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Jason was having an average patrol night.
Which meant a brief brawl with the Big Bad Bat and stopping a few muggings. Which also meant that Jason didn’t get to relieve himself of his pent-up Pit rage and was getting jittery. He was itching for a fight. Itching to beat up and shoot a rapist, a creep, someone hurting his side of Gotham.
Jason stood on the ledge of a building in Crime Alley near the warehouses. If he was looking for a fight, this was where he’d find it. And Jason was looking for a fight.
Patrol was good for him. It helped him chase away the green tendrils of the Lazarus Pit lurking in the corners of his mind.
A slow night meant a bad day the next morning. A good night meant a relatively calm day where he could function relatively well.
The night was foggy. From Jason’s vantage point, he stood just a little above the fog blanketing Gotham City. It painted an apocalyptic picture, the fog lit up orange from the streetlight, the crooked and crumbling buildings around Jason. It also silenced the world beneath him, made it harder to see figures pulling guns on a random passerby and asking for their wallet. It guaranteed one hell of a slow night and Jason had almost resolved himself to admit that he could call it a night and deal with tomorrow’s terrible mood when he heard a faint scream.
He paused, a slow grin spreading on his face.
His boring night just got interesting.
The warehouse next to the building he was standing on was close enough that Jason could make the jump without his grapple gun. He landed heavily and stayed there, crouched, waiting for any other signs of life.
It didn’t matter if he heard another scream or a gunshot; he wasn’t letting this go until he found the source of the commotion.
Might be a kidnapping. Might be a hostage situation. Might be a drug deal gone wrong.
He heard another echoing scream followed by the echo of indiscernible voices yelling.
Jason’s grin widened as he dropped to the ground level soundlessly, the fog muffling his heavy footsteps. There were multiple people involved.
The scream and the voices had come from the warehouse next to the one he’d been perched on. From the rooftop, he’d seen a rusted sign claiming it as the warehouse of some long-forgotten mill supply company.
Getting in was easy, especially with the fog shrouding virtually every sound. He climbed a rusted metal ladder and climbed through a smashed window.
“We could always let him go,” a voice said. “He ain’t seen our faces and I ain’t ‘bout to go through the trouble of killin’ a kid.”
That was the incentive the green rage inside Jason needed. This was a kidnapping. And it was a kid. And it was happening in Crime Alley. Had Jason not been specific enough? Had the severed heads not been warning enough of what he was capable of doing to people who didn’t follow the rules?
Either way, it didn’t matter.
Jason was going to be making a few more examples tonight.
He stood up and leaned against the railing of the catwalk. The voices were male. Three men, ski masks discarded and tossed carelessly on a folding table, two of the men with AKs slung over their shoulder. He scanned around for the third gun and found it set on a crate next to a full clip.
There was a small figure tied to a chair in a corner, blindfolded and gagged, trembling and with a growing stain on his thigh probably from a bullet.
“Didn’t I make myself explicitly clear already?” Jason asked loudly, relishing in the way his voice boomed and echoed in the big empty warehouse and even more at the sight of the three men flinching.
It made the green of the Pit sing.
“Red Hood,” one of the men muttered, his face white and features pulled in a grimace of terror.
“That’s weird,” Jason said, walking the length of the catwalk towards the metal staircase, keenly aware of the men’s eyes on him. “Because I distinctly remember being explicitly clear on the fact that kids were out of the question.”
He unholstered one of his guns and clicked the safety off. “Maybe the bag of heads wasn’t enough,” he said, rotating one of his wrists to make sure the knives weren’t jammed too far up his sleeve.
A man with a weasely face and a snake tattoo stretching across his collarbone stepped up and aimed his gun at Jason. The second man followed suit and the third one scurried over to get his gun. He’d have to time this right.
“We take care of our little business here,” he said in a menacing tone. “You take care o’ yours and leave us be and we’ll call it a day.”
Jason paused halfway down the stairs and leaned on the railing.
“That sounds mighty appealing,” he said. “Unfortunately for you, it involves a kid and I’m not in a merciful mood.”
That was all the warning he gave them. With a flick of his wrist, he sent a knife flying through the air. It sliced clean through Weasel Man’s throat. He stumbled in surprise, the gun clattering to the ground as he choked, hand instinctively reaching up to staunch the blood.
