Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This was going to be a five-star day, Tim knew it. He didn’t have them as often as he’d like, but getting to work in the actual restaurant run by his actual heroes definitely qualified as one.

The sheer busyness of the kitchen of The Butler’s Table ; the various cooks, kitchen hands and service staff making a glorious, chaotic – but nonetheless productive – mess as they turned ingredients into magic was hypnotic to watch.

“We’ll need quick turnover on the pots and pans, so get ready to scrub at high speeds,” Barbara Gordon was telling him, yanking his attention back down to the mundane. “There isn’t much plate service to worry about right now, as you can imagine. When you’re not keeping the equipment throughput running, you’ll be expected to run through the zones and disinfect every non-working station you see – the station holder should turn on their vacancy switch and you should see it pop up on the diagnostic screen, but when the kitchen is at full tilt they don’t always remember, so when you run through, keep an eye out for anything that’s not being used, okay?”

“Got it,” Tim said in a quiet, breathy voice. “Is it at full capacity now?” he asked, watching the boiling activity through the doors of the wash zone room with bright eyes.

Barbara snorted with laughter. “That? That’s not even fifty percent. This is a commercial kitchen, kiddo. When it’s at full capacity the only difference between it and Arkham is that people like what comes out of here. Remember, we are COVID safe here. You will always wear your mask and you will always use sanitizer or thoroughly wash your hands like I showed you. That’s nonnegotiable. You get one mercy infraction but then we have to take action, understood?”

“Understood,” Tim said earnestly.

“Good,” Barbara was apparently convinced of his sincerity. “You’ll be mostly on your own here, but if the kitchenhands run out of stuff to do, they’ll probably take over surface disinfection for you in the zones. Some of our waitstaff are coming in part time and will assist you in the wash zone since we’re not running the in-house dining and the marquis isn’t operational yet. It’ll be a bit erratic, since they are now our delivery drivers as well. We’d usually have more people and we will get more eventually but…” Barbara trailed off, looking tired. “COVID hit the service industry pretty hard.”

Tim nodded solemnly. Both financially and in terms of infections, he knew. He was grimly aware that the only reason there was even a slot open during a mass pandemic was that so many people, especially those jammed into the poorer districts, had been hit so hard in the first wave in Gotham. A lot of them had service industry careers.

“Well, that’s just about it. I’ll leave you to it,” Barbara wheeled back towards the admin offices. “If you have any issues, buzz me on the internal intercom.”

Even though the circumstances were the exact opposite of ideal, Tim couldn’t help the tiny thrill he got, knowing he was actually, really working at his dream job.

A kitchen hand slammed through the doors, bearing a trolley piled high with browned and encrusted pots, pans and utensils. He didn’t bother with a salutation, he just left them at the start of the wash station production line and hurried back into the meal prep zone room beyond.

Tim sighed ruefully. Okay, so it wasn’t quite his dream job, he admitted. His dream job was actually working in the cooking zone, where all the delicious aromas were emanating from. But that was currently an impossibility, given that a) they weren’t hiring and b) they certainly wouldn’t hire anyone who had never been to culinary school.

So…. Pot scrubber and odd-job janitor it was for now. Still, he reflected as he went elbow deep into a stock pot with suds and a scourer, it wasn’t enough to knock a star off his daily rating. It was a literal miracle he was here at all. The fact that it contained a lot of sweat, labor and drudgery didn’t make it less of one.

After his first round of pots were scrubbed and loaded into the dishwasher (and two panicked minutes wasted figuring out the setting to make the cycle run), Tim cleaned his station, lined up the next load of pots to get to later, then shoved on some fresh nitrile gloves and grabbed the disinfecting caddy. Making sure his mask hadn’t slipped while he’d been working, he girded himself and plunged into the meal prep zone, ready for his first round of COVID safe cleaning.

He knew he shouldn’t let himself get distracted, but the actual reality of a fully functional commercial kitchen was too fascinating not to draw his gaze. His keen eyes picked out the patterns under the chaos, followed the thread of creation that wove itself from the Prep zone to the Cook zone to the Plate zone to the Service zone. Chopped vegetables and prepped meats were marched over to the Cook zone with its neat rows of cooktops, ovens and grills, the Confection zone a little island off to one side with its contingent of ovens and quick access to the walk-in freezer. For every appliance there seemed to be a workspace, a blank canvas where a chef could whisk, blend, puree, spice or otherwise add Art to the prepped raw ingredients as they were re-prepped for their destiny, in either oven or stovetop.

There was so much going on, nothing was linear, everything zig zagged and went back and forth like mad and not a single vegetable or drop of oil was wasted. You’d almost have to believe the dozens of workers – and it was a huge kitchen, fit for bulk catering – had choreographed the whole thing.

Well, Tim had missed the rehearsal, if that was the case. He nearly got bowled over by a blonde chef carrying a bowl full of artichoke hearts almost too big to get her arms around. “Hey kid, move it or lose it!” she shouted as she went past.

“Sorry,” Tim wheezed out, but she likely hadn’t heard him over the din given how she had already plunked the artichoke hearts on her current workspace and was apparently tossing them into a steamer.

Another kitchen hand bulled him aside carrying a platter of shaved meats, and Tim shook himself. He wasn’t here to gawk; he had a job to do. He’d memorized the stations with the vacancy lights activated, so he did those first. He knew it wasn’t exactly skilled labor but he was pretty pleased with his spray bottle action and his wax-on-wax-off technique nonetheless. He had lots of practice at this, it had to be said, from his own kitchen. He timed himself relentlessly anyway; always and compulsively trying to find the most efficient method possible.

After that, he was cherry picking stuff to clean. Barbara had been right, some stations had been used and then abandoned as their person had been called off to handle or help with something else. Every person in the room seemed to have half a dozen things on the go and another dozen lining up behind in the meal prep.

Okay, so, get rid of what scraps and peelings were left in the green waste, collect boards, knives, spoons and pots to shove onto the cleaning trolley, scrub with soapy water and then out came the spray bottle and a fresh wipe. Some terribly OCD part of him wished he could also give the stovetop a good scrub, but save for overboiling disasters which were quite rare, that sort of thing tended to wait until the big clean down at the end of the shifts.

He had just disposed of a pile of bones left in a huge heap in a bowl on what was presumably one of the butchers’ workstations and was scrubbing it down when the doors to the wash zone banged open, admitting a loose pack of people who’d entered via the staff entrance, which was beyond the wash zone.

Tim gripped his spray bottle and nearly spritzed himself doing it. They were the Waynes!

There was Bruce Wayne, scion of the Wayne line, whom everybody in Tim’s parents’ circle had spoken unkindly of when he’d chosen to open a restaurant rather than… do what someone with access to his level of obscene wealth would usually do. How they had all scoffed that he’d gone completely mad. Well, eighteen Michelin stars to his name later, he was the owner and CEO of Wayne Food Enterprises and the big name in the Gotham foodie scene.

There was Dick Grayson, his first adopted child, first in his class at the Culinary Institute of America before he’d hit a rebellious streak, dropped out and opened a nightclub restaurant in Bludhaven. No one thought he could make it work — they weren’t exactly looking for a cuisine-and-dance show experience in the slums of Blud — but an entire entertainment venue and three chain restaurants now swinging from his belt, Dick Grayson had done all right by his rebellion. Tim had gone to see one of his showcases once. The spectacles had been good and the food – all esoteric, fusion cooking reflecting the blend of culture he’d grown up with – had been even better.

There was Damian Wayne, Bruce Wayne’s actual biological son, whom Tim honestly didn’t know as well as any of the others, but he did know he’d taken the grand prize out in Junior Masterchef and Junior Iron Chef. He’d actually beaten a professional chef to the prize, which wasn’t bad for a thirteen-year-old. The food scene of Gotham all agreed he was one to watch. Given his somewhat prickly nature, they also quietly added ‘from a safe distance’.

But all that paled in comparison to the fourth member of the loose pack making their way through the lines. Looming as tall as his adoptive father and almost as broad was Jason Todd. The Jason Todd.

Tim’s heart did a little kickline number in his chest. Okay, he could grudgingly admit he had a little crush on Jason. It was, he admitted ruefully, a garden variety celebrity crush, no matter how much a part of him wanted to say it was more meaningful than that. Tim had been infatuated with Jason Todd ever since he was a little kid, left to his own devices in a huge house without another soul to talk to, desperately and erratically teaching himself self-care through YouTube; mostly cooking videos. Mostly a young Jason Todd’s cooking channel, actually.

Jason Todd’s smiling face filmed in the Wayne Manor’s gleaming kitchen had guided Tim through a lot of otherwise lonely times. His first forays into cooking – and therefore, independence – had been unknowingly and benevolently overseen by the young teen chef. He had always wanted to tell Jason how grateful he’d been for all the good he’d done; not just for Gotham, but for Tim, personally, too.

He’d never gotten the chance. Tim had cried the day the videos had stopped coming.

Tim surreptitiously watched them bickering, some more good naturedly than others, as they checked workstations and caught up on all the restaurant goings on. They weren’t often at the restaurant for the lunch rush properly, but Tim couldn’t blame them for that.

After all, they did all have night jobs as well. Even Batman needed to sleep sometime, and so did all the other Gotham vigilantes – Nightwing, Red Hood and Robin.

Tim turned away and hurried off to dump the scraps and other stuff into the big green compost dumpster. He knew that, contrary to all urban legends, Batman couldn’t actually read minds but Tim was going to wager on his own ability to hide his expression. He wasn’t supposed to know that about his new boss and Bruce Wayne only acted the fool; if Tim was stupid enough to draw the attention of the World’s Greatest Detective, he would almost certainly give away everything.

Tim never was a very good liar; at least, not to people as sharp and well trained as the Bats.

When he came back, the Waynes were still in the kitchen. They’d obviously scrubbed up and had taken over workstations, although Damian was hanging sullenly around the dessert zone rather than actually cooking. Their argument, if that’s what you could call it because it sounded more like an ongoing snark war, continued over the din of the kitchens, which bustled around them like this was normal. Maybe it was.

“I get where you’re coming from, Jay, but now is not the time to open your restaurant,” Dick was saying as he sauteed something delicious and spicy in a pan. “I had to furlough, like, eighty percent of my people. Do you know what job opportunities there are for theater and stage performers right now? It ain’t good odds, let me tell you.”

“Look, I got the site, I’ve got the kitchen, the cold store and the suppliers all lined up,” Jason snapped back, lining up a huge stock pot. “Steph, you got?” he bellowed over the kitchen din. The blonde chef waved him over to the far side workstations absently while wielding a wicked looking ceramic knife. “Thanks! I don’t see why I shouldn’t open now,” Jason continued his debate without missing a beat. “Yeah, the dining room isn’t outfitted but who the fuck cares? We’re not doing in-dining for a while. I can start up a takeaway joint and give some folks in the neighbourhood some paying work that doesn’t involve getting fucked over gigging for Uber Eats or DoorDash. Why not?”

“You haven’t built up a client base yet,” Bruce called over from where he was delicately spiral peeling vegetables for rose garnishes with effortless precision. “Getting a restaurant off the ground requires a lot of word of mouth, a lot of marketing blitzes. You’ve got to build up your regulars.”

“Ever hear of twitter, old man?” Jason snarked irritably. “I can handle cyber PR, okay? I’ll work the socials, an’ I got plenty of folks willing to talk me up in my area.”

“Jay, people aren’t looking for anything new right now,” Bruce insisted. “They’re drawn to what’s old and known – they have to, the world feels like it’s on fire and they’re falling back on what comfort they can find. Trust me, I’ve been in the business a long time. I’m telling you, the market just isn’t right for it.”

Jason scowled impressively. “It’s easy to talk about markets when you’re living in the middle of Restaurant Row, B. The Bowery ain’t got much access to variety when it comes to dining. They’ll take it because it’s there and because upmarket getups like the Table don’t deliver to the peasantry.”

“New restaurants always have an element of risk involved for customers,” Dick pointed out. “Who the hell wants to take a risk right now?”

“Dickie, I live in the fucking Bowery ,” Jason retorted. “You think people around there don’t know about taking risks?”

“Jay,” Bruce actually came over to lay his hands on Jason’s shoulders. “I know how badly you want to do this. I know how hard you’ve been working towards this. But I’m telling you, if you do a start up right now, it will fail. You don’t trust me on a lot, I know, but I am telling you it just won’t work.”

Jason scowled and turned away, dicing his shallots with more force than strictly necessary. “So whaddya want me to do with my fucking time now that I got a freehold I’m paying for and a kitchen I can’t use?” he asked with prickly sarcasm. Clearly he didn’t like losing the argument.

“Come work for me.”

“Say fucking what ?!”

Tim absorbed all this with no little amount of fascination. He maintained it wasn’t eavesdropping; the discussion was carrying on so loudly that the whole staff could hear it and probably people out on the street too. If he was cleaning and disinfecting a little slowly, well, in the age of COVID it was hardly a vice to be thorough with hygiene.

So Jason Todd wanted to open his very own restaurant. Tim had a moment’s sheer thrill at the thought of going to eat there and watching the master of his own personal comfort foods work.

Then he had a thrill of terror as a voice came from his blind spot with menacing intent. “Who are you?”

Tim jumped, nearly dropping everything in his hands, and turned to face the cold glare of Damian Wayne, who was standing way too close for comfort. He opened his mouth but all that his throat could manage was an embarrassing wheeze.

“I’ve never seen you here before,” Damian glowered. “Who are you?”

Tim leaned back. “Uh… I… I’m Tim?” he whispered. “I’m new here?”

Damian’s face fell into furious lines. “FATHER! What is the meaning of this?” he bellowed.

Tim felt a shriveling sensation in his stomach as the whole room was suddenly looking at them. He wasn’t all that comfortable in the limelight.

Bruce, for his part, was puzzled. “The meaning of what?”

“I have petitioned you for months about letting me embrace my inheritance as your heir! Multiple times! Why is this milksop allowed to be here when I am not?”

Tim shrank back as Bruce’s attention fell on him. The man frowned. “I’m sorry, who are you?”

“Uh… Tim,” Tim forced out, his voice horrible and breathy. “I’m Tim Drake, sir.”

Jason, who had been on the losing end of yet another argument and was therefore in a fine, towering temper, swung around from where he’d been searching workstations in the cook zone. “Drake?” his nose wrinkled. “What the fuck, Bruce, I have a wait list of street kids a mile and a half long, what the fuck are you doing hiring a fucking rich kid? As if he fucking needs the work!”

Tim felt his stomach contract further. Jason Todd didn’t know him or his circumstances, so Tim couldn’t hold that against him. Still, the dismissal stung deeply. He felt himself go red as the room kept on staring at him.

Dick pinched the bridge of his nose tiredly. “Jay, enough. Don’t embarrass him. Damian I told you, you can’t legally work in the kitchen until you’re fourteen. Nothing about that has changed in the last hundred times I told you.”

Bruce was still frowning at Tim. “Who was your interview conducted with?”

“Um…” Tim felt his stomach sink. This would likely not go over well. Still, what could he say? “Mr Pennyworth, sir,” he mumbled.

Silence. Except for the hum of ovens and the occasional sizzle of a pan mid-sauté, everyone stopped what they were doing to stare.

Because of course they did. Alfred Pennyworth was the heart and soul of The Butler’s Table . Tim had just started and he knew that Mr Pennyworth being assaulted and left for dead six months ago was an unspeakable topic in this kitchen. The old man was still recuperating. His name, around here, was sacred and rarely invoked.

Bruce’s lips thinned into a grim line, looking way closer to the Bat than he normally let show. “I see.”

There was a beat of awkward silence, before everyone got back to work with almost frantic energy.

“The interviews, if there were any, would have been months ago. Why would you just start today ?” Damian asked, voice marinated in suspicion.

Tim felt all his confidence shrivel in the face of their stares. “I just got the call and came in,” he explained, voice breathless from the tension. The awful specter of his anxiety rose up, taunting him. He was making a fuss . He was a failure . He felt his five-star day dropping to four as he tried to control his breathing.

“ That’s true ,” came Barbara’s voice over the PA. “ He was first on the waiting list. ”

“There are people who actually need a job who should be higher,” Jason muttered, not quite quietly enough to be inaudible.

Tim felt his face go redder, guilt clawing up his throat with merciless claws.

“Steph!” Jason yelled over to the blonde, getting back to his job and apparently ignoring everything else. “Where the fuck are my soup bones?”

“They’re on the far bench near the sauces!” she yelled. “I left them in a big silver bowl!”

Oh. Tim felt panic grip his chest as Jason yelled back “What the fuck blondie, there’s no damn bowl there!”

“Oh, I, uh,” Tim forced out as loudly as he could manage as Steph came stalking over to defend her honor. “I think I… um, threw them away.”

“You fucking what ?”

“I-I thought they were scraps!” Tim said as they all started staring at him again, his confidence tanking further and humiliation rising in its place. “I’m sorry,” he added weakly.

“Sorry?!” Jason shouted furiously. “We don’t fucking debone meat in the cook zone, asshole, we do that in the prep zone! You know, because it’s fucking prep . Anything in the cook zone is to fucking cook. Where the fuck did you go to culinary school?” Jason asked furiously, storming over towards the pantry, no doubt looking for powder stock to replace the bones he’d been planning to use. “In a fucking McDonalds university?”

Tim felt wretched. Then words slipped out before his horrified brain could stop them. “I didn’t,” he choked out.

Even Dick looked up from his pan. “Didn’t what?”

“Um, go to… um, culinary school,” Tim admitted in a mumble.

Damian scoffed. “ This is an acceptable hire for one of the finest restaurants in Gotham?”

“It’s a bit unusual, I admit,” Bruce sighed. “But it’s not like he’s aiming to be a chef. We’ve probably had too much turnover in the wash zone,” he added, voice weary.

Tim stared at his feet. He did want to be a cook. That dream was starting to evaporate in the face of Bruce’s easy, impersonal dismissal.

“Guys, you’re making him feel bad,” Stephanie pointed out, which made everyone look again, which didn’t make Tim feel much better, to be honest.

“He should fucking feel bad,” Jason slammed down more pots angrily. “There goes about ten gallons of fucking soup that would have fed a lot of desperately hungry mouths because he’s a fucking failson who shouldn’t be here. Do me a favour and keep him in the wash zone; that way if he fucks up no one has to go hungry because of it,” Jason griped and turned away.

Steph sent him a sympathetic look. “I think we’re all clean in here,” she suggested gently.

Mortified beyond belief, Tim nodded and dejectedly hurried away; all the chefs he admired had long since written him out of the universe as they focused on their work in the kitchens.

He knew Jason was just upset about his delayed restaurant opening. He was in a bad mood and didn’t have a lot of patience to spare. He knew it hadn’t been personal. Still, the scathing criticism from his childhood hero, both in and out of the mask, and the insinuation that Tim had somehow left people hungry through his carelessness, cut pretty deep. Tim sniffled and wiped away a couple of tears as he got back to the pots and pans in the wash zone, hands shaking and brain screaming at him that he was a failure, that he’d never be enough. It had been hammered and hammered into him, that he was constantly a disappointment that could never quite reach the high pinnacle of perfection his parents had set for him. Hearing that from his childhood hero was enough to strip the five stars from his day like a bad review on Yelp.

It was so bad that he barely found the confidence to emerge to do his job disinfecting when the time came. He picked up his phone and dialed instead.

“It’s me,” he whispered where no one could hear him. “I know you said I had to come here, but…” Tim’s face crumpled. “I don’t think this is going to work.”

Chapter Text

Red Hood was not the kind of person who was intimidated by eerie. He’d seen parades of horror, fear, blood and revulsion up close and personal. He could eat eerie for breakfast. So while he would never be truly repulsed by the eeriness of Gotham’s most dangerous streets, he would at least cop to the fact that there was a vague, unsettling element to seeing them as they were now.

Silent. Empty.

Gotham was a ghost town.

The metaphor wouldn’t hold up under even casual scrutiny – there were plenty of Gotham-style dramas of the mundane and domestic type to be had behind closed doors. But Gotham was, despite everything, an outdoors city. The streets were rarely safe, but they were always vibrantly alive with movement even in the small hours. The phenomenon of Gotham’s rich array of nightlife forever crisscrossing with the born and bred streetlight people lay at the very heart of Gotham’s culture, despite fog, wind, rain and snow.

Red Hood had been on a long furlough away from the city before being pulled back into her filthy embrace about the same time as Alfred’s attack; ‘furlough’ in this case meaning ‘Pit detox’. He’d come back just before they’d started the first series of lockdowns, rushing to get across the closing bridges. Born raising hell on these diabolical thoroughfares, he’d walked, newly somewhat sane, back into a Gotham he could hardly recognise, with none of the touchstones he’d expected to find.

He had never seen it like this short of actual disasters, and even then they had to be the big, cataclysmic kind. That COVID was doing what years of Rogues and apocalypses had failed to do and scare Gotham straight seemed like a particularly cruel joke.

The Bats were still very much in business. They still patrolled, still solved cases, still did whatever they could whenever they could. But the nature of the beast had well and truly changed. Hood hadn’t even seen a mugging in months. The street corners that were usually an open drug bazaar lay empty, even of the most desperate addicts. All the street crime, the big break-and-enters, the bank robberies had ground to a dead halt.

Still, that didn’t mean the work had dried up; goodness no. Oracle was pulling double duty trying to keep track of all the trafficking rings that had gone fully cyber automated. There were still drug shipments coming in at the docks. The black markets were thriving , as were the con artists trying to sell fake ass cures to frightened, desperate people.

They did more of their work sitting at their home bases in front of computer screens right now than getting out and pounding the pavement. Hood wasn’t entirely upset by this fact; at the end of the day there was still usually someone who needed punching and the Bats were ready and willing. Still, there was a kind of wistful melancholy for the days when they could just pound their beats and chat to their informants and make sure everyone under their aegis was doing okay. The street life culture had allowed them to do this easily before; the current conditions not so much.

Despite the unsettling feeling of wrongness, despite all the new, complicated challenges and risks of crime fighting in this already crazy burg, Hood wasn’t going anywhere. Two blocks north of here was where they’d found Alfred; beaten nearly senseless and wrapped in tin foil like some sick parody of a baked potato. Alfred, who had somehow never been tarnished by Gotham’s decay, who had seemed so untouchable and unbreakable. Their Alfred. Red Hood wasn’t going to leave until he found the fuckers that did it and made them scream to die. And really? Compared with what Batman might have in store for them, Hood’s plans may count as the more merciful option. Even now he had to strangle back the urge to go there and glare at the crime scene. The Bats had already scoured every dust mote in it. There wasn’t anything more to find.

That case wasn’t actually why he was wandering the streets tonight like a more badass version of I am Legend. He wasn’t usually out here at this hour anymore at all lately, since there usually wasn’t anything to do on foot patrol, but he liked the steady cadence of it. He still liked doing it after rough or fraught days, just occasionally. Nothing in a vigilante’s night was relaxing per se, but the act could be termed peaceful. Today had been a fraught day.

“So, question,” Arsenal’s voice came over his comm helmet suddenly. “Are you pissed because we can’t open the restaurant yet or are you pissed the big bad B was the one to point it out to you?”

“This is what you call via the emergency channel about? How bored are you, jackass?” Red Hood snarked back.

“So, fucking bored, man,” Arsenal sighed. He’d possibly been exposed to COVID last week taking out a bunch of Black Mask’s henchmen and was now wallowing in self isolation for the good of his daughter and his teammates. “But you’ve been circling the Bowery like a concussed wolf all night. Your hackles are up. Answer the question, Jay.”

Red Hood sighed. As a sober companion and quasi-therapist, Roy Harper was just about the best friend a man could ask for. That didn’t mean Hood had to like his fucking nosy and unfortunately distressingly accurate insights into Hood’s state of mind though. “Both, I guess. I probably woulda been slightly less pissed if, say, Dickie had opened his big yap instead of B; not that Dickwing wasn’t tag teaming the old man like a pro, the fucking suck up.”

“So if, say, Oracle had pointed out all the logistical nightmares we’d be letting ourselves in for opening it up right now…? ”

“I probably wouldn’t have gotten my back quite so far up if it’d come from her,” Hood admitted. “I dunno, man. It’s just something ‘bout B and me, you know? It always feels like he’s fucking judging every single thing I do.”

“Dude, it’s the fucking Bat,” Arsenal snorted. “Of course he does. But to be fair, he does that to everyone he knows. You just think it’s you-specific.”

Red Hood grumbled. In certain respects it was extremely him-specific and nothing would ever convince him otherwise. Still, he had to take on board the point Arsenal was making, in that B hadn’t been cautioning him just because he wanted to see Jason fail. Quite the opposite, in fact. It said a lot about their relationship that Red Hood found B caring a hell of a lot more discomfiting than literally every other option. “Shit, we were so close,” Hood said, defeated. “We were so fucking close to getting it up and running. We had the fucking crockery delivery just a day ago.”

“We’re still close, Jay,” Arsenal was quick to assure him. “The site’s not going anywhere. The freehold’s all paid for, the deeds are all ours and the kitchen was set up just how we wanted it. We’re fucking lucky, dude; unlike some other start-ups, we’re not beholden to a bank. We’ll get an opening day. We just have to wait until the world’s slightly less on fire.”

Hood snorted. That was a big ask in Gotham. “Are you seriously giving me a pep talk right now?” he asked. “Seriously?”

“Seriously, I am,” Arsenal retorted. “Recovery is a fucking fragile process, Jay. It makes you hypersensitive to failure. It magnifies everything. I should know. Every time I hit the smallest stumbling block, the needle would start looking friendly again. You’re not quite that high risk,” he admitted. “The Pit is pretty fucking out there and it’s not like you can get more of it. That doesn’t mean this isn’t getting under your skin. And if it’s getting under your skin then the Pit can be triggered by it. You’ve got to watch your emotional state all the fucking time when you go sober. I had to get into the habit of talking about my bad feelings with people I trusted, and so should you. It keeps you in check. It keeps the cravings and triggers in check. So tell me what happened when you and B clashed. Walk me through the problem.”

Red Hood sighed. Arsenal was right, as usual. The Pit was restless today, which in turn made him restless and irritable. Hood considered himself more fortunate than he deserved to have someone like Arsenal watching his back – not just physically, but emotionally as well. Goodness knows nobody was going to learn emotionally healthy habits from Batman. “I lost my temper today,” he admitted. “I was shitty with B and Nightwing over the restaurant; mostly because I’d already thought about it and I hated that they were fucking right. There was this kid, a new hire at B’s joint, and he made a dumbass mistake but this was literally his first day on the job, right, and I’m not sure how much experience he actually has in a commercial kitchen either. I mean, he’s a fucking pot scrubber, for fuck’s sake. I nearly took his damn head off.”

“Well,” Arsenal pointed out. “If you want a positive spin, it’s better than actually taking his head off, unless there’s something you’re not telling me.”

It took a second to parse that out. “Oh, fuck you, asshole,” Hood cussed him out while Arsenal laughed at him.

“Does the fact that you upset the kid upset you?” Arsenal asked. “Remember, it’s good to at least acknowledge your feelings, right or wrong.”

“Kind of,” Hood admitted, which was true. He did feel a bit shitty about it. “But it was kind of a dumbass thing the kid did. Running a kitchen is basically running an indefinitely postponed disaster. It’s a lot worse when people aren’t on their fucking game.”

“That’s true,” said the former heir to the Queen’s Banquet in Star City. “I wouldn’t let it bother you too much. I’m sure the kid is fine. He’ll accept he fucked up and bounce back if he’s serious about his job. He has to know you don’t make it in the restaurant business without a pretty thick skin.”

“Yeah, true,” Hood grimaced. While that was something of a universal truth, he had mixed feelings about the cookery culture that both encouraged and forgave screaming dickheads. Jason Todd did not ascribe to the Idiot Sandwich school of chef personas. There were, he absolutely staunchly believed, plenty of good reasons for a person to be a raging asshole, but being able to cook a gourmet meal wasn’t one of them.

“Look, about our joint,” Hood discarded the unproductive line of conversation. “B’s fucking right, and I get it. But we got a bunch of facilities ready to go and a neighborhood which was food insecure in a good year. If we can’t open up the place as an actual eatery, do you think we could finagle an emergency relief kitchen instead? Just while COVID is running? I fucking hate the idea of leaving a working kitchen not working when folks are fucking starving to death.”

Arsenal made a considering noise. “We’d have to get the suppliers on board. Maybe talk to the World Kitchen guys.”

“Hell, Wayne Enterprises is handing out grants left, right and center for anyone doing disaster relief in Gotham right now. Fuck, why not? We’re not gonna have much else to do until this fucking plague is over and done with.”

“Plus, it might get you out of having to work in your family’s old kitchen,” Hood could hear Arsenal’s smirk. “Where you want to be but hate to be.”

“And that,” Hood agreed grudgingly.

“We could probably do it,” Arsenal agreed. “If nothing else, it would count towards good publicity for when we need to open for real. But this is gonna take weeks to set up, Jay.”

Fuck. Weeks with nothing to do on the day shift, while his frustration was being egged on by the Pit. Not an ideal scenario. “Maybe,” he essayed grudgingly. “I can go back to B’s joint in the meantime. He might be able to speed up the process for us a little bit. He’d probably do it if I agreed to help out there. Everyone is stretched fucking thin.”

“You asshole, you’re about to get me to do the fucking paperwork, aren’t you?” Arsenal seemed more amused than pissy.

“Of the two of us, who, exactly, currently has no night job? Since I’m walking around out here,” Hood snarked. “I guess that must be you. Lucky you.”

“Fuck you,” Arsenal snorted. “Just fuck you, Jay.” And signed off.

“Ruuude,” Hood smirked to himself. Roy would gripe and complain, but Hood knew he’d probably be grateful for something to do that wasn’t remote surveillance, cold cases, research or endless hours of Disney+. Hood had bunked with the guy – Roy did not take kindly to confinement of any kind.

It still pissed him off that his restaurant wouldn’t open on schedule. The one goal he’d had set in stone after he’d made the choice to really take on the slow, tortuous process of detoxing from the Pit and all the ugly withdrawal and even uglier emotional confrontations that came with it was finally becoming stable enough to open his own joint. It was something he’d dreamed of long before the Bat had turned his world upside down, in both good and bad ways.

Cooking was and always had been a source of emotional solace, his healthiest outlet for bad feelings. Little Jason had gotten his baby-chef credentials taking care of his mom. Good food, whatever he could make with whatever they had, made her happy. It also made Baby Jay happy, knowing that in taking care of her he could feel slightly more in control of his fucked up circumstances. That feeling had left a deep groove in his psyche; so deep even the Pit hadn’t shifted it.

He liked to take care of people. He liked knowing they were full of good food, that he could give them one less thing to worry about in a world full of anxieties and problems and risks. Spending the last six months exhausting himself day and night with Roy, Bizarro and Kori renovating the old red brick boarding house into a sprawling, mezzanine leveled eatery had been fulfilling and happy work, not the least of which because every step closer to opening was an acknowledgement that neither dying nor the Pit had taken every good bit of him and ground it to dust. Jason Todd could still have this. The sudden road bump had been shattering in its own way. Hood knew he shouldn’t let it gnaw at him; who the hell could have predicted COVID?

But Arsenal was right; in real terms, they were fucking lucky. There were restaurants and bars going bust left, right and center. People were suffering. Disappointment for something that could wait was a real first-world-problem gripe. He knew it wasn’t emotionally healthy to fixate on one completed project as a measure of his success trying to become an actual, functioning, sort-of stable adult.

All he could do is what he’d spent the last year doing. Getting on with it, one day at a time. And if that meant he was stuck working in B’s joint until his own could either get its feet under it or he could re-purpose it for the times they were in, well, he’d just have to put on his big-boy shorts and go with it.

Besides, it wasn’t like he didn’t have plenty of opportunities to help people, especially right now in Gotham.

Like the loose gaggle of teens clustered under the one working streetlamp at the corner of Park and Bridge. They were bundled up as well as they could against the chill in the air. Most of them were wearing masks and were scattered at the minimum recommended safe distance. Hood could tell by their body language that there were more – probably younger ones, tweens, hidden in the dark of the alleyways, that the older ones kept darting glances to. He could also tell they weren’t hanging out, either; they were clearly waiting for something.

Hood approached carefully, keeping his hands slightly raised in a universal gesture of harmlessness. “Hey,” he called softly.

Even doing his best not to loom, Red Hood emerging from the chilly haze was not a comforting sight. A couple of the teens skittered back away from him, white of their eyes showing over their masks.

A couple of them came forward, though. “Dude, it’s fine. That’s just Red Hood, he’s legit,” one of them piped up.

“I ain’t here to make trouble for no one,” Red Hood added. “Sid? That you?” he squinted at the familiar looking eyes of what he was pretty sure was one of his informants. “Where the fuck ya been, kid? I’ve been tryin’ to check in on ya but the squat where you were at said you’d left.”

“Sorry dude, I moved back in with my mom when the ‘rona got bad,” Sid grimaced. “She’s on the fucking withdrawal wagon now. Had to be. All the usual dealers fucking went to ground and it ain’t like she got the cash to fund her habit. She got laid the fuck off, just like all the rest of the hairdressers.”

“How’re you doing, kid?” Hood asked him. Time was he’d go up and clap the kid on the shoulder, give him some physical reassurance. He couldn’t afford to do that now. His helmet was basically COVID proof, but the amount of scumbags he had to deal with that were going to work manifestly sick meant there was a possibility his gear would be contaminated. Even with surface sprays and every bit of hygiene ingenuity B could devise, he couldn’t afford to touch people unless he couldn’t help it.

“’S okay,” Sid shrugged with an endearing if sad level of downplay. “Gran-Gran’s moved in with us. We’re just tryin’ to keep her safe, you know?”

Yeah, because the hospitals were struggling even in the wealthier areas of this burg. Around here? It was hard to get medical assistance on the good days. COVID was a fucking death sentence. The clinics were overflowing onto the streets.

“You shouldn’t be out here, kid,” Hood sighed, trying not to let the despair he felt wind up the Pit. “You all should be home; or at least, in shelter. There’s a curfew on.”

“You’re enforcing a curfew?” one girl piped up in disbelief.

“I ain’t, honey,” Hood replied gently. “The police will though. Especially if you happen to have a skin tone those fuckers don’t like. It don’t matter if you end up in Blackgate or a holding cell in the precinct. They’re crammed in. There’s almost no chance you won’t get ‘rona that way.”

There was a shared sigh of weary resignation at this honest observation.

“You all better scram,” Hood told ‘em. “Whatever you’re here for ain’t worth the risk of death. I’m keeping the peace without the cops as much as I can but it only takes one fucking random check from a patrol car. They’ll nab ya. They won’t care what happens next.”

“Come on, man,” Sid pleaded. “Can we wait a little longer? The food truck is comin’ and we won’t have no supplies until at least Saturday if we miss ‘im.”

Red Hood blinked. “Food truck? There ain’t no food trucks operating round here.” There hadn’t been a viable mobile food service industry for months.

“Dude, you gotta get out on the streets more,” Sid’s eyes smirked at him. “The Four-Twenty has been running in these parts for months.”

Red Hood squinted. “The who what now?”

“There it is!” one girl nearly shrieked, relief in every syllable. There was a general movement towards the edge of the road though everyone was trying to be mindful of social distancing in their eagerness. Funny how you didn’t see much anti-mask sentiment in the dirt poor areas.

Red Hood stared into the black void at the end of the alleyway. He couldn’t hear any vehicle, but there were faint headlights emerging from the ill-lit end of the thoroughfare. Not faint because they were far away – they seemed to be deliberately set to low light.

Stealth mode, Hood thought to himself. Black running. Smugglers did it sometimes.  

“Hey, stay back,” one guy waved into the alleys, holding his arm across his nose in lieu of a mask. “Just wait there, okay? We gotta make sure it’s safe first.”

Without taking his eyes off the slowly emerging vehicle, Hood sidled over to the guy. “No mask, dude?”

“Gave mine to a kid,” the older teen muttered. “Her dad was forced to go work in the slaughterhouses or get shit-canned.”

Right, the slaughterhouses; ground zero for infection vectors. Hood wordlessly yanked open a pouch and passed the guy a mask. He carried a lot these days, as well as tiny bottles of hand sanitizer. “Safe from what, exactly?” Hood asked, carefully keeping himself in point position between the branch-off alleyways and the ponderously approaching truck.

“Gang bangers sometimes try to snatch and grab when he stops,” the guy replied. “It ain’t like the guy isn’t giving it away for free anyway. Those assholes’ll try to grab anything to sell on the black market, and they ain’t afraid to scare off the people who legit need the stuff with guns. It don’t happen so much anymore,” the guy snorted. “The gang bangers are too hungry for that now and no one’s got any money for black market markups. But there’s always a couple of assholes you know?”

Hood snorted. Of course there were. That was practically Gotham’s motto.

The truck finally emerged fully into the light. Red Hood felt his jaw drop.

When they’d said ‘food truck’, Hood had thought of something like the little chili dog truck he and his mom would sometimes chase around the district in summer for fun, or maybe the long taco truck that had traditionally parked up in the park near the Science Museum like a brightly colored, taco shaped bus.

This monster looked like something out of Mad Max. It was a big, double barreled semi-trailer with a folding joint in the middle just to get it around corners. No wonder they all had to hang out here on the edge of the Bowery to meet it; the roads surrounding the area were wide enough but there was no way that behemoth was going to make it into the streets of these districts. They were called the narrows for a reason.

It was also, Hood noted with some astonishment, running almost completely silently. It must have a hell of an electric motor to shift the tonnage of the truck alone.

He discreetly keyed his comm. “O, I need you to take specs on an incoming vehicle. View is from my helmet cam.” He wasn’t even going to pretend she didn’t have fifty back doors into his various equipment systems.

“Roger,” Oracle came back over the line. “Hold steady. Huh… so that’s what the Four-Twenty looks like. I haven’t been able to get a good view of it since it started running.”

“Does everyone know about this fucking food truck except me?” Hood asked incredulously as it pulled up.

“I only know about it because my irregulars chat about it. It started up about four months ago, according to what little traces I can find. That rig has got serious anti-surveillance technology going for it. Plus, it sticks to areas that generally can’t manage regular maintenance on CCTV, so video footage is not substantial. Try to get an up-close look; apparently there’s a mask running it.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Red Hood discreetly checked sightlines right, left, above and below, before nodding to the teen he’d passed a mask to. It was safe; no roving would-be black market pirates. “There’s a vigilante food truck?”

“Apparently. Times are just that weird.”

“Hold comms,” Red Hood muttered before stepping forward. It wasn’t exactly unusual to meet a new mask in this town; they cropped up out of the woodwork with seasonal regularity and hopefully either gained enough field experience or quit fast enough to go on living if they were lucky. There were plenty of unlucky ones – desperate kids sizzling with bravado or adults who hit the weirder end of the mid-life crisis, neither of which tended to be smart enough to quit while they were behind.

Hood observed, as the tough shell over the service window rolled up over the truck roof, that this definitely wasn’t some mid-lifer in crisis. The lights in the service window switched on revealing… well, it was definitely a fucking kid. He was short, though Hood wasn’t being sizeist about this; he could see the jawline and the cheekbones under the domino and above the face mask and they definitely didn’t have that tell-tale faint darkness that even a clean shaven adult would tend towards. The skin was fair and the hair on top that Hood could see was dark. Unless the kid had really committed to an expensive dye job, there was no way stubble wouldn’t leave faint markings on that skin. If this kid had to shave even once a week, Hood would be genuinely shocked.

The kid tilted his head like a startled bird upon seeing Red Hood looming near his service window, but rallied quickly. “Okay, is anybody hungry? I’ve got paninis on the press.” His voice pitch was a high baritone, but Hood wasn’t going to take that as gospel. He could hear the metallic edge of a voice modulator overlaying it.

“Dude, yes!” Sid crowed.

“Okay, you know the rules. For those that don’t…” the kid flicked a switch and an LED sign lit up above the service window, stating PLEASE FORM AN ORDERLY QUEUE. Laser pointer lights came on all the way down the side of the truck, painting a red circle every six feet. They stretched past the truck and down the road.

The crowd surged forward, but politely and orderly. Tweens, a couple of elderly people with trolleys and some even littler kids scuttled out of the alleyways. They each took a circle, forming a queue. Hood hung back to watch proceedings, keeping the record button firmly on. He made sure the kid running the truck could see him, though, just in case he tried any funny business. Hood was pretty sure he wouldn’t though; all the people here looked like Bowery lifers; their trust was not an easy thing to earn even when they were desperate. The sheer relief on their faces told a story, mostly that this guy hadn’t burned them yet.

It wasn’t just grilled cheese paninis this guy was handing out. He’d chat to whomever came up to the window and gently find out what their circumstances were this week – homeless, shelter, group home, family home? Were there young kids or babies in the household? Elderly people? Did they have fridges, a stovetop, access to a freezer?

And then he’d walk through his massive van and come back with a box. He’d show each person what they were getting; some rare fresh vegetables and fruit if they could store it, cans if they couldn’t. Some dehydrated mixes, fresh milk if they could refrigerate, powdered if not, baby food, formula and diapers for anyone with infants, pet food for the rare denizen that was keeping a pet, plus staples like coffee, tea, some water bottles, rice and pastas and other groceries. There were also hygiene products for those that needed them, as well as soap, shampoo and some scattered medical supplies

It was all tailored to who needed what. And everybody got a box of masks and bottles of hand sanitizer, regardless of their circumstances.

Oh, and everyone who wanted one also got a grilled cheese panini; fresh and crisp from the press.

Hood waited patiently while people queued for their survival rations. Watching the little tweenies tear into the paninis like a pack of starving wolves made the Pit writhe angrily in his chest. They very clearly weren’t getting what they needed. Fuck that, that fucking shit did not happen in his territory. He’d been gone too long, things had gone downhill in his absence. No scumbag gangbanger would have dared had the temerity to take control of the food supply and let kids go hungry with Red Hood on the watch. They’d learned his opinion on that sort of thing via bloodshed.

He hoped the Outlaws could get the kitchen running fast.

“You good, Sid?” he rumbled as the kid came past him, helping an older lady with her over-stacked trolley, piled with boxes.

“Yeah, I’m cool dude,” Sid said cheerfully. “Got enough for a week. I’m gonna go most of the way with Mrs Raffenburg so we can share the cart.

Red Hood nodded to them.

“Okay, before everyone goes,” the truck kid yelled out to the, now quite large, crowd. “Yes, it’s true that the city council revoked the permits for the interfaith drive-through food pantry. They won’t let us do it during the day because of ‘traffic obstruction’. Or that’s their excuse anyway.” There was a despairing groan from the crowd, plus a few swears. “But!” the kid held up his hands before the hubbub got going. “They re-filed permits to hold it at midnight instead. It’s a bit of a runaround, I know. But the only way to get the permits through was to use their ordinances against them. If they’re going to pass a Business All Night act to help their smuggler buddies, then they can’t complain if we use it too! The deets will be posted on the Feed Gotham App. Anyone who doesn’t have the app, there’s a flier in the boxes with a hotline you can call. Please be patient, the lines are sort of clogged for about twelve hours a day. They will get back to everyone. And remember, you don’t actually need a car; they’ll serve anyone who shows. Make sure you wear your masks if you got ‘em, otherwise you’ll be given one. Okay? Thanks folks, have a good evening.”

The crowd – and these were all cynical Bowery folk – gave a ragged cheer.

“Don’t scare him off, dude,” Sid asked quietly as they dispersed. “Seriously, he’s legit. We’d’ve been down to three meals a week if the truck hadn’t started coming around.”

“Relax, kid,” Hood snorted. “I don’t always shoot first.” And then playfully mock-whapped the kid over the back of the head for the sarcastic look of doubt on his face. Kids these days.

The kid running the truck had been nothing but level-headed and friendly while he worked the crowd. He wasn’t a totally fearless idealist, though, because his body language went appropriately closed and wary as the Hood approached. Good, the kid had heard of him and clearly knew enough to be cautious. That would make things easier.

The service window was wide, wide enough to yank someone straight through it without brushing the sides, and bracketed either side by clear screens. If the kid had any measurable sense, they’d be made of bulletproof acrylic. On either side of the screens there were, almost hidden in the dark, fold out round stools for the odd customer to sit on while they waited for an order. Hood casually pulled the circular platform down and perched on it, his bulk doing nothing to shift the truck at all, keeping his eyes fixed on the kid the whole time with unnerving focus.

The kid, credit to his nerves, didn’t do anything more than shift his weight. He was also wise enough to keep his hands where Hood could see them. “Panini?” he asked.

Hood waited a few beats too long before answering. “Sure. Why the fuck not?”

 The kid shoved another pre-made panini into the industrial size press nearest to Hood’s side of the window, telegraphing his movements the whole way. Smart kid, Hood conceded. He seemed to understand and embrace the concept of not making himself a threat. He even threw together a coffee and was smart enough to not hand it straight to Hood, but left it on the service counter and backed away so Hood could reach for it himself.

Hood hit the release code on his helmet, waited for the seals to hiss open and yanked it off. He took a sip before he asked, “So who the fuck are you supposed to be?”

“I’m Blackbird,” Blackbird replied. It was hard to tell between the domino and the face mask the kid wore, but he seemed to be maintaining a blank expression.

Hood didn’t let a flicker of anything show on his face either. “Blackbird,” he repeated. Then he snorted. “Four & Twenty. You got the stupid puns bit down pat at least.”

Blackbird shrugged and went to deal with the counters, wiping them down and spruiking his space while the delicious aroma of grilled cheese and toasted bread filled the air.

“I gotta tell ya, Baby Blackbird, and I’m fucking sure you know, that I don’t really like other masks in my space. Makes me all antsy. I’m not exactly congenial company when I’m antsy.”

“I’m not here to upset the ecosystem,” Blackbird replied to this levelly. “I’m not interested in taking over any gangs and I’m not technically fighting crime.” He slid the freshly crisped panini into a grease paper sleeve and slipped it through the opening to Red Hood’s space at the counter. “I’m fighting hunger.”

Red Hood took a bite. The panini was disturbingly perfect; nice and crusty on the outside, soft and textured on the inside, and Blackbird hadn’t skimped on the butter or the quality cheese. About the only thing Hood would quibble over was that it needed to be bolder flavored. The baseline was slightly on the bland side. But he got it; sometimes it was safer to lean towards bland if you had to cater to a lot of different mouths at once. Easy to add flavor later; hard to take it away. “I can see that,” Hood said idly, not letting any of his appreciation color his voice. “But what I don’t get is fucking why, kid. That and a lot of other things.”

Blackbird tilted his head, like he hadn’t been expecting such a relaxed response. “It’s no mystery,” he said. “People here are already in a food desert. Once COVID hit, they might as well have been on the moon when it came to access to food. Suddenly food became the new gold. And where there’s value,” Blackbird shrugged. “There’s crime. Food pantries got robbed or overtaken by the dons. The last food depository in the district shut up shop before COVID got started because of budget cuts, and a bunch of city councilors who thought it ‘lowered the tone’,” as level and measured as Blackbird’s voice had been so far, you could hear the disgust in his voice even through a pretty high-end voice modulator.

“They had the delivery service, didn’t they?” Red Hood was beginning to feel his bafflement rise. When he’d gotten back his main areas of focus had been the drug and gun runners, the child sex trade and traffickers; the kinds of scum that had slowly popped up like mould in his absence. He hadn’t thought about the food supply line; partly because taking care of all of the above had been a massive time sink, especially in the first few months, but also because he’d never thought anyone – not even the most dumbass penny ante gangbanger – would touch the food pantries. The food pantries were fucking neutral territory, even in the bad old days of Hood’s childhood.

But then again…. Fucking COVID had a way of turning the world upside down.

“Meals On Wheels?” Blackbird huffed. “They used to. Council voted them out too.”

“Fucking how?”

“Said they had to be insured to come here, and you know how much you have to pay if you’re gonna get your car insured for the Bowery?” Blackbird sounded righteously outraged, as well he should. “They priced them right out of the district under the aegis of OH&S. The only option people around here have now is to get a delivery service to bring it from the pantries and if you can’t even afford basic staples, how the heck do they expect to pay for a DoorDash delivery every week? The churches and a few other agnostic or ethical charity programs are setting up soup kitchens and stuff wherever they can, but they’re going after them too. They keep hitting them with health sanctions and asking them to get complicated permits. They’re red taping people to literal death around here.”

Holy shit, Hood thought, properly gobsmacked at the sheer brazenness of it. I should have been paying more attention to the food problem. “What the fuck… fucking why? Ain’t those dumbfuck councilors from the district? They’re stealing food from their own mouths.”

“With big money corporations whispering in their ears?” Blackbird snorted. “They want us to go to the big businesses for handouts, and some of those food conglomerates are just… junk. They don’t care about people being healthy, they just want them drowning in their marketing. Which, okay,” Blackbird conceded. “Is better than starvation, but it’s a crappy way to increase market share.”

Fuck. Of fucking course. Red Hood started hastily re-organising his shit list in his head.

“The only option anyone around here has had for the last few months is to go to the big food handout station set up at the stadium. That’s a pretty long hike for someone who doesn’t have a car, let alone someone who’s old, or has mobility issues, or has got kids they can’t leave home alone,” Blackbird shrugged. “And they’d be risking infection every minute they’re outside and among other people, too. They’re all people who are very likely to have comorbidities or autoimmune issues too, people for whom COVID wouldn’t just be a couple of weeks down with the flu. It’s a shitty tiger vs tiger choice. I thought that,” Blackbird shuffled. “If, you know, the guys in charge wouldn’t let us do anything legally then the only other recourse was…”

“Illegally. As a vigilante,” Red Hood finished for him. Put like that , it kind of made a shitload of sense. Although it also said an awful lot about the priorities of the people in charge of this town, none of it complimentary.

“Right. I’m a vigilante food truck and rolling food pantry in one,” Blackbird stated proudly. “So far the cops have looked the other way. Some things even sicken jackals, as they say. I guess watching some poor, bedridden old folk digging in dumpsters for food was their conscience line.”

Hood barked out a cynical laugh.

Blackbird relaxed a little. “Mondays and Thursdays I’m circling this area. Wednesdays are my care home, halfway houses, and domestic violence and homeless shelter deliveries. Tuesdays I’m down in the Chinatown district and Old Gotham for the food drives there, doing deliveries to people who can’t make it to the pantry. I also have survival packs for any homeless people I see and I have a bunch of facilities,” he flicked a switch, and a couple of touchscreens lit up on the side of the truck, six feet apart. “Where people can sign up to get deliveries, organize getting on the SNAP program, and make appointments with the mobile medical vans, the mobile dentists and the mobile ophthalmologist. The city slashed the budget on all those services too, so we’re trying to crowdsource enough funds for them to go where they’re needed.”

“We?” Hood asked shrewdly.

Blackbird sighed. “I mean the community organizers. Sister Desiderata, Imam Rezna and Rabbi David started an interfaith coalition and invited the agnostics and other programs to participate. They’re keeping a steady supply of funds and volunteers and collecting anything the stores and restaurants aren’t selling as well. They all just want to make sure people have what they need. They organize my supply chain from the food banks, have people at whatever kitchens they can use to cook meals, and I do some of my own stuff too. It’s not enough. I’m doing this all night, every night, in the hardest hit districts where all the ‘legitimate’ systems have been cut off, and I’m still missing a lot of people.”

“How are you getting it to the shut-ins?” Hood asked. “You wouldn’t get this monster anywhere near the hardcore slums.”

Blackbird flicked a switch and got out what looked like a phone. There was a long whine of an opening tailgate and a clunk from the back, before a whirring noise started up. There was the sound of something moving on the other side of the van. As Hood watched, a small but sturdy little car zipped around the monster truck like a minnow and parked itself in front of it.

“Meet Blackwing,” Blackbird grinned. “My mini food mobile.”

Red Hood had to admit, it was a pretty sweet looking little car. It looked like it was based on an Ariel, all space age scaffolding and graceful, spartan lines. It looked light as a feather, fast as greased lightning and tough as an old boot. There was a haul-type box arrangement connected to Blackwing’s tow bar; no doubt stuffed with more boxes.

“So,” Blackbird asked him, a faint hint of challenge coming through his voice modulator. “Do I have your permission to enter, Hood? If you don’t want me here, fine, but if not can I please get permission to call some folks out who can deliver this stuff to people who need it? They’re going to go hungry, otherwise. Some of them have literally no other option.”

“Shit kid,” Hood said, impressed despite himself. “Not only do you have my permission, you,” he yanked a metal token – a red bat – out of his utility belt. “Have my protection. Any asshole tries to give you trouble, you flash that and they’ll know to stay the fuck back. But I expect you to tell me shit about what’s going down in the district, capiche? I don’t take kindly to people covering up for pedos and drug peddlers, especially when kids are getting involved.”

“Oh,” Blackbird took the token. “Thank you. And I wouldn’t do that anyway,” he added solemnly. “The people I serve know there are certain types that won’t be welcome. They’ve learned to stay away. The others all turn on them if they think there’s a chance I won’t come by anymore.”

What do you know, Hood thought. Karma does work.

Blackbird unlocked the service hatch door and sidled out, hopping down to the ground. “Look, I got deliveries to do and I don’t want to keep people up too late. Am I clear to go?”

“Sure, kid,” Hood waved him off. “We’ll have a talk about just where the fuck you got a fucking truck like that and that kind of high-end body armour later.”

The kid had the balls to snort. “You first. Night, Hood.”

“See you round,” Hood nodded. “Count on it.”

Blackbird got into Blackwing and whisked off into the narrow streets of the Bowery with his load of food for the needy.

Hood learned two more things about Blackbird that night. One, the kid’s truck was apparently self driving, because it slowly and ponderously moved off the sidewalk by itself. It stopped when he jumped in front of it to try to get into the cab, but wouldn’t let him get into it, patiently waiting until he let go before rumbling off again, it's dark paint job and stealth running making it disappear into the night in a way nothing that size should.

Second, Blackbird was fucking sharp. The token tracker and the spare ones he’d discreetly put on the truck while they were talking pinged a clear path of Blackbird’s meandering route through the district, clearly showing him stopping and starting multiple times as he made his rounds. The truck circled on the streets it could reach like a slow, friendly whale.

And when the two trackers met again at the end of the night?

They both disappeared entirely, leaving Blackbird’s home base a mystery.

Well played, Baby Blackbird, Hood thought ruefully as he turned in.

Chapter Text

Jason hunkered closer to the screen in Bruce’s office, wishing he didn’t have to wear the damn mask for this. “How are you doing, Alfie?”

“Quite well, Master Jason,” Alfred smiled back at him. “I have been able to work on some grafting and cultivars undisturbed. It is a little quiet here, though, I must admit.”

Jason winced to hear it. Bruce and Damian were currently living in the penthouse, and Dick and Steph had their own apartments in Gotham; no one wanted to take the risk of Alfred getting COVID, so the Manor had been locked down and its usual inmates rarely ventured to see Alfred in person. Usually only after an isolation period and about a thousand tests. Bruce’s protocols for this were… well, profound.

But it meant that Alfred, while safe, was all alone except for the medical personnel hired to care for him and even now they were slowly scaling back. Alfred’s mission in life was to care for people; it was rough to be stuck only able to care for himself.  

“You’re looking a lot better, Alf,” Jason commented, because it was true. The bruises had faded ages ago, the splints were gone from his fingers and various stitches had been removed. Alfred looked, more or less, like he had ever done, even though Jason knew he was still doing physiotherapy and was restricted to rest most of the day.

“I should think so,” Alfred huffed, showing a rare flash of impatience. “Master Wayne means well, of course, but I’m not quite so decrepit yet that I can’t survive a street brawl.”

 “Aw, you know I’d ride or die with you any day,” Jason grinned, meaning every word. “Did you get my care package?”

“I am rather overflowing with care packages at the moment,” Alfred said dryly. “I suppose it’s an occupational hazard of raising a passel of chefs. I did appreciate the snickerdoodles very much, though.”

Ha! Jason mentally fist punched. Demon brat could suck it and pay up, Jason got complimented for his snickerdoodles before Damian could edge in front with his esoteric ginger molasses baklava. “You want me to send you some crosswords and stuff Alfie? I got a box of ‘em for Roy as a joke. The joke landed, but now I got a box of puzzle books we don’t need.”

“I suspect I’ll find a use for them,” Alfred agreed. “But don’t be too concerned about my mental state, Master Jason. I assure you, I am by no means bouncing off the walls; if only so that I can claim a moral victory for all the times I’ve had to lecture Master Wayne for being a bad patient. I have a hobby or two I’m glad that I now have the time to devote my attention to.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Jason said honestly. “You’ll have to excuse my language on this one, Alf, but you really scared the fuck out o’ us this time.”

“Yes, I know,” Alfred smiled at him gently on the screen. “I will endeavor not to do so in future. Is there any news? I heard there’s now a vigilante food truck in your area.”

“Yeah. The Four-Twenty,” Jason told him. “It’s a huge damn truck, Alf. Run by some kid. He’s calling himself Blackbird.”

“Ah. Passed the pun module, then.”

Jason snickered. 

“It sounds like a fine idea, a vigilante food truck,” Alfred mused. “The charities I worked with prior to all this nonsense,” Alfred waved a hand at his own face. “Were incredibly anxious about how they were going to get food deliveries to the needy when everything took a turn for the worse. It sounds like this truck is an elegant solution – and a very Gotham one.”

“He’s definitely won the hearts of some of the folks down my way, that’s for sure,” Jason agreed. Then he hesitated. “Alf, I don’t really wanna bother you or nothing, but I have to ask…”

Alfred shook his head ruefully. “I’m sorry lad. The memories of that night are still nothing but a blur. I remember serving breakfast to you all, seeing Master Damian off to school and then I knew I had appointments to get to. Then it’s a blank.”

Jason tried not to let his disappointment show. “Don’t be sorry, Alf. It ain’t your fault. We’ll find ‘em,” he promised grimly. “We’ll find ‘em all.”

“I have no doubt,” Alfred replied. “But in all honesty, Master Jason, people get mugged in Gotham on a fairly regular basis. I’m not saying you shouldn’t bring such people to justice, of course, but I worry you’re all seeing a grand conspiracy where there just isn’t one. It’s just one of those things.”

It wasn’t though, Jason thought as he nodded and said his goodbyes. It wasn’t, because those things shouldn’t happen to Alfred. 

He sat back on Bruce’s desk chair, pensive. Look at me, he thought. Brooding in the dark. It must be something about Bruce’s spaces.

Speak of the Bat; the door opened admitting Bruce, who paused to open up the suggestion box nailed to his office door. It was hugely old fashioned, but it worked. Tensions ran so high in the kitchen that having a way to convey sentiments anonymously did a lot for the general morale. “Ready for your test, Jaylad?” he waved the hated swabs.

Jason groaned. “Again? And also; mask on , asshole. Since I am now your COVID warden,” he added sourly. He couldn’t believe he’d gotten saddled with that job. Babs claimed she was too busy running the online booking and phones, Bruce had his hands full with the restaurant and marshaling the resources of Wayne Enterprises in the war with COVID and Dick claimed he was busy trying to a) keep his restaurant branches in Bludhaven running remotely and b) trying to keep Damian from staging a hostile takeover of the kitchen.

So they said. Jason was pretty sure that no one wanted the job of continually reminding busy workers about their masks and having to deal with the screaming QAnon elitists who came for pickups waving their fake ass disability cards in their the staff's faces, smirking like it granted them some kind of moral authority.

To be fair, he really, really, really liked to loom up on those people and watch their expressions change. 

Bruce obediently readjusted his mask. “Come on, hold up that Grecian snoot. I’ve got to get these into the pathology lab by four if we want test results by tomorrow.”

“Grecian snoot my ass,” Jason grumbled, but submitted. “Yeouch, Bruce, you’re taking a swab, not doing adenoid surgery!”

“Yes, well, there was a reason I dropped out of medical school. Open the hangar door.”

“Oh my god, you’re actually enjoying this,” Jason said scathingly, but then tried not to gag as the throat swab was done. “No medical tech is as pathetic as a failed pediatrician!”

“I was actually going for trauma surgeon,” Bruce correctly mildly, tubing the swabs.

“As fucking if you wouldn’t have done a complete one-eighty to paeds the second you took your residency, you giant soft touch,” Jason snuffled and willed himself not to rub his nose as he put his mask back on. It was printed with a Red Hood bat, because he was a shit and he fucking owned it.

Bruce was scratching out time and date information on the collection box and apparently was ignoring this. “How’s Alfred?”

“It’s cute you think we don’t know you’re monitoring him twenty-four seven.”

“Given that Alfred was my teacher in spycraft,” Bruce said dryly. “The best response I can give is; I’m attempting to. I meant more about his state of mind. I would put Alfred’s psychological resilience up against anyone else's in the galaxy, but I’m concerned. Between trauma, physical injuries and isolation, depression is a credible threat. You may see something that I won’t.”

“Alfred’s fine,” Jason snorted. “You keep forgetting he’s not us . He doesn’t dwell on bad shit like we do. He took his punches, he got better, he wants to get back to work. That’s all I’m getting here. I got a feeling he’s keeping himself busier than the doc would recommend, but fuck, what’s unusual about that?”

Bruce conceded the point as he added Jason’s samples to the collection box for the path lab. 

“Is there anything else on the case?” Jason asked quietly.

Bruce’s face took on some of Batman’s grim lines. “No. I have traced every piece of forensic evidence at the scene. The foil was the standard sort you’d get in any industrial kitchen. There was a chemical substance consisting of cleaning bleach, disinfectant, baking soda, vinegar and a commercial desiccant in between the layers. The products themselves were cheap and widely available, but there were traces of compounds with distinct chemical signatures, some kind of binding particles and plastics. There were bits of food charcoal, indicating the presence of a kitchen. I haven’t been able to find where yet. No fingerprints, no DNA; that was probably the reason for the bleach. We have a strand of hair, dark, but no follicle; we might be able to match it microscopically to another sample, but we need a suspect for that and it would hardly be conclusive evidence even if it did match; a single hair could have just been there by happenstance. The victim was clearly dumped on the street corner, but finding out where he got dragged from is a nightmare. That was the day of the big attempted Arkham breakout and Scarecrow’s Fear Box caper. It was a mess.”

Yeah, Jason thought sourly. That was why it had taken so long to even realize Alfred was missing. They’d only found him because he’d somehow managed to activate his emergency beacon, half insensible and wrapped in fucking foil. They all still felt the sting of that failure; not just that it had happened at all but that Alfred had been essentially trapped, wounded and alone, for hours. Even though Jason knew that Alfred didn’t blame them for his plight getting lost in the noise – the streets had been essentially lawless that day as they tried to handle all the Rogues making chaos – they all read it as an indictment nonetheless.

“Has he said anything to you?” Bruce asked, eyes sharp.

Jason shook his head. “No. I keep getting the feeling that he just doesn’t want to know. Like, he doesn’t even care if we find ‘em or not.” Which was, you know, a bit weird. But then again, Jason wasn’t judging this from a remotely unbiased place. His grudges were famous in both potency and scope; the idea of letting go of a wrong that easily was… not exactly in his makeup

“Honestly, Jaylad,” Bruce said tiredly, slumping down at his desk, thumbing through the suggestion box papers idly. “We might never know. There have been no follow-ups, no taunts, no leads at all. No one else has been found wrapped in tin foil like Alfred was. There’s nothing to indicate this is some kind of serial attacker. As much as it pains me to admit it, it might just be a random event. In which case, the perpetrator is in the wind.”

“You’re not giving up,” Jason stated rather than asked.

“No,” Bruce agreed. “But with nothing else to go on, it’s now a waiting game. That makes it a cold case.”

The Pit didn’t like that. Jason was briefly overtaken by a screaming need to do something about this. He breathed through it like he’d been taught, kicking back the little whispers insidiously saying the Batman wasn’t trying, that he didn’t really care. Jason got this. Cases breaks don’t happen on neat little three act schedules like they do on TV. You could sometimes wait years, decades, for a case to be resolved. You couldn’t spend the intervening time sitting on your damn hands.

“I’m gonna,” Jason bit back his first few responses and breathed again. “I’m gonna go cook something,” he decided. Cooking would calm him down. It always did. 

A lasagne, he decided as he stalked away. Chargrilled vegetables and marinated salmon with tomato mousse and pesto. The work was fiddly enough to be interesting but the procedure itself he could do in his sleep. He could do a couple of big slabs of it on the grill. It wasn’t on the menu, but he threw a quick note up on the restaurant’s system to Babs to add it to the Random Special Of The Day on the online menu and went to the utensil closet to get a couple of the huge, deep dish rectangular grill pans.

When he got there he almost rammed into the new guy, whatshisname, the pot scrubber and Steph chattering away. Tim Drake, he remembered, watching the kid hang the pans on their easy to reach hooks. Jason had to admit, the kid had sort of redeemed himself from his disastrous first day. Jason had assumed, given the surname, that Drake was one of those elite wannabes that washed up at The Butler’s Table every once in a while. Everybody wants an in with Bruce Wayne and he was known to be paternal over bright young things. It wasn’t the worst strategy to send some spoiled do-nothing into the restaurant trade – specifically Bruce Wayne’s restaurant – with hearty cries of ‘getting their feet wet in the real world’ but quietly whispering ‘make good with Wayne because he’s anybody’s meal ticket’. 

Rarely, it worked; though usually backfiring on the parents in the sense that their children found meaning and purpose in things outside the constraints their parents had planned for them, something which Bruce actively encouraged. Most of the time, though, the wannabe infiltrators got fed up with the humiliation of what they saw as drudgery and quit with unseemly haste. 

Tim did seem to be one of the rare former types; with an added bonus in that the rest of the staff didn’t have to go through painful months of listening to whining as he learned to self-actualize. He seemed, actually, to be genuinely dedicated to the job. He was always one of the first ones in, he kept his zone neat and organized and he tried his best not to disrupt the kitchen. He seemed, dare Jason say it, ready and willing to do the best job he could and learn everything he could on the way.

Like now, where he was listening raptly to Steph describing the differences between their work now and before, when they would have had a fully booked dining room for weeks on end, having to deal with plating, with wait staff running the front. He seemed fascinated by Steph’s analysis of their changes in menu and presentation procedure from then to now, blue eyes alight and focused on every word.

“So, do you find the turnaround to delivery foods better or worse?” Tim asked quietly. He was always quiet, speaking in a voice below normal volume. He also had a somewhat endearing, breathless enthusiasm in it that always provoked smiles whenever anybody heard it.

“Honestly, it’s nice not to have to deal with some customers face to face,” Steph admitted sheepishly. “But I miss plating a dish. I like the idea that food can be more than just food, you know? It’s like you get to make little tiny masterpieces all the time when you plate them up and yeah, they’re only temporary, but it’s creatively satisfying. I do my best with fancy vegetable cuts and garnishes for the takeaways, but it’s just not the same when you have to separate all the sauces out and stuff.”

“You just want to draw more dicks on people’s plates and see who notices,” Jason rumbled, amused.

Tim jumped about a foot in the air, highly strung as he was.

“Well, yeah,” Steph said, beaming. “I only did it to some jackasses but watching their faces as they try to work out if it’s deliberate or not is fucking funny.”

Jason snorted. Tim, on the other hand, shuffled back a bit, ears going red. 

Yeah, that was the other thing - the kid tried to actively avoid Jason. Or rather, since no kitchen was ever big enough for the people in it, even during COVID, he actively tried not to interact with Jason wherever he could. The most Jason had ever gotten out of him was a whispery voice breathlessly asking to be let through when he was trying to get to a used workstation. Jason felt the sting of the indirect indictment against his attitude problems, but was at a loss how to actually fix it. 

Jason opened his mouth to say… something to the kid, he wasn’t sure what, when a cheery little chime, like a ringtone, began sounding from somewhere around the kid’s wrist. Tim hastily hung his last pot and clawed at his sleeve – or sleeves, because he was apparently a delicate hothouse flower type who wore about five layers against the chill creeping into the changing seasons. He rolled the layers to reveal a fairly pricey smart watch. Jason knew it was pricey, because Damian had gotten Alfred one like that for Christmas; even without the added personalizations the demon brat had lavished it with, he still got grumped at by the rest of them for going way over the agreed maximum. 

The watch had a glowing smiley face flashing on it. Underneath the proclamation ‘Time To Eat!!!’ was spelled out in cheery yellow letters; the watch face itself was chunky enough for Jason to easily read it upside down and was broad enough to cover the entirety of the kid’s wrist and then some. Tim hastily switched it off, blushing faintly. 

What came out of Jason’s mouth was, “You shouldn’t be wearing that.”

Tim looked at him, wide eyed.

Jason cursed inside his head. That had probably sounded sterner than he meant it. “In the kitchen, I mean. One wrong move slamming it against something and that thing’s gonna end up in tiny little bits in the food.” Which was true. There were rules against wearing watches in food production, or anything other kind of jewelry.

“Oh,” Tim looked forlorn. “Sorry. I kind of… need it,” he said, voice breathy and uncertain.

“Yeah, well, if you need it, don’t wear it in the kitchen,” Jason replied, honestly baffled. “You’re risking it wearing it. Plus, it can spread bacteria.”

He wasn’t trying to be, you know, nasty or anything. It was honestly sound advice, speaking as one who had, indeed, smashed a pricey watch that way, the priciest he had owned at that point. He’d felt the bitter experience of both losing it and wasting the stew he’d been cooking, both of which had been enormously upsetting to his malnourished street kid self at the time.

The kid looked crushed all the same, going red. “Oh… okay. I’ll just…” he whispered, backing rapidly out of the utensil closet, hilariously backing into a couple of pans as he did so. “Um,” he awkwardly straightened them. “Go… take it off.” Then he fled.

Jason sighed.

Steph shook her head, chuckling. “I shouldn’t laugh, really. It is kinda sad. I can’t help it, though. He’s just such a spaz around you.”

“What can I say,” Jason grabbed a couple of the deep-dish pans. “I’ve never been particularly user friendly.”

“Dude, that’s not… oh my god,” Steph cackled with glee. “Oh my god, you don’t even see it, do you?”

“See what?” Jason asked irritably. He knew he had… interpersonal issues. Hell, Steph had been at ground zero of some of the worst ones. “The kid’s fucking scared shitless of me. What is there to see?”

“The’s kid’s fucking into you, you oblivious jackass,” Steph laughed harder. 

Jason stared at her. “No fucking way,” he denied.

“Are you fucking with me right now, Mr. Trained Detective?” Steph chortled. “That kid’s got a crush on you so big I’m surprised he’s not a hunchback. Every time you are in the kitchen his eyes are on you. It’s pretty fucking cute.”

“Please, that kid just wants to stay out of my way,” Jason replied dismissively. “He thinks I’m gonna butcher and roast him after I lost my temper with him.”

“Or,” Steph grinned, grabbing the skillet she’d come for. “He wants you to eat him up. In a certain sense I can’t fault his taste. In other senses I see nothing but faults, of course.”

“Love you too, Steph,” Jason stacked his pans in one arm so he could flip her the bird. “He doesn’t like me, okay?” Even Jason knew he was being weirdly insistent about this. The concept that somebody would like him – just, you know, like him, not just want to fuck him because he was well aware there were lots of those – was bewildering. Even with the excuse of massive trauma, he knew his personality wasn’t exactly sparkling.

“Jason,” Steph’s tone was the fond exasperation for a particularly dimwitted child. “He watches you constantly and not just your admittedly magnificent ass either, he looks like a lobster thermidor every time you glance his way and he completely spazzes every time you interact with him. Seriously, his voice sounds like something out of a high end porn.”

“His voice sounds like that with everyone,” Jason pointed out.

“Oh, but Jason,” Steph’s voice took on the whispery, breathy quality that was, admittedly, a pretty good mimic for Tim’s. “I don’t sound like this for anyone else but you. Is there anything I can help you with? Anything at all?” she waggled her eyebrows suggestively.

Jason snorted with laughter, amused despite himself. “He does kind of have a porn voice.”

He turned around and nearly dropped the pans when he saw the subject of their discussion standing there. The kid must have the feet of fucking cat to have slipped back towards them without twigging them to his presence, though when the closet door was open the cacophony of the kitchen tended to bounce around the space.

Jason felt his insides twist a little. The poor kid’s face was completely red. With his hairnet on he couldn’t even hide his humiliation behind his bangs when his eyes dropped to the floor. “There’s a meeting,” he whispered in a horrible, choked voice before turning and fleeing as fast as he could go.

Well, fuck.

Steph sagged, looking at Jason sheepishly. “Whoops.”

“No shit,” Jason grumbled. “Come on. Let’s go apologize.”

That proved exceptionally harder than it looked. They got out of the utensil closet and walked straight into the maw of the weekly kitchen briefing. Every kitchen hand, cook, chef, delivery driver and admin was piled into the kitchen. In the good old days pre-COVID, it would have been a much bigger crowd, all jammed into a happy, chattering tangle and passing around something fresh from the oven as they planned how to deal with the endless catastrophe of running a full service restaurant this week. Now the thinned out crowd were all masked up and keeping their distance as best they could, facing the service doors where there was an open space for Bruce to stand in.

Tim had sidled into a corner in the back. There was no feasible way to reach him without weaving through the crowd, which would draw some attention. Jason didn’t think putting Tim in the spotlight over his gaffe was much of an apology, so he restlessly conceded to waiting until after the briefing.

Bruce went through the usual beats – thank you for all your hard work and dedication, assurances that all the furloughed or sick staff were absolutely getting paid leave, a reminder to not come in even if it was a minor sniffle because you would be paid anyway, and good news that the current wave of tests had come back negative. He went through shift and staff changes and reminded the drivers they could have access to Wayne Enterprises company cars and that they should keep their receipt for fuel reimbursement. 

Then it was going through the meat and potatoes stuff; literally. This is what was in the store that needed to be used, these were the menu items being discontinued because of seasonal issues or lack of interest, here’s what will be added, given the current limitations of being a takeaway and delivery joint only at the moment. Jason had to admit a line of gourmet pizzas didn’t sound half bad. People would buy them; The Butler’s Table had earned quite a rep in this town. He also made mention of Jason’s planned lasagne on the menu system and told Jason to do a batch for the test kitchen, as their menu was ever evolving. Dick gave him a discreetly gleeful thumbs up from where he was and Damian - as close to the orbit of Bruce as he could get without actually sharing the podium – not-so-discreetly rolled his eyes at what he no doubt thought was a plebian choice of cuisine. 

As nice as the validation from Bruce was, Jason’s eyes kept straying to the hunched figure of Tim in the corner, who was keeping his eyes mostly fixed to the floor.

“One last thing before we all get back to work,” Bruce said as the usual checklist was all checked off. “I got something in the suggestion box which I had to share with you all. Someone suggested that we could use the front of the restaurant, and the chain restaurants too, to sell groceries cheaply, so people in the area could, when they come to pick up their takeaway, also get some essentials as well. We can use the restaurant essentially like a food bodega. Now I,” Bruce held up the folded pages. “Happen to think this is a fantastic idea. It means more revenue for the restaurant, and we can add a couple more service staff back onto our roster. It also means the staff can take advantage of the convenience as well, which I’m sure you’ll all appreciate. This is such a good idea that I want to implement this program as soon as possible and I really would like to know who came up with this. So, any takers? Come on, we don’t bite.”

If Jason hadn’t been watching Tim he might not have seen it; the way he looked up in surprise and pleasure when Bruce handed out the praise for what Jason had to admit was a pretty solid idea. He knew that Tim had been the one to come up with it.

He could also see the hesitation in Tim’s stance as the room waited in expectant silence. He saw Tim’s confidence implode in real time when faced with the seething glare of Damian roaming the room. Damian was very possessive when it came to Bruce’s attention.

Steph was watching it too. “Tim, did you come up with it?”

Oooh, that might have been a mistake, judging by the way Tim’s eyes flashed to her and then flinched as the rest of the room turned to look at him. Still, the kid took a breath and squared his shoulders, since he had to say something. “Um… yes,” came the breathy whisper. “Um… that was me.”

“It’s a pretty good idea, kid,” Jason added, trying to make up for what happened earlier.

Tim didn’t really look at him. He just knotted his fingers together, white knuckled, and faced Bruce, clearly miserable.

“It is,” Bruce came forward, versed enough in body language to know that Tim wasn’t really happy in the spotlight. “Would you like to come to my office and discuss it?”

“Why can he not just speak of it here?” Damian asked meanly, also well versed in body language. “After all, it was his proposal. That’s what these meetings are for, so we might all discuss restaurant matters. He must have enough information to defend it, at least.”

Tim looked from one to the other, wide eyed. “Um… it wasn’t my idea, really,” he mumbled in a low voice. “A lot of the little eateries are doing it right now to keep from going under, I just thought, you know,” he was clearly trying to speak louder, but he couldn’t hit the volume to speak above the murmuring crowd. “I thought it was a missed opportunity,” he croaked out.

Damian squinted. “I can barely understand you.”

“Damian,” Dick said warningly.

“But I can’t,” Damian said irritably, glowering at the crowd. “Speak up, Drake. Shout if you must.”

“I can’t,” Tim replied, face red. “I really can’t.”

“Damian, enough,” Bruce frowned at him.

“Why not?” Damian said, exasperated.

Unexpectedly, Tim replied by unbuttoning the high collar of his kitchen uniform and yanking down his shirt and the layers beneath it to expose his pale throat and, incidentally, a wicked looking scar trailing down one side of his neck. It was very straight; it was either surgical or an extremely precise knife injury. “Vocal cord hemi-paresis,” he said into the sudden silence. “My vocal cords don’t work on one side. Technically, this is me yelling,” Tim added honestly in his quiet voice. “This is as high as I can go. Well, almost. Normally I just… whisper.” Tim looked at his feet. “It’s why my voice goes breathy sometimes too,” he added in a mumble. “I’m sure you’ve all noticed.”

“Oh,” said Damian, for once at a loss for an insult.

Jason, meanwhile, was feeling his stomach contract and sink slowly towards his boots in shame.

Fuck.

Chapter Text

Blackbird ticked off another delivery on his exponentially growing list and then rested on the door lintels and took a moment to breathe. It had been, at best, a two star day, and those were the kind that left him with the awesome double whammy of being both mentally exhausted and emotionally wound up. 

First, there had been the whole excruciating day in the kitchen. It was fine , Blackbird told himself firmly. He knew he came off as weird. Every teacher and fellow student he’d ever worked with had conveyed similar sentiments, with varying degrees of compassion. It didn’t bother him. Bother was the wrong word. It baffled him that anyone cared about anything except the work he did. Which was always exemplary, thank you very much.

His jaw tightened under his Blackbird-branded facemask as his heart gave a pathetic little whimper. They hadn’t been malicious or anything. They weren’t even being actively mean. It was an industrial kitchen in the middle of a pandemic, where anxiety was high and morale was low. Of course they all shit-talked one another. The other kitchenhands did it all the time, ragging on Angel’s weird taste in shoes or Nate’s perpetual lateness or Pei-Chu’s lunchtime rants in Yueh Chinese about her controlling mother-in-law. They were just a disparate and oddball community, stuck on the front lines with no help coming. They relieved whatever stress they could. That’s all it was. It was just… talk.

Still, he was kind of hypersensitive about his voice. Being continually told he couldn’t be understood when he had so many ideas to share… it hadn’t done much for his confidence, growing up. His parents had always been on him about it. He’d never been able to make them understand that he really couldn’t ‘speak up!’ the way they’d wanted him to. That he didn’t dare, for fear of making everything worse.

And then there was the added fun of being called out in front of the crowd for the research he’d done on turning the front into an emergency bodega. It wasn’t that he wasn’t ecstatic that they’d taken his ideas on board. He was, deliriously so. But to be called out like that, in front of everyone? Ugh. Worse, that hadn’t been malicious, either. The Bats were all detectives, of course they could read body language and figure out who’d done it. They had called him out, yes, but didn’t know about his anxiety issues. Wouldn’t, either, if he had any say.

Besides, in his heart of hearts, he wasn’t really surprised Jason didn’t like him. What had he done to deserve it? He’d had his chance years ago with Jason Todd and had been too much of a coward to take it. It was way too late to hope for anything now, after everything he’d done.

Blackbird slumped further against the door. The sheen had fallen right off the idea of working at The Butler’s Table. His night work was already demanding and exhausting, working in a commercial kitchen just doubled that. Add to that the emotional turmoil and he was just drained in all the ways he could be drained. 

He should probably quit but… working at the Table had been such a long cherished dream. He wasn’t ready to give up on it yet. The Bats didn’t have to like him. That’s not what any of them were there for, right?

More than that, though. He’d made a promise. He didn’t want to break it, not because the work exacted a toll he didn’t anticipate and certainly not just because of some… some silly, inappropriate dead-end crush on someone who didn’t even like him, assuming they even really noticed him at all.

Blackbird let out a breath and straightened himself out. He wasn’t going to let this beat him. He was going to show up and do his work to the best of his ability, no matter what Jas– anyone thought of him. He supposed if nothing else, he could say he’d go out as a goddamn professional.

“Heavy thoughts there, kid?”

Or, alternatively, he’d go out with a surprised look on his face and massive cardiac arrest.

“Hood!” he yelped, feeling his voice modulator whine as it took on the strain. He looked around, but no eerie glowing eyes were emerging out of the gloom to strike terror, horror or, in some sad cases, relief into mortal hearts. Puzzled, Tim turned full circle.

“Up here, kid,” Hood’s modulated voice was clearly laughing at him.

Scowling, Blackbird looked up to see Hood, his big boots dangling off the fire escape, looking like he’d taken his ease there for a while. He gave a little flourish as Blackbird’s eyes found him. Jason Todd had been a theater kid once. Blackbird guessed you never really got away from your roots.

The thought made him frown harder.

“Careful, Baby Blackbird,” Hood told him. “Your face might get stuck that way.”

Okay, Blackbird had had just about enough comments about his personal demeanor today. “That must be why you wear the helmet, then, given what I saw underneath it. If you’re done shaving a decade off my life, I’ve still got rounds to make,” Blackbird gave him a sarcastic little wave and turned to march to the patiently humming Blackwing waiting on the corner.

He heard the special pop-whoosh-thunk that heralded a grapple gun being fired and promptly nearly expired a second time when Hood’s boots very nearly brushed the top of his head as he swung precisely, and literally, overhead to drop down in front of him. 

“What?!” he said, exasperated. 

“Hey, hey, dial back on the attitude, kid,” Hood reeled in his line and holstered his gun. “I’m just checking up on you. What crawled up your ass?”

“Nothing!” Blackbird snapped, before taking a breath. “Nothing,” he repeated more calmly. “It’s just… it’s been a day, okay, and I’m really not in the mood to have my many imperfections listed for me.”

“Who’s doing that?” Hood fell into step with him. “You gotta learn to leave whatever happened with your daytime face in the daytime, kid. Stewing over anything but the job in front of you when your mask is on is a great way to get yourself killed.”

Blackbird felt the sting of the chastisement keenly. Hood hadn’t really done anything that earned Blackbird’s ire. Not as Hood, anyway. He slumped. “You’re right,” he muttered. “Sorry.”

“Shit kid, don’t look so hang dog,” Hood snorted. “I get it; shit happens. I didn’t have the greatest day either,” he admitted. “I did something pretty shitty to someone who didn’t deserve it. But I can’t make amends right now , so right now I ain’t thinking of it. Whatever you’re trying to chew on’ll still be fresh in the morning. Focus on the now you got.”

Okay, the fact that Jason felt a little bad about being caught out being an unintentional jerk did make Blackbird feel a little better about the day. And also Hood’s observation wasn’t bad advice. Blackbird took a cleansing breath and pulled himself out of his mope. “What are you doing out here, anyway?” Blackbird asked curiously. “I mean, there’s not a lot of street crime to prevent at the moment, so why pound the pavement?”

Hood shrugged. “A pinch of prevention beats a pound of cure. I figure it’s better people know I’m out and about sometimes. Makes people feel safer, or maybe less tempted to start shit. Plus, I got people I check on; it’s better for some of ‘em to see me face to face.”

Made sense. “Do any of them need food?” Blackbird asked.

“I think you’re already deliverin’ to a couple of ‘em,” Hood admitted. “I’ll ask around.”

“There’s an online signup,” Blackbird told him as they reached Blackwing. “Or they can subscribe to the app. There’s a hotline too,” Tim added. “If you want to come back to Four & Twenty I can give you some cards to hand out.”

“Sure thing,” Hood said, clearly suppressing his glee at the thought of getting to ride in Blackwing.

That, at least, wrung a smile out of Blackbird. And if he deliberately took a longer route that he would have to meet up with his truck just to get to see Hood’s head darting around excitedly as the little engine took them somewhere close to hyperspeed, well, Blackbird might be a professional but he wasn’t made of stone.

“Where the fuck did you get all of this stuff?” Hood asked, clearly grinning maniacally under his helmet as they skidded and raced through the narrow Gotham streets. 

“Do you know what people throw away in this town?” Blackbird snorted. “Trucks, cars, appliances, spaceships , even. Your average junkyard is like Aladdin’s cave if you’re willing to put in some sweat.”

“You really expect me to believe you picked up this sweet baby and the fucking monster truck going scavenging?” Red Hood’s voice dripped with skepticism. 

“No, but I do expect you to believe I could get most of the parts I needed,” Blackbird deflected easily. “Where do you get all your guns and explosives from? Because I’m pretty sure you didn’t show up to gun shows dressed like that.”

Hood snorted. “Okay, whatever kid. I will find out.”

“Feel free to plant all the trackers you want,” Blackbird challenged brazenly. “And tell whoever’s looking through the cameras to stop trying to break through my jamming signals. They’re analogue; hacking into satellite systems isn’t going to help.”

Hood narrowed his eyes at Blackbird’s smirk. “Insolent little fucker, ain’t cha?”

“I like my privacy,” Blackbird retorted, the face of virtue. “Besides, what, really, do you care where I got my shiny toys from? I’m just trying to feed people, Hood, not start a gang war.”

Oooh, that was a dig too far, wasn’t it? Not that it hadn’t been earned or anything, but Hood flicked him around the ear for his attitude anyway. “I’m not taking any lip from you, Baby Blackbird.”

Blackbird laughed at him.

There was a crowd of people around the truck when they got there. One whole side of the truck had lifted up, revealing a bellyful of boxes, all pre-packed and coded with color stripes to show what kind of household each box would suit. A couple of people were handing them out to the queue of people hungrily waiting for them.

“Where do you get all the food?” Hood asked as Blackwing halted at the back of the truck and waited for the tailgate to come down.

“Same place everyone gets it,” Blackbird said shortly. “Food banks. We source food from anywhere that has it; corporate donations, use-by groceries, urban gardens, everywhere. I collect data on my app about what we have available. A bunch of volunteers, cooks and others collect it and either prep ready-made meals or pack the boxes according to the requests people make. I make some too, in my kitchen. Every evening I go to a different bank in Gotham at random where the stuff is prepped to keep the regulators off the scent, load up and go on my rounds. I’m doing the same work as those guys,” Blackbird jerked his chin at the people handing them out, who were, Hood realized, wearing lanyards and IDs. “I just do it with a truck. Technically the Four & Twenty is a mobile food pantry. I should have to do a bunch of paperwork to get certified, but the people running the banks and the rest of the food insecurity programs politely ignore the requirement since I’m the only food game in town that can cut through the idiotic red tape by virtue of being… well, illegal. They don’t have a choice, not if they want to get food into the hands of people who desperately need it. It's so… shitty,” Blackbird muttered angrily as he alighted from Blackwing with Hood, who secretly gave the little car a pat before it trundled into its holding bay.

“It’s helping,” Hood pointed out. “It’s a lot of fucking work, but it seems to be helping.”

“No, not that,” Blackbird grimaced. “The system is shitty. We have a perfectly good food distribution system in this country. We have supply chains that are managed all the way from farm to table. It’s called the supermarket. People should be able to get food assistance going to a grocery store, but they gutted the food stamps program and the Backpack programs and Women, Infants and Children programs, so the food goes through an inefficient, second round of handling through food banks just so people can get what should be a right. It’s just so…” Blackbird made a frustrated noise. “We have enough food, Hood. We have enough food for everyone , everywhere. We make enough to feed everyone. But the distribution system is just so shitty that half of it gets wasted, mostly because rich assholes who have never gone without keep braying about people having to earn meals, like eating is some kind of privilege. Like starvation ever built anyone’s moral character,” Blackbird added bitterly.

Red Hood stared at him. Blackbird was suddenly alive with righteous outrage, painting vivid passion across every inch of him. Hood felt a burgeoning respect for the painfully young mask standing before him. Not one in ten hopefuls ever got into the mask business for reasons as pure as this kid espoused. “Yeah, well, now they got you,” Red Hood said softly. “You’re doing good. Sometimes that’s all you can do. Grit your teeth and do good.”

Blackbird blinked at him. Then he smiled. After the day he’d had, the praise helped him add a star or two to his day, even though he knew Hood had no idea that he was praising the lowly pot scrubber that he, at best, tolerated. “Thanks Hood.”

Blackbird went over to help the community volunteers unload and distribute boxes and bags to the crowd and got back behind the service window to hand out hot pies to anyone that wanted them. Hood hung back, not fully informed of the system enough to be much help, though he watched proceedings with a keen eye.

“Thanks for coming out,” Blackbird told the volunteers as they finished up this section. He was forever grateful he’d added a volunteer option to his Feed Gotham app; the people helping him out at each stop cut his work in half, which was just as well, because he didn’t really sleep enough as it was. The time it took to vet and train them was more than paid back. 

“Dude, this is so I get to eat too,” one guy said, balancing a couple of family-pack boxes in his beefy, tattooed arms. “Oh, and FYI, watch out, I hear the Ringers are lookin’ to get an in into the black markets. You know what that means.”

“Great,” Blackbird sighed. “Yet more guns shoved in my face.”

“Oh, that reminds me,” the lady volunteer piped up. “That thing you asked about? It’s definitely hinky. Lennie – the Lennie that lives near the Sprang Bridge not the other Lennie - said Barrel picked up the box somewhere near Canal. That’s where he scrounged most of his stuff.”

Blackbird frowned. “Okay. Thanks, Lil. You should get home.”

She waved as the last few left. Blackbird hit a switch and the side of the truck gently closed and latched again, after which he started to clean his service window absentmindedly.

He jumped as Hood took a seat at his usual spot at the service window. “What’s hinky?”

Blackbird jumped. “Hood! Holy cow, I forgot you were there. Pie? We got beef mince or cheesy vegetable.”

“Cheese veg, and if you got a bottle of water to spare I’ll take that too,” Hood replied readily. “What’s hinky?” he asked, thumbing the release code for his helmet.

Blackbird grimaced as he went into the back where the warming ovens were to grab a pie and dig around in the fridge for a water bottle. “It might be nothing,” he prefaced. “I need to make more enquiries first.”

Hood just raised an eyebrow at him.

“Maybe you can help me, though,” Blackbird conceded. “Five nights ago a homeless guy died in the homeless camp near the junkyard. His name was Henry Anderson but everyone called him Barrel. Big guy; sometimes did heavy lifting work for Rogues when there was work to be had and he was semi-off the bottle. He had some developmental issues, poor memory, that sort of thing. Mostly he just sort of… wandered around the place,” Blackbird got out his field phone to show Hood a picture. “He is… was … one of my ready-meal regulars. A lot of the homeless are. I give non-perishables and ready meals with heat packs to them and try to keep a census going so we can get them into shelters when there’s space. There isn’t, usually, so I make sure they’re at least getting food and can direct social services their way when I can. They found his body on the street near the yard. Preliminary reports indicated he was probably an OD, death by misadventure.”

“Okay,” Red Hood nodded. “I’m following. I’m guessing there’s a twist?”

“The person that phoned in the body was a street walker-slash-occasional dealer-slash-addict Tozzi Lamont; non-binary, they’d been on the streets for about four years. Lamont was not one of mine, but word on the street is they got kicked out of shelters for being disruptive. There were some indicators that they were schizophrenic, and they went in and out of various mental health programs and rehabs. The general consensus was Lamont was a habitual self-medicator with whatever would allow them to get through the day. After making the report Lamont fled the scene carrying what a second witness said was a box they hadn’t been carrying when they got there. Twelve hours later the police tracked Lamont down to their regular squat, and found them dead as well. Again, looking like an OD. There was a box next to them, with what was described on the report as recently emptied food containers.”

Red Hood pieced together the throughline of the case from the brisk report and the statements the volunteers had made to Blackbird earlier. “Holy shit. You think somebody gave Barrel a bait box?”

“A what?” Blackbird blinked.

Red Hood added another check to his ‘definitely not from these parts’ column in his mental profile of Blackbird. “A bait box,” he explained. “They hand out dosed or poisoned food to the street people. That’s how Scarecrow and that clown fucker test their funky little asshole poisons before they try ‘em out on us Bats. Ivy too, though hers aren’t usually lethal and she’s more likely to strike the organic food nuts at the farmers markets. Sometimes it’s sedatives, especially if they’re traffickers. Occasionally it’s just some nut job mad poisoner, though.”

Blackbird’s mouth was hanging open under his mask, Hood could tell. “What? This is, like, a seasonal crime around here? Seriously?”

“Yeah. Ain’t people grand?” Hood smirked bitterly as he took another bite of his pie. “That’s how I knew you were the real deal. No one ‘round here trusts just anyone handing out food. Is this the only case you’ve heard of?”

“Yes. Well, I should say it’s the only one I’ve seen which looked so overtly suspicious. But there have been other vaguely ‘suspicious’ ODs over the last few months. It’s frustrating, because a lot of the victims involved are genuinely addicts or have other issues, and this is on top of COVID’s strike rate which can burn through entire shelters like the black death. The data is so full of static that I can’t tell for sure. I don’t have connections with the police,” Blackbird scowled at the inadequacy. “And I haven’t actually been at any of the scenes personally to take samples myself. I don’t suppose you know a guy that could get me a look at a toxicology report?” he asked hopefully.

His hopes were dashed by the way Hood’s body tensed in frustration. “No. Well, yeah, I got contacts and shit but it won’t fucking help. The morgues are stacked to the ceiling right now. The wait list for forensic testing is almost a year long they’re so overwhelmed and frankly odds are more-than-good they just won’t bother doing a screen at all. They don’t got the time or the manpower to cross the t’s and dot the i’s on some rando addicts and no-name street people dying the way the privileged think they usually do.”

Blackbird pursed his lips. It was cynical, but unfortunately likely. “Then, short of a body dropping in my lap and giving me a chance to run a screen myself I have exactly one avenue of investigation,” Blackbird checked the time. “Lucky me, it’s also my next scheduled stop. I better get going if I’m gonna get there in any good time. I’ll let you know.”

He moved to close up the service window and was stopped by a glaring Hood. “Hold on a minute there, Baby Blackbird. I thought you said you weren’t in the crime solving end of things?”

“Technically we don’t know if there’s a crime yet,” Blackbird pointed out, baffled by Hood’s sudden intransigence. “I need to go speak to some people. If it turns into anything, I’ll let you know.”

“Fuck that, kid. This is an actual investigation, not food distribution,” Hood retorted. “People in these parts don’t like strangers asking questions and you’re not trained to deal with ‘em when they take exception. You run a food truck, for fuck’s sake. Gimme your lead, I’ll go chase ‘em down.”

“I can’t do that,” Blackbird’s jaw was tight under his mask at the implied mark against his competence. “These guys won’t talk to you. I bring them food; they trust me and they won’t want to disrupt the supply. Seriously, Hood, I may not be a ‘trained investigator’,” he made sarcastic air quotes around the words. “But I’m not stupid . I know how to get information from people.”

Hood’s hand shot through the gap on the service window and yanked Blackbird out of the truck like an angry carrot. “And just what,” Hood asked him archly, helmet to nose as Blackbird’s feet dangled above the pavement. “Are you gonna do when some asshole takes exception to some twink with a Bristol accent getting up in his grill, eh? Stuff his mouth with a panini?”

Blackbird’s eyes narrowed. Then he hit a switch on his uniform cuff. A shape came whizzing out of the truck and was caught in his already swinging hand.

CLANG.

Red Hood dropped Blackbird as the unexpected blow connected and he went back a step, shaking his head to try to clear the aftershock of taking a direct hit to his helmet. Yeah, it had absolutely done its job, but it seldom felt very good.

Hood’s whole body froze up in sheer disbelief when he finally spotted what Blackbird was waving in his face. “What the actual fuck?” he exclaimed. “Did you just wang me with a fucking frypan?”

“Skillet,” Blackbird corrected. It was hard to tell under the face mask, but he seemed to be smiling grimly. “It’s electromagnetic. A powerful one. I can call it from the truck from the electro-mags in the armor. So I don’t like your chances using bullets, either.” He made a slow swing in the air.

Hood grabbed his nearest holster when he felt the metal of his guns pull towards the source. His eyes narrowed. Then he released a safety strap and let one of his sidearms fly. The kid did what most untrained people do when faced with an object flying towards them and flinched. That’s when Hood surged forward and relieved him of his blunt instrument with one quick, non-debilitating, wrist wrench. 

The skillet (thoroughly dented on one side, his helmet had really done its job), skittered under the big truck and out of easy reach. Hood blocked the kid’s instinctive grapple; there was some expertise behind it so the kid had at least dabbled in combat training. Dabblers, however, weren’t on the level of any Gotham street fighter, which is why Blackbird got his hands restrained in one massive fist and then doubled over when Hood’s fist hit his gut. It was a warning blow, nowhere near the damage Hood would do if he was using full force, but Blackbird was left wheezing nevertheless.

“Tell me again just how prepared you are for a fight?” Hood asked archly.

Blackbird yanked a couple of colorful balls off his bandoliers and threw them at Hood’s feet. 

There were a couple of loud pops, then white smoke exploded out, enveloping them both.

“What that actual… are you fucking with me right now?” Hood asked incredulously, grabbing Blackbird by his front harness and hauling his coughing self up, feet dangling in the air. “You think I can’t deal with with a fucking smoke bomb? I’ve killed real life fucking ninjas, kid!”

Blackbird smirked, even though Hood probably couldn’t tell under the face mask. “Hood,” he wheezed. “Only the first one was a smoke bomb.”

Hood's lenses narrowed suspiciously. He looked down at his feet as the smoke started to clear. “What the fuck?!”

His feet were encased in… foam? Rapidly expanding and hardening foam.

Apparently sticky foam too, because when he tried to yank his boot out of the stuff, he couldn’t budge it an inch. It was elastic and grippy as glue in the center but Hood could feel the pressure increase as it hardened inwards.

He was so taken aback that it gave Blackbird the opportunity to curl his legs up and kick out, using Hood’s chest as a springboard to wrench out of his grasp. Well, almost; Hood held fast and viciously even though he was clearly having trouble keeping his balance now that he couldn’t micro-correct. Blackbird managed to wrench one hand free.

And promptly slammed another popball right into Hood's helmet. This was just a foam one, but it blocked his visual input nicely. No visuals and no ability to move his feet meant Hood was forced to free one hand and get the foam off. 

He was fast at recovery though; even as Blackbird slipped free, one of Hood’s hands went for the foam and the other opened a pouch. The carbon filament magnetic bola unerringly found the magnets in Blackbird’s wrist, wrapping tight around it. The charge zapped him before he could free himself. He let out a high pitched yelp, his voice modulator going nuts from it, and was reeled back in by a furious and foam bedecked Hood.

Crunch. Blackbird’s forehead hit Hood’s unyielding helmet making him see stars while a thoroughly fed up Hood got both his huge hands around Blackbird’s neck.

“Okay smart boy,” Hood snarled. “Now what?”

Blackbird yanked a bottle from his belt. “Taffy cuffs,” and spritzed Hood's gloved hands in… silly string?

But it wasn’t, Hood realized as he dropped the kid. The stuff basically glued his hands to one another, sticky strings tangling up his fingers and hardening instantly, freezing them in their clawed shape.

Blackbird was breathing hard, brandishing the sprayer. “Now what, Hood?” he taunted.

He probably shouldn’t have done that, he thought an instant later. Hood wasn’t the kind of person who ignored a challenge. Blackbird’s eyes went wide as the other vigilante simply lunged, ripping the ball of toffee shackles gluing him to the street right of it’s mooring in a genuine feat of sheer brute strength that Blackbird admired even at Hoods cuffed bands dropped over him and bore him to the ground.

Blackbird felt the air leave his body as he landed. Even without armor Red Hood was a heavyweight slab of muscle. With armor he was basically a small tank.

“That, you stubborn little brat,” Hood’s voice seethed in his ear. “That. Got any other tricks?”

Blackbird squirmed a little. “I have to admit,” he grudgingly conceded. “I don’t actually have a way out of this.” He really didn’t. Hood was effectively pinning him to the ground and had, even in his restrained state, managed to render him fully immobile. Was it weird that Blackbird felt his admiration for Hood’s fighting abilities go up even though his head was throbbing and his gut was aching?

It was, Blackbird decided. It was probably really weird.

“Right. There you go,” Hood said, although Blackbird could hear a note of uncertainty get conveyed past the voice modulator as it dawned on Hood that he couldn’t exactly get himself out of it either.

Hood squirmed a little to test it. Blackbird’s nascent and thoroughly repressed adolescent fantasies went through a sudden and spontaneous renaissance.

He had not, Blackbird conceded, thought this through.

“You better have a solvent on that fancy harness for this,” Hood said eventually. Voice deep and dark and right next to Blackbird’s ear. 

“Uh,” Blackbird lassoed his brain and dragged it kicking and screaming back to business. “What’s the magic word?” Not what he intended to say. It was probably meant to be suave but it came out a tinny little whisper, missing suave by several miles.

Hood gave him a look. “Get out the fucking solvent,” he said flatly as his clawed fingers lined up against Black’s spinal process bones and his biceps tightened ominously around Blackbird’s shoulders. “Or I’ll break your damn spine and take it off your paralysed body.”

“Close enough,” Blackbird allowed, and fumbled for his belt.

Chapter Text

Since they were at an impasse, Hood ended up hitching a ride in Four & Twenty to Blackbird’s next stop. Hood shamelessly used it as an opportunity to snoop in the interior. 

