Chapter Text
Just because Bruce and him didn’t see eye to eye on tactics, didn’t make Jason any less of a detective than the other bats. Bruce gave him the same training as the original boy wonder and Mr. food chain, after him. Not to mention, it was his prodding nose that led him to his death in the first place. The skills just got overlooked by his shock factor, when “The Redhood” first came to Gotham.— Half the wild shit he didn’t even have to commit, he’d just threaten fear tactics. He wasn’t a sadist for heaven’s sake.
…The other half of wild shit he wasn’t really allowed, or supposed to do anymore. Not that he’d lost his stomach or would hesitate to drive a bullet between any of the psychopathic-freak rogues’ two eyes if need be— but Batman didn’t like that. And just because the old man disappointed him, didn’t mean he liked to disappoint the old man back. So as long as Hood was riding shotgun with the Bats, Jason had the courtesy to roll by the big honcho’s rules and go nonlethal. Most of the time.
But besides his… brutal or harsh methods, Jason still had the mind of a detective. He could pick up subtleties and patterns or the lack thereof, and he knew how to follow all the breadcrumbs through the forest. And because of that, Jason knew something was wrong with Damian.
He eyed his younger brother with a high degree of scrutiny, watching as the kid busied himself with his latest rescue, a scraggly ginger cat. Jason further narrowed his eyes, shifting to take up an extra half of couch cushion and continued to watch his young brother.
Damian had been missing for a total of two days, almost three when he showed up at the door step of Wayne Manor a day ago. He was practically unharmed (much to everyone’s relief) but suspiciously pathetic for the demon brat and almost shellshocked clinging onto some new stray cat, claiming that it helped him find his way home.
Home from where? He didn't specify. Strike one for suspicious.
The way Jason knew it, Damian went missing over the weekend. Batman benched him when he caught the stomach flu and wouldn't even allow him near the cave, until he was fully better. Of course Damian was petulant about it, bringing up another story from “when he was three, the league would make him [insert incredulity]". At this point of their relationship, both Jason and Tim were in agreeance that Damian's league stories were made up. Cassandra didn't speak much about her past, (or in general really) but even her worst stories about David Cain were easy to believe compared to Damian's— her father was insane and merciless, but not “ because I could not tie my shoes by the age of three, my grandfather locked me in a box. In the middle of the desert. With no food nor water. For three weeks.”
But regardless of supposedly training with the stomach flu, in the desert, at the age of three, he wasn't allowed to patrol. And Damian in one of his rare moments of acting his age, locked himself in his room, and refused to talk. Alfred was the one to realise he snuck out, when he went to check on Damian and bring him some soup— which, albeit more in character for the brat, was still a pretty teenage thing to do.
After that, Dick came over from Blüdhaven and Jason from his safe house to help look for Robin. Damian was already headstrong enough to get into needless danger at full health, now he was running around wearing an “r” shaped target grappling across the city and stopping roof to roof to puke. It was a brilliant blend.
Jason swore that if another Robin died due to an unchecked ego— forget Bruce flipping in grief, he'd probably just torch the joint. He didn't know who he'd have to blame, a rogue, some thug, the flu?! Was that it, he'd have to shrink down to molecular level and wage war against the plight that's killed man since before the middle ages? …that last bit was probably the reason people didn't think of hood as intelligent as his siblings.
The hellspawn naturally didn’t wear his tracker, and nobody saw Damian before he left so they could’ve been looking for “Damian” or Robin which didn’t narrow it down. And Jason hated to give the kid extra credit, but he was good at disappearing, complements to being trained as an assassin till age nine and then trained as a bat (which could make ninjas look like they wore rainbow neon sequence) for the next six years of his life.
That meant he managed to stay out of Oracles’ sights, and was down low in the public eye. He probably had some secret reprieve he didn’t tell anyone about, and if that was the case he could’ve been with a friend (Jon, it was always Jon, Damian didn’t know anyone else he trusted enough or that would tolerate his ego) and that lead, according to Bruce when he talked to Superman, didn’t checkout. Apparently, Jon had some mandatory freshmen college assembly thing.
And on the third day, just when everybody was getting ready to assume the worst, another warehouse or that they'd find him in some abandoned part of the asylum… he just showed up.
Apparently he didn't remember all the details because of some fever shit, but upon various tests from Leslie and what Bruce ran through the computer, other than the partial amnesia, Damian was fine. Maybe blacking some stuff out, but fine. No chemicals in his system no apparent mind control or physical torture— just a patchy recount about an old lady but no other real reliable information. Bruce was doing what he could with the loose description, but so far it came to be a dead end. Too vague.
Shellshock wasn’t suspicious after going m.i.a., it happened. Torture, drugs, even embarrassment or shame could stop you from giving the whole story, give you that void like stare… but this was different. The blankness of Damian's eyes felt fake, calculated, this was Damian Wayne; if Jason knew anything about the brat it was that he scoffed at trauma. The kid was fucked up in the head like the rest of them, but he processed his shit through anger, rather than… whatever bullshit he was pulling currently.
And what pissed off Jason more than anything— more than Damian’s disappearing stunt, more than the endless possibilities of whatever the fuck happened to his brother in those two days, more than the fucking ally cat— was the fact that nobody else thought Damian was acting weird. Not the kid’s closest brother, not Mr. World’s Greatest Detective, not Timothy “Bruce isn’t dead” Drake, not the body language reader (though to be fair, she didn’t say anything either way on the topic), just Todd. He was the only one who truly thought Damian was acting weird.
