from how he used to be. Maybe he’d pick different codes or want to organize things in other ways. He’d never do it exactly the way Red Hood used to; that was always going to be ‘other Jason’. Jason from before. Jason who wasn’t him anymore.
Bruce pulled him a little closer, pushing his big hand through Jason’s hair and easing away some of the tangly knot that was twisting inside Jason’s gut.
“It’s okay, Jaylad. No one’s expecting you to solve this.”
Well, that was for sure right. They hadn’t even asked him for help. And, yeah, it was because Jason wasn’t gonna be any help with this, but… that didn’t mean it didn’t suck.
He flopped his head against Bruce’s chest as he listened to everyone else try to figure it out. He kinda wanted to just go back to his Minecraft grapple gun project, but he couldn’t figure out a way to do that without it being obvious how bad all of this was making him feel.
“Is there anything in Jason’s financial records that would fit what Mask wants?” Babs asked.
Tim frowned. “Not that I know of, but I’ll do a deep dive to check through it all.”
“If you uploaded it to the main server, I could help with that.”
“Nah, better to keep it separate. That’s how Jay always had it.” He shared a look with Jason, and… it was kinda nice. Tim knew what grown-up Jason had wanted and he was going to keep following that. That’s exactly why Jason had asked Tim to take over all that stuff in the first place.
Maybe when he got older, Jason would want to keep some things separate from Bruce again. Right now, he couldn’t even really imagine why that’d be a thing, but he did remember how he used to feel that way. He’d wanted his independence, and to keep some things away from Bruce because Batman didn’t always understand—
“Oh!” Jason shot upright, pushing away Bruce’s arms so he could stand all on his own.
Everyone else paused.
“What is it, Jay?” Bruce sat there so patient and helpful and there, just like Jason always needed these days. It was hard to match that with how he used to feel about Bruce. Right now, he didn’t even care that he was gonna start blabbing a bunch of grown-up him’s secrets.
“I used to keep some files that were not connected to any of the batserver stuff. And they were even off my laptop because I didn’t trust Babs not to hack into it.”
“Hey,” Babs protested, even though she didn’t sound all that upset about it.
Bruce let out a huff of a laugh and twisted his fingers into the hair at the back of Jason’s neck. “Where’d you keep them?”
“On um… like hard drive thingies? That you can plug in and use but they’re not connected to the internet?” Jason wasn’t totally sure if that was a thing, but everyone else was nodding, so it must have made sense.
“Are we talking about a few large drives or a bunch of small ones?” Dick asked.
“A bunch of small ones. And I had a few copies of really important things for re— Um, re… The thing where you have backups?”
“Redundancy,” Tim filled in.
Bruce nodded like it all made sense. “That was a good idea, Jay.”
It probably would have pissed grown-up Jason off if Bruce had said that to him, but Jason liked it now. He fell back into the same hug as before, this time feeling way better about everything. He’d remembered stuff. He’d helped.
“Where did you keep the drives?” Babs asked.
“At, like, safehouses and supply drops and stuff. Not any of the ones that I gave up when I moved back home! Just the important ones that you guys still use.” All those places were saved on the Batcomputer. Maybe Jason hadn’t known the thing about not being able to understand his own files, but he’d known that he wouldn’t have been able to keep up all his old hideaways. Not on his own, at least.
“Okay.” Babs started typing. A new window popped up on the monitor that had a map of Gotham with a bunch of dots all over it. “We’ll do a sweep of Jason’s old boltholes and find everything that we can.”
Bruce nodded. “Barbara and I will handle the data review of what we find. Dick, can you coordinate search teams?”
“Yeah, sure. It’ll be fun going through all of Jay’s old places.”
“I hid some of the stuff really good,” Jason said. “Like, in walls and shit. I could maybe go there too—”
“No.” Bruce’s arm that was around Jason tightened again. “Jay, we talked about this. You’re either at school or at home. That’s it.”
“But Dad—”
“No.”
“We don’t know how much Mask knows about your old network,” Tim said. “He could be surveilling some of those places.”
Well, sure, but if other people were gonna go there…
But Jason wasn’t the same as everyone else.
He shouldn’t have forgotten that. He was the baby of the family now, a little kid who wasn’t even allowed out in the field yet. Just the idea that Black Mask might be thinking about using him to get to Red Hood was enough that he had to go basically on full lockdown.
Everyone else was gonna be working really hard. They’d be trying to figure out what Mask wanted and also making sure Jason was staying safe, but meanwhile, Jason was just gonna… stay here. Keep on hugging his dad.
And do pretty much nothing else.