#fell face first back into bats so i’m finishing this wip from 2013

[goulets]

Heartland

Chapter: 2/8 Pairing: Jason Todd/Dick Grayson Additional Characters: Bruce Wayne, Damian Wayne, Tim Drake, Barbara Gordon, Alfred Pennyworth Rating: T (for now) Case Fic/Kid Fic a03 link

The first suggestion is that Jason move back into his old room, just down the hall from Bruce's which is met with an unequivocal not on your fucking life, Bruce.

“Let's get one thing clear: I am not 'moving back in',” Jason hisses, glaring around at all of them. He's whispering so as not to wake the baby, and it doesn't come off quite as intimidating as he'd like. “I just need a bed to sleep in, that's it. Don't do me any fucking favors.”

Dick says, “There's an empty bedroom next to mine, it's not that big, and the bathroom is shared, but – ”

“Sold,” Jason says, and again, the infant sleeping in his arms makes a good old-fashioned broody storm-off kind of impractical.

(jason)

The first suggestion is that Jason move back into his old room, just down the hall from Bruce's which is met with an unequivocal not on your fucking life, Bruce.

“Let's get one thing clear: I am not 'moving back in',” Jason hisses, glaring around at all of them. He's whispering so as not to wake Danielle, and it doesn't come off quite as intimidating as he'd like. “I just need a bed to sleep in, that's it. Don't do me any fucking favors.”

Dick says, “There's an empty bedroom next to mine, it's not that big, and the bathroom is shared, but – ”

“Sold,” Jason says, and again, the infant sleeping in his arms makes a good old-fashioned broody storm-off kind of impractical.

“Okay,” Dick nods. “I'll, um, just show you then.” Bruce looks impassive, and Tim looks like he doesn't quite know what to do with himself, as Dick walks past Jason and Jason follows him up the steps to the main part of the mansion.

Jason doesn't like following behind Dick. It's partly the principle of the thing, because he literally had to die and rise from the grave to get out of Dick's shadow, and even then, it's a matter of distance, and little more. He's far enough off the path of righteousness that the light that shines like a beacon onto Dick doesn't even touch him. So it feels like old news, a habit he grew out of long ago, walking behind Dick, tracing his footfalls, but it's so familiar he half expects to see those stupid fucking pixie boots on his feet when he looks down.

Then there's the other familiar part, the part he’s been struggling not to acknowledge, the awareness that’s been growing in the back of his mind since he set up camp in Gotham. Simply put, Dick is hot. His ass in spandex was the source of way too many semis popped Jason's stupid, flimsy little Robin shorts, and his ass in faded pajama pants is nothing short of miraculous either. But it's not just his body, although Jason wishes it was, not just the shape of his ass and the curve of his spine and the span of his shoulders – Dick is beautiful. He's elegant when he moves, when he laughs, when he's angry, when he's worried, when he's a fucking mess. It's impossible not to look at him, the attention he commands is probably partly due to the fact that he was raised a performer, and partly because that's just Dick.

Jason knows he's one in a long, heavily annotated list of people to fantasize about Dick Grayson. It used to keep him up at night when he was a kid, and not just in that way. There hadn't been a lot of tolerance in the streets for homosexuality – sure, it existed, Jason'd even been on the receiving end once or twice in the unlucky parts of his youth – but you didn't talk about it. So he'd suppressed it, save for those late night visits from his hand in the dark, and then he'd died. Been sprung from the grave, grew up a little, and came back to find that, surprise surprise, the world had grown up a little bit too, and not entirely for the worse. And since then, he's had encounters with men, women, couple aliens, and all that is whatever. This thing with Dick doesn't bother him on account of Dick, well, having a dick. Not anymore.

No, it bothers him because it's Dick fucking Grayson. Golden Boy, Boy Wonder, or as Jason likes to refer to him, Stupid Fucking Bastard With Stupid Fucking Sticks Who Just Won't Fucking Quit. Out of all of them, Dick's the most unchanged. Bruce is hardened, less trusting; Tim is broken; Jason is – whatever the fuck he is, beyond all hope, maybe; but Dick's never lost the spring in his step. Jason thinks he'll probably backflip right into death with a smile on his face, and he won't come back, because Dick is too damn good to be reanimated like some freakish perversion of nature. Jason calls Tim “Replacement” because it's true, Jason was replaceable, but Dick never was. Not that Jason had ever wanted to be his replacement – he hardly knows what he wanted to be to Dick then, even less what he wants to be to Dick now, but it sure as hell isn't some bullshit co-parenting gig with the whole family breathing down his neck.

