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Jason was having the worst time of his life. Okay, he was being dramatic. It was not the worst, but it for sure was annoying.
Somehow someway, probably Bruce, he was forced into interrogating a nobody shithead with Dick. It was fucking Saturday night, he had a book and a sourdough starter waiting for him at home. He didn’t wanted to be in a humid ass interrogation room.
Besides, the guy was just a dot in a high scale arms deal operation in Gotham’s system. Sure, his info might be important but was it reeeeaaally that important?
Okay, maybe.
“Okay, just go with the old routine.” Tim says easily through the comms. “Dick, good cop. Jason, bad cop.”
Jason blinks, glancing at Dick, who was humming happily, looking around. He must have misheard. “Hey, replacement. Are you sure?”
“What do you mean if I am sure?” Tim said incredulously. “We need the suspect alive.”
“Yeah, that’s why I am asking.” Jason huffs a laugh, oh this was serious. “Did you talk this over with B?”
"There is no need to go over this with Bruce." Tim answers, annoyed. "It's just an interrogation."
"Uh huh, and you picked Dick as the good cop." Jason replies, enjoying every second of the conversation.
“Stop being weird, Todd.” Damian quickly replies through the comms. “Who else should be the good cop?”
“I could be the good cop.” Jason says, crossing his arms. “Hell, anyone but Dick. He shouldn't. Even as a last resort.”
“Yea, right.” Tim snorts. “Just follow what I said.”
Jason nods once, slowly grinning, maybe today wasn’t going to be that bad of a day. “Aye, aye, Captain… Whatever you say. But do remember that I did try to warn you.”
Speaking of the devil, Dick walks over with an easy smile. "So? What's the game plan?"
If Jason weren't currently wearing his mask Dick would have probably seen him grinning wider than a Joker gas victim. "Oh, you know. Bad cop, good cop. You are the good cop."
"Okay?" Dick visibly frowns, clearly weirded out. "Did Bruce say that?"
"Nope, but Tim's seems adamant about it and who are we to say no." Jason was going to probably have way too much fun with this.
Dick still looked unconvinced, arms crossing as he leaned against the wall outside the interrogation room. "This feels like a trap."
"It's not a trap." It was absolutely going to be entertaining, if nothing else. "It's basic psychology, Dickie. Scary guy, nice guy. Suspect cracks. We go home. You get to be nice for once, isn't that a treat?"
"I'm plenty nice."
"Sure you are." Jason claps him on the shoulder, steering him toward the door before he can argue further. "Go be nice, then."
The suspect, some mid-level nobody with a bad haircut and worse life choices, startles when the door swings open. His eyes land on Jason first, on the size of him, the visible gun in his holster that came free with the jacket. After a beat he visibly relaxes slightly when Dick steps in after with that easy, boyish grin.
Rookie mistake.
Jason posts up against the wall, arms crossed, doing his best impression of a man who has personally ended several people's Saturday nights with a bullet. Dick pulls out the chair across from the suspect, spins it backward, straddles it like he's about to have a friendly chat about fantasy football.
"Rough night, huh?" Dick says, the smile never wavering.
The suspect actually grins, ohh poor fool, he probably made a very stupid assumption. "Kinda."
Jason bites down on the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. Oh, this was going to be good.
"Sorry to hear that." Dick says sympathetically, giving Jason a barely there side glance.
Jason knows that was his cue as the bad cop. Although he wishes to only see the train wreck happen, he also doesn't want Damian to rat his ass to B about not doing anything.
So he walks over lazily and tilts his head, placing his hands down on the table.
"Listen here, shitstain. I don't want to be here on my Saturday night and you don't wish to be worm food. So start talking before you miss being able to."
The suspect frowns. "Don't you guys have a no kill rule?"
"Who do you think I am? Fucking Batman?" Jason huffs a laugh, takes out his gun and cocks it. "Wanna see if I am Batman?"
"Easy, Hood." Dick grabs Jason by the shoulders and carefully pulls him back. "Give the guy a break, he had a rough night."
Jason scoffs but easily pulls back, staying behind Dick as he crosses his arms. The guy seems to slightly relax as he looks at Dick, which is something Jason wouldn't have done if it were him.
Dick smiles easily. "Sorry about that. We are just looking for a simple dialogue."
"Look, man. I know nothing." Says the guy that clearly knews something, to Dick. "I was just doing some business, you know. The typical Gotham stuff, since a guy gotta eat."
"Oh, what kind of stuff?" Dick asked.
The suspect then snorts, in the 'you are dumb or something?' kind of way. "No offence, man, but what else could that shit be here in Gotham?"
Jason is immediately mentally seated with a popcorn bucket as he sees Dick's bouncing leg stop.
Dick widens his smile. "Then please educate me."
"Why should I? Aren't you guys detectives?" The suspect says with a smirk.
Jason clicks his tongue, most would have thought it was in annoyance but it actually was amusement. "Don't get cocky on us, henchman number six."
The suspect entirely ignores Jason, which is stupid since he had a gun on him, but hey, at least the next few minutes were going to be entertaining.
"Look, man, you seem nice and all." The guy says, looking at Dick, in a patronizing way. "But your guard dog needs to chill. I got nothing to say to a lunatic waving a gun at me."
Dick's left eye twitches slightly but the smile never disappears. "No need to worry since we just want to talk about the Amix Corporation."
The guy chuckles, leaning back in the chair. "Look, man, I already said that I know nothing."
If it weren't for the entire thing, Jason would be sitting down munching on some popcorn. No wonder Sun Tzu said, "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." This shit was golden.
"But you were seen distributing their produ-"
The suspect stupidly interrupts Dick. "I said that I didn't know shit. God, aren't you guys detectives? You should be better at info gathering than this."
