Chapter Text
It’d been a long few months for Batman: world-ending threats, getting lost in the timestream, returning to the present, and that wasn’t even including the personal baggage each member of his family carried that seemed to have multiplied during his time away.
Then there was Jason, currently unconscious in the Cave’s medbay, and Bruce still wasn’t getting any closer to formulating an antidote, let alone a solution.
The thought that Jason had tried to kill himself still made Bruce’s heart plummet into his stomach even after two days, and he tried not to think about what would’ve happened if they hadn’t found him in time.
They’d found Jason earlier than he had intended them to; eight minutes and twenty-seven seconds to be exact. Leslie had told them in no uncertain terms, her face pinched, that if they’d gotten to him any later, he would’ve been as good as dead.
Dead again.
His second son lost to him again. Bruce would’ve failed Jason yet another time, and the miracle that had brought him back the first time was called a miracle for a reason; they didn’t tend to happen more than once.
He resisted the urge to duck back into the medbay. His last stint in the room had been, for lack of a better word, bad. Jason woke up, much to Bruce’s relief, after hours of nightmares that had him thrashing on the bed and tearing open his stitches, but he’d been less than happy to see Bruce. Everything that Bruce recognized as Jason fell away to make room for the Red Hood.
It was difficult to keep himself together whenever he faced his son bearing the name of the man who had killed him, it was even worse watching Jason’s face contort into something full of blinding fury. He’d never get used to it. He didn’t want to get used to it.
Quiet footsteps echoed in the Cave, and Bruce spotted Dick making his way towards the computer out of the corner of his eye.
“Bruce, are you free? I need to talk to you,” Dick propped his weight up with a hand on the desk, his exhaustion prominent in the harsh lighting of the multitude of screens. It always pulled at something in Bruce’s chest to see his children run haggard by the life he had brought them into.
He pushed away the familiar rush of guilt and loathing and nodded. The computer was in the middle of doing yet another analysis, and the timer blinked steadily at him. He had time.
“What are we planning to do with the Red Hood?”
Bruce blinked, it wasn’t an unexpected question, but it wasn’t one he’d prepared to have a conversation about, given the circumstances. “Protocol calls for containment. Depending on assessed threat levels, a proper facility would be assigned and then transportation would be co-”
“I don’t care about what protocol is, Bruce. I know what it is, we’ve both done it a million times. I just need to know what our next step is.”
“Current threat levels are minimal, although that might change, so contingencies have been set in place for-”
“Bruce!” Dick wasn’t leaning on the desk anymore. “I need you to give me a straight answer, alright? We can’t put him in Arkham or Blackgate or any of your special projects that I know you’re working on right now, and we need to make sure that he’s not going to be a threat, so our only choices at this point are the Watchtower or here. I need something, anything, from you, because I can’t trust my own decisions anymore, and I can’t stop thinking that I made one of the worst mistakes of my life putting Jason in Arkham.”
Dick’s chest was heaving when he finished, and he sat down heavily and buried his face in his hands.
Bruce remembered reading the report on the events of what had occurred during his stay in the timestream, the words unfeeling and cold displayed on the screen. Bruce tried not to think too hard about what Jason, the Red Hood, had done in that time. All of his children were forced into positions they’d never prepared for, and ones that weighed heavily on them still.
It was hard on them, and even harder for Dick, who’d been forced to make a choice Bruce could never bring himself to make. He glanced over at the screen, and the timer continued to blink cheerily at him, so he got up and crouched in front of Dick.
“Dick,” he tried to start.
“No,” Dick snapped, “I made the call to put Jason in that place, I did, and-and I cleaned it up, Bruce.” Dick dropped his hands, and his voice shook violently, “I made sure that Arkham was clean, I swear. I got rid of the bastard that was in charge, and I helped them get new people, people they could trust, and I gave them an entire list of doctors and psychiatrists to contact. But it’s still Arkham, and I put Jason there.”
Bruce didn’t move a muscle. His untimely disappearance had left a hole that needed to be filled, and it had fallen onto Dick’s shoulders in the worst of circumstances. His oldest has stepped up in stunning form, ensuring that Gotham’s caped crusader continued to operate on the streets, even if that meant putting the Red Hood, Jason, into Arkham.
Dick hadn’t talked much about his tenure, and probably never would, but Bruce knew what being Batman did to a person. The city demanded everything he had and then some more.
Words of comfort came to him easily when he dealt with people outside of his family, there wasn’t as much pressure to make sure that he said the right things at the right time. Family, however, was a different story.
The words that came to him so naturally in the field seemed to dry up whenever he was face-to-face with the people he cared about. He never seemed to be able to find the best things to say in response, and the words that did come out of his mouth only seemed to escalate conflicts.