Finally after a while of surveilling Damian, Jason got up from the couch, the kid was only playing with his new cat for the past ten minutes humming a butchered version of “ Oops, told you how I feel” only repeating the chorus. Which, strike two or three for suspicious, if he didn’t lump it in with Damian’s other new behaviors, because in what world does Damian openly appreciate bubblegum pop. Jason stalked out of the living room at the first notes of “Call Me Maybe” , heading down for the cave to blow off the frustration that developed in the last ten minutes he spent observing his brother.
Luckily Tim was in the cave, and down for a sparing match. Which worked perfectly for Jason, who needed somebody to talk to about all the Damian business mucking up his head.
“ So,” Tim said, dodging a high kick, and countering with one of his own, “ what’s up with you lately.” He only got a grunt in reply, which could’ve been Hood dismissing his question or from the hit Tim landed in his solar plexus.
Jason stumbled back a few steps, and Tim reentered a starting stance, twirling his staff in a showmanny way. Hood didn’t mask rolling his eyes. “ Our brother.” he stated almost curtly, like it was a clear and obvious explanation, but still wanted to be asked “why” or “what about him?”
Instead, Tim hummed, giving his staff an extra twirl before whirling it at Jason’s midsection. He was so much like Bruce with the grunts and humming it disgusted Jason sometimes.
“ Which one?” he asked casually, as Jason blocked Tim’s bo staff with his forearm. “ We have a lot.”
Or maybe he was more like Dick, with his sense of humor. Suddenly Jason realised some of the frustration the rogues must’ve felt being suplexed by a colorfully dressed pre-teen who makes bad puns. And they all made the bad puns, it didn’t matter who wore the suit, it was like a requirement or something.
Jason caught hold of the staff when it began to slide against the length of his forearm, and yanked it forward, to offset its wielder. “ You know which.” he said with a slight glare, though there wasn’t any real malice and Tim could see through it without any trouble.
Tim easily abandoned his staff, choosing to lose his weapon rather than overbalance and fall into a positional disadvantage, performing a tactical flip in retreat. It was executed only half as graceful as Dick would’ve. “ Oh. Dami.” he said lamely, landing poised, “ Why, every robin pulls a stunt or two at one point. Be glad he’s in one piece, and actually starting to act his age and not the perfect soldier-son hybrid.”
“ That’s not why I’m bothered,” Jason said, testing the staff’s balance as he briefly considered using Tim’s weapon against him, but decided against it looking over his perched stance— he could practically see the planned somersault kick for the second he swung the staff. “ Something just feels off.”
Jason tossed the rod to the side, gaining some satisfaction in the way Tim’s eyes widened and he had to scramble a dodge when he opted to tackle him instead. It was barely successful, but Jason ended up a heap by his feet, Tim planned a foot on his shoulder in some mock triumph.
“Something’s always off with the demon brat, it’s in his nature.” Tim shrugged, before removing his foot and lightly kicking Jason’s side in an end-of-match nudge, he paused a beat. “ Maybe he’s traumatized, it does happen. You’re still getting over your shit.”
Jason stared at Tim a minute before swiping his legs, making Tim crash to the ground as he pushed himself up.
“ Ow, no fair, it was match.”
“ First, I died.” Jason ignored Tim’s claim of foulplay, migrating away from the sparring area to grab his jacket back off the table he threw it on before they began sparring. “ Second, he’s acting like a fucking shell of himself and claims he doesn’t even remember what happened.”
“ Yeah, trauma does that to people,” Tim sat up, watching as Jason pulled his arms through the sleeves of his damaged leather jacket, “ you can black it out or constantly replay the moment… and that’s assuming wherever Damian was, he wasn’t kept in a suspended state of sedation so that it’s not even his choice to remember or not. There’s plenty of drugs that clear out of your system fast enough for them to not show by the time we got to run tests.”
Jason didn’t say anything for a long moment, allowing Tim to get up, retrieve his staff and come over to the table where Jason was still standing in silence. “ That’s exactly my point, I don’t think we’re handling this with the amount of seriousness it deserves.” he threw an arm gesturing between the two of them and around the cave, “ We should be out there, we should already have our hands on whatever clown’s responsible and be holding him to it!”
Tim stared at Jason very calculative and calm, no judgement or agreeance evident, just analysis. Quickly Jason replayed everything he said and cringed at his use of the word “clown”, now Tim wasn’t thinking about what Jason said, or if they actually weren’t treating the issue with as much merit as it deserved, which they weren’t— now all Tim was thinking, is that this was all the same to Jason as when he disappeared. When he was stuck with the joker and Batman didn’t come. When he died, and Bruce didn’t do the right thing and remove the psychopath from this earth. And that was not what this was about.
Tim placed a hand on Jason’s shoulder, and that kinda pissed him off a bit, “ Jase…” Tim said, sounding serious so that even though Jason didn’t think he got to convey his concerns to him, he’d still listen. “ This is a priority, and Bruce is handling it as such. We don’t have a lot of information to go on, but it’s still being dealt with.” Jason shut up again, because it didn’t feel like Tim understood what he was trying to say, and that was just disappointing. “ Whoever got their hands on Robin isn’t just getting away, but you can’t allow yourself to get worked up and paranoid about it. You have to look at information and circumstance with a clear head before you put anything together.” He took his hand off Jason, and moved to walk past him. Jason trailed him, turning his head to follow him as he now neared the middle of the cave, near the computer and where all the cool stuff like the dinosaur and penny were kept. “ I’m patrolling, but you should get some rest.”
Hood had to fight himself to allow an answer to come out, before managing a very unconvincing “ Yeah.”