Chapter Text
Ben leaned idly against the doorframe, watching Grey and a pair of Philip’s lackeys check over the car. It wasn’t likely that someone would sabotage the car in their own garage, but it also wasn’t impossible, and Boss was probably more paranoid than Batman, so they always checked the car before going anywhere.
Grey directed the lackeys with a discerning eye, not an expert mechanic or demolitions expert himself, but excellent at delegating. It took only a few minutes for the checks to be done, and then Ben watched Grey pull out his phone. He would be shooting a text to the executives group chat… and there it was, Ben’s phone dinging loudly in his pocket.
Grey looked up at the sound, meeting Ben’s eyes and nodding seriously. Ben slipped away from the door, striding towards the car.
“You coming to this one?” Ben asked.
“Yes,” Grey said, his eyes coldly calculating, “the Boss wants my insight on this newcomer.”
The sudden absence of Black Mask had led to less of a power vacuum than any of them had expected. Even after they’d wiped out Sionis’s upper lackeys, the gang still churned on. They’d rebranded and redistributed ranks but had managed to stay relatively stable despite the upheaval.
The newcomer – Benjamin Napier, if their intel was right – had gathered up the scattered scraps of Sionis’s operation and cobbled them back together into a functioning whole. The gang had retreated completely from Crime Alley – that was solidly Hood’s territory now – but had quickly regained their footing in Otisburg and the Bowery.
Instead of killing Napier and wiping out the gang for good, the Boss had elected to set up a meeting with the new leader and try to negotiate a truce. Although, where the Boss was concerned, ‘truce’ was more like ‘you follow this set of rules and I won’t wipe you out completely’.
Ben hummed, rocking back on his feet. Grey was coming because he was terrifyingly smart and great at pinpointing people’s weaknesses. Ben was coming because he was the Boss’s primary bruiser. Neither Teddy nor Julia had a reason to be there, Ben would know if Alex or Hound were wanted, and if Gil was going to join them, he would be doing so on top of a separate building with a sniper rifle in hand, which left…
“Philip,” Grey greeted blandly. “Are you joining us today?”
Philip smirked, throwing his tool kit over his shoulder. “That I am. Boss asked me to tag along and get a gist of the loyalties.”
Where Grey was academically intelligent, there wasn’t a Merry Man in the gang that could read people like Philip. Maybe Teddy, but Boss wouldn’t bring Teddy into anything that might have the chance of him getting hurt.
“Speaking of, where is the Boss?” Ben piped up, tucking his phone back into his pocket.
“Here.”
The three of them turned towards the open door. Ben’s eyes almost popped out of his head. Grey, in a startling display of humanity, shared a shocked glance with Ben. He didn’t know what was going on either, and Philip was just as startled. Which meant the only one who did was the Boss himself. Or… themselves?
Outside Red Hood’s Merry Men, it was well-known that the gang was run by a pair of brothers, theatrically vicious Red Hood – real name Jonathen, which had been the weirdest thing ever to learn – and clever, understated TJ. They each managed different sections of the gang and carefully coordinated their moves with each other. Inside the gang, it was a ridiculously open secret that TJ and Red Hood were one and the same, though no one was sure which one wore the wig.
All of which to say that when TJ walked through the door with Red Hood on his heels, Ben was half convinced he’d stepped into a parallel dimension.
“Let’s get going,” TJ said, not bothering to explain literally anything and instead pushing past his gaping executives to slip into the car.
Grey recovered first – or at least hid his surprise best – and claimed the driver seat, forcing Philip to sit in the back with the Boss. …Bosses. Ben was confused. Grey honked at him, and Ben jumped, startled out of his shock long enough to claim shotgun – figuratively and literally.
The air inside the car was stiflingly silent.
After almost a full minute of sitting frozen in the passenger seat trying to figure out what was going on, Ben was jarred from his thoughts by Boss- Red Hood sitting up straight. Ben pulled his sun guard down and slid the mirror open, eyeing the trio in the back.
“Car’s clear,” Red Hood said, voice buzzing with the modulator.
TJ let out a breath, and a fine tension Ben hadn’t even noticed loosened from his shoulders.
