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This was not supposed to happen. At all.
Jason had planned on a nice, quiet evening for a change, curl up in his favourite safe house with the new Nora Roberts book and a whole pint of butter pecan ice cream from the corner shop. (Self-care, see? He is improving)
What? Even up-and-coming crime lords need a break.
Of course, it should be absolutely no surprise that the universe decides it is allergic to the combination of Jason Todd and properly executed plans.
Because that, right there, is the original Boy Wonder in all his glory. Grappling along the Crime Alley in his stupid blue-black suit. (Why Nightwing, anyway, Jason has checked, that isn’t even a real bird…)
Jason’s fingers twitch towards his holsters.
Nope, he won’t actually shoot the idiot. He has his plans laid out in perfect order – he doesn’t want them spoilt.
And that is absolutely the only reason he is not going to shoot him right there. Absolutely.
He probably should take a shot, though. Fire past him, just close enough to make it look serious. Make sure it is known Red Hood wants no Bats or Birds in his home ground.
Maybe he should follow along a bit, though.
Make sure Dickiebird is just patrolling – or just going ‘flying’ just because, the way that hyperactive nutcase does – and not actually sniffing around.
Much as he likes to insult Goldie’s intelligence, there is a reason he is favourite for practically all the superhero teams in existence.
If Nightwing suspects something, Jason needs to know sooner than later.
……………………………………….
They have played this game before. Before… Before Ethiopia. Before the Green.
Playing bird hunt all over Gotham.
The flyer grappling or running, the chaser following through the shadows. If the flyer spots the chaser, flyer wins. If they cross the appointed time limit with the chaser still unseen and in tow, chaser wins.
The first few times they played, Dick had let him win.
Till Jason got mad and glitterbombed him. (Not that the bastard had any shame – he had gone to the Titans party still sparkling, claiming it was guaranteed to be the coolest look)
By the end, though, Jason had gotten good. Really good. And in the League, he has gotten better.
It’s literally child’s play to follow Nightwing, slipping through the shadows on the rooftops. (Jason does not want this chase to end like those, end in a tackle hug and maybe way too much glitter, he certainly doesn’t, he just wants the Bat’s pet out of his territory…)
He keeps close. Maybe closer than he should. Maybe not as close as he should. He is one rooftop away when it happens.
Jason sees it almost in slow motion.
Dick, flying as he always does, like he is born to do it. The grapple line, thrown expertly to grasp the next hold. The grapple line snapping.
The grapple line, snapping. Snapping. Thirty stories up. The ground just a suggestion beneath.
Before he fully registers what he saw, Jason is already running.
Leaping.
………………………………………
Dick Grayson has had enough experience already to know how time slows down when something like this happens.
There is the split second where the grapple line goes slack in his hand, the instant that is all he has to know what just happened.
And then he is in free fall.
Dick knows, logically, it’s only a few seconds.
But like always, there is time. Too much time.
Enough time to find himself back in the crowded tent, under the spotlight, two falling forms glittering as they drop.
Enough time to think, after everything he did, does, this has to be the stupidest way to die. The Titans will Ouija board him to let him know how stupid it was.
Enough time to think this must be how they felt, how mami and tati felt, that this isn’t too bad, not really, it almost feels like flying, swooping…
Enough time for the faces to flash by his eyes.
No fear, he can’t really feel fear in free fall, he never could, but enough time for a different kind of horror. Bruce, Alfred, Tim… They can’t, not again, he can’t…
And then there is a body slamming into him.
Dick cries out, but reflexively goes limp in the newcomer’s hold. Let the catcher guide the drop. Trust the catcher.
Bruce, is his first thought, though he knows Bruce is in Metropolis tonight, because some part of him is still the Robin who knows Batman will always, always catch him.
But of course, the muscle and body armour lies, this time. What he sees is a flash of red where a cowl should be. A much too familiar red from the case files.
Dick has just enough time to register freaking Red Hood just leapt off a skyscraper after him before they are about to crash right into the wall opposite.
Just enough time for that, and not enough time to snatch back control of the leap from the homicidal – and apparently suicidal – maniac before they’re turned to pancake. But they aren’t.
Hood…Hood freaking pushes off the building. Flips through the air. Lands on the rooftop he leapt from. All with Dick hanging limp in his arms.
Sure, he stumbles the landing a bit, dumping Dick unceremoniously on the roof. But before that…
That was a perfect move.
Dick’s perfect move.
That particular flip. That particular way to deal with the momentum of a falling body, the way to execute a catch like that without giving someone whiplash or tearing your arm out of the socket.
