Chapter Text
For some reason, Dick had the feeling that Damian was searching for somebody during patrol.
Bruce had finally given the okay for his youngest son to go out in a cape, and, based on his past experiences with Damian, Dick had expected the kid to be almost manically-focused on the mission and impressing Batman when they patrolled. And he hadn’t been wrong – on the nights where Nightwing had joined Batman and Robin on patrol, Damian had been adorably intense, for the most part.
But the boy also seemed ever-so-slightly distracted, too, eyes roaming over the Gotham skyline as they soared through the air, and always seeming a little disappointed with what he saw – or didn’t see.
“Do you think Damian misses his mom?” Dick asked one afternoon, sprawled upside down in a chair in the Cave while Bruce worked at the computer.
There was a pause, before the typing resumed with a bit more force behind the taps. “Why are you asking me this, Dick?” Bruce asked with a calm that sounded just a taaaad forced, and oops – maybe Bruce had taken his question the wrong way. “Has Damian said something to you?”
“No,” Dick was quick to reassure his emotionally-stunted mentor-turned-adopted-father before the man could go into a complete spiral. “It was just a thought.”
“Your thoughts aren’t usually without some kind of reason,” Bruce prodded, though Dick thought he sounded a bit less strained than he had a moment before. Dick just shrugged, though he knew Bruce wouldn’t see the gesture from where he was glaring daggers at his distraction-work.
“It just seems like he’s looking for something sometimes when we patrol,” he said. “I thought maybe he was trying to see if Talia would check up on him.”
“Hn. I’ve noticed that, too,” Bruce grunted. “I thought it more likely that he was searching for criminals to stop, given how eager he’s been to fight.”
“He seems too wistful for that, though,” Dick argued, though he guessed Bruce’s assumption also made sense. “I think he’s hoping to see someone specific, and the only person I know of who he’d think would visit him is Talia.”
Bruce just gave a non-committal grunt. “We’ll keep an eye on it,” he said in a tone that indicated the topic was closed – and also that he’d be brooding on it for hours later. Dick rolled his eyes at the man’s back. Would it kill him to just talk about his feelings instead of bottling them up?
As it turned out, Bruce didn’t have anything to worry about – on the Talia front, at least. Because apparently it wasn’t Talia that the munchkin had been searching for.
No, no – apparently, he’d been looking for an extremely dangerous and temperamental crime lord.
Dick and Damian had been patrolling the Bowery together while Batman and Red Robin teamed up on the other side of town, finishing up a takedown of some drug trafficking ring, when Damian suddenly bolted, grappling away from Dick with a speed that otherwise would have made Dick proud.
As it was, he was mostly just caught off-guard, taking a full five seconds to process Damian’s sudden departure before he started swinging after him frantically. “Robin!” he shouted, but Damian didn’t so much as flinch, heading away from Dick and straight towards a dark figure several rooftops over.
“Nightwing? Is everything alright?” Batman’s voice came over the comms, terse in the way it always was when he was concerned.
“Not sure, B. Robin’s heading for someone. I’m in pursuit.” Damian was almost there now, though Dick had started to make up some ground.
“We’re on our way,” Batman said.
Dick hoped they weren’t too late. Damian had touched down on the rooftop and was launching himself at the figure with reckless abandon, reminding Dick abruptly of a Robin who had come before, one that Damian had never had the chance to meet.
Touching down on the rooftop seconds behind his little brother, Dick was tense and ready to launch himself into the fight – a fight that didn’t seem to be happening. Like, at all.
Dick blinked and fought the urge to scrub his eyes and make sure he wasn’t hallucinating – because unless his eyes were deceiving him, Damian currently had his arms wrapped around a large red-helmeted figure with what Dick estimated to be way too many guns strapped to his body armor. And, as if Damian willingly hugging someone wasn’t shocking enough, the Red Hood appeared to be hugging Damian back.
The crime lord was on one knee with an armful of Dick’s little brother, and the half of Dick that wasn’t too busy panicking over that was pretty sure he’d gotten hit with some kind of weird toxin that gave you the most disorienting hallucination possible.
“What the hell?” Dick muttered to himself. The duo appeared content to ignore him, though the way the Red Hood’s shoulders stiffened minutely told him his presence had been noted. The helmeted man didn’t break the embrace, though – not until Damian pulled away.
“Damn, squirt, did ya miss me that much?” the Red Hood…teased? And then he ruffled Damian’s hair. And Damian let him.
That was it, Dick had definitely gotten hit with some kind of hallucinogen.
“Tt, hardly. I know Mother worries over your welfare, that’s all,” Damian said imperiously, and the Red Hood snorted. Damian appeared to be clinging to a front of unworried haughtiness as he continued, “Besides, it was supposed to be your duty to ease my transition here. It would have been far easier to settle in had I had the proper guidance that you were supposed to provide.” His façade of indifference collapsed like a poorly made soufflé when his voice wavered slightly at the end.
