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Jason swept his gaze over the rows and rows of cages, huddled forms crouching inside, and turned back to the provided book. A few black-haired boys, one of them blue-eyed, but none of them his target. He flipped through the entire book before snapping it closed.
“Are they not to your liking?” the smarmy man asked, greed glittering in his eyes. “We have a robust acquisition department if there’s something in particular you’re looking for, Mr. Hood.”
Jason made a mental note of that but turned to the trafficker, conveying disappointment and irritation. “I was informed you had more…particular merchandise.”
“Ah.” The trafficker looked both pleased and wary. “We’ve keep our more volatile stock closely guarded, but I cannot be surprised that a man of your stature has heard of it. We hear good things from Gotham, Mr. Hood.”
“Right now, the only thing I want to hear is that I didn’t waste a trip up here,” Jason rejoined menacingly. “Your operation is neither extraordinary nor unique.” The truly smart traffickers had long given up on working in Gotham. “New York’s a big city, but your rodent problem isn’t anywhere near ours. I need proof that you can handle yourselves.”
The trafficker held onto the smarm but only just. “Of course,” he said, motioning forward. “If you would follow me this way.”
Jason held onto the book of photos as he sauntered behind the trafficker, tracking the guards lurking in the shadows but keeping up the pretense of unconcern. Why should he be concerned? He was the Red Hood, crime lord of Gotham, here to scout out a new business venture. That he had been the one to drive every last trafficking organization out of Gotham was inconsequential because this idiot clearly hadn’t received the memo.
They walked down a long, narrow hallway with a faint background murmur. The closer they got to the end, the louder the noise. It became a dull roar, punctuated by rising shouts and stretches of silence and Jason found himself holding his breath as the trafficker opened the door.
The other side was a wall of sound. They were separated from the crowd by a chain link divider but there was no barrier to the noise—the yells, the laughter, the drinking and smoking and money exchanging hands. Jason could see glimpses of another fence beyond the thick crowd, caging a circular arena.
It was only when the man led him to a private box could Jason observe what was going on.
It was the Replacement alright. Jason’s gaze went a familiar green as he saw the red-and-yellow costume—a costume that had clearly had better days. The cape was missing, the colors had been dulled, and when the Replacement darted to the other side of the cage, Jason could see the bruises and scrapes decorating his skin.
“At first, I was going to hold an auction,” the trafficker had to shout to be heard over the crowd, “but then I had a better idea. To the victor go the spoils!”
In the arena, the Replacement dodged his opponent’s strike, almost stumbling over his own two feet, and straightening with the help of his staff. The crowd jeered. His opponent turned around, pride and greed battling on his face.
“What’s the buy-in?” Jason asked.
The trafficker’s smile grew wider. “Fifty thousand.”
The opponent attacked. The Replacement ducked out of the way and lashed out with the staff, straight at the guy’s head. He wavered before collapsing.
“Thirty thousand and I accept your business venture,” Jason negotiated.
“Mr. Hood, this is the proof that I know how to contain vigilantes. Fifty thousand, and we can discuss the particulars later.”
“Forty thousand.”
“Deal,” the trafficker stretched out a hand. “It’s a pleasure doing business with you.”
In the arena, the Replacement leaned on his staff, legs trembling, as his opponent was dragged out.
“I assure you,” Jason growled, “the pleasure’s all mine.”
Tim braced his staff to take the weight off his twinging left ankle. At the beginning, he’d kept himself straight and closed-off, determined not to betray a hint of weakness, but after a week of cage matches with little rest and no rescue…Tim didn’t care about his tells. He just cared about surviving.
He knew the set-up. They’d told him that much, booming over the jeering crowd as Tim was dragged out to the cage and uncuffed, his staff clattering after him. This was something between a fight and an auction and Tim was both opponent and prize. Anyone who defeated him won him and Tim was unwilling to let that happen.
The cage door clanged open and Tim straightened, wiping the sweat from around his domino mask to face his newest opponent. From what he gathered, the price to take him on was a little too high for any random, drunk idiot to take his chances, but that meant his opponents had reason to believe that they could take him down. And as the days progressed, Tim’s faith in outlasting them was diminishing.
