Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

This was it.

All the work for the last three months and ruining his reputation (well, maybe not ruin, Crime Alley people probably knew that was up, but the newspapers had been brutal), Jason Todd, Red Hood, vigilante currently undercover as a crime boss, was about to find out who was behind this drug trafficking ring. He was about to get the heck out of this %$#@hole and go have some of Alfred’s cucumber sandwiches. Things were looking up.

Usually, his life was a dumpster fire, but now he’d been able to use his crime boss status to muscle in on a new trade. Bruce even trusted him to do it; asked Jason to do it. This was a Bat-sanctioned operation and Jason was riding the high for all it was worth.

Then Superman crashed the party.

Well, not Superman exactly. Clark Kent, mild-mannered news reporter who shouldn’t have been anywhere near Gotham. And yet, here he was!

Jason had had far too much #@$% happen to him in his short life to not assume this was happening entirely to screw with him and to know that it was going to be wildly successful.

Goodbye, Alfred’s sandwiches.

There was a distress beacon he was supposed to use if things didn’t work out, but Jason didn’t know if Superman showing up as Clark Kent was worthy of a distress beacon. Nothing was on fire yet anyway. Although, it did appear that Jason’s men had kidnapped the investigative journalist. So that wasn’t great.

“Looky here, Boss!” Troy said, shoving Kent down to the ground and throwing a kick at him. Kent rolled away from it. Jason wondered if that was to avoid breaking Troy’s foot on his stomach. Troy laughed. “Oh, he thinks he’s a fighter! Gonna be real fun when Boss $#%@$ you up then. Then we’ll see how much fight ya got. What’d say, Boss? We here—” he gestured between himself, Shawna, Rigs and Tom, the usual airheads— “caught a lit’le lost reporter snooping around our things.”
Jason had a feeling that Kent was not captured so much as played along. Clark Kent couldn’t start throwing perfect punches and the older man probably thought it was a bonus that he got to meet the boss. Great, now Superman thinks Jason is running the drugs.

Which he is but like hardly. He’s here on a trial run, still trying to get an actual interview with the boss, the scumbag who actually owes the drugs.

This would be so much easier if it wasn’t his men bringing him in. Anyone else’s men and he could berate them, run them all back to their posts, while he quietly disposed (let go) of the problem they had created bringing a reporter here. But the actual Boss’s men were watching. There was no way he could get those guys to leave without blowing his shot at meeting the big guy. He needed to play this cool.

“Clark Kent,” Jason said. “A little far from the big blue of metropolis, aren’t we? This place ain’t your usual haunt.”

“I have reason to believe that your drug ring is effecting my city,” Kent said, a quiet sniffle in his voice. Jason rolled his eyes, with his helmet on no once could see him do it. Superman was playing the part of scared reporter in over his head. Jason saw right through it but figured everyone else was buying it.

“Well, now, you see, you’re just a problem,” Jason said. Like a really big problem.

“Oh, it’s not as bad as all that,” one of Big Boss’s goon said. He was tall and covered in a trenchcoat with a black ski mask covering his face. Jason hated him. He dropped down from the loading dock to stand next to Jason and look him in the eyes. “We can all be friends real soon.”

Jason squinted at the man, unsure of what he was planning but knowing it wasn’t going to be good. Kent was playing terrified victim pretty well. Big Boss’s goon reached inside his jacket to pull something out. Jason caught just a hint of something glass and red before the man was suddenly just gone.

His instincts screamed at him. Jason was ducking and running for it in seconds. Screaming and gunfire sounded behind him but when Jason looked back he saw that none of them had stood a chance.

Wonder Woman had smashed them all into the side of the building, not dead (probably) just very unconscious.

It was time to leave. Wonder Woman looked over and spied Jason. It was really time to leave.

He started running but skid to a stop when Wonder Woman landed in front of him.

“Red Hood,” Wonder Woman’s voice and body language were strong, claiming all the authority Jason knew she was capable of taking. “You are under arrest and will be interrogated then imprisoned for your crimes. You will be in Arkham within the week.”

The distress beacon in his jacket was sounding real good about now but severe irritation won over his automatic panic. Bits of green flared up in his vision. #%$@ them, they weren’t going to make him call his brothers and throw his whole operation down the drain.

The big Bat wasn’t on planet right now. Gotham was their playground right now and *&%$, he had this.

“Hmm, yeah, how about no,” Jason opened fired, knowing the bullets weren’t good for more than a distraction but that’s all he needed to slip around her and get to the side entrance to their warehouse. He needed a roof top. If he could get up there and grapple away, the twisty streets of Crime Alley would hide him.

All the workers inside the warehouse, who were already spooked, startled when Jason burst in but they freaked when Wonder Woman broke down the whole door. One of them in a truly stunning display of brave stupidity ran at her with a baseball bat. Jason didn’t wait to see how that turned out and kept running for the stairs.

There is a huge crash behind him.

And then another, and another. Jason finally risked a glance back to see disaster unfolding.

Wonder Woman had launched baseball bat-man into the stack of crate that held all the drugs. Jason didn’t actually know what the drugs were, but he hoped it was the really expensive kind because they were all coming down. Each stack knocked into the next, creating a train reaction.

Huh. They really should have stacked these better.

Jason raced on. The stacks were falling fast but he was going to reach the stairs before they fall on top of him but realized a moment too late a shadow was coming down on him.

The concrete behind his feet shook violently and his ears rang with the sound of her crashing to the ground behind him. Her foot landed a kick in between his shoulder blades. His bones stayed intact but it didn’t feel like it. His breath was knocked out of him, his teeth shook and his back seriously didn’t like getting kicked. His helmet saved his face as it bounced off the ground. The screen cracked but didn’t blind him.

Above him the stack of drugs wavered then started to fall. With no option left, he curled into a ball to try and protect himself. Feet stepped up by his head and Wonder Woman stayed standing as the crates smashed into her. All the crates that would have hit Jason smashed to pieces hitting Wonder Woman.

Uncurling, he bolted away from the superhero, fully expecting to be caught. He didn’t know what to think when he wasn’t.

Looking back as he scrambled over the broken crates, seeping red liquid that was the drug he was supposed to move, Jason looked back at her. She was still standing but bowed over and clutching her chest.

Maybe, a box had hit her good. Didn’t sound possible but Jason wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. He ran for it, slipping around in the red liquid.

Yeah, he really hoped this &*$# was expensive because whatever that drug was it was all over the floor now.

He didn’t expect to reach the stairs without Wonder Woman reappearing, but he did.

But he had felt relief too quickly. The stairs beneath him began to shake. Wonder Woman was close behind him. Jason put in all his effort and surged to the top, flinging open the door and running for the ledge. He looked over the side and nearly screamed at coming face-to-face with Superman.

The superhero was floating, full costume, in mid-air just over the ledge. He rose up slowly, eyes never leaving Jason, until he was several feet above him, looking down on him like he was a bug in his shoe. Jason felt impossibly small.

“This will be much easier if you just come quietly, Red Hood,” Superman sounded like he knew he was the toughest thing around. The fact that it was true only made Jason feel smaller.

“Doubt that,” Jason said, forcing confidence he didn’t feel. “Call the Bat and ask him how things work around here.”

Superman scowled at him, sounding irritated. “Batman is currently off-world. You’ll have to deal with our way of handling things instead.”

“Your way? Aren’t you supposed to stay out of Gotham? No metas allowed here except Signal.”

And that was only because he was Batman’s kid, but they didn’t need to know that.

“If you hadn’t kidnapped people under my protection then we would abide by those rules. But once you crossed that line you became my problem as well as Batman’s.”

“Oh, trust me, I am definitely more of Batman’s problem than I’ll ever be yours.” Jason had been scooting to his left and now he saw a point his grapple could grip.
Superman’s voice was twinged annoyance. “He isn’t here. We are taking you in.”

“Yeah, I don’t get why you can’t just call him? It'd save us both so much work.”

Superman sighed and started floating down. He touched down on the gravel rooftop, piecing Jason with an annoyed glare. The pointed look was chilling.
There was no way he could win in a fight, he’d lose any race against the man in front of him, but Jason grew up on the streets of Gotham; they were his home. Losing two heroes who, as far Jason knew, had never been here before should be easy.

“Let me know how that works out for ya, Smallville.” With a jaunty salute, Jason shot his grappling hook and was whisked off the building. He barely heard Superman yell before there was only the rush of the wind.

He had just begun to twist and get ready to grab the building ledge and spring off again when…

SLAM!

His whole right side screamed in pain; his ribs straight up trying to escape up his throat. Something had smashed into him mid-air and now he was falling.
A hand wrapped around his wrist and his falling came to an abrupt halt. It jerked his whole body, and he choked back a yell as broken ribs were jolted, and his shoulder popped, his vision went white.

“What drugs are you manufacturing, Red Hood!” Wonder Woman yelled down at him as she kept him from falling to his death. Her grip tightened round his wrist; his bones creaking in protest. “We will put an end to your vile schemes either way.”

Ignoring the pain, Jason reached for his distress beacon, hidden inside his jacket. Black was sweeping over his vision. Straining his fingers, he just managed to grasped the smooth beacon. He pressed on it but his fingers slipped and black took over.

Note to self: Superman or Wonder Woman being in Gotham was now classified as worthy of a distress beacon.

- The Manor, the next morning

Dick was sitting with his feet up on the desk in front of the batcomputer. No worries, Bruce wasn’t here.

He was hoping that last night he would have heard something from Jason but there was nothing. Dick tried not to feel disappointed. Jason had given them a rough timeline of when he thought he would have the boss beyond the operations. That didn’t mean they needed to start worrying the moment Jason went longer than he thought he would.

Still Dick was aggressively pushing himself back and forth in the chair.

“Big bird, you are going to break something if you keep that up,” Tim said from behind Dick. He was back there with his own computer, his work pulled up on it, but his concentration was elsewhere. He had pushed a button on it in hours.

Dick spun around to face him. “Do you think it’s weird Jason went longer than he said he would? The plan was to hear from him last night, but I didn’t hear a thing all patrol.”

Tim huffed. “It hasn’t even been one day. Maybe Jason did meet the boss last night and just hasn’t gotten a free moment to contact us. You know, Blackmask once had Jason’s clothes changed and him put in bed during one of his undercover ops.”

“I am supposed to be reassured by that?” Dick flopped in his chair and glared but Tim shrugged.

“I’m just saying, he was fine then but couldn’t risk contacting anyone all day. Look, Dick, if something was wrong Jason would tell us.”

“Todd is an imbecile. His timeline was likely off,” Damian said. Dick was just waiting for the ‘superior Robin’ comment, but none came. That worried him more than anything. Damian in all his prickliness would never admit to enjoying time spent with Jason but the two had steadily been growing closer and while he wouldn’t say it, Damian was worried about him.

Dick sat up straight with a purpose and spun the chair around. He quickly pulled up a map of all trackers and searched for Jason.

“See? He is al—” Tim choked.

Jason’s tracker was not on the screen.

Tim about dumped Dick out of the seat but his older brother was quick to let Tim take over. The map was displaying everyone else’s location correctly. Dick, Tim, Damian, Cass and Steph all at the manor while Duke was out patrolling. Barbara at the belfry. Bruce wasn’t on the map but that was normal. Jason was always on the map.

Ever since he came back to the family, Bruce had been paranoid about losing him again. Thus, Jason had the most up to date trackers and Bruce was so fastidious about him wearing them that the family wasn’t entirely certain he didn’t have a few on him only Bruce knew were there.

And yet, despite everything Tim did, Jason’s data didn’t display anywhere.

“What’s that mean?” Dick said. “Zoom out to the whole world. Maybe he left Gotham.”

“I…” Tim faltered. “I already tried that just with the data.”

The map zoomed out anyway. Nothing.

“If Todd turned off his tracker, or someone did it for him, it would have set off an alarm, correct?” Damian asked.

Tim nodded, fingers flying over the keyboard. “His tracker is still on, or at least, it wasn’t turned off. We just aren’t receiving the signal.”

“It’s being blocked?” Dick was gripping the arm of Tim’s chair, barely stopping himself from shaking it and his little brother.

“It has to be,” Tim said. “I just don’t know what could being doing that. Bruce keeps track of Jason pretty well.”

Bruce wasn’t here though and wasn’t going to be for another week. Whatever trackers Bruce may or may not have on Jason didn’t matter, they had to find their brother on their own and they had to do it now.

Chapter Text

- The Watchtower, sometime later

For a moment, Jason wasn’t sure what woke him then someone tugged at his helmet and he remembered the cold touch of fingers sliding along his neck as if in search of the latches. Someone was trying to take his helmet off but by the sound of grumbling they weren’t succeeding.

Jason didn’t expect them too but every sense he had rebelled at a stranger touching him. He snapped his head forward with no restraint. He knew it wasn’t one of his brothers since they knew how to take it off and his instincts wouldn’t be so riled up by his brothers being close.

His head connected and the person he hit was solid steel.

“Mother—” Jason cut himself off as pain seared through his head.

“Whoa, careful!” someone shouted.

“That was not me.” Jason recognized that voice as Superman and he groaned.

The first voice drew nearer. “Didn’t mean to startle you,” the words were directed at Jason in an annoyingly cheery voice. “We were just wondering if you were okay under there. Been out of it for a while.”

The air felt close, so he was likely in a room. Once the dizziness died down enough, Jason felt confident in facing what %#$@show awaited him, he opened his eyes.

He was in a room with white walls. The only piece of furniture in the room was the chair he was strapped too. His ankles, thighs and wrist were securely cuffed along with a strap around his chest. That strap was murder against his broken ribs, but he didn’t think it was intentional torture. If his ribs hadn’t been broken it would have been comfortably snug. Keeping him from arching his back off the chair but not restricting his breathing.

Did they think he was a meta? Probably. Otherwise, they would be having his conversation in the med bay. Seeing as they just kidnapped him when he was clearly not the top dog, Jason wasn’t holding out hope on them knowing much about him. They were stupid (kept that way on purpose, thanks Batman), not malicious.

If they had given him pain killers it wasn’t the stuff that worked.

To his right, there was a two-way mirror and just over his left shoulder he could see the doorframe.

Standing in front of him, was the Flash, his hands still held out in front of him like he was calming a spooked animal. Superman beside him with a blank face and behind him was Wonder Woman.

“Not a good idea to touch the helmet,” Jason’s eyes were drawn to Wonder Woman who looked angry that he was speaking, maybe he just wasn’t saying the right thing. Superman frowned and looked annoyed, so Jason layered on his best patronizing tone. “It’s not good for anyone’s health. What with all the bombs in it that will explode and take off my head and your hands.”

He shrugged as best he could, rattling the cuffs on both his wrists.

“That is really something, Red Hood.” Superman sounded tired. “What made you think it was better to die than give up your identity?”

Honestly, it wasn’t true anymore. There was a time Jason would have rather die, hence he thought to put explosives in there in the first place, but now it was more a good threat than anything else. So far Jason had yet to meet anyone willing to bet losing a hand to see if he was bluffing.

Bruce had been fighting with him to remove them for a long time now and that more than anything was stopping him from doing it. The knock-out drag-out fights over the matter were not fun anymore but Jason hated giving the over-baring man an inch.

Looking at his situation now, Jason conceded he was being a bit childish, and Bruce had a point. He’d get to removing them the moment his hands weren’t tied to a chair.

“This is not the matter at hand,” Wonder Woman broke in and stepped threateningly in front of Jason. “What are the names of your associates?”

“Tough question. Got any easier ones to start?” Jason would absolutely have the names of his ‘associates’ if he hadn’t been arrested by the freaking Justice League. He hesitated to tell them that though. They would want proof and the only proof Jason had was Batman telling him to do it.

How much would Bruce appreciate it if Jason forced him to acknowledge that Batman worked with Red Hood? That the Dark Knight wasn’t as much of a lone wolf as he had led the league to believe.

Sure, he and Bruce had been doing better, nothing perfect, but they were starting to relax around each other. But Batman had put so much work into keeping the Justice League blind to all his bats if Jason ruined that because he couldn’t handle sitting like a good little captive until Batman got back from wherever the hell he was and he could take him back to Gotham as a Gotham criminal than as far as Jason was concerned Bruce would have a right to kick his ass.

He couldn’t be responsible for the League finding out about all the vigilantes that swarmed around Batman. Maybe Dick or Barbara could get away with that. But him? That would be one #$%@ up he could not afford, not if he didn’t want to lose his family.

Anger split Wonder Woman’s objectively beautiful face into an ugly sneer and she slammed her hands down just beside Jason’s, shaking the whole chair. He reeled back from her, flinching in spite of himself.

“Who are you working with?” Wonder Woman yelled in his face.

So quickly that Jason could see the panic in his movements, Superman pulled her back. She ripped her arm out of his hand than froze, looking confused. Control came back to her, and she nodded to Superman’s silent question, stepping back and letting him take point. Flash was twitching nervously in the corner, eyes jumping from person to person.

Behind his helmet, and thank $%# for helmets, Jason was shook. All the information he had on the league was from the research Bruce had forced them to do. Some of the reports he read were Batman’s firsthand accounts and impressions interacting with the League but most of it was just reports. Still, none of it suggested Diana would be so quick to snap. She wasn’t the good cop in this interrogation, but he hadn’t been expecting any of them to be violent.

“Red Hood,” Superman said without a trace of nerves. He was gathered back to himself and projected confidence. Jason bristled under his gaze. “Who are your associates? Tell us and we can get you sent back to Arkham within the week.”

“Arkham? Why Arkham?” Jason swallowed.

“You’re scared,” Flash zipped up and around him. “You’re so tense. What about Arkham scares you?”

Jason growled at Flash, enjoying the way the man shivered and his concerned look, before forcing his body to loosen. He was tense and if he had to think any more about Arkham he was certain he would combust.

Arkham was where he was. Jason couldn’t go there, not even for a minute.

So much for being a good little captive.

“I’m not going to Arkham,” Jason said.

Superman latched on to the fear. “Okay, then make a deal with us. Tell us who your associates are, and you go to Blackgate.”

If only he could take that deal. He could lie. His heartbeat was already erratic, Superman wouldn’t be able to hear a difference.

“Deal,” Jason said. “You are going to want to wait for Batman though unless you want to go deal with one of his rogues in his city.”

“That is our concern, Red Hood.” Wonder Woman crossed her arms and pinned him with her gaze. “Tell us.”

“Okay, I’m just saying, Batman in a bad mood is a $#%@& to deal with. You know, one time—”

“Enough of this.” Wonder Woman snapped and pushed Superman aside. Her lasso was around Jason in seconds. “Who—”

“No! I know who you are!” Jason barely registered he’d spoken, his thoughts rapidly derailed. She couldn’t ask him when he couldn’t lie. It would open him up to much speculation, too many questions. They’d figure it all out. Everything and everyone. The batclan. His brothers!

Everyone froze.

Jason drew a calm breath and slowly spit the words out again. “I. Know. Who. You. Are.”

This was not good, but it might just save him from spilling everything Batman had kept hidden.
He took a quiet breath once more and steadied his voice. “Diana Prince, Clark Kent, Barry Allen, Hal Jordan, you want me to keep going, cuz I can. I can throw out a dozen more secret identities. I could throw out identities even you don’t know.”

He never would. He’d die before he gave up Bruce’s identity, but he also knew that the Justice League was noble enough they would never ask him to reveal one of their own.

