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It's nice to be patrolling again. It had been too long since Red Hood was seen roaming Crime Alley, and the local criminals were getting a little too comfortable in his absence. He had left the safe house a few times to meet with his lieutenants about the shelters they were starting to set up around Crime Alley and the Bowery. They had been making decent progress, and Jason felt good about it, really, but he was getting a bit restless just sticking to meetings.
This is the first night in a few weeks that he's actually out patrolling. Jason had missed running across rooftops and landing punches on bad guys. He's already stopped a mugging and taken out a creep that was getting too pushy with one of the working girls, despite her attempts to get away. That had been a satisfying kill. And the woman had been relieved and thankful, rather than horrified by his violent ways. Take that, Batman.
He's taking a break to appreciate the view of the city from the roof of one of the taller buildings in the Alley, when he catches a glimpse of a dark shadow in his peripheral.
Well, he thinks, feeling resigned, it was only a matter of time.
It's thanks to his intense training from both Batman and the League of Assassins that he's able to dodge and roll out of the way in time to avoid getting tackled. He wastes no time in pulling out his kris dagger as he whirls around to face his attacker.
To his surprise, it's not Batman here to take him down again. Instead, it's Nightwing, who has already recovered from his missed attack, and is swinging an escrima stick at Jason without missing a beat.
Jason ducks and hears the faint crackle of electricity as the stick swings just over his head. Nightwing, apparently, isn't holding back. Jason hasn't even made a move yet, and here he is, being treated like some supervillain level threat. Fine, then. If Nightwing is going to go all out, then so is he.
He swipes at Nightwing's side with the dagger, forcing the man to leap back to avoid getting injured. "This isn't Blüdhaven, you know," he snarks. "What are you even doing all the way in Crime Alley? Don't you have people to save in your own city?" Nightwing hasn't been based in Gotham since he'd been fired from being Robin. Sure, he'd shown up when Jason had first started making the news, but ultimately, he had gone back to manage his other responsibilities in Blüdhaven. Jason isn't sure why he's even here now.
Unless Batman sent him to deal with Red Hood.
That thought only serves to annoy him further. Damn bastard couldn't even be bothered to show up to drag him to Arkham himself. Like he thinks Jason isn't even worth the effort.
Nightwing doesn't seem to have that opinion, apparently. He swings at Jason with his escrima again and Jason has to flip backward to dodge the hit. Lucky that the man currently trying to incapacitate him taught him acrobatics all those years ago. "Blüdhaven can do without me for one night," Nightwing grits out. "Especially if you're still running around."
Jason and Dick hadn't exactly been best friends before Jason died, but it seemed like Dick had been trying to be a brother to him. Jason was foolish enough to believe that was the case, anyway— he should've known better than to assume anyone would care about him. The words are spoken with such vitriol that for a moment, he wishes he hadn't woken up in his safe house after nearly bleeding to death. Wishes he hadn't woken up to find himself six feet under in the first place.
"Geez, tell me how you really feel, Dickwing," Jason grunts, blocking a hit with his knife. Damn, Nightwing sure isn't pulling his punches. "Too bad for you, I'm alive and well." He aims a kick at the vigilante, forcing him to flip backward out of range.
A birdarang appears in Nightwing's hand. "I don't know how you've managed to evade Batman this long, but you need to be stopped. A murderer like you doesn't deserve to roam free." He releases the birdarang and it passes a little too close to Jason's head for his liking. He snarls.
"It wasn't enough that Batman slit my throat, huh? Now you have to get in on the action?" It would be really inconvenient if he had to stitch another neck wound shut— assuming he'd survive again, anyway. Nightwing was Batman's golden child; he wasn't a murderer, so the chances of him landing a lethal hit were basically zero. Then again, neither was Batman and he had still left Jason to bleed out in an exploded building. So Jason's not exactly willing to bet on Nightwing not using lethal force. "Besides, I'm not the one who's been evading anyone. Not my fault the old man hasn't been around since he left me to die!"
Again, goes unsaid. Now isn't the time to dwell on Ethiopia.
"Batman isn't a killer," Nightwing declares, arming himself with another birdarang. A statement Jason would have agreed with if he hadn't been at the receiving end of a well-aimed batarang a few weeks ago. "He wouldn't just slit your throat and leave you to die."
This time, Jason has knock the projectile out of the air with his dagger to avoid being hit. It's not a perfect block, and blood begins to well up where it nicked his wrist. "Are you calling me a liar?" Come back from the dead and become a crime lord and suddenly nobody believes anything you say.
Nightwing pushes his advantage and leaps forward again, this time managing to land a kick on Jason's chest. Fuck, that hurt. He loses his grip on his knife when he falls, landing on his back. He barely gets a chance to catch his breath before he's having to roll out of the way to avoid getting brained with the escrima. Sure, he has his helmet on, but a hit from Nightwing is nothing to scoff at. It would still hurt like hell. Not to mention, he's not sure what the electricity from the weapon would do to the tech inside the helmet. Probably nothing good, especially considering the explosives he's got in there.
"Why should I believe anything you say?" Nightwing hisses. "You're nothing but a violent criminal, and obviously a fool if you think I'd believe that Batman would do such a thing. You may know our identities, but you clearly don't know us as well as you thought." He kicks out at Jason again, who manages to catch his leg this time, using it to pull himself up and unbalancing Nightwing in the process.