Batman would find him. It was a last, desperate hope as fatigue turned to grinding exhaustion and he accumulated bumps and bruises with no time to recover. Batman would come. He’d find Tim. Tim just had to hold out a little longer. He could do it. He was Robin, goddammit.
Tim set his jaw and waited for his opponent.
The first thing he registered was the red helmet. The next was the body armor, flexible but heavy duty. The last was the slow, sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach as the Red Hood prowled into the arena.
Tim searched, heart stuck in his throat, for any sign that it was a trick. That this wasn’t the real Hood. Maybe—maybe Batman or Nightwing were undercover, maybe this was a rescue attempt. Maybe this was a nightmare. Anything but a Rogue with a personal vendetta when Tim was at his most vulnerable.
“Hello, Replacement,” Hood ground out, distorted voice raking chills down Tim’s spine. “Ready for a rematch?”
Tim slid back into a ready stance, ignoring his ankle. Pain was a message he’d already received. “You’re a little far from your stomping grounds. Gotham kick you out already?”
Hood laughed, stalking a slow, methodical circle around the outer edge of the cage. Beyond him, the crowd was jeering, baying for blood and rattling the bars. “Nah, just tracking down a little cuckoo.” His holsters were missing. No guns. His opponents didn’t get weapons—ostensibly to give Tim a fighting chance, but really to drag out the fight so they got their money’s worth. “You don’t seem to have learned your lesson.”
“What lesson’s that?” Tim retorted. He could feel his heart beating against his ribs, a steady soundtrack to his rising anxiety. “How to become an edgy crime lord?”
Hood paused, cocking his helmet to one side in a gut-wrenching imitation of Nightwing.
“Bad things happen to little birds who fly from their nest,” Hood said, almost gentle.
Then he exploded into motion.
Tim reacted on instinct, jerking back and blocking with his staff, mind struggling to keep up as he defended against the onslaught. Hood was built like a tank but moved like a missile, power and finesse both. It took everything Tim had, blocking and dodging and spinning away as Hood levied punch after kick after punch. He seized the first opportunity he could to extend his staff and get more space between them, backing towards the cage wall.
“Not bad,” Hood said. “But not good enough.”
This time, Tim was prepared. He’d studied Hood’s moves after the incident at Titans Tower, determined not to lose again, and he’d pushed for harder training from Bruce. Of course, he hadn’t expected to meet Hood again when he was trapped in a cage, exhausted and bruised, but that was a minor detail.
Tim matched Hood’s pace, ducking and evading and snapping out with his staff whenever he got the opportunity. Hood kept trying to close in, but Tim moved back, refusing to engage in close quarters.
Unfortunately, the problem with that was the limited space.
Tim tried to duck to avoid a punch but ended up banging straight into the cage bars. Shouts echoed in his ear as fingers clawed and grasped at his costume and before he could wrench himself free, the punch landed, sending a shockwave of pain through his collarbone.
He wheezed, dropping his shoulder and curling, barely managing to keep his hold on his staff. The pain was overwhelming, like it had sliced through Tim’s control and laid him bare. The noise of the crowd was deafening and through blurry vision, Tim saw Hood looming over him.
The kick would hit him straight in the ribs, suffocating him and ending the fight. He’d done it the last time too. Tim moved, half in a dream, spinning in place and lunging up. His staff was the last to arrive, hurtling forward with all the momentum Tim had gathered.
It impacted Hood’s helmet with an audible crack.
Hood stumbled back and Tim immediately squirmed free, darting to the other side of the cage. He carefully palpated near his collarbone, wincing at the throbbing. It would let him fight. For now. Clear across the cage, Hood straightened to look straight at Tim.
There was a spiderweb of cracks across the right side of his face. One glowing white lens had been snuffed out. Tim bet it was useless now.
Tim tightened his grip on his bo staff. He could take on Hood. He could win. He just had to keep fighting—
Hood took a careful, controlled step forward. And another. And another, every twitch betraying sheer, murderous fury. Tim flinched back despite himself.