Jason watches Dick's jaw do a thing. A small thing. Barely a thing at all, if you didn't know him, if you hadn't spent years learning exactly which tiny movements meant Dick Grayson was one bad line away from becoming a problem and making someone a hashtag.
Jason knows. Jason knows very well. And he is going to enjoy the moment with glee.
"We have footage." Dick says, voice still light, still easy, still doing that thing where it sounds like he's talking to a nervous kid instead of a shithead arms runner. "From three different cameras. So maybe let's skip to the part where you tell us who you were delivering to."
The suspect waves a hand, like he's swatting away a fly, like he's the one in control of this room and not a guy in a metal chair with two of the most well-trained vigilantes there were in Gotham. "Look, sweetheart, I don't know what you want me to say. I don't know nothing about no delivery."
Sweetheart.
Jason's brain helpfully supplies the mental image of a tombstone. He doesn't even know if it's for the suspect or for the case, at this point it feels inevitable either way. He wonders if the guy would prefer to be cremated or buried in a closed casket.
Jason was hoping for cremated since he wasn’t sure the guy wouldn’t be missing pieces after this ordeal.
Dick's smile is still there. It's just not reaching anywhere close to his eyes anymore and his knuckles have gone a soft kind of white against the back of the chair he was still straddling.
"Sweetheart." Dick repeats, and his voice doesn't change, not really, but something underneath it does. Something that makes the hair on the back of Jason's neck stand up, and he's not even the one it's aimed at. "That's a new one."
"Yeah well, you got a face for it." The suspect smirks, leaning forward now, fully committed to meet whatever god he believed in. "Real pretty for a cop. Bet you get that a lot, huh? Well, I don't blame them, I would also give you a position looking like that."
"Oh no." Jason says under his breath. He steps back slightly, mentally preparing an excuse to Bruce about why they lost an important lead and had a funeral to attend. "Oh, buddy. Wrong dialogue choice."
Dick's chair scrapes back, slow, almost graceful, like he was just standing up to stretch.
"Dick." Tim's voice cuts through the comms, sharp, and Jason realizes belatedly that Tim's been watching the feed this whole time. "Do not."
Dick ignores it, picking up the chair and throwing it to the side. The metal leg breaks hitting the floor, and he picks up the broken leg, walking toward the guy, who has finally realized that he had fucked up big time.
Dick kicks the guy's chair, making him hit the ground, head clearly headed for a concussion. He takes the broken metal leg in his hand and uses it to stab the floor next to the suspect's head.
"Todd!! Do something!!" Damian says, alarmed, through the comms.
Jason shrugs and sing-songs, "I am not the good cop, so ya know." He gestures that it’s out of his hands. Utterly tragic.
Dick's voice is cold as he glares at the guy. "Talk or you will wish I had asked the 'guard dog' to shoot you."
“You wouldn’t dar-”
Dick hits the guy in the chest with the metal leg, hard. The suspect screams as he chokes on his own spit, lying down.
"Talk." Dick says.
Kudos to the guy since he shakes his head although he's coughing blood. Brave. Stupid, but brave nonetheless.
Dick hums as he manhandles the suspect back onto the chair and hits the guy in the chest a second time, as if the guy were a very stubborn pinata. Then a third. By the sixth, Jason feels the need to step in.
Still, he wasn't sure… He was enjoying the show.
“Jason, do something!!” Tim asked, panicked, as Dick hit the man again. “We can't extract information from a dead guy!!”
Jason whistles with a grin. “Huh? Why should I? I am the bad cop, remember? Not my job description.”
"You bitch! Fine, you are the good cop now." Tim says through his teeth. "Just please save him before Dick genuinely kills the guy."
Jason raises his eyebrow. "Little D?"
"Just be the good cop, Todd, for Christ's sake." Damian says, as if those words were being pulled out of his soul.
"Aye, aye, Captain!" Jason says cheerfully.
He walks over and places both hands on Dick's shoulders. "Okay, Wing. Enough, how about going to the corner and taking a deep breath."
He tries to take the weapon in Dick's hand, but it's so tightly held Jason just lets it be.
Jason grins, looking at the suspect, and snaps his fingers. "Hello? Still with me, Mr. Extra?"
The suspect raises his head slightly before looking down again in pain.
Good enough.
"Look, my buddy over there is still quite interested in seeing you bleed, so how about you start speaking. Hm?" Jason almost laughs as he sees how the guy flinches at the mere mention of Dick.
The rest of the interrogation was as smooth as butter.
Who knew that a bit of a certified Dick Grayson Crash Out™ was just what it needed.
--------------------
"So let me get this straight…" Bruce says slowly, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You let Dick be the good cop."
Tim was looking at the ground. Damian was staring straight ahead. Dick was rubbing the back of his neck, ashamed.
Jason, on his part, was beaming harder than the people in toothpaste commercials.
Bruce opens his mouth then closes it. "I should have expected that…"
“Well said, Old Man! Maybe next time you should update everyone on this fact." Jason says, patting Bruce back, grinning.
"While you do that, let me just update my file to include 'Professional Prophet'." He leans over towards Tim with a shit eating grin. "Since I told you soooooo."
"How long has he been like this?" Bruce asks tiredly.
"Ever since the interrogation, so five hours." Damian states, in pain.
"Aww, Demon Brat." Jason huffs a laugh. "Maybe we wouldn't be here if you guys had listened to me in the first place.”
Jason smirks as he runs a hand through his hair. “You all should really start listening to the smartest person in the room."
Damian's eye twitches. "Don't get too cocky, Todd."
"Too late." Jason beams even harder. "Should we frame my warning on the wall next time?"
Everyone groans annoyed.
Jason just laughs, he was currently having the best time of his life.