Jason dropped into his best Red Hood growl and leaned as far forward into Wonder Woman’s face as the strap and cuffs allowed. “And if you keep using this lasso on me you’ll have to kill me because there won’t be a single day where I won’t tell the whole world who lovely Diana Prince really is. I’ll tell everyone everything and even the people who think I’m crazy will be convinced. After all, how hard will it be to correlate? I tell the world that Clark Kent—" Diana’s eyes bounce to the man of steel then back to him “—Clark Kent, the family man, good old farm boy and respectable reporter is Superman and watch as everyone hounds him day and night making it impossible for him to be Superman and then point out to the excited masses that since Kent hasn’t left their sight there’s been no Superman.”

Jason cocked his head like a curious puppy. “Good luck finding impersonators for the whole Justice League.”

“Why wouldn’t we just lock you up?” Barry asked.

Jason laughed. He was still leaned close to Wonder Woman, but he turned his head to the Flash. “For what? A drug charge? Please, I’ll be tried in the Gotham courts, and everyone knows I’ll be out in four months. Enjoy your last four months of a secret identity. Just a suggestion but maybe use that time to hide your family, friends, ya know, anyone who is going to die when your villains find out who their heroes are.”

Barry paled. Jason could almost see his mind being overtaken by thoughts of everyone it would endanger if villains knew he was connected to them.

Superman looked pissed off. He held very still for a few moments then with carefully controlled movements he walked over up to nudge Wonder Woman aside.

Jason couldn’t help but to lean away from him, leaving Wonder Woman space. He had pissed off an alien who could literally crush all his bones in one hand. And he was trapped with no immediate way out. Way to go, Todd.

His back pressed in the metal chair behind him as far from Superman as he could get. There was nowhere to go as the man raised a hand to him. His finger’s barely touched Jason as he grasped Diana’s lasso. He was taking it off him but Diana’s eyes grew wide.

“Wait, how do you know us?” She yelled in a rush.

The lasso wasn’t off Jason yet and it compelled him to answer.

He bit his tongue and bled, desperately trying not to speak, but the words were forced out of him. “My father told me.”

“Who is your father?” Diana yelled but Jason bit his tongue again screaming as his mouth tried to open. He ducked down, making the strap press against his ribs, and got out of the lasso. He heaved like a man coming up from drowning.

For a moment everything was white noise, and he squeezed his eyes shut against the pain. He eased himself back up to a sitting position and breathed through his nose. Finally, the pain receded, and he heard Wonder Woman arguing that they must find out who else had their identities while Superman and the Flash argued that they had to take Hood’s threat seriously.

Jason opened his eyes just in time to see Wonder Woman disappear behind him, the sound of a door opening and closing quickly after.

“Are we going to ask him who his father is?” Barry asked.

Superman’s gaze was strictly on the closed door, his voice distracted. “No, we must warn the league that at least two individuals, one still at large, knows their identities.”

Then he turned his gaze on Jason. “We are going to continue this, and you will answer our questions. We’ll see about any deals.”

Dismissal was clear in his tone. He owned Jason and he knew it. He could afford to let him stew and think about Superman’s veiled threat for a while. Jason saw green as the man turned his back on him and started to leave. Craning his neck, since his ribs wouldn’t let him straighten up, he yelled after him. “You send me to Arkham and I’m telling everyone! You hear me, everyone!”

The Flash ran out after Superman in a blur of red and the door shut with a quiet snipping sound. Cutting Jason off from everything except a white room, his screaming ribs and his internal screaming. He had just told the Justice League he knew who they were, worse he had told them about Bruce being the one to tell him.

For the league, this situation had just gone from annoying but manageable to a minor crisis. They would have to assume that Red Hood’s father wasn’t a good guy which meant they had to act like the whole league was in danger.

What a nightmare he’d made of this. Not that he had much of a choice but still. They weren’t going to let him go to Blackgate any time soon and they weren’t letting Batman take him anytime soon. His chances at escape had just gone from decent odds to a flaming pile of @#$%.

- Crime Alley, daytime

The last location Jason’s tracker put him at was an empty warehouse. The moment they realized Jason was gone Tim had pulled all of the tracker’s data for the last three months that Jason was undercover. Now it was nearly midday, no one had slept and Nightwing and Red Robin were swinging around the city. It felt weird but didn’t matter; Jason was missing.

Robin had been made to go to school under great threat. No matter how much they fought, Damian and Jason still cared about each other and now Damian was worried. Dick wished he could have given him more comfort, but they couldn’t have all three of them running around in broad daylight. It would attract too much attention.

And well, Bruce wasn’t here, which means Dick was responsible to Damian just like he had been before and yikes that boy had already missed a lot of school this year. If he missed anymore Bruce’s parenting skills were going to be called into question.

So, Damian was in school at least until he managed to break free of his teachers and come find them. Steph and Cass were combing through anything Jason sent them on the drug ring, both at the cave and on the streets. Duke was chasing down the drug ring themselves and Red Robin and him were finding concerning things at a warehouse.

First, they identified the building was empty then split up.

Tim went inside and reported that there was the barebones of a drug making operation, looked like they had torn down in a hurry. There were traces of a chemical spatter absolutely everywhere. It looked like a massive spill happened and the cleanup hadn’t been very good. Tim had taken samples and was working to identify what the chemical was.

Outside, Dick was on the roof. There were three sets of prints. Jason’s ran from the door to the ledge then backed away from it. The soles of his boots stood out compared to the smaller set of boot prints and the larger set as both of those didn’t have the same custom insole Bruce made for all of them.

The smaller set of prints also came from the door but then disappeared, seemingly into thin air. A meta? Dick wasn’t sure but the evidence was suspicious. Especially because the larger set of prints also seemed to just end. This person had climbed over the ledge and stood by it before walking forward and then… nothing. They didn’t turn around and Dick knew that they were too far from the ledge to have jumped backwards over it.

There was no clear evidence of what happened to Jason and Dick was focusing hard on the problem to avoid thinking too hard about what it all meant.

Dick had lost one of his brothers. He knew Jason was an adult who made his own decisions but deep down Dick could never feel anything but responsible. Bruce wasn’t here and Dick failed to protect his family.

Want and loneliness threatened to swallow him whole. He couldn’t let it, not when Jason was still missing. He’d curl up in a corner when this was all over. For now, he forced himself to play out the story of movement the footprints told.

Once more he got to the ledge, and he looked beyond it. Very quick and panicky movement caught his eye.

A raggedy man was running away from Nightwing. He glanced back over his shoulder, saw Nightwing looking at him and scurried away even faster.

He barely made it to the end of the block before Nightwing dropped down in front of him. He screamed but continued running and entered the building at the end of the street.

It wasn’t hard to tell the building was a homeless shelter. Dick put away his escrima sticks and walked through the door to be greeted by dozens of angry eyes. The man was amongst them but hiding. Others stepping up to shield him. The whole place was ready to fight.

Dick put his hands up. “I am not here to fight. I’m looking for someone, I think something bad might have happened to him.”

That sent whispers flying about the room. Dick watched concern filter through so many faces that he realized these people were more on his side than any of them knew.

“Red Hood.” The reaction was an immediate buzz of tension, like his life depended on his next word being favorable towards the man in question. “Do you guys know what happened to him? See anyone who might have caused him trouble?”

The whispers intensified but no one spoke up.

Dick held his breath, stopping himself from pushing. Crime Alley had always been cagey with information. Jason was the only one the locals would really talk to. He was the only one they liked. Actually, they were rather possessive of him. He was their protector, not Batman.

Dick tried to lean into that more. “He’s missing and I’m trying to find him. Please, help me find him.”

The crowd shuffled their feet and glanced at each other. Concern openly on their faces. They were looking for someone to talk and finally a man with pale skin and deep scar tissue on one side of his face came forward. Judging by his relatively nice appearance, Dick figured he was a worker at the shelter.

Distrust was clear in his dark eyes, but his voice was strong. “No one saw what happened, but we heard gunshots. After it was over a few went out to see if there were any bodies and saw something, something in the sky.”

“Can you describe it?” Dick asked.

“Well,” the man looked unsure but shrugged. “They say it looked like a person in the sky.”

Meta. Dick kept his chest from falling and fear off his face. They could deal with this. It wasn’t like Dick didn’t already guess that and now it was collaborated. “Anything else?”

“No,” A woman screeched, cutting off the pale man’s thoughtful look. “Get out!”

“Hang on!” someone shouted. “This is Nightwing.”

“Yeah,” a gruff man standing in the front said. He eyed Dick up and down like he was lunch. “That don’t mean #$%@.”

“No, wait.” A small Latina woman pushed her way to the front, knocking aside the gruff man to get everyone’s eyes on her. “Red knows him!”

“So, we do too,” a teenage boy said with his arms crossed. “A #$%@, just like the rest of ‘em.”

“He can’t be,” she said. “Look, last year Red saved me whe—”

“We know!” half the room screamed at her.

She put her hands on her hips and stared them down.

“When he saved me,” she restarted with a dead serious tone. “He called him brother.”

The room didn’t have a reply but most looked unconvinced. Dick didn’t know if it would help but he stepped up behind the woman anyway.

“It’s true. We are brothers and I think he’s been kidnapped by metas. I will find him with or without you’re help. But it’d be way easier with your help.”

The pale man thought about it then nodded and resumed speaking. “No one saw Red Hood do it but there was talk of a man with a camera wandering the streets. That he got into a fight with Red Hood’s men. Said he didn’t win.”

“What happened to him?”

“Don’t know.”

The woman turned around to finally face Dick. There was a hard look in her eyes, like she was unshakable despite the fear on her face. She nodded to confirm what the man had said. The crowd was agitated. Dick knew they had shared everything they were going to.

“Alright,” Dick backed to the door. He wanted to pry but knew if he did he’d only make a bad name for himself, and Jason would be pissed he’d messed with his people. “We are going to be around for a moment more if you think of anything else. Thank you.”

“Wait,” the woman said. Dick looked her in the eyes to show she had his full attention. She chewed on her lip a moment. “If you find him or, ya know, don’t. Let us know?”

She meant if Jason was dead, but Dick wasn’t going to let that happen. So, he smiled and gave her a firm, confident nod. “Of course.”

Chapter Text

- The manor, Evening

Dick was freaking out.

They had searched every inch of the warehouse twice but found nothing. The samples that Tim took were being frustratingly elusive on what they actually were. Their only evidence was the footprints and the word of people who barely talked to him.

Tim was on his eighteenth cup of coffee, it was making him shake, but he pressed on. They had left the cave for the mansion after finding that the boot prints could have been any number of people’s. They weren’t descriptive enough to be specific.

“Well, thanks anyway.” Dick hung up the phone and Tim looked up from his laptop expectantly. Dick chose to rub his eyes rather than let his little brother see the disappointment in them.

“Vicky is certain that no reporter she knows was working Crime Alley last night. She has heard nothing of a drug trade article being in the works and she doesn’t know of anyone who didn’t turn up for work today.”

“So, she was a waste of time?” Damian sounded angry, not too unusual for him but this time it was different. Dick hadn’t been able to get him to go to school this morning as he threatened to simply walk out once Dick dropped him off and Dick knew he meant it.

The news that a meta had more than likely kidnapped their brother was sickening to them all.

It wasn’t like Jason didn’t get kidnapped, even got kidnapped by metas before, but the family didn’t usually know about it. Jason was getting better about it. He was getting better about being part of the family in general. He was talking to Bruce, had a relationship with Tim, was building a real bond with Damian and what could Dick say, Jason was his little brother, he would always love him.

But it wasn’t strictly the family’s growing closeness that made this different it was the brutal efficiency of it. Jason was no joke. Taking him down wasn’t easy. The fact that this meta had pulled it off without leaving any evidence behind was disturbing.

And apparently, the meta had also kidnapped a reporter. Hence, the call to Vicky. Dick had managed to make it sound like he was merely concerned about a reporter possibly being kidnapped and then talked a bit about her projects. No doubt there would be a new scandal about what the Wayne heir was doing in Crime Alley but that was future Dick’s problem.

Duke had been listening to the drug traffickers all day and they didn’t say anything about a reporter. There was nothing filed with the cops either. And no news article coming out. Signal was currently out snooping at the drug traffickers new warehouse looking to get inside and see what he could confirm, but for now they had to assume the reporter and Jason had been taken together.

“Signal says he has an opening and is going in. I’ll update you every five minutes he’s inside.” Oracle’s voice came over the comm line. She had been awake just as long as them trying to help put the pieces together.

Beside Dick, perched on the arm of a chair, Damian ground his teeth together. His face held an intensely thoughtful expression. Dick reached out and ruffled his hair, trying to distract him. Damian viciously slapped at his hand, but Dick smiled in return.

“Thank you, Oracle.” Dick answered. They all had their comms in, too paranoid of missing something.

Tim reached for his coffee cup and Dick winced. He drained it in one go and then stood to go get more.

“Tim,” Dick cautiously stepped between his brother and the kitchen. “Maybe we should get some sleep.”

“Giving up, already?” Damian was instantly yelling. “I would have expected better from you.”

“No one is giving up.” Dick strengthened his stance and took a breath. “Look, we are not going to help Jason if we are too tired to think clearly.”

“Who’s tired?” Tim didn’t even try and fight him. He just shouldered past Dick and left the lounge. Damian huffed and turned his face away.

Dick sighed and went into the kitchen. “Tim, you can’t prepend like this isn’t going to be a problem. If we just keep going we’ll start missing things.

“If you’re slipping, go take a nap, no one is stopping you.” Tim watched the coffee maker brew like a cage fighter waiting for the bell.

“I could use the sleep,” Dick admitted long use to having to undercut his brothers’ bravado with honesty. “And so could you.”

“I’m doing fine,” Tim grabbed his cup in tense anticipation.

“Come one, Tim. Your blood is more caffeine than anything else at this point. You’re literally shaking.”

There was no reply as Tim filled his coffee cup. It splashed dangerously as Tim couldn’t hold the cup or the carafe steady.

“Tim,” Dick pleaded. “We can’t even find out if one reporter is missing.”

“That’s because they’re not!” Tim slammed the cup and carafe down. Then sighed and spread his hands on the counter and rested his weight on them. “I have looked. Everywhere. Oracle has too. Not a single report of a missing reporter, or freelance writer or crime enthusiast or camera salesman! I have looked from Gotham to Metropo—”

Tim straightened up so fast he knocked his cup off. It smashed all over the floor. Tim didn’t even glance at it.

“Was Superman on the list of people who could have made those boot prints?” Tim asked.

Dick had a moment of whiplash and then thought about it and shrugged. “I think so. Tim, what do you have?”

“Superman is a reporter.” Tim said that like it was the answer to everything. He started running, dashing past Dick and taking off for the hallway. Dick ran after him. Damian saw them and was in hot pursuit without question.

“Tim!” Dick yelled once they were on the stairs in the cave. “Clark Kent is a reporter. He could have left those boot prints but so could half the world’s villain population. What makes you think it was him.”

“Because he isn’t missing,” Tim skid to a halt in front of the batcomputer. “Who wouldn’t report their loved one going to Crime Alley and never returning? Or what reporter would witness Red Hood getting kidnapped by a meta and not talk about it?”

“A dead one with no family.” Damian supplied.

“But there was no evidence of that,” Tim typed rapidly on the computer pulling up a file he didn’t have access to. He quickly started to hack it.

“Maybe there was no reporter, and we are chasing our tails because we listened to Crime Alley homeless people who will sell their children for a hit.” Damian sounded disgusted with themselves for letting this happen.

“Hey, now. Not all homeless people are like that. Especially homeless people who clearly care about Jason.” Dick said, certain that the people in Crime Alley had told him the truth. On the other hand, though there was nothing supporting the presence of a reporter beyond the homeless people. Dick winced. “I’m not agreeing with Damian, but we don’t exactly have solid proof here.”

“Hmm,” Tim was suddenly smiling. “This proof enough for ya?”

The screens lit up with research papers, crime statistics and notes, Clark Kent’s notes on his latest article: drug trafficking on the rise in metropolis linked to Gotham mayhem.

“Tim, what is this?” Dick asked.

“Superman’s personal computer.” Tim said it like it was nothing. “B created a backdoor into it the moment he found out Superman was a reporter. If Kent ever decided to start reporting on his fellow superheroes, Bruce wanted to know before the article came out.”

Okay, that was paranoid but right now Dick couldn’t be more grateful for Bruce’s intense breach of privacy.

It only took the trio a moment to catch what Kent was working on. A piece on how drugs made their way into metropolis. Kent had found a connection between things going to hell in Gotham and drug crimes raising in metropolis. Kent believed it was because of the corruption at Gotham’s docks. Basically, crime lords brought drugs into Gotham harbor and then transported them to Metropolis because they were less likely to be stopped.

But it was the latest note that caught all their attention. It stated that the drugs being brought in where hard to identify but he thought he had found a truck that delivered some and he was going to follow it back.

“Ten bucks says that truck came back to Gotham,” Tim said.

“Yeah and brought Clark Kent with it,” Dick said.

Damian snarled. “And he kidnapped Todd.”

“We didn’t say he kidnapped Jason,” Tim broke it. “Superman only explains one set of prints and maybe he explains how both sets of prints just disappeared, but it doesn’t tell us who the other person was and what they were doing there.”

“TT. Of course, it does. Superman couldn’t arrest Todd. He was there as a reporter. So, he called in someone who could. There are many members of the justice league who could have answered his call in very little time.”

Dick and Tim looked at each other.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.” Dick sidestepped that alarmingly logical conclusion for a moment longer. “Tim, did Clark Kent go to work today?”

“Let’s see,” Tim pulled up the camera feed inside the Daily Planet with alarming speed. Kent’s desk was empty.

“Maybe he is out on a call?” Dick said.

A calendar appeared on one screen. It was an absolute mess with so much typed all over it was hard to make anything out.

A moment of hard staring later and Dick saw it. Under today’s date it read: Kent out sick.

Dick eased back and looked at Tim.

“What do you think Superman is sick with?” Tim said grimly.

Dick knew why. This was bad. “Okay, so Superman is our missing reporter. What happens?”

“He comes to Gotham, looking for his drug delivering truck,” Tim’s still shaking but this time it might have been from the cold fury in his voice.

“The homeless hear him get hassled by Red Hood’s men leading to him being taken to Jason.”

“And Father’s stupid insistence on us remaining a secret make it so Superman is incapable of knowing Red Hood is undercover.” Damian jumped between them. Face pinched in an angry pout.

The words set were like a bomb being dropped.

Dick nodded without seeing anything. “Superman found him running a drug operation just like he is known for doing on the JLA’s wanted list.”

“Holy…” Tim slumped against the desk, hand rubbing his face and hair. Both he and Dick suddenly felt like they were in a sauna and about to die of heat stroke. “Holy ****! The Justice League kidnapped our brother! We need to call dad!”

“Dads in space,” Dick answered tonelessly. “He won’t be back for another week.”

Damian shook himself. “Alright,” he straightened his back, clasped his hands behind him like a general. “Where does this so-called Justice League live and how do we bring them to their knees?”

- Watchtower, same time

The Justice league, Jason decided, are not very good interrogators. Sure, they are scary. Literally, almost all of the ones who come to talk to him could crush him in some way or another, but Jason’s been through that before. His ribs were healing pretty well, thank you very much.

The real thing they needed to work on was having a backup plan that didn’t involve Wonder Woman’s lasso or Batman.

Five times they have threatened Jason with have Batman interrogating him and honestly, at this point Jason was doing everything he could to annoy them enough so they would actually call Batman.

“You really want to face the Dark Knight,” Barry trembled like he scared himself just thinking about it. “Rather than just chat with us?”

The Flash and Superman had been making this point for a minute in their latest attempt to get something out of him. Jason was tired. He guessed that he’d been here for a day at least and hadn’t slept well in his cell. His body may heal itself faster than normal, but he still needed sleep, especially since the healing itself drained him.

“Listen, don’t take it so personal.” Jason was once again restrained in the chair so he couldn’t pat the Flash’s shoulder. “It’s just that you talk too much.”