“I’m sorry, kiddo, I really wanted to be here when you got in.” The Red Hood sounded genuinely remorseful too, sincerity somehow coming through, even with the voice modulator. “If I coulda been here, I would’ve. I had a time-sensitive window of opportunity that I had to go undercover for with a lotta lives on the line. I’m sorry that I missed your arrival, habibi.”
Damian appeared to be carefully considering the apology before he gave a sharp nod. “I accept your apology,” he announced, and Hood chuckled, the sound crackling through the modulator.
“Thanks, short stack,” he said, ruffling Damian’s hair again. This time, Damian scowled and swatted at his hand, though it appeared to be more for show than anything. “Now, tell me how you’ve been. They been treating you alright?”
Before Damian could answer, the cavalry arrived, Batman and Red Robin swinging onto the scene and landing on either side of Dick.
“Get away from him, Hood,” Batman growled, and Dick would bet anything that the Red Hood was rolling his eyes behind the helmet.
“You’re late to the party, old man – as per usual,” the crime lord drawled, though there was an edge to his voice that hadn’t been there a moment ago. He straightened, tensed for a fight, though he didn’t seem poised to start one. “If I’d actually wanted to hurt Robin, I’ve had plenty of time to do it.”
Bruce didn’t appear to find this very reassuring. Tim jumped in before he could say anything, asking, “What do you want with Robin, then?”
Hood snorted. “For Batman to do a better job of looking after him than he did with some of his predecessors. Wouldn’t want another one of ‘em to wind up dead,” he said darkly, and Dick felt himself tense in time with Bruce and Tim stiffening at his sides. None of them took to mentions of Jason with any decorum, and especially not from random crime lords who hadn’t even been working in Gotham when Jason had been Robin.
“Back off,” Dick snapped. “I don’t know what makes you think you have the right – “
“You will not speak to akhi like that!” Damian interjected heatedly, arms folding and glaring at the three of them. Dick wasn’t sure whether it was the tone, the words, the posture, or a combination of all three, but it drew everyone up short.
“Did you just call him brother?” Tim asked, bewildered, and Damian turned the weight of his glare on him.
“I did,” he confirmed, and Hood’s hand landed on his shoulder.
“Kid, you don’t have to – ” the crime lord murmured.
“I do,” Damian interrupted, voice firm and increasingly haughty in the way that Dick had noticed it usually got when he was angry, upset, or uncertain. “They should know to whom they are speaking. You are my brother, and if I wish to greet you after we have been apart, then I shall do so – without them attacking you, verbally or physically.”
He accompanied the words with a glare at each of them in turn, and Dick felt thrown off-kilter by this entire conversation. “Wait, so Talia has another kid?” he asked, then automatically glanced at Bruce in silent question. Bruce, who was staring at Hood with an inscrutable expression.
Hood snorted. “Don’t get your panties in a wad, I’m not yours,” he snarled in Bruce’s direction, like the very idea offended him. Dick wondered if he was the only one who caught the way Bruce’s shoulders relaxed a tiny bit in relief. As far as Dick knew, the timeline wouldn’t have matched up age-wise, but stranger things had happened in their line of work than a mysteriously aged-up long-lost son.
Damian was giving Hood an odd look, appearing as though he was on the verge of saying something, but Bruce cut in before he had the chance. “So you’re League, then. I suppose that makes sense, given your skills.”
“Great deduction,” Hood deadpanned. “I see why they call you the World’s Greatest Detective.”
“If you’re Talia’s son, why do you sound like you’re from Gotham?” Tim asked, eyes narrowed suspiciously.
Hood appeared to take the interrogation in stride. “I’ve picked up a lot of different languages and accents over the years. Gotta blend in with the natives,” he said breezily. It was an explanation that made sense – only Dick was pretty sure he was lying.
“I don’t buy it,” he said, folding his arms and holding his ground when those glowing eyes met his. “Your accent sounds too authentic not to be the real deal.”
Hood appeared to size him up, then shrugged, a too-casual movement that pointed to some genuine discomfort with the direction the conversation had taken. “Believe me or don’t, ‘s not really my problem,” he said offhandedly, then turned back to Damian and something in his posture softened. “I gotta run, kid. We can catch up more later, ‘kay?”
Damian nodded. “Be careful. I would hate to have to inform Mother of your death,” he said stiffly, clearly self-conscious of demonstrating too much emotion after his earlier outburst.
Hood just laughed. “Love you, too, squirt,” he said affectionately. He gave the rest of them a sarcastic salute and then leaped off the roof, grappling away.
There was a heavy silence on the rooftop in his absence, with the weight of three separate stares directly on Damian, who appeared determined not to meet any of them.