He was forced to admit that, sassy little twerp or not, Blackbird had a pretty sweet set up in the behemoth. The service window took up the side closest to the cab, and Hood noticed it had an array of switches, dials and screens. Opposite to that was the workbench, of a sort, with its contingent of sandwich presses, crepe pans, coffee machines and various ephemera no doubt used to make the Special Of The Day. Beyond the workbench was a floor-to-ceiling warming oven, still holding dozens of pies and opposite to the ovens was a refrigeration unit, glass front showing rows of waters and juices. There was a very small sink past that, with hand washing gear at the ready.

But past the to-be-expected trappings of a regular food truck, the Four & Twenty was, essentially, a rolling warehouse. Racks of boxes and bags marched all the way to the folding joint. When Hood sidled past the dangling plastic ribbons that separated one half of the truck from another he walked into a fully operational walk-in freezer, with ready meals, frozen food and various confectionaries all laid out neat and orderly. Past the frozen section was what Hood would probably call the bulk section, big bags of flour, pasta, spices, rice, big water jugs, the kind you might deliver to a relief kitchen or a community housing who had facilities but no food supply. Past that, in the tail end and past a roller door, was Blackwing’s little segment, complete with its tow box. 

A lot of the racks were empty, Hood noted, even this early in the night. He parsed the ones that were left; many of them had scrawled names and addresses on them, along with a string of numbers and letters that Hood squinted at until he realized they showed the number of people in the household and various dietary requirements. There were also, Hood realized as he carefully opened a box, prescription medications in some of the boxes. He carefully checked the little pill books and bottles, but the names on them clearly matched the ones scrawled on the boxes and the pills themselves were exactly what was on the bottles – nothing hinky or illegal. Hood noted down some of the doctor’s names in his mental files, but he was pretty sure Blackbird was merely acting as a pharmacy courier, not an out-and-out drug peddler. Technically it probably counted as drug trafficking, but being that it was way on the lighter side of gray, Hood felt this particular kind of drug running could slide in his district, particularly because some of the bottles he found looked like serious cancer drugs and absolutely take-it-or-die kinds of meds. It made sense to include these in his rounds, Hood observed. If you can’t get out of your apartment to get your food how the hell would you get to a drug store on the regular? Paying for the drugs themselves probably set people way back, assuming they weren’t already on an emergency relief program to start with.

There was a caged shelf at the back; the only sign of security Hood had seen. It contained cold medication and pulse oximeters; rare and precious commodities that’d go for a fortune on the black market. Hood guessed they were for people who were getting sick, or had gotten COVID. He didn’t see any COVID test kits though; either Blackbird had already used his supply or he just couldn’t access them at all, a damning indictment of the COVID response either way.

Speaking of Blackbird, the kid came skidding up to the lock box, opened it up with both a key and a fingerprint, and slid open the door, grabbing meds and an oximeter to stuff into a spare box. “Sorry,” he said to Hood tersely. “Emergency call.” He slammed the cage shut and took off back towards the service window.

Hood went after him. Blackbird clambered back into the self-driving cab of the truck and out the door, the box of medical stuff in his hands, along with his ever-present phone. Standing under the streetlight was a haggard looking woman wearing a headscarf and a mask. She was coughing ominously. 

“English?” Blackbird asked her softly, to which the woman gave a sort-of nod, replying “Small, little,” in a heavy accent. She waved her phone desperately. Hood could make out the Feed Gotham app emergency broadcast page on it. She’d gotten sick enough to know that she had to isolate.

Blackbird hastily thumbed his phone, which started announcing “hello, do you speak…?” in various languages. The woman pointed frantically when they reached Farsi. “Okay, Farsi,” he thumbed his phone again and spoke into it. “This is medicine. It will help with the symptoms.” The phone translated, though to Hood’s ears, as one who actually spoke and understood Farsi, the translation was intelligible but a bit clunky. “This is a pulse oximeter,” Blackbird continued, holding it up. “You need to use it to keep track of your oxygen saturation. If your reading drops below eighty percent, you have to go to a hospital. They won’t take you before that, do you understand?”

The woman wrung her hands nervously as the phone translated. She said something in reply that had Blackbird, who clearly didn’t understand, thumbing his phone to try to activate his microphone.

“She asked how it works,” Hood broke in. “Do you need to know how to use it?” Hood asked the woman in perfect Farsi.

“Yes. I’ve never used one before,” the woman told him, looking helpless. 

Hood got out of the truck and went through how it worked and what to look for with the readings in concise but clear steps. He also assured her it would work on her children, too, when she asked, and made sure she understood that her best bet for the ER was Newtown General, but her oxsat had to be eighty or below; they just couldn’t take you if you weren’t already direly ill. They didn’t have the space.

She took that gut punch with as much fortitude as she could. She already knew she was now participating in the world’s shittiest round of Russian roulette; do you wait and risk waiting too long? Who takes care of the kids and how do you explain you can’t hug them anymore? What if the kids get it? How, in the midst of all this, do you afford rent, utilities and all the rest of it?

Every single decision had the potential to go sideways. Every one could be the bullet.

Blackbird left a box on the street, loaded up with meds, sanitizer, cleaning chemicals and a wad of flyers for various helplines and other support networks. He also, with Hood’s help, got her details so he could make food deliveries right to her apartment door, and added her to the Home Visit program run by retired nurses. The program was severely overwhelmed though, and its waiting list was weeks long. Basically, this poor lady was on her own unless she was actively dying, and even then there might not be adequate help.

She waited until they were back into the cab before going to collect her box, every line of her body miserable and anxious as she disappeared back into the night. 

“Fourteenth of the night,” Blackbird sighed. “And that’s just the ones that know about the emergency call-in system. There’s probably twenty more I won’t be able to reach tonight and there’ll be another fifty by morning.” Even with his face covered by a domino and a face mask, Blackbird looked exhausted.

Fuck, Hood felt the Pit bubble up inside him as the helplessness hit him again. And the worst part was that not even the Pit could help; this wasn’t a problem he could shoot or punch his way out of. It was a slow grind of a disaster, a horrible will-sucking, hope-decaying longform mass murder that no one could bargain their way out of. None of his training could help him deal with it. No one had been ready for this. 

Fuck, he hated it so much. No wonder he’d been so ready to pick a fight with Blackbird; the physical challenge was at least something he could handle, Blackbird’s severe lack of street savvy was a problem he could do something about, a bait box caper was a crime he could actually solve. Otherwise he was just an idiot in armor, watching people die.

They didn’t say anything else as the Four & Twenty made its carefully ponderous way to Canal Street, Hood too angry and Blackbird too tired for small talk.

They hit a rundown old tenement building at the corner near the train bridge, late night trains thundering overhead. Blackbird hit the horn; probably unnecessarily, because quiet-runner or not it was hard to miss this truck when it was right next to you.

People emerged from the tenement. Familiar looking people.

“You are precisely three minutes and forty-three point four second late,” a voice announced primly, a pocket watch gripped tightly in his spidery fingers.

“Sorry Mr. Tockman,” Blackbird said easily. “I had an emergency stop.”

“Is that…” Hood blinked. “The Clock King?”

It wasn’t just Clock King. As they all filed out, Red Hood saw a bunch of semi-recognizable faces; Atomic-Man, Enforcer, The Wrath, Ratcatcher, Junkyard Dog, Polka Dot Man, the Direction, Crazy Quilt, The Mortician, Mister Camera, Rag Doll, Zebra Man, Bat Head, Temblor, Spellbinder, Penny Plunderer, Toymaker… they just kept coming out, like the weirdest and wrongest version of a clown car. They were, it had to be said, mostly men, but Hood did flag Roxy Rocket, March Hare, The Carpenter, Mudface, Mime and Madame Crow shuffling around in the line up. 

“What the fuck is this?” Hood asked, bewildered by the parade of B, C and D-List villains meekly queuing, not at the service window but near the back end of the truck. 

“Halfway house,” Blackbird murmured, going to his control panel and flicking switches. “They booted all the non-violents out of Arkham when the spikes got bad because overcrowding is not our friend right now. All the minimum security inmates got shoved on the parole rehab programs and mostly wound up here. You noticed the ankle bracelets, right?”

Hood had, actually. They all sported them and they were being extremely careful about how far they strayed from the building. 

“Right, well, the meal and food service that was supposed to be delivering to them basically got rerouted to the black market. They can’t get the trucks to even show. And no one cares what happens to a bunch of mental patients, even though they are dosed up to their eyeballs in antipsychotics.”

“Well, shit,” Hood muttered. He wasn’t given to feel sympathy for villains but even he had problems with leaving people to essentially starve to death, trapping them in a decrepit concrete block that was basically a prison without any of the services a prison could offer.

And really, these folks clearly were not a threat. As Blackbird popped open the aft section of the truck, the folks all lined up calmly and with minimum fuss, and basically bucket chained a mass of flours, pastas, rice bags, sugars, coffee, a couple of huge ass tubs of powdered milk, and a bunch of other boxes, including the perennial favorites; boxes of masks and hand sanitizer. They all looked thin and their faces had the nervous twitches and tics people get when they've been on meds long term. Shit, some of these guys pre-dated Robin I; they must have been on the Arkham roundabout for decades. 

They weren’t… sane, exactly. The Mortician kept bothering Ratcatcher about getting dead rats for his revival experiments and March Hair kept trolling Crazy Quilt by asking what color the box stripes were even though he was color blind, but they were compliant, for the most part. They were way too desperate to start trouble with the food supply.

Red Hood grudgingly conceded that Blackbird might have had a point about them not talking to him. Once they saw Hood in the back of the truck there was a noticeable shuffle backwards, their body language folded up and terrified. Hood had gone after the Rogues in this town pretty fucking hard in his Pit-crazed days, and honestly didn’t cut them a lot of mercy now, either. Even with Blackbird assuring him that Hood was just here to carry stuff, the air was noticeably tense and wary, and stayed that way even when he hung back and just silently loaded up the big stuff.

Once the supply had been unloaded and packed away, most of them scurried back into the halfway house, not keen to be outside. A few of them stuck around for a hot, crispy pie, including a familiar face.

“Blackbird, it’s always good to ketchup with you,” Condiment King took a seat at the window. “I mayo need some extra sustenance, if you aioli me.”

“Hey Mitch,” Blackbird grinned at him and hauled out a pie. “How have you been?”

“I relish my continued good health,” Condiment King replied, eagerly taking the pie with his too-thin hands and peeling off a ratty face mask. “Otherwise life is but a bland offering, unspiced with anything of interest.”

“Well, three more boxes of old books were in today's run,” Blackbird offered. 

The Rogue perked up. “That should pepper our days with some interesting flavors, at least,” he took a bite of his pie and made a considering face. “At the risk of committing harrisament, I don’t suppose you have anything that’ll spice-up the offering, do you? I don’t wish to be uncondimentary to your cooking, but it needs something…. moreish.”

Blackbird whipped out a bottle of tabasco sauce and placed it at the service window. When Condiment King reached for it, Blackbird inched it back. “Got a question for you.”

“By all miso,” Condiment Kind replied. “Fry-sauce away.”

Blackbird handed him the bottle. “Your window faces the street, right? Did you see anyone drop a box on the street five or six nights ago? I know the meds don’t let you sleep so well.”

“Hmm, there’s not much peace lavoshed on my dreams, it’s rue,” Condiment King sighed as he spritzed his food. “I did see something like that; added a bit of spice to an otherwise not-so-nice night. A car drove past about… two-ish? They dropped a box, then citrus peeled away like they were being chased. I couldn’t understand why, it was quite a pickler of a mystery. I thought it must be a drug caper, dealers are still peppered liberally about these parts.”

Hood stepped forward. “You said car? Not a van or a truck?”

Condiment King shuffled his shoulders a little at Hood’s looming figure. “No, it was definitely a car. They pesto quite close and they sprinkled their offering nearly on our doorstep. As if we’d ever trust an offering like that ,” he added with all the disdain of a Gothamite survivor. 

“Make, model?” Hood persisted.

Condiment King gave a wan, terrified smile. “Not really my area of expertise. For my capers, cars were not really a mustard-have. I know it was a station wagon. Somewhat ill-used, sounded like a real tartar sauce of an engine. Dark color, though I mayon’t be able to say what dark color is. There wasn’t a dash of headlights or number plates, but that’s kosher for these parts.”

“Have they come back at all?” Blackbird asked. “Have you seen the same car again?”

“I heard the same flavor of engine the night before last,” the Rogue replied. “I didn’t spice it that time, but I heard it. It didn’t stop, just pottered past. Some people have no respect for insomniacs,” he muttered irritably. 

“Can you think of anything else that might identify it?” Hood asked. “Anything? A broken taillight, a bumper sticker?”

“Oh yes,” Condiment King said, mouth full. “I saw a sticker garnishing the back window. It was odder than monkey gland sauce. It looked like a foot with wings. It was all basted in gold. Such an odd accompaniment!”

Hood saw Blackbird go stiff. From beneath the service bench he drew out a slender laptop, which he booted up then rapidly drew up a webpage. “Was this it?” He turned it around so Condiment King could see it.

“Yes! The very one,” Condiment King beamed. “That’s the symbol I salsa, all right.”

Blackbird frowned thoughtfully. “Okay. Thanks Mitch, I appreciate the… flavor.”

“Always happy to kelp,” Condiment King had finished his pie and sadly passed the tabasco bottle back.

“You keep it, I’ve got more,” Blackbird told him.

The man beamed and hugged the bottle to his chest like Blackbird had just given him the keys to the city and free money for life. “I relish the opportunity to tekka to you again, Mr. Blackbird!” he declared before scuttling back into the halfway house and closing the door behind him.

While Blackbird shook his head fondly and busied himself flicking switches Hood took the opportunity to look at the website Blackbird had searched for; Lightfoot Church Of Revelation. A quick flick through the site’s gallery made Hood tentatively classify it as a sort of tent revival religious group, who looked evangelical in their leanings. The church had been named for the pastor, according to the ‘our story’ section; one Hiram Lightfoot. 

“I take it you know these guys?” Hood surmised as Blackbird disinfected the service counter and glass.

“Know is a bit of a stretch,” Blackbird replied. “I know of them. I met their pastor a couple of times.” Even with his face all but covered, there was a definite moue of distaste in his expression.

“I take it you aren’t looking for their kind of salvation. What do you know about them?” Hood asked.

“Not a whole lot. I mostly brushed up against them because almost all the food distribution services are run by religious groups and the Lightfoot’s are no exception. I know he runs his church out of Coventry and he is keeping his people fed, whatever else I can say about him,” Blackbird allowed.

“And what else can you say about him?” Hood raised an eyebrow.

“That his focus of conversions and recruitment seemed, to me, to be people of a certain hue,” Blackbird replied. “A pale one. He was politely asked to leave the inter-faith food coalition months ago because he wouldn’t send any of his volunteers to help in the poorer districts. He said it was for safety’s sake, but we all knew what the real reason was. He objected to the non-caucasian demographics. He’s also apparently morally opposed to welfare, which is a hell of a stance for a man who got his porcelain caps paid for by donation. He was also thoroughly queerphobic, Islamophobic and anti-Semite towards the other religious leaders and community workers which they took exception to. And,” Blackbird huffed. “He tried to convert me – and when that didn’t work, bribe me – to have the Four & Twenty deliver exclusively for his congregation, which I took exception to. Plus, there’s always a few of his followers hanging around our food drives, pointing out violations and reporting them and generally being a bunch of red-tape nazis. We still make sure his people get access to pantries and stuff, but otherwise we kind of just grit our teeth and try to ignore them.”

“So he’s a fundamentalist, racist shitheel,” Heed summarized.

“He’s subtle, though,” Blackbird said. “He knows the trick of keeping the quiet part quiet.”

“Sounds like exactly the sort of asshole who thinks a cull would be a grand idea,” Hood mused. “He’d get right behind a mass poisoning, as long as he could get away with it.”

“Honestly, I don’t know if he’d be that overt,” Blackbird sighed. “His goal is mostly to squeeze as much money and obedience from middle-class suburbians as he can possibly get away with. I’ve no doubt he preaches lyrical about the scourge of the poor, but I don’t know that he’d actually out-and-out organize his followers to do something about it. He never struck me as the sort to get his hands all dirty when he can con someone else into doing it for him.”

“So, his flock, maybe,” Hood mused. “It’s a start. Look, you keep an eye out for more unusual deaths. You’re right, these people talk to you. You’ll make more headway than I will. I’ll check out the church and its holy roller.”

“There’s a food drive and mass meal giveaway the day after tomorrow,” Blackbird told him. “It’s in the old Reid Street parking garage. It’s due for demolition but the contractors said the community can use it to do food drives while it’s still standing. It’s a bit too cramped for the Four & Twenty, but that’s fine, I’ve got rounds to do in Chinatown that day anyway. I’m thinking most of the neighborhood is gonna show up, since we’re also gonna be having the medical trucks and health services show up as well. I’m pretty damn sure some of the Lightfooters will be there. They show up to convert and pray and junk. Actually what they mostly do is show up and point out all the various law violations. If you wanted to see them in action, that’d be the place.”

There was a thought. “I don’t know if I can make it there,” Hood said cautiously, on the bubble as to whether to go in as Hood or undercover as a civilian. “But I can definitely have some people of mine keeping an eye out.”

“Okay,” Blackbird nodded. “That’s a plan, I guess. I’ll see if I can nab any randomly dumped boxes if I hear about them. I’ll put the word out on my app. Testing should tell us everything we need to know.”

“You’ll let me know,” Red Hood said, sliding a spare burner phone across the counter to Blackbird. “In case you’re wondering, that ain’t a suggestion.”

Chapter Text

Jason didn’t get a lot of sleep that night so he went into work early. Honestly, he wasn’t the only one, there seemed to be way too many people in far too early in the morning. He squinted at the staff whiteboard; it didn’t look like anyone but Bruce had booked out-of-hours space in the kitchen. Bruce was happy for all staff to use the equipment and facilities to make bulk home meals or experiment with recipes and new ideas, the proviso being the kitchen had to be cleaned and ready for the lunchtime tee-off without exception. 

Jason peeked into the kitchen – yep, Bruce booked it out for the demon brat, who was doing something arcane and spicy over at the fryer. The scowl on his face was impressive even for Damian and his personal bubble was clearly filling the whole space edge to edge. The poor early-bird preppers who were filling tubs and tubs of pre-cut veggies and meats to use during the day were all hunched down over their boards and ignoring him with all their might for safety’s sake.

Great. Just what the world needed; Damian Wayne in a mood.

Well, there went his early morning therapy of baking a breakfast quiche for the kitchen staff. They weren’t supposed to share food plates around anymore like they used to – a sad loss of one of the best perks of working in a kitchen – but Jason got away with batching up a big meal then tupperwaring it safely into individual portions. They had more than enough take out boxes right now and the staff all appreciated his efforts.

He went out into the front of the restaurant instead, where the tables had all been taken into storage and contractors were busily adding shelves for their pandemic deli. Bruce had been serious, he liked Tim’s idea.

Speaking of Tim, the kid himself was standing at the service counter with a familiar figure. “Cass!” Jason said in surprise. “Hey, how’s it shakin’? Wait, today was the day your quarantine rotation ended?”

“Yes,” Cass smiled at him through her mask. It was black with little Bats and hearts on it, because Cass was never above weaponizing her ability to wrap Bruce around her little finger and Jason could only respect that. 

Honestly, Cass was lucky to be back in the country. She had a Justice League exemption that had allowed her to zeta to the Watchtower but the catch was she had to go into hard quarantine in solitary while she was up there. A lot of the metas like Superman were more or less living up there, or at the Fortress of Solitude, because, it turns out, they probably wouldn’t be able to get sick from COVID but there was a risk they could a) carry and spread it unknowingly or b) make a new, funtimes alien strain that humans wouldn’t stand a chance against. The JL had had all sorts of summits and press releases about it. Right now the majority of metas were doing awareness campaigns from the safety of a personal lockdown. Bizarro was currently hanging out with Conner in the Fortress; they were worried about what the hell could even affect a hybrid and didn’t want to find out they would turn into a nightmare level of superspreader.

Jason felt a soupcon of sympathy for the meta masks. COVID hit the civilian population hard physically and the hero population emotionally. They weren’t used to being required to stand back and watch when a disaster was ongoing. You could see it wearing on them.

It was good to see Cass in town, though. An extra set of hands was never frowned upon, especially when juggling the all-day-all-night work of a professional chef and trained vigilante. “You on the burners today?”

“Prep,” Cass replied. “Too tired.” 

Yeah, Jason got it. Mindlessly peeling vegetables was a safer bet. He looked past Cass to Tim and frowned in confusion. “What the hell are you doing? Is that the big rice cooker?” It was the big-ass rice cooker, except it was currently in pieces. 

Tim jumped, startled, and nearly stabbed himself with the tiny screwdriver he was wielding. Damn, he had to stop scaring this kid. He had enough red in his books where Tim was concerned as it was.

The kid instantly hunched over his work, able to duck down behind his bangs since he didn’t have his hair net on. He mumbled something, muffled by his face mask and general implosion of his confidence.

Jason shifted awkwardly. 

Cass was watching them both keenly. “Fixing,” she replied for him succinctly.

“It burnt the rice again?” Jason groaned. “Jesus, B needs to chuck that fucking thing.”

“It’s fine,” Tim said quietly, fiddling away in the guts of it. “One of the seals eroded enough to let starch drip down into the thermostat magnet’s spring and it got all gummed. No spring meant the magnet didn’t drop when all the water was gone and the temperature went past water boiling level due to the thermoresistant properties of the rice. No magnet drop means no failsafe trigger on the thermostat which means the automatic switch off doesn’t work. I cleaned it out,” he looked up and wilted in the face of their surprised stares. “It should be fine now,” he finished in a mumble, dropping his gaze.

“How did you know all that?” Jason said, open mouthed.

“I have a degree in electrical engineering,” Tim replied, still not looking at them. “And chemistry.”

Jason squinted. “How old are you?”

“Seventeen,” Tim replied quietly as he reassembled the rice cooker with confident fingers. “I graduated high school when I was twelve.”

“Holy shit, really? You’re a child prodigy?” Jason was unexpectedly fascinated.

“I guess,” Tim mumbled. 

“If you got a double degree, what the fuck are you doing pot scrubbing for the Table? ” Jason asked, bewildered. “There’s plenty of better paying jobs for someone with those credentials.”

Cass shot him a look. It dawned on Jason that his curiosity might come off as somewhat rude, especially since he just implied Tim wasn’t doing vital or important work. 

Before he could fumble for something that was slightly less brazen, Tim shrugged. “I don’t actually have a complete degree.”

“Oh, you dropped out?” Jason said and then bit his fucking tongue because that wasn’t what he’d meant to say.

Tim didn’t seem phased. “Not… exactly. I did the courses and the labs and exams and stuff, right up to the end. But, um, my parents didn’t pay the complete amount of the tuition and endowments that they’d promised the university so, um, the university wouldn’t recognize my transcript until they got the money they were promised.”

Even Cass blinked upon hearing that. “Why not just pay?” she asked.

“They died,” Tim replied shortly. He ran his thin hands over the repaired rice cooker. “But it wasn’t all for nothing, I guess. There,” he thrust it at Cass awkwardly. “All fixed.”

She took it, smiling gently. “Thank you!”

Tim ducked his head again. It was hard to tell with the face mask on, but the corners of his eyes turned up, which meant she’d managed to wring a smile from him. “You’re welcome,” he said in his breathy voice.

Jason winced. “Uh, Tim? Could I, uh, have a word?”

Oh, there went the smile. Jason could see it dissolve under the mask as his shoulders went taunt. “... okay,” he replied helplessly. 

Yeah, this was going to be all levels of suck. He shot a look at Cass, who shot one right back at him, which told him two things about Tim. One, that Cass liked him a lot. Two, that meant Tim was good people. 

He jerked his head at her anyway and she raised an eyebrow at him before withdrawing from the field. Jason was so not looking forward to that conversation when Cass managed to corner him. But right now he focused on Tim, who was watching him, anxiety in every line of his body.

Not a great start. “Look, um. About yesterday…”

“It’s alright,” Tim mumbled before Jason could fumble his way to an apology. “I shouldn’t have eavesdropped. It won’t happen again.”

“No, look, even if you did eavesdrop that’s not a crime. Me and Steph did a shitty thing talkin’ ‘bout you like that behind your back. We shouldn’t have done it, regardless of whether you heard us or not.”

“It’s just… talk. The kitchen hands do it all the time to one another,” Tim replied, shuffling uncomfortably.

“Kid, there’s a big difference between shit talking each other to our faces and mocking somebody’s actual, legitimate speech impediment,” Jason couldn’t understand why Tim was so determined not to get the apology he was owed. “Even if we didn’t know, that’s a dick move an’ we both know better. So, um, I’m sorry. I promise it won’t happen again.”

Tim looked at him searchingly. “Okay,” he said eventually. 

Right. It was awful and awkward but at least it was done. After a year on a tailor made twelve-step program, Jason felt he should be better at making amends by now. And worse, now he wasn’t sure what the hell else to say. Tim was clearly still uncomfortable around him. “So, uh, you really went to college when you were twelve, huh?”

Tim nodded. “Yeah. I think they wrote about it in the Gazette or something. Youngest ever student enrolled at Gotham U.”

“Shit, kid,” Jason whistled. “You musta had some talent.”

“I was homeschooled, and I had tutors and things,” Tim shrugged. “Being exceptional is easy once you have enough money.”

That made Jason crack a smile. At least the kid made no bones about the privilege he’d been born to, something which was both rare and refreshing. “So, engineering and chemistry?”

“I wanted to go to culinary school,” Tim blurted, voice register wavering up and down. “I really did but my parents, um…” his ears went red. “They, um, didn’t think…”

“They thought that was a bit low brow,” Jason finished. Yeah, he could see that. The oldest mark of wealth was having other people cook for you. The Drakes no doubt considered their precious heir learning to do a servant's work a demeaning waste of talent. It spoke well of Tim that he didn’t apparently agree, although it did make Jason wince when he remembered his first clash with the kid, where he pretty much accused him of being a richy-rich failson who didn’t belong in the kitchen. “Same old snobs, different day,” he murmured.

Tim flinched a little, which made Jason wince at himself and his damn terminal foot-in-mouth disease. “Not you,” he fumbled awkwardly. “Um, I think it’s great you’re willing to work in the kitchen. I think you mighta picked the wrong year, though. I doubt B’s gonna be able to sponsor anyone into culinary school this year,” because B would do that to a worker who wanted the degree and showed promise and why else would someone who could afford to send himself to culinary school go this route? After all, it would be hard for even the most snobbish guardians to argue with Bruce Wayne.

The kid’s ears went red. “That’s not… it isn’t…” he whispered, his voice coming in broken breathy spurts. 

“Hey, don’t be bashful,” Jason told him. “It’s not like a bunch of rich kids haven’t come through here lookin’ to get in on the cooking scene through B’s patronage. Some of ‘em do okay out of it. I’m just sayin’, you might be in for a wait, is all.”

He had a feeling the kid was gaping at him through the mask. “Um… o-okay,” the kid’s tone sounded agonized with embarrassment, like he just wanted this conversation to end.

Wondering where the hell he’d made a misstep this time, because he’d meant nothing but encouragement by it, really, Jason opened his mouth and promptly turned his head towards the kitchen as the dulcet tones of Damian Wayne rang out at a screech. “ What is the meaning of this? Who made all this granola?”

Tim’s eyes, which were vibrantly blue now Jason was looking at them properly, widened in panic. He scuttled towards the kitchen doors and Jason went after him because one does not face Damian Wayne in a snit without backup.

“Damian, what have I told you about indoor voices in the kitchen?” Bruce was saying to his son while the demon brat seethed at him, looking so boiling mad you could probably steam a cabbage on his head.

“Father, somebody has made use of our facilities to make granola!” Damian sounded outraged.

“Wait,” Steph said in confusion from the prep zone, where she had started her shift with the meats. “What’s wrong with granola? I like granola.”

“So do I,” Dick sounded just as baffled from the confectionary zone where he was whipping up sweet dessert sauces and coring pears for Poire a la Beaujolaise. “Everybody likes granola. You like granola, Dami.”

“That is not my issue, Grayson!” Damian snapped angrily. “It is not the granola! It is the fact that whatever loathsome individual has made it has made about sixty trays of it! The rules are clear! The plebeian staff members,” Bruce winced at his son's unflattering view of the kitchen hands. “May use our facilities, but only to make simple dishes for personal use! Not bulk foodstuffs for resale! They have the temerity to use our facilities to line their own pockets! Should we let them steal the clothes off our backs too? Who did this? Who made the granola?” Damian's head whipped around like he was looking for a murderer. It was, admittedly, pretty fucking funny.

Tim stepped forward. “Uh…”

“You!” Damian spat venomously. “You are the culprit, you thief! You shall be fired!”

“Damian,” Bruce rolled his eyes over his face mask. “I appreciate your concern for the business’ wellbeing, but you don’t actually own it yet,” he told his son gently, who pouted in response.

“But father,” he retorted. “Those are the rules! They may use the facilities,” he allowed grudgingly. “But they must bring their own ingredients! Who knows how much stock Drake has stolen from us!” He shot Tim a filthy glare.

“I didn’t steal anything!” Tim protested, voice thin and breathy.

“Speak up, Drake!” Damian snapped. “No one can hear you!”

Looking at the way Tim’s stiffened, Damian’s jab hit its target. “Hey!” Jason snapped at the brat. “Maybe you could, I don’t know, let someone else get a fucking word in edgewise before you set up the guillotine, demon brat?”

Damian furiously opened his mouth.

“Damian,” Bruce’s stern voice stopped him cold. “Thank you for bringing it to my attention. I will handle this.” Which neatly left the brat with no further arguments. His mien softened to something a bit more inviting when he looked at Tim. “Not that I don’t like granola as much as the next man, but that’s an awful lot of it for one person, kiddo.”

Tim fidgeted. “It’s… it’s not for me.”

“See?” Damian said furiously. “He admits it!”

“It’s not going to be sold, either,” Tim insisted, clearly trying his best to raise his voice. “And I didn’t take a single thing from the pantry either. I hauled all the ingredients here on my own. It took about three trips on the bus, but I did it, even the honey. It’s… it’s for the backpack program being run by Interfaith.”

“The charity coalition is running a backpack program?” Bruce’s eyebrow shot up, pleasantly surprised. “I had no idea.”

Damian scowled. “What is this so-called backpack program? I’ve never heard of it!”

“That’s because you’ve never gone hungry, demon brat,” Jason retorted. “Backpack programs are for kids whose parents can’t afford to feed them. The schools feed ‘em instead. Only there’s no school on weekends, so they’ll send kids home on Fridays with enough food to last ‘em until Monday, usually in a backpack. I was on one when I was in school.”

“So was I,” Steph piped up. “For a little while.” 

Huh. Jason hadn’t known that about her.

“Right, well, the official program got the guts ripped out of it months ago,” Tim sighed. “Along with SNAP and the rest of the food programs. They still run but it’s so hard to get on them and you have all these complicated means tests to get through and that takes time. The interfaith coalition banded together to start up their own version. I used to be able to make stuff in my own kitchen, but now the stupid red tape brigade are telling us we can’t do that because we can’t guarantee hygiene or food safety or some such. All goods have to either be canned or from a commercial kitchen. No home made. I thought that… if I made it in a commercial kitchen, then I could kind of slip through a loophole. No one would argue with The Butler’s Table’s bonafides.”

“Yes, and I’m sure all the children are cancer survivors,” Damian rolled his eyes. “This is an obvious, cynical ploy to make use of our facilities to sell goods for profit.”

“Damian!” Dick scolded from the back.

“Well? We only have his word!” Damian shot back. “What proof does he have?”

Tim’s eyes narrowed. “I can prove it,” he replied, showing a hint of steely determination under his usual shyness. He yanked a phone out of his pocket and dialed a number, putting it on speaker. “Sister Dez? It’s Tim.”

“Tim, thank God. I was just about to call you, so I believe I must file this under ‘signs and portents,” a strong and deep voice rang out of the phone.

Holy shit, Jason blinked. That voice took him right back to his childhood – the non shitty parts of it. “Sister Dezzie?” he broke in. “That you?”

“I’m sorry, who was that?” the voice asked cheerfully.

“It’s Jason,” Jason replied. “Jason Todd. You probably don’t remember me…”

“Jason Todd, of course I remember you!” the voice crowed. “Cheese and pickle, and anything with chilli in it. I never forget a sandwich or a mouth. As I live and breathe, you gorgeous rapscallion you, it’s good to hear from you again. You did so well for yourself! Always knew you would!”

Jason grinned hugely while the rest of the kitchen gaped at him. “Sister Desiderata and I go way back,” he told Tim’s surprised look. “She runs… well, it’s not quite a food truck, but she hands out sandwiches and things to the needy. Street kids and stuff. She’s been at it a while now.”

“Nearly thirty years, acolyte and nun,” the Sister agreed. “Stop by the van sometime, I could always use another set of helping hands and you honey, grew big. Didn’t I tell you you would if you ate your veggies? I was right, wasn’t I?”

“Sure thing, Dezzie, I’ll stop by,” Jason laughed. He was glad she was still around. Gotham crime rates regularly took out the helpers and responders in this burg. She was one of the lucky ones that lasted long enough to be an institution. 

“I hate to cut this short, honey, but I’m kinda a nun on the run. Tim, what’s the granola count like?”

“I made enough for everyone on the list to get at least two big bars,” Tim said proudly. 

“Can we stretch it?”

Tim frowned. “Maybe? How far?”

“The Lopez group home just had a wall collapse. That’s another fifty seven to sixty five kids we’re now scrambling to get into shelter. Emergency food relief will kick in but they won’t be able to do squat until Monday. I’ve got volunteers on the horn literally begging people for donations so that we can cover them until then. We might have to stretch it; a little is better than nothing.”

Tim’s eyes were wide over his mask. “Sixty five, geez. That’s a lot. Um… well, I haven’t sliced it up yet, so I can portion it all out smaller, I guess?”

“No you don’t,” Bruce broke in. “No, he doesn’t. Sister Desiderata, can you hear me? It’s Bruce Wayne. I run the restaurant.”

“Yes, Mister Wayne,” her voice was dry. “I know who you are. Let me take this opportunity to thank you for the Wayne Foundation support; without Wayne Shipping trucks we’d never have gotten our food alliance off the ground.”

“Always happy to help where we can,” Bruce smiled under his mask. “What do you need?”

What followed was a quick back-and-forth about basic supplies and the rules for the Backpack Program and what the Program itself already had covered. Kitchen hands were already abandoning their work and rushing for the pantry to break out the grains, flours, dried fruits, nuts, honey and coconut. Steph and Cass were raiding the cold store for butters, milks and eggs. 

“Okay, folks!” Bruce called over the general noise once Sister Desiderata had thanked him and disconnected. “We are, temporarily, a relief kitchen. Stop what you’re doing, clean up your space, bag or put on the backburner anything you haven’t finished. We’re on granola and cookies, so break out the baking trays. Dick, do you…?” Dick waved wordlessly from where he was turning on every oven in the place. “Tim, let’s go have a look at what you’ve already made.”

“Um… yes sir!” Tim squeaked out, looking astonished at where this had all ended up.

Damian looked furious about it. “Father,” he said. “We will be late for the lunch rush if we do this! We will not run to schedule.”

“It’s okay, Damian,” Dick told him cheerfully. “These things won’t take long and we’re super-duper prepared, so we’ll only be, like, half an hour late. People are more willing to wait for takeout and delivery than they are for plate service.”

Damian considered that. “Yes,” he conceded. “You are correct. Then I shall assist…”

“Uh-uh,” Bruce shook a finger at him. “What was our deal, Damian? You get to use the kitchens this morning to make the Side Of The Day, but after that you need to go and do your homeschooling. Well, your samosas are there in the warming racks so guess what?”

“But,” Damian spluttered. “But it’s all hands!”

“And you are not one of the hands just yet,” Bruce said gently. “Come on, you promised.”

Damian turned to appeal to Dick, but he was busy sorting out mixers and sifters and Damian couldn’t catch his eye.

“Come on, Tim,” Bruce gestured Tim forward, nudging Damian pointedly towards the admin office as he did so. “Show me what you’ve made.”

Damian’s head whipped up and he sent a seething look of hatred at Tim’s back as the kid dutifully followed the boss into the cold store. If his gaze had had power, Tim would be a pinch of ash on the ground.

Jason caught his eye and raised an eyebrow at him, smirking. Damian glared at him before huffing and striding away with his nose in the air. Honestly, if the kid didn’t want to be mocked for his possessiveness, he needed to be slightly less obvious about it.

“Stop that,” Dick said softly out of the corner of his mouth as he handed Jason a mixing bowl. “You’ll only make him worse.”

“We can’t possibly make him worse than he has been,” Steph grumped as she came past, dumping big tubs of butter on the prep zone. “Seriously, Dick, that brat has been getting steadily more demonic over the last few months. Everyone’s noticed, especially the poor staff who have to stand there and take his attitude, since it’s not like there’s a thriving job market in the food industry right now.”

Dick winced. “Look, I know he’s getting worse, okay? Just try to be patient. He’s antsy today because I told him I have to go back to Blud for a couple of weeks, since I’m off rotation here. That’s a couple of weeks out of Gotham and then another couple of weeks in isolation when I get back here. I know he doesn’t like it,” Dick admitted unhappily. “Neither do I. But I’ve put it off too long. I have to go.” His eyes over his mask looked strained and sad.

“Shit, Dickface,” Jason snorted. “Last time I checked Damian wasn’t your damn responsibility. You’re not his fucking father. Why are you guilt tripping yourself over this?”

“Bruce is working about ten different jobs right now,” Dick said. “Of course Dami turns to me; what else can he do? And Jay, I like to think we’re all,” he eyed Jason, Steph and Cass significantly. “Responsible for each other. Even when we’re being difficult, stubborn, angry or sad.”

Okay, so Jason, the proverbial black sheep with the most egregious sin list, had to grudgingly concede the point there.

“Look, can you all just… keep an eye on him while I’m gone?” Dick asked pleadingly. “I know it’s a lot and he won’t thank you for it but… he’s struggling right now and his training didn’t exactly cover this.”

“Dick,” Steph’s voice was weary. “I see what you’re saying, but none of us were trained to deal with this. What makes you think we’re coping any better? Well enough to take Damian on when he’s being a deliberately cruel little monster? You saw how he mocked Tim for his speech impediment.” Her eyes were guilty; she hadn’t, Jason realized, had a chance to make her own amends yet.

“I know, I know. He’s being a brat, even by his own standards. It’s just… Damian was taught to survive every kind of trauma that can be imagined, but no one bothered to prepare him for this,” Dick insisted. “He can’t see his friends at school, he can’t do any of his shelter volunteering and Titus is up at the Manor. He has almost no positive outlets, no normal fun things to do and he’s regularly being isolated from the people he knows because we’re all rotating in and out of quarantine. He doesn’t know what to do about any of it. He can’t fight it, he can’t deduce around it, and he can’t go to his father to fix it. Between that and what happened to Alfred, he’s just… he’s not doing so great and I can barely even get him to admit it let alone find ways for him to feel better. He’s falling back onto his old attitudes because he doesn’t know how else to cope. I’m worried he’ll revert and it’ll be months and years before we can fix that again.” Dick looked mournful. “And I have to go back to Blud. I’ve got to check in on my place and my staff and all my other people, I’ve been gone too long as it is. He understands it, but that doesn’t make him feel much better.”

“I do not think,” Cass said slowly. “He will listen.” She waved to encompass all of them. 

“She’s right,” Steph agreed as she directed the kitchen hands to start greasing trays. “If you can’t make any headway, we haven’t got a shitshow. The brat barely acknowledges us on a good day. And also, I don’t know if you noticed, but we’ve all got full time jobs. I feel like I’m working days and nights, know what I mean? When are we supposed to make time for Damian and his various attitude problems?”

“Shit, Dickie, I mean,” Jason started measuring out an extremely generous portion of chocolate chips, because he wanted to stuff these cookies with as many happy memories for hungry, frightened kids as possible. “If it’s that bad, send him up to the Manor! It’ll get him off of Bruce’s apparently too full hands and you know he listens to Alfie. And, incidentally, it will also get him out of our hair for a few weeks too!”

“I thought about it,” Dick said heavily. “But I don’t think taking the one outlet hobby Dami does still have away is going to solve anything. Plus, there’s a lot of valuable stuff at the Manor I wouldn’t want Damian to have access to while he’s like this.”

Code for: taking Robin off the kid and then setting him up with full access to the Cave unsupervised was asking for trouble. The Cave was still in use, but nowhere near as much as it had been. The Alfred Protocols were so stringent even Bruce was opting to use beta sites and auxiliaries unless he couldn’t avoid it. Yeah, Jason could see that scenario turning into a raging dumpster fire, and all of Gotham would be the dumpster.

“Look, I’ve talked to Bruce, and I’ll try talking to Dami again,” Dick continued. “Just promise me you’ll cut him a little slack? Take him out on patrol with you a couple of times, maybe. Just something that’ll make him feel… more in control of something. I promise you, he’s flailing a lot worse than he looks. He’s not a crier, he doesn’t show emotion with normal cues. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t need support.” Dick turned on them pleadingly.

Damn, it turned out Jason wasn’t immune from that as he’d once thought he was. “Fine,” he bit out. “He can come out with me tonight. But not the day after, okay, I got an undercover gig and I won’t be able to take him with me on that.” He sent a look at the other two.

Cass shrugged at Steph. 

Steph shrugged grudgingly at Dick. “We’ll work something out. No promises, Dick. He’s on thin ice.”

“He was trained on what to do about that, at least,” Dick beamed. 

A couple of rounds measuring, mixing, doling and pressing had passed before Jason could escape the kitchen and go seek out Bruce, who he found digging around in the restaurant’s basement store room.

“What the hell are you up to B?” Jason asked as the man in question dug around in piles of old tables, counters, shelves, wine racks, slow cookers, spare pots and pans, boxes of old, embossed crockery and service trays, dusty old menus, seasonal decorations, odd framed photos and art that recycled in and out of the dining room as the decor changed. “What the fuck do you even keep most of this stuff for?”

“There was an auxiliary Cave underneath the restaurant,” Bruce explained. “It was originally meant to be a way for me to leave the kitchen and become Batman straight from working here, but it was too small for my needs and there were better beta sites that were less suspicious than having the restaurant owner disappear from his own kitchen. I stored everything I could normally have thrown away down here in order to obfuscate the entrance. Us billionaires, you know,” Bruce shrugged whimsically. “We’re all so sentimental about our first start up. Couldn’t bear to get rid of it all.”

Jason snorted. “What are you looking for, anyway?”

“I’m looking for,” Bruce grunted as he shifted a bookcase sized old wine rack. “Our old packaging machine. We used to make confections in-house and sell them at the counter when I first started out. All that stuff is handled by the manufacturing plants now, but… aha!” Bruce said triumphantly. “We used to have a little cottage industry set up. Here, help me with this, will you?”

Jason grabbed one end of what looked like a long metal table with a boxy machine built into one end, switches and dials dim and dusty. Between them they managed to haul it to the basement steps, but Bruce directed him to leave it while we went to find their old rolls of plastic wrapping.

“No sense in taking two trips,” Bruce said as he went back into the heap.

Jason sat on the bench of the machine, since they were going to have to sterilize it before they used it to bag granola and cookies anyway. “Hey B?” Jason called into the gloom. “I can’t believe I’m actually doing this, but send Damian my way tonight. I agreed to take him out on patrol with me.”

Bruce stubbed his toe on something and swore under his breath. He emerged from the gloom bearing two industrial size rolls of plastic printed with The Butler’s Table logo and a look of dubious astonishment. “Are you sure?”

“Just say yes before I change my fucking mind, old man,” Jason muttered.

Bruce gave a rueful smile. “Just making sure. I know Damian has been very… difficult lately. Being cooped up and solving cases via the Bat Cloud hasn’t gone over very well with him.”

“No shit, we couldn’t tell,” Jason said sarcastically as he hefted his end of the wrapping machine again.

“I’m grateful for the offer, Jay,” Bruce told him as they maneuvered up the basement stairs and into the wine cellar. “Truly, I am. I’m grateful you’re here,” he added honestly. “It’s good to have you back in the Table’s kitchen. You were one of the best cooks Alfred ever trained.”

“It’s only temporary B,” Jason muttered, not liking the emotional abyss they were edging out on. “Just until Roy and I can get our place set up.”

“I know, but I’m still glad,” they shoved the machine up against a spare wall before the kitchen proper. “I’m glad all my children are here even though some part of me wants to send you all away to somewhere safer,” for a second, Bruce looked exhausted, the constant war of attrition he was fighting on all fronts flashing briefly to the surface. 

Jason stared. Bruce must be tired if that was slipping past his inner Bat. He wondered if Bruce was even finding the time to sleep in the midst of everything that was happening. Time was he’d lean on Alfred. What a hard lesson it must be to suddenly learn to live without that kind of support. “We’re not going anywhere, old man, so you can fucking forget it. We’re staying. This is our town too, you know.”

Bruce flashed him a tired smile. “Thank you for helping with Damian. Believe it or not, he respects you on a certain level, for all his bluster.”

“The demon and I understand the world through certain contexts you don’t, B,” Jason told him. He didn’t need to say what the contexts were. They both knew.

“Maybe you can make more headway than either Dick or I have,” Bruce sighed. “He’s not particularly communicative about his feelings on a good day and we can’t help him if he won’t talk to us. But I don’t expect you to work miracles; I’m sure it’ll be enough to give him something physical to do. I’ve been keeping him close. The risk of him getting COVID in the field… it eats at my sleep.” 

That was perhaps the closest Jason had ever seen Bruce come to admitting to a fear that near to his heart. They all knew he had those fears, but he seldom admitted to them verbally, even when he was being manifestly overprotective and controlling as a result. It struck Jason that this whole COVID situation must be weighing on Bruce about fifty times as much as everyone else; he who took the uncontrollable cruelty of chaos and injustice so personally. 

“Relax B,” Jason clapped him on the shoulder. “I’m COVID safe and the kid ain’t stupid. We’ll be fine. I’m looking into a bait box case; it’s pretty simple stuff but it’ll give us the chance to do some legwork.”

Bruce’s gaze sharpened. “Someone is bait boxing in Crime Alley?”

“Possibly,” Jason hedged. “‘Suspicious death’ is becoming a bit hard to quantify, but there’s been some activity that smells bad. My lead-in on the case is a mask. He runs a food truck. He seems to have something on the ball.”

“This would be the Four & Twenty,” Bruce surmised, all Batman in the line of his shoulders. “Blackbird.”

“You met him?” Jason asked curiously.

“Not as yet. I’ve been too busy,” Bruce admitted. “But Babs’ reports, and yours, did get my attention. What’s your read on Blackbird? You were top of my class when it came to profiling.”

Jason tilted his head, making sure none of the staff were about to barge in and ignored the faint warm fuzzy feeling he got knowing the B trusted his judgment. “Young. If that kid’s older than twenty, I’ll saute and eat my helmet without sauce. Older than fifteen, though; he’s way too confident and hasn’t got any mid-teen swagger. He’s got some genius in him, that’s for sure. Way too many technical skills for a C student. He’d probably blitz an IQ test. His street smarts are more so-so, but he’s been at it at least long enough to understand how the street functions and what the codes of conduct are. He’s definitely from money; could be comfortably middle-class with some kind of patron for his gear, but it wouldn’t surprise me if his ancestors were up there with the Five Families.”

“Okay, so that’s the trimmings. What about the meat?” Bruce asked keenly.

Jason shrugged. “He’s there to help. If this is some long con he’s selling it like a pro, but I’m not getting that feel from him at all. Something is driving this kid. Guilt or pain or anger. He gives off the same kind of vibes you do. He has to do this. Whether he’ll go Ahab or turn dark, well, he ain’t been at it long enough and I ain’t seen enough of him for me to assess that risk. In terms of his real world threat level, he’d be tough to beat if he knew we were gunning for him and he could keep us at a distance, if he could plan. He’s a strategist. No, not quite; he’s a systems guy. That’s how he manages to be the Gotham food bank Santa Claus every night; he engineered the system, makes it run. In terms of a face to face fight, we’ve probably all got him beat. He’s got some training, but not much actual field experience. He’s pretty good at ad libbing on the fly if he has to, though; enough to take me by surprise. And he’s self-aware enough to know his own limitations.”

“Hn,” Bruce clearly absorbed that, eyes keen. “You don’t think he’s a threat.”

“My gut says no, the evidence so far backs me up,” Jason replied firmly. “Plus, he’s a pretty good street informant if nothing else. He keeps an eye on the people he feeds, makes sure none of ‘em are going missing or up to something. That’s how he spotted the anomaly in the suspicious death count down my way. He knows people, he keeps track of his regulars. Fuck knows I’d probably have never gotten wind of it unless someone literally bit the big one in front of me. My fucking network is shit right now. It’s a mess, B.”

“Suspects?” Bruce asked.

Jason shrugged. “I got leads, but it’s way too early to say. I need to do some research first.”

Bruce accepted that. “I’ll tell Damian. Let me know about your progress and see if you can get a facts folder going for Blackbird. I’d vet him personally, but I really don’t have time. Nevertheless his… gimmick is somewhat interesting.”

Jason shrugged. “I’ll let you know.”

Jason went back to the baking trays wondering if he felt warmed by Bruce’s interest or if he resented it. Like, fuck, did Bruce not think he’d already started a fucking facts folder or something?

But that just could have been the Pit being a bitch, as usual. He focused on the baking and bagging until the uneasy churning had calmed a little. Honestly, it was becoming more hair trigger than before. He made a mental note to ask Dinah for an emergency session soon; a dose of therapy from an outsider to Jason’s various dysfunctional relationships might help him along.

Roy was right. Recovery was fucking fragile.

Finding himself at loose ends at his lunch break (ironically, afternoon tea for everyone else), Jason wandered towards the staff break room, intent on doing some initial research into the Lightfoot church and stumbled into a meeting between Steph and Tim, who were at opposite ends of the long break room benches surrounded by markers and piles of what looked like big bag charms and keychains, a plate of granola leftovers from their mass bagging between them. “What’s all this?” he asked curiously as he came in, putting his phone away.

“Uh… name tags,” Tim muttered in his wispy voice. “For the kids.”

“And bag charms!” Steph said brightly, holding up a dangling handful of the Batgirl bat– in the right color purple, Jason noted. “I’m helping Tim write out all the tags. Each kid gets a bag with their own name tag and a charm for their favorite Gotham hero. Neat, huh?”

Jason came closer. She was right; a pile of completed tags had a big clear plastic oval name tag with names writing on the inner slips in marker – Jason clocked an Annali, Tristan, Pei-Chu, Danny, Constance, Georgie, Malik, Hector, Illiard and Lateesha before it all became a big, unreadable pile. And there were also Bat charms, Robin R charms, Nightwing bird charms, Batgirl and Black Bat bat charms and, Jason was astonished to see, Red Hood helmets as well. “Every backpack gets a tag, huh? That’s a lot of effort.” It was, especially since he spied a bag at Tim’s feet that was stacked high with yet more tags; probably for the kids he’d actually planned to feed.

“Some of the kids have… nothing,” Tim said quietly. “It’s either all been taken away from them or what they do have is stuffed into trash bags for storage and it’s all a mess. I just thought… seeing their names on the backpacks would make them feel a bit better. Like, this is all theirs, it has their name on it, it belongs to them. Plus, you know, it helps to remind them there’s people out there watching out for them,” he added softly. “It helped me when I was a kid and having a bad time.”

Jason smiled, but Steph beat him to the punch. “That’s super sweet, Tim,” she said. “I’m sure the kids all appreciate it.”

“I’m just glad they have food,” Tim mumbled, dropping his gaze in the face of her compliment. 

“I guarantee, they appreciate that,” Jason said, snitching a cast-off piece of granola from the plate and popping it under his facemask. “Speaking from experience… huh,” he grimaced thoughtfully as he chewed on it. “Steph, is this what we made? It’s a bit dry, isn’t it?” It wasn’t bad or inedible by any means, it just wasn’t the kind of quality the Table was usually famous for.

“Uh… no, that was leftovers from Tim’s batch,” Steph replied, looking awkward.

Tim’s face fell, ears turning red. “I didn’t have a lot of honey,” he mumbled.

Fuck, Jason thought. I did it again!

And worse, before he could even begin to open his mouth and begin the procedure for once again removing his foot from it, Damian stormed in, boiling with contempt. “Drake! Your idiotic alarm is going off in the locker room! We thought it was a bomb threat! Don’t add to your general incompetence by making the rest of us suffer through your thoughtlessness! Turn it off! Permanently! Or better yet, take it and yourselves from my kitchen permanently! Do not think my father’s favor grants you any special treatment. It’s not like we’d struggle to replace a pot scrubber.”

Tim wilted and fled the room before Jason could even say a word.

Damian turned to him. “Father informs me that you, in your general mediocrity, require my assistance tonight. I will be there at nine. Don’t make me wait, Todd, or I shall leave without you!”

Then he turned and stalked away while Jason’s mouth was still open. 

Chapter Text

“This,” Robin said, lip curling in disdain. “Is a waste of time.”

Red Hood prayed for patience. Or failing that, a random dry lightning strike that would remove his troubles in one quick blast. It really didn’t matter to him if it hit him or the demon brat. “What the fuck did you expect, hell midget? Chaos on the streets?” He waved an arm to encompass the empty, silent expanse of Gotham. “Sorry, but everyone’s doing business on Zoom these days, even the bad guys. Hell, we’ll probably have Zoom muggings soon. And the Rogues are either keeping their heads way down or are in lockdown in Arkham.” Super lockdown, for some. The Joker was currently in solitary, sedated with a muzzle and a lot of fucking locks between him and any means of escape. The wardens there may not be the best of the best, but they knew in their hearts that, quite apart from being insane, the Joker was a shitty, petty asshole, who’d get COVID just so he could fucking spread that shit.

But really, the Rogues were being pretty fucking quiet. It helped that a fair few of the big ones were actual doctors – PhD if not MD – and they were educated enough to understand how the virus actually worked and what it could do and therefore get appropriately paranoid about getting it. There were, of course, that special few who’d try to take advantage, but there seemed to be a common theme among them that a dastardly, world destroying scheme wasn’t nearly as fun if they weren’t the actual instigators of it. Rogues could be fucking wierdly arrogant like that.

Or, weirder still, they’d actually give their humanity a brief peak out from behind the curtains. Ivy was doing urban orchards and pharmacological botany. Harley Quinn was doing her own kooky but effective version of a mental health hotline. Catwoman… well, she was definitely still stealing shit, but Hood knew for a fact that a lot of working girls and brothels were getting utilities, rent and medical care with no visible means of support. Victor Fries was technically on the low-risk list at Arkham and should be on the release program, but he’d opted to stay on at the infirmary there as a respiratory therapist.

It wouldn’t last, Hood knew. But for now, the necessity of banding together had roped in a few unexpected and unexpectedly helpful members of Gotham’s rich and diverse tapestry of psychos.

“A mugging that was so pathetic we had to let the perpetrator walk away,” Robin grumbled. “That or be laughed out of our armor. Three lost pets,” he looked a bit brighter for that. “And a man who was, in fact, breaking into his own apartment because he’d lost his key and didn’t want to go back to his workplace while the curfew was on. This night will certainly go down as one of our finest hours,” he sneered sarcastically.

“Hey, you can go back to crimefighting via laptop anytime you like, kid, it’s no skin off my ass,” Hood said pointedly.

Robin, tellingly, sniffed and ignored him.

“Right. Thought so,” Hood muttered.

Truth was, neither of them were the most congenial company. Robin was his usual charming self and various stressors were piling up in Hood’s life at the moment, which made the Pit keep his blood at a restless simmer. Hood had felt weird for a while now; the last few weeks especially. It felt sort of like the Pit when it was trying a hostile takeover, only less… demanding. With one thing and another, Hood hadn’t found the time yet to have a session with his therapist and pick apart why he felt so damn weird, find the origins of this new, no doubt shitty, aspect of his detox. 

He told himself; do it soon. Before there’s blood on the walls.

Robin turned towards an alleyway. “This way,” he said in his most commanding voice.

“We’re not going there, demon brat,” Hood negated tiredly. “There’s nothing to see.”

“Why not?” Robin whipped around and fixed him with a baleful glare. “It’s not as if we have anything constructive to do!”

“So we go there and do what?” Hood put his hands on his hips. “Stare at the spot we found A... Agent A? Scour the crime scene? Canvass every square inch of the surrounding neighborhood? I got news for ya, demon brat, we’ve all already done that; individually and collectively. There ain’t nothing to find that hasn’t been found. And I ain’t about to waste the few precious hours outdoors I get these days brooding at a crime scene like your emotionally repressed furry of a father, ‘kay? Unless you got a new lead to share with the class, forget it.”

Robin’s face twisted in frustration. “But it doesn’t make sense! What was Agent A even doing in this cesspit?”

“Hey. People live in this cesspit, usually not by choice,” Hood jabbed a finger at him. “Check your damn privilege, rich boy.”

“I have no quarrel with the people here! But Agent A shouldn’t have been among them! For what purpose would he come here?” Robin ground out savagely.

Okay, the brat was clearly tired. You could tell when his syntax started regressing about two hundred years. “Kid, he got clocked over the head but good. We’re lucky all he lost was a couple of hours of time.” Very, extremely lucky. Hood couldn’t even begin to imagine a world with an Alfred who didn’t remember any of them, or had some kind of permanent brain injury. Forget all the rest of the trauma this stinking burg had thrown at them over the years, none of them would have survived that scenario intact.

Robin made a frustrated noise. “I believe,” he enunciated carefully, “that Alfred is keeping things from us.”

Hood stared at him.

“He told everyone he had errands to run. But he never said what those errands were . There was nothing in his planner, or on the family calendar,” Robin insisted. “What was he actually doing that day? We may need such information to help us find the perpetrators. He knows this. Why won’t he tell us?” He tried to hide it, but there was definitely a wobbly note under all that strident anger.

Hood breathed. “Look, kid. Has it ever occurred to you it’s his right not to tell us?”

Robin gaped at him.

“Seriously,” Hood pressed his advantage while he had it. “I hate to be the one to break it to you, demon brat, but Agent A has a fucking life, okay? One outside of us. What he does in his own time and on his own dime is none of our fucking business. The man’s practically our babysitter well outside his contracted hours of work in any case and he has to put up with shit he never signed on for. I get it,” Hood allowed to Robin’s rapidly igniting glare. “It’s more than a job, for him and for us. It’s family. But that don’t mean he ain’t allowed to keep some shit to himself. He’s earned that. He’s more’n earned it, after what he puts up with from all of us.”

“But we have to find the dishonorable blackguards who dared attack him!” Robin burst out angrily. “It is our duty! If such a thing had happened to one of grandfather’s retainers, he would not have rested until he found the culprits! It speaks to our honor that we defend all those under our protection! Why will he not speak?” Robin’s voice went briefly thin and high.

“Because we don’t own him, kid,” Hood said tiredly. “It’s a pretty picture you’re painting of your asshole grandfather. How he looks out for his own, etcetera, etcetera, what the fuck ever. Only, those so-called honored retainers of his? They’re fucking slaves. Just 'cause he wraps ‘em up in silk and trimmings doesn’t make ‘em less so. He defends ’em because they’re his property, and they’d tell him everything not because they trust him but because they know what’ll happen to them if they don’t. That ain’t respect or honor, kid. And it ain’t loyalty, either. It’s fear, pure and simple. You can’t tell me those retainers didn’t fear Ra’s’ temper a hell of a lot more than any other threat, and don’t even try to tell me Ra’s didn’t kill ‘em for his own amusement if he got bored. You can sell that cultural difference bullshit to the others, not to me. I was League too. I know how they operate.”

Robin scowled, distracted as intended. “What of it, Hood? What does my grandfather’s… treatment of his underlings have to do with our protection of Agent A?”

“What I’m saying here, kid, is you should be fucking glad A doesn’t tell you all his secrets. It means he ain’t one of them,” Hood retorted pointedly. “He’s his own person, free and clear, who can function without us. For what it’s worth, I agree with you and if you think B hasn’t spotted it too you’re thick with a ‘ck’. A ain’t telling us everything; but shit, kid, what witness have you ever questioned has told you everything? People have their reasons to keep secrets. I’m glad he feels confident enough in our trust that he feels safe enough to keep a few of his own. That’s a fucking compliment to how we treat him and how he feels about us.”

Robin frowned. “You believe he is… confident that we can find out without his input? Is this a test?”

“No,” Hood snorted. “Agent A ain’t like that. I’m just sayin’, he has a private life that he’s trying to protect, just like everybody else. And I can’t really fault him that. And I sure as shit ain’t gonna disrespect him by acting like I got the right to take that away from him just to make myself feel better.”

Robin went silent as they started walking again, absorbing that. It was times like this, where you really bumped into the sheer disconnect to normal the kid had been blessed with and the depths of the scars that had been inflicted on him, that the effects of his poor socialization were made manifest. It probably hadn’t even occurred to him that comparing Alfred to Ra’s’ enslaved minions wasn’t anything but a high compliment until it was spelled out for him just where the insult was.

Hood held out a little hope he’d at least gotten through to the kid on that one.

“We’re going to find them,” Robin said in a low voice, savage with promise.

“Never said we wouldn’t,” Hood agreed levelly. 

They dropped the matter there. Hood could already see the kid closing up his compartments and filing it away. 

Unfortunately, that meant he went back to being a brat.

“Street patrolling is useless. Surely there is some active casework available, even for your mediocre deductive skills,” Robin muttered, trying in vain to bury the plaintive, needling tone. “Why are we walking on the street at all?” he added disdainfully. “Have you fallen out of practice with traveling via grapple? Or put on too much weight sitting at a desk all night?” He eyed Hood’s (perfectly flat and toned!) stomach suspiciously.

Hood took a deep breath. “We’re meeting with an informant. You,” he jabbed a warning finger at the kid. “Are going to keep your big mouth shut and not insult anyone. If we’re lucky, we might actually get something to do tonight, capiche?”

Robin sniffed but did not protest as they rounded the corner, though it was likely the sudden sight of a crowd of people huddled under the streetlights after curfew momentarily robbed him of all speech. 

It didn’t last, more’s the pity. “What is this?” he wrinkled his nose. 

“My lead,” Hood said briefly. “Stay back and shut up,” he warned the kid as he approached. “Hey, Aziz,” he waved at one of the people right on the edge of the sidewalk, wearing a lanyard. “ETA?”

“He’s coming up from the Row now,” Aziz told him, to the general relief of the crowd. 

Hood nodded and hung back, ignoring Robin’s pointed and increasingly frustrated looks of demand. The people waiting, young, old, mothers with kids, hard laborers, working girls, boys and various and sundry, didn’t give Hood a second glance, for the most part. He’d made it his business to meet with the Four & Twenty at least once a night since he found out about it, partly because he seldom had anything physical to do, partly because it helped him keep in touch with the community and also partly because his presence dissuaded any of the more hardcore gangs from trying a looting run. Blackbird had told him it had happened before a bunch of times.

They went through the now well practiced ritual of lining up to collect supplies. It was a long line. 

Eventually the crowd dispersed with their boxes and straight-up food offerings; in this case, it looked like Blackbird was handing out sandwiches. There seemed to be more people at every stop every night. Hood knew Blackbird was already doing triple loops every night, in addition to his ever growing list of home deliveries. He wondered if the kid was getting any sleep as his list of customers doubled by the week. He knew that Blackbird was continually frustrated by having to turn people back when he ran out of any supplies for the night. That was starting to happen earlier and earlier too.

“Hey Hood,” Blackbird smiled under his face mask as the little red social distancing laser markers winked out. Then he clearly blinked as he took in Hood’s scowling offsider. “And Robin. Good evening.”

Robin didn’t answer except for a suspicious glare.

“Hey Baby Bird,” Hood took his usual seat. “Whatcha got?”

“Sandwiches!” the kid beamed past his face mask. “Cheese and pickle, salad falafel, tuna mayo, egg mayo, ham and cheese. Ran out of roast veg, chicken salad and roast beef early, sorry.”

“Cheese pickle,” Hood opted. “I’ll take a juice if you got any left. Falafel for the brat.”

“I’m not hungry,” said brat denied mulishly. He was looking at the truck with both interest and disdain, a feat that was the kid’s speciality.

“You’ll eat it and like it,” Hood shot back. “Ignore him, he’s cranky when he’s hungry,” he told Blackbird, ignoring Robin’s furious jet-engine intake of breath.

Blackbird wisely doled out sandwiches in little fresh snap packets without so much as twitching a face muscle. He also dug out a couple of bottles of apple juice. 

“Anything?” Hood asked casually, cracking open his sandwich pack and disengaging his helmet. Seated on the other side of the service window and appropriately socially distanced, Robin was doing the same only with extra disdain, reluctantly unclicking his special filtered ninja mask. 

“There have been some deaths, but I’m still looking into whether they’d count as suspicious,” Blackbird said cautiously. “The people who died were all either very elderly, had comorbidities or substance abuse problems. I have gotten a bit of news about people handing out food randomly; some of the people that were reported were definitely a part of Lightfoot’s church but so far there’s been no deaths linked to any of the reports I got via the app subscribers. They could just be slightly zealous good samaritans. Whatever problematic politics their preacher might have, the church members themselves might want to do good. Or, at least, they’re not out to do harm.”

“Or,” Hood said cynically. “They want to build up trust so people take their bait boxes willingly.”

“Or that,” Blackbird agreed. “I’ve had a couple of people report on our mystery station wagon with a bad engine roaming around in the midnight hours, and a few other random cars, but no one has yet witnessed anyone giving out food from them. The Lightfooters they did see use a small van, not a car.”

“Have you questioned witnesses? Searched DMV records?” Robin asked sharply.

“Uh, no. I don’t know if you noticed,” Blackbird gestured grandly. “But I’ve got my hands full just feeding people. I still got about a hundred deliveries to do tonight.”

Robin scoffed. “So you are a hopeless investigator on top of being a mediocre cook,” he scoffed.

“Robin,” Hood said warningly.

“The bread is substandard and his blending of flavor palates is substandard at best,” Robin grimaced at his half eaten sandwich. “The less said about his understanding of spice and texture, the better.”

“Eat it and shut it, brat,” Hood growled. “Or go home.”

“No, it’s okay,” Blackbird cut in, voice rueful under the modulator. “I know I’m not, like, the best cook. I know how to make simple stuff pretty well, but never got any formal training. So, yeah, I can feed people but I can’t really manage ‘gourmet delight’. I’m still learning. But Robin?” he added, voice sweetly pleasant. “Please keep in mind that all my food ingredients come from food banks. From supermarkets who bake up masses of bread because the smell is so welcoming, and then just toss it at the end of the day, even though there are hungry people literally panhandling at their doors. The bread is substandard because they don’t care about people eating it. They don’t even care about people needing it. I use it to make things because direct-lining food into landfill while people starve is a moral disgrace every bit as egregious and disgusting as guns or bombs or Joker gas. And you and Batman? Never once took on the people who perpetrated it. You didn’t even notice them. So, I guess as a mediocre cook I can safely say that makes you a pretty mediocre arbiter of justice, as a professional courtesy. You may have seen parades of terrible things, but you’ve never gone hungry.”

Without his facemask on, Robin's gaping mouth was on rare full display. It wasn’t often his opinions were called out so completely and with such erudite and brazen disdain. The silence stretched as the brat, for once, fumbled for some scathing response, and was hilariously forced to take a bite of his scorned sandwich as an excuse not to answer immediately, which nearly made Hood choke to death on his, trying not to literally die laughing. 

“You know what, Baby Bird?” Hood gasped out once his airways were clear. “You can ride with me any day of the week.”

Blackbird started in surprise, but then smiled so hugely you could tell even under all the PPE. “Thanks Hood. Always nice to make a friend.”

“I was not saying it was inedible,” Robin muttered resentfully. “Only that you could do better.”

“Yeah, I know,” Blackbird allowed. “Like I said, still learning. You should be glad with what you’re getting now. I’ve gotten a lot better than I was. My first attempts starting out in this whole vigilante food truck business were freaking sad. I had no idea what I was doing. I wasted so much stuff. Nearly quit, a couple of times. I didn’t think I would ever do any good.”

“You stuck with it, though,” Hood pointed out, curiously. 

“Some people… well, they helped me,” Blackbird admitted. “They told me to keep trying, that I could make it work if I kept at it. They were right. When COVID really started hitting hard, I was ready to hit back. I’m glad I didn’t talk myself out of it.”

“Me too,” Hood grinned at him. Then he made an odd face. The Pit was doing that weird almost sizzle thing again. Geez, he had to talk to his therapist, stat.

“Thanks Hood,” Blackbird smiled under his mask. “Did you find out anything about the Lightfoots?

Robin made a puzzled face at the name.

“Bits and pieces,” Hood admitted. “That Pastor fucker has a sheet. Hiram Lightfoot, nee Leister, fifty seven, born in Colorado, raised in Utah. Trained as an accountant. Born again in prison – petty embezzlement and one instance of domestic abuse. He apparently hit the bottle pretty hard and tried to William Tell a glass off his then-wife’s head with his registered pistol. He missed in all senses of the word; she, sensibly, filed for divorce. He got involved in one of those megachurches in the bible belt after he got out. He wasn’t a preacher, far as I can tell, but he got involved in their donation arm; collections, distribution of funds, budgetary committees, all that admin shit. Made a few friends, made a few enemies too. After he left, the church itself went completely bust. The pastors and the other executives were involved in some pretty fucking hinky shit; tax evasion, Ponzi schemes and sex trafficking.”

“Hiram Lightfoot was involved?” Robin asked, eyes keen with the promise of a case.

“Surprisingly, no,” Hood took another bite of his sandwich. “I’m still checking with some of my contacts in the area, but by all accounts Lightfoot wasn’t actively involved in the corruption. I don’t fucking doubt he was complicit but he never partook directly. The timing of his leaving and the church’s – well, I say church, but the people I spoke to were pretty clear it was more of a cult – downfall appears to be a coincidence only. The feds checked him out pretty hard because of his white collar conviction, but they found squat to tie him to it. And those church fuckers weren’t exactly subtle about their little side gigs and scams, either.”

“So he left to found his own church?” Blackbird raised an eyebrow.

“Some of his old congregation sought him out, apparently. I guess they thought he was honest. They got a tent and a bunch of stage equipment and hey presto, traveling tent revivals. He’s been all over, came up north and landed in Gotham. He’s got some good press with mommy bloggers and good ol’ boys clubs, so he got some takers when he set up shop here. COVID seems to have given him more; people are frightened and looking for guidance. They like listening to a man telling them they got nothing to worry about. His congregation has been cited a bunch of times for breaching curfews and mask mandates, but that’s being enforced pretty erratically as it is and he’s demonstrably giving a bunch of cash and time to charity work, so for the moment his little movement is getting away with being idiots.”

Blackbird’s eyes were sharp under the domino. “No indicators of any bad behavior anywhere else he pitched his tent?”

“Not as yet,” Hood admitted grudgingly. “Mind you, it’s weird that he moves around so much. He makes a fucking killing wherever he lands; I don’t see the logic in continually moving around. Seems like that’s spending money he doesn’t need to waste.”

“Perhaps he is fleeing before some undefined suspicion can fall on him,” Robin suggested darkly, looking more engaged than he had all night.

“That might be something,” Blackbird mused. “I mean, getting information on a real accusation is a lot easier than getting it on a vaguely defined bad feeling. It could be that a lot of towns were happy to see him go but they never fully investigated any wrongdoing because he left before it turned into anything tangible.”

“Right now, it’s all a fucking theory,” Hood shrugged. “I’ve got more research to do before I can say anything stinks. Listened to some of his sermons posted online; I can’t say much for his politics, but that asshole was definitely a theater kid. All drama and spectacle, not much on thoughtful biblical interpretation, plenty of subtle innuendos about grace needing to be earned and money being a sign of god’s love. In short, he’s a fucking white supremacist with good erudition, nothing we didn’t already know or suspect.”

“So other than keeping our eyes peeled for random boxes of food or our mysterious station wagon, we’re crossing our fingers,” Blackbird summarized gloomily.

Pretty much, Hood said inside his own helmet. The Pit – and it was the Pit this time – gave a restless kick. Maybe he could organize more foot patrols? His presence would probably act as a big fucking deterrent, especially if he got the word out that he was looking for a bait boxer and they would not be pleased when he found them. He knew a lot of folks in these parts, ones who wouldn’t subscribe to Blackbird’s fancy app or get too deep into food distribution because they, quite frankly, had enough money and/or connections to ride out this fucking crisis with minimal discomfort. Hood wouldn’t mind adding a little discomfort to their day if it meant an extra helping hand finding the bait box assholes. Hell, he may not even have to threaten many knees to get that shit done; the people round here may be criminals, but even they had fucking standards.

But it was all reactive. They’d need a big break to bust open the case.

Even as he had the thought, Hood fucking jinxed it. Rapidly pounding feet flew out of an alleyway connected to a body sprinting with such panicked momentum that the guy very nearly faceplanted on the service window. “Ya go… ya g’t…” he panted out.

“Slow down, kid, slow down… Sid? That you?” Hood asked, reaching out a hand to steady the wheezing teen. “Dude, are you having an asthma attack again?”

Sid reached out and grabbed him by the jacket. “There’s a kid…” he croaked out. “She’s a block over, she took some stuff, I think she’s dying!” he got out in a frantic rush of words.

“Fuck me!” Hood swore. “Come on!”

He was peripherally aware of Blackbird grabbing a bag strapped over the top of the service window and vaulting clean out of the truck through the gap, on the heels of Hood and Robin, who were in turn on Sid’s, who was racing at full steam back the way he came.

They hit the next block over running. Sid had a moment’s pause when he hit the street he was aiming for; there was a box and what looked like vomit on the sidewalk but no body to be seen.

“SID! OVER HERE!” someone yelled. A small crowd, mostly teens and most of them with Blackbird-supplied boxes, were standing around a streetlight over a prone figure.

They went for the group. The prone figure was indeed a young girl, who was shaking and convulsing, making horrible choking noises.

“What happened?” Hood barked as he turned the poor, thin girl onto her side and tried to clear her airways of vomit. Her tiny body convulsed again under his big hands. 

“I dunno, Hood, we found her on the ground, puking her guts up,” one shaken teen told him. “We moved her under the light but then she started having a fit or something.”

“You didn’t see her take anything?” Robin asked sharply.

They all shook their heads, eyes wide.

“I shall see if there’s any undigested pills in the vomit,” Robin grimaced and ran towards the origin scene. “There’s a food box here!” he called back.

“That food box isn’t mine. I remember all the people I give to and I’ve never seen her before,” Blackbird said grimly, unloading his bag. It unrolled to reveal a first aid kit, complete with saline, catheters and autoinjectors. “I see a lot of ODs,” was Blackbird’s explanation. 

Speaking of ODs, Hood started unstrapping things from his utility belt, as he took her pulse and checked the girl’s pupils. They weren’t pin pricked like he expected under the light, but she was clearly having trouble breathing. She could have been hit with a massive dose of opioid. Hood yanked out one of his naloxone nasal sprays and gave the poor kid a hit from it, watching with bated breath for any sign of improvement. 

The kid started convulsing and vomiting again, this time what came up was laced with blood. Her nose was gushing with blood and her gums were red tinged as well. Pin pricks of blood were starting to cling to her lashes as the sheer force of the convulsions broke delicate blood vessels under her eyes. Fuck.

“That’s not heroin, that’s rat poison,” Blackbird spat, grabbing an autoinjector. “She’s probably puked up most of it. Here, vitamin K1,” he shoved it at Hood. “It should help.”

Of course to do this they’d need to expose the girl’s thigh and in the chill she was wearing too many layers to risk jabbing her through her clothes and hope it connected. Hood grabbed the injector and started unbuckling the poor kid’s jeans.

The kid made a high pitched animal noise of pure terror and started thrashing weakly. Her glazed eyes came open and she started screaming in blood spattered panic “NOOOOOO! NONONO!”

Hood froze. Fuck, he thought. 

“Hey,” Blackbird said to the frozen crowd. “We might need some help here.”

One of the street kids unfroze. “Hey, it’s okay,” she handed off her box and knelt down, scooping the girl up in her arms. “It’s okay, it’s okay, shhhhhhh, no one gonna hurt you baby, shhhhhh…”

It was hard to tell if the litany of words did any good or if the kid went limp through sheer resignation, but Hood managed to expose just enough of her leg to hit her with the injector, and then hit her with another that Blackbird passed to him.

“Lee, did you call the Sister?” the street kid who’d taken the sobbing girl in her arms asked. 

“Yeah, I called her. She’s comin’, she said.”

There wasn’t much else to do but wait for Sister Desiderata, who was out most nights looking out for the street kids, homeless and sex workers. There was no thought of calling an ambulance; it wasn’t likely there’d be one to spare even if they willingly came into these parts at this time of night anyway.

Robin had a box in his hands. He spoke up before the crowd could awkwardly disperse. “Did anyone see who dropped this box?”

Various head shakes and a plethora of negatives answered him.

“Did anyone hear a car?” Blackbird added. “The engine would have sounded bad.”

“I heard a car like that,” one of the kids said. “I think it was heading for Canal, or somewhere like that.”

“Not Canal,” another one said. “If it came from Charleton Ave over there,” he pointed to the crossroad near where they were. “And ditched the box on the sidewalk where we found her, then it would have gone down Lucille Lane from here…”

“Back towards Deleary,” Hood nodded. “Okay, thanks guys.”

“And keep your eyes peeled,” Blackbird told them. “I’m not dumping boxes on the street at random. I’m giving them out face to face, or one of the volunteers will. They’ll have ID; ask to see it. If they don’t have it, don’t accept anything from them.”

Sister Des’ truck pulled up the same way. She didn’t bat an eye at the presence of the vigilantes, just asked for a sitrep and then loaded the now quietly crying but thankfully no longer convulsing young girl. Sister Des would bully her way to the front of the line at the free clinic and after they’d checked would take her back to the shelter she ran. The poor kid wouldn’t likely even get a bed; all the shelters were jam packed as the weather turned colder, but the Sister never turned away anyone in need. She’d set up a sleeping bag in her office if that’s what it took, and said so.

The girl said nothing. It was possible she still felt too ill and out of it, but Hood could see the dazed, broken look in her eyes. There were yellowing bruises on her thin arms and neck, and god knows what elsewhere. She was shut down. She was limp as a doll in Sister Des’ passenger seat as she took off into the night to save another soul.

The crowd dispersed awkwardly and silently, clearly uncomfortable and upset. 

There was not a single thing more demoralizing in the whole world than fearing the food wasn’t safe. 

And this had happened to a kid that had been running from fuck knows what to begin with. Hood had his dark suspicions.

The Pit wasn’t just kicking this time. It was fucking screaming in his head. He gritted his teeth and tried to breathe through it, the blood pounding in his ears and drowning out whatever anyone was saying around him.

He might have beaten it back enough to stay in control, except his questing eyes looked into the box Robin had collected and landed on a half eaten candy bar.

Hood blinked. 

He was facing a wall. His hands hurt. 

He looked down and there were massive, concentric circles of cracks in the brick. He’d done what his extremely expensive and planted with great difficulty subconscious protocols had told him to do; step away from anything living and breathing that wasn’t threatening him and punch a surface until the first, ugly wave of madness had receded enough for him to automatically start his breathing exercises. Even now he could feel the pattern; in, two three four, out, two three four. He did it ten more times, making sure his conscious mind was fully in the driver's seat before risking turning and taking stock of his surroundings. 

“Robin,” he said wearily. “Put the fucking sword down.” Because of course the demon brat had Blackbird pinned against a wall, sword at the other mask’s throat. 

“Hood, oh my god!” Blackbird’s domino lenses were wide with panic. “Are you okay? What happened?” Panic about him apparently. Robin’s sword was bothering him significantly less than it should.

Yeah, not a conversation he felt like getting into right now. He carefully toed the dropped box closed with a boot so he didn’t trigger himself again. “Short version, I’m quirky. Long version, none of your business. Brat, I ain’t sayin’ it again.”

“How did he conveniently have medical treatment for the very poison that was used on that girl?” Robin asked fiercely, not letting up. “The girl who was carrying a box of foodstuffs marked with this… person’s emblem, no less?”

Hood spied the box lid, and the kid was, unfortunately, right. There was Blackbird’s logo, stamped on the top.

“That’s not mine!” Blackbird burst out. “That’s one of my boxes but that’s not my food! I use cardboard containers, recyclable, not those shitty plastic ones! I have never in my life handed out a watery pot roast, stale bread and that shitty kind of candy bar! Someone grabbed one of my boxes from the trash, I bet! Check the date stamp!”

Hood checked the stamp. “He’s right, Robin,” Hood said. “The date is from weeks ago. They’re stamped for the night they go out, right? Yeah, this is definitely an old one. Reused, looking at the tattered flaps.”

“A ploy to misdirect the stupid,” Robin declared stridently. “Just like his saving the victim. What an excellent way to throw suspicion off of yourself.”

“Are you being serious right now?” Blackbird said in disbelief. “Yes I had an antidote for rat poisoning! I have treatment for bleach poisoning too! And ODs! And insulin! Saline! A whole pharmacopeia of other stuff too! Who the hell do you think is doing welfare checks on people right now? Who is noticing when the mail starts piling up, when people open the door and their eyes look all dim and flat? Who do you think notices when someone doesn’t answer the door at all, and then has to decide what to do next?” In a move both brave and foolhardy, he angrily shoved the katana away. “Do you even know what suicide statistics look like at the moment?! I admit, I wasn’t expecting it before finding my first body, but I wised up real damn fast, I can assure you!”

For a moment, all three stood still, Blackbird heaving with rage. It was the first crack Hood had ever seen in his otherwise mostly professional demeanor. Oddly enough, it kicked the last haze of the Pit onto the backburner. 

“Robin, drop the fucking attitude, we don’t have time,” Hood snapped, taking command. “Blackbird isn’t a suspect; fuck, I’m carrying some of the same supplies for the same fucking reasons, and I’m not fucking poisoning anybody. Speaking of, when we find those assholes I’m gonna skin them the fuck alive,” he screamed, the Pit briefly trying for a sequel. “Poisoning a candy bar given to a hungry runaway? They’re gonna fucking pray for death. And since we know they headed for Deleary, guess what? They’re about to run into the gamut known as the Pothole Derby from Deleary to Elliot to Henderson to get back onto Canal. We might be able to get ahead of them if we fucking move now!” The last was a roar.

It was echoed by an electric whine. Blackbird’s ever-faithful, uber-awesome Blackwing came skidding up, no doubt summoned by Blackbird before Robin got all paranoid.

They didn’t speak a word; even Robin grimly allowed for a truce as they jumped in Blackwing, their heinous box of evidence and a couple of hastily acquired forensic samples shoved into the back rigging, along with Robin since this ride was strictly two passenger. Blackbird was even kind enough – or at least, wary enough of Hood’s blazing temper – to let Hood take the wheel.

They blitzed into the night at top speeds. Hood knew all the shortcuts, and this little beauty was perfect for alleyway rally driving. It could slide through a few alleyways that were more for pedestrians than cars, and gamely knocked aside dumpsters where it found them.

They maintained the grim silence all the way to Canal, which Hood was beginning to believe was their perp’s entry and exit point. 

“They’re growing in confidence,” Blackbird murmured softly from the passenger seat. “First they just dropped boxes and left them to be found. They were too close to this scene; maybe they handed it off personally to the kid.”

Great, so they might have an actual witness, provided that a) that kid didn’t take a turn for the worse and b) they could even get her to talk at all. She’d looked benumbed by what had happened, too broken even for tears. His hands tightened on the steering wheel until it creaked. By all the gods and Alfred, he was going to make those fuckers pay for what they did to that kid. Even the fucking Rogues had more class than to fucking tamper with the food, with a couple of truly asshole exceptions. Even Condiment King, who should in another life be the most mental of mad poisoners, had drawn a line at going after the food itself. 

Hood parked the little engine under the cover of an alleyway that would probably look too narrow for a car to a casual observer. He killed the engine. Blackbird solemnly killed the lights and electrics. 

They waited tautly, almost in complete darkness. Blackbird’s breath could be heard faintly, but the other two didn’t make a sound.

They waited. And waited. Hood thumbed his comm line. “O, do you have microphones set up near Canal in the Bowery?” he asked quietly.

“The net is not extensive, but yes,” Oracle reported briskly. “I’m activating the system. What am I looking for?”

“Car engine,” Hood breathed. “Real bad sounding one. And if you can get any kind of eyes on a station wagon roving the same area, that’d be golden.”

“Stand by,” came Oracle’s response.

They waited. Red Hood and Robin had gone meditatively still. Blackbird was running his fingers silently over the colored balls on his bandolier that crossed asymmetrically across his chest armor. He was committed to the aesthetic; the armor itself had shades of a chef’s uniform in its fundamentals. He seemed to be counting or checking his utility pouches as a way of alleviating the tension. Hood added that to his profile; this kid had not been trained by serious combat specialists. They’d have taught him the trick of being completely still.

“I’ve got something. West on Raylon, heading for your last pinged location on Canal. Persnickety engine. I can’t pick up much from the cameras with its lights not running, but what little I can get from remaining street lights suggests car rather than truck.”

“ETA?” Hood asked, fingering the keys.

“Convergence in ten seconds,” Oracle calculated. “Five… four… three…”

Hood kicked the electric engine to life and exploded out onto the street. If he’d been in something heavier he might have tried to ram the fuckers but, tough as Blackwing had proven against dumpsters, Hood didn’t know how much stopping power it would have against another car in motion, even from the side, and especially considering Robin couldn’t secure himself at the back.

But he did time their leap onto the road for maximum shock, headlight blazing. It was enough to get the station wagon to slam on its brakes and swerve wildly to try to avoid them, which worked for their purposes.

Robin was out of Blackwing and sprinting towards the station wagon, sword drawn before Hood could call him back. The demon brat took a flying leap onto the bonnet of the car and rammed his blade through the windshield. “Exit the vehicle immediately!” he ordered authoritatively. 

“Robin, fuck,” Hood jumped from the Blackwing and Blackbird emerged from his side as well.

“Exit the vehicle now!” Robin commanded, driving the katana in further. Cracks spiderwebbing the safety glass.

Unfortunately, the driver was either over-bold or fucking panicking at the sight of a screaming, armed demon on their car hood. Red Hood heard the grind of the gear change before it went into reverse, slaloming back down the way it came, Robin forced to kneel and grip the edges of the hood for dear life to try to stay on top. The car went into a wildly uncontrolled spin, enough to force Robin to abandon ship and jump for his life, doing a controlled flip and roll onto the pavement before the car backed into a defunct street lamp and turned him into windshield pancake delight. 

“Hood,” Blackbird took off running towards Robin and the car, yanking at his bandolier. “Take out the back window!”

Hood drew his guns and opened fire as the car accelerated forward off the now leaning street light and pulled a squealing U-turn to make their escape down the street. One clean shot took out the back windshield in a shower of glass. He followed up with a couple more shots to see if he could spook the fuckers into stopping, but no dice. Honestly, some days he missed real fucking bullets.

Blackbird was in full sprint though, and managed to make up the distance between them and the escaping car with a burst of sheer effort, so when Hood’s shot took out the back window he was right up next to it as it screamed down the road. Blackbird took a flying leap, grabbing the back of the car and being dragged by it for a few heartstopping seconds by one arm while the other launched something into the back seat. Then he had to let go and roll as best he could to escape some killer road rash.

The car swerved wildly down the road and skidded around a corner, out of sight.

Hood reached Robin first as the kid was irritably picking himself up and dusting himself off. “What the fuck was that, demon brat?” he asked gruffly, giving the kid a surreptitious once over. 

“I thought it best if we at least had a description of the perpetrators. One male, one female. Middle-aged, Caucasian. The female passenger was overweight, average height, the male driving was tall and slim.”

Middle aged couple weren’t a typical textbook example of a poisoner of this nature; then again, this burg loved surprising him.

“Next time, let us pincer them first,” Hood said pointedly, heading quickly towards the rising Blackbird. “Then you can wave your pig sticker in their faces. You alright there Baby Bird?” he asked, giving the other mask a hand up.  

“Which way are the trackers indicating?” Robin asked imperiously.

“Oh,” Blackbird gave an evil smirk as the sound on the crappy engine receded with every second. “They weren’t trackers.”

“What?” Robin screeched. “You useless fool. How are we supposed to find them if we can’t–”

There was a loud pop the next block over and then a screeching noise, followed by a loud, angry crash that was definitely a car hitting something at speed.

Red Hood and Robin both looked at Blackbird.

Blackbird winked. 

Then he, cheerfully and at a sedate pace, walked calmly around the corner the car had tried to escape from and down the street it sped down. They followed.

At the end of the street was their target, rammed halfway up yet another much abused streetlight that was, against all expectations, still functioning. As they jogged closer and closer the sheer weirdness of the tableau became clearer and more confusing to Hood.

When it finally actually hit him what he was seeing, he stopped dead, mouth hanging open.

“What is this?” Robin sounded just as gobsmacked underneath the disdain of the delivery.

“Saccharomyces cerevisiae, hydrogen dioxide, hydrogen peroxide, surfactant, potassium iodide,” Blackbird ticked the list of ingredients off on his hands, smirking.

Hood ran that through his internal science knowledge database and cracked up laughing.

Robin made a face. “Yeast, water, bleach hair dye, detergent, and a vitamin supplement?” he asked, puzzled.

“Elephant’s toothpaste,” Hood managed to get out between great, heaving guffaws.

“I tweaked some elements for maximum reaction, of course,” Black added conscientiously.

The car was filled with foam. Great, swelling chunks of it were waterfalling out of the blown out back window. Lines of it were seeping out of the cracks between doors. Literally the entire car was filled. Whatever tweaking Blackbird had done must be impressive given the way it was literally piling up around the car, turning into a mound of foam.

The doors popped open either side and the people in the car rolled out of it, spluttering and flailing and, also, steaming faintly. The foam was giving off heat.

Red Hood and Robin obligingly went and grabbed a perp each, hauling them out of their foamy misery and into the middle of the street. Their skins were faintly reddened since hydrogen peroxide is not a recommended skin treatment, and their hair and eyebrows were, hilariously, patched with lighter shades. They didn’t even put up a fight; too bewildered and disorientated, trying unsuccessfully to wipe the stinging foam from their eyes. Robin washed each of their eyes out with eye wash from his field kit. This wasn’t an act of compassion by any means. He did it for the same reason Hood would have done it; he wanted these assholes to see him and feel the terror grip their hearts.

It was good to see their faces seize when they blinked their running eyes clear and were faced with the Red Hood looming over them. 

Blackbird was carefully poking around in the still foaming car. He came back both adorably foam bedecked up to his neck and carrying a slightly soggy but still intact box in his arms. He dumped it in front of the sorry pair sitting sullenly on the roadside. “There’s more,” he told Hood grimly. “The back was full of them.”

“It’s just food!” the woman said shrilly, making a game attempt and righteous anger. “It’s food for the needy! You’ve ruined it! All those poor souls are going hungry! You should look to God and pray to Him for His forgiveness for such wanton cruelty!”

“We forgive those who trespass against us,” the man said softly. He seemed a bit dazed; he was grinning in a distant, disconnected way. It was possible that he’d hit his head somewhere in the crash. 

“Forgiveness?” Hood towered up to the woman, voice as smooth as well-made blade. “If we’re talking forgiveness, who should repent for what happened to that little kid who picked up a box that looked just like this one...”

“Same containers,” Robin confirmed in a flat voice, inspecting the box with forensically careful fingers. “Looks like the same kind of food; same pot roast, old bread,” his eyes flickered briefly to Hood. “Same brand of confection.”

“... and ended up almost convulsing to death alone on the FUCKING STREET because some ASSHOLE had put RAT POISON in the FUCKING CANDY!” Hood roared at the top of his lungs.

The woman leaned back, goggle eyed. The man just squinted at him, eyes glazed and glittering. He seemed awfully relaxed and happy. He shot a look at the woman – probably his wife, since they wore matching wedding rings – and said in mild bewilderment. “Should we not feed the hungry, give surcease to the suffering?”

“I…” the woman looked slightly baffled by her husband’s demeanor but apparently decided to run with the concussion express because she narrowed her piggy little eyes. “Yes! That's right! We are out here doing the Lord’s work, unlike you foul unbelievers, you… you stain across the grace of God! There are hungry people here! We were doing our Christian duty and bringing them something to eat, something to ease their troubles! How dare you attack us!” she said with shrill anger. “Look at that mess! You’ve ruined all the food! What good have you heathens done while the horseman ride free, huh? None,” she spat. “None at all.”

“Ease their troubles,” Blackbird said flatly. “That can mean a lot of things. After all, who is troubled when they’re dead.”

The woman glared at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she declared ferociously. “I shall pray for your soul for it will burn in hell for your transgressions! And if you lay a finger on me, it’s nothing but a common assault from a common thug!”

“You were pretty eager to run away for people with nothing to hide,” Hood rumbled.

“That demon,” she shrieked, while her husband startled out of his almost-doze by her jabbing finger. “Put a sword through our windshield! You nearly ran us off the road! You people all attack good, decent, white folk around here! Of course we ran! We were scared! You,” she looked disdainfully at Blackbird’s pale skin. “Ought to know better than to consort with the likes of them.”

Blackbird’s lips pursed. “Oh. I see. You are innocent people, just trying to do a little good for the great unwashed, is that right?”

She sniffed loftily. “That’s right! Where’s your proof that we are anything but good Christians?” she fingered a crucifix brooch with zealous fingers. “You have none! And you won’t find it!”

“So you just came here to help?” Blackbird repeated carefully.

“Yes!”

“And not to hurt anyone?”

“No! Of course not!”

“You’re just handing out good… well, you’re handing out edible food to, like, any random person you come across?” Blackbird continued inexorably. “That’s it and nothing else?”

“Yes!” The woman yelled, making her sagging husband jump again. “What is the point of these ridiculous questions? You people are nothing but criminals! We are good, decent, hardworking folk and we shouldn’t have to answer to you!”

“Well, I’m just saying,” Blackbird dropped down, cross legged, onto the street, while one suspicious and one glazed stare followed his movements. “If that’s the case, then I should be able to safely eat anything in this box, shouldn’t I?”

The woman’s mouth opened and shut soundlessly.   

“I mean,” Blackbird began unpacking the box from its still slightly foamy box. “If all you’re doing is giving food to the needy, then you’ve got nothing to worry about, right? I’m, actually, starving right now, so I need it. Thanks very much!”

“Well… well… it’s not really for the likes of you,” the woman was slowly going pale. “It’s for the children! Would you be so morally destitute to steal food from the mouths of hungry children?” she tried for righteous outrage.

“Well, like you said, it’s mostly ruined anyway,” Blackbird said cheerfully, picking up the candy bar and ominously slowly stripping back the wrapping. It came away almost too easily. “So what does it matter if I take a bite? Oh, well, I guess it matters because if my eyes roll up and I start convulsing. Then Hood knows he can shoot you in the head.”

The woman’s eyes bulged. Her eyes darted up to Red Hood, whose helmet gave her no visual cues or reassurance, then to Robin, who between his katana and his almost full face mask was not a better option. “B-But… you don’t kill!” she gasped shrilly.

“They don’t,” Hood replied, smirking. “I do. All the time. I’m sure you’ve heard of me.”

It was clear by her blotchy grayish look that she had, indeed, heard of him. Her eyes bulged further as Hood casually drew out his sidearm and pointed it unerringly at her head. “Ready when you are, Blackbird!”

Blackbird broke off a piece of chocolate and reached for his face mask to disengage it.

“Wait!” the woman burst out while the man just began spilling rapid fire prayers from his mouth, his low mumble unintelligible white noise. “You can’t do this!” she raged desperately.

“I’m not doing anything to you,” Blackbird snapped back. “If the food is safe and you’re just doing some charity on the side, we’ve got no problem with you. You can go, free and clear. If you aren’t? Best say so now,” he recommended, brandishing the chocolate in his hands like one would wield a knife.

The woman's mouth opened and shut, her face dripping sweat as her eyes darted all over the place like an animal in the corner. Her husband was a lost cause, slurred prayers falling from his smiling lips, seemingly unaware of what was happening around him. 

“Well?” Robin hissed as the silence stretched. 

Blackbird reached up to start pulling off his face mask. Hood felt the first flicker of alarm. The kid wasn’t actually going to eat it, was he?

The man seized the front of the woman’s shirt, desperately shaking her. “All flesh is grass. All flesh is grass. All flesh is grass.” His face was alight, eyes on fire. 

“What?” the woman croaked, looking as baffled as the masks. “What do you…”

The guy shoved his hand into her mouth.

What the fuck? Was Hood’s thought even as both Robin and he leapt forward as a unit to separate them. 

The woman coughed and choked as Robin tore her away from her husband.

The most transcendent joy overtook her pudgy face.

Then she collapsed onto the pavement, convulsing and choking, mouth foaming and eyes building.

“What did you give her?!” Hood roared at her husband as Blackbird lurched for the woman and yelled at Robin to get the emergency kit from Blackwing, trying desperately to clear her airways. He seized the man in his grip and had a hand around his throat in an instant. “What the fuck did you give her?!”

“All flesh is grass,” the man intoned, his eyes disconnected and strange. Then he started laughing uproariously.

The next thing Hood knew both their perps were on the ground and convulsing and Blackbird was breaking out his poisons kit and Robin was prepping the woman for CPR and Hood was swearing and trying to get his fucker to yak up whatever the fuck it was he just swallowed…

For half an hour they fought and tried, waiting for an ambulance to show.

All for naught.

Chapter Text

“So it was a murder suicide?”

Jason sighed and sat back in his desk chair. “Honestly, I’m not sure what the fuck it was. Ken and Lola Stillman were definitely a little on the religious side and Lola had some pretty shit opinions about sexuality and gender and general promiscuity, but up until about four months ago, both of them most confined their small minded moralizing to the internet. They weren’t even a part of any problematic groups as far as I can tell, except as general lurkers. I don’t know if they would have disapproved of a bunch of armed fuckwits taking over the establishment and remaking the country into a theocracy, but they sure wouldn’t have been leading the pack, either.”

“How did it make you feel?”

“Really, Dinah?” Jason asked wryly. 

Dinah gave him an arch look. “This is a therapy session, kiddo,” she said from the Zoom window on the monitor. “If you want me to give you a criminal profile you should have called during mask hours. Now stop deflecting. Feeling. Go.”

“It was shitty,” Jason admitted.

“Note that I’m not asking what it was,” Dinah riposted. “How did it make you feel?”

“Shitty,” Jason said, even though he’d been through this defensive dance with her before and knew he’d never get away with it. 

“And…?” Dinah prompted.

“It’s kinda complicated,” he prefaced. “Like, they tried to poison a fucking kid, Dinah. Watching that kid hack her guts up and cry blood was bad enough, knowing I scared the shit outta her trying to help her was worse again. No fucking wonder I fucking lapsed. I’m just lucky Robin was there. If I’d snapped worse than I did, at least he knew the protocols. Blackbird didn’t; he’d have gotten killed tryin’ to stop me,” Jason’s voice went raw. He hated this part, admitting how out of control he got. How good it always felt and how bad he felt about that. He knew Dinah knew all his ugliest bits and hadn’t flinched yet where he could see, but a year in and it still sucked hairy balls.

“You thought you’d feel better about their deaths than you wound up feeling,” Dinah surmised.

“That’s a part of it,” he nodded. “I still don’t feel that bad about it either. Maybe a bit sorry for her,” he admitted. “She never saw it comin’.” Ken Stillman had called his wife ‘Lolly’ in all their social media posts, all their texts, even. She’d loved him, all shitty politics notwithstanding. Something was definitely off about Ken Stillman. He’d thought the man was all messed up because of the crash but now he was wondering if there wasn’t something going on before that. “But fuck me, if Ken Stillman hadn’t done what he did I’m not sure I woulda held back. They definitely wouldn’t have ended up in custody in pristine condition.”

“I get that,” Dinah nodded. “I probably would have busted a few noses myself. Do you think it’s all over then? Case closed?”

“Part of me wants it to be,” Jason replied. “Like, it’s all just so fucking ugly and shitty and I got more than enough of that. We still don’t know what the fuck actually killed them. The guy was definitely on something and he shoved something in his wife’s mouth. We couldn’t get her to cough it up, so we’re waiting on toxicology. They definitely weren’t drug dealers or drug takers as far as we can tell, but it sure looked like some kind of OD. It might run deeper than those two nuts. I gotta keep looking.”

“You don’t, you know,” Dinah pointed out gently. “You really don’t. You can take a step back for your mental health. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.”

“There is if people keep dropping,” Jason said darkly.

“That wouldn’t be on you,” Dinah retorted. “That’s unhealthy thinking, assuming that you are responsible for other people’s actions when they do bad things. You can’t just keep shouldering that burden, Jason. It’s obsessiveness like that that keeps the Pit active. I know it’s a rough pill to swallow, kid,” Dinah said wearily. “But you can’t save everyone. Not and stay sane.”

Jason blew out a breath. “Yeah, but I might need to keep at this case because if I don’t I’ll start stalking around looking for the shitheels that attacked Alfie. I know I said I was letting it go, but shit, Dinah, now I’m not so sure I’m as cool about it as I thought. It’s still really bugging me that we’re not getting anywhere.”

“So, you think this is displacement activity, in a way? You know that cases can take years to resolve, and Alfred’s might be no different,” Dinah said gently. “Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely get how personal some of them can feel. I’ve got a current case that’s over three years old now, outcomes are more than likely not good; but I still can’t bring myself to stop looking, even if it’s only on the side. Missing kids get to me. I know you think that hanging onto this is a bad sign but it’s good that you at least recognize that you’re doing that, Jay. You’re taking full ownership of your feelings. That’s an insane amount of progress from where you were a year ago.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re leading up to a crappy bit of homework for me, D?” Jason asked dryly.

“Because you’re a trained criminal profiler and an expert in body language,” Dinah replied unrepentantly. “And because you know how this goes. I want you to talk to Alfred about how you feel about his case going cold.”

“Fuck, Dinah,” Jason groaned. “I don’t wanna bug him with this. He’s recovering.”

“He’s not made of spun glass,” Dinah said immovably. “I think he might be able to offer you some valuable insight into your anger over it and how to manage it. Talk to him, Jay. It will help you clear out some of the emotional knots, which means less stress, which means less anxiety, which means less sensitivity on your triggers. That’s what we want. If you have too much on your emotional plate, what do you do?”