“You’re going to pay for that,” Hood said, low and dangerous, just barely distinct from the cacophony surrounding them.
Tim ignored the chill snaking down his spine. Hood was upon him and he had to fight back.
Unfortunately, it was obvious that Hood had been holding back before. Either that, or Tim had slowed significantly, because he could barely block every other strike. The ones that landed hurt in deep bursts, a wave that never ebbed. His staff could only do so much, getting heavier and heavier in his hands, and when Tim raised it in a desperate block to avoid the punch coming at his face, it creaked ominously in his hands.
Right before it splintered in two.
Tim staggered back from the force, but Hood wasn’t caught off-guard. He followed up with a kick at Tim’s working ankle as he flailed back, and connected solidly with a steel-toed boot.
This time, Tim didn’t hear the crack. He felt it.
He thought he screamed. His throat was dry and scraped raw, but he couldn’t hear anything over the crowd. Fire licked up his ankle as he crumpled, his own breathing heavy in his ears, pieces of his staff skidding across the floor as he landed on his hands.
Hood loomed above him, shadowed against the stark light. One glowing white eye glared down. “Get up, Replacement,” he growled. “Give me a fight.”
Tim scrabbled for the splintered remnants of his staff. He pushed himself up on his weak ankle, the other one hanging limp as Tim fought to stay balanced. His fingers clutched the wood hard enough to hurt.
Hood stayed where he was, studying Tim like he had all the time in the world. “Pathetic,” he finally pronounced.
It hit. The exhaustion and pain had stripped everything else and Tim was a pathetic little Robin in front of his once-hero. Waiting for the beatdown.
Hood didn’t disappoint.
He drew it out, slow and deliberate, to the roars of a crowd that enjoyed him playing with his food. He forced Tim to limp-hop-step his way around the cage, trying desperately to stay ahead. He broke one half of the staff into further pieces, and then the other, scattering the chips across the arena.
“Stand up, Replacement,” Hood called out as Tim leaned against the bars, trying to keep himself upright. “Face me like a man.”
Tim didn’t have a choice, the crowd’s grasping, vicious touches forced him to step forward.
“Congratulations, Red Hood,” Tim retorted, the last, cutting words he had. “You finally live up to your name.” He limped forward another step. “How does it feel on the other side?”
Hood stilled. For one quiet eternity, he stared at Tim, unmoving. Then he attacked.
Tim couldn’t dodge, he could only brace himself for the hits and try to fight back. The instant Hood got a boot on his broken ankle, though, it was all over.
He screamed, crumpling—falling, on his knees, bruises throbbing—light gleamed overheard, stark and unforgiving—the crowd bayed for his blood, swimming in his vision as he panted—Hood, he couldn’t see Hood, where was Hood—
The arm locking around his neck was almost a relief.
Dark spots danced on the edge of his vision as he gasped for breath, proliferating furiously. There was a man leaning against the cage, face pressed against the bars, grinning at Tim, half-crazed on bloodlust. It was the last thing Tim saw before the darkness closed in.
Hood never did answer his question.
Tim woke to a grating vibration jarring through his cheek and nearly making him bite through his tongue. He pried open sticky eyes and grimaced, lifting his head from the wet drool spot on the pillow wedged under him. His eyelids were heavy, thoughts muddled in exhaustion and slow from an ill-timed awakening. It was dark outside, and it took Tim several stretching seconds to realize that he was not on his bed listening to Dick sing in the shower.
For starters, Dick’s voice wasn’t this low. Secondly, unless Tim was mistaken, the rumbling was the sound of a car. Finally, Tim felt like complete and absolute shit.
The trafficking case. Getting kidnapped. The cage matches. Hood.
Tim was trussed up like a turkey, completely encased in something stifling and smothering, held fast by bands around his chest and hips, unable to move. He writhed in place—first silently, then furiously, panic making the breaths shorter, until the voice singing along to the radio finally broke off.
“Would you stop that?” Hood drawled. He wasn’t wearing his helmet, Tim could see dark curls and a sharp jaw in the driver’s seat. “I’m not stopping the car to treat your concussion if you keep banging your head against the door.”