Of all the fucking days he had to drag his ass down here to gossip.

Dick says, “So, this is it,” and Jason realizes they're outside his new room. The room he's staying in. The room the baby is staying in. That's all it is.

It's not small at all, of course, and the bathroom he's sharing with Dick is also not small, with a stand-up shower and a jacuzzi sized tub, because that's necessary, two sinks, and a ridiculous amount of storage space. He doesn't look at Dick's room, just takes in the furnishings of his own, a queen bed with slate-grey sheets, closet, dresser, desk, bookshelves with a good number of books already on them, and a little windowseat that for some reason makes the back of his throat feel itchy to look at.

Danielle makes a small noise in his arms, and something occurs to him. “Um, where's she supposed to sleep?” He's not an expert, but he's pretty sure babies need cradles – actually, and a lot of other shit, like diaper cream, special baby soap, pacifiers, those sling contraptions he sees people walking around with, and probably a billion other things he has no freaking clue about.

Dick says, “Huh. Good question.”

Helpful, Jason thinks. She can't sleep with him, can she? What if he rolls on top of her? What if she rolls off the bed? What if he has a nightmare and pummels her to death in his sleep? The thought makes him want to be sick, what is he thinking, trying to be some kind of fucking caregiver –

“Jason? You okay?”

Jason blinks. It dawns on him that he's been frozen in place for several seconds now, mind overloaded with the sheer volume of information he doesn't know, endless blank pages supplemented by a thoroughly sourced index of his fears. It's not like he planned for this – ever – he's pretty sure parental ineptitude runs in the family, because his mom sure as fuck never read What to Expect When You're Expecting.

He says, “Doesn't she need some kind of special baby doctor?”

Dick nods. “Bruce'll have Leslie come by and look at her soon. According to the hospital records, she missed her three-month check-in, so.”

“Dick.” Jason tries, and fails, probably, to keep the overwhelming helplessness he's feeling out of his voice. “What the fuck, man – this is crazy. I can't – I don't – where is she supposed to sleep?”

“I can answer that,” comes Alfred's clipped tone from the doorway. Jason turns to see the older man hauling an enormous, tall box into the room.

Jason says, “The hell?” at the same time that Dick rushes forward and says, “Here, let me help you,” and that about sums it up, he thinks.

“Her sleeping quarters,” Alfred says. He and Dick lay the box down, and Jason feels his stomach churn unpleasantly at the picture on the front of a smiling, drooling blonde-haired baby standing in a white wooden crib, fat little fists wrapped around the railing.

“You work fast, Alfie,” Dick comments, hauling another box into the room. This one says Changing Table on the side, and then Alfred pushes a rocking chair in, and Jason will be damned if it isn’t a whole fucking matching baby bedroom set.

“Where the hell did you even get this?” he asks, incredulous. He’s been at the manor two hours tops, hardly enough time for even Alfred to go out shopping for an entire room’s worth of furniture.

“Same-day delivery,” Alfred says smoothly. “I find that being a frequent, loyal customer expedites the process somewhat.”

“You don’t fucking say,” Jason mutters under his breath. Dick is now bringing in box after box of diapers, six huge shopping bags full of baby crap Jason would rather do just about anything than sort through, and some disassembled swing-looking contraption that promises “15 soothing melodies and nature sounds”. The room, suddenly, doesn’t seem so big anymore.

“Hmm,” Dick frowns, looking around. He must be noticing the same thing as Jason. “Honestly, I don’t see all this fitting in here. Alfie, what do you think?”

“You have the adjoining room, do you not, Master Richard?” Alfred replies. He surveys their haul, looking satisfied. Jason feels a tiny bit like he’s going to have a nervous breakdown, which is more or less where he’s been since Danielle was placed in his arms to begin with.

He’d been deadly serious when he’d told Bruce that he’d take her and protect her, but true to half-cocked form, he hadn’t even begun to parse out what that meant. Now that he’s standing in a room that looks like a Babies R’ Us blew up in it, with a human being the size of a loaf of bread snoozing and twitching in his arms, he doesn’t know what he could have possibly been thinking. What Bruce could possibly have been thinking, letting him walk away with her.