He tried to avoid emotional talks, knowing that he was more prone to making things worse if he let himself get too emotional. Maybe one day, he would be able to find the right words to say to Dick, to comfort him, and assure him that the decision he made out of necessity wasn’t wrong, but tonight, he couldn’t offer what he knew his son needed to hear.
“Red Hood will remain under our supervision, no outside security will be involved.” Bruce pushed himself up from his crouched position and hesitantly offered a hand to Dick..
“Promise?” Dick asked, eyes rimmed with red.
Bruce nodded and quickly found himself enveloped in a tight hug. He ignored the wet seeping onto his shoulder in favor of wrapping his arms around Dick. Dick had always found solace in physical affection, and even though Bruce knew it wasn’t enough, it was the only way he could trust himself not to screw up.
He ran a hand through Dick’s hair and rubbed gentle circles on his back. It seemed to help, and the shuddering gradually died down until Dick pulled away, rubbing roughly at his eyes.
“Sorry, Bruce. Didn’t mean to cry all over your shirt,” Dick eyed the patch on Bruce’s shoulder. There were probably more than just tears on his shoulder, judging from the embarrassment that flickered across Dick’s face.
“Alfred would be aghast at the state of my shirt.” Bruce hoped it would distract Dick from his worries for at least a few moments.
That got a small grin out of Dick. “Yeah, can’t have Alfred lecturing us about the intricacies of washing snot out of linen.”
Bruce huffed and shared a fond look with Dick. Alfred wouldn’t even complain. If Bruce was the one dealing with the amount of blood and grime they managed to accumulate each night, snot would have been the least of his worries.
“I, uh, I still need to finish up some stuff before patrol tonight, but I’ll see you at dinner?” Dick asked.
“I’ll see you later, chum,” Bruce replied and watched Dick disappear up the stairs before turning his focus back to the sample. He also needed to get some work done. He had to make sure he wouldn’t be too late again this time.
Tim sat, slouched against the cool walls of the Cave as Steph suited up for the night. He’d almost managed to convince Bruce into letting him out on patrol in the man’s sleep-deprived state before Alfred had stepped in with a look that meant no, and Tim never could quite find it in himself to argue with him.
Cass sat on the floor next to him, stretching her legs. She’d grinned when he limped down into the cave, mouthing a told you so at him after his failed attempt at convincing (manipulating) Bruce. The past two days had been nothing short of chaotic, with everyone scrambling to deal with the fallout from the Joker’s death and Hood’s attempt at whatever he tried to do.
Tim tried not to let his thoughts dwell too much on that last part.
“Cass, I’m telling you, I should be going out there with you guys.” Tim gestured vaguely in the direction of the outside from his spot on the floor.
She snorted and looked pointedly at his ankle. “You are injured.”
“So?” He grumbled.
“Alfred has already requested that you stay for a few more nights. We follow his rules in the manor.”
“Cass is right, Tim. Besides, it’s been a while since everyone’s been in the same place for longer than an hour.” Steph chimed in from where she was adjusting a glove strap.
Tim opted for staring at his feet instead of responding. He usually wouldn’t even be in the Manor, he hadn’t really lived in it since Bruce got stuck in the timestream, but the combination of a screwed-up ankle and Alfred hadn’t given him much of a chance to slip away.
Everyone else had their own places and scattered across the globe for personal missions. Damian was probably the only one who was permanently at the manor, and even that was mostly due to his age and lack of anywhere else to go.
“You will be out and about soon enough,” Cass patted the wrap on his ankle as she got up to finish her stretches.
Tim grunted.
Steph finished adjusting her costume and made her way to Tim’s side, leaning against the wall, and glanced down at him. “How are you feeling?”
Tim fiddled with the strings of his hoodie. “Fine, but I would feel better if my ankle was working.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about.”
Of course, she wasn't. She was probably asking him about the Red Hood. After everything that had gone down, Tim wasn’t sure how the rest of the Bats tolerated the former-dead-Robin-turned-crime lord-turned-mentally-unstable-vigilante. Not like any of them were the peak of mental stability.
“I’ll be fine, Steph. Nothing you need to worry about.”
He could deal with his issues with Jason by himself; no one else needed to step in for him, and certainly didn’t need to accommodate him just because he was the only one who wasn’t on board with the Red Hood’s antics.
Besides, he knew how much Steph and Cass had managed to bond with Jason before everything went south when Bruce first disappeared. He didn’t want to make things worse than they already were.
Steph sighed. “You know that no one will blame you if you’re uncomfortable, right? Like, you have the most reasons out of all of us to not be okay.”
“Leave it alone.” Tim winced as the words came out sharper than he had intended them to. “Look, I’ll be fine, okay? You don’t need to worry about me.”