Bruce finally sighed, running a weary hand over his face. “Robin, I think it’s time to get back to the Cave,” he said. “I have a few questions about your…brother.”
Damian didn’t seem much inclined to answer their questions once they got back to the Cave.
So far, all they’d been able to pry from him was that the Red Hood was Talia’s other son, had trained with the League, and had come to Gotham on a self-imposed mission to protect the city. Dick could tell Bruce really wanted to argue with that last bit, given Hood’s methods, but was biting his tongue for Damian’s sake.
Bruce was doing his best to hide it, but Dick could tell he was getting progressively more frustrated with their youngest’s recalcitrance – there was nothing the detective hated more than an unsolved mystery.
Dick kinda got it though; if anyone with a grudge against one of his brothers had cornered him and demanded answers about that brother – well, trusted ally or not, Dick would’ve kept his mouth shut, too. So he could understand why Damian wasn’t giving Bruce much more than what the man already knew – but Bruce, on the other hand, seemed to feel like Damian should be coughing up all the info he asked for by virtue of the fact that Batman was asking Robin for it.
By the third time Bruce had asked Damian what Red Hood’s plans in the city were, Dick had grown tired of the constipated, conflicted look on his little brother’s face. “This is who you’ve been looking for when we go out at night, isn’t it?” he interrupted Bruce mid-sentence, and the two looked over at him like they’d forgotten he was there. He tried not to sigh.
“Yes,” Damian answered finally, eyeing him warily but apparently not sensing a trap in the question. “He was supposed to be here when I arrived, but Mother informed me that he had abruptly needed to undertake an undercover mission. I was…concerned, when he was absent for so long. He has a habit of getting himself into trouble.”
“I bet,” Tim muttered from where he was perched in front of the Batcomputer, working on a report. Damian shot him a nasty look that he missed.
“He is very capable, but he takes on too much sometimes, if he feels the cause is right,” he said, a touch defensive.
“And what cause would that be?” Bruce interjected, still in Batman-mode, eyes sharp.
Dick could practically see the conflicting emotions warring in Damian – the desire to protect his brother clashing with the desire to tell his father what he wanted to know. “To protect,” he answered finally, what sounded like a compromise to Dick’s ears landing between them.
But Bruce didn’t seem ready to let it rest. “To protect what?” he demanded, and Dick frowned.
“Bruce, maybe give it a rest,” he suggested, eyes flicking pointedly to Damian’s clearly-tense posture.
“We need to know what the Red Hood wants, Dick,” Bruce argued, brow furrowed. “He’s become a major player in the Gotham underworld, and this is the first lead we’ve been able to get on his motivations.”
“This isn’t a lead, this is you questioning Damian about his brother,” Dick stressed. Bruce blinked then winced, contrition entering his expression.
“Ah,” he said. “Right. I’m sorry, Damian. I got carried away.”
Damian seemed wary, but he nodded once, accepting the apology. And that, Dick hoped, would be that.
That was not, in fact, that. Bruce had stopped questioning Damian – but Talia, it seemed, was fair game.
“Beloved,” she greeted him over the phone’s speaker when Bruce called her mere moments after he’d sent Damian upstairs to bed. “Is my son well?”
“Which one?” Bruce asked flatly. There was a moment of silence on the other end, and then Dick would swear he could feel the amusement emanating through the line.
“I take it the Red Hood has resurfaced, then,” she commented calmly, and Dick was pretty sure he could hear Bruce’s teeth grinding.
“You’re confirming that the Red Hood is your son, then?” he gritted out.
“Of course,” she responded easily.
“What is he doing in Gotham, Talia? If you’ve sent him here to – “
“Hood is in Gotham because that is where he has chosen to utilize his talents, despite my best efforts to convince him to station himself anywhere else in the world,” Talia interrupted, and Dick didn’t think he was imagining the slight edge to her voice. Bruce seemed a bit surprised at the reaction, if his raised eyebrow was any indication.
“His talents – I suppose you’re referring to his penchant for murdering people in my city?” he asked drily.
“You may choose to fixate on that particular detail of his methods and allow it to blind you to the truth, but my son is very dedicated to making Gotham a better and safer place,” Talia said archly.
Bruce frowned. “Why is that, exactly? Does he have some connection to Gotham that I’m unaware of? He’s too old to be…that is, his age would place his birth long before you and I…”
The awkwardness in the air was practically palpable, and Dick exchanged an uncomfortable look with Tim.
Talia did not seem to share in that discomfort, if her tinkling laugh was any indication. “Beloved, were you under the impression you’re the only man I’ve ever been with?”
Bruce was far too stoic to ever blush, but Dick could see the line of embarrassed tension in his shoulders. “Of course not. I merely wondered why your son would be so interested in Gotham if there was no…paternal connection. Why has he chosen to bring his…talents here?”