“I share,” Jason intoned. “Fine. I’ll try.”

“Good. And keep reaching out to people. I’d really like to see you expand your emotional support network more,” Dinah told him. “That’s vital, especially in these times.”

“I thought you said emotional entanglements were not what I was looking for,” Jason blinked.

“A year ago, absolutely. You weren’t in a stable place to deal with attachments, good or bad. Six months ago,” Dinah shrugged. “It still had the potential to go sideways but it was a possibility I would have let you explore if you showed interest. Now, though? You’re stable, Jay, and have been for a while. It might be time to start pushing at those safe walls a little. You may not believe it, but you actually do really well in social settings, lone wolf mythology notwithstanding. Your trauma has induced a kind of social anxiety that I think you need to confront.”

“You think I need to make new friends?” Jason asked dryly. 

“Everybody needs friends, Jay,” Dinah chided his arch tone. “You’ve made so much progress rebuilding what you had. It might be time to try building something new. New connections, new possibilities. I think you’re ready for it.”

Jason sighed. “I’ll think on it, Dinah. No promises.”

“Don’t think. Try,” Dinah advised him. “If it doesn’t work, hey, you’ve got time to try again. Remember, this is to help you reach your goal. When your restaurant is off the ground, you’re going to be dealing with strangers day in day out. It will be better to desensitize yourself to meeting new people now, so the transition into a well rounded civilian life isn’t as stressful. No stresses, no anxieties...”

“No triggers,” Jason nodded. “Yeah, I know. I’ll… try it and add it to my progress journal.”

“Good,” Dinah smiled. “Same time next week?”

“See you then,” Jason saluted and signed off. Then he sighed and scrubbed his face. He knew it was helping him, but therapy sessions always left him feeling drained.

His nose twitched. Cocoa and sugar flavors were wafting from the kitchen.

Cooks don’t cook at home. That’s an actual fact. Despite being able to create, plate and serve the most delectable degustatory delights known to man, at home a professional chef eats cardboard frozen pizza and box macaroni cheese just like everyone else. Partly because being a chef is such an enormous time sink that they don’t have the time to replicate their work in their private life, but mostly because if you’ve been standing over a hot burner for ten hours only to get yelled at by disgruntled customers, the last thing you want to do is even look at a kitchen when you turn in at two am. 

Even Jason hadn’t escaped that curse, though thanks to Alfred’s diligent and careful refinement of his palate, he had never quite slipped back into the junk food ghetto. He mostly got away with making huge batches of one or two different meals on his days off and freezing them for him and his team, which was a huge improvement over Dick’s perennial mainlining of sugary cereals at all hours or Bruce almost totally living off the most godawful protein shakes ever made. He’s pretty sure Steph and Cass live off box meals and takeout. None of them cook at home on the regular.

But here was Roy Harper, whisking by hand enough chocolate batter to make a hundred person birthday cake, various cookery trappings crowding out all the counter space available. His face was his mission face, both blank and focused. 

Jason made a lightning quick deconstruction scan of the ingredients. “Chocolate peanut brownies?”

“Chocolate covered peanut butter honeycomb cornflake crunch brownies,” Roy said absently, whisking away with his massive archer arms, squinting at the screen of a propped up tablet.

Jason’s eyebrows rose. If Roy was making brownies that esoteric and complicated, whatever he was working through must be a doozy. 

Another cliche; cooks might not cook but they are often stress bakers.

Jason came forward, hooked an ankle around one of the breakfast bar stools, sat down and deliberately dipped a finger into the batter to taste test, which was as good as an open declaration of war. “You wanna talk,” Jason asked Roy as the man levelled a cold sniper’s glare on him. “Or am I gonna full nelson it out of you?” He licked his finger. Not bad. Could use some more texture.

Roy stared at him.

Jason stared back.

Roy sagged. “I had to tell Lian she couldn’t have a birthday party this year.”

“Fuck,” Jason said succinctly. 

“Yeah,” Roy sighed. “She cried. Hey, I got off light. She didn’t tell me she hates me or anything,” his optimism was fighting a battle against the forces of melancholy, and getting its ass kicked. 

“Come on, man,” Jason clapped him on the shoulder. “Lian wouldn’t do that. She knows this ain’t your fault.”

“Yeah, but it just sucks, you know?” Roy went back to whisking while Jason started prepping baking trays, of which they had way too many. “This was her second year of big girl school. We’d gotten her over the separation anxiety hump, she’d made friends, she was loving it, finally. Now we have to explain to her why she can’t go to class and she can’t go over to her friends' houses to play and they can’t come to hers and just… fuck, man. There’s only so much she can take with a smile and finding out she couldn’t have a party was just the breaking point. She’s smart, but we can’t just logic away all the let downs. It’s crappy and it feels cruel. I feel like this plague just turned me into the shittiest father ever.”

“Look, we’ll think of something, okay?” Jason offered, genuinely worried this might be a breaking point for Roy too. He hadn’t seen his friend this down and out since Roy’s own ride on the rehab roundabout. COVID was making more and more cracks the longer it continued and masks were fundamentally broken people to start with. “We’ll come up with something incredible for her to do for her birthday, show her she can still have tons of fun, even if her friends can only come via Zoom.”

“A Zoom party,” Roy made a face. “I mean, it’s a start, I guess. I knew I wouldn’t be there in person, so Zoom was always gonna be a part of it.”

“Dude, you can take a rotation off for your kid’s birthday, fuck,” Jason snorted, plugging in the food processor. “Who said you couldn’t?”

“No, we worked out the schedule and I don’t wanna change it,” Roy sighed. “We’re trying to give her as much routine as possible. Besides, she’s really excited to see the restaurant all done up and she told me she didn’t mind if I worked on it as long as she gets to cut the ribbon at the grand opening.”

“Well duh,” Jason grinned. “Who else would we get to cut the ribbon?”

“And also,” Roy grimaced. “I need to get out there and just… do stuff. If I go back to Star that’s two weeks isolation that side and another two this side and fuck, dude, I can’t stand sitting inside four walls for another two weeks. I’ll starting shooting up, either my arm or the fucking building.”

Jason carefully measured out peanut butter and sugar and didn’t let on what he thought about Roy’s reference to his old habit. If something like that had slipped out, he’d clearly been brooding on it. He’d never go back, not with Lian in the picture and certainly not with Jason there fully prepared to haul him out and jam him into cold turkey detox, but ruminating on his past mistakes could be a trigger for one of his depressive cycles and they both tried to avoid those wherever possible.

“You ain’t going out tonight?” Roy asked, his voice very carefully not hopeful. “You’d usually be suiting up by now.”

“I am going out, I just ain’t going out as Hood,” Jason explained as he sorted through measuring cups. “And you’re coming with me.”

“What now?” Roy blinked.

“Midnight food drive,” Jason said. “They could use all the hands they can get. Fuck, we gotta keep those mutant arms of yours in shape somehow ‘cause you ain’t no good to me dropping your guns all over the joint.”

Roy glowered. “Fuck you, I ain’t never dropped my fucking guns, asshole, and I’ll fucking meet you on the field of honor for saying it. Ten paces at dawn. I pick the guns.”

“I pick the bullets. You’re on. Don’t worry, dying only hurts the first time,” Jason smirked.

“Lucky for you, then.” Roy was pure snark, but some of the tension had gone out of his shoulders, so Jason was counting that as a win. 

They left the apartment after batching up the brownies, two muscled tough guys delicately carrying two huge trays apiece down into the center of the Bowery. As long as Roy had to deplete their pantry stress baking, they might as well use it to feed some hungry mouths and Blackbird’s Feed Gotham app informed all comers that they took meal and food donations at the drive too, for kids and hungry volunteers.

The packing garage where it was being held wasn’t so far that the walk was onerous. Even before they reached it they could see what an absolute parade it was going to be. It hadn’t even started yet and the queue was three blocks long in either direction. And that was just people on the sidewalk. There were signs everywhere, some even being held by people in the middle of the road, telling motorists that the car queue couldn’t legally start until the official start time. Jason and Roy both sighted down the street, where various cars of all makes and models were literally just driving around, waiting for the time when they could go in. There were already dozens of them circling, and volunteers were setting up bolsters even this far away, indicating they might come in the hundreds.

“Jesus fucking christ,” Roy murmured, wide eyed as he took it in. “We gotta get that relief kitchen started.”

“No shit,” Jason muttered. “Fucking ASAP. Hey man,” he approached a sign bearer stating ‘Free Food’ on the sidewalk. “Are they still taking volunteer sign ups?”

“Dude, yes,” the guy grinned. “Fucking absolutely, you just gotta have photo ID. Walk the line until you find a lady in a red head scarf. Her name is Sati. She’s doing volunteer intake on this side.”

“Thanks,” Jason nodded. “You allergic to nuts?” he uncovered his tray and the blissful aroma of super rich brownies wafted up. 

“Duuude!” the guy crowed. “For something that smells that good, it ain’t even matter,” he gratefully took a fresh warm brownie, beaming like he’d just been handed a bar of gold.

Jason felt something settle in his chest, exchanging a grinning look of delight with Roy. It was an unbelievable boost to just be able to make people as happy as that. That, right there, was a reason to cook.

They walked up the lines until they finally spotted their target, a middle-aged woman in a bright red headscarf and an amazing nose-to-earring chain, dripping with charms. Jason was heartened to see they had to wait half an hour in the sign up line as the people around here were all stepping up to do their bit. 

Sati was happy to sign them in with a photo ID, like the sign guy had said, and she was all smiles about the brownies too. “Allah, those smell good. They had to have nuts in it,” she smiled ruefully. 

“What’s your favorite?” Roy asked her as he signed the forms.

“White chocolate raspberry,” she replied promptly.

“Next time, white chocolate raspberry it is,” Roy winked at her.

“I’ll have you know I’m happily married, young man,” she replied primly. “So if we’re going to do this I’m going to have to get a burner phone.”

Roy barked out a laugh as they went past the derelict garage gates and into the grease stained first floor, where a mass of volunteers were already at work. There were refrigeration trucks and actual fridges plugged into the walls. They were setting up trestle tables and countertops with hot plates to form a makeshift soup kitchen. There were mismatched old desks marching through the faded lines of the parking spaces, with signs for various social services, translators and other information that people could literally drive by and ask. Volunteers were busily marking pedestrian pathways amongst all this with traffic cones, and hanging up signs for what was where.

“Jason Todd, is that you?” a hearty voice boomed over the general anarchy. A woman with the shoulders of a linebacker in a nun habit bore down on them from amidst the anarchy. “Hey, gorgeous! Good to see you!” she was clearly grinning ear to ear, even under her frankly bedazzled face mask. 

“Sister Dez!” Jason beamed, for a second eleven years old again and revisiting one of his favorite parts of the day. “You’re looking good, Dez. You could make a priest forget his vows.”

“Shut your blasphemous mouth,” Sister Dez said, laughing. “You come to help? Bless you, child. I’d hug you, but circumstances being what they are I’ll have to settle for a blessing and a ceremonial jazz hands.” She performed them like an old stage hand, verve in every movement.

Jason snorted. “Don’t ever change, Dezzie,” he grinned. “Dez, this is Roy; roommate, fellow veteran, pain in my ass. Roy, this is Sister Desiderata. Don’t let that warm welcoming manner fool you, she’s a total hardass.”

“With cheeky young things that try to steal the tyres off my van? You better believe it.”

Jason felt himself flush as Roy laughed at him. “Yeah, yeah. In my defense, I didn’t know I was stealing from a nun, okay? And I did put ‘em back on after!”

“You bet you did, gorgeous, after I threatened to tan your hide from here to the Dixon Docks. I’ll feed anyone who comes, but I didn’t put up with any of that budding young criminal nonsense from anyone, even some dumbass would-be tyre thief,” Sister Dez said sternly. “And I was right, wasn’t I? You seemed to have turned out okay.”

Jason felt his smile go slightly tight. “Sort of, Dezzie. Sort of.”

“Aw, kid,” Des smiled at him like none of his sins mattered to her, because it was possible they really didn’t. “Let he who is without sin and all the rest of it. If I were in the business of judging people for their occasional missteps, I wouldn’t have lasted a day out here. Look at you! You look well, you got friends, and most important, you showed up,” Dez told him seriously. “There are people with far less burdens who haven’t done a tenth of that. So no dwelling tonight, kid. There’s too many people that need help to sit around moping.”

“That’s what we’re here for, Sister,” Roy answered when it was clear Jason was too thunderstruck. “You want to point us where we should go? I’ll come back for more dirt on this jackass later, pardon the language.”

“Watch your fucking tongue, young man,” Sister Dez riposted snarkily. “Are you a chef as well?”

Roy laughed. “Yeah, I am. Jay and I are in the middle of opening our own joint.”

“Great! We’re running the soup kitchen until one am or until we run out of donated food. We could use people who are certified. I don’t suppose,” she asked in a more weary tone. “You keep your professional certifications on your phones?”

“We need ‘em?” Jason was startled.

“For my money, no,” Desiderata replied swiftly. “I’ll take anyone who knows their way around a stove. But there are certain elements who… in their zeal to make sure everyone is safe, might have somewhat overly rigid adherence to food handling laws.” She said it with her eyes to the ceiling, tired exasperation showing in every line.

“You’ve got a bunch of rules nazi’s on your back,” Jason deduced.

“God does not give us burdens we can’t bear,” was the Sister’s rueful rejoinder. “But sometimes I wonder if He overestimates just a whisker.”

Jason snorted.

“Here,” Roy piled Jason with his trays. “I’ll shoot home and grab our papers.”

“Get my kitchen set too,” Jason said as he gratefully juggled a couple of trays of brownies to the nun. 

“Black or red?”

Jason thought about it. “Bring the black one. And there’s a bag in my room with a bunch of face masks in it. Something tells me we’ll need it.”

“Oh yes, absolutely,” the Sister sighed. “And if you have any spare fabric or clean cotton rags, old shirts, that sort of thing, bring that. Some of our retirees are setting up a mask sewing bee in one corner.”

Roy saluted and left the parking garage at a steady, ground eating lope. 

He was back before Jason had done much more than distributed brownies to grateful volunteers, taken a tour of the kitchens and staged an incredibly polite and respectful takeover of the space from the Interfaith volunteer who was running that area. The lady was a line cook and none too shabby making mass foods, but she anxiously admitted she’d never been called on to run something this big. There was a trestle set up along one whole wall of the building, with volunteers setting up dozens of hotplates and even a couple of electric stovetops had been hauled in and jacked into the grid – probably illegally, but then again, this was the Bowery. Jason was in his element here; he’d been cooking since he was six and had been working the hustle of major catering jobs since he was twelve.

Roy popped up when he was gathering his ramshackle but dedicated cooking and service volunteers, explaining to them about how the zones worked and how they were going to get maximum throughput in the kitchen. The goal was to get people in and out fast. They had some socially distanced seating, but they’d be encouraging everyone they could to do takeaway and get out at least into the open air, where it would be nominally safer to eat.

Then the gates were open and it was on.

The next few hours were a blur of work. It was by no means complicated foods; they went for soups, stews, omelets and toasted sandwiches. All simple fare that was filling and could be adapted to the needs of people with various dietary requirements and dental assets. Jason was glad he’d had Roy bring his knife and utensil roll; all the kitchen equipment the volunteers had scounged up was mostly cheap stuff. They’d done their best, but years as an actual chef had made Jason into a utensil snob.

As good as Jason felt about getting to school a bunch of fascinated volunteers on the correct way to slice and dice and how to do a perfect omelet in no time flat, a crippling sense of anxiety overtook him as the night wore on. There were so many. Most stopped at the soup kitchen when they hadn’t eaten in days. They were either flat out homeless or living by their fingertips and you would see the struggle grinding their faces, to the point where even the spark granted by a hot meal was fleeting at best. There were families, with kids, babies in arms even. The kids were so excited to eat in ways that made Jason’s chest hurt. 

The COVID wardens had their work cut out for them trying to keep their dining space under maximum capacity and keep everyone socially distanced as possible. Jason knew there were wardens up front, taking people’s temperatures. They never turned anyone away, but anyone who was clearly sick couldn’t actually enter; they had to wait outside for people to bring them stuff, keeping their distance. Jason was run off his feet taking toasted sandwiches out to them. He didn’t see any damn reason they should miss out on a hot meal.

No one gave them very much trouble. Maybe in earlier, more fraught days, there would have been more fights and posturing from henchmen and gangbangers, drug addicts and drug dealers all forced into the same space, but the crisis had been ongoing for a while now and everyone just seemed too worn down.

There were, of course, a couple of assholes that were snarky about masking up, but the mask policy was firmly adhered to; you mask up or you get fucking nothing. In the face of clearly stringent enforcement of the rule by the battalion of volunteers meeting and greeting at the entrance to the garage, most opted to mask up even if they did it with the sniffy haughtiness of one granting an immense favor to an irrational mob. The rest of the people held their tongues and didn’t start a fight over it.

“Jay, dude,” Roy told him as he hauled in another gross of eggs. “We’re running out of stuff. We got enough for maybe three more rounds, maybe four if we really stretch it.”

Well, fuck. Jason went to appeal to Sister Desiderata, who at 1am was still a pounding ball of energy going hither and thither with the rest of the Interfaith people running the show. 

“Nothing we can do, honey,” she sighed. “We brought in every last donation we could. We knew it wouldn’t be enough.”

Jason knew she was just as demoralized by it as him, but fuck it stung. “Could I raid the food drive stuff? I’ll work with whatever no one wants.”

“We can’t,” Desiderata sighed. “Council ordinances have cracked down on how we use donations and where we get them from. I’m sure you’ve noticed our learned friends,” her eyes coasted to the malingerers hanging around in the multitude of queues the packing garage had turned into. “Making sure we are… completely safe and within the law.”

Yeah, Jason had noticed those fuckers. They were a small but noticeable clique amongst the scores of people pouring into the food drive. They were weirdly well dressed and all wore face masks, but they’d hovered around the soup kitchen for a while, asking probing little questions about use by dates and safety and hygiene protocols, taking pictures and video, asking people about their food safety qualifications. They’d backed right off when Jason had loomed up to them and started reciting the entire Gotham food safety ordinances off the top of his head, one hand clenched around a frankly wicked looking ceramic flensing knife and the other pointing like a steel bar towards his own culinary graduate certificate which was pinned up next to Roy’s on the pinboard.

He’d wondered, up until that point, why they needed to hang them. Looking at this bunch of spineless, bureaucratic bullies it became crystal clear. They probably clogged the Health Department with complaints about the food drive. Blackbird had said it, hadn’t he? They were looking for any reason to shut them down. Jason was pretty sure these assholes were some, if not all, of Lightfoot’s people. He cross checked it with the other volunteers who all gave him weary if grateful smiles, and was unsurprised to learn his hypothesis was on the money.

He kept his eyes peeled, but they were consigned to the backburner when they ran out of food and they were forced to give the stomach-imploding news to the line that was still going. Jason would remember those desperate, disappointed looks for a long time. The Pit churned angrily at the helpless feeling boiling up inside him.

Thankfully, Roy was there. He clapped Jason on the shoulder and looked him in the eye before the feeling could make the Pit try for a hostile takeover. “Me and some of the others are going to head up to the pantry levels and get crackers and biscuits and that kind of stuff for them to take if they got ‘em. Sister Dez said they piled ‘em on, just for this. It might not be a hot meal but they’ll be fed, Jay. They were ready for this.”

Jason breathed out. “Yeah, yeah, I know,” he sighed. “I’m good, man, thanks.”

“You ain’t,” Roy told him shrewdly. “And that’s fine. Fuck, I fucking hate this too. I knew it’d be bad but when I went up to the upper floors to sightline the car queue… fuck, it stretches to the fucking horizon. I never in my life wouldn’t guessed it would be this bad and I’m a fucking cynical bastard.”

“We gotta get that kitchen running, Roy,” Jason said grimly.

“We gotta fucking get that kitchen running,” Roy agreed. “You wanna go up with us?”

“Nah, I’ll check in with Dez and see if she needs some heavy lifting done,” Jason decided. “Or I’ll go pack boxes into trunks. Hey, Roy,” Jason said seriously. “Those fuckers that were buzzing around the kitchen? Keep your fucking eyes on ‘em. Listen to what they say if they approach anyone here. I don’t fucking like ‘em. I don’t think they’re just here to be nuisances. They’re trying to red tape these people to death. This feels deliberate to me.”

“Assassination by paperwork, awesome,” Roy’s mouth twisted. “I’ll keep my eyes peeled.”

There was, in fact, plenty of heavy lifting to get done. They had volunteers walking the queue, getting checklists of what people needed and radioing it into the hub, where rows of packers were hard at work assembling care packages, so that when the people got here they could get the boxes into trunks or back seats and get them moving through again. There were so many people, they were trying to create as small of a jam as possible. Jason’s muscle and stamina proved useful here, as he could tirelessly carry boxes hither and thither for days and give some of the volunteers a chance to rest. Many of them were either very young or very old, not even comfortable enough in their own lives but still working their fingers to the bone for others that had even less. The physical activity helped Jason feel a lot better. The Pit, never fully tame, at least went quiet.

“Hey, is someone from security around here?” one of the floorwalkers with the walkie talkie for this level called out. “Security? Anyone?”

Jason raised a hand. “I’m not security, but I’ve got experience. Is there trouble?” The drive had been largely peaceful but Gotham always had a fight or two going, even here. The few incidents they’d suffered had been disarmed without violence.

The floorwalker looked him over and apparently decided his six-three and clearly in training frame would be adequate for the job. “Some of the Lightfooters are bothering the appliance people on the second floor. They won’t leave.”

“Roger,” Jason nodded. “What’s the limit to what I can do?”

“My limit is punching them in the face,” the floorwalker said with exasperation. “The assholes. The legal limit is we can’t strike the first blow and fifty-fifty we’ll get away with even defending ourselves. The Lightfoots have friends in low places.”

“Hmmm… so get creative with ‘accidents’, got it,” Jason said to general laughter. Someone shouted after him to get video. Not, he thought to himself as he headed down the stairwell, the worst idea. “Roy, you copy?” he discreetly thumbed his ear bud.

“Copy,” Roy echoed.

“Loco?”

“Walking around handing out crackers and cheese to the homeless folk. We actually had to steal it from our own fucking pantry and smuggle it past those fucking holy rollers. We pulled a damn fine Gotham Bait and Switch caper on them, it was fucking magnificent. Gotham kids bring it.”

“They always have,” Jason grinned. “Can you take five? I might need to get some video evidence and I’ll need my hands free. Second floor, appliances.”

“Roger, ETA minute and a half, tops. Don’t start a rumble without me, you fucker, I’m in for a good fight.”

Jason snorted and thumbed off the earbud, banging through to the second level of the parking garage with his usual subtlety. 

It looked like a junkyard, but orderly. They had lined up rows and rows of mismatched kitchen appliances, countertop ovens and various cooking ephemera as well. There were cars packed in a gridlocked queue, horns beeping, while what looked like an argument going on at the makeshift service counter raged. A skinny and tall woman had actually gotten out of her car and was furiously raining hellfire down upon a tall, broad shouldered and unmasked older man while the service counter people tried to keep the peace.

The back of one looked awfully familiar.

“Tim? Jason asked, astonished.

Tim jumped and spun around, looking startled. “Uh… Jason?” Then winced when the microphone headset wired to the speaker on his belt squealed with backfeed. It was noisy in here with all the cars; Jason guessed Tim didn’t stand a chance of being understood with his voice issue.

“What are you doing here?” Jason frowned, puzzled. This kind of thing wasn’t exactly the beat of the Five Families of Gotham.

“Uh… I work here…?” Tim replied tentatively through the speaker.

“Tim’s our appliance handyman, dude,” said the volunteer behind the counter, who was in a wheelchair. “Has been for, like, years.”

“Um, yeah,” Tim nodded. “I know I haven’t got the degree but it’s not like they’re supercomputers or anything either.”

“Are you telling me,” the big guy in the middle of the argument piped up in syrupy tones. “That none of these appliances has been repaired by a certified electrician?”

“Who the fuck cares?” the skinny woman burst out at the top of her voice. “I got two little uns at home and my food processor’s broken! I just came here to source another one when this asshole,” she jabbed a finger at the man. “Came busting in and giving me a bunch of shit about taking handouts!”

“That’s not exactly what I said,” the man said calmly. “Not at all. I think you misunderstood. I was just admiring your car, and I merely mentioned that it’s a classic 74 Corvette and worth a lot of money. I simply asked why someone with such an expensive car would even need to come to a food drive. There’s so many who need and we have so little; anyone who can afford to hold out should make way for those most in need.”

The woman gaped at him under her face mask. “And you fucking with me right now?! I got the car from my fucking dad because he fucking died from the fucking ‘rona and now I got a grieving mother living in my shitty two bedroom wondering when it’s her turn, four kids and their father in hospital with no fucking income, bills piling up and NO FUCKING WAY TO FEED MY BABIES YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!” 

She was right up in his astonished face, screaming. Her kids were fidgeting in the back seat, restless and upset.

“Please, calm yourself,” the man held up his hands, placating. “I didn’t mean to imply anything, I was just checking.”

“Oh, so you’ll check on me, the greedy, grasping, black welfare mother. I saw three white families in front of me and one of ‘em in a fancy new sedan and I didn’t see you checking their bonafides! I’m sorry,” she burst into tears. “I’m sorry, I can’t do this, I’m sorry.”

“Mommy?” said a soft voice inside of the car.

Okay, fuck, this had all gone completely sideways.

“Ma’am, I promise you, I was asking them the same…” the man tried.

“Oh, fuck off,” Tim snarled coming forward and herding the distraught woman away from his platitudes. “It doesn’t even matter if you were. It’s none of your damn business who gets served or why they come here. If Bruce Wayne rolled up here in a limo we’d serve him too. We don’t discriminate, which is, as I remember, the reason why you were asked to leave the coalition, Pastor Lightfoot.” Disdain dripped from every word.

Jason refocused on the big guy. So that was the fabled Hiram Lightfoot, huh? He discreetly sightlined Roy shadowing up on his four and crooked a finger towards the Pastor. Film him.

“Tempers are very high right now, I understand that,” Lightfoot was still holding his arms up in surrender, voice contrite. “I’m just trying to make sure everything is fair and everyone gets what they need. I’m very sorry ma’am, I never meant to insinuate that you didn’t have needs, you clearly do. Timothy, please calm down. There’s no need to start a big fight with this. I only came up here because I don’t want anyone to get given defective electronics on top of everything else. I’m sure this lady doesn’t want to put her children in danger with some faulty food processor dug out of a dump and while you’re very bright, you’re not certified. One lawsuit and the entire coalition collapses.”

“Mister Drake,” was the ice-riddled answer.

“I beg your pardon?” Lightfoot blinked.

“To you I am Mister Drake,” Tim replied, voice as flat and calm as a frozen lake. “I never gave you permission to use my first name so familiarly and I’d thank you not to assume you can.” The microphone helped, but it was the sheer old-money arrogance that drove every syllable home. Jason may not think much of the kid’s antecedents but he couldn’t deny the confidence it gave him in this moment was pretty impressive. “And furthermore? It is not your job nor your right to come in here and make demands or do health and safety checks. You,” the pronoun fairly drowned in naked contempt. “Are no longer a part of the coalition. And since you have made it quite clear that neither you or your people need anything, maybe you can make way for the people that do.”

Lightfoot gave a little laugh. “Come now, come now! Young men, always so ready to bristle! It’s not very exciting, T.. Mister Drake, but even a charitable concern has to follow the law and the law says we can’t give out anything electrical without it being checked by a certified electrician and last I heard you hadn’t completed your degree. Close, as they say, only counts in horseshoes. I’m sorry, but I can’t in good conscience allow this to continue.”

“Are you FUCKING KIDDING M–” the woman started, then stopped when Tim thrust up a hand gently but firmly. 

“Cod,” he said softly, turning to the other attendant, who was sitting in a wheelchair still behind the makeshift service counter. “License number, please?”

“34EB00779758, as issued by the Board of Examiners for Electrical Contractors of the State of New Jersey,” the man – Cod – replied coldly and evenly. “Valid until 2023, August. I can show you the paperwork if you like, Pastor.”

“And have you checked all the electronics being given out here in accordance with Ordinance 33587 of the North Island Municipal Council, as it applies here?” Tim continued as the Pastor’s face slowly went blank.

“I have,” Cod replied like he was swearing in court. “We have video evidence of the checks and logs as well.”

The silence stretched and stretched as Tim’s cold gaze met the Pastor’s blank one.

And then, just as the fucker opened his mouth, Tim talked right over him. “Then there’s no problem here except Pastor Lightfoot’s continual breaking of the mask mandate, which is, in fact, breaking the law as I understand it. With due respect to your eagerness to help,” the sarcasm was chilly. “I’m asking you and your people to leave. You’ve been warned.”

“There’s no need for this hostility,” Lightfoot pleaded. “I care about these people, the same as you Timo… Mr. Drake. I thought you and I might talk more about…”

“No,” Tim replied to this. “Not the same as me, sir. Get out.”

“In case you’re wondering,” Jason decided to use his looming powers for good. “What he’s too polite to say is, fuck off right now or prepare to get dragged out of here by your fucking toupee.”

“And don’t forget,” Roy added cheerfully, brandishing his phone. “I’m livestreaming this whole thing right now.”

The Pastor’s lips thinned. “Of course, we don’t want any trouble,” he said delicately. “If you feel we are of no use here tonight, we will, of course, leave. Peace be with you.”

“It’d be a damn sight more peaceful without you here!” the woman snarled at him. “Fuck OFF, you racist piece of shit!”

The Pastor said nothing, and wisely left quietly.

“Darla?” Tim said quietly as the tension dissipated. “Are you good?”

“Yeah, I… ” she was starting to cry again, tears dripping down her face and onto her mask. “I had my checklist thingie but I think I lost it.” It wasn’t anger this time; she had clearly hit her limit. She was overwhelmed. 

“That’s fine, we can fill out another one,” Tim said soothingly. “How about we just get you parked somewhere for a minute while we… sort some things out.”

“Mom? Are you okay?” a very young and very solemn voice piped up from the car.

“I’m okay, baby,” Darla managed to keep her voice barely level. “We’re just going to stop here for a little minute.” She visibly tried to pull herself together, but flinched when the cars behind hers began to honk. Not their fault; the queue had already been hours long for some and it was the wee hours of the morning. People were tired and hungry and humiliated enough having to take charity; patience was thin on the ground, even though they were doing their best.

She was shaking so bad that Jason stepped forward. “Where do you want her to park?” he asked both Tim and Cod, who looked at each other. 

“There’s a space cleared over by the stairwell,” Cod told them, digging around in a box at the foot of his wheelchair.

“I’ll take the car,” Roy volunteered since Darla seemed too shaken to consider getting behind the wheel. “If you don’t mind, ma’am?”

Darla, oddly, looked to Tim for guidance.

“He’s cool, I promise,” Tim told her levelly, which, amazingly, she accepted without question.

Roy got handed a set of keys and a handful of cookie packets Cod shoved at him to distract the kids as much as they could. He gently steered what Jason had to admit was a fine car over to the free parking spot. Darla sat down on Tim’s chair and tried to compose herself.

“Can you… help me clear the backlog?” Tim asked Jason quietly, not looking at him.

Jason found himself walking the queue of cars, asking people for their checklists that had been filled out by a bunch of tireless and diligent volunteers walking the queues all the way back for miles, trying their best to make the process as smooth and quick as possible. They’d written down what the people said they needed; kettles, mixers, hotplates and so forth. Once Jason knew what they were looking for his job was to go back to the neatly stored rows of appliances and pick one he thought would suit the household size it would serve. It was a lot of going back and forth, distributing rice cookers and blenders and every other thing of every description and use. The volunteers had also written little helpful notes – it’s Amelia’s birthday, see if you can find her a popcorn maker or K. says he only needs a kettle, but see if you can convince him to take a ‘spare’ blender. Poverty had its pride, it seemed. A lot of the people still coming through that weren’t families were elderly folks, who felt the stigma of asking for handouts, as if their current circumstances were a personal failing and not a systemwide disaster. 

Jason proved surprisingly adept at getting them equipment that they didn’t think they had the right to ask for. 

Sister Desiderata was finally able to throw some more volunteers their way to help and soon everything was running smoothly again enough for Jason to check in with Darla, who had mostly cried herself out. 

Tim was with her. He’d stripped off his mike at some point and was sitting on the greasy parking lot floor, helping her refill in her forms. There was nothing but concern on his face as he went through the process with her, no pity or condescension to grate against her fragile nerves. Jason felt the Pit rise again, but it felt different again, the urges cross wired and confused. 

“Hey, uh,” Jason intruded carefully into their quiet little space. “Found you a food processor. Looked brand new, still in the box,” he held it up.

“Oh,” Darla blinked at him. “Thank you,” she took it. “This is a nice brand for a donation,” she added, looking slightly brighter.

“Honestly, we probably found that in the junkyard,” Tim murmured in his quiet voice. “That’s where we find a lot of our stuff.”

Darla frowned. “But it's still in the box!”

“Yeah, that’s how we find a lot of them,” Tim sighed. “You’d be amazed what people throw away in this city.”

“You’re fucking with me!” Darla was astonished. “This thing is worth, like, five hundred off the shelf! And someone just threw it away?”

Tim shrugged.

“Conspicuous consumption,” Jason muttered. “Ain’t it a fucking blast.”

Darla snorted a laugh. Tim shot him a grateful look.

Since she was mostly feeling better, they had to send Darla and her kids on their way. Roy had been patiently playing babysitter, still in the driver's seat of the car and keeping the clearly overtired kids distracted with party planning, of all things.

“But she’s gotta have balloons,” one girl was protesting stridently. “It’s not a real birthday party if you haven’t got any balloons!”

“Okay, so balloons are a must-have,” Roy noted that down on his phone. “And a cake, obviously.”

“But how is she gonna share it with people?” another kid piped up from the back. “Why would anyone come to the party if they can’t get cake? Or party bags? I wouldn’t go to a party if I couldn’t have cake!”

“It’s her birthday, not theirs, doofus!” the girl in the passenger seat said with elder child authority. 

“Yeah, but birthday cakes are huuuuge!” her brother protested, nearly jostling the dead asleep pair of toddlers next to him. “How’s she gonna eat it all by herself if no one is there!”

“Well…” the girl had a constipated frown on her face when faced with an unexpectedly worthy point made against her. “Maybe she could have a cupcake?”

“A cupcake? For a birthday?” The disdain was clear.

“Shhh, don’t wake up the littlies,” Roy said soothingly. “Streamers and party poppers? Yes or no?”

“Yes!” said the girl

“No!” said the boy

“Why not?!” demanded the girl.

“Party poppers are for everyone to pop. How are they gonna pop ‘em if there’s no one there?”

“Alright, you little monsters,” Darla’s voice rang with maternal authority. “Stop giving this poor man bad party advice.”

“They’ve been very helpful, ma’am, I promise,” Roy assured her. “Apparently ‘Mermaid Princess’ is the theme this year for the five-to-seven bracket on Zoom.”

Darla snorted. “Zoom party, huh?”

“For my little girl, yeah,” Roy obligingly showed a picture as per mandatory parent legal code. 

“She’s a sweetie,” Darla smiled tiredly with her eyes. “I’ve been to a few of those Zoom birthdays this year. We might be doing one ourselves pretty soon, right Georgie?”

“Yeah,” the girl in the passenger seat sighed.

“Hey, you might know; what kinds of party games can you do via Zoom?” Roy asked. “There’s a bunch of ideas on the net but they’re not really telling me what actually works and what doesn’t.”

“Oh, there's a facebook group that all the folks in my kids' schools joined,” Darla told him, loading her food processor in the footwell under tiny, sleeping feet. “Zoom Party Workshoppers. It’s pretty legit, they go into all the nitty gritty details and have star reviews for what works. They also have ideas to suit, like, parties of different sizes and ages.”

“Oh, awesome, thanks,” Roy said cheerfully.

“We got some good traction with a home scavenger hunt,” Darla grinned. “Karaoke was so-so, depends on the kids’ confidence levels. Fashion and cosplay shows were okay, but that can be hit or miss, depending on the resources of the households of the kids.”

“Yeah,” Roy’s nose wrinkled. “Lian’s friends are from all over the spectrum in an economical sense. I don’t want to put some kid on the spot because they’re coming from less than the others.”

“Honestly, if you want to make sure everyone is included, your best bet is probably live streaming a movie,” Jason offered.

“Yeah, but everybody does that,” Roy sighed. “I mean, I get it, people do it because it works but it just doesn’t feel all that special, you know? Like, she can sit down and watch a movie anytime. It’s a party, everyone should be able to actively participate in a party.”

“What if…” Tim started quietly, then stopped. He darted his eyes around as they all looked at him, looking like he was regretting speaking up. “What if you, uh, did a cooking class?”

Roy blinked. “A what?”

“Um…” Tim’s eyes darted to Jason and his ears went faintly pink. “J-Jason used to do cooking shows online, right? And even the less well-off kids would likely have access to a kitchen. Well, um, you could host a special live stream cooking show, and, like, you could teach all the kids to, um, make Lian’s birthday cupcake or something. So everybody gets to have cake and they learned to make it themselves too. You could make it like, a Junior Master Chef show with, like, prizes and stuff too, if you wanted to go all out. A special cooking show, Lian’s Birthday Bake Off or, uh, something.”

Roy and Jason both looked at each other. Roy’s eyes were wide. “Dude,” he said to Jason gleefully. “We could totally do that. We could have Babs run IT and set up some camera equipment in the kitchen.”

“We could send out mini-chef baby’s-first-baking-kits to the kids,” Jason added, warming to the idea. “Like a party pack, ready for the big day. We might even be able to swing sending non-perishable ingredients with the packs, so nobody is too out of pocket.”

“We send it out with the invitations,” Roy nodded, following the thread. “I bet you we could bulk purchase the kits and get them branded with our joint’s logo in time,” Roy added, frantically typing into his phone. “Damn, I’m gonna have to get a list of what Lian’s class’ dietary requirements are.”

“You used to do a cooking show?” Darla squinted at Jason, then her eyes widened. “Holy criminy, you’re Jason Todd!” 

“Uh… yeah, that’s me,” Jason resigned himself to some gushing. Being the son of Bruce Wayne had a bunch of pitfalls and the endless fascination of the public was one of them. Jason was lucky, he mostly skated on that one because he was known for being the reclusive son.

“My brother used to love your Youtube videos,” Darla told him. “He’d watch them all the time.”

“Me too,” Tim murmured, almost inaudible. “Lattimer went to culinary school, didn’t he?”

“Sure did!” Darla beamed. “It’s in Georgia, because he couldn’t really afford anything on the East Coast, but he got in all right!”

“Awesome,” Jason smiled. “I’m opening a restaurant up soon, let me know if I can’t find a spot anywhere once he’s certified. I’m trying to hire people from the neighborhood if I can.”

Darla was over the moon at the chance to tell her brother that and thanked him profusely. Even though the pandemic had clearly hit her and her family extra hard, she left with a huge grin on her face, her worries briefly lifted from her back.

It did Jason’t morale some good as well. Okay, so there were way too many people who needed so much and it felt like they were fighting a losing battle but it wasn’t all doom and gloom. He’d managed to make that lady’s night, apparently inspired a young baby chef on his own turf and Roy was clearly in a lot better mood now that he had a way to make up to Lian for not having an actual party this year.

So of course that was when Jason stuck his foot in his mouth with Tim again. “So you, uh, you watched my old channel, huh?” he essayed carefully, mindful of Dinah’s admonition to push his social boundaries and get to talking to people again.

“Oh, uh, yeah,” Tim’s ears went red again. “Um… I really liked them. They were easy to follow and you know…” he shrugged. “I liked them,” he finished, clearly aware he’d fumbled the landing.

Jason grinned at him. “It’s hard to imagine someone like you getting much out of learning to bake a four ingredient cookie or scrambled eggs. You probably had a bevy of personal chefs at your command.”

Tim blinked at him, exhausted. Then his blue eyes over his mask went chilly. “I didn’t, actually,” he replied frostily, drawing himself up. “And I think that anyone should be able to get the s-satisfaction of knowing how to make things for themselves. Even someone like me.”

Taken aback, Jason felt himself fumble for a response. “I didn’t mean to imply you shouldn’t like cooking or something. It’s just that you were raised rich and I just… you wouldn’t have had many reasons to need to cook, I meant. I think it’s good that you do, not enough kids in your position take an interest, or would even come to help out with shit like this.” Jason waved his hand to encompass the massive food drive, sincerely and earnestly complimentary to the efforts Tim had been putting in.

Tim blew out a breath. “Right. Fine. Whatever. You clearly have me all figured out, just another spoiled rich brat. If you’re through judging me from my name, Jason Todd-Wayne, I’ve got actual work to do. Somebody has to occasionally dirty their hands looking after the peasants, after all. It’s good photo-op for the brand.” Then he turned around and stalked off, leaving Jason staring at his retreating back, robbed of speech.

“What the actual fuck was that?” Roy’s astonished voice broke into his stare.

“Fuck! I did it again!” Jason swore, about ready to tear his hair out.

“Again?” Roy cocked his head.

“Every time I try to talk to him, I end up insulting him somehow,” Jason despaired. “Like, not on purpose! I can call someone an asshole to their face if they’re an asshole! But he’s not! And I keep saying the exact wrong thing every time I meet with him!” Jason sagged. “I dunno if I’m ready for this pushing social boundaries thing.”

Roy cracked up laughing. He was literally clutching his sides, doubled over and shaking with it. “Oh my god,” he wheezed. “Oh my god you…” he chanced a look at Jason’s constipated expression before laughing harder, so hard he actually fell over doing it.

“Are you done yet, asshole,” Jason snarled at him, feeling his ears start to glow. “Because I can kick seven kinds of shit out of you anytime!”

“Okay, okay, sorry, sorry,” Roy giggled from where he was prone on the floor. “It’s just… I haven’t seen you like that for… for a long time,” he added softly. “A long time, Jay. It just… it was good to see. It’s good to see you like this again. You should go for it, you’re past due.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Jason asked irritably.

“The last time I saw you fumble that badly you were trying to tell Donna Troy you had a crush on her,” Roy said pointedly, sitting up. “You’re a suave motherfucker with all comers with one glaring exception, Jay. People you actually like. Like, romantically. That’s when you turn into the biggest, foot-in-mouth stuttering doofus the world has ever seen. It’s pretty fucking funny.”

Jason bluescreened. “What the fuck?” he said, his voice hitting an octave it hadn’t hit post-puberty. “You think I like him?” He didn’t, did he? I mean, it wasn’t like he hated the kid or anything. But, like, romantic attraction? Wouldn’t he know it?

The Pit was doing its weird cross signal thing again.

Except now Jason wasn’t sure it was the Pit at all. The Pit overtook so much of his personality that a lot of his therapy had involved separating his actual emotional responses out from the label of ‘Pit’.

He closed his eyes and thought of Tim. Short, shy, blue eyed, endlessly caring Tim.

His chest did the thing. He’d never even realized it had been doing that this whole time.

“Yeah, I don’t think shit, genius,” Roy said knowingly, looking at the dawning realization speeding across Jason’s face. “I fucking know.”

Well, Jason thought. That’s going to be a hell of a thing to add to the progress diary. 

Chapter Text

Blackbird sidled into the room as noisily as he could. He didn’t think Roxanne Harrison was in any shape to be startled.

She startled anyway. There was an IV cannula in her arm and she was poking at a tablet in her lap without much enthusiasm. When she looked up at him, her sclera were still bloodshot and her look was something akin to a small animal trapped in a corner.

“Hey,” Blackbird said to her softly. “I just came in to check how you were going.”

She looked down at the tablet and shrugged silently. 

Blackbird admitted that he wasn’t the best comforter in the world. He wanted to help people and he always tried his best to do so, but all the good intentions in the world couldn’t wipe away the immovable complication of social anxiety. He was good at helping people but his ability to actually interact with them was more hit-and-miss. He got hits consistently when he was giving out food, which was not an option here for a variety of reasons. 

“Sister Des said they managed to get you in contact with a social worker and a slot in the youth home on Hayward,” Blackbird continued in the face of her silence. “I’m glad you’re not going back to where you were.”

Another shrug, face hidden behind stringy locks of hair. 

Blackbird nodded to himself. Her whole demeanor was radiating ‘go away’. He didn’t think it was personal to him; Roxanne clearly wasn’t in the right headspace for any human interaction right now, a circumstance he was familiar with. “Well, I hope you feel better,” he said, feeling the lameness of the words keenly and turning to leave. He hesitated before he passed the threshold, and added, “The people who poisoned you? You don’t have to worry about them. Nobody has to worry about them anymore, except maybe a funeral director and a priest.”

That got a reaction. She darted a brief look at him through her tangled mess of hair, before folding back into staring at the tablet.

Blackbird badly wanted to follow up with you should eat something because she wasn’t and that was worrying the Sister. But that felt like the wrong words and the wrong time right now. Besides, he hadn’t exactly been the poster child for good eating habits lately himself so maybe he had no right to an opinion.

So he kept them to himself and left. 

He went down the claustrophobic confines of Sister Desiderata’s youth shelter. It was never much of a sprawling complex to start with, but now it was bursting at the seams. He wove around backpacks and bags in various states of repair as well as rows of ratty shoes; they were trying to save every actual space in the rooms for actual beds and sleeping bags. Gaggles of wary or curious teens stared at him from open doors or shuffled around him in the corridors. They were well over capacity but what could they do? What scant resources they would have had to get teens into better situations were either locked down from COVID or had been defunded entirely. They couldn’t let them wander the streets, alone and possibly sick. They’d dodged a bullet with regards to infection clusters, but they lived on the knife edge, masked constantly and stinking of cheap sanitizer.

Blackbird dodged and weaved until he found his way to the Sister’s office, a poky little space that he suspected had once been a utility closet. It was so choked in boxes of papers and pamphlets and various office equipment that was kept in one place and triple secured - the kids were generally okay but they were marginalized kids and occasionally made dumb decisions about stealing things – there was barely room for the desk, let along the occupant, and there certainly wasn’t room for a visitor if you wanted to close the door.

“I talked to her,” Blackbird said, his voice modulator keeping his tone low and level. “I don’t know if it did any good.”

The Sister smiled at him. “We won’t know if it did but it certainly didn’t do any harm. It’s going to take some time for her to come back from what happened, but I’ve never met a kid yet who wasn’t in some way helped by the knowledge that someone was looking out for them. How’s the food truck business? I miss going out in my van, you know? These days I’m mostly delivering medicines and blessings.”

“Something’s going screwy with my alert system,” Blackbird admitted. “A bunch of people have canceled deliveries and on my run here I barely got any stops. Is there a Rogue warning out that I don’t know about?”

The Sister’s face changed over her sparkly face mask. “Oh my. You haven’t seen it.”

Blackbird felt a lurch in his gut. “Seen what?”

“There’s a video going around,” the Sister admitted. “Of the crime scene where the Stillmans died, God forgive and rest their souls. It was mostly a recording of the foam coming out of the car, you know, because it looks like one of those videos where people blow things up to see what happens. But, honey,” the Sister looked sad. “It also showed the boxes that they used to hold the poisoned food.”

Blackbird felt his stomach drop. “My boxes,” he croaked, his modulator a buzzy whine from it. 

“Nobody with any sense believes the vigilante food delivery service is a poisoner,” Sister Desiderata said staunchly. 

But there were more than just people of good sense out there, weren’t there? People who were scared or helpless, people who listened to crazy theories put forth on the internet with no thought or even means to fact check. Blackbird could see it in the Sister’s face; there had been people asking questions.

“I have to go and… and do my rounds,” Blackbird muttered and made his escape. He couldn’t deal with talking about this right now. He needed more information.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, a self driving truck gave him the time he needed to deep dive on the internet while he made his bulk runs to halfway houses, shelters and other communal arrangements. There was only one video of the actual scene, like the Sister had said, made by some bored young bystander who, like the rest of the scant crowd, had gathered when the police had arrived and various vigilantes had made themselves scarce. The would-be cinematographer hadn’t even cared what the police had even been doing there, the focus had been the ball of foam bubbling foam the Stillmans car had turned into. There wasn’t even a hint the poster even knew what had happened, or that anyone had died at all.

Except, in the final shots, the camera had panned down to show the boxes that the police had hauled out of the car and, soggy or not, they clearly showed the Blackbird’s brand mark on them.

Blackbird groaned; cutting the film but a few seconds earlier would have kept that little tidbit from seeing the light of day. From there it had snowballed, the truth of the Stillmans’ death only vaguely touched upon in the mainstream news, which made the story fertile ground for would-be truthseekers. That’s when the site's shitty algorithms started throwing up a laundry list of similar videos – online news blogs, true crime buffs, footage analysis.

All of it focused on Blackbird. All of it making insinuations – direct and vague both – about his role in the Stillmans’ death. There was even a damn memorial video, neatly edited to indicate the Stillmans had been fine, upstanding members of the community and vaguely insinuating that they had both been murdered unjustly, as if their own actions hadn’t played a role.

That video was directly from one of the Lightfoot people. With it came others; conspiracy theories, accusations, a lot of hand wringing about people dropping in the Bowery like flies, as if that hadn’t happened since time immemorial and none of the assholes posting fancy little theories had even given a damn before.

Blackbird dug deeper into various posts and blogs, blood boiling. It didn’t help his temper that there were so few people now coming out to his stops and those that did didn’t interact with him cheerfully like they used to. They took their boxes warily and with suspicious eyes, not talking or looking at him.

Even skidding around in Blackwing didn’t grant him any respite. Some people turned him away, others wouldn’t open the door for him. He left the food on doorsteps but who knew whether it would even hit a hungry belly.

It wasn’t completely a dead failure. He still had people happy to see him. The bulk kitchen and shelters and halfway houses didn’t seem to care. Either some people just hadn’t heard the rumor at all or they had and dismissed it as the stupidity it was.

He felt a knot tie in his stomach every time he came back to Blackwing with boxes still ungiven, even if he had managed to get the majority out into the community. Extra calls to volunteers and Sister Desiderata’s endless network of community groups would ensure nothing went to waste, but that was only for now. If this got worse, if the entire community turned on him, then the food still wouldn’t go to waste, there were always too many people in need, but the food lines into the Bowery and Crime Alley would be almost completely cut off. What would those people do when they had no food? Hike to the stadium food depot, miles and miles away? Try to find work, any work, illegal work under the table so they could get enough cash to be paid? Go into jobs that needed filling – retail work, line cooking, cleaning all the front line areas where the risk of infection was the highest? And besides, even taking into account illegal job opportunities, there wouldn’t be enough work to go around with half of Gotham in lockdown.

Fuck, this was going to be a complete disaster. It had only been hours since he had even found out and he could feel it coming towards him. He worked himself into a state of anxiety fugue, trying to outthink and out strategize and somehow keep his operation going. What the hell would happen if he stopped? He couldn’t do that!

The tipping point came at around ten in the night. Blackbird had idly noted there were more cars around tonight than usual but occasionally there were spikes of activity even in these times, so he hadn’t given it too much thought in between his frantic online research and desperate attempts at damage control. It was only when he looked up from trying to calculate just how fast he could rebrand his boxes and come up with QR codes and other safety features to show people the food could be trusted – a massive time sink, as if he had any to spare – when he realized there were deliveries happening.

Like, there seemed to be a lot of people carrying delivery bags around tonight.

He nearly ran into a couple of delivery people who were carrying about a dozen zip-up cooling bags each, wearing branded jackets and caps. It seemed innocuous enough, since there was any number of delivery services available to people, but he felt a thrum of nausea in his gut as the pair – a young woman and a young man who both seemed overloaded with a big order, entered the same building where he was hauling his own boxes in. They didn’t acknowledge him, even a glance, and went their own way while he went his, but the oddness of the time and the location started pinging on Blackbird’s radar. 

When he reached his next drop, he knocked on the door of one of his regulars. “Sid? It’s Blackbird,” he called in.

“Hold on!” came the voice from inside. There was a minute's wait until Sid shuffled to the front door and opened it Gotham style – that is, he opened it like he expected to have a gun shoved in his face. Blackbird didn’t take that personally. It was a Gotham thing.

“Hey man,” Sid sniffled as he opened the door wider. “Good to see you.” He sniffled.

“You getting sick, Sid?” Blackbird asked, concerned. He would have to go back for a COVID kit.

“Oh, uh, no,” Sid sniffled again. “I’m allergic to feathers and gram-gram’s old down quilt gave up the gho-SHICHU!” he sneezed. “Gave up the ghost last night. So many fucking feathers man,” Sid said gloomily. “I tried to do down for a shift at the fulfillment center the esplanade but they wouldn’t let me in even though I told them it was just allergies. They didn’t even bother to take my temp. They didn’t need to. They had so many people there desperate for work, they just told me to get lost. Told mom too, since she lives with me. There goes another paycheck. Mom’s pissed at me for it.”

“Sucks,” Blackbird said sympathetically. “You okay for rent and stuff?”

“Odelle ain’t gonna kick us out,” Sid snorted wetly. “How can he? Who the fuck is gonna take our place? Who could afford a deposit, even? At least if he keeps us around he’s got a chance of collecting some arrears.”

That was something, at least. “Good,” Blackbird nodded. “Here. This should get you through the week. We didn’t have a lot of good fresh stuff, but I got some chicken wings,” he let Sid take some of the weight of the box while he opened the flaps. “Frozen. And I got some more of those hot chocolate sachets again. The company shoved them at Interfaith because they were near the use by, but they were pretty generous about it. Oh, and the Drag Revue Roller Derby folks cooked up a bunch of that gourmet mash so all the seniors can get some of that.”

Sid beamed under his mask. “Duuuude! Thanks. Gram loves that shit.”

That was as far as their transaction got before a figure darted up the corridor, screaming. “Don’t take that!” And slapping it out of Sid’s hands to land on the floor, scattering some of the contents on the ground. 

“Lady, what the fuck is your problem?” Sid yelped as they both bent to gather up scattered cans and boxes.

“Sid, what the fuck is going on out there?” an angry voice came from inside the apartment. “Gram’s trying to sleep!”

“It’s nothing, mom!” Sid yelled back, rolling his eyes.

“What are you doing? You’re not going to actually eat any of that, are you?” The woman was wide eyed.

“Uh… yeah?” Sid raised his eyebrows sarcastically at her. “What the fuck else would I eat you fucking lunatic?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude,” the disclaimer winged by, not weighed down by an ounce of sincerity. “But this person,” she pointed a wildly accusatory finger at Blackbird. “Is a poisoner!”

Blackbird felt his hackles go up. “I never poisoned anyone!” he tried to keep his voice level but his modulator gave a warning whine.

“You are!” the woman insisted. “It’s all over the Net! You shouldn’t accept food from him,” she told Sid earnestly, blinking big blue eyes.

“Are you fucking nuts?” Sid asked angrily before Blackbird could snap. “I’ve been takin’ food from this guy for months and we ain’t so much as had indigestion!”

“And furthermore,” Blackbird glared at her. “What business is it of yours? You are wearing two thousand dollar Bvlgari studs! You clearly don’t live here and you also clearly have never visited either, if your dumb enough to wear those things in their neighborhood openly at night .”

Sid burst out laughing at the consternated look in her eyes. She clearly hadn’t expected that.

“I… you… I’m just worried about you!” she protested to the still laughing Sid.

“Yeah, worried,” Sid snorted. “Sure. You’re worried like all those rich white folks worry about school shootings. I’m sure I’m in your thoughts and prayers.”

“You are! Everyone is!”

Blackbird’s hinky meter suddenly had a needle jump. This lady was apparently religious, rich, and wandering around the Bowery at night as a gig delivery worker. Nothing about this scenario made any sort of sense.

“Look, don’t worry abou–” Tim started but Sid was already scoffing.

“Sure, sure. People have been doin’ shit like that for kids like me for years. We’re so blessed we oughta be walking on streets paved with gold and rose petals, except for one tiny fact,” Sid leaned close to her. “Thoughts and prayers don’t do shit. He has,” Sid jabbed a finger at Blackbird. “So unless you got something else to give other than getting on your knees, fuck off. The way you do it ain’t worth shit. At least the people who do that around here get paid for it!”

She went scarlet. “Look, you don’t have to eat his food,” she said stridently. “Look! You can have one of our care packages; one hundred percent free of charge, as a part of the Lightfood Collective.”

“Lightfood?” Blackbird repeated incredulously.

She turned a haughty look on him. “That’s right. Our church is working with various generous sponsors to enable a meal service for those… less fortunate souls. And unlike your food,” she sneered. “Ours is one hundred percent safe.”

She eagerly opened her swanky delivery bag to reveal a packed row of box meals filling it to the brim. Sid put Blackbird’s box on the threshold and snagged a box from the top, brow wrinkling. “What the fuck is this shit?”

Blackbird took it from him. His eyes flashed across the D&LF Food Concerns stamp and a bunch of religious passages covering the colorful box. He turned the box over to read the nutritional value and ingredients list. “There’s hardly any actual food in this. This is junk. Salt, sugar and fat,” he muttered. He wasn’t, actually, being a fresh food zealot about this. Many processed foods were plenty healthy, and also cheap, accessible and non-perishable, which is why rich people liked to scorn them. The food drives in this town had long stopped buying into that precious, elitist and plainly racist ‘fresh food is best!’ nonsense that the public health and various internet ‘experts’ had shoved down society’s throat for years with their usual fatphobic and out of touch agenda. 

There were always exceptions though, especially in the junk food industry, and this particular food? It clearly hadn’t been made with balanced nourishment in mind.

“It’s food,” the woman rolled her eyes. “Not everyone is in a position to be picky, you know. There’s no need to be a snob.” The sheer irony of that statement clearly didn’t register for her. “You don’t have to take his boxes. Do you know he hasn’t poisoned them?”

“Uh, yeah?” Sid snapped, shoving the delivery bag back to her. “Know why? Because I was with the kid who actually got poisoned and Blackbird was the one to help her. The ones who poisoned her were churchy types too. Lightfoots, I think.”

“The Lightfoot Church wasn’t a party to that!” she burst out, aggrieved.

“How dumb do you think–”

“Sid,” an older woman stomped into the entrance hall in a nightdress, looking fit to be tied. “For fucks sake, enough with the ruckus! What’s going on here?”

The woman leapt for her chance like a gazelle. “Ma’am, I’m from the Lighfood Initiative. I’d like to offer you this free package of food with our blessing in this troubled time.”

Sid’s mother was taken aback as she had a delivery bag shoved at her over her son's shoulder. “Oh. Well, that’s very kind of you…” she said uncertainly.

“If you’d like to sign up to our subscription service…” the woman began.

“Oh, you are fucking with us, right?” Blackbird interrupted, annoyed. “This is just a shitty sales pitch?”

“Look, we’re just trying to help out, here,” the woman returned calmly. “We just need to add their names and things to our database so we know who we’re delivering to and how much. The food service is free, given out of charity and with nothing but good intentions. Do you have a problem with that?” she asked challengingly. 

“No, of course not, but–”

“Our food is safe,” she cut him off. “It’s sterilized right in the package, no chance of any… tampering.”

Blackbird narrowed his eyes at her. “Good. I’m glad to see that you’re committed to food safety. You ought to be; food safety guidelines were a big part of the new regulations for charity food drives. I believe your Pastor was one of the biggest proponents of that, so that makes sense.”

She blinked. If she expected him to give a furious refutation of the implication that he was tampering with the food, well, she was shit out of luck.

They had a tense stare off in the hallway.

Sid shook his head. “Look, we appreciate the extra and all, but we have a service and we’re doing just fine.” He gathered up Blackbird’s box from the floor, nearly fumbling it as the once neatly packed box was now loose and unbalanced. 

The lady grabbed it and steadied it  before Blackbird could, all helpfulness. “Ma’am, if you’d like to sign up for Lightfood – a weekly, safe food service…”

“We’re good, thanks,” Sid said rudely.

“Now, Sid, don’t be hasty,” the woman seemed eager, at least at the prospect of getting extra food. “We should at least hear the woman out.”

“Mom, it’s a scam,” Sid rolled his eyes. “When they say it’s free they mean it’s free for now. We’ve seen that before,” he informed the woman sharply.

“I promise, all I need is a little data, the food is free,” the woman insisted. “One hundred percent completed holy mother what is that?!” she shrieked.

“What?” Sid scowled at where the woman was staring in horror at the ground.

“That!” she jabbed a finger at… what looked like a pellet in a brilliant blue.

“What is…” Sid and his mother squinted at it. “That wasn’t there before?”

Blackbird’s stomach dropped but the trap had been sprung.

“It’s rat poison!” the woman shrieked, jabbing a finger at Blackbird. “That must have fallen out of the box! You’re trying to poison people!”

“I’m not…!” Blackbird started, aghast.

“What the fuck?!” Sid’s mother roared, then her eyes blew wide. “It’s you, isn’t it? You’re the one they’re talking about leaving bait boxes around!”

“That’s him alright!” the woman said, nodding emphatically. “He nearly killed a poor, defenseless child two nights ago!”

“I didn’t poison anyone!” Blackbird cried angrily. “The poisoners were a husband and wife who went to the Lightfoot’s church and I can show you the damn police report to prove it!” He got out his phone and brandished it.

He saw the woman’s eyes widen, but she galloped ahead, pressing her advantage with Sid’s mother who was clearly steeped in the conspiracy theories going around. “Don’t listen to him! Everyone knows this town is full of crazies in masks! Don’t eat any of his food! It’s tainted! You’ll die!”

“Sid, you drop that box right now!” Sid’s mother bellowed. “Right the fuck now!”

“Mom, it’s just stupid internet shit,” Sid tried his best. “I was there! Blackbird, Robin and Red Hood were all there! They saved a kid who had been poisoned!”

“But you never saw the actual poisoners , did you?” the woman replied triumphantly. “You never saw what happened after, right?”

“Well,” Sid darted a look at Blackbird. “No, but–”

“ I can show you a video that shows the bait boxes had his symbol on them!” the woman parried with her own phone.

“Those boxes were old ones, dug out of the trash,” Blackbird snapped. “I can show you the dates on them, which were shown on that video too! Look,” he angrily lifted the flap. “See? These boxes went out tonight, so they are stamped with tonight’s date. Show the video, you can even pick which copy you show if you want! After all, you were the one that so helpfully mentioned the date of the alleged bait boxing.”

The woman responded to this with a shrill and slightly desperate. “As if we’d believe anything you had to say!” and very carefully did not follow through on her threat to access the video.

“Sid, you drop that box right now or so help me God!” Sid’s mother raised a hand.

Sid shot a desperate look at Blackbird, who gritted his teeth and took the box back. There was nothing else he could do without making the situation worse.

“Ma’am,” the delivery woman beamed triumphantly. “Please enjoy the food and if you need more, please subscribe to the Lightfoot Initiative’s FeedTheSoul app and add your details, so we can add you to our weekly deliveries.”

“Thank you,” Sid’s mother smiled happily as if she hadn’t just threatened to swing on her son, her teeth riddled with sign of meth use. “I’ll make sure Sid signs us up. And as for you,” she snarled at Blackbird. “I don’t wanna see you anywhere around here, you understand? If I see you giving good around here, so help me, I’ll get my gun out and fucking shoot you.”

“There’s no need for violence ma’am,” the delivery woman fluted virtuously. “He’s probably just some poor unfortunate. Mentally ill,” she made a corkscrew motion at her temples. “You know.”

“Who the fuck cares? He just tried to poison us!” Sid’s mother’s eyes were glittering with paranoia, “Get lost! We don’t want anything you’re giving!”

“I understand ma’am,” Blackbird said levelly. “That’s your choice,” he blinked slowly at Sid’s tense face; his mother wasn’t always careful with her hands when she was angry. “But I’d like to say again; I never poisoned anyone. Somebody used my boxes to give out poisoned food, but my food had always been good. Ask your neighbors, who are eating some right now. Ask your friends. Ask your son, who’s been taking care of you and your mother as best he can. I hope you appreciate all the work he’s put in.”

That took Sid’s mother aback. After a couple of fumbling tries she settled on, “Fuck off, you… you crazy person!” and slammed the door.

The delivery woman sent him a look, triumph in every line of her body. “I want you to know,” she said sweetly. “I pray for your soul. I hope God forgives you for your transgressions. But we’re not going to let you get away with your little schemes. The Lightfoot Collective will feed every hungry mouth. We are honest folk. We show our faces. People around here should have to rely on some… some crazy person wearing a mask.”

“Just because people see your face,” Blackbird snapped. “Doesn’t mean you’re not wearing a mask too.”

She scoffed. “Come on!” she turned around and sashayed towards her companion... 

… who had been patiently standing at the end of the hall, filming the whole mess.

Blackbird’s stomach dropped. He could imagine what a carefully edited version of what just transpired would look like. Cursing, he took off after the pair who were exiting the building now that their little charade was done, furiously downloading their app and flying through the application process with quick fingers, his feet moving without his input, he’d delivered here so often.

How many people had they slandered him to tonight? How many seeds of doubt had they sown? How many more of them were there? Blackbird had to know.

But first things first. “Hey!” he called to the pair that were getting into their car across the street.

The pair turned. The man still has his phone, the woman jutted out her chin belligerently. “Are you following us?” she challenged harshly, sticking her hands on her hips like he was some sort of would-be mugger. “Are you planning to add assault to your list of sins? I’m warning you, I will call the police!”

“Number one, good luck with getting them to come out here. Number two: I just wanted to let you know,” Blackbird said levelly, jamming his thumb onto the app on his phone that would, hopefully, allow him to clone hers. “That everything I see,” he tapped his mask. “Is recorded too. Like a body cam. So if you’re going to whatever footage you got onto the net with a bunch of helpful little edits, just know that I can post mine, too. Unedited, high def. Enough so maybe some armchair surveillance expert might notice something, like somebody dropping a pellet of rat poison on the ground.” 

This was pure bluff; he hadn’t seen anyone do anything like that, but his body cam system might have done since it sometimes saw things that he didn’t.

And also, she judging by the way her eyes widened over her mask, she didn’t know for sure that he wasn’t bluffing.

“I’m just saying,” Blackbird shrugged. “That might turn out badly for you.”

She scowled. “Are you threatening us right now?” she said shrilly. “You’re threatening us, aren’t you? Did you get that? He’s threatening us!” she said into her companion's camera. “We were warned people would be hostile,” she added, as if she was doing a vlog. “I didn’t believe anyone anywhere would have a problem with making sure people were fed but look!” she gestured at a glowring Blackbird. “He’s already poisoning people and now he’s threatening us to keep us from helping people!”

“I never poisoned anyone!” Blackbird said hotly.

“I pray for you,” she countered, all virtue. “You must have such terrible mental problems to do something like this! Your actions are just so… so vile , you attack the vulnerable and the downtrodden and… and,” oh, what a show she was making of it, wiping away tears. “But the Pastor says we must forgive those who are weak and indolent, who prey on others for their own satisfaction. So I pray for the strength to forgive you.”

“I don’t need forgiveness from you,” Blackbird growled as the phone in his hand vibrated, and then tried to at least give the appearance of calm. “Because I haven’t done anything to warrant it. You have a good evening.”

And then he turned and marched away to Blackwing, fuming inside.

They got in their car and peeled up the street. The woman shot him a smug little wave as they went past him.

Blackbird clenched his teeth, ramming his hands against the steering wheel.

He should just go back to his deliveries, he knew. The night was still young and there were plenty of people out there who either didn’t know about this little smear campaign or didn’t care. He shouldn’t waste his time on fighting someone else giving out food. Even if it was junk, it was still food and he was already turning too many away now.

But how many would be at the truck tomorrow night? Or the next? Or the next. He could feel the lies growing and changing around him even as he sat here, helpless. 

He did a search on his phone, gunned the engine, and took off for Robbinsville Park, where the Lightfoot’s latest tent revival was going on. They held a few of them at night, mostly to get around ordinances about mass gatherings during the day. The Pastor had friends on the city councils that netted him a couple of loopholes in COVID restrictions. 

He was able to get right into the heart of the park; he was hardly the only vehicle there. He noticed, sourly, that the church had lined up a bunch of refrigerated trucks around the big tent, probably so he could send his congregation home with his ready meals. 

There was a bunch of boisterous singing coming from the church tent; the kind of foot stomping, hand clapping tunes that were easy for the crowd to join in with. The Pastor’s voice boomed out of a bunch of speakers. The tent wasn’t enclosed, it was basically a marquis – another way to get out of the ‘people in enclosed spaces’ limits. Blackbird could see the Pastor on the stage, swaying and clapping with enthusiasm with... back up dancer or singers or something. He wasn’t wearing a mask.

Blackbird didn’t see many masks anywhere . He was pretty sure they wouldn't be able to explain away that breach, but hell, Blackbird was a hundred percent sure there were at least a few police officers who were members here. There were no atheists in Gotham PD. In any case, there were two chances that a mask mandate would be enforced with these people; fat and slim.

Blackbird took a breath. He didn’t know what the hell he was supposed to do here. His temper had driven him to seek out his slanderers but now he was left with a plethora of bad options. Surveillance? He already knew what they had to say. Talking with the Pastor seemed like a useless endeavor. He’d smile and wave his hands and disclaim all intended insult like butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. That was his usual strategy.

He honestly couldn’t see how being here would fix the problem. He was just about on the cusp of turning around and driving away to get on with his actual work when a shrill voice piped up.

“Oh my god, are you following me?!” the woman shrieked. She’d been standing just outside the marquis. “Are you stalking me? Help! HELP! Someone’s STALKING me!” She ran screaming into the church, waving her hands wildly.

Well… shit. Blackbird got out of the car. He should just turn around and he knew it, but he wasn’t about to let them brand him some creepy stalker on top of everything else.

(His days photographing the Bats didn’t count , he told himself.)

He thought about the kind of people that were currently in there and took off his regular, medical grade mask and dug out his special rebreather mask instead. It was a couple of shades less friendly than his regular ones - closer to the badass equipment the Bats all used – but he couldn’t take a chance on getting COVID and this place had all the earmarks of a superspreader event.

Somewhere in the middle of the mess the music had stopped booming from the speakers and the crowd became a disharmonious hubbub of noise. There was a squall of feedback from the speakers and the Pastor’s voice came through as “What? My apologies, could you…? He what, now? Stalking?”  

Blackbird took a breath and walked into the disaster zone. 

“That’s him!” the woman said hysterically up on the stage. “He’s stalking me!”

“Now, Marian, stay calm,” The Pastor’s syrupy tones were the oil on troubled fires. “Did you actually see him follow you here?”

Her mouth dropped open, genuine consternation flashing across her face. “What… I… well, no?” she admitted.

“Well then,” the Pastor beamed. “How do you know he didn’t just come here to give glory and thanks? I’m rather glad to see him, if that’s the case!”

“It’s not,” an uncomfortable Blackbird said at the same moment. “He practically attacked me in the street!” came fluting from Marian’s mouth.

“That’s a lie!” Blackbird made sure his voice modulator was loud enough to reach over the crowd. He had no doubt someone was filming this and he didn’t need even more people twisting his words on Youtube. If they wanted to try editing this, they weren’t going to block out his voice. “I actually came to speak to you about her and her cohort, Pastor, one charitable worker to another. You’re people are slandering me to the people I’m delivering to and I’d appreciate it if you’d tell them to stop. After all,” Blackbird bit the words out. “I’m sure you’re committed to honesty and truthfulness, the finest of the Christian virtues.”

“Me? Slander?!” Marian yelps. “You’re the one who is–!” but the Pastor stops her with an outstretched hand.

“Maybe if I could hear the exact circumstances of this… slander?” he says slowly and carefully.

“He was delivering food to the same place I was delivering to and I saw him giving a box of stuff laced with rat poison!” Marian jabbed an accusing finger at Blackbird. “He’s a poisoner! Who knows who many people he’s–” she was stopped by another gently hand.

“And you, son? What is your claim?” Pastor waved grandly, giving him the floor.

Blackbird didn’t feel encouraged by this. This didn’t feel like a fair hearing to him. This felt like a trap, only he couldn’t see the trigger mechanism. Nonetheless “I was delivering to a regular of mine. Marian here slapped it out of my regular’s hands, shrieking hysterically about poisons and whatnot. When my regular started to grab the box – and clean up the mess and wasted food she’d caused, by the way – she started shrieking and pointing to a blue pellet on the floor that she claimed was rat poison that had, somehow, phased straight through the bottom of the box onto the rug or something? Who knows. But suddenly she’s accusing me of being a mad poisoner, based on that alone. I’d rather like to know how she was so sure it was rat poison by sight alone. I’ve actually studied chemistry and identifying substances by sight is impossible for me. Where did you get trained, Marian?” he challenged her. “How, indeed, could you know? Or maybe you can show me what’s in your pockets right now? I’m sure a person such as yourself wouldn’t need to carry around little bits of rat poison anywhere.”

Marian shot him a hateful glare. “It must have come out of your box! Who knows where you get all the rotten things you hand out? It certainly wasn’t in mine!”

“Maybe it wasn’t in either,” Pastor shrugged.

They both turned to stare at him. Blackbird warily, but Marian’s jaw dropped so wide the audience could probably tell she’d had a tonsillectomy. 

“This sounds to me,” Pastor Lightfoot said slowly. “Like a grave misunderstanding. After all, this is a city and cities, regrettably, have vermin infestations. Did either of you actually get a good look at the floor of the domicile enough to say, hand on the Bible, that the rat poison pellet wasn’t already there when you both got there? No? Then perhaps we shouldn’t be quick to judge, should we?”

Blackbird could honestly say there was no pellet anywhere near that doorway, because his mind was essentially a honeycomb made of diamond, stretching to eternity. Marian clearly could too, but her face was a fascinating study of consternation and betrayal as she faced her spiritual leader, slowly going red and robbed of coherent speech. “B-But… I…” she stammered, completely lost. 

It was enough to stay Blackbird’s tongue, because he suddenly has a huge tangle of knots in his chest. He’s not the best in the world at reading people, he knows. He doesn’t have the training that the Bats all got in that sort of thing and, impressive array of self-taught skills notwithstanding, there are some things that take extensive teaching and experience to do right and Blackbird knows where his weak points are. That all being said, the look on her face is one Blackbird knows intimately. It’s the face of betrayal by someone you trusted. She slowly turned red under the stares and murmurs of the packed church gathering.

Blackbird wasn’t sure what the Pastor’s game was, but he just hung his loyal soldier out to dry. There had been some sort of plan involved in all this. A plan that included getting Blackbird here to this church, tonight. The trap was closing around him.

“Thank you for clearing up the matter,” Blackbird said slowly, because he had to take whatever he could get to salvage his reputation. “I’ve got work to do, so I’ll leave you here.”

“Oh, don’t be hasty!” Pastor Lightfoot turned to him. “I happen to think this whole thing is serendipitous! I did want to speak to you about our new Lightfood Campaign. I felt sure that you, doing God’s work in getting much needed supplies to those… less inclined to work folks in the hardest hit districts would be interested in our program.”

“I’m sorry, but I’m rather busy,” Blackbird tried.

“No, no, just wait! We had a short presentation scheduled anyway. You should watch it. It won’t take very long,” Lightfoot was at his ebullient best, his voice warm and welcoming. “And it’ll give you a chance to see just what we’re up to.”

Oh, that was a telling choice of words, wasn’t it? Blackbird felt this was a mistake, he knew it was, but the Pastor was better at reading people that Blackbird could hope to be; he knew Blackbird was curious. Blackbird grudgingly conceded the point; it was prudent to know just what the hell he was up against with this Lightfood thing.

Because he was damn sure that Pastor Lightfoot, with his porcelain caps and luxury cars and endless patter about wealth being a sign of the blessed, wasn’t giving away food to the poor for the good of his soul or theirs. 

“Terry, can we roll the Lightfood Initiative reel on the big screen?” the Pastor yelled to one of the technicians before Blackbird could say yay or nea. Then he was up on the stage again, playing his trade of pure showmanship, Blackbird standing awkwardly in the audience and hating it.

“As you know, there’s a bit a hullabaloo going on right now,” Pastor Lightfoot flashed his teeth as the Lightfood logo appeared on the screen. “People are scared, not leaving their homes, not going to their jobs…”

Because there’s a pandemic on, Blackbird wanted to say, feeling his jaw tighten. It wasn’t quite COVID denial, but it was a statement right out of the Pastor’s usual playbook; dancing right on the faultline of taboo but not quite going over enough to prove it in a court.

“And there’s a lot of pain and suffering spinning out of this,” the Pastor was the face of virtue. “But we are good, decent people, and good decent people forgive transgression and faults in their fellow man. When the needy reach out, we extend a welcoming hand. Thus, we have, thanks to your time, efforts and donations as well as the generous sponsorship of Drake Industries…”

Blackbird’s shocked “What?” was lost in the cheers and applause from the crowd. Drake Industries?! Blackbird repeated in his head, schooling his expression.

“We have begun the LIGHTFOOD INITIATIVE,” the baritone shout was meant to pump the crowd up and working, judging by the applause and stamping. Blackbird tried not to think about airborne droplets and watched the screen light up with animations. “A food delivery service that will take meals to anyone in Gotham who signs up for the app! The foods go straight from the manufactory right here in GOTHAM,” more cheers as a cartoon of smiling workers packing boxes into trucks. “Where good, decent folk commit to actual paying jobs and give the sweat of their labor to help the economy as good, decent people ought to! The extensive network of trucking companies will deliver the meals to the doors of everyone in town, and that right there is more jobs for decent folk. Work….?” the Pastor beamingly prompted the crowd.

“Salvation! Glory!” the crowd roared back the church slogan dutifully.

“Work, Salvation, Glory!” the Pastor nodded. “Words to live by! And yes, Charity as well! Some people fall on hard times and, bless them, sometimes let their demons take over their idle hands. But, through the Lightfood Initiative, and by the sweat of our Christian Labour, we will pave the way to salvation and glory!”

There was thunderous applause.

“We will deliver to every household, not just sustenance but messages of hope, opportunities, job offers! We will show them the goodness of living in God’s grace,” the cartoon was showing smiling people taking smiling deliveries from smiling delivery people, smilingly taking papers from them too, signing things, all smiles. All of the people in the cartoon, Blackbird noted, were fair skinned. “We have a way to reach into the hearts and minds and souls of man – through their stomachs, which is the tried and true method, am I right, ladies?” the Pastor gave great guffaws, echoed by the crowd. “Nothing makes a man more grateful than a home cooked meal!”

Blackbird was getting the increasingly surreal sense that the Pastor actually bought this shit by the shovel load. He got out his phone as the white noise of the crowd ebbed and flowed and began accessing the Lightfood app himself. Specifically, he looked for the terms and conditions.

“And we have in our house tonight someone who can increase our market share twenty percent,” the Pastor waved grandly. “I give you the artist currently known as Blackbird, whose technology and networks in the poorer districts of Gotham will be invaluable in getting our meals into the hands of people desperately seeking the salvation and opportunities we will provide! Let’s give it up for BLACKBIRD! I’m sure he’s eager to become a member of our team, and to expand his reach even further! I’d hoped he’d take on being our head of logistics, since he knows everything there is to know about moving food around! Come up, son, and let’s have a chat about it.”

Blackbird glared at the Pastor as the crowd all roared, seething internally. The man was smiling and beckoning him up on stage. So that was the trap. It wasn’t a bad carrot as carrots go. A fleet of trucks and a seemingly endless supply of food. No more turning people away, no more running out of desperately needed supplies, no more crowds waiting for his truck, risking every second they were out the spread of COVID.

Except Blackbird didn’t believe for a second that there wasn’t a huge fucking catch somewhere in all these sacchrine promises. The good Pastor could spew all the religious patter he liked, but push comes to shove, he was a businessman first and foremost. Currently in bed with… Drake Industries. He set that aside for now.

“And this service is… free?” Blackbird said, staying right where he was. His voice modulator meant he didn’t need a mic. “Like, your presentation is very… professionally done, but I notice that at no point did you say your service is actually free.”

“Our sample kits are going to households free-of-charge right at this moment!” The Pastor responded to this jovially. “With our blessing and a giving heart, am I right folks?”

More cheers. Blackbird’s brow wrinkled at that.

“I believe you could be the lynchpin in our network, young man,” Lightfoot continued, blithely unwilling to give Blackbird an opportunity to get a word in edgewise. “You’ve already put in so much effort, so much time. This could be your chance to really feed everyone, everywhere it’s needed. You’ll have fleets at your disposal, all the resources you could ever want or need! No one goes hungry.”

Blackbird had to admit, if he had been a less viciously clever person and had not, from an early age, been taught to read every set of terms and conditions very thoroughly, there would have been a temptation to learn more. The Pastor was good at finding the key words to unlock a person’s most deeply held inner drives and no one goes hungry was one of Blackbird’s.

Too bad for the Pastor that his others included do your research and, always and forever, at the heart of it all atone for what you did to Jason.

Pastor Lightfood didn’t stand a chance of cracking Blackbird’s shell, no matter how big the hammer of charisma he charmingly swung.

“Yes, but is it free?” Blackbird turned his microphone way up. “Because I just signed on to your very fancy app and there’s a whole bunch of sketchy causes in the T’s and C’s here. Like, it says – and I’m paraphrasing essays worth of legalese here – it says that the ‘cost of goods and services are the responsibility of the applicant’ and also ‘payment may be sought at any time at the licensee’s discretion’ which, quite frankly, Pastor, doesn’t sound like ‘free’ to me. That reads more like ‘eat now, pay later’. And look, there are a bunch of boxes already pre-ticked here about agreements to admin fees and monthly subscription charges and a whole lot of really hinky stuff about what they can legally do to your data once they have it. Including sell it.” Blackbird glared at the Pastor as the enthusiasm drained out of the crowd. “I’m sorry, but–”

“Oh come now, those are standard terms and conditions that are on every online sign up,” Lightfoots pooh-poohed breezily. “They are only there so when they do get the impetus to work again – which we feel duty bound to help them with whenever we can – if they want to continue using the service they will then be able to pay for the fees and such. We are hardly going to snatch money from people. After all, without work, they have none. They have fallen from God’s grace, but we are committed to making sure everyone can find His grace again, aren’t we folks! Work!”

“Salvation! Glory!” roared back, the crowd dissolving into cheers.

“Yes, but…” Blackbird started.

“And you, Blackbird, are uniquely positioned to do all the good in the world. This young man right here,” he gesticulated wildly. “Has gone into the deepest and darkest parts of sin and depravity, bringing light and order to those otherwise idle and destitute. Can I have a great big rebel yell for all the good he has accomplished!”

The crowd dutifully roared in fervor. “Blackbird! Blackbird! Blackbird!”

Blackbird himself felt his teeth grind.

“So, what do you say, son?” Pastor Lightfoot beamed from the spotlight, faintly sweaty. “You keep doing what you’re doing. We’ll supply all the food and volunteers and people you need. You can get everyone. No one goes hungry or without. Encourage your client to sign up for the app and the service, it will be–”

“No.”

The Pastor faltered, several shades too theatrical to be genuine. “I’m sorry?”

“I appreciate the offer, but the answer is no,” Blackbird said firmly, making sure his voice projected to the back of the room. He was the player on a stage and he had a feeling his role had been picked just for him. “By all means, give out food. Goodness knows a lot of people in this town need all the help they can get. But you’re not using my truck, and you’re not getting me.”

“Well, son, that’s your choice,” the Pastor seemed taken aback. “We can’t force anyone to do good, that would be meaningless. May I ask why, though? This is a huge, one-in-a-lifetime opportunity. You can expand your reach and your influence over the whole of Gotham! No one goes hungry! Isn’t that what you want? Who wouldn’t want that?” The Pastor’s voice was almost childishly baffled. “Do you object to our little program? Do you object to us so much?”

Oh, so it was going to be like that, huh? Blackbird seethed. “You can do what you like, I’m not stopping you. But–”

“If you have questions, ask! I will answer every one.”

“Oh, I have questions but I doubt very much whether I’d get answers,” Blackbird snapped, temper fraying. “Straight ones, at the very least. But I’m not objecting to you, I’m just not interested in joining you.”

“Are you calling Pastor Lightfoot a liar?!” Marian shrieked from her place in the audience. “You all heard him! How dare you come in here and throw around accusations like that!”

“Bold words from you, Marian,” Blackbird snapped back. “Considering you were accusing me of being a murderer not ten minutes ago. But I’m not saying-–”

“You horrible person!” “How dare you!” “You come into our house!” “What is your problem?” The angry murmurings from the crowd were rising in volume and rage. Some people were rising to their feet. 

“Don’t listen to him!” Marian was shouting above them. “He is a poisoner! He came here to threaten us into staying away from his territory, from giving his victims an option! He kills off the weak and the idle! He’s evil!”

There were angry gasps and more noise from the crowd. Some of the congregation were approaching him. They weren’t menacing, exactly, but the tension in the air was undeniable.

“Now that’s enough! That’s enough now!” The Pastor waved his hands from the stage, looking surprised at the sudden angry tone of the mob. “Everyone just take your seats, now, there’s no need to get in a lather!”

“He’s wearing a mask!” one guy bellowed back. “What kind of upstanding citizen wears a mask?”

There was a faltering moment with that little declaration because these were Gothamites and they had been protected by Batman and various other vigilantes for decades. But Marian was quick to start up the chant ‘cast him out! Cast him out’, apparently eager for a frenzy.

Blackbird gritted his teeth and kept his hands on his bandolier. A couple of smoke bombs and meringue shackles would take care of the immediate aggressors, but if he attacked them they’d happily spread the word to the four corners of Gotham. Blackbird had managed to skate with the police so far but the Pastor had friends that would get their attention on Blackbird if he was proven violent. 

Fuck.

The Pastor certainly noticed where his hands went. “We invited you here with warmth and welcome, son,” The Pastor looked so disappointed. “But if you are going to be hostile, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

The crowd was reaching a crescendo of out, out, out, out! One of the big guys that were circling him grabbed him by the shoulder.

And then everybody dropped and started screaming as the gunshots rang out.

Chapter Text

Blackbird had his hands around his chili surprise spectacular pepper bangs even as he dropped. He may not be formally trained but street vending in Gotham was a pretty harsh teacher of the drop, cover then assess school of survival. He obligingly kicked the knee joint of one of the guys around him that turned towards the gunshot, who clearly hadn’t been to that school. The guy folded at the knee and then, wisely, decided to drop. 

Blackbird got a sightline on the shooter and then hesitated, deeply confused. Red Hood was sauntering through the crowd, the edges already making a break for it out of the marquis and away while the holes he’d shot in the canvas cover smoked faintly. He opened his mouth to ask what the hell Red Hood was even doing here, but Hood beat him to it.

“I’m looking for Lightfoot?” the voice was pleasant and his broad shoulders were relaxed. Through his helmet through, and hand casually grasping a gun at his side, both these things rendered him far more threatening. 

The good Pastor, who had belly flopped onto the stage just like everyone else, was wide eyed and hesitating to rise, which Blackbird had to allow was kind of fair. 

Hood fired into the air again, almost casually. “Pastor Hiram Lightfoot? Come on down!”

There was a mad scramble to give Hood a wide berth. People were literally climbing over each other to get clear of him. One brave but suicidally stupid guy, one of the devouts that had been yelling angrily at Blackbird popped up holding his own gun, but Hood disarmed him one-handed and then send him reeling back with one crunch of a merciless elbow, blood spraying in sticky strings. It had been a casual move; Hood had barely even looked at the guy. It was enough to dissuade anyone else from getting any ideas, clearly, because a bunch of people who had braced to leap at him suddenly relaxed and scuttled back.

To Lightfoot’s credit, he didn’t try to escape, and he did have a fairly clear run to the back of the stage. He slowly got to his feet, sweating but hands raised. “I’m Pastor Lightfoot, son,” he managed a version of his usual jovial, syrupy tones, albeit with a note of shrill running through it. “And I’d… appreciate it if you could see your way clear to not hurt any of the people here.” He got out.

“I ain’t interested in anyone here, padre, relax,” Red Hood tilted his head, every inch of him a refutation of the option to relax. “I’m just here to talk. Spread the good word, you might say.”

There was a beat of silence from the crowd. Lightfoot straightened, automatically smoothing his expensive suit and checking his gold cufflinks. “Our congregation is open to all, of course,” he tried for his usual showman's patter. “And all are welcome to share in the joy…”

“Yeah, ‘bout that,” Hood kept looking around idly. “Sharing joy and whatnot. Some of your people have been poking their beaks into my territory lately and, if it’s all the same to you, I’d like them to stop. You know. Right now.”

“We are just delivering food to the needy, son…” the Pastor trailed off as Hood got on the stage in one leap, like a big cat. Lightfoot wasn’t a short man, but the Red Hood still towered over him.

“Padre,” Hood said, still menacingly pleasant. “I don’t give a fuck what you or your little fuckbuddies here are doing. Drop the theatre and the prayers and just have yourself a fucking orgy for all I care. But stay out of my territory when you do it.”

“Well, now, we wouldn’t want anyone to get hurt,” the Pastor said slowly, sweating but still affecting a smooth delivery. “We are but humble Christians, doing their Christian duty and making sure the lost among us are cared for so that they might live to be saved. Of course if you think we’re not safe there, we can leave your neighborhood alone. But all you had to do was come to me and ask,” he said more righteously. “You need not have come in here with… with your little friend and scared us half to death!”

It took Blackbird a moment to realize that Lightfoot was talking about him. “Hold on, I’m not here with him!” he protested.

“And yet here you both are,” the Pastor pointed out, all saccharine. “Coming into a place of worship, being hostile to people who came to pray and seek guidance.”

“And spread COVID, let’s not forget that one,” Hood added disgustedly.

“We are amongst the blessed and the clean here,” the Pastor refuted. “There is no disease, no real death, as long as you are in God’s glory!”

Blackbird whipped around to stare at the man. “What?!”

“In other words,” Hood snorted. “Praise the lord and let all the poor and the people of color die quietly like they ought, ‘cause they ain’t nothing special.”

“I never said that!” the Pastor refuted hotly. “Now I never said that at all!” The man had apparently found his confidence in the fact that Hood was making good on his word to not actually hurt anybody. “I’ll thank you not to slander me with such outrageous attacks, sir!”

Hood loomed up to him, which made the good pastor shut his mouth in a hurry. “I ain’t attacking you. When I’m attacking you, padre, there won’t be any doubt that I’m fucking attacking you, at least on your end. Now do I or don’t I have your word that your little minions won’t be seen anywhere near the Bowery or the Alley? Yes or no?”

“I… yes, indeed,” Lightfoot licked his lips nervously. “We’ll hardly go where we’re not welcome.”

Hood leaned back, all composure. “Glad we could come to an understanding. You have a nice night now.” Then he turned and jumped off the stage, stalking back through the cowering crowd with cat-like grace.

Lightfoot turned his gaze on a slightly softer target. “May God forgive you for your transgressions,” he said to Blackbird with stern disappointment, drawing himself up. “You have the temerity to come uninvited into our place of worship and bring some… some thug to threaten us from doing our good work?”

“I didn’t bring him!” Blackbird protested. “He came on his own! I came here to make sure you weren’t going to keep slandering me, remember?”

“You’re lying! Shame on you!” Marian cried out, crying hysterically. “Shame! Shame! Shame!”

Frightened people were taking up the chant. Shame. Shame. Shame.

“I didn’t bring him here!” Blackbird tried frustratedly, even though he knew nothing could salvage this dumpster fire the night had turned into. He could feel his reputation with the people he fed, the fragile trust he’d worked and sweat and bled for, crumbling to dust even as he tried to hold it. He couldn’t wait to see the torrent of footage and rumor mongering that would spin out of this farce. “I had nothing to do with that!”

“Well, now, you might be right, but how would we know?” Lightfoot pointed out. “I pray that you seek counsel and guidance from God for your transgressions, son. Now, all is not lost, I don’t believe that for a second. You may be forgiven if you humble yourself before Him and make reparations that are owed for the harm you’ve done this night.”

There was that syrupy, smug, patronizing voice again, wheedling and wheeling and dealing. Blackbird knew exactly what the pastor expected him to do to get himself out of the hole he’d just neatly dug himself and his reputation into.

Too bad for the good pastor, Blackbird wasn’t the kind of person to submit to blackmail. “Reparations? By all means, I’ll make reparations,” he said icily. “But you first, of course. After all, when you got so blitzed that you tried to shoot a glass off your ex-wife’s head, you creased her temple but good. Took a big chip out of her skull, even. I mean, I saw the crime scene photos, a chunk of her hair and skin got glued to the wall by her blood.”

All the self-assurance and pomp drained out of Lightfoot, as well as the color from his skin. The roaring crowd was quieting right down as Blackbird’s enhanced voice cut across their sneers and jeers, not necessarily because they were shocked and appalled in a moral sense, but probably because they were Gothamites and Gothamites, even well off ones, loved a bit of juicy drama.

“That’s not… I did my penance for…” Lightfoot started.

Blackbird talked over him. “Yeah, you did your time. But I can’t help but wonder, Pastor, while you stand there in your expensive suit and your Omega watch and your porcelain teeth with your luxury car waiting out back, just how much of all this glory you’ve amassed has gone towards reparations towards the wrongs you did? Because last time I checked?” Blackbird held up his phone, showing the documents he’d collected. “There were still warrants out for you in Utah for court-ordered funds your wife sued you for… and won. So sure, I’ll make reparations,” Blackbird stuck his chin out defiantly. “You first, though, Pastor. I’m sure it’s all just a misunderstanding. Maybe I’ll even make a few phone calls to the IRS, help you sort it out. Let he who is without sin, etc, etc.”

Lightfoot’s square jaw was clenched. “With due respect,” he ground out. “I don’t think we can work together as well as I’d… hoped. I think you’d best leave.”

Blackbird nodded coldly. “No problem. I won’t bother you again. In the spirit of live and let live, I’m asking you for the same courtesy,” he said. “And I’ll only ask once.”

Then he turned and stalked away through the silent, gaping crowd.

Blackbird was fuming by the time he made it back to Blackwing, the hubbub noise of the church and the Pastor’s syrupy, placating tones receding into the distance. His temper boiled even worse to see Red Hood casually leaning against Blackwing and rapidly tapping away on his field phone like he hadn’t just given the Lightfoots all the ammunition they needed to turn him into public enemy number one. “What the actual fuck was that, Hood?” he spat angrily.

“You’re welcome,” Hood retorted casually, still tapping away. 

Blackbird gaped at him. “You’re welcome? You practically just handed them a criminal complaint on a silver platter and turned me into one of your henchmen!”

“Hey, kid, I wasn’t the one who got all riled up and came tearing into enemy territory without a plan or backup,” Hood pointed out, still infuriatingly calm. “Sid called me. He was worried you were about to do something stupid, which you kinda did. The kid’s got some smarts on him, I’ll give him that. I thought I might do a little damage control.”

Blackbird was momentarily speechless with rage. “What… you… what the fuck damage did you just fucking control? I’ll probably have an arrest warrant out on me by morning!”

“Yeah, so?” Hood turned towards him, head tilted like Blackbird was being incredibly funny. “Welcome to what’s called the vigilante club. You just popped your warrant cherry, well done.”

Blackbird could have screamed in frustration. “I can’t fucking hide the way you all can, you fucking moron! I’m out in the open with a visible presence and a tiny amount of support infrastructure! I can only do what I do if the authorities are actively looking the other way! My god, what the fuck is wrong with you? Decapitations and bombs and gang wars, sure, but I thought you as least fucking cared about the little people in your neck of the woods, you shit heel!”

Hood scowled at him, obvious even with the helmet. “Watch your mouth, you little shit. Those are my people, of course I fucking care.”

“You just cut their only food supply line to fucking shreds!” Blackbird nearly shrieked. “You did it to make a fucking point! And you dragged me into it! Look, I get you’re fucking damaged and it’s a coin toss most days as to whether you actually want to help people or paint the walls red, but you shouldn’t drag the rest of us down with you! Some of us actually want to make the world less shitty for people other than ourselves!”

Red Hood had him around the throat in an instant. “Say that again, I dare you,” he growled. “You busted in there with a head full of steam and no fucking tactical caution whatsoever. That asshole lady was driving a fucking tinpot hatchback, genius, with a passenger! How much stuff do you think she could have delivered to the Bowery when you need a truck to get to everyone? It was a fucking trap for you, start to finish. They riled you up and got you right where they wanted you, so they could strong arm your compliance or freely be able to call you their enemy. It was a set up and you swallowed it, hook, line and fucking sinker.”

“Let go of me…” Blackbird whispered.

“Why Blackbird, has it started to sink it what a fucking dumbass you’re being?” Hood mocked. “Save me from the fucking idealists who can’t tell when they’re being fucking conned. They wanted an enemy and they got one. Nothing rallies people to a cause like an enemy, kid. Well done you. Stellar job.”

“LET GO OF ME!”

Blackbird didn’t know what Hood would have made of the sheer shock that must have hit him when Blackbird screamed. He didn’t have the mental bandwidth to deal with it. As soon as he was dropped he stumbled away at a dead run, clutching his throat while his voice modulator whined and buzzed ominously. Clawing at it, Blackbird ran wildly into the trees, struggling for air, his chest constricted.

Breathe, he ordered himself. Breathe, breathe, breathe, breathe. His lungs wouldn’t obey. He felt crushed under the weight of the sheer failure he’d just suffered. Hood was right, he’d been stupid and thoughtless and now all his efforts were useless and it was all his fault…

This is why hunger never gnawed at him. Failure always gnawed harder, with more punishing teeth.

He clawed at his tight throat, feeling like he was suffocating to death. He ran into something hard, he didn’t know what, probably a tree. Breath control exercises circled in his head like a flock of panicked birds, flashing by too fast or in the wrong order; he couldn’t grasp at them. There seemed to be someone talking but the words were coming at him through treacle, unfathomable.

The voice modulator whined again; it was doing what it was supposed to do, other than give him a voice at all, and warning about his erratic air intake. Bereft of any other options, he hit the panic strike point.

Zap. His throat briefly tightened to choking point, then released, the pain a distant echo in the fog of his brain. He struck it again. Zap. And again. Zap.

Discipline. Self-Control. Endurance. He fell back into the old manta. You are a Drake.

Burning hot hands grabbed at his wrists, boiling away the brain fog at least enough for Blackbird to realize that restraint equaled bad. He kicked out on autopilot trying to get free, or at least pluck one of his popballs off the bandolier and shove it at his assailant. A face full of chili-foam, or maybe an expanding cloud of ginger through the sinuses, tended to make even the most determined attacker back right off.

No dice. The attacker mercilessly wrenched his fingers from their death grip around his own throat and up, dragging him to the ground in the same motion and pinning his hands by the wrists above his head. The weight pinning him was enough to ground his spinning out of control brain and gave him a hard reset. He blinked back to a here-and-now; slightly too bright and too much but at least he could mentally cope with the input.

He felt questing fingers tugging at his voice modulator setup and felt his panic kick up a notch. “Wait, stop! Stop!” he croaked out. “Don’t touch that!”

The fingers froze. Red Hood stared at him. “You back with me? Because I ain’t letting you go until I know you’re not gonna fucking hurt yourself.”

“‘M here. ‘M here,” Blackbird got out. “‘S okay, I’m good.” 

He probably didn’t sound all that reassuring. Red Hood gave him a long look. “Deep breath,” he splayed one of his giant gloved hands over Blackbird’s chest. “In. Out.”

Blackbird obeyed, thinking mournfully that this was the second time he’d had a pin-me-down fantasy come true with his crush and this time it was being used for talking him down from a panic attack. Five star panic attack, he thought resentfully. Full marks, unlike his dailies. His current daily star rating was somewhere in the negative triples.

They stayed like that for far too long as far as Blackbird’s hypersensitive Red Hood radar was concerned, staring at each other and breathing. It did help in a lot of ways, except, you know, for the ones involving hormones.

Turns out Blackbird had a lot of those.

Red Hood carefully released him when it became clear Blackbird’s body really was relaxing. He drew back into a cross legged sit, watching Blackbird warily as he clawed his way upright. “What,” Red Hood growled. “The fuck was that?”

“Panic attack,” Blackbird mumbled.

“Are you shitting me? You tried to hurt yourself!” Red Hood said incredulously.

“That wasn’t…I wasn’t trying to hurt myself” Blackbird denied. “My voice modulator has… security functions built into it. Resets. Things like that.” None of it was a lie, but it wasn’t exactly the truth either. His voice modulator system had a lot of functions, not all of them were voice-related. Nevertheless it was true that his voice was too distinctive out of the mask. The chances that Red Hood wouldn’t recognize the dulcet tones of the Table’s pot scrubber he worked next to six days a week was zero without his system, so of course he couldn’t let Hood try to take it off, even if the other mask thought it was choking him or something.

Hood gave him a long, considering glare. “Did I break it somehow?”

“No,” Blackbird denied truthfully. “You didn’t… it doesn’t break easily.”

“Then why the fuck would you use it to shock yourself?” Hood asked. “My sensors picked up the electrical charge.”

Because my brain spins out of control sometimes, Blackbird thought miserably. Because sometimes I need a hard reset to get my brain and my body back into synch. Because I worry about hurting people if I lose control somehow. That it would be my fault. Because I’m a fragile moron who can’t cope with failure. He didn’t dare say any of it. He couldn’t stand the thought that anyone knew how messed up and damaged he was. He couldn’t think of anything to do but look away and say nothing.

Hood blew out a breath. “You know what? I withdraw the question.”

Blackbird looked up, startled.

“What, you think I got problems with you having problems? I got news for you, kid; not a one of us ever got into this mask business without being royally fucked up in some way,” Hood said ruefully. “Welcome to the Vigilante Fuck-Up Club. Membership is free and you’re gonna have to work a lot harder than that to beat my top score.”

Blackbird choked out a sound. It might have been a laugh or a sob. Even he couldn’t tell. “Okay,” he rasped.

“Okay,” Hood nodded. “How about we sit here for a while before you go charging back to work? Make sure your head’s on straight. No judgment. You’ve seen me lose it. Sometimes you just need to take a minute.”

Blackbird nodded and drew his knees up to his chest, trying to level out his breathing. 

Hood was still staring at him like a bomb that was about to explode, eyes not leaving his form for a second. 