The Robin move. Dick had thought that up. Modified one of the Flying Grayson moves.
It is his. It is theirs. It is Robin’s move.
One Dick executes just for fun any day. One Tim is just starting to get the hang of.
It had taken him so long to teach Jay, and they had been working on it, working on perfecting it, before…Before.
It was only the landing that they had left to get perfect. (“Relax, Jaybird, we’ve got time”)
For a moment, there’s only rage. Washing out all rational thought.
It is their move. It is Robin’s move. Red Hood stole it. A fucking Rogue stole their move. But…how?
The rage recedes as a suspicion dawn.
Dick is not a ‘contingencies-for-contingencies’ guy like Bruce, not as good strategist or analyst as Tim. But one thing he is the best at is on the fly thinking. At making time slow down in his mind, letting him plot even as he is moving.
Red Hood… Red Hood can’t have been stalking them, not long enough to get their move perfect.
It isn’t the kind of thing you can perfect just by watching. You need someone to teach you.
And even then it is tricky, so tricky that after his thirty seventh slam into the building Alfred vetoed Bruce’s attempts to master it.
Dick knows he never taught Red Hood.
Tim has barely learned the move himself, forget teach it to anyone. And he’s way more likely to be caught stuffing what is left of Red Hood into multiple duffle bags than caught teaching the guy a Robin Flip. That leaves…
Red Hood threw himself off a skyscraper to catch Dick. Red Hood executed the move perfectly, except for the landing.
The landing they never really got to perfect.
Red Hood is now standing there on the roof top right before him, giving a deer-in-the-headlights impersonation that triggers way too many memories.
Thing is, maybe if it had been another member of the Batfam, this may have turned out differently.
They would likely have gone for the far more logical options, the ones that would occur to Dick a bit later. Maybe would have, at the most, gone for the option Jason knew Red Hood and taught him the move.
But this is Dick Grayson.
He has led the Titans for years. He is on the reserve list for the Justice League, and has been on multiple missions with them. He hangs out with Zatanna and Raven.
Once, as Robin, he spent an entire week chatting with the ghost of one of Two Face’s victims whom they had been too late to save, till she managed to move on. (Bruce never knew)
Last month he was in Metropolis when Mxyzptlk came along to mess with Uncle Clark and got caught in the inevitable shenanigans.
Thing is, Dick Grayson knows miracles.
He knows, even in Gotham, the good kind of miracles can still happen. He knows impossible is not a word they can give much meaning to in their kind of life.
And he knows – despite what the Bruce Voice in his mind is yelling at him in panic – that the face under the helmet is going to be a very familiar one. He doesn’t know what or why or how, but he is looking at his little brother.
And he is not going to lose him again. Even for a second.
………………………………..
It’s only after they land on the roof that Jason’s brain registers what he just did.
And now Dick is staring at him, face paper white, eyes no doubt wider than should really be possible behind that stupid domino mask.
He just saved Dick. Red Hood, the latest and greatest crime lord on scene, the scourge of Crime Alley, saved Nightwing.
Currently, Jason’s internal monologue consists almost exclusively of swears in multiple languages. How the hell is he going to explain this?
Okay, calm, calm down, calm down, calm down, you can turn this to your advantage (HOW???!!!), you’ve been in worse corners (NO!!!!), just play the part (WHAT???!!)
As always, when in doubt, go for the guns. Before Dick can get to his feet, Jason has his guns out and pointed at him.
“You’re… You’re my hostage!”
Yeah, that’s it, that’s great. Perfect idea, runaway brain. Of course he saved the bird to use him as a hostage, a bargaining chip.
That’s in character, perfectly in character. Of course Red Hood wouldn’t want his plans going splat on the pavement, and that is obviously the only reason he went for the rescue.
Sure, he doesn’t actually have anything in place needed for a real hostage game with the Bats, but that is fine. There are at least seven easy and three hard ways for Nightwing to escape right now.
Sure, it will make Red Hood lose a little bit of cred with the fam when they find out he pulled such an amateur move, but that is something he can easily remedy with a few more…encounters.
And more importantly, that is a problem for Future!Jason.
He is prepared for Nightwing to flip into action, vanish in a Bat-like way that ridiculous suit should not permit in any reasonable universe, or even prepared for a kick to the jaw.
He is certainly not prepared to see Nightwing grin widely and exclaim “Sure!”
What.
Jason’s brain momentarily short circuits.
Nightwing – Dick – is still looking at him expectantly from the floor (or roof. Or whatever.)
And that’s another thing. Why isn’t he getting up? Can’t he? Why is he so freaking pale? No way just a drop like that freaked Nightwing enough to go ashen.
