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Chapter Text

Crime Alley was demon territory.  Everyone knew it.  It hadn’t always been, but a demon had killed the Waynes and suddenly Park Row had been shunned by humans and now the place was practically a demon enclave in the middle of Gotham, rarely patrolled or policed.

For a young, newly orphaned incubus like Jason, it was truly the safest place to be, despite the violence and crime.  If he ever got caught outside the Alley, he’d be shipped off to Gotham’s impling foster care, which everyone knew was a euphemism for trafficking.

It was still not safe, which was why Jason was stealthily creeping through the shadows down the main road, clutching his coat tighter around himself.  He was starving, the hollow ache inside of him that meant he had to feed soon, but feeding meant pain and Jason wasn’t hungry enough for that.  He took a deep breath to stifle the pangs and slipped into an alley.

He wasn’t expecting the soft whisper of movement behind him.

Jason immediately spun, around, fists raised, growling.  He was a fast runner, if he got one solid punch and ran for it, most demons would leave him to search for weaker prey.  He just needed…an…opening…

“Hello,” came in a bright, cheerful voice, accompanied by colors too vivid for the Alley.  Colors worn by only one masked vigilante in Gotham.  One masked demon hunter.

Jason had heard all the stories.  He knew how fiercely Batman and Robin went after demons.  Some said it was personal, some said they believed that demons were monsters, some said they would never stop until Gotham was demon-free.  And now Robin was standing right here, right in front of him, with a smile wide enough to be a threat.

“Are you okay?” Robin asked softly, “You look lost.”

“I’m fine!” Jason stuttered back, high-pitched, inching deeper into the alley.

“Are you sure?” Robin’s expression crinkled into a frown, “It’s pretty late, kid.  Where are your parents?”

Dead.  Dead and gone and unable to protect him.

“Why don’t you come with me?” Robin stretched out a hand, still smiling, “I can help you find them.”

Jason’s blood ran cold.  No—he knew what happened to implings unlucky enough to be snatched off the streets—he couldn’t win a fight or a race against Robin—he was not being trafficked—

Jason wasn’t very good at manipulating emotions.  He hadn’t had anyone to teach him.  And Robin would obviously have mental shields for exactly this case, to guard against emotion tampering by incubi.  Still, Jason gathered up all the terror he was feeling, all the cold of icy winter nights and the pain of being attacked, and slammed it against Robin.

Surprisingly, there was no resistance.  No mental shield.  Jason felt the flickers of Robin’s emotions—protection-worry-are-you-okay—disappear under Jason’s onslaught as Robin gasped, high and loud, before collapsing.

Jason stared.

What.

Robin arched in place, whimpering as he grabbed his head, and Jason hastily skittered back several steps, chest heaving.  He—he needed to run.  He didn’t understand what had happened, why Robin had collapsed, but he needed to get away before the demon hunter recovered.  He needed to leave.

Robin was making soft, strangled keening noises.  Like he was trying to stop himself from calling out but unable to suppress it entirely.  Both his hands were clasped to his head, gloves digging against his skull as he panted, writhing on the ground.  Jason could sense his emotions, no barrier at all, and they were fractured and agonized.

Jason swallowed, rooted to the spot.  He—he had done this.

Jason hadn’t meant to.  He just wanted—he wanted a distraction, he wanted to make Robin stop long enough to get away, he hadn’t expected his attack to actually work.  And now Robin was down and helpless and vulnerable in Crime Alley, in a place full of demons that would love to get their hands on him.

“Robin?” Jason ventured tentatively, easing a step closer.  Robin didn’t act like he heard him.  Jason’s throat was dry and thick as he glanced up, looking for a familiar shadowed outline.  “B—Batman?”

Nothing.  Jason wouldn’t kid himself into thinking that an impling was any sort of threat against Batman, so the man wasn’t waiting in the shadows, biding his time.  Which meant Robin was all alone.

“Robin?” Jason bit his lip, venturing out a tendril of emotion like a hard poke but Robin just twitched and groaned deeply.  The strands of his emotions were spiraling out, jagged and discordant, and all Jason could feel was how thoroughly he’d wrecked them.  “Robin,” Jason tried again, voice cracking, and still got no response.

Jason took a deep breath and tugged, hard, on Robin’s emotions.  The demon hunter screamed, back arching painfully tight as he clawed at his head, and Jason stumbled back a step, eyes wide. Robin slumped back down the moment Jason let go.  He was breathing but entirely limp.  He didn’t look conscious.

“Fuck,” Jason whispered into the night air.

This wasn’t Jason’s problem.  He’d get into a lot more trouble if he stuck around after attacking Robin.  The best thing to do would be to leave.  Leave, and not imagine Robin, mind shattered, helpless to any demon that stumbled upon.  Being taken and used and destroyed by them all, vengeance against the crusaders that kept Gotham’s streets clean.

“I’m sorry,” Jason said wetly, “I really am.”  He meant to take a step back but he ended up taking one forward.  “I didn’t mean to do this.”  Another step forward.  “I’m sorry.”

Robin didn’t wake, not even when Jason crouched down and shook his shoulder.  All Jason could taste was the sharp fizz of pain crackling in the air.

If Jason left Robin here, Robin would die.  If Jason stayed here, he’d die too, or he’d be locked up, or trafficked.  If he—if he got them both somewhere safe, though…

His nest wasn’t too far away.

Jason set his jaw, curled his hands under Robin’s armpits, and pulled.

Back when Jason still had a roof over his head and a Mama to keep him safe, their nest had been the coziest place in the house.  Mama had made sure it was, nice and soft and warm and just big enough for both of them to curl together, cuddling in quiet contentment.  It hadn’t been much, but it had been theirs.

Jason, looking at the threadbare pile of rough blankets and flat pillows he’d managed to scavenge, sighed.  It would have to do.

He pulled Robin closer—getting him through the crawlspace and into Jason’s hiding place had taken a full five minutes of huffing and puffing—and Jason’s entire body ached with exhaustion from dragging the older boy through the streets.  Robin had clearly never missed a meal in his life, the boy was solid muscle and incredibly heavy dead weight.

But Jason had managed.  He dragged Robin into the nest and carefully tucked the blanket around him.  The nest wasn’t big enough for two people, it was barely big enough for Robin, so Jason curled up right next to him, on the dusty floor, and hesitantly reached for his emotions again.