“I really fucked up this time,” he muttered despondently, because anything, including going through an excruciating autopsy of his myriad of fails was better than facing the Hood looking at him like that. “I’m such an idiot. I fell for the whole con.”

“Yeah, yeah you did,” Hood agreed slowly. “Once again, you’re a member of the Fuck Up Club. That happens.”

“Not–!” Blackbird swallowed and rearranged what he was going to say. “It’s worse than just a fuck up. I was a moron and walked right into it, but it’s not really me that’s going to be hurt if people start actively fighting me trying to help. I can stop my truck any time and be okay. My clients won’t! People are going to die if the deliveries stop. All the swagger and fear and mystery the rest of you use to get respect, that doesn’t work for me. I actually need people’s goodwill to do what I do. I need trust. The Lightfoots are going to smear me across the fucking city with the ammunition I gave them tonight.” He felt his chest tighten again and forced himself to breathe through it.

“So, what?” Hood asked. “Are you saying you want to give up?”

“What? No!” Blackbird snapped, genuinely annoyed. “Of course not!”

“Good,” Hood sat back on his hands. “Because if you had’ve, you wouldn’t have been half the person I thought you were.”

Blackbird did feel a bit better for hearing it. “What the fuck am I supposed to do about this?” he muttered. “They’ve practically declared war on me.”

Hood gave him a long look before saying, “Are you fucking with me right now?”

“What?” Blackbird blinked.

“Seriously? The minute you put on that,” Hood flicked the domino on Blackbird’s face. “You were in a war. What the actual fuck do you think the rest are of us doing with our nights, kid?”

Blackbird blinked a few more times. “... justice? Protecting people?”

“Fuuuck me, you really are green aren’t you?” Hood snorted. “You think ‘cause the Bats don’t kill they ain’t at war? Trust me kid, it doesn’t matter if they avoid the messy body count, it’s a fucking war. A war on injustice, or maybe just a war on human nature itself, who fucking knows, high philosophy ain’t my area, but they are soldiers, all of ‘em, and they’re at war. Some of us,” he added, slightly bitterly. “Are more willing to admit it than others, and admit to the casualties, but this isn’t some kind of extra enforcement system or masked police. We go on the attack as much as we’re on the defense. And kid?” Hood leaned right up in Blackbird’s astonished face. “We don’t fight fair. Not even the Bat fights fair. If his opponent makes some good points or has got good reasons or what the fuck ever, do you think he lets ‘em get on with it? Fuck no. He might grant ‘em mercy at the end, but he fights to fucking win, first and foremost. You should too. This whole live and let live thing? That was never gonna fly long term. There’s too many assholes ready to take advantage of any asset they can find and, I’m sorry kid, all your blood and sweat building your system made it into an asset. Come on, you can’t be naive enough to think they’d just let you be. If it hadn’t been those holy rollers, it’d have been someone else. You’re lucky it’s these folks, really. They ain’t as insidious as some of the fuckers I’ve come up against.”

“Hood, I can’t just go around starting a war!” Blackbird protested. “How will that help?”

“It’ll show them where the fuck your lines are,” Hood retorted. “Look, kid, I don’t think you get this. They declared war. You’ve got two options at this point; you either take up the fight or you fold. The question you gotta ask yourself is not if you can win, it’s if you believe you’re right – right enough for it to be worth a fight. And honestly, I can’t answer that for you,” Hood added. “If I hadn’t met you first, I wouldn’t necessarily have had a problem with Lightfoot and his minions getting food into my territory, as long as the people who needed it got to eat.”

Blackbird looked shocked. “But they’re con artists!”

Hood shrugged. “Dude, I’m a Crime Alley lifer. Anyone with pristine motives there should be stuffed and put in a museum. I was honestly surprised when Sid told me you lost your temper and went after them. You’re always saying you never have enough to go around. Here’s a resource. Use it.”

“But it’s not… Hood, they’re not giving people food!” Blackbird nearly shouted. “They’re fucking renting food. Eat now, pay later! It’s all there in the terms! The minute people sign up they’re accruing debts they’ll never even know they’ve taken on until the nice little collection agency turns up at their door! No wonder they wanted to get rid of all the charity food groups and pantries! If they’re the only game in town, people will have to sign up! Old people, disabled, shelters, people with no other options! And!” Blackbird continued furiously. “Drake Industries is a chemical company. Petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals. Not food! What do you want to bet there’s a tricky little clause in that stupid app’s T&C’s that saying they can put whatever they like in their fucking faux food?  What a cheap, easy way to effectively trial a drug or check the effect of environmental contamination! How the fuck do you think the Stillmans managed to get their hands onto an unknown drug that fucking killed them? The whole things a fucking rort and all the money will flow up.” Blackbird slumped, all the fire drained out. “How the fuck can I even fight it? I’m just me .”

Hood seized him by the chin and forced his head up. “Don’t give me that self-pitying bullshit, Baby Bird. If you know you’re right, if you really truly believe that’s what’s happening here, then you ain’t got no choice but to fucking fight. You have to start acting like a vigilante for real; no respect for authority, no limits, no mercy. You’re either that, or you're just another wannabe pretender.”

Blackbird stared at him, for the first time realizing that Hood was awfully close. His heart skipped a beat and he could have buried his face in his hands. Underneath that helmet he’s just Jason Todd, he reminded himself despairingly. And Jason Todd does not like you.

The Tim-him anyway. 

“I’m not a pretender,” Blackbird managed as a whole different sort of panic hit him. It was easier to manage, but much more surreal. 

“And you’re not going to let those assholes get the better of you, right?” Hood prompted. “You’re not gonna let them turn your customers into fucking debt riddled test subjects for some corporate bastards?”

“No,” Blackbird said fiercely. He was never going to let that happen if he could help it. He didn’t always fit in with the people he served, he knew he came from a different place than they did, but they were his. “Those are my people too. I feed ‘em, I look out for them. They’re… they’re mine.”

Hood sat back, satisfied. “There’s the sassy spitfire who tried to take me down in a fight,” he nodded. “You gotta go on the offensive now, Baby Bird. And I got good news for ya, because I’m gonna help ya,” Hood jabbed a thumb at his chest. “Ain’t no one on the planet that knows more about being offensive than me. I can fight a war; I’ve actually been in wars. I’ll show you how to get that shit done.”

“Why would you help me?” Blackbird wondered. “What am I to you?”

Hood shrugged. “All those people you claimed? They’re mine too. I don’t mind sharing custody as long as our goals align. ‘Sides,” he added more softly. “I respect what you’re trying to do. Not a lotta people who claim to want to help people in my neck of the woods actually put their money where their mouth is; they certainly never do it judgment free. That’s what I fucking hate about all the stinking holly rollers who blow through all the time,” Hood growled. “They fucking look down on us and think we don’t know it. They act like they’re too saintly to get their fucking feet muddy, and they always make it seem like it’s somehow our fault we live like this, as if they ain’t been stealing the clothes from our back and the food from our mouths whenever it suited them. You didn’t come from on high to look down,” Hood affirmed. “You coulda, but you didn’t. You crawled into the gutters and raised us up. That… that fucking counts for a lot, kid. More’n I think you know. So yeah, I’ll fucking help.”

Blackbird gaped at him. Was it possible, he thought helplessly, to love a mask and man separately, as two different entities? Because he was pretty sure that was what was happening here. Hood supported him. That meant more to Blackbird than he thought Hood would ever realize either.

But Hood didn’t maintain flowery well. “You need all the help you can get, frankly,” he added, and Blackbird could feel his smirk. 

“What?!” Blackbird was offended.

“Come on, kid, you don’t go on the offensive,” Hood taunted, amusedly. “Like, that whole confrontation stunt? Wasted opportunity, kid. You lost when you tried to explain yourself. If you’re gonna make your mark on people, you can’t be worried about what they think of you.”

“Well what would you have done?” Blackbird said irritably.

As if in answer to his huffy question, a blast of death metal rang out across the park, proclaiming fealty to satan. Blackbird’s head swiveled around to stare at the noise; it was so loud that it almost drowned out the shouts of horrified church members.

“If you ask me, that Lightfoot guy overinvested in speakers,” Hood smirked. “He coulda gotten by with a few less, to my mind.”

 “Did you hack their sound system?” Blackbird asked with incredulous delight. The sound was apocalyptic even from this far away. He couldn’t imagine the mad scramble that was going on at the tent to try to stop it, or at least get away. He probably should have felt bad about it, there were lots of people who were there because they were ignorant rather than bad, but they knew exactly what the Pastor was preaching when he flayed the poor and the immigrant and the vulnerable as weak and lazy and they swallowed it wholeheartedly, so Blackbird couldn’t find it in himself to feel too sorry for them.

“I thought they might benefit from a different point of view, theologically speaking,” Hood said smugly. “Besides, I’m not in the habit of making my enemies comfortable, even in their safe spaces. Red Hood does a lot of shit, Baby Bird,” he added. “But he doesn’t fight fair.”

Blackbird laughed. He couldn’t help it.

Never had he loved anyone more.

Chapter Text

Red Hood approached the battlefield with a certain amount of swaggering amusement. Usually that was just his brand or whatever, but this time it was because he was literally trying to stop falling over and rolling around on the ground laughing.

Someone pleaded with him for assistance. He mercilessly nudged the giant jiggly ball of jello they were encased in, watching as the poor sap trapped in it, hands, feet and head all that was showing, yelped in alarm and began making a wobbling, uneven roll down the gentle slope of the street.

“Hood,” Arsenal dialed in, sounding like he was choking on laughter. “Just reassure me I didn’t get hit with something psychotropic… oh my god…” A couple more jello balls rolled by, their passengers spewing some pretty ungodly words as they tried to halt the undignified journey. Arsenal’s self-control bit the big one and his great guffaws of laughter clogged up the comm line from on high.

“You didn’t get hit,” Red Hood snorted, his ribs nearly breaking with the effort of not joining in. It was important that Hood looked menacing right now, especially down on the street. “Or if you did, I did too and I wanna shake the maker of this wonderful drug by the hand. What did you see?”

Arsenal had been voluntold by Red Hood to surveil on the rooftops tonight and track the movements of the Four & Twenty as it made its rounds in the Alley and the Bowery, since Hood had a side gig with a child sex ring that he had to tie loose ends off early on in the night before he could make his usual rendezvous with the district’s vigilante food truck. Looking at what he was seeing, he was willing to bet he missed a doozy of a caper as Blackbird finally went on the offensive.

“You were right, they tried to block him from getting into the Bowery,” Arsenal was still chuckling away. “The kid took exception to the human blockade approach. His monster truck is armed, after a fashion. There’s some kind of turret mounted under the chassis, Batmobile style. He fired a bunch of these… ball things at the people blocking the way. Low velocity, it didn’t even knock anyone down, but then…” Arsenal dissolved into laughter again. “It glommed them into jello balls, essentially. God it was fucking funny, looking at the expressions on all those faces as they rolled out of his way…”

Hood snorted. “He catching any static from the neighborhood?” he asked.

“He’s getting one or two conspiracy tin-foil hatters types but honestly a lot more people have come out to help him clear the way,” Arsenal reported. “Like, literally; they had a nice little game of crazy-person jello football. The rest of the protesters retreated to a safe distance and radio chatter indicates they’ve called the cops to deal with the people in the balls. That was it for the blockade, at least from the initial line of them. A few more of them got in their cars and followed Blackbird in.”

Meaning, he probably had a bunch of malingerers dogging his every footstep. Hood wished them luck out in these parts. Even in the COVID-quiet streets, Hood wouldn’t bet a penny that many wallets hadn’t been lifted and bags snatched. The flavor of followers Lightfoot attracted weren’t generally from around here. The Lightfooters made all the placating noises, but no amount of good faith arguments could hide the fact that they thought poverty was an individual failing, not a systemic one. If people were poor, it was their fault. Hood was pretty sure they wouldn’t, therefore, have a lot of converts from the area.

“Location?” Hood asked. He had the app, but he noticed that lately it only showed the location of the big truck. It didn’t show Blackwing and the kid making doorstops like it had before, probably because of the aforementioned malingerers. 

“He’s done his first round of home deliveries,” Arsenal reported from his position, “The truck went back to the food bank on its own and they loaded her up for a second round. He’s got a lot of customers. He rendezvoused with the big truck and he just finished up at the homeless camp at the junkyard. He’s swinging up Sweetin Lane. What the fuck is there, though? Meth labs? It’s nothing but warehouses.”

“Domestic violence shelter,” Hood grunted, mounting the bike he’d abandoned when he’d gone to check on the hilarious sight of jello-balled parishioners rolling around on his streets. “Informal. They use the warehouses like a boarding house.”

“Hang on, I’m gonna have to move positions to keep him in sight. I can see a couple of cars… yeah, they’re following him. Give me two minutes to reconnoitre.”

Great. Hood gunned it and headed for Sweetin. He’d probably have more luck engaging on the ground anyway.

When he got to Sweetin there was already a crowd of people waiting. They were almost uniformly women, though there were a couple of men too, as well as an assortment of people whose gender was not immediately apparent. 

They skittered back at the sound of his motorcycle and a half dozen of them skittered back even further when they caught sight of the size of him, dismounting and coming forward. Sometimes being physically intimidating was fucking shitty.

There were exceptions. “Hood!” a woman came forward, grinning. Some of her teeth were missing. “Good to see you!”

“Hey Maz,” Hood was surprised to see one of his working girl informants here. “What are you doing in this neck of the woods?” He hoped she hadn’t gone back to her shitty henchman husband and then regretted it like she had in the past. COVID had a way of leaving people in shitty situations with even shittier options, though. Sometimes you’d take the bruises if it didn’t mean sleeping outside, especially as winter closed in.

“I’m an official Four & Twenty volunteer dude,” she beamed. “Got the certificate and ID and everything. I figured, you know, this place helped me a bit, so I’d handle ordering and all that stuff for them.”

“You sober?” Hood asked her.

“Six months and counting and fuck me, did I pick a hell of a year to quit for good,” she sighed.

Hood snorted. “Hang in there, honey.”

“Maizie,” another woman waved from the service counter of the truck. “He’s got some of that mash stuff you like! Hot!”

“Hang on, a gotta help with the unload!” Maz called back. “Ladies, gents, etc, everybody ready?” An affirmative chorus answered her.  “Okay Blackbirdie, open her up!” she yelled.

“Roger!” came Blackbird’s voice over the loudspeaker. There was a click and a whir, and the side of the truck slowly lifted up. Blackbird himself appeared inside as the innards were exposed. “Have you got the dolly?”

“Uh…” Maz looked around, but a couple more inmates of the shelter were wheeling it up. “Yep, we’re good.”

“Hey Hood!” Blackbird waved to him. “Ready to use those muscles? We could use an extra set of shoulders.”

“No men who don’t live here,” someone whispered; Hood didn’t dare look at whoever said it because they sounded terrified. 

“Hey, don’t worry about Hood,” Maz told them. “I promise you, he’s cool. He keeps the assholes and gangbangers out of this place. The only reason we can still be here is him. Okay? Relax. He don’t hit people smaller than him. That’s something left to our own guys,” she added somewhat bitterly. 

“I won’t go past the threshold,” Hood promised the world at large, careful not to look at any of them. He cast down his shoulders and relaxed his stance, chin tilted down, submissive as a big friendly dog. Harmless wasn’t an impression he should be any good at, but he’d gotten the lead in the school play three years running for a reason.

They appeared to accept it, even though he knew a couple of them were religiously keeping their distance. Hood kept his word and stayed nearer to the truck, hauling bulk bags and boxes of everything they needed down off the truck and onto the dolly, or into the hands of the bucket chain of people. Maz was running around, checking things off lists and generally making sure they had most of what they ordered. There was, Hood thought, a lot.

“Lots of business around here?” Hood said in an undertone to Blackbird while they worked.

“They’re over capacity,” Blackbird murmured back, piling him with boxes of bread. “Nothing like being locked in the same room with someone to really find out how toxic your relationship with them is.”

Mother fucker. It wasn’t surprising, per se, but it put a godawful extra duty on his endless pile-of-shitty-work to-do list. He’d have to dig around and find out if there was anywhere else he could put these people, somewhere they could be relatively safe and spread out as well as sheltered and fed. He had no doubt ‘overcapacity’ meant ‘crammed in like sardines’ and he also didn’t doubt that there were a lot of kids and babies with them.

Maybe his network of working girls would help, if they weren’t already here, that is. For tonight he’d just have to make sure everyone got fed and maybe ‘acquire’ a couple more dumpsters so they could keep everything as hygienic as possible and not live in their own trash.

 They’d gotten as far as the cold stuff – in this case, crates of milk, when trouble started.

“Heads up, incoming on your eight,” Arsenal called in. “They’ve been circling around for a while but I think they were having trouble finding him.”

That didn’t sound right; Hood could find the truck easy as pie on the app. “Did you hack their phones and feed them false intel?” he asked, amused, as lights lit up at the end of the street.

“Well if they’re all going to keep gathering in one place, they’re asking to get their phones geotagged,” Blackbird sniffed. 

“Who are these assholes?” Maz asked, coming up to them, staring at the lights and frowning. “They’re scaring people!” She wasn’t wrong. A few members of the crowd had literally fled the minute they’d seen the lights; no doubt worried some asshole significant other had found them. The rest were tense and unhappy, but willing to stand their ground. 

“They ain’t looking for anyone here, Maz,” Hood told her. “You know those Lightfoot church people?”

“Those fuckers?” she said incredulously. “You’re fucking kidding me! What the fuck are they doing here?”

“Spreading the good word,” Blackbird sighed. “Though in this case it’s mostly flat out lies.”

There were people getting out of the cars and converging on the site. A couple more inmates of the shelter lost their nerve, but the rest of them glared defiantly at the incoming handful of people.

“Keep stacking,” Maz told the others. “And ignore them. They ain’t got any right to be here. If they make trouble, Hood’ll take care of ‘em.”

Hood took that as his cue to melt into the shadows of an alleyway in a way no one his size should be able to. He tapped his comm mike, one, twice; he got an answering tap-tap back. Good, Arsenal was in position to assist if necessary. 

“What am I, chopped liver?” Blackbird said plaintively, theatrically clutching his chest.

“Sorry honey, but Hood’s kind of an institution around here.”

Blackbird looked to where a grinning Hood was looking back from his spot and nodded. “Fair. You good on milk, or do you need more?”

“Stop!” someone cried. “Stop right there!” The small force of newcomers surged forward, led by Marian, Pastor’s Lightfoot’s ever faithful uber-disciple.

“Phones set to record, people!” Maz yelled to the shelter people. Some of them kept doggedly bucket chaining in supplies but a few others, with visible injuries or other things that disqualified them from heavy lifting, already had their phones out. 

“Please, you need to stop taking food from him!” Marian looked artfully disheveled, tears in her big eyes. “He’s poisoning it! It’s not safe!”

“Two more crates of milk,” Maz ignored her with all the disdain of the finest society socialite. “Then we’ll need some cheeses and yogurts as well, plus all the baby stuff.”

“You got it,” Blackbird rather enjoyed Marian and her cohorts building up a head of steam in the background.

Sadly, their silence didn’t last long. Marian rushed forwards and yanked the crate of milk cartons out of Blackbird’s hands just as Maz was trying to get a grip on it. “I’m not letting you hurt these women!” she yelled. “You murderer!” She cast the crate away.

Milk splattered over the road side. “Hey!” Blackbird’s angry voice rang out, his hackles well and truly up.

He didn’t get his licks in quite as fast as a furious Maz – trauma survivor and Crime Alley lifer, who’d been in rumbles almost before she could walk – who stepped forward and wordlessly landed a beautiful right hook on the stunned Marian, sending the woman staggering back, clutching her bleeding nose.

“You better fuck off right the fuck now or I’m gonna make you do a lot worse than just fucking bleed, you fucking bitch!” Maz roared at the top of her lungs.

Marian gaped at her, clutching her nose in shock. “I’m trying to help you and you attack me?” she wailed at the top of her lungs, tears sliding down her face. 

“Oh my fucking god, really?” Maz rolled her eyes. “You’re pulling a wounded damsel con? That’s the best you’ve got?”

Marian sniffled while some other parishioner came forward to put an arm around her. “Shame on you!” scolded the older, comfortably round middle-aged woman. “Shame on you all! That person is dangerous!” she pointed an accusing finger at an unamused Blackbird, who was keeping an eye on them while thumbing through his phone. “He attacked us when he drove in, dozens of people were nearly run over by his truck! He’s nothing but a thug and criminal who’s trying to buy your silence! He doesn’t care about what you're eating, only that he’s the only person you can go to! Once you’re dependent is when the demands will start! Please, listen to us! We are good, decent people who are trying to look after you!”

Blackbird had, at some point in this tirade, gotten out his phone and started scrolling through it.

“I got some dents in my car today,” he read off the screen. “If protesters don’t want to get out of my way, they shouldn’t be standing on the streets. Anybody know a good panel beater? Blacks, latinos and Asians need not apply. Oh, silly me, they don’t have honest jobs!” he added in a voice filled with chirpy sarcasm. “Is that your version of ‘looking out for’ and ‘caring’ for the people around here, Mrs Leigha Heatherington-Smith of Goldlands Community, Coventry? Oh, that was one of her three cars, by the way, folks!” he announced to the crowd. “She’s really down with us peasants here, huh?”

Mrs Heatherington-Smith gasped in outrage, puffing up. “How dare you!”

“Hey, you posted it on a public forum, lady,” Blackbird retorted. “I just looked for it, and not very hard, either. Oh, there’s more here. ‘Can’t even go out of the gates these days without almost hitting a… you know what, I’m not going to use that word, there are children here. ‘Can’t we just lock them all in a pen, or something? There must be some rocks that need breaking somewhere, right?’ Oh, look, she used a little winky emoji, too, just for added giggles. Anyone want to see?”

There were scowls and angry noises from the crowd of mostly-women as they came forward to look at the post. There were also snorts of laughter over Jason’s comm line. “That kid’s taking no prisoners. I like him,” Arsenal said between chuckles.

“So do I,” Hood murmured back, smirking under his helmet.

“That hardly matters with what’s going on here!” Heatherinton-Smith put her nose in the air.

“I think it would matter to your boss what you think of the poor and indigent, Leigha,” Blackbird waved his phone. “After all, as a sales rep for a major corporation, that’s the kind of thing that makes headlines. Let me send this to the corporate twitter account and see what they say, huh?”

The older women went gray as ash, spluttering incoherently. “You… you can’t do that!”

“That’s right!” Marian said snottily. “He’s a mad poisoner! You can’t trust anything he says! Or anything he gives you! Plus, he attacked us for trying to help you people!”

Blackbird raised an eyebrow. “You people?” 

“Oh, fuck right off!” someone else from the shelter yelled angrily. “Everyone knows the Stillmans were the fucking poisoners! They got them on video and everything! And we all know they came from your church! If I’m not gonna trust anyone to give me food, it sure as shit ain’t gonna be the masks!”

The Lightfooters all gawked. “What?” Marian squeaked. “T-That’s not what…”

“Oh stow it, we’ve all seen the video!” Maz spat.

“I don’t think they have yet,” Blackbird said amusedly, looking at the puzzlement of the Lightfooters’ faces. “Come on, let’s finish unloading. I’ve got more stops yet.”

The Lightfooters fell back into a huddle, some of them getting out their phones. Hood, still hanging back in the shadows in case they wanted to try something more violent than yelling slogans, accessed his own phone. Taking a bet, he typed ‘lightfoots’ ‘stillmans’ ‘bait boxing’ into the search field.

Bullseye. There was all the blather and propaganda the church had churned out, but hitting the top views tonight was a video that was decidedly not Lightfoot friendly. Blackbird had somehow managed to get the grainy – but visible – CC-TV footage from where little Roxy Harrison had been handed a box by someone in a station wagon. It didn’t show the drivers very clearly, but Blackbird had helpfully highlighted the number plate. Then it showed actual footage from Blackbird’s mask cam, their entire interaction with the Stillmans once they’d been hauled from their foamy car. The video helpfully highlighted the same number plate and gave visual profiles of the pair spliced in from their social media posts.

There was no hiding, as the footage went on, the crazed look in their eyes or their guilty behavior. It was made crystal clear they knew the food they were handing out was not safe for consumption. The footage did cut off before their somewhat graphic OD, but that was a wise censorship given it was on a public site. The hit count was huge; Blackbird was too tech savvy to not have bot-fired it across every conceivable platform he could reasonably show it on. 

Hood grinned. It was a compelling offensive. The Lightfooters could spin doctor like they were in a tornado, but they’d never be able to explain away what was in the video. 

Hood could see it on the outraged and consternated faces of the huddle of Lightfooters, who were having a panicked conference at their cars in the headlights. Some of them were on the phone to other people, no doubt higher ups in their little army.

He hit a speed dial on his wrist array. “Hey Baby Bird, how exactly did you keep them from finding that video until now?”

Blackbird, who was deep in the guts of his monster truck right now, was able to answer him back instantly. “Selective blocking via a tapeworm virus, introduced into a signal cluster,” he said grimly. “If they’re going to ignore social distancing mandates and gathering restrictions, then they shouldn’t complain when their GPS intersections light up like the 4th of July and make them easy to track.”

Hood snorted a laugh. “Taking control of the narrative and giving them no opportunity for quick rebuttal. I like it.”

“Thank you. It was a lot of damn work, hacking them all one by one,” Blackbird sounded tired. “On the bright side, I got plenty of ammunition about some of their less than savory opinions and affiliations to send to various employers and I don’t think Lightfoot has enough paying positions in the church to absorb them all. They have no idea what they just unleashed. If we’re at war, like you said, well… that’s how I wage war.”

Hood beamed. He liked this guy!

Marian, who had cleaned herself up as best she could and was already starting to show what would be a magnificent shiner, stalked forward as Blackbird emerged from the truck bearing a load of boxes to pass off to the bucket chain. “You… you MONSTER!” she screamed at the top of her voice, careful to stay in line with the phone cameras pointed in her direction. “You come here after mocking and disgracing people who were mentally ill, who were clearly not well? What do you think their families will think of that? Their children, their brothers and sisters, all of that! You… you should be ashamed! That’s blood libel!”

“Wow, nice little bit of cultural appropriation there,” Blackbird replied to this dryly as he hopped down onto the street and started handing boxes to the waiting people. “Last I checked and according to your social media posts, you are definitely not Jewish.”

“Give me those boxes!” Marian raged. “You’re a lunatic! I’m going to take them and get them tested! I know you’re going to make people sick.”

“Fuck off!” Maz snapped at her. “There’s only one crazy person round here, bitch, and it sure ain’t him.”

“Are you sure?” Marian said angrily. “Are you absolutely, one hundred percent sure you can trust him? He’s wearing a mask! You don’t even know who he is!”

“Lady, we fucking know who you are!” someone in the crowd retorted. “”That’s the problem! It was your people who started handing out poisoned candy bars to kids! I’ll take my chances with a fucking mask! Or don’t you know Batman’s saved this stinking hellmouth longer than most of us have fucking been alive?”

Marian gaped at the crowd. The rest of her little film crew looked deeply uncertain; if they had hoped to sow discord within the vulnerable communities on camera they weren’t making much headway.

There it was, Hood thought with satisfaction, that consternated expression of the well-to-do outsider who just did not compute the average Gothamite’s willingness to trust in freaks wearing masks. 

“Ignore them,” Blackbird told his people, turning his back on the Lightfooters. “We’re nearly done.”

Furious, Marian shrieked and lunged forward, trying to snatch a box out of another woman’s hands. The woman, stark pale and surprised at the sudden attack, stumbled back, instinctively trying to take the box with her. Marian shoved her. Hood unshipped one of his guns and was going to stride out there to make a point about attacking one of his people when a couple of loud pops stopped him.

Marian yelped in surprise as wobbled as the popballs which landed at her feet foamed up and expanded around her feet and calves, leaving them encased in a rapidly swelling and hardening ball of meringue. “What?!” she shrieked, trying desperately to stay upright because her feet were now glued in place and falling over would be a) a contortionist’s nightmare, b) somewhat painful and c) look completely ridiculous. 

“Hey! You can’t do that!” her posse surged forward.

Blackbird had been rolling popballs yanked off his bandolier before they’d even moved. The scattershot bouncing balls all popped one after the other and suddenly no one could find their feet. They slipped and went ass-up as the road lost all friction, as slick as oil. They couldn’t even gain their feet after the initial pratfall, whatever Blackbird had hit them with was so slippery. Some of them were trying to belly slide to safer ground, but most of them were sitting there, scraped and bruised and completely furious.

A wave of abuse was hurled at Blackbird. The kid didn’t even give them the dignity of a sniff; he turned and went to finish his work, the Lightfooters beneath his notice.

“Are you getting this?” Marian screamed as she tried to free herself from the toffee shackles. “Someone is getting this, right? He’s attacking us! That’s assault!”

“I got it, I got it,” one guy was holding his phone up high from the ground.

Hood whistled down the comm.

There were shrieks as a bullet neatly went through it, raining the guy in shattered pieces. Suddenly they were slip-sliding backwards, on their ass if they had to, to try to find cover from the fire as the unseen sniper took out two more phones with deadly precision.

“We’re under attack!” Marian wailed like a banshee. “We’re being assassinated! We’re going to die!”

“Oh please,” Blackbird rolled his eyes under his mask as he shooed the rest of the shelter inmates back inside with their supplies. “If that is who I think it is and they wanted you dead, you’d be dead. They don’t generally go in for warning shots around here.”

Marian paled dramatically, still swaying hilariously back and forth as she tried to free herself from the toffee shackles. “S-so that’s it,” she stuttered eventually. “You-you-you’re just another th-thug , another godless little criminal! Just like the Red Hood! Are those women your sex slaves? Your little pack of whores? I bet even the kids know how to give head around here with godless, evil tyrants like you and him stalking around, controlling all the resources!”

Blackbird opened a furious mouth....

Marian shrieked in surprise and pain as Hood fired a row of bullets at her feet. The bullets were angled wrong to connect with her legs in any way, but shards of the road bounced up and scraped her up but good.

The toffee ball, now quite hard, cracked loose from its grip on the road but not from Marian’s feet, sending her toppling backwards on her ass and back. 

Red Hood stalked out of the alleyway slowly. “Now Marian, that didn’t sound very nice,” he purred. Quick as a snake he had a gun pointed straight at her head. “Maybe I didn’t hear you right. Say it again.”

Whatever convictions Marian held dearest sloughed off like dead skin at the sight of Red Hood towering over her with such clear deadly intent. “Oh my god, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it!” she burst into messy, snotty sobs. “I didn’t mean it! I’m sorry! Please don’t kill me! Please don’t!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, do you think I play nice, Miss Virtuous?” Hood said silkily. “Do you think I let slander like that just slide on my streets? I’ve fucking skinned people alive for insinuating a lot less directly what you just accused me of. Do you think for a second that anyone gets away with hassling people under my protection? And besides, that’s what you really believe, isn’t it? You ought to be prepared to defend it where it counts. If you’re gonna start throwing your weight around here, be prepared for what gets thrown back at’cha. Now. Say. It. Again. Say it!”

Marian dissolved into incoherent ‘ohmygod’s and sobbing.

“Hood,” Blackbird said quietly. 

“Yeah,” Hood put his guns away. “That’s what I thought. Hey, assholes!” he yelled to the frozen horrified crowd who were still mostly trapped on the oil slick in the road. “I thought I told you fuckers to stay out of my territory. I thought I made myself perfectly, crystal clear. I did do that, I’m pretty fucking sure.” He stepped towards them. They cowered back, even as Marian curled into a wretched, wailing, toffee shackled ball. “But some of you seem hard of hearing. Maybe you didn’t get the message through the grapevine. Maybe your Pastor’s the world's biggest dumbfuck; fine, it could happen, but I hope you know he sent you here to die.”

Hood stepped forward and waited until they were taut as violin strings at the silence and lack of visual cues. “But I can be merciful, I guess. Plus, bowel and bladder voiding happens at the moment of death and I don’t really want anyone living here to have to deal with the stink of your corpses until the cops show up tomorrow. So here’s the deal; I’ll let you fuck right off out of my territory right the fuck now and I won’t do anything to stop you. In return, you and your shitty little charity brigade never come back. And if you can manage to follow those very simple conditions, none of you need to get any more hurt than you’ve already been. Do we have a deal?”

There was a fraught, terrified silence.

“Do we have a deal?” Hood bellowed at full volume.

A chorus of panicked affirmatives and swearing answered him. 

“Good.” Hood crooked a finger in the air.

A wave of bullets took out the tires of their cars amid a chorus of screaming.

“You said you’d let us leave!” Heatherington-Smith screamed tearfully.

“You can leave,” Hood shrugged. “I ain’t stopping you. Never said I’d make it easy, did I? You all still got your feet, you can walk. You might wanna get moving; all the real assholes looking for an easy score will be out soon and since my speciality is the major crime lords, I don’t really bother policing the little guys. Oh, and in case it hasn’t been made clear to you; I have fucking friends in this town. I got eyes and ears all over the place. So if you go back on your word… well, let’s just say that’s not gonna fucking end well for you. Fuck off. And don’t you dare bother anyone in there, either,” he jabbed a finger at the makeshift shelter.

Blackbird had already closed off the truck and rescued whatever he could of the milk that had been spilled. “Hood, come on,” he said quietly.

Hood tapped his comm. “Keep an eye on these dipshits will you? Make sure they leave.”

“Aw, no more target practice?” Arsenal grinned down the line.

“I didn’t say how you had to make ‘em leave, did I?” Hood retorted. “Do what you like. And it makes me feel dirty to say, but keep the locals away from ‘em too. Much as I’d like them to lose their wallets and jewelry, their philosophy is hovering on the edge of those anti-masking assholes. Odds on at least one of them’s got the ‘rona.”

“Fuck me,” Arsenal sighed. “Copy that.”

Hood took the time to quietly knock on the door and give Maz a quick sitrep to pass along to the people inside. They should be fine; the Lightfooters weren’t in a defiant mood. Hood had no doubt they’d called the cops, but they were about to learn a hard lesson about the average response time in Crime Alley, even when a bunch of screaming Karens were hollering down the line.

Hood clambered into the truck door at the back near Blackwing’s little tow rig. The truck was echoingly empty of supplies. 

“Thanks for your help,” Blackbird said as they rumbled off and Hood marched up the line of the truck to where Blackbird was washing his hands and then tapping away at his laptop. “We’ll have to disembark when we roll towards the Schwartz Bridge. The truck is scheduled to go back to the big food depository near the stadium and haul another load down to Chinatown before heading back up here. They’re happy to help with supply if they can make use of the truck and my logistics software,” he explained as he dug around in the almost empty warming oven and withdrew a slightly over crisp but nicely cheesy pizza roll. “Here, I saved one for you. Heard you had a long night.”

Hood gratefully sanitized his hands at the wash station before disengaging his helmet and digging into a free hot meal. “Aside from the Lightfooters, any trouble?”

“Couldn’t make a few deliveries,” Blackbird sighed tiredly. “People have either gone to hospital or they’ve died. Sister Desiderata, I gave a bunch for her and her volunteers to take for the street kids and the homeless. Once the Four & Twenty has done its pro bono work as a mass carrier for the food banks they’ll load her up again and I’ll finish my rounds in the early morning.”

“Shit kid. I’m used to a punishing schedule and even I think that’s brutal,” Hood said. “You sleeping?”

Blackbird snorted. “Sleep? What’s that? I’m hotfooting trying to keep the Lightfooters off my back. They haven’t twigged to my hacking yet, but that’s not going to last. My ‘respectability’ offensive flagging their internet rants with their bosses might keep them occupied though; fighting the ‘good Christian fight’ is all very well, but losing your reputation and your jobs because of your shitty online behavior will likely become a more pressing concern. They don’t like going hungry any more than anyone else.”

It was deliciously underhanded, the way the kid was hitting them on fronts they probably never expected. Hood couldn’t help but respect the fuck out of it. “I got people who might be able to help you out of the cyber end,” he offered. “You need fucking sleep kid. Honestly, you should have just let me shoot her; that would have kept them well out of your way for quite some time.”’

“No killing,” Blackbird shook his head.

“Ugh, don’t tell me you’re going the Bat route,” Hood said in mock despair. “You showed such promise!”

“It’s not so much a moral consideration as it is an appropriate amount of caution,” Blackbird retorted. “I don’t particularly like the idea of killing when up against an institution that has been well known for centuries for weaponizing martyrdom. Making them look ridiculous, that works. Making their lives and livelihoods forfeit if they keep pressing their stupid little resource monopoly, that works. Killing won’t. It’ll drive more people into Lightfoot’s cause, because an actual, physical enemy is the dream right now. It’s solvable, or at least feels like it, unlike everything else.”

Hood had to concede the point was fairly made, although he still remained privately of the opinion that the fear would still keep them out of their hair and out of the district.

Also, he only had rubber bullets in the gun. They’d’ve stung like shit but it would take a very special catch to actually kill someone and, while Hood had no doubt he could have made it happen, making that idiotic zealot live with the pain for a while would, possibly, have been extremely instructive about her life choices in general. 

He wasn’t going to tell Blackbird that. That, he thought, had been an excellent way to test where he drew his lines in this business. 

When they reached the Schwartz-Burnley interchange, Blackbird backed Blackwing out of its tow box, unhooked the little car’s own tow box and rolled it back into the big truck. “There,” Blackbird said as he sent the big truck ponderously and silently rolling off into the night. “It’ll head for the big food bank. They know what to do. It’ll be back in about four hours with the last load of deliveries, once they’ve finished using it to carry stuff down south.”

“So, what?” Hood said. “Are we just twiddling our thumbs until the graveyard delivery run?”

“Want to go get a coffee?”

Hood didn’t choke, but it was a near thing. “Uh, what now?” he said, willing his voice not to climb too high. Had Blackbird just asked him on, like, a date?

“I’ve got a… a thing to do tonight,” Blackbird shifted uncomfortably. “And, I, um, could use your help. Infiltration and uh, maybe a little light data heisting?”

Hood stared at him. “And for this we go get coffee? You and me?”

Blackbird went pink, eyes widening behind his mask as he realized how that sounded. “Oh, uh, no. Um. Not like that!” he explained hastily. “I need to gently drug a couple of guards and they always use the same coffee place and their coffee run is at about midnight so… if we hurry, um, we can intercept. If you want. Um. If you’re not busy, that is.” Blackbird was steadily going redder as he dug himself deeper into the bottomless pit of embarrassment.

Weirdly, it made Hood feel like he was on firmer ground. “No need to get all gooey, sweetheart. You had me at infiltrating. I’m good at all sorts of infiltration.”

Blackbird went as red as boiled lobster. “Ugh, you’re the worst,” he muttered while Hood laughed at him.

“Sure kid, I can give you an assist,” Hood took pity on him after watching him squirm. “I ain’t got a lot on my plate tonight.”

“Right, good,” Blackbird nodded, apparently deleting the last exchange from his personal universe by sheer force of will. “Come on, we’d better hurry if we want to catch the coffee runner.”

“So, where exactly are we breaking into?” Hood asked as they motored down the bypass in Blackbird’s sweet ride. 

“Drake Industries,” Blackbird replied grimly. “They got into bed with the Lightfooters, or vice versa. Whichever way they work out top and bottom dynamics, it’s gonna be the people eating their slop that get screwed.”

“I’ve seen some of that Lightfood stuff going around the neighborhood already,” Hood nodded. 

“Yeah, they generously gave a bunch of it to the food banks. Corporate donations,” Blackbird sighed. 

“Nice of them,” Hood said sarcastically. “I’m surprised Interfaith took it, given the frosty relations between Lightfooters and every other charitable service in the district.”

“To be fair, it is food. High calorie, maybe, but it’s not like junk food corporations aren’t offloading their unsellable flavors onto the unsuspecting poor whenever they get the chance,” Blackbird pointed out. “Honestly, it is a lot better, nutritionally, than some of the stuff they get. And the need is so high right now, it’s not like the food banks can be picky. Queues at food drives are miles long anywhere you go. A hot meal is a hot meal; they don’t have the wiggle room to take issue with who packs it.”

“And we do?” Hood clarified. 

“I don’t have issues with the food,” Blackbird answered as they took off down the bypass. “Like I said, people have to contend with unhealthier choices. I have issues with their app and their supposedly subscription food service. I went through the terms and conditions with a fine-tooth comb and there are a lot of really sketchy clauses in there, quite apart from the frankly appalling scam to get people into debt thinking they’re getting a free meal when they’re really just renting it and paying later.”

“Right. What’s the sign-up rate so far?” Hood asked seriously.

“They’ve had more than a few takers,” Blackbird replied, just as grim. “Disabled and the elderly, mostly. Some near-homeless families too. I’ve posted all the information I can about the way the scam works online and how hard it will be to get out once the cool-off is over but I can’t make people read it. Interfaith is doing what they can with their own door knockers, trying to make sure people at least know what they're signing up for and how it isn’t really free. I’m doing the same throughout Bowery and Crime Alley, but it’s rough going. People like Sid’s mom, they’re exhausted and scared and struggling with themselves. Truths are messy and complicated, they take effort trying to comprehend and cross check. Lies are simple. COVID is just about the hardest truth we’ve got right now. People are dying, especially down there in the vulnerable and underserved.”

“And along comes the good Pastor and his merry crew,” Hood snorted. “Ready to give them all the sweet fantasies they want, for a price. Same old story; that’s happened around Gotham for decades now.”

“I think some of them are so fed up with… just everything that they don’t even care if they’re getting conned. They just want all the hard and bad and scary to stop for a while,” Blackbird said tiredly. “I’d like to be angry about it but I do kinda get where they’re coming from.”

“Me too,” Hood propped his helmet on his fist. “Sometimes life can… it gets a bit much, yeah? Too much to really deal with. You start believing that a bullet or a knife can make the world so clean and simple.”

Blackbird turned to look at Hood. “Speaking from experience, how does that go?” His voice held no censure.

Hood shrugged. “Depends on the day. I can’t say it’s never worked at all, but there’s always some complication waiting on the horizon. Sometimes I wish it would all just stop too.”

He saw the corners of Blackbird’s temples tighten with sympathy. “Well, for what it’s worth,” he said softly. “I think you’re doing a really good job. Better than Batman, at least in your territory. People would have never accepted the likes of me if you hadn’t been there first, showing that some people can be trusted to help. Not a lot of people would have even tried, let alone succeeded in making those streets safe the way you did.”

Hood felt a happy lurch in his chest and didn’t know quite what to do with it. Yeah, he’d been in therapy and yeah, the family was trying to repair all the cracks and fractures between them, so it wasn’t like he’d never been told he was doing a good job. But to hear it from an outsider, with no skin in the game of Hood’s emotional wellbeing, swung at his feels with a heavyweight punch. It was nice. 

But he wasn’t quite ready to really respond to stuff like that yet, so he hastily redirected. “So, uh… where’s this coffee joint?” he asked. They’d zipped down the bypass and skirted around Robinson Park at a speed that would be the frustration of any and all speed cameras trying to catch them, heading into the swankier skyscraper riddled Diamond District. From here Hood could see Wayne Tower looming up over the horizon.

(As an aside, Hood knew B hadn’t actually built the damn thing but the fact that his ancestors had and it had remained the tallest tower in Gotham said an awful lot about their need to compensate… or perhaps, flaunt).

“Down here,” Blackbird slid them sweetly into a no-park zone, though at this time of night Gotham parking rules were mostly academic. “Le Twee Paris, you see it?”

Hood saw it. Another boutique coffee joint among about a hundred thousand boutique coffee joints that sprung up on the regular in Gotham because Wayne grant money loved to stick it to franchise chains with shitty minimum wage rules. Bruce tried, so hard. “What’s the sitch?”

“The guards placed their order about ten minutes ago,” Blackbird murmured. “Black, black, black, black with sugar, cappuccino grande, espresso, espresso, chai cinnamon latte grande, iced mocha and a French Sparkle Unicorn special,” Blackbird made a face. “Extra syrup.”

“Somebody is on the fast track to diabetes,” Hood grimaced.

Blackbird threw him a grin through his face mask. “And a bunch of crullers and bear claws. Their coffee runner is going to dispatch and bike it up the road to Drake Tower so we need to… Hood! Where are you going?”

Hood held up a finger and then strode up the well-lit street before ghosting into a tributary road like he was never there.

He came back four minutes later with two cups in hand.

“Where have you been?” Blackbird hissed. “The runner just got here! Now we’re going to have to find a way to intercept him en route! Without running him down!”

“Relax, kid,” Hood calmly thrust a coffee at the fretting Blackbird. “It’s all taken care of. Coffees are drugged and waiting to be delivered.”

Blackbird gaped at him.

“The night barista used to be a courier for some of the meth labs over in my district,” Hood explained, holding out a steaming cup. “I got ‘em a job here. It’s no good fucking over their sources of income and then leaving them to twist in the wind ‘cause they just find worse guys to work for and that shit becomes my problem again, eventually. I find ‘em legit jobs where I can.”

Blackbird took the coffee. “So you’re a Bowery employment agency?” he asked incredulously.

“Sort of,” Hood disengaged his helmet and took a sip of his ashwagandha-rooibos-honey tea blend. “For street kids. If they show me that they really want out. It’s hard to make that call sometimes because the drug makers pay good money. Better money than any legit job they can access.”

“Yeah, it’s hard to make a case for daylight employment when you look at minimum wage,” Tim murmured. “A lot of the people I deliver to were in the hospitality trade and they just don’t want to go back, assuming they haven’t already gotten sick. They get treated like they're disposable and they make shit money for the privilege.”

“It fucking sucks,” Hood agreed. “But some of them are still trying to make good, so if they commit to it I try to help where I can.”

“That’s really cool, Hood,” Blackbird tugged down his face mask to suck down a hot mouthful of coffee. 

“Eh, it’s for my own benefit too,” Hood shrugged off the praise. “It’s just something I was taught. If you want people to put in the work, make it easy for ‘em to work. Grease the way a little. It’ll keep them from making trouble and they’ll owe you a favor.”

They watched the coffee runner bike by at speed. 

“What did you give them?” Blackbird asked. “I had some stuff that would have given us, like, a twenty minute window.”

“Yeah, that’s about what I used,” Hood nodded. “Maybe half an hour based on body weight. Nothing debilitating. We should probably give it about twenty minutes to let it start working though. Give me the plan.”

“All I need to do is get to a terminal on, like, the fifth floor or higher,” Blackbird got out his phone to show Hood the floorplans. “I can access the intranet and get everything I need from there, or add a virus that’ll get me access later. I honestly would have hacked remotely but what I’m after is proprietary data and they keep that on a closed system.”

“What kind of data?” Hood asked keenly. “It can’t be corporate partnership data; the on-the-table stuff you could get from the SEC and the under-the-table stuff they wouldn’t record on their servers, not if they’ve got two brain cells to rub together. What?” Hood asked dryly at Blackbird’s rising eyebrows. “A surprising amount of the most deadbeat lookin’ gangsters are connoisseurs of corporate fraud and espionage. Honestly, it’s easier to launder the money that way.”

“Right, of course,” Blackbird shook himself. “Well, you’re right. I’m looking for R&D information. Specifically drug trial data.”

“You said that before,” Red Hood nodded. “You said that they could, under the terms, start putting shit in the food people wouldn’t know they were ingesting.”

“Right,” Blackbird said grimly. “It’s a nice little scheme. They get into the food game, people sign up to their service and, on top of squeezing money out of them they’re also getting a nice little cross section of test subjects, all their personal data given freely on their stupid Lightfood app so they can collate what works with what kind of person and keep track of their habits. They can throw the data at the FCC as a ‘blind’ study to get approvals faster. They also get a nice little early warning system if what they’re making has unintended side effects. And everyone on this trial agreed to do it, and are paying for the privilege to boot.” Blackbird grimaced. “If that’s what’s happening. Sketchy clauses aside, I can’t say I’ve found anything hinky in a chemical sense in any of the Lightfood I’ve tested so far. It’s just… food. Processed to within an inch of the definition of food, but it’s food.”

“So it’s possible they’re just trying to corner a shiny new market and their tactics are shitty,” Hood pointed out. “Mass medical testing without consent theory aside, this could just be about the money.”

Black shrugged. “It’s possible, but I’ve got two reasons for thinking otherwise. One, I haven’t yet been able to identify what the hell killed the Stillmans or why Ken Stillman was so clearly off his nut. The chemical signatures I managed to isolate are completely bespoke, and they’re not on any database I can find. That says ‘trial phase’ drug to me.”

“Holy shit,” Hood realized. “You think Drake Industries has already started their illegal trials and they’re using the church as their guinea pigs.”

“The con artists might be getting conned, yeah,” Blackbird agreed. “I mean, look at the people you stopped at the shelter. They’re your solid, average, white petty bourgeois. Those are the kind of people who wouldn’t willingly walk into these areas in daylight without a bodyguard, but there they were, kicking up a ruckus in the middle of the night, unarmed. I mean, faith is all very well but…”

“Yeah,” Hood nodded along as he got it. “That is pretty fucking strange. So if they’ve been hit with something that causes a euphoric effect, because that’s sure as shit what the Stillmans looked like before they croaked… that would explain their sudden lack of sensible inhibition.”

“Or they’re just determined to be assholes,” Blackbird shrugged. “I hate to say it, but the pressure of the pandemic just hits people that way. Either way, we should probably find out, because I guarantee you, Lightfoot might at least make overtures towards being charitable but Charles Drake has never done a single altruistic deed in his life.”

“You know him?” Hood asked shrewdly.

Blackbird’s expression didn’t flicker. “Mostly by reputation, and what I was able to dig up about him online. Prodigal second son, written out of the will, etc, etc. He ran a bespoke sciences firm in California before he came back here to take over Drake Industries. He’s got some science chops, though he’s more a businessman than an innovator.”

“Wait, weren’t Drake Industries run by a married pair?” Hood frowned. “Jack and Janet?”

“Before they died, yeah. Plane crash,” Blackbird replied shortly. “Took ‘em both out. Charles Drake was named as the inheritor of the estate.”

Hood felt his bewilderment increase. “I thought you said he was written out of the will.”

“By Jackson Drake Senior, yeah,” Blackbird explained. “Father to the current CEO. Apparently the old guy was so obsessed with one upping Bruce Wayne that he didn’t want to split the business so second-son Charles got the bum’s rush. Records indicate he more or less exiled himself after giving a couple of giant middle fingers to the family. It was all over the society pages about twenty, twenty-five years ago, according to my research.”

“And yet, he inherited?” Hood blinked. What about Tim? Wasn’t he the heir? Hood had assumed he was.

“Maybe the brothers made up?” Blackbird shrugged again. “I don’t know. They were probably at least on speaking terms when Jack Drake Jr died.”

“Yeah, but the Drakes had a son, though,” Hood persisted. “Shouldn’t he be the heir? I mean, that’d make more sense, if Charles Drake is just, like the guardian of the estate, wouldn’t it?”

“I don’t know. What do I know about the lifestyles of the rich and famous in Gotham?” Blackbird was irritable. “It wasn’t really relevant to the investigation.”

Hood dropped it, because Blackbird wasn’t wrong. But still, the facts as stated turned over in his mind. Something about this whole scenario seemed really fucking hinky. Where did Tim even fit into all this? How the hell had he ended up a pot scrubber at the Table with an entire multinational corporation waiting for his attention? Or had he sold his shares to his uncle?

“Hood, it’s time,” Blackbird looked at his watch.

Hood packed the mystery into a box. It could wait for now. 

Honestly, it wasn’t the hardest place he ever had to infiltrate. If Blackbird hadn’t already hacked the outer cameras Hood had enough Oracle-made gadgets on his own phone to handle that. He’d probably have paid through the nose to get actual access codes, but Blackbird had them covered there. He managed to zip through a maintenance entrance with what looked like a genuine Drake Industries badge.

“What did you do, pickpocket a custodian or something?” Hood asked curiously.

“Something like that,” Blackbird hedged. “It should be enough to get us access.”

They entered the building through the maintenance serviceway and into the building properly. The serviceway led into the invisible bowels of the building, but they opted for the more direct route to the lobby since time was not on their side. Somebody would notice something amiss with the guard patrol eventually, especially if there were some late night workaholics or janitors in the building and there was no way to guarantee they’d taken all the guards out in any case. 

The lobby proved no trouble. The poor schmucks on duty were all slumped over their duty stations. They only took the time to make sure no one was choking on a bite of cruller, before ghosting up to the elevator banks.

Blackbird’s card got the cars to activate. “Hold on,” he said, fumbling in his bandolier, withdrawing a laser key and his phone. “I just need to take out the redundant surveillance layer on the elevator cars. Some of the building’s security is watched remotely, especially accessing the upper floors.”

“I got it,” Hood waved him off, thumbing his own phone. “I got a thing that can black-spot the recording and loop an old one over it. As long as the old footage doesn’t have people looping over again in it, I doubt whether the poor schlub paid to keep an eye on the office trysts is going to notice.”

“Neat,” Blackbird said admiringly. “Can you handshake?”

“Oh yeah,” Hood snorted. “These stupid assholes are using a WayneSec subsidiary and this thing is built to get around WayneSec’s shit. They don’t even know they’re using the competition.”

“To be fair,” Blackbird grinned. “WayneSec is supposed to be the best.”

“No it fucking isn’t,” Hood grumbled on principle, because it wasn’t. Monopoly of the security industry in Gotham meant B had free reign to delete whatever footage he liked without a trace – useful for secret identity stuff – but it also meant the system was riddled with back doors and holes which were exploited by the less-than-savory malcontents on the regular. Talk about shooting yourself in the damn foot.

“It really isn’t,” Blackbird agreed as the car dinged quietly. They got in. 

Blackbird’s laser key found its home in the security lock. A twist and a flash of the card gave them access to the higher floors. However, that’s where the trouble started, because when they went to the fifth floor, Blackbird was stymied by the server box.

“This is,” he made a face. “All sales stuff and inter-office data. I mean, I can bug it, but the proprietary data wouldn’t be routed through here. They must have changed the IT infrastructure.”

“Where could you get that data?” Hood asked keenly. 

“Further up,” Blackbird eyed their ceiling unhappily. “Though the only place I could absolutely guarantee they’d keep it is in the R&D labs. Otherwise it’s a shell game.”

“So let’s go visit the labs then,” Hood suggested.

“My plan didn’t include covering personnel up that far,” Blackbird grimaced. “We’ve got… about ten minutes, less if someone raises the alarm. I’d really rather not have anyone know we were here if I can possibly get away with it. We don’t have time.”

“Bullshit,” Hood snorted. “I’ve handled extractions with tougher odds than that.”

“If they find out we were here they’ll lockdown their servers and scrub,” Blackbird retorted. “I’ll never get the information I need that way. We’ll have to try again another night.”

“Yeah, except they’re already gonna be suspicious, what with the drugged guards and all,” Hood argued. “We can’t stop now. We might as well get what we came for.”

“Why are you suddenly invested?” Blackbird frowned.

“Hey, if they’re going to be feeding people in my territory some new designer drug, that’s gonna become my fucking problem,” Hood retorted. “And my people don’t need no more problems right now, you feel me? I fucking hate drug dealers, especially the swanky corporate ones. That’s reason enough. You worry about the data, I’ll worry about getting us out clean.”

Blackbird checked his watch. “Okay, but we really have to move it,” he insisted. “Keep that black spot program running.”

They pelted for the elevator on fast, almost silent feet. Blackbird inserted the key and card, this time bringing up a keypad on the elevator touchscreen where he rapidly typed in an access number which would, as far as Hood could tell, get them access to the R&D level.

“Where’d you get the keys to the kingdom?” Hood said, even on the lookout for new digital access data. It was useful in his line of work.

Blackbird shrugged noncommittally. “It’s amazing what you can buy on the internet these days,” was his response.

Deflecting, Hood realized. It was possible he had some kind of inside man in the company. Hood made a mental note to circle back to it later on; he was always looking to expand his network and sharing was caring.

Blackbird spent the entire ride furiously typing on his phone. “I don’t suppose your app-thing shows you what the cameras are currently seeing? Like, maybe if the guards are waking up?”

Hood checked. “Still out. But I doubt that’s gonna last a lot longer. It wasn’t the strongest dose in my kit.”

“Okay,” Blackbird nodded. “Here’s the plan. I’ll go after the data. I need you to go into the drug vault and collect everything you can that looks like this,” he held up his phone to show Hood a pink, oblong pill.

“What is it?” Hood asked as he memorized.

“Some new fangled cancer drug,” Blackbird replied. “Bleeding edge. It’s about to enter human trial phase. Since we can’t hide the fact that someone was here, we’re going to have to misdirect them into thinking this is a corporate espionage heist. We’ll steal a bunch of them. Also, I need you to plant this, ” he held up a dongle. “In their server box. Make it… hard to find, but not too hard to find.”

“Right, so they think they’ll have what the thieves were looking for,” Hood nodded. 

“It’ll point the finger at some global hacker cabal, the kind of black hats companies hire for this sort of thing. With any luck, they’ll never know why we were really here,” Blackbird crossed his fingers.

Made sense. Hood checked that their little roving security blackspot was still holding, as the car got to the restricted levels. They were still good, but the poor schmucks at the security desk wouldn’t be under forever. He took point as the doors opened. “Follow me. Don’t make a move until I give the all clear. No offense Baby Bird, but I’ve got way more experience with this shit.”

Blackbird grumbled wordlessly but appeared to accept the point. 

Hood ghosted into the lab sections. The admin offices were all echoing silent and shut down, but Hood didn’t like the look of some of the lights in the R&D lab. It would be just their luck to run smack into some poor workaholic researcher.

Well, they could deal with that if they had to. Hood would prefer not to make some random civilian’s night worse if he could help it, but needs must. The labs were half-paneled in glass, so they crouched under the immediate sightline as they approached. 

The actual lab was sealed off. “I need to get to the internal terminals,” Blackbird murmured. 

“Can you get us in?” Hood asked, staring at the glass wall speculatively.

“Yeah,” Blackbird nodded. “Hold on.” He skittered over to the lab door and quietly started doing things to the security measures and on his phone. Hood sidled over and kept a lookout on both the elevators and for any movement in the lab. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Blackbird fiddling with his mask before leaning into the retinal scanner.

The door bleeped, the access screen turning green. Blackbird hit his whiteout lenses before Hood could get a peek at his eye color, which was a shame.

Blackbird hit the door and made to go in but Hood seized him by the shoulder, holding up a finger. Wait. He nodded once, twice, three times, slowly, and then they went in, sticking a proximity sensor dot on the door as he went through. It was always wise to check if anyone had noticed the door opening before barging in.

The labs were pretty expansive. Rows and rows of terminals, and beyond that a bunch of high end lab equipment, robots arms and various sealed off sections which were probably either pathogen labs or sterilized rooms. Blackbird picked a random terminal and booted it up. “Vault’s that way,” he pointed in the direction. “Here,” he handed Hood the card. “Flash that at the scanner, the code is 19-96-18-21. It’ll hiss when it’s open,” he warned. “And it’s temperature controlled, so it’ll start beeping if the door is open too long.”

“Got it,” Hood acknowledged, and ventured silently deeper into the labs. He took the time to do a quick internal sightline check; just as well, because he spotted a researcher bent over her desk, rapidfire typing away, head bobbing away to music blasting from her earbuds. Hood was careful to stay out of her range; women tended to clock to someone in their immediate vicinity, especially in Gotham. 

She wasn’t anywhere near the vault, though, so it was unlikely she would notice anything this far away down the lab. She was at more risk of spotting Blackbird; hopefully the kid had the sense to duck down and not wander while he planted his bugs. 

Speaking of which… Hood found a likely looking closet near the vault that was full of servers. It was probably sharing the cooling system with the vault. He carefully buried the little dongle in a hard-to-reach but not quite hard to spot place. It might take them a couple of sweeps but they’d find it.

Cracking the vault was easy enough. He eyeballed the card as the seals cracked with a hiss, thoughtful, and tucked it away in his utility belt for safekeeping. Then he grabbed one of his fold-up backpacks – way more useful in the field than people would guess – and started loading up from the chemical candyland neatly shelved insides. He found the cancer drug Blackbird had recommended, but also took a bunch of other random stuff. He didn’t doubt it would all be considered valuable and the wide selection would help muddy the waters.

Things went a bit awry as he skirted back towards Blackbird, keeping the late-night researcher none-the-wiser. His helmet gave a warning beep. He ducked down and scuttled into the maze of terminals as the door unlocked with an audible noise.

Fuck.

He peered over the cubicle walls to sightline the interloper. Young, good suit. Not security, at least. But still, a problem. Especially since when Hood got sight of Blackbird, it was clear he was so deep in his hacking brain he hadn’t noticed the new complication.

Hood silently crouched in a cubicle like a spider as the new guy walked past, rising up and matching his footsteps until he could duck into Blackbird’s area. By some miracle, the new guy hadn’t been looking in Blackbird’s direction; his head had been turned towards where the lady researcher was. Hood managed to get in, kick Blackbird’s legs out from under him and silently catch him and clamp a hand over his mouth just as the new guy made some noise.

“Bree!” he yelled. “You in here?”

“Rowan!” the lady researcher yelled back from her cubicle. “Hey!”

Blackbird went rigid in surprise for a second, then relaxed, reaching up to switch off the monitor and not give away their presence from the light.

“Seriously, what are you still doing here?” Rowan sighed. “It’s like midnight.”

“Oh says who, Mr. Pot,” Bree snorted.

“Hey, Asian markets wait for no diurnal sleep cycle,” Rowan retorted back. “What’s your excuse? You know what, never mind. I’m calling you a cab or some such, you need sleeeeeep!”

“Sleep is for the week, Buteski!”

Hood hauled Blackbird after him, scuttling around the cubicles while the civilian pair went back and forth about research and schedules and oh my god can you believe these stupid deadlines. Blackbird was eyeing the door but Hood firmly steered him in the opposite direction. They couldn’t go out the door now; both potential witnesses were standing and Bree was facing that direction. They’d spot someone moving around, even if they were making subtle googly eyes at each other.

Hood beelined for the server closet down the other end, the only place that wasn’t glass paneled or in the open. He snatched a spare test tube off a workbench as they neared the vault area, narrowed his eyes, and winged it in an expert arc over their heads to land a pencil holder, in a desk past them. It rattled and dropped to the floor, scattering pens. When they both looked over at the noise, Hood got the door open and Blackbird darted through, Hood in his wake.

“This is not good,” Blackbird murmured in a low voice, getting out his phone and rapidfire typing into it. “The guards will be waking up any minute now. We have no exit window.”

“I told ya, you get us in, I’ll get us out,” Hood reassured him. “Those two lovebirds are working their way past some finely matured mutual pining if I’m reading the body language right, so this might be a while.”

Blackbird gave an exasperated huff, sitting down on the floor, being careful not to make too much noise. In the light of his phone screen, his breath frosted in the cooled room. “Great. More delays. I’ve sent Blackwing away; if the cops get here at least they won’t find it.”

“Smart move,” Hood nodded, settling down next to him. “An alarm ‘round these parts they’ll bring in SWAT at the very least.”

“So how do we deal with that?” Blackbird hissed. “A protracted police siege doesn’t exactly scream subtle.”

Hood ruffled his hair. “Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it. On my difficulty rating this ranks as about a two.”

Blackbird growled at him adorably and shook him off. His face, what little Hood could see of it, grew increasingly pinched as he accessed security cams and other data.

“Seriously, relax, ” Hood leaned back against the servers. “I got an exit strategy that will make it as if we were already long gone. I have a backup involving just me. Everybody knows Red Hood hates drug dealers. These corporate types are the fucking worst kind. It does involve bombing the lab though.”

Blackbird made a face. “You expect them to believe you just randomly launched a terrorist attack on a legal drug lab? You think they’ll buy that?”

“Kid, I dunno what rumours you’ve been hearing about me, but the general consensus is I’m a fucking lunatic,” Hood retorted in a whisper. “I have legit receipts to back that up, starting with a duffel bag full of decapitated heads and working my way up from there. They’ll believe I can, and will, do any crazy shit that comes into my head.”

Blackbird’s fingers hesitated on the phone. “But… you’re not like that now,” he said quietly. “You haven’t been like that in a while.”

“Yeah, but memories are long,” Hood was rueful. “Besides, a rep for being dead-eyed fucking crazy is useful. Half my work scaring the scumbags can be done via rumors. They just need to hear my name and they’re pissing ‘emselves,” Hood added proudly.

Blackbird shook his head slightly, like he was suppressing a grin under his mask. He scrubbed at his eyes tiredly, grimacing when he remembered, like all masks inevitably do, that rubbing ‘em through a domino does not actually net you any relief. “How long is this extraction going to take, you think?”

“Depends on a lot of variables,” Hood shrugged. “Including how prepared and trigger happy the cops are. And our little romantics dorks out there.” His words were punctuated by a muffled laugh through the closed door. “Fuck, dude, just kiss her already. You know she’s into you,” he muttered. “You are literally staying here unpaid so you can walk her home.”

In the light of the phone screen, Blackbird’s ears went faintly pink. “Maybe we shouldn’t encourage them too much. I would like to get out of here and it’s going to be tough if they start making out.”

“Cynic,” Hood poked him. “Where’s your sense of romance?”

“My sense of romance is fine as long as it’s not standing between me and escape from the hammer of the law that’s about to drop on my head,” Blackbird protested in an undertone. “Plus, how much time do these lovebirds think I have to hang out in a closet? I got deliveries to make! I’ve got a shipment of re-branded boxes to queue up and attach QR codes to. I’ve got to handle admin for sign ups. I’ve got to line up deliveries at least three days in advance, for the regulars if nothing else, and I have to work the newbies into my weekly schedule rotations too. And check the use-by warnings I’m getting from the bodega and supermarket stockists so I can collect stuff before it goes off. And distribute donations. And solicit new donations. Plus I’m currently waging a cyber war against a bunch of think-they-do-gooders. Also, I’ve got work in the morning. I,” Blackbird poked him back. “Don’t have time for this.”

Hood raised both his eyebrows at the vigilante next to him. It wasn’t just the harsh light of the screen; Blackbird looked haggard, and that was taking into account most of his facial cues were swallowed up between the domino and the face mask. Hood was sure if he could see even half the kid’s face, it’d look worse than he was imagining.

“Hey,” Hood said quietly. “You okay? You look tired.”

Blackbird looked at him incredulously. “You want to have this discussion now? ”

“We won’t get back down in time to beat the guards and I don’t really feel like ruining the lovebirds’ night if I can get away with not doing so,” Hood shrugged. “So we’re stuck here until the alarm goes up, which will solve the lovebird problem, ‘cause if they have any sense they’ll evacuate. That leaves us free to get out. Relax; the building’s big and sweeping the entire thing is gonna take ‘em a while, especially if we keep black spotting their cameras. I’ll have time to get out. I’ve extracted from way worse scenarios than this. In the meantime, I’m a little concerned you might pass out on me, which will throw a wrench in the works, so to speak.”

Blackbird scowled. “I’m fine.”

“Dude, even with your face covered I can tell you’re not sleeping.”

Blackbird snorted. “Sleep is for the weak. I’m currently marinated in adrenaline and irritation from the Lightfoots getting under my feet. I’m not going to drop; I’ll keep going on sheer spite if I have to, because really, fuck the Lightfoots and fuck Drake Industries too.”

“You used to work here?” Hood asked shrewdly. It was unlikely given his age, but possible.

Blackbird’s face went blank. “What makes you say so?”

“Because you know an awful lot about the layout and,” Hood waved the access card in his face. “Jack Drake’s personal ID card. C’mon kid, I’m a bruiser, not stupid. This feels way too personal, at least on your end.”

Blackbird snatched back the card. “I have my reasons for not liking this place, but I never worked here. We all got our secrets, Hood,” he added, eyeing him pointedly.

True, the unwritten mask code is that you never asked, but then again Hood never was one for rules, written or not. “Where’d you get the card?” Hood asked. “Because I’m pretty sure if anyone knew it was missing, you wouldn’t be able to use it. They’re not stupid enough to leave the keys to the kingdom unaccounted for. I need to know just how big a target you’re about to paint on my back,” he added. “Because my escape plan involves them seeing me and rich guys who are wronged hire mercs. You think I need that shit?”

“Look, it’s fine,” Blackbird muttered. “I sort of… stole it. But, to be honest, the guy who had it didn’t really have any use for it, and he honestly did not give a damn about it. He’d have given it to me, no problem.”

“You mean Tim Drake,” Hood said slowly. “Jack and Janet’s son?”

Blackbird looked away from him and back down to the phone. “Right. It’s not like he could use it, could he? He doesn’t own the company and he doesn’t work here, either. He got squat from the estate. Last I heard he was working in a restaurant somewhere as a janitor.”

Hood felt his bafflement rise. “He didn’t get anything in the will? Why the fuck not?”

“Again, am I supposed to know the intricacies of the obscenely rich?” Blackbird said waspishly. “All my research showed was that Charles Drake owns the company, lock, stock and barrel, and all of the property portfolios that I could easily access.”

“But… like, he lives with his uncle, right?” Hood asked, bewildered. “Like, he’d still be a minor, just.”

“Not to my knowledge,” Blackbird shrugged this away. “Really, who cares how the Drakes conducted their private affairs? Why the sudden interest, Hood?” The question was sharp.

Because it didn’t make any sense, Hood thought to himself. If Charles Drake, apparently disowned and exiled, got everything, what the fuck had happened to Tim? Why would he have been written out of the will at all? Had he been? Did someone pull an estate switch? It happened, especially amongst people with access to all that money. Had it all been snatched out from beneath him by a bitter and unscrupulous uncle? Who the fuck was looking after him if his uncle wasn’t?

But it wasn’t like he could say any of this. Blackbird didn’t know he kind of knew Tim Drake personally. “No reason. That’s just really fucking weird to me, that’s all,” Hood disclaimed. 

“Yeah, well, we all know how weird wealthy people get in this town,” Blackbird muttered, which was a valid observation.

Hood was about to probe for more information when the alarms started to shrill.

Damn, their time was up. 

The two lovebirds awkwardly flirting had a brief, consternated conference about what the hell the alarms were ringing for before deciding to grab their shit and skedaddle. Blackbird and Red Hood burst from their hiding place as the door closed behind the pair. “Hood, get the door! With the alarms going off the labs will go into lockdown!”

Hood went for the door as all the lights in the building turned on; better to surveil any interlopers and check for any stragglers. He managed to shoulder check the door open before the big locks engaged, but the downside was an internal lab alarm noticed the door was open and started shrilling in counterpoint to the big ones. “Blackbird, move it!” he roared. They could still salvage this if they left in a hurry. It was possible they could pass this off as the fault of the civilians who just left.

Blackbird’s hands blurred on the keyboard, finishing whatever the fuck downloading he was doing. He yanked whatever equipment he’d connected to the CPU, shut it down and sprinted for Hood, sliding past him out the door and leaving him to follow. The lock engaged the minute the door hit, which at least stopped the secondary alarm.

“Elevators?” Blackbird asked.

“Stairs,” Red Hood jerked his head, checking that the black spot security hack was still working. “Let’s go.”

When they hit the stairwell, Blackbird got three risers down before Hood scruffed him. “Uh-uh, up. We’re going to the roof.”

“We’re what?”

“Trust me,” Hood smirked under his helmet. “You’re gonna love this one. I hope you’re not afraid of heights.”

Blackbird didn’t comment, but followed him as they climbed upwards. They were lucky that the building was as empty as it was this time of night; they didn’t see anyone else on the stairwell come down on the way, though Hood pressed them back against the wall for a moment when they heard one or two night owls on lower floors bursting onto the stairs, the sound of their hurried footsteps echoing up. The sounds got progressively fainter, though, and the vigilante pair pressed on, reasonably assured no one would get curious about the noises coming from above while the alarm was still going off. 

When they’d gone as high as they could go, they exited into a soft, luxurious corridor, the door to the stairwell tucked back out of sight. There was a shiny lift door on one side and an equally shiny heavy wood door on the other.

“This is the penthouse,” Blackbird said.

“Anyone living there?” Hood asked.

“I don’t… think so,” Blackbird sounded uncertain. “Charles Drake’s family is usually at the Drake Estate in Bristol. He sometimes rents it out to friends and junk, though. I never bothered to check if it was occupied right now,” Blackbird seemed annoyed with himself at the oversight. “But we don’t need to go through the penthouse,” he said, grabbing his access card and flashing it at the scanner.

There was the muffled sound of yelling; it must be at some volume to make it past the heavy door. Hood eyed it warily, thumbing his tranq darts, but there was a ding behind him. Blackbird leaned back from the retinal scanner, lenses closing over his eyes again. Hood had to admit the kid had come prepared if he’d managed to add his own retinal scan to the building's security system.

The doors opened; the car was clearly made to wait here for whomever in the penthouse needed it.

They darted in; Hood felt the scrape of something behind him and a telltale clunk. He shoved Blackbird into one side wall of the elevator and pressed himself flat against the other as the doors whirred closed. 

“Why the fuck do we have to evacuate?!” came a shrill, angry voice from the apartment. Hood caught a glimpse of the woman; barely if expensively dressed, hair in bottle bleach blonde tangles – albeit the expensive kind of bottle bleach – talking furiously into her phone. Her head was tilted over it as she tried to control the leads of a couple of small, yappy pedigree dogs with both hands, looking fed up.

By the time she noticed the doors were closing the pair inside were just blocked from her view. They had a furious “Fuck!” as the doors closed, followed by a tirade of abuse towards whatever poor sap was on the other end of the line.

They didn’t hesitate. Hood bent down, made a stirrup, Blackbird stepped in and went up. He fumbled for a bump key, slammed it into the keyhole in the car roof, punched the safety hatch open, and slithered up onto the top of the elevator with commendable speed. Hood leapt up after him in a fast jump and heave, moving through the exit much faster and more gracefully than someone his bulk should be able to. He took the time to yank out Blackbird’s bump key on the way past, finding his feet gingerly amongst the greasy machinery up top and leaning over to gently drop the hatch just as the furious blonde and her entourage managed to get the doors open again, her screaming invectives into the phone covering the sound of the hatch closing nicely.

Situational awareness, Hood thought with satisfaction. It was a must-have.

Blackbird tilted his head and started climbing one of the cables. Hood could see why, since he was forced to grab a stationary cable when the elevator dropped at speed under his feet. It was clearly an express deal.

He was thankful for his thick gloves. “Nice lady,” he muttered. “Drake’s got a taste for illicit company, it seems.”

“Actually, that was his legit wife,” Blackbird said as he clawed open a maintenance tunnel and slithered inside. “She’s… well, she says she’s an influencer but honestly her job seems to be spending outrageous amounts of money and hawking baffling enlightenment philosophies online.”

“She’ll fit right in with Gotham’s elite, then,” Hood commented as he followed Blackbird into the maintenance crawl space, which made Blackbird snort with laughter ahead.

From there it was through the tunnel, into the maintenance space above the penthouse and, finally, through a trapdoor to the roof, or, at least, the part of the roof they could stand on. The Drake’s had forgone the option of a helipad and put in a spire, probably to try to outdo their neighbors, Wayne Tower. It was a hideous, modernist spire too; it looked like half melted ice cream made of jigsawed together bits of old beehive, with a flag sticking out of it.

It had probably cost the GDP of a small nation, Hood thought sourly.

“Wow, that might be a problem,” Blackbird murmured. 

Hood peered over the ledge they perched on. Down below the plaza was awash with blinking blue lights. “They’re gonna hafta get up here first. Scanner chatter indicates police copters are en route so we better get moving.”

“And do what?” Blackbird asked.

Hood grabbed him under the armpits and lifted him up a couple of inches off the ground.

“Hood!” Blackbird spluttered, kicking his feet.

“Sorry, I need to gauge your weight,” Hood said, frowning. “What the fuck? What are you, like, ten pounds without your damn armor?”

“Excuse me?” Blackbird’s eyes bulged. “I don’t wear bomb proof tank armour, okay? I distribute food, I don’t handle heavy artillery!”

“You need something a little heavier than paper for armor, kid,” Hood muttered as he set him down. “Seriously, if it’s that light it ain’t gonna stop what some random street thugs are carrying these days. I thought you’d know that! You said you’d had guns shoved in your face before.”

“Yeah, but they’ve never actually shot me,” Blackbird muttered. “Well, there was one time… but, anyway, all they want is the food. I give them the food. It’s not like they can carry the whole truck’s worth and they learned the hard way that they can’t actually hijack it and steal the whole thing. Well, I assume they did because the truck dumped them at the nearest accessible police station. They mostly just took what they could grab after word spread about that and I just tell them to come back next week without the guns and I’ll give them the same again. Honestly, it barely happens anymore. It’s hard for them to make an argument for stealing from me because a) I’m feeding their families, neighbors and friends and b) they get the pariah treatment from the rest of the neighborhood if they keep threatening supply.”

Actually, the pariah thing was mostly down to Hood making it very clear the truck and its driver were under his aegis but Hood let him have that one since he clearly had made some inroads of his own before gaining Red Platinum Protection. The kid meant well, but nothing but fear would keep the worst scumbags away from his truck, and Hood was the one supplying that.

While Blackbird made his arguments for trust and social conditioning, Hood got out his grapple gun and loaded up his longest line cartridge, tapping a program code into his helmet keypad that brought up his hook-finder filter. Bless B, the only things he really trusted were the systems he put in personally, including grapple hooks all over the damn city. It was useful, if only because they had a reasonable expectation of good maintenance.

Hook points lit up on the skyscrapers around them. After some brief internal arithmetic he selected his target; the building next door whose elevation was slightly lower. Up this high it was better to slide than to swing. He fired the line across, zooming in with his helmet lenses to make sure it grabbed the hook point and held fast. 

As it wound in the tension on the line a little, Hood turned to Blackbird. “I gather you don’t have much experience in the rooftop handicap sweeps?”

“Uh, no,” Blackbird replied warily. “I’m mostly on ground level traveling and I take stairs when delivering. I, uh, never got much training in, like, that other stuff.” He seemed embarrassed about the lack. “Why?”

“I guess now would be a good time to ask, then,” Hood said as he unloaded the cartridge from the gun and began clambering up the hideous melted beehive spire to find a suitable anchor point. “Are you scared of heights?”

There was a silence. Then “Just out of curiosity,” Blackbird quipped. “What’s your plan if the answer is yes?”

“Tranq, tie, swing,” Hood said promptly. “‘Cause I’m telling you now, squirming or flailing is not a wise life choice this high up, for you or for the guy hanging onto you. Come on, Baby Bird, no judgment; heights, yes or no?”

“Phobic, no,” Blackbird replied. “But let’s just say that right in this moment I have a very healthy respect for them.” He looked down at the street level far, far below.

“That’s fine, I can work with that,” Hood said while he made sure the anchor was good and secure.

“Let me get this straight,” Blackbird asked slowly. “Your escape plan involves swinging off a high rise and into – not to, into – another high rise?” he sounded dubious. “Because that building has a lot lower elevation and we will be splatting on the windows.”

“No,” Hood corrected. “My plan is to slide down the wire to the next building, flying fox style.” He upended one of his heavier and larger field packs, rapidly unfolding and telescoping handlebar with a pulley wheel in the center. “That’s our zip line.” 

“That?” Blackbird pointed to the line which was a very thin looking gauge indeed.

“Liquid crystal polycarbonate fiber,” Hood said easily. “Don’t worry, it can lift a tank. It can take our weight, no problem. Hold this,” he thrust the handle at Blackbird, who took it gingerly, while he started to sort through his various safety lines. “How tough is that bandolier? And remember, your life may depend on it.”

“As a safety harness it’s fully tested,” Blackbird answered promptly. “I might not have gotten into the whole grapple travel art but I did test that it can hold my weight in suspension.”

“Good,” Hood hauled Blackbird up to perch gingerly in modernist warped hexagons and looped a safety line around his waist and through his harness, back around into Hood’s utility belt, yanking the knots tight. Pressed this close he could see the kid’s breathing picking up the pace. He got it. This was a hell of a learning curve for someone new to this kind of thing. “Choppers are a minute out and SWAT is storming the lower floors. You ready?”

“Not in the slightest,” Blackbird said through gritted teeth as he handed Hood the zip handle. The kid punched a couple of buttons on his wrist; Hood suddenly felt his guns pull towards the kid as the kid stuck fast to him, wrapping both arms tight around his neck and magnetizing there. “But let’s do this.”

Hood grinned. He admired Blackbird’s stubbornness, if nothing else. Plus, he’d totally forgotten the little electromag trickery he’d built into the suit; that made things way easier. “Don’t worry, it’s all going to be fine… right up until the point it’s not. You want to stand over the edge and plan your curse words in case of accidental vertical acceleration events?”

“Oh my god, can we just go you aaaaaaa!” Blackbird choked out breathlessly, his voice suddenly thundering vibrations in Hood’s chest as they leapt and slid at speed. “ssssshole!”

All in all, the ride took about six seconds, or forty-seven eternities depending on which participant was asked. The line tension was good and the angle was right, though. The landing was a slight drop and an ungainly wobble, because Blackbird hadn’t been expecting the drop and landing gracefully with a weight clinging to one's chest and overbalancing forward was a tall order. Hood, however, called it a successful extraction.

“Holy shit,” Blackbird croaked as Hood calmly disengaged their safety lines and hit the anchor release on his wrist array, letting the line go slack and winding the filament back on their side so no traces would be left. 

Blackbird walked over to the roof edge, peering down. Hood wondered if he was going to throw up. 

But Blackbird surprised him. When he turned back to Hood his smile burned through all the layers of his face mask, unmistakable. He let out a whoop of pure joy, leaping and spinning on his boots like a little kid. “Can we do that again?” he asked, voice breathy and brimming with excitement.

Hood felt that odd, simmering sensation again, the Pit-but-not the memories of his own first time flying briefly crystal clear but, tellingly, not cutting him with shards like it had in the past. He answered with a delighted beam on his own, even if the kid couldn’t see it, and ducked his head over his steady looping of the wire to hide the tell. “Sure thing, kid,” he said as levelly as he could manage, his heart making strange loop de loops in his chest. 

“Awesome!” Blackbird did a little happy dance. For a second, the ice-cold anti-hunger warrior really was just a kid, burning with the sheer delight of getting to fly. Hood had never expected that memory to not carry a sting again, but right here, in this moment, he could feel nothing but warm fondness.

His chest did that thing it had been doing lately.

Hood paused. Looked back at Blackbird.

Oh, what the fuck now? he thought as his chest did it again.

Chapter Text

Jason already knew it wasn’t going to be the best of days. He was up late, didn’t get his allotted hours of sleep, and then had to waste too much of his precious morning swearing with Roy over the sheer bureaucratic stupidity involved in setting up a relief kitchen in Gotham. The mountain of permits and inspections they had to get done boggled the mind. Lightfoot’s friends had been thorough.

Blackbird, Jason thought sullenly, had the right fucking idea. Fuck the whole legal process bullshit, he and Roy should just open a vigilante relief kitchen. It’s not like anyone would have the balls to stop them. The only thing stopping him from doing that at this point was the fact that he’d have to burn the site after the relief kitchen wasn’t needed anymore and, fuck it, he’d put too much work into it to want to just have to abandon it like a compromised safehouse to keep his day-life and night-life separate. 

Because of various phone calls and form filling that had to be done by both of them he was running late to the Table and timing counts in the restaurant trade. He already knew he’d be getting dirty looks from the rest of the crew for missing prep.

And on top of it, there was a fine, icy, fall rain to contend with. Roy had their runabout truck today and it had been too late for Jason to scuttle around to one of the vehicle caches and get to the Table at any respectable – or, at least defensible – time, so Jason stamped into work with water streaming off his motorcycle jacket and helmet hair plastered over his forehead, feeling the day was already a dead loss.

He wasn’t, as it turned out, the only person running late. He walked into the locker rooms to see Damian being his usual personable self towards Tim, who looked like a drowned kitten. Even his face mask was soaked.

“What do you have to say for yourself, Drake?” Damian demanded angrily. “You have contracted hours where you are expected to attend.”

“Bus was late,” Tim mumbled quietly, stripping out of his sodden outer layers so we could pull on his kitchen uniform. “I couldn’t–”

“Does it look like we care about your excuses?” Damian snarled. “If you are going to pollute our lives with your presence, the very least you could do is show up on time and do your job! You are not the head chef, we can replace you easily! There are hundreds of people on the hiring wait list with far more willingness to do the work that would be grateful for the opportunity to work here! We could replace you with a robot. I suspect it would be a far more financially sound investment than some worthless failed heir!”

Tim, surprisingly, didn’t react to this at all. He just mechanically shoved on his uniform over his wet clothes. His watch beeped shrilly at him for a minute and he blinked at it wearily before turning off the alarm or whatever it was.

“I assume you will make up your shortfall in hours by working through your break for the rest of the week, unless you wish to turn in your resignation right now,” Damian continued his assault relentlessly.

“For fuck’s sake, demon brat, your name is not on the ‘Proprieter’ part of the sign yet,” Jason snapped at him. “You don’t have the power to hire or fire shit. Send Bruce this way. If he’s got a problem, then he can say it. Otherwise button it; you’re not CEO.”

“Just as well for you,” Damian spun around and spat at him, seething. “If I were in charge, you’d hardly be the kind of mediocre talent I’d suffer to be employed at the Table. You can barely handle your own affairs, do not presume to dictate procedures in anyone else’s, you pitted peasant!”

Oh, the brat was on a roll this morning. Jason opened his mouth…

“It’s fine,” Tim mumbled, slamming his locker closed. “I was planning to work through my break anyway. L-let me know when your father wants to talk to me about the ‘Pandemic Deli’ storefront, he and I have been working out COVID safe online ordering and pick-up procedures to expand the facilities.”

Then he turned and walked out of the room, ignoring Jason’s surprised stare and Damian’s bug eyed rage. 

Jason was impressed. The dig about Tim’s suddenly close-ish relationship with the brat’s father – which everyone on the planet knew Damian hated with the power of a thousand, jealously burning suns – had been as subtle as the finest cuisine palate, calculated for maximum effect and minimum risk of blow back. Tim usually had a lot of issues speaking up, and not just physically, but every once in a while he was cut to the quick and revealed an unexpected layer of titanium. 

Unfortunately, that prickly armor plating now, apparently, applied to Jason as well. The kid had spent every opportunity after the food drive debacle trying to actively stay away from Jason.

He wasn’t sure what to do with the revelation of his attraction to Tim. Long, long ago in a life far, far away he would have bulled through the fear and happily entered the ring. Fuck, get him past the initial fumble and Jason Todd could charm with the best of them. Five years of betrayal, breakdowns, therapy, recovery, detox and all the backslides therein had rendered him a far more cautious and nervous person where relationships were concerned.

He knew he ought to at least fix the misapprehensions Tim had about him. He wasn’t even sure where the fuck to start.

Blackbird was an… added complication, though that one was a fair bit easier to parse out a road map for. Jason’s past experiences with relationships while both parties were masked hadn’t exactly been the healthiest and most cherished experiences of his life. Experience had long since taught him that such encounters were only good for a quick, anonymous fuck, something Jason had never found particularly fulfilling. In short, even if Blackbird was interested – and Jason was getting a couple indicators there – there wouldn’t be much chance of a real relationship unless they could both strip off their masks.

Jason wasn’t sure he was ready to expose himself to a stranger.

But then again, what the fuck was he planning on doing about the Tim situation then? Bruce could handle the whole double-life schtick, but he treated Bruce Wayne and Batman as legitimately separate people almost. Jason wasn’t sure he wanted to go down that road with Hood. There was so much risk in separating his life out too broadly. The dark part of him was always in there, waiting for a chance to get out.

Fuck, were relationships always this fucking complicated?

Jason snorted to himself as he stripped off his outers and shimmied into the kitchen uniform. Getting a bit ahead of ourselves, Todd? He thought as he slammed on a toque. Tim Drake was not Jason’s biggest fan right now in any case. Maybe it was all a non-starter.

Jason was surprisingly nettled by that thought though.

He strode into the kitchen. “What’ve we got?” he asked Steph as he eyeballed one of the prep hands until he remembered to get his mask properly on. 

“You’re on dough duty, since you missed the pre-prep,” Steph huffed. “Bruce isn’t here, they’re running vaccines through testing phases so he’s up at the labs. Cass is roundsman, I’m doing pizza toppings and regular menu stuff, we’re down three hands and Babs is scrambling to get fillers in for the lunch rush. Lots of interest in the pizzas, though, so that’ll probably be our main problem today.”

Pounding dough for a day wasn’t the worst option, but fuck his shoulders were already sore. “Put the demon brat on dough duty,” he snorted. “It’ll be the most well pounded dough in all of creation and it’ll possibly tire him out.”

“Uh-uh,” Steph’s eyes flashed. “That little jackass is on fucking probation.”

“Oh, right,” Jason smirked. “He went out with you and Cass last night.”

“Yeah, and I’m never putting myself in for that kind of punishment again as long as I fucking live,” Steph snarled. “The little brat was completely unmanageable, we lost a bunch of leads because he was always leaping ahead and now we have extra work to make up for it. Even Cass told him to go home early eventually.”

Jason whistled.

“Yeah, I gave B an earful about it,” Steph added, chopping viciously. “He should be in one of the offices doing his homeschooling and he’s not allowed to set foot in the kitchens today. I’m pretty sure B just benched him for the next week, so we’ve got that to look forward to.”

“Great,” Jason said heavily. “Awesome. I’ll go wash up.”

“Alfred!” Cass called over the noise.

“Oh yeah, and Alfred called? Said he wanted to speak to you when you got in,” Steph told him. 

Jason blinked. That was odd. He diverted into Bruce’s office and went through his frankly paranoid layers of password protection (really, this thing couldn’t even connect to the Batcloud, B) and then logged on to the secure video chat system that direct-lined to Alfred at the Manor.

It only took a couple of buzzes to get Alf on the line. “Geez Alfie, are you sleeping okay?” Jason said in concern. Alfred was as well put together as ever but you could see the weariness on his face.

“I am, for the most part,” Alfred’s voice was steady enough. “I was just exceptionally busy last night. I’ve been doing some of my volunteer work for the food drives remotely. I was ever a good scrounger in the army,” a brief, wry quirk lifted one corner of his mouth. “And I have connections to most of the caterers, food clubs and speciality goods wholesalers in the city. When the charity groups put in the call to find any sources of food to fill demand, I was not to be found wanting, I assure you.”

“Alf, seriously?!” Jason admonished. “You should be resting.”

“Oh Master Jason,” Alfred snorted. “Do rein in your sense of responsibility. You’re sounding more like Master Bruce everyday.”

“Alfred!” Jason mimed a blow to the heart. “How could you? That’s deadly, caped shade you’re throwing there!”

“Pun intended, no doubt,” Alfred returned cheerfully. “And I’ll have you know that I have finished my physiotherapy milestones, I’m still getting my eight hours sleep and the general consensus is that I’m back to the bloom of good health. Which is a tragedy, because, for some reason, there are no messes for me to clean up around here anymore. No dirty underwear strewn where no underwear should be, no trails of crumbs trodden into the rugs, no greasy fingerprints and sticky rings on the furniture. I can’t think what’s changed.”

Jason laughed silently. “You’re dying of boredom, aren’t you?”

“I like boredom, Master Jason,” Alfred said wistfully. “It’s a rare treat, to be savored when on offer. But a Gotham where children are going hungry is hardly a peaceful Gotham. Of course I offered my time and expertise. I’m working via phone and computer, not running around myself, I’ll have you know. The work is hardly onerous. I found it rather invigorating, even if it, ironically, had me putting in a nightshift last night trying to find some available refrigerated trucks. I promise to pay my sleep arrears this afternoon. Does that pass your medical judgment, Dr Todd?” he added archly.

“Okay, okay, Alfie,” Jason waved his hands in surrender. “I surrender. Do as thou wilt. You need anything?”

“Ms Lance mentioned to me that you might have something to talk to me about?”

“Dinah, you tattle tale,” Jason muttered. Okay, fair, it was sort of her job to push him into things that were uncomfortable emotionally. “I’m sorta… struggling with what happened to you,” he admitted grudgingly. “Like, I know there are no leads and stuff but… I don’t know, Alf. It’s eating at me.”

“You feel like you should be catching the perpetrators?” Alfred nodded along. “That your failure to do so is affecting your mental health?”

“Well, yeah,” Jason replied. “Shouldn’t it? I mean, I got all this training. I’m a pretty good detective. It happened in my space. In my, excuse me, fucking back yard. I got no excuses Alf. I should be able to do something about that.”

“You are doing something about that, lad,” Alfred said gently. “Aren’t you going out every night, risking death by any number of means, including COVID, to make sure people are safe? You’ve hardly been sitting on your hands. I know that post my little incident there was something of a spring cleaning in your territory. I daresay any criminal with any sense would have gotten well out of town, seeing a brigade of Bats on the prowl.”

“Yeah, I know, but,” Jason ran frustrated hands through his hair. “Like, so what? That’s all general shit. I want to find the actual guys who did it. The ones that wrapped you in fucking foil and left you to die,” his hands fisted on the desktop and he had to physically lock his shoulders to keep himself from slamming them onto it. The Pit was definitely seething. “Those guys don’t deserve to walk away, Alfred, I’m sorry, but they really fucking don’t. And I got nothing else to go on and it’s… it’s driving me nuts! More so than usual. It’s making it hard… to… to keep in control.”

Alfred looked at him contemplatively. “I suppose,” he said slowly. “The thing you must consider then is if catching these people would be for my sake or for yours.”

That pulled Jason up short. “Of course it’s for your sake! I want you to feel safe! Okay,” he allowed. “It would make me feel better too, but you shouldn’t have to go around worried that those shitheads are still out there somewhere.”

“And yet, Master Jason,” Alfred said archly. “You have never asked whether I do, actually, feel safe. Which I do, as a matter of fact. Bringing my attackers to justice does not serve any need of mine. So while I appreciate your care and concern for my mental health, I can’t help but think your desire for justice stems from a far more selfish place than you may wish to admit to.”

Jason stared at the screen, open mouthed.

“I can’t say I don’t see the attraction of the burning desire to find and punish wrongdoers,” Alfred continued calmly. “I understand that it is, at its core, a cathartic act. I’ve had the same desires for emotionally simple resolutions of violence myself, I’m hardly free of that sin either. But lad,” Alfred continued gently. “Even if you could line up every perpetrator who had a hand in what happened to me, doing… whatever is in your head to do to them will not, ultimately, sate your feelings the way you want them to be sated. You’ve had the blood between your teeth, a bellyful of hatred and spite, and you’ve lived out that rage fantasy to its most extreme end. And, tellingly, you’ve also come out on the other side of it. You are the best equipped of any of us to know just how little you got in return, emotionally speaking. Oh yes, I’m sure the streets are a little safer and you yourself survived where others would not have, for which I am grateful, but that anger that drove you out of Master Bruce’s arms and out of his rigid moral code wasn’t cured by what you did. The cure, the fulfilment, came after, when you started to go to therapy, and make amends and take back control of your life.”

Jason sat back, staring at the older man. “You think I’m using thoughts of revenge as a… an emotional crutch of sorts? So I won't move on from my trauma?”

“You’d hardly be the first in the family,” was Alfred’s dry response. “You all take after Master Bruce more than you think, blood relation or not. But you are focusing on a problem which is not, in fact your problem. Getting out and meeting new people, getting your restaurant running, fixing your relationships, managing your anger, dealing with the pandemic – these are your problems. And they’re messy and complicated and take time and work, and I’m sure it feels frustrating and exhausting whereas hunting down my attackers would seem more… immediately useful. But it’s an easy answer that allows you to ignore your own needs. I’m grateful for your care, Master Jason, but if you really care for me, the only thing I would ask of you is to care for yourself. First, last and forever. That would be of some material assistance to me.”

“You think I need to let this go?” Jason said slowly. “I don’t think… Alf, you were the only good thing I had that wasn’t tainted by this fucking city. I don’t think I can do that. I don’t think I can just… let it go like that.”

“Even if I ask you to?”

Jason stared at his hands. “Are you?” he asked quietly.

“I would never ask you to not be who you are,” Alfred replied steadily. “If you still seek vengeance, I would not stop you if you felt you really must, even if it is just for your own sake. But I will say this; you, at least, have the capacity to recognize now what even Master Bruce still struggles with; ultimately, vengeance is a hunger that cannot be satisfied. Hate doesn’t sustain us, Master Jason. Only love can do that. Even with all its messy complications and all the toil and thankless work we must put into maintaining it. It’s not an easy dish, and it’s a finicky recipe to take on, but at least it’s a meal that will satisfy. And the chief triumph of my life has always been that no child went hungry under my care, for anything.”

“Yeah,” Jason croaked. “Yeah, there is that.” Jason sat in silence for a while. “How do you do it?” he asked eventually. “You said you had those urges before. I know you were a soldier. Unlike B, you’ve actually killed people. You’ve had to chase ‘em down to do it. How do you get around it? The urge to just… pull the trigger and make everything clean and simple?”

“I taught myself to focus on the things that actually matter to me,” Alfred replied steadily. “I don’t waste time worrying when you all step out into that dark night. I focus on my gratitude when you all come back. Even if it’s a long time waiting.” Alfred sat back and put one hand on his cheek. “It gets easier the more you do it. Focusing on helping rather than hurting was my defense against my demons, Master Jason. I can only imagine it will be of some help to you as well. Wanting to help people was at the very core of almost everything you did.”

“Just like that, huh?” Jason’s lips twisted in a wavery smile.

“There’s nothing ‘just’ about it,” Alfred chastised with a smile. “It will take time. I have the utmost faith in you.”

Jason couldn’t deny it, that swung at his chest with a relentless sledgehammer. “Thanks Alf.” He discreetly scrubbed at his eyes.

“I think that’s rather enough emotions for one day,” Alfred kindly didn’t call him on getting all blubbery. “I wouldn’t want us to burst. Honestly, it’s nice to share these words with someone who will actually listen to them for a change.”

Jason snorted. Three guesses who he meant. “Well, I do have a business question for you Alf,” he offered a nice segue out of the minefield they’d stomped through. 

“By all means, fire away.”

“Tim Drake,” Jason said. “You interviewed him months ago and shoved him to the top of the waiting list for trainee work at the Table. I just wanted to know, what’s his deal?”

If he hadn’t been watching for it, he wouldn’t have seen it. The flicker in Alfred’s expression as he contemplated the question. “You may have to be more specific, Master Jason,” he hedged. carefully. “Tim Drake encompasses quite a lot of story.”

“Well, how’d you meet him?” Jason asked. “Through his parents? His uncle? There must be some reason you put him at the top of our hire list. It’s miles long as it is. I wondered what made him rank special privileges?”

“Pot scrubbing is hardly special,” Alfred said dryly. “And to answer your question, no, I didn’t meet young Mister Drake through his parents, although I had actually met them prior to their untimely deaths, in the sense that you can really meet anyone while serving at galas and things.”

“I vaguely remember them,” Jason wrinkled his nose vaguely like he hadn’t spent days wracking his brains for the fuzzy, distant memories. Memories of his life pre-Pit were not always his most reliable, even though he could remember the big beats still. Endless faces at glitzy galas hadn’t really stuck out even at the time. “I remember their tans were actually real tans. And I remember thinking Janet Drake’s cheekbones could probably cut glass, because I was a nasty little shit and loved making fun of my ‘betters’. I don’t really remember anything other than that. I never remembered meeting Tim, but maybe he was too young for that shit back then.”

“I don’t believe Mister Drake was out in a social sense, no,” Alfred said, tone delicate in a way Jason wondered at.

“So, how’d you find him, then?” Jason asked curiously. “He musta had some pitch to get moved to the top of our waiting list.”

“I met young Mister Drake through my volunteer work,” Alfred explained. “I have volunteered my services in soup kitchens and food relief efforts for well over two decades now. I’m something of a regular fixture amongst the charitable drives and the people who spearhead them know me fairly well. I came to know him as a dedicated and rather brilliant young man who was not the least bit afraid of putting effort into his duties. I worked with him for several months before my little adventure. His care for the lost and forgotten rather impressed me, especially given his domestic struggles.”

“Domestic struggles?” Jason tried not to sound too eager for gossip even though Alfred could probably see right through him, old spy that he was. “I knew his parents died. Plane crash, I think? I wasn’t really paying attention to the news at the time.”

“Yes,” Alfred nodded. “It was a terrible tragedy. The poor boy was only fifteen when he was orphaned. It was after that that I met him.”

“Nasty,” Jason agreed solemnly. “Did he fall into philanthropy work to try to process, you think?”

Alfred blinked. “Philanthropy?” Then his face cleared. “Ah, I believe you’ve gotten the wrong end of the stick, Master Jason. Tim Drake didn’t run charity drives. He was one of their clients. When I met him he was homeless.”

Jason sat bolt upright. “Say what now?! But…” Jason flailed. “Like, he’s a Drake!” Like that explained it, which it sort of did. Drakes couldn’t be really poor in the same way the Waynes and Kanes couldn’t, really and truly, be poor. Oh, they could lose money and things but they had so much generational wealth and so many assets and, quite frankly, so much name clout that actually rendering them properly destitute would take a hell of a catch. Even the non-monied branches of the Five Families of Gotham did pretty well for themselves.

“I’m afraid that meant very little in a legal sense,” Alfred seemed amused by Jason’s flabbergasted stare. “The estate was left in its entirety to Charles Drake, Jack Drake’s brother. I don’t know the exact terms, of course, but the impression I received was that Tim wasn’t named in the will at all.”

“Why not?” Jason gaped. 

Alfred shrugged. “The circumstances surrounding the Drake’s affairs are a mystery to me. Young Mister Drake is quite reserved when it comes to his family. All I heard from him was that Charles Drake inherited every penny and that his wife didn’t like the boy for some reason, so Charles had the boy emancipated from his care through the courts when the estate matters were settled.”

“What the actual–!” Jason swallowed the swear word on Alfred’s raised eyebrow. “Are you telling me that his uncle got everything and then just… dumped him on a street corner like some unwanted puppy?”

“A masterful summation, Master Jason,” Alfred said calmly. 

