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vikingpoteto · 4 years ago

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Red Robin under the spotlight

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Relationships: GEN. Tim Drake & Jason Todd, Stephanie Brown & Tim Drake

Summary: Red Robin and Red hood are basically urban legends, no one is sure they're real. That is, until there is a picture of the two of them grinning at each other on Gotham Gazette's front page.

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Tim Drake is having… a day.

Stuck in his office for the afternoon, he is praying for nightime to come soon so he can put on his suit and vent his frustration by beating up some unsuspecting criminal. He’d known being a CEO wasn’t particularly fun, but he didn’t expect the board of directors to be babies for so long.

He skims his proposal for what feels like the hundredth time unsure of how to make it clearer that that is the best course of action for their investments. The fact that he is only 18 should not trump his very solid, data-based arguments.

So he’s already in a bad mood and praying for a distraction when his office door swings open and Tam Fox storms in.

“Timothy!” she shouts.

He feels like he's about to learn he should be careful with what he wishes.

“Hey, Tam, I missed you too?” He tries.

Behind her, his secretary makes a helpless gesture as if trying to communicate she tried to stop Tam. Tim gives the woman a tired smile and makes a dismissive gesture.

Ignoring that, Tam slams the door closed and repeats for emphasis: “Timothy.” She pushes an iPad into Tim’s chest. “What is the meaning of this?”

Raising an eyebrow, he takes the iPad and looks at the screen, noticing he’s staring at a Gotham Gazette article and… Tim’s heart stops.

The headline screaming at his face says RED DYNAMIC DUO? by Vicki Vale and beneath it…

“Oh god,” Tim whimpers.

Beneath the headline there’s a picture of him and the Red Hood.

Or, well, Red Robin and Red Hood. They’re sitting on the fire escape of one of the abandoned buildings in Jason’s territory and both are seemingly at ease. Too at ease. There are two BatBurger bags at their side and their fingers are intertwined. Red Robin is staring at their joined hands with a wide smile. Fucking hell. Tim always makes a point of never smiling in front of anyone when he’s in his suit, he has a reputation to protect. He doesn’t know if it’s better or worse that Red Hood isn’t wearing his helmet, because it emans his open grin is visible as well - and thank god Jason has the habit of wearing a domino under his helmet.

Who the hell took that picture? How the hell did they go unnoticed by both Tim and Jason?

He then starts reading the article, every word feeling like a punch to the gut.

Gotham City has seen its share of vigilantes over the years and, unlike public figures such as Superman, they prefer to keep to themselves, making many people wonder whether they’re even human. As a shot captured by an amateur photographer that chose to remain anonymous, we find out at least a pair of the many Gotham “heroes” are closer to us than we thought.

The vigilante known as Red Robin Gotham's patheon of heroes a couple of months ago and little is known about him. He’s been seen working with the likes of Batman, Robin and even Batgirl, making us all think he’s one of the good guys. It seems like Red Robin’s circle of friendships doesn’t include only Justice League members, though.

The Red Hood, the man so tenderly smiling at Red Robin, is a notorious mob boss whose territory's size, GCPD especulates, rivals Black Mask’s. Red Hood wanders between both criminal activities and a violent brand of justice and, while he's been seen working side-by-side with heroes like Nightwing, a hero that since has only been seen in Bludhaven, no one can claim to have seen the Red Hood so comfortable around one of the bats of Gotham

The two young men were pictured in a tender moment. Could this mean that Red Robin is straying towards villany? Is the Red Hood is considering changing his ways? Or, perhaps, are we facing a pair of starcrossed lovers, separated by different set of morals, but still unable to stay away from one another?

Tim makes an inhumane sound. The words star crossed lovers jump from the screen, burning his eyes and making him wish he was going over a dumb business proposal still.

“Well?” Tam demands. “What is that, Tim?”

“I don’t know, Tam,” he answers, his voice weak. “What on earth- How the hell… Oh, god .”

“Why were you hanging out with the Red Hood?”

“Stakeout,” Tim says simply.

“Why were you on a stakeout with the freaking Red Hood?”

At that, Tim recovers enough to feel a bit miffed. That’s the same tone she had last year when Tim was working with assassins and he gets offended on his brother’s behalf. Even if, you know, said brother had also been somewhat related to the assassins in question. In the past.