There was a pause, followed by a long, tired sigh. “That,” said Talia, “is a question I ask him every time he answers my calls.”
“So you don’t want him here, then?” Bruce pressed.
“What mother would want her children to be in a city of madmen whose darkness follows no rules?” Talia asked softly, and Dick’s surprise grew at the genuine worry he heard in her voice. It wasn’t that he thought Talia unfeeling; she clearly cared deeply for Damian, and she claimed to care for Bruce, though their romance had fizzled – but he’d never truly heard her display genuine emotions before.
Bruce appeared similarly thrown. “You sent Damian here,” he pointed out.
“My youngest wished to train at his father’s side, and he has reached an age and level of training where his wishes in that regard must be respected,” Talia responded, and the clipped tone had returned to her voice, the brief display of vulnerability quashed in remembrance of her duty.
“And Red Hood?”
A puff of air that, from anyone else, might’ve been a snort. “Have you ever tried to tell him what to do?” she asked rhetorically, with open amusement. “It is an exercise in futility. He wishes to be in Gotham, in part for Gotham’s sake, and in part for the sake of his brother. Nothing will sway him, not even whatever creative threats you choose to make, Beloved.”
And with that, it appeared their audience with the Demon’s Daughter had ended, the dial tone echoing through the Cave.
Unsurprisingly, those meager answers weren’t enough for Bruce, who sent Robin on patrol with Red Robin the next night and barreled off towards Hood’s usual part of town.
Dick, who had been expecting this entirely predictable behavior, had rolled his eyes and followed, not even bothering to attempt to be stealthy about it. B had given him a look when he’d clocked Nightwing tailing him but hadn’t bothered to try to lose him, which Dick was taking as tacit acceptance of his presence.
They found Hood swinging through Crime Alley, and despite being unable to see his expression under the helmet, Dick got the distinct feeling that Hood was exasperated when he came to a stop on the roof of one of the buildings, folding his arms and glaring at them as they landed near him.
“Here to warn me away from the baby bird?” he drawled, cocking his head.
“Would it make any difference if we were?” Dick asked, sliding on the charming smile even as he eyed the other man calculatingly. The Red Hood had been a dangerous enigma in their city for a while now. They weren’t sure when, exactly, he’d first come to Gotham, only that he’d managed to operate behind the scenes and covertly gained control of a lot of the Gotham underworld before the Bat clan had clocked onto his existence. He had latched onto Crime Alley in particular, clearing all the other gangs out or bringing them under his own rule.
Strangely, the people of Crime Alley seemed to love their mysterious crime lord. Dick had heard tales that Hood had instituted rules that actually protected people, shockingly enough – rules that he enforced viciously. The Crime Alley citizens seemed to prefer his presence to any of the others who had tried to claim the area before, at least – seemed to prefer him over the Bats, even.
It was something he and Bruce had both marked as strange, but neither of them had had the time to investigate; they’d both had criminals causing far more mayhem to track down, and Hood’s apparent possession of some degree of morals had moved him down their priority list.
Of course, his connection to Damian had now shot him right to the top.
“Can’t say it would,” Hood answered, a hint of a sneer in his tone. “Especially since I was his brother long before you even knew he existed.”
That stung, and Dick couldn’t help the hurt frown.
“That’s not what we’re here for, Hood,” Batman growled. “We’re here because Talia confirmed that you’re in Gotham of your own volition. We want to know why.”
Hood shrugged. “Can’t a guy want to keep his little brother safe?”
“You arrived long before Robin,” Batman countered. “And both Robin and Talia have implied there’s more to it than that.”
“They’re such gossips,” Hood sighed, a crackling noise through his helmet’s voice modulator. “Frankly, I’m not sure why you’re even askin’. We both know no reason I give would be good enough for you to leave me alone.”
Batman’s eyes narrowed. “You kill people.”
“Bad people,” Hood clarified, like that made a difference. “People who have shown over and over again that they can’t change, and that they’ll continue to hurt innocents.”
“We are not judge, jury, and executioner,” Batman growled – and oh boy, he was about to enter Lecture Mode. Dick somehow didn’t think the Red Hood was going to be all that receptive to one of Bruce’s lectures.
“No, you’re just the self-righteous assholes who drop murderers off at Arkham knowing that they’ll break out and hurt people again – but hey, at least your hands are clean, right?” Hood snorted, a bitter tone to his voice.
“We trust in the justice system,” Dick chimed in, and those eerie, glowing helmet lenses turned to him as Hood let out an incredulous laugh.
“I can’t believe you can say that with a straight face,” he jeered.
Dick blinked at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Hood just snorted and shook his head, turning back to Batman. “Look, we both know nothin’ I say will ever be a good enough reason for you, so you’re just gonna have to content yourself with knowing that I wanna keep the kid safe just as much as you do,” he said, tone final.