Jason felt that weird cross-wiring feeling again, only this time the Pit was moving somewhat in synch with it. “That complete fucking tool,” he growled, outraged on Tim’s behalf. “That absolute, total, complete fucking asshole. Sorry, yes, swearing, I know,” he added irritably to Alfred’s stare. “It’s better than wrecking B’s office, which is my only other option!” The wood of Bruce’s desk creaked under his white-knuckled fingers as he tried to dial back from his shout and breathe. The urge to march downtown and pound Charles Drake head into the nearest available hard surface was hard to fight off. “Tim… Uh,” Jason shook himself, hanging onto his composure by his fingernails. “Like, he’s not homeless now, right?” 

“He has accommodations, I believe,” Alfred replied.

Jason stared at him. “You don’t sound very sure,” he said.

“It’s very hard to get information out of Mister Drake,” Alfred said ruefully. “He plays close to the chest, as the saying goes. When I offered him a spot on the waiting list, his paycheck mailing information was a rented PO Box company. He assured me he had somewhere safe to stay and access to amenities. Well, what he actually said was that he had access to cooking facilities, which was true at the time. Sometimes he’d bring food he’d made to the soup kitchens when I was still volunteering there, so he must have had somewhere to go. I offered to get him shelter in one of the halfway houses or group homes that the Wayne Foundation runs, but he declined. Given that his health and general hygiene have remained very good, I accepted his assurances. I did not feel it was my right to press if there were no warning signs.”

Jason didn’t like that answer. Gotham had a hell of a lot of cracks to slip through and he didn’t like the idea of Tim living in one. “Do you want me to ask him?” This was something of a moot question; Jason was fucking going to ask. He just had to figure out a way to approach the situation that accounted for Tim currently hating his guts.

“I don’t know that you’ll get anywhere,” Alfred warned. “But I wouldn’t be opposed to you keeping an eye on him. He worries me sometimes. He gets rather… overinvolved in his work and forgets things like sleeping and eating. If you could make sure he’s at least getting one good meal a day, that would be of some relief.”

“Yeah,” Jason scrubbed his forehead. “Yeah, I’ll definitely do that.” He’d do it if he had to fucking sit on the kid and feed him like a baby bird, although he steered away from that thought immediately because that caused a few out-of-context ideas to form and, really, his libido could take a fucking number and wait like the rest of the shit on his to-do list.

“I’m quite pleased you have taken to Tim Drake,” Alfred added, smiling. “I had a feeling you’d get along very well. Mister Drake does struggle with meeting new people. He has, unsurprisingly, quite a few trust issues. He could use some friends.”

Jason smiled externally and winced internally, unwilling to come clean about how much of a disaster his relationship with Tim was at the moment. “Yeah, well, Dinah told me I need to desensitize myself to social situations.”

“Please, lad, don’t be so clinical,” Alfred grinned. “You need some romance in your life. You were always the romantic Robin, Master Richard’s extensive harem notwithstanding.”

Jason felt parts of his brain fuse together and his ears light up like red beacons. “Alf!” he squawked. “I’m not… that’s not why I’m interested!” Half-truth. It wasn’t the entirety of why he was interested. 

Alfred’s arched eyebrow was an indictment of his lying abilities. “I see.” Indicating he did, in fact, see Jason and all the bullshit he was spewing.

“It’s not!” Jason protested feebly. “I just… his story makes no sense to me. It still doesn’t. You know us Bats and mysteries.”

“I know you Bats, mysteries, and all of your incorrigible habits of loving mysteries,” Alfred riposted dryly. “Calm down, Master Jason. Your secret is safe with me.”

Jason, as red as his helmet, decided to cut his losses. “Thanks Alf, I guess. Look, I better get back to the kitchens, we’re short handed and I was already late. Get some sleep!” he shook a finger at the older man. “Or I’ll tell B, you see if I don’t.”

Alfred snorted in the face of that threat. “Have a good day, Master Jason. Keep me updated?”

“Always,” Jason promised, and signed off.

Then he went to the bathroom and stuck his head under the faucet because he’d be damned if he went back in there looking like a schoolboy with a crush. The others were trained observers, they’d spot that shit.

Honestly, it didn’t help very much, because when he stepped back into the kitchen to take his punishment as today’s doughboy, Tim was right there in the prep zone, slicing and dicing under Cass’ watchful eyes. Right, Jason remembered. They were short-staffed. 

“Chop, chop, big guy!” Steph yelled over to him as she handled about four different stovetops at once. “Lunch orders are about to open and hype for the new pizze line is through the roof according to Babs!”

“Yeah, yeah, coming!” Jason was forced into the dessert zone since that’s where they were set up to make pastries. Someone had dug the big dough mixer out of storage to add to the other one they already had. Jason went to load up on flour – gluten free first, then they’d worry about traditional.

Making dough in mass quantities was easy enough work and didn’t suck up a lot of his attention, which was good because his eyes couldn’t stop roving over to Tim’s slender frame as he hammered away in the prep zone. He looked cheerful to be doing the work, and his knife skills weren’t too shabby for an amateur. He was efficient and precise, although his speed was still a work in progress, to Jason’s trained eye. Mind you, all the Bats’ views on physical skills, including knife skills, were wildly hyperbolic, so judging Tim by their standards was probably unfair. The kid was good enough for a commercial kitchen, good enough for Jason to see he’d had some practice at it. 

Maybe he could teach Tim the trick of not fearing the knife the way a lot of people did. You could view a knife with respect and without fear, trained right. He could just shuffle up behind the smaller body and thread his arms around him and move his hands for him to show him….

Jason shook himself. He was getting a tiny bit ahead of himself. He had to get Tim to actually like him, first. 

Jason really only had one go-to option there.

Leaving the kneading machines to beat the current batch into submission, jamming the rising bowls into the warming over to rise for the next wave and summarily drafting a random kitchenhand to start prepping the next batch from scratch – he made the girl repeat back the ratios so that she understood – Jason got to work making a pie crust.

Mushroom and roast pepper quiche with spiced marinated chicken and ricotta, he thought to himself. He wanted to avoid pig products until he knew what Tim’s dietary or cultural requirements were and he told himself to dial back on the spiciness in the marinade in case he had a spice-sensitive palate or the wound on his neck made for some dangers vis a vis coughing, chewing and swallowing. A quiche was made for easy swallowing and digesting and was packed with proteins and healthy fats that were just the thing for someone who needed more meat on their bones. 

When he looked at Tim’s knuckles, the jut of those bones was worryingly apparent to him. It occurred to him he’d never actually seen Tim’s face before, not the whole of it. He couldn’t gauge the roundness in his cheeks and he bundled up in so many layers that it was hard to tell what his physique actually was, aside from the fact he was on the smaller side of average.

As he worked, he untangled the knot of intelligence Alfred had given him. He still found it bewildering; the idea of Tim Drake – an actual Drake – being full on homeless. He felt a crimping sensation in his chest when he thought of it. If Jason had parsed out Tim’s timeline right, he’d been cast off by his asshole uncle when he was just fifteen, within a hair’s breadth of getting his college degree and the actually legit job opportunities that would have afforded him. No doubt his shithead uncle hadn’t paid the U their money, so Tim was left high and dry in more ways than one.

Jason dug his fingers a bit vigorously into the pie crust he was shaping in the pan. Fifteen fucking years old. Maybe that wasn’t the worst age to be abandoned, but Tim wouldn’t have had any support, any neighborhood connections, anything that would have helped him at least scrape by. Even Jason had had old neighbors that helped where they could. Had Tim slept rough through the winters, unable to get space in the always overcrowded youth shelters? Had he gone hungry, begging on street corners?

Had he found a warm spot on offer, in exchange for other things? 

The Pit gave a vicious kick, forcing Jason to let go of the crust lest it fall to pieces in his hands, clenching his teeth to cracking point. Tim couldn’t even scream for fucking help. What the fuck had he had to do to survive out there?

What the fuck was he doing now?

Jason breathed through the angry, razor edged green knot tangling around his chest. Whatever he had done it didn’t matter. Jason never judged anyone for how they got by. But he might be able to help Tim, if Tim would let him. 

Jason ran through all his previous interactions with Tim and groaned under his breath.

Except Tim fucking hated him because Jason had jumped to all those shitty assumptions about him based on his name. No fucking wonder he couldn’t stand Jason. 

Jesus fuck, Jason used be to be an actual trained detective once. He should have known better.

He was so lost in his musing that when Cass shadowed up to him he had his hands on the nearest knife before his reflexes could be better informed. He didn’t swing it, which was something, especially since the Pit was writhing angrily, sniffing for a fight.

Thankfully, this was Cass. If there was one person he felt reasonably safe about swinging on under Pit rage, it was Cass. She’d kick his ass six ways to Sunday, no matter how indestructible the rage made him. 

Cass dumped a gross of eggs next to him. “Make extra,” was her advice.

Figures.

Honestly, getting stuck on dough duty was a blessing in disguise. It was easy enough work, pounding and kneading leeched some of the tension leaking from the cracks in his composure and he could whip eggs and and shamelessly steal prepped veg on the sly. The kitchen was so busy that no one gave a damn what side projects anyone got up to as long as the actual menu was ready on time, and Jason was a pretty awesome multitasker, if he did say so himself. He even had a chance to whip up some biscuit crust berry compote custard tarts while he was slaving away in the confectionary zone keeping the dough balls coming in a steady stream. 

That was one thing he liked about the Table. Bruce was all about having an ever-changing menu, with something new for people to try every day. He rewarded breaks from the slog of their regular menu items, something which Jason secretly hoped to replicate in his own joint. Yeah, they’d keep the everyday stuff because people wanted comfort and familiarity, but it could be very rewarding to gently encourage people to be a little bit adventurous too. Jason’s first real joy when he was off the streets was going on that adventure with Alfred and Bruce. He hoped, somehow, that he could convey the same happiness to people in his neighborhood, who had lived with decades of substandard food conditions and cheap, nasty chain stores because they were all that would risk setting up shop there. He wasn’t going to indict those chains too hard – they offered a hot meal that was cooked by someone else which, no matter the nutritional value, had helped ease the burdens and the souls of a lot of people down his way. Even if his palate had been improved beyond that kind of food, Jason wasn’t about lowering them to raise his own skills up. 

He just thought a proper, home cooked, bursting with care restaurant would do the district and the people in it a world of good too. You had to keep moving forwards. You had to keep trying to improve.

Jason looked over to the prep zone, looking for Tim; but at some point his work there had ended. He was probably back in the wash zone, because the endless conveyor belt of a commercial kitchen wouldn’t cease until the last mouth had been stuffed. 

Jason was determined. He’d fix what he did. Fixing stuff was fucking hard work, he knew that by now, but he’d learned enough to know that work was the only way to get yourself out of the holes you dug for yourself. This would be no different. 

Maybe he had progressed, he mused. Jason from six months ago would have just left the shattered pieces where they lay, too frightened and too gun shy to reach out and cut himself on the shards and add to his dismal pile of failures. This Jason, right now, was willing to try. Maybe it meant something, he didn’t know. Alfred had said it though; Jason had to focus on what mattered to him. Jason had to actually admit what really mattered to him.

Wow, that was a complicated thought.

He tucked it away for later poking; there was only so much introspection he could get away with in the kitchen, especially when the lunch orders came through. Everyone turned into crazy culinary robots as the wave hit, churning out orders as fast and as hard as they could. It was Arkham with flavor in there, the air boiling with the heat of the stoves and everyone yelling over everyone else, darting back and forth and keeping their eyes glued to the order screen. Jason in particular was running off his feet because he had to keep an eye on the tarts, the quiches, the pizzas in the ovens, the order system and dart out to the front every once in a while to make sure pick-ups and people shopping at their pandemic bodega out front weren’t being assholes about masks or to the counter staff. The incidents were becoming rarer, but everyone knew that, Gotham being Gotham, they’d never stop. 

The quiches were almost done but Jason had heard some almighty crashing from the wash zone as he went in and out between the service area. Kitchen break schedules were for the ebbs rather than the peaks; Tim was likely as busy as the rest of them so Jason’s peace offering would have to wait until the daily crisis of peak time was over. 

Jason just finished loading up the next series of deliveries to Kahmet, one of their fleet of regular drivers when he heard trouble start – from the kitchen, not the store front. He wasn’t sure what the problem was but the dulcet tones of Damian Wayne meant it was nothing good. “You good?” he asked  Kahmet, who flashed him a grin and shooed him off, rolling the wheeled hot box out to his station wagon.

Jason huffed out a breath and stormed back into the kitchen. With Bruce out at Wayne labs and Dick still seeing to his joint in Blud, the dubious honor of next most senior in charge was unfortunately Jason. Technically it should have been Steph or Cass, but Jason was the only one who currently still had shares in the Table. Cass had sold hers back to Bruce when she started her fusion cuisine street joint in Hong Kong and Steph kept giving hers back to Bruce when he tried to give them to her at every gift giving holiday, because she was stubborn about earning them herself. Plus, they were the masters of cunning – they got free reign in the kitchen due to experience and skill but neatly avoided having to do any of the boring ownership paperwork.

Honestly, Jason wished he’d thought of it. 

“...said he was helping in prep! What was he even doing in here?!” Damian was raging to an equally enraged Steph.

“Oh, wait, let me check,” Steph retorted with razor edged sarcasm. “Yes, you’re still banned from the kitchen, gremlin. You know what that means? It’s none of your business what’s going on in here. Oh, and you know what else? It still wouldn’t be your business even if you weren’t banned because, yes, I’ve checked the deed, you still don’t own the place!”

Damian went puce with anger. “I will someday and I’m not about to let my future legacy’s reputation be besmirched by letting a janitor work in sanitary areas! And you don’t own it and are never going to own it; I shudder to imagine a restaurant run on your mediocre skills! Who gave you the authority to let Drake in here?”

“Your dad,” Steph snapped. “And you can check with him if you like! In fact, let’s do that right now!” she yanked her phone out of her apron. “I’m sure he’d love to know you were disobeying his very clear ban on entering the kitchens!”

Damian bared his teeth at her. 

“Doesn’t matter,” Cass’s voice cut through the argument like a knife through butter. “We’re behind. Burners are full, staff short. Tim’s working,” she leveled Damian with a look. “So are we. So should you, as ordered.”

“I’m trying!” Damian shouted. “But Drake’s stupid watch alarm is going off in his locker and it’s distracting me! I only came here because one of the peons told me he was here!”

“Well, he’s not now,” Steph pointed towards the wash zone doors. “Politely ask Tim to turn his alarm off and then get lost. We’ve got better things to do than coddle your attitude right now.”

She turned her back on Damian’s outraged face and dove back into the fray as kitchen hands yelled for assistance with the steak dinner trimmings and the salad dressings. Cass eyed Jason and jerked her head towards the wash zone where Damian was heading like a small, self-contained hurricane. Yeah, Jason better chaperone; the frothing rage the demon brat was in meant he’d at the very least hammer Tim with verbal blows if his temper didn’t snap entirely and he turned to physical ones. It didn’t happen very much anymore – B had threatened to take away the R for good if Damian ever assaulted one of the staff again – but the brat’s foul mood had slowly been deteriorating into louder and louder rages as Dick stayed in Blud. Jason wouldn’t trust to the kid’s ever more fragile self-control at this point, assassin discipline or not.

“Drake!” the kid bellowed as he went into the sudsy wash zone. “Where are you? Oh, what is this now?” the kid snarled in surprise.

Alarmed by that tone, Jason shot after the kid and through the door. He looked around, looked down…

… Tim was on the floor, bracketed by a couple of fallen pots, unconscious.

Holy shit.

Jason was across the wash zone in a heartbeat. “Tim? Tim?” He reached out and gently shook one arm, squeezing it tight.

Tim grimaced. Jason could see his eyes moving under his eyelids.

Okay, so, not catastrophic unconsciousness then.

“Go get the med bag out of the admin offices,” Jason barked to Damian, who was standing there with his fists clenched to his sides, like Tim had collapsed on purpose just to annoy him. “Now!”

Damian scoffed but did as he was told, and was gone through the doors in a flash.

Jason went into field medic mode. Airway, pulse, response, posture. 

“What’s going on in here?” Steph’s voice ran out from the doors. “Damian just tore through the kitchen like holy shit is that Tim?!” she exclaimed, eyes blowing wide. She moved over to assist Jason. “What the fuck happened?”

“No blood,” Jason reported. “No respiratory distress. No fever, although I’d need a thermometer to be sure. Pulse is strong. I think he just fainted. The last noises I heard from here was about nine minutes ago. Big damn crash.” Jason eyed the fallen pots.

“Yeah, that tracks. I heard it too,” Steph nodded, clearing them aside. “I didn’t hear anything break so I figured he must have just dropped one of the stock pots in the sink too hard. It happens sometimes.” Steph’s lips thinned. “Damn.”

“Yeah,” Jason muttered. 

Tim groaned, his face scrunched up as he suddenly found himself on the rough ride back to the waking world.

“Tim?” Jason cupped his face. “Tim, can you hear me?”

Tim squinted his eyes open blearily. “J’son?” he blinked sleepily up at Jason, disorientated. A sweet look of fondness crossed his face as looked at Jason which unexpectedly robbed Jason of breath.

It didn’t last. Damian banged back into the wash zone lugging the big first aid bag and a grouchy expression. “Here. I insist you perform a COVID test. If he has come in to work sick, he shall be fired.”

Tim’s dopey sweet expression dissolved into something several shades into the horrified spectrum. His eyes widened. “Wha-–?” he flailed to get up right, nearly banging his head on the cabinet doors beneath the sinks. 

“Whoa, whoa, hold on!” Jason effortlessly pinned him to the floor. “Just stay still for a minute.”

“What happened?” Tim croaked, apparently disorientated enough still to relax under Jason’s hands.

“You tell us,” Jason replied. “We found you passed out on the floor.” He grabbed the bag from Damian, who tutted but kept out of the way. “Pain? Dizziness? Nausea?”

“No, yes, no,” Tim muttered. “The spins are winding down though.”

Jason cracked open a pen light and the infrared thermometer. “Times compel me to ask; fever or flu like symptoms?”

“No,” Tim blinked heavily as Jason shone a light into his eyes. “Nothing like that. I wouldn’t have come into work if I’d felt sick.”

“Well clearly you weren’t feeling well,” Damian pointed out with a hint of snideness from the back. “As evidenced by the fact that healthy people don’t usually faint like venerable matrons. I suggest he be sent home and his employment reviewed.”

Tim flinched. 

“Feel free to get lost anytime you like, Dami,” Steph said in saccharine tones.

“He is required, as part of his contract,” Damian riposted irritably. “To notify the managers if and when he feels ill. From anything, let alone COVID. We have to maintain hygiene as a matter of law. Failing to do so is a dismissable offense.”

“Once again, get lost.”

Jason ignored them. No fever, pupil response was fine, unconsciousness duration brief. Odds were good Tim hadn’t cracked his skull on the way down at least. “What do you remember?” he asked Tim.

“Uh, nothing, really,” Tim was staring at Jason, blue eyes wide. “Um. I mean. Like, I remember grabbing more pots and moving over to the sink and then feeling kinda funky. Everything went hazy and then, uh, you were there.” Tim’s wan cheeks turned pink. “Honestly, I think I’m just… tired.”

He looked it. Dark hollows were dug deep around his eyes. No one that young should look that old. “I’m just gonna check your neck and the back of your head, okay?” Jason said gently. “Let’s just get this off.” He peeled off the face mask.

He felt Steph go stiff behind him. Holy shit, this was the first time Jason had ever seen Tim’s face in the full and… okay, he was gorgeous in his own way but those cheekbones had way too much jut in them to be natural. Tim was thin. Tim was starving.

Tim flinched back from his hands like an abused animal, helplessly embarrassed. Jason hurriedly said, “Sorry. Cold hands,” to help cover him. “I’m just going to run my fingers over your neck, okay?” Because immediate injury was immediate. Jason could deal with the rest of this clusterfuck at a later time.

“Um. Okay,” Tim said weakly, bony cheeks going redder.

“Okay.” Jason gingerly ran his fingers over Tim’s neck and spine – no distensions or anything out of alignment, thank fucking Christ. But he could feel the distended knobs of the bony protrusions of his spine like the bone was nearly bare, and felt something in his gut implode.

He swallowed back his growing desire to demand explanations. Tim looked too fucking fragile for an interrogation right now. Jason had enough red in his books where Tim was concerned already, he didn’t need to go further into hock by opening his big mouth again. 

“Okay, I’m gonna tentatively say your spine’s okay. Think you can sit up?” Jason asked gently.

“Yeah, hang on,” Tim braced with one arm, layered at the arm but the wrist was disturbingly twig like once exposed from its nest of sleeves. “I got it.” 

Jason moved to assist despite his assurances, helping him prop himself upright against the cabinets. “Whoa, hang on there,” Jason gently stopped him from trying to fold his feet under him. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“What do you mean, where am I going?” Tim snorted, waving a hand. “I got stuff to do. I’m already behind because you needed extra hands in the kitchen today.” His whispery voice was rough with irritation.

Jason hesitated. Snapping at Tim because he was being a stubborn dumbass about this was not likely to improve relations between them.

Steph had no such inhibitions. “Dude, I hate to tell you this, but you passed out for ten straight minutes,” she told him sternly. “OH&S says you’ve got two options here; you can either lay down in Bruce’s office for a while until you’re, I don’t know, not at the point of blacking out or we can call an ambulance in.”

Tim opened his mouth.

“Your choice,” Steph stared him down, making it absolutely clear she would follow through.

Tim closed his mouth. “Maybe I could… sit for a minute,” he conceded grudgingly.

“Good choice,” Steph patted him on the head. “I’ll head the kitchens,” she turned to Jason. “Can you get him to the office?”

“Oh come on,” Tim piped up, visibly annoyed. “I can walk there myself!”

“Yes you can,” Steph retorted with razor edged cheer. “And Jason can walk beside you. Or carry you, if you like.”

Tim’s face screwed up as he tried to outdo Steph’s basilisk stare, but slumped. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re scary.”

“Aw, you really know what a girl wants to hear,” Steph said sweetly. “Jason?”

“I got this,” Jason waved her off. “Go make sure the demon brat hasn’t staged a hostile takeover.”

Tim grudgingly accepted Jason’s hand up to rise, for convenience if nothing else. He accepted his hovering slightly less graciously. “Really? This is not necessary,” he griped, cheeks still burning red. “I’ll go sit. You get back to work.”

“Yeah, no, that’s not happening,” Jason snorted. “I’m sticking with you until you are stationary on a stable surface and not at risk of doing a header to the floor.” He guided Tim through the locker room where Damian was muttering and picking Tim’s locker, since the alarm was still beeping away.

Tim blinked at the spectacle but apparently decided he didn’t have the mental bandwidth to take on Damian Wayne right at this second, trundling past with Jason on his heels. He didn’t waver anywhere on the way to the obscenely expensive and expansive leather couch in Bruce’s office, but when he sank into it he was clearly relieved to get off his feet, indicating his incident-free journey might have been somewhat a result of sheer stubbornness. 

He fidgeted a little as Jason lugged their big medical bag onto the coffee table and started unrolling it and digging around in the various compartments. Like a lot of in-case-of-emergency equipment Bruce favored, it was on the extreme end of OCD neat.

“So, uh, I’m here,” Tim waved his hands. “So you can go no-ouuch!” he yelped as the lance test clipped his finger neatly. “Did you just hit me with a blood sugar test?”

“Yep,” Jason said, grimly reading the numbers on the screen. “You’re going to get a COVID test too.”

Tim bridled. “I didn’t come in sick! I wouldn’t do that!”

“I believe you!” Jason held up his hands. “I’m actually pretty sure this is low blood sugar and nothing else. But, you know. In these times we gotta be sure, right? I’m just trying to be responsible here.”

Tim flushed, eyes dropping to the floor. “I… you’re right. Sorry.”

“Hey, don’t be embarrassed. You passed out. It’s fucking with your head a little. That’s fine,” Jason assured him. “Waking up not knowing what the fuck just happened sucks. I fucking hate it when that happens.”

Tim’s lips quirked faintly. “Uh… does it happen a lot?” he rasped.

“More than I’d like,” Jason admitted, getting out swabs. “Less than I court. How are you feeling?” he asked after he’d done the throat swab.

“Honestly, I feel okay,” Tim insisted. “I’m not even dizzy anymore. I don’t feel any aches or pains and my vision seems okay and everything. I mostly just feel tired,” he admitted. “I’m not getting much sleep. Who is right now?”

“True,” Jason agreed, willing to give the kid a point for that one. “When was the last time you ate?”

Tim opened his mouth. Then his face scrunched up and he hesitated. “Uh…”

Jason blew out a breath. “Yeah, that’s the wrong answer.” He got to his feet. “Wait here. You move and you’ll be in a world of trouble, capiche?”

Tim shot him a look but he was apparently willing to be cowed, at least for now. Jason nodded and headed out through the admin offices; he saw the demon brat ensconced in one of them, turning Tim’s watch over and over in his hands, scowling impressively. Jason made a mental note to get Tim’s watch back off the demon brat at a later date, but shelved that problem for now.

The kitchen was still in full swing, although the general rhythms seemed to indicate the mad rush of the lunching hours had passed their peak. They’d probably be steadily busy until the chaos of the dinner hours, but for now they had a little wiggle room to clean, re-prep and rest while they could. 

Someone, probably Cass if Jason were to make a wild guess, had removed his quiches from the warming oven and the compote custard tarts were all gone, likely removed to the cool room. The dough machines were still working, getting batches ready for the dinner rush. Jason square cut the quiches, announced the existence of free food, and took a couple of plates of quiche with him to avoid the slow and grateful rush. Steph jammed a bottle of water in his elbow on the way past. 

Tim was where Jason left him, leaning against the sofa back with his head tilted back, almost but not quite asleep. His eyes opened up as Jason sidled back in with his bounty, and Jason was heartened to see him sniffing the air appreciatively. 

“Here,” Jason thrust a plate and a fork at him. “Eat up.”

“I can’t eat restaurant food,” Tim protested. “We’re supposed to sell it.”

“This isn’t on the menu,” Jason told him, forcing the plate into his hands. “And also? It’s a fucking kitchen, of course you can eat the food. We do it all the time. I’m doing it right now.”

Jason tugged off his mask and plopped down on the lounge chair – honestly, Bruce kept way too much furniture in an office he was barely ever in – and stabbed his own slice of quiche.

Tim went red. “You… made me a quiche?”

“I made a quiche. There was enough for you,” Jason hedged carefully. “And you’re eating it. Chop-chop, get to it.”

Tim blinked at him, but he did scoop up a mouthful of quiche. A transcendent look of bliss passed over his face at the taste. Jason couldn’t tear his eyes away from it.

He wanted to make Tim look like that all the time. 

“It’s good,” Tim murmured softly, taking another bite.

Yes. Yes it is, Jason thought. He dug into his own plate to cover his no doubt dopey lovestruck stare. He was of the opinion it could have done with a hint more spice in it, but it might be something to consider for the menu at their joint, when it opened.

Tim ate slowly and thoughtfully, shoulders slowly rising up towards his ears as he did. He appeared to have something on his mind. “This isn’t what it looks like, you know,” he said after the silence stretched past his comfort level.

“Tell me what it looks like,” Jason returned easily. “And I’ll tell you if I agree.”

Tim brow furrowed. “You think this is some anorexia-bulimia type thing,” he muttered. “People usually do. That or I’m a drug addict.”

“Dude, I know what an addict looks like,” Jason snorted. “I definitely never thought that. You got none of those tells. And if it is an eating disorder, then no judgment here. I’ve had those. They’re shitty and insidious and a fucking nightmare to get under control.”

Tim froze. “You did?” he asked incredulously. He looked Jason’s incredibly healthy physique up and down. “When? I never saw… well, I never heard of anything like that!”

“It was a while ago,” Jason admitted. “When B scooped me out of the gutter trash. First I wouldn’t eat, then I’d eat too much, and all the wrong, nasty stuff too, then I’d bring it all up, then it’d start all over again. I used to have panic attacks at the thought of food being thrown away. I’d hoard it. Hell, I still keep boxes of granola and MRE’s in little corners sometimes. It feels… safer. Took me, like, a fucking year for me to have an emotionally healthy relationship with food. And my body. Sometimes it feels like I still don’t, really.” Jason shrugged into Tim’s wide eyed stare. “I’m just sayin’, I’ve been on that shitty rollercoaster too. It’s fine if you’re on it. It’s fine if you still can’t get off it. It’s fine if you’re trying to get off it and you’re having a couple of backslides. All of that shit has happened to me.” Okay, that was more Pit detox than eating disorder, but honestly the mechanisms were so similar that the different source materials hardly mattered.

Tim went red and looked down. “Oh.” His voice was small. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”

Jason shrugged again. “Why would you?”

That made Tim go redder for some reason. “Um… it’s not really anorexia. Like, anorexia nervosa as, like, a diagnosis,” he insisted. “I don’t have this voice in my head telling me I’m fat or ugly or anything. I just… forget.”

“You forget to eat?” Jason blinked. Then he blinked again. “The watch. ‘Eat!’ You set yourself reminders to eat.”

“Every three hours,” Tim nodded. “Just something, anything, to eat. I don’t mean to forget, I just… I hyperfocus on things and I’m always busy because I can’t stand sitting still and doing nothing, you know? I have to do things. I get antsy if I’m not doing things. Um… I do have anxiety,” he admitted, his quiet voice nearly inaudible. “Like, a proper anxiety disorder. That kind of, um, feeds into me, like, forgetting. Like, I don’t really have a good hunger reflex, it's pretty weak. Um. The watch was given to me by a friend, so I could start keeping track. Sometimes I ignore it, though, because I just get super involved in whatever I’m doing. And, um, I was pretty sick about six months ago,” Tim added quickly. “Pneumonia. That made me lose a lot of the weight I gained before that. I know it looks bad but I am getting better, I swear!”

“Hey, hey,” Jason grabbed his flailing hands gently and squeezed. “I believe you, okay? Trust me, I’ve been in recovery for a while now. Setbacks happen. That doesn’t mean you're not trying.”

Tim gave him a deer in the headlights stare as his hands were captured, then he sagged. “Um. Okay.” His face glowed red.

Jason released him since he seemed uncomfortable. He handed the kid a water bottle to make the motion a bit less abrupt. “Look uh,” Jason braced himself, because this was about to suck even though he wouldn’t get a better opportunity to do this in a busy kitchen. “I want to apologize to you for what I said. At the food drive, I mean. And a bunch of other stuff, frankly. I didn’t mean to imply that you were only there for the good PR or whatever. I made a shitty assumption based on your last name and I should have known better. So, I’m sorry. It was a fucking stupid thing to say. Even if you were still in the wealthy set, you were down there doing your best and I should have respected that more.”

“Still…?” Tim’s face screwed up, then he grimaced. “Oh. I guess you talked to Alfred, huh?” He didn’t seem upset about his circumstances being revealed but he wasn’t precisely thrilled about it either. 

“Yeah. You said he was your rabbi into the Table and I guess after the whole food drive debacle I got a bit curious. Sorry, I’m a bit of a pryer by nature.”

A rueful look passed over Tim’s face. “I can imagine. I mean, you do seem pretty observant. And it’s not like it’s this big secret or anything. I just don’t have many people to tell that don’t already know. I’m sorry too,” Tim added unexpectedly. “For snapping. It was a long night and I was just so frustrated and we were running out of stuff and…” Tim shrugged helplessly. “Usually I’d have just ignored it or laughed it off or something.”

“Hey, I earned a lot more than a deluge of sarcasm from you,” Jason snorted. “In your place I’d have just decked me.”

Tim cracked a grin. “Yeah,” he wheezed. “That would have ended so well for me and my tiny knuckles. Seriously though, everybody assumes stuff about me because of the name. It’s not like you're the first. At least you didn’t ask me for a loan or something. Or stick a knife in my face.”

“That happens a lot, I gather,” Jason growled, Pit making angry motions in his chest. Or something was.

“Not anymore. But at first?” Tim shook his head, bangs flying. “A lone Drake, on the streets? Yeah, that happened. That’s why I couldn’t risk going to shelters and stuff at first.”

Jesus, Jason despaired internally, horrified.

“But I’m, you know,” Tim shrugged. “I’m pretty resourceful. I didn’t have a degree, but I had all the skills and training I needed to, like, fix stuff and do computer stuff. I made some money as an unlicensed contractor. I was kind of an odd-job handyman. Construction sites will pay people under the table for casual work too. And if the people who hired me to do odd jobs couldn’t pay in cash then they paid in food, which was fine by me.”

“And that was all?” Jason asked cautiously, well aware he was treading on dangerous ground. “Just, fixing stuff?”

Tim stared at him. “Yes? Oh, you mean… uh, no, nothing like that,” Tim went red. “I think it was mostly because people who can do that are pretty common but someone with an actual engineering degree was, you know, pretty rare. To be fair, some of my best clients were the brothels in the flesh district,” Tim grinned a little. “They’re always struggling to find a fixer who doesn’t demand freebies and, like, no insult to the professionals or anything, but I, uh, I wasn’t really interested in that sort of thing then. Um. I was pretty socially stunted when it came to, um, relationships and things so it’s possible someone asked me and it just… you know, didn’t register.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself to me, Tim,” Jason replied quietly. “It doesn’t matter, even if you did. I’d be a fucking hypocrite if I had a problem with it.”

Tim’s eyes turned sad. “I’m not saying I never considered the option,” he admitted. “But, um, I had enough good education and training that I could take advantage of opportunities other kids like me didn’t have. Privilege travels, even down into the gutter. Besides, I mean, it’s not like there weren’t people there to help me. Sister Des helped me, and a lot of the youth programs gave me access to computers and, like, making sellable apps and software is something I can do. That’s… um, that’s where I met Alfred. He took an interest in me, I guess. He made it a habit to check up on me and where I was sleeping and, like, he’d pass little jobs my way whenever he could. I was grateful for all his help.”

“Yeah,” Jason smiled. “That sounds like Alfie alright. I guess the Table job was one of his ideas.”

Tim gave a small, rueful grin. “I might have mentioned the whole culinary school thing, yeah. I told him not to bother but Alfred never listens to that stuff.”

Oh yeah, Tim had mentioned that, hadn’t he? “You really wanted to be a chef?”

Tim shrugged, embarrassed. “I like making things,” he admitted in his hoarse voice. “And the Table was getting uber popular when I was growing up. When my parents were in town they’d eat there. It wasn’t often, but, um, I remember it pretty well. I remember peeking into the kitchens whenever we came and it just seemed so purposeful and busy, you know? You made things that made people happy and I… I never seemed to be good enough for anyone. But no one dislikes you when you hand them food. I mean, for the most part, anyway. I wanted to do that. It seemed way more useful than all the other things I had to learn to be a good Drake.” Tim’s face turned rueful. “Not that any of that did me any good anyway.”

Tim was blase about it, but Jason felt the melancholy heaviness of that statement hit him broadside. Fate had royally fucked Tim over, which was a fucking lousy reward for genuinely wanted to go out there and put in the work to make people happy. The Pit gave a growl, but Jason kicked it down with a steel toed boot. Now was not the time. “I could teach you,” he offered, words falling over themselves to get out of his mouth. 

Tim froze, body language slamming closed. “I don’t need rescue,” Tim said quietly, but with steel under the wavering, damaged register. “I don’t need anyone to charge in and fix things for me. I’ve got a roof over my head and a job and plenty to get on with. I’m doing just fine. Well,” Tim conceded, looking at his twiggy fingers. “Mostly. And I am working on the rest.” Tim turned a blue eyed gaze on Jason that had all the concussive force of a steel bar. “You don’t owe me anything, Jason. Nothing.”

Jason didn’t lean back. When the blows came for him, he leaned in. “What, you think I’m offering out of pity? Don’t flatter yourself kid. You take on training from me, and I’ll make you fucking work for it. I’m not the kind of person who coddles. Unless it’s eggs.”

Tim’s assertive face cracked slightly. His eyes narrowed.

“Unless you're scared of the work,” Jason said, tone offensively idle. “Not everyone is cut out to be a chef, you know.”

Tim’s eyes narrowed further.

Jason smirked at him. “Jason Todd,” he stuck out a hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Tim’s lip quivered and he tried to suppress a smile. “Tim Drake,” he rasped, shaking it. “Nice to meet you Jason.”

“Oh,” Jason collected their plates. “You’re not gonna think that pretty soon. If you’re doing this with me,” he jabbed a finger at Tim. “The deal is, all work as assigned, capiche?”

Tim raised an eyebrow. “Terms and conditions re: schedules may apply,” he hedged. “But as long as that's reasonable, fine.”

“Good,” Jason rose. “Lay down and get some sleep.”

“What?!”

“All work as assigned!” Jason yelled over his shoulder as he left Tim gaping behind him and closed the door.

And locked it, because he was that kind of asshole.

Chapter Text

Blackbird worked with assholes. Not only had Jason locked him in the office, he’d sent Cass in about three hours later with a mug of homemade chicken vegetable and barley soup, a bowl of fresh-from-the-oven cheddar crackers which had been gratifying moorish but hadn’t kept Cass from locking the damn door behind her after she’d cheerfully spent fifteen minutes listening to him rant from the couch. 

Okay, so he left that day well fed and well rested. It was still annoying.

The custard tarts he’d finished off the day with, glowering at Jason who smirked back at him, had been pretty damn good though. 

He acknowledged that he’d more or less brought this on himself. The mandatory two day wait to get his results from his mandatory COVID test had given him a chance to recharge, which he had to grudgingly concede he had sorely needed. 

But now he was back in the fray again, and his two-day absence had not helped matters in the slightest. 

“Nothing?” he said, aghast. “There’s nothing left?”

Sister Des looked tired. “The banks and pantries were overwhelmed. Hit with mass demand. People calling in other people, rerouting supplies to the big drives over at the stadium and in Robbinsville Park.”

“Robbinsville Park doesn’t have a food drive,” Blackbird said furiously. “It doesn’t need a food drive. It’s bordered by some of the wealthiest areas in Gotham!”

“And yet,” Sister Des shook her head. “They somehow managed to get the paperwork filed, voted on and approved in about twenty-four hours while we’re still waiting six months later for a zoning permit for the Delaney parking garage set up.”

Blackbird growled angrily. He really shouldn’t be so surprised, even at the sheer blatancy of the uneven distribution of resources. Pastor Lightfoot was good at making friends with people who had money. It wasn’t a mistake that their supply lines were being hacked away one by one. He was sure the Lightfood Initiative were eager to step into the gap in the market.

“Don’t despair, my young friend,” Sister Des smiled. “Your contacts amongst the food clubs and microsourcing from the supermarkets and bodegas saw us through the last couple of days. And we had too many volunteers to find a use for when you said you couldn’t make deliveries. Neighbors offered to deliver to neighbors, elderly to the homeless, anyone with a car everywhere else. There was even a supply convoy that went to the stadium with lists to fill in the gaps. I’ve always said it, this place is like bread. Punch us down one by one, but the community rises up again.”

That made Blackbird smile under his face mask. 

Still, Blackbird turned to look at the Food Depository on the edge of Crime Alley, its doors locked shut and its shelves empty. It was one of the main pipelines he used to get his supplies. He could run around to bodegas and supermarkets and the like, but the people here had generously packed boxes for him when his demand far outstripped his ability to do it himself. 

Sister Des had already unloaded what meager supplies she’d managed to salvage before the whole thing had been cleaned out. It wasn’t much, even though she’d done her best to cram her old van full. She’d had enough sway with the food supply lines in this city that no one had stopped her.

“What about your kids?” Blackbird asked.

“We’ve got stores. We’ll stretch ‘em as far as we can,” Sister Des closed her van doors. “You’ve still got bulk stuff, right?”

“More than I can use,” Blackbird said morosely. That, at least, was a source that the Lightfoots hadn’t touched yet, mostly, Blackbird thought, because they hadn’t had access to the integrated bespoke software the big bulk warehouses used in the south docklands near Chinatown the way Blackbird did. Blackbird knew when they reached end-of-line batches and rapidly-reaching-use-by goods among the bulk suppliers. In gratitude for the excellent logistics software he’d given them, the distributors essentially paid him in bulk with whatever they had.

It wouldn’t last, Blackbird though, chest tightening in panic. They’d sell it first if they could and either the Drakes or the Lightfoots had the money to pay. All Blackbird had was moral authority, and that didn’t amount to much in a capitalist society, and certainly not in Gotham.

“It’s not nothing,” the Sister gave a rueful smile.

“Yeah, except the relief kitchens are getting taken out like enemy drones,” Blackbird sighed. “Yeah, I can parcel out the bulk stuff into portions for households but what the heck is a homeless person going to do with a bag of flour or rice? They don’t have any cooking infrastructure. We need kitchens as much as we need food.” Blackbird blinked slowly on that thought, slowly circling it back to his enemy drones metaphor.

“I’ll get together with Interfaith’s board,” Sister Des offered. “We’ll have a brainstorming session. Surely there’s some way we can make use of what we’re given.”

“I think…” Blackbird said slowly. “I think I have an idea. I’m going to make a few calls. Can you…” Blackbird tried to tease the full shape of the inspiration he’d just had out into the light of day. “Can you call up… everyone, I guess, and find out just how many people can cook? Not, like professionally, just, you know, basic cooking skills?”

Sister Des raised an eyebrow. “They shut down our volunteer kitchens a while ago.”

“Pardon my language, Sister, but they can go fuck themselves,” Blackbird bit out. “Are you okay with what you’ve got?”

“For now,” the Sister said. “Yes. I have to head back to the shelter, but I’ll start making calls like you said. When will you need them?”

“Now. Tonight,” Blackbird replied tersely. “Yesterday would have been better, but we don’t have enough now and I know there were missed deliveries the last few days without the truck. We’re already thin on the ground. No one should have to go hungry another night. I’m going to need volunteers for box packing and ration measuring, and a bunch of people to make simple stuff like bread and pancakes, actual cooks that can make simple dishes and who understand food standards enough to not accidentally cause any poisonings, and a bunch of people who can peel and chop and that sort of prep work. I’ll also need people willing to handle hygiene and cleanliness issues. And we especially need people who know how to operate heavy vehicles – buses and trucks, that sort of thing.”

“And where are we sending all these people?” Des asked very carefully.

“I’ll let you know. It could be a bunch of places. The parking garage soup kitchen is probably a place to start; the junked stovetops we jacked into the power grid are still there.”

“I’ll tell people to bring hotplates and coolers,” Sister Des nodded. “I’ll bring the kids out. They can be COVID wardens. And I’ll call in the Jewish and Muslim community groups as well; they’ve been starved out just the same.”

“Give me… two hours. I’m taking care of supply,” Blackbird nodded, and ran for his truck.

He let it wander on its pre-set route yanking out his field phone and firing off a if you have any contacts that can get us bulk supply quickly and over-the-table, call them now text. Then he got out the burner phone Hood had given him while he yanked open his laptop and started doing some rapidfire research over the ‘net. 

When the line picked up he didn’t even bother with salutations. “Sal’s. Hong-Ki’s. The Runabout. Cake Darling. Devils Bakehouse. Min-Dee’s, the Jamboree, Shenanigans, The Dark Hour Tacos… are there any other food trucks you know that serviced around Crime Alley and Bowery that tanked and are awaiting forfeiture in the repo depot because of COVID?” 

Silence. Then “Pascoes and the Fang, plus Moody’s vegan on the borderland to Burnley,” Hood said. “And a bunch of unlicensed coffee trucks. Fucking why?”

“Because the Lightfooters just stripped the food banks of anything remotely useable in the area, they’ve shut down all the soup kitchens with health code violations and the Lightfood Initiative is about to open their first ‘nourishment center’ with their pirated damn food, that’s why! The only way people are going to get to eat around here is if I steal it back and then we cook it ourselves. The police can shut down brick-and-mortar but rolling kitchens? Good. Fucking. Luck. They haven’t stopped me yet.”

A longer silence. “Meet me at the repo yard, one hour. You got drivers?”

“Sister Des is finding them for me. And we’re starting up a soup kitchen in the parking garage, though we don’t have a lot of infrastructure there to use. Not enough, if I’m honest.”

Hood snorted. “Don’t half ass going full vigilante, Baby Bird. Do you know how many fucking brick-and-mortar eateries around here have crashed and burned in the pandemic? And guess who knows most of the proprietors, since they were depending on a certain amount of protection? I’ll wager you a steak dinner they won’t be wholly upset to have their kitchen pirated for a good cause.”

Blackbird beamed internally. That was a good idea. After all, a kitchen was a kitchen. “We still need to steal some food too. I can send Four & Twenty to get some bulk stuff from the warehouses down south, but all that’s basic staples mostly – rice, flour, cereals, pastas, stock powders. Maybe some things like sugars, salts and oils, maybe some powdered milk if we’re really lucky. They don’t do refrigerated stuff or frozen, not much in the way of condiments either. No bottled waters or beverages – I can’t get coffee in bulk, the corporations have that supply line chained up the wazoo.” That had been a source of some consternation to him.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, kid,” Hood laughed. “Worry about transport first. See you in an hour. I’ve got some calls to make.” He hung up.

Blackbird smiled. It was so nice to have support.

Fifty four minutes and a lot of back and forthing over phones and texts to various people later, Blackbird anxiously approached the big repossession yard they stuck in the Hill area. It used to be under the Sprang bridge but ‘asset forfeiture’ had become the big new revenue stream for the still somewhat seedy GCPD. They’d needed more space in which to put their ill-gotten gains.

He’d driven his trusty Blackwing. The big truck was currently trundling around the warehouse district taking deliveries. It said a lot about Gotham that no site manager even blinked at a self driving truck coming for pickups anymore. Mind you, it said a lot about Gotham that warehouses ran twenty-four hours a day and therefore pickups could be made in the dead of night. 

He should have planned this more. Run numbers, done research. But the thumbscrews were well and truly in now, the enemy had resources to move faster than he did. It had to be a blitz attack and it had to be public. They needed sympathy on their side and Blackbird was hoping that Gotham’s general love affair with an underdog outlaw over lawful institutions held true. 

Hood was right. He couldn’t win this playing fair. And Lightfoot knew how to reach people. They couldn’t win it appealing to reason. But one big, chaotic declaration of intent? Lightfoot would never see that coming. He was used to people trying to play by the rules of polite society. That’s why appealing to people's baser drives came off so well for him.

If Blackbird was going to be a vigilante… well, he was damn well going to be a vigilante.

God, this could go so wrong if it really went south. He’d be public enemy number one if he couldn’t pull this off. At least until Arkham opened its creaking gates once again.

He busied himself tapping into his phone at hyperspeeds, trying to organize and categorize and sort out what goes where and why. The only advantage he had on his side was six months worth of experience in what constituted a filling meal and how to stretch those numbers to the end of eternity.

Something landed on Blackwing’s bonnet. Caught unawares, Blackbird jumped, rose up and swung his skillet before he even clocked to what he was swinging at.

Luckily for him he was swinging at Black Bat, who merely leaned back and let the blunt instrument whiff by her nose at a hair’s breadth of clearance. She looked absolutely amused by him. “Hi!” she chirped.

Blackbird felt his life flash before his eyes. “Oh my god I am so sorry!” he blurted, still holding the skillet upraised. 

She patted him on the head. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” Blackbird said weakly. 

“BB are you here oh my god,” the new voice turned positive gleeful. “Is that a frypan? You actually use a frypan as a short range weapon?”

“Skillet,” Black Bat corrected primly.

“What she said,” Blackbird climbed out of the car. “And short to mid range, yeah.”

Batgirl bust a gut laughing.

“Hey, it’s a ten pound chunk of quality metal with a handle,” Blackbird protested. “You could pick a worse cudgel. Besides, I once saw you pounding a bad guy in the face with a geoduck, you have no right to talk.”

“Oh god, you’re adorable,” Batgirl wiped tears from her eyes. “How did it get a ding in it?”

“That,” Red Hood dropped down from the roof of the nearest building on a line, nearly making Blackbird choke in surprise. “Is from my helmet.”

Batgirl burst out laughing again. “You… you… wanged Red Hood w-with a… frypan?!” she choked out between guffaws, looking like Christmas had come early.

“Skillet,” Black Bat, Blackbird and Red Hood said in stereo, which made Blackbird nod in satisfaction. There were small but crucial differences. 

“If you’re done, BG, we have actual fucking work to do here,” Red Hood raised his voice above her mirth. “Blackbird, you’re up.”

Blackbird was caught off-guard by being thrust the mantle of authority, but rallied. Hood was right; this was technically his op. “The Lightfood Initiative has spent the last two days hacking away at food supply lines into the poorest districts of Gotham, to the point where I can’t deliver because I have nothing to deliver. With lockdown regulations tightening and curfew penalties rising, that’s at least half the households and almost all of the community institutions – old age facilities, group homes, halfway houses, domestic violence shelters and any apartment block that’s had a COVID outbreak is now, essentially, left to starve,” Blackbird took a breath and let them absorb the enormity of that. “My big rig is currently collecting what charitable bulk donations it can from the warehouse districts in the south, but given that they’re being bought up at higher than market value, there isn’t going to be enough left over to feed everyone. So,” Blackbird looked at them. “I need to steal some trucks – food trucks, because they’ll have the set up we need, and go… kind of raid the Lightfood ‘nourishment center’ near Robbinsville Park.”

“Food taken from food banks?” Black Bat clarified quietly.

“That right, but they aren’t using it to feed the poor,” Blackbird showed them his field phone, bringing up the research he’d angrily done on the way here. “They’re basically giving it away to parishioners. Ostensibly to feed the poor in their neighborhoods, but these are upper-middle class and other petty bourgeois types. We all know they aren’t going to start up soup kitchens for the needy. At best, they might sell it at a mark up to whomever wants it.”

“Those fucking assholes,” Batgirl snatched his phone, brow wrinkling as she flipped further and further into rage inducing photos and posts online. “Wow, those bastards aren’t even trying to hide it, are they? They’re actually holding a ‘Pot Luck’ night tonight! With stolen food! ‘All generously donated’. What fucking assturds.”

“Tell me about it,” Hood rumbled. “What’s the plan?”

“Honestly, I’m pretty sure you’re the expert in stealing vehicles among us, Hood,” Blackbird said dryly. “So I’ll leave ‘truck exfiltration’ from here to you. I assume you all know how to operate a heavy vehicle.”

“Yeah.”

“Yep.”

“Once drive fire truck in the subway.”

“Yeah,” Blackbird nodded to Black Bat. “Yeah, I remember that one. So does the GCFD, vividly. Hood? I can hack security, but I’m, um, I can speculate but I don’t know the logistics of places like these.” He waved a hand at the repo yard.

“No sweat, Baby Bird, I got ya,” Red Hood nodded. “BG, can you get us some overwatch from Oracle? We probably won’t need it here but food trucks are going to be hard to miss driving around on the streets.”

“Roger,” Batgirl gave a thumbs up before hitting her comm.

“Black Bat, can you take care of the dogs? Yard this big probably has at least two,” Hood told her. 

She flashed a thumbs up and then, without apparently doing anything, melted into the shadows and vanished. 

“BG, you got security?” Hood turned to her.

“Tapping in now,” she reported, thumbing her wrist computer. “Give me a minute to set up a loop on the vehicle entrance. I’ll scale the walls and come in from behind if there are any problems. I’ll also scout out the best trucks. Suggestions, Blackbird?”

“At least one frozen, if not refrigerated. Ice cream trucks might be too small unless Friendly Frost or the Rogueshake Mobile folded while I wasn’t looking,” Blackbird said promptly. “Other than that, biggest capacity that looks in good shape. And maybe one smaller one that can handle the narrower streets round the Bowery.”

“Right,” Batgirl nodded. “Loop’s done, I’ll tag anything that looks promising.”

Blackbird turned to Hood. “We need to break into the main office. I know you can probably hotwire anything we need but I’d like to return the trucks in as good a condition as possible, if we can get away with it. The poor people who used to run them have enough problems right now. So we’ll need to get keys.”

“That’s fine,” Hood began leading him around the perimeter and towards the heavy gate that was the vehicle entrance to the yard. “I was gonna hafta go in there anyway and make sure the poor saps doing the nightshift don’t try anything funny. These repo guys have all sorts of shady connections, I don’t want them calling in the cops, or anybody else.”

“Thanks for, you know, doing this,” Blackbird added as they came up to the gate. “I know this is kind of short notice.”

“I’m glad you called, actually,” Hood said as he sighted cameras and drew out a sidearm, fixing it with a suppressor. He took out the security lights in a couple of thoughtless seconds. “I was getting worried about you when I didn’t see you for a couple of nights. So were all the people you feed.”

“It was just time for my COVID test,” Blackbird shrugged. “I gotta take ‘em on the regular, you know. Just in case.”

“Yeah, I hear ya,” Hood replied. “Still, a little warning would have been nice.”

“Yeah, I know,” Blackbird squinted at the gate mechanism. Standard electric gates with a winching motor clamped to the ground on the inside. Blackbird ditched his skillet and thanked his lucky stars for a svelte physique that allowed him to squirm closer to the mechanism than most people would generally be able to get, sliding his arms under the gap between the ground and the gate. “I’m wary about posting my schedule online at the moment. Lightfoot knows how to press an advantage. He’s already had a bunch of people trying to shadow me back to my base or tape trackers to the Four & Twenty’s undercarriage. Lucky for me,” Blackbird grunted as he smashed a popball against the motor casing and let the acidic reaction open a smoking hole in it. “The talent pool he’s drawing from is a bunch of novices where urban tracking is concerned. That, and he doesn’t want to risk getting caught hiring professionals, I imagine.” He yanked out some wires and cross wired them.

The gates slowly began to swing open. 

“Hm,” Hood was impressed. He’d already known Blackbird had technical skills, but he kept pulling even more surprises out of that utility bandolier of his. “You need security on your runs?”

“You are security on my runs,” Blackbird said archly. “But if that’s your attempt to inveigle an invitation to my home base, let me think about it. Keeping it a one-man secret has worked out pretty well so far.”

Hood grinned. Oh, this kid was sharp. “Since breaking and entering appears to be our bonding exercise,” he started as they ghosted in. “Why do you do this? Like, what was the thing that sent you headlong into wearing a mask to fix the world?”

“Why do you?” Blackbird parried.

“It adds a touch of panache to what would otherwise be the most commonplace thuggery known to mankind,” Hood gestured grandly. “Plus, changing anything in this hellmouth takes a very special catch. You can’t be sane or normal and hope to succeed.”

“And you want to change things?” Blackbird asked quietly as they approached the offices.

“I want things to get fucking better,” Red Hood sighted the cameras, but he didn’t doubt his colleague on overwatch was very, very competent. The security, such as it was, probably wouldn’t see them coming. “I don’t want a debate about the nature of evil or all the hand wringing moralizing. You want to make things better, you gotta get down in the muck and make things fucking work.”

Blackbird nodded.

Hood leaned forward to pick the lock of the offices, but found he didn’t have to bother. The handle turned under his hands. They silently slipped through.

Honestly, subduing the guards was disgustingly easy. The pair were both in the breakroom watching the game on the TV. All they had to do was quietly close the door and secure it with two metallic clamps strung on an unbreakable polymer. The poor saps wouldn’t even know they had been subdued until they tried to open the door. Hood stuck a signal jammer on the door too, just in case of cell phones.

“So?” Hood pressed as they made their careful approach to the storage room. “How about you?” 

“Me?” Blackbird sightlined doors and offices, in case there was anyone they’d missed – unlikely, the place felt dead quiet. 

“Why do you do this?” Hood repeated. “Come on, I spilled my guts. How ‘bout a little reciprocity?” 

“Did we agree to that?” Blackbird grinned playfully behind his face mask. “And also, who isn’t aware that Red Hood wants to clean up the worst districts in Gotham?”

“Oy, I was being all open and shit, just like my therapist told me, you little fucker,” Hood poked him in the temple. “You wouldn’t want to cause a setback in my recovery by not responding, right? Here’s a hint; you don’t. My setbacks are… messy.”

“Wouldn’t want that, I guess,” Blackbird murmured facetiously. He opened the door to the storage and whistled. That was a massive wall of keys and assorted paperwork. “I made a mistake,” he said abruptly, coming to a halt in the gloom. 

“A mistake,” Hood repeated, getting out his flashlight and switching it on. “A mistake like, how?”

Blackbird didn’t look at him. “It was a pretty bad one,” he said. “I… I had… someone I knew, they went through some stuff and I… I could have helped but, um, I didn’t step up. I was too scared to and by the time I’d gotten over myself, um,” Blackbird cast his eyes to the floor. “Bad things happened to them.”

Hood looked him over. “You didn’t do it,” he suggested carefully, feeling his way out to the edge of this clearly yawning abyss of guilt.

“I could have stopped it,” Blackbird muttered. “If I’d just… if I’d been brave, if I’d’ve stepped up, then they might have been okay. But I just kept my mouth shut and did nothing and they paid for it.” He looked up at Hood, eyes haunted. “I won’t ever make up for it as long as I live. I know that. There’s no redemption in this for me. But I promised myself I’d never stand idly by again so…?” he shrugged. “Here I am. Stepping up.”

So, Hood thought to himself. It was guilt after all. Not rage or vengeance or idealism. Just that shriveling, corrosive guilt that eats away at a soul. It wasn’t like Hood didn’t get how that spun an engine into action. He had more than a few sins he was still atoning for as best he could. He just hoped the kid wouldn’t let his guilt eat him to the bone. He hoped that he could do what Hood had spent painful months learning to do, and seek closure.

It wasn’t his business, Hood knew. This was as fucking personal as it ever got and it was Blackbird’s right to muddle through it himself without any well-meaning patronage from outside sources. But Blackbird was opening up to him slowly. Hood hoped he could put a couple of wedges into those cracks and help them open a little more, let some light in. He hoped he could keep Blackbird’s trust enough for the kid to let him help.

Funny, Hood realized. Blackbird had never once not trusted him. He didn’t tell Hood everything, because who in a mask did? But he’d never lied, and he’d never shown any inclination that he thought Hood was lying to him. That stuck Hood as odd, suddenly. Why the hell would the kid trust him, of all people, so easily and with such confidence?

Blackbird was shining a light over the key cabinet. There were a lot of keys and some of those keychains had some pretty mouthwatering looking brands on the keychains. If Hood didn’t know he was here to take some trucks, he’d have loved to take some drug dealer’s Lamborghini for a joyride.

“What does Batgirl have out there?” Blackbird asked him, turning the big, bulky ‘information’ tags attached to the keys in his hands. “There’s keys here for the Full Enchilada, that was a big double-barreled beast. We could use that.”

“BG, do you see the big taco truck that looks like a taco shaped bus?” Hood commed her. “It used to park down by the Gotham Met. I remember it.”

“Uh…” there were banging sounds over the line as she climbed over vehicles. “Yeah, I see it.”

“How good a condition is it in?” Hood asked, looking around until he found a likely looking desktop filebox, thanking the gods the repossession industry was still corrupt enough to want to avoid a digital trail. Blackbird obligingly swung his flashlight over as Hood yanked out the truck’s maintenance file.

“Looks pretty good,” Batgirl reported in. “Hey BB, stop petting the poor confused dogs and come help me!”

“Yeah, it’s been serviced recently,” Hood read from the file. 

“If we’re taking that one, the only way we get it out is moving the truck in front of it… oh, good, I think this one is a chiller truck.” Batgirl said. “It’s not a food truck, but it’s got more capacity than an ice cream truck anyway.”

“Registration?” Blackbird asked.

There was some back and forthing over the comms but eventually they settled on Full Enchilada, the nameless refrigerated truck, Getting Baked for the oven set up and trailer hitch and That’s Crepe! because it was a smaller, zippier little truck with its own fridge set up, and a capacious flat griddle. Pancakes were easy and cheap to make.

They made their escape cleanly, with the security guys starting to bang on the door just as they left.

Blackbird hammered on his phone as they headed for the trucks.

“Dibs on Full Enchilada!” Batgirl said cheerfully, already at the wheel.

“No, I’ve got the big one,” Hood tossed her the keys to the Getting Baked truck. “No offense, but I’ve seen how you drive.” 

“If Black Bat can take the chiller truck, I’ll take That’s Crepe!,” Blackbird handed Black Bat her set. “I’ll probably do better in the smaller one. I don’t have much experience driving heavy vehicles.”

“What?! The Four & Twenty is the biggest truck in town!” Hood squawked.

“Self-driving,” Blackbird said patiently. “I don’t exactly have a license. Blackwing is the only thing I’ve ever driven and it’s basically a go-kart.”

“Dude,” Batgirl shot him a look that told him she found him adorably dim. “You don’t actually need a license to drive a car. You do know that, right?” 

“Yeah, but you do need someone to teach you how to do it right and I’m not exactly spoilt for mentors in cowls, so there,” was Blackbird’s annoyed rejoinder. “Come on, we’ve got volunteers waiting for supplies and we now have to execute a ram raid on the warehouse space the Lightfood Initiative has rented out in Coventry. Basic smash and grab, we have to go in and get… whatever we can get.”

“I do like a good raid,” Hood muttered, digging around in his utility belt. “Here,” he passed an earwig to Blackbird. “So you can stay on the comms. I’m calling in some extra backup. We’re going to need help with the loading if we’re going to get as much as possible. BG, is Oracle still on overwatch?”

“Yep, I’ve briefed, we’re good,” Batgirl’s truck roared to life.

If anyone had told Blackbird he’d be tearing down the Schwartz Bypass in the middle of the night in a giant taco truck, a slightly less giant baked potato truck, a refrigerated truck that Blackbird realized about halfway in was probably used for smuggling because it went way faster than a truck like that should be able to go, even with Black Bat at the wheel, and a small crepe mobile gamely trying to keep pace with the others using Blackbird’s… mostly theoretical driving knowledge, he’d have laughed uproariously and then offered information on community mental health services.

The whole situation was so serious and the grinding down of the vulnerable so blatant, but Blackbird had to guiltily admit that the drive was fun. He even got the hang of stick driving, mostly, on the way. By the time they made it to the depository with the ill-gotten foods, Blackbird was grinning like a loon at Hood triumphantly sounding the La Cucaracha horn and Batgirl cackling like a madwoman as the big plastic potato on top of the truck wobbled in the slipstream. 

They pulled up to the warehouse area. This part of Gotham was more dormant at late nights than others, so they could kill the headlights and rely on Hood’s night vision setting to navigate. The warehouse looked suspiciously unguarded.

“Where’s security?” Blackbird commed the others from the driver’s seat (and he had a Bat comm! He might be squeeing internally a little bit).

“No problem,” an unfamiliar voice came over the line. “They’re all trussed up and not looking to cause trouble.”

A figure stepped out of the shadows of the truck docks, helmeted and bearing a shade too much weaponry to be called discreet.

“Is that Arsenal?” Blackbird said with a certain amount of glee. Okay, he was a Batstan to the end of time but he had a small place in his heart for Arsenal, if only because he consistently was watching Red Hood’s back.

“Yo, new kid,” Arsenal waved from the yard as they jockeyed their illicit transport in with minimal bumps and bruises. “Heard a lot about ya.”

“Hey dude,” Batgirl had already disembarked and came up to give Arsenal a friendly air-fistbump. “Not that it’s not nice to catch up, but seriously, Hood? This is our backup? He’s literally one guy.”

“One guy with a phonebook, BG, and that’s all you need,” Arsenal smirked. 

“ETA?” Hood asked. “We’re on a timetable here.”

There was a crack of the sound barrier breaking above and then two dark forms, roughly the same shape, dropped into the container yard seemingly from the side. They were in… some kind of spacesuits? Blackbird squinted at them.

“Fuck, Batman’s going to kill you,” Batgirl was clearly grinning about this under her face mask. 

“Batman doesn’t kill, blondie,” Hood snorted. “I’m good.”

“Hi Red Him!” one waved cheerfully. “No touching!”

“That’s right,” the other one patted the first’s shoulder. “You got it.”

“No touching!”

“I explained this,” the second one sighed, raising the helmet’s shield. “We’re okay to touch. You just can’t touch anyone else, okay?”

“Okay!”

“Hi Biz,” Hood waved to him. “You having fun with Superboy up at the Fortress?”

“We watch movies!” Bizarro crowed delightedly.

“So much Pixar,” Superboy sighed, but there wasn’t all that much resignation in his tone.

“That’s great, big guy,” Arsenal grinned. “Thanks for coming.”

“Is that… Superboy?” Blackbird said incredulously. He wondered if it was bad form to ask for an autograph at this juncture. “I thought metas weren’t allowed in Gotham.”

“Eh,” Hood shrugged. “I won’t tell if you won’t. Plus, it’ll take us about two minutes to pick and pack with a pair of super strong, super speedy hands on our side. You guys ready to do some good?”

“Ready, but we’ll have to skedaddle pretty fast once we’re done. Forget Batman, Supes is not going to be pleased. Hence the spacesuits. I figure we can argue we took necessary precautions. They’re worried about alien strains of COVID,” he explained to Blackbird’s blank look. “They don’t know if Biz or I can get it or not, or what it might mutate into.”

“Oh! Oh, yeah, that might be bad,” Blackbird said. “Look, thanks for coming out, I appreciate it.”

“Yeah, well, when Hood reached out to Biz and told him to suit up, I figured I better come along and make sure he doesn’t get into too much mayhem,” Superboy smiled ruefully through his helmet.

“You have so little faith in me Supes-squared,” Hood mimed a shot to the heart.

“Dude, I know you,” Superboy riposted cheerfully. “And also, you still haven’t explained exactly what we’re doing here?”

Blackbird took care of that while the rest of the team got the loading docks open, giving Superboy a brief overview while Bizarro crowed in delight over the huge, colorful taco truck. 

“So, this guy basically bought up all the charity food in Gotham?” Superboy was frowning at Blackbird’s phone. “Can he do that? Is that legal?”

“Technically he runs a charitable organization,” Blackbird said tiredly. “So he can source donations from wherever he wants. And if he can charm donors into giving their supply to him, that’s his right to try. I don’t doubt some illicit money changed hands somewhere along the line to reroute all the food bank supplies destined for the poorest districts into his grip, but to be honest, that’s happened around here for years with various other ‘church groups’ too. The scale is just bigger, because of the pandemic. Demand is so high and supply is so low that he practically got the keys to the kingdom overnight,” Blackbird’s voice was bitter. “Now that he has legitimate control over it, he can market his group as the only practical solution to distribution. Which means people have to sign up for his stupid app, hand out their valuable data and possibly risk subscription fees in order to eat. The fact that a big pharma company has got its sticky fingers in this so they might not know what they’re ingesting is just a bonus.”

“That’s so unbelievably shitty!” Superboy burst out. 

“Swear jar!” Bizarro pointed out triumphantly.

“Swear jar’s full, buddy, we still need to get a new one,” Arsenal replied, amused.

“And they just let this Lightfoot person get away with this?” Superboy asked furiously.

“They got ninety-nine thousand problems in this town, man,” Hood shrugged. “The plight of the poor ain’t never been one of ‘em.”

“Geez Louise! If Gram knew about this...” Superboy was flabbergasted.

“Do NOT tell your Gram about this, kid,” Hood admonished. “Children going hungry? She’ll leave a contrail all the way to Gotham just to tear the city council a new one. And then Supes will kill us. And then B’ll reanimate us just so he can kill us again. And then he’ll reanimate us again and…” Hood shuddered. “Leave Agent A to deal with us putting one of their dear friends in danger.”

There was a group shiver, even from Black Bat.

Blackbird looked at them all, hilariously confused. “Oh… kay,” he said slowly. “Leaving that aside for now. Let’s see what we’ve got.”

What they had was Foodie Aladdin's Cave. Racks upon racks of boxes and bags filled the space, floor to ceiling. The whole warehouse smelled of produce that was slowly ripening in greengrocer boxes. 

“Whoa,” Red Hood surveyed it all. “He really did rake it in, didn’t he?”

“And it’s all just sitting here, behind locked doors,” Blackbird spat angrily. “Slowly rotting while people starve to death.”

They absorbed that silently, tightened their shoulders and jaws. All of them, after some fashion, had starved for something in their lives. Starvation – emotional or physical – was a big trigger for putting on a mask.

“Produce first,” Black Bat decided practically. “No waste.”

“Right,” Superboy’s chin came up behind his face shield. “Biz, come and help me. We gotta be careful, okay?”

“Careful,” Biz nodded eagerly.

They zipped and zapped at lightning speeds, taking handfuls at a time rather than whole pallets so there was no spillage. Blackbird admired the sheer efficiency of it. Full Enchilada was half stuffed before he’d even moved halfway into the warehouse.

“Look at this,” Batgirl said in disgust, because she’d gone in even further and had taken stock of the packing at the back. “The cold room is stuffed completely full, we can’t even walk in without moving shit. So what do they do with all the cold stuff that won’t fit? Why, they just dump it in the general area, why not? All this stuff might already be bad!”

“Maybe not, the ambient temp is pretty low,” Blackboard said hopefully, pulling out a bunch of swabs. “I’ll run some quick tests. We might be able to salvage some of it. You find a marker or something, we’ll scribble all over them that people need to do a sniff test on them before use. Remember, use-by dates are arbitrary and often have nothing to do with when the food will actually go bad. We’ll do that…”

“We’ll get a forklift or something and start hauling shit to the front for the Supers,” Arsenal offered. “Any targets in particular?”

“We’ve got bulk flours, rices, sugars and legumes from other sources. Other than fresh stuff, we need anything refrigerated, plus processed meals for the homeless. Pastas, sauces, spices, cereals and stuff in jars and cans. Eggs by the gross. Snack foods, but try to hit the most nutritional you can find. Any and all baby formulas and baby foods. We might have to save space so pet foods will have to go last. Black Bat, can you see if you can hunt down non-food staples if they have any here? Top picks are female hygiene, diapers and sanitizers and soaps.”

Black Bat nodded tightly and scuttled up the racks, fearless. The rest of them rushed all over the warehouse to get their jobs done. The other masks threw themselves into the work, gleefully looting the choicest stuff they could find and stuffing their chosen trucks to bursting. They wouldn’t be able to use any of the truck facilities, at least not until the drop off.

Blackbird wished he could help more, but he got stuck doing lightning fast food safety testing on the stuff they’d left out to rot, and then most of the rest of the time on his phone coordinating with various hastily gathered volunteer groups about where they’d meet the food supply, and designing a route through the north island that would let them drop off their ill gotten but righteous gains at closed down kitchens all across it.

Red Hood came to help him with the latter. “Are you taking pictures?” he asked incredulously.

“I’m posting them too,” Blackbird added grimly. “I don’t want those racist assholes pointing the finger at minority groups and having the city councils slam down even harder on them in revenge. Everyone needs to know who did this,” Blackbird quirked a dark smile under his face mask. “I’m not so sure the unethical elements of the councils or the GCPD will be overeager to attempt taking on the Red Hood.”

Hood grinned. “They’re certainly welcome to try. Make sure you get my menacing side. Leave the supers out of the frame, though; anti-meta sentiment is one shit show I do not want to get a ticket to.”

“Yeah, they won’t ever see them,” Blackbird agreed. “I don’t want to get them into trouble, anyway. Hey, um,” he shuffled his feet self consciously. “Do you think it’d be weird if I asked them for an autograph?”

Red Hood stared at him. “Oh my fucking god!” he jabbed a j’accuse finger at the kid. “You’re a fucking fanboy! You’re an actual, factual, fucking mask fanboy!”

Blackbird’s ears went scarlet. “Well, I’m not exactly…” he flushed harder as Red Hood dissolved into laughter, literally clutching his gut.

“I… can’t… believe… this,” he gasped out. “You’re a fucking superstan. Oh Baby Bird, I used to trust in your taste!”

“Technically,” Blackbird informed him loftily, gathering the tatters of his dignity around him. “I’m a Robinstan, but I just thought that since I’m probably not going to see them again…”

“Wait,” Hood held up his hands. “Wait, wait, wait. You’re a Robin fanboy? Since when?”

Blackbird blinked at him. “Since… forever? Didn’t I tell you that?”

“Fuck no, I’da remembered that!” Hood looked astonished. “If you’re such a Robin fanboy, why didn’t you start fawning over the demon br– oh, wait, I think I just answered my own question.”

“Yeeeah,” Blackbird rubbed the back of his head. “That was an abundance of natural caution on my part. Everyone knows what this Robin is like about fans annoying him. Um, truthfully, I was going to ask for one from him too but um, you know,” Blackbird shrugged uncomfortably. “It wasn’t really the time that night, after the Stillwells.”

Hood burst out laughing again. 

“Shut up,” Blackbird muttered. His eyes narrowed at Hood. “He wasn’t really the one I fanboyed over, anyway. The second one was my Robin.”

Hood stopped laughing. “Say what now?”

“The second one,” Blackbird mumbled. “Robin II. He was my favorite Robin. What an icon,” he beamed with apparent full sincerity.

“The failure?!”

“Hey!” Blackbird said hotly. “He wasn’t a failure! He did a lot of good for a lot of people in this town! He hung out with the runaways and got kids out of gangs and made sure the working girls were coping! He didn’t just flash a smile and vanish to leave the little people to clean up what was left of the mess! ” Blackbird jabbed a finger at him. “All the little invisible people, all the strays and misfits and the lost. People who weren’t perfect and made some stupid decisions, but still tried their best! People even Batman didn’t see! He put in the fucking work, before and after the punching. That makes him the best, in my opinion. He wasn’t Batman’s Robin. He was Gotham’s Robin. And he wasn’t a failure,” Blackbird added angrily. 

Hood stared at him.

“Well, anyway,” Blackbird visibly reined back his temper. “That’s what I think. I’m going to go check on the loading,” he muttered before turning and striding away from a gobsmacked Hood before his ears lit up the warehouse with a bright red glow.

Stupid, stupid, Blackbird chastised himself. It was way too late for him to tell Red Hood how much Jason Todd had meant to him. Too much had happened that Blackbird was responsible for to ever give him the right.

The sudden melancholy he had at that thought was unexpectedly crushing.

“I think we’ve got everything we’re going to get,” Batgirl approached him. Blackbird sighed at the carefulness of it; he guessed it was too much to hope that no one had noticed his passionate defense of a Robin long gone. 

“Yeah,” Blackbird sighed. “We’re burning starlight. There’s a bunch of volunteers waiting for this stuff.” He checked his phone. “The Four and Twenty is nearly at the parking garage now. We can rendezvous and go on from there.”

“After that, we’ll need to reload,” Red Hood had apparently shaken himself out of his stare. “I managed to wrangle a bunch of restaurant owners in the Bowery and the Alley to warm up their kitchens. O weaponized her irregulars to kind of break into the ones I had nothing to do with; mostly in the community halls.”

Blackbird felt warmed. That would be a big help; they had a lot of food to dispose of in hungry bellies as quickly as possible. “Okay, let’s get going. Thanks guys!” he waved to the supers who had done more than enough to help. Thanks to them they were in and out in less than an hour; that would likely muddy the waters enough so that Lightfoot and his cronies couldn’t immediately pin it on them. Not that the man wouldn’t , really, but it would make it harder to show his receipts.

Superboy and Bizarro said their farewells and flew out of Gotham as if Batman was chasing them, which he might be soon. Hood told Blackbird on the sly as they clambered into their respective vehicles that there was probably no way they were going to avoid him finding out eventually. 

Blackbird hoped Batman would be too upset. It was for a good cause.

They were generous with the gas pedals and zoomed back towards the parking garage with all mustered speed, Arsenal cheerfully spotting for them on top of the big taco truck and having a ball doing it. “Hey, Blackbird?” he shouted over the comms. “How many volunteers are supposed to be at the parking garage?”

“Whoever they could scrounge up,” Blackbird replied, keeping his eyes fixed on Black Bat’s tail lights. He was still getting used to driving at all, driving trucks at high speeds was a whole new skillset on top of that. He was just glad he was in the zippy little crepe truck; it also offered coffee and smelled of ambrosia of the heavens, which kept him awake and peppy. “A hundred, maybe? I’m not sure, my contact hasn’t had time for more than a quick check in.”

“I think,” Arsenal said dryly. “They got a few more in.”

Blackbird only got to see what Arsenal saw when Black Bat gained entrance to the garage. Then his jaw dropped open.

There were hundreds, plural. People of every color and every denomination were filling the space, masked up and ready to cook. Grit-toothed determined organizers were lining them up and getting down details like champions, collating on the fly. There was already a bucket chain of people hauling stuff out of the patiently waiting Four & Twenty . That truck, like the taco and potato truck, was way too big to handle the garage height limit, so sacks and boxes of collected bulk foods were slowly passing hand to hand, as socially distanced as it was possible to be.

“Ladies and gentlemen and all other available choices!” Sister Desiderata said triumphantly as Blackbird got out of the truck. “We have food!”

A cheer went up from the crowd, ragged and thunderous. 

Blackbird stared at the crowd, open mouthed, feeling his chest tighten with one part panic and three parts pride. It was wonderful to see such a turn out, but it was a lot to absorb as well. He felt Black Bat’s hand land on his shoulder, reminding him to breathe. “Okay,” he choked out. “Okay.” He turned up his voice modulator volume, feeling sweat bead on his palms. “Everybody, line up more bucket chains. Somebody needs to be at the end of the line collating exactly what we’ve got. Somebody needs to get on the stoves. Whatever we’re making has to be super simple; rices, pastas, breads, soups. Someone with relevant knowledge needs to clear out a kosher space, and a vegetarian area and check on the status of anything halal. We’re not cooking everything here. Some of it,” he thumped the taco truck, “we’re going to make on the fly. Some of it we’re going to take to kitchens all over the area who have… generously donated their areas for tonight’s impromptu food drive and mass relief kitchen.”

There was some laughter; people around here knew exactly what he meant.

“And these guys,” Blackbird gestured wildly to the assortment of masks coming across from the trucks. “You know these people. You’ve probably been saved by at least one of them, more than once. Red Hood is from here. They came here to help us. They’re going to help with organizing and distributing. You got a problem? Take it to them if you can’t find me or one of the Interfaith leaders you already know – Sister Desiderata, Imam Reza, Rabbi Danya, Mr Poslovski, Father Jones, they’re all here, and more. We… don’t have a lot of time,” Blackbird admitted, faltering slightly. “Get to work, even if all you can do is fold boxes.”

“And don’t pick fights,” Red Hood added. “Or I will be coming to handle it.”

“Masks, sanitizers, distance,” Black Bat chipped in. “Mandatory.”

“Any questions?” Batgirl asked of the crowd. “No? Then let’s get to it.”

There was a mass rush to the trucks, hubbub and madness rising around, albeit one with a certain amount of method. Blackbird felt his chest tighten in panic again and ran for the Four & Twenty , which was nearly emptied out now. It contained his laptop, the data on it was something he really needed right now, and it was also comfortingly enclosed and safe after facing the crowd.

He booted it up with shaky fingers. He needed names, addresses, dietary requirements of his regulars, he needed to know who had cars and could do deliveries, he needed hand sanitizers and extra masks out ASAP and tried to remember where they’d put them and he needed a list of the restaurants they were politely going to break into and oh god, publicity, they needed to spin this early and aggressively before Lightfoot did, and Blackbird didn’t have his good camera anymore how the hell could he handle socials on top of everything el –

A hand rapping on his service window shattered his panic spiral, but also nearly made him hit the ceiling. “Hey,” Hood peered in. “You okay in there?”

“Fine!” Blackbird shrilled, his voice modulator giving a warning whine. “Fine,” he forced his voice to obey. “It’s just… there’s so much to do!”

“Hey, hey,” Hood reached out and grabbed his face. “Calm. Deep breaths. You don’t have to do everything, okay? You have help. We got this. Get your customer list out, we’ll see who we need to add to it and work out what they need. Cooking is handled, boxing is handled, and BG is getting the engines running in the kitchens on the food truck.”

Right. Blackbird calmed down slightly. Things were happening, but it wasn’t a disaster. “Sorry,” he muttered.

“Hey, it's fine,” Hood shook him fondly. “This is a lot for me, too. But you know what? These folks down here are the first ones that life punches down when disaster strikes in this town, but they all showed up. I don’t think we’d have had this kinda turnout if you hadn’t been down here for months, raising ‘em up. This is more on you than you think it is. Well done.”

Blackbird stared at him. Then he beamed like sunlight, even through the face mask. “Thanks Hood,” he managed hoarsely, willing the prickling in his eyes away. He didn’t have time to melt into a blubbery mess; there was too much to do.

He took a photo on his phone of the seething crowds moving around the huge trucks, backlit by the lights of the garage. “Have people take photos, everywhere, and post to socials,” Blackbird said as he fired off a text to an unknown number. “If BG can do some selfies, that’d help; she’s got a pretty solid following. We need to spin this as an underdog story before Lightfoot cottons on and starts whining about being victimized.”

“To be fair,” Hood said as he got out his field phone. “We did steal his food.”

“We stole it back,” Blackbird snickered. “And I’m not sure how much his complaining will gain traction as long as we can show it’s going to the poor the way he said it was going to. Honestly,” Blackbird sighed. “It’s probably going to get harder from here on out. He’ll have the law on his side, at least.”

“Dude, this is fucking Crime Alley,” Hood snorted. “When the fuck have we ever cared about that? Besides, if this is gonna be a war, I’d bet on the survivors here than any of Lightfoots well-off pack of disciples. They like comfort, and wars ain’t comfortable. People round here? They’ve danced this dance before.”

Blackbird agreed with him; they had the home turf advantage. Plus, they were right. Lightfoot could moralize all he liked, but people round here knew a con artist when they smelled one.

His phone chimed.

From Blackbird: I need some logistics expertise NOW! [IMAGE]

To Blackbird: Assistance en route.

Assistance? Blackbird blinked.

Hood frowned as his phone chimed. “What the fuck, now?” He dialed a number. “O? What the fuck? What do you mean you were asked to help with deliveries… what?” He looked up.

So did Blackbird, as the whine of tiny rotors filled the skies.

Dozens upon dozens of Batdrones were converging on the scene, each one carrying a carry box.

“Well,” Blackbird said slowly as the battalion started to land. “I guess home deliveries are sorted.”

Chapter Text

Jason rubbed his eyes as he slumped into the Table. It had been… well, it had been a week, to say the least. 

It wasn’t a bad week, by any means. He was still riding off the high of their glorious food heist, snatching bread from the mouths of people who would never go without in order to hand deliver it to the people who always did. Jason had spent the night frantically doing logistical things and then running off his feet in the guts of a stolen taco truck that was being driven by a lovely retired bus driver and being assisted by an out-of-work waitress and one of Sister Des’ kids, making sandwiches, wraps and soups like it would be his last ever chance to do so while they worked their way around the narrow streets of the Bowery.

The whole debacle had gotten a lot more attention than even Blackbird had hoped for. People were snapping pics and live streaming deliveries; after all, a battalion of drones flitting around the streets would catch the attention of even the most cynical eye in Gotham. The whole thing had a sort of Gotham-crazy element, but for once it was a happy kind of crazy. The internet had loved it to bits, and records of the event had gone viral, especially after the World Kitchen socials had tagged and reposted them. 

The Lightfooters had all started complaining and pointing out the food was stolen, but their aggrieved tone got significantly less strident when people pointed out the charity food had been locked in a warehouse and in unsafe hygiene conditions, and that it would have gone to waste if it had been left. That and the somewhat damning photos of their ‘Pot Luck’ night at their tent revival had caused them to shut right up about it, at least on public forums. Of course there were certainly ‘both-sider’ articles spewing from the endless font of multimedia sources, but the general consensus was the food had gone to whom it was intended for, with the added style of having the masks of Gotham delivering it in person.

That had certainly gotten attention too. To date the most viral video coming out of the night was Arsenal in a frilly pink apron, sternly lecturing a bunch of trainee kitchen workers on proper food handling procedures and kitchen safety, his big guns still strapped to his back.

There were consequences, of course. The Lightfooters may have been stifled by their own virtuous mantras in public, but there was plenty of spite to pedal in private. Police cases had been opened. The repo depot had added their two and a half cents. Food supply lines were still, insidiously, being knotted up around the Lightfoots and Drake Industries, who were building their ‘nourishment centers’ with all speed. The fact that they were going through the PR motions of generously resupplying the banks and pantries they’d all but starved out was just jangling keys in the face of the public, distracting them from the bigger systemic black holes underneath. Lightfoot still had his ardent followers and their ardently donated money, and with that came the ear of councils and businesses, all feeling pandemic anxiety and anxious for the soothing pats of salvation on their heads.

You could say this about Gotham, Jason thought cynically. No matter how shitty it got, there was always some asshole ready and willing to rise up and crown himself the king of shit.

It was a thought borne out of tiredness, and he balanced it out by allowing that Bowery pride had kicked purity culture on its ass and into the gutter. Kitchens had lit up the night, people pouring their skills and their time into making sure everyone ate and everyone had enough. Donations to Interfaith were going through the roof, which meant more supplies, even if they did have to be bought where they oughtn't be.

The Lightfoots’ reactions had been priceless.

Roy was at their joint now; they finally managed to cut through all the red tape. Their relief kitchen was open for business, with Roy overseeing local volunteers and a limited but filling menu. Jason would be right there alongside him but…

… he had an appointment he really didn’t want to miss.

He let himself into the restaurant. One good thing about the Table, its hours were appalling. It closed at midnight on quiet nights and re-opened at 3am for the early morning deliveries and daily prep shift. Some nights – big holidays and long weekends, it was simply a twenty-four hour affair; in the kitchen, at least.

The early shift preppers were all lined up at the prep zone, refilling tubs of stuff they’d need for today. Jason gave them a nod when he checked in on them, but left them to it. He checked out the front where their erstwhile service-staff-turned-retail-staff were busy restocking the shelves of their dining room bodega, even at these asscrack of dawn hours. At the moment they actually were unstocking them; emptying shelves so they could move the things around and make more room. The pandemic bodega had worked out beyond anyone’s wildest dreams. There’d be Waynemarts or Tablemarts around the corner pretty soon, Jason was sure.

Jason went to the locker rooms to change and found the reason for his early morning schlep into work. Tim was curled up on one of the hard wooden benches, jacket folded under his head and dead asleep, breath coming in faint whistles under his face mask.

Jason felt an unexpected rush of fondness swamp his hardened center mass. The kid looked adorably young like that, all the ever-present anxiety and drive drained out under the auspices of sheer exhaustion. 

He still looked really fucking thin, though, so Jason changed like the ninjas he was trained by, stole out of the locker room like a ghost, checked the food storage manifest, decided they had too much sausage and avocados and went to make breakfast burritos with freshly made tortillas.

While he was whipping up the huge avocado salsa in one of the large bowls – it might ostensibly be for Tim but there was no need to leave the prepper hands hungry, geez – Jason received the somewhat neutral surprise of the arrival of Bruce and the definitely unpleasant surprise of Damian following in his wake, yawning and with his perpetual look of silent menace.

The demon brat curled a sneering lip at Jason and the preppers, but it looked mostly for show. He stamped off to the admin offices without being told. It was just possible he was too tired to put up his usual litany of complaints and insults, for which Jason was thankful.

He was somewhat less thankful for the penetrating gaze of Bruce, who was eyeing the bowl of salsa speculatively.

“Breakfast burritos,” Jason grunted as he chopped fresh Italian parsley. “I know,” he added irritably when the silence stretched. “We’re not supposed to share food, but fuck it, COVID tests are currently negative, the prep squad have all been here since three and in what universe have we let anyone in our kitchen go hungry?”

There was a ragged round of applause from the prep hands; all bottom-tier workers who’d had dreams of culinary school before the pandemic had all but destroyed their options there. They were stuck doing the scutwork until the school programs all reopened again.

Bruce blinked. “I’ll sear up some of the sausage and do the eggs.”

“No, I’ll do that,” Jason said. “You’re on tortilla duty. No offense B, but I don’t know if I trust you around anything higher than room temperature today.” It was a fair point. Bruce looked exhausted.

Wonder of wonders, Bruce didn’t argue the point. He just moved off to the dough machines and contemplated the flour supply, no doubt running the numbers in his obsessively perfectionist mind. Honestly, the man could cook, no question, but he was a nightmare when in the midst of perfecting a recipe. Even something as basic as tortillas required vast sorting algorithms running through his brain before he’d even get out a measuring cup. 

Nevertheless, Jason couldn’t deny Bruce had a way about him in cooking. Everything he did he did perfectly, every time, and then could repeat the exact technique to infinity, perfection reached with every dish. His cooking was scientific – complicated, numbered, studied and repeatable. If he’d gone into fast food rather than haute cuisine, he’d probably have taken the world by storm.

It wasn’t that Jason had a problem with that method, exactly. If you wanted to master technique to the point you could make a feast out of nearly nothing, Bruce’s feet were the ones you studied at. Even Ra’s Al Ghul hadn’t been able to impart much knowledge to him there, expertise in poisons aside. Jason was the chef he was today because of Bruce’s teachings, even everything else that was broken between them couldn’t change that fact.

But Jason cooked by feel and taste and season. Recipes and measures had their place, and a very important and vital one, but Jason was never happier than when he was in the kitchen and trying out something brand new and wildly off-the-wall. Sometimes it failed miserably, sometimes it would be the best thing he’d ever made, but it was always completely unique, never quite replicated the same again no matter how many times he did it. He could churn out familiar perfection like Bruce if he wanted, but in Jason’s philosophy cookery was a grand adventure, every time. 

Even with something like breakfast burritos. 

He cracked in the eggs with the sausage mince in the big skillet, because fuck plating discipline, this was for hungry kitchenhands who knew how this sausage was made, so to speak. Mixing the hot stuff into a big mass wasn’t a culinary crime. He threw some sharp cheddar into the mix, and diced up some fresh chillies on a whim and added a little garlic pepper as well. By the time the fillings were done Bruce was already a stack into fresh tortillas, flipping them on the hot griddle, each one soft and steaming.

After that they were side by side, stacking and wrapping burritos with a little piquant sour cream to finish. It always struck Jason, in a wobbly, rough sort of way, how effortlessly he and Bruce fell back into synch in the kitchen in ways that they never did literally anywhere else these days. Even Batman and Red Hood didn’t quite manage a rhythm like they did here. It discomforted Jason on some level, comforted him on others. Either way, he kept his mouth shut.

“Breakfast!” Bruce bellowed to the prep squad and the day shifters just starting to trickle in. “Socially distanced, if you please, but take what you like. After that, the early shifters can get onto inventory and then we’ll review the menu for the day.”

There was a grateful, eager rush for the mountain of burritos left on the service-out counter. Jason grabbed a plate and loaded it up, heading for the locker rooms and passing a skulking Damian on the way in, who was watching Tim sleep with narrowed eyes.

“Breakfast, demon brat,” Jason not so subtly nudged him off his stake out. “Unless you’re all full up on souls of the damned this morning.”

Damian shot him a glare and then rolled his eyes, leaving without deigning to respond to Jason’s sparkling wit. Jason was somewhat surprised at the lack of a blistering tirade or a bladed retort. The kid must be tired.

Tim was still sacked out on the locker room bench, spindly limbs coiled up and breath coming in a very faint wheeze. Jason wondered if the noise had anything to do with the scar on his neck.

He wondered, not for the first time, how Tim had even gotten the scar.

Hands full of plates, he was forced to gently nudge the kid awake with one careful boot tip against his shoes. Tim jerked and came up swinging, bolting upright in surprise, hand on his throat. Then he looked around and squinted blearily. “Jason?” he rasped. Then his eyes widened. “Oh no! Did I just sleep through our lesson? I thought I got here early!”

“You did,” Jason nudged him aside. “Relax. You got here too early, we still got time. Here,” he shoved the plate at the kid in a way that indicated he wasn’t taking no for an answer. “Breakfast.”

Tim’s eyes lit up at the sight of the breakfast burritos. He wasn’t shy about taking the food, Jason noted with satisfaction, or hesitant or reluctant to eat. What Tim had said about his eating disorder had proved somewhat true; he just forgot if the food wasn’t right in front of him. 

Plus, the warm burritos put a faint flush of color on his cheeks and light in his blue eyes which turned out to be painfully adorable. Jason hastily took a bite of his own breakfast to cover his staring.

“Coffee?” Tim asked hopefully, looking around as if Jason had managed to smuggle in an entire coffee pot without him noticing.

“Dude, no offense, but you might want to lay off the caffeine,” Jason snorted. “You need more sleep.” He certainly looked it; the hollowness of his cheeks was in no way complimented by the bags under his eyes.

“Blasphemy,” Tim growled adorably. “I know not of this sleep of which you speak.”

“No shit,” Jason said sarcastically. “Are you moonlighting or something?” He shouldn’t be. The Table paid well above minimum wage, even for a pot scrubber. Bruce saw no point – economically as well as morally – in his workers having to have more than one job to survive.

“Or something,” Tim sighed. “You know the massive food drive that’s happening up north right now.”

“You’re helping with that?” Jason hadn’t seen him there, but there had been a lot of people.

“Yeah. I’ve always helped out with the orgs there,” Tim said quietly. “They really… helped me out when I needed it. I believe in paying it forward.”

“That’s great, Tim,” Jason smiled. “My idiot best friend and I are helping out with that too.”

“I know,” Tim nodded. “I mean,” he added, flushing at Jason’s raised eyebrows. “I heard you opened up your restaurant as a relief kitchen in the area.”

“Yeah. It didn’t make any sense to me to have it just sitting there while people are starving, even if getting the suppliers on board was a complete time sink. Whatever else happens, it’s pretty good press for our joint, at least,” Jason said ruefully.

“You wouldn’t need good press,” Tim snorted. “Who’s not going to eat at Jason Todd’s restaurant? You were winning culinary awards when you were fourteen.”

“You know about that?” Jason blinked. Sure, it hadn’t been the warehouse full of trophies the demon brat had won for himself, but he remained somewhat dopily proud of what he had accomplished before life more or less roasted him to charcoal in various ovens of cruelty. He was surprised anyone remembered his brief forays into award winning dining.

“Of course I know about that!” Tim seemed shocked Jason thought he wouldn’t. “You blitzed the Food Network awards in the junior category and the East Coast Junior Bake-Off. You were an honorable mention in the Rising Star category of the James Beard Awards! Youngest ever! Not even Damian Wayne managed that.”

Jason blinked. “Wait. Wait, wait, wait,” he pointed a finger at Tim. “You were a fan of mine?”

Tim faltered, going red. “Well, I used to watch your YouTube channel and stuff. I said that, didn’t I?”

He had, now that Jason thought about it. With everything that had happened, Jason had more or less forgotten about that. The sudden reminder that Tim actually didn’t actively dislike him hit him broadside.

His heart suddenly did a funny, painful thing, like clearing a blockage in a dam. Tim didn’t hate him. Tim admired him. That was fine. That was better than fine. Jason could work with this. “God that thing,” he tried to keep at least some of the glee out of his voice. “I haven’t thought about that in years. You really watched it?”

Tim got even more adorably flustered. “Um… yeah. Sort of. A lot. Actually. I told you. I wanted to go to culinary school. You were my first, um, you were the first person to teach me about cooking, really.”

“You wanted to go to culinary school because of me?” Jason asked, gobsmacked.

“Sort of?” Tim squirmed a little bit. “Honestly, it was a lot of things that made me want to cook. Some of it was just survival. My parents weren’t around very much, you know,” he said in his whispery voice. “They were always on business trips or going on digs or something. I was at boarding school and even the really expensive ones aren’t, like, gourmand delights, food wise. And my throat, you know,” he waved at the scar. “It made me a really picky eater. I had to eat in small doses and nothing too spicy or grainy. While my vocal chords were healing around the damage it was so easy for me to choke on things and my palate was super sensitive. The people who ran the schools… well, let's just say they weren’t getting paid top dollar to coddle the future young leaders of the world. I earned a rep for being bad with my food. I ate a lot of gruel and rice and stuff. I guess they wanted me to show some more gratitude or something.”

“Holy fucking shit,” Jason sneered. “What a bunch of assholes.”

“When I got home it was worse,” Tim sighed. “We used to have a housekeeper but they weren’t really a trained cook or anything. The meals she made were… okay, but kind of uninspired. Better than the school food, at least,” he allowed. “Then my parents said that I was old enough to not have someone looking out for me twenty-four-seven, so she went away and then it was just… me for weekends and summers. My mother organized a food service but,” he made a face. “It was one of those fad healthfood type ones. Like, almost nothing but protein shakes and stuff.”

“Oh, gross,” Jason made a disgusted face. “I hate those things. I mean, I’ve had to have ‘em before and shit when I needed ‘em, but ugh. I’ll do anything to avoid them these days.”

“Yeah, me too,” Tim grinned. “But the pantry was always stocked with staples and I had an allowance that I could use to get perishable stuff when I needed it, when I got home from school and stuff. And I thought… well, how hard can cooking for myself really be?”

“How many times did you nearly burn your place down?” Jason smirked.

“Four times,” Tim admitted. “And one explosion that might or may not have taken out the oven. To this day there’s an insurance claim form pinned to some adjuster’s wall explaining how I did it.”

Jason burst out laughing.

Tim took his lumps graciously. “Yeah, it was pretty bad. That's when I fell down the rabbit hole of FoodTube, because clearly experimental research on my own would end up with me eating nothing but salads.”

“And that’s when you found my goofy channel,” Jason surmised.

“I went looking for it, actually,” Tim flushed faintly. “Bruce Wayne was earning Michelin stars like they were a personal galaxy by then. I figured if anyone would know how to cook, it would be someone trained by him. My parents used to bring me to the Table whenever they were in town, and it would be literally the best food I’d ever had, until I came the next time. Plus, your channel was sort of… meant for someone like me. You were all about teaching kids the basics of cooking from scratch.”

Tim hadn’t, if Jason was honest, been his target demographic when he started his cooking channel back then. His target audience had been poor kids like he used to be, trapped in situations where they got parentified by adults who couldn’t or wouldn’t step up. He’d wanted to help those kids find a little joy in what was otherwise unjust, unpaid drudgery as they tried to hold some parts of their lives under control. Just because you were poor didn’t mean you couldn’t cook well and eat well. 

Plus, learning how to make good food from extremely cheap ingredients with limited equipment was a worthwhile skill for anyone. To this day Jason was amazed at just how many grad students had been fans of the channel. 

Well, whether or not Jason had ever intended it for a kid living in a mansion, he was certainly glad that he had reached at least one. “So I’m going out on a limb here and guessing you know how to make all the stuff I made on the channel?”

Tim nodded, still faintly pink. 

Okay, Jason can work with that. Honestly, as popular as it had been, the dishes Jason had demonstrated had been chosen because they were the simplest in his repertoire, easily replicated by people with limited resources. Nothing really fussy, nothing that required a complicated palate. So while Tim wasn’t starting as square one, he wasn’t very far up the board either. “Great! Let’s get you started on salads then.”

Tim made a face. “I’m not that bad. I know how to make a salad.”

“Not gourmet tuna salad with fresh steamed tuna, chickpeas, coriander garlic pesto and made-from-scratch dijonnaise you don’t,” Jason poked him chidingly. “Don’t be down on salads. If you’re doing a salad right, the process is just as technical and complicated as a prime steak dinner. Besides,” he added more practically. “It’s about to fall off the menu, seasonally, so people are ordering it now before time runs out. It’ll give you a good grounding in ratios for mass batching.”

Tim perked up a bit. “That does sound interesting,” he said. 

“Face mask on, get in your uniform and go wash your hands. I’ll wrangle one of the preppers to handle the wash zone. Oh, and after you’ve sanitized, grab the big fish steamer.” Jason ordered, backing out through the locker room doors with their plates.

He nearly ran over the demon brat on the way out, who scowled at him. “Your crush is as transparent as it is pathetic, Todd,” he hissed out, thankfully quietly enough so Tim didn’t hear.

“And your jealousy is as obvious as it is hilarious, demon brat,” Jason fired back, smirking. “What do you wanna bet B is drawing up adoption papers as we speak.”

Mission accomplished. The kid’s hackles went right up. “Don’t be ridiculous! What use would father have for a pot scrubber? He can’t even cook?”

“Yet,” Jason taunted. “He can’t cook yet.”

The demon brat shot him a death glare. “You shouldn’t trust him, Todd. He is not what he seems.”

“Oh, here we go,” Jason rolled his eyes. “Someone got Bruce’s attention and here come the conspiracy theories from his clearly unbiased progeny. Your possessiveness is a glorious self-own of your rampant insecurities, you do know that, right?”

Damian shot him a look of pure, molten rage. “I am not jealous of that… that…” apparently the brat’s insult-generating gland was fused. “He is not what he seems! How do you think he got a job here at The Butler’s Table, the most exclusive workplace in Gotham, with no references, no job history?”

Jason’s lips formed a flat line. “Well, gee, I think it’s because he applied and possibly because he was accepted.” Jason knew there were more layers to it than that, but Tim’s former housing status was not his story to tell. And even if it was, he’d be damned if he’d tell the demon brat in any case.

“You are being wilfully blind,” Damian smirked. “I always knew I was the superior Robin, but your inability to apply your training and look at details objectively has certainly proven me right.”

“Aren’t you on a kitchen ban?” Jason snapped back. “For your superior performance as Robin of late? Maybe we should go ask Bruce.”

Damian's look was scathing. “Fine!” he snapped angrily. “If you want to fall into Drake’s little trap, far be it for me to prevent your ungrateful stupidity. But beware, Todd,” Damian shot him a narrow eyed look. “When the truth comes out, you will regret it.”

Then he turned and stomped away.

Jason rolled his eyes and went to dump the plates in the wash zone before heading back into the kitchen. At some point in the proceedings Steph and Cass had shown up for work, and both of them had fallen on the pile of breakfast burritos like hawks while Bruce gathered the rest of the staff for the daily run down and assignments. Jason kept half an ear on the litany, but it was all the usual stuff. Jason and the rest of the masks didn’t have set roles in the kitchen; partly because the kitchen had to be able to fully function without them if necessary because vigilante schedules were insane, but also because they were all trained by Bruce, and were therefore the official chef de tournant; the roundsmans who bounced wherever they were needed as needed, which suited Jason. It’d be boring in the kitchen if they were stuck making one thing all the time.

“We should have a breakfast menu,” Steph said as she munched happily.

“No fucking way,” Jason retorted levelly. “I don’t know about you, but I actually like the three hours of sleep I’m getting right now. I work here, I’m not fucking sleeping here too.”

Cass gave him a fist bump in solidarity.

“How’s things on your end of town?” Jason asked quietly, keeping a weather eye on the meeting going on at the other end of the kitchen. The good thing about the Table kitchen was that it was a Wayne special through and through – it was massive. You could fit at least half the dining room in it, maybe more. More than enough room and noise to give them privacy.