Well. Actually, Jason thinks, that about tracks for Bruce’s idea of fatherhood. In Jason’s experience, anyways.

“We’ll put the crib here, I think,” Dick says, leaning the box against the wall opposite the bed. “Changing table can go next to it, and I guess put the rocking chair in the other corner? Bottle stuff should go in the bathroom, and, hmm…” he trails off. “Yeah, we’ll just put the swing in my room. Don’t worry about it, Alfie, I’ll take care of it. You’ve done more than enough, seriously.”

“I’ll leave it to you boys, then,” Alfred says, picking up some of the discarded shopping bags and tucking them under his arm. He gives Jason a long look, like there’s something he wants to say, but seems to think better of it. Jason doesn’t know whether or not to be disappointed.

The silence that falls once Alfred leaves is awkward, bordering on oppressive. Dick doesn’t seem to notice, just keeps opening boxes and stuffing things in drawers and putting on a show of looking like he knows exactly what he’s doing. Jason knows better - can see how haphazardly he’s putting things away, how he’s moving around just to avoid being still. It’s a relief, in a way, to know that he’s not the only one completely out of his depth.

Still, he can’t deny Dick is being about a billion times more useful than him. What else is new.

“I’m just gonna stick this in the closet,” Dick says about a box containing a carseat. “We’ll figure it out later.”

Jason frowns. His car right now is a piece of crap Volvo that certainly shouldn't be hauling around anything as fragile as a baby. Not like he can take her on the bike, either. If they have to make a quick getaway, he’s looking at one-handed free running, or getting some new wheels posthaste.

Danielle grunts and yawns, stretching her tiny hands up and clawing at the material of his jacket. He pats her back, and she settles back into the crook of his arm. It tears at him, a little, watching her burrow into the leather, mouth occasionally opening and sucking, leaving little damp spots in her wake. She’s warm as hell now, practically a furnace, and he frankly wishes he had taken the damn jacket off before she got all comfortable, but he’d rather eat his own gun than put her down. It’s shocking to realize, but he wants her to be closer, wants to hold her right against his skin, against his heartbeat. He’s never felt this way about anything before, about anyone.

He clears his throat. “You seem bizarrely familiar with all this crap,” he says to Dick. “How do you - I mean, I don’t even have a clue what that thing is,” he gestures to the piece of fabric Dick is holding. It looks like the world’s longest scarf.

“It’s a wrap,” Dick says. “It’s for holding the baby. Or ‘wearing’, I think they call it. It’s nice for keeping your hands free. Roy had one for Lian, but it had a lot more buckles than this.”

Jason blinks. Roy, of course. Roy’s told him how much Dick has helped him out when he got full custody of Lian, back when she was still a baby. No wonder Dick is able to snap into action so easily. Jason’s spent a little time around Roy’s daughter, but she’s usually with her grandparents when they get together. For the best, since most of his team-ups with Roy have ended in shootouts and/or catastrophic explosions.

Just another reason he has absolutely no fucking business being anywhere near an infant.

“Hey,” Tim says from the doorway. “Um, here’s this pillow thing.” He holds out a box labeled Infant Lounger, and Jason is officially calling bullshit, there’s absolutely no way babies need this many goddamn surfaces to simply exist upon when, as far as he can tell from his one hour of baby experience, there’s no chance you’d ever want to put one down anyways. It’s all just one big racket - except for the diapers, probably.

“Thanks, Tim,” Dick sighs, opening the box and pulling out the lounger. It’s covered in a cutesy little whale pattern. “Well, that’s adorable, isn’t it?”

Tim looks skeptical. “If you say so.”

Jason narrows his eyes. “You didn’t come up here just to deliver a whale pillow, Replacement.” Dick shoots him a reproachful look, but screw him. “What’d you find out?”

Tim, to his credit, looks relieved to have an excuse to get to the real reason he’s there. “Well, we can officially rule out anyone from Intergang as a suspect. Their whole operation is a bust now. Word is Mannheim is pulling all the survivors out and regrouping, probably off-world.” He nods to Jason. “We’ve ruled the League of Assassins out, too.”

“So, who does that leave?” Dick asks. “Locals? Who are the major players in the East End?”

“There aren’t any,” Tim says. “The whole neighborhood’s been a power vacuum since...well.”

