Chapter Text
Docks - Gotham, 1:42 AM.
It always started with a job gone bad.
Tonight, that meant crates of smuggled weapons, half a dozen thugs armed with military-grade rifles, and a boat preparing to flee Gotham’s bay under the cover of fog.
Kade tasted copper before he felt the sting. A deep cut above his eyebrow sent warm blood running down the side of his nose and soaking into his face mask. He took a heavy breath. His right hand was empty, one of his batons had gone skittering across the planks in the first few seconds of the fight before dropping into the black water with a soft plop.
"Come on then," Kade muttered to himself. His voice sounded muffled inside his mask. "I’m not dead yet."
The remaining thugs didn't wait. They rushed him all at once.
Kade moved on instinct. He ducked under the first guy's reach, swinging his remaining baton upward. The baton cracked against the man's jaw with a solid thud, snapping his head sideways and sending him stumbling. A blade caught the outside of his left thigh somewhere in the scramble. Kade barely registered it, before the second man could raise his rifle, Kade fired a taser round point-blank, the sharp crackle of electricity lighted up the fog as the man folded onto the damp concrete. A third guy—smarter than the rest—dove behind a stack of wooden pallets and raised his rifle over the top.
Kade forced him back into cover with a quick shot, but the crack of gunfire swallowed the footsteps approaching.
He didn’t notice the guy flanking him on the right until the shadow stretched over his shoulder. A crowbar swung through the dark and slammed into his ribs. The breath exploded from Kade’s lungs. He grunted, spinning with the force of the blow, his boots sliding across the wet wood as a spray of rifle fire chewed up the concrete right where his head had been a second ago.
"This is getting messy," Roy spoke from the top of a crane three stories up. His bow was already drawn, the string pulled tight against his cheek, an arrow steady and ready to fly. He squinted through the mist. "Who even is this guy?"
Jason crouched right beside him on the rusted iron beam, his arms folded over his chest. The dull red paint of his helmet caught the moonlight in a faint sheen. He didn't move, his eyes locked on the messy struggle below. "Doesn’t matter," Jason said, his voice a low growl through the helmet's speakers. "He’s outnumbered."
"So we help?”
Jason didn't answer. His hands dropped instead, fingers already closing around the grips of his pistols.
Down on the deck, Kade was running on pure adrenaline. He caught the guy with the crowbar with a vicious headbutt, the crack of their foreheads echoing across the water, before driving a hard elbow straight into another man’s neck. But it was costing him. His lungs burned, and his vision flashed a bright, static white around the edges.
The world tilted. The dock seemed to shift beneath his feet like a boat.
Kade stumbled backward, his heel striking the very edge of the pier.
"Shit—”
He twisted his body, throwing his weight forward to recover his balance, but his boots couldn't get a grip on the wet wood. Before he could fix his footing, the last standing gunman lunged forward, tackling him right around the waist.
They both hit the dock hard—then tumbled over the edge.
Splash.
The remaining thugs stopped, staring at the dark water. Wide ripples spread outward, lapping against the side of the smuggler's boat.
Roy’s voice cut through the silence. "Jason—he’s not coming up.”
"Leave him," Jason said.
Roy’s brow furrowed under his hood. "Jay."
Jason watched the black surface of the bay. One second. Two. The water was still.
His jaw tightened behind the mask. "Fuck."
In one smooth motion, Jason drew both pistols. Two sharp, deafening cracks shattered the fog. The last two gunmen dropped to the concrete before they could even turn around. Jason hit the dock running, holstered the weapons without looking, shrugged off his leather jacket and dove headfirst into the bay.
The water wasn't just cold. It swallowed everything—sound, light, direction—until there was nothing around him but black.
He didn’t scream. He couldn’t.
The icy bay wrapped around his chest like frozen iron bands, crushing the remaining air out of his lungs. Far above him, the light fractured into blurry, impossibly distant shards of silver. Every sound from the world above became a dull, faraway hum.
His brother’s face. His father’s broken scream. Cold, wet fingers slipping out of his own tiny grip.