“Hey, Hood is not as bad as the news make him look. Sure, he’s not exactly clean, but he’s a valuable undercover agent and…”

Tam makes sounds of a woman whose white Valentino bag had liquid lipstick spilled in. “Does that mean you are dating the Red Hood?”

“What? NO!”

Tim pinches the bridge of his nose. God, what a mess.

“He’s my brother,” he says.

Tam looks like she goes through the 7 stages of grief in a very short time and, honestly, Tim feels for her. He likes Tam a lot. She is smart and strong and the poor girl has had to deal with so much since she and Tim became friends.

“Are you telling me… that Dick Grayson…”

“No, Dick’s not the Red Hood.”

She stares at the picture again and then at him. “This isn’t Duke or Damian, Tim.”

“You’re right. It’s a long story. I can’t tell you, though. I trust you but Hood’s identity isn’t my secret to share.”

Tam closes her eyes and breathes in and out slowly. After all the crap she had to deal as one of Red Robin’s friends, a stranged brother that happened to be a crime lord (an anti-hero, really) wasn’t that far fetched. She didn’t know much about the Drakes because Tim didn’t talked about them, so, for all she knows, Red Hood could be Jack’s or Janet’s bastard child. Although Tim can figure her theories, he doesn’t try to explain anything. Whatever she works out is better than letting her know Red Hood is Bruce Wayne’s son brought back from the dead.

“Fine. You’re not dating a criminal. You’re a criminal’s brother.”

“I mean… if you think about it, I’m a criminal too.” He smiles sheepishly under her glare. “Being a vigilante isn’t exactly something I can put on my resume.”

Shaking her head, Tam checks the picture again. “What were you even doing? Because it looks like you’re holding hands and finding it hilarious.”

“We… hm. We were thumb wrestling.”

She stares at him, her expression empty of any emotion. Tim cringes.

“Look, not everything is death traps and high risks, alright? Sometimes stakeouts get boring!”

“You were laughing your head off because you were having a thumb war with the Red Hood,” Tam deadpans.

“Hm. Actually the thumb war wasn't that funny, that was him cheating. I was winning so he kept talking shit about Dick’s past to make me laugh and lose focus.”

Tam finally sits down and she looks at ceiling as if she’s considering all the life decisions that lead her to this moment. At this point, Tim knows she’s just being dramatic, because knowing Red Hood cheats at thumb war for certain isn’t more shocking than the time she met Tim.

“The thumb was isn’t important now, though,” Tim says. “ This is a huge problem. Hood’s gonna be in hot water if people think he’s friends with a hero.”

He refuses to use the word lovers, because ew. Sure they’re not related by blood, but… ew. Tim sees him as a brother, damn it.

“Well, I’m afraid there’s not a lot we can do now,” Tam says apologetically. “The article’s been up since this morning. Even if we have them take it down, it’s already out there. #RedDynamicDuo is trending on Twitter.”

Oof. That’s… oof.

Tim intertwines his fingers and glares at the tablet in front of him as if waiting for the puzzle to solve itself. He knows it won’t, so it’s up to him to fix this. His burnt out brain suggests calling Bart and asking him to run back in time and stop that cursed thumb war. His practical brain has half a mind to call Oracle and see how much online evidence she can get rid of. He has to contact Gotham Gazette and threaten them into not putting vigilante’s identities at risk by posting such pictures, although he doesn’t hold high hopes for that course of action. What he needs now is a bigger scandal, although he fails to think of something more dramatic than Red Robin and Red Hood being buddies…

Right as he’s starting to feel a bit forlorn, his phone buzzes on the table. A picture of Dick smiling flashes on the screen and Tim allows himself to perk up for a moment. Dick for sure will be able to help him.

“Dick!” He picks up, full of hope.

Tim is greeted with cackling. Dick’s cackling.

He groans. “Richard.”

“AHAHAHAHA O-oh god, you… aha... b-baby bird, you… HAHAHAHA--”

Tim isn’t paid enough for this. He hangs up.

“Can you help me with this?” He asks.

“Don’t I always?” Tam quirks an eyebrow.

