Archive of Our Own

“Honestly,” Jason said, exasperated. “You take a few months off and suddenly every criminal in town forgets who you are.” That was the risk he’d taken when he agreed to help Roy with a job in Belarus, but fuck. The clean-up was going to be a pain in the ass.

The thug on the ground groaned, pushing himself up onto his hands and stumbling to his feet, like an idiot who didn’t know when he was beat. He staggered, swaying so heavily that it was clear a stray breeze could knock him over. Jason shot him instead. 

The retort was deafening, bouncing off the narrow space between the buildings around them. Jason almost regretted not using a silencer, if only to spare his own hearing. His helmet did little to filter out the noise, and there wasn’t much Jason could do to fix that. Not unless he wanted to sacrifice other audio feedback, and Jason valued things like “not getting stabbed in the back” too much to do that.

Luckily, Jason’s hearing was the only thing at stake. In a nicer part of town, the police would have been rounding the corner in a minute tops. Here, they’d be lucky if someone came at all. Here, people here feared the city’s crime lords more than they trusted the police to protect them, and they were right for it. Even with Commissioner Gordon on their side, Gotham lacked the resources to rout even a fraction of the corruption from its ranks. It was shameful, but at least it meant that Jason didn’t have to pull a runner on the cops.

The thug screamed, his knee snapping out from under him with a spray of blood. This time, he didn’t bother trying to stand again. Instead, he shoved himself onto his elbows and started dragging himself away slowly. Huh.

Persistent fucker.

“Relax,” Jason said, clicking his tongue. “If I kill you, there’s no one to take my message back to the Falcones.”

The thug spat blood. “M’sage?” he said, voice thick with liquid. 

“You know, way back when—he and I had a good thing going. We had rules,” Jason let his hand fall back to his side and flicked the gun’s safety back on, tapping the barrel on his thigh as he thought. “He didn’t deal to children, and he didn’t kill civilians. Especially not on my turf.” Jason didn’t mention that off his turf, such things were likely to be handled just as swiftly, if perhaps less violently, by the Bats. “And in return, he gets to keep his head. You see? I’m a generous man.”

“Fuck you,” the thug said. He sounded like he was trying to talk through loose teeth, and judging by the pinched expression on his face, he probably was.

“Excuse you?” Jason brought his thumb to the safety again.

“This isn’t your turf. Crime Alley and the Bowery belong to us now,” the thug gave a bloody smile through grit teeth. “You wanted to keep it, you shoulda stuck around.”

Jason turned the safety off with a click, then he leveled the gun with the thug’s head. “Careful,” he warned. “I can always find someone else to send my message.”

“Do it,” the thug said.

Jason blinked, thankful that his helmet meant he didn’t have to fight to keep the confusion off his face. “Are you fucking stupid?”

“I said do it ,” the thug—the brave goddamn moron — repeated.

The gall of it was almost admirable. Jason wanted to be impressed—would have been for sure, if the man weren’t being so inconvenient. And if he weren’t also, in general, a total piece of shit. That kind of ruined the fun.

Jason exhaled heavily. How many people had this man killed? Dozens, at least. Even low-level grunts in the Falcone family had dirty hands. Jason knew men like him; had seen them hundreds of times, walking the streets of Crime Alley—the same man wearing different faces. Shaking down shopkeepers for money, shooting people’s dogs because they were late on a payment, promising poor kids a quick buck in return for an errand— just take a pound of coke down to the docks, it’ll be fine . And if the kid got busted, good riddance. They could take the fall. If the kid got away with it, that was more than enough blackmail to force them to keep doing runs, for less and less cash until they got caught or were doing it for free.

Jason would call them the worst kind of scum, except for the fact that he’d seen worse. The thought made his stomach turn.

He remembered men like this, though, knocking on his door while his mom was on the couch, wide-eyed and blissed out. Remembered the loans, because his mom couldn’t make the rent with how expensive it was for her to get high those days, all the while they happily kept funneling drugs in her direction to ensure that she’d be making payments for the rest of her life.

Not that that had gone well, considering that it’s hard to pay anyone for anything when you’re dead.

Death was better than men like this deserved. Jason clenched and unclenched his fists. 