The second man fired at Jason, but he’d already leapt over the railing. He fired a full clip into the man, hitting the mark every time. Face, hands, chest, legs, neck. He dropped to the ground, dead.
The third man clearly didn’t want to be here. He was fumbling with his gun, spilling more cartridges than actually loading. Jason would have felt bad.
He plunged a serrated knife in the man’s chest and dragged the blade downwards, cutting through bone, muscle, and skin tissue like they were made of butter.
He would have felt bad for the man in another life. And even then, probably not.
He kicked the man away and stepped back as he collapsed with a garbled cry, his hands uselessly grabbing at his stomach.
Jason calmly wiped the knife clean and slid it back in his belt.
He quickly made his way over to the kid, wincing at the thought of subjecting him to the bloody scene.
He crouched in front of him, taking inventory of every bruise and cut.
He scowled when he spotted cuts and bruises along his arms and on his chest and face. Some bruises were fading and the smaller cuts scabbing over, clearly inflicted longer than a day ago. His scowl deepened when he saw the small circular burns along one arm. He had some to match, way back when Willis still hadn’t been arrested and had made Jason’s every day miserable. Suddenly, he wished he’d played a little longer with the kid’s kidnappers.
“Hey, I’m gonna turn that chair around, and then we’ll take off your blindfold, okay?” he asked. “That sound good?”
He waited for the kid to nod tentatively before standing back up and turning the chair slowly away from the carnage. Definitely something no kid should be subjected to.
The kid was small. Maybe twelve or thirteen. Rich kid, definitely middle class or higher up from the expensive look of his clothes, underneath the layers of grime and blood.
“I’m gonna take off the blindfold and gag, okay?” he said, making sure the kid knew he was about to touch him to avoid any knee-jerk reaction.
Another jerky nod.
Jason circled around the kid and loosened the blindfold easily enough. The gag was more difficult. He had to pull out a knife to cut through three layers of duct tape and then had to pull that out of the kid’s hair as gently as he could. It still elicited a few flinches from the kid, but soon the tape was completely off and tossed on the ground. The kid spat out a white cloth soaked through with saliva and shut his mouth, cringing, most likely from the soreness of having his jaw pried open for an extended period of time.
“Okay, kid--” Jason paused in his step.
He recognized him. He couldn’t tell from the black hair alone, and with the blindfold and gag it had been hard to spot and identifiable facial features, but this was the Replacement. This was the little kid who’d become Robin not even six months after Jason died. This was the kid Jason had planned on visiting to teach him and Bruce a lesson.
Here. All alone with him. This was too perfect.
Jason laughed. “Well isn’t today my lucky day!” he said, advancing slowly. “Wasn’t expecting to see a little bird in this part of town.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the kid mumbled.
Jason scoffed. “Drop the charade, kid. I know everything about you, Timothy Jackson Drake. Third Robin. Replacement Robin.”
The kid flinched harshly at that and satisfaction curled in Jason’s gut.
The kid looked away from Jason, glaring at the ground. He struggled against his bonds but hissed in pain and quickly gave up.
“Cat got your tongue, Replacement?” Jason asked, circling him and observing him.
The guys who kidnapped him hadn’t gone easy on him. And he’d been here for a few days, at the very least.
That thought made Jason angrier, the green ensnaring his mind. Was one kidnapped and dead Robin not enough for Bruce? He’d let another one get kidnapped and hadn’t gone after him?
Whatever. Jason would have a wonderful time telling Bruce that he should pay more attention to his little birds in the future. Lest they fall in the wrong hands.
“Surprised the big man hasn’t come for you, yet,” Jason mused, tapping the flat of his blade thoughtfully against the Replacement’s cheek.
He flinched at the contact and tried to pull away, wincing when it jostled some hidden injuries.
“He won’t,” Tim said. “It’s not him they called.”
The bitterness and resignation in his voice made Jason pause for a moment. He grinned maliciously. Well, wasn’t that just perfect?
He tilted the Replacement’s head towards him. Tim’s eyes were drooping from exhaustion, both of them shadowed with heavy bags and still slightly swollen from two matching bruises. Old, from the sickly yellow and green of the bruise. That confirmed the fact that Tim had been here a few days.