“Hood, you can’t – “
“That’s not – “
Hood was not inclined to stick around for their protests, following up his proclamation with an immediate retreat. B appeared to give a moment’s consideration to giving chase before deflating, watching the other man’s retreating back with an unfathomable expression as the red helmet swung from rooftop to rooftop.
“At least it sounds like he’s trying to do good, even if he’s…misguided in how he’s going about it,” Dick offered. B just grunted, staring at the spot where Hood had finally grown too small to see through the Gotham smog, seemingly still in thought.
“I don’t like that he’s so guarded about his motivations for being in Gotham,” he said finally. “It doesn’t make sense to refuse to tell us why he’s so dead set on protecting Crime Alley.”
“He is technically a criminal and we are Batman and Nightwing,” Dick pointed out. “He’s got no real reason to trust us.”
“Still,” B said. “If it was something straightforward, he’d have told us – if only to get us off his back. He’s hiding something.”
Dick sighed, looking away from B’s staunch expression to glance at the spot where Hood had disappeared. Why couldn’t Damian’s brother have been, like, a normal assassin or something? Dick had a feeling B was about to drive himself nuts trying to work this guy out – there was nothing his mentor-slash-father hated more than an enigma.
Hood didn’t help matters by being the oddest mixed bag of criminal and vigilante that Dick had seen in all of his years swinging through the streets. Bruce had spent far too many hours in front of the Batcomputer, tearing through report after report on what the red helmeted menace was up to. He always looked vindicated when it was something to do with the drug trade or gang involvement, but was extremely put out when Hood was noted rescuing a ten-year-old from a would-be trafficker or scaring off a couple of the working girls’ would-be customers who wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Dick thinks they were all a bit shocked, though, the first time he crashed one of their operations for a rescue.
Dick and Damian had run into some trouble. Nothing they couldn’t have gotten out of on their own, of course, if given enough time and goon-inattention. The goons had them tied to rickety chairs in the middle of a warehouse full of stolen weapons, and Dick had been internally lamenting the lack of lumbar support in the chairs they wound up with in these situations – when there was a crash overhead and glass scattering across the ground from a shattered skylight to Dick’s left.
The Red Hood dropped down from above like some sort of avenging demon. Dick barely had time to blink at his appearance, and then there were bodies on the ground, the still-conscious ones groaning in pain from a few new holes in them that weren’t really supposed to be there. It was over before it had even started, and Hood was loping toward them, coming to a stop where he could give level them with a stare that somehow felt judgmental, even behind the helmet.
“Mom taught you better than this,” he said finally, and Dick knew even before he looked over at Damian that the younger was going to be glaring.
“You say this as if you have never required rescue before,” Damian sniffed imperiously, looking as regal as he could while bound to a chair. Hood cocked his head as though wracking his memories.
“Nothing…recent comes to mind,” he said mockingly, stressing ‘recent’ in a way that made Dick think he was missing some context there. Damian was scowling now, eyes narrowed.
“Are you going to untie us or not?” he snapped, and Hood tapped the chin of his helmet thoughtfully.
“I dunno, should I let two troublesome little birdies out of their coop? Seems like I could get a lot more done with you two stuck here,” he taunted, and Damian looked incensed at the response, though Dick could hear the brotherly teasing underneath Hood’s words.
“If you have learned any honor from your time with – “
“Oh god, don’t give me the honor-in-combat spiel, kid – your granddad has given it a million times, and if it hasn’t changed my mind coming from him, it’s definitely not going to coming from a 6-year-old,” Hood said in a long-suffering tone.
“I am ten,” Damian hissed. Dick was still caught on Hood’s odd phrasing.
“Wait, his grandfather – wouldn’t Ra’s be your grandfather, too?” he asked, brow furrowed in confusion. Hood and Damian both paused and turned to look at him as though they’d forgotten he was there. Damian had an ‘uh-oh’ expression on his face, but Hood recovered smoothly.
“He’s the demon brat’s granddad when he’s annoying me. He can be my granddad when he stops,” Hood snarked. “It’s an earned privilege.”
“…Right.”
Hood finally closed the distance between them, drawing a knife from nowhere Dick could identify and slicing through their bonds easily, Damian first. “Patrol’s pretty much over at this point, right?” he prompted, but didn’t pause long enough for Dick to answer before continuing, “I’m taking the squirt for the rest of the night. First big brother privileges.” He swept a protesting Damian up into his arms, though the protest seemed to be more at the ‘picking up’ than the ‘taking.’
“Unhand me – “
“Wait, Hood – “
Neither protest deterred Hood, who swung away without another word, one arm wrapped tightly around his little brother, as though assuring himself that he was there.