He’d destroy the Falcone empire. But it wasn’t that easy; they were a fair part of the economic backbone in poorer parts of the city. Whether Jason liked it or not, the work that the Falcones offered was the only thing keeping certain families from freezing or starving on the streets during Gotham’s bleak winter months. He had to dismantle them in parts—force them to play by his rules and wear away their control over the city, slow enough to let the displacement of labor settle.

It was a more patient plan than the one Jason had the first time he’d made this play. That had involved a lot of killing his way to the top, which Jason wasn’t opposed to, obviously. But it was likely to attract the attention of the Bats, and Jason was staunchly hoping to avoid that.

One on one, Jason was confident in his ability to take on nearly any of them except perhaps Bruce, and even that was an unsure thing. But the Bats had made it clear that he was only welcome in Gotham if he played by their rules, and if they worked together to drive him out…

He wouldn’t stand a chance.

Still, it was hard to not relish in the thought of doing things the old way. Now that he was imagining it, it was getting hard to remember why he’d ever stopped.

He could take two steps forward and wring this man’s neck. It would be easy. It would be fun. He could go to the Falcone estate right now and kill his way in, stain those pretty marble floors with the same stuff that had paid for them. He could crack Carmine’s skull like an egg and watch the viscera hit the ground— 

“Well?” the thug said, and Jason came back to his body. 

He didn’t gasp, but it was a near thing. Fuck . He wanted to collapse. His hands were shaking at his sides. Fuck, he thought again, with more emphasis this time. 

He fumbled with his gun; he was trembling so hard that he had to try twice to get his thumb on the safety and push it back into the on position. Just to be sure. Just to put one more barrier between himself and doing something he’d regret as soon the electricity buzzing in his veins died down.

“Today’s your lucky day, asshole,” Jason said. “I’ve decided that you aren’t worth the fucking effort.”

The thug barked a laugh, a strange and gargled thing. Jason snarled, and the thug went silent, but simply eyed Jason, as if still amused.

“I fuckin’ knew it,” the thug said. “They’ve been talking, you know. Saying you lost your nerve. That you work with the Bats now.”

Jason missed Artemis. Working with her was liberating, because she was even quicker to shut up rude assholes than he was. Bruce would have frowned on her methods, but Jason loved it; loved seeing justice done without having to give in to the strange, mindless fury that lived in his body.

But she wasn’t here, and Jason kept his hands at his sides anyway.

“You watch your fucking mouth,” Jason cautioned. “I have nothing to do with them.”

The thug glanced skeptically at the symbol on Jason’s chest, and then back up to his eyes. “Uh-huh,” he said, with a tone that suggested he didn’t believe Jason even a little bit. “Well, that’s too bad.”

Here was the part where Jason ought to walk away. He wasn’t a child; he didn’t need to get the last word in. Not yet, at least. He would get it soon enough when he’d re-established himself well enough to get the shit-bags of Gotham to remember who the fucking Red Hood was. Until then, he could wait. Except.

Jason sighed and turned back around, kneeling over the prone man, observing him clinically. “What do you mean by that?”

The man spit angrily in Jason’s direction. 

“Hey now. This is a new jacket.” The man squealed like a stuck pig as Jason picked up one of his hands and bent all his fingers back at once. The bones cracked, a couple joints popped. Jason could do worse, but he waited instead.

“Now,” Jason said. “Let’s try again.” He twisted. “What do you mean?”

The man gave a frantic gasp. It was wordless, but Jason heard what he was trying to say anyways: enough . Jason let the hand drop. 

The thug smiled grimly. “You’ll be,” his words were punctuated by a harsh gasp, “too late, anyways.”

“Then you have nothing to lose by telling me,” Jason said, and glanced deliberately in the direction of the man’s newly broken fingers. “Especially compared to what I’ll do if you keep playing games.”

“Caught a little bird down by the docks,” the thug said, and he was practically singing. “We’ll have him gutted and sent back to the Bat soon enough.”

Oh for Christ’s sake. “What did I just fucking say?” Jason said. “I am not a fucking bat . I was almost excited there, for a second. I thought you were going to tell me something I’d care about.”

This finally seemed to throw the thug for a loop. He spluttered, clearly not expecting the disappointment in Jason’s voice. Good, Jason thought viciously, turning on his heel and walking away. He shoved his gun back into its thigh holster. Maybe the guy would spread it around and people will stop accusing Jason of being one of them. 