“Since me,” Jason snorts.

“It’s all small-time gangs, nobody with the firepower or the logistic capability to pull something like this off,” Tim goes on. “Which means we’re either looking at somebody new, or there’s a major territory grab that we somehow haven’t caught wind of.”

“Who patrols the East End now, anyways?” Jason asks.

“Nobody, unless Barbara sends the Birds out there. Used to be you,” Tim says mildly.

Jason works his jaw. “Last I checked, your boss is the one who wanted me out of there.”

“Last I checked, you didn’t take orders from him,” Tim replies, voice cool and even. Jason suddenly understands what an infant lounger is for - it’s a safe resting spot to hold your baby when you need both hands to throttle your aggravating family members.

“Oh, knock it off, both of you,” Dick says irritably. “Tim, are you running down leads for this?”

“I guess so,” Tim shrugs. “I was here on the Intergang expansion in the first place. Bruce and I are going to check out the bodies later this evening, get ballistics reports and see what else we can find. The paperwork is coming in pretty slow on the law enforcement side of things.”

Jason twists his mouth in disgust. “GCPD, dragging their heels? Shocking.”

“Pretty much,” Tim affirms. “They’re just happy the Intergang faction’s dealt with. I don’t think they want to look into it too closely.”

Even with a baby on the hit list, Jason thinks bitterly. It’s enough to make a person want to pick up and move altogether.

Danielle moves suddenly in his arms, stretching her tiny body and kicking one leg out against his ribs. She whines, twisting her head away, and when she turns back to look at him, her brown eyes are wide and watery.

“Shit,” he murmurs. “Dick, help. She doesn’t look happy to see me.”

Dick appears at his shoulder. Danielle whines again, flailing her limbs against Jason’s chest.

“Hey, pretty girl,” Dick coos, right in Jason’s ear. Oh, sweet Jesus, Jason did not think this one through at all. He feels his face flush, and has to bite his tongue to keep from snapping at Dick to back the fuck up.

“Look at you,” Dick goes on, oblivious. “You’re awake now, huh? You need some attention, sweetie?” His breath is warm against Jason’s neck. Jason is going to crawl out of his skin.

Danielle’s eyes flicker towards the sound of Dick’s voice. She grunts, then turns abruptly and mouths at Jason’s armpit. Jason feels like his heart is gonna jump out of his goddamn throat. It’s been - God, he doesn’t even know, months? The better part of a year? - since he was this close to another person without his helmet on. His brain is screaming at him, escape, fight, neutralize, but even louder, there’s a piece of him overriding everything, a fist deep in his chest clenched around something he thought he’d left back in the Pit.

Danielle whines louder, kicking, and the fist clenches tighter.

“I don’t - ” he starts to say. His voice comes out breathy and ragged, he stops. Swallows. Get a grip, for fuck’s sake. “Maybe you should take her, I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m doing.”

“Just rock her,” Dick suggests. His arm comes around to Jason’s elbow, and now Jason can’t help it, he jerks away violently. The little body in his arms goes stock still for a moment, hiccups, and then the sound of wailing fills the room.

Jason swears. “I’m sorry,” he tells her, like that means a damn thing to a baby. “Shit, I’m really sorry, Danielle.” He holds her upright against his shoulder, rubbing her back like he’s seen Roy do with Lian when she’s upset. “I’m an asshole, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

She hiccups again, and makes a displeased noise that sounds vaguely chastising. Fair enough, he deserves it. Anything is better than crying.

Dick is looking at him, overbright, and Jason averts his eyes. Briefly, he makes eye contact with Tim, who looks incredibly uncomfortable. Good.

“I think we’ll leave the morgue investigation to you guys,” Dick says to Tim. He seems to have realized he overstepped. “There’s a lot to do here, and I still have my regular patrol. I’m guessing you’re going to the docks this evening,” he addresses Jason.

“I want to, but.” Jason rocks Danielle pointedly. “Kinda got my hands full here.”

“You don’t think we can leave her for a few hours?”

“What the fuck, no,” Jason says, incredulous. “Even if she wasn’t being targeted by some psycho, you can’t just leave a baby, what’s wrong with you.”

“Even I knew that,” Tim says, obnoxiously.

“She wouldn’t be alone, jeez,” Dick protests. “Alfred is here.”

“I’m protecting her,” Jason reminds him darkly. “Alfred has enough shit on his plate.”

