#I can't convince anyone to read batman longfic but I've found some seriously kickass ones lately

[itemfinder]

hey if you like Batman fic DON'T read the above yet but go read the series that it's kind of epilogueing

Hello! I absolutely adore your Blackbird au, I've recommended it to all my friends and reread it dozens of times. I saw your answer on an ask where you said you might not be adding new installments, which, though I'm a little sad to hear it, I definitely understand and support you doing what works for you. I'm grateful for what you've shared with us as is. That being said, if you have any snippets or ideas of how the story was going to continue, I'd be thrilled to read it (if you're willing to share). Thanks!

anon you are a gift and a blessing. my greatest regret with stopping was that the third fic was the one where I was actually going to justify why the whole thing is called the blackbird AU. the third fic was going to have victor zsasz as its villain, with Tim balancing working with Jason, playing keep-away with the Bats, and not getting murdered. he was going to move more fully into the vigilante sphere in Gotham and cement his existence as a player and his relationship to the others.

with that in mind, i'm going to share 2 different scenes regarding Tim preparing for his debut (long post under the cut):

Tim takes his time putting on the layers Jason left strewn across the dining table. The underlayers cling to him in a way he’s not used to, tight against his joints. The Kevlar vest and titanium plate inserts sit more naturally, but they’re heavier than suit jackets or sweatshirts, and Tim has to shift the way he holds his shoulders to balance the weight a little better. The Teflon layers for the exterior of the outfit help hide the bulk; Tim looks like a bigger person than he is, but not an armored one.

There’s an almost-full-size mirror in the safehouse’s bathroom, with a single long crack running through a third of it. Tim stares at himself.

He looks—unremarkable. Nondescript. The majority of the suit is blacks and grays; enough variation to not stand out as a suspicious figure in a daytime crowd, but easy to melt into the shadows of Gotham’s hazy gray darkness. There are no distinguishing features, no emblems, no colors. The jacket looks like a lightly-insulated raincoat; the collar of the armored vest looks like a sweater, and the high collar of the undershirt is just that: a high-collared shirt. The pants are bulky, but still follow the line of his legs. Heavy boots.

Tim’s hair isn’t that long; his entire adolescence, it was whatever length Black Mask’s men decided to cut it when he asked them. He still has to push strands out of the way, shake his head back, to put the mask on.

It covers above his eyebrows to the line of his cheekbones. A reinforced structure runs along the line of the nose to protect it if he gets punched in the face.

He stares at himself through the white lenses.

When Tim was eleven, he dreamed of being Robin.

He’s not dressed like a vigilante. There’s too much practicality in the armor Jason got for him; no emblems, no declarations of intention. The design is meant to protect him, not to let him protect others. Tim looks like part of a strike team, not a superhero.

This isn’t a childhood fantasy. It’s an inevitability, a consequence of the person Tim was made into.

There’s no point in lingering. Tim takes the mask off and pulls himself away from the mirror, from his own reflection. He isn’t going to overthink this—to leave himself the opportunity to be convinced that this is a bad idea. Or even that it’s a good one.

It’s—it’s a purpose. It’s not a sentimental thing. Tim manipulated Red Hood into having a spare set of armor for him. Manipulated Red Hood into agreeing to help him. It’s for his own purpose, his own agenda.

He pushes aside the tangled knot in his chest; it’s not worth dealing with, not right now, not while Zsasz has just started the timer until he tries to kill Tim.

On the kitchen counter, next to the phone and the address, is a holster and a handgun.

A few trips to one of the firing ranges in Gotham had been one of those inevitable things Tim added onto his schedule, after his run-ins with Red Hood. Mostly to have a minimum cover of his bases; he knows how to load a pistol, take the safety off, and hit a still target from twenty feet away. That’s all he thought he’d need.

The gun’s heavy when he picks it up.

Tim makes himself ignore the weight of it. It’s another practicality. Another tool to remind himself that he’s a lot of things, but he’s not a superhero.

The holster is intended to conceal the pistol under his jacket. Tim buckles it on and checks the safety before he slots the pistol into place against his ribs.

There’s no point in overthinking it. It’s basic self-defense; a weapon that Tim can use with minimal training.