Smiling tiredly, he stands. “I’m taking the rest of the afternoon off. Can you take care of… you know… day job stuff?”

“I guess. Good luck with your… your family thing.”

THE BIRDNEST

spoiler alert: *insert game of thrones joke here*

In the hood: Go fuck yourself, Stephanie

spoiler alert: not judging u bro he hella cute

WonderWing: steph please

cassandra cain-wayne: ?

send me a Signal: they’re talking about that picture of Hood and Red holding hands cass

yumm: were NOT holding hands

cassandra cain-wayne: I print that picture.

In the hood: W H Y ! ?

cassandra cain-wayne: cute :)

spoiler alert: she right and she should say it

In the hood: Steph, turn on your location. I just want to talk.

yumm: stephanie I hv pics of u sleep drooling on me from that that 1 patrol dnt test me

spoiler alert: shut up red dynamic duo

Tim hates the internet.

Barbara is kindly trying her best to muffle the online reaction, but there is only so much she can do without outright deleting people’s tweets. Tim knows for a fact that that would only cause a bigger uproar, so he asks her to settle for burying mentions of them under a fake algorithm.

He has yet to think of gossip hot enough to top the rumors, but he doesn’t think even his fake engagement to Tam last year received so much attention. A glimpse into Gotham’s elusive heroes’ personal lives was too exciting to let go quickly.

When he walks into his apartment, he wants nothing but to take a hot shower and a nap. He knows he can’t, though.

As well as he knows he isn’t alone.

He plays it cool, walking in as though he doesn’t notice the person in the shadows. He drops his keys and phone on the nearest table as he would normally and turns around too abruptly to allow a reaction, his fist connecting to… someone’s palm.

“Nice reflexes, Baby Bird,” Jason says, quirking an eyebrow as though mildly impressed.

Tim groans. “Would it kill you to use the door?”

“It might, better not risk it.”

“It shaves five years of my life span every time I come home and you’re waiting in the shadows. Of all of Bruce’s habits to pick up…”

Jason simply shrugs. “So… what’s up, honey? ”

“Ew, don’t say that,” Tim groans.

Keeping his nonchalant facade, Jason lets himself fall into Tim’s couch as though he belongs there. Tim heads to his room to change into more humane clothes.

“I’m assuming Dickie shared the news already,” Jason says.

“He couldn’t stop laughing long enough to say anything,” Tim replies from his closet. “Tam was kind enough to show me, though.”

“Tam… is that your ex-fiancée? Hmm… The news sure keep shipping you with everyone, speaking of which.”

Grumbling the whole time, Tim puts on a purple hoodie he might or might not have stolen from Stephanie and that he wears whenever he’s stressed. He wears that hoodie a lot. Heading back to the living room barefoot and feeling slightly more prepared to deal with the situation, he says:

“I’m assuming you aren’t here just to hang out.”

Jason gives him an unimpressed look. “I’ll give you three guesses.”

Tim blinks once. Twice. No, it can’t be that… “ Everyone thinks you’re a rat.”

“Bingo.”

And this situation keeps getting better and better. Red Hood is feared enough that he can get away with hanging out with the goody two shoes every now and again and keep his rep. Being caught eating burgers and giggling with a hero was a whole new animal.

They have to assume Hood’s safe houses were compromised as well. The point of having many hideouts is that you’re never left with nowhere to go, but even Jason wasn’t prepared to have everyone in his territory turn on him. That and they all had been raised and trained to be paranoid. It was too big of a risk to assume he’d be safe in a known place.

“Crap,” Tim mutters.

“I considered ditching Gotham and spending some time with Roy instead…”

“But that would be as good as a confession. You’d never gain their respect again,” Tim completes for him.

Jason nods.

The only silver-lining about this situation is that this is Jason. Granted he isn’t too angry to think, Jason is practical and willing to do what’s needed, even if it’s annoying or if it makes him uncomfortable. Tim likes working with him because of that.

“You know where the extra blankets are,” Tim says.

Because, of course, if Jason can’t be at his own place and he can’t be with Roy and Kory, he’d crash Tim’s place. The manor isn’t really an option for him and Tim doesn’t blame him for that.

“The plan of action?”

“I’ll let you know as soon as I figure out.”