Tim glowered at him through the rearview mirror, catching a glimpse of bright green eyes. “Forgive me for not sitting still like a good little prisoner.”
“Don’t worry, Replacement, if I wanted that, I’d have stuffed you into the trunk,” Hood laughed. The sound was incongruous. The song shifted into a new one and Hood began singing again, tapping on the steering wheel in tune to the beat.
Tim felt like he’d opened his eyes to a dream. Finally registering his surroundings, he stared blankly at the pillow under his head and the blanket wrapped around him. He couldn’t see what his restraints were made of and it took an embarrassingly long time to click.
He shoved down the panic and firmly yanked a hand free, pulling it from the confines of the blanket. It only took a few more seconds of groping blindly in the darkness to unbuckle the seatbelt slung across his chest.
The other two were easier to unbuckle and Tim could finally sit up, wrangling the blanket off of him and straightening. He felt rather like he’d run a marathon, his head aching and thoughts swimming in molasses. He ended up staring blankly at the makeshift splint around his broken ankle for a minute before he regained awareness.
“Where are we?” he asked, glancing out the window. He couldn’t make out anything besides highway. It was night and there were barely any cars on the road.
“None of your business.”
“If you’re kidnapping me, that makes it my business,” Tim pointed out.
“Actually, it makes it the opposite of your business. If you knew where you were, it defeats the purpose.”
Tim narrowed his eyes at the mirror. Hood glanced into it long enough to give him a smirk. Tim glared back, trying to figure out what about the situation was niggling at him. His mind felt a whole lot clearer after some sleep and away from the shrill crowds.
“You were there for me,” Tim said blankly. He doubted it was a coincidence that Hood was in New York and just stumbled upon him. Hood had to have already known he was there—either someone had informed him, or he’d been searching.
“Didn’t I already say that?” Hood scoffed. “I’m not taking the blame if you gave yourself amnesia.”
Tim didn’t—he was trying to think, but it was hard stringing together coherent thought when for the first time in a week, he didn’t feel hunted.
“Where are you taking me?” he asked, a last-ditch effort to scramble together the alarm to keep himself awake. He was in Hood’s grasp, caught up in one of the man’s dramatic plans, he needed to be alert—
But the blanket was warm and the pillow was inviting and Tim was so tired.
“None of your business,” Hood replied, sing-song, like he was trying to sound threatening, but he sounded a lot like Dick in one of his aggressively cheerful moods and the faint amount of wariness Tim managed to cobble together disappeared like smoke.
He was exhausted and his blinks were taking longer and longer.
“Whatever,” Tim mumbled, already tipping back over onto the pillow. “Wake m’ up wh’n ‘e get th’re.”
He only distantly heard Hood’s admonishing reply—something about a seatbelt?—before he slipped back into sleep.
Jason leaned against the car, arms crossed, glowering as fiercely as he could to make up for the loss of his helmet. It didn’t deter the man walking up to him.
“Where did you find him?” Batman asked. It might’ve meant to be forbidding, as dark and dangerous as Batman’s initial approach, swooping into Crime Alley six days ago to accost Jason and demand to know if he’d taken the kid, but it came out only weary.
“Trafficking organization in New York,” Jason replied curtly. “Got a tip that they bagged some special merchandise. Went up there to check it out.”
“Any trouble getting him out?” Br—Batman asked.
“Is that a subtle way of asking if I killed anyone?” Jason replied, sardonic. Batman didn’t blink and Jason gave in with bad grace before he lost that staring contest. “No, I didn’t have any fucking trouble. They were running a fighting ring. Anyone who took the kid out got to take him home.”
Jason rubbed at his dry eyes and used the motion to cover a yawn. He’d headed up to New York the moment he’d gotten the tip and hadn’t stopped for anything like sleep. He spent the drive back paranoid that the traffickers were following him and composing ever more elaborate ways to take them all out.
Bru—Batman wasn’t looking at him though, he was staring at the kid, being fussed over in the medbay by Alfred, Leslie, and Dick. Jason personally thought it was overkill—the kid had a fractured ankle, not a heart attack.
“And he’d been there,” Bruce—Batman choked out, “this whole time?”