It’s not like Tim can’t make the call whether or not someone needs to die. He’s done it before. Jason pulled the trigger, but Tim’s the one who killed Roman Sionis.

It’s not like Tim’s intending to let Victor Zsasz live. He grabs a dark green jacket off the back of a chair, stuffs the spare phone and printed-out police photographs in his pocket, and leaves the safehouse.

Tim double-checks for cameras – very few in Crime Alley, he knows from the police’s complaints – and slips into a back alley to put his mask on. From there, it’s up the fire escape to the second-floor windows.

There’s two windows next to the fire escape landing on this floor; the first is a dark hallway. Tim spares a glance at the lock on the inside. Unlocked, if he needs to open it. Might be how Jason got into the building in the first place.

The one next to it has a light on. Tim stays low, moving forward just enough to peer around the edge of the window frame.

The scene inside is familiar. A table in the center of the room, covered in notes, markers, maps; the men that surround it, nearly half visibly armed; the single individual at the head of the table as the immediate threat in the room.

Except this is Red Hood, not Black Mask.

Tim looks over the others in the room. They’re varying states of attentive; it seems like four are actively engaged in discussion at the moment, and the rest are hanging back for now.

The ones hanging back aren’t even really paying attention to the proceedings. From what Tim can hear of the muffled voices, it sounds like Red Hood’s working something out with the ones he’s talking to.

Some part of Tim wants to wedge the window open and slip inside. He wants—

Oh.

He wants to be in this room.

The desire sits at the front of his breastbone like a thread drawn taut. Tim wants to hear what Red Hood’s saying. How he determines orders, how he distributes them. How crime works on this smaller scale, where Jason cares about individual people.

It’s not—the desire isn’t totally unreasonable. These would all be useful things to know. Things Tim could justify knowing, things that would make it easier for him to help Jason, to make use of him, to plan around him for other parts of Gotham.

Except Tim’s not sure this want is about any of those things.

He’s been hesitating outside the window too long. He’s too visible, and Red Hood’s helmet turns sharply, facing directly towards him.

Tim takes a step back, but not fast enough. He sees the posture of the men in the room react; sees a few reach for weapons. The muffled sound of conversation stops, and then the bottom half of the window slides up.

Red Hood sticks his helmet out. “We’re running late,” he says, tone flat through the filter. “Get in here.”

He moves back out of sight, further into the room. Tim approaches slowly, apprehension mixing with the desire in his chest into something sharp and uncertain.

Every face in the room is turned towards him. He slips through the window, privately relieved that he’s not large enough to make it an awkward fit.

Tim stands with his shoulders set, confident in the way he learned through blood and mistakes. Confident in a way that gives away nothing of the ache in his chest, the way Tim desperately wants to move to the planning table, to see and assess and maximize Red Hood’s resources, give the orders and watch Gotham reform under his guidance.

Confident in a way that gives away none of the reasons Tim isn’t going anywhere near Batman.

Inside the room, he can make out that this is about a dozen men, plus Red Hood. Somewhere from half to a third of the people in Jason’s employ, then; Tim’s not positive about the exact number, but it’s at minimum twenty-six, based off what Red Hood can do in a single night.

“This is a friend of mine,” Red Hood says, turning away from Tim to move back towards the central table. “And he’s good at what we do. He’s free to know anything you’d tell me.”

There’s deliberate undertone to that introduction that Tim’s not nearly skilled enough to start to unpick. But he can watch the reaction to it—the relaxing of bodies, hands moving another inch or two away from the visible weapons.

It’s easier to gauge the room’s reactions than to try and figure out why Jason just gave Tim, known criminal schemer, free reign to ask questions. Even maybe, implicitly, permission to ask questions when Jason isn’t around.

And fuck if Tim doesn’t want it.

Tim can’t be what Roman Sionis made of him. But Jason isn’t thinking about that, isn’t thinking about anything beyond his inexplicable attempt to gain Tim’s trust, and the casual extension of control in his organization makes all the sensible parts of Tim want to turn and start running.

He can’t show it. Tim rolls his shoulders back, shifts his weight deliberately. He’s the shortest and the youngest and the newest in the room, but he has no intention of letting any of that make him a target to these people.