The taste of it was sour and rancid, but it was still food and Jason almost started eating, his stomach clenched tight in hunger, before realizing he was reflecting the pain back and Robin was whimpering again.  “It’s okay,” Jason whispered, forcing himself to let go of his tight hold on the emotions, “I’m—I’m going to try and fix it, okay?”

Mama always said that happy thoughts made the bad ones go away.

Jason took a deep breath and wriggled closer, drawing up memories of him and Mama snuggled together in their nest, safe and warm.  He spread it over Robin’s twisted, broken spikes of fear and pain, softly humming as he patted Robin’s arm.  After a few rounds, he dared to move his hand to Robin’s silky soft dark hair, gently stroking it in tune to the humming.

It was hard to think of the good times without remembering they were gone, and Jason choked on the lump in his throat as his eyes filled with tears.  He tried to separate the sadness from the happiness, sniffling as he kept humming, but he couldn’t stop himself from pressing closer to Robin.

He wasn’t expecting Robin to move.

Jason squeaked, suddenly tugged into a tight, encompassing grip, and the only thing preventing him from descending into full-blown panic was the realization that Robin was still out of it and he was merely holding Jason.

He took several calming breaths and gripped his self-control tight.  Jason was not going to feed on Robin, even if he was beginning to get a headache from doing so much delicate emotional work.  He wasn’t an adult demon, he only had so much energy, but he was determined to fix what he’d done.

“I’m sorry,” Jason whispered again, and went back to the task of cocooning Robin’s emotions in soft, happy feelings, smoothing the pain and fear that rippled across his mind.  He pushed happiness and warm feelings back at Robin, again and again, until the furrows began to recede from the older boy’s face.  There was still pain and fear, but it was slowly dissolving as Jason tried to cover as much as he could.

He rested his head on Robin’s arm when he took a break, relishing in the sensation of being held, even if he wasn’t feeding.  It had been so long since he’d had a nonthreatening touch that he couldn’t help but melt into the hold, despite knowing that Robin was a demon hunter and when Robin woke up, there would be hell to pay.

That was a problem for Future Jason.  Present Jason was tired and sleepy and hungry and he was going to take his comforts where he could get them.

Jason had almost lulled himself into a doze when he felt the flicker of anger across dissolving pain and receding warmth.  He jolted upright, all his senses screaming threat, but Robin was still unconscious, who was—

Jason looked up.  And up.  And up, at the dark shadow looming over him, filling the space of Jason’s little hideout in a way that sucked all the air from the room.

“Let Robin go,” Batman growled, and Jason had never been more terrified in his life.

He immediately tried to do as ordered, but was met with resistance.  Robin’s arms were wrapped tight around him and even asleep, the vigilante had more strength than him.  Jason tried to push the older boy off of him, pressing away from the furious Batman, tears stinging his eyes as he failed to get Robin off.

“I’m sorry,” he said, voice cracking as the tears spilled, “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to—I’m really sorry—”

“What did you do.”  It was an order, not a question.

“I didn’t mean to,” Jason repeated, voice small, “I—I attacked him.”  The whipcord of anger spiked.  “I’m sorry!” Jason said frantically, raising one arm futilely against the blow he knew was coming, “I tried to fix it!  I’m really sorry!”

He finally managed to shove at Robin’s arms far enough that he could wriggle through and he scrabbled away from him as fast as he could.  Of course, there was very little place to go, Batman was still blocking the only exit, but Jason pushed to his feet anyway, coiling his emotions in defense.

Batman’s fury had disappeared, all his emotions had disappeared, vanished behind a mental shield.  Robin’s was still open, softly stirring behind the warmth Jason had gently wrapped them in, but he didn’t wake, even to Batman’s nudging.

“Robin,” Batman said lowly, shaking the boy, “Robin.”

Jason bit his lip—this was the second person he was attacking in the same night, he didn’t want to do it, he didn’t want to hurt anyone but he had no choice—and shoved his prickling ball of negative emotions straight at Batman.

Batman didn’t so much as twitch as Jason’s attack dissipated against his shield.

Jason gasped, drained and empty, as Batman picked Robin up and headed for the crawlspace.  No.  That was—that was his way out, but he took one wavering step and crumpled to his knees.

Everything was getting dizzy.

He felt bloated and empty at the same time, cramps sharply painful, breaths weak and heart pounding in his ears.  He—he needed food but the only source was getting further away and Jason caught the hint of a dark cape swishing through the air before his vision got blurry.

“No,” Jason breathed out, unable to push himself back up.  He was slumped against the wall, stuck in place, fingers slipping down and shaking every time he tried to claw back up.  “No.”

He couldn’t—he couldn’t be here when Batman came back.  Not after hurting Robin.  Not when the demon hunter would—would kill him, or torture him, or dissect him, or any one of the horrible fates they whispered about on the streets.

Jason had just been trying to get home.  His next breath came out as a sob and once he started, he couldn’t stop, tears coursing down his cheeks to splatter on the dusty floor below.  “Mama,” he cried out, searching for the taste of her dull, stale emotions, as though she wasn’t weeks gone.  As though Jason wasn’t all alone.

A scuff of a footstep made him draw his head up.  Batman was back.  Jason stared blankly up at the most feared demon hunter in all of Gotham and waited for the strike.

“Come on,” Batman’s voice was gruff but no longer sharp as he crouched in front of Jason, “You shouldn’t be here alone.  There are homes for implings—”

No.

“You’ll be safe there—”

No.

“You don’t need to worry—”

“No!” Jason shouted when Batman put a hand on his arm, wrenching back and barely registering the collision with the floor.  “No, I’m not going to the traffickers!”  His arms were so weak, his stomach hurt, his head was spinning but Jason still tried to crawl away.  “Get away from me!”

“Impling—”

“My name is Jason and I’m not going with you!” Jason snarled through heaving breaths, “I’ll—I’ll bite!”  His tiny fangs wouldn’t even make a dent against Batman’s armor but he bared them anyway, shuddering against the corner he’d backed into.

“Jason,” Batman’s voice was still even, “I’m taking you somewhere safe.”

Jason laughed, a low, hollow hiccup of a sound.  “Nowhere in Gotham is safe for demons,” he retorted, chest burning at the truth of the statement, “Don’t fucking lie to me.”