“Well, I’m just trying to keep the conversation going.”

“This isn’t a conversation; it’s an interrogation and you’re bad at it.”

Superman sighed and Flash looked hurt.

“Barry,” Superman sounded suspiciously not like Superman. Jason thought he sounded like a tired Clark Kent. “Will you get my laptop?”

“Sure thing!”

Red blurred out of the room in a millisecond. Jason hardly had time to process Superman’s request before the Flash reappeared, holding out a laptop.

“Thank you.” Superman took the laptop from him. Flash nodded with a big smile.

Jason was growing more apprehensive as Superman opened the laptop and held it in one hand will he clicked with the other.

“What are we doing with that?” Jason asked casually.

“Glad you said we.” Superman walked to stand just in front of him. “Since you already know who I am and since your men interrupted by research, you are going to help me finish my article.”

Jason snarled at him even though he couldn’t see his face. “Seriously? You want me to do your work?”

“Not all of it. I just need to know how you are transporting the drugs into Gotham.”

Oh, well, Jason actually did know that. It was one of the ways he caught on to the drug ring in the first place.

“Yeah, okkkaay, I guess I can help.”

“Excellent. Almost finished setting everything up.”

The computer started to blare high shrill beeps. Jason cringed, hands jerking against the cuffs as he tried to cover his ears on instinct.

Superman clicked on a few things and the beeping stopped.

The Flash uncovered his ears. “What was that?”

“The Watchtower’s warning system.”

“On your computer?” Flash zipped around to peer over Superman’s shoulder. “Oh, you connected to the watchtower’s network, and it detected the hacking.”

“Hacking?” Jason asked.

“Yup,” Flash answered looking very smug. “The tower has the best defense system, like honestly you can’t even guess how high tec, and it automatically checks everything connected to it for hacking.”

Jason hummed and did his best to sound awed. Truth was he was trying not to laugh. Tim built the watchtower’s defense systems while also writing his final for English and crying when he dropped his donut.

“It’s pretty sweet.” Flash continued. “Checks everything including our laptops and – hey! Wait, this is your computer! Who is hacking into Clark Kent’s personal computer?”

Definitely Tim, Jason thought. A feral grin spread on his face. His siblings were figuring it out.

“Well, you know how it is,” Jason let the grin seep into his voice. “These days nothing is safe.”

“Flash, return him to his cell. I have to go.” Superman walked out without another word and Jason felt simultaneously satisfied and scared at the dark growler on his face.

“That was easy.” Jason leaned back and did his best to stay casual despite the cold pit of fear settling in his stomach at having just sent a pissed off Superman towards his siblings.

Oh ****, he sent a pissed off Superman to search for his siblings who definitely hacked his laptop and had no idea he was coming.

Jason needed to warn them. He had no doubt that all of them could take care of themselves, but this was different. After all, Jason was just as capable as the rest of them and look where he was.

“Okay, alright.” The Flash danced around him a minute, cocking his head and thinking. “I’m going to do this real fast, so you don’t have a chance to escape on me because I really, really don’t want to tell Superman I let you get away. He’s kinda been in a bad mood lately, like tired angry but more intense.”

Jason shrugged. “Understandable.”

“Thanks.” Barry sounded genuinely relieved that Hood saw where he was coming from. “Okay, so some people get really sick when I do this so if you feel like you’re going to be sick please don’t turn towards me.”

Jason smiled wickedly. He doubted he’d get sick, but he had every intention of turning towards Barry. But he nodded like he agreed and braced himself when Barry nodded back.

There was a slight pause before everything around Jason blurred into one swirling mess. Maybe he’d been a little overconfident in not getting sick. Granted, he didn’t feel like he was going to throw up but he could see why someone would.

As fast as it started, it ended. And that was the worst part of it. It was like being in the backseat of a car when the driver unexpectedly slammed on the breaks except in this case the whole world is the car and Jason’s only seat belt is Barry Allen’s arm around his midsection.

“Whoa, whoa, you good?” Barry asked as Jason groaned and leaned over Barry’s arm. He really wasn’t good, but he wasn’t that bad either. He just needed an excuse to get a good grip on Barry’s arm.

Directly behind them, Jason’s cell door was open. Barry had taken him inside the cell but only just. He set his feet so he was stable but ready to move backwards.

Heaving forward with all his strength, Jason twisted like Barry’s arm was a baseball bat and Jason just hit a homerun.

Barry was pulled off his feet by the sudden motion and stumbled forward trying to stop a faceplant while Jason scrambled back out of the cell.

Jason slammed the button to shut the door and only just pulled himself out of it’s way. The Flash reacted instantly and zipped over to the door. He slammed against it just as Jason engaged the lock.

The cell was a small room with the front side being made of clear glass. Barry put his hands on the glass from the inside, he was screaming but Jason couldn’t hear him, however, he knew from experiencing it last night that Barry could hear him.

“Sorry about this,” Jason wasn’t mocking. The Flash hadn’t tried to intimidate him and make his squirm like all the other heroes had. “But I have a few things to do, and I can’t do them from in there. I’m sure someone will be by to let you out soon. Which means I gotta go. Sorry, you’re the best.”

Jason pressed a hand to the glass over where Allen’s were for a brief moment and then pushed off and ran down the hallway.

The cells took up a small part of the Watchtower. Jason didn’t imagine the Justice League had many reasons to keep prisoners here. Soon he had to stop running and trend quietly. There were no cameras, but Jason had no clue how many of the league were around or where they might be. The path to and from interrogation is the only one he knew but all bases were constructed about the same, right?

That was the hope, anyway. It’s not like he had a lot of options.

Peeking around every corner made for slow going but eventually Jason came to the center of the base and was confronted with an enormous glass wall beyond which was space.

For moment, Jason felt unbelievably small. Small and doomed. There was no way he was getting off this base without help. He didn’t have access to the zeta tubes and doubted he could hack it in time.

He slunk back into the shadows of a hallway and wracked his brain for another solution. He decided he didn’t have to leave. Batman had gotten calls from the Watchtower in the cave before. There had to be some kind of communications center.

He started walking, following what seemed to be the most logical layout for this place. Twice he heard footsteps and conversation but never saw anyone. There was little he could do if he was spotted so both times he had just kept going, wishing he was small like Damian and fit in the vents.

His knowledge of evil lairs paid off. Yeah, he knew the Justice League wasn’t evil, but it’d been a long day, or was it day and a half?

The communications room’s door was open and inside was Green Arrow.

Jason quickly hid behind a corner. No way was he going to get into it with Green Arrow when he had all his gear and Jason only had his helmet. There had to be a server’s room nearby.

Jason crouched down to the floor and prepared to sneak by Oliver.

Before he could move, an alarm went off loudly announcing a prisoner escape.

Jason lurched forward, grabbed the door and slammed it closed. Green Arrow grabbed the other side of the door, but Jason held it closed out of sheer panic.

“Red Hood?” Green Arrow yelled at him through the door. “Not to be an ***, but this is a stupid plan. What was the move here? Call in your drug traffickers to fly to space and get you?”

Green Arrow kept pulling, getting it open by a half an inch. Anymore and Jason figured he’d get shot. Either that or someone was going to come along and then he’d really be screwed.

“No, I just needed to send a text.” Without much choice, Jason braced the door in one hand then reached up and disengaged his helmet lock, slipped it off and then wedged it underneath the long door handle. Bracing it against the door frame. It wasn’t going to hold long. The helmet was only precariously staying held in the way and once Green Arrow jostled the door enough it would come loose.

“Self-destruct, detonate ten seconds.” Jason commanded.

Green Arrow instantly backed away from the door when his helmet confirmed his voice activated self-destruct. Jason wished it was going to be a bigger explosion, not lethal of course, he didn’t need to explain to Batman how he blew up a member of the Justice League. But just wounding him would have been nice.

There had to be a server’s room nearby so throwing stealth out the window, Jason took off and started opening every door he came to.

The third door he tried opened to server towers and spare parts. There was also a workbench with a chair. Grabbing the chair, he jammed it under the doorhandle and looked around quickly realizing that Tim had built all of this. His signature was all over it. If only the league knew their equipment was built by a sleep-deprived teenager.

On the workbench was a laptop and Jason went to work hacking into it.

He jumped when there was a loud bang from outside and then very loud cursing in the hallway.

Then: “Hey! Is this door supposed to be locked?”

It was Green Arrow. Jason typed faster. He was into their communication systems but needed more time to encrypt a message to the batcave. It was his best shot at getting a message to his siblings.

“Aquaman!” Green Arrow called out. “Help me get this door open.”

Jason kept typing despite the harsh spike of fear. He wasn’t going to get the chance to send it encrypted so he would just have to hope that the league didn’t mind a bit of spam.

He hit send just as the door snapped off its hinges and the chair went flying. Aquaman rushed in and crushed him against the wall, one arm grabbed his shoulder with his forearm across Jason’s chest, lifting him up onto his toes. Jason snarled against the pain in his so recently broken ribs and Aquaman bared his teeth back at him.

Green Arrow frantically checked what he was doing at the computer. “What is this?”

Jason struggled against Aquaman instead of answering but the arm across his chest came up to strangle him. He pulled at it and got some air then kicked out at the older man. It only made him add his trident, pressing it across Jason’s chest.

He yelped as it dug into his side and caused the pain in his ribs to flare up into a white hot pain.

The yelp surprised Aquaman and he lifted some of his pressure off Jason who immediately tried to escape. Aquaman reengaged and put Jason back against the wall, but he didn’t put his trident back on him. He held it very threateningly just off of Jason’s body.

“What is it, Green Arrow?” Aquaman asked, almost in a distracted tone. He kept his eyes on Jason not bothering to hide the suspicion written all over his face. Jason could see his mind working.

“A message, sent to all of our home bases.” Green Arrow had picked up the computer and was squinting at it.

Aquaman noticed Jason breathing heavily as the pain in his ribs wasn’t letting up. He let Jason’s feet touch the ground but kept his arm strong across his chest. Jason couldn’t breathe enough to take advantage of it. “What does the message say?”

“‘Boy Scout knows what you did.’” Green Arrow looked at Jason in confusion. “What the hell does that mean?”

“Hmm,” Aquaman tilted his head to the side. A moment later, he seemed satisfied with Jason just holding himself stiffly. “We will see where this leads in the medbay. He needs medical attention.”

Great, now they notice.

The blocky arm across his chest was moved as Aquaman stepped aside and gestured for Jason to walk ahead. Seeing as the cat was out of the bag, Jason wrapped an arm around his ribs, half to help the pain and half because he was sulking.

Green Arrow’s eyes were wide. He searched Jason the entire time he was walking past him. Jason turned his nose up at him in his best impression of a snobby rich person.

“Bring the laptop, my friend.” Aquaman said. He was following Jason closely, his trident held slightly forward. Just enough so Jason saw it swinging in the underwater King’s hand and knew the threat was still there. Jason steadfastly ignored it.

He slowed them down a great deal as Aquaman didn’t push him to walk faster and Jason felt like his ribs were grinding together. Green Arrow huffed a few times and eventually went around and met them at the medbay.

Jason didn’t want to go in and he stopped at the doorway. Aquaman gave his shoulder a nudge, making him rock forward slightly but he refused to move.

“No needles,” Jason said, looking back over his shoulder. “I swear a single one of you try to pull anything I rip someone’s head off.”

Aquaman bowed his head forward in the most regal nod Jason had ever seen. “You have my word.”

That was actually a lot better than Jason expected. Still, he held eye contact for a moment longer just to let him know he wasn’t that easily bought then he relented and entered the room. He sat on the cot and let Aquaman lift his shirt and poke around at his abused side.

“Drug trafficker who doesn’t like needles?” Green Arrow cocked his hips and leaned against the doorframe. “How curious. Is that because you’ve seen what happens to the people who inject the crud you make?”

Jason could kill him for that. He had no idea how right he was, but Jason didn’t care. He was going to stab him with his own arrow. He was going to—stop it! He needed to keep his head on if he was going to get out of this without offending Batman.

“Oh, a little touchy about that?” Green Arrow raised an eyebrow.

Jason remembered he didn’t have his helmet masking his features anymore and smothered the rage on his face while seething inside.

“What is the drug you are making?” Aquaman asked out of the blue. He didn’t seem in the least bothered by his blatant topic change or in his lack of knowledge on the subject.

“You don’t know?” Jason watched him gather some firm gauze and a couple of ice packs.

“No. What is it?”

“You should really invest in putting a lab up here.”

“Oh, we have a lab,” Green Arrow broke in. “One of the best, actually. It just seems your little concoction is hard to nail down.”

Jason stared at him like he was an idiot. “Where’s the Atom?”

“That is none of your concern, child.” Aquaman came and sat down on a stool by Jason’s cot. “Can you bind your ribs or shall I?”

Child? That was Damian, Tim on a bad day. He was no child, hadn’t been since he was twelve.

“Don’t call me that,” Jason growled, anger rushing naturally to the forefront.

Green Arrow snorted. “Why not? I’d wager my bow that you aren’t old enough to drink yet.”

“Yeah, won’t matter when I break your face.” Jason had his fist balled, ready to make good on his threat. Aquaman grabbed one of Jason’s hands, making him jump, and pried it open. He then put the gauze in Jason’s hand. His message was clear to the other two in the room. Green Arrow pushed away from the doorframe and wondered over to a desk like it was suddenly interesting.

Jason tried to shrug out of his jacket but struggled. Aquaman reached to help with as little invasion of Jason’s space as possible and between the two of them the jacket came off with only a medium amount of pain.

Still, he needed to breathe a moment before tucking his shirt under his chin and attempting to wrap his ribs.

“Is it made to effect metas?” Aquaman asked in the silence.

What? Jason didn’t know how to not looked confused at that.

Aquaman noticed the face he was making and switched to a different question. “Who hurt your ribs?”

“Are we suddenly playing a game of twenty useless questions? Why are you asking me, ask your teammates.”

The older man didn’t even flinch. “Was it Superman or Wonder Woman?”

“You know,” Jason looked around in mock exaggeration. “I haven’t seen our esteemed princess anywhere. I though with the whole break out thing, the flashing alarm, and well Flash being in my cell it’d been a more all hands on deck type deal?”

“Answer the question: Superman or Wonder Woman?”

“Wonder Woman, jeez. Alright, you want me to collaborate their story, I will. Unless of course they lied.”

Again, he didn’t flinch and continued to steamroll his questions. “Did Superman ever enter where you had the drugs?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Jason answered with a wave of his hand.

“Think harder.” Aquaman growled. The intensity of the interrogation shifted so fast; Jason was left blinking. Green Arrow was suddenly over Aquaman’s shoulder. The two heroes stared him down and Jason felt irritation picking at him. His ribs better figure themselves out because he really wants to punch that smug look off Green Arrows face—careful, Jason. They can and will break your bones. Again.

“No. I don’t think he did. Just Wonder Woman.”

“So, you are making a drug against metas.” Green Arrow started pacing.

“Wait. There’s something wrong with Wonder Woman? I mean, she seemed intense and maybe a little out-of-sync, but what makes you think the drugs in my warehouse have anything to do with that?”

“Is there a cure?” Aquaman asked.

“A cure for what?” Jason’s voice was rising. He was getting fed up with just questions and no context. “We are a drug trafficking ring; we traffic drugs. We don’t have a lab full of mad scientist creating the next fear toxin!”

“You don’t know what you were trafficking,” Aquaman voice didn’t rise to meet Jason’s, it got very calm and cold. He leaned closer to Jason. “Or do you? Do you even know who you are working for?”

Jason forced a laugh, anything to sound unaffected and leaned in a little himself. “Yeah, not really. I was going to be doing better on that but then you guys came along.”

The two heroes shared a look, judging how much they believed him. The silent communication was a million times more frustrating when he was so close he could hear Aquaman breathing.

Green Arrow stroked his beard and broke the spell. “Well, Lex Luthor is not known for his openness.”

“Huh, who?” Jason looked between them.

“Oh dear.” Green Arrow grinned. “We should have given him a warning or something. Now he’s scared.”

Scared was not exactly the feeling. A little scared because anyone who took on Superman either had a pair or they were just crazy. Either way that warranted some fear, but it was mostly excitement that took over Jason. He was careful to give Green Arrow what he was looking for though and turn his unease from Aquaman’s earlier posturing and let that show through on his face. But really, this was good. If the league had a clue as to who was behind the drug ring than maybe his three months undercover weren’t wasted. He might just be able to pull this off after all and show Bruce he could be trusted.

But Jason knew Luthor wasn’t doing this alone. There was nothing about the operation that fit the bill, but it did explain why they were transporting the finished product to metropolis. If he knew more about what was going on with Wonder Woman maybe he would be able to piece it all together.

“Lex Luthor has been making statements about breaking the Justice League,” Aquaman stood up and Jason got the feeling that was bad. The distance suddenly made him feel like he was about to be executed. “And now, you are delivering to him a drug that we can’t identify and is hurting our team. Luthor’s crimes are being enabled by you.”

“Whoa, whoa, no.” Jason was actually panicking now. “Look, I’m happy to play villain to your hero act but this is way beyond me. I don’t get involved in this stuff. Ironically enough because of this situation. Luthor doesn’t know when to quit and always attracts the wrong kind of attention. I don’t know what the drug is. Don’t know where it’s made or how or by whom. I am so not part of whatever master villain plot you guys are dealing with.”

“Except you transported the drugs for him.” Green Arrow deadpanned.

“Gah, okay, fine. Yes, I transported the drugs for him.” Jason threw his hands up and instantly regretted it. He closed his eyes against the pain and slowly lowered his hands, breathing through the pain. The two heroes were looking at him dispassionately. Waiting for him to open his eyes again and speak. “The money was good and that's all I knew but you’re right. Lesson learned; I’ll vet my clients more thoroughly next time. Now if you would be so kind as to give me a lift out of here I’d appreciate it.”

“Oh, that’s so not going to happen.” Green Arrow said.

“Dude, we established I don’t know anything.”

“Except our identities.”

“Fine! Let me go and I don’t tell anyone.”

“Yeah, no.”

“There is also the matter of who else knows. What does ‘Boy scout knows what you did’ mean?” Aquaman asked. He was apparently done with the role of scaring the prisoner routine as he sat back down and handed Jason the roll of gauze he had tossed away at some point.

Jason took it and started wrapping his ribs with meticulous interest. “What are you talking about?”

“The message you sent out to all of the Justice League. What meaning does it have that you broke out of your cell just to send it?”

“And why to everyone,” Green Arrow asked. He was back to stroking his beard.

Jason hummed and focused on his work. “Yeah, that’s a tough one. Don’t know.”

“Don’t know? You sent the message.” Green Arrow cocked an eyebrow at him.

With his ribs finally wrapped, Jason could breathe almost normally again. Exhaustion was hitting him like a truck. The adrenaline rush was still running thanks to Aquaman spooking him every time he thought to get comfortable with the situation but that’s pretty standard for his life, it’s just usually Batman doing the spooking.

The Flash appeared in the doorway and instantly began to babble. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I tried but she wouldn’t listen, and it was getting really stuffy and we didn’t know what was happening—”

Wonder Woman pushed him aside and entered the room, marching right for Jason. He was up and off the cot just as fast.

Jason saw the fury in her eyes and dropped into a fighting stance. Before anyone started swinging though Aquaman stepped in front of her, and she faltered, looking at him like he betrayed her.

“Aquaman, we must secure the prisoner,” she said.

“He is secure.”

“Hardly. Did it escape you that he managed to lock the Flash in his own cell?”

“No, it did not. However, there is more than just the Flash here and he is injured and tired.”