Tim moves further into the room with no hint of hesitation. He circles behind the people standing around the table to fill the empty space of the room at Red Hood’s back, close enough to see what’s on the table but keeping Red Hood well out of his personal space. Keeping everyone in the room within his line of sight.

There’s a stilted pause, where Red Hood’s men are clearly hesitant to continue the conversation in front of an audience. But Jason starts them up again, leaning down to tap his fingers against a specific building on the map of Crime Alley spread out on the table.

“Li Wei, you’re doing inspection on our manufacturers in two days, aren’t you?” Red Hood asks.

Li Wei pulls his gaze away from Tim, to look towards Red Hood’s helmet. He glances down to the map, and says, voice accented, “Yes. Three labs heroin, one lab crystal. Also, we have three-man team doing quiet check on new interested parties.”

“Don’t bother,” Jason says. “I’m gonna be too busy to meet new suppliers for a bit. Reassign ‘em to run last minute inspection on a few of our currents. At least one’s selling whatever is mixing badly.”

“You’re investigating the speedball deaths,” Tim says.

The few people in the room who’d let their guards down snap back to attention. Tim makes himself take a couple steps forward, moving away from the back wall to put himself in Jason’s periphery.

There have been a few reports he’s seen in the police database: an uptick in deaths of drug addicts. Higher presence of both cocaine and heroin in the blood; speedball is the common name for the mixed drugs.

“Yes,” Red Hood says, turning just enough to see him. The mild, business-like tone falls away, replaced with something harsher. “One of my suppliers sold us coke cut with something that reacts with heroin. Killed nearly half the people who mixed ‘em.” Low and lethal: “Motherfucker’s gonna die painfully.”

Drug dealing is the main profit area that Red Hood makes. Tim’s managed to narrow down that he doesn’t technically manufacture anything himself, but his men throttle suppliers and keep track of dealers and drug dens in Crime Alley. They provide some oversight in an attempt to minimize overdoses, make sure what they’re selling isn’t laced or cut with anything, and try to support rehab attempts.

It’d be a terrible business model if Red Hood was in it to make money.

Tim pulls his gaze from the impassive surface of Red Hood’s helmet to look down at the map. Individual buildings marked out, a zoomed-in snapshot of the parts of Crime Alley that Red Hood manipulates.

There’s an offer on the tip of his tongue. Tell me who you buy from, and I can tell you who’s doing it. Because Tim could, he knows it. He knows enough about drug manufacturing – about both the pharmaceutical and the criminal aspects – to be able to pinpoint who’s weak enough to be used as an entry point to hit the people under the protection of Red Hood.

Because there’s no point in a single drug manufacturer lashing out at Red Hood. There’s simply not enough incentive in it; Red Hood holds them to slightly higher standards, but it’s hardly guesswork at all to figure out that he pays them appropriately for their conscientious effort to avoid low-quality product. A single manufacturer is just an avenue to hit Red Hood where it hurts.

The anger in Jason’s voice, the threat towards the manufacturer—he hasn’t realized that yet, has he?

Who are Red Hood’s competitors in the drug market? Who is he taking customers away from?

Tim asks, tone mild as anything, “You took a team against a tong’s incoming shipments a few weeks ago, didn’t you?”

The Xingyun Shou tong – officially recorded by the police as the Lucky Hand gang – has been scrambling for power in the last few months, ever since they had several large-scale issues with their drug trafficking. A mostly-unintentional side effect of some of the plans Tim implemented after he’d gotten the Drake Industries CEO position. It does set them up to act desperately, without considering Red Hood’s penchant for revenge.

Red Hood says slowly, “We took the Lucky Hand’s narcotics shipment, yeah.”

Ah. He needs more detail.

“Which of your manufacturers might respond to coercion from one of the tongs?” Tim asks.

He watches the anger roll slowly into Jason’s body. The slight drawing back of his neck, the set of the shoulders. The gloved hands that flex and curl into fists.

Tim’s closer to Red Hood than he wants to be, watching the anger build, but moving backwards out of Jason’s space would be too obvious. There’s too many eyes in the room, and Tim holds himself still, waiting patiently for the response. Waiting to see if he needs to duck.