“Jason—” Batman moved closer and Jason bolted upright, body jittering with the urge to move even if he didn’t know where to run.  Unfortunately, between the lack of food and the growing exhaustion, Jason didn’t even make it all the way to his feet before the world went dizzy and dark.

“Jason!”

All he remembered was the darkness catching him.

His stomach hurt.  He whined softly, a quiet keen for pack, for Mama, for someone to come feed him, please.  He was so hungry.

“Bruce!  He made a sound!”

“He’s not awake.”

“But he needs to feed.  Do you think—”

“You can try.”

Warmth filled in the hollows of the cold and Jason hummed sleepily when he was tucked against hollows of heat.  Something was combing through his hair, gentle and soft, and he melted further, until he was just a puddle of an impling, limp and quiet.

“Hey, Jason,” came the quiet, familiar voice.  Like a smile.  “You must be pretty hungry, bud.  Do you think you can feed?”

The words came accompanied by a dizzying array of emotions around him—tentativeness, hope, protection, coziness, possessiveness.  It felt like a buffet.  Jason latched onto the closest one with a purr and felt it flow into his body as he fed, the emotions humming with pleasure inside of him.

“Oh.  That feels weird.”

“What kind of weird.”

“Not bad, B.  Just…strange.  It’s okay.  I’m glad he’s feeding.”  The edge of a jaw nuzzled across his hair and Jason’s purring grew louder.

Mmm.  He was warm and he was cozy and he had all the food he wanted.

Jason drifted into the contentment, losing awareness as the warmth pulled him back down.

Jason woke up feeling more content than he’d felt in recent memory, which was enough to cause a jolt of alarm.  He was warm, and lying on something soft, and enveloped in an encompassing grip, the quiet pattern of breathing matching the drowsy contentment lazily drifting around them.

He cracked open his eyes.  It was light outside, and he was in an actual room, on an actual bed, and that was enough information to tell him it was time to run.  Jason pushed upright, scrambling for an escape and successfully fleeing from the hold to the edge of the bed and—

The large man sitting in the chair by the bed raised his head from the book he was reading, emotions locked behind an impenetrable wall.  His blue eyes pinned Jason to the spot, leaving his heart beating rabbit-quick as Jason took a desperate glance around the room.

Door too far away.  Window too far away.  Trapped between two adult humans with nowhere to run, fuck, Jason didn’t even know where he was and he didn’t realize he was making a low whimper until the sheets shuffled behind him and he was drawn back into a flexible but firm grip, complete with sleepy nuzzling.

“Shh, Jason,” the familiar voice said, “It’s okay, you’re safe.”  The hug was familiar too.  Jason peeked up and caught sight of an also-familiar smile and Robin rubbed his cheek against Jason’s hair.  “You’re safe,” the demon hunter repeated.

Jason swallowed.

If this was Robin, then the large man was…

“Please,” Jason tried, despite knowing it was hopeless, “No traffickers.”  Incubi weren’t sex demons despite what popular culture said, and Jason knew that was the life he was doomed to lead if the traffickers ever got their hands on him.

He didn’t know what Batman wanted with him, but he knew that there were very few reasons to put him in a bed.

“No traffickers,” Batman agreed, putting the book down and leaning forward, “We’re looking into the impling foster care situation.  You will be staying with us in the meantime.”

Jason went even colder.  There were very few reasons that a pair of demon hunters would want him in a bed.

“Jason?” Robin said, sounding almost concerned as Jason tried to scrunch up into a little ball.  “What’s wrong?”

He knew the stories of what happened to lost incubi.  His mother had always warned him not to go off with strangers.  He knew what they’d want, what they’d do, how thoroughly they would corrupt his nature to get what they wanted.

“Jason?”  Robin sounded more worried.  “Jason, what happened?”  Jason belatedly realized that he was leaking terror strong enough that a human could pick up on it.  “Jay?”

“I don’t—” Jason hiccupped, eyes tearing up, trembling all over—“I don’t want to have sex.”  He wasn’t a sex demon, it wasn’t fair, he had tried so hard to stay quiet and unseen and now everything was ruined and he wanted Mama and why did everything hurt so much—

A growl echoed around the room, low enough to be a demon’s, startling him out of his sobs.  “No one,” came the low snarl, accompanied by a growing swirl of sheer protective fury, “Is going to touch you.”  The arms wrapped around him were like steel bands.  “Or I’ll break every bone in their hands.”

Jason hiccupped through dying sobs, cheeks wet and breaths stuttering, but his emotions were cocooned in the red-hot lick of rage, surrounding him like a cage.  Surrounding him like armor.  Jason dared to reach out to the utterly unguarded emotions and teased them apart like loose threads, ignoring the low squawk.

Protection.  Anger.  Warmth.  Affection.  Determination.

Not a hint of lust or desire, no matter how deeply he searched.  Robin’s words shone with sincerity and Jason could find no trace of a lie.

He clutched at Robin’s shirt and burrowed against the older boy’s side, a fresh wave of tears welling up.  He hadn’t been safe in so long that letting go felt like surrender, like a freefall into the darkness.

But there was someone to catch him.

“You’re safe, Jaybird,” Robin whispered, holding him tight, “I promise.”

Chapter Text

Three years, eleven months, and seven days after Dick broke his promise, Jason woke up. 

Six years, four months, and twelve days after, the broken promise came back to Gotham with a vengeance.

Gotham was a city filled with demons. She took her prodigal son back with a hook-toothed smile.

Someone was asking for him.

Someone had been asking for him for two weeks now.

Jason shuffled slightly on the roof edge, watching as a car slid to a stop. A couple of seconds later, Dick Grayson came out of the car and then thanked the driver with a smile and what was probably an obnoxiously overgenerous tip.

It happened at seven pm every night. A taxi would drive deep into demon territory, drop the Prince of Gotham off, and then leave just as quickly as it had come. The taxi driver was smart for getting out of there as quickly as he could.

The human was stupid for staying. 

Jason watched as Dick smoothed out his light blue shirt and stood up straight.

It was obvious why he had come here, but Jason didn’t know why he hadn’t come in his vigilante uniform.

As Nightwing, he looked like Batman’s demon-hunting protege. The man that demons still whispered in fear about sometimes, despite the fact that Dick was roaming Blud streets these days. 

As Dick Grayson, he looked like a sitting duck. 

Sure, Dick had his knowledge about Crime Alley and acrobatic skills which he could pull out in a pinch, but he was still a prey animal in the predators’ den. 

Maybe Jason had been expecting too much for Dick to have learned that by now. Dick had been stupidly oblivious about his own vulnerabilities since the day Jason had met him. 

He was the one who had been brave enough and stupid enough to reach out towards a panicking incubus impling.

He hadn’t even flinched when Jason had bared tiny fangs and ignored Jason snapping ‘I’m fine! Go away!’.

Jason had been young but he was still an incubus and had hurt Dick because of it.

And Dick hadn’t even acted like he cared. He laughed it off. He excused it as Jason just being scared. He didn’t even seem to mind that Jason could have killed him.

He just cuddled Jason close enough to draw a purr from his throat and gave Jason all the good emotions that he could eat. 

Jason ignored the well of memories at that, and instead focused on Dick as he began to ask strangers about his brother and showed them a blurry picture of Jason to anyone who would give him ten seconds.

The incubus followed his path along the rooftops and Jason watched Dick walk up to the first people he found. 

It was three girls, two succubi and one human, all trying to share a smoke between them. They tensed as Dick approached but quickly relaxed because of Dick’s golden retriever, “I’m too pretty to be dangerous” smile. He gave them whatever sob story he had memorised for finding Jason, showed them Jason’s picture, and asked if they had seen him.

A small flash of sympathy came from the girls, but they still shook their heads. Dick thanked them and gave them his number in case they did see Jason before leaving. 

The cycle repeated.

Dick wandered and asked strangers as he got deeper and deeper into Crime Alley.

And it was ticking Jason off.

It was bad enough that Babs had managed to catch a random security tape of a man that had suspiciously looked like Jason Todd and disseminate it to the Bats, but now he had Nightwing sniffing around his territory and asking questions out of uniform. He didn’t think that they had connected him to Red Hood, but their suspicion was making his grand plan of off-ing the Replacement harder. 

Being a crime lord in an already over-saturated market was hard enough and now Jason could hardly go out to buy fucking toilet paper because he knew Oracle was monitoring the cams. 

Just two days ago he had a random stranger walk up to him to let him know that “your brother is looking for you. He sounds really worried, you know.”

Well, tough shit. 

Dickie should have been really worried when Jason was bleeding out among the rubble and praying for Nightwing to swoop in.

Jason sneered down as Dick was brushed off by a man and wandered aimlessly in a new direction. 

Dick was in Crime Alley and that was Jason’s territory.

Dick was a human and he was in demon territory.

That was two strikes and Jason played dirty. He didn’t need the third strike to take Dick out.

The incubus stood and put on his gleaming, red helmet.

He waited until Dick was alone. The man had gone through street after street and asked a little less than a dozen people about Jason. As hours passed, a subtle tinge of defeat had begun to leak into Dick’s emotions and chip away the hope that had been there. 

Hood dropped down in front of Dick with a purposefully heavy thump and rose slowly. He knew he was large enough to be intimidating and, after a life of being a nutrition-stunted shrimp, he always used his new size to his advantage.

Dick faked a jump of surprise and his eyes went round and innocent. His internal shields went up and they would have been enough to hide his emotions from any other incubus. 

But Jason knew Dick well enough to taste his emotions even through the mental walls. 

A keen wariness was circling through Dick’s head.

There wasn’t any of the familiar affection that Jason used to always feel from Dick.

That definitely didn’t stab straight into his heart. 

“Woah man, I didn’t see you there,” Dick said casually and his light tone reminded Jason of Bruce doing Brucie at a gala. His body language was kept forcibly casual and it barely belied the tightly coiled muscle in Dick’s body.

“I didn’t want you to,” Jason purred almost into a growl. The voice modulator on his helmet gave his voice an even sharper edge. “This is demon territory, you know.”

“Anyone can live in Park Row,” Dick snapped back, a bit of defensive anger slipping in now. “Chopping up the city into human and demon territories is an archaic attitude.”

“It’s also an attitude that keeps pesky little humans like you out of our business.”

They stared at each other until suddenly Dick sighed.

“Look, I’m trying to find my little brother,” said Dick as he began pulling the photo out of his jacket pocket. He unfolded it and Jason saw a blurry side profile of himself. He recognised it from when he was grocery shopping. 

He had been looking at oatmilk and his brows were furrowed in concentration as he debated between two brands.

The footage was grainy and in black-and-white, but he was instantly distinguishable. He knew what Dick would have seen. 

The familiar crookedness in his nose that was gained when he had accidentally broken it from attempting a flip trick with Dick. Dick had freaked out and they both tried to scramble to hide it, which only lasted for a couple of days. It hadn’t healed quite right, but Jason didn’t really care.

The tilt of his jawbone which was sharper with age, but it still had the shadow of the boy Jason had once been.

The black curls in Jason’s hair, now broken up by a white tuft at the front. The same hair Dick had pet through when Jason cuddled into him and fed upon his emotions. 

Jason had been dead for years, but not long enough for Dick to have forgotten what his little impling brother looked like. 

“His name is Jason Peter Wayne-Todd,” Dick whispered, his voice going suddenly soft in a way that Jason definitely didn’t want to think about. “I thought he was gone but… we found this picture of him and I-I’m just trying to get my little brother back.”

The feeling hidden in Dick’s voice got even softer.

He made Jason’s stomach turn with… it had to be hatred. It was definitely hatred. He wasn’t feeling…

For an incubus, he was very good at taking an emotion and burying it.

“Why did you let him go?” Jason found himself saying. He hardly felt his own mouth move.

“We didn’t let him go,” Dick answered, a fierceness hidden somewhere among the softness. “He was taken from us and I’ll do anything to get him back.”

Jason’s insides twisted and again his stupid, dumb mouth began talking without his consent.

“Well, you’re in luck because I know where he is.”

The burst of blinding hope burned like an acid in the back of Jason’s throat.

“Really?”

“Yep,” Jason popped the ‘p’ with a casualness he didn’t truly feel.  “I can take you to him.”

What the hell was he doing? Dick’s hope grew even more and it was scorpion venom.

Dick’s wide blue eyes sparkled in that way that only Dick could do. Jason had never managed to recreate the huge, blue-eyed gaze that made everyone fall hopelessly in love with him.

“You can?”

“I can. All you need to do is… uh… follow me into that alley.”

A little crinkle formed between Dick’s eyebrows and confusion coated the edges of Dick’s feelings.

“Jason’s… through that alley?”

Amazingly, Dick’s emotions didn’t tell Jason that he had sensed a lie.

“I’m going to text him to meet us,” Jason said as he began leading Dick into the alley. The big, dumb bird hesitated for a second but slowly began following Jason away from every other person on the street. At this rate, no one would be able to hear him scream. 

“All we gotta do is—” Jason grunted as he shoved open a door to an abandoned building. He had a safe house on the floor above, but the ground floor he was taking Dick into was completely empty.

“—wait for him in this totally isolated space.”

“Okay!” Dick chirped, putting his hands in his pockets. He eyed the boards on the windows and the cobwebs in the corners. “This is a nice place. It would have good lighting if you took those slats down.”

Literally, how was this Bruce’s protege? Had Dick been this dumb when Jason was an impling? He had seemed smarter, at least. 

Jason tried not to think about it as he locked the door and the bolt slid in with a loud click. 

“If you lock the door, then how is Jason going to get in here to meet us?”

Jason smiled under his hood and reached up to lift the red helmet off his head. 

“I think he’s going to be able to find his way to us,” he purred and turned to look his brother in the eyes. 

The shock that poured into Dick’s emotions was delicious. 

The joy , though, turned Jason’s stomach. All the mental walls that had been in Dick’s head shuttered down in an instant and Jason was inundated with his brother’s raw, unfettered elation, affection, and relief. 

Jason wasn’t sure he had ever felt that much unrestrained happiness. He hadn’t even known that humans were able to produce that amount of joy.

It was pure and took Jason’s breath away like a punch to the gut. It rolled his stomach and made him feel like he was tiny again. 

Like he was a small impling, an orphan for only a few weeks and starving in Crime Alley.

Like when Dick Grayson had barged into his life, curled him into his chest, and fed him for the first time since his mother died.

Like he had his big brother back, the same big brother that he thought would have saved him as he died in the burning warehouse.

Died. 

He had let Jason die.

He had been up in his ivory tower, laughing with his friends as Jason screamed his name.

He had failed.

A green fury rolled in his stomach as the thought solidified.

Dick had failed him and now he was pathetically trying to patch things up like Jason was a broken pot or a leaky roof.

Jason forced himself to get more furious as Dick’s relief licked at the edges of the incubus’s mind.

Dick’s emotions were as familiar to Jason as his own from the years of feeding solely from him. They tasted exactly the same as Jason remembered them even though he had thought he would never taste them again.

“Jason,” Dick whispered and his emotions were open, practically begging for Jason to reach out to take them. “Jason, it really is you.”

Hell’s bells… was Dick crying?

He was. His usually handsome face was reddening and his eyes were going puffy. Dick always was an ugly crier.

“Jason,” his voice was going watery and his emotions were all slipping together, rushing through dozens of nuances. “Jason, y-you’re… you actually are alive.”

“No thanks to you,” Jason snapped with a demonic growl. Most humans would have a swoop of fear from hearing such a sound, but Dick’s confidence in him didn’t waver a bit.

It never wavered.

No matter how much Jason snapped, growled, and hissed, Dick had never once been afraid of him. Dick had always cooed at everything that was supposed to make demons scary, hugged him closer, and teased Jason about showing his ‘grumpy teeth’.

Jason’s insides twisted at the memory of his big brother poking his budding impling fangs and giggling as Jason nipped at him.

Dick’s face got even uglier as the tears grew stronger.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice cracking and the grief inside him blooming. It left a bitter taste on Jason’s tongue. “I’m sorry. I failed you. I-I-I should have been there. I should have come. I should have…”

He didn’t finish the sentence. The words he would have said got swallowed up in a sob and Jason felt Dick’s emotions flare with hurt. 

Some part of Jason relished that hurt. It fed into his rage and sated his own grief. 

Another part of him just hated seeing his brother cry. 

“I’m sorry, Jason,” Dick repeated, hand reaching out. Jason didn’t come closer, he just stared at the grasping fingers.

“But you can come home now. We can fix it.”

Fix it. 

Fix him. 

Bring back that boy that had died in the fire and begged for his family.

Didn’t they know that that boy was dead?

Jason laughed and the sound was broken glass.

“Fix it?” he threw Dick’s words back at him and fixed the human into a glare. “You want to fix my death? Bring me home and play happy family like little Jason just took a vacation?”

He slowly began circling Dick and the human tracked the motion.

“I want you to come home, Little Wing,” Dick’s voice was as firm as his emotions. “I don’t know exactly what’s happened.” His eyes slid to the red helmet in Jason’s hand. “But I promise you we can make this better.”

Jason flinched like he had been punched and then rounded on Dick like a rattlesnake. “Make this better?” he questioned, fury thrumming from his stomach and sliding into his ribcage.

“Make this better?” he repeated louder.

“You don’t get to just make my death better, Dick!” He yelled and he heard how frayed his voice was at the edges. “I died! I fucking died! This isn’t something you can fix!”

Dick rounded on Jason just as fast, shoving himself into Jason’s personal space. It was sudden enough to make the demon stumble a step back and almost have an instinctual reaction to the man he once thought of as an older packmate.

“I can try,” snapped Dick with ironclad conviction. “I’ll do anything, Jason. Anything to get you home.” 

Jason was frozen. His chest heaved. His heartbeat pounded in his ear.

And one question echoed in his head, over and over again.

Didn’t Dick see what Jason had become? 

Didn’t he recognise that Jason wasn’t that impling anymore? Jason was scary now. He was a murderer now. He had been to hell and back now. He had teeth and claws and everything evolution had given his species to rip humans apart. 

So why wasn’t Dick afraid?

He should be afraid of what he let Jason become.

The fury that had been clanging against his rib bones slipped out. It traveled up his spine and curled into the back of his head. Its dark, dragon tongue licked at his thoughts and made him repeat.

He should be afraid of what he let Jason become.

Jason narrowed his eyes at the human and took a deep breath. Slowly, he opened up his senses more, dulling his physical ones and putting focus on the things that humans couldn’t see. 

Dick’s emotions, which had always been open to Jason, always been free for him to feed on, always been given without any strings attached, were right there.

The human wasn’t guarding them one bit. He was just stupidly letting them show and trusting Jason not to hurt them in the slightest.

He trusted Jason.

The demon hesitated for a second, his breath catching in his throat.

But then he remembered that he had trusted Dick to come when he had needed him. He remembered how that trust had been broken between crowbar blows.

It had hurt more than dying, and Jason was going to show Dick just how much it could hurt. 

Jason put his claws into those emotions and they thrummed in his grasp. Dick must have felt it because he smiled and nostalgia gilded the edges of the feelings. 

“It’s been a while since I’ve felt that,” Dick whispered, a sad little smile coming to his face. “Are you hungry, Jason? My emotions are always available for you.”

Jason knew that. 

He could feel it.

He could tell that the human’s emotions didn’t have any protections on them and Dick was just standing there, smiling, and letting Jason put his ethereal claws into him.

The trust, usually a delicious feeling to sip on, was ash in his mouth. 

“Take them, Jason,” Dick said and his voice was far away and muffled in Jason’s ears, like he was speaking from another room.

“Take them.”

Jason took them, and before he could think it through more, he twisted them.

Dick stumbled, his eyes widening, and then the screaming started. 

The shock came through like lightning as Jason grabbed Dick’s trust and bent it on its head. 

He found the affection and ripped it apart. 

He searched for the familial love and ate it with a snap.

He rooted for all the feelings that designated Jason as a brother and rended them into a different shape.

He took everything Dick felt about him and flipped it.

So Dick would see a monster, a predator, a being that was going to take everything he loved and destroy it.

Everything Jason had felt when he stared up at the Joker and saw a pair of gleaming teeth smiling down.

“How does it feel?” Jason hissed through a forced smile. Dick was gasping on the ground, his eyes darting and his knuckles bone white as he clawed at the concrete floor. He was struggling to keep his breath even and obviously fighting against the artificial emotions that Jason had put into him.

Jason could feel Dick’s mind writhing against his hold, cracking ever so slightly at the edges, but he still couldn’t find the terror he was looking for. 

The fear that Jason had put there was present, but Jason still didn’t feel any coming from the human himself.

“Terrible,” Dick gasped, shaking his head like he could physically dislodge Jason’s invisible hold. His chest was rising and falling as fast as a bird’s. “But I know you don’t want to hurt me, Jason.”

Jason’s hold slipped for a second, just a momentary lapse before Jason tightened his grip.

He snarled and lunged, slamming into Dick’s body on the floor and sent them rolling.

Pain flared through Dick’s body, his fingers clutched onto Jason’s shirt, and he didn’t stop Jason when the demon dug claws into the meat of his shoulder.

“I don’t want to hurt you?” Jason yelled, pulling the flesh he was latched onto and drawing a scream from Dick. “Does it really seem like I don’t want to hurt you?”

Mentally, he took that pain and ramped it up, drawing it into agony and amplifying it through Dick’s body. He would feel claws everywhere, ripping into his skin and through his organs. He would feel them on the inside and trying to come out.

Dick’s screams took on a different tone.

Jason laughed and rolled off the man. He didn’t let go of the pain, even as Dick’s mind cracked more.

“Tell me, Dickiebird,” he purred, putting his teeth right up against Dick’s ear. Jason could see Dick’s jugular, pulsing frantically from pain and terror. It would be so easy to put his teeth into Dick’s throat and rip the vein to shreds.

“Do I want to hurt you?”

Dick turned his head and locked eyes with Jason.

“No,” he said.

“Funny, I seem to be hurting you just fine,” Jason tightened his hold on Dick’s pain and his brother whimpered.

The sound wasn’t nearly as satisfying as Jason had thought it would be, but he ignored that.

Dick needed to feel this. He needed to know how thoroughly Dick had failed him and how broken Jason was because of it. His precious little Little Wing was gone and there was a monster in his place.

“Are you afraid, Dickie?” Jason hissed, his scary teeth bared. They were longer and sharper than Dick had ever seen them; Jason had died before he had gotten his full adult set. “Are you scared of your dear, demon brother?”

Dick shook his head frantically, but his emotions belied him.

There was doubt coming in, trickling in like rain through a leak. It puddled in Dick’s head and Jason felt it take the poisonous tang of fear. It was small, small enough that maybe Dick himself hadn’t registered the feeling yet, but Jason could already feel it beginning to poison what was left of Dick’s original emotions.

Jason instantly grabbed that small bit of fear and pulled it to the forefront of Dick’s mind.

“You’re lying,” Jason hissed, amplifying the fear until it filled both of their heads. “You’re lying!”

Dick’s eyes widened even more and horror rushed in like a tidal wave.

Finally.

Jason’s smile became impossibly more vicious.

Finally, Dick was feeling what he should feel. He was finally recognising that Jason wasn’t that little impling any—

“I’m sorry,” Dick cried, so quietly that Jason almost missed it. He couldn’t miss that way that horror deteriorated into shame. 

Shame for…

Jason struggled to find why that emotion was there. His hold on Dick’s pain slipped and he was left paddling among the sea of shame and self-loathing.

“I don’t want to feel it,” Dick gasped, his chest shuddering into a sob. The sound hit Jason like a blow to the head and made him freeze.

“I promise, Jason.” Dick’s emotions were shifting and Jason didn’t stop their change.

Fear filled Dick Grayson’s head, but not in the way that Jason wanted to inspire. It was different. It tasted different. It tasted almost like…

Dick was afraid of losing Jason, instead of being afraid of Jason.

Jason stumbled back and Dick lunged in his direction, his fingers grasping desperately towards Jason. He was a foot short and seemed to be trying to crawl across the ground towards Jason. 

But Dick’s mind was overwhelmed. Jason could feel his mind being overwhelmed and reaching the human limit. 

Human brains could only take so much stimulation and if pushed over the edge… they could crack. They could crack in a way that Jason would never be able to repair and would leave Dick trapped in his own head. 

And that was if the cracking didn’t kill him first.

Jason shifted, redistributing his weight and Dick read it as Jason preparing to leave. Terror instantly ramped up, somehow doubling and putting more cracks into Dick’s head as the man began to dip into a panic attack.

“No! Jason, p-please. Please don’t leave. I just got you back and I can’t… I can’t…”

Dick’s sob turned into a desperate keen as he failed to even put words together. The sound was almost demonic and instantly made Jason’s instincts scream at him. A packmate was in danger, his head said. Jason needed to protect him from whatever was hurting him.

The need to protect grappled with the fury in Jason’s mind, churning over and over again as Jason tried to make sense of everything.

He needed to figure everything out, but Dick didn’t have that time. His brother’s mind was cracking. His thoughts were becoming lost to desperation. He was unraveling before the demon’s eyes. 

Jason was frozen as his big brother crumbled before him.

“P-please,” the human whimpered, a hand reaching out again. “Please don’t go. Don’t go. I can’t lose you again.”

Dick finally reached Jason and one of his hands clutched onto Jason’s.

“I need you.”

Jason stared, horrified, as it hit him that he had done this.

He had brought Dick this low. He had betrayed all that trust Dick had willingly given him and used it to break his brother’s head.  And somehow, Dick still didn’t care about that. All his emotions said that his only concerns were towards Jason.

“Please,” Dick whispered and Jason wasn’t sure what he was pleading for. “Please.”

Jason reached forward and into Dick’s mind. His head was familiar, so heart-achingly familiar, and it brought tears to Jason’s face to see how much he had broken it. 

“Shhh,” he hushed as he put his hands on Dick’s head. The human leaned into the touch, only half-aware of what was happening but still seeking out Jason’s touch. 

“It’s okay, Dickie,” he whispered, carding through Dick’s sweaty hair. “I can fix this. I promise I will fix it.”

As he spoke, he took all the artificial emotions he had put into Dick’s head and he ate them. He forced them down his throat and swallowed them with a grunt. Nausea instantly came but he forced it to stay inside him. He ate all of Dick’s fear and shock and doubt and pain and all of them were disgusting and bitter in his chest. 

It would feed him, but he hated it. He had always hated the taste of Dick’s fear, but he wouldn’t hesitate to eat it if his brother needed him to. 

Dick’s eyes popped open in surprise and he gasped.

“Oh,” he whispered and blinked blearily. He didn’t seem to be focusing on anything, just lost in his own head.

“Thanks,” he said with a sloppy smile and then collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut. Jason lunged forward to catch him, barely saving Dick’s head from smacking against the ground.

“Dick? Dick!”

Dick didn’t stir but his mind also didn’t crack further. Jason could already feel it beginning to heal itself, recovering quickly now that the emotional onslaught was finished. 

He would heal.

He had to heal.

Jason clutched the human to his chest, feeling like he was twelve years old again and desperately holding an unconscious Robin. They were both bigger now, but Jason felt just as helpless.

Dick would be fine. He would be okay.

Jason whimpered and tucked his nose into the curve of Dick’s neck, trying to chase the comfort of having his big brother close.

He had fucked up so bad but Dick would be fine.

He would be okay.

Jason kept repeating it to himself, hoping that it wasn’t a lie.

Dick woke up to a gentle rock, an even up-and-down motion that carried his upper body. He blinked, trying to figure out where exactly he was. Silently, he took stock. He didn’t recognize the room or the bed. The sheets were foreign, along with the overstuffed bookshelf.

He didn’t have a shirt on and his shoulder was bandaged due to an injury he didn’t remember getting. 

The muscle under him was a hardened pec and not the softer swell of a breast, which told Dick that his pillow was male. 

Male usually meant Bruce who always fell asleep first during movies and ended up the de facto cushion for everyone else. Movie nights didn’t happen in unfamiliar bedrooms, though, which meant that was out. 

Maybe Dick had just had a hard night and collapsed on top of Bruce? It wasn’t that uncommon for Dick to fall asleep with him after a really hard night to try to curb the worst of his nightmares.

Dick shifted slightly, turning his head to get a subtle peek up at the man.

His glimpse told Dick that the pillow also had dark hair and broad shoulders that rivaled Bruce’s. 

But the skin tone wasn’t Bruce. Bruce was pale, pasty even, and this man wasn’t that. This man looked like he actually got out into the sun occasionally and had a light tan despite it being only the beginning of summer.

Dick’s heart rate increased and he forced his body to remain lax as his mind whirled.

He didn’t know where he was. He didn’t know who he was sleeping on top of. He didn’t know why he didn’t have a shirt on. He didn’t know how long he had been here and the large gap of time in his head was growing increasingly more terrifying.

It wouldn’t be the first time he had woken up pillowed on someone’s chest. It wouldn’t even be the first time he had woken up in a strange place. 

There was only one other time when he had woken up half-naked with a huge gap of missing time in a bedroom he didn’t recognise.

Ice slid down his spine and he fought to tamper down the panic growing inside him.

Had he gotten roofied? Had he gotten hurt and someone used the opportunity to take him home? Had he gotten…?

No. He wouldn’t think about that.

He had promised himself that he wouldn’t let that happen ag—

“Hnnn,” the pillow under him grunted. He felt a hand flop on top of his head and sloppily pat him. Dick nearly reached up to break its wrist.

He felt the invisible touch of an Incubus, familiar from growing up with an impling sibling, slip into his head and quickly dispel his fears of… that.

“Quiet, Dickie,” said a gruff voice. “You’re alright. Go back to sleep.”

Dick went absolutely frozen. He knew that voice, even though it had been years. It was rougher now and grumbly with sleep, but Dick would recognize it anywhere.

He bolted upright, jostling the entire bed and making the demon startle fully awake. 

“Jason,” he gasped. “It’s… you’re… alive.”

Jason blinked up at him and confusion filled his face before realization came in. 

“You don’t remember,” he said, sitting up also and took Dick’s head in his hands. Jason’s hands were warm and gentle as he turned Dick’s chin. He felt Jason’s emotional powers poking through his mind, carding through Dick’s feelings like they were folders in a filing cabinet. It was a strange sensation, but not painful and one that Dick had felt before when Jason peeked into his mind after fear toxin attacks.

Those times had always been accompanied with more name-calling (“how did you not see that attack coming Dickface? It was so obvious that even the goons were ducking and cowering before you”), but the worried lines on Jason’s face and the fingers poking through his hair were the same.

Dick had missed this, he realized with a start. He had missed Jason’s anxious mind hunting and the feeling of the incubus using his powers to protect them.

“I think you’re fine,” Jason finally said, drawing his hands away.

“You’re back to baseline except for the missing memories. I guess that’s not so surprising, though. Emotions and memories are often connected and taking one can trigger taking the other.”

Dick stayed on the bed and tilted his head to the side.

“What don’t I remember?” he asked. “Did something happen last night?”

“We met last night and I… I tortured you with emotions and messed with your head. That’s probably why you don’t remember. Your mind was kind of… breaking.”

Jason picked at his palm, fingernails scratching lightly at his skin. It was a nervous habit he had always had. Dick had half expected him to grow out of it, but he apparently never had.

Dick suddenly felt so endeared by that subtle motion.

“Okay,” Dick said, eyes on his brother. Jason risked a glance up and then immediately looked back to the ground like a kid who had been caught red-handed.

“I shouldn’t have done it,” Jason admitted and the demon’s body seemed to get impossibly smaller. “I was angry and I thought you would hate me and… I thought it would be easier if I gave you something to hate and…”

Dick leaned forward and caught one of Jason’s scratching hands. The demon’s eyes snapped on to him and Dick didn’t need to be an incubus to see the storm of emotions behind them.

“It’s okay, Jason.”

Jason’s mouth opened and he shut it again before he spoke. He seemed to mull over what to say before he tried to tug his hand out of Dick’s.

“Look, I’m sorry. I’ll go. You won’t hear from me again.”

Dick’s stomach dropped and he clutched onto the demon’s hand.

“Where are you going?”

Jason gave a small growl of frustration but Dick kept his grip iron-tight.

“Gone. Out of your life. I only stayed to make sure your head wasn’t permanently cracked, and it isn’t so there isn’t any reason for you to be forced to be in bed with your torturer.”

“I don’t feel forced,” Dick said quickly, shoving forward the honesty in the words so Jason had to see it. “You don’t have to go.”

“You don’t remember, Dick,” Jason growled, finally yanking his hand out of Dick’s grasp. Dick instantly missed its warmth and the physical reassurance that Jason was there and alive. “That doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

The demon stomped out of the bedroom and Dick jolted off the bed to follow. He almost got caught up in blankets and barely saved himself from crashing to the ground. 

“I know it happened,” he said as he followed Jason. “I don’t care.”

“I care,” Jason growled, shoving a sock on his foot and he began hunting for the other one. “I fucking care a lot.”

Annoyance settled in Dick’s stomach and he fought the urge to take his brother’s fat head and rattle some sense into him.

“Then I forgive you,” Dick said, crossing his arms in front of his chest. 

Jason squared up in front of him and Dick was annoyed to realize that his ‘little’ brother now had almost half a foot on him.

“You can’t forgive things that you don’t remember, Dick.”

“Yes, I can, and I will.”

Jason snarled and stomped towards the door, his shoulders tense and stubborn.

“Have a nice life, Dickface. Hope you don’t—”

Dick cut him off with a chuff, a demon sound that was specially designed to draw implings close to their older packmates. 

It was unpracticed and human. Dick hadn’t had to make it ever since Jason died and he could hear the flaw in the sound. 

It still worked, though. He could see the moment that Jason recognized it and the way that the impling’s body subconsciously turned to him. Jason was obviously fighting the urge to lope over to him and brush up against his side. 

Jason lost the fight.

He grumpily stomped up to Dick and bonked their heads together in what was probably the grumpiest pack greeting that Dick had ever received.

“You’re an idiot,” Jason grumbled, stepping off to the side, but also not resisting when Dick gave him his own greeting nuzzle. “Do you have a death wish or something? I’m a full-grown demon. I can kill you.”

“Yes, Little Wing, you’re very scary,” Dick said, putting a purr into his voice. Again, it was unpracticed but Jason responded just like he had when he was little. 

Dick didn’t need more proof to know that his brother was the same person, but Jason's reactions just hammered the point home. He was still the same impling, just bigger and haunted by an experience that Dick wished he could have stopped.

Gently, Dick reached up and dipped Jason’s head into the crook of his shoulder. The demon only resisted for a second, before he tucked in.

“Don’t you realize what I did, idiot?” Jason mumbled into Dick’s shoulder. “I tortured you. I cracked your head. I almost tore your mind apart. I almost killed you, Dick. ”

The demon seemed grumpy, but Dick could see the cracks in his behavior. There was an expectation there, like he was sure that Dick was moments from throwing him away. 

It hurt his heart to know that even through all these years, Jason was still that impling who had cowered away from Robin and expected to get killed for his mistakes.

“But you didn’t,” Dick said calmly, relaxing into his brother. “You almost did those things, but you stopped. Why did you stop? I’m sure it would have been easy for you to kill me if you really wanted to.”

Jason flinched like he had been struck and jerked back from Dick. “I…I couldn’t…”

He stumbled over his words and Dick took the chance to press.

“You couldn’t do it,” Dick filled in. “You were angry, but you couldn’t kill a packmate. You hurt me, but you still knew it was wrong and pulled back before you could do anything irreversible.”

Jason gulped and didn’t say anything. It was all the confirmation that Dick needed. 

“I’ve been hurt before. My shoulder will heal. Having you back is worth that.”

Dick came closer and Jason might have tensed but he didn’t take a step back. He took the opportunity to wrap his little brother in a hug and squeeze him as tight as he dared. Jason was an anxious ball of muscles in his arms, but ever so slowly the demon relaxed. 

“I hurt you,” Jason whispered and Dick could feel the slight prick of his claws.

“It’s okay. You were scared. I remember another impling who retaliated when he was scared. Unfortunately, I remember that attack.”

Jason snorted, the sound not quite humorous but better than pure-self loathing.

“You haven’t gotten any better at being careful since then. You still followed a strange demon into a dark alley. Didn’t Bruce teach you any stranger danger?”

“He tried to,” Dick said through a smile as he drew back. “The lecture was boring, though, so I didn’t listen. Plus, it’s worked out for me pretty okay. Every time I’ve followed a stranger into an alley I’ve gotten a little brother.”

Jason shook his head and began going towards the kitchen. Dick followed, a happy little spring in his step.

“One day, Dick Grayson, you’re going to follow a demon into an alleyway and get yourself murdered.”

“Or maybe I’m going to get another sibling.”

“No, you’re going to get a knife in your back.”

“Do you know any alleyways that have some loose children hanging around them?”

“No, Dick, it’s important for me to know that you know this. Don’t follow demons into alleyways by yourself.”

“I hope it’s a little sister.”