It was admittedly hard to think of him as Batman when he was dressed in sweatpants and a faded band T-shirt, stubble grown out and dark circles under his eyes. There was something faintly cracked in his eyes, something Jason had seen only rarely, when Bruce was fighting with Dick or on the anniversary of his parents’ death, and Jason didn’t like it.
“I didn’t stop to find the receipts,” Jason said as caustically as he could, in the hopes of making that look go away.
Instead, the man took a deep, shaky breath, and looked at Jason with something starkly vulnerable in his eyes. “Thank you,” Bruce said quietly. “You didn’t have to—”
“The hell I didn’t,” Jason snapped back, instantly angry though he didn’t know why. He didn’t care about the Replacement. He didn’t. “You’re not losing another kid. Not on my watch.”
Jason didn’t like this look either, sharply scrutinizing instead of intensely vulnerable. He abruptly wished his helmet was intact.
“Thank you,” Bruce repeated, still analyzing Jason like he was under a microscope.
“I didn’t do it for free,” Jason sniped back, rolling his shoulders to get rid of the prickling feeling. “You owe me fifty grand and a new helmet.”
“Of course.”
Jason bared his teeth at the easy acquiescence. “And gas money. New York isn’t exactly next door.”
“Indeed.”
“And for all the time I spent tracking the kid down. My time isn’t cheap, old man.”
“I would expect not.” Bruce, to his eternal consternation, wasn’t looking frustrated or annoyed. The man looked damn near fond. “Should I draw up an invoice?”
Jason drew himself up, ready to lay out a blistering barrage about Bruce not taking him seriously, but they were interrupted. “Hey,” Dick said, cutting in between and glancing at Jason with an even, controlled smile. “Tim wants to talk to you before you go.”
“And if I don’t want to talk to him?” Jason growled back.
Dick blinked at him. Bruce raised an eyebrow. In the medbay, Jason could just make out Tim peering around Leslie to stare at him.
“Five minutes before I’m out of here,” Jason said tersely, stomping off towards the medbay.
Dick tagged along with him, presumably unwilling to let his precious baby brother near Red Hood without a shield, but Bruce didn’t follow them. Probably going to draw up that goddamn invoice, because of course he was. Anyone who said Batman didn’t have a sense of humor had no idea how petty he could be.
The kid was mid-yawn when he reached the bed, looking like death warmed over under the harsh lights. It threw every bruise in sharp relief and Jason traced over the ones he recalled making, following them down to where Tim’s leg disappeared into a virulently green cast.
Jason raised his eyebrows despite himself.
“Dick chose the color,” Tim explained. The rest of them were loitering at the far end of the medbay in a transparent attempt to pretend not to eavesdrop.
“Figures,” Jason replied, clipped. “What do you want, kid? I have places to be and people to shoot and New York took a good fifteen hours out of my schedule.”
“Why?”
“Excuse me?”
“Why’d you do it?” Tim asked, eyes shrewd. “Why did you rescue me?”
“It wasn’t a rescue,” Jason growled on reflex.
Tim raised a mocking eyebrow.
“It was a kidnapping,” Jason glared. “I got my ransom, the Bat got you. Personally, he got the worse end of the deal.”
The second eyebrow joined the first. “You hate me,” Tim said matter-of-factly, dismissing Jason’s argument entirely. “You could’ve left me to my fate. Why bother going to all this trouble?”
“Because I don’t want you dead, you little shit!” Jason hissed back. Tim’s expression wiped back to blankness as Jason strode forward, looming over the kid. “The whole point is no more dead Robins—if I can’t keep you out of that infernal costume, then at least I can keep you from dying in it!”
That had perhaps been a little too loud.
Tim was looking at him, wide-eyed, and Dick was making an expression too close to realization for Jason’s tastes. He backed up, ignoring the knowing looks on both Alfred’s and Leslie’s faces and sorely wishing for his helmet to hide behind.
“Get yourself into trouble again, and I’ll break more than a bone getting you out,” Jason warned as menacingly as he could before making an about-turn and fleeing for the exit.
He was going to demand hazard pay be added to the bill.