“So I guess he wouldn’t mind me having a little fun with you before dropping you off, then?” he asked, his fingers digging in Tim’s jaw hard enough to bruise.
Tim winced and tried to pull out of his grip. A useless endeavor when he was half Jason’s size beaten up as he was. He could probably lose a fight against a puppy in this condition.
Jason didn’t move. “You know,” he said. “It’s rude to take things that don’t belong to you.”
Another flinch. “I didn’t--”
Jason pressed the tip of the blade against the bullet wound in the kid’s thigh. He gasped in pain and tried to jerk away, the ropes and cuffs effectively cutting his movement short.
“You didn’t what?” Jason asked sharply. “Take on the uniform of a dead kid? Doesn’t matter anyway, right? He’s dead and won’t be complaining much, huh?”
The Replacement glared at Jason. “Don’t talk about him like that,” he said. “You don’t know anything about him.”
Jason laughed at that. “I know him more than you think.” He lifted the knife from the kid’s leg.
“He’s more than a dead Robin,” Tim said, gritting his teeth.
Jason hummed, flipping the knife in his hand. “A sweet sentiment.”
In one fluid movement, he sliced a long thin cut along the kid’s neck. The Replacement choked back a scream of pain and breathed in deeply. It was barely a flesh wound.
Jason planned on inflicting much worse than that. Maybe a few broken bones.
Fingers. Collarbone. Legs.
He grinned at the kid. “How long do you think it’ll take the old man to find out you’re not where you’re supposed to be?”
He was eyeing the kid, his mind already coming up with all the ways he could hurt him, make Bruce suffer, make Dick suffer.
To his surprise, the kids’ shoulders slumped. “Too long,” he mumbled.
Jason scowled. The kid’s parents would report him missing. Bruce would find his partner gone. This was how this was supposed to go. This was how Jason had planned it to go.
The kid just had to ruin Jason’s fun every time.
“Did you run away from Robin?” he asked. “Couldn’t take it? Rich kid like you, not really a surprise.”
The kid was still adamantly refusing to break eye contact with the ground. “Just untie me, no one’s gonna care.”
Jason had been steadily ignoring every red flag that had popped up while talking with the Replacement, and apparently, he’d reached his limit of apathy.
“The hell you mean, “no one’s gonna care”?” he practically growled.
The kid remained infuriatingly quiet. He hadn’t even flinched. All he’d done every time Jason talked was flinch.
He crouched in front of the kid and angled his head slightly to the side. His eyes were closed and his body sagged forward, stopped by the ropes against his chest. A few days’ worth of exhaustion and torture. Jason shouldn’t be surprised that the kid had just passed out on him like that.
He stood up and unlocked the cuffs tying his hands together, not bothering to be careful when it caught in sticky blood. The kid would be wearing long sleeves for a while after this ordeal. He made quick work of the ropes against his chest and legs and hefted him up in his arms with ease.
He wasn’t going to clean up the bodies. Either they’d be found or they wouldn’t, it couldn’t be less of a problem to Jason.
Jason decided to go to one of his quieter safe houses. He picked the one just above an antique shop that was closed more often than it was open. It was near Crime Alley and around these parts, no one reported any screams to the police. Usually, they’d leave it alone or yell at their neighbor to keep it down.
The safehouse was sparsely furnished, most rooms empty, with only a bed in one room, a table and three chairs in the kitchen, and a sofa in what was supposed to be the living room. The bare minimum.
Jason took the Replacement to an empty room and tied him to the radiator.
There wasn’t much the kid could do from the blood loss, days in captivity, and bullet wound, but Jason wasn’t taking any chances.
He tied the ropes in a complicated knot Talia had taught him at the League. No way the kid was ever getting out of that without external help. The kid was still unconscious and Jason had taken the time to hastily pull the bullet out of his leg and quickly wrap the bleeding wound in gauze before leaving him alone in the room.
That left Jason time to think about his next move. And sleep. If the Replacement got to sleep, then so did Jason.
Jason only managed three hours before waking up again and stumbling out into the kitchen. The sun hadn’t even risen yet and Jason had already tossed the idea of having a good day right out the window.
He rooted through a cabinet for a glass and filled it up with water from the tap before making his way to the room he’d left the kid in.