“He is a meta and far too capable to be left free like this! We will use my lasso until chains can be secured.” She tried to keep walking but was stopped again. “Aquaman! He is dangerous!”

“He is a child!” Aquaman stopped her once more. “And not a meta. We made a grave mistake in thinking he was. He was left to suffer at our hands.”

“He should suffer for the harm he does others!”

“That is not who we are. Not who you are! He should never come to harm while in our care.”

“He is in this room!” Jason yelled. Everyone looked at him, but it was Wonder Woman that concerned him the most. She looked like this was the first time she was seeing him, and she was shocked he was here.

“Green Arrow, Flash,” Aquaman was speaking gently now. He placed a hand on Diana’s arm, and she looked to him, her brow furrowed. “Take Red Hood to a cell. Make sure he has a bed.”

Flash was looking amazed at Jason for some reason, but Jason ignored him. He barely looked at Green Arrow who took his arm and started leading him out of the room. He only watched Diana and her strange behavior. It was like she just woke up from a coma and still hadn’t gotten her feet under her.

Jason had no idea what was happening with her, but he knew it couldn’t be good.

Chapter Text

- (Chapter Four) The Manor, morning

A message pinged on the batcomputer. The loud discussion in the cave covered it up.

Tim, Dick and Damian were trying to figure out what to do. Spoiler and Black Bat watched from the side.

The Justice League had kidnapped Jason of that they were certain. But how to get him back?

It wasn’t like the league didn’t have good reason to think he needed to be arrested and to try and convince them that Jason was undercover meant revealing his connection to Batman. Not to mention that in order to convince the Justice League of anything they would have to reveal themselves first.

This whole thing was a mess and discussion on what to do was going in circles.

“Forget Father’s rules.” Damian was sulking but no one wanted to be the one to tell him that. “If he wants us to follow them he should be here to make it possible to follow them.”

“I’m sure Bruce has a contingency plan,” Tim said. “We just don’t know what it is.”

“If Bruce were here he could just take him as a Gotham criminal,” Dick said. “Wha—"

Tim cut off him. “Bruce isn’t here. Drop it.”

Dick had to swallow his own hot retort back. It was fine; Tim was just worried. They all were.

They had already exhausted the option of trying to get in contact with Batman and it ended with them arguing and no closer to finding a way to alert Bruce to the situation.

It was the morning of the third day, and they were all running on very little sleep. Spoiler and Black Bat had just gotten back from patrol. Duke had reported he found nothing at the drug ring’s new base, but the girls had gone out to make sure it wasn’t the daylight stopping the drug ring from making a move. It wasn’t.

The boys spent the night going back over all the evidence and knew they weren’t crazy.

“I was going to say,” Dick tried not to sound petty. “What if Batman’s contingency is one of us just goes and gets him?”

“TT. What a stupid idea.”

“Wait,” Tim held a hand up to the gremlin. “I don’t care if it’s a contingency or not, what if that actually works? We could pull together enough proof to show we work for Batman, or at least that one of us does, and get Jason back.”

“And Batman murders his line of Robins for endangering his kids instead of just Jason,” Steph supplied.

Tim glared at her, unimpressed. “Got any other ideas?”

“Why not just break him out? Good ol’ jailbreak.”

“How is that less endangering then proving we are on the good side?”

“Because no one will see you, duh.”

“That’s not a guarantee.”

“It is if you’re not stupid.”

“Hey,” Dick stepped in before those two could get lost in their own world. “We’ll save the jailbreak idea for the time being. Tim, how could we convince the Justice League we work for Batman?”

“Well, we could—”

Cass appeared at Tim’s elbow and grabbed it. She about pulled him off his feet, dragging him to the batcomputer.

“Message,” she said.

When Cass spoke, everyone listened. There on the lowest screen of the Batcomputer, only Cass had noticed the small notification in the corner.

Tim tried to open it but was stopped by a password.

“Oracle,” Tim called her from the batcomputer. “Help me get around this?”

“Oh, is this on the batcomputer? We are hacking the Batcomputer?” Her voice answered immediately and seconds later her video feed popped up.

“Yes.”

“You know this is Bruce’s private mail.” She was well underway in hacking in even as she spoke. “Maybe we don’t want to see what kind of private mail he gets. What if it’s from Catwoman?”

“No,” Tim’s voice was an odd mix of hopeful and terrified. “It’s from the Justice League.”

“How long till we hack their encryption?” Dick asked.

Tim shook his head.

“It’s not encrypted,” Oracle said. “Only the Batcomputer is keeping us out.”

“And” Tim punched in the final line of code and stepped back. “Now we’re in.”

Boy Scout knows what you did.

The message sat in bold letters across the screen.

“Boy scout?” Damian said. He looked to his older brothers and saw panic flash across first Tim’s face than Dick’s.

“Oracle!” Tim’s finger started flying across the keyboard. “Help me, we hacked Superman’s work computer and he knows it. We can’t let it trace the hack back to Batman.”

“On it”

The cave descended into thick silence. Tim and Barbara’s rapid typing the only sound. Not even Spoiler had a quick remark as all of them understood they could have just given away the batcave if Superman finds a way to trace their nefarious activity.

Tim’s typing slowed and stopped. Dick finally approached him and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Are we good?”

“Yes. There shouldn’t be any trace left even for Cyborg to track.” Tim slumped under the weight of Dick’s hand.

Dick lightly squeezed his little brother then turned to Oracle.

She met his look with serious eyes. “Well, I think that rules out the nice approach. We are going to jailbreak now?”

Dick smiled in fond exasperation. “Eavesdropping again?”

“It’s not eavesdropping. It’s my job when you all still have your comms in.” She rolled her eyes.

“Good point. And I think you’re right. This is a bad time to try and make introductions. No way Jason sent that message without the league knowing or finding out about it. They’ll be suspicious of someone they don’t know showing up to take Jason. Can we track where he sent this message from?”

“Sure, are we going to question if it’s from Jason?” Tim asked.

“I wasn’t going too,” Dick looked at him seriously, but Tim just nodded in agreement.

Barbara laughed at them. “Of course, it’s from Jason and meant for only us to understand even though he sent it to a lot of places.”

“Looks like everyone in the league got it.” Tim looked at all the IPs that received the message and Dick could swear he was drooling. No doubt Barbara was too.

“Okay, focus,” Dick said to both of them. “Where was it sent from?”

“The Watchtower.” Damian was already certain. He didn’t need Tim to trace it and put it up on the screen for everyone to see but he did so anyway.

“Yup.” Tim popped the p in a distinctly disheartening way.

The schematics of the tower flowed smoothly around in a circle on the screen, everyone tracking it and trying to form some kind of a plan.

“So, jailbreak?” Steph said.

This was impossible. The Watchtower was a fortress that Tim had built the security of. Hell, Batman had built most of the equipment. They weren’t just trying to take on whatever leaguers happened to be home, they were trying to outsmart themselves.

They were all thinking it, but Steph still forced optimism in her voice. They all were going to need that optimism; this was Jason. Dick squared his shoulders and adopted his cocky, self-assured tone. He grinned. “Jailbreak time.”

Steph giggled and soon the energy was spreading to all of them. The potential ruin of so much lay before them, but they were here for it. All of them flipped off the normal and embraced the crazy, the wild recklessness that made them leap off buildings and fight crooks in alleyways at night.

This is what made them, them. No one could do what they did unless they enjoyed cutting loose and chasing the very extremes of their capabilities. At this moment, there was no such thing as consequences. Now that Dick had approved of it, all they saw was the fight, and they were all warriors.

They were also all over-powered, hyperactive teenagers who were way too excited to break things.

“We should all go in.” Steph joined Tim and the computer in analyzing the Watchtower.

“No way,” Damian said. “That will just attract the attention of whose currently guarding Jason. It would be best to send me. I can get in the vents and make my way to Jason that way.”

“You going to drag Jason back through the vents with you?” Tim asked.

“TT, that is obviously a separate issue, you imbecile.”

“We should send Dick.” Tim ignored Damian and turned to his older brother. “You met Wally once right?”

Dick cringed. “Barely. He helped me with some smugglers from Central City in Blud once, but I skipped out so fast on him he was just confused if I really existed or not.”

“Which was the point,” Barbara said. “We all have to stay off the league’s radar. I get we are all in on the breaking the rules plan but let’s not intentionally blow up all of B’s work in keeping us a secret.”

“Why,” Spoiler asked. “Why don’t we just bust in there and say it ‘It’s the Bat-fam! Give us back our brother!’”

That did sound pretty appealing, especially looking at what they had to overcome breaking in.

“Look,” Barbara’s voice gave no room for argument. “One day the league is going to figure out that we all exist. If B keeps working with them they are going to find out his identity. However, it’s in our best interest to be very careful about when and how that happens. It’s overprotective, sure, but Bruce doesn’t want the league knowing about us in case the league turns south.”

“Or.” Dick flipped into a handstand just to make Steph laugh and smooth over his agreeing against her plan. “One of the league bad guys figures it out and uses us against Bruce.”

“Not to mention, B doesn’t want us involved in league stuff.” Barbara began speaking gently. “Gotham is a known danger. The league is something else. And if the league hadn’t come to Gotham, like Batman forbid them from doing, then they would never bother us.”

Steph nodded her head side to side as she thought about it. “Okay, then how does Dick meeting the Flash help?”

“Cover story.” Tim broke in. “Hopefully Dick won’t need it but in the case that he is caught he’ll have an excuse that doesn’t involve Batman.”

Steph stared at Tim after his explanation looking deeply unsatisfied. “That’s a terrible cover story.”

Tim shrugged. “Yeah, but no one has a better one.”

“What if we were working on the drug trafficking case and followed the league when they took Jason and now we really need him back.” Steph looked around for support and immediately Damian was on board.

“The traffickers have been extremely quiet. Hard to track what they are doing. Without Jason we may lose them entirely.”

“So, we are telling them Jason is undercover?” Dick asked, returning to an upright position.

Steph held out her hands in a ‘why not’ gesture. Tim looked more thoughtful but eventually agreed. “If you need the cover story, it’s probably a better story than the Flash remembering you.”

“Why Grayson?” Damian huffed and crossed his arms over his body. “I should go.”

Dick loved to see Damian so insistent on being the one to rescue Jason. It filled his desire to have them all be a family and for him to have community with them, but Tim was right. Dick wasn’t going to let anymore of his siblings get taken. It seemed likely that Tim had already figured that and had decided not to fight him on it.

Tim though presented another good reason to send Dick and it was one none of them wanted to think about. “Dick is the only one who can carry Jason.”

Tim didn’t elaborate and no one needed him too. Damian mumbled under his breath what sounded a lot like ‘dragging works too’ but didn’t openly argue.

This was the Justice League, so Jason was probably fine. Batman wouldn’t work with them if they hurt criminals unnecessarily. But they all knew Jason wouldn’t have gone quietly. They had to be prepared.

“Okay.” Dick settled into a serious tone and put his hands on the desk to study the schematic. “How do I do this?”

“Honestly? I think if you are quiet about it you can do it.” Tim sat down and started walking through the right path. “The zeta tubes are the most dangerous part. They are in the main hangar and easily seen from the observation room which is where the monitor room is. According to B, no one is really up there except the Justice League and because of that they have monitor duty which is basically guard duty slash answer if someone calls duty. So long as you don’t do anything to get their attention, and stick to the less used corridors, you should be able to get in and out without being seen.”

It was possible but it still made Dick feel uneasy. No way it would be that easy.

Tim seemed to think the same. “Of course, should you need a distraction we can give you two options. The Justice league is going to be on high alert of hackers so I can hack their system and tell it to tell them that there's a hacker in the server room.”

“You can do that without alerting the system to the actual hack?” Dick asked.

Tim looked offended. “Of course, I built it.”

Yeah, Dick should have guessed that. “Okay, and I guess option number two is everyone rushes in and causes chaos?”

“Hell yeah!” Steph cheered.

“That option will happen regardless if you are out of communication for longer than twenty minutes.” Tim stated.

There was no negotiating that and Dick knew it. “Alright, seeing as you built it, you can get me in without setting off an alarm?”

Tim nodded and Dick continued. “I follow the path of least used places to the cells. Get Jason and follow it back.”

“I like it,” Barbara said. “Keep it simple and we can make it more complicated as necessary.”

Cass nodded but she also went over and hugged Dick like the best little sister she was. He hugged her back, squishing her and putting his cheek on her hair. He turned his head to look at the rest of his siblings.

“We all need to rest and wait for it to be night. The League must go home at some point. Tonight, we break into the Watchtower.”

Around the cave, the vigilantes grinned as their entirely not sane plan was hammered out.

- The Watchtower, same time

His cell was colder than it should have been, or maybe that was just his body rebelling at the abuse he was putting it through. His healing facture wasn’t something he relied on because it was too slow to really be anything other than a boost. Not something he should expect to hold him together and he was relearning that all over now.

He ached. It felt like he had broken everything and then some. His ribs being wrapped made it slightly less miserable and he realized how much adrenaline had been keeping him going. Now after hours in the cell, enough time that he managed to get some sleep, his muscles were cold and stiff. Ever bruise he had gotten in the last three days was making itself known.

He had just convinced himself to try standing and walking back and forth in his tiny cell to warm himself up, and hopefully relieve the ache, when there was a rush of footsteps coming his way.

Hushed whispers speaking intensely to each other followed but Jason couldn’t make out what they were saying.

A harsh voice cut them all off then Wonder Woman appeared outside his cell. Immediately, his hackles were raised but he forced himself to appear at ease. Her face was pure storm cloud, but it was the glazed look in her eyes that he was studying.

Superman was also there, behind Wonder Woman, looking very concerned. Flash stood beside him, vibrating slightly. And then beside him was someone Jason hadn’t met but was unmistakably Green Lantern.

Jason wondered where Aquaman and Green Arrow were then decided it didn’t really matter. Wonder Woman was his point of focus anyway.

Green Arrow and Aquaman had said there were something wrong with her and from the way the others were acting they seemed to agree. Their eyes never really made it to Jason as they kept looking at Wonder Woman. It made Jason very nervous. What were they worried she was going to do? He started to have a very bad feeling he was a fish on a hook.

Leaning sideways to directly address Superman, he said, “I didn’t agree to be our lab rat.”

“What are you speaking of?” Wonder Woman asked, but Superman seemed to understand as he cringed and looked slightly ashamed. But he didn’t stop it and that made Jason reevaluate his stance on Superman not coming into contact with the drugs at the warehouse.

“No matter,” Wonder Woman continued. “Are you aware how long Lazarus Pit chemicals linger in the body?”

That was so not what Jason was expecting. He barely wrapped his head around what she said before she continued.

“It is a surprisingly long time. So, tell me, when did you find a Lazarus Pit to bathe in?”

“**** off.” Jason twisted away to hide his face from them.

A hand slammed the glass wall of his cell startling him into jerking back to face them.

“What the hell?” Jason growled.

“What are you doing with the Lazarus Pit?” Wonder Woman raised her hand like she was going to slam the glass again. “That is why the drug is not being identified! You are mixing Lazarus Chemicals and selling it.”

“Huh?”

“We weren’t getting anywhere with the drug, so Wonder Woman wanted to analyze your blood.” The Flash began speaking so fast it was hard to understand. “When you first got here we took some blood. That was before you said no needles but still sorry. You have been around the drug, so she wanted to see if there was any in you but there were just all these weird chemicals and then she put that together with the drug and now were here.”

He sucked in a breath and held it. Wonder Woman turned on him and yelled for silence. Barry looked like someone kicked his puppy, but he set his body in a ready stance.

Wonder Woman wiped back around to face Jason, dismissing those behind her.

Jason did not like the look of her. She didn’t look like she had the last time they talked. Then she had looked lost. Now she just looked angry. There was something in her eyes that Jason had seen before. It was a memory just out of reach, but it left a bad taste in his mouth.

“You will speak the truth,” she said. “What drug are you making with Lazarus chemicals?”

It wasn’t going to help him physically, but Jason backed away from the cell door. His back nearly touch the back wall. He hoped it would signal the others that he was seeing something bad.

“I am speaking truth,” he said cautiously, for once not trying to instigate anything. “The leap you are making is not a logical one. You are angry and not thinking clearly.”

That’s as far as he got before Wonder Woman slammed her hand down to open his cell door and charged him, her lasso swinging from her hand. It flew out towards him; the loop arching over his head. Jason raised his hands in defense.

Just as he grabbed a hold of it, Wonder Woman whipped it back to her. It pulled taunt and snapped around Jason’s throat with one of his hands caught in it as well. The force of her pulling it back pulled Jason off his feet and onto his knees before Wonder Woman.

“Tell me what you have done!” Wonder Woman yelled.

The rope burned him and he screamed as he was forced to answer. “What dad asked me too!”

Superman crashed into Wonder Woman the same time a large green hand tried to grab her. Red zipped around them, and the Flash appeared, trying to lift the lasso off Jason. He got it loose but couldn’t get it off before Wonder Woman pulled back viciously hard.

Jason was ripped out of Barry’s hands and set smashing into his cell wall.

-

Jason blinked and looked up, but nothing made sense as the images to were too hazy to make out. He was on the floor of his cell. As his vision cleared, he saw that everyone was shouting but the ringing in his ears drowned it out.

Why was Wonder Woman getting pushed out of his cell by Superman? Oh right, because she just tried to kill him. Wait, not kill. She just wanted answers that made no sense.

Green Arrow was kneeling beside him, speaking and Jason had to concentrate real hard to hear him. “… hurts?”

Jason nodded because oh boy, did he hurt.

“He is alive?” The new voice sounded very surprised, and Jason was offended. He was pretty sure that his attempt to scoff at the doubter was interpreted as a cry for help though as Green Arrow put a hand on his shoulder.

“You’ll be alright.”

“He just got smashed into a wall by literal Wonder Woman,” the new voice said, and Jason figured it had to be Green Lantern. “How does that equal alright? Wonder Woman just killed a kid!”

“Calm down,” Green Arrow snapped at him.

“Do not be so troubled, my friend. It is fortunate that our young troublemaker is quite durable,” Aquaman said from the doorway. “Perhaps I spoke too quickly in classifying him as non-meta.”

Jason looked up and squinted at him. His memory felt like a bucket with holes punch straight threw it right now, but he was pretty sure that Aquaman and Green Arrow weren’t here before. Then again, Superman had been fighting Wonder Woman. That was probably a big enough deal to drawl all the league.

Hmm, Jason wondered if it would drawl Batman because he could really use his dad appearing out of the shadows right about now.

He looked out to the hallway, that was ridiculously well lit, and didn’t see him. That didn’t mean he wasn’t there though. Jason would just have to wait and get a better look.

He slumped forward and passed out against Green Arrow.

Chapter Text

-The Watchtower, sometime later

When Jason woke up, he immediately felt nauseous and closed his eyes again. His whole right side was a combination of numbness and blinding pain. His head and thigh hurt the worst.

“What are we supposed to do? Put her in a cell like she’s a criminal master mind?” a voice said very near to where Jason lay. “She’s always fair and restrained in what she does. She wouldn’t be doing any of this stuff if she had a say in it.”

“Hal, you aren’t being disagreed with.” That was Green Arrow. Jason would recognize that pompous drawl anywhere. “But facts remain, she nearly killed him.”

“And am I the only one who knows she would never do that?” Hal again, he sounded on the verge of panic.

“Certainly not,” Aquaman’s commanding tone was easy to identify. “Yet, until we discover what her aliment is, we have a duty to protect those we take into our custody. Wonder Woman is not well. We cannot ignore that because it is uncomfortable for us to treat her as dangerous. She is dangerous and we must react accordingly.”

