Chapter Text
Cold. That was the first thing that registered as Jason stirred from a not so restful sleep. Not that the cold was unusual, he’d had trouble regulating his body temperature without being on a Pit high since he woke up from his grave three years ago. And based on the distinct lack of a faint green light in the otherwise dark room, he’d say he was not currently acting as a human glowstick. That and the fact he didn’t want to strangle something and claw it open with his bare hands right now. Yeah, that latter bit was probably more telling, now that he thought about it. But they were both annoying.
He sighed and reached for his blankets which had somehow slipped off during the night, but his hand hit something… Larger. It felt like a pile of blankets, sure, but first off, how did his blankets make it into such a wrapped up ball when he’d fallen asleep with them nicely on top of him? And second, he didn’t actually have enough blankets to make up a wad of fluff that big . Human size, to be exact…
Well, small human, anyway.
Or several pillows. Maybe that was it. Maybe he’d dreamt about tying someone up or something and wrapped all his blankets around his pillows. Made perfect sense.
He flopped back down on the pillow under his head and grabbed hold of a couple blankets to drape them back over himself, but after a quick tug, something caught. Something heavy. Like 130lbs kind of heavy. Human size…
The pile rolled over, hogging the blankets even tighter and more securely around the small heap, and Jason bolted out of bed with a start.
He blinked, giving his head a moment to clear and fully adjust to the light before staring at the lump that used to be his blankets. It was breathing. Short and ragged, but deep enough to be asleep. There was a human in his bed.
There was a human in his bed.
There was. A human. In his bed.
He stared in shock for several more moments before every part of his common sense and self preservation started mentally screaming at whoever this idiot was. His apartment was right off Crime Alley of all things, who in their right mind would ever enter a stranger’s apartment without the intent of robbing, raping, or murdering them? And who the hell would enter a stranger’s apartment and fall asleep in their bed?!
They were drunk. Or high. They had to be. There was no other logical explanation, a native of the Alley would never have done this and a stranger would never have come near the Alley in the first place.
But even that explanation didn’t make total sense as any self respecting Gothamite still has enough preservation instincts not to do something this insane even while under the influence.
The pile tensed and rolled over in their sleep with a muffled wince. Quiet enough the human was obviously used to silencing their pain so often they did so even in their sleep. If Jason wasn’t a trained vigilante and assassin, he never would have heard it.
He took a step closer to the bed and the small face that had turned toward him when he caught it. Black mess of hair falling around a green domino mask.
Robin.
The world started shifting colors, a familiar green illuminating the dark room as Jason stared into the sleeping face of the Replacement. His Replacement.
His Replacement. Sleeping in his bed. ‘Cause apparently taking his dad and his brother and his Alfred and his home and his title wasn’t enough. No, now he was literally stealing Jason’s bed.
How had he even found him?! Jason had only been in Gotham for two months, he’d barely made a name for himself and he was still at least a month away from the end game, he hadn’t even started dropping hints to the Big Bad Bat yet that he was his messed up dead little soldier boy. Bats had barely heard news of the duffle bag, he shouldn’t even be taking him seriously yet, so why was there a Robin in his bed?!
Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe for whatever reason Robin didn’t know this was the Red Hood’s apartment. Maybe he’d stumbled in here by accident. Maybe the universe was finally showing Jason a little favor and decided to just hand him the bird to do with whatever he wanted.
The green grew brighter around the room as Jason grinned, teeth bared and dangerous. This hadn’t been part of the plan, but he was flexible. He could make it work. He was ready to draw the Batman’s attention, even if he hadn’t planned on it.
First thing’s first though, there were tracking chips that needed to be taken care of.
Jason grabbed a domino mask and fitted it over his eyes before moving toward the lump on his bed and slowly extracting the tiny human from the blanket mass, careful not to wake him up yet. There were two chips, one in the bird’s glove and one under his belt, that one pressure sensitive in case anyone ever tried to strip the kid of his weapons without deactivating the emergency signal. But Jason was a former Robin. He had to take that suit off more times than he could dream of counting, removing the tracker without setting off the call for help was a piece of cake.