Jason sweeps Nightwing's other leg out from under him, and takes advantage of the opening to wrestle the escrima stick from his grasp, tossing it away to land somewhere on the roof out of reach. "Evidently not," he growls, "considering neither of you bothered to give me a chance before deciding I was 'nothing but a violent criminal'. Like it or not, my methods get results." He aims a punch at Nightwing's face, and the man raises his arms to block the hit.
"Are you seriously going to act like you're some hero? You've been killing people specifically to piss of Batman! Why should we give you a chance?"
"The people I killed weren't exactly innocent," Jason growls. "They were people who had no qualms about using and harming actual innocent people. Every one of them deserved what they got!"
Nightwing catches Jason's fist this time and twists, forcing Jason to roll off the man to avoid a dislocated shoulder or broken arm. He scrambles up and creates some distance while Nightwing springs to his feet. "You don't get to make that choice! We have systems in place to deliver justice the right way: locking criminals behind bars."
Jason scoffs. "Like that's effective. The system is corrupt! And ineffective anyway, considering the revolving door that is Arkham Asylum. If your way was so right, Gotham wouldn't be the shithole it is now."
"You're one to talk about the revolving door at Arkham," Nightwing responds, drawing out his second escrima, "considering you recently helped Joker escape. Maybe try not befriending criminals before complaining about them escaping."
Jason gapes at him, static replacing every thought in his head at the sheer audacity of the statement. "Excuse me?"
"It's only thanks to Batman that that lunatic is back in Arkham where he belongs. Where you belong. At least you won't be without friends," Nightwing taunts, though his grin has no humor behind it.
Jason's vision nearly whites out with rage, and it takes him a moment to realize he's shaking with it as well. "Without Batman's interference, that monster would be dead," he snarls, pulling out his gun and aiming it at Nightwing's head before he can even register his own action. For a moment, he can't think of a reason not to put a bullet through the man's skull. "You think after everything he did to me, I'd be friends with the fucker? I broke him out of Arkham to kill him!"
"Right, and I'm just supposed to believe that?"
"You seriously think I'd side with him? Are you fucking stupid?"
"You took his name and arranged his escape! What the fuck else would I think?"
"How could you— did Batman seriously— do you really think so little of me?" Jason seethes, feeling more enraged than he has since he took a dip in the Lazarus Pit.
"You say that as if there was ever a chance I'd think highly of you," Nightwing snarls.
This time, when Jason is overcome with the urge to pull the trigger, he doesn't resist, changing his aim just in time from Nightwing's head to his leg. He may be a pain in the ass, and apparently cruel, but a part of Jason doesn't actually want to kill him. It's not sentimentality. It's just the desire to not have all the bats on his ass for killing their big bird. He might be able to put up a decent fight one-on-one, but having to fight them all off at once would be difficult, to say the least. Nightwing doesn't manage to dodge in time, and the bullet sinks into the flesh of his thigh. He grunts in pain, dropping the escrima stick to clutch at the wound.
"Get the fuck out of Crime Alley, or the next one goes in your head. And tell Batman that if he or the rest of you bats show up here again, they'll get the same treatment. Crime Alley is mine. Stay out of it."
Nightwing glares at him, obviously not wanting to back down, but he seems to realize that continuing to fight while bleeding out would be a terrible idea. "Fine," he spits out, "but this isn't over, Red Hood. You'll end up in Arkham one way or another."
Before Jason can rethink not shooting him here and now, Nightwing picks up his abandoned escrima sticks, and limps to the edge of the roof. He shoots one last vicious glare Jason's way before leaping off to grapple away.
Jason stays on the roof for longer than he probably should, glaring at the spot Nightwing had leapt from. He's so angry that it's hard to even form coherent thoughts. He feels like punching something. And screaming. And crying.
Eventually, he manages to move, heading in the opposite direction than Nightwing had taken. When he gets back to his safe house, he tears off the helmet, tossing it carelessly to the side as he stalks into the bathroom to patch up the graze left behind by Nightwing's birdarang. It isn't nearly as deep as the wound Batman had left, but it still stings.
To think, he had once considered the man his brother. It was obvious now what Nightwing really thought of him. You'll end up in Arkham one way or another. What had he expected? A tear-filled reunion? A hug? Really, he should've known any possibility of still being seen as family was impossible the moment he found out about the shiny new Robin he'd been replaced with almost immediately following his death. The new, better Robin that Nightwing seemed to have ample affection for from the get-go, as opposed to Jason who had had to wait ages just for the initial disdain to die down enough for awkward conversations over ice cream. And now that disdain was back tenfold.
Jason grits his teeth against the emotion crawling up his throat. It isn't hurt. It isn't. He doesn't need Dick to care about him. He had been the subject of Dick's scorn before and managed; he'll handle himself just fine this time, even with both Batman and Nightwing now gunning for him. He'll have to be diligent about patrolling the Alley in order to drive the bats off, should they reappear. Perhaps he should tell his subordinates to be vigilant as well; the more people defending his territory, the better.
It won't matter when the bats show up, or what they'll do to try to stop him; he'll be ready.