Hal couldn’t protest but continued to grumble on Superman guarding her being sufficient, a cell wasn’t necessary. Aquaman, Green Arrow and another Jason didn’t know yet seemed to disagree. He tuned them out and thought over what he knew because Aquaman was right; Wonder Woman was not well.

But she may not be sick. Jason had seen her eyes. They were bloodshot and hollow-looking with bags creeping in underneath. Honestly, she looked… drugged.

That’s when it hit him. The memory he couldn’t grasp when he was looking at her. It was a case B had worked on right before he sent Jason undercover.

A man who was a lowlife by every standard out there had beaten his family to death. The guy was a looser, no doubt about it, but he wasn’t violent. He was just a drug addict. A guy with a problem that he needed help overcoming and for whatever reason he didn’t get that help. So, he stayed an addict but that was it. Never had there been anything reported about him being abusive. The cops had never been called and neighbors said that he was stupid but harmless.

All those testimonies flew out the window when Bruce showed Jason the bodycam footage of the night Bruce confronted the man. He was trying to bring him in after solving the murder of his family. The man was near wild, feral with rage. He screamed at Batman the entire time but never approached intelligible words. The look in his eyes is what made Jason look away.

Batman explained that he had tracked down who the man was buying drugs from and found that the dealer had given him a deal on a “special” new drug. Bruce believed he knew what the drug was but that was his deal.

That week Jason went undercover and pushed the details of the case out of his mind. Now he connected what Batman had told him with what he had seen.

“Hey,” Jason tried to call out and barely got a broken whisper. “Ugh.”

He opened his eyes and rolled half on his side, seeing the Justice League spread out before him. The Flash and Green Lantern stood close as did Green Arrow with Black Canary. Aquaman holding his trident, looking regal as ****. They were all arguing. Not a single one looked at Jason.

Jason coughed to clear his throat and tried a again. “Hey, spandex!”

Everyone heard him that time. Black Canary put her hands on her hips. “Well, that’s not very nice. I hear that we saved your life.”

“Yeah, because you all are responsible for putting me in danger. I think that exempts me from saying thank you.”

“Still rude,” she said not fazed in the slightest.

“You should not be awake yet,” Aquaman come up to his bed and gave him a puzzled look.

“You drugged me?” Jason sneered at him.

Aquaman did not look impressed, rather a little disappointed. “Child, Wonder Woman smashed you against a cement wall. We would be cruel to not drug you.”

“First, not a child,” Jason held up one finger. “Second, fine whatever. I’m going to burn through whatever you gave me anyway.”

“That is mildly concerning, but we gave you painkillers that should work for a while yet. You have a concussion, and your right thigh is heavily bruised.” Aquaman looked very serious now and pinned Jason with his stare. “I do not believe it is an accident that not only are you not dead but miraculously unbroken. You are more than just human but I do not believe that to be the reason for your condition.”

“My condition?” Jason pushed up from the bed to get in Aquaman’s face. “You mean the condition your psycho friend put me in after all of you failed to keep her away from me? Seriously?”

Aquaman moved back from Jason, letting him have the space but Jason wasn’t done. “What is wrong with all of you? Was it just too emotional for you to say, ‘Hey, Diana, go chill out on a beach for a week while we figure this out. Go have fun and relax and try not to smash anyone against a wall!’ Why couldn’t you do that? Too stupid or too weak?”

“Hey!” Hal yelled. “You don’t get to lecture us, criminal. We will handle our own team.”

Jason snorted in amusement. “Yeah, you definitely will.”

Hal put his hands on his hips. “What does that mean?”

Green Arrow stepped between them and very clearly tried to be calm. “That was rude and now I think you owe us an explanation.”

He owed them an explanation?! Oh, he was going to sever their heads from their bodies—stop it.

There was green tinting his vision as he pushed down the rush of rage. The anger didn’t leave, he was too keyed up, but he knew how to turn anger into resolve.

Aquaman stepped back up too, his trident clanging against the floor in an entirely unnecessary way just to show Jason how heavy and strong it was. The rest of those present, closed around these two leaders, forming a picture-perfect impression of unity.

Jason was three days in from being violently kidnapped by the world’s protectors, running off one night’s sleep and a couple of blackouts, with broken ribs, a headache from hell and a concussion. His stomach would rather be on the floor and his domino mask was cracked in the left lens. He’d spent three months undercover with murdering drug dealers, slugging his way through grunt work in order to take down the bastards running the whole thing. Oh, and he was Batman’s mother******* son. They didn’t scare him.

The concentration it took to not lose it on all these so-called heroes was making him use every ounce of self-control he possessed and that made him very, very dangerous.

“Call Batman,” Jason deadpanned.

“We went over this, didn’t we?” Green Arrow sighed. “You aren’t getting off that easy.”

“That’s not why, you idiot. Wonder Woman is drugged. I’ve seen others drugged with the same thing in Gotham. I don’t know if he knows it’s Luthor’s doing, but Batman will have a workup of the drug.”

Aquaman nodded. “Lex Luthor is trying to bring down Superman.”

The league gasped. Green Arrows eyes widen in alarm but then narrowed. “How do you know that? You swore you didn’t know what the drug was?”

“I didn’t until just now.” Jason rolled his eyes. “But Aquaman is right. Luthor is making a drug in Gotham because Superman doesn’t go there and then export it. Obviously, he hit the wrong target, but the drug does work.”

Batman had told him what he thought the drug was supposed to do, make a person angry, but he was still working on a profile for the drug. He hadn’t told Jason anything else and now Jason was rethinking Batman not knowing who was making it. Or that the drug ring was involved in it.

B didn’t like Jason being around crime lords. He never said it outright, but Jason had gathered that it made him worried. He still asked Jason to go but didn’t tell him the whole story. That meant it was serious. If this stuff was effecting Wonder Woman it was really serious.

Jason was going to have a few choice words for Bruce next time he saw him.

“I saw this crud back in Gotham. Wonder Woman has got the same look in her eyes.” Jason sat up and attempted to swing his legs over the side of the bed under all their glares like they were nothing. After years of enduring Batman’s disapproval, they were nothing. “When she kidnapped me, violently, ruthlessly—”

“If you’re not a meta, there’s a lot of unbelievable reports out there about you.”

Jason ignored Hal’s interruption. “—she took us both flying into a stack of crates of the drug. It all came down on top of her. The drug is liquid but turns to gas once it hits the air. The princess dosed herself with enough of whatever this crud is to kill an elephant.”

“What have you seen this drug do?” Black Canary asked.

Images of the drug addict’s dead family sprung into Jason’s mind. A shiver went through his body, and he shoved the images back down. He met her eyes and promised her, “Nothing good.”

“Anger,” Green Arrow said.

“No,” Jason said. “Not anger, apathy. An extreme desire to have something done no matter the cost to others. The fact that she is angry with me is only because I am impending her ability to do what she wants. Once you all get in her way, she’ll be angry with you too.”

“But she’s not all angry, right?” Flash said. “She’s Diana most of the time and only these pockets were she does soemthing violent.”

“That’s what I was saying!” Hal shouted.

“Pockets, yeah,” Jason cut off Hal with a smug grin. “Those pockets which have led to Diana nearly knocking my spine out of my body a couple of times. Those pockets let up just enough for her to realize the atrocities she has committed before she goes and commits more. It’s Luthor’s plan not to make Superman crazy, people would know it wasn’t him doing it that way. Instead, he’s made it so there’s enough of the person left in control that people wouldn’t be suspicious. Take all of you for example. It’s taken you this long to decide to do something. How much longer would it take the citizens of Metropolis to understand?”

No one had an answer to that. Flash looked like a ghost and Hal put a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“What about Superman?” Black Canary finally broke the tense silence. “Wasn’t he there too? Why is he not affected?”

“Actually,” Green Arrow looked to his wife and then back to Jason. “I think he is.”

Jason nodded grimly.

“What, why?” Hal looked to Oliver.

Jason answered before the hero could. “He hasn’t been stopping her. He hasn’t liked what she’s done but something is stopping him from just ending it. You want to make a guess as to what that is?”

Jason trailed his eyes over all of them then looked up like he was thinking. “Hmm, Superman doesn’t stop violence from happening. Either he has turned over a new leaf and learned that Lex is on to something, or he was drugged too. Just to a lesser extent than having whole crates full of the stuff dropped on him.”

“The drug was made for him,” Aquaman said. “My friends I do believe that we should take over the responsibility of watching Wonder Woman from him.”

“Oh, that is just amazing,” Green Arrow said after he was done spewing curses. “This brat—”

“Excuse me, that’s not my name,” Jason interrupted and was ignored.

“—has gotten so hurt because the two most powerful beings on this team have baked brains at the same time. Fantastic.” He straightened up and looked to Aquaman. “How about you stay with the brat and the rest of us go separate Clark and Diana? We’ll leave Clark here since he isn’t actively violent and take Wonder Woman to a safe house.”

Aquaman nodded his agreement. Black Canary was instantly half way to the door. Flash zipped up behind her. Hal didn’t look happy about it, but he started to leave as well. Green Arrow followed behind him.

“I don’t need a guard,” Jason said. “Case you haven’t noticed I’m not going to be moving much.”

“I am not staying to guard you against leaving,” Aquaman said. “I am guarding you against being attacked again.”

Jason really wanted to refute that and say he could take care of himself. Thing was at this point he wasn’t sure he could. He was about to say it anyway when Aquaman spoke again.

“Is there a cure?”

“You asked me this already.”

“Answer it again.”

“And what? Pull a cure outta my—”

“Hold up!” Hal yelled. He stopped dead in his tracks, making Green Arrow run into him and Flash zip up to him in concern. Black Canary turned back from the door. “Shouldn’t we be getting Batman. If this is a Gotham drug then that’s Spooky’s wheelhouse. Anything Gotham is not sane.”

He said that last part while eyeballing Jason. Who gave him such a good Dick Grayson grin the man himself would have been impressed. Hal looked worried.

“You’re not wrong,” Jason said. “Gotham is a nuthouse. You should know this, I mean, your resident Gothamite dresses as a bat. And he’s like an adult and it’s not Halloween. But yeah, you should probably get him. You know, before Wonder Woman gets worst.”

Hal paled. “She’s going to get worst? How could she get worst?”

“Those are dangerous words, Glowstick,” Jason said. “But I don’t actually know that will happen, I’m just saying.” Jason noticed his helmet was still on the bedside table and he picked it up, casually turning the shattered side to the league. “It can always get worst.”

-the Watchtower, moments earlier

Breaking into the Watchtower was easier than Dick thought it should be.

They had all agreed that it was best to go at night and hope that the league had all gone home. From there it was a matter of playing a very dangerous game of ‘keep the coffee away from Tim’ while he stayed up all day working with Barbara on a distress beacon that would actually work. There would be no comms since Dick was going to space, but they had managed to put together a one-time use signal. After that they just had to figure out how to quietly get Dick on the Watchtower.

That’s probably why it felt too easy. Dick had just had to brave a seriously sleep deprived Tim wanting his coffee; Tim and Barbara were the two who actually made it possible for him to arrive through the zeta tubes with only the quietest “B-01” announcement.

Now he just had to stay quiet and be quick.

The zeta tubes were visible to whoever was on monitor duty so the moment his feet were steady he melted into what little shadow there was in the spacious main hall. He followed the wall to the first hallway he needed to go down. The pathway to the cell, and hopefully to Jason, he had memorized. His only other task along with coffee monitor.

That hallway led him to his first conjunction where he had to go right. Pausing slightly to listen, he heard nothing and completed his first turn without problem.

That was where the ease ended. Up ahead he could hear shouting, a lot of shouting. The closer he got the more it sounded like there were a lot of people ahead of him.

Ducking really low and calling on his inner Batman to become one with the shadows, Dick approached.
The first voice he heard clearly was one he would know anywhere.

“The princess dosed herself with enough of whatever this crud is to kill an elephant.”

Jason. His baby brother was right around the corner.

The joy he felt at hearing Jason’s voice died quickly once he peeked around the corner. What he saw was not good. Half the league was surrounding his brother. Aquaman and Green Arrow stood shoulder to shoulder in front of him. They were backed up by the Flash, Green Lantern and Black Canary. Jason glared back at them without a hint of hesitation.

Dick had no idea what was happening, but he wasn’t any more afraid than Jason looked. It wasn’t ideal conditions, but Dick was good at improvising.

The medbay before him was an open room that was sectioned off into private rooms. Their walls didn’t go all the way to the ceiling, and they had a pillar at every corner. Jason was in the first room from the hallway. Dick only needed the league suddenly be blind and he could rush in get Jason and leave.

Besides the obvious problem with that plan, the more Dick looked at Jason the more he thought he had a bigger, more rage-inducing problem.

Even with his domino mask still in place, hiding his eyes, his little brother looked bone tired and in pain. He was hunched over, his body curling inward to protect his ribs. He was too pale, skin looking dangerously close to Tim’s complexion. His hair was soaked through with sweat and falling into his eyes.

Dick felt numb with anger. His brother looked awful. His eyes were hidden under the domino, but his face was drawl and pinched in pain. On the right side of his head was a massive bruise. It spread from the side of his head all the way over to his eyes. The domino mask was probably cracked, and Dick worried how badly damaged the rest of his right side was. His costume covered up the rest of his body. Dick stared hard at him, trying to assess what else the Justice League had done to his little wing.

Yet, as tired and beat-up as he looked, Jason looked nothing short of pissed off and dangerous, murderously glaring at everyone around him.

Dick was feeling pretty murderous himself. What had they done to his little brother and why?

“What have you seen this drug do?” Black Canary spoke. They all had their backs to Dick, but the voice was the female one, a very serious and dangerous female voice, so it had to be her.

“Anger.” That was Green Arrow aka Oliver Queen. The man sounded just as arrogant out of costume as he did in it, go figure.

“But she’s not all angry, right? She’s Diana most of the time and only these pockets were she does something violent.”

“That’s what I was saying!”

Dick recognized the Flash’s voice and assumed the overly loud voice was Green Lantern. He wanted to agree with the optimism but had a bad feeling it wasn’t realistic.

“Pockets, yeah.”

Dick flinched at Jason’s brutally condescending tone. His little brother only sounded like that when he was covering up how upset he was.

The moment Jason detailed what was happening to Wonder Woman Dick knew they were in trouble. B had been working a case of a drug that was doing exactly what Jason was describing to people. But so far B couldn’t figure out what the plan was. Who benefitted from at least three people acting like themselves just very unreasonable versions of themselves?

Jason’s words left the league in silence, and it was making Dick feel like he was breathing down their necks. He should find a better spot to be and wait for the league to leave or Jason to be taken to a cell.

“What about Superman?” Black Canary said and Dick froze all thoughts on moving. “Wasn’t he there too? Why is he not affected?”

“Actually,” Green Arrow looked over his shoulder and Dick’s stomach left his body as he reeled back behind the corner. The older man continued without a hitch. Dick had moved fast enough but his stomach had already skipped off to Kansas. “I think he is.”

Dick heard that and his brain had to reboot. He heard Jason give an explanation for why they thought Superman was compromised, heard his snarky remarks about Luthor and then he heard that Superman was drugged and apparently, if Dick was putting this together correctly, Wonder Woman was drugged way worst.

“The drug was made for him,” Aquaman said, and Dick’s mouth was on the floor, he whipped his head around the corner to watch the heroes. “My friends I do believe that we should take over the responsibility of watching Wonder Woman from him.”

Dick thought he was going to fall over from finding out that the supers were drugged and the league was just now realizing it, he was absolutely going to be sharing that gory detail with his dad as soon as he saw him again, but then Green Arrow started talking.

“—has gotten so hurt because the two most powerful beings on this team have baked brains at the same time—”

More words were said but Dick couldn’t hear them over the rushing in his ears. His little brother had been hurt and the league let it happen. He had already been on the verge of attempting to maim his dad’s team but that just sealed the deal. Bruce could go kick rocks if he didn’t like it.

“—safe house.”

Dick gave himself whiplash pulling his head back around the corner. Black Canary and Flash both bolted for the hallway at Aquaman’s agreement. The very hallway that Dick was in. They were getting closer, and Dick expected Flash to zip around the corner and slam into him.

He had to leave but running back down the hallway would be too loud, not to mention he couldn’t outrun the Flash.

Looking up he saw a vent and reached for it. He was too big to fit inside but it gave his fingers a place to grip. He pulled himself up till he could get a foot up and braced against the vent’s tiny strip of a ledge. He quickly had to shift his hands up to the roof and push back on his fee on the wall.

His abs and back and thighs all hated the position. It wasn’t even a good strain on his muscles it was just hard and uncomfortable. His hands were bent back over each shoulder and place on the roof. His triceps were dying keeping enough pressure that he could hold his feet on the wall and he was stiff enough to stay on the roof.

There was a very limited amount of time he could hold this and it wasn’t guaranteed he’d stay hidden.

“Hold up!” Dick heard Hal’s yell clearly but had to strain to hear the rest. “Shouldn’t we be getting Batman. If this is a Gotham drug then that’s Spooky’s wheelhouse. Anything Gotham is not sane.”

Oh, please, get Batman!

Jason agreed and Dick could have cheered, but then he scared Hal by saying Wonder Woman was going to get worst.

There was a pause before Jason answered and Dick could just imagine his dramatic little brother’s face as he said, “It can always get worst.”

Yeah, like being stuck on the ceiling because superheroes think your little brother is a supervillain and your dad decided to blast off to space. Okay, not fair, Bruce had no idea the league would come to Gotham but still.

“We need to leave,” Green Arrow said, and Dick slid his hands together on the ceiling, grasping the beacon on his wrist. He only had one chance to use this thing. He had to be sure.

Flash came around the corner first and zip right underneath him. Black Canary was right behind him. Green Arrow rounded the corner and Dick saw him flinch.

Instantly, Dick pressed his beacon to alert Tim to hack the tower and hoped the signal was as capable of getting back to Tim as he swore it was.

Not a second later, a siren went off overhead alerting everyone that the main service room was being hacked.

Dick grinned wolfishly. He’d never doubt Baby Bird again.

One second the Flash zipped by to go that way, Black Canary in his arms. The next, Dick dropped on top of Green Arrow.

“Hi,” Dick said in his most cheery voice, trying to pin him to the ground. “Nice base you got here.”

Green Arrow threw him off and rolled to standing. “Thank you, although we seemed to be having a pest problem.”

Dick danced away from his punches. “It doesn’t seem that way to me. Maybe you just aren’t used to visitors.”

“You have to be invited to be a visitor.”

“You did invite me,” Dick went under a punch and came up close to the other man. “You just didn’t know it.”

He kicked the bow from the hero’s hands and got punched in the gut for it. It hurt but only made Dick’s rage feel that much more justified. He took several harder punches from the hero but ignored it all. Nothing was going to stop him now that days’ worth of frustration and worry finally had a target within it’s grasp.

Dick grabbed Oliver’s head and slammed his knee up into the man’s nose. The crunch was satisfying and drove him further. Oliver recoiled and tried to put distance between them. He struck out with a kick that connected with Dick’s leg, sending him to his knees.

That should have let Oliver retreat, but Dick launched forward from the ground and wrapped his arms around Green Arrows legs. He held tight and tipped the hero. Then Dick scrambled over him and straddled him, punching him in the face twice before Oliver could raise a hand to defend himself.

He punched him as many times as he could before a trident was thrown at him.

He rolled off to the side, avoiding the undersea king’s attack and came to rest in a crouch.

Green Arrow was unconscious. Aquaman was in front of him.

Dick slowly pulled his escrima sticks out and tapped one of them against the floor. The tap echoed through the hallway. The noise loud and unnatural.

Aquaman squinted at him, trying to figure out what he was doing but he never would.

What he had tapped was bat-code for brother. Jason now knew his family was here.