“Okay,” Dick says, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. “She’s pretty attached to you anyways, so you’re right, it’s probably best if we do that.”

Jason isn’t sure whether or not he’s being patronized, but flips Dick the bird just to be safe. Dick pretends not to notice.

“Drake, your input is being requested in the Cave,” Damian announces from the doorway. Christ, it’s a whole fucking family reunion, and he can’t escape. “Personally, I hadn’t even noticed your absence.”

Tim’s expression goes from vaguely aggrieved to fully constipated, which soothes some of Jason’s irritation. Bruce’s demon spawn is a complete and utter terror, but he’s so like his mother that Jason can’t help liking him. He’s not stupid enough to look down on him in a fight - he heard secondhand what Robin did to Victor Zsasz - but his heart’s just not in it when he spars with Damian. So sue him, he’s got a soft spot for kids, no matter how lethal they are.

“Keep me updated,” Jason says to Tim.

Tim nods, one hand on the doorframe as he exits. “Will do. Sure you don’t want to come along? Autopsy is daytime work.”

Jason grimaces. “Been there, done that. You guys can poke at dead people, I prefer to get my answers from ones that are breathing.”

Damian scoffs audibly. “Breathing until you finish with them, you mean?”

Jason ignores him. He turns his attention back to Danielle, who is starting to mouth at the collar of his jacket more aggressively. Shit, he probably shouldn’t let her do that. This jacket isn’t too old, at least, but he’s smoked his way through a dozen packs of cigarettes in it already, not to mention all the bad guy spatter it’s probably absorbed. Surface cleaners can only do so much.

“Perhaps you’d like to offer her this,” Damian says imperiously, holding out a bottle. “You know, children her age require feeding every three to four hours.”

“...Thanks,” Jason says, suspicious. He doesn’t think Damian would attack him when he’s holding a baby, but he looks like he’s considering it. Warily, he takes the bottle. It’s warm. “Did you make it?”

“It’s infant formula,” Damian replies bitingly. “It requires no scientific mastery.”

Alfred made it, then. Jason exchanges a look with Dick, who quirks an eyebrow almost imperceptibly.

“You don’t need to stay, Damian,” Dick says. “I’m just gonna be putting together furniture. You probably have homework to do, right?”

Damian looks affronted. “My studies aren’t so taxing, Grayson. What furniture?”

“Baby furniture, for Danielle. Nothing you need to worry about.”

Damian narrows his eyes. “You’re dismissing me because you want me to argue, so that I’ll stay and help you.”

Dick is the picture of innocence. “I really don’t need help. I assembled all the furniture in my apartment, I know what I’m doing.”

“I also know what you’re doing.” Damian walks to the box holding the crib pieces, hands on his hips. “A simpleton could do this.”

“They make it pretty user friendly.”

“I’ll get my tools.”

Dick looks quite pleased with himself as Damian rushes off. Jason can’t help but laugh.

“Nice,” he says, shaking his head at Dick’s impish grin. “Hold her for a second, I’m gonna take my jacket off.”

Danielle whines more insistently when he passes her to Dick, and doesn’t stop when he takes her back. He cradles her upright in one arm, bouncing her a little to keep her distracted, and touches the nipple of the bottle to her mouth. She latches on eagerly, and he tries and fails not to smile at her enthusiasm, the delighted kicking of her legs as she eats, her eyes trained on his face like laser beams. He feels - full, almost, like a balloon in his chest is slowly filling up, a window he’d nailed and soldered shut is being pried open again.

There are holes in Jason’s memory, things the Pit couldn’t restore, fragments of his life that were beaten out of him, or left in the ground, or atrophied and rotted away during his lost year after waking up. When he first came back to Gotham, he’d filled all those empty spaces with rage and spite, but he’d burned through it all in a few months and found there wasn’t enough left over to keep filling them, to stop him from noticing the edges of remembering in his mind, the sensation of familiarity that would abruptly fade into nothing. He’s learned to navigate around them, but there’s never been a moment that he hasn’t known they are there. They’re a constant reminder that he died Jason Todd and came back Almost Jason Todd, the same person but without all the pieces.