The news that Hood had kidnapped Damian had one member of the Batclan a bit panicked. Bruce scoured the city looking for any sign of Talia’s sons, to no avail. The calls he placed to Talia herself went pointedly unanswered, until she finally picked up once after the eighth one to snap, “It would be unwise to interfere with my son reassuring himself that his younger brother is in one piece, Beloved. Stop calling me, as I will not be interceding on your behalf.”
Dick himself felt oddly calm about it. By rights, Hood was a criminal who had demonstrated multiple times how ruthless and violent he could be – and yet, Dick didn’t think he would hurt Damian, the same way he couldn’t imagine Talia ever laying a hand on her son. Talia and Hood may be…morally grey at best, but they both seemed to place the same weight on family.
So when he heard a motorcycle roar strangely close to the Manor the next morning, followed by the front door opening a few moments later, Dick wasn’t all that surprised that it was followed by Alfred’s call that Master Damian has returned.
Still, he rushed right alongside the others to the front entrance, where Damian was standing in an oversized t-shirt and sweatpants that dragged the ground, a ratted backpack that Dick would bet held his Robin uniform hanging from his shoulders.
“Damian,” Bruce exhaled in relief, kneeling in front of the boy and looking him over with worried eyes. “You’re okay.”
“Of course I’m alright, Father,” Damian reassured him, appearing almost surprised at the level of concern displayed. “Last night’s capture was of minimal consequence. Grayson and I could have easily escaped without my brother’s interference. Hood was being entirely overbearing.” He looked semi-annoyed at the admission.
Bruce frowned. “Hood was who we were worried about,” he corrected, and Damian’s expression appeared genuinely puzzled. “He kidnapped you,” Bruce elaborated, and Dick bit back a snort, though Damian didn’t bother.
“It was hardly a kidnapping,” he said with another perplexed look at Bruce. “He is my brother and wished to reassure himself that I was alright. He is like this sometimes when I have been in danger; I’ve found it is best to simply weather his attentions, regardless of how unnecessary they are. Mother says it’s because he worries that what happened to him will happen to me."
Dick’s brow furrowed, and he saw Tim’s do the same. “’What happened to him’?” he repeated, and Damian’s expression closed off. “What do you mean?”
“He does not like to talk about it,” Damian evaded. Dick and Bruce exchanged looks, Dick’s with a hint of warning, but Bruce thankfully didn’t press.
“In that, it sounds as if he would fit right in with this family,” Alfred commented wryly, and a strange expression crossed Damian’s face. “In any case, it’s nearly time for lunch. Why don’t you change into clothing that fits you, and we shall convene in the kitchen when you’re ready.”
Damian took the excuse to leave immediately, rushing off in the direction of his room.
“I wonder what that’s about,” Bruce murmured, watching his son’s retreating back.
“It would’ve had to have happened before the Red Hood came to Gotham,” Tim offered. “He hasn’t had anything ‘happen to him’ since he’s been here that would cause him to react so strongly to Damian being caught by some no-name criminals.”
“Maybe something from when he was with the League?” Dick suggested. “A mission gone wrong?”
“Regardless, it appears as though he took good care of Master Damian overnight, which is what matters,” Alfred cut in, tone slightly chiding. “And perhaps, instead of standing around and gossiping about him, we should follow in his example and ensure the boy is properly cared for.”
Chastised, the three chorused, “Yes, Alfred.”
“We’ve got to stop meeting like this,” Dick said with a put-upon air, though he eyed Hood calculatingly from where he was, once again, tied to a chair – only this time, there was no Robin with him.
Hood had pulled his rescuing act with Robin three more times over the past month and had taken off with the younger vigilante afterwards each time. Damian always returned the next morning, disgruntled and irritated by what he deemed “unnecessary hovering” but unharmed, and Dick had concluded that Hood was a bit of an overprotective mother hen, where Damian was concerned.
That protective streak had only ever applied to Damian, though – so Dick wasn’t sure what Hood was doing here right now, since Damian was patrolling with Bruce tonight somewhere across town. Dick had been in the middle of trying to set off his panic button to alert them that he needed help when Hood had burst into the warehouse.
“Not that I’m not grateful for the assist,” Dick continued lightly, arching an eyebrow in question and watching the helmeted man carefully. Damian’s brother appeared content to watch him back just as carefully, and Dick didn’t think he was imagining the hesitance in the other man’s stance.
“Maybe I was just here to take these guys out,” Hood said, gesturing to the unconscious men at their feet, and Dick gave him a skeptical look that Hood didn’t seem to appreciate, if the folded arms were anything to go by. “What, so everything has to be about you, Golden Boy?” he snapped defensively.
Dick shrugged, glancing around at the men. “Guess I just thought that some low-level gang was beneath the Red Hood’s notice,” he responded with deliberate casualness.