Even through the distortion, the finely-held rage is clear in Jason’s voice. “Li Wei. That quiet team?”

Li Wei’s response is immediate. “Reassigned.”

“Good.” The deep breaths are visible, the rise and fall of Jason’s shoulders.

There’s a slow loosening of tension in the room, as Red Hood keeps holding himself still, keeps breathing, slow and silent under the helmet. Tim can finally tear his gaze from Red Hood, looking out around the room, at the faces of Red Hood’s men.

They’re—apprehensive, but none of them seem actively afraid. This is an acknowledged part of working for Red Hood. They’re waiting for the rage to pass before they move on.

It’s probably easier to be less scared when Red Hood doesn’t kill his own lackeys. Roman Sionis in a similar mood would’ve already killed at least one person here.

Red Hood stretches his hands, uncurls them forcibly. Turns back to the table, places his palms down over it and looks over the scattered documents.

“Was that the last of our business?” he asks.

No one speaks up.

“Great.” He spends a few long moments looking down at the table before he straightens back up, the last of the anger sliding off him like snow off a roof. There’s the hint of something like warm familiarity in his voice, Tim’s pretty sure, when he adds, “You should come by more often, birdie.”

“Blackbird.”

The name is out before Tim can swallow it back. He makes his body perfectly neutral—doesn’t allow a flinch, a flicker of an expression, an inhale or exhale too deep.

It’s too telling. Jason hears more than Tim ever intends to say, and this—Tim didn’t intend to say it in the first place. He has no way of knowing what Jason will find in it.

Except that people who don’t want to be superheroes don’t pick out superhero names.

And good people don’t name themselves after supervillains.

“Blackbird,” the Red Hood repeats.

Then again, Jason knows that last part already.

Tim thinks there’s more Jason wants to say. But this isn’t the place, it isn’t the time, not with a dozen career mobsters watching the two of them, trying to figure out if the tension in Red Hood’s body is the signal for an upcoming fight.

“Let’s get moving,” Red Hood says instead, and heads for the window.

[itemfinder]

hey if you like Batman fic DON'T read the above yet but go read the series it's kind of epilogueing

https://archiveofourown.org/series/3102600

Hello! I absolutely adore your Blackbird au, I've recommended it to all my friends and reread it dozens of times. I saw your answer on an ask where you said you might not be adding new installments, which, though I'm a little sad to hear it, I definitely understand and support you doing what works for you. I'm grateful for what you've shared with us as is. That being said, if you have any snippets or ideas of how the story was going to continue, I'd be thrilled to read it (if you're willing to share). Thanks!

anon you are a gift and a blessing. my greatest regret with stopping was that the third fic was the one where I was actually going to justify why the whole thing is called the blackbird AU. the third fic was going to have victor zsasz as its villain, with Tim balancing working with Jason, playing keep-away with the Bats, and not getting murdered. he was going to move more fully into the vigilante sphere in Gotham and cement his existence as a player and his relationship to the others.

with that in mind, i'm going to share 2 different scenes regarding Tim preparing for his debut (long post under the cut):

Tim takes his time putting on the layers Jason left strewn across the dining table. The underlayers cling to him in a way he’s not used to, tight against his joints. The Kevlar vest and titanium plate inserts sit more naturally, but they’re heavier than suit jackets or sweatshirts, and Tim has to shift the way he holds his shoulders to balance the weight a little better. The Teflon layers for the exterior of the outfit help hide the bulk; Tim looks like a bigger person than he is, but not an armored one.

There’s an almost-full-size mirror in the safehouse’s bathroom, with a single long crack running through a third of it. Tim stares at himself.

He looks—unremarkable. Nondescript. The majority of the suit is blacks and grays; enough variation to not stand out as a suspicious figure in a daytime crowd, but easy to melt into the shadows of Gotham’s hazy gray darkness. There are no distinguishing features, no emblems, no colors. The jacket looks like a lightly-insulated raincoat; the collar of the armored vest looks like a sweater, and the high collar of the undershirt is just that: a high-collared shirt. The pants are bulky, but still follow the line of his legs. Heavy boots.