The feeling he has, feeding Danielle - the warm smell of her, the force of her gaze, so human and yet so alien, the clutch-and-pull of her small hands against the fabric of his shirt and the scarred skin of his hand - it’s like she’s reached right into the center of him and dragged forth the memory of being whole. He isn’t, he won’t ever be, but he can remember it, and it absolutely takes his breath away.

“You good?” Dick asks, softly.

Jason swallows. “Uh-huh,” he manages. It’s a damn good question. Jason isn’t frequently good, he’s often satisfied, often pissed off, often (less often, now) steeped so deep in madness he’s out of his mind. This is something else, he thinks. Something close to shattered, but it’s also close to good, because even though he’s in a thousand goddam pieces, the pieces, for once, are all there.

“Wow, Jay,” Dick murmurs. “You’ve really got a way with her, you know.”

Jason waits to answer until he’s sure his voice won’t betray how shaken apart he is. “She just doesn’t know any better yet,” he says. “Probably at this stage, it’s all the same to them.”

“She didn’t eat this well for me,” Dick says, and Jason can’t tear his eyes away from Danielle to look, but he can hear Dick smiling. “Face it, Jaybird, she chose you.”

“Shut up,” Jason replies, but it’s so subdued it’s practically a whisper. He can’t even deny it - she did choose him, and even if he can’t fathom why, even if it terrifies him, he can feel it all the way down to his bones. He’ll do anything for this little girl. Shit, she’s already got him shacking up in the last place he’d ever want to be. She’s got him thinking about sensible family cars, for Christ’s sake. He hasn’t even known her a full day, but she chose him, and he knows he’d die for her as instinctively as breathing.

“This had better not take long,” Damian says, reentering the room with his toolbox in hand. “I have training to finish.”

Dick laughs, but it’s a little off, somehow. Jason still doesn’t look - if he had to guess, he would say that Damian managed to surprise Dick, but that doesn’t seem very likely.

“Sure thing, Dami. The changing table is probably the easiest, if you have things to do.” Whatever Jason thought he heard, it’s not there anymore. Dick’s voice is back to being smooth and casual, pointedly so, which probably means Damian’s about to -

“In other words, you want me to assemble the crib,” Damian says flatly.

“Pretty sure I said changing table,” Dick repeats, exasperated.

“Enough with your mind games Grayson. They aren’t subtle, you’re embarrassing yourself. I’ll assemble the crib, since you seem to think it’s too challenging for you.”

“If that’s what you want,” Dick says evenly. Jason finally catches his eye, and he winks. “I’ll start working on the changing table - the way she’s eating, we’re gonna need it soon.”

Anxiety flits across Damian’s face, and he scowls hard at Jason a split second later. Jason shrugs one shoulder at him peaceably. He’d be lying if he said he had no reservations about changing diapers either, but hell, he signed up for this, didn’t he? People even more dysfunctional than him must have figured it out over the years. And considering his extracurricular activities, he can hardly be getting squeamish over a little baby poop.

Danielle, having paused her eating to look around, makes a short fussing sound and then latches onto the bottle again. Jason adjusts his hold and brings her up a little higher. She curls into him automatically, the fingers of her little hand splaying against his shirt, right over the intersection of scar tissue fanning across his chest. He’s never let anyone touch him there before. It doesn’t feel….bad. At all.

It feels like waking up after a long, disorienting dream. Like climbing down a mountain and taking the first breath of oxygen-rich air.

It feels like being home.

***

(tim)

“Here’s what we know,” Bruce says, pulling up the footage from Oracle. “One month ago, Cy Reynolds and a couple dozen henchmen took over the Eastern port for Intergang. They demo’d the warehouses the Dragons were operating out of, and the old Falcone hotel. They brought in tech, weapons, and what appears to be equipment from Apokolips to construct a boom tube.”

“Just what we need,” Tim mutters.

“Two days ago, Cy Reynolds, his wife, and their adult son all turned up dead. Each was shot twice in the head, execution style. Oracle, any update on ballistics?”

“Negative,” Barbara’s voice comes through the computer speakers. “Forensics are taking their sweet time.”

“We have sixteen other bodies, identified as Reynolds’ second tier of command within Intergang and their respective families.” Bruce pauses. “This includes three children. A fourth was targeted, identified as the child of Mitchell Howard and Linda Torres, but she somehow survived.”

“And made it all the way to St. Aden’s in Coventry,” Tim finishes. “Records say Torres lived on the edge of Little Italy.”