“So, you want to cuff me or what?” Dick asks again, much too cheerily for any sane person staring down the gun barrel of a murderous crime lord.
“Um. What. Uh, what did you just say?”
Dick is freaking beaming at him. Like this is the best thing that has happened to him today. Or this year. Or forever.
“I said sure!” And now the lunatic leaps back to his feet, practically bouncing “Let’s go! You wanna cuff me or something?”
“I…didn’t bring handcuffs.”
He was just out to buy the new Nora Roberts book!
Dick just cocks his head to one side, baby bird style. “Oh? Okay, maybe you can tie up my hands or something? If it makes you feel better?”
“If it…makes me feel…better.”
Dick smiles at him, encouragingly. “I mean, you don’t need to, you know. I’ll behave. I’d rather you didn’t inject me with anything or knock me out or stuff, if you don’t mind.”
Um. Did he accidentally gain a reputation for using toxins? That why Dick is so eager to be handcuffed, because he doesn’t want to be drugged? Playing along?
“I mean…if you really have to, you can” Dick concedes, frowning a little in worry “As long as you let me wake up once we are, you know, at your place and you got me tied up and everything.”
“Did you. Did you just tell me you will let me handcuff you, tie you up, or knock you out and drag you to my place?”
A way too unconcerned shrug in return. “I’d rather you didn’t knock me out. I kinda like talking, you know?”
“That is the only part of the plan you have a problem with?!?”
“Are we going?”
The problem with a domino mask. You can’t see the eyes behind the lenses. Well, that is the whole point, but still. That means you can’t see the pupils behind them. Jason would bet Dick’s are hella dilated right now. At best.
He didn’t catch him right. Of course he didn’t, they never got to get that flip right.
Can you get concussion from being caught wrong?
Bruce has given them all multiple powerpoint presentation included lectures on the very many ways flips and catches can go wrong. Whiplash has come up a lot of times. Concussions?
Jason can’t quite remember. Could have been in there, though. Dick is still looking at him expectantly, the knocked-for-a-loop grin still firmly in place.
Jason takes a deep breath. “Yeah. Sure. We are going.”
Jason has his plans, okay? Very detailed, carefully made plans.
He can’t put them into practice if the situation changes too much. Like it would if Nightwing fucking died of a brain bleed or went catatonic or just plain got dizzy at the wrong moment and fell off a skyscraper.
That’s the only reason he’s not going to let the idiot wander off on his own. Of course it is.
…………………………………..
Jason is not entirely sure he should be taking Dick on his bike.
But his car is stashed away a bit too far, and he is pretty sure no matter how out of it he is, Nightwing won’t agree to his hotwiring a car.
Though given he is letting himself get kidnapped... Nah. Better not take the risk.
“You think you can hold on?”
It is really not good for his whole crime lord cred to be seen riding with Nightwing, but it is getting dark, and if he goes fast enough….
Dick nods enthusiastically, and immediately latches onto Jason in one of his trademark octopus hugs. Like he’s just been waiting for an excuse.
Not that that part is particularly surprising. A sick or hurt Dick is a cuddling obsessed Dick.
The Titans have the story and widely broadcasted photo evidence of that time he got lost in a forest (looong story) and they ended up finding him cuddling a racoon. A freaking racoon. Which was letting him.
Jason considers that incontrovertible evidence for Dick Grayson having tribble genes.
No surprise it extends to crime lords kidnapping him. Jason does not feel nostalgic. Or warmed. At all.
Well, at least the hug means Dick will be latched on tight enough not to fall off the bike. Hopefully.
“If you’re about to throw up, tell me” Jason orders sternly “I’m not getting this jacket messed up.”
“I’m not gonna throw up” Dick promises, looking a bit confused as if he is wondering why Jason is asking. Yeah, guy is definitely out of it.
………………………………………..
Now where the hell is he going to take him? Maybe Jason should have put a little more thought into that before getting him onto the bike. Never mind, he’s always done his best thinking on the go.
“So, where we going?” Dick asks, still bubbly.
“What’s today’s date?”
“Huh?”
“Today’s date.”
Maybe Jason is paying too much attention to Dick’s expression in the mirror than to the road. Anyway he sees him go paler.
“Is this a…” Dick hesitates, looking genuinely confused. Oh God, he can’t even remember the date! “Is this a time travel thing?”
What. Now why would he ask that. Does he think he’s on a Titans mission? Does he even know he’s still in Gotham?
“Can you tell me where we are?”
“Oh God…” Dick groans, and Jason’s heart skips a beat as the grip around him loosens a little.
“Hold tight!” Maybe he should just have called an ambulance.
“This…this is a time travel thing, right?” Dick sounds like he’s gotten stabbed or something. Fuck. This is bad, this is really bad. “You aren’t really back. You’re from the past. Time travel.”
Yeah, he definitely thinks he’s with the Titans. Did they have a time traveller?
“Or alternate universe” Dick continues to ramble. “That’s why… You don’t know… Of course there’s a mask, secret identity, can’t contaminate the time stream… That’s it, right?”
He’s started crying. Dammit, Dick is crying. Hugging Jason even tighter and fucking sobbing on his shoulder.
“But if it is time travel… We can fix it, right? From past to the future, we haven’t had a lot of that, it’s usually from the future to here or us getting stuck in the future or something like that and making sure the future didn’t change or did change or…Wait, there was the time Uncle Clark got stuck in the past, that H G Wells Time Machine thing…”
Right. If Jason needed anymore evidence that something major has been knocked loose in Nightwing’s brain, there it is. He is rambling about Superman as “Uncle Clark.”
“Stop crying” Jason hopes it comes out as a Red Hood order, but he’s a bit too panicked right now.
“We can still set it right, maybe” Dick goes on, still blubbering. And with clearly no idea what Jason is talking about. “Right? Gotta be a reason. You can, I mean, the whole ‘future is set in stone’ thing is crap, you know? If we can set it right, if we can do it right this time… We have a chance, okay? I swear we have a chance.”
Play along. At least get him to stop crying. “Yeah, sure, Dickie. We have a chance.”
No reaction to being called Dickie. Being called his real name by a crime lord he was hunting down a few minutes ago.
Jason is getting really really worried. He has seen Dick concussed before. But never this badly disoriented, this ignorant of all survival instincts.
Did he slam against a wall or something before Jason caught him? Or is this all damage Jason did by messing up the catch?
He’s getting worse, isn’t he. Must be, what with all the rambling. Which means he must be bleeding into the brain. Or have swelling. Or something.
And Jason needs to get him help ASAP.
ER? Out of the question.
Yeah, this is Gotham, ERs have their policy about superheroes, but still, no one actually goes on their own initiative. The Bats have never gone.
Sure, doctor patient privacy means they aren’t supposed to tell, but nope, no way. Too high risk. Especially if Nightwing is revealed to be the Wayne heir.
Sure, maybe he can get Dick out of the suit and mask – in his current condition entirely possible he’ll let himself be unmasked – but even then, Red Hood can’t be seen taking Gotham’s prince to the ER with a brain bleed.
And no, no way he is taking off his mask. Fuck that noise.
And given the way Dick is rambling right now? All too possible that he will just blurt out everything to the first ER nurse he sees.
As if to prove his point, Dick nuzzles against his helmet “We’ll change it, we’ve got to change it… We’ll tell Bruce, he knows, we can…We won’t let it happen. I won’t let it happen. I swear. Never. Ever.”
“I hear you, Dickie”
Right, he’s outed Batman too. Nope, no ER.
Leslie? The clinic isn’t open tonight. Plus, given the clientele hanging around, he isn’t sure he trusts Dick there anymore than the ER. Where, then?
Jason can’t help slowing the bike a little. Because…Really, there’s only one answer to that.
……………………………………….
“Are we going to the Cave?” Dick asks, still clinging like a koala.
At least his grip hasn’t loosened, he isn’t going to fall off. Jason nods. He knows how to get in.
The access codes…
B changes the codes, sure, but going by the old safehouses he found, his own old access codes are left unchanged. Sentiment, maybe? And his fingerprints and retina scans still register.
Not that he is going to put that into the batcomputer, thank you very much. The codes will do. Or he can get Dick to do the scans. The way he is, he’s not gonna protest.
So. This is what Jason is going to do.
Drive into the cave. Stop. Get Dick to one of the medbay beds, park him there. Press the button that will summon Alfred or alert Bruce.
Book it out of there with all the speed he can muster, which is quite a lot. Then Dickhead – and his likely broken head – is their problem.
He’ll be okay. Alfred has seen them all through worse. And if needed, Alfred Pennyworth calling an ambulance for the Wayne heir from the Manor is not at all suspicious.
Dick will be fine. Jason can go back to plotting.
Hell, this can add to his cred. Given how out of it he is, Dick likely won’t remember how he got hurt in the first place.
With a bit of luck, the Bats should assume Red Hood was responsible for the concussion. (Which he probably is, just not the way they will assume…)
He can play it right. Red Hood attacks and incapacitates Nightwing. Has custody of him for an unknown amount of time. Then brings him back, uses authorized access codes to enter the cave, and leaves. Maybe taking a souvenir or something.
Major power move. Should push all the buttons for the big bad bat.
…………………………………………..
The plan…almost goes off without a hitch. Almost.
Dick leaps off the bike, barely waiting till they actually stopped. And doesn’t let go of Jason.
“Alfie! Alfie, Tim!”
“Let go of me!” Jason tries to wiggle loose. He can, usually.
But dammit, for all the pretty boy looks, Dickhead has serious grip strength. No way he’s getting out of this hold without hurting him badly. And he can’t actually hit him, not if he’s already got his brain shaken up…
“What’re you-“ the Replacement is the first one down the stairs, and freezes when he sees the pair in the cave.
Jason wishes the Green would surge again at the little rat’s sight, the way it tends to do every time he thinks about him. But no, looks like even the Green deserted him.
Probably the way Alfred is looking at him has a lot to do with it. Even the Lazarus Pit wants nothing to do with being in the vicinity of a pissed off Alfred Pennyworth.
And given right now Alfred Pennyworth is looking at what seems to be his beloved young master – ie, grandson – locked in combat with a homicidal crime lord?
Jason is not at all surprised that the shotgun practically materializes in the butler’s hands.
“Alfie, it’s him!” Dick screeches, right in Jason’s ear. “It’s Jay!”
What. Now it is Jason’s turn to freeze. What. How.
“I’m not!” Jason’s voice goes up a couple octaves in pitch.
And fuck, the voice modulator isn’t on. He had to switch it off to give the access code, given the growly thing kept messing up the code.
The Replacement’s eyes widen, then narrow in a disturbingly Bruce-like expression. “Oh. That…actually makes sense."
"What?" Because it sure as hell doesn’t make sense to him!
The Replacement has the nerve to just stand there and start rattling off facts, freaking counting them off on his fingers.
“Computer projection reveals Jason Todd, if he reached adulthood, would have a body build nearly identical to yours, assuming the early malnutrition induced stunted growth was not a factor. Which, if you have been resurrected in some as yet unidentified manner, we can assume said method would have been sufficient to-“
“Stop talking like you swallowed the fucking dictionary!”
“Master Jason” Alfred’s tone is emphatically not that of a question. “It’s… My… My boy. Welcome back.”
Jason wants to yell, wants to tell Alfred, tell them all, that the boy they buried is not back, would never be back. He wants to launch into all the cutting arguments he has rehearsed a million times.
But right now… Somehow his carefully crafted monologue is starting to lose appropriateness even in his own mind. He can’t.
Not the way Alfred is looking at him. Not the way the Replacement – fuck it, he’s a freaking kid, a baby, practically drowning in a hoodie that must be Dick’s – is looking at him.
“That’s…You are…” Jason blinks, belatedly remembering why exactly he came here in the first place. “Dick’s got a concussion or something, check on him!”
“Concussion?” Dick looks baffled, as if he has absolutely no idea what could have led Jason to that assumption “No, Jaybird, you caught me in time”
“You’ve got whiplash or something, you idiot! Alfred, he’s got brain bleed or something, he’s been nonsense ranting all the way here!”
“What? I’m fine! We need to figure out how you got here from the past!”
“You see my point?” Jason gesticulates wildly.
Alfred sighs. “I…will examine Master Dick. Master Jason, kindly remove the helmet. And the guns. They are not required indoors.”
…………………………………
And that is how he gets yet another confirmation that the Universe is absolutely allergic to the combination of Jason Todd and well laid plans.
Sure, Jason might love drama of all kinds, but any theatre kid knows that there is one point beyond which all drama flattens into cringe.
And there is very little ‘deadly crime lord I want you all dead’ mode that you can maintain after having panicked and dragged your big brother home because you thought he hit his head.
Jason pretty much sighs and gives up.
………………………………………
It takes them a couple of hours to get the stories sorted out – and both Dick and Jason, despite enthusiastic protests given complete check ups – well enough to call Bruce.
Jason wants to call and try for at least giving the bastard a heart attack, but Dick calls dibs. Not that it is wholly devoid of entertainment value either…
“B, I’m telling you, it’s Jay! Not time travel or anything, it’s him, he’s here, we’re here-“
“Dick, can you tell me what is today’s date?”
“I don’t have a concussion!”
“Of course you don’t, buddy, but can you tell me the date?”
Dick buries his face in his hands “Why is everyone today convinced something’s wrong with my head?”