Kade clawed upward against the weight, but his limbs were locking up. Get out get out get out—
Then, a sudden jolt. Strong hands grabbed the vest of his gear, stopping his descent. With a violent pull, the figure yanked him upward. Through the rising bubbles and blurred vision, Kade caught only flashes of red and black above him.
The surface shattered.
Jason dragged him into the air, drawing a sharp, ragged breath of his own while letting loose a string of muffled curses.
Roy was already flat on his stomach at the edge of the dock, one arm stretched as far over the water as he could reach. "Got him!"
Together, straining against the dead weight, they hauled Kade over the wooden lip and dragged him onto the weathered planks. Roy let out a rough breath, "you're heavier than you look, man.”
Kade collapsed onto his hands and knees, his body shaking violently. A coughing fit tore through him, forcing water and spit onto the dark wood beneath him. His throat burned, and every breath came back thin and ragged. His chest heaved as he tried to force real air back into his lungs.
Roy dropped into a crouch right beside him, his hands hovering. "Easy... easy. Breathe." He ran a quick eye over Kade's torso, checking for obvious wounds, before settling a steady hand between his shoulder blades. "Hey. Look at me."
No response. Kade kept staring at the wood, his chest rattling.
"...Come on, don't die on us now," Roy muttered, his voice dropping the sarcasm for a fraction of a second.
Another coughing fit doubled Kade over before he finally dragged in a deep breath.
Roy’s easy grin snapped right back into place. "There he is."
A shadow fell over them as someone else knelt down on Kade's other side. It wasn't the dramatic sweep of Batman's cape, and it wasn't the police. Kade blinked, his vision slowly clearing through his dripping hair. He saw heavy-duty boots. Scuffed leather and a red helmet dripping with bay water.
The guy’s voice was low, bone-dry, and echoed through his tech. "Learn to swim."
Kade looked up, his jaw tight, his teeth chattering against the cold. He hated the pathetic weakness in his muscles more than the throbbing in his ribs. "Go to hell,” he rasped.
Jason shrugged, unbothered. "Works too."
"That’s gratitude for ya," a second voice joined in from above, lighter. "We fished your soggy ass out of the bay, and this is what we get?”
Kade forced his head up. The redheaded one was standing there, his hood down, a recurve bow slung casually over his back. He was smirking.
Arsenal.
Which meant the one who had just dragged him out of the grave was—
Red Hood. Well, shit.
Kade tried to put some distance between himself and the two vigilantes. His arms shook under his weight, his body wracked by another dry cough.
Roy snorted, crossing his arms as he looked down at him. "In Red's defense... you really did sink like a big bag of bricks."
With a low groan, Kade managed to push himself into a sitting position, bracing his back against a nearby crate. He didn't want to be at eye level with their boots.
Jason didn't press the issue or move closer. He settled back against the shipping container, arms loose at his sides despite the water dripping steadily from his clothes. "You've got decent form," he observed flatly. "Shame you completely fall apart when things go sideways."
Kade’s eyes darkened behind the wet lenses, his hand moving toward his empty holster.
"Relax. We're not here to fight you." Roy raised his hands in a lazy gesture of peace, nodding toward a dark armored truck parked in the dark of the warehouse. "We're offering a ride." He pointed a finger at the steady trail of blood running down Kade's temple. "Plus, you look like absolute hell."
Jason added. "Probably cracked a few ribs, too," matter-of-fact.
Roy looked over his shoulder, throwing a grin at his partner. "See? Doctor Red Hood agrees."
Jason shot him a look from behind the visor. "...Don't call me that."
"Too late."
The black water lapped quietly against the wood behind his heels. He could hear it beneath everything else—the soft, rhythmic slap against the pilings—and suddenly the edge of the dock felt much too close.
"Fine,” Kade rasped. "But don’t try anything.”
Roy looked genuinely offended, popping a hand against his chest. "Relax, kid. We don't kidnap people anymore."
Kade froze, his shoulders freezing. "...Anymore?"
Jason pushed himself off the container and walked past them toward the driver's side of the truck. "Don't ask."
"It worked out fine!" Roy called out after him, his grin widening.
Jason didn't even bother to turn around as he pulled open the steel door. "It really didn't."