Tim’s hair isn’t that long; his entire adolescence, it was whatever length Black Mask’s men decided to cut it when he asked them. He still has to push strands out of the way, shake his head back, to put the mask on.

It covers above his eyebrows to the line of his cheekbones. A reinforced structure runs along the line of the nose to protect it if he gets punched in the face.

He stares at himself through the white lenses.

When Tim was eleven, he dreamed of being Robin.

He’s not dressed like a vigilante. There’s too much practicality in the armor Jason got for him; no emblems, no declarations of intention. The design is meant to protect him, not to let him protect others. Tim looks like part of a strike team, not a superhero.

This isn’t a childhood fantasy. It’s an inevitability, a consequence of the person Tim was made into.

There’s no point in lingering. Tim takes the mask off and pulls himself away from the mirror, from his own reflection. He isn’t going to overthink this—to leave himself the opportunity to be convinced that this is a bad idea. Or even that it’s a good one.

It’s—it’s a purpose. It’s not a sentimental thing. Tim manipulated Red Hood into having a spare set of armor for him. Manipulated Red Hood into agreeing to help him. It’s for his own purpose, his own agenda.

He pushes aside the tangled knot in his chest; it’s not worth dealing with, not right now, not while Zsasz has just started the timer until he tries to kill Tim.

On the kitchen counter, next to the phone and the address, is a holster and a handgun.

A few trips to one of the firing ranges in Gotham had been one of those inevitable things Tim added onto his schedule, after his run-ins with Red Hood. Mostly to have a minimum cover of his bases; he knows how to load a pistol, take the safety off, and hit a still target from twenty feet away. That’s all he thought he’d need.

The gun’s heavy when he picks it up.

Tim makes himself ignore the weight of it. It’s another practicality. Another tool to remind himself that he’s a lot of things, but he’s not a superhero.

The holster is intended to conceal the pistol under his jacket. Tim buckles it on and checks the safety before he slots the pistol into place against his ribs.

There’s no point in overthinking it. It’s basic self-defense; a weapon that Tim can use with minimal training.

It’s not like Tim can’t make the call whether or not someone needs to die. He’s done it before. Jason pulled the trigger, but Tim’s the one who killed Roman Sionis.

It’s not like Tim’s intending to let Victor Zsasz live. He grabs a dark green jacket off the back of a chair, stuffs the spare phone and printed-out police photographs in his pocket, and leaves the safehouse.

Tim double-checks for cameras – very few in Crime Alley, he knows from the police’s complaints – and slips into a back alley to put his mask on. From there, it’s up the fire escape to the second-floor windows.

There’s two windows next to the fire escape landing on this floor; the first is a dark hallway. Tim spares a glance at the lock on the inside. Unlocked, if he needs to open it. Might be how Jason got into the building in the first place.

The one next to it has a light on. Tim stays low, moving forward just enough to peer around the edge of the window frame.

The scene inside is familiar. A table in the center of the room, covered in notes, markers, maps; the men that surround it, nearly half visibly armed; the single individual at the head of the table as the immediate threat in the room.

Except this is Red Hood, not Black Mask.

Tim looks over the others in the room. They’re varying states of attentive; it seems like four are actively engaged in discussion at the moment, and the rest are hanging back for now.

The ones hanging back aren’t even really paying attention to the proceedings. From what Tim can hear of the muffled voices, it sounds like Red Hood’s working something out with the ones he’s talking to.

Some part of Tim wants to wedge the window open and slip inside. He wants—

Oh.

He wants to be in this room.

The desire sits at the front of his breastbone like a thread drawn taut. Tim wants to hear what Red Hood’s saying. How he determines orders, how he distributes them. How crime works on this smaller scale, where Jason cares about individual people.

It’s not—the desire isn’t totally unreasonable. These would all be useful things to know. Things Tim could justify knowing, things that would make it easier for him to help Jason, to make use of him, to plan around him for other parts of Gotham.

Except Tim’s not sure this want is about any of those things.

He’s been hesitating outside the window too long. He’s too visible, and Red Hood’s helmet turns sharply, facing directly towards him.