He didn’t hear anything from his side, but that didn’t necessarily mean the kid was still asleep.
He slowly opened the door to see the Replacement awake, his legs pulled up to his chest and his forehead resting on his knees.
His head shot up when he heard the door creak open and his expression turned warry when he saw Jason.
“Who are you?” he asked.
It was slightly adorable. He was tied to a radiator and trying to sound intimidating.
And, oh, Jason had banked on the kid still being asleep and hadn’t bothered with his helmet.
The room was dark enough that the kid wouldn’t have a clear view of his face anyway, so it didn’t matter too much. The chances of him recognizing Jason were low. He wasn’t fifteen anymore and it showed.
“Take a wild fucking guess, Replacement,” he said, not in the mood to deal with the kid, or with people.
“Red Hood,” he said.
Jason smiled. “Your brain still works.”
He kicked the door shut with his foot, hard enough that it slammed, plunging the room in even more darkness. The only light being the weak morning light filtering through the shut blinds. The kid flinched.
“What do you want?” he asked.
He was straightforward with his demands, at least. Jason sat down on the floorboards, his back leaning against the door.
“Right now? Not much,” he admitted. “Still trying to figure out what to do with you. How much I should hurt you for Bruce to finally get it through his thick skull that he should have buried Robin in Ethiopia.”
Tim flinched, his expression guarded. “How do you know so much about Batman? How do you know so much about Robin?”
Because I used to be him.
The kid’s suspicious look morphed into shock.
“Robin?” he asked. “Jason?”
“Haven’t you heard?” Jason asked. “Dead kids don’t come back to life. They stay dead.”
Tim flinched at the sharp words. He looked shocked. Awed. God, it wasn’t even seven in the morning.
“How did you come back? Does Bruce know?”
Jason set the glass of water on the ground next to him and didn’t miss the way Tim’s eyes quickly darted to it then back to Jason. He inspected his nails.
“He’s about to,” Jason said mildly. “Maybe if I cut off a finger and send it to him he’ll get the message,” he said, completely ignoring the Replacement’s question. “Do you think it’ll freak your parents out too much if I sent them your fingers? One by one.”
The kid sighed deeply. “They won’t get it.”
Jason scoffed. “What? That their kid was kidnapped? I think it sends a pretty strong message--”
“No, they won’t get it. Literally. They’re-- they’re out of the country.”
Ah. Threats always did get people to spill their secrets.
“So? They’d still get a ransom note.”
Tim shrugged. “Maybe they just didn’t care,” he spat out. “Their work is important--”
“And their son got kidnapped,” Jason countered. “How long did they keep you?”
Tim kept his mouth shut.
“Dammit, just fucking answer--”
“Four days,” Tim said softly.
The anger ebbed out of Jason, the green vanishing completely, overtaken by sheer shock. He’d estimated two days. Not four.
“And Bruce didn’t know?” Jason asked.
The anger would come back with force, once Jason accepted the hard truth that this kid hadn’t expected to be found. Jesus. Christ.
The kid shook his head. “My parents were supposed to come back for the week. Bruce gave me the week off. They changed their plans last minute.”
It was definitely too early for Jason to be dealing with this. Jason didn’t remember much of Ethiopia, or the Joker. But he did remember knowing with absolute certainty that Bruce would come. This kid-- fourteen years old and the size of a twelve-year-old-- hadn’t expected anyone to come.
“They just-- didn’t get the calls? Your parents?”
Tim shrugged. “They never answer calls. They’re always too busy.”
The green was back. And it wanted to kill the Replacement’s parents.
“So you were in captivity for four days and your parents were off gallivanting somewhere not giving a flying fuck about their kid?”
The kid flinched. Jason wanted to snap at him to stop. “They do care.”
Jason shook his head. “Really? You would’a died in there. You know that. Hell, kid, four days.”
“They care,” the kid snapped, his voice cracking.
Jason glared at the trembling form of the kid. “When did they start hurting you? After the first time your parents didn’t answer? Second? Probably the third, right?” Tim didn’t reply. His head was once again buried in his knees. “They start hitting you. And they didn’t stop. I’m not fucking blind, okay. Even Bruce would’ve been out of his mind--”
Was. had been, even. He remembered Bruce calling his name frantically, holding him tightly before--
He clenched his jaw. “D’you really call that caring?”