“Where,” Aquaman straightened up to his full height, looking down on Dick, “did you come from?”

Dick smirked, “The future.”

Aquaman blinked. “No. I’m reasonably confident that you did not, Little One. But you have attacked my friend and I will have you explain why. Now.”

He held the King’s stare, shaking slightly with rage. “You started it.”

The King pulled back, his eyes darting back to the medbay. His brow was drawn down in confusion.

A moment later, his brow went up to his hairline in surprise as Jason limped around the corner. He came up to the wall then rested his back against it.

His brother rapidly signed, “Why are you here?”

Dick frowned at him. He knew Jason struggled with finding his place in the family. After all his fights with Bruce and occasionally himself or Tim it was hard for him to relax. Difficult to trust the hand you had just been punched by. Dick got it but did Jason really think they weren’t going to get him back from the Justice League?

He needed to do a better job at helping Jason learn where he was at with everyone.

Aquaman moved and Dick was yelling for him to stop before he made the decision to speak.

But Aquaman didn’t harm his brother. In fact, he did the opposite. He stood in front of him, with this trident in both hands, protecting Jason from being hurt by Dick.

Too late. It was too late for any of them to get into Dick’s good graces. Even if Aquaman wanted to protect Jason now he had already let him get hurt. Dick was going to try and break him for that.

Aquaman had put Jason close behind him and was carefully sizing Dick up and Dick let him. All he would see his anger and if he was smart he’d see that was working in Dick’s favor right now.

Before either of them could start the fight, Jason reached out and stabbed Aquaman in the neck with a needle.

“Sorry,” Jason said, and he did actually sound sorry.

“Well,” the King almost sighed before he dropped to the floor, as unconscious as Green Arrow.

Dick quickly forgot his rage and rushed to Jason. His little brother’s head was bowed and carefully, Dick wrapped his arms around it and hugged it to his chest.

“Oh, Jaybird.” Dick pulled back from the hug and placed his hands on either side of Jason’s face and tilted his head up to the light. It looked bad. Dick slid his hands down and gripped his little brother’s shoulders. “What happened?”

“Slight misunderstanding,” Jason grumbled.

“They thought you were pushing the drug?”

“They thought I was pushing the drug.”

“Damn.”

“Yup.”

Dick moved them around so one of Jason’s arms was over his shoulders. He tried to put a hand on Jason’s waist to hold him steady but the moment he applied pressure to his ribs Jason snatched his wrist away with a small cry of pain.

“Sorry, sorry.” Dick said gently and paused a moment, waiting for Jason to catch his breath. “How bad is it?”

“Not bad.”

Dick figured he’d say that even if he was dying. “How many broken?”

“Don’t know. But I’ve been here before and got it taken care off. We need to leave.”

“Yeah, I know.” Lacking a good place to hold his brother, Dick put the hand on his shoulder and shuffled them along the hallway.

It was slow going and it started to bother Jason. He grew more tense with every moment.

“I’m fine, Dickhead,” Jason said. “Let me go.”

“We don’t have time.” Dick tightened his grip. “If the League doesn’t find us the Robins will.”

“What, the Robins are here?”

“They will be in three minutes if we don’t get back to earth and call them off.”

“The intruder alert that wasn’t RR?”

“It was but I didn’t tell him through comms; they don’t work up here. It was a beacon, made for this. Baby Bird can only keep them running so long before they are going to get smart.”

Jason grunted and tried to walk faster, but his right thigh appeared to not want to move at all and every time it did he grimaced in pain.

“Wait!” A voice called, sounding desperate. “You’re not allowed to leave.”

Red zipped around them and knocked Nightwing off his feet. Jason grabbed one of his escrima sticks as he went down and cracked the speedster’s shins as he made a pass at him.

The man yelped and tumbled to the ground some feet away from them.

Jason set into a defensive stance as Black Canary stood not far from them. Dick stood up and pulled his remaining escrima stick.

“You alright?” Jason asked him.

“I’m good. Let’s make these guys not.”

“No. Can’t do that.” The Flash jumped on Jason whose whole body couldn’t take the weight.

Dick couldn’t help him as Black Canary rushed him, and it took all his concentration to keep the woman from knocking him flat.

Just minutes into the fight and Dick knew it was pointless. No doubt the league had comms, and everyone knew where they were. He and Jason weren’t moving fast enough to escape them.

Jason could hardly move. Only reason Flash hadn’t taken him out was because he was dancing around his brother, looking for a good way to lay him out without severely hurting him. Dick could barely focus on his own fight knowing Jason was too injured to defend himself.

When Hal showed up it really was over. He used his ring to put a wall up behind Jason so the Flash could get to him easily and put him on the floor. Jason struggled weakly but his energy was spent.

Then Dick had a green hand appear and grab at him. He flipped out of it before it just got bigger and flatten him against the wall.

Jason was using Flash’s desire not to hurt him against him and managed to roll out of the man’s grasp.

He struggled to get to his feet and the moment he did Aquaman appeared. He looked pissed but still he was as gentle as he could be when he grabbed Jason’s jacket and pulled him backwards to hold him against his chest with an arm around his throat.

Hal took Jason’s escima stick away leaving him to push against Aquaman with bare hands. It was like getting smacked by a wave; it was going to take him down. No matter how hard he tried, the older man just pulled him back into a pin.

Then Green Arrow arrived, his nose bleeding and his look murderous.

“Interrogation,” he said. “Let’s have a nice chat about who the hell you are.”

Jason laughed. “Have fun with that. You thought I was bad; you haven’t seen nothin’.”

Dick matched his brother’s wild grin and buried the fear. This was his dad’s team, after all. Batman was going to raise hell for whatever they did to his sons.

Chapter Text

-The Watchtower, moments later

The Justice League had taken Dick away from him and into interrogation. Jason was pissed. Sitting on the cot back in the med bay with every inch of his body tense. He watched the members of the league assigned to guarding him with open murderous intent.

Green Lantern and the Flash were his guards at the moment. The Flash had just arrived. Aquaman had drug Jason to the med bay, threatening to pick him up when he fought to not go back, and warned him not to cause trouble then left to go interrogate Dick.

Green Lantern was trying to appear unaffected by having Jason stare at him like he was picking out colors for his funeral. Incredibly though, the Flash looked even more frazzled than Green Lantern.

His eyes swept over Hal but landed on Jason. He looked like he’d seen a ghost. “Why is he just as much of a nightmare as you?”

Jason grinned. Perfect, it seemed Dickie had been doing what Jason had. Running the league around and tripping them over themselves. Honestly, Dick probably had an easier time of it. Jason absolutely was not a child and he wasn’t going to think too much about Aquaman protecting him but that didn’t mean he didn’t notice how much the king’s demeanor towards him changed once he knew how young Jason was. All of the league changed really. With his puppy eyes and gleaming, boyish smile, Dick had to have them wrapped around his little finger at this point. With Aquaman in there it’d be so much worst.

Except it seemed more like Dick was using his power to terrorize them. Whatever, Jason approved.

Alas, all good things must end. Jason knew their three minutes had long been up.

“Oh, wait until you meet the rest.” Jason didn’t know what to expect but he wasn’t disappointed.

Tim, dressed in his full costume, casually scrolled into the room. His bo staff swung over his shoulders, he grinned at Jason then at Green Lantern and the Flash.

“Hi,” he said. Then threw a smoke bomb down.

Without his helmet Jason was as lost as the leaguers. He put his arm over his mouth and shut his eyes. Whatever his siblings had planned, Tim looked entirely comfortable with it so Jason guessed he could play along for a minute.

Someone approached him quickly and Jason knew Tim was standing in front of him. He pressed a gas mask to Jason’s face. He took it and could finally see the chaos.

Damian had burst through the vents, his katana in motion. He swept at the Flash’s ankles, expertly cutting into them. The hero screamed and fell.

Behind him Spoiler and Duke fell out of the vent with much less grace than Damian. But Steph fell on Green Lantern and wrapped around him like a starfish, trapping his arms at his side. Duke reached up from the floor and stripped his ring off. Then the two of them ran off like naughty children, Causing Green Lantern to chase after them.

Damian had his sword raised over the Flash’s head. Jason didn’t wait to find out what his plan was.

“Demon Brat!” Jason yelled. “Leave him alone.”

Jason grabbed Tim for support and tried to stand. Tim staggered under his weight, but Jason couldn’t help it. He grabbed his youngest brother and hauled him away.

“He must answer for his crimes!” Damian yelled back.

“Good grief, demon brat. He didn’t do it purposefully.” Jason struggled to walk much less run, Tim was doing his best to keep them both on their feet, they just had to hope Damian didn’t stab anything vital. “We’re not in Gotham anymore. Leave him to Batman. We have to get Nightwing.”

Using Dick’s name proved to be the right move.

“TT.” Damian was the very picture of a storm cloud, but settled for kicking the Flash’s head, making him drop like a dead bug, then came over and put Jason’s other arm across his shoulders. His face was very determined as he tried to help Jason walk.

Honestly, Jason was touched. He didn’t realize all he had to do was get beat to heck by the Justice league for a few days to get some sign of affection out of the demon. He kept his arm where it was in Damian’s grasp even though the other was too short to actually be holding him up much.

Tim snorted at Damian and continued to struggle.

Jason figured Damian responded to that, but he couldn’t focus. His head was killing him. Tunnel vision was coming on strong. He refused to let it take over though knowing if he lost focus it’d be minutes before he was unconscious. Besides he knew that his two little brothers would have to drag him if he passed out and he didn’t put it pass either of them to do just that.

“This way.” Finally, out of the med bay, Jason led them to interrogation.

They stopped before they rounded the last corner. Tim started to lower Jason down and he didn’t have the strength to stay standing without his help. Jason pushed through the fog to glare at Tim.

“What are you doing?” he signed.

Tim just put a finger to his lips and looked at Damian with a very serious expression, raising his eyebrows as if in question. Damian huffed and crossed his arms over his chest, pouting. Any other time and Jason would think it cute. But now he had no idea what they were communicating, and it was frustrating.

Apparently, Tim was satisfied with that reaction because he stood back up and darted away. Damian stayed with Jason and now Jason understood. Damian had guard duty while Tim rescued Dick and he wasn’t happy about it.

Around the corner, Green Arrow’s bewildered voice rose up. “Where did you even come from?”

“Earth, obviously.” Tim sounded like he was picking up groceries on a Tuesday. Jason would never not be impressed by Tim’s ability to act like he belonged, even when he knew he didn’t.

“What—wait, no! Stop him.” Green Arrow’s voice quickly turned to panic.

Smoke puffed up from around the corner. Several moments later, Red Robin came out of the smoke, holding a gas mask to Dick’s face. From around the corner came the sound of intense coughing. None of them bat an eye at it.

Clear of the smoke, Tim let Dick go and removed the gas mask instantly blinding all of them with Dick’s smile.

“Hey, Little Wing. You all good to go?”

“Unless you want to stick around and make some more friends.” Jason rolled his eyes at him, hoping Dick would pick up on the action even under the domino.

He and Tim helped Jason stand. Between the two of them, escaping went much faster. They went back into the smoke, as it was the fastest way to the Zeta tubes.

“I’m good,” Dick said, still sounding cherry. “Anyone else?”

“You think they have waffles?” Steph asked, appearing out of the blue.

“Maybe,” Duke said as he slammed the interrogation door shut on Aquaman and Green Arrow. “Although this is like a super serious headquarters, right?”

“People still gotta eat.”

“Some people eat real food,” Tim criticized. Damian helped the other two find things to block the door and keep the heroes trapped.

Jason couldn’t see through the smoke so he had no idea how angry Aquaman was but he found himself hoping he wasn’t too mad. Like, he got it, right? Jason needed to escape. No hard feelings and all that?

Jason was drawn from the annoying pull of worry settling in his stomach, back to his siblings’ banter.

“Hey, coffee does not count as real food,” Steph yelled as she ran ahead.

“Yeah it does.”

“Definitely does not,” Jason said mostly to get under Tim’s skin.

Tim glared at him. “I will drop you.”

“No, you won’t,” Jason answered with total confidence. He was still wrapping his head around everyone being here, but he did know that out of all of them he understood Tim the most. They were both second place to Dick’s golden boy. Outsiders in a family of outsiders. Jason understood Tim not wanting to be alone in that.

“Umm,” Dick was pale as he looked behind them. “I think you should drop all of us.”

Jason didn’t understand but Tim did. He looked behind them too and cursed. “Hang on.”

He let Dick take all of Jason’s weight and pulled out his wrist computer swiping up on it with two fingers.

Jason quickly learned the ‘hang on’ had been for him. The floor was moving. No, the whole space station was tilting!

Jason clung to Dick as the whole thing made his stomach twist with more than just worry. The rest of his siblings tucked in their legs and went to the floor, using the tilt to slide home to the zeta tubes.

Dick more or less kicked Jason’s legs out from under him and they started to slide too.

Behind them the league cursed and tripped as the artificial gravity mixed with the unexpected tipping of the floor had them all falling on their faces.

“There!” Steph shouted. The zeta tubes were right in front of them.

Tim abruptly fixed the tilt of the station throwing everyone into the air with the upwards thrust.

The bat kids landed on their feet running. Tim came back to help Dick with Jason and between the two of them they managed something simar to a run.

They were in the main room and seconds from freedom when glass shattered and rained down on them.

Dick grabbed Jason’s head, using his own arms to shield him. Steph and Duke, the two up front caught the worst of it.

Two thumps hit the ground, shaking it with their weight. Superman and Wonder Woman straightened up from their fall from the observatory above. They were blocking the zeta tubes, and the rest of the league was coming up behind them.

Superman began to speak but was nailed in the head by a flying kick from behind. He went to a knee in surprise. Behind him stood a five foot tall shadow.

Cass.

“No,” he said, and Jason got it. She was guarding the tubes and they wouldn’t cut off her family.

“Child, wait,” Wonder Woman said and no. There was no way Wonder Woman was hurting Cass.

“Move! They’re both drugged!” Jason yelled and Cass responded. She flipped out of Wonder Woman’s reach, but the older woman only put her hands up. She didn’t try to attack Cass and only stayed standing between them and escape.

Superman stood and looked at all of them. “They know that now, Red Hood. Wait. Oh my—who are all of you? How did you get here?”

No one answered. Cass paced behind the heroes, looking for an opening.

Spoiler and Duke were doing the same. Behind them all, Damian hissed. The rest of the league was here.

They fanned out to encircle the little family.

Jason sought out Aquaman and yup, he looked pissed. His eyes were bloodshot from the smoke and his face pinched into a frown. He wasn’t looking at Jason but at all of his siblings. His eyes tracking from Cass to Steph to Damian. He didn’t look at Jason and it was ridiculous that Jason wanted him too.

He looked away and focused on the problem.

They were so close all they needed was one last distraction. Tim raised his computer. Damian gripped his sword.

Jason ignored it a moment to run his hands down each of Dick’s arms, looking for injury from the glass. A lot of cuts but nothing major. Then he pulled out of Dick’s grasp and stood on his own. It wasn’t a solid stance, and he knew they could all see it but Dick let him go. He dropped into a fighting stance himself because he had too.

“Go to the zeta tubes,” Damian said.

“Little problem with that dude,” Duke replied.

Damian grinned and the sight was chilling. “Not for long.”

Damian led the charge. Steph led the battle cry. The bats ran for the two supers. They braced to get attacked by seven kids. The league ran after them.

Wonder Woman looked deeply concerned to be about to fight children. In the midst of it all Jason was relieved to see it. He didn’t know enough to know if the drug wore off or if she had finally beaten it’s influence over her mind, but it was relieving to see more emotion than just lost or angry in her eyes.

Then she looked ill. Superman beside her gave a choked cry of pain and went to his knees.

Held tight in Damian’s little fist was Batman’s kryptonite.

Oh, B was going to kill him for stealing that, but Jason was going to kiss him.

Superman struggled to stand, and Wonder Woman was caught between defending him from Steph going for a people’s elbow on his head, Duke fending off a still ringless Green Lantern, Damian swinging his katana at a limping Flash, Cass attacking Wonder Woman from behind, and Tim circling around to the zeta tubes, whacking arrows out of the air with his bo staff, with Dick helping Jason hot on his heels. Aquaman hadn’t engaged yet. Seemly lost as to where to start.

Despite the chaos, the announcement of someone arriving from the Zeta tubes was strangely loud.

“B-00”

The league looked up with hope. The kids didn’t know how to look.

They all knew this was going to end with Batman claiming some knowledge of their existence. All his work to keep them hidden or just ghosts to the league was in flames.

Jason knew that and he knew it was his fault. He wouldn’t blame Bruce for kicking him out for this one. And yet when that designation was heard, his first reaction was a breath of relief. His head was spinning. All he wanted was to sit down and let his dad take care of his siblings and take him home. Even if it was for only a little while.

Beside him Dick relaxed, and he swore he heard his older brother choke back a sob.

Batman materialized out of the shadows.

His gaze swept very slowly and deliberately over each of this kids.

The league was struck dumb at the quiet response. Surely Batman could read the room and know the league needed his help. But here he was just looking at each of the intruders with a deeply disappointed expression.

Dick was hanging his head and looking to the side when Batman looked over him and that made Jason angry. Dick was Doing his best!

Then Batman looked at Jason. With every other kid he had looked them over but hadn’t lingered. With Jason he lingered. The weight of his gaze was already heavy but after a solid five minutes of pure silence and Batman just looking at him Jason was starting to crack.

Then Batman’s eyes went to the league and his expression went from disappointed to livid. With every member he looked at his face got darker and darker.

The league had been confused before but now they were starting to look worried. When Batman turned his eyes on Hal the younger man, slunk behind Green Arrow. Flash looked as downtrodden as Dick. Superman was finding the floor suddenly very interesting. Wonder Woman had walked away and was pacing some distance away. Her feet against the cement the only sound. Green Arrow was looking pissed and ready to explode.

Aquaman looked ashamed. Jason didn’t know that someone who looked like the dictionary definition of royalty could look ashamed but at this point Jason wasn’t sure he wasn’t going to get on his knees and offer Batman his trident.

Finally, Bruce looked back to Damian. His face grew gentler, and he said in a quiet but firm tone, “Put that away.”

“But—” Damian started but Bruce’s mouth went into a hard line. Damian grumbled and put it away.

Superman grew instantly better but no one rejoiced. They were confused by Batman’s demeanor and none of them were willing to cross him. So, they waited in the tense silence as Bruce faced Superman.

The super slowly stood up straight and face his friend.

“What,” Batman asked in a carefully controlled tone, “is happening here?”

“Batman,” Wonder Woman greeted in a solemn tone. “I’m afraid I am unwell and require your assistance.”

Jason huffed. “Now she gets it.”

Bruce was distracted by looking at his second eldest son. He was a mess. Breathing like he ran a marathon and had his arms drawn in tight to his sides, holding them stiffly. He wouldn’t put weight on his right leg and the bruising on his head and face was significant. His hair was tangled and dirty and deep bruising under his eyes said he hadn’t slept in a while. Honestly impressive he was still on his feet, but Bruce would prefer to get this over with and get him in bed. There was no question that he had a concussion and was hiding more wounds under his clothes.

Clark drew Bruce’s attention back to the problem that wasn’t his kid. Wonder Woman had said she was ill. Clark was putting a comforting arm around her. “It is good to hear you recognizing you are not yourself but we have to handle these intruders first.”

“Ah, intruders?” Nightwing put his hands on his hips. “You mean rescuers because you were hurting Hood.”

“There’s no way you knew that till you broke in,” Barry said.

“So, you admit you hurt him?” Tim put a hand up to his chin, a thoughtful look that was a complete trap.