“Has your group seen any signs of new groups operating on the East End?” Bruce asks. “There’s a short list of suspects who could have pulled this off in two days.”

“If there are, they’re way underground,” Barbara says. “You can rule out the Golden Dragons, most of the ones left in that area joined up with Intergang. They’re focused on turf wars in Chinatown, they wouldn’t bother defending the Eastern port.”

“That fits with our intel,” Tim says, trying not to sound annoyed. This started as his op, and he’d ruled out the Dragons from the very beginning. Bruce’d had barely a passing interest until Jason got involved, and now Tim has been demoted to pinch-hitter on his own case. He’ll deal, but after the year he’s had, it’s a little hard not to take it personally.

“The killers’ modus operandi ranges from shooting to stabbing, which suggests human suspects,” Bruce says. “Targeting families suggests the mob.”

“The Falcones used to control the whole east side,” Tim says thoughtfully. He’s surprised it never occurred to him. He’d been so focused on new territory feuds, he hadn’t stopped to think that it might be an old territory feud. Maybe he deserves to be a pinch-hitter. “Any chance they’re making a comeback?”

There’s a flurry of typing on Barbara’s end. “Funny you should mention them. We had five bodies from the Falcone family turn up over the past six months. Some of these could be accidental, but I tagged it as suspicious after the third one.”

“So, a rival family,” Tim says, slowly. He racks his brain for a list of crime families in Gotham’s history. Who’d even bother going after the Falcones these days? They haven’t been truly active in Gotham for over two decades, but, Tim supposes, some rivalries never die. “The Maronis are locked up….maybe the Odessa Mob? Could they be making moves?”

“Nightwing would know if they were expanding past Bludhaven,” Bruce says. Fair enough. Wouldn’t make sense for the Russians to stage a hostile takeover when they’re barely holding ground across the harbor, anyways. “Who are the victims from the Falcones?”

“That’s the weird part. They were all straight, as far as I can tell. One shoe store manager, two housewives, a scuba instructor, a graduate student, and an entrepreneur. Barely a drug charge between them.”

“Could they be unrelated?” Tim asks, glancing through the reports..

“No,” Bruce says decisively. “It’s too much of a coincidence. These murders are all connected.”

“I agree,” Barbara says. “Based on proximity alone, but combined with the destruction of the old hotel, it’s all adding up to something.”

Tim doesn’t argue. They’re right - if there’s one thing he’s learned, it’s that coincidences are never just that in Gotham. The connection is there, they just need to find it.

“That hotel was Carmine Falcone’s crown jewel, back when he was in power,” Bruce says. “If the Falcone family is behind this, they could have been retaliating.”

“That’s a hell of a lot of bodies to drop just in retaliation,” Tim says doubtfully. “And to what end? If it is them, it has to be more than that.”

Barbara puts new footage on their screen. “Here’s what I pulled from last night’s traffic cams. Looks like the person who killed the baby’s parents is the same one who dropped her at the orphanage.”

Tim studies the grainy figure on the screen. They’re wearing a hood and limping slightly, but from the approximate size and shape, they appear to be -

“A female assailant,” Bruce says. “Not a pro. This person couldn’t have taken down a man like Reynolds.”

Tim stretches his arms over his head. “So, multiple killers.”

“Fits the mob angle. Give me an hour or two, and I’ll have an ID,” Barbara says. “Oracle out.”

Tim watches Bruce pull stills from the footage and run them against his video backlogs. On a separate screen, he watches Colin draw baby Danielle out of the Safe Surrender box, look around at the camera, and then hurry out of view.

“Red Robin, what exactly is going on over there?” Barbara asks quietly over the comm in his ear. She must have opened a private channel, because Bruce doesn’t show any indication he’s hearing her too.

“I’m gonna hit the training mat,” he says to Bruce. He gets no acknowledgement, which is more or less what he’s learned to expect.

“It’s been kind of a shitshow here,” he replies, once he’s out of earshot of Bruce. “What have you heard?”

“That Robin brought home a baby, and Red Hood adopted it, and now he’s moving back in to take care of it.”

“You’re pretty much caught up, then,” he says, stifling a laugh. “And Nightwing is helping, which is even weirder.”

“No shit,” she muses. “He’s helping Red Hood?”

“I guess? I was just with them, they’re kind of getting along, actually.”