Both chips in hand and the kid still sound asleep and tangled in as many blankets as Jason had from waist up, he knew exactly how to send the Bat on a wild goose chase.
He stalked out of the apartment, silent as any good--or in his case bad--Robin was, took the stairs down to the parking garage and went straight for his neighbor’s work van. A delivery van, to be exact. All set for deliveries in a few hours. He broke into the vehicle with no problem and picked a package at random to carefully slit open. Turned out to be a purse, which was perfect. Jason slipped the chips into a small pocket on the inside before taping the whole parcel back up like it had never happened and heading back upstairs.
The delivery van would take off in about an hour when Sam took off for work and it would make several stops, all potential places Robin could have been taken to and his chips left behind should Bruce check where the map history had been. And when the package was finally delivered, it would end up in someone’s house. In someone’s purse. And then out on the street somewhere. Batman would have far too many potential places for his precious little bird to have separated from his chips. And by the time Batman ever figured it out, he’d be too late. Again.
Jason grinned to himself as he made his way back up the stairs and through his apartment door. He could still hear the baby bird breathing. Perfect. He grabbed his gear from where he’d dropped it all in the living room and suited up before heading back to deal with the kid. What would it be, beat him black and blue or pin him to the wall like a moth under glass? Or maybe tie him up first to give him up of just getting untied only to slap him back down again. Or he could slowly cut that horrific suit he shouldn’t be wearing off the kid. And make sure every cut is deep enough to take more than the suit.
Jason grinned to himself, standing over the sleeping form on his bed. There were so many options. He was going to enjoy this.
“Thought you were safe, ey Replacement? ” His mechanical voice echoed between the thin walls, not caring who it disturbed. Not like any Gothamite of the Alley would report to the Bat anyway.
But the brat didn’t wake up. Or stir. His breathing didn’t even hitch. He remained totally sound asleep, curled up in a tight little ball with Jason’s blankets.
Jason pursed his lips in annoyance and hit the light switch, flooding the room with yellow flickering brightness.
“ Replacement ,” he growled again, this time darker. More menacing. Slightly louder.
And still nothing.
What, was he going to have to start the torture just to get this kid to stir?
Fine. Let it never be said Jason wasn’t a patient man.
He reached down and ripped the first blanket off the kid, effectively rolling him over on the bed in the process. This time, at least, the kid stirred a bit. Only a bit though. And it was more of a moaning gasp than stirring, but at least it was a reaction.
Jason took the second blanket and pulled that too, followed by the third, but he stopped when he saw the sheet wrapped around the kid’s much too tiny--without the blanket fluff--body.
The sheet, Jason’s sheet, Jason’s white , clean sheet, was bloodstained.
Oh no.
Did that mean…
Jason nearly paled at the thought and held up the last blanket he’d pulled off the kid. Sure enough, there were several red blotches all over the blue and white quilt.
Seriously, who bleeds on a quilt?! Those things are expensive and take so much time and love to make, who would bleed on one?!
Robin, apparently. That’s who.
Jason paused as he realized that also meant the Replacement was bleeding . And didn’t have a healing factor. Which might be part of the reason he wasn’t waking up and was definitely going to be a problem if Jason wanted to choose how the kid died. And bleeding out wasn’t nearly dramatic enough so Jason was going to have to patch the kid up.
Great. Absolutely great.
He groaned and grabbed the medical kit from a drawer in his bedside table before pulling the sheet off the kid and stripping him of the hideous costume Bruce called a uniform. And then he stood back in shock.
This was… Worse than he thought. Nearly every inch of the kid’s skin was littered with different sizes of black and blue circles and there was a gash above his eye Jason somehow hadn’t seen before. Besides that, there was a trickle of blood seeping from a gash in his left bicep and another on his left thigh, just below his boxers. All three wounds looked like he had attempted to stop the bleeding but hadn’t cleaned them out or stitched them up yet. Great.
Where was Batman in all this, anyway?
Never mind, it didn’t matter. Jason had work to do.
He sighed and pulled out the disinfectant. This, at least, would be fun. Just because he had to patch the kid up didn’t mean he couldn’t start the torture in the process.