He rounded the corner. The streets were dark, mostly empty except for the few people taking shelter against the sides of buildings, huddling to protect themselves from the windchill. There was no need to take off his helmet and try to pretend that the Red Hood wasn’t walking down the sidewalk. People in Crime Alley were used to it by now anyways. The old man at the end of the block, lurking near where Jason had left his bike, didn’t even blink at the sight of Jason’s helmet and gun. He just accepted the wad of cash Jason held out, offering a grim nod in thanks as he reached down to loosen his left shoe and hide the money under his heel.

It figured that Batman was incompetent enough to let this sort of thing happen again . Jason wondered, idly, who it might be. Tim, perhaps, or Damian. Those seemed the most likely options. Dick was also a possibility, but he was old enough now that only the villains who remembered his Robin days thought to call him little bird , and this didn’t seem like the work of Ivy or Harley or even, God forbid, the Joker. Stephanie was also an option, but her stint as Robin had been painfully short, and very few villains remembered that she’d carried the mantle at all. Plus, she was a street kid like him. Flighty, scrappy, hard to pin down. So…Tim or Damian. Probably.

Jason clenched his fists around his motorcycle’s handlebars.

Not that it mattered. There was no guarantee that Bruce would find them in time—Jason knew from experience that you should never expect to be rescued, but—but it was none of Jason’s business. He wasn’t a Bat, and he had no intention of sticking his nose where it didn’t belong. Hell, he was avoiding them. He had work to do. A city to clean up. That all got a lot harder if the Bats started meddling with his work. 

Jason’s mouth tasted like bile. The rumble of his motorcycle under him was grounding, the white noise of its engine drowning out the thoughts in his head as he slammed the brakes. The bike skid, wheels screeching against pavement, as Jason whipped it around. 

He clutched the throttle, picked up speed. There was a shriek of metal and a roar from the engine as he gunned it, making up for the acceleration he lost in the turn by pushing the bike from zero to eighty in three seconds. Fuck, he was going to regret this.

***

It was Tim. Or, fuck. Red Robin, or whatever he was going by now. They had him strung up from the ceiling, upside down. And he’d been like that for a while now, judging by how flushed his face was. His legs were bound together with a long length of chain, which wound its way up his chest and trapped his arms against his back, ensuring that he couldn’t lash out with his bound wrists. 

These folks weren’t playing games, and Tim seemed to know it too. He wasn’t struggling, though Jason wouldn’t be surprised if Tim was trying to surreptitiously wiggle one of his obnoxious gadgets out of a sleeve. He wouldn’t get to it in time, not if he was moving subtly enough to avoid being caught.

The setup was the only thing that belied the competency of the job. Jason counted eight captors in the room, ten including the ones guarding the door, who Jason had already knocked out. All two-bit criminals, dumb muscle. Dangerous, sure, but nothing special. Any of the Batbrats should have been able to take these guys out with both hands tied. So either these idiots had gotten very lucky, or Falcone had been planning this for a while. 

Maybe it didn’t matter. It was time the scum of Gotham remembered: anything that happened on the docks happened with, and only with, the Hood’s permission. It hadn’t been part of Jason’s plan for the evening, but since he was here, he might as well check it off the list. It wouldn’t even be that hard. Crack a couple skulls, shoot out a couple kneecaps. Jason could do that with his eyes shut.

Tim’s chains clinked. Jason glanced up. The kid was squirming now. One of his captors was advancing on him, but whatever he was holding wasn’t in Jason’s line of sight. But judging by Tim’s sudden, frantic struggling, it was probably something sharp. Jason pulled out his gun and lined the guy up in his crosshairs. 

The man was tall, relatively bulky. Larger than Jason, but not by much. His hair was dark. Glinting on the wrist of the arm still hanging at his side was a silver watch, gold accents. It was much too nice for someone of this guy’s paygrade, which meant that he was either more than he seemed, desperately compensating, or playing with money that didn’t belong to him.

“Relax, bird boy,” the man said. Tim was more lucid now, though his wide eyes were locked on the advancing criminal, and he didn’t seem to notice Jason lurking in the shadows above, balanced on a grated platform meant for holding equipment. Tim made a strange, breathy noise through his gag. Christ, the kid sounded like he was on the verge of a panic attack.

The man drew closer to Tim, and from this new angle Jason could see the switchblade in the man’s hand. Tim turned his head away sharply, looking off to the side and pressing his eyes shut, as if that would protect him. The man pushed the flat of the blade against Tim’s cheek. The gray steel stood in stark relief to the glistening smear of crimson across the side of Tim’s face and left ear.

“Shh, shh,” the man said. It wasn’t very soothing. He reached up and grabbed Tim’s chin with his other hand, light from the ceiling bouncing off the watch’s face. The gesture wasn’t rough, exactly, but even Jason winced slightly at how tight the man’s grip seemed to be. His finger reflexively twitched towards the trigger. “We just want to be able to hear you. That’s half the fun.”

He slid the blade up, between the fabric of the gag and Tim’s skin, and pulled outward. The fabric sagged. Tim coughed and spat it onto the ground with a wet noise.

“Half?” Tim said, voice ragged, still not meeting his captor’s gaze.

“Well, sure,” the man said, terribly amicable. He stepped back and held out a hand. 

At the silent cue, one of the watchers in the crowd reached down and picked something off the ground. He tossed it. “All yours, Callahan!” 

The man standing over Tim—Callahan, apparently—caught it easily. And he reached out, giving Tim a tap on the forehead with it. With…with the crowbar. Not violent, not yet. Just trying to get the baby hero’s attention. “The other half is going to be seeing the Batman's reaction to your bloody corpse.”

Tim made a noise at that, a dismissive sound. The frantic fear was gone from him now; Tim had wrestled it under control at some point, though Jason hadn’t noticed when exactly. Still, it was surprising to hear Tim nearly scoff in the face of the man threatening to beat him to death.

Huh. Tim was an annoying little shit, but at least he was spunky.

“What?” Callahan said. He apparently liked the attitude less than Jason did. “You think I’m wrong?” He crouched slightly so that he was eye level with his captive. “You think daddy won’t care?”

Tim went still, pressed his lips into a flat line. It was a perfectly blank reaction, completely unreadable. It said enough.

Callahan laughed and rose to standing again. “Oh, joy,” he said. “How does that feel, kid? Knowing that you’re about to die for fucking nothing?”

Tim’s eyes went hard, and he shot Callahan a surprisingly venomous glare. He lifted his chin, or did his approximation of it from upside down. Dignified now, but Jason knew that that resolve would vanish once Callahan and his men really got to work. Your pride tends to shatter pretty fast when someone beats you so hard that your organs rupture. It goeth before the fall, or whatever.

Callahan pulled the crowbar back and brought it down.

Jason’s finger tightened on the trigger.

Callahan screamed. The force of the shot through his wrist knocked the crowbar from his grip. It hit the floor with a clatter, and Callahan soon followed, hunched over his injured arm and screaming. Tim’s eyes went wide and he began struggling with renewed fervor.

Jason would have loved to watch Callahan squirm for a bit; maybe pop out a couple of the man’s other joints just for pleasure. And perhaps he would, after he’d taken out the rest of these idiots.

These men clearly weren’t paid much, and it showed. Most didn’t bother to get up again once Jason put a bullet through a shoulder or a kneecap. They just lay flat on the ground, groaning, clearly hoping that it would be enough to dissuade Jason from shooting them again.

“Shit!” one of them swore, and pulled a gun of his own. 

Jason shot it out of the man’s hand and surged forward, grabbing him by the arm and throwing him to the ground, twisting the limb with a satisfying crack as he did.

This was amateur hour. Jason smirked from beneath his helmet and holstered his gun, turning around to face the thug who had been creeping up on him with a knife

Jason punched him in the face, enjoying the crack and pop of the man’s jaw dislocating under his fist. A knee to the stomach, a stomp in the face, and the man was down. Jason turned to the next, letting himself sink into the rhythm of the fight. There was peace to be found in even an easy exchange of blows. 

The fight in total lasted no more than a minute. Jason felt like he’d been there for centuries. It wasn’t enough. His skin itched. Jason clenched his fists and unclenched them. His gloves kept his nails from biting into his skin, so Jason kicked the ground instead.

Tim was still squirming in his chains, unable to get free.

Jason paused and turned to observe the warehouse. The bloody, groaning bodies. 

“Are you…” Tim didn’t seem to know what he wanted to ask.

Jason walked up to where Tim was dangling and bent down, picking the crowbar up off the ground where it had fallen. It burned in his grip. Jason bit his lip and ignored the feeling, and Tim’s frantic exclamations, as he turned his attention back to the groaning Callahan.

“Hey, asshole,” Jason said. Callahan glanced up. Jason pushed the hooked end of the crowbar into his neck with just enough force to pin him to the ground and force his chin up. “What’s Falcone planning?”

Callahan grit his teeth and remained silent. Jason looked back in Tim’s direction. He probably shouldn’t torture the information out of Callahan in front of him; Tim would probably run back and rat him out to Bruce, the little brat.

He could take Callahan and go. But, knowing Jason’s luck, something would go terribly awry and Tim would expire before the rest of the Bats came along to cut him down, and that would be even more of a pain in the ass to deal with. Fuck .

“Fine,” Jason growled. 

Callahan mewled when Jason brought the crowbar down the first time, and went silent and still when Jason struck him again. 

Jason panted, tightening his grip around the crowbar. The curved head of it was painted slick and red, a sharp contrast to the rusty black metal. The smell of copper filled Jason’s nose and mouth, choking him.

Tim had gone quiet. “Is he…”

“No.” Jason said flatly. Just nearly , he didn’t say, because Tim could see that well enough.

He dropped the crowbar, letting it fall to the ground from his limp hands. It hit the ground with a clatter and Jason kicked it as far away from himself as he could. He turned away, then paused and marched around to the other side of Callahan’s unconscious body, stomping down on the man’s uninjured wrist. The bone made a satisfying crack under Jason’s boot, the glass face of that fancy watch fracturing with it.

“You’re fucking lucky I was in the area, Red Robin ,” Jason said. He was tempted to take his helmet off, just so Tim could see the snarl on Jason’s face as well as hear it in his voice. Tim was also lucky that Jason carried a laser cutter on him, because now that the battle haze was fading, Jason could feel the ache of bruised ribs in his chest, and if he had to clamber back up thirty feet of platforms to release the holding mechanism on the chain, he probably would have just left Tim here, Bats be damned. 

Jason held the laser cutter with a steady hand. Tim craned his head back, eyeing it like he was concerned that Jason was going to rake it across his face. 

Which—okay, fair.

Jason snapped the ropes around Tim’s wrists before turning his attention to the chains, which fell apart under the little green laser with a clink. Jason considered catching Tim, briefly, but dismissed the concept out of hand. He and Tim weren’t on catching terms. Tim twisted neatly in the air anyways—Jason did do him the courtesy of yanking the chains away from Tim’s center mass so he wouldn’t catch on them and fall on his face.

Tim landed in a crouch, and started edging away the second his feet made contact with the ground. Or he tried to, at least. Instead, he just backpedaled a few steps before his face contorted and he made a small, pained noise, pulling a hand up to his chest and hunching over.

If Jason’s ribs were bruised, the kid’s were definitely broken. Which meant that Tim wasn’t going to be taking off and doing acrobatics across rooftops anytime soon, not unless he wanted to have an unpleasant death that involved a lot of gagging on his own blood.

“Rude,” Jason said flatly. 

“Hood,” Tim responded, eyeing Jason nervously. 

Jason stayed silent. If Tim was expecting Jason to initiate some sort of conversation, then he was sorely mistaken.

Tim curled inwards a little more, looking drastically more pale than he had before. “Do you know these guys?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Jason said, fingers unconsciously twitching towards his gun.

Tim flinched. 

“I don’t know every lowlife in Gotham,” Jason didn’t bother to keep the venom out of his voice. “No, shithead, I did not come here to shoot these assholes up because they’re my friends . For fuck’s sake.”

Tim cast his eyes downward. “I didn’t mean it that way,” he said, voice low. “I know you keep an eye on what happens in the underworld, even better than B. I thought you might know who they worked for.”

That…made sense. Jason exhaled slowly. “I don’t,” he said gruffly. “And that was a while ago, I just got back in town.”

Tim quirked a brow. “You’ve been back for at least a month,” he said.

Well, shit. If the brat knew, Bruce probably did too. So much for staying under Bruce’s radar.

“Whatever,” Jason snapped. “Just call Batman so he can pick you up already.”

“I can’t,” Tim said. “They took my comm.”

Ugh. This was getting more tedious by the moment. Jason brought a hand to his temple, wishing he could massage away the headache pressing against the inside of his skull, forgetting—up until the moment his fingertips touched smooth metal—that he was still wearing his helmet. He dropped his hand back to his side with a frustrated noise.

“Why hasn’t he found you yet, anyways?” Jason said. “Has the old man gotten so rusty that he can’t activate a fucking tracking device?”

Tim gave a pained chuckle at that. Jason blinked, thankful that his helmet was still on to hide his surprise. “Not quite,” Tim said, and gestured to his shoulder with a wince.

Jason followed the motion, his eyes catching first on the red smear still decorating the left half of Tim’s face, coagulating around the edges of his domino mask and making his hair dry in spiky little clumps. And then his gaze dropped down, and he saw what Tim meant.

Jason had assumed the blood was from a head injury; it seemed like the logical explanation. It would have taken a surprise attack for a bunch of idiots like that to take down even the youngest Bats, so Jason had thought, reasonably, that one of them just waited until Tim’s back was turned and conked him over the head.

But there was a hole, small—not very wide and not very deep—with bloody, ragged edges, nestled in the crook between Tim’s collarbone and his neck. It was still weeping blood, though now it dripped down into the black of Tim’s uniform collar rather than into his face and eyes, as it must have done when Tim was dangling by his feet. It was, presumably, where Tim’s tracker had been.

“How did they even find that?” Jason said, exasperated.

“They had a device,” Tim said. “Waved it over me and it went off like a siren when it found the tracker.”

Well, shit. That wasn’t good. It took a lot of money to get hands on something capable of picking up a reading from one of Bruce’s trackers. Jason didn’t remember the details anymore, but Bruce had sworn up and down that the alloy he used couldn’t be picked up by metal detectors. He had designed the things to be as close to undetectable as possible, but Jason knew that you could do nearly anything if you threw enough money at it. Falcone was putting real resources behind this, then.

“Well,” Jason said slowly. “What are you going to do?”

Tim winced. “I can make my way back from here.”

“Your ribs are broken,” Jason said.

“Oh,” Tim wilted slightly. “You noticed.”

“Yes, I noticed ,” Jason shot back. “I know you guys think I’m an idiot, but I have basic observational skills, dipshit.”

“We don’t—” Tim said, and then aborted his sentence. “I just mean, you’ve done more than enough. You can go home and I can take it from here.”

Sure. And then tomorrow evening, he’d get Nightwing knocking on his apartment door, teary-eyed and angry because he’d let Red Robin walk home alone in the middle of the night and poor, dumb Timmy-boy, in a haze of blood loss and confusion, had walked right off a rooftop. Exactly what Jason didn’t need.

“Fuck,” Jason said. “Just come with me.” 

There was an old well in Gotham City’s periphery, in an abandoned lot of land that no one used. And no one ever would, since Wayne Industries had bought up the property fifteen years ago. It was an entrance to the Cave, and far enough away from the Manor that Jason could stomach going there. He’d dump Tim off by the thing, which would trip the Cave’s sensors. The family would handle it from there, and Jason would have plenty of time to get the hell out of dodge before they did. 

Jason turned to march away. He only made it a few steps before he realized Tim wasn’t following.

“I said ‘come with me,’” Jason said again, sharper.

Tim was staring at Jason suspiciously. “Where?” he said.

“For fuck’s—I’m going to take you to the Cave , Replacement,” Jason snarled. “Do you really think that I went through all that trouble just so I could kill you somewhere else?”

“No,” Tim said reluctantly, and stepped forward. He hissed through his teeth and stumbled. Oh, Jesus effin Christ. They were going to be here all night. 

Jason ignored the way Tim cringed when he came in close and ducked down, pulling Tim’s arm over his shoulder and taking most of his weight. Despite initially shying away, Tim thankfully didn’t fight it as they started limping their way out of the warehouse.

“I just—” Tim said unexpectedly. “You can just drop me off at my apartment.”

Jason nearly missed a step.

“You aren’t staying at the Manor?”

“I am! Or, I was…” Tim looked away. “It’s complicated.”

Well, fuck. Maybe there was more to Callahan’s earlier comment than Jason had realized.

He couldn’t keep a note of glee from entering his voice. “Uh-oh,” he said brightly. “Trouble in paradise for the rich kid?”

Tim scowled and didn’t respond. “Just leave me at my place,” he said.

“You really comfortable with the big, bad Red Hood knowing where you live?” Jason said. He was mainly joking, but he couldn’t honestly claim to be surprised by the way that Tim went stiff. The tension in his body said what he wasn’t brave enough to: no, I am not comfortable with that.

Jason scoffed. “Sorry, dipshit. It’s the Cave or nothing.”

“No!” Tim said, and tried to yank himself away. Jason held tight, because the Replacement was pale and shaking now, and there was no way Tim trying to shove himself away from Jason right now was going to end any other way than Tim eating shit on the concrete. “Ja—Hood, just leave me. I’m being serious.”

Jason scowled. “Doctor Thompkins,” he said. “Final offer, Red Robin. Doctor Thompkins or the Cave, your choice.”

Tim stopped fighting, apparently aware that he wasn’t going to get himself free. He huffed, and then winced when the movement jostled his ribs. 

“Leslie,” he decided, though he didn’t sound happy about it. Doctor Leslie Thompkins was a good woman, one of the few people from Jason’s pre-death years, along with Alfred, who he couldn’t muster much bitterness for. But he and Tim both knew that no injury to one of the Batbrats could go through her without word of it reaching Bruce. Still, the news reaching Bruce in an hour or two was better than Jason dumping Tim right at the doorstep of the Cave, and Tim knew it.

Getting Tim onto the motorcycle was a pain, but Jason managed. Tim didn’t seem to enjoy it, but he was alive. That was more than Jason could say about his experience being kidnapped by a maniac with a crowbar.

Tim settled into place behind Jason, and halfway through the high-speed ride it seemed like the adrenaline of his capture was finally starting to wear off for real. 

“Stay awake , kid,” Jason snapped, nudging Tim sharply when Tim’s arms started to go lax around Jason’s waist.

“Mm,” Tim said, but seemed to snap awake slightly. “Sorry.”

“Just try not to fall off,” Jason said. Tim didn’t have any fatal injuries, but that would change if he slipped off the bike and hit the pavement while they were going seventy miles per hour.

Tim’s grip tightened again. He made a strange, sick groan and rested his face against the leather of Jason’s jacket, forehead pressing against the flat of Jason’s shoulder blade. The blood may have been from the tracker, but he must have received some sort of head injury, because that was a nauseous-sounding moan if Jason had ever heard one. 

“Do not vomit on me,” Jason said. 

“I won’t,” Tim said, sounding grumpier than Jason had ever heard from him before. 

“I mean it.”

“So do I,” Tim reached up and smacked Jason in the side. Jason’s chest panged, but not badly. It had been a harmless swipe, nearly playful.

“Woah,” Tim said, voice suddenly clear and alarmed. “You okay? You swerved there for a second.”

Jason inhaled sharply through his nose. “Something in the road,” he lied. The back of his skull was buzzing, something was scratching at his mind and trying to get in. Jason ignored it.

“We’re here,” he said instead, pulling into an alley so that Tim could slink into the clinic’s back entrance. “Get off my fucking bike.”

“Oh,” Tim said. “Right.” He unwrapped himself from around Jason and swung his leg over the seat so that he was sitting with his toes dangling a few inches off the ground. “Hey.”

“What?” Jason tilted his head slightly, just enough to make out Tim’s expression.

Tim smiled, a pained, thin-looking thing. “Thanks a lot,” he said. “You didn’t have to. Do any of that stuff, I mean. Saving me, or driving me here. I know you don’t like me very much, so...thanks.”

“Go,” Jason said again, and Tim nodded. He slid off the bike’s seat, stumbling a few steps when his feet hit the ground. Jason could have reached out, steadied him. He tightened his grip on the handlebars and turned his head away.

“Bye,” Tim said, waving awkwardly. The gesture was enough to make Jason jolt. Fuck, why was he idling here like an idiot? Tim could see himself to the door. And he should. He didn’t need Jason to mind him, and God knows Jason wouldn’t give a shit even if he did.

Jason didn’t respond, gripping the clutch and revving the engine. The bike roared under him, and he took off into the night. Doc Thompkins would take care of Tim.

He, on the other hand, could handle Falcone.