Tim takes a step back, but not fast enough. He sees the posture of the men in the room react; sees a few reach for weapons. The muffled sound of conversation stops, and then the bottom half of the window slides up.

Red Hood sticks his helmet out. “We’re running late,” he says, tone flat through the filter. “Get in here.”

He moves back out of sight, further into the room. Tim approaches slowly, apprehension mixing with the desire in his chest into something sharp and uncertain.

Every face in the room is turned towards him. He slips through the window, privately relieved that he’s not large enough to make it an awkward fit.

Tim stands with his shoulders set, confident in the way he learned through blood and mistakes. Confident in a way that gives away nothing of the ache in his chest, the way Tim desperately wants to move to the planning table, to see and assess and maximize Red Hood’s resources, give the orders and watch Gotham reform under his guidance.

Confident in a way that gives away none of the reasons Tim isn’t going anywhere near Batman.

Inside the room, he can make out that this is about a dozen men, plus Red Hood. Somewhere from half to a third of the people in Jason’s employ, then; Tim’s not positive about the exact number, but it’s at minimum twenty-six, based off what Red Hood can do in a single night.

“This is a friend of mine,” Red Hood says, turning away from Tim to move back towards the central table. “And he’s good at what we do. He’s free to know anything you’d tell me.”

There’s deliberate undertone to that introduction that Tim’s not nearly skilled enough to start to unpick. But he can watch the reaction to it—the relaxing of bodies, hands moving another inch or two away from the visible weapons.

It’s easier to gauge the room’s reactions than to try and figure out why Jason just gave Tim, known criminal schemer, free reign to ask questions. Even maybe, implicitly, permission to ask questions when Jason isn’t around.

And fuck if Tim doesn’t want it.

Tim can’t be what Roman Sionis made of him. But Jason isn’t thinking about that, isn’t thinking about anything beyond his inexplicable attempt to gain Tim’s trust, and the casual extension of control in his organization makes all the sensible parts of Tim want to turn and start running.

He can’t show it. Tim rolls his shoulders back, shifts his weight deliberately. He’s the shortest and the youngest and the newest in the room, but he has no intention of letting any of that make him a target to these people.

Tim moves further into the room with no hint of hesitation. He circles behind the people standing around the table to fill the empty space of the room at Red Hood’s back, close enough to see what’s on the table but keeping Red Hood well out of his personal space. Keeping everyone in the room within his line of sight.

There’s a stilted pause, where Red Hood’s men are clearly hesitant to continue the conversation in front of an audience. But Jason starts them up again, leaning down to tap his fingers against a specific building on the map of Crime Alley spread out on the table.

“Li Wei, you’re doing inspection on our manufacturers in two days, aren’t you?” Red Hood asks.

Li Wei pulls his gaze away from Tim, to look towards Red Hood’s helmet. He glances down to the map, and says, voice accented, “Yes. Three labs heroin, one lab crystal. Also, we have three-man team doing quiet check on new interested parties.”

“Don’t bother,” Jason says. “I’m gonna be too busy to meet new suppliers for a bit. Reassign ‘em to run last minute inspection on a few of our currents. At least one’s selling whatever is mixing badly.”

“You’re investigating the speedball deaths,” Tim says.

The few people in the room who’d let their guards down snap back to attention. Tim makes himself take a couple steps forward, moving away from the back wall to put himself in Jason’s periphery.

There have been a few reports he’s seen in the police database: an uptick in deaths of drug addicts. Higher presence of both cocaine and heroin in the blood; speedball is the common name for the mixed drugs.

“Yes,” Red Hood says, turning just enough to see him. The mild, business-like tone falls away, replaced with something harsher. “One of my suppliers sold us coke cut with something that reacts with heroin. Killed nearly half the people who mixed ‘em.” Low and lethal: “Motherfucker’s gonna die painfully.”

Drug dealing is the main profit area that Red Hood makes. Tim’s managed to narrow down that he doesn’t technically manufacture anything himself, but his men throttle suppliers and keep track of dealers and drug dens in Crime Alley. They provide some oversight in an attempt to minimize overdoses, make sure what they’re selling isn’t laced or cut with anything, and try to support rehab attempts.