Barry sputtered. “I, well, he… it was an accident.”

“Indeed,” Aquaman came to his defense. “We were under the impression that he was a meta. Although—” Aquaman held up a hand stopping any argument “—that does nothing to excuse his injuries. We should have realized he needed protection from one of our own earlier.”

“Oh no, you don’t! You aren’t getting off easy just because you said sorry for flattening him,” Spoiler said.

“Doesn’t mean you get to break into our base,” Green Arrow said.

“The hell,” Tim sounded furious. “So, you get to torture people up here because you’re in space and who can stop you?”

“That is a gross misrepresentation of what I said.”

“It was taken out of context,” Damian admitted with a regal nod. “But we are correct to think you would go right on imprisoning him with no regards to his rights.”

“Yeah,” Duke said. “Never mind we broke in, you shouldn’t have had Hood here in the first place!”

A chorus of agreement rang out from the kids. They were getting riled up. Closing ranks, probably without knowing it, and stiffly turning more imposing. It was like watching a pack of wolves go from casual to surrounding a helpless deer in less than a minute.

“Quiet!” Batman yelled at them. They all turned instantly and gave him their attention. The league didn’t know how to respond to that. “Why are any of you here?”

“Your co-workers,” Dick spit the word out like it was poison and Bruce knew he was going to hate what Dick said next. “Kidnapped Hood while he was working the undercover op you gave him.”

“Undercover?” Superman spoke first but his question was swallowed by shouting.

“You gave him, what?”

“Wait, wait, Red Hood works for Batman?!”

“No way. Spooky works alone.”

“Ha.” Tim laughed at Green Lantern and that only caused more confused shouting.

“Why is that funny?”

“Oh, you’re really asking. That’s hilarious. He really doesn’t tell you guys anything.”

“What does that mean? Who are you?!’

“You’re worst nightmare!” Spoiler yelled with far too much glee.

“Pfft, I can believe that.” Green Arrow muttered.

“You got no one to thank for this but yourselves,” Dick said in a sing-song voice.

“How?!” Flash looked close to tearing his hair out. “He’s a criminal. We stop criminals, and you slashed my ankles for it.”

“Woah, woah,” Dick held his hands up in a time out gesture. “You weren’t just doing you’re jobs, Flash. You were beating someone who couldn’t defend themselves. That’s a little more than your job.”

“And.” Damian pronounced and stood beside Dick. “I wouldn’t have had to slash your ankles if you hadn’t attacked Hood.”

“He attacked Hood,” Green Arrow said the name with obvious mocking. “Because the one in black and blue attacked me first.”

“Did not!” Dick yelled looking scandalized. It didn’t matter at all if he was telling the truth, the other kids were instantly yelling, defending him against Green Arrow’s ‘wild’ accusations.

“Did so!” Green Arrow yelled back, the league gathering behind him.

“Stop yelling!” Batman roared. The room went silent. “Stop acting like brats and tell me what you did, and why is Hood on the floor.”

All eyes searched for Red Hood. And found him slumped against the wall on the ground. His knees were to his chest and his head dropped between them; he raised a hand in a small wave. He had somehow limped himself to the wall and slid down it.

“Like we said,” Damian growled, sword raised. “This so-called Justice League tortured him.”

“Small angry child,” Aquaman said gently. “We were mistaken as to his healing capability. That does not excuse our neglect but we had no intention of injuring him or of leaving him still injured.”

“Still injured?” Bruce said with malice, silencing the league. They glanced around at each other, tucking into themselves away from Batman’s rage.

How long had Jason been injured? His wayward child could be beyond annoying, Bruce knew. He also knew that Jason had the self-preservation instincts of an animal lover trying to pet a lion. How much had they done to him before Jason showed enough pain for them to realize they were torturing him?

Bruce believed Aquaman. He didn’t need the man to say it for him to know the league must have seriously breached protocol, but it was nice to hear him pretty much admit it. But he also knew that they would never hurt Jason knowingly.

He was going to need to get real answers out of someone and he was going to need to do it soon. Aquaman seemed the sensible candidate. But first, he had to take care of his current problem kid. Honestly, considering his kids had apparently broken into the watchtower and fought the Justice League they should all be his problem child. But they had done it to save Jason. That meant that Jason still reigned as Problem King and the others got off with a warning.

Jason had been coming around more often. Speaking to Bruce more and letting the family care for him a little more. But this might just be more than Jason is willing to take if he blames Bruce for this. He wouldn’t be all that wrong either. Bruce had sent him undercover and then left earth, unable to control the Justice League.

“Nightwing, control them.” Bruce said it as an order but he held Dick’s eyes long enough to communicate that he was sorry for being disappointed with Dick when he first arrived. Dick nodded back and Bruce was relieved. Then he turned his back on the whole mess of people and went over to Jason.

He crouched in front of him and reached a hand out, gripping his chin. Jason sighed but didn’t fight it. Bruce gently lifted his head up and turned his face to examine the bruise. He heard the surprised gasps behind him but ignored it, focusing on Jason.

The bruise was already a rainbow of color and spread all the way from the side of his head to under his mask.

“I’m going to touch your head?” Bruce framed his tone into a question just to get a response out of him.

Jason nodded so he was still cognizant. Bruce wished he could see his eyes to see how far off he really was.

He ran his fingers through sweat-soaked, crusty hair but it wasn’t blood. Nor did he feel any serious damage. Bruce didn’t want to know how much of that he owed to Jason’s unnatural healing. He pushed his fingers through his hair again, untangling the raven locks and smoothing the shock of white hair back from his forehead.

Hands still combing through his child’s hair, Batman made sure his tone and body language made no room for anything less than truth. “Tell me what happened.”

The kids didn’t answer. They knew that tone and stayed silent. That was fine, Bruce already knew what happened from their end. Jason was kidnapped by the Justice League, so they came to save him. Not particularly inspired but Bruce understood their actions. He wanted to know why Jason hadn’t been taken care of while in the custody of people Bruce worked with.

“It was me.” Diana stepped forward. She sounded wrecked, truly upset to say those words.

Bruce turned to look at her, still crouched in front of Jason but his posture turned protective as he shifted to keep himself between Wonder Woman and Jason. She didn’t look ready to attack; she looked upset and lost. Like she didn’t know how this had happened. “I hurt him.”

Bruce narrowed his eyes in suspicion. He didn’t doubt her sorrow at whatever had happened, but Diana loved kids. Jason may be twenty-one but that wouldn’t matter to Diana any more than it did to Bruce. Jason was a kid in her sight, all of Bruce’s kids would be.

“There is a drug made by Lex Luthor, intended for Superman that I encountered instead while apprehending Red Hood,” she said. “I hurt him.”

There was no lie in Diana and Bruce felt nauseous. He knew without asking what drug she was talking about. He’d been chasing pieces of this puzzle for months. Luthor making drugs in Gotham fit the facts and now that he knew that the rest slid into place.

The drug ring he gave Jason to infiltrate wasn’t supposed to be the main manufacturer but now he realized that it must have been.

His child had been in the hands of Wonder Woman on a drug that made it impossible for people to care who they hurt, and he was somehow still alive.

For a moment, Bruce didn’t know what to do. He needed to get Jason out of his shirt at least and see what other damage had been done to his child, but he also needed Wonder Woman to leave.

“If we’re counting,” Jason spoke up, barely conscience. “You hurt me twice.”

He held up a hand he couldn’t hold steady to show two fingers.

Bruce saw the war that went on behind Wonder Woman’s eyes. He saw the indifference and anger that flared up but he also saw her get confused and then sad.

“Yes.” Diana dropped her head and sounded resigned. “I am sorry, child.”

Bruce snapped out of his indecision. “Wonder Woman, leave. Go somewhere you won’t be a danger to others.”

“I am in control,” she said. Her voice was still broken but her confidence didn’t waver.

Bruce hummed at the response. Slipping one arm behind Jason he slid him away from the wall so he could get his other arm under his legs.

“Superman, leave too.” Bruce didn’t care to hear they’re arguments and tuned them out.

“Hey, old man.” Jason struggled in his arms, but it was pointless. He wasn’t strong enough to do more than push at Bruce. He started cursing Bruce but still laid his head against Bruce’s shoulder and closed his eyes, too exhausted to really fight.

His other children filed in behind him as he walked away.

Chapter Text

- The Watchtower, moments later

Worry for his child was first priority in Bruce’s brain but that didn’t prevent him from taking in having Jason in his arms. He was heavy but nowhere near as heavy as the last time he had to carry him. Feeling Jason breathe in and out against his chest made him so much lighter. The most solid proof of life he had yet experienced with his miracle child.

Jason quickly fell silent and just rested in his arms as he left the main room and walked briskly to the med bay. His other children followed along like the obedient little ducks they were not. The shocked Justice League following behind them.

“Are we just going to pretend this is okay?” Hal whispered to the league.

Aquaman answered. “He is unwell.”

“Not that,” Hal rapidly whispered, his voice still loud enough for Batman to hear. “Who are all these people that broke into our base?!”

“Calm yourself,” Wonder Woman said, still following the group despite Batman telling her to leave. “Batman is unconcerned with their presence here. You know that would not be so if there was a threat.”

“I’m not talking about that,” Hal spat, his voice getting even less calm. “I’m talking about how Batman has like seven vigilantes that obviously know him that he just didn’t tell us about.”

Bruce heard Steph snickering at the conversation and knew what she was thinking. If only the league knew all these vigilantes were only some of his children.

“We are not entitled to every detail of his life,” Superman said but he didn’t sound nearly as confident as usual.

“Normally I’d support that wholeheartedly,” Green Arrow said. “But these walking nightmares invaded our base to rescue Red Hood, a known criminal. We are just letting a bunch of criminals walk—”

“Hey!” Duke flipped around to face the league but walked backwards to stay with his siblings. “I am not a criminal.”

“Yeah.” Dick flipped around too. Soon all of his kids were walking backwards, and Bruce sighed. At least Jason was still pretty calm in his arms. Although that probably had more to do with his wavering state of conscience than anything else.

“Listen, you little terrors,” Green Arrow yelled over the kids raucous. “You broke into a secret base and tried to spring a criminal out of jail that makes you, by extension, criminals!”

“Red Hood,” Bruce said loudly cutting off Tim’s angry response. “Is not a criminal.”

“Huh? He has a confirmed kill list of like eighty-something,” The Flash said.

“He isn’t a criminal anymore.” Bruce amended. Jason snorted, showing he was still tracking the conversation. Bruce hugged him a little tighter. “He works undercover a lot, using his confirmed kill count and other notable acts as a villain to gain access to current villains’ activities then either takes them down or helps us take them down.”

“Us?” Flash questioned. Superman quickly took over and he sounded angrier than he had a moment ago. Flash didn’t argue. Bruce grew tense and saw his kids do the same.

“I’m sorry,” Superman said. “You didn’t think it was pertinent information to share that Red Hood has reformed, so much so that he works undercover to aid you?”

“No,” Bruce said darkly. “Because he only works in Gotham. Where you should never have been.”

“The drugs were coming into metropolis.” Superman didn’t back down an inch.

“Then call me,” Bruce nearly rolled his eyes. “You had the ability too.”

“It was my city. I don’t have to call you when my people are in danger.”

“When it involves Gotham, you do. Look what happens when you don’t.”

“This would never have happened if you had been honest with us.”

“Why should I be?” Bruce stopped and turned now too. His back just hitting the door to a private med room connected to the lab. His other kids stayed silent surrounding him and Jason. Adopting his seriousness in the blink of an eye. “Hood should have been safe in your custody. As should all criminals we arrest.”

“I have admitted my guilt in his ill treatment—” Wonder Woman started.

“I know,” Bruce cut her off. “The rest of the league should have known as well. The moment you hit a child the league should have contained you.”

“We had no idea he was a kid. He had a full helmet on. No way could we have known he wasn’t an adult,” Green Lantern said.

“Regardless, it is unlike Wonder Woman to use excessive force.”

“It would not have been excessive if he was a meta as we thought,” Superman said.

“All of you thinking that is just idiotic.” Bruce was tired of this talking. He wanted to just bash all their heads in until they understood what they had done. Seeing as he couldn’t really do that he’d settle for verbal assault, but in his arms Jason had finally closed his eyes and Bruce needed to make sure it was okay for him to sleep so beating all of them within an inch of their life with his words would have to wait. “Hood is not a meta and the only reason you are making excuse for his treatment is because none of you took the action that needed to be taken and lock Wonder Woman up until she regained control of herself. Wonder Woman,” Bruce turned his eyes on her, “you say you are in control. If that’s true than you should know not to be here. Leave. Superman, too.”

Bruce waited and stared hard at both of them. Years of working together let the two supers know he wasn’t backing down on this.

Diana cracked first. “We will be listen in the observatory.”

Bruce grunted in reply and pushed open the lab door and marched inside. Dick grabbed the door and held it open for his siblings. He let it shut in Aquaman’s face.

The older man sighed like one does at a toddler spilling milk and pushed the door open. He was met with Damian and Dick making a wall to block him from following Bruce to the bed he laid Jason down in. Cass got in Black Canary’s way while Duke stepped up to Hal. Steph puffed up to make it clear she had no problem taking on two at once.

The league didn’t push it. Aquaman put his hands up. “I merely wish to know if the boy is alright.”

Cass tilted her head, not yet getting aggressive. She looked thoughtfully at Aquaman but didn’t motion to let him pass.

“Batman,” Superman’s voice came over the speakers. He sounded more in control and the back and forth of it was giving Bruce a headache. “Red Hood kidnapped me.” Bruce continued to get Jason to sitting up and trying to get his shirt off, his son was awake again and grumpy about it so he wasn’t lifting a finger to help. “He never once stated he was working undercover. Even once he was in the Watchtower. How were we supposed to know that he wasn’t the one running the drug ring?”

“I was about to find out who was running it.” Jason jerked away from Bruce to yell at Superman or yell at the overhead speaker.

Tim tapped on his wrist computer and brought up an image of Wonder Woman and Superman in the observatory. He was looking through the computer in there at them and they must have had his camera feed pop up for them on the computer since they both zeroed in on it and were looking right at Jason.

Jason nodded his thanks now that he could yell at them properly. Then his eyes flickered to Bruce. “Although now that everything with Wonder Woman happened, I’m pretty sure it’s Luthor.”

Bruce nodded and then thought that may not be enough, so he added, “Well done.”

Jason turned away to try and hide it, but Bruce still saw him smile, enjoying the praise. Bruce ruthlessly tugged his shirt over his head while he was distracted. Jason glared at him. Bruce very pointedly ignored it and got to work examine his very injured body. His whole right side was black with bruises. How he was sitting with how his right hip looked was a mystery. Or not such a mystery since Jason had dangerously high levels of pain tolerance and his body could and regularly did shrug off extreme injuries.

Okay, so Bruce wasn’t that surprised they thought his kid was a meta. At this point he should probably admit he has two meta kids.

“You never defended yourself,” Superman was speaking to Jason now. “If you were working for Batman and knew who is likely behind the drugs why didn’t you say anything?”

“And what? You just believe me?” Jason mocked. “I was undercover. Everything I had on me was designed not to lead anyone back to Batman.”

“It still would have worked,” Bruce said.

Jason startled and looked at him in shock. Bruce felt his chest tighten. Jason was looking at him like he just announced he was going to throw Jason in Arkham.

Bruce quickly leapt to explaining his thinking before Jason twisted his words to fit his insecurities. “The league would have had to contact me if you said you were working with me. You’re too smart not to know that.”

“That…” Jason eyed the league warily and lowered his voice. Pointless with Superman and Wonder Woman around but Bruce didn’t mention that. “That would have torpedoed all your work to keep us secret if I just threw out an ‘oh hey, I’m working for Batman.’”

It was almost laughable given the current situation of all of Bruce’s kids meeting the Justice League, but he didn’t let that show on his face. Jason would never recover if Bruce laughed at him like this. He stilled his hands from checking Jason’s bandages.

“Jaylad,” Bruce whispered, giving up the nickname for the sake of making Jason realize how serious he was. “I would always rather you undo my work than get yourself hurt. If it protects you from torture than ruining all my work is a fair trade.”

The look on Jason’s face made Bruce feel like he had suddenly grown two heads. Bruce grimaced; he wasn’t getting through to him. It was unacceptable for Jason not to understand how important Bruce considered him to be.

He turned, keeping one hand on Jason’s side to keep him still. “I cannot trust you to act rationally so I will have my other associates introduce themselves. Now you will know them and can’t make excuses to harm them.”

Even through Tim’s computer screen, Wonder Woman looked stricken as did Superman. Green Lantern looked scared. Green Arrow scowled but couldn’t meet his eyes. Barry looked hurt as Aquaman but neither of them tried to say otherwise.

“Nightwing.” Dick spoke up first, crossing his arms over his chest, his eyes were cold and impassive. Even in the face of Aquaman’s remorse Dick was ruthless and Bruce was reminded that no matter how sweet his eldest could be Dick had viciousness to him that lay just under the surface.

“Red Robin.” In contrast to Dick, Tim sounded almost casual; keeping his emotions in check as his third son was given to doing. But Bruce could hear his fury as clearly as he heard Dick’s.

“Robin.” Damian spat the name and didn’t say anything else. It was telling how little Damian thought of them that he didn’t attempt to explain that he was the superior Robin.

“Spoiler.” Steph’s grin was clearly heard in her voice. The dark cheeriness to it was just as unsettling as his boys’ anger had been.

“Signal.” Duke said, straightening his back and staring down the league like he was asking them to challenge him.

“Black Bat,” Cass said in her quiet voice. The others had spoken so loudly but Cass’s small voice lended itself to the shadow she tended to be.

“You know me, but what the heck, I feel left out,” Jason said then smirked, the Red Hood’s signature malice in his tone. “Red Hood.”

“Is everyone clear on their names?” Batman asked.

The league backed away from him, nervous and nodded.

Bruce stared them all done for another minute, letting his glare shift from one to the other until he was satisfied they understood how terrible it would be for them if they messed with any of his kids in the future.

“Good.” Bruce dismissed them with that and turned back to Jason. He leaned in very close to him, his hand on his side and his other going to his head to drawl him in close. His son was pressed against him like he would be in a hug, but both their postures were too stiff for it to be a real one. That was fine Bruce just needed him close enough to whisper in his ear, so quietly as to hopefully evade the two with superhearing.

“Do you understand, now?” Bruce said softly.

Jason stayed tense and quiet. Bruce was just about to try explaining it again when the tension seeped out of Jason, and he dropped his forehead onto Bruce’s shoulder. His hands fisted into Bruce’s cape, almost covering himself with it.

He felt Jason nod against his shoulder more than he saw it.

Bruce breathed very purposefully a few times, not wanting to release a sigh and make Jason feel like he had been exasperated with him. Jason was difficult to handle, he made Bruce second-guess his every move, but the last thing he wanted was for Jason to know that. His problem child was far too sensitive to rejection for Bruce to let him know he was a problem most of the time. And Bruce loved him too much to cause him the worry of being thrown out because he was too much work.

As much as he wanted to let Jason stay right where he was, he still had pressing things to do.

“Nightwing.” he called his eldest over and was pleased when Jason stayed loose.

Dick approached with an eyebrow raised.

“Help balance him.”

Dick perked up. The coldness in his eyes was replaced with warmth. His anger immediately tempered with the opportunity to hold his little brother.

He climbed unto the bed behind Jason and used his chest as something for Jason to lean against.

The other boy groaned in relief as Dick pulled him back and pressure was taken off his ribs. Dick grinned. Jason mumbled at him, telling him to go do some inappropriate things. Dick grinned all the more.