Hood’s posture took on a distinctly judgmental set. “They were good enough to get you,” he said, and Dick frowned at him.
“Lucky hit,” he complained, and Hood snorted.
“I’m sure,” the helmeted man mocked, but he strode forward and cut Dick loose. Dick pushed himself to his feet, shaking out stiff limbs and aiming a bright smile at the rescuer, who had gone a bit tense, as though he expected to be attacked, now that Nightwing was free.
“Thanks for the save,” Dick said cheerfully, making sure his hands were visible, hoping to set the suspicious man at ease. “Hey, you always take Robin back to your place after a rescue – does this mean that I get to see your place now?”
Hood was giving him an incredulous look under that helmet, Dick just knew it. “Not on your life, Golden Boy,” he snarled, and Dick pouted at him.
“But you always let Robin come over,” he whined. “He keeps bragging about what a good cook you are.”
Hood’s tension was slowly draining from his shoulders, quickly replaced by annoyance. “Yeah, well, the demon brat is my brother. He gets special privileges.”
“Robin’s my brother, too,” Dick argued, unable to help but poke at the other man now that he’d gotten started. “You’re the brother of my brother – which basically makes us brothers.”
There was a range of responses Dick thought he might get by needling Hood – a grumbled threat, an annoyed huff, a disinterested exit – but Hood recoiling like he’d just been slapped was not one of them.
He practically staggered back from the force of it, to the point that Dick took a concerned step forward, automatically looking him over for injuries. “We are not brothers,” Hood snarled, a thread of personal rage in his voice. Dick blinked, bewildered by the response.
“Hood, I’m sorry, I – “
Hood was gone before Dick could even finish the apology. He stared after the man’s retreating back, knowing his expression had to be almost comically confused. What the hell was that about?
“What did you say to my brother?” Damian demanded the following day, a fierce glower affixed to his cute little face that Dick wanted to coo at, if it wouldn’t have gotten him stabbed.
“What do you mean?” Dick asked, wracking his brain for anything he’d said to Tim that would’ve gotten this sort of reaction from Damian and coming up blank. Frankly, he was coming up blank with anything that could’ve been said to Damian to make him stick up for Tim; the rivalry between those two had been immediate and unending.
“He has been unusually upset ever since he assisted you last night,” Damian said, scowling, and Dick wanted to face-palm. Of course Damian was talking about Hood. “We are meant to have our weekly afternoon tea today, but he will not allow me to come near him.”
“Wait, but Wednesday afternoons are when you have your weekly Chess Club meetings,” Dick said, and Damian gave him a look like he was a complete idiot. The truth hit Dick like a brick, and he glared at his little brother. “Are you serious? You’ve been going over to his place every week and lying about it? Damian!”
“Father would never allow it, if he knew,” Damian responded with no small degree of irritation – and hurt, the latter of which had Dick tilting his head in concern. “And I – I do not appreciate being barred from visiting my own brother.”
Oh. Well, now Dick felt like a jerk. They’d all been so focused on worrying over whether or not Hood was a threat to Damian that they’d never bothered to think about the fact that Damian had probably grown up with Hood, was probably used to having Hood around more often than just after the occasional kidnapping.
“I’m sorry, Dames,” Dick said sincerely, and Damian scowled at him from across the kitchen table, where they’d sat for an afterschool snack.
“I do not require your sympathy, Grayson,” he snapped. “I want to know why he refuses to see me today. What did you say to him to cause him to feel too unstable for our weekly tea?”
Dick frowned in confusion. “Unstable? What are you talking about?”
Damian gave an impatient huff. “My brother was submerged in the Pit several years ago. He usually has excellent control over it, but occasionally something will set him off. He refuses to see me when this happens, as he says he does not wish for me to see him like that.” The words are said with a scoff, like Damian can’t imagine anything that would cause him to fear Hood, but Dick’s mind was stuck on one thing.
“Hood was dunked in a Lazarus Pit?” he demanded, eyes wide. “Why?”
Damian had gone very still and appeared to be rethinking the conversation. “It was many years ago,” he answered finally. “Mother felt it was the only way to save him after that monster - “ Damian broke off with a furious expression, folding his arms and sinking back into his chair, and Dick knew he was tiptoeing terribly close to making Damian shut down the discussion entirely.
Still, he couldn’t help but ask, “What monster?”
Damian met his eyes, gaze even more serious than usual – which was saying something. “The only monster my brother still fears.”
Well, that was horribly ominous and clarified nothing. Still, Dick got the feeling that pushing Damian for more information would get him nowhere, so he let it pass without further comment. “Why won’t he let you come over today? What set him off?” he asked instead.
Damian let out a frustrated noise. “I don’t know, that’s what I’m asking you,” he snapped. “He was fine until he saw you last night. What did you say to him?”