It’d be a terrible business model if Red Hood was in it to make money.

Tim pulls his gaze from the impassive surface of Red Hood’s helmet to look down at the map. Individual buildings marked out, a zoomed-in snapshot of the parts of Crime Alley that Red Hood manipulates.

There’s an offer on the tip of his tongue. Tell me who you buy from, and I can tell you who’s doing it. Because Tim could, he knows it. He knows enough about drug manufacturing – about both the pharmaceutical and the criminal aspects – to be able to pinpoint who’s weak enough to be used as an entry point to hit the people under the protection of Red Hood.

Because there’s no point in a single drug manufacturer lashing out at Red Hood. There’s simply not enough incentive in it; Red Hood holds them to slightly higher standards, but it’s hardly guesswork at all to figure out that he pays them appropriately for their conscientious effort to avoid low-quality product. A single manufacturer is just an avenue to hit Red Hood where it hurts.

The anger in Jason’s voice, the threat towards the manufacturer—he hasn’t realized that yet, has he?

Who are Red Hood’s competitors in the drug market? Who is he taking customers away from?

Tim asks, tone mild as anything, “You took a team against a tong’s incoming shipments a few weeks ago, didn’t you?”

The Xingyun Shou tong – officially recorded by the police as the Lucky Hand gang – has been scrambling for power in the last few months, ever since they had several large-scale issues with their drug trafficking. A mostly-unintentional side effect of some of the plans Tim implemented after he’d gotten the Drake Industries CEO position. It does set them up to act desperately, without considering Red Hood’s penchant for revenge.

Red Hood says slowly, “We took the Lucky Hand’s narcotics shipment, yeah.”

Ah. He needs more detail.

“Which of your manufacturers might respond to coercion from one of the tongs?” Tim asks.

He watches the anger roll slowly into Jason’s body. The slight drawing back of his neck, the set of the shoulders. The gloved hands that flex and curl into fists.

Tim’s closer to Red Hood than he wants to be, watching the anger build, but moving backwards out of Jason’s space would be too obvious. There’s too many eyes in the room, and Tim holds himself still, waiting patiently for the response. Waiting to see if he needs to duck.

Even through the distortion, the finely-held rage is clear in Jason’s voice. “Li Wei. That quiet team?”

Li Wei’s response is immediate. “Reassigned.”

“Good.” The deep breaths are visible, the rise and fall of Jason’s shoulders.

There’s a slow loosening of tension in the room, as Red Hood keeps holding himself still, keeps breathing, slow and silent under the helmet. Tim can finally tear his gaze from Red Hood, looking out around the room, at the faces of Red Hood’s men.

They’re—apprehensive, but none of them seem actively afraid. This is an acknowledged part of working for Red Hood. They’re waiting for the rage to pass before they move on.

It’s probably easier to be less scared when Red Hood doesn’t kill his own lackeys. Roman Sionis in a similar mood would’ve already killed at least one person here.

Red Hood stretches his hands, uncurls them forcibly. Turns back to the table, places his palms down over it and looks over the scattered documents.

“Was that the last of our business?” he asks.

No one speaks up.

“Great.” He spends a few long moments looking down at the table before he straightens back up, the last of the anger sliding off him like snow off a roof. There’s the hint of something like warm familiarity in his voice, Tim’s pretty sure, when he adds, “You should come by more often, birdie.”

“Blackbird.”

The name is out before Tim can swallow it back. He makes his body perfectly neutral—doesn’t allow a flinch, a flicker of an expression, an inhale or exhale too deep.

It’s too telling. Jason hears more than Tim ever intends to say, and this—Tim didn’t intend to say it in the first place. He has no way of knowing what Jason will find in it.

Except that people who don’t want to be superheroes don’t pick out superhero names.

And good people don’t name themselves after supervillains.

“Blackbird,” the Red Hood repeats.

Then again, Jason knows that last part already.

Tim thinks there’s more Jason wants to say. But this isn’t the place, it isn’t the time, not with a dozen career mobsters watching the two of them, trying to figure out if the tension in Red Hood’s body is the signal for an upcoming fight.

“Let’s get moving,” Red Hood says instead, and heads for the window.