Both of the others sagged. “Honestly, the best part of my week was going foodie pirate and helping with the food drive,” Steph admitted tiredly. “COVID cases are starting to spike again. Babs reckons it’ll be a proper surge within the next two weeks; the hospitals are already struggling as it is.”

“Lightfooters,” Cass said darkly, eyes fathomless.

“What, now?” Jason leaned in. He hadn’t had a lot of time in the last few days to do more thorough research into the church and its zealots. He did know they were trying to ghost around and harass the food drive people, but they hadn’t had much success with that down his neck of the woods, for obvious reasons. His warning had sunk deep, even into the paper thin narrowness of their little brains.

“Babs started doing more digging on the church after the food heist,” Steph admitted in a low voice. “I think she was mad at herself for not spotting it when they basically took over the relief food supply.”

Eh, Jason had to give Babs a pass on that one. As disgusting as it was, what the Lightfoots had done wasn’t actually criminal, even if it was shady as fuck. Besides, Babs was killing herself trying to keep tabs on the rising cyber crime in Gotham right now. There was plenty of that shit to be had with the lockdowns on. “What did she find?”

“Lots of sweetheart deals going into Pastor Lightfoot’s pockets,” Steph shrugged. “Which, hey, par for the course in this town, right? Lots of wealthy converts buying his bullshit wholesale, too. We’re getting worried about where his rhetoric is going, though. A lot of his patrons are mired in the whole ‘COVID is a hoax’ idiocy. The Venn diagram between them, the Lightfoots, and the anti-vaxx crowd is practically just a circle at this point. He knows what his people want to hear.”

“Many meetings,” Cass added, and then fanned her fingers out wide. “Many infected.”

“Fuck me, he’s superspreading,” Jason pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Hence, case surge,” Steph finished grimly. “It's ridiculous. They’re acting like COVID can’t even touch them.”

“COVID can’t touch who?” a whispery voice came from behind.

Jason turned to see Tim in his uniform. Right at this moment it struck him it was slightly too big for him, which was both heartrending and heartrendingly cute. 

“Uh…” Jason pulled himself together, mostly. “The Lightfooters. They’re this church…”

“Oh, them,” Tim frowned. “I know them. They’ve been chasing down the Interfaith food delivery people and messing with them. And they’re getting a bunch of scared little old ladies and families to sign up to their stupid food subscription app. We’ve been working triple time trying to make sure everyone knows what a complete grift it is.”

“We?” Steph was looking between Jason and Tim speculatively.

“I volunteer at Interfaith,” Tim shifted uncomfortably. “I run into those Lightfoot idiots a lot. Me and the rest of the volunteers.”

“Oh,” Steph was hilariously disappointed.

“Come on,” Jason hurriedly shepherded a slightly baffled Tim towards the prep stations before Steph could get her hooks in. “We’ve got cooking to do. Where’d you put the big fish steamer?”

Tim wordlessly pointed to an empty and spotlessly clean workstation where the big fish steamer had been plunked on the stove top. “I filled it, two inches to the bottom.”

“Great, good initiative,” Jason smiled, reaching for his knife roll. “Let’s get onto a marinade. Get one of the preppers to show you where we keep the sherry and grab some fresh garlic and ginger from the condiments walk-in.”

Tim darted off.

“I’ll help!” Steph offered brightly.

“Me too,” Cass smirked.

“We’re good, thanks,” Jason said, baring his teeth, which was a wasted gesture because hello, face masks.

“Good with what?” came from behind.

Jason jumped and nearly fileted the newcomer with the appropriate knife. “Jesus fuck, B, make some noise!”

Bruce, who was calmly gripped the filleting knife delicately between two fingers because secret of the night Jason’s ass, the man was a total fucking showoff. “What are we good with?”

“Jason is showing Tim how to cook!” Steph reported because she was a hateful, evil being.

Bruce’s brow furrowed while Jason shot a grinning Steph a look that was a hundred percent Red Hood. “Tim Drake? He wants to cook?”

“He told me he wanted to go to culinary school,” Jason shrugged, oozing nonchalance. “And he helped out the prep squad when we were shorthanded a few times. Nothing wrong with his kitchencraft, at least.”

“It’s true,” Cass had clearly taken pity on him. “Good precision.”

“So, why not? I know we’re supposed to stick to our zones, but come on,” Jason tried to get a wheedle on. “We used to move people through the kitchen a lot before COVID. I figured we’d be fine as long as the tests keep coming in clean and we take reasonable precautions. And also,” the Table’s COVID warden jabbed a finger at Bruce’s face. “I don’t need to see your inbred nose right now, asshole. Cover up.”

Bruce adjusted his mask, amused. “Sorry Jay. It’s my chiseled jaw.”

“No good for half masks,” Cass nodded solemnly, eyes dancing.

“I heard Batman has the same trouble,” Steph added gleefully. “No wonder he wears a cowl.”

“Oh god, can all of you stop,” Jason groaned. “It’s the anti-comedy hour around here.”

“So,” Bruce clapped his hands together. “What’s on the slate?”

Jason choked. Bruce was getting in on this? Just kill him now. Again.

“Uh, tuna salad,” Tim said with deep uncertainty from where he’d sidled up with an armful of ingredients. “Like, the one still on the menu.”

“Oh good choice for a newbie, Jay,” Bruce beamed. “Have we got the… yes, we have the fish steamer, okay.”

“I’ll break out the chickpeas,” Steph said cheerfully, scurrying for the pantry to avoid Jason’s death glare.

“Tubs and boxes,” Cass patted him on the head sympathetically as she went past. 

“Get Damian too,” Bruce said unexpectedly. “It’s high time he stopped pooh-poohing peasant food and learned how we make it.”

Tim was overwhelmed and looked at Jason with eyes wide with panic. He was literally going to get a cooking lesson from the premiere chef of the entire eastern seaboard.

“Guys, seriously, we have this,” Jason asserted firmly. 

“Nonsense, we haven’t had a proper cooking lesson in the kitchen in ages,” Bruce was drunk on enthusiasm. Or maybe exhaustion; he’d probably long since passed the threshold for delirium there. He saw the look in his son’s eyes and relented slightly. “But you take the lead, Jay. I know how much you liked making these.”

Jason sighed. It was probably the best offer he was going to get. “Okay, Tim, are you ready? What you have to understand about salads is that order is very important, okay? So we’re not worrying about the fish to be steamed just yet; that can wait until the very end.” He sensed the other kitchen hands craning inward to listen over their stations; a cooking lesson from one of the Waynes was not to be missed. “We’ll start with the vegetable end. You notice on the menu it just says ‘seasonal vegetables’. That’s because we make this sucker differently every time, depending on what we’ve got.”

“Okay,” Tim huddled closer to him as people crowded in as much as their COVID plans would allow. “What are the greens for today?”

“You tell me,” Jason challenged. “Check the storage system, tell me what we’ve got.”

“Oh, this should be hilarious,” Damian drawled as he was grudgingly herded to the prep station by Cass, who was holding some huge tubs. “You’re going to let this culinary plebe and his no doubt matching palate pick a subtle flavor array?” His eyes glittered sharply, never leaving Tim’s face.

“You can go back to the offices if you like, Dami,” Bruce said in an especially mild tone. 

Tim didn’t go to one of the screens hanging up in the kitchen to check what was in the stores. His eyes flickered distantly as he thought. “We have a surplus of bell peppers, kale and red onion. We’re low on the chards and the celeries, spring onion need to be used, coriander and thai basil as well….”

Jason expected him to trail off after a while, but Tim kept going and going and going until even Bruce was staring at him. 

“Dude,” Steph said with awe. “Did you memorize our entire store system?”

Tim went bright red. “Um. Sort of? I… well, I spent a lot of time making warehousing and distribution tracking software for the Interfaith people so they can keep track of, like, everything. We shopped it around on the cheap to most of the warehouses in Gotham because actual bespoke logistics database systems that are actually any good are super expensive to buy and run. Logistics is big business. Moving stuff around is, like, ninety percent of all modern commerce that isn’t banking,” his eyes darted wildly in the face of their stares but he kept going in his thin little voice. “Um. It was a good set up because the distributors and supermarkets could add use by dates and bad lot codes and other things, so when something was getting too close to use-by to be worth putting on the shelves they could just call the food banks and offload it. So much of it used to go into landfill, you know. And since Interfaith and the food banks handle the messy running around and picking up bits, all the suppliers are happy to play ball with using the software. So, uh, anyway,” Tim shrugged uncomfortably. “I guess you could say I got very, very good at keeping track of store data and, I don’t know, good at seeing the patterns of usage. Really, the Table’s throughput is actually one of the simpler logistics problems I’ve had to keep track of. Microsourcing from about five hundred different bodegas with different customers who over-buy on certain days and under-buy on others? That’s, if you’ll pardon the language, a shitshow. Especially when you’re dealing with super perishable stuff like fresh meat and vegetables and fruit and double especially when unscrupulous suppliers dump stuff onto the poorer local markets and lie through their teeth about the use by.” Tim was scowling by the end. “Food distribution can be a really ugly, corrupt place sometimes. And at the end of the bad chains, poor people go hungry.”

He looked up from his miniature TED talk into the wide-eyed stares of the Bats; including Bruce. “Sorry,” he muttered. 

“Don’t be sorry,” Bruce said. “That was fascinating. I admit The Wayne Foundation has been a long term food provider but I’ve never done much to really step back and actually look at the system itself before.”

“So he’s an excellent database bot,” was Damian savage interjection. “What makes you think he can cook?” He glared at Tim, whose reveal of a steel-clad moral center where hunger was concerned had likely been a source of some annoyance to the boy. Say what you like about Damian, he knew the kind of people his father was drawn to. His eyes glittered darkly.

“Anyone can cook,” Cass said mildly. “Pixar,” she admitted without shame.

They all nodded to this sagely, except Damian, who made a hilariously sour face and said, “That movie was nonsense.”

“Blasphemy!” Steph jabbed a finger at him. “Besides, who do you think you’re fooling, gremlin? It’s number one on the most watched list on the family cloud account and Dick’s been too busy in Haven to sob incoherently on movie nights.”

Damian swelled up and went red.

“Anyway,” Bruce headed off the oncoming tirade with workmanlike ease. “Tim, let’s try out your vegetable selections.”

“Pick anything,” Jason added when Tim started to get a nervous look. B didn’t really understand his own intimidation factor as Bruce Wayne, Michelin starred chef, nearly as well as he did when he was Batman. “Pick your favorites. That’s what I always do.”

“I don’t want anything to go to waste, though,” Tim mused thoughtfully. “I’ll use a little of the kale, I suppose. Yellow bell peppers for color. Cherry tomatoes, some of that rocket. Coriander, of course, since the marinade will have garlic and ginger. Beetroot,” he added decisively. “Colour and some sweetness to cut through the spice.”

“Lose the rocket,” Jason advised. “Too peppery, you’ve got enough spice. Maybe we could throw in some haloumi, you think?” Jason turned towards Bruce. “Something salty and savory.”

“Or just feta,” Bruce nodded along.

“If we’re going to do that, we might as well add olives and make a grecian style salad instead,” Damian grumbled. “Plebeian, but it would go well with a citric asiatic dijonnaise dressing. We’d lose the coriander too,” Damian was all disdain about Tim’s choices. “Overcomplicating the flavor palate is a hack’s mistake.” He stuck his nose in the air.

“Greek style, asian dressing, middle eastern twist, tuna salad,” Bruce was amused. “I’m sure the foodie scene will love it.”

“I’ll start boiling up the chickpeas,” Steph said briskly, heading for the stock pots. 

“Lentils too,” Cass called after her. “Dressing,” she volunteered. “Tim can taste test.”

“Come on,” Bruce herded his son towards the fish steamer. “I’ll show you how to make a proper sous vide tuna steak.” His progeny grumbled that he knew how to do that, thank you very much, while walking into the fish store.

“Aaand we get left with veggie prep, awesome,” Jason scowled at them. “Traitors.”

“And fish marinade,” Tim pointed out shyly. “Is this how it usually happens around here?” he added incredulously. “You just… think up a recipe and boom, you make it? Don’t you have a set menu?”

“We do and we don’t,” Jason nudged him into position on a workstation. Cass was helpfully raiding the green store on their behalf. “Think of the menu like a guideline. We have, let’s say for example, a steak dinner, sous vide, on the menu. But past having the promised steak done sous vide, we have a tonne of wiggle room about what we plate it with. B likes it that way, because it gives him, and us, a chance to really play to individual palates. We might do a steak dinner with pumpkin and potato tempura and curried greens. We might do an Ethiopian ye’Denich Be’Kaysir Atakilt,” the words rolled so easily off his tongue. “That’s potatoes with pickled beet salad, if you’re wondering, with berebere spice mix as the rub. We might just do a flat out, traditional, down home steak dinner with all the trimmings.” Jason gratefully took tubs from the veg stores from Cass. “We try to give everyone who walks in the door what they need at that time, be it an adventure – small to large – or just something comforting. People get all precious about the Michelins and the fancy hats and the foodie culture froufrou junk and things, but we’re all just short order cooks. Our job is to feed anyone who comes, no matter their requirements, and to make sure they leave full and happy. Anyone can do that. People working in a Batburger in the Bowery have just as much, if not more, power to make someone happy than some culinary school rising star.”

He noticed Tim was staring at him. “What?” he asked, feeling a faint pinkness lighting up his ears; he might have said a bit much there.

“I… you’re different,” Tim said eventually, still staring. “When you talk about food like that. Usually you’re, um, like reserved…”

“You can say it,” Jason said dryly. “I’m a socially functioning asshole.”

“You’re not, but that’s an argument for another day,” Tim’s retort was swift and unexpectedly fearless. “I mean, I can really tell how deeply you feel about being able to cook. When you do it you sort of… glow. You are completely yourself. It’s amazing,” Tim dropped his eyes, flushing. “Sorry, I don’t mean to sound weird.”

Jason began unloading yellow bell peppers onto their boards to cover the punch to the gut he’d just taken. No one had ever called him amazing and meant it like Tim did. Not since Robin, anyway. “I’ve always been happiest in the kitchen,” he said gruffly when he could find his voice. “It’s no surprise that shows. I’ve never bothered to hide it. Most of my good memories are in a kitchen somewhere. The minute I knew what it was for, cooking was all I wanted to do.”

“What cooking is for?” Tim blinked.

“For taking care of people,” Jason said honestly, gesturing for Tim to watch his hands and follow the technique. “That’s all I’ve ever done when I cook. My mom did her best, but she struggled with a lot of shit and she worked all hours. My dad was a fucking loser, and a big part of the shit quota my mom had to deal with. I couldn’t fix her problems like I wanted to, but making sure she had hot meals was something I could do. Even if it was just… crappy, cheap stuff that we had to make do with. That was my way of taking care of her. That’s what cooking was for me; my way of caring. When someone is handing you a hot meal, they care, even if it’s just about your money and shit, but there are easier ways to get money. A meal means you care about them surviving. It’s means they’re real people to you.”

Tim gave an odd smile. “I’d never thought about it like that.”

“Well, that’s my view,” Jason shrugged. “Everyone is different. And also,” he admitted ruefully. “I really, really wanted to run a chili dog cart when I was a kid. That was, like, my dream job. But it was mostly about caring for Mom at the end of the day. Caring is a tough job, it’s exhausting and complicated and it’s hard to find a way into doing it, especially where I grew up. Cooking could give me that.”

“That’s really neat, Jason,” Tim smiled and nodded. “I guess every chef has a story like that.”

Steph came back over with an industrial can of beetroot and the big electric opener. “For me it was different,” she pointed out. “For me, cooking gave me some control.”

“Control,” Tim blinked.

“Yeah,” Steph said ruefully. “We moved around a bunch when I was young. My father was in prison a lot, he was always coming and going, and the neighborhoods always got wind of it and then we were basically persona non grata, so we moved. And moved. And moved,” she cracked off the can lid with emphasis. “I got why but it was such a shitty feeling, never being able to settle anywhere.”

“So, you cooked?” Jason asked.

“Nope,” Steph said cheerfully. “I fell headfirst into an eating disorder. I had all the crappy self esteem markers.”

“No shit,” Jason blinked. “I didn’t know that!”

Steph shrugged, very carefully not looking at Tim as she lifted and drained beetroot for dicing. “Eh, honestly, it wasn’t for very long. It was more flirting with anorexia than going full-bore. Mind you, I was looking to become an athlete back then, so I guess my need for protein mitigated some of my shitty coping behaviors.” 

Right, Steph had started trying to take down her asshole of a father in a cape when she was, what, fifteen? “Sucks, dude,” Jason said sympathetically. “My problem was, like, in the other direction. Took Alfie a year to get me on warm acquaintance terms with good food. Learning to work in a kitchen was a pretty awesome cure.”

“Yeeeah, I cured mine eventually by getting pregnant,” Steph snorted. “Which should tell you everything you need to know about my emotional problem solving abilities.”

Bruce choked over at the steamer while Damian looked over at him, bewildered, and Jason snickered.

“Sorry to hear that,” Tim said softly, dicing away. “Was cooking… like, self care, then?”

Steph dumped her dicings into one of the big tubs. “Recovery, yeah. That was me taking control of my life again. I figured if I could just get myself into a place where I could at least cook for myself, then I might make a start on being an actual adult instead of running around making stupid decisions like some kid. It helped that my big bad mentor was a professional chef, though.” She sent an evil grin at Bruce, whose shoulders twitched towards his ears slightly as tuna steaks continued to steam. “Hey Cass,” she called over to the smaller figure, who had collected some condiment bottles and spices. “Why do you cook?”

Cass slammed down a glass bowl next to them and started pouring on the balsamic glaze and olive oil. “Create,” she shrugged. “Not destroy. Harder, but more satisfying.”

They all nodded, even Tim. One of the great, undeniable pleasures of the otherwise grinding world of professional kitchen work was the satisfaction of creation. Jason would be hard pressed to deny that Cass got more out of that than most. A lifetime in the throes of destruction of others, creating must be such a welcome respite.

“This prattling is pointless,” Damian grouched over, carrying a platter stacked high with steamed and seared tuna steaks. “Cooking isn’t a mere comfort object for emotional failings. Cooking is a test of skill!” He glared at Tim angrily as he said it, selecting a razor sharp ceramic knife and beginning to slice and dice the tuna, never turning his eyes away. “It is a challenge of dexterity and mindfulness of the senses, a test of your intelligence and memory in physics and chemistry, the self discipline to manage multiple actions at one time and also mastery of the ability to read people. You can only call yourself a cook if you are willing to push yourself to the highest levels of what you are capable. I learned from the best. Like my father. And Alfred Pennyworth,” for a second his eyes glowed with rage. “What lineage of training can you claim?” he spat at Tim.

Tim shrugged. “Jason Todd,” he said quietly. “And whomever else was willing to take the time to teach me.”

Jason, who was beaming internally, cut off the brat’s building hurricane of vitriol. “So basically, in your world, cooking shouldn’t be fun,” Jason taunted. “I think you might need to take the brat to the doctor’s B. He might have some trouble in his back end, what with the enormous stick he’s got lodged back there.”

Bruce wisely extracted the knife from Damian’s white knuckled grip as he turned on Jason, face a snarl. “Master of mindfulness, Damian,” he raised an eyebrow at his son, who held his gaze for a tense second before looking away, disgruntled. “And cooking is fun, if done right. Just because some of us treat it like a technical exercise rather than art doesn’t mean we don’t also find it fun, you know.”

“I can see where Damian gets it from,” Steph stage whispered to the rest of them.

 “Why?” Cass pointed at Bruce, neatly forestalling the coming slanderfest.

“Why cook?” Bruce raised an eyebrow. “Therapy, of a sort. After my parents died, Alfred was stuck trying to find a way to reach me. I was pretty shut down afterwards. I suppose cooking is my way of engaging with the wider world in a... positive way.”

Unlike, for example, beating up bad guys wearing a bat costume, Jason added in his head. He was far enough along in his therapy now to recognize that the worthiness of the intentions and outcomes didn’t change the actual negative emotional impacts of mask work itself.

“Besides,” Bruce brightened up into a more Brucie sparkle. “Every billionaire needs an eccentric hobby. That’s the only way you can tell any of us apart, really. It could have been worse. I could have gotten into space travel.”

They all groaned. Bruce Wayne riding a dick rocket into space. Ironies of his actual experience in space travel aside, Jason prayed for eye bleach.

“Ugh, moving on,” Jason muttered. “Okay, belly up to the board, Tim, I’m going to walk you through the wonderful wide world of bulk catering ratios and the square-cube laws of flavor therein.” 

Honestly, Tim showed quite a bit of natural talent at making bulk amounts of food. It wasn’t the hardest thing in the world, but it took a certain amount of experience to do it with confidence, something you didn’t always get only cooking for one or very small groups. Tim took to it like he’d been doing it for years, though, piling on the veggies and lentils in excellent quantities for both flavor and nutrition.

Even Bruce noticed. “You’re very talented at this,” he commented as he looked over the massive tub of finished product, which was now being doled out into takeaway tubs to be stored in the fridge, ready for orders. 

Tim shrugged, seemingly both pleased and discomforted by the praise. “I, uh, I’ve had a little experience. In, um, soup kitchens and things. Nothing so big or so fancy as this, but there was a lot of stuff that had to be cooked there.”

Oh. Of course, Jason thought, feeling a dismal little speck of gloom mar his otherwise proud as punch respect for Tim’s efforts. He knew it was ridiculous, but it still really fucking bothered him, the thought of Tim being homeless. 

“You volunteer there?” Bruce watched him carefully. “I remember your parents being more red-hot on the historical and conservation end of philanthropy.”

Tim winced slightly. “Oh yeah, they definitely were,” he nodded, voice wavering slightly. “But, um, I got involved in, um, poverty relief work years ago. Partly because I used to do photography. Some of the photos I took around Gotham were pretty eye opening. It seemed a bit silly to petition to save some two hundred year old building when, um, there were literal people actually starving to death around it.” He squirmed under Bruce’s gaze.

Jason rushed to his aid. “Yes thank you, Tim,” Jason pointed an accusing big spoon at Bruce. “I’ve only been saying that for how many damn years now, Mister Gotham Historical Preservation Society alum? See? Tim gets it. So does literally the whole rest of Gotham.”

“Okay, okay,” Bruce moaned, holding up his hands in surrender. “I am not going into the philosophy of giving with you again. I have a kitchen to run and I also need to eat and sleep in the next three weeks, as well.”

“Ha! So you admit I’m right!”

“Please,” Damian sneered, slamming more gourmand tuna salad into a tub. “As if the grasping hands of the idle and indigent don’t have enough teats to suckle from in this town. Some of us pull ourselves up on our own merits,” he sent a slit-eyed look of contempt at Tim. “Unlike some people, leeching off others’ generosity, including the Waynes. And Pennyworth’s.”

Tim reddened. 

Jason opened his mouth to shout the demon brat to the ends of the earth, but Tim surprised him.

“So let me get this straight,” Tim said slowly and carefully, laying down his tools. “You think I’m taking advantage of Alfred’s generosity and connections? You think I, what, conned him into letting me work here with some sob story, is that it?”

“Among other things,” Damian said placidly, smirking at the rage he’d suddenly tapped. “It is hardly because of culinary talent, after all. It is a shame Alfred was deceived by a mere pot scrubber with no actual merits aside from an ability to beg to leech off others' efforts, but the rest of us certainly aren’t. It would hardly be the first time some trash drunk on his own fictional self-importance has taken advantage of Alfred’s good nature.”

“Interesting,” Tim’s mild, whispery tone was an open declaration of war. “And here I was thinking the system was so lopsided and so badly made that only one kind of person’s merits even get recognized as merits. Heck, there’s only one kind of people fully and completely recognized as people. You know what, Damian? I don’t think asking for help is weak. You know why? I was taught by a very wise man that the best of us reach out to others so we all rise together, as a group. As a family,” Tim looked down at his work, face tight. “I wonder what Alfred would think of your low opinion of the people he’d dedicated decades of service trying to help raise up?” he shot Damian a look of icy contempt. “After all, only an arrogant fool would dishonor Alfred by suggesting he only existed for their benefit, like he wasn’t fully his own person, capable – more than capable – of making judgment calls on his own, for himself and without reference to the mighty Waynes. Shame on you, for reducing him to some subhuman house elf, who had no life outside of you. Shame on you.”

Damian went white with rage, his mouth hanging open under his face mask.

The next thing Jason knew his adrenals gave a massive kick and suddenly he was shoving Tim back and away because the demon brat actually vaulted the whole prep station with a shriek, murder in his eyes. He’d gone full Robin, maskless in the middle of the Table kitchen, where every damn kitchen hand could see. Jason felt something bite into the muscle of his forearm; long fork, not a knife, thankfully, and disregarded it as he tried to wrangle the furiously fighting, raging, swearing-in-Arabic (and goodness knows what else) Damian, who was frothing at the mouth going for his target.

“DAMIAN!” Bruce roared and lunged over the prep station to try to scruff his progeny.

Fuck. Jason couldn’t go full Red Hood here, more’s the pity. It would be so satisfying to just deck the little monster, but punching a kid would not be ignored by the general public. The best he could do was grapple and restraint holds until Cass, the absolute saint, stepped in with a frosty expression and seized Damian by the shoulder.

Jason had to hand it to Cass; it looked like she was merely holding him lightly, like a calming gesture. Jason knew, Bruce knew, Steph knew and definitely Damian knew that if she squeezed right where she was gripping the right way, the way she’d been trained, Damian would be down on the floor in ignominious defeat in an instant. The gremlin must have been in a proper rage to make a slip like that; he’d usually be better about making sure no one could get close unless he wanted them to.

Bruce finally got around the prep station and had Damian under his hands. “With me. Now,” his voice a low enough growl to make Damian wince. Batman fell away as he looked up at the startled staff. “Sorry folks! Damian had a little moment, we’ll be back to normal service shortly.” 

The kitchen went back to its bustle. Most of the people here had worked here long term and, sad to say, Damian had once been a lot worse to deal with than he was now. This hadn’t, actually, been a first time occurrence, but some of the staff did look concerned. After all, it had been a while.

Steph gritted her teeth. “I’m your sous chef today B, and as your second-in-command I’m telling you, for the good of the damn Table, I don’t want to see that,” she pointed a snarling finger at an astonished Damian. “Anywhere near my kitchen today, capiche? Or tomorrow. Or next month.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Bruce said firmly, glaring at Damian before he could do more than open his mouth.

“Good, you take care of it,” Steph spat angrily. “We’ll clean up his mess. As usual.”

Yeah, the tuna salad hadn’t weathered Damian’s rage very well. There were tubs and salad strewn all over the station and the floor. About the only saving grace was that the big, main tub hadn’t been kicked over and there was still plenty left.

“Jason, you’re bleeding,” Tim’s aghast whisper came from behind Jason, his thin fingers anxiously grasping Jason’s forearm. 

Oh, yeah, that. The little brat had rammed the fork in but good. “Ah, fuck me. Someone hand me a clean… thanks Cass,” he said as Cass briskly sacrificed a clean linen serviette to the cause. Jason casually wrapped the injury and yanked out the fork, handing it to Cass. He knew she’d sterilize it good and proper. Blood and kitchens don’t mix on the best of days, and no one had ever found out just what Pit blood would do to someone exposed to it.

“You alright?” Bruce asked grimly.

“Pfft. Right into the tough muscle. I’ve had worse paper cuts,” Jason snorted, waving him away so he could deal with Damian in private. It was more mercy than Jason felt Damian deserved, but the poor kitchen hands didn’t need to share the embarrassment of watching a kid get dressed down in the middle of everything. They had enough to do.

“Tim, there’s a first aid kit stowed in the breakroom,” Steph said briskly as she started on cleanup. “Can you patch him up? Then get back in here. Lunch rush is going to start soon and we’re now really behind, damn it.”

“Okay,” Tim nodded. 

He tugged Jason to follow him into the breakroom and had him sit on one of the tables while he dragged the standard kit out of its hidey hole. He quietly got out the antiseptic spray and the cleaning swabs and sat down on the chair to unwind the serviette from Jason’s forearm. His face was tight and pinched, all the earlier joy of culinary discovery drained from him entirely. 

“Hey,” Jason said carefully. “You okay?”

Tim grimaced. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Oh, hey, no,” Jason retorted. “Don’t you go apologizing for Damian's attitude malfunctions. Even if you insulted his mother, that still didn’t give him the right to fucking attack you.”

“Attack me?” Tim looked at him incredulously. “You’re the one who’s bleeding!”

“Yeah, because he was going for you,” Jason snorted. “And only because you righteously called him on his bullshit.” Then he hissed as Tim worked the linen off the wound. Yeah, that was a nice little row of punctures. They were lucky that, in his rage, the brat hadn’t gotten his hands on a knife.

Tim anxiously started cleaning the wound. “I’m sorry.” he said, upset.

“Why?” Jason snorted. “You’re not to blame.”

“I set him off,” Tim said miserably, voice hoarse. “I knew he wasn’t coping well. I already knew he was mad at me.”

“Okay,” Jason grabbed both of Tim’s hands in his. “I’m gonna stop ya right there, Timmy. You don’t owe that brat any excuses for his piss poor temper, okay? Damian gets into the habit of treating everyone around him as either extensions of his magnificence, or his enemy. You called him on it, and you did it righteously and with good reason. Damian knew you were right and he fucking hated you for it; believe me, he wouldn’t have snapped like that if he had a convincing counterargument, even to himself. No, no buts,” Jason cut Tim off when his mouth opened. “He’s a fucking teenager, not a toddler. He knows better than to chuck a tantrum every time someone says something he doesn’t like.”

“He had such a bad life though,” Tim murmured, staring at their joined hands. “Lots of the people I help feed have bad lives and bad attitudes, they have shitty opinions and shittier friends acting as echo chambers. They still deserve to be helped. They still deserve to eat and feel safe and… and all that stuff. Lighting Damian’s fuse isn’t going to change his attitude. Care might.”

Jason sighed. In a certain sense he was humbled by Tim’s willingness to reach out to people despite and perhaps because of their more egregious flaws. It said something hopeful about his chances, because Jason knew he had a tonne of those. Still, forgiveness had always been such a fragile, impossible concept for him, both the giving and receiving of. “It ain’t your job to fix the kid, Tim,” he said softly. “Like respect, seriously, for trying, or for thinking that’s a mire worth wading, but no one anywhere ever changed because they were made comfortable. If your words set him off, good. He might, if we’re lucky, be in for some serious self reflection about why they got under his skin so much. If having to do so forces him to reckon with his own discomfort, all the better. The kid’s running out of ‘oh, he’s just a kid’ leeway, here. He’s gotta change his ways. He can’t keep pulling shit like the stunt he just pulled. So he had a bad life? So the fuck what?” Jason squeezed Tim’s hands. “So did I. And I was a shitty ass human being for a long time because of it. But I, at least, fucking improved. I did it myself, alone. Fuck the brat; he can damn well do it too. He just doesn’t want to, because people keep making excuses for him. We stop coddling him and we’ll be golden.”

Tim looked sad. “And what, withdraw all support and leave him out in the cold? That’s not an answer, Jason. And you weren’t alone,” he added in a whisper. “People were always rooting for you. Even when you were at your worst.”

Jason leaned back a bit. There was a note in Tim’s voice that he couldn’t parse, whose meaning was not clear. “Oh yeah?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Tim murmured. He disengaged his hands, a heavy weight settling on his shoulders as he pulled out a blue bandage. “I’m responsible for… everyone I see, because we’re all responsible for one another, Jason,” Tim asserted. “Even Damian.”

Jason couldn’t say anything to that; he couldn’t even fathom the depth of that faith, especially given what he knew about Tim’s history. This moment suddenly felt so fragile, so easy to break. Gods help him, Jason had never been the best with fragile things.

But he was suddenly ready to give it all to get good. “Hey, um,” Jason tried to remember to breathe through the sudden tightness in his chest. This was that horrible moment where the Pit retreated fully and, fucked up as it was, Jason sometimes had to lean on the confidence that the boiling rage gave him. But he couldn’t use it here and didn’t want to. This just had to be… Jason. “I’m leaving here in a couple of weeks.”

Oh, he already felt that was an egregious fumble, the way Tim’s eyes shot up to meet his, wide. “You are?” his voice cracked.

Jason winced at himself. “Um, well. My joint is, sort of, running. I gotta help my partner, my business partner, out with running it and drum up some good PR before we have the real grand opening.”

Tim was crestfallen. “Oh. Um,” he dredged up a real smile. “I’m really happy you got it started up. This must be really exciting for you.”

“I want you there,” Jason blurted before the dregs of his courage could desert him. 

Tim was shocked. “What, now?”

“Um, I mean,” Jason just went fuck it internally. Roy was going to give him so much shit for this. “I want to hire you. I want you to work. Um. At my joint.”

Tim blinked. Then blinked again. “You want me to work at your restaurant?” he breathed, his voice a high wheeze.

“I mean, I know it’s not exactly the Table…” Jason felt his heart sink. Of course he wouldn’t want to leave the Table for some no-name startup, how stupid could Jason be? What could he offer that was better than…

“In Jason Todd’s actual restaurant?”

Jason’s spiral of embarrassment and deflating hopes abruptly slammed into a wall. Tim’s voice wasn’t the easiest to read because his pitch was all over the place, but Jason could read his face. Tim looked delighted, like Jason had just handed him the keys to the city and all the chocolate he could eat for life. He felt his courage suddenly grow. “Uh, yeah. Absolutely. Abso-freaking-lutely, kid. You’re from the area, which is what I want, and um, you’ve got talents, no question.”

“But…” Tim flailed around. “Why me? I don’t have any qualifications or anything! I have a GED and a lot of volunteer work and, um…” he shuffled. “Honestly, I can’t cook on the same level as you all do. I don’t have that kind of experience.”

“Not yet, but you will,” Jason affirmed stridently. “Besides, my joint isn't gonna be a haute cuisine foodie joint like the Table. Influencers and Michelin reviewers will be paying triple.”

Tim snorted a laugh.

Encouraged, Jason kept going. “I’m not gonna lie, we can’t really have you officially in the kitchen without certification, but shit, you just reeled off the entirety of the Table’s supply chain off the top of your damn head! The only person I know who has ever been able to do that has been Bruce and he’s kind of a freak of nature. Not, uh, that that’s a commentary on you or anything,” Jason hastily added. “B’s a freak for a lot of reasons, and a mind organized to the point of lunacy is the least of it. You’re very, very normal in comparison.”

Tim’s face went slightly wry. “Trust me, I’m not that normal, either.”

“That’s fine, if you were my crew’d put you in a glass box on display for sheer rarity value,” Jason grinned. “You’ll fit in fine. And I… I frankly really need someone like you. Someone who knows how to organize and schedule and do logistics and handle the IT end. No one in their right mind’s gonna let me answer bad reviews on Yelp and Roy, that’s my partner – business partner – he ain’t much of a better choice. So I thought you’d start there while we fit you up for kitchen work. Once we get off the ground, I’m pretty sure I can wrangle a subsidy to get you into a culinary training program. I was gonna do that anyway,” he added quickly as Tim frowned. “For the local kids, you know. It can be hard to break if you get stuck on the minimum wage end of hospitality, culinary school is expensive. We’re thinking of partnering with the Wayne Foundation and… anyway,” Jason forced himself to stop babbling like a loon and did not shuffle his feet, thank you. “Will you do it?”

Tim no longer looked delighted, exactly. Well, no, his eyes had lit up with approval when Jason explained the subsidy thing, but now, when the question was put to him, what Jason could see of his face was pensive.

He worried his hands a little in front of his chest. “Can I… think about it?” he asked.

Jason’s heart sank. “I mean, it’s fine if you don’t want to…” he began, worried he’d suddenly hit Tim with too much too fast.

“No! I mean,” Tim burst out. “I’m not saying no, really! I-I’d really love to, you have no idea, I’m just amazed that you’d even ask but, um, there’s some… look, my life has a bunch of complications. Me and complications are sort of a matched set,” Tim snorted without humor. “And I don’t want to make you any promises I can’t actually keep. The Table was such a hail mary for me and I just… need to sort some things out before I’m sure I can commit to anything else. Sorry,” Tim slumped. “I know I’m not explaining this very well. I’m so happy you asked, I promise!” he added fervently.

Jason shuffled. “You’ll really think about it?” he asked.

“I don’t have to think about it,” Tim replied swiftly. “I really want to work in your restaurant, Jason. I never did anything in my life to deserve anything that good.”

“I mean, it’s just a little startup joint,” Jason shrugged, unwilling to let his inflating joy that Tim thought working for him would be this huge step up, from the Table, no less, run rampant. 

“It’s not just a little startup joint,” Tim protested. “It’s your startup joint. And you were the one who taught me to cook so, um, you have no idea how much it would mean to me to get to work for you, even if I was just your admin person, no cooking at all. I owe you for… well,” Tim grimaced. “I was grateful to you and your cooking videos. You helped teach me to take care of myself and when I lost everything… the few skills I managed to master that I learned from them were my ticket back to, well, normal. To helping people. And helping myself. You saved my life, Jason,” Tim said with disarming honesty. 

“I… oh,” Jason was robbed of speech. How could be respond to that assertion, that he’d somehow, while off on a lunatic, blood raining spree of violence and death, had quietly managed to save the life of this kid because of some stupid little cooking channel he’d run a literal lifetime ago? Sure, Jason knew he’d saved lives as Robin, but this hammered a more penetrating emotional wedge deep into the cracks in his soul; he’d saved someone as Jason. He felt that knowledge slam in deep, even the Pit wobbled and retreated in the face of it.

“So, um, just give me a few days?” Tim asked hopefully. “I just need to sort some things out.”

“I… sure,” Jason managed to croak, wishing heartily that he could actually see Tim’s whole face and not just his blue, blue eyes. “Sure thing. Whatever you want. But, uh… you’ll let me know, right?” he asked hopefully.

“As soon as I can,” Tim smiled shyly with his eyes. “Promise.”

Chapter Text

There are times, Blackbird thought dismally, when it just seemed like the wisest course of action would be to just beat his head against what handy wall-like surface he could find. It would, of course, solve nothing, but being that he was a walking disaster, his life ground zero for the caprices of fate, he was pretty sure solutions weren’t in the waiting for him anyway.

He couldn’t believe Jason had offered him an actual job in his actual startup. Like, this was on par for Blackbird with Leonardo DaVinci, Emilie Du Chatelet and Alton Brown stopping by the food truck for some sliders and diet sodas, and telling him he was doing a great job to boot. 

Blackbird couldn’t believe he’d said no. He couldn’t believe he’d said yes. He couldn’t believe what an enormous goddamn disaster human he was that he hadn’t really said either. This was a nightmare on top of night terror on top of a dark, fevered dream.

The stupid thing was, he should have said no. He knew he should have said no. He’d made promises, he couldn’t go back on them, and even if there wasn’t a certain amount of honor at stake, working for Jason was different than working with Jason. Jason-the-boss would take an interest in what Tim got up to, where he went at night, why he was always so tired and worn down. And… and… it was probably wishful thinking on Blackbird’s part, but Jason seemed to actually like him. That was a whole different planet of anxiety right there. Working next to him all day six days a week without the sheer expanse of the Table’s sprawl to hide in? Blackbird might as well tattoo I love you and know all your secrets on his forehead. He’d skated with Bruce; the Dark Knight had been too busy literally keeping Gotham running, day and night, to give more than salutary notice to his newest pot scrubber beyond a certain measure of admiration for Blackbird’s ability to rehash the idea of a pandemic deli to suit the Table’s resources. He knew, deep down, Jason would notice all his loose threads and unanswered questions. He’d start pulling at them, out of concern if for no other reason. Jason cared, relentlessly.

Blackbird moaned from within the confines of the Four & Twenty as it trundled on its route. He should have said no, but it was like he had no control whatsoever. He’d been beyond thrilled to be asked. He just couldn’t say no to Jason flat out. Hedging into a think-about-it was his only salvation and it was a temporary one.

What could he do?

Say no, a dismal, angry, little voice growled at him. You don’t deserve his trust. Not after what you did.

The knowledge was like a punch to the stomach. Blackbird couldn’t refute it. The great, seething, writhing lump of guilt gnawed at him relentlessly. He didn’t deserve Jason’s kindness. Jason owed him nothing. What kind of person would he be if he took advantage of that, knowing what he was responsible for, a sin that would never, could never, be atoned for.

It was obvious what he should do. He would do it, he told himself. He just had to psych himself up for it. Saying no to Jason Todd when he was looking all soft and eager took a very special catch, okay? He had to assemble his mental fortifications for it, that’s all. 

He totally had this under control.

“Uh, Babybird? You okay?”

Blackbird jumped with a yell. Jas– Red Hood was standing at the service window. At some point in Blackbird’s internal, agonized catastrophizing, the truck had arrived at its next scheduled stop and Hood must have been there to meet it. “Uh, I’m fine!” he said, silently thanking his voice modulator for doing all the gruesome work of leveling out his voice to something audible. If he hadn’t been wearing it, he would have sounded like a squeaky toy.

 “Are you sure? Because you’ve been glaring at that laptop for about two minutes straight and they’re still waiting for you to lift the side up.

Blackbird should change his name to Redbird, he flushed so hard. “Yeah, sorry. Sorry folks!” he called out past Red Hood to the waiting crowd. “I think I just zoned out for a minute,” he added to Red Hood as he hit the switches.

“Okay. If you say so?” he could feel Hood’s judgmental eyebrow on him.

Blackbird ignored it. “Okay everyone, line up. As you know, stock is limited. Volunteers have been cooking up a storm and packing everything they can. There should be a list of ingredients on flyers for everything in there, so let me know if you or anyone you’re delivering to has any allergies, we’ll try to find a workaround. Is this everyone?” he stuck his head out of the window to check. Yes, it really was that small. 

“Those Lightfooter assholes are hassling people for going out to meet the truck,” someone yelled. “The olds and kids especially. Sister Des told ‘em to stay inside, we’re delivering to ‘em,” one guy piped up from the queue that was forming.

Well, shit. “Everyone got their order numbers and clearance codes, for yourselves and the people you’re picking up for? Yes? Okay, we’ll make it work,” Blackbird promised, trying to stamp down the weariness in his voice. Honestly, the amount of rigamarole they had to go through just to make sure those Lightfooters didn’t scare people off or abscond with the food by playing fake helpful volunteers was legion. Blackbird had to keep changing the system to keep ahead of them, which made it hard enough on his customers, as well as sucked up time he didn’t have.

It was a war of attrition, and the Lightfooters were breaking even when they weren’t outright winning.

“I’ll walk the line,” Hood offered. “Get everyone sorted out; you hand out boxes.”

Blackbird nodded. “Okay, first up!” he gestured to the waiting queue.

Even with Hood’s help, it all took twice as long as it used to. They had to match up QR codes and phone-check with people getting deliveries. It was already so late and people had to stay up just to get their food.

Worse still, Blackbird couldn’t supply for a whole week anymore. Supply lines were just too tightly knotted up. He could get people enough for three days ahead, minimum and no guarantee of resupply after that. A lot of the amenities – non-food necessities – had dried up entirely.

Still, the community had risen up; most of the kitchens they’d more or less taken over were still going strong, and resisting efforts to close them down again. It sort of helped, in a bleak kind of way, that the GCPD was going through a spike of COVID cases. They didn’t have the manpower to take issue with a bunch of illegal relief kitchens and various community activists were screaming in council halls, trying to get all the negative attention they could towards the appalling state of Gotham’s food distribution system. The Lightfooters had to be more circumspect in their dealings with the community; they weren’t exactly winning the war on the PR front after their little Pot Luck Dinner. Honestly, even the diminishing middle class was getting sick and tired of the whiny moralizing of the rich religious set, to the point where donations for anything but the Lightfoot church and its ‘charitable’ arm had spiked nicely. Gotham was funny like that; they’d been conditioned to cheer the outlaw, as long as the outlaw was an underdog.

Blackbird wasn’t sure how long they could maintain the stalemate. The Lightfood nourishment centers were still full-steaming ahead and the food service they offered, while riddled with pitfalls in the fine print, was cheap and convenient and guaranteed to keep coming. With the might of the Drakes’ manufacturing infrastructure behind them, they had cornered the logistics end whereas Blackbird was scrambling every damn day to collect enough and deliver enough and just keep the meals coming.

Once the boxes had been loaded up into waiting hands, and sandwiches into hungry mouths, Blackbird got out Blackwing, its tow box stuffed to the gills, and went to make yet more deliveries. Honestly, the people were doing what they could, but it wasn’t safe to walk these streets even now, especially with the added menace of some Lightfooter dogging their every step and hammering on their doors at all hours. 

“I’m coming with you,” Hood said around a mouthful of frankly subpar tuna salad sandwich. Blackbird didn’t have time for a lot of fancy stuff for the food truck these days. 

Blackbird was too tired to even argue splitting up to get more done quicker. The other masks – well, Black Bat and Batgirl -– had been super helpful, showing up a few nights ago in their own souped up version of a food delivery truck. Blackbird was nothing but grateful; they were now handling all of his deliveries and clients in the south. He’d have been dead of exhaustion by now if he hadn’t given those routes to someone else.

Batgirl called it the Batmunch Mobile.

Blackbird was so tired he only realized Hood had pickpocketed his damn keys when he was being hustled into the passenger seat after sending the Four & Twenty on its merry way. “Hey!” he protested.

“My turn,” Hood was smirking underneath his helmet as he took possession of the driver’s seat.

“Your turn?” Blackbird retorted. “It’s my damn car!”

Hood patted Blackwing’s dashboard in what Blackbird felt was an offensively proprietary fashion. ‘Sorry Babybird, but Blackwing and I have forged a special connection over the last few weeks. We’re meant for each other. Besides, good luck levering me out of the driver’s seat, midget. You wouldn’t have been able to do that at full strength, let alone as ragged as you are now.”

Blackbird slumped back into the passenger seat, defeated. “I will literally make you your own car if you leave Blackwing alone.”

“Oh yeah,” Hood was intrigued as he gunned it, activating the screen that showed the route of their deliveries. “You’d do that?”

“If it gets you to leave Blackwing to me, sure,” Blackbird yawned. “We’ll call it Redwing or something. Talk to me after the pandemic, though, I couldn’t even wrangle up the technical specs with the time I have right now.”

God, it was such a tempting offer. “Could you mount turrets?”

“Forward, aft, or under the chassis?” Blackbird murmured, half asleep. “Keep in mind they will be non-lethal rounds.”

“Hell, I’ll take some of the jello ball rounds,” Hood grinned. “Those things are fucking funny.”

“Hm,” Blackbird was in a hazy state of doze, even at the speeds Hood took off around the streets.

Poor kid, Hood thought with sympathy. He was beat down. Hood could only imagine the hours he was clocking. Fighting hunger was a fucking time sink in ways fighting mere bad guys wasn’t and Hood had never seen him even stop for a freaking coffee as yet.

Well, he had once, during their Drake heist. But only because Hood had personally handed him one. He didn’t know what it said about him, but he seemed to be attracting a bunch of bright young things with a propensity to run themselves ragged. Tim, in the kitchen. Blackbird on the streets.

“Hey,” Hood nudged him gently as they reached their first building. Thankfully the lady was waiting for them with a little wheely cart so she could bring it up to the neighbors as well. Little things like that made their jobs so much quicker.

“I meant to ask you,” Hood said as they took off to their next stop. “Did you ever get anything off the data we got from the Drakes?”

“Yes and no,” Blackbird grimaced. “Like, yes, there’s some super shady stuff happening in their database. There’s cross references to drug trials where there’s some hinky record keeping on just what is being trialed and on who. But there aren’t any names I can crosscheck from the databases I’ve left telltales on, so there’s no poor unfortunate person who’s possibly been used as an experimental test case that I can legit check on. I can’t tell if that’s proof of criminal behavior or not. Some drug companies don’t add things like participants’ names to studies onto the system because the researchers are pulling a double blind. Honestly,” Blackbird admitted, somewhat annoyed. “That whole caper might have been a waste of time. They haven’t been stupid enough to put anything incriminating in internal memos. And I can’t even tell what they’re testing in the drug trials that look shady. I don’t think they’re even testing on people with the Lightfood app.”

“You’re sure about that?” Hood frowned. Free test victims with no ability to sue and no knowledge they were even subject had sounded like such a typical Gotham corporate caper.

“Drug trials require follow ups,” Blackbird shrugged. “Interviews, surveys. A lot of side effects aren’t obvious right away. For the data to be useful, they have to keep track of the participants. I haven’t heard of anyone on the app that had to fill out a survey or get interviewed, have you?”

Hood shook his head. “Nothing like that, no.”

“Right, so, if they’re using the Lighfood subscribers as guinea pigs, they’re not doing a very good job of collecting data that would make the money they spent worth it,” Blackbird shrugged. “Honestly, it’s a chore even figuring out what counts as shady when it comes to the pharmaceutical industry. The Sacklers peddled their way to an addiction crisis for twenty years and the FDA didn’t even blink.”

Hood growled under his helmet. Blackbird winced slightly; that was probably an impolitic thing to say. Blackbird knew where and how Hood had grown up; his childhood had been smashed to shards against the great rolling tide of opioids that flooded the poor districts of Gotham the same as every other poor district. It didn’t matter that heroin was his mother’s drug of choice; addicts got started on the cheap, illegal shit because some shitty doctor prescribed the expensive, legal shit right in their office. 

“So they actually might just be entering the food industry as, like, legit food sellers cornering a new market, then?” Hood didn’t deign to comment on Blackbird’s faux pas.

“Possibly,” Blackbird admitted. “After all, there’s plenty of revenue to be had, especially considering their crummy tactics making them the only game in town during a pandemic. Honestly, some days I can’t help but think they really believe that suffering isn’t actually a real thing.”

“It ain’t to them,” Hood grunted, taking a corner in a hard skid. It was hard to remember sometimes that he couldn’t drift Blackwing like he wanted to; they had to protect their cargo. “And keep in mind, those assholes have time. This could be the groundwork play; once the pandemic is over then they can start looking at the possibilities of cheap drug trials with all the poor saps who signed up to their service.”

Blackbird nodded gloomily. “You did notice we’re being followed?” he asked, because he’d been worrying about that for the last block.

“Oh yeah,” Hood grinned. “They fell in about three blocks back. I saw a car running parallel to us on the next street over. 

“You think they might try an ambush?” Blackbird asked grimly. He fingered his popballs. He crammed them anywhere they’d fit these days.

“If they are, they ain’t exactly being subtle,” Hood smirked under his helmet. “I do like going up against stupid enemies who think they’re being clever.”

Blackbird smiled. “I’m really glad you’re here, Hood.”

“Me too, Baby Bird,” Hood replied. “Hold on, and cross your fingers the boxes are strapped in tight enough.”

Then he hauled the wheel and sent them into a jackknifing spin, the poor tow box skewing wildly onto one wheel as inertia did its dirty deeds on its momentum.

Blackbird braced, somewhat regretting letting Hood keep the keys and hoping against all possible odds that any eggs they were carrying didn’t end up scrambled. That would be a damn mess.

But Hood might be many things; an imprecise driver wasn’t one of him. He corrected mid-spin, jammed just the right amount of brake at the right moment, and was suddenly tearing back down the road they’d been driving on, this time barrelling down towards the, not one, Blackbird realized, but two cars chasing them down. “I’ll take the right,” Blackbird unshipped his electromag skillet.

“I’ll take the left,” Hood replied, driving one handed and unholstering one of his bigger guns.

Someone in Hood’s target car stuck a hand holding a gun out of the window; they got off a shot – flare gun, Blackbird noted peripherally – but given that the Red Hood was bearing down on them in a tiny car but with a well armed arsenal, the shot was wildly off. The light of the flare blazing bright behind them did give them more than enough light to see by, which meant Blackbird let fly with the skillet at just the same moment Hood started firing.

The skillet shattered the windshield satisfactorily, hitting dead center. His target car skidded wildly from the shock, careening past close enough to scrape poor Blackwing broadside, but it did give Blackbird the opportunity to toss a couple of popballs right into the hole before they flashed past. He hoped they enjoyed fish, because the smell of Sturstromming Stink Bombs, the stinkiest fermented fish dish in existence, was never coming out of that upholstery. The chilli smoke bomb would keep them from circling back. 

Hood’s car hadn’t fared much better. His method was less fancy but more tried and true. He’d simply shot through the windshield and rained rubber bullets on the occupants – and non-lethal or not, rubber bullets damn well hurt. The driver was either more timid than Blackbird’s attacker or more practical about the risk/benefit ratio of facing down an angry Red Hood. They’d broken ranks and tried to escape, slaloming down an alleyway; which, it turned out, Blackwing could do and a moderately sized family sedan could not. They were, not to put too fine a point on it, pretty completely stuck, tires squealing and smoking as they tried desperately to unstick themselves.

“What the actual fuck,” Hood said as Blackwing rolled to a gentle stop, “do these people think are going to happen when they pull that shit on me?”

Blackbird shrugged, hitting a button on his uniform cuff. The skillet shattered the back window of the other car which had braked, wildly askew, up the street, the people inside staggering out coughing. At least one guy was puking his guts up at the smell.

They turned around and stepped on the accelerator out of the combat zone. “They’re getting a lot more brazen,” Blackbird muttered as they pulled up to the next stop.

They handed out ration boxes and bags as quickly as they could at the next stop. They’d been lucky on the spillage front from Hood’s urban demolition derby driving; a couple of boxes had slipped the straps but they hadn’t lost anything. They did warn people to open any sodas carefully, though.

They went building by building. It took a little while; some people wanted to chat a little, and had been trapped in lockdown for so long they couldn’t be blamed for seeking any in-person contact, no matter how banal. Some people flagged them down; they wanted to sign up for the FeedGotham app, or needed emergency rations because they were isolating, or begged for medicine, even cold medication that Blackbird might have. It was awful. It was like a zombie apocalypse sometimes, only without any of the catharsis of being able to shoot something.

But Hood absolutely understood, while Blackbird did his rounds, why the kid still did face-to-face. The drone battalion that the Bats currently had loaned to the cause helped; a lot of his regulars and shelters and halfway houses were getting deliveries that way now, but Hood could see the relief on some of their faces as he handed out food and caught up on the news and told them it would be okay. The visible reminder that an actual person actually cared about them helped them struggle through the rest of the crap being poured on them. 

Hood had done a lot to clean up this town. He’d looked after his people and cut out all the cancerous, ugly bits that he could so the rest could actually live. But this sort of gentle, intimate, one-to-one work, the giving and the checking and the talking, the endless slog of effort that required so much time and work? He hadn’t done a lot of that. He had done a little – every mask was an ersatz social worker whether they were prepared to be or not and he did check in on informants and witnesses and victims, especially kids. 

But not like Blackbird did, not all night every night, taking an interest in their lives; even the messed up ones riddled with addictions and mental illnesses and just plain old selfish and bad behavior. He might get a grumbled racist scree on how it was all a ‘plandemic’ or some anti-vaxx bullshit or some other glorious example of the hopelessness of human sapience, but he fed them all just the same, which was, in Hood’s opinion, a far worthier example of moral intelligence that the small minded search for some nebulous ‘truth’ to all this mess.

Hood could see why people trusted him. He could see why he trusted him.

Blackbird's field phone beeped at him. “Ugh. They’re trying to steal Blackwing again.”

Hood brightened. The work may be gloomy but that never failed to get a laugh. They left the building, went back to Blackwing and… yep, Hood started sniggering. 

There were a bunch of them; four by Hood’s count though he was pretty sure there were more in the car parked up the street, their headlights still lit. They were wearing full ski masks and expensive looking protective gear; the kind that militia wannabes and would-be revolutionaries poured their money into when they wanted to cosplay the armed forces. 

One of them was hilariously yanking frantically at the door of the tow box; not to get it open, but to get their hands unstuck from whatever chemical booby trap Blackbird had set on it. Another was standing next to them, frantically telling them to just take off the gloves, even as he – Hood was pretty sure the second one was a he – was frantically untying his laces on his boots. He was standing in a puddle of something incredibly sticky, no doubt.

One was on the sidewalk, moaning faintly and writhing because sudden unexpected tazing can be fucking rough and Blackbird wasn’t dicking around when it came to protection his precious runabout car. Another’s legs were sticking out underneath the car itself, kicking and struggling as whatever had gotten them trapped under the chassis held them tight. Another was fumbling about in the road, blindly digging for eyedrops or something, tearing off the ski mask that had done nothing to protect their eyes doing goodness knows what.

They were smart enough to keep a couple of people on lookout but that didn’t help them much when their lookout kept getting distracted by the plight of their colleagues. “Hey!’ one yelled as he saw them approach. “Incoming!” he yelled as he tried to unship the AR-15 from his back.

Which is when Hood’s rubber bullets from his perfectly mundane handgun hit him center mass and at the weak points in his body armor; armpit, chin, wrist and a couple right in the balls. He fell back with a high pitched shriek; people always forget the rubber bullets fucking hurt when they hit.

“Fucking hell, asshole,” Hood said in disgust. “If you’re there to fire a gun make sure it’s ready to fucking fire.” Okay, giving offensive strategy tips to an enemy was probably not a smart move, but fuck, the sheer incompetence on display caused him pain in his very soul.

The other lookout, a lady with a little more sense and also wearing full riot gear, rushed Blackbird shrieking profanities, mace already spraying. Blackbird swiveled around her as her momentum made her bull forward too fast and cast a popball as her feet that, when triggered, caused her to fall flat on her face; the crunch of her face shield on the sidewalk was audible. 

“Anyone else?” Blackbird bit out.

“You’re a fucking terrorist!” the guy with sticky fingers on Blackbird’s tow box shrieked. “A fucking social justice warrior assturd! You deserve to burn in hell!”

“Uh huh,” Blackbird said in a bored tone. 

“By all means,” Hood growled at him, relieving the gun nut of the source of his madness. “You first asshole.

“That’s not your food,” the woman said shrilly from the sidewalk, bloody rivers running from her nose and smeared over her riot helmet. “You stole it.”

“I did do that, yeah,” Blackbird said amicably, releasing… something on Blackwing’s dashboard. The struggling guy under the chassis was summarily yanked out from underneath it by Hood, who obligingly followed up with a steel toed kick to the ribs to make sure he didn’t get any funny ideas. 

Hood picked up what looked like a homemade pipe bomb from the ground where the guy had dragged it out with him. “Given that you just tried to murder someone with an IED, I’m not sure you get to play moral authority.” 

“We’ve saving lives!” she shrieked. “Purging the scourge that is attacking us! Bring forth your sword and your shield and come to mine aid.”

“Really, you’re going with Psalms?” Hood snorted. “How about Deuteronomy 5:17? Exodus 20:13? Romans 12:19? Leviticus 24:17? Matthew 5:12? Hell, fucking Genesis, 9:5 and 6. The Bible is sometimes sort of clear on where it stands where murder is concerned, at least when it’s not committed by the state. I mean, fucking hell, the Bible is a shitty little historical anachronism with horrendously racist, ableist, homophobic, pro-slavery and misogynistic shit baked deep into the fibres whose legal code no sane person would actually use in the modern world, but if you want to get into a theology debate at least fucking know your sources. I can quote them in Aramaic if you fucking like!”

She goggled at him.

Blackbird’s shoulders shook with silent laughter as he popped a ball on the sticky idiot’s hands. It never failed to hit him right in his crush when Hood drew back the curtain of his faux thuggery to reveal a sophisticated and scholarly mind underneath. Blackbird admitted to himself that he found it almost egregiously hot.

“All of you can fuck right off!” Red Hood reloaded his gun in one lightning fast action; the next three shots knocked chips out of the road in a way that rubber bullets just would not do. “I ain’t in the mood to toy with you stupid fuckers again. Fuck off, or get ready to have your families attend a funeral – via Zoom, because hopefully some of them got the brain cells!”

“Y-you can kill us,” one wavered, backing away as he said it. “But th-there’ll be hundreds of us following after!”

“Good! Get them all into one place and a couple of fucking bombs will solve everyone’s problems! Remember that next time you swan around in your fucking church! Fuck off!” Hood shot again, taking a bloody and pinpoint accurate chunk of the guy’s ear, sending him yowling down the street, the rest of them waddling after him in their military cosplay at speed. The guy stuck to the back of the tow box hadn’t even bothered to wait for the solvent to do its work. He’d lost skin yanking frantically free from his gloves, leaving them stuck to the tow box as he ran for it. The car up the street didn’t even wait for their colleagues; they gunned it and took off at speed as Hood shot an idle bullet right through their back window.

Hood irritably shouldered his new AR-15 as they vanished into the night and carefully checked over the fucking bomb those complete assholes had been trying to plant. “What a total fucking bag of dicks,” he muttered, peeling back layers of tape and yanking out key wires. It wasn’t exactly a Joker special with all the lovely early-trigger booby traps, but it wasn’t quite a bodge job either. It was well made, so someone had done their internet research, but their lack of actual demolition knowledge was shown by the fact that this was entirely the wrong kind of device for what they wanted done. It would have been more boom than bomb, given how the force had been set up to be directed.

“That’s a real bomb,” Blackbird murmured. 

“It was,” Hood replied absently. “It’s not good for shit now. I’ll dismantle it properly when I get home.”

“A real damn bomb.”

Blackbird’s tone suddenly penetrated; Hood looked up.

Blackbird shook his head. “The barely veiled racist and classist sermons I get. The endless swinging of the might of the busybodies on the local councils and weaponizing the police against us, I get. I even get them hanging around and conning old people and the desperate, and hassling them when they don’t give in. But this?” Blackbird waved his hands furiously. “What the fuck is this? I’m not gathering an army, I’m not espousing mobs on the streets or starting a gang! I’m just trying to fucking feed people!”

“You’re raising people up, Baby Bird,” Hood said quietly. “You’re raising ‘em up and showing them that some things they have a right to. You’re showing people where the fucking cracks in the system are and all those assholes at the top? They don’t like that shit. Keeping people too poor and too ground down to fight is how those assholes stay on their mountaintops. They don’t like people questioning the system. The fact that so many people even need someone like you is a big fucking sword aimed right at the rotten heart of it, ready to blow the whole shitty, ugly underbelly of our supposedly civilized society wide open. They’re fucking scared of you. That’s why they’re taking such massive swings.”

Blackbird perched himself on one wheel arm of Blackwing, shaking his head. “Smear campaigns and supply line tampering are one thing. They’ve never been like this before. Real guns and bombs, body armour? That’s a huge escalation. The worst I had before this was a couple of idiots breaking knives trying to slash my tyres. These people… they’re white collar petty bourgeois. They’re bankers and landlords and middle management. They’re not even ex-military!”

“Trust me,” Hood snorted. “No one in the world has darker fantasies than some vindictive, whiny, petty upper class types. They’re stuck in a special little wealth zone between too much and never enough. They don’t have quite enough generational wealth to stop worrying about money and always think they’re entitled to more, regardless. They’ve got a whole marketplace designed to cater to every one of their snotty little whims and they’ve been told they’ve earned their privileges when they haven’t earned shit.”

Blackbird blew out a breath. He wasn’t so sure. This felt different; more frenzied, more zealous than that. The Pastor, he would have thought, knew better than to go for out-and-out warfare. Wars are expensive, for one thing. Besides, the man was a snake oil salesman. His weapons were words; Blackbird would have thought, up to this point, that he’d have thought waving guns and people was beneath his dignity.

It was all so fucked up, and Blackbird barely had the mental bandwidth to deal with what was already on his plate.

“I can literally smell your cogs smoking from here, Baby Bird,” Hood stowed the now disarmed bomb in the back of Blackbird. “Relax. If they want to whip out their big guns, fine. They can find out the hard way that no one in this town’s got bigger guns than me.”

“Objectively true, I suppose,” Blackbird’s quip was halfhearted. “I mean, look at you.”

“I am a majestic specimen, it’s true,” Hood did a brief flex which wrung a tired laugh out of Blackbird.

“Can I ask you something?” Blackbird essayed tentatively. “I… do you ever have trouble figuring out whether you want more mask time or less?”

“I think every mask everywhere has that problem,” Hood perched on the car. “Except maybe the big B. He is his mask, most of the time. Why? You thinking of hanging yours up now? After all you’ve done?”

“No, no,” Blackbird waved his hands. “Not at all. My problem is kinda… the opposite. I can’t help but think my life would be a tonne less complicated if I was just Blackbird twenty-four seven. If I stopped trying… people. I’m not very good at peopling, it turns out.”

Hood laughed at him. “Dude, and I fucking am? The masks I know in and out of them are uniformly awkward fucks. You’re nothing special there.”

Blackbird grinned faintly under his face mask. “I guess. But lately I just can’t help but think everything would be just so much simpler if I just gave up on trying to get by in daylight. It just always seems to give me problems I can’t solve.”

“Welcome to life, Baby Bird,” Hood snorted. “And I’ll tell you this for free, based on actual experience, okay? Whatever shit you’re runnin’ from in daylight? The mask won’t protect you from it in the long run. I fucking tried, believe me. Went deep into the Hood, never intending to come out. And it was fine, for a little while. But it was like… it was like only eating one dish for the rest of your life. It’s fine, you’ll get by, but eventually it just won’t satisfy you. Eventually, you will want more. And all those problems you thought you could run from? They’ll be waiting for you when you take off the mask again. They’ll be there until you solve ‘em. Trust me, I found out that one the hard way.”

“What if you can’t solve it, though?” Blackbird looked at his hands. 

“You mean, the mistake you made?” Hood asked shrewdly. “When you didn’t step up?”

“...Yeah,” Blackbird admitted, not looking at Hood. “The… person who got hurt is, like, in my general vicinity at the moment. And I can’t…” Blackbird shrugged. “I can’t. I can never fix what I did.”

“Do they know what you did?” Hood asked, though he was pretty sure he knew the answer. “Or didn’t do.”

“No,” Blackbird shook his head. “They never even knew I was… that I could have prevented what happened to them.”

He looked so hopeless about it that Hood felt compelled to speak. “Look, I get it. And, okay, I kinda don’t because everyone’s situations are different, right, and it’s all subjective. But uh…” Hood shrugged uncomfortably. “I’ve had to make amends for some pretty egregiously awful shit. And um, one thing I learned doing it was that it’s not really about me at all. Like, I made amends to people that would be, like, actively helped by me making ‘em. If they needed closure, or if they needed to hear it or, or if they wanted a free shot to kick me in the balls. A couple took me up on that, not gonna lie.”

Blackbird gave a sad little laugh.

“I’m just saying, if you think whoever this is might, like, get something positive out of your apology, even if it’s fucking late and won’t really change anything, then it might be worth your while to try. Helping them out might, like, help you sleep a bit better. And you need sleep Baby Bird.”

“And if… like, what if they don’t?” Blackbird said in a small voice. “What if it just makes it worse? What if they hate me or something?”

“If you really think this guy deserves to know what happened, even if he hates you for it, then you have to accept that and make peace with it,” Hood replied. “There ain’t nothing you can do about how people feel about you. But it might help with the guilt, just doing something. Guilt is a hungry beast,” Hood said tiredly. “It gnaws. It’ll hollow you out from inside if you let it.”

Blackbird nodded glumly. Hood had a feeling he wasn’t telling the kid anything he hadn’t already thought of a thousand times. As someone who’d had to rebuild the shattered pieces of his life himself, he got how intimately terrifying it was to have to turn around and risk smashing it again just when you’d found all the pieces again. It worked out for him, mostly; even though he could never really go back to who he was with the people he’d loved.

He was beginning to suspect, though, that he could move on.

Blackbird had to spare a moment of bitter irony; here he was spilling his guts to the person who he’d wronged, asking him how to fix the wrong. It felt like a whole new betrayal of Hood’s trust to even speak of it to him, given that he didn’t know. Blackbird firmed his resolve; he would never speak of it in the mask. He’d speak of it to Jason as soon as he could. He’d tell him… everything. And Jason could decide what to do from there.

Tim felt sick inside at the thought but Blackbird had work to do right this second.

Speaking of which, his field phone just buzzed. He checked a rapidfire series of notifications suddenly streaming into his phone. “Holy hellfire,” he cursed. “They’re burning the relief kitchens!”

“They’re fucking what now?”

Blackbird kicked up his legs and basically folded back into Blackwing, throwing the phone to Hood as he gunned the engine. “My volunteers just put out a giant alert on the FeedGotham message board. Someone threw a molotov right into the kitchen of Hassan’s off Canal.”

“Mother fucker,” Hood cursed. “They’re are more coming in. They’ve taken out Moody’s and the 51st Diner. O,” he jabbed a finger at the comm line button. “I need eyes on Crime Alley, some firebugs are lighting up the relief kitchens!”

Blackwing took off to the nearest report. Delicious Delectables Bakery was already ablaze when they reached it, a pack of horrified people on their phones outside of it.

“Hey!” Hood bellowed as they came up. “Everybody get out? Anybody hurt?”

“We got out,” one woman was crying. “But the guy literally ran into the oven room and started throwing firebombs and Brian got hit when he shut off the gas main!”

There were a couple of people kneeling next to some poor guy, prone on the sidewalk where they’d carried him out.

“Ah, fuck,” Hood was out of the car and towards the little knot of people. Blackbird heard him saying ‘okay dude, we’re just gonna get this shirt off ya, can someone remove his watch too and has anyone got a water bottle?’ over the noise of the flames.

“Aziz,” Blackbird flagged down one of his regulars. “Can you unhitch the tow box? It’s not much but we still have a few food boxes. Sarani, what happened?”

“We were just… cooking, you know? Pies, naans, easy stuff. Everyone was so cheerful!” she looked halfway to tears. “Then this… it was a man, he just ran in and threw petrol bombs, I think.”

“Did he say anything?” Blackbird asked. “What did he look like?”

“He was wearing a ski mask thing,” Sarani slumped. “He spat the usual nonsense, ragheads, monkeys, nothing we haven’t heard before. Then he threw them. They were in plastic bottles. I got a knife, I was ready to chase him off, but then he threw one right at Brian because he went for the gas main shut off. I think he got it, but it splashed all over him and… and we just had to get out. The man, whomever he was, just laughed at us and left.”

“I got video!” another one piped up, this one a teenager. “It’s not very good, sorry,” she handed over her phone.

Blackbird looked at the footage; the girl had been right, she had been filming people cooking and having a good time, and had been surprised by the guy bursting in with firebombs already lit. From there the footage was just shaky, blurred flashes and a lot of noise and yelling. All Blackbird could tell about the guy was that he was tall and somewhat portly, and not wearing gloves – although he had dismal hopes of recovering any fingerprints from the kitchen now.

“Uh,” another one came forward, this one a guy somewhere around twenty. “I think I know that guy.”

They all stared at him.

“I wasn’t sure before because everything was so crazy,” the guy admitted sheepishly, running fingers through his dreadlocks. “But that shithead was wearing this huge ass ring and I’ve seen that kinda ring before. My landlord Mr. Ulrich, I saw him in court when he tried to evict us even though we had rent assistance and uh, he was wearing a big, silver ring with a bear on it. I remember it because he’d went on and on about it being an heirloom from his supposed ancestors or what the fuck ever.”

Blackbird ran the footage again. The guy was very clearly wearing a chunky looking ring. Blackbird couldn’t tell what insignia it had on the video because the girl who’d taken it hadn’t exactly been focused on his hands, but when the guy came over to see the footage again he said. “Yeah, that’s the fucker. That’s his voice. He’s got that wheezy laugh, too.”

“Full name?” Blackbird asked, but after days upon days of hacking into the Lightfooters’ social media posts and their various interconnections, he was pretty sure he knew.

“Gerhart Ulrich,” the guy spat. “His buddies call him Gets. We call him Urine, because his buildings smell of piss.”

One of the Pastor’s big supporters. Lightfoot had hungry eyes on the wealth tier of the Five Families of Gotham, but he got a lot of traction from the middle fish in the pond; the landlords and the nouveau riche, with too much money and time on their hands. His mother had once referred to them derisively as ‘the Coventry Set.’

He heard the sound of an ambulance siren in the distance. They must have gotten damn lucky with their timing to get one out here so quick. “I have to go,” he told them. “Distribute what you can, post everything you saw, make a report to the police. I’ll put a link up in the FeedGotham app so we can fundraise for Brian.”

“We will,” Sarani said, though her voice was tired. They’d done this before.

Blackbird got into Blackwing and beeped for Hood. He’d prefer not to be here when the police arrived; his status with them was up for debate, depending on what officer rolled up to the curb.

Hood got in, shoulders tight and angry. “He should be mostly okay,” he reported tersely. “The worst of it is one of his shoulders. He’ll have some nice scars to go with the story.”

Blackbird rolled away from the devastation. “I’m getting more reports,” he said in a growl. “They’re targeting us.”

“Coordinated attack, yeah,” Hood’s finger clenched. “Oracle called it in. A bunch of the kitchens we opened up got attacked, although most of them didn’t sustain very much damage. These morons aren’t exactly trained in precision anarchy. The asshole back there got fucking lucky.”

“We have a positive ID,” Blackbird muttered, passing Hood his phone. “Gerhart Ulrich, one of Lightfoot’s inner circle of cronies.” Then he slammed his hands on the dash. “What the fuck do these people even want?”

“Fucking control, that’s what they want,” Hood said as he committed the unfortunate Ulrich’s face to memory. “Desperate and downtrodden people are easy pickings for that. Can’t have them having community spirit or self-respect, can we?” Hood mocked bitterly. “After all, there’s only so much of that to go around.”

“There’s enough for everyone,” Blackbird snarled. “There’s enough for fucking everyone, if people learned not to fucking snatch.”

“You don’t need to tell me, Baby Bird,” Hood bumped his shoulder against the kid’s. “Where are we going?”

“If they’re taking out the smaller kitchens they’ll be taking out the big one,” Blackbird said, and gunned it.

Messages came in from his volunteers working at the parking garage even as they roared in that direction. It wasn’t too far, the Bowery and Crime Alley were crammed into a compact enough area that they could make good time, but what they found when they got there was worse than Blackbird had imagined.

A bunch of cars had been parked around the entrance and surrounding streets, choking the thoroughfares and sidewalks, blocking people from easily moving through the blockade. There was a huge container truck wedged sideways across the main entrance to the garage; on top of the container that sat on it someone had set up microphones and speakers and, because this was Gotham and even the worst crazies weren’t stupid, lucite screens pointing towards the garage side. 

There was a crowd of people gathered around the container truck, shouting and waving signs; they were waving guns too, and more molotovs, heavy bricks, all the usual tools in a rioter’s arsenal. And these were rioters; for all they made motions towards being peaceful protesters with the signs and what looked like an active prayer circle, you could see the eagerness for blood and mayhem in their stances, and the way some of them hurled invective at their targets.

Blackbird had to stop so far away he couldn’t even see into the garage itself, but he had no doubt they were trapped in there, besieged. He traded an aghast look with Hood; he couldn’t really read Hood’s expression because of the helmet, but the set of his shoulders was getting good and angry.

From ahead, the speakers whined with feedback. Someone shouted over the microphone “We just want the food. Give back the food you stole, and we’ll leave! Please, let’s not resort to violence!”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing right now, asshole?” Hood muttered as he got out of Blackwing. 

“That wasn’t the Pastor,” Blackbird said, surprised. That had been a woman’s voice. He had his phone out and was rapidly accessing his tracking software on the Lightfooter’s phones. He had no doubt at least a few of them were live streaming. It took checking a few accounts before he found someone shooting from a good angle on the stage. “That’s Marian. Lightfoot’s right-hand zealot. Where’s Lightfoot, though?”

“That hypocrite doesn’t do direct action,” Hood said, surveying the barricades, the surrounding buildings, and doing a rough headcount. “He wouldn’t risk dirtying his hands. I bet he’s sitting in a nice, comfy apartment somewhere, writing up his oblique-but-not-actionable praise sermons for this thuggery.”

Blackbird nodded; it certainly sounded like the good Pastor. He began rapidly accessing command modules in his field phone. They were going to need some backup for this. At the very least the Four & Twenty might be able to cart people to safety. They needed something, before it turned into an all out fight. 

He turned around to see Hood punching through a car window and knocking out whoever was inside of it with one bell-ringing blow. “Fucking lookout,” he muttered to Blackbird’s surprised look, ferreting around through the broken window and pulling out a walkie talkie. “Crouch down, there are probably more.”

“Looking for us?” Blackbird felt a knot of unease tighten in his gut as he dropped below line of sight, the cars hiding them for now.

“The cops, maybe,” Hood said, fiddling with the walkie talkie.

“The cops are already here,” Blackbird pointed out a couple of police cruisers stuck in the tangle of cars, lights flashing. The cars were empty, but there could be officers in the crowd or even in the parking garage, trying to calm things down.

However, when they looked at each other Blackbird could tell the same thoughts were running through Hood’s head too; Lightfoot counted a few members of the GCPD amongst his collection of congregants. He was good at cozying up to authority figures and making them feel all special and appreciated. Appreciation for cops in this town was a chancy proposition at best, even with Commissioner Gordon working all hours to improve relations between them and the community. It wasn’t completely impossible that the police were part of the besiegers rather than the besieged. In which case, Blackbird said dismally, additional help may or may not be in the offing.

And even with additional help, it may not, in fact, help. They all knew what had happened at the BLM protests. Even with the Bats marching with the protesters, the riot police hadn’t exactly deescalated the situation. It had taken Gordon pulling them all from active duty and allowing the protest marchers to walk unmolested, with police marching with them, for things to calm down. And fairness to Gordon, Gothams protests had been fairly low key and peaceful after that.

This didn’t look like it would work out nearly as quietly. 

“The Four & Twenty is en route,” Blackbird told Hood. “Hood, what the hell do we do?”

“I’ve called in some back up,” Hood muttered as he scanned the skyline. “They’re on their way. We just have to wait.”

Blackbird felt his gut tighten further as some yahoo fired what looked like firework rockets into the parking garage, turning the whole thing into a brief cataclysm of noise, color and smoke. The crowd all jeered as the sounds of dismay and pain came from inside the garage, though you could barely hear it over the racket of Marian and her cohorts demanding that the food and supplies be bought out and let’s all be reasonable as if any of what they were doing was a reasonable act.

“We have to do something,” Blackbird hissed. “Look at that mob! If they decide to storm the place it’s going to be chaos! And those assholes’ll just get in their beamers and mercs and drive back to their condos afterwards!”

Hood appeared to consider it. “Okay. A block over there’s a drain cover; there’s a small bat etched into the lip. That’s one of our secret highways. Get in it, go down and take the tunnel until you hit the old defunct subway lines. Head right, down the tracks, until you hit the old Delaney Street station. That’s what used to be there before they put up the parking garage.”

“Is there access from there?” Blackbird asked.

“There should be,” Hood nodded. “Gotham legal code said they have to keep any old access points when they build over the infrastructure, so people have possible places to go when the next apocalyptic mound of shit hits the fan and the parking garage was one of the evac points when the Quake hit a couple of years back. Trust me, it’ll be there. It’s a bit of a dog's leg, so move fast. I need you to hit hard from the garage entrance, since you’re the other half of the pincer. You’ll have about six minutes.”

“Until what?” Blackbird hissed.

“Until I pull a Red Hood Extravaganza Special and fucking mow into these assholes from the back,” Blackbird could hear the smirk in his voice. Hood squared his shoulders. “While you’re on covert infiltration I’ll be jacking these idiot’s cars. A lot of ‘em are gun nuts, I bet I’ll find more than one extra gun in a trunk somewhere.”

“Hold on, come with me,” Blackbird beckoned him back and away from the jeering noise of the crowd and their repeated demands for the people within to give up their precious food. Blackbird had to hand it to Marian, she had a talent for whipping people into a frenzy. The crowd was frothing and screaming, a relentless font of noise, and Marian was the Saccharine Pied Piper, somehow making the claim “We only want what is rightfully ours, like good decent, law abiding citizens!” with a straight face amongst a violent mob that had been firebombing relief kitchens all night.

Nothing was worse than a bunch of whiny assholes that thought they had the right of way in life and decided to enforce it when anyone argued. 

Blackbird cracked open his, as of this date, never-actually-used emergency arsenal, which he had stored at the back of Blackwing, half under the stripped down little car. “Here,” he handed Hood an over the shoulder bag filled with colorful little balls. “I stuck these in the Lightfooters’ gas tanks sometimes, when they weren’t looking,” he explained. “Hygroscopic substances. It’ll essential turn the gas in their tanks to the consistency of chewing gum, and fuck up their engines but good.”

“I’ll take those,” Hood said cheerfully. “What is that?”

Blackbird hit the release and his staff telescoped out with a pneumatic hiss. “Something I never thought I’d actually have to use,” he said grimly, removing his skillet and clicking it into the special slot at one end, to make a cudgeling polearm. He then opened the cap on the other and loaded what looked to Hood like a string of multicoloured pearls, little popballs alternating with, of all things, little CO2 whipper bulbs, tied together on a fine filament, into the other end of it and resealing it.

When he twisted the midsection, a popball shot out like a bullet from a gun, hitting the ground and exploding into a cloud of smoke. When he swung the other way at a parked car, a spark of electricity arced from the skillet to the metal of the car.

“You are just full of surprises, Baby Bird.”

The tone was so admiring that it made Blackbird blush outwardly and curse feebly internally. He might have no right to this man’s admiration and praise, but his stupid heart apparently wasn’t in the least bit interested in listening to the stern edicts of his brain. Was it wrong that he wished Red Hood had been a little more of a sincere asshole towards him?

It was, Blackbird decided. It was probably wrong.

“What can I say, I love to cook, especially surprises,” he quipped and then cussed out his heart.

Hood snorted a laugh. “Six minutes, Baby Bird. Make ‘em count.”

Right, because the soup kitchen was under attack. Blackbird shook himself; it was time to get down to business. “When I reach the parking garage, I’ll see if I can’t evacuate people out the way I came. I’ll hit them hard from the front, but Hood, I’m not gonna lie, all my biggest guns, so to speak, are on the Four & Twenty, and its ETA is a long way out.”

“That’s fine, backup is en route, according to O,” Hood assured him. “Traditional and non-traditional. We might be able to break them up before the good kind of cop gets here. Hopefully they stick to their usual policy of being cowards when the bullets are flying.”

Blackbird nodded and left, but even as he headed for the storm drain he could tell Hood had doubts. This mob was different from the usual pack of whiny troublemakers. They were angrier, more confident, more daring. They also seemed to care a lot less about the veneer of respectability, which had stymied their more spiteful efforts so far. They were committing full arson and affray. Even their friends on the force wouldn’t help them spin this in the press, not when daylight hit and the damage was counted.

Blackbird couldn’t think what had emboldened them to such a height of bravado. He ran through scenarios as he pried up the lid Hood had directed him to. The internet could have been a culprit. Social media was a cesspool of dark echo chambers and there were plenty of assholes ready and willing to anonymously egg on small minded idiots who had been psy-op’d across decades to fear everything – the outsider, globalization, the finite nature of money. As Blackbird dropped into the storm drain and started sprinting madly, he reflected that the lies had come thick and fast from grassroots all the way to the upper echelons of power. The purveyors were the smallest minority making the biggest racket, with no concern for the health and wellbeing of the people they supposedly spoke for. 

Who needs the Joker in Arkham? Blackbird thought angrily as he ran. There was a Joker, sociopathic and broken and gleefully catalysing chaos, behind every fucking computer screen. At least the actual Joker didn’t pretend he was doing it for the common good. 

Who needed the Scarecrow? Some power-hungry, weak little bully can do with a keyboard to millions what Scarecrow could only do on a local scale at best. And ha! Scarecrow was a fucking scientist, PhDs and everything, with all the rigorous mental discipline that entailed. 

Who needed the Riddler, twisting people this way and that with mad mental games when there were sneering, morally bankrupt whingers spewing nonsense little conspiracies and showing people the nonsense little clue trails that lead to fucking nothing but conformation of their own racist and bigoted biases, and then held them up as the pinnacle of genius? At least the Riddler expected his opponents to be fucking smart, gave them the dignity of having actual intelligence. 

No one needed a Two Face anymore. Nobody in the way of these assholes even had the chance granted by the coin flip, because some would-be holy man found an even fancier way to say ‘do as thou wilt’, which has been the battle cry for generations of the powerful and rich who forever looked for some excuse, any excuse, at all to unleash their dark side without having to face the consequences. At least Harvey Dent believed that you had to at least weigh the possibility of your better self against your worser nature. And he didn’t believe consequences were just for poor people either.

It had come to something, Blackbird thought, when the Rogues of Gotham could beat a bunch of pasty-ass managing directors in the game of ethical standards. 

And into all this tangled mess Blackbird had stumbled.

He’d just wanted to fucking feed people. Caring about people, making sure they had food, when had that become a flashpoint of contention? In what universe did that make sense, even in Gotham? 

He’d taken the turn, the station loomed up in front of his racing feet. When he hit the defunct and cobweb riddled platform, he shone his flashlight up and down looking for… there. Stairs that had once taken people to and from the station. He checked his watch; his short flight through Gotham’s underbelly had eaten up most of his time. He reached the top of the risers; there was an old, heavy iron door bolted shut with a thick chain and a heavy padlock. He dug around in his pouched for his special bump key, dragging it out and slamming it into the keyhole and squeezing the special gel expansion solution popball at the head of it into the fine, hair thin channels drilled in the blank key, letting the stuff fill in the gaps between the tumblers and harden. It took a bit of twisting and grunting but the lock opened.

He burst through the door to the sound of terrified shouts and screams; mind you, the people who huddled down in the parking garage’s basement weren’t exactly in the right frame of mind for unexpected surprises. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay!” someone yelled over the general panic. “It’s just Blackbird!”

It was so nice to have a good rep. Blackbird strode out into the crowd of people; they were families with small children, the elderly, people with disabilities. People who shouldn’t be caught up in a riot. They’d probably been here being fed at the soup kitchen and got caught up in the mess; Sister Des was no stranger to disaster management so she’d probably packed them all down here where they’d be safe, at least for the time being. 

He fiddled with his voice modulator. “All of you,” he let his voice carry artificially over the crowd. “Please stay calm and evacuate into the old subway station. There’s stairs, so please assist those who can’t use them easily. Get everyone out that you can.”

He couldn’t stay to marshal them; he was needed up top. He left them and headed for the ramp up to the ground floor, where the more able bodies were maintaining a line of defense between the mob and everyone trapped in the parking garage. 

It was a madhouse; the soup kitchen was in ruins and firebombed, the rest trampled as people had fled the area. The crowd must have tried an incursion but they were probably driven back. It was a pretty narrow bottleneck to gain access through the main gates, so at least the defenders had that going for them.

“Hood,” he tapped his comm. “I’m almost in position.”

“Understood,” Hood was terse. “Try to get Sister Des out of the line of fire. She’s up front trying to reason with these idiots. Get ready for some noise.”

Blackbird went as fast as he could up the ramp, grabbing one random person on the way and telling them about the evacuation route and a rejoinder to spread the word. Then he went hell bent for leather towards the main entrance, where desperate volunteers had piled bollards and tables across the entrance to barricade it. Nothing they had to hand was likely to withstand some asshole ramming it with a car, but Blackbird had the notion the Lightfooters might have shot themselves in the foot with their flash mob mentality; they’d choked the street rushing here and given themselves no clearance for even a small runup. 

Thank goodness for stupid enemies.

Sister Des, unflappable doer of greater good for thirty years, had hoisted herself up on the table with a megaphone and was engaging with Marian on her little container stage. “Yes, alright, but you still haven’t told us where the food will supposedly be going!” Her voice was calm, but powerful.

“That food was legally purchased,” that got a roar of virtue from the crowd. “For the Lightfood Nourishment Centers. They are meant to deliver into the hands of the needy and poor! Why would you be so silly as to steal food from yourselves?” Marian’s voice was the epitome of wounded empathy, like she just couldn’t understand the insane actions of the community, but to pity them for their madness.

As Blackbird clambered up alongside the nun, one look at her raised gimlet eyebrow spoke entire tomes of what she thought of that. “Seems to me it’s already going to the poor, thank you. Or it was, until your people, in their fervor to assist, descended en masse upon us. Why would they need to give it to you only to get it back from you? That sounds downright inefficient, and I know those… Nourishment Centers are all about efficiency. They’re so efficient, they even turn away potential troublemakers at the door. Like people who wear turbans. Or celebrate sabbath on Saturdays. Or–”

“Please, I’m trying to help you here!” Marian’s sweet tones couldn’t quite hide the note of annoyance. “The police are on their way! You are peddling in stolen goods! Please, just send out the food, and we’ll forget everything. Surely as a woman of God you can see the sin in your actions. Thou shalt not steal, remember? Please, I’m praying for your souls, right now. I will help you find salvation and peace.”

Blackbird took one look at Sister Des’ face and hastily stuffed his fingers in his ears.

“BY GOD IF YOU DON’T STOP TALKING DOWN TO ME LIKE I’M SOME SORT OF TODDLER WHO DOESN’T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RIGHT AND WRONG I’LL MARCH OUT THERE AND TURN YOU OVER MY KNEE, YOU MORALLY BANKRUPT SYCOPHANTIC HARPY, YOU SEE IF I DON’T!”

There was a stunned silence, punctuated by a whine of soft feedback as Marian dropped her microphone.

“Right,” Sister Des said into the silence. “Now that you’ve finished trying to infantilize me with your frankly appalling understanding of basic human decency, let me ask you; thou shalt not steal? Where was all this moralizing when landlords send eviction notices illegally to tenants and then flipped their apartments, their homes, right out from under them as they were struggling through the court system to rectify it? Where was this font of virtuous empathy when the neighborhood fronted up to council meetings and school boards and elections, where they waited to speak and waited to be heard and played by the rules they never got to set, only to be told their voice didn’t matter and their vote didn’t count, huh? No answer?” 

Gobsmacked silence continued to roll in like a tide.

“Okay, how about an easy one. Food, right? Where, exactly, was the justice when zoning boards padding their already overfilled pockets with money from developers, so when they gave commercial licenses out like candy they all, somehow, ended up in the hands of the big corporate chains who neglected to build the infrastructure – the grocery stores, the bodegas, the warehouses – that they promised to build, and bring all the convenience and employment with them, so this area wouldn’t turn into the food desert and the underemployment dystopia it became? Where people had to run the gamut of food stamps and charity, because it was either that or die? And goodness, where were you when they ripped the funding out of even those programs, making them impossible to get onto, impossible to stay on, impossible to rely on? Where was your zeal for fairness and ethical standards then, miss?” 

Sister Des was letting it go, both barrels. It was mesmerizing to watch decades of erudite expertise in poverty and greed suddenly given a worthy target for wrath. “You want to talk to me about theft, honey? How ‘bout we start with a bunch of rich white folk, who took over the system and made theft legal, as long as you had the right skin tone. Your dear Pastor isn’t the problem, he’s just a product of the system. Same as you. But unlike you fools, I still have compassion for you. I still believe in your redemption, by God, so I do. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have to put in the work. After centuries of requiring everyone else to adapt to your tastes, it might, finally, be time for you to change to suit someone else’s instead. And if that makes you uncomfortable, well, no one ever changes from a position of comfort, do they? As for the food – the donated to food banks food? That food,” Sister Des added firmly. “Was intended for the poor. It’s going to the poor. End of story. And when these police supposedly show up, we’ll tell ‘em exactly that. And lots of other things as well.”

There was a round of jeers and some downright filthy language in response to this, as would be expected from a bunch of entitled would-be anarchists getting their asses verbally handed to them by an angry black woman.

“How dare you?” Marian’s cry rang out across the hubbub. “We’re trying to help you and you offer us such disrespect? What ever happened to being polite and well mannered?”

Blackbird and Sister Des shared a look and rolled their eyes. “There it is, folks,” Blackbird yelled to the rest of the people in the garage. “The shrill lament of the lack of civilized discourse. The infinitely invoked dog whistle of the small minded bigot who wasn’t expecting to be challenged and suddenly realizes they have no compelling counterargument.”

Oops, his voice modulator was still set to high volume. His voice rang out over both crowds like thunder. 

The people trapped in the parking garage cracked up laughing as the crowd outside all jumped at the sound. A wave of cheering and agreement sounded out at Blackbird’s words, and a thunderous standing ovation was given for Sister Des’. 

And nothing provokes an angry crowd like getting laughed at. A crowd of foaming at the mouth would-be military cosplayers surged against the barricade, yelling and thundering. Blackbird, Sister Des and a bunch of volunteers all put their hands to the otherside of it.

If those people storm the place, Blackbird thought. Someone was going to die. And while he didn’t doubt at least a couple of the soup kitchen workers or clients were armed – this was Crime Alley – the crowd out there was just itching for a fight. And there were a bunch of vulnerable people in here and almost nothing but able-bodied people out there. Blackbird didn’t like those odds.

“There’s a tunnel,” he told Sister Des loudly over the roar of the crowd and the anxious shouting of the people in here. “It’s part of the old subway system. It’s how I got in.”

“Great,” Des gritted her teeth as she shoved her shoulders into the barricade. “We’ll get the kids and the elderly out.”

“We’ll get everyone out,” Blackbird was still working out the logistics of that. Hopefully Hood and he could keep the invaders distracted, plus whatever backup Hood had pulled in. 

“No,” Sister Des shook her head. “We have to hold out until the police get here. The actual police,” she added sourly. “We have to get this on record.”

“Those people are out for blood,” Blackbird protested. “They’ll mow right over you!”

“Honey, I have nothing but respect for your good works,” Sister Des flashed white teeth. “But when you say stuff like that I’m reminded that you aren’t from around here. Out for our blood? What else is new? We didn’t maintain this community against all comers, Rogue or banal, by not standing our ground where it counted. If we run now, they’ll take the neighborhood. They’ll grind even more money and hope and pride out of us. This place is ours . It’s high time they started respecting that the way they always expected us to respect theirs.”

Well, Blackbird couldn’t argue with that, and wouldn’t even if he could. He didn’t feel he had that right; after all, Sister Des wasn’t wrong; adopted into the community or not, this place wasn’t in his bones like it was for these people. He tapped his comm. “Hood, what’s going on out there?” The timer had well and truly run out by now, although Blackbird could believe Hood had postponed his mayhem to let the Sister speak her mind. 

“I’m in position,” Hood sounded gleeful. “And oh boy did I find some nice surprises in these assholes’ cars.”

“We might need to hold off until the last possible minute,” Blackbird said as Sister Des marched over to rally the people in the parking garage. “Sister Des wants to hold her ground so they can get it on record. I mean, she’s got a point; if they start an all out riot, the people in here will be easy to scapegoat in the press.”

“Well, fuck,” Hood sighed. “Back up is en route, ETA about five minutes. You think they can hold out?”

“As long as the people out there don’t suddenly take it into their heads to storm the building, we might be okay,” Blackbird peered over the barricade to the jeering mass. They were occasionally lobbing a firebomb or a tear gas canister at the garage, but the attacks were desultory, with almost no follow up except for a wave of verbal abuse. The people looked insane out there, eyes glazed and glittering with the promise of some kind of fight. At this point they’d clearly take orders from anyone. He could see Marian on the phone on her container, other people directing the prayer service, but no one really in charge. These people were a hydra, but without the heads. They’d come here wanting to play soldier and discovered one extremely pertinent detail about wars; wars are organized. Without leadership to marshal them, they were a flabby, indecisive, chaotic mess.

Still, mobs could be a hell of a weapon, if pointed in a direction. Blackbird squinted at Marian. “It’s like they're waiting for something,” he murmured. The Pastor? He had a solid understanding of how to whip people into a frenzy, true, but they seemed to be doing just fine on the frenzy front without him. Besides, Hood was right – Pastor Lightfoot wasn’t the kind of person who took legally actionable risks. He had a certain smug and self-serving respect for the law, which no doubt came easily to a middle aged man of means. 

Blackbird blinked when he saw Marian drop to the ground, classic duck-and-cover style.

Then the shots rang out. 

Some poor guy on the container shrieked as he got hit, tumbling off the container.

Suddenly the crowd was a screaming, panicking, stampeding mess. People were ducking down, trying to flee for safety and getting trampled in the process as everyone ran in different directions.

“Hood, is that you?” Blackbird shouted over the comms.

“Not me, Baby Bird. There's a sniper on the fucking roof just right of the parking garage; my right, not yours.”

“What?” Blackbird was baffled. “But he’s firing at the Lightfoots! We don’t have anyone armed up there! There’s barely anyone armed in here!”

“Fuck me, they’re pulling a frame job,” Hood snarled. “They’re setting you guys up as the antagonists. Keep the fucking barricade up, they’ll use that excuse to storm the building! I’ll take care of this asshole!”

Marian must have known her little hired help was about to rain fire, Blackbird thought furiously. She’d ducked before the shots started. He wasn’t quite sure how much her poor cohorts might have known – faith is all very well, but a bullet wound is a bullet wound – but who cared? Now the already on-edge mob had reasonable cause to suspect they were being fired upon and the average righteous asshole loves an excuse to claim self defense.

“Move the bolsters!” Sister Des commanded. “They’re defenseless out there! We have to give them somewhere to shelter!”

“No!” Blackbird yelled over the increasing hubbub. “No, you can’t do that! It’s a set up! They’re trying to–”

That was as far as Blackbird got; the volunteers nearer to the main entrance did what they’d been asked and started yanking aside the bolsters blocking the entrance. That’s when the shots started ringing out.

It could have been the hired guns or maybe some random gun nut with an itchy trigger finger. Who cared? People screamed in terror as bullet started flying and ricocheting off the thick walls of the parking garage. A couple of people went down.

One hit Sister Des full in the stomach. 

Fuck. Blackbird fired off a wave of smoke bombs from his harness and followed up with a couple of instant oil slicks. Just in time, the mob outside, emboldened by the continued lack of consequences and the righteousness of self defense slammed up against the bolsters, foaming at the mouth to get into the parking garage.

The first eager wave went down in a rolling wave of pratfalls, which would have been hilarious under literally any other circumstances.

“Get out of here!” Blackbird bellowed to the volunteers. “Take the wounded and get out through the escape tunnel!”

He’d have to hold them off. A couple of the soup kitchen people were armed – even gangbangers were starving in these times – and were firing rounds at incoming invaders, but this was a soup kitchen. It catered to the elderly and families, homeless people and the disabled. Even though this was Crime Alley and they’d almost certainly survived a thing or two, the people who came here generally didn’t wander around the place armed. The fact that they were mostly of a non-white demographic and liable to get shot for presuming to carry had a lot to do with it.

“Hood! They’re coming in!” Blackbird bellowed over the comms, hoping he could even hear him over the noise.

Suddenly the cacophony was just so much louder. Something went screaming up to the rooftops and turned the world into a bright orange cataclysm of BOOM.

It was enough to make even the mob hesitate. It turned into a frenzied stampede of confusion as they halted their charge in and began backpedalling away from the bits of debris falling from the roof of the – thankfully – condemned and empty building, the shock and terror on their faces written large. 

“Sniper neutralized,” Hood reported calmly over the comms.

“Did you…” Blackbird stammered in disbelief. “Did you just fire a grenade launcher? Did you bring a grenade launcher?” How? Blackbird added wildly. Where the hell had he been carrying it? His disobedient libido cracked a couple of blush-inducing jokes, but seriously, how?

“Technically it wasn’t mine,” Hood admitted. “I found it in one of these asshole’s trunks. Like, the guy drives an eighty-k Merc, and he had an actual grenade launcher packed in his trunk. Inappropriately stored, I’d like to add,” Hood sniffed. “I’m doing that nut a favor. He’d have blown up his own car eventually. I don’t give a shit about him, but his kids might have been in there too.”

Sometimes those right-to-bear-armers treated the whole right thing like it was a personal challenge, Blackbird thought dismally. This was Gotham; he shouldn’t be surprised even the gun nuts turned it up to eleven. Whatever, systemic abuse of privilege was not his current problem. The fact that Marian was screaming over the speaker that they’re going to kill us all was, because it meant a bunch of people were gearing up to come in here and take down an enemy – anything that looked enemy-like would likely do.

“Everybody retreat!” Blackbird bellowed even as he surged forward, swinging the skillet end of his staff hard and fast, cracking hard into riot helmets. Sure, now they chose to mask up, he thought as the plastic shattered. 

They couldn’t do much about the taser effect in the skillet though; it worked just fine knocking them out, and that’s what he needed. There were too many; he couldn’t possibly defend the gates engaging them all in one-to-one combat.

Hell, defending the gates themselves was way too much for one person. “Hood, I’m going to need some help here!” Blackbird shouted as they came in a furious, screaming, swearing wave. 

He stripped popballs off his bandolier. Chillibangs, toffee shackles, oil slicks, jello balls, instant-setting superglue, stinkbombs. He littered the area with his whole arsenal, and the would-be people’s army suddenly had to deal with sticky, slippery, blinding and smelly. It was a lot of sensory information to contend with, especially when your forward momentum is suddenly halted to a dead stop or moving way too fast for your feet to gain traction. 

And even that ceased to be a problem. The real problem came when the guy behind you suddenly slammed into you. And the one behind him. And then the one behind her. It was a cascade effect and no one could avoid it, not with the crush pushing from behind.

The advantage wouldn’t last, but it would buy him time. 

He held the line as well as he could, his faithful skillet getting ever more dented and firing popballs from the airgun end at any of the cunning ones trying to edge around the tangled knot of fallen or glued together people writhing on the ground. Some of them did fire back – thankfully with their own tear gas or pepper and bear spray, and not actual bullets because his suit was bulletproof only up to a certain caliber. He’d never had access to the funds needed to get the proper kind Hood or the Bats all used. Thankfully, his mask was a hundred percent irritant proof and a quick moment to slap on his rebreather face mask meant their efforts were so much noise and waste.

But cunning and genius weren’t going to cut it forever. Blackbird was giving his all, but he knew, deep down, that he hadn’t had the extensive training required to take on a threat of this magnitude. It was simply a different level to where he currently was, and furthermore, he wasn’t at his strongest. Weeks of barely sleeping and, at best, erratic nourishment were taking their toll. Blackbird could hear his own harsh breathing echoing in his own ears through the mask.

“Hood,” he said as he was forced to lose ground. “I need backup!” They just kept coming and coming. Now it was a game of keeping them from the ramps; there were still people being evacuated from the upper floors too and if they took this level then the people up there would be cut off from any escape routes. Given the barrage of firebombs hitting the concrete, Blackbird didn’t like their chances if they were trapped. “There’s too many, and not everyone is out yet! Sister Des got shot, they’re carrying her into the tunnel.”