Dick tried his best not to look guilty. “Nothing,” he said defensively – and not very believably, if Damian’s unimpressed scowl was anything to go by. “I didn’t say anything to set him off! He just – he got angry, I’m not sure why.”
“What did you say?” Damian demanded, and Dick shrugged helplessly.
“I teased him that, since we’re both your brother, that basically makes us brothers,” he answered, and he couldn’t keep the note of confusion out of his voice. Damian stared at him.
“You what?”
“It was a joke!”
“A horrible one,” Damian snapped, and Dick flinched.
“Is it really so bad to be my brother?” he asked, hurt. A flash of what looked like regret washed over Damian’s face, but his expression hardened again quickly.
“You do not have the context here to understand why, but that was a very insensitive remark to make to Hood.”
“Then give me context!” Dick pleaded, but Damian shook his head.
“My brother’s secrets are his own,” he responded. “Suffice to say that family is a sensitive subject for him, and you should stay away from the topic in his presence.”
With one last pointed look of warning, Damian flounced out of the room, leaving Dick even more frustrated and confused than before.
“Hood says I must apologize to you.”
The statement was announced with a distinctly irritated air as Damian stalked into the kitchen, looking more than a little put-out. Dick blinked at him, startled the younger boy was even speaking to him. The past couple of days had been filled with a stony silence on Damian’s end until even Bruce had given the two of them a concerned look and awkwardly asked if something had happened. Dick had expected to have to weather Damian’s displeasure for at least a couple of weeks – his little brother was practically a champion grudge-holder, after all.
When Damian’s words registered, he couldn’t hold back the surprised eyebrow-raise. “Well, don’t strain yourself,” he responded, putting down the file he’d been glancing through and giving Damian his full attention.
Damian scowled. “I am sorry for my hasty words. Hood does not blame you for his lapse and says I should not either.” Dick hid a smile at the phrasing; so Damian undoubtedly did still blame him. Ah, well. It was still nice – and unexpected – of Hood to ask Damian to apologize (and even more impressive that he’d gotten Damian to actually do it).
“It’s okay,” he said easily, and Damian stepped forward and placed a Tupperware box in front of him.
“He asked me to give these to you,” Damian said in response to Dick’s querying look. “He said you’d asked after his cooking when you saw him.”
Dick opened the box, and a delicious chocolatey smell hit him at the same time he spotted the brownies, mouth watering. Should he accept food from a crime lord? Probably not, and Bruce would absolutely kill him if he ever found out, but the brownies smelled too good to pass up. “Tell him thank you from me, will you?” he asked brightly.
“I am not a carrier pigeon,” Damian sneered, folding his arms and stomping off, muttering under his breath as he did so. Dick grinned at his brother’s back, then shoved one of the brownies in his mouth.
Holy hell. These were amazing. They tasted just like Alfred’s, who Dick had long-thought made the best brownies in existence.
Yeah, this box of brownies wasn’t going to last long.
“Thanks for the brownies, Hood,” Dick said cheerfully, swinging in to knock out a goon who’d been gunning for Hood’s unprotected back.
“Nightwing,” the helmeted vigilante growled, though Dick liked to think there was a bit less animosity there than there’d been before. Hood shot the kneecaps out of the two goons in front of him, and Dick fell into the rhythm of protecting his back automatically. He felt more than saw Hood’s momentary hesitation, but the other man eventually put his back to him, relaxing into the fight. The duo fought together with surprising ease, considering that this was the first time they’d ever done so.
With the two of them working together, the fight was over in minutes, and Dick turned a beam onto his impromptu partner. “We work well together,” he commented, smile freezing when he noted Hood stiffening. Was that too close to commenting on brotherhood? “Sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable,” Dick said carefully, keeping his posture as loose and open as he could. “The brownies were great, though. Where’d you get the recipe?”
Hood’s posture closed off even further, to Dick’s confusion. What had he said this time? “Learned it from my…grandfather,” came the curt response.
Dick blinked, mind momentarily boggled. “Ra’s al Ghul makes brownies?”
There was a crackling noise from the helmet that Dick identified as a snort. “Oh fuck no,” Hood said derisively. “That asshole couldn’t tell a whisk from a pastry brush. No, my other grandfather.”
Dick hummed noncommittally, feeling like he was tiptoeing around a live wire right now; Damian had warned him to stay away from family talk with Hood, after all, and here he was right in the midst of it. “Well, they were delicious. Thanks for sending them,” he said finally. There. That was nice and neutral. No one could get offended by that, right?
“Don’t mention it,” Hood responded, already starting to walk away. He paused and glanced over. “No, really – don’t mention it. You’ll kill my street cred.” And with that, the helmeted vigilante swung away.
Dick was marking that interaction as a rousing success.