The Replacement didn’t reply. Instead, Jason heard sniffling. Fucking great. He didn’t know how to deal with crying children.
Untying them, for starters.
He pushed himself up, taking the glass of water with him. Untying the kid took too long, and Jason was too tired. He pulled out his knife and sliced through the ropes. Jason nudged the glass of water in Tim’s hands until the kid actually took it.
“Drink or I’ll force it down your throat,” Jason said.
Tim wiped at his eyes uselessly before attempting to drink the water. Jason had expected the kid to refuse, but he guessed he hadn’t eaten or drunk anything during his kidnapping, from the way he drained the cup.
Jason sighed, rubbing his eyes.
This was not what he’d planned at all. At all.
“I can’t believe this,” Jason mumbled, dragging his hands down his face. “I came here to torture you, not become your fucking therapist.”
Tim didn’t say anything. He just sat back against the radiator, rubbing his wrists absent-mindedly, nails picking at the scabs.
“Can I-- hug you?” Tim practically squeaked out.
Jason blinked. Had the kid not heard what Jason had just said.
“Um…”
The Replacement launched himself at Jason. He barely had time to flinch when the kid’s arms wrapped around his chest tightly and he started shaking again.
Jason awkwardly ruffled the kid’s hair, steadily ignoring the tears soaking through his shirt.
“I thought I’d die,” he mumbled, startling Jason. “I thought I’d die and no one would care.”
Jason winced. “Yeah. That feeling sucks, huh?”
God, he’d wanted to torture this kid.
“I thought-- I thought my parents would answer,” he went on. “And when they didn’t, I just-- I just gave up, you know? No one else was coming-- Bruce thought I was home with my parents, Dick was in Blüdhaven, my parents--”
Jason rested his chin against the kid’s head, all too familiar with that feeling. All too familiar with that feeling of abandonment. Much too familiar with the resignation that he was about to die, alone and without anyone coming to save him. No one deserved to feel like that.
Jason wrapped the kid in his arms and lifted him in his arms. He squeaked in surprise as Jason hoisted himself up to his feet and attempted to open the door with his elbows.
“We’re catching up on sleep,” Jason said. “Now that I don’t want to torture you to death, I’ll settle for yelling at Bruce on the phone.”
He set the kid on his bed and made to leave, but the kid grabbed his wrist. It took all Jason ad to not flinch and swat the hold away.
“Stay?”
Jason scowled. “I wanted to kill you not even two hours ago.”
The kid mumbled sleepily. “‘S’no problem,” he mumbled. “You don’t wanna murder me now.”
Twisted logic, definitely not the conclusion to be drawn from any of this, but Jason was willing to let it slide this one time.
He nudged the Replacement away and climbed into bed next to him. Immediately, the kid latched on to him, resting his head against Jason’s chest.
“Haven’t cuddled anyone in a while,” he said. “Feels nice.”
And wow that was fucking sad. This kid wasn’t allowed to ever go back to his parents. Good god.
Jason huffed. “Good to know,” he said, running his hand through Tim’s hair like Dick used to do him, still completely clueless as to what the hell he was even supposed to do. The kid wasn’t complaining, so he must be doing it right.
Dick was equipped to cuddle people. Jason was equipped to shoot people and break bones.
“You’re not letting the Replacement go back to his parents,” Jason snapped on the phone, Tim still fast asleep in his arms in the bed. It was midday and Jason would eventually have to wake him for food and to clean his injuries. God, he was turning into DIck.
“Who is this?” Bruce growled.
Jason rolled his eyes. “Jason,” he said. “I’m not dead. Surprise. Also, I just saved your Robin from a hostage situation in his civvies. Double surprise.”
Bruce faltered, then started speaking, asking question after question, stumbling over his words.
“the kid’s parents suck,” Jason snapped. “I’ll drop him off later, and you’re going to deal with this problem, okay? Your kid, your problem.”
Jason hung up. He could expect a visit from Bruce any time, now. Fucking great. Just fucking great. He’d just wanted to torture the Replacement, not become his teddy bear. God fucking dammit.
He glared at the kid asleep in his arms. His mouth was slightly open and he looked completely at peace.
“Fuck you,” he murmured, running his fingers through his hair. “I hate you.”