“I’m coming up from behind Baby Bird, hold on!” Hood’s reply was reassuring. “And backup is right behind me!”

As if to demonstrate, there was a barrage of gunfire from outside the garage in the surrounding streets. It sounded like something fully automatic. Blackbird couldn’t see what was happening out there but judging by the screaming and sudden pop-bangs from the speakers, Hood had taken out Marian’s little sound stage, permanently cutting off her ability to egg on the crowd. 

“Hey man, they’re shooting out there! They’re legit shooting!”

Blackbird shut that one up with a cracking blow with the skillet end of the staff. “I’d worry a lot more about what’s going on in here if I were you!”

Then he dumped his entire remaining stock of smoke bombs. 

Multicoloured smoke ballooned out from his position even as the bolder started firing actual bullets. Blackbird stayed low; his mask was smoke-proof but he hadn’t had the equipment or money needed to give it all the bells and whistles, so the Bats’ nifty thermal vision lenses weren’t a part of his field kit.

He was damn well adding them with his next damn paycheck, Blackbird thought grimly. 

Everything was a garish, opaque cloud of color and a mass of swears and yelling. The invading mob wasn’t quite savvy enough to stop firing right away so Blackbird could imagine friendly fire incidents had briefly been legion. There were a couple of shrieks and swears as one mob member took another mob member for Blackbird in the haze and tried mace or swung with malice aforethought. It wasn’t ending well. Blackbird stayed low, waiting. He hoped the soup kitchen clients and volunteers were all getting out. Once the smoke cleared, he was going to have to fight until he couldn’t anymore but there was no way he could win, not with these odds.

Hood was certainly busy outside; Blackbird couldn’t tell what he was up to but the noise was certainly telling. It was helpful in a way; it made the people in here hesitant and hesitation would only help. However the downside was…

“Move aside! Move! He’s going to kill us!” Marian shrieked at the top of her voice as she and a bunch of people at the front of the crowd surged into the main entrance like rats looking for shelter. “Where is he?!” she screamed. “Where is that vicious, spiteful, ungrateful little heathen who started this? Are you there, Blackbird!” she yelled. “Come out and actually face us, you coward! Liar! Disgraceful thief!”

Blackbird snorted internally. Her litany of abuse would have had more impact if there wasn’t a chorus of yelps and cries of dismay almost drowning it out. The people seeking shelter from Hood had run right smack dab into the first wave of people, and all the sticky and slick traps that had taken them out. They were working just fine on this new batch of idiots too.

“Come out right now, Blackbird, and make amends for your sins!” Marian shouted angrily. “Come out or we’ll burn the food! All of it! If it’s going to be stolen from rightful hands and not returned rightfully, then no one should have it! No one will have it!”

Right, resources either belong to those in power, or no one at all, Blackbird thought cynically. He backed away into… rows of pallets. Bulk goods, delivered here for repacking or disbursement to kitchens. It was actually mostly water bottles stored here, because the water quality was another one of those little things the people in charge couldn’t give a single damn about if it only affected poor people. There were a few other pallets of stuff. Dry staples mostly; rice, sugar, flour… Blackbird stopped.

“Come out, you coward! Someone, go and find some of those filthy people, one of them must know where he is!”

With careful, silent fingers, he got out his most mundane tool – a simple pocket knife – and began quietly slashing at the stacked bags. He hated to have to do this – these were supplies he and dozens of volunteers had sweated blood and poured tears to squeeze out of anyone who was offering them, anywhere. They’d expended so much effort on what was but a night or two’s supply, knowing they have to squeeze even harder tomorrow, and the next day, and the next. 

But there were people down in the basement trying desperately to get clear of this rampage. He had to buy them time. His keen eyes spotted just what he needed to complete the job, and questing fingers found a lone self-igniting incendiary popball in his belt. 

Okay. It was enough.

He ripped open a caterers’ can filled with powder, shoved the incendiary into it and shoved the lot of it into the flour pallet. Hopefully this would be mostly fire.

“Hood, I’m about to do some intense negotiations,” Blackbird muttered over the comm even as the smoke cleared. “There may be chaos following.”

“Hold, hold, backup is just about here!” Hood grunted over the line, clearly in the middle of something. He couldn’t imagine the crowd was any friendlier at the back, but Blackbird would wager none of them could do unfriendly quite like Hood.

“Can’t. Too many civilians in the line of fire.” Blackbird shoved a pallet of water bottles to a significant spot as he emerged. “Okay!” he yelled, taking care to saunter out of the pallet stacks with maximum annoying swagger. Confidence in the face of defeat always throws off your opponent. “I’m coming out!” He suited words to action, but kept his polearm casually over one shoulder instead of coming out with his hands raised, because he wasn’t defeated. Not yet. 

He looked over the jeering, seething crowd, hoping the contempt he felt was oozing from every pore. “If you needed a meal that bad, you could have just asked. You know, like polite, civilized people.”

The crowd roared and swore at him, but they shut up real fast when one big guy covered in stolen Holocaust slogans lunged for him and promptly got wanged hard in the face by Blackbird. The nazi-bruiser went down like a tree in one magnificent swing. A couple of others – dogpilers, not actual fighters – got zapped by the taser function as they followed after him, went down and stayed down. It was enough to make the rest of them uncertain. These people might have had some training – some of them really took the military fetish that far and some of them were, actually, ex military – but very few of them had ever been in actual combat. The ones that had were the ones that were hanging at the back, Blackbird was willing to bet, because actual experience with combat was an education in why you should avoid it. 

Welcome to the pain roulette, Blackbird smirked. Round and round the little ball goes, where it stops you don’t want to know. God, he needed sleep. 

“You’re nothing but a thug and a criminal, wearing a mask!” Marian ground out angrily. “That’s all you are! Pretending to be a savior to these people! They must be so desperate to want to turn to some masked freak for help!”

Blackbird raised an eyebrow. “You’re really not from here, are you?” He looked around the crowd. “Who wants to tell her?”

“You’re nothing but a con artist!” Marian ignored him. “You’re taking advantage of these people’s desperation to keep them poor and downtrodden!”

Oh for the love of… okay, arguing was pointless, he knew, but Marian had her little camera crew all filming and the incendiary was on a long fuse so he had some time to kill and these people loved to talk. Besides, the closer he got to the mob the weirder the looks in their eyes seemed to him. He should probably keep an eye on that. “Okay, so you take back your food,” Blackbird waved at the pallets. “Which I notice you didn’t bring the police in to do, which is suspicious, but fine, whatever, that’s a different issue. You take back your food and food for tomorrow, and the next day and all the supply lines get all tied up around the church in a pretty little bow and.... I gotta know, then what?”

Marian scowled at him. “The food is going back to our Nourishment Centers, because we legally paid for it,” she stressed to the watching cameras. “And will be distributed to the needy who come for it.”

“For free,” Blackbird said leadenly.

“Yes, of course!” Marian turned to the camera phones. “You see? We are trying to do godly works and this terrorist who thinks he should own people is attacking us for it! You ought to be ashamed!” she crowed at Blackbird.

“Like, you won’t get them to sign up for your app in order to eat?” Blackbird continued as if she hadn’t spoken.

“Of course! It’s just to make things more efficient! It’s nothing sinister,” Marian rolled her eyes. “Get ready for the conspiracy theories, everyone.”

“It’s no theory. I hacked into the Lightfood app’s base code and took a look at your sorting algorithms,” Blackbird waved his phone. “Aside from the fact that your terms and conditions specifically state that user pays...”

“It’s just a small fee for admin costs!” Marian said hurriedly.

“.... right. Per month, you must have so much overhead. Aside from that, your little app assigns tiers of need. You know, tier one, most in need, tier two, less in need, blah, blah, blah. Turns out the more information you put in there – like daily income, for example, personal details, all that stuff – the higher up the tiers you get. The app explicitly states that.”

“That’s right! So what?” Marian snapped back stridently while all the crowd muttered and jeered. “We need that information so we know people who need help the most!”

“Yeah, okay, so after pouring their personal data into an app and given no say over what happens to it – on-selling data is a big moneymaker, after all, and completely legal – they get a daily update on where on these… tiers on need they sit. And that’s when they start getting little messages, right? For a small donation, move up a tier. Sign your kids up for our homeschool program and move up a tier. Sign up for the employment agency, and move up a tier.”

“There are many people who need help! It’s just so we know who needs help the most, so they get in first!”

“So people not signed up to your incredibly conservative Christian biased child education program, they’re less in need than the ones that sign up straight away? The ones that don’t sign up to work ‘volunteer’ jobs just so they can eat, they deserve it less than people already not getting paid enough at their own two, three, four jobs already? Lady,” Blackbird raised an eyebrow at her. “You have a fucking insane view of what dictates worthiness for charity. Why make it so complicated? You know what happens when someone comes to me hungry? They eat. They need food? I give them food. No apps, tiers, ‘extra services’ or data mining required. It’s really that simple.”

“Even if they haven’t earned it?” Marian said archly. “Even if they could put in the effort, but won’t? It’s so much easier to leech than it is to work, especially when you lack any kind of moral fiber! Work! Salvation! Glory!” she bellowed to the crowd, who enthusiastically cheered the words back.

“Arbiet Macht Frei,” Blackbird yelled back ironically, though he doubted very much this pack of morons would understand the incredibly unfunny reference. “Though for obvious reasons that’s not my philosophy. And no, I don’t check if they’ve earned it. It’s fucking food, not bars of gold. Food is a right, not a privilege! It isn’t something you should have to earn.”

“High falutin’ words from the criminal who stole it,” Marian crowed triumphantly. “What about the businesses who made it? How are they supposed to pay their employees, and keep the economy going? How are you planning to rescue them, who work and provide and make this country great, when you’re so busy wringing your hands over a bunch of greedy, do-nothing, dependence addicted welfare leeches? Hm?”

The clock counted down in Blackbird’s head.

“Oh, no response?” Marian was delighted. “He hasn’t got an answer folks! Looks like there’s a bit of a hole in his moral argument! See? When confronted with their hypocrisy, all these liberal morons stammer and wring their hands and do nothing!” The crowd laughed and jeered.

“You don’t need this food!” Blackbird made one last throw.

“Who cares? These vermin haven’t earned it! They don’t deserve it! And they certainly shouldn’t be allowed to benefit from others’ hard work! We should teach them that things must be earned honestly. We might as well burn it all rather than assist in their moral degradation!”

Blackbird shrugged. “Have it your way.”

And flattened himself against the ground.

The incendiary finally sparked the can of non-dairy creamer and the subsequent fireball engulfed the flour pallet, making it all the more spectacular.

Fire poured in every direction. It was, technically, an explosion; however, it wasn’t a concentrated one. The parking garage wasn’t sealed; every floor was open to the air pretty much in every direction, so while Blackbird could feel the weak shockwave pass over his back, the water bottles and the lack of enclosure meant the force of it could disperse before it could become deadly.

But holy shit, having a tsunami of flame roaring straight for you was definitely a test of faith in your supposedly holy protection. The crowd shrieked and screamed and ducked down, or got knocked down, as it roared overhead. The conflagration was brief, but massive. Tongues of fire blasted out all four sides of the ground floor of the parking garage, blazing in orange and yellow.

In a blink, it was gone. There wasn’t really anything for it to catch on in the concrete of the parking garage, except a couple of people’s hair, hastily patted out, and a little bit of the kitchens themselves, stuffed with paper plates and napkins. Hopefully that part would burn itself out; but it would certainly keep this mob from venturing into the basement to follow the people escaping through there.

Blackbird rose in the haze of the burnt-toast smelling aftermath and lunged, determined to keep as many people as he could from storming the building. One, two, three went down even before they’d managed to stagger upright.

Then the shock wore off and people started screaming and shouting. Any sense of organization was gone. Some of the mob fled for the exit; they hadn’t signed up to take explosions. Others still were trying to rise up and draw weapons, but a gun was a shitty weapon when it came to a rioting mob. Where could you shoot? There was one of Blackbird and dozens of the mob; the odds of friendly fire were high.

“Somebody TAKE HIM! TAKE HIM NOW!” Marian was screaming at the top of her voice. “He’s a DEMON! He tried to kill us with his hellfire! TAKE HIM OUT!” She pointed hysterically. Her eyes looked, unbelievably, even less sane; glazed and unfocused.

But quite a few of them listened to her. They lunged for Blackbird, using batons and mace and bear spray. Blackbird took them on gamely – one good thing about a mob is you could land a hit with every swing – but he knew once they encircled him, that would be it. The mob was in a proper frenzy now, high on adrenaline, whatever vestiges of reason they might have had gone. They were screaming kill the demon, kill the demon, kill the demon. This wasn’t just offended privilege anymore, this was pure religious crazy, a proper witch burning mob.

The first bullet hit some poor lady who was shrieking kill the demon with the rest of them, but as she dropped the second hit Blackbird, right across the top of his shoulder. The armor took most of it, but the blow still sent him reeling back. What the hell, they were actually lining up a firing squad?

No, these guys looked different. They were properly dressed for combat. They didn’t have the wild look in their eyes that the rest of the people in here had. These guys weren’t part of the crowd. These guys looked like actual hired professionals.

They hired actual mercs? Blackbird thought wildly. 

Why not? Came the next thought. After all, Marian or the Pastor had clearly hired a sniper to frame the people in here as the ones who fired first. By the time the dust had settled and they’d gotten their lies straight, they could spin a nice little story about violent criminal gangs in Crime Alley getting their just deserts, and get off scot free, with no one caring or even investigating what the Lightfoots had been doing here or what they'd spent their money on in the mess. After all, most people thought everyone who lived here was some kind of criminal. The lie, like most lies in the COVID era, like most lies about Gotham, especially these parts of the city, was easily digestible pap that required no exhaustive fact checking or even questioning. Slandering the poor as morally unsalvageable without being dealt with via hard measures employed by the Artibiters of Social Order had sold papers for centuries. It was the world's longest running con.

The melee had turned the parking garage into such a pounding, roaring echo chamber that Blackbird couldn’t hear a thing over the noise. He ducked down low, but there wasn’t much cover to be had and looking at the lady who’d already been shot, they weren’t exactly being careful about friendly fire either.

There was a line of them advancing, looking like a firing squad. They were advancing on him, with his homemade armor and almost completely stripped of weaponry. He desperately shouted over the comms “Hood, I need–!”

Something rose up behind the professionals like the worst nightmare you’d ever have. Its eyes glowed soul-piercingly clear in the sheer blackness of its form.

Even though Blackbird knew it very well, he was still in awe at the sheer theater of the move.

Batman slammed two of the mercs’ heads together before they could fire into the crowd to get to Blackbird and then plowed into the rest like a bat-suited freight train. There were screams from the crowd; as psychological warfare went, it was damn impressive. Some of the Lightfoot mob looked hilariously confused by the fact that Batman, the paragon of the lone-male-protector archetype they favored so much, was fighting them, and actually tried to yell that he was attacking friendlies.

Batman glanced their way, and kept right on going.

That’s what you get for confusing order and justice, Blackbird thought with a certain amount of vicious satisfaction. These would-be vigilante cosplayers were in no way prepared to deal with the real kind.

Batman had, rightfully in terms of safety, gone after the professionals first. The upside was, no more people who actually understood combat were gunning for Blackbird. But the mob itself wasn’t exactly harmless either – they were soaked in adrenaline and angry fear, and they were looking for a target. All Blackbird could do was swing his polearm at all comers and head towards the entrance gate. As tempting as it was to put his back to a wall, getting cornered by this insane crush of people was a bad move. He’d be literally mobbed to death.

Besides, if that was backup, Blackbird thought as random mercs went flying left and right, he was willing to bet the rest of them were dealing with things outside. He was also willing to wager the police – actual official help – was either here or on its way. Throwing the police, especially one like the GCPD, into the chaos was a mixed blessing at best, but it would probably send quite a few of the dogpilers and yes-people running. Getting arrested was not a part of the heroic story they told about themselves.

But that left a lot of people for Blackbird to try and wade through, and they were armed with guns too. And batons. And tasers. And mace. The only upshot was there were too many crowding around to make the gun holders’ lives easier when it came to drawing and firing, especially since a lot of them had tear gas and smoke bombs and flash bangs, and were setting them off indiscriminately.

They all looked dazed and sweaty and anxious; this clearly wasn’t what they’d expected to walk into. But they all had kill the demon ringing in their ears and no other orders to follow and, hell, even people not stuffed full of shitty, self-aggrandizing lies weren’t all that rational under stress.

Blackbird gritted his teeth and began mowing through them as best he could. Batman had his own problem; fighting in the middle of a crowd when you’re actively trying not to hit a lot of the crowd was tricky at best, and he probably had his gauntlets full determining, moment to moment, who was the actual enemy that required punching.

People were already giving him a wide berth on the edges; proof that the Batman Effect really was that powerful.

Blackbird wished he could admire it, but a baton bounced off his back and he had to get back to business. He swung and shoved; the mob wasn’t trained but it almost didn’t matter. There were so many of them all clawing and screaming for blood that mere skill was rendered obsolete. Blackbird just had to hammer his way along, moving step by careful step as hands grabbed and swung from all directions, their faces a leering series of wild eyed portraits of madness.

Someone fired a taser at him. His suit was protected against it but his voice modulator gave a warning squeal. Even as he jabbed that one away, a fist full of knuckledusters swung at his face. Ducking was problematic with so many other hands trying to drag him down, shoes and boots kicking at his feet.

Shouted words occasionally pierced the cacophony.  “Hold him!” “Get him! “Get him on the ground!” “Shoot, shoot, shoot!”

The last got his attention and he lurched sideways, trying to duck and cover while more people tried to dogpile. Something hard slammed against his throat as he struggled...

There was the crack of a gunshot.

The guy trying to wrench his arm out of his socket fell back with a startled shriek.

A volley of fire suddenly rained on the crowd. Unlike the occasional gun nut cracking off a bullet into the ceiling, this was precise, orderly and expertly aimed. Half a dozen people toppled down like skittles, double that again jumped backwards and away, slamming into yet more people, turning the crowd into a Newton’s Cradle of stupidity. 

And there, rising out of the cordite smoke like a messenger of death, was Red Hood. 

“Hey Baby Bird,” he sounded way too cheerful in the midst of the mayhem. “Miss me?”

“You’re late,” Blackbird croaked, realized he’d actually croaked, and then frantically reached up to… oh wonderful, between the taser and whatever had hit him the protective shell over his voice modulator had broken, delicate audio equipment open to the breeze. He frantically tried to reset it – he might not be able to do much else with it, but he needed it to hide his actual voice. “What happened?” he tried tentatively. Okay, it sounded a bit metallic and scratchy but at least it was audible.

“Sorry, the neighborhood got a bit ugly and I had a bunch of trunks to loot before they came back for the heavy artillery stuff. This time tomorrow a bunch of proud boys are going to be drinking their tears when they realize their really expensive shinies have all disappeared.” 

Hood unstrapped, of all things, a shotgun from his back and fired gleefully into the crowd. Blackbird couldn’t contain a gasp, but then realized there was no red spray. There was a blue spray, a green spray, a neon orange spray, and a yellow spray instead. Paint, Blackbird thought wildly. 

“Neat, huh?” Hood was quite pleased with the look he’d just put on Blackbird’s face. “Arsenal dropped off my special crowd control kit. These assholes oughta be lucky I ain’t usin’ beanbag rounds, because those fuckers actually kill. Non-lethal my fucking ass,” he let loose a spray of vivid fire, turning the world into a Jackson Pollack print in motion. 

The crowd was falling back with commendable speed. It was slightly annoying that Blackbird hadn’t rated that kind of reaction, but he had to admit the Red Hood’s bruiser body wielding a shotgun and cackling madly was a memorable and terrifying sight, especially since the very few idiots that had actually been dumb enough to try to return fire had found out very quickly that Hood’s armour, unlike Blackbird’s, was top of the range and good against anything they could throw at him. As an added bonus, Hood would immediately take out the failed shooter the second they fired. The failure rate combined with the immediate and horrifying consequences for failure was making even the most extreme gun nut extremely thoughtful.

“Hood, there’s people escaping out of the basement,” Blackbird tried to yell, but his voice modulator gave a shrill whine. He had to be careful.

“It’s okay,” Hood said as he fired again. Finally, between the horror of the Hood and the terror of the Bat, the mob was beginning to lose all taste for violence. A bunch of the people happy to yell encouragement from the back had already hightailed it and the rest of them, paint splattered and bruised, seemed to be weighing their odds with far more caution. “Black Bat and Batgirl went down that way to lead them out. Arsenal’s up on the rooftops on overwatch. Oracle’s sending drones and the riot police but shit, I’d really rather get the neighborhood folks away from here before they get here. They ain’t all that discriminating when it comes to arresting people in these parts.”

Blackbird felt something loosen inside him. With the Bats and Arsenal here, it felt like they could maybe scrape some sort of order out of this mess. “I had to blow up some of the food.”

“Yeah, we noticed,” Hood snarked, firing into the rapidly retreating mob again. “Great big orange fireball in all directions? Half of Gotham probably noticed. What the fuck, you packing some C4 in that getup?” Hood eyed his uniform, interest clear.

Blackbird felt himself flush. “C4, shmee-four. I had access to non dairy coffee creamer and a pallet of flour.”

Hood burst out laughing. “Aw kid. I fucking like you. It sure fucking made them scatter outside, let me tell you.”

“Good,” Blackbird said with unusual callousness. “We could have fed people with it. That’s all we were,” he slammed his polearm into a lunging mob fighter. “Trying to do here. Just. Fucking. Feed people. And suddenly the people who have more than enough of everything got their panties in a twist.”

“Same shit, different day, Baby Bird.” 

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” Blackbird snapped, pressed back to back with Red Hood. He felt a wistful sigh at yet another romantic fantasy come to life, but under the worst possible circumstances and when he could do absolutely nothing about it. It was like he was cursed.

He accepted it philosophically. It wasn’t like he could have ever done anything about it anyway, was it? He hardly deserved it. Even as the crowd dispersed, Blackbird could feel his misery tainting what was otherwise, if not a triumph, then not a loss either. He took special note of Marian, weeping into her phone, fleeing with the rest of the die hards, leaving the concussed, wounded, and plain stupid to wander about the wrecked space, wondering what the hell just happened.

Batman was securing the people he’d been fighting with their own zip ties, methodically efficient. He was talking over the comms, but the space was still too noisy for Blackbird to make out anything but the low bass line of the voice. 

Blackbird looked at them all. “She hired mercs,” he said bitterly. “Or Lightfoot did. So much for faith being their greatest weapon.”

“Oh, so they’re hypocrites?” Hood kept his gun trained on the dispersing mob, but anybody left still standing was clearly not in the mood to pick any fights. “I’m shocked, I tell you. Shocked.”

“Sister Des got shot,” Blackbird added, watching warily as Hood’s finger twitched towards the trigger. “She was conscious when they carted her out of here, but I don’t know what happened after that.”

“Fuckers,” Hood muttered, and then went silent as he activated his internal comm. “Yeah, Batgirl helped load her into an ambulance herself. It was messy but they think she’ll be okay. She said Desi was joking about it being time number seven. Sounds like her,” Hood snorted with thinly lacquered humor. “She’s pretty hard to flap, Sister Des. She’s seen it all around here.”

“Yeah,” Blackbird breathed out, wincing when his modulator gave a metallic croak. “Glad she’s okay.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, sorry, my voice modulator got hit pretty bad,” Blackbird reset it again. It wasn’t his imagination; the thing was getting worse. He dug around in his various pouches. Usually he had a contingency device he could hook to the inside of his face mask – which had, amazingly, survived the melee intact – but tonight he’d stuffed his kit full of offensive measures, damn it.

“No, I mean,” Hood reached out with one hand and grabbed one of Blackbird’s, holding it up so Blackbird could see the fine tremors running through it. “Are you okay?”

Blackbird felt a wave of tiredness hit him. Already spread too thin for too long, the adrenaline crash suddenly hit him like a freight train. “I’m not hurt,” technically a lie, since he ached all over. “I just… I don’t usually do things like this,” he smiled wanly even as his cursed voice modulator gave another whine. It was making him sound like a robot in a crummy sci-fi movie. “I wasn’t really trained for this. I mean, I did my best to get in shape and practice what I could but I was… nobody ever taught me any of this, really. I taught myself. And I always was a shitty teacher.” He choked on a forlorn laugh, mostly because it sounded like eldritch robots groaning right now. 

“Hey, you did fine, okay?” Hood gave the hand a squeeze. “You held your ground, you held off a larger force and you walked away. For your first real dust up, that’s a pretty awesome result, kid. As for training; fuck, I can help you with that. You’re gonna have to learn a little Bowery-fu anyway, if you’re gonna keep feeding the folks around here. Once vaccinations get underway, all the scum’s gonna ooze out to make up for lost time, we’d better make sure you’re ready for that.”

Blackbird laughed again, sounding like a dying Dalek. Both Red Hood and Jason had now offered him training, on both sides of the mask. What the hell? What kind of sin had he committed to rank that kind of exquisite punishment? He laughed, because it was either that or cry.

He heard police sirens shrilling in the distance, but they were getting closer. The worst of it seemed past, especially since he could see a bunch of the mob wandering at loose ends around them with no fight to pick – at least, not a fight they thought they had a chance of winning – suddenly all start streaming from the exit, breaking around Red Hood and Blackbird like a stream around stones. They weren’t so convinced of their righteousness, apparently, that they wanted to try their luck with the legitimate authorities. Besides, even if they had been, between the Bat breaking through their line of heavy hitters, Batgirl and Black Bat protecting the easiest targets and Arsenal outside sowing terror and discord the way only a sniper really can, the spine of their resolve had been well and truly broken.

They weren’t just defeated; they were embarrassed. And when it came to sheer stopping power, there wasn’t anything quite like that.

“Where did Batman go?” Blackbird suddenly realized the Dark Knight had left the scene, his professional opponents trussed in a line and waiting for police collection.

“He just disappears sometimes,” Hood snorted. “He claims it’s for security reasons but don’t let him shovel shit on you; he’s just a theatrical motherfucker. Yo, B?” he thumbed his comm. “Where did you end up skulking off to?”

Blackbird couldn’t hear the reply. He felt around in his ear. At some point in the fight he’d lost his Bat comm earpiece, which stung. It was a legit Bat comm, Blackbird thought morosely, looking around for it in vain hope. 

“Look, I didn’t invite him,” Hood was replying to Batman irritably. “How should I know where the fuck he went? I thought he was grounded. I didn’t see him anywhere around here. And also, it’s not really my job to keep tabs on the demon br… what? Ask Arsenal, he’d have probably… what? Say again?”

Blackbird looked up at Hood’s urgent tone. “What?”

But then he heard it; the roaring of a big machine, a truck or a van, something meaty and heavy. And screams. And thumps.

The next thing Blackbird knew he was dazzled by lights blazing through the main entrance on high beam. 

And then he felt Hood slam into him and then something else slam into Hood.

They went tumbling up and over, and Blackbird gasped in pain as their spin slammed him into a mercilessly hard surface, with Hood’s not inconsiderable bulk driving him into it from behind. Blackbird felt his head hit… something, glass maybe, and then inertia sent them rolling the other way, off the hood of the car and onto the unforgiving concrete of the packing garage floor.

It all happened in a blink, so fast that Blackbird found himself staring dazedly at an up close and personal view of the treads of some huge looking tyres, still trying to process what the hell had just happened, his head ringing and vision fuzzy and disorientated.

Hood groaned behind him, still hanging on, but his grip was loose, his arms worryingly limp.

Get up, Blackbird told himself fuzzily. He had to check on Hood, he had to find where the hell his polearm had wound up, he had to…

Many hands grabbed him, the shouting voices sailing off into some distant, watery place as his body went limp.

He had to pass out now, apparently.

Chapter Text

Blackbird came to in the truck bed, the engine rumbling beneath him. It had a cover on it, so they likely weren’t raising any eyebrows with the traffic cams, which was sort of bad for them really but, in practical terms, Blackbird supposed he should be happy they hadn’t just been stuffed into a trunk. Hood was crammed in next to him and he was taking up enough space in the truck bed as it was; in a trunk, they’d have suffocated each other by now.

He doubted whether the people who’d taken him would have minded that outcome. Blackbird knew for damn sure they weren’t in the hands of friendlies.

He slowly took stock of himself. One side ached pretty spectacularly where he’d hit the windshield like a bug. His hands being zip tied behind him wasn’t exactly helping with that, but Blackbird was pretty sure nothing was well and truly busted. Hood had taken the worst of the blow and the truck itself hadn’t been traveling that fast. Momentum was a big ask in a confined space. 

“Hood?” Blackbird whispered, his voice modulator giving a shrill whine. Apparently it was failing at lightspeed. Great. This was all going to end spectacularly badly. Grunting, Blackbird wriggled around until he could face Hood in the dark on the truck bed. “Hood?”

He could hear the faint sound of Hood breathing through his helmet, so that was something. He was still out though. His heavy armor had probably protected him a lot better than Blackbird’s lightweight kind, but slamming his head on the inside of his helmet while his helmet smashed on a radiator or a windshield? Yeah, Blackbird could see that knocking him out cold. It wasn’t like getting hit with a bullet; there were different forces involved.

Still, his helmet could take some damage before anything happened to the precious head inside of it, so Blackbird could only hope that it wasn’t too bad. He was damn sure Hood had come back from worse.

Hell, Jason Todd had come back from the worst of the worst, Blackbird through bleakly, the black humor all the more dark for the bitter, festering guilt that came with it. 

He shook those thoughts from his head. True or not, now wasn’t the time to indulge his guilt complex. He had to try to get loose. 

He regretted the fact that his uniform sleeves didn’t attach to his gloves; it meant whoever had zip tied him had been able to go under the sleeve and tighten the tie with almost no give around his wrists. He wriggled his hands a little, but there was no sliding free without serious degloving of the not-clothing variety. Hood’s armor was, as expected, probably much better set up for this sort of scenario. They hadn’t even managed to remove his helmet; they likely hadn’t found any way to access the release mechanism and, in any case, the rumor was it was rigged to blow if anyone tampered with it.

Blackbird just bet that the rumor alone made their captors cautious. 

But… now what? They’d been smart or paranoid enough to strip his belt pouches of anything remotely useful to him. Hood probably had some sort of emergency beacon, but even if Blackbird’s hands weren’t tied, he had no idea where it was, and, even if he could speculate likely placement, he had no idea how to activate it. 

Not for the first time Blackbird cursed the fact that he just didn’t have access to the resources that the Bats had. Not just the gadgets, but the network too. It was just him and his truck…

…, wait, he’d summoned the Four & Twenty at the parking garage, hadn’t he? If these guys still had Blackbird’s phone, the truck would be homing in it for GPS coordinates. That wasn’t much help, to be honest. The big truck would follow, but only where the roads and various obstacles allowed it to go. Judging by the incredibly bumpy ride they were already having in here, they were off the beaten track already. The Four & Twenty might be able to point a searcher in the right direction,  but only if they knew what they were looking at, and also if these idiots hadn’t ditched the phone somewhere. That wasn’t even a Hail Mary; Blackbird was pretty sure that no backup was coming short of a miracle, at least not until the Bats had cleaned up the rioters’ mess and that would likely take a while.

They were on their own, and goodness knows where.

Where the hell were they? Blackbird wondered. It felt like gravel tracks under the wheels, but sometimes it was smooth tarmac and other times it sounded a bit like grass or underbrush. Were they outside of Gotham?

There was a screech of brakes and Blackbird slid on the truck bed. There were noises in the distance, like the murmuring of a crowd? Definitely a hubbub. And there was the hiss of… audio equipment? Blackbird could feel something knocking against a mike, like a soundcheck. 

“Did you get him? Is he in there?” That was Marian’s voice and boy did she sound eager.

“Two for the price of one!” someone else declared.

“Hey, are you sure about this?” someone else piped up, sounding tentative. “I mean, they were stealing our food, that’s one thing, but shouldn’t we turn them over to the police or something?”

“This is not a matter for the police anymore,” Marian said stridently. “We went to them but they were more interested in coddling drug addicts and murderers than helping us. We must help ourselves. Is the Pastor here yet? Has everything been set up?”

“Well, yeah, but what exactly are we doing here?” one said plaintively. 

“God’s work requires a bit of trust,” Marian told them, voice stern. “A bit of trust and faith. Don’t worry. Once the Pastor gets here it’ll all make sense.”

“Yeah, but what…?”

“You’re looking a bit peaky, have you had anything to eat?” Marian cut him off. “Go on down to the buffet table and get something to eat. It’s been a long night and there’s more of God’s work to be done, bless us.”

Blackbird was pretty okay with his quota of worry right now. He honestly didn’t know what the Lightfoots were up to. Right up until this point they had cared about at least the candy coated veneer of respectability. It would be pretty hard to explain away deliberately causing a riot, especially as a lot of their compatriots were probably being arrested.

The Pastor had been very careful to keep just on the side of legal. It was easy for him to do; with enough wealthy friends, any system could be weighted in his favor without need to descend into the outright criminality of the lower classes. This was a massive change in their modus operandi and Blackbird didn’t like it one bit.

Something thumped near his feet and the cold night air rushed into the space. Blackbird closed his eyes and went limp; there was nothing to do but collect data.

He didn’t react as he was hauled out of the truck bed and dropped on the ground like a doll. “Such an ugly uniform,” was Marian’s derisive comment. “He’s not dying, is he?”

“Dunno,” someone else said. “They got hit pretty hard.”

Marian – he was pretty sure it was Marian – toed his chin with her Gucci boots and sighed irritably, like Blackbird was unconscious just to annoy her. “I’d prefer him to be awake to face his crimes. It looks bad if he’s just lying there,” she sounded petulant. “Go find somebody to wake him up. Ask if there’s a doctor here, or something.”

An actual medical doctor was statistically unlikely, Blackbird thought, given the church’s anti-mask, anti-COVID, anti-medical advice stances. The medical professionals of this burg were already taking on more than enough punishment, Blackbird didn’t think they’d come to this lunatic church just to hear their brain cells die.

He did grin internally as there were several grunts and swears. Hood was not a lightweight, even without the two hundred pounds of armor he wore. Blackbird wished these petty bourgeois landlord types all the luck in the world trying to shift his dead weight any time soon. 

Eventually someone went and sourced a wheelchair from some poor parishioner, or someone that had brought one along. Blackbird didn’t get the fun of hearing the audio-comedy of Hood being wrestled onto it; someone picked him up and ignominiously slung him over a shoulder to take him… towards the crowd noise, it sounded like. Marian hissed at her helpers to “take him round to the backstage, don’t let the crowd see him like this!” and Blackbird frowned. Backstage?

Suddenly he knew exactly where they were. They weren’t outside of Gotham. They were in the Lightfoot’s stupid revival church in the park. Which, Blackbird thought wildly, wasn’t a bad thing exactly, because it meant they were still in the city but still… why? What these people were doing didn’t make any sense.

He tried not to cry out when he was dumped on the ground but he landed on his sore side and couldn’t stop the hiss from escaping between his teeth. 

“I think he’s waking up.”

“Give him a shake.”

Someone shook him. He gave a slightly overly theatrical groan, but these people probably weren’t going to be good judges of thespian ability. He cracked open his eyes to see a panorama in the theme of middle-aged white person.

“Is he awake?” Marian demanded stridently from the back, coming in and glowering at him. “Has someone gone to get the Pastor?”

“We sent John,” a woman fluted. “And Bradley. They couldn’t find him at his apartment but they think they’ve found him now and they’re bringing him over. I can’t think why he didn’t answer his phone.”

“Honestly, he forgets to check it half the time,” Marian’s look was fond. “He gets a bit distracted with spiritual matters. Let me know the second he gets here.”

She sent a couple of them on their merry way, out into the stage area. Now that Blackbird could see properly he was able to tell that they were in a small, dim area surrounded by curtains, like a partition of drapes. Cables going to massive speakers and control consoles with switches and buttons for lighting cues and other things were packed wherever they’d fit. There were makeup bags and mirrors, a stack of what might be scripts or cue cards. There was even a costume rack, complete with a rack of crucifixes in various forms of gaudy. 

“Quite a show you’re putting on, here,” Blackbird murmured, almost to himself as Hood was rolled in, slumped in the wheelchair. They’d tied him to it, apparently.

The kick to his ribs pulled his attention back to Marian. “You’ll speak when spoken to, you lowly criminal degenerate.”

Blackbird looked at her.

Then he burst out laughing.

“You don’t have any eyebrows,” Blackbird gasped out. 

Marian, to put it bluntly, had seen better days. Oh, the multicoloured spatters of paint courtesy of Hood and the various sticky or bleached stains stains courtesy of Blackbird’s little chemical tricks would have been hilarious enough, but all Blackbird could see was that high domed forehead with the eyebrow singed to oblivion. Marian looked like she’d been in the wars. The clown wars.

Another furious kick sent him coughing and groaning. “Don’t be so rude, you disgusting little thug!”

“Really?” he gasped out, feeling his voice whispery and weakening. “You’re kicking someone already tied up and you’re going to appeal to the necessity of civilized behavior?”

Her face went an alarming shade of puce. “Violence is all you filthy leeches understand.”

Blackbird had to roll his eyes; Marian thought he was from the streets. Which, okay, in a way was technically true, but only after he’d been given the benefits and privileges of the highest upper echelons of society. Honestly, it shouldn’t surprise him. Despite being manifestly well equipped with some pretty bleeding edge toys, a lot of people in the glitterati thought Batman was some lowlife with a bit of talent and a rich sponsor, especially since it was patently obvious he defended the vulnerable and the downtrodden – the leeches, in other words. He wondered just how priceless her reaction would be if she found out her Kings of the Gutter Trash were actually people who outranked her socially.

She was never going to find out, of course, but it was a thought to warm his insides.

Blackbird firmed his throat muscles as much as he could. “I gotta know,” he croaked out. “What, exactly, is your plan here? Do you even have one?”

Marian scowled. “We want the truck.”

Blackbird blinked. “The Four & Twenty?” he rasped. All the gods, his voice was an ugly crackle. His modulator was barely hanging on.

“That’s right,” Marian nodded. “The slum dogs love it. They trust it.”

“And all that running around trying to earn their trust yourselves is such a drag,” Blackbird coughed out. “They’re just poor people, after all.”

Marian sniffed haughtily. “They’re ignorant and ungrateful, just like you. If we need a lie to get those pigs to actually stand up and try to learn to be decent citizens for a change, then, fair enough. Unbelievable as it may sound, we are trying to actually help people. They don’t know what’s best for them. We can’t coddle their bad ideas and bad habits. They’re eventually going to have to learn about working for their supper, just like everyone else.”

“Just like you?” Blackbird whispered. “Miss Heiress to the Vericomm fortune, who has a four-day-a-year job overseeing board meetings at daddy’s corporate headquarters?”

Marian rolled her eyes. “Oh, there we go. The resentful envy of the professional deadbeat, moaning about others getting things for free. My father worked for his fortune. He clawed his way up. He was a self made man…”

Blackbird bust a gut laughing. Then he looked at her face and laughed harder.

“Self made man, are you insane?” he gasped incredulously. “Dude, your dad only got to the top because your mom went to the same prep school as Vivianne Elliot. She got her parents to hand out four million worth of capital to your dad as a wedding present to her very dear friend. I mean, it wasn’t even a fucking loan. It was all theirs to keep, no taxes, no interest rates, no pay back. And your father fucking tanked his first business venture by having the business sense of a dead marmoset! So then Mister so-called self made man went back to the Elliots and begged them for more money, because that’s certainly exactly the same as gritting your teeth and slaving away for decades at a no-name job and scrimping and saving and having innovative ideas until you hit the big times! Yeah,” Blackbird snorted. “I’m sure he put in time, sweat and blood. Why, he had to stand there with his hat in his hand for minutes, whole minutes, while the Elliots pumped another five hundred large into his ass. That’s almost ten million dollars poured over him for doing exactly nothing except marrying your mom. Hell, I’d question the Elliot’s investment sense, but we all know the money was just small change to them. And everybody knows your dad’s business sense hardly improved with the great lumps of cash he ‘earned’ sucking on the Elliots’ collective dick as he did. His leadership style and expansion strategies were a joke in every finance magazine in the country. The only reason he didn’t tank Vericomm just like his first venture was that this time the Elliots had the sense to keep control of the assets!”

Okay, so his voice sounded like a robot with a smoking problem, but it somehow managed to convey his sheer scorn, going by the mottled shade of red Marian turned. 

“Gods, I always fucking love to hear about the petty bourgeois innocently clasping their hands to their chest and wailing in their autobiographies that they’re ‘self made’ and ‘worked hard’. I’m always looking for that line about three paragraphs in that mentions that they got an enormous wad of cash from the rich people that were raised up before them,” Blackbird coughed, laughing again. “Wish I had friends like that. I bet I could be a self-made man too.” He actually really didn’t. He’s been in the halls of privilege once, and while he couldn’t deny getting to excel was easy with money, it also exposed him to a lot of their shitty, entitled behavior. The so-called ‘meritocracy’ was a lie; rich people helped out rich people, and no amount of talent or drive would get you into that club if they didn’t like where you came from. 

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Marian hissed furiously. “Just because my mother had friends, doesn’t mean he didn’t put in the work and take the risks and pour in our time. He never just stood there and waited for a handout.”

“No, it was all just a happy arrangement,” Blackbird sneered. “Just luck. And yeah, you took the risks and put in the work, but here’s the thing; do you know what makes hard work easy and fun? Money. You know what makes big risks for higher rewards easier to take? Money. You know what gives people time to be innovative and self-caring and develop themselves fully and give them options about what they want to do with their lives? Money. You know what makes everything a little bit easier to deal with when the hard times come around, when people get sick or there’s a crisis, or the business fails, or the bills start stacking up? It sure as fuck isn’t working harder. It’s not having to worry about putting food on your plate and gas in your car and lying awake at night wondering how you’re ever going to pay off your medical debt. The cure is a cure-all. It’s fucking money.” Blackbird shook his head. “You’ve never worked a day in your life and treat others grinding themselves to paste on the bone for a pittance as a sign of moral character, the privilege of being able to rest of your accumulated wealth as a indicator that you were talented and wise and deserving, like you climbed a mountain through a thicket of thorns and earned the summit, like a bunch of richer idiots than you didn’t pave your way with gold and rose petals. You treat everything as something to be earned, even the most basic foundational amenities of decency. It’s a nice little racket you’ve got going there. After all, that means you can gatekeep the money and the resources for people whom you deem worthy, and let the rest of the great unwashed grind away. It’s a great failsafe, keeping people too poor and too tired and too hammered by life to know that they have the right to demand the same opportunities as you.” 

He looked her up and down scathingly. “And yet, you are ‘blessed’ right. You don’t personally make people poor. You didn’t build up the network of good old boys, who played the system so well that cheating became the norm.  None of it is your fault. You couldn’t possibly change it, despite the fact that you have the influence to whip up a mob to threaten a bunch of homeless people and struggling families and forgotten elders because you’re pissy they didn’t ask your permission to be able to eat. It’s just the way the world is, apparently.” Blackbird shook his head. “I’ve brushed up against a lot of crazy in my work – mental health services is another one of those things that poor people don’t need according to people of your class – but you take the cake on cognitive dissonance, lady. You’re just so fucking selfish you live in a different reality altogether. And they don’t make vaccines for that.”

Marian’s eyes bulged, her mouth opening and shutting soundlessly while the rest of her sycophants all stared. Then her lips pressed into a thin line. “Bold words from someone who doesn’t even have the decency to show his face!” She tore his mouth mask off and shook it in his face. “You lecture me on robbing the poor? You’re conning them into believing that whole COVID nonsense is real! Like they need you at all! You’re the one bottlenecking resources, you hypocrite!”

“... what?” Blackbird blinked at her. “Hey, ow!” he yelped as she angrily tried to take off his domino, and Blackbird wished her all the luck getting purchase on the edges or getting it off his skin without his special bespoke solvent. He’d learned masking discipline from the leaders in the field.

He could have done without her three hundred dollar manicure stabbing him in the cheeks though as she got increasingly frustrated. Grand dramatic gestures only carry with a crowd if you pull them off. She stopped trying with a huff. 

“What do you mean this COVID thing isn’t real?” Blackbird blinked at her. 

“Please,” Marian sneered. “This whole so-called crisis is just a sham. I don’t know a single person who’s gotten anything more than a bad cold yet.”

Blackbird didn’t suppose pointing out to her that not being crammed into small spaces like sardines out of necessity might help with that. Still, this was a new expression of the Lightfoots’ central tenets. The church hadn’t even been out-and-out deniers before, although there’d been plenty of ‘it’s just a bad flu’-ism and ‘old people should be okay with dying because rich people’s money’-ism. It probably wasn’t a huge leap to get to out-and-out denial.

“Months,” Marian snarled. “Months of not being able to go to a salon. Months of ungrateful pigs of maids having to be fired because they called in sick and then having to replace them again and again and again. Months of shutdowns and losing customers because they’re losing jobs, sucking our bottom line dry. Months of listening to the welfare queens moan and complain about everything, as if they ever did anything but leech off our hard earned tax dollars anyway.”

“As if you pay taxes,” Blackbird cut in with utter disdain.

She ignored this. “And it’s all some fakery to scare us into submitting to government control. I’ve had enough! As soon as the Pastor gets here, we’re going to take back this city for the hard working and the decent and we’re going to start,” she glared at him. “By making you answer for your crimes before the community.”

Then she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin and strode out onto the stage. There was cheering as she greeted the crowd and apologized; they were just waiting on the Pastor. Everything was set up? Yes? Well done everyone, it’s an example to all that we can all work to achieve things so quickly. They were nearly ready for proceedings to begin.

Blackbird didn’t like the sound of that. Vigilante justice was a morally gray enough area as it was. A vigilante legal proceeding generally devolved into a kangaroo court. He fiddled with his bonds again.

“Stop that,” one of Marian’s cronies said. “It’s already too late. Just accept it.”

“Too late for what?” Blackbird asked.

“You’ll see,” the guy grinned nastily. “We’re not standing for any of your libtard snowflake nonsense any more. Now all the sinners -– those fucking gays and the blacks and Asian and towelheads – will understand exactly what happens if they start complaining. We own this town.”

“I’m pretty sure Bruce Wayne owns this town,” Blackbird said dryly.

“Wayne’s a fucking traitor,” one of the other spat resentfully. “Sitting up there in his big house like a big man. We coulda made this town a good place to be. Instead his stupid ass got infected with all that liberal nonsense.”

“He’s so dumb he managed to become a racist against his own race,” the first one snorted. “Fucking moron. He actually believes in all that equality shit, as if those monkeys and wetbacks are the same as us. ”

“It’s fine, the dude has like one brain cell,” one of the other guys snorted. They were all much of the same type; big, military chic, lots of unnecessary guns. These guys would lumber when they moved. Blackbird made a mental note. “Once the Pastor talks him around, he’ll be on our side. Then the real fun starts. Can you imagine, having that kind of money? I bet he’s one of those guys that just hands out millions to his friends like it’s a twenty.”

“Then we’ll own this town,” the first one nodded sagely. “Then we can make things the way they ought to be. None of this shitty affirmative action fucking around, none of this kid-glove nonsense for criminals. People’ll know their place, finally. If they don’t like it boom.” His face was alight with the promise of glory. “They’ll be happier once everyone knows their place. We’ll be the ones in charges of everything. Everyone’ll have to go to church, we can get rid of all the Jews and the Muslims. We won’t have to apologize for being white anymore, no more slandering of the hard work we did building this fucking nation before a bunch of darkies and latinos and women started squawking. It’ll be a properly run town under our authority. We’ll be heroes, you’ll see.”

They all nodded.

Blackbird goggled at them. I mean, if he emptied all the rationality and common sense and just plain stochastic variables out of the universe and then closed his eyes and really tried for a hundred years, he could see a kind of insane logic to it. It was easy to believe that with Bruce Wayne on your side all the world’s problems – or at least, the small minded, decayed nostalgia for a past that never actually happened – could be fixed or sated. It was times like this you really had to accept that the Joker’s brand of crazy had but a single redeeming virtue – at least it was obvious. These guys and the rest of the church all lived amongst normal people well enough to blend.

Blackbird decided against arguing. These weren’t people that responded to logic. They were a tribe, and it was their tribe, right or wrong.

He didn’t have to, though, because the man of the hour himself – the Pastor Lightfoot – was escorted into the backstage area by a couple of hovering followers. 

Blackbird stared. He’d yet to see the Pastor in anything less than a well cut suit, dapper but with enough pop of color to remind people he was nominally ‘one of them’ rather than some guy just wearing a formal suit. He was in one of his trademark suits, but it looked like he’d dressed in the middle of a hurricane, his collars and cuffs all unbuttoned, half his shirt not tucked in and wearing soft tennis shoes, not his usual polished dress shoes.

The man himself matched his clothing theme. Even taking into account the fact that he had none of his stage makeup on he looked awful. Sweaty and pale, deep bags digging grooves under his eyes. 

Then he started coughing raucously into a handkerchief and Blackbird began to have dark suspicions. “Are you alright, there?” he asked slowly, tracing his eyes over the whole of the Pastor. There, peeking out under one cuff, was a very worrying white thing that Blackbird really hoped was not what he thought it was. “Is that a patient ID band? Did you guys take him out of a hospital?” he asked, his voice modulator squealing on the last word.

The Pastor blinked at him, looking genuinely taken aback. “What is going on here?” he rasped, looking lost. “What are these… people, doing here?” He started coughing again. “I’m afraid I’m not really well enough to...”

“Pastor Lightfoot,” Marian blitzed through the curtains like she'd been summoned, her face alight. “You’re here! Thank the Lord, come on, we’ve got to get you into your makeup and wardrobe.”

“My child, I appreciate your enthusiasm,” the Pastor said, deftly evading her hug in one smooth and natural move. “But I am a bit unwell to go out there and put on my usual polished sermons. I, uh,” he coughed into his handkerchief. “I do believe I’m losing my voice a little.”

Blackbird stared at him. He was looking incredibly shifty, and was squirming trying to stay at some distance from his followers.

“Oh,” Marian looked like a disappointed kid, but then she brightened. “Well, you don’t have to do the whole sermon, I guess. I can handle most of it.”

“That’s very kind of you,” Lightfoot said, smiling wanly.

“I’m sorry to bring you out when you’re not feeling well,” she was almost but not quite pouting. “It’s a shame you missed our glorious triumph this evening! We wondered why we couldn’t reach you!”

“He’d gone into a clinic,” one of the followers piped up helpfully. “God only knows what those bloodsucking monsters were planning on pumping into him!”

“For shame!” another added, scandalized.

“Well, now, I ain’t against all medical science,” the Pastor hedged. “Just the kind we don’t know what’s in it. What… triumph? Did you hold a meeting?”

“We sure did!” Marian said proudly, eyes alight. “We gathered for the salvation of the needy, and destroyed that nest of dependency the poor were being forced to use as soup kitchens! All of them, even the half collapsed parking garage! We were Christian soldiers, on the righteous path! We even brought these two back to answer for their crimes from the people they’ve been stealing from.”

If she was expecting a fulsome waterfall of praise to rain down on her from the Pastor, she was sorely disappointed. Lightfoot looked genuinely aghast, eyes darting from the trussed up Blackbird to the still unconscious Hood, back to his bright eyed follower. “Destroyed how? You mean to tell me you resorted to violence?”

Marian’s brow wrinkled in puzzlement. “Of course? They are but filth and disease, a blot on the moral goodness of this town. We had to fight, fighting is all they understand! What do we do when faced with the unbeliever?” she asked the people all standing around.

“Smite them!” they cheered.

Her beaming smile drained when she looked back at the Pastor’s face.

“With words,” he said sternly. “With education, with prayer! Not a raised fist or a stick or a gun! We’re better than that! Better than them! Putting a bunch of poor people in hospital… that looks incredibly bad for us!”

Marian gaped at him. “But we had to do something! They were stealing from us! Our hard earned–”

Blackbird snorted audibly.

“–and honestly paid for food and goods were being stolen by those… those leeches!” Marian glared at him. “There’s only so much to go around, and it’s up to us to ensure it’s distributed fairly to those that have really earned it! They insulted the very notion of a civilized society and tarnished their mortal souls! We’re trying to help them!”

Blachbirk snorted louder.

“You won’t be so insolent when you have to actually face the people you stole from,” Marian whipped around on him furiously.

“Oh yeah?” Blackbird rasped. “When are you planning on fronting court for all the taxes Vericomm dodged over the years?”

Marian went puce with fury and she moved to kick him again.

“Marian! That’s enough!” the Pastor barked, then started coughing fit to burst. “I shouldn’t be here,” he muttered once it subsided. “They shouldn’t be here. I’m grateful for your enthusiasm, but we really should be sending our poor flock home.”

Marian turned petulant. “But we went to so much trouble...”

“They shot a nun and everything,” Blackbird murmured.

“And those ungrateful people are still fighting out best efforts to help,” Marian ignored him, although the Pastor looked aghast. “Don’t you see, we cannot simply be people of peace, not if we want to win. We must be Christian soldiers, taking up the sword and the shield of righteousness.”

Lightfoot looked bewildered. “Marian, my dear. Are you alright?”

She blinked at him, and then was wreathed in smiles. “Of course, Pastor. You’re here! Come on, someone help him with his makeup. We need to get ready for the execution!”

“Execution…?” Lightfoot said weakly.

“The sinners and the wrongdoers must be given a firm hand,” she intoned. “This is the only kind of message that they’ll listen to. Without Blackbird and his thug enforcer, the people they prey on will finally be able to see the glorious light of salvation.”

“... Right?” Lightfoot said weakly.

“Come, let’s get your stage wardrobe…”

“No!” Lightfoot held up his hands, wheezing. “No, no. I’ll… I’ll do it myself. This is… a legal proceeding, is it not?” His bloodshot eyes darted.”

“Yes? Of course,” Marian said, puzzled. “We do not flaunt God's command for justice.”

“Yes, yes, naturally,” Lightfoot dredged up a smile. “But there is something I must therefore do. Where I come from condemned men are allowed spiritual visitations, in order that they are given every chance to confess and repent. I think that, wayward though they are,” he glanced at the trussed up pair. “Every man should be given such a right. We do not wish to be less than just, agreed? Even for the least of us.”

That seemed to stymie Marian’s passive vindictiveness. “Well, I suppose that’s true…” she said slowly, clearly dubious of the vigilantes’ hopes of doing anything but burn in a righteous hell.

“Good! Now, all of you,” the Pastor shook his hands at them, his avuncular manner someone ruined by his wheezy coughing. “Off you go. Confessionals are private.”

“But!”

“I hardly think they’re going to try anything! After all, you’ve restrained them very well,” Lightfoot gave a wan smile. “Go on. I’ll… see to my makeup in the meantime. Maybe lead the others in a singalong, they always enjoy that. Off you go now,” he chivvied them all out, leaving him nominally alone in the backstage area.

Some of the glitter dropped as soon as his disciplines were out of sight. Lightfoot staggered into his makeup chair, wheezing.

“You’re COVID positive, aren’t you?” Blackbird said flatly. “You were seeking treatment. Do they know?”

“I told them I was ill,” the Pastor groaned. “They don’t believe COVID is real! What could I tell them? They wouldn’t listen when I said I couldn’t leave the clinic!”

“Gee, I wonder why they don’t think COVID is real?” Blackbird said sarcastically, trying to draw back from the Pastor as much as possible. He was with an infected case and had no facemask on and no power to social distance. Awesome.

“You’ve got to help me,” Lightfoot was sweating buckets. “Something’s wrong with them! They’re not acting rationally!”

Blackbird gaped at him. “Rationally?! You wanted them irrational! You’ve been feeding them line after line of bullshit for months, winding up all their worst fears and benedicting all their worst and most bigoted impulses! You kept telling them that they were special and blessed, that society's rules didn’t have to apply to them! Of course they’re fucking irrational! Irrational takes no effort! And it sure as hell got your bank account nice and padded!”

“Oh all that work, salvation, glory stuff doesn’t mean anything!” Lightfoot waved that away. “They’re bored rich people who still think they belong in the middle class and are looking for some entertainment like all the really wealthy get to have. Look around in the upper crusts, look how much nutso faux-religious lifestyle cosplaying they subscribe to. Everyone’s looking for meaning, especially if they can buy it. That’s all this is. It was no different than having them buy tickets to the theater, for Christ’s sake!”

“Yeah, except when you buy a ticket to the damn theatre none of the damn actors are going to stand there and pretend that anything that’s going on onstage is actually fucking real! You sell lies to the highest bidder, you don’t even care what they do with them or who they hurt with them once the collection plate is back in your hands! Why the hell would I help you?” Blackbird asked angrily.

“Because I can help you too!” Lightfoot said swiftly. “Look, I keep telling you, these people aren’t like this normally! They’re out for blood!”

“That’s what happens when you wind people up until they can’t think past the fear,” Blackbird scorned him. “You’ve been telling these people they’re surrounded by enemies for months. You told them they’re at war! They’re wound up like clockwork soldiers! Of course they’re out for blood! They’ve already spilt it!”

Coughs spewed from Lightfoot like he was an erupting volcano. 

Blackbird shook his head in disgust. “You need to go back to your clinic. Tell them you’re too sick to continue.”

“I can’t,” Lightfoot croaked dismally. “I must have caught it from someone here. I need to try to convince them to go home, at least.”

Blackbird blinked. “What?”

“I don’t want these people to get sick,” Lightfoot insisted hoarsely, turning around to try to fix his stage makeup with shaky fingers. “I never wanted anyone to get hurt. And since they dragged me here anyway, I have to try something to see if I can save them from themselves.” His eyes darted to Blackbird’s open mouthed stare in the mirror. He smiled thinly at him.”Believe or not, young man, I really do believe in God. I was born again in prison. I wanted everyone to know how good the Light felt. It made me feel better too. Got me off the bottle. It was a good time, raising tents and preaching. These are my flock. I can’t abandon them now.”

“You’ve been spewing a bunch of prosperity gospel, the-rich-are-blessed nonsense at them for months, Pastor,” Blackbird said flatly. “Months. They don’t even believe COVID is real, remember? Or if they do, they think some ancient magical fairy is going to swoop down and protect them, while at the same time giving them a nice bit of theater in making a bunch of other people suffer and die, as if that is any kind of moral viewpoint. Forgive me, but it doesn’t seem like you care for much except the fact that if your flock dies, there goes your bottom line. How many cars do you own, now, by the way?” Blackbird added sarcastically.

Lightfoot shrugged. “Son, prosperity gospel has been the perennial psy-op mindfucking America since the post-war boom. All those middle class white folks out there? They’ve been on the receiving end of it for decades. All I’m doing is echoing the point. And I echo them, because it’s the only way to make ‘em sit down and listen to me. Talking down to ‘em from atop a mountain of science ain’t any way to get someone to listen to you. Look at you. You’ve been feedin’ ‘em and repeating again and again wash your hands and stay distanced and this is what science says. How many have really believed you? How many have just nodded their heads and gone on to do what they do anyway?”

“Helping them climb that mountain is a hell of a lot more useful than keeping them ignorant on the ground,” Blackbird spat, because he hated to admit it, the Pastor wasn’t wrong.

“See, that’s where you made your mistake,” Lightfoot started caking on his makeup, not that there was much he could do about his ghastly complexion. “That’s how I could tell you really weren’t one of them. You came from money right? I can tell by your diction if nothing else. Your intentions are noble, but you can’t expect people to listen to you talking down to them. You’ve gotta try to meet them wherever they are. Plenty of poor folk come to my church, you know? I mean I ain’t gonna say that I don’t like my network of donors, of course I do, but people, they come to me for comfort. For solace.”

“And to keep them you feed them a bunch of lies because you can’t be bothered making an effort to at least try to tell them the truth,” Blackbird shook his head. “Please don’t try your glittery paternalism on me, Lightfoot. Don’t try to con me into thinking that the few sand grains of honor you have somehow makes up for the rest of it. Like that even balances the scales in the slightest.”

“You don’t think I want to do the right thing?” the Pastor asked shrewdly. “That I have no capacity to change, or to change them? That seems awfully narrow minded of you, young man.”

“Just how many of your ex-wife’s medical bills have you paid with your considerable ‘donations’, considering you maimed her and gave her a TBI on your journey to enlightenment?”

The Pastor’s fingers hesitated on his face. He stared at Blackbird in the reflection of the mirror.

“Yeah,” Blackbird said quietly. “That’s what I thought.”

“That issue is… complicated,” Lightfoot admitted.

“It’s really not, Hiram,” Blackbird retorted. “But ‘complicated’ is the dogwhistle people like you blow whenever the truth doesn’t make you look good. So you want to go out there and try reason and sense on this mob of fools after telling ‘em for months that they ‘knew the truth’ and the truth is whatever makes them feel good about themselves? Go right ahead. I can’t wait to see how that works out for you. But don’t you pretend to me for a single moment that it’s anything more than a rat in a corner, suddenly realizing you need their money to survive so you have a vested interest in them not dying. If you had other revenue streams, if it would net you another cold million, you’d go out there and peddle whatever it took to get them to give it to you, including that they’re white and Christian and that somehow makes them fucking invincible. You can make all the grand gestures you want, but at the end of the day you’re just another organ grinder, turning the crank and snatching pennies. They’re wealthy and entitled. If they don’t like your music, they’ll find some other piper to play for them. You’re as disposable to them as everything else.”

“You underestimate their faith, and their desire to do good works,” Lightfoot rasped. “Watch and learn, young man. This is how you change hearts and minds. Lenny!” he croaked out of the curtains. “Come help me with these young men, can you?”

Which is how Blackbird found himself bundled onto the stage and cuffed to one of the tent poles, struggling and furiously telling them to leave Hood alone, because he was still unconscious and couldn’t defend himself. The Pastor just had him wheeled out there anyway, although they didn’t truss him up like they did Blackbird; probably because maneuvering Hood around while a dead weight in bindings and full armor would have looked ridiculous.

People booed and jeered at him and Hood, and there was a range of projectiles thrown, mostly plastic cups filled with drinks but also some food and fruit too. Blackbird grimaced at the sheer wastefulness of it, those grinning and sneering faces carelessly throwing good food away like it was nothing. 

“Now, now, that’s enough of that!” The magic of audio equipment made the Pastor’s raspy voice boom in a credible imitation of his usual jolly tones. “We’re decent people, not fruit throwing savages.”

“Well they wanted food,” someone jeered. “Let’s give it to ‘em!”

There was laughter and more stuff thrown. Marian cheerfully balanced an apple on top of Hood’s head to the raucous laughter of the crowd. Pyrotechnic jets of flame went off in front of the stage, which made plenty of people jump, Blackbird and the Pastor included.

“Well, now,” Lightfoot blinked. “I see we’ve added some flare for tonight’s sermon. A little flare never did anyone any harm, I suppose.” He grinned madly into the cheering crowd. “But first, let us pray and rejoice!”

While they did… various singalongs and the Pastor worked the crowd, Blackbird’s eyes narrowed at the pyrotechnics. Those weren’t just stage sparklers, they were proper flame throwers, fuelled with propane. Each nozzle was set at either end of the stage but his engineering eye caught the tracks that would allow them to move closer together if someone wanted it.

He felt a trickle of foreboding. It was not a happy one.

Lightfoot was an excellent speaker, and if he wasn’t currently spraying a potentially infected spittle in all directions, Blackbird would grudgingly admire his adlibbing skills. He threw together a brief sermon on the fly, about the value of their community works and their mission to convert the unbelievers and a lot of other gibberish and waffling dressed up in expensive words. 

To be fair, it did seem to calm the crowd down a little. He did have a certain cadence in his voice that inspired a response. Blackbird had, in his vanishingly small idle moments in the past, tentatively essayed the possibility that the Pastor was some kind of low level meta in that regard, and seeing him unwinding the fired up crowd put a tentative point towards the truth of it, but honestly, even if he was it hardly mattered. This rabble would listen to anyone, provided they got told what they wanted to hear.

A fact that was proven true when, after an amazing amount of charisma soaked blather, the good Pastor felt safe enough to draw attention to the two masks on the stage. Hood was still out – Blackbird was legitimately concerned by this time – and Blackbird had kept still and quiet, so he’d somewhat been temporarily written into the background by the Pastor’s stagecraft.

“Now, my good people,” Lightfoot mopped his forehead again. He was not looking too good. “My fine, upstanding citizens of Gotham. We have here tonight two wayward souls, looking for redemption and guidance. There was a great conflagration earlier tonight…”

“A glorious triumph over evil,” Marian crowed to the crowd’s eager roar. She’d been on the stage, covering for the Pastor when he had his coughing fits and giving the audience cues to follow. Blackbird wondered if there wasn’t a little smell of failed stage and screen ambitions hovering around her.

“A necessary,” Lightfoot coughed again. “A necessary triumph, perhaps. I don’t hold with violence being glorious, you know. After all, we are all decent people, we stand with our brothers in blue. Some of whom are here this very night! I think we can all agree that making their lives more difficult is not a godly ambition!”

“Oh, Pastor, this is Gotham! They’re used to trouble!” Marian laughed.

Lightfoot theatrically scratched his head while the crowd laughed along with the comedy show. “Well, now, that’s the truth and I can’t deny it. But one gets used to corns, too.” He gave an exaggerated grimace and minced his feet. “Doesn’t mean I like them!”

The crowd was screaming with laughter. Lightfoot grinned charmingly and winked, sweat pouring off his face. “Now I wonder, though, what we should do now. After all, there’s been a lot of pain and suffering tonight on both sides. What we have here is a grand opportunity, I think!”

“They must pay for their crimes! Who’s with us?” Marian bellowed and the crowd roared its approval. A resounding chorus of ‘Kill the demon! Kill the demon!’ started up like a wave.

“Now hold on here, folks, hold on!” Lightfoot struggled to get his voice to hit a volume to beat the crowd. “Now just calm down. We are decent people. Don’t you agree?” The crowd roared and affirmative. “God fearing?” Another cheer. “Dedicated to good works?” And thunderous work, salvation, glory! Answered him. “Good! Glad we’re all on the same page. Now, I don’t know ‘bout you lot but in my neck of the woods no one can just go around killing folks willynilly. Even the evil doers, even the murderers themselves. Now, don’t get me wrong. I understand your anger. All this need and want, sur-surrounding us…” he had to stop to cough. “All the regulations and those damn tax gatherers, pinching pennies from hard working folk. It gets me a bit hot under the collar myself, no lie! But where I come from even the worst of us gets a trial. Seems to me this is no different!”

Someone stood up. “They stole from us! Looted our stores!”

“They threatened us! They assaulted us on the streets!”

“We earned what we got! They’re just filthy leeches!”

“We cannot,” Marian chimed in through her own microphone. “Let this insolence continue. If they will not listen to reason, we must show them the consequences of their actions!”

“Yes, yes, yes, yes,” Lightfoot hurriedly shoved himself in the way of yet another frenzied appeal to violence. “But that’s what I mean! We have a golden opportunity here! Civilized to uncivilized! We have the opportunity to show them all that we are decent people, that no matter our… little passions on the streets, we do give everyone a fair say. Yes? We are Americans, after all!”

There was some cheering, because the response was automatic. But there was a growing hubbub of talking and muttering. Marian shot the Pastor a strange look. “But they have wronged and sinned and wronged again, without remorse!” she argued back. “What is left for us but to take a firm stance? They have no interest in saving their own souls!”

Lightfoot wavered a little on his feet. He seemed to understand he was losing the crowd. “Well now, I just want to make sure we do this right,” he rasped. “For the sake of our souls.”

There was more hubbub and murmuring. The crowd was restless.

“It is self-evident what they have done!” Marian shouted over the crowd. “We must strike a blow for justice!” The crowd cheered. “If they are to be tried, then let them be tried by the ones they have wronged!” Another cheer. Have they shown remorse for their crimes?” The crowd answered No! “Have they asked for forgiveness?” No! “Have they stolen and hoarded for themselves goods which did not rightfully belong to them?” Yes! “Are we going to stand for that, Christian soldiers, warriors in the army of God?” No!

And then the refrain. Kill the demon! Kill the demon! Kill the demon! Marian was exultant, her eyes glittering in the stage lights. “You see? The people have spoken!” More cheers.

“Every man!” the Pastor bellowed with every bit of air he could wheeze. “Every man should be given the chance to repent! Everyone should have the chance to rise up! This boy right here,” he waved a hand over Blackbird. “Is just that, a boy! The Hood I can’t speak for, but this is a mere child and children are often wayward. I think he should be given a chance to repent!”

“What.” Blackbird’s voice was flat, even without his fritzing voice modular.

“What say you?” Lightfoot put before the crowd. “Would you kill a mere child, who repents and resolves to do better? I still believe there’s some good in him. If he repents and turns the infernal devices which he has used on his wayward path over to the church, I believe that would put him on the righteous path. If the people he inveigled into following him should see such an apology, I believe their conversion would well be nigh. After all, he may be a wayward and confused child, but he earned the respect of the idle and the wastrel. People we can help, so long as we can convince them that we act for their glory. What say you?”

It was a pretty attractive carrot. The might of the Four & Twenty, with Blackbird kneeling before the church and giving them a free recruitment drive in the bargain. Even Marian couldn’t deny that this would be useful to them in the long run. There was money in the Lightfood Initiative, especially if they increased their market share, and Blackbird didn’t think for a second anyone here had forgotten that.

There was more muttering and grumbling – the crowd wanted to sate their hunger for vengeance with something and forgiveness, to them, probably didn’t seem much of a meal. But Marian had no counterargument, although you could see the effort of trying to find one working under the twitching muscles under her jaw. “Well then,” she threw her head back. “Let us hear him repent, then! Repent!” she jabbed a long finger nail at him. “And be saved!’

“Are you fu–!” was as far as a furious Blackbird got before the Pastor, showing a pretty good grasp of sleight of hand, reached up with a flailing, expansive gesture and yanked out his voice modulator. Blackbird wheezed in surprise as Lightfoot palmed it into his suit. “Let me just see if I can convince him, man to boy.”

He leaned in close enough for Blackbird to feel his breath ghosting across his face and wasn’t that a discomforting sensation, knowing what he knew. He leaned away. “What are you doing?” he would have hissed if he could do more than whisper.

“I noticed you having a little trouble in that area,” the Pastor kept his shiny stage smile on but up close the makeup did nothing to hide his ghoulish complexion or the acres of sweat. “Look, I’m trying to help you here,” he hissed as he theatrically fumbled his microphone to make it look like he was readying it for Blackbird’s announcement. “Just say you repent. Tell ‘em you’re sorry, that you’ll join the cause. They’ll have to let you go! It doesn’t have to be the truth. Once you leave you can do whatever you want! Just tell them what they want to hear! I’m begging you!” The Pastor pleaded, breath wheezing. At least he turned away to cough, but he was too damn close to Blackbird for Blackbird to feel sanguine about it.

But then Lightfoot held up the microphone to Blackbird’s mouth. The crowd quietened down expectantly, phones all running. 

Fine. Blackbird would tell these people what they wanted to hear.

“I am very sorry,” for the first four words, anyway. “That I tried to help people who actually needed it instead of you racist, bigoted privileged idiots. I’m sorry that you all need to throw messy tantrums because you all miss your slaves working for you for a pittance while their rent money lines your coffers! I’m sorry that money couldn’t buy you the safety you thought it would, because you can’t buy anything to keep a fucking virus away from you and you resent the idea of making even the smallest, most miniscule effort to help anyone except people who are exactly like you! I am sorry,” he added viciously, leaning into the microphone when the wavering and shocked Pastor tried to swing it away. “That you think a Google search is the same as a PhD and you keep trying to find some magical remedy and nothing. You. Do. Is. Working! Or will ever work! I’m sorry that taking the time to actually think through your decisions and take other people into consideration is such a lot of energy and effort! And I am very, very sorry that nothing is ever enough for you assholes! It’s everything all the time, or you’re being persecuted in the Holocaust, no inbetween! And I am most sorry that I can’t just build you your own fucking planet where you can all get stranded on – a desert planet, with no fucking resources – where you can spend the rest of your lives doing just about the only three things you’ve ever been actually good at: fucking around, finding out, and living off other people. In the meantime? Y’all can go fuck yourselves!” The Pastor snatched the microphone away finally, after freezing in horror at Blackbird’s font of scathing contempt. Too late.

“Look at him!” Marian shrieked triumphantly into her microphone. “Insolent! Ungrateful! Without remorse! Is this the kind of feral animal we should open our arms to? One cannot make a leech love, Pastor. For the sake of our children and our city, we have to do something about this scourge! This plague upon it!”

There was a thunderous roar of approval.

“Now wait–!” was as far as the Pastor got before he started drowning in coughs. Blackbird did his best to turn away, but there was no getting out of the man’s vicinity. “Wait a minute. Hold on here. Just what are your plans here?” he rasped.

“Simple!” Marian gestured to someone off stage. Something clunked and squeaked under Blackbird’s feet as some mechanism under the stage was activated. Slowly the two propane jets they’d rigged as part of the show tonight trundled together in front of the stage, ominously close. Enough room for, say, a person to fit between.

Oh boy, Blackbird thought.

“He is an unrepentant criminal, a plague upon this city! He will not confess, he will not repent! It is up to us to strike a blow against evil! We will remove the infection on this city!” she said with relish. “And cauterize the wound clean!” Someone at the controls understood stage cues. A couple of jets of flame shot out.

“You can’t do that!” Lightfoot croaked, aghast. “That’s murder. That ain’t protest or civil disobedience! That’s straight up murder!”

“They wouldn’t have done any less to us!” Marian yelled back stridently. “We didn’t start the war! But it is a war! War demands soldiers!”

The Pastor was struggling to breathe. “So you’d… make your neighbors and friends… murderers,” he rasped. “Mrs DeVore right there, who keep pictures of her cats on her dresser and babysits her neighbor’s grandchildren when the poor man hits the bottle too hard? What about you Larry? You got children to go home to... what… are…” he coughed and coughed. “What are you… gonna tell them… about what you got up to tonight? And Miz Rachele, who prays for the soul of her sister, in the hospital now… what… what…” he couldn’t get the words out, coughing so hard he collapsed to his knees, dropping in the mic and coughing too hard to speak.

There was an awkward, mumbling silence. Marian’s face softened. “Someone help the Pastor backstage please? He’s clearly not well enough for this. He’s delirious.”

Many hands grasped the wheezing, choking man and hauled him up. His lips were darkening from lack of oxygen. That couldn’t be good.

Blackbird wished he couldn’t feel the man’s spittle on his face. It wasn’t a comforting sensation. “Take him to a hospital,” he said, but the words were an anemic whisper, his precious voice modulator now gone. “He’s dying.”

No one could hear him over the rising hubbub of the crowd. 

“Let us all have a minute’s silent prayer for the health of our dear Pastor Lightfoot,” Marian took up the main microphone. “I’m sure we wish him a speedy recovery from his cold.”

Cold, Blackbird thought in disbelief. Yeah, right. He wasn’t sure even all of the crowd swallowed that wholesale. He saw a lot of worried whispering and murmuring going on on the edges. COVID had to have touched at least a few of these people, even indirectly. They knew what it looked like. It was hard to maintain the fantasy of it being just like the flu faced with the Pastor being carted off-stage struggling for air. Blackbird hoped that one of these people would at least have enough sense to call a damn ambulance.

But he was in no position to help Lightfoot. The ominous little propane jet nozzles were shiny and glowing and pressed close together, and Marian’s eyes had all the fervor of a zealot who finally had a tangible evil to slay. 

“Amen,” Marian’s voice cut across the worried susurrus. “I am sure the Pastor will be back to leading our march to glory in no time. But now,” her face took on a look of sad resolution. “But now, Christian soldiers, we must do what must be done. This sinner right here,” she gestured grandly to Blackbird. “He comes before us remorseless, impenitent, and ungrateful. His pitiless scrounging and relentless attacks upon our church are self-evident, his sins are indisputable! He had stolen what rightfully belonged to us, snatched the food from our very mouths and used it to feed a cabal of people who think they have the right to leech off of us, our hard working, self-made, decent people, even after we tried to help!”

There was a growing roar from the crowd.

“He was given the chance to confess!” Marian exulted not that the mob was back to being steered. “Did he confess?”

No!

“He was given a chance to repent!” Marian’s voice rang out. “Did he repent?”

NO!

“Then, my good friends, my fellow christian soldiers, there is no saving someone who does not wish to be saved. He will not see the light, so therefore he must be a martyr! He must be made an example of, before it’s too late to save the people he has beguiled into helping him! What say you, good people? Is he guilty!”

YES!

“Should he be punished?”

YES!

“What is the punishment for such pure and unapologetic evil?!” Marian whipped the frenzy expertly. “Is it prison? We all know the prisons are a revolving door,” she spat. “Is it therapy? Ha!” she scorned. “As if he deserves the privilege of such attention or care, when he showed none to others! This is war!” she punched the air. “This is war! This is war!” The crowd started to echo her, this is war, this is war. “And enemy combatants are put to death!”

The roar of approval was thunderous.

Oh hells bells, now someone was cutting through the ties holding him to the pole. His hands were still tied behind his back, so fighting Marian’s beefy acolytes off was an impossible task. Blackbird had never had the kind of training that would have made him a fighter of the Bats’ caliber. He jerked angrily in their grasping arms as he was dragged forward towards the propane jets, thinking he might be able to surprise them with a footstomp or a kick delivered at the right moment, but what then? His advantage had always been gadgetry, which had been stolen from him. He had no other…

… wait. He had one other weapon, didn’t he? 

He’d literally never used it, never thought of using it, and a part of him didn’t want to use it now because it was, at best, wildly unstable and there were plenty of people here – ignorant, stupid and small minded though they were – that would at the very least be severely hurt by it, if not killed. Granted, sticking to the Bats’ no-kill creed hadn’t exactly been a leap for him, he’d never really engaged in the kind of fight that would make possible death an imminent and vital choice, but he’d always, in his heart, thought he had a duty to stick to that creed even if it was unlikely to ever actually be in question.

Only now it was really fucking in question. His suit was barely fire resistant, and not fireproof. His hair and face were mostly bare skin, his wrist and ankle sleeves weren’t sealed to his boots or gloves. It would take him a good long time to burn, but he would burn.

“We will cleanse the scourges from the city of Gotham!” Marian announced triumphantly as the crowd laughed at his struggles. “We will become the force for good, lancing the infections and healing the wounds of evil! We will feed the poor and raise them up to actual, functioning members of society! This city has been without a firm hand long enough!” The crowd cheered. “We shall be that firm hand! We will take this city into our loving arms, away from the wastrels and corrupt grasping hands that hold it! We will remake it in our image, a paradise for good, decent, Christian people, people whom the likes of Bruce Wayne will applaud! No more praying! No more soft touch! We will be the burning sword that cauterizes the wound! We will be the example for the rest of the world to follow! And if they are too blinded by their own greed and selfishness, then we will take up our arms and fight the righteous fight too! And we will win! No longer will be be forced to coddle the weak and the inferiors, the mud people and the conniving Asian and the terrorists! No longer will we pay the way for the grasping immigrant, the blasphemer, the sinful gay, and the welfare queen! We will be the ones in charge of this town, not them! And we’ll be leading it to glory! This is a war and if we are faithful, we will win it! Shall we fight? Who’s with me!”

The road of fight! Fight! Fight! Whited out all other sounds.

Except…. except...

“And then what?”

Chapter Text

Blackbird jumped. He couldn’t actually spin around because he was trussed up like a turkey, but he did crane his head around. “Hood!”

Hood was awake and for all that he was currently tied to a chair, he didn’t look particularly bothered. Mind you, it was pretty hard to tell with his helmet on, but still there was an insouciant tilt to it that spoke to just how little he considered these guys a threat. 

The big guys near him all shuffled in surprise and drew guns, but Hood didn’t even appear to notice them.

“And then what?” he repeated, not taking his eyes off Marian’s. His voice modulator in the helmet was something else; it was enough to ring out even over the din of Marian and her frenzied followers. Hood didn’t drop his gaze even when the quiet bloomed out.

Finally one guy replied. “And then what, what?”

“After you’ve taken over the city, blah blah, Good Fundamentalist Christian Theocracy, blah blah, Constitution, what Constitution blah, blah, fucking blah. You’re taken over, you’re the Big Cheese In Town, all that shit. What. The fuck. Then?” Hood asked, voice flat and metallic.

They all looked at each other. “Well,” Marian fumbled slightly, because even tied to a wheelchair it was perfectly obvious who the alpha male of the room was; he had that effect on women. “We run it. Properly. Like it should be. We could even expand from the example we could set in Gotham,” her voice firmed. “That’s right! All of America could learn from the example we set!”

“Expand, like, the Great Confederate Principality of… fuck, God Lovin’ Christian Soldiers or some such shit?” Hood asked mockingly. “That’s what you want?”

“Why not?” Marian stuck her chin out defiantly. “Someone has to take back control from the weak willed, cowardly government that punishes us for success and rewards the failures! If the only way to cleanse the slate is with a war, then let it be a war!”

There was some murmuring of agreement.

Hood cocked his head. “People die in wars. You do know that, right?”

“Some death is necessary for change!”

There was somewhat less murmuring of agreement.

“Okay,” Hood nodded. “Fine. It’s a war. Speaking as one who’s, you know, actually fought in a couple of those, I gotta know; what strategic targets are you planning to seize and how? What are your personnel numbers, how are you gonna train them all? How are you gonna keep control of the people who don’t wanna join your little playtime army? What’s your local intelligence network like? Who are your native assets; local guides, spies, intelligence array? How are you going to fortify each zone to control the population movement? And when you’re ‘in control’,” Hood could somehow do air quotes with both his hands tied. “When you’re running this fucking joint and everyone has to look to you to make the decisions, what then? What’s your strategy vis a vis taxes, regulations, budgets? How are you gonna run the elections, how are you gonna make sure that sanitation and education, medical services, food chains, utility supply and infrastructure, construction permits and roadworks, all that shit, still keeps running? Because let me tell you, that boring, shitty, day-to-day civilization machine isn’t automated. It doesn’t run itself. People and networks and money does that.”

Hood’s eyes traveled knowingly over the crowd. “Is that too banal for you to worry about?” he asked sweetly. “You just wanna tote guns and nothing else? Fine. How are you gonna pay for the equipment for your righteous little cosplay army? Because goodness knows only the army gets away with paying the lowest bid and the kind of population size you’re looking to control means you’re gonna need some seriously righteous deterrents. Big fucking guns, all the fucking time, especially if you’re eyeing up the gang turfs. Without black market cred, that’s gonna hit you assholes right in the hip pocket. Or,” he added thoughtfully. “You wanna take the economical route and just magically make laws against people you don’t like instead? Okay, fine. Par for the course for people in your tax bracket, fair enough. How, though? What’s the plan? Are you gonna hang on through every subcommittee and judicial review in the local legislature and do you think the target population is just gonna wait patiently and leave you alone until you’ve got your legal ducks in a row? That sounds chancey and fucking slow. Unless you wanna buy the law? Sure, okay. Everyone does that in Gotham. But that’s kinda the problem again, see? They’re used to that. Cops and politicians and judges in this town are discerning corrupt assholes. They’ve been at this game for decades and they don’t get bought cheap. And even if you could find the cash and the set up, and even if the cops wouldn’t sell you out to six different other masters after they take your money, how are you planning to actually enforce your fucking laws against the mob families and the gangs and the Rogues and, fuck, people like me? Because if the cops and, hell, the fucking vigilantes too, haven’t managed with their top-of-the-line shit, just how well do you think you’re gonna do with bibles and sermons?”

Marian’s mouth opened and closed.

“And speaking of the Rogues, what the fuck are you planning on actually doing about the damage they create?” Hood continued mockingly. “Because guess what? When you’re in fucking charge you gotta worry about that shit. It’s not like Joker gas in the water supply or a bunch of Two Face’s bomb damage gets fixed by magical faeries. You’re on top, now that’s your fucking problem to deal with. And you better act fast because some of those assholes? They go after people on top on a regular, extremely bloody basis, and once you’ve stepped up to the plate, guess who’s in the firing line?”

“We’ll, well,” Marian fumbled for an answer, because the crowd all turned to her for one. It wasn’t like she could dispute it; the regular wipeouts of even mid-level Gotham city officials couldn’t be conspiracy theoried away even by the most dedicated theorist. It was just too well known. “We’ll call in the army! Martial law! A firm hand will do wonders!” she assured the crowd.

“You’ll call in the army,” Hood said with the slow deliberation of one facing an idiot. “Of the government you are currently sort-of-not-really-but-really-really trying to secede from, to fix your problems?” He let them stew in the embarrassed silence that followed. “Yeah, okay. Let me know how that works out for you.”

There was something about Hood, Blackbird thought with some admiration. Maybe it was that he’d been a theater kid in a past life and that instinct had carried. Maybe it was just sheer animal charisma of one who can be shackled to a wheelchair but still, somehow command the attention of an entire crowd. All these hooting howler monkeys playing at being the alpha male knew, in their hind brain, a real alpha male when they saw one. They shut up when he spoke. They listened. It was mesmerizing to watch.

Marian was going steadily redder. “We would hardly need the army!” Oh good, now she was mixed messaging, excellent strategy for keeping the crowd focused. “We are our own army! Every single one of these people would fight to the death against the likes of villains like you!”

Okay, that did get some cheers, true. But Blackbird could read the subtle strain on some people’s faces. A lot of these people were boomer-aged. They’d spent decades weathering Rogue attacks and a lot of just plain awful Gotham ugliness. They knew what people who bravely stood up to the corruption in this town tended to end up looking like. 

Blackbird wasn’t so sure Marian’s call to martyrdom was landing quite as smoothly as she perhaps thought it did. Maybe she just didn’t care. She was a true believer. She’d lived in castles her whole life, and had the very feudal attitude that came with them.

“And besides, Bruce Wayne will help us!” Marian added stridently. “When he sees what we are doing, he’ll make every effort to help! He’s a good, decent, Christian man, he merely needs to be shown the light!”

Blackbird and Hood looked at each other.

They both erupted into huge, heaving sobs of laughter. 

It was probably the adrenaline, Blackbird mused between coughing fits of giggles. And exhaustion. And just plain being done with all of these banal, neurotic, milksop wannabe villains that were somehow more insidious and dangerous than any patient that ever walked out of Arkham, Joker excepted. Their total and complete rejection of reality and all its wonderful intricacies and challenges and complications in exchange for the most cotton candy, sickly, three-year-old-with-a-box-of-crayons fantasy was just so, so funny in this moment.

“Oh my god, you’re actually serious!” Hood burst out incredulously as Marian stood awkwardly in her spotlight, slowly turning puce as Hood began to laugh harder. 

The crowd was shifting restlessly. They were all looking at her and each other for cues. Nothing stymied a supremacist quite like laughter. 

Nothing made them madder, either. Marian, boiling with rage stalked over and made to… well, whatever it was, she hesitated. Then she turned around and gave a ringing slap to Blackbird. Ah, right. Righteous anger was a powerful force, but Blackbird didn’t like the odds of her hand against Hood’s helmet either. Honestly, she had an arm on her. Must be all that praying.

“You insolent little–!”

“Hey, Maizie, sweetheart,” Hood tilted his head at her, laughter fading away. The edge in his voice scythed right through her head of steam. “Do that again and they’ll only find enough of your body to know that you’re dead. And your husband. One little bomb under the Merc’s chassis and it’s bye-bye wife bonus. And your husband’s mistress too, though honestly, that poor girl puts up with so much fucking freaky daddy porn shit from him, I’m tempted to let her take all the stuff he’s bought her and run. And your parents, let’s not forget them. Your dad’s golf game really suffered because of the gout, huh? He still goes on the regular, though. Long walks on an expansive green, alone? Shit happens on golf courses all the time. Is your mom still mainlining valium? Dude, the amount of illicit shit I could get to her, she’d be a raging PCP lunatic with her brains burnt out of her skull before I’m done with her. And your sister? I’d never touch her, she’s a kid. I might get her into fucking therapy after dealing with her fucking pedophile of a piano teacher. Cutting herself to cope with how that asshole made her feel while you all cheerfully ignore her hasn’t done that girl any fucking good in the world. I think if I handed her the match, she’d set fire to the family home herself. Go on, try me. Try me and see,” he dared her.

Marian was fishmouthing at him. “How do you kn–” she stopped, her eyes darting around the murmuring crowd. “How could you say such slanderous lies!” It wasn’t the best cover given that her voice went as shrill as a tin whistle, but it was all she could do. Her face was going slowly gray in the face of Hood’s endless, burning gaze.

Hood sneered at her. “Yeah, okay, whatever. Lies. But seriously, you assholes are waiting for Bruce Fucking Wayne to swoop down from on high and, what, fund your merry band of bigots from here to the rapture? Are you fucking nuts? Even if his brain cell count was higher than single digits, and even if he had the attention span slightly higher than, say, an ADHD positive stoat on crack, what the actual fuck do you think Gotham’s Sexiest Idiot is going to do against the likes of me? Hire a private army?” Hood snorted. “I’ve taken on all qualities of hired goon, two-bit to six figure, and ain’t none of them ever walked away. I’ve taken out guys who kill because they like it. I’ve taken out fucking governments, and I’m happy to take on your pathetic version of one. Shit, that’s not even going to be a challenge. It’s not like I won’t have a lot of fucking people on my side. I heard some crazy stupid vomiting out of your mouths but you fuckers all acting like the whole of Gotham is going to look upon you on top of that shiny Wayne hill and fall to their knees at the sight of their new saviours? Fuck me, that the funniest shit I’ve heard all year,” Hood laughed. “You got no strategy. You ain’t got superior numbers. Even if you could overtake the city authorities and put yourself on the throne, how the fuck do you intend to keep it? Most of the population will not fall into line with your shitty politics, so what you’ve actually got is a small colonial force trying to maintain control over a larger, infinitely more hostile native one. You know what it takes to maintain order with that? A fucking standing army, which you don’t got and won’t get. And standing armies still fucking fail most of the time; just ask the Brits how much fucking fun that is. Jesus fuck, I got the firepower, the knowhow and the fucking friends and even I wasn’t dumb enough to try to crown myself the king of this dump.”

“And you know what else?” Hood talked straight over Marian’s furiously opening mouth. “That whole example to the rest of the country shit? I got news for all you fuckers. Nobody. Fucking. Cares. You want to take Gotham and secede? We’re a tiny fucking metropolis in fucking Jersey. We’re not the centre of commerce or the centre of politics of the nation or even the fucking shipping hub or the manufacturing capital. We’re fucking nothing. Thanks to the fucking rich scions soaking up the money and not investing it in this shithole, we’re fucking nothing but a tax haven and a psycho generator. There’s plenty of guys in suits in big halls that would nuke us and think it a cheap expenditure for bumping the national crime stats down. Literally no one gives a single shit about you. Hell, most of this fucking town doesn’t give a shit about you. You’re a tiny, whiny, minority, for all the fucking noise you make.”

“‘Bruce Wayne will fucking save us’,” Hood’s disdain was absolute. “That fucker will do what every super rich asshole in this town has ever done and save him-fucking-self. You idiots would be nothing but a fucking circus to him. Not even a mildly entertaining one, at that. You preach away, lady, but do me a favor and stop embarrassing yourself. The delusions are getting sadder.”

Marian had gone scarlet, her mouth opening and shutting. The rest of the crowd was an uneasy hubbub. Lofty ideas were easy to espouse but no one had actually put the logistics on the table before. They were fresh off their, at best, stalemate against the food kitchens in Gotham. They’d gone up armed and furious against an unarmed population who had them beat six ways to Sunday in local intelligence and had barely managed any kind of victory that counted. Blackbird could see the tension on their faces. They’d been promised an easy victory that was worth the risks.

Doubt, as they say, was an insidious seed. 

“There are many of us!” Marian started out wobbly but gained fire. “More than what you see here! They’ll come to join our cause as righteous souls once we’ve started! They’re out there!” she yelled across the rising voices. “They’re loyal! They only need a clarion call to gather!”

“What, you mean that bunch of fuckwits that say ‘yeah, right!’ on the internet?” Hood snorted. “‘Yeah, right!’ is pretty easy to deploy as long as it doesn’t get your flabby ass off a chair. Oh, I’m sure there’ll be one or two braindead revolutionary cosplayers that’ll make tracks to this burg. There’s always some asshole looking for a glorious fight. But you could pour every white supremacist moron into this town and you know what? You’ll still fucking lose. Even if they could deal with the Rogues, none of you have got the stones to take out the Bats. And ain’t none of you got the skills to take out me. It’s sure gonna be fucking funny watching you try though,” Hood’s voice was a taunt. 

Marian’s temper snapped. “We don’t have to worry about the likes of you,” she snarled. “All your threats are meaningless if you’re not going to be around to enact them.” She turned to her cronies. “Get him up and throw him in the fire! He must die for his crimes!”

“What?!” Blackbird shrilled, feeling his throat vibrate with the effort. “You can’t do that!”

No one heard him. Marian had already turned to the crowd to give an impassioned screed of gibberish, how they had been victimized long enough and it was time to take a stand and fighting the good fight. All the usual empty promises tantalizing with the illusion of taking back some nebulously defined power. 

“Oh, fuck me,” Hood muttered. “Burned alive. Again.”  

That gave the guys unstrapping him from the wheelchair some pause. They all looked at each other wildly, and then looked at Hood. 

“Eh,” the big man shrugged. “I live an interesting life. I’ve had a couple of them, actually. And you better believe,” Blackbird could hear the force smirk on the words. “That I’m going to remember you assholes’ faces.”

The threat was enough to puncture even the most self righteous of true believers.

“Don’t listen to him!” Marian commanded. “It’s all just empty bluster! He won’t have the power to do anything once he’s burning in hell!”

“You hope,” Hood added sardonically.

“Kill the demon!” Marian shouted to the crowd, trying to whip up a frenzy before good sense could engage. “Kill the demon! Kill the demon!”

They’re livestreaming it, Blackbird thought with disbelief. They have their phones out and their faces uncovered. They just don’t care about getting caught. That was crazy even by Gotham’s standards. Whatever fervor had gripped them, it had taken any hope of rationality with it. These people were going to straight up murder someone and then cheer about it.

“Stop!” he said desperately. “You can’t! Let go of him!” He twisted furiously against the zip ties holding him, feeling them cutting into his flesh, drawing blood as he struggled. He couldn’t let this happen to Jason again. He had to stop this! “STOP! LET GO OF HIM!” 

His wavering register barely hit a normal speaking volume. One of the guys hauling Hood across the stage leaned over and clipped him across the face with an elbow. “Shut the fuck up, demon!”

Something was wrong with Hood’s leg. He couldn’t seem to quite hold his own weight on it. As such, when he was hauled off the wheelchair he became a drunken stumbling mess, the guys hauling him trying to both keep him upright and steer. He took the opportunity to ram his helmet straight in one guy’s face in a bloody spray and then launch at the guy who’d hit Blackbird with one good leg, kneeing him right in the balls with his bad one. The guy went down with a whimper, but unfortunately Hood had to collapse next to him as well, the guys behind him dogpiling before he could kick out. His hands were pretty tightly secured with multiple ties; these guys hadn’t taken any chances.

Blackbird heard him hissing in pain. “You okay?” he ground out, as if Blackbird was the one in trouble here.

“I’m good, fuck, let the fuck go of him!” Blackbird croaked to Marian. “Let him go! It’s me you want! It’s the Four & Twenty you want!”

“Good gracious, they’re all so penitent when they have no other choice, aren’t they?” Marian’s sneer rang out across the crowd to jeers of laughter. “Burn the demon! And make his master watch!” she told them with satisfaction. “Let them feel even the slightest bit of suffering and terror they have visited upon us!” More cheers. 

Blackbird looked for any uncertainty in the crowd, any doubt. He saw one or two showing genuine unease, but it was a mob now. And mobs are, not to put too fine a point on it, stupid. They would go along, even with a murder, because embarrassment and ostracization were far more personal threats.

“Don’t sweat, Baby Bird,” Hood ground out. “Help’s coming,” he got out as he was hauled away and shoved into the gap between the two jets. Cries of burn the demon, burn the demon, came at them in a furious wave as Marian whipped the crowd into its peak of frenzy – now was not the time to let them have a single, quiet moment of reflection. Her eyes and theirs glittered in the lights, almost like they were high.

The jets blew. Hood was shrouded in flames.

“No!” Blackbird shrieked, but it came out a whistling wheeze. “Stop! STOP!” The one actually hit a register that it shouldn’t have done. He felt blood bloom in his throat from the force of it. The tent top wavered. The jets turned off.

The crowd turned to him in astonishment.

But Blackbird didn’t give a damn. Hood was still there and still breathing, kneeling painfully on a bad leg between them. His armor showed some scorching but, credit to the engineer that had built it, it was, nominally, fireproof enough to protect him.

“Keep going!” Marian bellowed into the silence. “Banish the unbeliever and the evil from our midst. Make them see the ugly end to a path of moral decay? How many people have they killed? How many of our own have they threatened? They deserve no less than the righteous retribution of death!” She might as well be foaming at the mouth. “Let their deaths be a message to all those who would stand against our glorious vision!”

The jets started up again. 

Blackbird felt his wrist ligaments strain to breaking point and his bones compress to breaking point trying to struggle free, a trickle of blood coming up from his damaged throat and dripping down his chin as he strained. Fireproof, but so what? Nothing was heat proof. Hood would suffocate before he burned, baking inside his own armor with no relief. He could hear the breaths coming through the helmet getting more labored as the heat started taking its toll. How much could he possibly take? 

Blackbird was not going to watch Jason Todd go to his death a second time.

Marian leaned in close, smirking triumphantly, her body in front of him and blocking his view. “You want this to stop?” she purred. “Say you accept the work of God. Say you have heard his glorious voice shine down upon you, and that you are redeemed and saved.” She held up the microphone tauntingly. “Say you will help us with our glorious work. The little cockroaches in their tenements are a stain on the face of purity and goodness, but they will follow you. Say you’ve heard the word, and I’ll make it stop,” she promised sweetly. “I might even let him live, sinful though your love for him is. Why should I care if you both burn in hell? Their obedience is all I need.”

Oh, Blackbird had had enough of this utter bullshit. She wasn’t even a good fucking liar. She wouldn’t save shit. At least the Pastor stuck to his guns, at least he showed he could think. This spineless, idiotic, entitled moron would listen to any empty voice on the Internet telling her what to do as long as it assured her she was special. She thought anything was fine as long as she was doing it, because she was, somehow, a good person. A victim with a blank check to do whatever the fuck she wanted, and who the fuck cared about anyone else. Fuck anyone who dared say they didn’t give a shit about her pithy little opinion though. Or didn’t get out of her way when she wanted something.

Reasoning with her was worse than reasoning with a toddler. At least a toddler could be taught.

He spat blood in her face. “You want to hear the voice of God?” he whispered to her hilariously offended face. “I’ve heard the voice of God. Let me show you.”

Then he sucked in a deep breath.

And screamed.

Marian had about four fifths of a second of surprise before the shockwave hit her hard. She went flying backwards, slamming into Hood of all people and knocking him flat as she rolled past. The jets of propane blew out like they were in a hurricane. Rows and rows of cheap plastic seating went flying or just plain shattered, throwing their occupants this way and that. The maquis canvas billowed and bulged out, the structural poles groaning and shrieking. Not that anyone could hear it over the sound of Blackbird’s cry.

Speakers tumbled down in a squeal of feedback and sparks. Light arrays exploded, showering everybody in glass. 

Blackbird ran out of air and the cry tapered off into a wheezy whistle. Then his chest convulsed and he flopped forward, blood spraying from his mouth to spattered widely across the stage. Gods only know what damage he’d just done.

Gotta love that Drake heritage. Cousin Dinah was really the only one that had ever had any semblance of control.

Blackbird felt the blackness rise up and try to swallow him whole. He never, ever used the Cry for good reason. You can’t just go from zero to a thousand when it came to a meta ability. Especially one which had been deliberately crippled for years. Blackbird coughed, choking on his own blood, feeling his head spin with the concussive force he’d just wrenched out of it. 

His gasping was the only sound in the silence that followed.

Then the crowd panicked.

They were screaming, swearing and shouting. It was a mess. Some were trying to pick themselves up after being thrown back, some were digging themselves out of the wreckage of the pews, some were just fleeing into the night. With the horrendous Cry now not blowing out the eardrums of everyone present, the ominous groaning of the clearly listing marquis was very noticeable, at least to those whose ears weren’t ringing in their skulls. Half of the roof section was sagging down, ripped from the ties securing it to the frame. The stanchions holding it up were clearly not in great shape either.

Then, out of all this mess Marian rose to her feet. It has to be said that Blackbird’s Cry wasn’t nearly as powerful as Black Canary’s. If it had been, Marian probably wouldn’t have survived the force of it from that close. As it was she looked in pretty awful shape; blood dripped out of her ears and eyes, out of her sinuses and anywhere the delicate blood vessels had just burst under the onslaught. Her skin was red and raw where the pressure wave had essentially sanded back a layer of makeup and skin. Plus, Blackbird had sent her flying through the fire and while his scream had put it out, it hadn’t been able to stop at least a little of it from catching Marian’s hair and clothes. She looked like a wreck, clothing singed and smoking and faint tides of blisters breaking out on her reddened skin. Some of her long, manicured eyelashes were missing entirely, as was a lot of her perfectly coiffed hair.

“KILL HIM!” she shrieked at top volume, either to cut across the panic or because she couldn’t hear anymore. “KILL HIM! HE’S AN ACTUAL DEMON FROM HELL! KILL HIM! KILL HIM! KILL HIM NOW!” It wasn’t even malice. This was sheer, hysterical panic.

“Oh, fucking shut up,” Hood groaned from the floor, before whipping his body around like a breakdancer and kicking Marian square in the jaw.

Marian blinked in glassy eyed confusion, swaying, before her eyes crossed and she toppled into an ungainly heap on the floor, a couple of porcelain caps scattering like coins. 

More people were screaming and panicking. The blast from Blackbird’s scream had blown the flames right into the audience and, it turned out, a lot of hymn sheets and paper cups were extremely flammable. Plus, there were a lot of damaged lights and exposed wires spitting sparks. No one cared about putting out the fires. They were scratching and clawing and climbing over each other to try to escape the collapsing marquis in the finest traditions of Christian selfishness.