It wasn’t like there was anything anybody could do anyway. He saw the looks on Bruce’s and Dick’s faces when they first returned, there wouldn’t be another place to put Jason outside of kicking everyone out of the Manor. He was the one with his own apartment, so he could pretty much leave whenever he needed to. It didn’t make sense to bother the others.
“Fine, but I just want to remind you that we’re all here if you want or need to talk about it.” Steph made a point of letting the silence settle between them as she waited for him to respond. Tim stared at the ground for as long as he could before he finally relented.
“Yeah, I know. I can do this on my own right now, though. You guys focus on patrol.”
Steph gave him one of those looks and he just shrugged in response. He didn’t feel like talking about something right before they went on patrol, especially a heavy topic involving copious amounts of trauma and general confusion. He pulled himself to his feet and headed towards the stairs, “I’ll see you later,” he said, waving a hand and ignoring Steph’s annoyed tsk. Tim had handled things like this on his own before, and he didn’t need other people starting now.
Hood cracked an eye open, scanning the seemingly empty room. The chair next to the bed previously occupied by Dick was abandoned, and he was pretty sure the medbay wasn’t bugged.
This time, his face was free of the oxygen mask that he had initially woken up to, and an IV stuck out of his forearm.
A tug of the restraints revealed they’d be upgraded from the simple metal cuffs he’d first - secondly - woken up with, to soft restraints (custom-made for Bat use), and they were on both of his wrists and ankles. Hood also bet that the door to the medbay had at least five different locks and passwords on it.
All in all, security was actually quite light.
Compared to what he remembered was in place for most of the rogues, Hood was in a box made out of a single sheet of printer paper, and he had a hose at his disposal.
He’d kept track of when the others entered the room, or at least, he’d tried to keep track through the haze he had been stuck in, so he estimated he had around twenty minutes to make his big escape.
The sedative had worn off at this point, and Hood wasn’t going to let the chance to escape slip by. If he waited any longer, the Bats would get over their initial soft feelings and beef up security.
Some slight shifting and two dislocated thumbs later, he was rubbing his wrists, careful to avoid the wounds still raw underneath the bandages. He didn’t set off any alarms, so he quickly got to work on the rest of his restraints.
He ignored the pangs of pain that sparked to life in his chest whenever he moved too fast. It was nothing he couldn’t deal with. A sign that his concoction had worked, but not good enough to actually finish the job.
With a final click, all of his restraints were hanging from the bed, and he was left to deal with the still beeping machines next to his bed and the IVs attached to him.
One wrong move and he’d set off an alarm, so he worked carefully as he pried open the back of the heart monitor. He was greeted by the sight of a mess of wires and blinking lights. He gently prodded at the one he knew was attached to the alarm, and tensed as the machine let out a singular beep.
He only started moving again when all he heard was silence. He was quick to loop the signal in the monitor, and it was crude, but it’d buy him enough time. Glancing at the IVs, he hesitated. If the Bats had somehow managed to figure out a way to slip an alarm into the liquid, he was screwed. He stared at it, keenly aware of the timer that was ticking down in the back of his head.
Fuck the damn alarms.
He gave himself another moment to prepare to flee if he needed to and pulled the needles out with one swift movement. To his relief, the only reaction was from himself, blood dripping down his arm from where the needles had been.
The sheets that had covered him fixed the problem quickly.
Most of his gear, sans helmet, was piled in a cabinet in the far corner, and Hood wasn’t sure if he should be grateful the Bats had let down so much of their guards around him, or if he should be insulted that he wasn’t viewed as much of a threat.
He guessed they just hadn’t expected him to wake up so quickly.
Getting his gear on was a struggle, the pain from still healing wounds and internal injuries made twisting and bending an interesting endeavor. Most of his armor was missing, his usual getup was reduced to a padded undersuit and some leg guards, leaving him feeling a touch too vulnerable after he finished lacing his boots up.
To be fair, though, he did have a bomb in his chest plate, and Bat protocol meant that explosives stayed in a safe container in the Cave, and definitely not unattended in the medbay.
He snagged a spare domino from the drawer and crouched in front of the locked door. His internal clock pinged him with a little less than ten minutes to get out of the Manor. The codes were easy enough to crack. For all of Bruce’s paranoia, he kept the same codes on rotation, and he was out.
The door opened into a dimly lit hallway, one that Hood recognized was in one of the Manor’s quieter corners. He frowned, he’d thought he was still in the cave, but he’d been moved sometime during his unconsciousness.
He’d been in the Cave plenty of times since he returned to Gotham, but he hadn’t set foot in the manor since he got blown up. Never thought he would anyways.
Being in the manor meant that his plans had to change. One, it’d be way too easy for him to be caught if he tried to sneak down through the clock, two, he would have to cover less ground if he headed towards familiar territory.
He stood in the doorway, wasting precious time as he wrestled with his next move.
Eventually, as his internal clock pinged eight minutes, he forced himself to move. The halls were quiet, and Hood avoided the slats of wood that creaked on echoes of memories. Batman was down in the Cave, the flock was on patrol, and Replacement hadn’t set foot into the medbay. Alfred had already turned in for the night, his age catching up despite his refusal to stop working.
He turned the corner and made his way down the hallway lined with doors closed tightly, except for one.
He turned the corner and made his way down the hallway lined with doors closed tightly, except for one.
It was Batman’s room, Bruce’s room.
Jason was twelve again, standing in front of Bruce’s room and clenching his fists. He rubbed his eyes furiously, trying to stop the tears from leaking out of his eyes. It was just a stupid dream, and he had those all the time when he’d been on the streets.
He hadn’t needed to run to the first person he thought of, and besides, he was twelve and almost grown, and trusting people always got him hurt.
But standing in front of Bruce’s door as he desperately tried to clamp down the tightness in his chest was enough to guide his hand to the door. A quiet rap and the door opened a few seconds later, Bruce looking down at him, hair rumpled from sleep. Jason tried not to look up, and he knew this was a bad idea, he never should’ve woken Bruce up over a bad dream. Bruce was going to get angry at him, and Jason was going to be all alone again.
The tears dripped down his face, hot and wet as he thought about being alone again. He didn’t want to be alone, so he stuck his chin up and opened his mouth.
“B-a-ad dr-e-eam, I'm so-so-rry.” His words tripped and stumbled over each other in his attempt to tell Bruce that everything was okay and that he didn’t mean to wake Bruce up because it was five in the morning, and Jason knew that the man had only slept maybe an hour and a half. Jason wasn’t sure if Bruce could understand what he had said, but the sobs had taken control of his lungs, and no more words formed themselves on his tongue.
He flinched when he saw a shadow move above his head. Willis had done that and then smacked him silly, told him to ‘shut up and stop being a little bitch when Jason cried. Bruce wasn’t Willis, though. He tried telling himself that Bruce was nothing like Willis, and because Bruce was different, he crouched down in front of Jason with his hands palm up and open.
“It’s alright, I won’t hurt you,” Bruce’s voice was quiet. “Can I hug you?”
Jason nodded before he could stop himself, and gentle arms moved to wrap around him.
He still couldn’t stop himself from shrinking into himself when a hand settled on his shoulder, but he also couldn’t help melting into the embrace. He was safe, and he clutched Bruce’s shirt, barely able to keep himself together. Bruce held him, comforted him because that’s what Bruce did.
Hood caught his fist before it could make contact with the wall, tremors running through him. The memory threatened to drown him, and threatened to let Jason out. He had to keep him under control. He inhaled, letting the breath settle his shaking hands, and turned towards Jason’s room, and was immediately stopped by the sight of Replacement standing in the middle of the hallway.
The kid was leaning on a crutch and unarmed as far as Hood could tell. He didn’t want to take any chances, so he rushed forward, aiming to knock Replacement out before he could alert Batman. Replacement was faster, or less injured than Hood was expecting, as he shifted to the side and just barely avoided Hood. The crutch whipped towards Hood, and he dropped into a crouch, lunging towards the leg that Replacement had been keeping off.
He grabbed Replacement’s ankle and jerked. The kid attempted to twist onto his stomach to land on his hands, but he was too late and landed on his side, a small grunt knocked out of him. On a normal day, Replacement could have kept up with him for a bit longer, but being taken by surprise on an injured leg slowed him down.
Taking his chance, Hood straddled him and wrapped a hand around Replacement’s neck. Done right, replacement would only be out for a minute or so, but that was all he needed. He used his weight to keep the replacement from bucking him off and squeezed with his thumb and forefinger, fingers placed against the side of Replacement’s neck, and he was careful not to put too much pressure on his windpipe.
A crushed windpipe would not be helpful in his escape.
Replacement thrashed against him, but he couldn’t fight against the loss of blood to his head, and his eyes fluttered shut as he slowly went limp. Hood let go immediately and barreled towards Jason’s room, his internal clock was getting dangerously close to zero.
The door opened silently, and he headed for the window. It opened just as Jason remembered, and he braced his feet against the ledge and dropped into the tree below.
The branch held, but groaned dangerously as Hood’s weight settled. He quickly swung down and swore. The snow on the ground wasn’t deep enough to hinder his progress, but he could tell that the storm was picking up quickly. Gotham would be covered soon, Hood would be too if he didn’t hurry.
So he ran, running away from the manor that Jason had called home once, towards the bowels of Crime Alley, where he could check for any trackers and get the Bats off his tail. And hopefully, get inside before the snow boxed him in.