Bruce allowed a small smile at their antics before wiping his face clean. He ran a few tests to make sure Jason was okay. The test showed broken ribs, a separated shoulder and a lot of bruising they would have to keep an eye on. More than anything, Jason needed food and rest. The moment he could, Bruce intended on making sure he got just that.

“How,” Bruce looked at Aquaman, “did he get so injured?”

Aquaman didn’t try to shy away but he looked upset still. “Wonder Woman attacked him in his cell. That was when we realized he had been injured before.”

“You let her near him again?!” Bruce clenched his fists in visible rage. Even his kids flinched back a little.

Aquaman stood his ground but looked to the floor. The rest of the league shifted away, Black Canary and Green Arrow looking ready to fight if Bruce attacked. “We did not intend too. We had not yet realized that Superman was compromised as well. He was supposed to guard her.”

“Superman was there when he was arrested?”

“Yes.”

“Then how did you not realize he was affected as well?”

“Because” Green Arrow jumped in, “they literally acted fine until it came to making decisions like not beating up an arrested, tied up criminal. Until they came into contact with Red Hood, nothing was different.”

“Yeah,” Flash said. “I mean Clark was working on his news report.”

“And did they seem so normal when she attacked him and Clark let her?” Bruce asked darkly. The league went silent. “There should not have to be another attack for you to know they weren’t themselves.”

No one argued the point. It didn’t matter that it was hard to see the supers were affected outside of their interactions with Jason. They hurt his son and that should have been enough. If the league had followed protocol around unknown substances, it would have been enough.

“How did she attack him?” Bruce asked.

“Used her lasso to throw him into the wall.”

Bruce gasped and looked at Jason more critically. “He should be dead.”

“Hey,” Jason said in groggy offense.

“I am aware,” Arthur answered. “I do believe that Wonder Woman was holding back. Even in her state, she didn’t want to kill him.”

Bruce grunted. It was good news. His friend hadn’t completely lost her mind but that didn’t mean he was ready to play nice with them.

“Red Robin and I will make an antidote to the drug then we will be leaving. There is no reason for all of you to stay here.” Tim came over to help him in the lab right away. The league, understanding he had told them to get the hell out, shifted nervously but didn’t leave.

Aquaman was only faced with Damian now, but he still hesitated and then switched to catch Cass’s eye. The tiny girl eyed him back and then, she nodded her head and motioned for Damian to step away.

“Black Bat.” Dick tensed immediately.

Cass swiveled and signed, ‘safe’.

Damian just ignored her and glared at the much larger man, daring him to try and get passed him.

“R,” Jason called from the bed. “He’s okay.”

Dick didn’t look convinced and honestly, Bruce wasn’t either but didn’t protest as Damian moved, grumbling the whole time, and let Arthur cautiously approached the two on the bed. “I wished to apologize for all I have done to you. I knew that Diana was not in her right mind and yet I did not take the necessary steps to contain her. This is a lesson that all of us will not forget. The fact you had to pay the price for us to learn it will always stain our history. I am sorry, Child.”

Jason smiled, throwing the man for a complete loop. “It’s all good. I mean, it’s not good but at least now you know.”

Bruce felt like facepalming at the same time he felt proud of his son. It would have been so easy for Jason to react in anger, to throw his apology back in his face. Bruce had been on the receiving end of Jason throwing things back in his face so often he knew Jason could make it hurt.

Arthur looked confused but smiled softly and inclined his head to Jason. “Thank you.”

Jason nodded back and almost said more but then his cheeks turned red and he leaned his head back on Dick’s shoulder, looking at the ceiling, and letting his older brother wrap his arms around him. As soon as Jason was settled, Dick twisted into a dark shadow of himself and glared at Arthur.

Danger was rolling off Nightwing and Arthur clearly felt it. Yet, he stayed close to the bed and Bruce found he didn’t mind that much.

Bruce knew that Arthur meant every word and the way he was looking at Jason made Bruce think he might just have help in keeping Jason safe. Dick was clearing going to try and persuade the undersea King to not interfere with his little brother, but Arthur had a way of winning people over. Especially when he considered that person a child in need of protecting. Hell, Bruce was pretty sure Dick could cut Arthur’s hand off and Arthur would still just sigh and continue on with his business of keeping the kids safe.

For a moment there was peace. Superman tried to ask more questions, but Tim closed down the link and followed Bruce to the lab part of the room to worked on the drug then the Flash had to ruin it.

“Wait!” he screeched.

All of his kids jumped and looked at the speedster with varying degrees of hatred.

The Flash looked around at all Bruce’s kids with a growing look of shock. Finally, he settled on Jason who had sat up and stared back at the Flash. Jason raised his eyebrows as the Flash continued to stare at him.

“Barry?” Aquaman asked.

Barry flinched like he was coming out of a trance. “Hood, he… he said, when we asked him with the lasso.”

“Is he having a stroke?” Steph asked.

Bruce left the lab part of the room, with Tim in tow, to get a better look at Barry. He was pale as a sheet and definitely looked shocked but there wasn’t fear underneath it like Bruce expected. Actually, he looked a little excited. Bruce didn’t like that at all.

Barry took a deep breath and Bruce prepared or the tirade.

“Wonder Woman put her lasso on Red Hood and asked him what he was doing with the drug and he replied, ‘What my Father asked me too.’ If you asked him to go undercover than that means you are the dad he was talking about. And he couldn’t have been lying because the lasso. And now there’s all these other children here and they all know Red Hood and, and…”

Flash’s mouth fell open. The man was speechless.

The rest of the league was speechless.

Aquaman turned to Jason. “Batman is your father?”

He sounded surprised but calm. His eyes gently swept over all the bats, looking more certain with everyone. “He is Father to all of you.”

The league looked to stunned to say anything. Bruce’s kids were handling it in stride. Damian already looked angry, and his face didn’t change. Steph still looked amused and, honestly, she probably was. Tim looked bored and Cass was still studying Aquaman. Duke looked apologetic and Dick just kept glaring at Arthur.

Jason though. Jason’s eyes went wide and darted to Bruce. The fear he saw there was so intense Bruce was taken back by it.

The moment he met Jason’s eyes his boy flinched back and started to struggle away from Dick.

Dick looked down at his brother, saw the fear and was confused as to what happened. He looked to Bruce for an answer, but Bruce had nothing.

What did Jason think? That he was in trouble for the league kidnapping him and using the lasso on him? Yes, Bruce was spooked by the the league knowing he had kids, it made his job of protecting them that much harder, but them finding out wasn’t Jason’s fault.

But how to convince him of that when Jason looked ready to throw himself out the nearest window just to get away from Bruce. That was hardly an exaggeration. When Jason wanted space there was little Bruce could do about it.

Jason wasn’t blaming Bruce for all this; he was blaming himself. And he thought Bruce was going to blame him too.

Bruce felt guilt hit him in the gut. Jason really did think Bruce was going to be angry with him for giving up the secret. He had somehow taught his child it was better to be tortured than it was to break Batman’s rules.

Correcting that started now.

“Of course,” Bruce said in his best angry and disappointed tone. None of his nerves made it through, just his annoyance. “They are my children. Red Hood is my second eldest son.”

“He’s your what?” exclaimed Green Lantern.

“Oh my,” Flash put a hand on his forehead like he was going to faint. “How?”

“The Dark Knight,” Black Canary said as she spun around and looked at all the bats, “Has like seven kids?”

“Pfft, seven.” Steph laughed. Black Canary zeroed in on her and tried to ask what she meant, but she was drown out by the speakers coming to life and Superman yelling unintelligibly.

There was a loud shuffle and then Diana started speaking. “How is this possible? All these years you have been having children and—”

“Woah, time out!” Duke yelled. “He did not have me.”

“Yeah, he did!” Steph yelled in wickedly gleeful voice. “It was a scandalous affair.”

“Wait, no,” Duke pointed a finger at her. “You were the affair.”

“Technically,” Damian broke in, “you were all affairs. I am the only legitimate heir.”

Bruce was watching Jason this whole time and saw the fear on his face turn to shock. He was still caught between trying to get away and staying to see what happened next. Bruce decided to take control of the situation before his kids could take their newfound freedom and run any further with it.

“They are all adopted.” Bruce said knowing Damian would be displeased but not wanting to explain everything. He scanned the league, but his eyes returned to Jason. “And they are all my children. Red Hood told you that under duress because I gave strict orders that they all stay hidden from the league.”

“Red Hood,” Superman’s voice came over the speaker. “Didn’t tell us he was working undercover for you because he was following your orders?”

That was a very painful truth. That was going to haunt his nightmares for a while, especially once Jason got tired of the cuddling and left again. But he couldn’t focus on that.

“Yes,” Bruce said. “And he had no choice in breaking them.”

Jason visibly relaxed and Bruce didn’t know how to feel. Relief that Jason had heard his words but broken over the fact that he had to say them.

Bruce decided he wasn’t done. He motioned to Tim to bring up the feed of Superman and Wonder Woman. He did so.

“Leave the Watchtower, now. Or I will make you leave it,” Batman said. He turned to make sure the rest of the league knew he was addressing them now too. “All of you have made a disgrace out of the league. First, you went into a place where you knew there were drugs and didn’t decontaminate afterwards. Then you let two people clearly affected by something not only stay in the Watchtower but continue to allow them access to a person they had already injured. And you not knowing Hood was injured is another failure. Anyone taken into our custody should be cared for regardless of their stance as a meta or not.”

Green Arrow opened his mouth, but Bruce cut him off. Only Aquaman seemed to be taking this to heart so Bruce was just going to keep going.

“You should have called me the moment you arrested Hood. In fact, you should have called me the moment you knew the drugs were coming from Gotham; you should never have been in my city, endangering my children. You should never have been around Hood, and he should never have had to deal with you. But seeing as you ignored those rules, I’ll make new ones for you.”

Batman looked to Nightwing. “Introduce yourselves again. This time,” Bruce looked to the league and said in a deadly serious tone, “make sure they know you are vigilantes of Gotham, you are brothers and sisters to each other, and you are my children. My children that if the league even looks at in a threatening way I will not hesitant to demolish everything we have built here. All the work I have put into this place means nothing in the face of protecting all of you. As Robin demonstrated, I have the ability to take down even our strongest member. Remember this day because if you hurt any of my children again, I will leave the league and make sure that no piece of it remains intact. Make sure you pay attention.”

Batman turned away, clearly done with the league and Dick took his que to start talking.

“Nightwing,” he said again, this time he was smiling in triumph over the stunned league. “I’m Batman’s eldest kid.”

Bruce was looking at Jason who stared back at him as stunned as the league. Dick nudged him and Jason realized it was his turn. Still, he waited a moment and just looked at Bruce. Then he smiled and looked every bit like all of Bruce’s other kids. Supported, loved and important. Now Bruce knew Jason wasn’t going to pull anything like this again.

“Red Hood, Batman’s second eldest.”

Bruce sighed. Jason was going to be okay.

“No,” Cass spoke up, Bruce turned to look at her in surprise. “I’m second.”

“By like three months!” Jason yelled or tried too he still sounded pretty tired.

Cass stayed resolute.

“Fine,” Jason sighed. “Second eldest son.”

“Second eldest,” Cass declared proudly. The family snickered at Jason’s put out look. Dick hugged him and Jason grumbled.

“How do you guys not know this?” Green Lantern asked.

“Red Robin, third son, fourth oldest,” Tim said, ignoring Hal but then interrupted himself. “Wait, Oracle!”

“Oracle?” Flash said in fear. “There’s more of you?”

Tim pulled up a screen beside the two supers on his wrist computer and started typing. He connected through the Watchtower to the batcave. He pulled up audio only and Bab’s voice immediately came through.

“What took you so long!” She sounded worried and annoyed.

“Sorry,” Tim said. “I’ll tell you later but right now we are introducing ourselves to the league.”

“What, really?”

“Yeah, name and where you are in Batman’s children.”

There was a strange, excited noise over the comm and then she calmed down and spoke in a very professional tone. “Technically, I’m not adopted but I’m still claiming my place as second eldest.”

“Great,” Jason said. “That makes me fourth. This family is too big.”

“Too big?” Flash looked around at all of them. “You don’t even know what order you all go in!”

“Yeah,” Tim shrugged. “We have to figured out every few months because B adopts more kids.”

“B?” Green Arrow echoed.

“Except me,” Dick said proudly. “I’m always the oldest.”

“Congrats, you’re old.” Steph said, immediately killing Dick’s mood.

“Hey.”

“Being old and wise is a privilege,” Aquaman tried to reassure Dick. Dick glared at him.

Batman ignored Aquaman stared at Green Lantern and Flash until they stopped trying to talk and allowed the new introductions to be carried out without too much more confusion.

At the end, Bruce looked to Superman and Wonder Woman, “Be very sure you are clear on who all of them are. Now, leave. I’ll call you back when we have an antidote.”

The two supers got up and left without a word.

Batman looked up to tell the league to get out but found that Aquaman was already ushering them out. Bruce made a mental note to not be as angry with Arthur as he was with the rest.

- Watchtower, a few hours later

With Tim’s help, they made the antidote quickly. Apparently Tim had found a sample of the drug but didn’t know that’s what it was. His computers had been working on analyzing it, giving them a head start.

It still took them hours. In which time the league stayed away, and all his kids started to feel how exhausted they were. Bruce doubted any of them got much sleep in the past three days, even the ones that weren’t locked in a Justice League cell.

Dick had shifted to sit against the wall with Jason against him. Jason was out cold, and Dick was jerking himself awake every few minutes. Steph and Cass had taken up guard positions on either side of the bed, but Steph was now leaning with her butt against the wall. Duke was sitting in an office chair with his arms propped up on a desk and his head in his hands.

Tim was beside Bruce, swaying like a drunk with the new antidote in his hands. Deeply concerned about his chronically sleep-deprived kid handling chemicals, Bruce took it away from him.

“Alright,” Bruce said loud enough to wake Dick. “Time for all of you to go home.”

Duke immediately stood up and moved to obey like he was a robot. Bruce winced realizing his day-walking son was the only one not used to being awake all night.

Steph pushed off the wall. She and Cass looked to Dick to wake Jason and stayed back. Jason hated to be crowded when he was less than fully aware.

“Hey, Little Wing.” Dick sat up and shook Jason softly. Jason groaned and rolled his head into the crock between Dick’s neck and shoulder.

Dick turned pleading eyes on Bruce who quickly broke.

Coming over to them, he gave the antidote to Cass, by far his most reliable kid. Then he slipped his arm under Jason’s legs and wedged his other arm in between Jason and Dick.

The moment he lifted Jason out of his brother’s lap, Jason’s eye flew up and he reached back to grab Dick’s shirt.

“Hood, it’s just me.” Bruce clutched Jason tighter to force his body to turn towards him and get Jason to look up at him. Recognition crossed his face and then he scowled. He let go of Nightwing and curled up around Bruce.

“Don’t pull **** like that, old man.” Jason muttered into Bruce’s shoulder with deadly seriousness.

“Sorry,” Bruce replied, and Dick echoed it. But Jason easily went back to sleep in Bruce’s arms, so he guessed they were forgiven for scaring him.

Bruce gestured with his head for his kids to get going, waiting for them to clear the hallway before stepping out with Jason.

On the whole journey back, they didn’t see anyone, and Bruce was glad for it. But his peace was going to be short lived, and he knew it. There was no way he was going to let the league sleek away from this.

At the zeta tubes is when they finally saw the league. Whoever was on monitor duty must have alerted the others to their departure.

“How is he?” Aquaman asked. he was keeping a respectful distance away but stepped forward from the others.

Bruce was tempted to just ignore him but Cass had let him approach and Jason hadn’t hated him so Bruce wouldn’t completely shun him. “He will recover.”

He accepted the harsh answer with grace and moved away to join the others. Beside him, Green Lantern was restless. He kept looking between the Bats and the rest of the league with a growing look of confusion. The Flash was also twitchy, but he looked more like he wanted to follow Arthur’s lead and apologize.

“They are leaving,” Bruce informed the league before anyone got any jumpier. “We will be revisiting some policies.”

Translation: I am going to rip you all apart as much as I verbally can.

Bruce turned to Dick and handed Jason off to him. He took his brother’s weight with a little effort and moved so his face was hidden from the league by Bruce’s bulk then quirked his brow quizzically.

“I won’t be long,” Bruce promised him. Dick gave him a skeptical look but didn’t push it.

Cass returned the antidote and gave Bruce a hug which he returned. He could feel the league’s collective astonishment and would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy it.

Damian made sure the league saw him silently promising them all death with his eyes before following his siblings and returning home. Bruce realized he never got the kryptonite back from him and sighed. That was a battle he’d pick some other time.

Moments later, all of his children were back home safely and Bruce took a couple of seconds to marvel at that fact.

Then Flash spoke. “Are we going to have a bunch of little bats running around now? Where’d you get kryptonite? It was yours, right? Or does the small child just come up with these things? How do they all have your same death glare?”

The questions were practically bursting from the man.

Bruce turned his death glare on him, and he shut up.

“Seriously though,” Green Arrow spoke up, he turned his head up and to the side. “Are we going to have to see them around?”

“That is not open to discussion.” Batman squared his shoulders and loomed over the gathered heroes like the Dark Knight he was. “Nothing concerning them is open to discussion. Why would I give you more information about them after what you did to someone under my protection?”

“Batman, we didn’t know” Barry started. Bruce cut him off.

“Hood and all the others belong to Gotham. And I expect you to stay out of Gotham.”

Aquaman slowly nodded. “As is your wish. However, I would not mind to see them again.”

Bruce stared at the man and saw he was not only serious but hopeful. Bruce… didn’t hate that but there was a lot they needed to go over before Bruce would feel comfortable letting anyone near his kids.

He tuned out any pleasant thoughts of Aquaman helping to watch the kids and replied only with a dark, “We’ll see.”

- Wayne Manor, hours later

Bruce returned home late. It was already past ten and he had sent them all home around noon. Alfred greeted him at the door but didn’t speak too loudly. He led him to the family living room and ushered him in with a smile on his face.

On the couches, all squished together in a tangle of limbs that could not be comfortable, were his children.

Barbara had join the fray and was now on the big couch with Dick, Jason, Cass and Damian. Beside them on a smaller couch was Duke, Steph and Tim.

There were blankets stretched out amongst them and cups of hot chocolate laying half-finished or empty everywhere.

After the day they had had, Bruce felt a weight he hadn’t fully realize was there leave his shoulders.

Picking his way through the room, avoiding Steph’s legs since she was barely still on the couch and was mostly on the floor, Bruce went around checking all of his kids. He decided against moving Steph since she wouldn’t be quiet if he woke her, and she wasn’t likely to wake with too many aches.

Duke and Tim were hogging the rest of that couch and sleeping soundly. Well, Tim was twitching a little but with the amount of coffee he drank that was bound to be the case.

On the other couch, it looked like Barbara had stolen Jason and was sleeping with his back leaned against her and her fingers in his hair. Dick was on Jason’s other side and had Jason’s legs in his lap and Damian pressed against his other side. Cass was cocooned in a blanket beside him.

All of them were safe and comfortable inside Bruce’s house. He sighed.

He had a lot of contingencies to build now that the league knew of their existence. There was so much about the league that could bring harm to his kids and Bruce had to plan for it all. And yet, he found himself more comforted by what he had witnessed today. They didn’t make the smartest of decisions with the league, Jason not talking to save himself, the others charging in with too much confidence and too little planning, but in the end they showed Bruce the one thing he really needed to see from them. They would protect each other. No matter what, they were important to each other. That was enough.

He picked up the remote and turned down the Pride and Prejudice TV show that was playing with a rueful smile. Then took a seat on the ground, back against the couch where Cass had her legs curled up and waited for night to truly fall and his bats to wake.