Blackbird didn’t see any of it. He was desperately trying to get a breath in past the awful, bloody mass of something lodged in his throat. He could barely breathe. He tried to blast it free but the next Cry came out a thin, high, ear splitting whistle that faded anaemically after a few seconds before Blackbird couldn’t draw in enough air to sustain any of it.

Unfortunately, the sound put the crowd into more of a panicked frenzy. Those that weren’t redoubling their effort to escape were drawing weapons, their owners shaken and white-eyed with panic. They pointed them at Blackbird; there was no other target for their fear. To them he was a bomb that could go off and kill them all in an instant.

The tarp was catching fire. Smoke was fogging the air. Hood was angrily maneuvering himself around to try to inch worm towards Blackbird, but he was still good and trussed up. Even if he could get onto the stage, what could he do?

And then, in the midst of the chaos, a familiar shape rose out of the gloom. 

Batman was suddenly there, between the first would-be executioner and Blackbird, disarming the man with insulting ease. He didn’t punch the guy; he just swung him around and shoved him towards the exit. The place was on fire; now wasn’t the time to make more unconscious bodies to carry.

Between the Bat and the flames steadily licking their way over the whole church, any other random would-be shooters lost what little will they had to pull the trigger after that. They fumbled for exits, suddenly being helped by many gloved hands. The rest of the Bats had arrived and had gone from rescue team for Hood and Blackbird to a rescue team for the whole damn church. It was a mess.

Arsenal was suddenly kneeling next to Hood, snapping off ties with a wicked looking blade. “Hood, status?” he asked.

“Leg’s fucked,” Hood grunted. “Get to Blackbird, he’s fucking choking!”

“Fuck me!” Arsenal left him and vaulted up onto the stage, hands already working on the ties binding him to a kneeling posture. Blackbird pitched forward as he was released, grabbed and lowered by Arsenal. By the time he’d managed to maneuver Blackbird into a recovery position, Hood had crawled his grit-toothed way onto the stage.

An ugly stream of bloody clots and mucus were spewing out of Blackbird’s mouth. He was barely able to take a breath in between convulsions but at least he could breathe. 

“What the fuck is this now?” Hood hooked his gloved hands into the kid’s mouth, clearing what he could. “Fuck, maybe he was hurt worse than he looked.”

“That Cry, was that him?” Arsenal asked as Bats and churchgoers shouted back and forth trying to get everyone to safety. Over on one side the marquis struts gave way and the burning tarp sagged ominously down.

“Yeah,” Hood shook his head. “I didn’t fucking know he could do that, but that was fucking him.” Hood was still in shock. The kid had never once even hinted he was a meta. That bone shattering scream had come out of nowhere.

“Then I know what this is,” Arsenal said grimly. “Black Canary does it sometimes if she hasn’t used the Cry in a while. If you don’t, your throat and lungs build up this kind of… protective layer. No, actually what happens is the protective layer is constantly regrowing, and the Cry basically prunes it. If you don’t use the Cry for a while all that layer builds up too thick. It all comes out like this when she lets loose. It was disgusting finding that out back when I was Speedy.”

But that would mean that it was actually the Cry, Hood realized. The Cry was a very specific kind of metagene – one actually pretty well studied because it had managed to carry pretty consistently through generations of Black Canary’s family.

What the fuck? Hood thought, pounding on Blackbird back to help try to clear the mess. What the actual fucking fuck? 

Half of the roof finally collapsed, trapping a few stragglers between sagging drapes of burning marquis. “Fuck,” Hood grunted. “Go help them,” he told Arsenal. “We’ll be fine here for a minute.” Probably not much longer than a minute, Hood thought, but the stage end had a lot more structures holding it up, so it would probably last the longest out of all of it.

Arsenal cursed and slapped an emergency beacon on the stage near him, before moving on to claw his way through the mess with the rest of the Bats to get the last few out. Say what you will about the Outlaws, they all had pretty fireproof equipment.

Didn’t mean that Hood still didn’t feel like a par-baked vigilante potato right now.

Blackbird was talking ragged, shallow breaths now, not that the smoke was helping any. Hood dug around in his spare pouches – these idiots had taken his guns but had left stuff they didn’t recognize alone. Hood fitted the rebreather onto Blackbird’s mouth as the kid peered at him blearily, moisture beading out from under his mask. 

“Hang in there, Baby Bird,” Hood tried to be reassuring. “We’ll be out in a second.”

Blackbird blinked and then his throat started convulsing again. Hood had to take the rebreather away so more of that ugly mess could come out, poor Blackbird retching miserably. 

“Yeah, probably best to get all that shit out,” Hood continued inanely, more for the sake of keeping the kid focused than to have anything to say. He began working his fingers around Blackbird’s throat guard and whatever was left of his voice modulator. The force of the Cry had rippled so powerfully up his throat that half the fastenings were ripped clean out of place, what looked like concentric bands of chokers half ragged, torn and stretched. Hood got why he’d have such serious throat protection but right now it was an annoyance at best, a hindrance to breathing at worst. “I think this needs to come off Baby Bird,” he added as he worked to peel it back, the snapped and damaged bits pulling away.

He felt a rough patch in the skin as he worked. He didn’t think anything of it at first, too busy trying to make sure Blackbird’s airways were clear. But then the kid shot up, apparently hitting full awareness in one go – granted, having someone’s hands around your neck wasn’t the most comforting sensation, even when it was benevolent.

“Hey, hey!” Hood held up his hands as the kid came up swinging, although it was less going on the attack and more skittering back in retreat. “It’s okay it’s just–” he stopped.

Blackbird frantically tried to cover it as the bits of his undone throat guard came away from his neck, but it was too late. Even in the haze of smoke, Hood had seen the scar.

“Tim?!” he squawked in disbelief and then had to hastily cover himself with, “Tim Drake?” because Tim didn’t know he was looking at Jason, did he? 

The marquis groaned and the flames leapt up hungrily.

Blackbird – Tim – fuck, Blackbird right now, he guessed – looked around wildly at the hellstorm that had fallen while his body had turned on him. Right, now was probably not the time.

“Come on, we need to get out of here!” Hood said. He looked around for something, anything to help him move because there was just no way Blackbird could support a fully armored Red Hood and move anywhere as fast as they’d likely need, given the whole place was coming down. 

The ceilings, burning with toxic smoke, suddenly lost horizontal support, sagging across the still barely holding stanchions. “Shit! Get out of here!” he told Blackbird.

Blackbird’s eyes went wide. “I’m not leaving you–” he trailed off, coughing furiously from the smoke, his voice just barely audible at all.

“Arsenal’s coming back for me,” Hood told him. “You need to get out now!”

“I’m not leaving you to die AGAIN, Jason!” The furious shout rippled the still burning marquis with the force of it, blood still dribbling down Blackbird’s chin.

Hood froze.

Blackbird’s eyes landed on the wheelchair that had been abandoned in the chaos. “Hold on!” he wheezed out, getting shakily to his feet and darting over to it, hauling it furiously out from under some lighting setups and audio equipment that had landed on it. He kicked aside the debris and freed it, wheeling it over to Hood, who grunted his way into it without arguing.

“You and me have got a serious talk coming, Baby Bird,” Hood said through gritted teeth as he maneuvered his bum leg painfully into place. 

“Yeah, I know,” Blackbird whispered, sounding miserable. He started pushing Hood backstage because at least there were ramps back there to wheel him out on. Turned out it was no good going that way though; the drapes they’d used to sequester it from the main stage were even more flammable than the rest of the church and they were already forming a curtain of fire, slowly collapsing in itself. 

“Fuck. Just shove me off the stage and we’ll take it from there,” Hood said as Blackbird backed away.

Blackbird said nothing. He just hauled the wheelchair backwards until he hit the edge of the stage and tried to find some way of wrestling Hood’s bulk down off the massive step down backwards without being crushed to death in the process. It was not easy.

Thankfully, he had help. A pair of gauntleted hands grabbed the wheelchair as it teetered, preciously propped up by the straining Blackbird and lifted Hood down from the stage. 

“‘Bout time, Bat.” Hood grouched out of habit. “Did you stop to give a speech or some shit?”

Batman cracked a faint grin. “They don’t need any more words from on high around here, Hood.” Then his face fell into its usual grim lines. “We need to move. I’ll carry you.”

“Oh, fuck that shit,” Hood grumped. “Just give me a fucking shoulder, we’ll manage.”

He was hauled up and out of the wheelchair on one massive arm, a hiss coming through the helmet as his leg moved. Batman steadied him and turned to a hovering Blackbird. Hood could see the fucker’s eyes dart to the scar; credit to B’s stone face, nothing of his surprise surfaced on skin level but Hood could tell he'd both noticed it and deduced who it belonged to. “Follow close,” he ordered the kid gruffly. 

After that they began a lopsided, drunken run towards the back of the marquis; what they could see of it past the sagging, burning, slowly melting marquis and the fog of smoke that was only getting thicker. Blackbird couldn’t see a thing and he could barely breathe the air; Hood had grabbed hold of his arm to give him something to follow. Without it he’d be staggering around blind. Arsenal appeared at some point in the exit, Blackbird couldn’t even tell where he’d come from, grabbing Blackbird with one hand and slinging Hood’s other arm across his shoulders. Between Batman and Arsenal, Hood could basically hang and be borne out of the heat and the smoke, Blackbird dragged in their wake.

Batman shouldered past the last few sagging, slowly descending bits of marquis roof when finally they hit actual air. The cold shock of it on Blackbird’s lungs caused them to spasm angrily, and he coughed fit to burst as he was pulled to a safe distance.

The coughing was so unrelenting that by the time he had the brainpower to take in anything else, the Lightfoot church was a smoldering ruin on the ground, being spritzed by a fire truck that had driven into the park. There were dozens of flashing lights – police cars and ambulances. Bedraggled church members were either getting medical treatment, wandering around disconsolately or having blazing screaming fights with EMTs, cops and whomever else was available to be screamed at. It was hard to tell because his eyes were teary and irritated by smoke, but Blackbird was pretty sure some had been arrested.

I’m infected with COVID. The leaden thought dropped on his brain like a cannonball. The Pastor had breathed right in his face. Infection vectors could be weird but Blackbird knew the odds of him not being infected right now were slim.

He needed to find his phone. He needed to… his head spun dizzily as he coughed and coughed and coughed. He needed to find the Four and Twenty, he needed to isolate, he needed…

He tried to get his increasingly panicked thoughts in order.

Batman and Arsenal were still getting Hood propped up in the Batmobile. God Jason, he was in no way ready to have that conversation with him. They hadn’t noticed yet that Blackbird had fallen back in his coughing fit and was now sitting on the ground as a distance from them. He knew they’d eventually turn their attention to him.

A sudden surge of pure anxiety hit him. He couldn’t be around them. What if he ended up getting Batman infected? What if he got Jason infected and he died? That would be twice he would be responsible for his death. 

He couldn’t stand the thought. He had to get out of here.

Adrenaline sent him to his feet. The world spun lazily around him as he tried to get his bearings. Batman was busy, all the Bats were busy, trying to corral this wave of disaster humans and get everyone out of the park and not spreading COVID all over the place. He didn’t like any churchgoers’ chances of getting out of this unscathed, but they hadn’t cared before and he had his doubts they would start caring now.

Fear might come later, when the coughing started.

Blackbird lurched towards the burning marquis… no, go around, his survival instinct told him. Away from here. Away from people. He was now a loaded weapon, pointed at the old and the sick and the vulnerable. 

As he lurched into an uneven run he knew, on some level, that he wasn’t being rational. That he should stay, get a face mask, tell people he needed to isolate. But all of that reasonable response plan was swallowed up by his sheer, heart pounding terror of being responsible for hurting Jason again. He couldn’t do it. He just couldn’t, internally, logic his way out of that fear. 

So, looking like an extra in a horror film, blood all down his face and spattered on his uniform, wheezing and coughing like he had emphysema, he ran on. He didn’t even know where he was going; his only coherent thought was away. Robbinsville Park was big, it was easy enough to get turned around which is, inevitably what happened.

Blackbird collapsed to his knees, still coughing fit to burst. Had he made it any distance at all? Through his streaming eyes and dizzy mind, he couldn’t even tell. Some animal instinct told him that there was someone watching him. Someone had followed him.

“Stay… away,” he choked out, the words barely counting as noise. “Infect… C-COV–”

Hands grabbed him.

Black.

Chapter Text

Jason Todd was worried. And when he was worried, he fumed.

“Nothing?!” he asked angrily.

Babs, to her credit, didn’t twitch. She was in the admin section of the Table and the only difference between her set up here and her set up at the Clocktower as Oracle was that she didn’t have other people working the phones around her at the Clocktower. 

It was far too early for the other admins in the Booking, Procurement and Logistics office, but it didn’t really matter. They were all working from home at the moment. The only one here was Babs, pulling double duty as both the executive admin and Oracle. 

“The last verifiable ping I got from the burner phone you gave him was at the marquis site in the Park,” she reported stoically. “It’s probably a ball of melted slag right now.”

“And you don’t have anything else?” Jason leaned on one crutch to free up an arm to wave. His leg ached and the moon boot was fucking annoying. “We have the kid’s fucking truck! Surely there’s some sort of clue about where the kid parks it during the day!”

“We haven’t had time to go through it yet,” Babs replied. “B is still organizing discreetly moving the Four & Twenty to the Cave. It’s not easy to transport a behemoth that big if it doesn’t want to be moved, especially if it needs to be done on the sly,” she added gently. “Have you even been home? You still reek of smoke. It’s been three days, Jay.”

“I gotta find him!” Jason protested. “He was hurt real bad, doing what he did! Jesus fuck,” Jason fisted a hand in his hair, crutches creaking. “I can’t believe it was fucking Tim Drake. Tim, our fucking pot scrubber!” That fact still knocking him on his ass, though as with most mask reveals, the signs were fucking obvious in hindsight. “I didn’t even know he was meta,” Jason muttered.

“Tim Drake,” Babs sighed. “That should have been a clue, really. Dinah’s mother’s name was Drake,” she added to Jason’s blank look. 

“Holy shit, they are related!” Jason shook his head. “I thought it at the time but shit, what are the odds?”

“It explains the scar too,” Babs sighed. “I looked into his medical history. His parents went and hired a bunch of doctors to de-meta him.”

“What, now?”

“It's a shitty thing some people do when they find out they’ve got a meta kid,” Babs said darkly. “They do surgeries and drug them with suppressant pills to make it so it’s impossible to actually use whatever meta manifestation they have instead of, you know, taking the time to teach them to embrace it and control it. There’s a handful of crappy organizations that rake in fees hand over fist for ‘consulting’ with parents who suddenly find they’ve got a meta kid. I mean, some kids do need help with control and things, so some therapies can be therapeutic, but most of it is just straight up anti-meta bigotry wrapped in a lab coat and a lot of dollar signs. Tim’s meta was all about his voice, so of course they silenced the Cry by silencing him.”

For a second Jason was so mad he couldn’t breathe. “They fucking ripped his fucking vocal cords out?”

“No, not quite,” Babs replied. “That would have been too hard to hide and would have made swallowing nearly impossible. They severed the nerve down one side of his vocal cords.”

“Hemiparesis,” Jasson nodded. “I remember him calling it that.”

“With one working set of vocal cords you can talk and swallow. The cut one is probably atrophied to hell and back now. It’s a fine line. You have to maim the kid just enough to get the meta expression to cease to function, and still let him pass for normal,” Babs was bitter. “You can imagine how often they actually hit the mark. There was a lot of this twenty, thirty years ago, before metas hit the world stage as heroes. There’s still a booming cottage industry going on in the scummy corners of the internet, especially for wealthy people who don’t want a ‘troubled’ kid. They want a kid you can ‘fit in’.”

“Fuck me, they actually think that’s helping?” Jason spat.

“It’s not to help the kid,” Babs snorted. “Let’s be real. It’s to help the bigoted adults nominally justify their metaphobia. The kids end up wrecks. You might be able to switch off the expression of meta but they haven’t found a way to switch off the genes. There’s all sorts of neural wiring that goes along with meta genes. Without being able to express the meta ability, all that wiring causes massive problems. Hypersensitivities, schizo-affective disorders, hormonal issues, anxiety disorders. Sure, they’re physically normal. It’s just their brains that are fucked up.”

Fuck, then it was worse than Jason thought. “Are you sure you haven’t got anything for me? Anything?” he knew it was stupid. If Babs had something, she’d hardly forget.

Babs sighed at him. “Go home, Jason. Sleep. The second we’ve managed to crack the secrets of the big truck, I’ll call. Until then I’ve got search algorithms looking for Tim Drake’s face in every clinic, shelter, hospital and street in the area. I’m also going back through surveillance footage from when he left here after his shift, trying to see where he went. All I can say for sure given his bus routes is that he lives somewhere in your neck of the woods. Don’t worry. I’ll find him.”

“How did we not know, Babs?” Jason asked her softly. “We’re fucking detectives. How can we know so fucking little about the guy that fucking works next to us?”

“If people ever found out about us, Jay, I’m pretty sure they’d say the same,” was Babs’ ironic reply. “Turns out we really are just like everyone else when the masks are off.”

Jason shook himself and maneuvered out of the admin offices and back down the stairs to the main floor. He nearly rammed into Damian, skulking around the edges, looking cool and unruffled even though Jason felt like a wreck.

“Shove off, gremlin,” Jason nudged him aside with a crutch. “You’re still under a ban.”

Damian shot him a pinched look, but looked at the slammed expression on Jason’s face and, for once, decided not to fight him on it. The kid stalked off, plate from the kitchens in hand, without a word. Jason watched him go, brain too fuzzy and too distracted to try to fathom Damian’s… Damian-ness.

He wended his way into the kitchen, although he wisely made his way to the sequestered confectionary zone. A working kitchen with masses of people bumping against one another carrying various boiling, roasting or steaming things was not the most conducive place for crutches. Cass was there working on waffle and icecream cannolis with raspberry sauce and chocolate dip, and helpfully found a bar stool from goodness know where for him to perch on. Jason tried to help her by mixing up some churros so they could make dessert hot dogs, but after the second time nearly causing a hot oil explosion he gave in. His head wasn’t in the game today, it didn’t take Batman’s powers of deduction to see it. 

At a restless and irritable loose end, he left the kitchen and headed to Bruce’s office. It said something that his instincts drove him there when he felt lost. Some of the best memories he had were in that office where he’d come after school and frantically get his homework done so he could dive into a quick round of kitchen training before B handed off the dinner rush to Lucius and they went home for dinner. Bruce had been there, happy to let little Jay chatter about his day. Sometimes Dick had popped up, after a kind of detente had been declared between him and B and he’d laze around and shoot the shit until it was time to go. It was a place he’d gone to seek out guidance or just relax or look up recipes and study cooking techniques. Free, for the first time, to learn exactly the way he’d wanted to learn.

That office had been one of his favorite places to be, once upon a time. It had been a safe place, a place of limitless potential.

Time had dulled the nostalgic patina, but that feeling was coded inside him still.

That, he added cynically, or the fact that Bruce didn’t skimp on office furniture quality, so he could sink into that massive couch – gotten for the sole purpose of allowing B to to take batnaps when he needed to – and rest for a while.

He was not brooding, okay? He wasn’t turning into B. He wasn’t that far gone.

He ditched the crutches and sank onto the padded leather with a grunt, propping a moon-booted foot up on the coffee table. It was an annoyance. The injury was more a dislocation than a break, although there was definitely a crack down on the bone. Best guess was that he’d basically kicked the front bumper of that asshole truck that had tried running down Blackbird and twisted it as he braced to splat onto the windshield. Without armor, it would have been a lot worse.

Jason hoped that asshole was buffing Hood shaped dings out of his precious truck for a fucking year and a day.

Not given to sit in the dark and do nothing, Jason called up Roy. “How’s shit?” he asked without greeting.

“Kitchen’s busy enough,” Roy reported. “The attack on the food kitchens was pretty widely reported so, hey, we got a bunch of guilt-donations and some new volunteers as well. That stupid nourishment centre the Lightfood people set up? Yeah, they couldn’t pay people to walk through those doors now. I heard a bunch of cops showed up at their warehouses and started confiscating food to go back to the food banks.” Roy’s satisfaction was both triumphant and grim.

It was something. “I don’t suppose he’s shown up there?” Jason knew the odds were infinitesimal, but it paid to be thorough. 

(Tim had lit up at the thought of working at his joint.)

“Sure, asshole, your Baby Bird walking through the doors and I’m enough of a dick not to call you about it,” Roy snorted at him.

“Yeah, yeah, up yours,” Jaason’s snark was half hearted at best.

“Seriously dude,” Roy’s voice was gentle. “We’re looking, okay? Some of the homeless people who come in here, I’ve been asking them about Tim. They know him. He’s been helping ‘em out for years. I’m tryin’ to narrow down if anyone knows where he actually sleeps these days.”

“You got anything?” Jason asked, feeling a thin blade of worry go right between his ribs. Tim had said he was in a stable place, but he hadn’t exactly gone into details. That was the thought that haunted him the most; that Tim was still, effectively, homeless.

He knew it was an objectively stupid theory. Tim had to have parked that big ass truck somewhere during the day and if it was big enough to hide that monster it would have been enough to house a skinny-ass teenager. They had no reason to think he didn’t have an actual home base somewhere.

Only where the fuck was it?

And had Tim even gone there?

“All of them said he used to live rough, or cram into the shelters where there was space, but he hasn’t been seen in any of the usual transitory places for a while. I woulda asked Sister Des, I thought she might know, but she’s still sleeping off the surgery.”

Fuck, Jason had nearly forgotten. “How’s she doing?”

“She’s a fucking tough lady,” there was a grin in his voice. “The Interfaith people said she was hollering over the phone to people right up until they knocked her out to get someone to take care of the van and get it on the move to take sandwiches to the kids. I think Steph took it out.”

That would explain why he hadn’t seen the blonde terror in the kitchens today. The sandwich van would probably see a lot of business. With the Four & Twenty not doing its scheduled rounds Jason was willing to bet the cracks were widening on all the various unstable grounds. 

“Look, I’m gonna try to get some sleep while B goes to town on the Four & Twenty and see if we can’t find Tim that way. Once I’m up, I’ll call you. I'll let you know if we get anything.”

“Sure thing. I don’t worry, Jay,” Roy told him. “That kid’s a meta. They’re fucking tough.”

Roy meant well, Jason knew, but he hadn’t seen Tim the way Jason had; all his raw bones exposed and jutting. The meta gene might give him some extra oomph in the immunological response, goodness knows speed healing was the most baseline meta ability on record, but fuck, who the fucking hell would fucking know how much of a mess that kid’s immune system was? 

And who cared? Tim was out there somewhere alone and in fuck knows what condition. 

Jason had to find him. Make sure he was okay, at least.

He swallowed his pride and called Bruce. “You got any leads on Tim?” he asked without preamble. The family was already well aware how overinvested he was in Tim’s safety, given how he’d chewed them all out for losing track of him. Jason couldn’t give a fuck about that right now.

“Not yet,” B, credit to him, didn’t prevaricate. “I’m going through his automation software line by line manually. It’s extremely well made, it even has anti-tapeworm search measures built in. All bespoke. I’ve never seen anything like this.” He sounded impressed.

“Yeah, well, Tim was a wunderkind. He was in college by the time he hit puberty,” Jason told him.

“I remember that, vaguely,” B replied. “It was in the papers.”

“You’ve never remembered anything vaguely in your life,” Jason scoffed.

“It was just after Ethiopia.”

Oh. Well, that was a lead wall in that avenue of conversation. “How long do you think it’ll take to get coordinates off that behemoth? He must have them programmed in somehow.”

“Going all the way through this is going to take hours,” B sounded unhappy about it. “Longer since Waynelabs contacted me. They had a breakthrough with the vaccine and now we’re scrambling to get permission for human trials.”

Right, pandemic. Jason kicked the coffee table lightly in frustration. He couldn’t even get mad at Bruce for having split priorities. Tim was one kid, there were kids dying by the hundreds right now, and adults, and the elderly and… shit, even the Bats didn’t have enough hands to get everything done these days. “Just let me know when you get something,” he grumbled.

“I will. Get some sleep, Jay,” Bruce said tiredly. “Dick’s on his way back from ‘Haven, his tests on that end are negative. I’ll have him isolate at the penthouse; that should give Damian something to do. If you see him around the kitchens tell him to get back to the penthouse. He’s still on probation.”

“Parent in your place, got it,” Jason snarked, but it was an anemic effort at best. “Let me know, B,” he added more seriously, and then hung up.

He lay down and tried to get his mind to stop roaring in circles. It wasn’t a completely futile effort thanks to the meditation techniques that had been drummed in with heavy hammers, but it wasn’t restful.

Jason couldn’t stop seeing the guilt on Tim’s face. He’d said he couldn’t let Jason die again, what the actual fuck was all that about? Jason was a hundred… ninety?... percent sure he’d never met Tim before that first disastrous day in the Table, which felt like a lifetime and a half ago now. He hated the fact that he couldn’t be certain; there were some fucking holes in his memory courtesy of Joker induced traumatic brain injuries (thank you psycho clown) and just general brain issues that came from a) Pit-dipping and b) brainwashing. Jason was sure he’d remember someone like Tim.

But what if he had forgotten Tim? Maybe falling in love with Tim Drake had been a weird kind of muscle memory, where his body remembered what his brain didn’t.

Fuck.

He’d just gone and had that thought, hadn’t he?

He was in love with Tim Drake. Who was also Blackbird. Who was also fucking missing. And sick. Jason wasn’t going to trust to his shitty luck and hope that would all work out. He had to find Tim.

He sat up, all feeble hopes of rest abandoned. Maybe he should go to his joint. Fuck, maybe he should pound the fucking streets and start shaking people until they told him where the fuck Tim Drake was. Where he slept, fuck, if he even fucking slept at all. No wonder that kid had been worn to the bone, keeping both a Table schedule and running a vigilante food truck nights.

Jason couldn’t stop the painful smile if he tried. How fucking Tim was a solution like that? Wildly off-the-wall, driven by an endless turbine of determination spun by a hydrodam of kindness and informed by galaxy brain level problem solving. That kid had made a food oasis out of a food desert by sheer fucking will. Jason loved him for that more than anything else, being willing to go do the messy, complicated, futile work of giving until it hurt. Even the Bat himself was more at home with the emotional cleanliness of just punching until the problem went away. Actually dealing with people on the ground, good and bad? That took real fucking grit that even the League Of Assassins couldn’t give a person. 

Especially not the League. They preferred to cut out all the messy bits that don’t fit into their worldview.

What hadn’t he tried at this point? Phones were a no go. All they had for an address was a PO Box office, and while he was sure every Bat and their mother had put some kind of surveillance on it, Jason didn’t like their odds. Jason had taken a punt on trying to track that smart watch the kid had worn, only to realize the demon brat still had it; he either had deliberately not given it back after Tim’s collapse or had simply filed it to be dealt with later and forgotten it in the mess. He knew B was working the problem from his angle with the truck, Babs from hers with the street cams and geo profiling, and he was willing to bet Steph was putting feelers out amongst the street kids. 

Hood had, casted up but no less terrifying for that, paid a short visit to Charles Drake at his penthouse but that had gone squarely nowhere. Chuck Drake was a wannabe techbro with a pretty, empty-headed wife, a lavish lifestyle and a solid amount of business sense, but that was about fucking it. He didn’t know or care what had happened to his nephew after the emancipation came through; his bitch of a wife had had a few choice words about not paying the way for some damaged and ungrateful kid, but she’d shut up real fast when Hood had looked at her. 

As therapeutic as it had been to scare the shit out of those two wastes of space, it hadn’t gotten him any closer to finding out where the hell Tim was. 

Short of randomly pounding the street, Jason didn’t have any other avenues that weren’t already being covered. What the fuck, he thought miserably, running his fingers through his hands. We should all fucking turn in our detective cards. This was one kid, we worked next to him for fucking months and no one knew a fucking thing about him. Where he came from, what he did when the lights were off, all that shit. It was like he’d fallen in love with a fucking ghost that had started haunting their wash zone.

Jason blinked.

He blinked again.

Then he thought holy shit, I’m a fucking idiot!

Then he scrambled for B’s computer in a flurry of crutches and speed, impatiently fretting while it booted up. He hammered in logons to the system and then the system under the system with frantic fingers, accessing the dedicated comm line to the Manor.

“Come on, come on,” he muttered. “Yes!” the comm system activated, pulling up a view of the greenhouses. The comm system went to wherever the receiver got pinged. “Alfie, you there? Alfred?”

“I’m coming, Master Jason!” the older man called back, coming into view. “Apologies, I was dealing with a particularly persnickety climbing rose. You’ll be impressed with the state of these greenhouses when you come up here again, I daresay!”

“That’s great Alf, but I don’t really have time to chit chat,” Jason said hurriedly, feeling uncouth about it anyway. “Tim Drake. You interviewed him, right? You met him when he was homeless. You know where he used to live.”

Alfred frowned over the comm line. “You have not found young Mister Drake as yet, I take it?”

Jason blinked. “You know he’s missing?”

Alfred sighed. “He was a particular concern of mine; a project or sorts, as you know. I have been trying for several days now to contact him, with little success. I left a dossier for Master Bruce to access…” the butler sighed. “No doubt he’s been too busy with everything else to check his messages. An oversight on my part.”

“Do you have an idea of where to find him?” Jason asked eagerly.

Alfred looked pensive. “I’m not in the habit of revealing things that have been entrusted to my confidence, Master Jason, as you know.”

“I know, Alf,” Jason replied. “I know. But he might be hurt and there’s a chance he’s been exposed to COVID as well. As of right now, none of us know where to find him, and he hasn’t checked in to any hospital or clinics, not even the free clinics. Alfred, please,” he pleaded. “I just want to make sure he’s okay. Can you think of anywhere he might be? Anywhere he used to sleep?”

Alfred sighed. “I suppose I can’t make a worthy argument for silence, given that he might be in active danger. There is one place you might have some luck,” Alfred told him. “It was, in fact, where I first encountered young Mister Drake. Do you have a pencil?”

*

Jason stared at the fenceline, then stared at the paper in his hands. This couldn’t be right, could it?

It was… well, it was a waterfront behind a fenceline. Most people didn’t know it, but after the Big Quake, there was a massive landslip at the northern edge of Crime Alley, right where the Kane Bridge interchange hit the border of Rogers Basin. The basin had swelled up and swallowed the warehouse district as one piece of land rose up and sort of slid across another. They’d rebuilt the Interchange, of course; Jason could see bits of the condemned old one still jutting out of the waters waiting for salvage. Sheldon Park residents had been happy; they’d gotten a new waterfront. The folks on the Crime Alley side hadn’t fared as well. They’d lost both tenements and the people who had lived in them as well as a small, legitimate business district immediately accessible to the population. 

Their side of the slip was fenced off and condemned; no one seemed ready to come in and clean the mess up anytime soon.

Which was weird, Jason realized when he thought about it. Usually the Wayne Foundation would have swooped down from on high and at least made sure the area was safe. He could ask Bruce about it later, he supposed, but for now he was stuck staring at the rusting junkyard of a lake the area had turned into and the road disappearing into a black maw of what had likely once been an underground railroad tunnel, gaping out of the water like some lamprey from the deep.

Was it just him, Jason thought as he stared at the black mouth, or was that tunnel about big enough to handle, say, a very, very large food truck?

He glowered at his crutches. It’s not like he couldn’t scale the fucking fence, but he’d end up fucking his leg up worse doing it. It was bad enough he’d driven here in the truck. He could call in Roy or one of the others but that would mean sitting out here and fretting while Tim might be in there fucking dying or something. 

Fuck. He was going to do this, wasn’t he?

He grunted as he climbed back into the truck, irritably wasting precious seconds trying to jam the crutches into the passenger side with his big duffel bag containing his armor. It still reeked of smoke and sweat; he hadn’t taken a moment to stop and breathe since his leg had been fixed up. 

He backed the tailgate up to the fenceline, since every little bit would help. 

His duffel beeped.

Jason froze.

There wasn’t anything in there that should fucking beep.

Then the fence fell over.

No, not quite right. It slowly toppled in a controlled fall, like one of B’s many hidden entrances to the Cave, hiding in plain sight. 

Jason stared for a second, then clawed at his duffel, looking for the beep. He found the source in his belt pouch, in his field phone, for fuck’s sake. The screen was flashing a hold circle, before the words upload complete popped up, followed by Welcome, Red Hood.

Holy shit, Tim had hacked his field phone! No mean feat, given the kind of security Oracle had packed into it. Wait, was he hacking it right now or had he left this on Jason’s phone for weeks? Blackbird had been all about contingencies, after all. 

One way to find out.

Jason pulled a jack knife of a turn, tires squealing, and drove down into the tunnel. He drove slowly -– unknown terrain called for careful driving, but he kept his head in a swivel, looking for any sign of Tim. The tunnel went dark pretty quickly. Jason flicked the headlights on and kept on going.

He pulled into… well, it was probably an old terminus station for the railroad system, he guessed. All the infrastructure had been yanked out ages ago, and the space left behind was pretty big, about the size of a small warehouse. 

It must have slipped under during the Quake, Jason realized. Some miracle had kept the superstructure largely intact, but even from in the truck he could smell the damp seepage. Tim had probably had a hell of a time sealing up the little cracks and keeping the mold to a minimum. 

Jason could see the big bay where Tim must have parked the truck; it had a ramp to drive up onto where he could access the undercarriage and heavy tools and various repair gear were nearly racked nearby. On one side of the platform was… well Jason would probably call it a workshop of sorts. There was a PC array, small tool kits and a couple of dressmaker dummies. One of them had a uniform in construction on it, only this one was white and gray, not black. 

He hopped on the platform awkwardly on his crutches to get a better look at it and was sidetracked by the big damn whiteboard near the computer, covered from end to end in Tim’s handwriting. Times, names, dates. Supplier lists, Jason thought as he parsed the data. Possibly sources of food. Volunteer numbers tracking. There was a big map too, routes carefully etched and re-etched across it as Tim had struggled to make sure everyone got something. In the corner there was a number – 2 – and underneath that he’d written ‘days ahead’. There were smudge marks all around it, as if numbers had been written and erased several times.

Two days ahead, Jason mused. That was how knife edge the food insecurity curve was right now. They could only source food for everyone for the next two days. Not even a week.

Jason shook himself and turned to the other platform. This one looked more like living quarters, if that’s what you could call it. It was sectioned off with cloth screens. Jason crutch walked his way across the gangplank bridge Tim had laid across the rail line as fast as he could. “Tim, you here? Tim!” he yelled loud enough to echo.

No response. 

Most of this side was, it turned out, a fucking kitchen. Old stovetops, ovens and appliances lined the walls. This was his commissary, Jason realized. Where he baked up the hot stuff he’d brought with him on the truck. All simple stuff, Jason remembered. Tim had freely admitted that he wasn’t the best cook, but fuck, one kid handling all of this alone? His skills were fucking stellar as far as Jason was concerned. No wonder he always looked so tired, Jason thought angrily. When the fuck would he even sleep?

Hadn’t he saved any of the food he made for himself? Jason had never, not once, seen that kid take a bite of food while he was on the job.

Fuck.

The Pit and his anxiety were both rising, but for once the Pit felt wavery and uncertain. It didn’t know how to twist this problem into rage – or rather, it absolutely did, but Jason's concern for Tim was kicking the rage to the curb with big steel capped boots. He didn’t have time to scream at the world for being unfair right now. He had to make sure Tim was safe. Even the Pit couldn’t override that desire.

It was the first time he’d ever, really and truly, managed to look at the Pit’s kneejerk response system and see it for what it was. A reflex, without thought, with no righteous sentient weight behind it. Knowing that made it easier to control, and once controlled, ignore.

He left the kitchen space and headed for another screened off area next door. Judging by the ratty sneakers parked next to it, this was some sort of… living space. 

“Tim?” Jason blew through the draped screen door. “Tim?!”

His heart dropped. Tim wasn’t here either. 

But this was clearly where he slept, whenever he fucking managed to sleep. There was an army surplus cot in the corner, basically buried under a mountain of mismatched blankets. There was an old store clothing rack, with a so-so collection of clothes hanging from it or folded into one of those cheap hanging compartment doohickeys. Jason limped over to the cot and ran his hands over the nest of blankets of the off chance some warmth was trapped in them. They were stone cold. No one had been here in a while.

Jason sat on the cot and slumped. Fuck, now what? This was the best lead he’d had, but Tim clearly hadn’t come back here. He felt his gut churn. Where the fuck was he? Was he okay? Had he collapsed somewhere even B’s extensive search of the park hadn’t been able to find him? What if he was sick, or injured, or both?

Fuck, what the fuck could Jason even do? Tim had trusted him with this place. He’d left that digital key in Jason’s phone so that Jason could access this place, just in case. He’d… he’d trusted him with a fucking lot of things. With little glimpses into this closed off little world he lived in, the crack which he’d fallen into – or been fucking pushed into. He’d trusted Jason, had tentatively reached for him and fuck what a leap of faith that must have been for Tim, having been fucking burned by his own family so badly. Jason hadn’t done shit to earn that trust.

And how the fuck had Tim known that he was Hood? Did he know about the others? How?

Something colorful caught his eye. He’d been so hyperfocused on finding Tim he hadn’t taken in some of the smaller details of the room. Like here, in the dim corner where the cot was wedged against the wall, the whole area was plastered with photos.

Photos of him.

Well, no, Jason squinted closer. Photos of them. The Bats. Some of them looked really fucking old; Jason could see the lines of some of Dickie’s stupider uniform iterations, from way, way back when he first started the Robin gig. But there were plenty of others, including some pretty rare shots of Damian in his Robin suit. Damian of all the Robins was the most camera shy.

But… well, there did seem to be a statistically significant chunk of him. Robin-him. They were pretty good shots, Jason thought as he scanned them. The action shots were dynamic enough, but it was the other kind that got his attention. Him passing a tiny cupcake with a candle through a window to a bald headed little girl with a nasal cannula. Him and B perched on the side of a building, legs dangling while baby-him waved wildly in the air demonstrating fuck knows what point while B smiled faintly at him. Him perched on the shoulders of a gargoyle in the rain, head tilted back as he was haloed in droplets, enjoying it. Him getting his hair ruffled and cheeks pinched by the working girls while he was handing out sandwiches and coffees on a cold night. Fuck, he’d forgotten he used to do that. 

Almost involuntarily, Jason ran his fingertips over the glossy stills. They were like postcards from another life, except seeing them rendered with such care and attention hit something deep inside of him, untangled some tightly wound barbed wire knot he’d carried with him for a while. Being faced with these reminders of who he had been didn’t engender the pain that Jason expected to feel. The memories didn’t burn bitterly; instead, they soothed. The kid in those pictures had been dead and gone for a while, but the ghost of him inspired a comfort that Jason wasn’t expecting. He’d never be that boy again, but the idea didn’t sting; instead, Jason had the solace that he got to keep those memories while not having to deal with the rage they once provoked.

It felt a little bit like closure. Maybe not fully, recovery was more complicated than that. But it felt like progress, nonetheless.

There was a more recent one in this collection. There was him, and Steph, and Cass, all grinning and holding knives on one another suggestively while Bruce rolled his eyes behind them. He remembered that day. They were talking about doing a murder mystery game for Halloween, something online to get the customers engaged. Somehow it turned into them all taking ludicrous ‘crime scene’ and ‘murder suspect’ shots, dying laughing while Bruce’s eye twitched in the background. Tim had snuck his phone into the kitchen – usually taboo – and helped them stage the most ridiculous ones. He must have kept this one.

Next to that one Tim had scribbled today was a good day! :) on the wall next to it.

Jason smiled.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, staring at the proof of Tim’s devotion – to him, of all the people he could have chosen – when a noise brought him out of his reverie. Footsteps, echoing down the tunnel.

Jason was about to shoot to his feet but Hood made him go still. The sound was a subtle, sharp clicking of boots – high heeled ones. No disparagement on Tim’s tastes – and food for some private thought later – Jason was pretty sure Tim had never worn high heeled boots before and didn’t own a pair.

Jason’s green eyes narrowed. He forced himself to stay absolutely still, but for slowly withdrawing a gun from his waistband, because some instincts just never left him now. He rose from the cot silently as the air, and ghosted towards the kitchen area. 

He felt the boot rhythm strike an off-note. Oh yeah, whoever this was knew someone was here. 

And they weren’t going to be fucking leaving until Jason knew where the fuck Tim was. 

Not knowing whether he was furious or jealous someone else knew where Tim’s secret base was, Jason crouched down, out of easy sight, and listened to Booty McBoot sidle closer. 

The boots paused. Right.

Jason popped up already in firing position. “Don’t fucking–”

The whistle was shrill enough to drown out the rest of the command and the shockwave it made in the air enough to push his gun slightly off course enough to waste the shot, had he made it.

Jason stared. “Dinah?”

Black Canary stared back at him. “Jason?”

“Holy shit!” Jason put his gun away. There was no need to apologize; shit like this happened quite a lot when masks crossed paths. A threat was practically their casual greeting at this point, a wasted beat down attempt was the really formal kind.

What? B and Superman started it.

“Is he here?” Dinah asked him. “Tim?”

Jason blinked. “No? What the fuck, why are you even here?” She was masked up – a proper rebreather and everything, but she had to have broken some pretty strict quarantine protocols for metas by coming here.

“You know that case I told you about?” Dinah replied. “The missing kid I just couldn’t let go of?”

“That was Tim Drake?” Jason was thunderstruck.

“He’s my cousin,” Dinah admitted. “Sort of, my family tree is like a thicket. But he’s directly related to my mother’s side of the family.”

“Yeah, Babs told me you might be related,” Jason frowned. “What the fuck, how did you even find this place?”

“Because I have access to the nitty gritty documents for the Drake Family Trust account,” Dinah snorted. “I dug through them until I found this place. Turns out this useless little plot was literally the only thing listed in the Drakes’ will as going to Tim. It was probably worth a little bit once, before the Quake. Still a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of their money,” she added, voice sour. “And probably worth nothing but salvage now.”

Jason looked around wildly. “What the fuck? Why leave him one tiny little shithole that’s under a landslip anyway? What’s the point?”

“Fuck only knows why Jack Drake did anything,” Dinah spat with venom. “He and his wife were both some of the shittiest people I’ve ever met. You should have heard them talk about Tim’s Cry, like it was some ugly deformity they had to get rid of. How will the press react? What will the people think? My mother had her problems, but at the very least she never did anything less than teach me to embrace my special. I’d’ve taken Tim with me, you know?” Dinah added angrily. “If they didn’t want their defective son, I’d have taken him in a heartbeat. I’d’ve trained him up. He could have been a Titan himself.”

Jason was momentarily wildly distracted by what Tim in a Black Canary-esque style costume would be. And the fact that Tim might have just made the Titan age cut off while Jason-Robin was having his run.

Fuck. Baby-Jay would have had to change his scaly panties a couple of times, that was for damn sure. Tim in fishnets. What? It could happen. They all wore wildly improbable and impractical costumes once. See: Robin scaly green acrobat panties. 

Focus, Jason told himself sternly. He hastily shoved all that aside. In a box. For future thought. “If you would have done that, how’d Tim end up on the streets?” he tried not to sound accusatory, and didn’t altogether succeed.

“I didn’t know what happened to Tim,” Dinah admitted sadly. “I never even heard what happened after I lost my shit with Jack for going through with the anti-meta procedures. You saw the scar, right? They wouldn’t let me see him after that. I knew he was enrolled in good schools and stuff, but they had a restraining order against me. Eventually, I just accepted I had to stay out of his life. I tried to keep an eye on him but hell,” she sighed. “My hero life and my personal life all went to crap and back a couple of times. Tim was safe, as far as I knew. I didn’t want to draw attention to him, just in case some scumbag who didn’t like me got ideas. I only found out what happened after I found out Jack and Janet had passed. And it’s not like I was the first to know there, either.”

Jason grudgingly had to accept that. He could imagine, with their revulsion towards having a meta up close and personal in their genes, they would have made every effort to separate themselves from any connection to Dinah’s out-loud-and-proud meta status. In a certain sense, Jason understood where the root of the bigotry lay; the same place as all the rest of the racism, sexism and supremacy that bred like fungus among the glitterati. Those assholes didn’t like new things. They didn’t like change. And they definitely didn’t like the idea of other people having power that they couldn’t access.

Jason wondered how the fuck Jack Drake slept at night, trying not to claw off his own skin in self hatred for his genes. Charles Drake definitely didn’t have that level of introspection; to him, this was something that affected the great unwashed and not his peaceful little bubble. 

“He’s not here,” Jason admitted roughly. “I’ll have to check the fridge, but I don’t think he made it back here after the last time I saw him. I don’t know where the fuck he is.”

Dinah slumped. “Is there any avenue you haven’t checked?” She looked so hopeful. “It’s been so long. I know he probably doesn’t need cousin Dinah hovering around, but he might. He’s got a Cry that’s not even trained up.”

“I could head back to the Cave,” Jason shrugged. “B’s taking apart the kid’s big truck.” But the point of that had been to find this place, and this place was a dead end, Jason thought, gut tightening. “He might find something else.” It probably said something that Jason was willing to put his trust in the World’s Greatest Detective again, but he was too tired and too worried about Tim to analyze that feeling now. 

Dinah’s blue eyes tightened over the fit of her mask. “I’ll come with you. Did he really build that thing?”

Wildly gushing stories about Tim and vigilante food truck escapades filled the void of conversation as they piled into Jason’s truck. Dinah left her car at the site, enclosed in Tim’s protective fence. Dinah was enraptured to hear what Tim was getting up to, and even with the mask on she radiated proud-mom vibes when she claimed that Tim had named himself Blackbird in tribute to Black Canary. 

“There’s a couple of things that still don’t make sense to me, though,” Jason mused as he drove. “Like, where the fuck did Tim get the money for his shit? I mean, yeah, the kid’s resourceful and had access to salvage, but no disrespecting the junker kings, some of the stuff he needed to run his set up needed cash, and a lot of it. Are you sure he didn’t get, like, a little trust or something?”

“Not a fucking penny,” Dinah snorted. “Even I fucking got something when the big family trust handed over – ain’t entails beautiful? But Tim got nothing except that site. I don’t know what the fuck Jack was thinking.”

Jason chewed on that baffling fact as he wended his way out of the Bowery towards the Kane interchange. The mysteries of Tim were multiplying.

His phone alarm went off. “Hey, can you…?” he asked, keeping his eyes on the road.

Dinah grabbed it from the dash and frowned. “What the hell is Code 00-A?”

“The fuck?!” Jason grabbed the phone. Yep, there it was. A message from Cass: ‘00-A’. “Fuck me, there’s something going down at the restaurant. Hold on.” He pulled a g-force defying U-turn and pounded the accelerator, flying towards the fashionable mid-town district where the Table was. 

What the hell could it be? It’s not like they had armed robberies there; at least, not anymore. Just the presence of the place had more or less gentrified the area in short order. And besides, Cass was fucking there with access to enough lethal weaponry and skill to use it to make any would-be cash-grabber come to Jesus pretty fucking quick. And it couldn’t be a Rogue; there were special codes for those. Why would she call them in? 

Jason burned rubber all the way to the Table’s parking lot, nearly sideswiping Sister Des’s old panel van on the way in. Steph stuck her head out of the window. “You saw it too?”

“Yep,” Jason said tersely while he parked. Dinah helpfully shoved his crutches out after him as he disembarked before climbing out herself. 

Bruce’s ‘non-descript Brucie’ Beamer was parked slightly skewiff in the disabled space. There was, Jason blinked, also one of the Aston Martins from Bruce’s collection parked there too. What the fuck, was Dick here? It was entirely possible he’d borrowed one to take back to Bludhaven while he was checking on his joints there. He did that all the time. Jason tried to remember when Dick had been expected back… soon wasn’t it? Jason could see him cutting his work short in Blud and coming back early on reports of Damian’s new level of jerkass. Dick was one of the few people Damian actually listened to.

Steph shrugged at him. She’d noticed it too. Together with a slightly baffled Dinah, they went through the staff doors and into the kitchen works – there were no bullets flying; the rest they could handle.

He found the staff coming back out the other way. “Aziz,” he flagged down one of their rostiers. “What the fuck is going on?”

“Mister Pennyworth showed up,” Aziz hissed, whites of his eyes showing over his mask.

“He what?!”

“Yeah, and Mister Wayne is trying to convince him to go home,” Akeela the waitress-cum-boudega service person piped up. “He asked us all to vacate because, you know, safety.”

Hell. This was going to be a conversation and a half, especially since Bruce’s Batman voice manifestly did not work on Alfred. Jason dug around in his wallet and drew out one of the Table’s emergency credit cards. “Here,” he handed it to Akeela. “All of you, take a break. Go get some coffee from the stand down the street, they could use the business.”

“We’re gonna be behind schedule,” Rafe the kitchenhand murmured unhappily.

Jason got it. In a kitchen, schedules became your religion. “Don’t worry about it. I bet you any amount of money Bruce will declare a half day and we’ll only have to worry about the dinner rush. Start thinking about how we can use the prep we already have for the menu. Honestly,” Jason rolled his eyes theatrically. “I have to think of everything around here.”

There was some laughter, shoulders uniformly started to relax.

“Is… is everything okay, boss?” Yannick-the-apprentice-entremetier asked. There were some looks of concern. They lived in close quarters in the kitchen. They did often function like a small, ersatz family tribe.

“Oh, you know what I think happened?” Steph snorted. “I think Alfie got freaking bored is what he did. Don’t worry, he’ll do some kitchen work and remind Brucie who the boss is. Brucie doesn’t want us to see it, he thinks we don’t all know this.”

There were some giggles; it was true. Everyone knew – Bruce Wayne might own the joint, but when Alfred was in that kitchen even Bruce deferred to him. It made for good enough cover for Steph and Jason to shoo the well meaning kitchen staff away while Dinah watched on in amusement.

“Does this happen a lot?” Dinah asked as the staff filed out. “I’ve worked in Queens’ kitchen and if Oliver ever told the staff to do a mass walkout they’d think he’d lost his mind.”

“What, Brucie’s dramas completely disrupting the kitchen?” Jason grinned under his mask. “If we don’t have at least one a month, the staff all start getting nervous about when the big one’s going to drop. It’s like waiting for the San Andreas to blow. I’m pretty sure that coffee stand down the street sets up there just for that reason.”

“Come on,” Steph held up her phone. “Cass is asking for backup.”

They burst through the kitchen doors to find… well, about what Jason expected, really. Alfred, masked up and impeccable as ever, calmly cooking away at a stovetop while Bruce hovered, well back from him, face twitching with the need to order Alfred to go back to the safety of the Manor but also knowing that it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference.

Cass was legitimately making popcorn over in Confectionary. Rosemary garlic parmesan, by the smell.

“Okay,” Jason blitzed the awkward silence because he liked to do it. “What’s going on here? Alfie?”

“Master Jason,” the older man smiled through his mask. “So good to see you properly in the flesh, sir. Would you mind assisting me? The stock is nearly ready.”

Jason looked at Bruce’s pinched expression. “Sure thing, Alf, let me just wash up,” he grinned.

By the time he got back, Steph and Cass were snacking on popcorn with cheerful spite and Bruce appeared to have given up trying to reason Alfred back to the Manor; he and Dinah were conferring over in the corner, since Bruce was doing all he humanly could to keep a wide exclusion zone around Alfred. Honestly, even Bruce probably knew it was an irrational act; Alfred was, among many other things, their fucking medic and was more than well equipped enough in the smarts department to take all the necessary precautions to prevent possible COVID infection from close contact, but Alfred was one of the only irrationalities Bruce honestly and freely admitted to. For that reason alone, they all sort of indulged it. Bruce had to admit he was human and stupid somewhere, and there were worse outlets than caring about Alfred’s wellbeing to an irrational fault.

Jason looked over the stock pot. Judging from the delicious smell and the fat layer, Alfred had roasted the chicken and vegetables before consigning them to the pot, which meant, Jason grinned, he’d actually been in the kitchen for a while before Bruce found out he’d left his designated safe quarantine. The staff wouldn’t have reported him – that would have been roughly the same as tattling on a saint that had unexpectedly decided to drop by the monastery. The only other Bat on duty in the kitchen today was Cass, and Cass wouldn't have tattled either, unless she felt that Alfred was genuinely in danger. Her view of Alfred’s capabilities was, in many ways, far more healthy than Bruce’s. And Jason suspected it was no coincidence Alfred had shown up here today, with only Cass at the helm; Alfred could outmaneuver even Bruce in his own gentle and impeccable way.

“Consomme?” Jason hazarded a guess. Just plain old chicken soup was not the play here, and besides Jason knew how Alfred made Alfred’s Extra Special Chicken Soup and this wasn’t his method.

“If you would get some egg whites ready, I’d appreciate it,” Alfred said absently as he added some delicate shiitake mushrooms, caramelized – for the extra flavor hit on the palate, no doubt. 

Jason got to work cracking and separating. It felt surreal; Tim was still missing and Jason wanted to save his energy for finding him, but something in his instincts was sending up flares.

Alfred was the one who had sent him to Tim’s hideaway. Jason could assume – not without a certain amount of evidence – that that dank, cheerless former train station had been where Tim had always laid his head when he’d been kicked to the curb. After all, for whatever fucked up reason he did own it. It didn’t look like much and even the various unsavory types setting up shop in the abandoned corners of this town probably wouldn’t have seen much potential in using the space for a drug lab or a contraband warehouse. Sheer, dumb chance and the Quake had preserved that place, hiding it from prying eyes under tonnes of dark water. It wasn’t a secret space; it was a lost one. Jason knew that a large part of Alfred’s personal philanthropic efforts were at street level, where he fronted up in person to soup kitchens and community centers in ways Bruce Wayne couldn’t without an entourage of pressers dogging his Gucci heels. In a lot of ways, Alfred Pennyworth was the bigger philanthropist of the two, at least in terms of personal effort over fronting the cash.

Jason was getting a tingle of suspicion in his gut, looking at Alfred’s calm face as he worked. He could assume that Alfred had met Tim and had no idea that he’d rebuilt himself from a street kid to Blackbird. It could, theoretically, happen.

But Alfred Pennyworth was a man who kept secrets. He was the vault where they all put their secrets. 

What were the chances, Jason wondered to himself, that Alfred wouldn’t notice what Tim was up to?

What were the chances, Jason added to himself, that Alfred wouldn’t help Tim, like he helped them?

Jason opened his mouth.

Damian burst through the doors, looking like he’d sprinted all the way from the penthouse. “Pennyworth!” it was the toss of a coin whether Damian was enthralled to see Alfred or horrified. Judging by the rapidfire expressions traveling over his face, even the kid probably didn’t know for sure. “What are you doing here?” Point to the kid, he managed to leech most of the accusation out of his tone. “Father? What is he doing here?”

“Really, Master Damian,” Alfred’s amused voice cut off Bruce’s opening mouth. “I am part owner of this restaurant, despite all my vociferous protestations,” he shot Bruce an arch look. 

Bruce shrugged. “You kept telling me I had no idea how to run a kitchen,” he riposted innocently, which made Dinah snort. Alfred’s annoyance with having something so unbutlerlike as shares in his employer's restaurant was legendary. 

Alfred gave a sniff and then proceeded to Ignore him.

“I do not think it is… wise to be here, Pennyworth,” Damian essayed carefully. “Your health is of utmost importance.”

“I assure you, Master Damian,” Alfred replied gently. “I am in the bloom of good health. And I promise you I have taken all necessary precautions to ensure I stay that way,” he began adding egg whites to the consomme with practiced skill, whisking vigorously. 

“Alf, have you taken the fat layer off yet?” Jason asked as he pondered the merits of making some fresh bread. Consomme was clarified soup; taking off the murky fat layer was an essential step. 

“I’m leaving the fat in this one,” Alfred told him. “I need a nutritional boost.”

“Why couldn’t you just make this at the Manor?” Damian asked, bewildered.

“Oh, it’s not for me,” Alfred said cheerfully. “Though I wouldn’t say no to a hearty wasabi potato pie if Miss Cassandra is in the mood.”

“Then… why are you here?” Damian insisted.

“Urgent matters have summoned me hither,” Alfred said. “And, it has to be said, I missed being in this kitchen. There’s something about a bustling kitchen. It does my heart no end of good. An empty one is a most lonely room. I missed cooking with my family,” he added with disarming honesty. “And save for Master Dick, here is where I’ll find you all, sure enough. I’m told Master Dick will be back tonight. It will be good to have everyone in the family home. Perhaps we might all share even a brief meal together. I do miss that, most of all.”

Yeah, Jason thought, lump in his throat, he kinda missed that too. How long had it been since he’d had a proper sit down meal? Weeks ago, and just with Roy. One of their big Wayne cookoffs though? Jason was dismayed to realize that it had been months… maybe a year by now.

A loneliness he’d not even known was haunting him rose up in his mind. The thought that Tim - poor Tim – must have had it even worse was an extra twist of the knife. Who did he eat with? Who even fucking reminded him to eat? All of them were held up by one another, had the support of one another, even when they were at each other’s throats. Tim had no one.

Tim has me, he corrected firmly.

Damian’s eyes narrowed. “It is unnecessary for you to come all the way here, Pennyworth,” he said slowly. “There is nothing here that requires your attention, nothing which compels your presence.”

Alfred delicately julienned some carrots into flower garnishes. “I’m afraid I must disagree with you, Master Damian,” his voice strangely deliberate. “There is at least one thing I must get done while I am here. Circumstances being what they are, it had to be me and no one else.”

“Like what?” the kid’s dark eyes narrowed even further into a squint.

“Really Master Damian,” Alfred gave him an arch look. “Surely I’m allowed some secrets.”

Jason shot Bruce a look over Alfred’s head. Bruce gave a microscopic shrug; yes, he was aware there was some kind of wildly obvious subtext going on here, especially taking into account Damian’s rapidly pinching features, but Bruce had no more idea about what it was than Jason did.

Fuck, Jason didn’t have time to play spy games, or whatever this was. “Bruce, Dinah and I found Tim’s hideaway,” he reported, because sometimes the only way to end the game was to destroy the board. “Dinah found it through the Drake Trust records. I found it through Alfred,” he turned his eyes on the older man, daring him to deny it. “Have you been there before, Alf?”

“Oh yes, Master Jason,” Alfred didn’t turn a hair, meeting his eyes calmly. “Many times. Poor Master Tim used to sleep under the bits of old concrete, you know. I suppose it was safe enough, but hardly comfortable circumstances.”

“Wait,” Bruce straightened up. “You knew where Tim lived? All this time?”

“Of course,” Alfred shrugged. “I met Tim during my philanthropic endeavors. He was a brilliant young man rather battered by the winds of fate. I found myself,” Alfred looked down. “Compelled to help him.”

Damian’s face tightened. “Compelled? Is everyone everywhere going to fawn at the altar of Tim Drake?” he spat. “Who is Tim Drake to us? You don’t owe him anything, Pennyworth. You’ve already given him far more than he deserves!”

“It is not for you to dictate what I think anyone deserves, Master Damian, thank you,” Alfred said with startling abruptness. Alfred was rarefly short with any of them. “And I’ll also thank you not to pry into my affairs, however good your intentions may be.”

Damian reared back like a scalded cat. “Tim Drake deserves none of your pity,” he declared in a low voice. “Or any of your time. When you cease to keep dancing to his piping, come and find me so that you may apologize for your foolishness, old man!”

“Damian!” Bruce snapped.

“Over the line, demon brat!” Steph added angrily from the back. “Way over!”

“Apologize to Alfred,” Bruce said sternly. “Right now. You’re already in enough trouble; don’t lash out at Alfred because you feel bad about yourself or the situation you’re in! That’s hardly a worthy act for anyone, let alone the supposedly honorable blood scion of the Waynes.”

Damian gave him a wide eyed look. Bruce rarely threw Damian’s own words back at him with such harshness. Then his face tightened angrily. “Fine,” he bit out, throwing up his hands. “I apologize for my words. But I do not apologize for not joining the cult of Tim Nobody Drake! He’s done nothing to deserve it! And I will be here to accept your apologies when you all realize it!” he added, before storming off, thunderclouds rumbling above his head.

“Oh my god, Bruce,” Steph slumped over the counter. “Will you please give him a rabies shot or something? Like, I thought he was just reverting back to his former mini-assassin self, but he’s actually getting worse than that now! He’d have never had the stones to say that to Alfred if we didn’t keep catering to him.”

Cass was making a pie crust, but looked up from her work. “Something’s wrong,” she added.

“It’s alright, Miss Brown,” Alfred said calmly. “Growing can be a painful process, and Damian is still doing that. Believe me,” he shot a dry look at Bruce. “I’ve heard worse.”

They all looked at him. “Yes, that is sort of true,” Bruce admitted. “But I got better! I did rise above it all eventually.”

“You dress in a giant bat costume, B,” Jason snorted. “You didn’t rise up so much as crawl along. But that still doesn’t give the brat the right to go to town,” Jason added in a mutter, getting out the cheese cloth and a bowl to strain the consomme. “B just had Alfred. The kid’s got plenty of support.”

“Does he?” Alfred asked, delicately breaking the raft of egg whites in the pot, revealing a broth which was not quite as clear as proper consomme – taking off the fat layer really made a difference – but smelled mouthwatering. “When was the last time any of you sat down with him and asked him about his day? Made time for him? Invited him to share your activities?”

There was a leaden, guilty silence.

“Hey, we did invite him on patrol,” Steph argued, but it came out feeble.

“How many times? Did you talk to him about your active case work, or did you just let him tag along?” Alfred shook his head at them. “Master Damian requires consistency. But, the times have not been kind to anyone lately,” the butler allowed generously. “This crisis has split us into tiny units, trying to be self-sufficient without a community to support us. I daresay we’ve all learned the hard way that such a state is impossible to maintain without consequences.”

Jason sighed as he set up the cheesecloth and the bowl for Alfred. It was true. That’s why the only mask who even had a measurable success rate lately had been Blackbird. Tim had run himself ragged trying to patch all the cracks and pierce some of the isolation people felt. Fuck, Jason thought to himself. Maybe we all should have started running fucking food trucks. It’s not like punching bad guys did much good – some, but not as much as it used to.

“Wise words,” Bruce sat back on the counter. “No sign of Tim Drake?”

Jason and Dinah looked at each other. “It looked to me like he hadn’t been there in a while. Not since the fire,” Jason reported leadenly while Dinah grimaced. “Fuck B, where else are we supposed to look?”

“Right here, Master Jason,” Alfred replied before Bruce could open his mouth. 

Jason blinked. Then blinked again. “What?”

“I assure you, Master Jason,” Alfred told him seriously, still calmly straining consomme through the cheese cloth. “Tim Drake is somewhere in the building. If someone had been paying attention to Master Damian, I daresay you would have found him quite a bit sooner. His meal is nearly ready,” Alfred was completely unmoved by the array of open-mouthed stares he was getting. “Do go and fetch him, will you? I daresay Master Damian is in a bit of a state, and he tends to be unkind when he is like that.”

Fucking Damian knew where Tim was? Damian, Jason thought rapidly, who’d been haunting the kitchen for the last few days, for once not getting underfoot or snappish at people. He’s been mostly calm, quiet.

Intent.

Jason turned and crutch hopped his way out of the kitchen. There weren’t really any places to hide someone at the Table. It’s not like you could shove someone in the admin offices or the store rooms. You couldn’t even shove them in the cleaning cupboard without someone noticing. Everything in the building saw pretty regular use.

Except the basement, where Bruce kept all the detritus. 

Bruce clearly had had the same thought, because he paced ahead of Jason and down the steps past the wine room. Jason swung down himself three stairs at a time, leaving the rest of the circus to follow him at the rear. 

There wasn’t anyone in the basement like Jason had been half expecting, but Bruce was kneeling on the floor of a section which had been pretty obviously cleared of junk. Possibly the wrapping machine they’d taken up had been there, but Jason could see other boxes of junk had clearly been moved around; recently, judging by the dust. 

Bruce had removed a section of the floor, containing a keypad. “What the fuck is that?”

“I told you, I set this up as a beta site,” Bruce was keying in codes rapidly. “Years ago. I never found an efficient use for it, but all the setup is still there.”

Jason could see it now; the very faint lines in the floor, invisible if you didn’t really look, showing some sort of hatch or trapdoor. There was a handle hidden amongst the artfully placed cracks in the concrete too; slightly raised as if someone had used it but not reset it recently. “Fuck, what are you doing?” Jason could feel sheer adrenaline pumping through his system. “Let’s just use the door. The demon brat just went down.” The Pit was starting to seethe. How dare that pissant little gremlin abscond with Tim? Why? Because he didn’t like the attention Tim was getting from his father? It was such a meaningless, pathetic reason! And to hide him down here when he knew Jason was going out of his mind and the rest of the family were working themselves to the bone looking for Tim?

Fuck, Damian had better pray Bruce reached him before Jason did.

“Jason,” Dinah’s stern voice cut across the green starting to coat Jason’s vision. “Tanglewood. Pemberley. Cairn. Deep breaths. Start reciting.”

Fuck, now? But the order was un-disobeyable. Early in his therapy Jason had asked the Martian Manhunter to plant a telepathic suggestion in his brain that he had to obey Dinah when she said certain keywords. As much as he had appreciated Dinah’s willingness to take him on as a client, he knew how the Pit operated. The Pit rage did not play fair.

“Fuck,” Jason got out angrily before he started reciting, “Park Row. Delaney. Canal Street. Sweetin Lane. Kilmore Alley. The Bournes.” He felt some of the tightness in his chest ease. “I’m good,” he gritted out. “I’m good. It’s under control.” It said something about how far he’d come that Dinah nodded, trusting of that, and neither Steph nor Cass behind her looked like they were calculating likely restraint strategies.

He’d fucking get under control. If he went in deep enough the Pit would stop drawing the line between friendlies and unfriendlies, between allies and enemies. It didn’t know or care about the difference. It was just rage, pouring out in every direction. And Jason would sooner stick his dangly bits into a meat grinder than hurt Tim.

“I’ve disabled the proximity alarms,” Bruce told them.

“I don’t think you should…” Dinah started, but if she thought he was going to hang back for the sake of his mental health she needed therapy of her own.

“Fucking A,” Jason grunted. He threw his crutches at a startled Steph, yanked open the hatch, mentally calculated the drop, disdained the ladder into the dark and jumped down, landing on his good leg and tucking and rolling when he landed. 

Then he was up and stalking down the tunnel to whatever hideyhole B had stashed here, fury in every line of his body. If that brat had hurt Tim… well, let’s just say that Jason didn’t need the Pit to get good and mad at someone. 

He didn’t bother with subtlety; there was no point. Jason blitzed down the tunnel and into the space beyond, ignoring the pangs from his walking cast. It was cramped down here – small wonder B hadn’t found it feasible as one of his bases – but he’d gotten as far as putting in some basic infrastructure before coming to that conclusion. The racks of computer screens were old fashioned and coated with dust, there were storage cupboards, window fronted, for uniforms and other partitioned off spaces – probably workshops or forensic labs, knowing Bruce.

Damian emerged from one of the partitioned areas at a run and Jason didn’t give him time to open his mouth. He rammed into the kid like an angry freight train bearing him up and pinning him against the next available wall. “Where’s Tim?” he growled, Red Hood in his timbre.

“Release me you gibbering moron!” Damian demanded imperiously; the kid was wearing a fucking face mask, at least. “You don’t know what’s happening here!”

“You’re fucking right I don’t! But I’m about to!” Jason roared, shaking him. “Where’s Tim?!”

He heard a shuffling, thumping sound from beyond. Like someone trying to make some noise.

Jason turned around and shoved the demon brat into B’s arms as the rest of the cavalcade brought up the rear and headed for the sound. He barely noticed Steph darting around the flailing pair that was Bruce and Damian and going after him.

“Tim?” Jason bounded down an alleyway between partitions; open, open, open, ah, closed door. Closed and locked. 

Fuck finesse. “Tim, stand back, I’m coming in!”

Steph shoved him aside as he reared back, walking cast raised. “You have one good leg, idiot,” she told him and kicked open the door.

Jason shoved past her and felt his world turn shades of green.

Tim couldn’t have stood back.

Tim was tied to a fucking chair.

“Tim!” 

Fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck. He was tied to a chair and wearing nothing but his underwear. Jason knew he was underweight and dealing with anxiety induced anorexia, but fuck if his wasted, skeletal body with all the bones sticking out didn’t make Jason want to scream and hit things.

And it also wasn’t just that he was tied to a chair; the demon brat had strapped some sort of muzzle over his face and head; probably to keep him from cutting loose a Cry. Even Bruce’s no doubt meticulously placed soundproofing down here would have had trouble dealing with that. A couple of IV lines were pumping fuck knows what into him. Jason hoped it was just saline but who the fuck knew? When Damian went off the rails he had no concept of normal ethical human standards.

Tim was awake, though, peering at them through wide blue eyes.

“Holy shit,” Steph breathed, appalled.

“Fuck, Tim!” Jason darted forwards, digging in his pockets because no Bat anywhere went anywhere without a knife of some sort. “Hold, okay, I’m gonna get this shit off of you, okay? You’re gonna be fine, Baby Bird, you’re gonna be fine,” he wasn’t sure if the litany spilling out of his mouth was as much for his own benefit as for Tim’s, but the flow persisted as he stripped the ties off and yanked out the cannulas from the veins in the kid’s neck. No doubt Damian had had some trouble finding a vein in the translucent skinniness of Tim’s arms and legs. Fuck.

Tim gratefully rolled his shoulders as his arms were released and waited while the cannulas were yanked out. He also nodded gratefully to Steph when she said, “I’m gonna run up and find him something to wear,” before darting past the others and vanishing.

When Jason angrily began unstrapping the muzzle thing, Tim jumped like he’d been tasered and fell back and away, scrabbling back from Jason, wide eyed. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” Jason held up his hands. “I just wanna get that thing off of you, Baby Bird. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Tim shook his head frantically. He made a frustrated motion with his hands but pressed back against the wall when Jason shifted forwards. Jason froze; he didn’t know what to do.

“Timmy,” Dinah came forward, voice as gentle and soft as silk. “It’s Dinah. You remember me kiddo? It’s been a while, I know, but I used to pop up at family reunions sometimes.”

Tim blinked at her, amazed. He nodded.

“I’ve been looking for you,” Dinah told him. “For three years now, I’ve been looking non-stop, after I found out what your useless uncle did.” Tim looked even more surprised. “I wanted to make sure you were okay. Give you a home if you needed one, because it sure sounded like you deserved one. The Cry comes with all sorts of fun neurodivergent effects, did you know? It’s a telekinetic ability, which means we’re overstuffed with energy producing neural pathways. Too much wiring up here,” she grimaced and pointed to her temple. “Means our brains are always left of center, you know? Anxiety and depression and bipolar disorder, all those. I know your head must be going nuts right now, kiddo. Mine does that too sometimes. I just want you to relax and take a breath, okay? No one’s going to force you to do anything. If you want, I can ask everyone to leave. Would that make you more comfortable?”

Tim shook his head. He clawed his hands in the air, a gesture of pure frustration. His eyes darted as he tried to think of a way to communicate and then the light dawned. He splayed out the fingers of one hand, and then held up a finger of the other.

“Six?” Jason said, baffled.

Tim nodded, then tapped his foot. 

“Six foot?” Then Jason got it. “Six feet. Social distancing! Holy shit, you’ve been infected with COVID?!” Jason’s voice hit an astonishingly high pitch.

Tim grimaced.

“Not sure,” Cass piped up from the back. “No symptoms?”

Tim pointed at her, and then frantically made shooing motions with his hands to the rest of them. He didn’t want them to take off the muzzle because it was acting as a face mask. 

“Baby, I’m not leaving you down here!” Jason protested stridently.

“He should be down here!” Damian said furiously.

“Don’t you fucking start with me, demon brat!” Jason bellowed over his shoulder. “You’ve gone through thin ice and are now sitting on a fucking volcanic vent with me! You think you can just pull shit like this, no consequences? Give me one reason why we shouldn’t pack you back to the League, express shipping. You’re clearly not a fucking Bat!”

Damian went pale with rage or shock. “You don’t understand,” he shrilled. “Drake was the one who attacked Alfred! He wrapped him up in foil and left him to die! I acted where no one else would!”

“What?” Bruce looked bewildered. “Damian, what are you talking about?”

“I checked the hair sample we had against Drake’s hair! They are a match for color and chemical structure!”

“So what?!” Jason spat. “Alfred knew Tim! He was doing errands that day amongst the homeless people he fed! Tim was one of them! How the fuck did you get Tim’s the culprit from a single hair when we know he’s one of Alfies actual acquaintances?”

“Master Damian…” Alfred spoke up slowly. “I think you’ve rather gotten the wrong…”

“He had your watch!” Damian screamed at the top of his voice. “He had your watch, the watch I gave you, the watch that was stolen the day you were attacked! What more do you need?” the kid asked furiously. 

“Master Damian, you don’t…”

“You said he was homeless! Homeless people account for many street crimes! Homeless people are desperate. I don’t know what he blackmailed you with to gain a job into the Table but he would have told me if you hadn’t all barged down here and interrupted my interrogation!”

“Damian, even if he did,” Bruce broke in, scowling. “You should have told us.”

“Would you have listened?!” Damian accused, bristling. “There is ample correspondance on his phone, with dates, times and prices! Who knows how much he has leeched from Pennyworth to ensure his silence and compliance!”

Jason looked at Tim. Tim looked both baffled and horrified.

“Geez, brat, you have officially fallen off the deep end!” Steph declared, shoving past the glut of people at the door with an armful of the Table’s marketing polo shirts in different sizes and a pair of sweat pants which looked like they belonged to Cass. “You are cracked!”

“Damian,” Bruce looked incredibly worried. “I think you and I need to go and have a talk…”

“Master Damian, I can assure you that…”

“You do not believe me?” Damian screamed at the top of his lungs, making them all jump. “And you, Pennyworth! Why do you keep defending him! He is no longer a threat to you!”

“Damian…” Bruce started forward, looking shocked.

“He ADMITTED it!” Damian roared even louder, face nearly purple with rage. “He admitted that he’d done it! I gave him truth serum. I have his confession!”

There was a silence, filled only with Damian’s harsh breathing.

Then Tim let out a breath and reached up to unstrap the muzzle himself. He blew out a breath as the thing came off, stark red lines streaking his face. “Damian,” his voice was just barely there. “You asked me if I was the one to wrap him in tin foil. I did do that,” he admitted. 

“You what?” Jason wheezed, feeling like Mister Freeze had just punched him in the gut.

“See?” Damian waved his hands wildly. “He admits it!”

“I wasn’t the one who attacked him! I did it to save his life,” Tim’s face was pleading. “The guys who did attack him locked him in a walk-in freezer. He was hypothermic by the time I found him. I had to get him warm in a hurry. Charcoal, sodium acetate, hydrogen peroxide, desiccant…” he reeled off the ingredients in a hurry.

Bruce’s eyes widened. “Chemical handwarmers.”

Tim nodded. “With foil layers as an insulator. I’d’ve just called an ambulance, but the ambulances weren’t going to make it. Half the Rogues were out of Arkham and it was chaos. No help was coming, especially to the Alley. He was dying! I needed to raise his temperature before he went into shock! I didn’t like it, but I had to improvise with what I had. I didn’t attack him! I wouldn’t do that!”

Damian’s mouth was opening and shutting, his eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets. “That’s… that’s nonsense!” he managed. “If what you say is true, then why weren’t you there when we found him! You left him on the street! Like garbage!”

“I went to get my car!” Tim whispered. “I told you, no help was coming. It was no good just sitting there, waiting for some Rogue to find us. We had to get out of there. I didn’t want to leave, but I couldn’t carry him so I needed to get the car. By the time I got back, all I could see was the Batmobiles tail lights flying into the distance. You’d already picked him up.”

“A likely story!” Damian raged. “What about the watch, you spineless worm! You stole it from him! And I have your messages to him. You’re blackmailing him!”

Tim was wide eyed. “What? No!”

“You talk about deals, you ask for cash!” Damian said triumphantly, turning to Bruce. “He is! I have stored the messages in my personal server. Alfred has given this cur hundreds of thousands of dollars! I checked his bank statements! I have proof! He’s leeched it from him, with the threat of revealing our identities, no doubt!”

There was a ringing silence. Jason’s head darted back and forth between Damian’s bitter sneer and Tim’s horrified expression.

Bruce’s expression had shut down into full Batmode. “Alfred?” he asked quietly.

“Master Wayne I assure you,” Alfred replied. “While some of our interactions did involve me sending him money, young Master Drake was not blackmailing me.”

“Why are you defending him still?” Damian screamed.

“He couldn’t have been blackmailing me, Master Damian,” Alfred replied to this levelly. “I was blackmailing him.”

Slowly and incredulously, every head in the room swiveled to Alfred.

“Yeah,” Tim sighed. “He did do that a little bit.”

*

Bruce made the executive decision for them to take this circus upstairs. The staff would be back soon and if they wanted to maintain any sort of secrecy all of them had to be back where they were expected to be. 

Tim wouldn’t get near any of them. He insisted they all leave first and he follow them out. Actually, he offered to stay down in the beta site, but Jason had flatly told him they they weren’t fucking doing that. Tim had looked anxious enough over his declaration to not argue about it. 

Damian, surprisingly, didn’t argue it either. The kid looked dazed, like someone had walloped him but good over the head. Jason was feeling a bit that way too.

Steph and Cass, reluctantly, volunteered to oversee the kitchen as the hands all trickled back in. The Table never stopped working. Lucius Fox was called in by Bruce to oversee it for the rest of the day; he’d been handling the Foundation side of things since the start of the pandemic, but he could run the restaurant in a pinch.

They ended up back in Babs’ domain. The admin offices were pretty expansive for a restaurant because Bruce didn’t have a mezzanine, so Tim could secrete himself into a corner, a heavy duty face mask strapped on tight. 

Jason wished he could see his face. He already didn’t like what he saw in Tim’s body language; it was shriveled up, anxious and depressed. The clothes they’d gotten him into hung off him, even though he was wearing the smallest they had.

“What the fuck, demon brat?” Jason growled at Damian, whose body language was as twitchy, stressed and discomforted as Tim’s was. “You couldn’t even fucking feed him?” he kept his voice low, he didn’t want to upset Tim any more but fuck there was no part of this scenario he fucking liked.

“I did give him food!” Damian snapped loudly. “What are you all looking at me like I am responsible for his emaciation? He was like that when I found him.”

“When you kidnapped him, kiddo, let’s not forget that,” Dinah raised an eyebrow. “Own your behavior.”

Damian bristled at her. “I did offer food, he wouldn’t take it! It’s hardly my fault! I couldn’t shove it down his throat! And I did add nutrient lines, so there!”

“He did,” Tim allowed, very quietly. “I went into an anxiety spiral. I just… it’s like I can’t even put food in my mouth when that happens. That’s not his fault.”

“Oh no,” Jason jabbed a finger at him. “Don’t you dare start defending the gremlin’s behaviour. He kidnapped you, tied you up, drugged you, interrogated you and left you in a basement for fucking days, Baby Bird! That’s not okay.”

“He thought I attacked Alfred,” Tim replied. “I mean… what would you have done to the guys who attacked Alfred?”

In the background, Damian looked more offended at being defended than anything else.

Jason balked. Probably worse than that, he admitted internally, and didn’t much like the parallel being drawn. “Yeah, well, you didn’t,” he bit out lamely. “You didn’t an’ I was worried about you.”

Tim blinked at him.

Bruce and Alfred came back in. 

“Here we are,” Alfred said cheerfully. “Consomme, unclarified.”

He said the words but Bruce was the one holding the tray. He’d insisted Alfred stay well back until Tim’s blood tests came back from their suicide run through the labs, so Bruce was the one to actually get into Tim’s proximity and place the mug within easy reach.

“Now that we’re done feeding him,” Damian burst out, aggrieved. “What is the meaning of this, Pennyworth? What do you mean you were blackmailing him?!”

“I would kind of like an explanation for that as well,” Dinah added from where she was perched on a table, arms crossed tightly. She pinned Alfred with a stare. “Given that he’s my cousin and a minor, I wonder that you didn’t feel the need to contact me regarding his whereabouts, Alfred. You are, usually, the responsible one.”

Damian went pale with rage. “Cease your pithy attacks, harlot! Pennyworth was under no obligations to report to you! He serves the Bats,” he added snidely.

“I never want to hear that word from you again, Master Damian,” Alfred replied levelly, which made Damian go pale for a different reason.

“Alfred didn’t know I was related to you,” Tim croaked out, turning the mug in his hands while he waited for the admittedly delicious smelling broth to cool down. “He didn’t even know I was a meta. I never told him. Honestly,” he added, eyebrows raised over his mask as he said it. “I never thought to tell him.”

“That is true,” Alfred said ruefully. “He didn’t. And while I was aware of Miss Lance’s mother’s family name, I never made the connection between it and Master Drake’s voice issues. In hindsight, the connection between his name and the mutilation he suffered was obvious. I suppose there is a good reason why they don’t call me the World’s Greatest Detective,” he added, voice dry.

Bruce almost cracked a smile. “You’re going to have to explain exactly what happened here to me, Alfred. I have some theories, but I’d appreciate confirmation. I gather that Tim knows who we all are. I don’t think you would have told him.”

“Heavens no, Master Wayne,” Alfred actually looked offended. “Master Drake is a brilliant young man. He unlocked the secret on his own quite a few years ago.”

Tim went red when Jason looked at him. 

“How? Which of our enemies did he consort with?” Damian said, voice bitter. “The Joker? My grandfather,” he looked Tim up and down. “You’re hardly the type of person my grandfather would willingly speak with. It must be the Joker. He clearly has mental problems.”

“I didn’t consort with anyone!” Tim protested, voice a whisper. “Certainly not that psycho clown!”

“Then how?” Bruce’s tone was pure Batman, his eyes locked onto Tim’s face.

“I used to take photos,” Tim admitted awkwardly. “Of you. Of the Robins,” his eyes darted to Jason and he went red with embarrassment again. “I wasn’t snooping on purpose or anything, I was just, you know, a fan. I grew up hearing about cousin Dinah,” he added, looking at her shyly. “And it sounded so neat, you know, being a hero. But she lived in Star and I barely got to see her and, well, my parents wouldn’t let me contact her anyway. I guess they were worried my throat would spontaneously fix itself if we ever met.” The words were laced with a faint bitterness. 

“You deduced our identities through surveillance?” Bruce raised an eyebrow.

Tim wilted a little bit under the pressure of his glare. “Sort of? I didn’t mean to. It just sort of… happened.”

“Who have you told?”

“No one!” Tim gasped out at the cutting edge of the question. “No one, I swear! There was no one to tell, really,” he mumbled, nearly inaudible.

“A likely story!” Damian burst out angrily. “He lied and cheated his way into a job at the Table so he could continue to spy on us! Who knows who he’s really working for. He’s been lying this whole time! How can we possibly trust anything he has to say?”

Tim looked so miserable, curled up like a spider under their glares that Jason felt moved to whip around. “Like you’ve been the soul of honesty, either of you. Lay off him; if he’d have told anyone in the last… how long?” he turned to Tim.

Tim squinted as he thought about it. “Nine years?”

Jason did a double take. Jesus fuck, he’s figured it out when he was eight? Okay. Cool, cool, cool, cool. “If he’d told anyone our secrets in the last nine years, I think we’d have fucking found out about it by now. I mean, shit, no Rogue is gonna keep that to themselves and I ain’t heard anything on the six o’clock news either. Seems to me the demon brat’s passed on a lot more classified Bat intel to his nutjob grandfather than Tim has done to anyone.”

The reminder of his checkered past caused Damian’s cheeks to darken. He seethed angrily. “That has nothing to do with Drake. He’s clearly a security risk! And also! He took Pennyworth’s money! And his watch! I saw the transactions myself.”

“I gave that money to him, Master Damian,” Alfred said calmly. “I also loaned him the watch. A part of our agreement…”

“Blackmail,” Tim muttered wheezily.

“Was that he did his best to improve his health whenever he could. It was a lovely gift, Master Damian, but was rather too heavy to be wearing in my day to day activities. I did not give it away. I simply loaned it to Master Drake until I could get him a similar one, with some of the same functions that he needed. I was rather hoping to get one to monitor his day-to-day health so we could chart some of his improvements. Circumstances,” Alfred said delicately. “Did not afford me the opportunity to do so.”

Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose. “I think one of you will have to start from the beginning.”

“Alfred used to bring relief packages to the junkyard where I slept most nights,” Tim admitted, face going red. “That was when I first had the idea of having a vigilante food truck. They’d, the government, had gutted the food programs and there were just more and more people living on the streets and resources were so scarce in the area; and, really, it didn’t even matter if they had food to give because they regulated the food giving system almost to death. No one could get all the certifications they needed or afford the insurance costs they insisted on. Interfaith and the Muslim and Sikh communties, the Jewish organisations, the local community groups, all those, were doing their best to keep kitchens supplied and people fed, but it wasn’t working. They could get the food in but regulations said they couldn’t distribute it without going through a billion flaming hoops. It got to the point where even donations started drying up, because the food all went off anyway. And that was before the pandemic really hit and people began losing jobs. So I thought,” Tim shrugged. “What if I just get a car and start delivering at night, when all the rules nazis wouldn’t be there to complain? What if I wore a mask? You can get away with a lot in Gotham if you wear a mask. So I… I took whatever paying work there was and started fixing up an old junker pick up truck from the yard when I had the time. Then I’d go and ask all the charity groups and stores and things for anything they were going to just throw away, anything they could spare or would be wasted otherwise. And… it worked. It wasn’t very good stuff and the truck broke down a lot and a lot of people laughed at me in my shitty little dime store plastic mask, but it worked. People got used to seeing me rattling around. I guess… I guess it sort of spiraled from there. And then Alfred found out what I was doing,” Tim made a face over his face mask. “And he blackmailed me.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow at Alfred.

“I maintain it was a mutually beneficial arrangement,” Alfred replied to this composedly. “Young Master Drake was doing his best, but he had no real food hygiene experience and very scant resources to work with. The district was, in the face of such deliberate poverty-punishment tactics, fast becoming such a miserly, cruel place, such as even I have never seen in my decades of assisting the underserved and the lost. I believed that with some real capital behind him, Master Drake could and would put his ideas into much broader and useful effects. And I was right; he was able to engineer an incredible food distribution system overhaul in a very short timeframe, as well as build up some very useful networks. He also, with enough of my funding, was able to build a delivery vehicle that could make a difference in the area. Things we needed, desperately, when the crisis well and truly hit. And while I did indeed imply that I would go to Master Wayne with information regarding his vigilante identity if he didn’t look after himself better…”

“Imply, nothing,” Tim mumbled.

“Well, I’m sure you, Master Wayne, of all people, understand it is necessary to do what one must to maintain confidentiality,” Alfred continued on imperturbably.

Bruce’s face was hilarious. “Let me get this straight,” he said slowly. “You decided to become a patron for a young vigilante.”

“Indeed, Master Wayne,” Alfred replied. “I like to think I follow the examples set by those I serve.”

Bruce boggled at him.

Jason burst out laughing. “Holy shit, Alfie! You actually pulled a con on the Bat,” he got out between guffaws, feeling more than a little hysterical. Because it all had been a con. Jason had described the Four & Twenty to Alfred and never gotten a single tell from the older man that he knew all about it. That he was fucking funding it and everything. Jason hadn’t even had an inkling. Fuck, he wondered if Bruce had suddenly gotten an insight into how normal people processed the world. You had to do a lot to catch B that off guard.

Damian looked no less bug eyed, but covered his shock with a haughty, “Really, Pennyworth? You wasted your hard earned money on this?” he sneered at Tim.

Dinah raised an eyebrow at him. “He happens to be my cousin, Robin. And as far as I’m aware Alfred Pennyworth has a substantial fortune of his own, which is his to spend however he chooses. Are you saying that Alfred should only spend his own hard earned money on what you see fit?” she challenged. “Last I checked, you don’t own him.”

Damian was taken aback by this conversational thrust. “Of course not!” he blustered. “But there are worthier causes than a rejected scion of the Drakes. And in any case,” he added belligerently. “How Pennyworth spends his money is none of your business either. This is a private family matter.”

“Right!” Dinah said cheerfully. “And Tim’s my family. Thank you for agreeing with me.” Then she turned her back on the gape mouthed Damian to address Tim, who had opted to huddle back in his corner with his mug of consomme, turning it in his hands. “How are you doing there kiddo? You don’t seem very hungry.”

Jason whipped around. “Baby Bird, aren’t you eating?”

“I’m trying,” Tim croaked. “It’s hard. I haven’t had my meds in a few days and when I have an anxiety spiral… it’s like my appetite switches off altogether. My stomach refuses to even take food.”

Dinah’s eyes flickered to his twitching fingers on the cup. “Anxiety disorder, huh?”

Tim nodded. 

“Yeah,” Dinah sighed. “That disorder came for a lot of people in the family. Neural wiring for the Cry sends us down some pretty harsh neurodivergent highways. Your father had it too, bad.”

“He did?” Tim blinked. “He never showed it.”

“He was good at hiding it,” Dinah admitted. “Your mom had her own problems and they usually took center stage. Do you think it would help if I got your meds for you?”

“Maybe,” Tim told her. “Probably.”

“Okay. No sweat, honey. Do you want one of the others to go and I stay here? Whatever makes you comfortable.”

“Who cares about his comfort,” Damian muttered, not quite under his breath.

Tim darted his eyes to Jason. “Um… if Jason could stay…”

“Don’t look at me, Baby Bird,” Jason told him. “You’re stuck with me, regardless.”

Tim went red. “You, um, probably know the meds I take, Dinah,” he nodded his permission. “I saw you taking them at a reunion once.”

“I’ll text you the relevant dosage sizes,” Alfred added, getting out his phone. “I am his medical proxy.”

“Yeah, I know the ones you mean,” Dinah told Tim. “I’ll go. I’m gonna have to dig around for a spare prescription pad, somewhere.”

“There’s one in my office,” Bruce told her. “Leslie gave me a spare for emergencies. The pharmacy two blocks from here doesn’t ask too many questions either.”

“Okay. I’ll be right back, Timmy, okay?” Dinah told him gently. “Then we can talk.”

Tim nodded.

Dinah shot Bruce an arch look. “No interrogations, Bats. He’s mentally not in a great place right now and also I will literally shatter your balls.”

“Alfred trusts him,” Bruce shrugged, as if that explained his entire perception of Tim Drake and all the complications therein. It probably did.

Dinah nodded and left, heels clicking briskly down the hall.

Tim turned the mug in his hands on the table. “You should all leave,” he said, barely audible. “As far as I know, I’ve been exposed at ground zero to COVID. It’s not safe here, Alfred.”

Alfred’s “I have taken all necessary precautions,” was intermingled with Jason’s “I’m not fucking doing that” and Damian’s “Stellar advice; come Pennyworth!”

“Enough, all of you,” Bruce took a seat at the other end of the long breakroom table. “Tim. Let me explain what’s going to happen, okay? Pastor Lightfoot is currently in the ICU and I hate to say it but it’s not looking good for him. More than a few of his church members have tested positive. That tent was like a petri dish. The city has ordered everyone involved to isolate, regardless of test results. The blood tests we took will be helpful, but you will likely have to isolate for a fortnight on the off-chance we get a false negative. Do you understand?”

Tim nodded, dismally. 

“That all being said, there is a chance that you are not infected,” Bruce continued. “The meta expression of the Cry has a certain quirk which gives those who carry the gene extra protections against respiratory-affective illnesses. The thick protective layer that built up in your lungs which I’m told you expelled soon after being exposed may have been enough to shield you, even from an exposure that close.”

“Shit, really?” Jason was ecstatic. Finally, some good news!

Tim looked surprised too. “I’ve had pneumonia, though. Before COVID. And…” he waved a skinny arm to encompass his… everything.

“Yes,” Bruce nodded solemnly. “That’s certainly a factor. That is why I am going to insist you go into hard lockdown. Not just for COVID reasons, but also to improve your general health. Exhaustion and malnourishment can have devastating effects on the immune system. You can’t continue like this,” Bruce said softly. “You’ll die.”

Tim slumped. “I guess I can’t work at the Table anymore,” he whispered.

Jason felt the gut punch hit him. Tim looked so devastated about it, even though he was trying to put on a brave face.

“The infection rate for line cooks is higher than hospital staff,” Bruce nodded. “Even if we make every effort to make the kitchen safe, I wouldn’t recommend it for someone in your… uniquely vulnerable position. For now at least,” Bruce’s expression softened a bit. “You are an excellent pot scrubber. I have no problems with the work you put in here. I’d be happy to welcome you back when conditions have improved.”

“Okay,” Tim said, voice as small as a mouse. “I’ll go back to my place, then. I can isolate there.”

“You’re going to sleep on a cot in a damp, cold, derelict rail platform that’s underwater,” Jason said flatly. “What fucking planet do you think you’re living on, Baby Bird, that you think I’d let that happen?”

Tim blinked at him. “I’ve got nowhere else Jason. All the penthouses and Manors and Martha’s Vineyard cabins all went to good old Uncle Chuck.”

“You’re coming home with me,” Jason thumbed his chest. “You utter dumbass.”

Tim looked insulted; but it was better than looking fragile and lost. “I can’t do that! Roy lives with you!”

“I’d ask you what’s wrong with Roy but, you know, fair,” Jason smirked. 

“That’s not what I meant!” Tim protested, going pink. “I meant, he’s got a daughter, right? If he’s in a household with an active COVID case he won’t get to see her! You can’t do that to him!”

“Hell, I got safehouses… well,” Jason screwed up his face. “I had safehouses. I got street informants using most of ‘em. Fuck. Hang on, there must be one we can use,” Jason insisted, thinking furiously.

“Jason, I can’t kick some poor person out! That might be the only roof they have!” Tim tried again, exasperated. “I’m trying to help the homeless here, not make them!”

“If I might make a suggestion?” Alfred broke in, sounding amused. “The Lake House at the Manor has not been in use for quite some time. And since somebody,” Alfred shot a look at Bruce. “Was foolish enough to gift me with the deed to it despite my objections…”

“I just thought you’d like a retirement home,” Bruce shrugged unrepentantly. “It’s the thought that counts, after all.”

“I have no objection to Master Drake using it for his convalescence,” Alfred finished, ignoring him.

Damian, who had descended into sullen almost-silence since Dinah’s verbal sally, finally bestirred himself. “And now we are housing him? On our own grounds, feeding him with our own money? What has he done to earn such largesse?”

“Saved Alfred’s life,” Jason snapped back. “Fed the poor, helped stop a food cult, generally been professional, hard working and polite while working in the kitchen, unlike some little brats I could name!”

Damian’s face went dark with outrage.

“And also, demon brat? You seem to fucking forget how fucking thin the ice you’re standing on is!” Jason continued hotly. “You fucking kidnapped, drugged, interrogated and fucking starved an innocent kid because you were a fucking paranoid and jealous idiot! That right there? Was a magnificent self-own.”

“But I was right!” Damian burst out, aggrieved. “He was involved in the attack on Pennyworth!”

“And once you found out,” Bruce held up a hand to stop the angry flood. “You should have come to me, Damian. Or to anyone else. You shouldn’t have tried to handle it alone, and this,” he waved a hand at the bedraggled, greasy haired Tim. “Was not the way to solve the case. You know better than this, Damian. You should be better than this. You betrayed my trust in you that you could act as part of a team, that you would act without resorting to violence first, that you would not lie to us as you promised you wouldn’t. It will take some time for you to earn that back. And until such time as you do…”

“Father, no!” Damian went pale.

“... you will not be going out as Robin again,” Bruce continued, voice leaden. 

“You can’t do that!” Damian shouted at the top of his lungs. “I performed an investigation, I was right! And, come to see you?” he spat venomously. “When? In what timeframe? I barely even see you at all!”

“Stephanie and Cassandra were always available,” Bruce pointed out calmly. “So was Dick. So was Jason.”

“They’re all blinded by his saccharine sob story!” Damian jabbed a furious finger at a wide eyed Tim. “They were not objective! Neither is Pennyworth! Neither are you,” he spat as his father venomously. “Look at you all, falling over yourselves to see to his comfort and his needs and never once considering that he has known this entire time who attacked Pennyworth and has deliberately kept that information from us!” Damian roared. “He’s manipulating all of you into forgetting! You are all compromised, you’re so taken with him and his dubious charms that you have forgotten the Mission! I am the only one trying to bring the wrongdoers to justice. And if you will not, I will!” He whirled around and before anyone could blink had a batarang pulled from gods knew where and had pinned it against Tim’s scarred neck before he could do more than lean back, wide eyed, the mug of consomme sliding off the table to smash onto the floor.

Jason was reaching for his gun which wasn’t fucking there, fuck it. “Drop that fucking knife, demon brat or I will make you fucking regret it!” he snarled.

“Damian, stop!” Bruce ordered.

“I won’t until he names the perpetrators,” Damian said fiercely, holding the knife exquisitely close to cutting the skin. “Until he gives descriptions, statements, everything,” he hissed angrily right in Tim’s face.

His unmasked face.

“Damian,” Tim whispered. “You need to get away from me.”

“You’re fucking right he does!” Jason snapped coming forward. He froze when Damian pointedly creased Tim’s skin. “Fuck you, demon brat, you spill a drop of his blood and I’m taking fucking pints of yours!”

“Speak!” Damian yelled, ignoring them. “Who attacked Pennyworth! You serve the scum down there! You must know who they are!”

Tim shot a look at Alfred. “I know them, but it doesn’t matter anymore,” he croaked out.

Jason felt himself falter. “Wait, you do know the guys who attacked Alfie? You knew all this time?” he asked in disbelief, more baffled than angry.

Tim flinched anyway.

“Who were they?” Bruce asked, voice falling into Batman’s grim tones.

Alfred pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh. “Yes, he knew them. So did I, Master Wayne. Young Master Drake is correct. It doesn’t matter any more.”

They all shot him looks of bewilderment. “Alfred, we still need to know,” Bruce said. “They need to be brought to justice. Damian was wrong to do what he did, but if Tim knows the identities of the perpetrators, he should have named them. I need you to name them,” Bruce turned to Tim sternly, who shrank back. “You know our identities. The fact that you kept such a thing from us is nothing less than suspicious. Why would you protect them?”

“I… d-d-didn’t… I wasn’t…” Tim tried helplessly.

“Back the fuck off, B,” Jason snapped. “Tim wasn’t in the wrong here.”

“He was if he was involved with the people who attacked Alfred and deliberately concealed the fact. We still don’t know how he knows us or who he told. The attack on Alfred may be a message targeted at us and as far as I can see the only lynchpin who knew both sides of the event is right before us,” Bruce pointed out solemnly. “At the very least, by coming in here knowing that we didn’t know and deliberately keeping silent, he lied. At best that makes him complicit; at worst, actively involved.”

The words hit Jason like a punch to the gut. Before he could even answer the devastated look on Tim’s face, someone spoke up.

“Cesar Baltimore,” Alfred said flatly. “Forty-two. He was a factory floor supervisor in the plastics plant in Sheldon before he was laid off when they outsourced their entire manufacturing arm to an overseas contractor. He died of complications relating to COVID three months ago, and took half his family with him. Doug Curry, thirty three, packer for a shipping warehouse. He was the victim of a concentrated harassment campaign when he tried to unionize the workforce, lost his job and got sued out of his life savings and his house by a company who made seven figures last year gross profit. He was shot by police the same day I was attacked trying to break into another kitchen to steal food for his family. He was unarmed and surrendering. Juarez Clement Reyes, twenty eight. He was the one who had the keys to the kitchen Master Drake and I were surveying as a possible preparation site for the Four & Twenty. His company laid him off before the pandemic started, citing economy, and then declared bankruptcy essentially canceling the severance he was owed for ten years of service. He’s still alive, although thanks to the crowded conditions in which he lived in the homeless shelter with his family he lost two daughters to COVID, he may lose his wife and is looking at a lifetime of disability thanks to the long term effects of the illness. All of this after beating an opioid addiction at sixteen and trying his hardest to turn his life around after losing family members to gang violence, and the rest to the Joker. Raleigh Redfort, thirty seven, homeless for four years after getting a traumatic brain injury on a construction site that refused to recognise that it happened on the job, because he was doing unpaid overtime. He suffered from violent mood swings and depression, so even the criminal employers in this town were not eager for his services. He was sexually assaulted by an orderly in the free clinic he went to, and when they cut off his meds when he tried to complain he had a psychotic break and then took his own life, two months ago.”

The silence that followed was deadly. 

“I knew these men, Master Wayne. I knew them very well. I fed them at soup kitchens and complimented their lovely families and told them to keep their chins up and tried to direct them to whatever social service program could take them, overburdened as those are. They knew each other, they came together because of shared trauma and pain, as so many communities of poverty often do. They weren’t wicked or cruel or out to cause harm. They were hungry. They were so hungry and so desperate that breaking into derelict restaurants and looking for something, anything left behind was their only option that made them feel like they had some control. To find nothing again and again until, finally, they stumbled into one with a man in a crisp, expensive suit that hadn’t been hungry in decades, demanding to know what they were doing there? Well, I suppose at that moment, it all became too much to bear. You cannot blame Master Drake; he had left me at my request to go and see where the municipal gas line ran into the building, and also to pick up some food. By the time he got back, it was all over. All he could do was what he did do and save my life.”

Alfred shook his head at Damian, who was staring, drop jawed. “Not every enemy is some evil Rogue with a dastardly plan, Master Damian. Would that the world’s problems could all be so simple! So easy to fix! One can defeat a villain, foil a plan, dismantle a bomb, make anidotes for poison. One can solve a problem like that, directly. How can one fix unkindness, which doesn’t leave a mark but is a wound which bleeds without surcease? How are you planning to bandage a thousand invisible cuts inflicted constantly, endlessly, unthinkingly? And you, Master Wayne?” he turned to Bruce, expression calm. “Will the Batman go and find whomever is left? What will you do then? Do you think even your fists can punch Mister Reyes down any harder than life did, I wonder?” Alfred blew out a tired breath. 

Bruce stared at him.