Jason sighs. “I’m going to punch something in your Red Robin cave.”

“Be my guest.”

Damage control is necessary, of course, especially for Red Hood’s safety, but there is something bothering Tim more. He opens the news and studies the picture. It’s a damn good shot, almost looks like it was staged. He closes his eyes and tries to remember that night. In order to take that picture, the photographer would have to be in of of the buildings across the street and they’d have to be good enough to go unnoticed not by one, but by two highly trained vigilantes, one of which had his senses enhanced by the Lazarus pit.

He messages Babs quickly for more info on whoever sent those pictures to the news, but not even Oracle had managed to track them yet. It sounds like the photographer walked into Vicki Vale on the street and handed her the picture, because there was no digital footprint of such interaction.

Without any more ideas, he puts on his suit and heads out, glad that is patrol night. Perhaps punching criminals will give him some clarity.

Tim is nowhere near closing any of his cases and Gotham is unusually quiet because of course the criminals would choose tonight of all nights to be chill. The night Tim needs a crime. That’s why he’s more than a little thankful when a crackling sound in his comm lets him know someone’s trying to send him a message.

“Hey, hot stuff,” a familiar voice calls, “I have an underground gambling den to dismantle tonight, you want in?”

Red Robin smiles. “Is that a date?”

“I don’t know, is it? I don’t want Red Hood coming after me.”

“Batgirl.”

She laughs shamelessly. He hopes Barbara isn’t listening. Although the alternative would be Wendy listening, and he doesn’t know which one would be worse. Steph’s sense of humor isn’t for everyone and while, Tim doesn’t mind their inside jokes and got used to her eternal flirting, he feels as though those should remain between the two of them only.

“I’m serious, though,” Steph continues. “I don’t think backup is needed per se, but I miss fighting criminals with you. Plus I figured you could use a punching bag or two.”

He grins. He just really loves Steph.

“Send me the details. I’ll meet you there.”

Turns out it’s a pretty standard burst for them. Gambling den covering a massive drug operation, because this is Gotham. Why wouldn’t they use an illegal thing to cover another more illegal thing? That sounded like a great idea.

He finds Batgirl waiting for him on top of a building. She simply smiles and points at the shady alley down the street.

“Gentlemen first?” she offers.

“It’s your case.”

With a nod, she dives towards the ground and Red Robin follows her closely, frowning in confusion when she doesn’t dropkicks any windows. Instead, she casually strolls towards the back of the alley where a suspicious metal door that could easily go unnoticed if it didn’t scream CRIMINAL ACTIVITY HERE. Batgirl knocks at the door and gestures at Red Robin to stay away.

A slit on the door slides open and a confused crook tries unsuccessfully to see who’s there. With both vigilantes’ out of his line of sight, the poor bastard has no option other than opening the door to check. Batgirl swiftly pulls him into a headlock as soon as he walks into view and Red Robin’s grinning face is the last thing the man sees before the pressured applied makes him pass out.

Red Robin doesn’t figure what Steph’s plan is until she cuffs the unconscious bouncer and stands straight, offering her arm.

“You’re so dramatic.” He rolls his eyes, even as he takes it.

“Shush, you think I’m awesome.”

That he does. Especially when the two of them climb down into the basement turned illegal cassino with their arms locked as if they’re a couple. It’s cartoonishly comic how long it takes everyone to realize Red Robin and Batgirl are standing on the entrance, looking around at the 50 different illegal activities happening at once.

Not as comic as when Batgirl shouts over the music: “Please, don’t stop on our account!”

The gamblers sober enough to freeze in horror.

“Before we start, anyone wants to just give themselves in?” Red Robin offers.

That’s when guns start firing and all hell breaks loose.

The night ends, as it would, with Batgirl and Red Robin walking home a trio of strippers. The women weren’t to blame that their work environment was less than ideal and they certainly didn’t need to be left tied up waiting for the GCPD like the mobsters Steph and Tim beat up tonight.

Red Robin wanted to just watch them from the top ot the buildings and make sure they got home safe, but Batgirl insisted they walked alongside the women. Their costumes don’t look completely out of place near them and Red Robin doesn’t know what to think of that.

For a second, he thinks he hears someone behind them. