Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Robin is missing.

It’s so cold that Jason barely feels his hands past the thick gloves of his suit. He doesn’t have the bandwidth to give a shit.

Robin is missing.

He understands why Dave waited so long to voice his suspicions. To anyone not intimately familiar with Bat operating procedures, it’s not obvious. But Jason can tell. All it takes is Jason paying three seconds of attention to tell. He can feel the charged stillness in the air above the skyscrapers, like the city itself knows, and that’s enough confirmation.

Fuck.

Dave talked about the way the heroes have been moving—he’s pretty sure they’re looking for something, he said, but it’s not obvious. Black Bat has been spotted. Actually spotted. And Tim is wearing his old suit, but he isn’t smiling. That’s all the confirmation Jason needs.

It makes him feel sick. Cold. (A terrified urgency pulsing up his throat). He slipped into his gear with more efficiency than he ever has.

Nightwing hasn’t left for a week. It wouldn’t normally be unusual, given the holidays, but Jason knows enough to know that he’s not visiting in a festive mood. The Bats are running on something just shy of panic. And Steph hasn’t made any recent appearances.

It’s not obvious, but it is. Jason knows the odds as well as they do. This is bad.

And fuck. He was gone when it happened. Halfway across the country. He didn’t even know. It terrifies him soundly, compounding and building and spiraling with every piece of the puzzle he assembles. Jason flies through the city too: not with the wide swooping scan of a Bat vigilante, but rather Talia’s expedience: the rush of an assassin. He drags men into the shadows with a horrible chill in his voice.

The trail leads him to Black Mask’s thugs, and Jason finds an important one buried deep in hiding and dead muscle. Jason only slaughtered his way through the warehouse because he’s in a hurry. There’s no time to play into the proxy war for the sake of his fabled terrorizing—besides, maybe he’s done enough of that by now. They screamed when they saw him.

Now all that’s left in the building is this lieutenant and his makeshift office. He’s a step below the top as far as ranking goes. He’ll know something.

Jason holds him off the floor by his jaw, braced against the sharp corners of the filing cabinets. The man grins in defiance. It’s a horrible look. Poor taste.

“Where’s Robin?” Jason demands. The words crackle harshly in his helmet. 

“Why do you care?” The man sneers, as if he has any talking room, as if he’s comfortable in his arrogance to the fatal point. He’s going to die for that.

Jason pulls him back and slams his body into the furniture’s unyielding metal. There’s an uneven crunch. A pained yelp.

“I’m not a Bat.” Jason says. Bone creaks beneath his hand. “I’m going to kill you. Tell me where she is, and I’ll make it quick. Or I swear to God, I’ll turn every second of your last few hours alive into unparalleled agony.”

The man tells him nothing. There’s no disappointment past the frantic horror this failure produces. Jason drags the man to the center of the building. He dislocates both his shoulders and one hip, then wraps a chain around his bad leg and leaves him dangling from the warehouse rafters. 

By then, Jason has come to grips with the fact that this is no longer a rescue. It’s a recovery. The Black Mask has had her for a week; Stephanie Brown is certainly dead. Jason takes a dizzy second to stagger into the wall, breathing and blinking harshly. Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. She was just a kid. She was magic and light. Beck loved her. What the hell is he going to tell Beck? The Bats are still looking.

This isn’t what he wanted. This is everything he never wanted. No more dead birds. He wanted the kids to be safe, in his own twisted way, and good God he tried to help. It seems like everything was wasted. All his efforts are worth dirt. He should have done more. But Tim got out fine, and Jason got complacent—Jason went on a fucking holiday—and he should have known the others wouldn’t—couldn’t protect her—

Fuck, he’s lost too much time already. (A week. A whole ass week. What if her body is buried by now? What if they never see her again?) Jason shoves his messy thoughts aside and throws himself at interrogations. He loses count of bones that break in his hands.

It takes him two hours to find her. Two fucking hours.

Jason’s heartbeat is pounding rapid fire by the time he spears through the glass of the penthouse window. One penthouse belonging to Roman Sionis. Fuck. Jason should have killed this man long ago—fuck power vacuums and business partners and gang wars—this could have been prevented. He could have stopped this. Why didn’t he stop this sooner?

Of course, there’s nothing in condemning view of the windows. Jason moves farther into the building. He kills everyone he sees. Sionis is here now. It’s time for a reckoning, long overdue. Maybe he’ll drag it out to the greatest extent of human sanity; Black Mask doesn’t deserve anything less than a torturous death. Not for killing Robin. A kid. (It’s the vengeance Jason wished he’d been afforded, but in the moment he’s too dizzy with grief and a throbbing behind his eyes to give the thought much concentration).

But. 

But then Jason finds the door, and—and it’s not soundproof—and God, he’s never heard Steph scream before but he knows her voice. He knows Black Mask’s voice. The laugh he laughs is no more gut punch than the realization that Robin is still alive.

There are guards posted outside the door. Jason cannot see them through the green. He can’t hear their shouts beneath the ringing in his ears. There’s nothing in that moment but his sudden, splintering, tidal swell of rage: bright Lazarus wrath. It’s been a while since he lost himself to green so bright. He thought Beck had tamed it.

Jason is not aware of the following events beyond the sensation of exploding, a conduit of fury and the electric horror revulsion terror that slams against it. He acts on muscle memory, he’s sure. Because when he blinks and the green pulls back into his eyelids, he’s inside the room, there’s a girl in his lap, and everyone around them is dead.

The Black Mask is now a corpse. There’s a bloody knife in his hand. Steph is here—white eyes stare up amidst the shaggy yellow painted with blood and—and oh shit Jason can’t breathe—

She’s still wearing the uniform. The armor and weapons have been stripped away, but the tunic is still Robin red, and her pants are a shade of green he remembers well, and the gloves and boots are gone but not her mask. They don’t care who she is. Didn’t.

“Robin.” Jason gasps. He fumbles to triage the shitshow of wounds. The fear in his voice is one he doesn’t recognize. She’s not dead. Not dead—not yet. Oh fuck. 

She’s breathing: shaking, choking, definitely drugged by the sound alone and it sounds like a death rattle if Jason’s ever heard one. She’s so pale. She’s—she’s bleeding out. There are transcutaneous lacerations along her arms and torso. There are wounds too sloppy to be bullet holes, bored into her skin. She’s limp in his arms. She’s not dead, but she’s going to die.

There’s blood everywhere. Splattered across her skin, some dry and flaking and hideous so much—there’s so much she’s not going to make it—what the fuck did Jason just accomplish?

“Fuck.” He can’t fight down the panic. He can’t hold a dying Robin in his arms. He won’t survive that.

“Fuck, fuck Stephanie, don’t you fucking dare—” Jason casts around the room in mindless desperation. He needs to do something. He has to help. What can he do to help?

It’s a bare room mostly: smooth walls, a rack of torture instruments (he swallows down the gag), one crumpled metal chair and snapped ropes, dark with blood. Three bodies of dead men, each neatly shot through the forehead (far faster, far kinder deaths than they deserved—but there’s no time to dwell on opportunities he’s already lost). Sionis is the closest. Jason grabs him, grabs his knife, starts at the wretched fancy suit. He cuts as cleanly and quickly as his shaking hands allow. 

“Okay, I got you. Just—just don’t quit on me, kid, okay? Please, please…”

This is muscle memory. Wasn’t Talia so pleased to witness his efficient skills when she first began his training? Jason has all the talent of a Bat with a bandage. He winds the strips of material above Steph’s elbows, twisting, bracing. The bleeding slows.

“Stay with me kid.” Jason works to tie the rest of her wounds. Through the mask, her eyes are half-lidded now. She’s slipping. It scares him. He takes a treacherous second to tap his hand on her cheek. “Come on Steph.” His voice wobbles traitorously. “Come on, fight. Stay with me. You’re a fucking fighter, don’t you dare give up on me here.”

Oh God, he’s so scared. 

He rips his leather jacket off. It barely registers that what he needs to do will be unpleasant; Jason can’t really think past the thundering of his heartbeat and the aftertaste of green. He yanks the sleeve of his thermal suit up past his elbow. It’s hard to do. The material is thick. 

The plastic of the transfusion kit is already slick and sticky. He tears it open with hands that don’t shake, ignores the burn of the needle (fuck, he hates needles) in the crook of his arm. He sticks the other end of the drip line into a vein in her bicep. The kit adjusts for differences in pressure, so as soon as Jason opens the valve, it starts running at maximum capacity. He hates doing this—but he’s never been more resolved. It doesn’t matter if he’s scared. She’s dying. Jason can fucking spare the blood.

It’s only buying time. She needs immediate medical attention. She needs stitches and a full IV drip and things he can’t give her. She needs to have her hair washed, he thinks, drawing a tremulous hand through her grimy frizz. She needs to take the suit off. Jason is only here to find her; he can’t follow up past any number of red pints; she needs someone to hold her while her life comes back, and he can’t do it. His mind goes to the Bats without second thought. It occurs to Jason then that anger is appropriate. 

This isn’t fucking fair. Why is he the one here now? Why didn’t they find her sooner? What haven’t they done that allowed this horror to happen? This is their responsibility. This is their failure too.

He brushes the hair out of her face—it’s matted and dirty and tangled around dry blood—trying not to see her eyes slide shut and cry about it.

He can be angry with the Bats—hell, he can hate them. It doesn’t change the fact that their skills in trauma care are unmatched in this city, and Steph is going to need them if she wants to make it to Christmas. It’s not fair. The Goddamn heroes they claim to be, and they can’t find their kid, their precious little bird? She could die. She should be dead already. They’re so fucking useless it makes him want to scream. It makes him burn.

Jason swallows down the thickness in his throat. Fuck. He’s so fucking mad. He switches his comm on and tunes into Oracle’s frequency.

The line is a rush of chatter as their voices filter in. Everyone is sounding off updates on their search: locations, leads, empty hands. Batman growls like usual, like he doesn’t fucking care. Nightwing’s typical cheer is fractured. Tim is babbling as he goes. Cassandra’s voice scrapes. Kate seethes. Babs sounds so tired. They all seem laughably distressed. Jason feels the old dregs of bitterness and fury boil up inside him—here he is, holding Steph in his arms, and what are they doing? Nothing. Fucking nothing useful but chasing shadows and assaulting innocent men. They didn’t save her.

For a moment, Jason listens to their frantic, pathetic reports, mentally constructing a visualization of their whereabouts. His anxiety mounts with the assembled picture: they’re clear across the city. In fact, he’s closer to the Batmobile than any active operative. He’ll need to meet them halfway if he wants to make it count. More than that: he needs to make them hurry. He can give them a reason to hurry.

For the first time since he found the comm line, he lets himself be heard.

“My my, what a noisy flock you are.” His vision is a bit blurry, so he blinks, and that helps. His cheeks are wet, though.

The line falls abruptly quiet.

“I wonder, is it family tradition to squabble so loud on a silent night like this?” Dick should appreciate the fucking pun. Jason grinds his teeth. Fuck them. Fuck them, fuck. His breathing is harsh.

“What the hell?” Babs hisses to herself. One by one, she establishes private channels between herself and the other Bats, like that’ll keep their conversations secret from Jason.

“Oh my God, is that—”

“How did he—”

“What the fuck is going on?”

Jason blinks again. “I wouldn’t have expected it from you. Panic is unbecoming of heroes, don’t you agree? Has something ruffled your feathers?” He’s so angry he can’t see straight. He’s starting to get light-headed too. Maybe that’s why the sarcasm supplants any incoherent shouting in his dialect of choice. His words taste like ash, though he says them in Talia’s preferred saccharine. Just hurry. They’ll come quickly if they know he found Steph, won’t they?

When the clamor has subsided in his ear, it’s Batman who finally elects to answer. His gravelly tone in the public channel sounds distantly furious. As if he has any fucking right to be angry at Jason.

“Red Hood.” He snarls. “What do you want?”

As if this is about what Jason wants. As if what Jason wants has ever meant anything to him. Like he has any authority on which to fucking care. It’s too late. And it makes Jason so damn angry, he can’t see.

“Oh please.” He scoffs. He flexes his arm. Steph’s cheek is warm beneath his hand. That’s good. He tries to focus on the feeling.

Just hold on, kid. Just a little longer.

“The Bat and his flock have never given a damn about what I want—” Or this wouldn’t have happened in the first place. Jason regrets leaving. He should have been here, fuck. “—and to be perfectly honest, I’m not in the mood to talk about myself. So let’s make it about you.”

Tim swears. Babs stutters about sweeping for viruses, tracing back his signal to get a geographical location.

“What’s at the tippy top of your Christmas wishlist?”

“Hood—”

“I wonder if I could guess. Maybe you just want something back. Some stolen property returned?”

“No.” Dick chokes, sounding caught between paralyzing terror and explosive anger. “No, no, nonono please—fuck—”

“A little birdie told me you lost her.”

Batman’s growl makes his helmet rumble. Jason’s seeing black spots. He needs to move Steph now. If he can get her to the Batmobile, she’ll be at the Cave in no time, and surely Alfred is there waiting. She’ll be okay if he can just… just… Jason yanks the needle out of his arm.

“I have to admit, her pretty wings have been clipped something awful.” He yanks his sleeve down. It’s freezing outside. She’s still low on blood; if he brings her outside like this, she’ll go into shock and that’ll be that. He needs to keep her bundled up until the Bats get here.

He wraps her in the remaining scraps of the suit—any insulation will help—and slips her arms into the sleeves of his jacket. Emergency warmers line the inside. It’ll be enough. Just until they get to the car.

“But surely that’s no matter to you. It wouldn’t be the first time, right?”

Jason ignores the haze of black as he staggers to his feet, cradling Steph against his chest. Get to the window. Get out of here. Find her family, let them help.

Dick makes a punched-out wheeze.

“What,” It’s been a while since Jason heard Batman so angry. “did you do to Robin?”

Jason almost laughs on the threshold of shattered glass. The wind is sharp. It’s been a week. If he had a whole fucking week to torture someone, the list of things he hadn’t done would be a whole lot fucking shorter. He’ll need to grapple with one arm. He’s done it before with less blood.

“Oh, I won’t detract from your imagination.” Jason hums. He fires the grapple. The weightless swoop in his limbs is amplified by his dizziness. Just get to the car. Get them here faster. “Besides, there’s still time for me to work my Christmas magic. I’m happy to oblige if y—”

“Red Hood!” There’s Dickface back on the public channel. “Don’t you fucking touch her you bastard! I swear I—”

Jason clicks his tongue. He readjusts his hold on Steph over the next arc of his swing. “Oops, too late, Nightwing. What’s the matter? Not interested in damaged goods?”

“Got him! I got—got a lock!” Babs sounds breathless. “He’s on the move. Sending coordinates now.”

Fucking finally.

“Maybe you’re not interested in the condition of your newest baby bird.” Jason hits the next rooftop with a heavier impact than normal. He ignores the groan in his knees and runs. “I was beginning to wonder if you had any interest in retrieving her.”

Dick roars through the whistle of wind. “Tell us where to find her and I’ll show you interest!”

They’re getting closer. Tucked into an alley on the East End. Clearly Bruce didn’t learn his fucking lesson about alleyways in rough neighborhoods. Jason can only hope the car’s anti theft mechanisms have managed to retain all its wheels and hubcaps. Steph needs a speedy getaway.

“You mean your precious Oracle hasn’t yet tracked her down? Not a convincing effort, I’m afraid.”

For fuck’s sake, why? All their resources, all their skills and experience, they can’t find their own Robin in a week? Does she mean so little to them? Is that really why no one mourned when he died? Do they really not care?

Jason lands hard on the building next to the Batmobile. He can see it in the alley below, bathed in shadows, barely inconspicuous and apparently intact. He’s no longer complacent enough to be relieved by the sight.

To be fair, however, he doesn’t have much time to feel anything. He’s only touched down when the darkness congeals into human form, and suddenly Jason is face-to-face with a vengeful Bat. A little voice in the back of his head muses that antagonizing them was probably unwise. But Jason neglects to fear for his own safety, even in the presence of one Cassandra Cain, because his anger is still too electric to care about anything other than the fact that she’s late.

“Little sister.” Cassandra hisses at him. Her voice sounds otherworldly in a way that makes him shiver. “Give.”

Jason squints. He’s having trouble distinguishing her from the inky shadows she stands in—he’s so mad. Steph is just a kid. She’s older than Jason was when… but it’s still so wrong. It’s a nightmare. For a moment, he doesn’t want to hand her over.

“I’m disappointed.” He says.

Cassandra moves too fast to track. Before Jason can get another sluggish blink in, his muscles pinch. His arms are suddenly empty when he crumples to his knees. Cassandra is gone, and Steph is gone, and Jason can’t feel his limbs. Fucking nerve strikes.

“Got Robin. Going home.” She tells the comms. The Batmobile roars to life below him. “Will be okay.” Tires scream, the sound fading quickly.

Okay. Steph is going home. Thank God.

There’s a wave of relieved exclamations. Tim makes a noise like he’s been crying. Jason allows himself the briefest slump of solace, knowing she’s now in safe hands, Robin is going to live. She’s not going to die. He doesn’t have enough time to let the gravity of it sink in.

Batman addresses them then, voice low and furious, dark with promise. “Get her to the Cave.” He rumbles. “We'll handle Hood.”

Fuck. That doesn’t bode well. Jason channels all his energy into twitching his thumb. He just needs to break the nerve strike, and motor function will return to his limbs quickly, and then he can leave. He needs to leave. He needs to get out of here before the rest of them close in. Steph may be safe now, but Jason is very much not.

They’re angry, they’ve spent a week on the verge of acting terror; they’re not thinking straight. He’s just as mad as they are: five years of hurt and disappointment and outrage, childlike faith shattered by the maddening reality that they’re not good enough. They can’t save the people they claim to love. Worse: they don’t care enough to stop the past from repeating. And here in Gotham—not halfway around the world in a foreign country and a rusty warehouse—with all of them here, it doesn’t make a difference. The only difference is a ghost who didn’t stay in the grave. What would they have done if Jason didn’t fucking come back to life?

What can they still do?

He doesn’t want to find out. He needs to leave. He can’t move. It’s a full-body paralysis (Cassandra fucking Cain, League prodigy); twitching his thumb takes longer than the manufactured calm of his adrenaline rush can stretch. Pins and needles cascade up his arm. Jason measures his breathing. He needs to blow up his helmet too; no sense letting Oracle track him any more.

The first flash of black arrives when he finally manages to roll sideways. The figure is just as hazy as Cassandra, in the shadow of the rooftop access, but the bright shock of red cuts through her confusing silhouette and makes Jason’s life a bit easier. Kate holds a gun on him. He can’t properly make out her face in the swimming blur of his vision, but he’s sure she’s pissed. Whatever the next step above pissed-off is. He gathers his limbs beneath him and pushes off the ground. The roof. Bruises star across his plane of view—but Kate is dutifully waiting, so Jason swallows his rising fear concern. He gets to one knee. His assassin’s grace betrays no indication of blood loss, he hopes. Using the fattest needle on hand had no doubt put him at a personal disadvantage (a small, practical voice in the back of his mind informs him he’s toeing the threshold of full operating capacity on blood loss), but Steph needed it more than him. He’ll be fine. He can still get out of here. Hopefully.

Jason pushes to his feet slowly. He gives Kate an attempt at an unaffected head tilt. The act is supposed to appear relaxed, unafraid, but her lack of reaction provides no measure of his success. He’s trying to think of escape routes. His options are few and thinning.

“You’re too late.” Jason says, in his best conversational voice at present. “Baby bird’s on the move.” He feels naked without his jacket. A lingering hollowness remains in his body—just shy of a chill—the way it does when he’s lost more than two pints. His fingers are almost numb. He needs to get out of here.

Kate narrows her eyes. “I should kill you.” She whispers, and the sound carries through the comms, and for once the line is silent, it seems, because no one can bring themselves to reprimand her.

Jason swallows thickly.

Half his weapons and gadgets were in his jacket—in his urgency, he didn’t think to empty it before bundling Steph—but maybe he can grab some of her smoke bombs. Kate probably won’t hit him if he disappears like that.

“You should have killed me long ago.” If they cared enough to cross that line, Steph would never have been kidnapped in the first place. But they won’t. He knows they can’t do it. They’re cowards—and he’s so tired of believing in them and wishing they were safe to love. And wanting to come home. And having his faith shattered into fractal pieces.

He’s a dead man and he’s tethered here. Why is it that every time he tries to leave, this family makes him regret it? He wishes he could take the helmet off to wipe his face. His vision is blurry and it’s not the anger, and it’s not the blood loss.

There’s no sound to indicate Nightwing’s arrival. It’s just the faintest breath of air at Jason’s back, and he turns his head and sees that brilliant familiar glare. Jason fans his anger at the sight. They have no right to it—they don’t . Not after the way they failed Steph, Robin. It isn’t fair. After one fucking week of failure, they have no right to be angry with him.

“Red Hood.” Dick’s good at not sounding human, having spent so much time with Raven. His escrima crackle. Jason’s sure he didn’t imagine the flashing sparks.

“Oh great. Big blue boy scout on site.” Jason sneers. Fuck. He’s fucked. His escape routes have dropped to fewer than his fingers. He could probably take Kate in a fight—blood loss would be pushing it—but against her and Nightwing? Jason doesn’t stand a chance. He needs to get out of here. He needs to blow his helmet up. “How many birds in this city don’t know to mind their fucking business?”

“At least two.” A third voice says.

Jason hears it like a punch to the gut. What will Jack Drake do, knowing his son is out here now in a suit he was forbidden to wear? Jason has never given Tim enough credit for being as tough as he is. He’s never fought the kid. He knows he’s Bat-grade good at it, and best friends with the girl that almost died tonight.

He doesn’t have time to let his stomach drop. If Robin (another Robin, another kid) is here, then so is Batman. Jason hears the rush of a cape before the darkness peels away for it.

He’s seen them angry before. All of them. Maybe not to this degree. Maybe never aimed at him. He remembers once, thirteen and stuck in a Riddler death trap, seeing no way out and too afraid to feel much semblance of shame at his incompetence, starting to cry and calling for his dad. Batman had been busy with his own fight at the time, but he appeared in seconds. He saved Jason, and he glared at a quailed Riddler with the same glare he’s using now.

It’s a good thing Batman isn’t Kryptonian. Jason would probably be dead again from the glare alone; his helmet can’t withstand more than a few seconds of concentrated heat like that.

“Well.” Jason closes his fists and forces his knees to relax. He’s so fucked. He’s never been this fucked since he died. “How nice of you to join us. After a week, I was starting to doubt your commitment.”

Shut up. He needs to shut the fuck up. His job is done here; Steph is safe: he got her home in time. There’s no longer any need to push like this. No need to pick at their greatest fears, their regrets, for the simple sake of getting them to him faster. It’s counterintuitive now. They’ll never let him go without a fight. He’s just. Mad.

Dick breaks first on a vicious snarl. They have Jason surrounded (it makes his nerves scream), and when Dick lashes out, Jason has to turn his back on Batman to dodge. The escrima sticks buzz audibly. Jason doesn’t want to know how high the electricity has been cranked.

“You’ll pay for what you did to her!” Dick shouts, and the words are raw, like he’s been crying. It must take a fuck-ton of audacity to cry about this. Crying, when he could have been finding the kid? All damn week? He swings the escrima with nothing shy of hate in the form. It’s so classic Dick Grayson, Jason might be tempted to laugh if he wasn’t busy struggling to see straight. 

A baton grazes his arm. The contact is fleeting, but it’s enough to turn the lingering static in his flesh to fire ants. Jason curses and grabs the spot. He’s between Kate and Dick now. The others have shifted to corral him where he lands after every dodge, expressions fierce, unyielding like stone. 

“Oh will I?” Jason barely escapes a vicious boot to his ankle. “Seems to me your deliverance is overdue. You didn’t fucking save her. You had a whole fucking week and you didn’t do anything. That doesn’t scream salvation to me.”

“Then,” Batman surges forward when Jason slides too close. Suddenly he can’t breathe. There’s a hand on his throat: black kevlar, squeezing so tight it can’t be broken off. “Call it vengeance.”

Jason forgets to keep his footing in the sudden scramble for air. He registers stumbling back, furiously blinking, trying to dispel the blackness and pain in his eyes, steady pressure on his neck as he gasps. Then his next step swings on nothing—no solid purchase of the rooftop—and he’s leaning because he can’t move his other foot but the black kevlar hand— Batman —is pushing him out over open air. And fuck, Jason’s never been afraid of heights the way Dick sometimes is, but he can’t breathe and the ground is a seven-story drop away, and he’s big. He’s not sure Batman could hold him up by one arm if his feet slip off the edge. 

Jason fumbles at the fingers around his neck, toes pointed frantically. He can’t breathe. He can breathe. He’s gasping and trying to think around the panic and blood pounding in his ears. He’s so mad. He’s so mad—that’s why he’s crying. Really. 

“Fuck your vengeance.” Jason rasps. “You didn’t save her.”

The fingers are pressed too deep in his skin; there’s no purchase to pry them off. Batman has never looked so angry and old. “That’s about to be the least of your worries.” He says. “You’re going to wish you were dead.”

Bats don’t kill. They don’t. They should. Over Batman’s shoulder, Jason sees Kate holster her gun. Fuck. They don’t want him dead, they want him in a body cast for the next six months, in a prison, an asylum—

“I have.” He whispers. “So many times, I have.”

It startles him then to be hauled up so abruptly, caught at the hip—fuck—by a second hand and thrown—too short a distance and too busy choking on the swell in his throat to twist and avoid slamming squarely into the rooftop access. Jason tries not to cough as he crumples to the ground. Fuck, fuck. Get up. He can’t stay down like this, with wavering boots in his vision stepping close, closing in, fuck. Dick likes to kick with his right foot first. Jason barely jerks aside to avoid taking it in the ribs. His ribs hurt.

“Get up.” Dick spits. “Get the fuck up and give us a fight, you bastard.”

“Why?” Jason rolls to avoid another stomp, folding himself into the simplest, smoothest way to his feet, fighting the dizziness and darkness of his stinging aching eyes. “So you can feel better about abandoning her?”

Kate comes from his side, heavy-handed and mean. Fighting her isn’t muscle memory the way it is with Batman, but Jason’s always held himself to a standard of knowing, and the brutal style she favors is easy to parry. She’s fast. His breathing is labored and he tries to keep up, tries to duck Nightwing’s whirlwind of slashing blows. Sharp knees and solid kicks and punches. Jason needs to get out of here. He can barely see. He can barely breathe.

Then Batman is on him. He slots so easily between the other two; they move like limbs of one body. Jason doesn’t have the range to fend them all off. He dodges as best he can, blocking hard swings and buzzing batons and struggling past the rasp that builds in his trachea. He can’t take all three of them like this. Not without time to prepare beforehand. Not without all his blood. Not with Robin’s screams still ringing in his ears, green pulsing at the edges of his eyes despite every set of capped knuckles slamming into vulnerable spots. 

Tim circles them from the outside. Jason isn’t sure if that’s hesitation he sees. Probably not. The kid’s as stubborn as Batman, he knows; he hates Jason as much as they all do. Besides, Tim’s use of that bo staff is judicious, not shy. Jason feels it whistle in the air. The way it cracks against his hand is bad enough to make him swear, and he’s so busy fumbling with his good arm and three furious Bats that he misses the hit straight to his ribs. Clever little bird. He sees the weak points so easily.

It’s too much. They’re too fast. He can’t keep pace like this, hands shaking, vision blacking in and out. He’s losing ground. Jason clings to the rage inside himself so desperately and seethes around it, forces it. He swallows the sob that climbs up the dilation of his throat. The anger is more important because Steph is the reason he’s here tonight. She’s why they’re all here. It makes him mad.

“You don’t get to say that.” 

Jason takes a hit to the head—baton or bo staff, he isn’t sure—that has him seeing stars. There’s a fist in his side. A boot at the back of his knee. Someone grabs his hand, his broken hand, squeezing, twisting. Jason swallows so he doesn’t hyperventilate. The tactic distracts him, composure slipping as the momentum carries up his arm and up his shoulder and pops. And he barely bites down the high whine.

“You don’t get to gloat over my little sister!”

Jason can’t feel his right arm. His vision is swimming. He barely feels his mouth move.

“Your fault.” He pants. “You gave me the chance.”

Dick expels a shout all rage and tears shed. 

The world is suddenly white. 

Jason doesn’t see the hit coming, but he’s not sure it would have helped. He loses control of his body. Muscles lock, bones scrape. There’s a fire in his flesh. The stars have come alive beneath his skin. Sparks of hatred in the night sky, burrowed and barbed and brilliant as they writhe ever deeper, pouring through him from the single point of contact on his chest: bright blue tucked against him, stabbed into him.

It doesn’t matter that his armor is insulated, that he knows they don’t want him dead. His knees and one arm alone can’t contend with the wrest of gravity. He arches off the ground, convulsing as the baton stays put and pushes up against him, pushes stars all the way up to his eyes. Jason can’t feel his tongue. He can’t feel his fingers or toes. He can’t move. He can’t see. He screams.

He screams like glass breaking.

He screams away every inhale, sharp, desperate. There’s not enough air. It snags like a blade coming down. He’s so angry. The sound of it barely registers through the static. He’s furious, he can’t breathe. He’s so mad he can’t see, can’t feel anything past the fire in his blood. Fuck. He’s so angry. He is. Fuck. Fuck fuck.

Part of him is sure the amperage is too high. Some detached, vacant part of him thinks this pushes the bounds of human capacity. It wouldn’t be surprising to discover. 

All at once, the fire dies, and Jason barely registers the ground rushing up to meet him. He can’t move. Everything is dark and blurred out—and he’s twitching like the wind-kissed surface of a pond. There are boots wavering between the stars he can still see. Maybe two. Maybe four. Maybe six or eight. Nine? That wouldn’t make sense.

Feel better? He thinks of sneering. The thought exhausts him. 

“You won’t have that chance again.”

Jason tries to kill the idea of crying, but his lungs seize in the sparking aftermath, and it would be so easy. So simple a thing to lie here in a dazed heap and cry: cry for his anger. Cry for Steph. Cry for the knowledge that this is all the vengeance they’re willing to spare, and they won’t kill him because their kids don’t really matter. Jason fights the exhaustion, fights the cold cold scald in every inch of his flesh. He fights the spasms that rock through him and gathers his limbs. He thinks about breaking down right here, even as he forces his hands beneath his chest, fighting the way they try to skitter off on their own, and fights to push the ground away.

He can’t fight the overwhelming urge to cry, so he tilts his head and laughs too. It wheezes in the air around him. A fractured, bitter chuckle: hollow and vicious with the burn of blame. Dark shapes swim before his eyes, but Jason’s pretty sure that’s Batman he’s squinting at.

“Is that what you said last time?” He laughs. “To the Joker?”

Batman bares his teeth—what a shocking display of emotion—and lunges, but Jason anticipates the move and darts forward before the hands can close around his throat again. Batman’s chest slams against Jason, nearly toppling him again. Jason fumbles at the utility belt before he can be shoved away. He knows what he’s looking for. He has a fraction of a second while he’s here within reach.

Gauntlets on his neck, squeezing, fire down his right side. There, that pocket—no, not the lollipops—his hand closes on the smoke bombs. Batman shoves him back like he’s overcome with disgust but it’s too late. Jason throws his handful of bombs to the ground and they erupt.

He can’t see—but then, he already wasn’t doing that. At least now they can’t breathe. The smoke at close range forces them to duck away. Jason can’t afford to lose the opportunity. He jerks through the gaps they’ve left, twitching. He ignores Dick’s snarl and Kate’s growl and Tim’s shout of alarm, ignores black hands reaching for him again like they’re sorry they’ve let go. He scrambles with his burning, seizing limbs. He finds the edge of the roof and jumps.

There’s no rushing cape to betray the sound of his fall.

Seven stories: that’s not enough time to grab his grapple and shoot, so he snags the railing of a fire escape halfway down—ignores the sudden burn in his arm and the frightening lurch in his good shoulder—and lets the momentum swing him through the window underneath it, feet first. The glass and frame of it break in awkward places. He rolls, hitting the floor in a way that jostles everything he’s broken and cramps half his muscles. Shit. He can’t straighten his arm for a second. There’s no time to stop. Get up, get off the ground. There’s a baby crying. Lights start shuttering on.

Jason ignores it as he scrambles to his feet. Seconds. That’s how long he has.

With the hand that isn’t mostly broken, he presses the catch of his helmet and slides it off. The countdown starts. He lobs his helmet out the window—fuck, he’s going to miss hearing Babs’ voice—and doesn’t wait for the explosion to rock the building before running to the front door. Unlock. Fling wide. The baby is wailing. 

Boom.

Jason skids back up the hall. He finds a door out of the way. Slips inside. The nursery. Fuck.

But he’s just in time to avoid the shriek of grappling lines, and he hears when Batman’s heavy gait thunders down the main hall of the apartment, followed closely by Tim’s lighter patter. They charge through the front door and are gone within heartbeats.

The baby is crying. Jason slumps against the wall, limbs shaking. He needs to move. He can’t stay here for long. Dick and Kate are probably on perimeter. They’ll sweep the garage below the apartment building, and when they don’t find him, they’ll probably double back. 

He would pick the kid up if his hands were working; he knows the best ways to calm a frightened child. But there isn’t any time to much more than consider it. 

The nursery door slams open. Jason is too tired to flinch away from the gun.

“Who the hell are you?”

Fuck, what is Jason doing? It’s Christmas. He’s ruining someone’s Christmas by waking up their baby and breaking open their window. It’s freezing outside. This is going to fuck their electric bill over.

“Sorry.” Jason says, raising his hands sluggishly. His voice is fucked. Fuck.

The dad, of course—hair tousled and red-eyed in Rudolph pajama pants—pulls the fucking trigger.

Jason twists just enough to avoid taking it to the throat. The bullet skips past his clavicle and cracks into the wall. The baby screams.

“Sorry.” Jason gasps. He hunches his shoulders. Fuck. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fuck up your night. The kid’s fine.”

“What the fuck is going—”

“I nerfed your window. I’ll—I’ll fix it.”

The gun lowers a fraction.

“Sorry.” He really cannot stay here. He needs to get out and get somewhere safe before he fucking collapses. Jason sways forward a bit. When the dad doesn’t move, he slips around him into the hall, leaving the screaming baby in the crib. “Sorry.” He whispers again. “Uh, Merry Christmas.”

Jason barely registers the next feverish half hour.

He remembers popping his arm back into its socket. He remembers patching the broken window with a League-duty shock blanket he found in his pants and a roll of tough brick tape. It’s good enough to keep the baby from getting sick. He’ll track down the bill for repairs and heating and cover the next few months. The wretched notion that it’s something Bruce would do is one he swallows down.

He hardly remembers the grapple back to his closest safehouse, arms and hands almost numb. His shoulder is on fire. He can feel his heartbeat in his hand. Everything tingles, and every few seconds his muscles contract involuntarily, as if the ghost of the escrima is still planted against his chest.

His hands are shaking when he piles through his window, bad enough he nearly misses the shock trap’s disengage. The volume in his windpipe is also considerably reduced to swelling. He’s doing his best to regulate the air coming in. He’s not sure if the black spots are from lost blood or if he’s that out of breath, but the effect is the same. Dizziness is responsible for him crashing against the couch. 

“Shadows.” Jason croaks into the dark. It’s the first time he’s addressed their presence since Talia gave them this assignment. “Triage.”

He could do it on his own, he thinks. He’s not even stabbed. But he’s likely to pass out before he accomplishes anything worthwhile, and—and they’re not going to hurt him. Talia promised she’d wait to issue another test. He’s so tired.

Their indistinct shapes melt from the corners of the room. He can’t really see them. He’s going to pass out.

The pain is sharp enough to make his tears fall again, but he’s too exhausted from the fight and the anger to remember much past that. The Shadows assess his injuries. They peel off his gloves and mask and busted armor. It hurts. He’s in so much pain for so many reasons. 

When he hears a murmured acknowledgement, he pulls himself back into his aching body. He’s on the floor, he dimly notes. His pants and thermal suit are gone, leaving him in his shirt and shorts. And a few splints and casts. Oh. He didn’t realize his leg was broken. 

“My prince,” There’s a hand on his good shoulder. “You require no further medical attention. What are your orders?”

Jason doesn’t want to stay here. He’s safe here, especially with—he squints at his surroundings—four League of Assassins Shadows keeping vigil. He’s not confident the Bats will continue hunting him for long when they have Steph to fret over, and anyway he doesn’t plan to touch his next helmet for a while. But he doesn’t feel safe. Talia would berate him viciously for making such emotional assessments. She doesn’t need to know how he feels. He’s not going to tell her that beneath the festering rage and bitter disgust, he’s terrified. Down to his broken bones. He wants a hug. He wants to stop seizing.

“Dismissed.” Jason is careful to keep the authority in his voice. He’s exhausted. He doesn’t want to stay here.

So he doesn’t. Despite his broken bones and aching limbs and the heavy darkness weighing on his head, he gets up and leaves when the Shadows fade from view. His whole body is twitching. He doesn’t have the wherewithal to care.

It’s a poor idea to get on his bike like this, but—he gets a proper look at what safehouse he’s managed to crash in—he’s only a few blocks from Beck’s apartment. And the thought of getting there is currently very motivating for the walk he has to take.

He stumbles into a pair of sweatpants and stuffs his feet into spare boots and—he has an extra coat here. That’s good. The street is mostly quiet; it’s Christmas, after all. He encounters no further headaches on the way. The lobby is cold. It’s fine. Beck likes to keep her apartment toasty. Surely she’ll have warmed it up by now. She’s probably asleep. She’ll probably forgive him for stopping by like this.

Jason doesn’t realize he was holding his breath until he slips into her apartment and finally relaxes, and some of the black spots clear. He wants to go boneless against the door, maybe lie on the ground forever, but he carefully tugs his coat away—he’s too tired to catch it when it falls through his fingers—steps out of the boots and drags his feet to the bedroom. Sleep sounds good. He’s crying again. He wants to sleep for a year or two.

It’s not the worst he’s been beaten, but this sucks for reasons beyond physical. Jason considers regretting his actions. He doesn’t have the energy for that either.

Beck is bundled under a few massive blankets on one side of the bed, leaving plenty of space for Jason to all but collapse behind her. Damn his shoulder—he burrows under the covers and reaches for Beck with an arm that shakes. He must have squeezed her a little too tight because she wakes halfway.

“Hmm? Jason?”

Jason’s eyes are going to be hella swollen tomorrow. Swollen and red and dry as fuck. He presses his forehead into her hair. Breathe. His whole body spasms.

“Jay?”

“Go back to sleep.” He hushes. His voice is nearly gone.

At least—at least Robin is okay.

She doesn’t argue.

Chapter Text

Steph is so pale. She looks so small beneath the blankets. She’s drowning in Bruce’s shirt. Her blood pressure reads normal on the monitors, but she’s still pale. Her wounds are stitched and bandaged. Judging by the time and severity of her injuries, she should have bled out on the car ride home.

“You’re okay.” Dick strokes a hand through her dirty hair. He only says it to remind himself. She’s not dead. She’s going to be just fine. “You’re safe, Stephy girl.”

The Cave medbay is cold by virtue of being underground, in the Cave. Dick barely notices the chill or the quiet chatter of bats far above. Tim and Kate are upstairs, presumably asleep. Bruce is at the Computer, either passed out or killing himself slowly staying awake, staring at files. Babs went home hours ago. It’s just Dick and Cass in the medbay now, keeping vigil over Steph. 

He doesn’t recall changing out of the suit, or showering and brushing his teeth, but Alfred must have seen to that because he’s wearing Bruce’s silk pajamas. He shouldn’t be here, curled around the kid in her cot, listening to the computers beep softly around them. Cass will watch over Steph until morning. Dick doesn’t need to be here. He shouldn’t be here when the man who did this is still at large. But the fear hasn’t left him yet. He feels like Steph will dissolve if he looks away.

It’s true. He failed her. He shouldn’t be here.

“Safe.” Cass whispers. “Little sister safe.”

She is. She’s fine.

Dick traces the curve of her pale cheek, now more hollow than it was seven days ago. He’s not sure what time it is. Later than it should be, probably. They should have found her sooner. Dick tips his forehead against hers and takes a deep breath.

“I’m sorry Steph.”

She’s not awake to hear it, but at least she’s alive. That’s more than he can say about the last little sibling he failed. It shouldn’t surprise him that Hood knew about that too. And fuck, Dick doesn’t have a right to cry about it, but his throat and his eyes are getting warm, and the weight of the night is bearing down on him—heavy like a headstone.

He failed Steph. That’s the sad fact. Hood is right; she isn’t safe now because of anything Dick did to save her. It makes him feel sick in a wild swooping way, in the bottom of his gut. He knows he messed up. He’s so angry and sorry he messed up. He hates that it took a direct phone call from Red Hood to finally find his little sister. 

And what was he doing out there on Christmas Eve, toting Robin around like a sack of dead meat? Did he just want the satisfaction of killing her in front of them? Was he just tired of waiting around?

It doesn’t add up if Dick squints, though it’s too late to analyze after what they did to Hood. Dick’s encountered him the most, out of everyone in this family. Dick’s sure he hates Hood the most—and it isn’t fair of him. He knows. He let his emotions get in the way tonight; it was so easy, with Hood picking at his deepest insecurities without any apparent effort. 

Hood is so smart. Dick can see it. He’s exactly the kind of calculating that died five years ago. He’s sassy in the same way, and it hurts. He’s fierce, so vicious, scrappy like Steph—like all Crime Alley kids. Dick saw so much family in Hood, and he hated it, still hates it. He sees a ghost in Hood, and he hates it, and it’s not fair, and it stirs up all the guilt and anger and grief he thought he buried with Jason. It’s not fair. Not to hunt him. Not to Steph, who embodies so much of Jason’s legacy and wears his ghost too. 

Hood tore up all of Dick’s desire to let go. He told himself he’d let the past go; he’s not Bruce. But Dick supposes he’s always been something of a hypocrite.

Maybe he was mad because he knew what Bruce wanted. Bruce isn’t blind, and he’s not the fool Dick likes to call him sometimes; he saw so many of the things Dick saw. The pain, the past, the potential. And Bruce is such a damn optimist, Dick saw his desire coming a mile away. Dick wasn’t in a position to resist the acquisition of another new sibling. He’s sure that ship has sailed now. There will be no forgiveness for Hood after tonight—but the fact that Bruce was so serious about it at first is part of what made Dick so upset. He didn’t want that man in his family: such a painfully stark reminder of what they’d already lost, and what could have been. Dick didn’t want to replace Jason.

So he might have targeted Hood a little. Gone out of his way to spy and thwart. He used Tim and Steph as an excuse, and he harbored personal suspicions, and it hurt to meet Hood time and time again and fight him and hear the unfamiliar voice and think of a little brother he so miserably failed. His anger and bitterness against Hood was halfway born from the memory of Jason’s death, because Dick’s guilt boiled down is that he didn’t do enough the first time.

Whatever he feels, it’s led him to know Hood acutely. Dick knows how he’s always exactly what he seems and says, thanks to the prying Beck warned him not to do. Dick knows he likes to call him all the names Jason liked to call him, in exactly the way Jason used to say them. He knows it feels like hell to hear it. He knows it hurts so bad to be reminded of what he doesn’t have. He knows his hatred for Hood isn’t fair. He knows how he fights, how he moves. 

He knows Hood should be able to hold his own the way they had him cornered tonight. He knows he tried. He knows something was off, and Hood moved like he’d suffered recent blood loss.

Steph should have bled out hours ago.

Dick pushes the thought away. None of what happened makes sense, and he doesn’t have the energy to ponder through it. He just wants to hold his baby sister, listen to her breathe, be assured that she’s not dead and he won’t miss her funeral. Cass wasn’t there before. She doesn’t know what a relief this is to Dick now.

“Big brother… okay?”

Dick shakes his head. “I feel like—” He swallows the hot lump in his throat. “Like she’ll disappear at any second.”

He can’t see what Cass is thinking from his vantage tucked around Steph, and he doesn’t want to. Cass doesn’t like it when he wallows. She’ll tell him something frank if he looks up.

“Sleep.” She says eventually. “You’re tired.”

He is. It’s been a week of straight adrenaline and fear and poisonous speculation, thinking back and forth between a brilliant feisty blonde he wasn’t sure he’d see again, and a crooked five-year-old grin whose shape he’s started to forget. He was so afraid of losing her. He was so afraid of finding her. He was so afraid she’d be dead when she turned up. At least he’d know, and he’d be there when it was time to bury her.

“Alive.” He says, voice wavering. “She’s alive.” She’s okay. She’ll make a full recovery, and Jason’s going to stay six feet under alone. With his grandparents, of course.

Dick’s not sure what help sleep will be. The aching burn in his chest has nothing to do with how tired he is.

Thankfully, Steph saves him from having to try. It isn’t much longer before she stirs; a frown passes over her brow like a shadow and she turns, mumbling incoherently. Her hand in Dick’s squeezes.

“Steph?”

Her whine is more like a whimper. She makes an aborted half-sob. She’s tense.

“Hey, Stephy girl. Shhh,” Dick presses his free hand to her face, smoothing his thumb over her cheek as gently as he can. “It’s okay sweetheart. You’re safe. You’re at the Cave.”

Her sticky eyes crack open a sliver. Her head tilts towards him. “Dickie?” The sweet childlike lilt in her voice is scratched out—he doesn’t want to think of why, or whether she screamed for help that didn’t come in time.

“Hey kiddo.” Dick tries for a smile when her eyes focus on him. It hurts to force. “You’re back with us. You’re safe.”

The pain is only in her expression for a moment, crumpling her features like she’s about to cry, but then it smooths over into something soft and entirely relaxed. Steph smiles tiredly. Dick thinks about choking at the sight. They were so close to losing this.

“Knew you’d find me.” She murmurs.

“Actually, Babs—well, we’ll tell you about it later. You should rest. You’ll want to have energy when she stops by again in the morning.”

“I can listen.” Steph insists with a Robin frown. She’s still so pushy out of costume.

“You’ll have plenty of time later, baby bird. Take it easy. You almost died.”

“Yeah…” Her gaze trails off over his shoulder. “What—wait. What did you do?”

“Me?”

She’s suddenly more alert, now awake, and her eyes are locked on something behind Dick. He straightens to find what’s caught her attention.

Oh, shit. They should have moved that—it’s the jacket she was bundled in: another baffling piece of the puzzle Dick’s trying not to solve. It doesn’t make sense that Hood gave her his jacket. If he wanted her hurt, he would have let her go into shock. He would have dragged her out into the freezing cold without all her blood. He didn’t. He gave her a jacket full of weapons and warmers.

“You were wearing that.” Dick says slowly. “Sorry, we should have moved it. We’re keeping it for evidence, still trying to piece together what exactly happened.”

It looks like Steph only hears half his words. She looks very serious, but her voice is small when she asks, “Really?”

“Yeah. The jacket was h—”

“No.” She interrupts. “Not the—not the jacket.” Her hand is weak when she points.

Dick isn’t sure what else she means until he sees the strips of fabric piled up beside Hood’s coat. It’s a cloth they haven’t yet identified, but it’s very fine. Some kind of vicuna, maybe. Half the pieces are unrecognizable beneath the stain of her blood, but on others, he can see the color was once white.

“Your wounds were bound when we found you. And you had a few tourniquets.”

Steph stares at the scraps, expression unreadable. Her grip on Dick’s hand slowly tightens; the pressure is nothing in her weakness, but Dick can feel the difference.

“Steph?”

“Is he dead?” She whispers, small and hopeful. Her wide wet eyes flicker back to meet Dick’s, and the look feels like a plea, somehow. “Did you kill him?”

Dick stares at her. No, not the jacket. Wait. Hood never wears white. The fabric on the table isn’t bandage material. It’s ripped, hastily slashed, something that must have been on hand. Dick gets the horrible sinking feeling she’s not asking about who he thinks.

“Red Hood?” He desperately hopes he’s wrong.

But Steph’s features shutter with confusion instead. All her hope is swept away by being caught off guard.

“What? What does the Red Hood have to do with this?”

“He had you.” Cass pipes up from her seat against the wall. “We found you with him.”

The next reaction is one of happy surprise. Despite her waning energy, Steph breaks into a blinding grin, and suddenly the room seems brighter by a shade.

“He saved me?” She laughs, almost breathless. “I knew it! I knew he was a hero!”

The innocently joyous words shouldn’t make Dick’s blood freeze over. “No.” He whispers.

“What?”

It’s the same desperate tone he used to tell himself she wasn’t dead. “No, Hood didn’t save you. He hurt you.”

Steph makes a face. “Dickie, what are you talking about? I didn’t see Hood all week. I was—I was with…” Her expression cracks, and her voice dies. “The Black Mask.”

No. No. No no, fuck. That can’t be right. Black Mask is Red Hood’s rival. They hate each other—it’s one of the only sureties they have about the man. Bringing the Black Mask down seemed like one of Hood’s only goals in Gotham; they wouldn’t collude on this. It doesn’t make sense. 

Not unless what Steph believes about Hood is true. Not unless he saved her.

“Oh fuck.” Dick breathes. His mind is reeling. Hood never said he hurt Robin, did he? He just… he was just angry about it. Fuck.

“Dick?” Steph’s voice holds a new note of fear. “What did you do?”

What did he do? He reacted in blind anger and hurt. He didn’t wait, didn’t look deeper, just jumped to the most convenient conclusions because he was so afraid. A setting higher on his escrima, and he would have killed Hood. Dropped him into cardiac arrest right there. Oh no.

Red Hood didn’t hurt Steph, did he? Dick just attacked a hero. Oh shit. This is bad.

But that’s nothing for Steph to worry about—Cass got her out of there before the fighting started, and—she needs to focus on recovering. A week of torture isn’t exactly trivial, and Steph certainly looks the part. Even this short conversation seems to have drained her. She’s slumping against Dick more and more by the second. Her eyes are sliding shut.

“We just—had a misunderstanding.” The weight of the lie is compounded by the sudden attention Dick feels Cass arrow at him. She wasn’t there either, but she’ll figure out what happened soon enough. “Don’t worry about it, Steph. Just rest. We’ll stay right here with you.”

Steph probably doesn’t buy it, but she’s too tired to argue, and perhaps still too rattled to pass up the comfort of a warm hug. “Okay.” She murmurs, burrowing deeper into Dick’s hold. Her eyes fall closed shortly.

<~><><~>

Kate’s staying with Cass and Steph. Helena and Luke are back from tracing long-distance leads. Babs has been a regular at the Manor these days. It’s just Dick and Bruce out here now. Just like old times, but for the eerie quiet: the kind they haven’t seen since September. Tim was told to stay home. Dick and Bruce are both well aware he didn’t do that.

Everyone knows now what happened on Christmas Eve. Dick and Bruce have since performed reconnaissance on Black Mask’s penthouse. The gruesome scene left him feeling sick in more than one way. For a massacre, it was clean.

They found the room with the chair and the rope that was cut, and Steph’s tattered cape, and so many knives. Dick can’t remember what he did with the drill. Probably threw it against the wall. They found a transfusion kit too—used and dry. It felt like a hit from Kon in the gut. A solid suckerpunch. It’s too late to get a DNA match—the sample is deteriorated in a kit designed to protect anonymity—but Dick is sure that Hood was the one to use it, and the knowing is what makes him sick.

Steph was right. Steph was right for believing in Hood. He saved her. He gave her his blood. And what did Dick do?

He tries to rationalize, because he’s a disgusting bastard that way sometimes. He had good reason to believe Red Hood was the perpetrator. There’s a decent log of evidence pointing to his disdain for Bats and willingness to attack them. He’s never shied away from brutal acts of violence. He was practically gloating about it. Dick wasn’t the only one to attack Hood on false assumptions and blind rage. He wasn’t the one who choked him out or snapped his fibula or crippled his hand. Dick can’t blame himself without blaming the rest of the family, but it doesn’t make him feel any better. All he feels is horror.

Hood is not the one who hurt Dick’s little sister—that man is actually dead now. Hood rescued her when no one else managed it. And Dick beat him and burned him with every drop of fury he had to spare, as if he were delivering divine retribution. And he was wrong. Hood didn’t deserve that. He didn’t do anything wrong.

They’ve been finding in the last few days that Black Mask’s death at the hands of Red Hood isn’t much to be concerned with. The streets are eerily quiet. Dick still recognizes Hood’s men on patrol, but where he expected to find Mask’s underlings up in arms, there’s nothing. Not so much as a power vacuum. The transition is smooth, and organized crime feels about as thrashed as a chastised dog. Whatever arrogance the Black Mask inspired has been thinned out to whispers and furtive eyes. There are no explosions, no shootouts, no gang wars. And it feels fine. Dick’s never seen that before. Kingpins don’t fall so hard and fast without fanfare like this unless all the strings have been cut. Maybe this was Hood’s plan all along. Maybe Robin was a side quest.

Whatever the case, Hood himself hasn’t been seen at all since Christmas Eve, and none of his men make a peep when Dick asks, same as they did a week ago. No one knows where he is, only that he’s still alive. And—it’s not like they’re trying to find him. Dick isn’t even sure what he’d say if they did. He can rationalize what he did in his own head just fine, but he knows that if he were to see Hood now, he’d be too ashamed to speak. Gods, Dick set his escrima too high. What the hell was he thinking?

Batman can’t sleep, and Dick can’t look Steph in the eye now that she knows what he’s done, so they’re out here now, waiting for something to blow up. They run the rooftops in shadow routes, trailing Tim like a kite. It’s peaceful enough that their presence isn’t necessary. The city could sleep for a few festive days and not wonder whether Batman will take to the streets. It’s fucking Christmas, God dammit. But Bruce doesn’t want to stop, and Dick dejectedly thinks he might be a bit like his dad after all.

There’s nothing to find except Beck.

Dick is so sorry he spent all that time attacking Hood. What did he do that for? His own insecurity? His doubts and his fears turned out to be venomous—it’s something Slade warned him about years ago—and the wrong people got hurt for his pride. The sick feeling in his gut only deepens when they see Beck.

How long has she been standing up here on a roof? She’s bundled warmly, like she was prepared to wait. Dick can barely see her full face behind the scarf. Her hair is tucked completely out of sight. He might not have recognized her at first, if Bruce hadn’t relaxed so easily.

They’re in Crime Alley, not on her apartment building—Dick knows that much. It’s a handful of blocks from the Narrows. The wind bites at this height. Her expression does too, when she turns to look at them.

Dick isn’t sure what to say. What is there to say? He’s sorry? What pathetic penance would that be?

Beck stares at them for a while, so whatever she’s here for doesn’t seem to be urgent. Batman stands and stares back; he’s good at that where Dick never was. Dick can see the tension though. He knows Bruce wants a fight, and standing here waiting to be ridiculed wouldn’t be his first choice by a long shot. They must at least know why she’s here. That’s the point of patrolling at all.

“How’s Robin?” Beck finally asks.

Dick thinks back to Steph and her bright smile, and the fractured haunted look in her eyes. She’s been painfully subdued these last few days. They brought her up to her room in the Manor and had a little Christmas party there. Lights and presents and cookies and everything. Dick is so achingly grateful she lived to see it. He supposes—with an accompanying chill—that it’s Red Hood he should thank for that.

“She’ll be okay. She’s—home now.”

Beck gives a thoughtful nod. Her lips are pinched. Dick has never seen her so mad. Tim’s presence settles on the roof, but he stays in the shadows out of sight.

“I bet he didn’t tell you that he saved her.” Beck crosses her arms roughly. “He’s got a bad habit of playing into people’s worst assumptions. You know that, don’t you? Did you hurt him because of it?”

Dick feels his expression twist by micrometers. Hood was on a fast track to being family. Dick can’t stop Batman with a hurting kid in his sights—murderer or not, Batman wanted a shiny new son and he was planning to ask. And yes or no, Hood wouldn’t have been able to resist. That’s how they reeled Steph in. She still won’t admit that the room she sleeps in is hers, but she’s indisputably family. 

But now? After what they did to him? They’ll be lucky to ever see him again. Dick wants to be mad that he’s at fault. Why didn’t Hood say something, tell them he wasn’t responsible for Robin’s kidnapping? Why didn’t he tell them about Black Mask? Why did he panic and assume the only way they’d come for Steph was to first be infuriated beyond reason? Dick has no room for anger past his shame.

Dick finds it in himself to speak, but his voice carries no authority. “We made a mistake. We… we were afraid he’d kill her.”

Terrified. All but paralyzed with fear. Dick remembers feeling like he stood on a knife’s edge, a razor thin tightrope: unable to sway left or right or lose his balance, and bleeding anyway no matter what. To hear Hood’s voice in his ear that night had felt like falling. He remembers begging the gods for her life, please not again, not my little sister, desperate and half coherent. And he was angry too, because Hood sounded so fucking smug, and it felt familiar in a way he thought had died in September.

“I told you not to regret this.” Beck’s voice drops into a seethe, but it’s not a vicious snarling sort of noise; there’s no fire in her words, only sadness and incredulity. She looks at Batman. “I told you not to pry.”

“We didn’t—we just—”

“No, it’s fine. I get it. ” It doesn’t sound fine, and it doesn’t sound like she gets it. “I know why you hurt my friend. I’m glad Robin is okay. She’s just a kid, right? She didn’t deserve what happened. And—and you were looking for someone to blame after so long not finding anything, and suddenly you have a lead and of course that means whoever found her before you is evil—” 

Beck is starting to be visibly distressed. Her voice is going shrill in a way that belies the incoming tide of tears. “So you attacked him, and you didn’t let him explain and you didn’t want to hear it anyway—I get it. Yeah, I’d be mad too. That’s fine. No, it’s fine that he can barely speak around the bruises you put there—” She jabs a condemning hand at Bruce. “It’s fine that he can’t walk; it is! It’s totally okay! Robin deserves people like you in her corner! People who will electrocute anyone that dares to touch her, even if it is to save her life! And it’s fine that your vengeance put him in cardiac arrest three different times because oh sure, I know CPR, it’s okay, no need to worry—” Her breath hitches. Her eyes sparkle in the low winter light. She cries ugly, face crumpled in a miserable frown. The last time Dick saw her this upset, she was gassed out of her mind on Gotham’s brand fear. 

Fuck. They fucked up. There’s not kinder way to put it.

“Beck…”

“It’s fine!” Beck sobs. “It’s—it’s—God, he just wanted you to love him. He just wanted you to prove you care.”

Dick cares. Maybe too much. Is that right? Is that why it took a week?

“We just got home. We weren’t even in Gotham when she went missing. Did you know that? We—we were halfway across the country for two weeks before coming back. He heard what happened and he just wanted to help.”

“Maybe he shouldn’t have.” Oh God, what has he done? Dick recognizes his voice, but he always hates this tone of it from both sides. It hurts. It sounds so much like Bruce.

“Maybe not.”

“Beck.” Batman pours forward like a puddle of shadow. The growl in his voice is so carefully status quo. “We’d like you to pass on a message to him.”

“I’m sure you’d like for a lot of things.” Beck snaps. “I’m not telling him you’re sorry.”

“We know what happened with Black Mask—”

“Your apology isn’t gonna do anything right now. Your understanding is too late. I don’t know if he’ll give you a second chance—and don’t waste time pitying yourselves about it. I just wanted you guys to get along.” Her lip trembles briefly. “But if you can’t do that much, then at least leave him alone. Just leave him alone. It—kriff.” She jerks her gaze downward, shoving her hands into her pockets. Her tone lowers to something almost bitter. “I don’t know why I bother. Clearly you know best.”

“We don’t always.”

“Admitting it doesn’t matter when you act like you do. And you are brilliant actors. He said that once.”

Tim decides to make his presence known, then. He steps out in the open, away from the dark cast of the generator. His posture betrays how cautious he feels. “Is he okay?”

Beck narrows her eyes. “Didn’t you hear, kid? He’s fine. Just. Fine.” Her voice is colder than the air around them. 

Tim gulps. “I’m sorry.” He blurts. “He was talking like he hurt her.”

“Yeah.” She pivots, feet crunching on the ice that’s built up, and she’s walking away—damn it, no. “We’ll work on that.”

“Beck, wait.”

She doesn’t stop and doesn’t wait.

“How can we make this right?” It’s stupid and desperate and cowardly, but Dick has to ask or he’s not sure he can move forward.

She reaches the roof access and heaves the door open. She doesn’t look back. “What are you asking me for? You’re the one with all the answers.”