“You can take off the helmet,” TJ said, “the windows are tinted.”
Red Hood did just that, reaching his thumbs up to undo the latches. There was a familiar click-hiss, and he pulled his helmet off.
“You’re an imposter,” Grey said coolly, his eyes flickering to the rearview mirror.
“My actual brother,” Boss drawled, then, to the fake Red Hood, “Your hair stripe is coming out.”
The imposter huffed, pulling the lock of hair down towards his eyes. The white rubbed off on his gloves like Boss’s never did. The imposter produced a little round capsule from some pocket, snapping it closed around his lock of hair and sliding the capsule down, leaving the hair stark white.
Now that Ben knew what was up, he managed to pick up on some of the things that must have queued Grey in. The imposter’s face was narrower than the Boss’s, and his hair had just a touch more curl to it. The jacket was a bit bulkier on the imposter, and Ben suspected that, under the armor, he had a slimmer build. Not that that was especially difficult. Boss rivaled Batman for muscle mass.
“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” the imposter huffed, slipping the capsule back into his pocket.
“Try for less exasperation and more rage,” Boss said absently, attention on his phone, “your supposed to be me, remember?”
“I’m supposed to be at home stopping my little brothers from killing each other,” the imposter griped, “not galivanting around in Burnley with more guns than anyone could possibly need.”
“Would you stop complaining?!” Boss sighed, looking up from his phone to glare at the imposter, “your guns aren’t even loaded. If you keep this up, you’re going to make me look like a gun-shy pansy.”
Ben silently thought that nothing and no one could convince him that Red Hood was at all gun-shy, but he didn’t voice that. He was invested in this argument now. Why would Boss let a man with unloaded guns even wear his colors? It seemed like an accident waiting to happen, if you asked Ben. He’d have to keep an eye on the imposter in case a fight broke out. It wouldn’t end well for him if he let Boss’s brother die.
“I reserve the right to complain about anything and everything I want to,” the imposter returned hotly, “Just because you blackmailed me into this doesn’t mean I’m taking it lying down.”
Ben wasn’t sure whether he should interpret that as crime lord blackmail or sibling blackmail. Neither would surprise him, and he actually probably didn’t want to know.
“Clearly, I should have picked someone better to blackmail,” Boss sighed, turning back to his phone.
“Nobody else fits in your stupid armor,” the imposter retorted, “not unless you’re willing to work with dad.” There was a weird inflection on the word, like the imposter wasn’t used to saying it. Ben wasn’t thinking about that, either. He was paid better than to think about that sort of thing.
“I might ask next time, just to see his face,” Boss mused. “Also, my armor’s not stupid.”
“Yes, it is. It’s stupidly restricting. How do you dodge bullets in this?”
“The point is that I don’t dodge bullets,” Boss said, “I can catch an entire clip to the chest and keep moving.”
There was a beat, and the imposter slowly turned towards Boss. “Are you speaking from experience?”
Ben had never seen Boss panic. As TJ or as Red Hood, when the world turned upside down and detailed plans turned to ash and gunpowder, the worst he got was angry. He swore sometimes, and he’d been shocked speechless before, but this was the closest Ben had ever seen him to real panic.
“I’m not answering that.”
“My dearest brother whom I adore,” the imposter started, voice perfectly calm, “have you, at some point in your life, been shot eight times in the chest, and then not told anyone?”
“It was only six,” Boss said, then immediately realized his mistake.
“Only six. Only six bullets. You were only shot six times, and you, what, just ignored your broken ribs? Kept going and didn’t bother to get medical attention before you pierced a lung?”
“Batman’s armor can take six shots with barely a crack,” Boss defended himself weakly.
“You. Don’t. Have. Batman’s. Armor.”
“Yeah, mine’s thicker.”
“Yours is made of inferior material and ends up weaker despite the extra thickness.”
Boss blinked at him. “How do you even know that?”
“I know what armor materials you have access to without Bat resources, and I know how thick your armor is,” the imposter said primly. “If you think I’m going to let my little brother go running around as a crime lord without making sure he’s taking care of himself, you must have lost some important memories when-” the imposter abruptly cut himself off, leveling Boss with a slightly guilty glare instead.