“They had a decent rapport going when Nightwing took over as Big B,” Barbara says. “Robin wasn’t crazy about it. I think he wanted N all to himself.”

Tim considers this. “I always thought Robin didn’t like Hood because of his methods.”

“I’m not about to psychoanalyze Robin on a line I know he could hack if he wanted to,” Barbara says dryly. “But I’m sure that’s part of it. Hang on, B is lighting up the family line.”

Tim switches over. Bruce says, “We’re going to have to make some adjustments to patrols, while Danielle is in our care.”

“Black Bat and Batgirl are still in Florida,” Barbara says. “They should be wrapping up their case in the next day or two. I’ll put them on the South End when they get back.”

“Good,” Bruce says. “Signal should also be back in Gotham by then. Red Robin, you’ll need to put activities with the Titans on hold. I’ll have you covering the Northeast corner, including Crime Alley and the Bowery.”

“That’s my turf,” Jason snarls over the comm. “You can’t just go giving away my patrol. I gave you the East End, and look how that fucking turned out.”

“I wasn’t finished. Red Robin will cover those areas when Red Hood is otherwise occupied.”

Tim closes his eyes for a long second. Great. Now Jason will be gunning for him, again.

“Nightwing, your coverage of Bludhaven is non-negotiable. Robin will join you, temporarily, and fill in for you on the nights you need to be absent.”

“Really?” Dick sounds pleased. “Hey, Robin, did you hear that?”

“Of course I did,” Damian says. “Father, I accept this assignment.”

Unfair, Tim thinks, petulantly. He thinks Barbara’s probably right about Damian wanting Dick all to himself, but they all want Dick all to themselves. It’s complete bullshit that Jason and Damian, by far the least deserving, are the ones getting him.

“Oracle, we’ll need the Birds to fill in the gaps.”

Tim can almost hear Barbara rolling her eyes. “That’s what we’ve been doing, Batman. I’ll ask Huntress to keep her eyes on the Narrows. I’ve already got half my monitors dialed in to the East End. If anything happens there, I’ll be first to know.”

“Good,” Bruce says. “We’ll debrief again after tonight.”

There’s a long pause, and then Jason says, “Replace - Red Robin, we better talk if you’re taking my patrol tonight.”

Tim swallows. “Just so you know, I didn’t ask B to assign me.”

“No shit you didn’t. No one in their right mind would. No idea why he’s gone off the fucking deep end about this, like we haven’t dealt with way worse.” Jason sounds aggrieved. Tim can hear baby squealing noises in the background.

“Twenty bodies in one weekend isn’t nothing,” Barbara says. “This only happened because we were lax on patrol. No one was covering that area while Red Robin was gone.”

“I had informants on the ground,” Tim protests. “We were in touch.”

“It’s not your fault, Red,” Dick says immediately. “Oracle didn’t mean that. We should have been covering. It’s our bad, not yours.”

“I could have been covering,” Jason grumbles.

“Last time there were this many dead gangsters on the docks, you were covering.”

“Oh, fuck you, Boy Wonder.”

“Boys,” Oracle says, none too pleasantly. “I’m muting the family line now, so you’ll have to bicker like schoolgirls in person. Oracle out.”

Well, if he’s on the training mat anyways, he might as well get a workout in. Tim grabs his bo staff and scrolls through the training menus on his phone until he finds one that’ll thoroughly kick his ass. It’s stressful, having this many people in the manor. Tim doesn’t have a single clue how to act around a baby, much less how to act around Jason Todd with a baby.

Conner will find this hilarious, he thinks, whenever he gets back to Earth. Not the murders, obviously, but he’s always taken particular delight in Tim’s family drama. He’ll have to tell him about it next time they see each other - if they ever see each other - if Conner is even talking to him -

Tim shakes his head roughly. He’s been doing so well at not thinking about Conner, and truth be told, a hiatus from the Titans will probably do him a world of good on that front. He can’t take any more of Bart’s overcompensating, or Gar and Cassie’s whispering when they think he isn’t paying attention. At least when Bruce and Damian second-guess him, it’s not because they think he’s heartbroken, or whatever.

Because he’s not.

Probably.

The program starts, and then immediately ends when Tim takes a holographic missile to the chest. Crap. He hits the restart button, pushes everything else out of his mind. Dealing with his encyclopedia of dysfunctional relationships can wait. This, at least, he knows how to do.

***