His lips quirked up to a grin as he poured a generous amount of the burning liquid onto the kid’s leg, grinning wider as he finally got a reaction.
Robin cried out in pain and shot upright, swatting at the hands holding his leg still, but Jason didn’t budge.
“Well look who’s awake.” Jason’s mechanized voice echoed through the helmet as he finished cleaning out the wound and started stitching it up. “Ready for a bit of fun, baby bird?”
Robin blinked when he saw who was patching him up, for a moment staring into the whites of Jason’s helmet before yawning and flopping back down on his pillow. “Wha’ver you say…” he barely managed to slur out before his eyes closed again, to Jason’s utter horror. He was the Red Hood , crime lord, assassin, terror of the Alley and Gotham’s underworld and this child was just… Falling asleep. As if he was nothing.
“ Robin, ” he growled as the addressed peeked a single masked eye open. “Do you have any idea who I am?” ‘Cause he couldn’t, right? There was no way the kid understood half of who Jason was. That was also why he showed up here in the first place, right? There was no other explanation.
“Mhm…” the bird mumbled, sinking back into the now bloodstained pillow. “Red Hood. Protector of Crime Alley. Crime lord. Protector of the innocent. Murderer of drug dealers.”
Jason froze and stared. What. How. Why.
The kid said it himself. Jason was a murderer. And a crime lord. Someone Batman should be hunting. Someone Bat definitely would be hunting as soon as Batman could find any trace of him. So what the hell was Batman’s sidekick doing in his bed?!
“Enemy of Batman,” he finally found the words to growl out. “ And Robin. ”
The kid didn’t react to that, just rolled over and started groping around for a blanket. There was no way he understood what was really at stake here. He was a worse Robin than Jason had ever dreamed. Did he really have to spell it out for him?
“I could kill you.”
Robin groaned at that, rolling over and finally waking up enough to properly look Jason in his masked eyes and speak clearly.
“Then do it.”
What.
Jason froze for the--he didn’t even know how many times this was tonight. Way too many. He wanted to tell himself Robin was just asleep and not thinking straight, but for the first time since he’d shown up, Robin was finally not asleep. He was staring straight at him, dead serious. And there was something terrifyingly resigned in his expression.
Robin rolled his eyes at the Red Hood’s shocked silence and pushed himself up into a sitting position to better give him the most deadpanned, unamused Batman glare Jason had ever seen on anyone other than Bruce.
“Look, Hood. I’m tired. One way or another, I’m going to sleep. Now make up your mind which way that’s gonna be and leave me alone .”
With that, the kid grabbed the pillow he’d abandoned, hugged it close to his chest and flopped face first onto the bed, asleep again within seconds, leaving Jason to stare after him.
He had no words.
Nothing.
His mouth hung open under his helmet and Robin was none the wiser.
The kid had a death wish.
He literally, truly, had a death wish . That’s why he’d come to the Red Hood’s apartment. He was hoping Jason would kill him.
Where was Bruce? Why didn’t Bruce know or care that his son, his Robin , wanted to die? Where was he that the kid could just waltz up to a crime lord and practically ask him to pull the trigger without Batman having a clue? And didn’t this Robin have his own father still alive? Where was that guy? Did no one care about this child?
Jason’s thoughts came to a screeching halt as his eyes traveled over the kid’s back. Some of those wounds looked suspiciously like…
Oh.
Oh.
The kid was being abused . He was being abused enough he thought the den of the Red Hood felt safer than his own home.
Oh hell no.
Someone was going to die. The kid might be a pain in the butt and a replacement but he was Jason’s pain in the butt and replacement and no one else was gonna touch the kid except Jason. He died when and how Jason said he could. And anyone who got a notion to argue that would have a nice introduction to Jason’s guns. Or fists, depending on his mood.
But right now, that didn’t matter. What mattered was getting the kid cleaned up. He wasn’t gonna be “resting” from bloodloss. Sleep, death, or torture at Jason’s hands, but not bloodloss from injuries delivered by a family member.
Wow, Jason was such a hypocrite.
He sighed before pulling out a roll of bandages and getting to work on the kids wounds.