“Okay, we’re bringing that up now, are we?” Boss demanded. “Need I mention where you were the whole time? Not anywhere nearby, certainly, and not fast enough to help.”
The imposter flashed him a look that Ben couldn’t read, then turned away. Boss returned to his phone. The air in the car was frigid. Even Grey looked uncomfortable. Or, well, more uncomfortable than Grey looked in any social situation.
The car stopped. Parked. Grey slipped out, and Philip practically flung himself from the vehicle. Ben followed at a more steady pace, checking his holsters and closing the car door behind him.
Boss and the imposter emerged a moment later, walking side by side. All traces of animosity were gone. The imposter carried himself like the Red Hood, boldly confident and bulletproof, hands flickering over his holsters every now and then. There was nothing in either of their body language that could possibly imply that one was a fake, or that they’d just gotten into a serious argument.
“If a fight breaks out,” Boss hissed, jabbing a finger at the imposter, “you need to grab the guns. I don’t care if you immediately drop them, pretend they were shot out of your hand, whatever. Go for them first.”
“Fine,” the imposter growled. “Let’s go.”
“Let’s go,” Boss repeated, jaw set. They stalked up to the door together, and Ben purged all musings about brothers and blackmail and arguments from his head. He needed to be all there, scanning for threats, one hundred percent focused. Boss jerked his head, and the imposter threw the door open. Showtime.
Napier was a tall man with white-blond hair. His skin was paper-white and traced with stark black tattoos, he had way too many rings, and he was wearing wraparound sunglasses inside. Ben thought he looked about as physically intimidating as a wet cat, but there was a heavy presence of danger lingering around him.
It wasn’t Ben’s job to talk during meetings like these – that was for Boss and maybe Grey or Philip – so Ben just silently catalogued everything Napier and his minions said and did, standing behind and to the right of Boss, who was flanked on the other side by the imposter.
The meeting lasted almost an hour, and the imposter never slipped up once. He acted like the Red Hood, talked like him, moved like him. He growled and threatened the same way, waved his hands while he talked, even moved with the same catlike grace and near silence despite the bulky armor. It was uncanny. If Ben hadn’t seen it himself, he never would have suspected that the man under the helmet was anyone but the Red Hood.
They left the meeting room just as quickly as they’d entered, the five of them piling back into the car. Philip managed to claim the driver’s seat this time around, forcing Grey to sit in the back with the brothers.
Boss was smugly satisfied, but when the imposter took the helmet off with the familiar click-hiss, he only looked relieved.
“That was the worst,” the imposter groaned, slumping down into the seat the same way Boss did. He dug through his pockets, coming away with what looked like a tube of lip gloss. Instead of his lips, he applied the clear fluid in the tube around the edges of the domino mask, peeling the whole thing off a moment later. “I can’t believe you wear a domino under your helmet, you lunatic. My whole face hurts.”
“You survived.” Boss rolled his eyes, jabbing an elbow into the seam of the armor with a practiced motion. “Quit whining about it.”
“I did more than survive,” the imposter said primly, though it was ruined slightly by him repeatedly wiping his eyes. “I did great. I deserve an A+ in impersonating my little brother, a thing that it is both normal to want and possible to achieve.”
“I’ll send grandad your report card,” Boss drawled.
“You could say that I passed with flying colors,” the imposter said, a smile playing across his lips. “That I was really vigilant in my role.”
“I hate you,” Boss said blandly.
“Aw, come on, you gotta admit that was pretty good, considering how much I was winging it!”
“Never speak to me again.” Boss turned away from the imposter to stare out the window.
“You wound me, little w- brother.” The imposter feigned a collapse directly on top of Boss, and Ben knew from experience that, no matter who was wearing it, the Red Hood armor was heavy. Boss just grunted, shoving the imposter away.
“Remember that’s my armor. I know exactly where to stick a knife through it.”
“Then you’d have to fix it,” the imposter said, wriggling slightly to settle more of his weight on Boss. Now that he was busy pestering Boss, Ben finally got a good look at his eyes. They were blue. Strikingly blue, sure, but nowhere near the glittering acid-green of Boss’s eyes.
“You’re missing the knife in your boot,” Grey said, his blandly factual tone cutting through the lighthearted teasing.
“What?” the imposter sat up straight, blinking at Grey.
“The sheath in your boot is empty,” Grey repeated. “There’s usually a knife there.”
The imposter automatically checked his boot with the same instinctual swipe that Ben had seen Boss do a dozen times. Apparently, he didn’t find what he was looking for.
“What are you doing with it?” the imposter asked, turning back to Grey. Grey looked at him blankly.
Boss snorted. “Just hand it over, Grey. He’s smarter than he looks.” An indignant look flashed over the imposter’s face, but he didn’t say anything.
Grey begrudgingly produced a knife from his sleeve, offering it hilt-first to the imposter. Why…?
“How did you know I took it?” Grey asked, his eyes just slightly narrowed in calculation.
The imposter shrugged, spinning the knife once before sliding it into the sheath. “I had it when I got in the car. The only people who could have taken it were you or J, and I’ve been watching him the whole time.”
“Deduction rather than situational awareness?” Grey asked coldly.
The imposter squinted at him. “You remind me of Danny. TJ, does he remind you of Danny?”
“Every day,” Boss said immediately, not looking up, “except Grey is smarter than Danny.”
Ben thought he might have seen a flicker of actual emotion flash across Grey’s face.
“Who’s Danny?” Ben ventured.
The imposter looked up at him, meeting his eyes in the mirror, and Ben’s blood turned to ice. Ben rarely had the opportunity to meet the eyes of powerful people. Sometimes Boss, when he wasn’t wearing his glasses. A few times, mostly accidentally, he’d locked eyes with other bosses. All the truly dangerous ones, the ones he needed to watch his step around, had the same look in their eyes. So did this imposter. Like they knew they could get away with anything they wanted, if they put their mind to it. Like they already had, and they would do it again.
And then the imposter smiled, and the danger in his eyes was hidden. Not gone, just hidden.
“Danny’s our little brother. Baby of the family, thinks he’s better than everyone else, only sometimes right.”
“That’s a bit of an understatement,” Boss scoffed.
“I mean, he’s better at most things than most civilians. It’s just that we don’t usually associate with regular civilians.”
Boss hummed, acknowledging the point.
Philip wordlessly pulled the car into the garage, and the imposter slid the helmet back on.
Ben immediately moved to flank the Boss again the instant he was out of the car. There was always the risk that they’d been followed, after all, and right when they arrived at their home base was a great time to catch them unaware.
Nothing happened, fortunately, and nothing continued to happen. The five of them crossed the open factory floor – catching shocked looks from everyone who was pretty sure TJ and the Red Hood were the same person – and ducked into the meeting room. There was only one chair at the head of the table, since there was only one Boss, but the imposter didn’t seem to mind.
Julia and Teddy were already seated, and Gil ducked in a moment later. All of them looked just as shocked as Ben had been to see two Bosses.
“Okay,” Boss sighed, sinking into his seat, “Rob, was there anything you noticed you think I should know?
The imposter hesitated for a moment, then slowly shook his head. “Nothing your own guys missed. I would like to make it clear that you’re never getting me to do this again.”
“That’s what they all say,” Boss drawled. “I trust you know how to put away the armor?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m not a child.”
Ben didn’t think he knew how to unlatch most of Boss’s armor. …which might be a problem, actually. He should make sure someone knew how to do that so they could provide emergency medical care if necessary.
“You got a body double?” Gil asked, gaze on the imposter’s retreating form.
“Brother,” Boss said, “My actual brother, Rob.”
“Don’t tell me his full name’s Robin,” Philip groaned. The imposter was too old to be from the era of Robin’s first appearance, when half the couples in Gotham were bestowing the name on their children, but it was still a possibility.
Boss snorted. “Nah, he’s just Robert. Don’t think he’d ever live that down, if his name was Robin.”
Something about that niggled in Ben’s brain, but he couldn’t immediately pin it down. He mentally shrugged, shelved that issue, and focused on the executive debriefing. He had more important things to worry about than Boss’s mysterious gun-shy older brother.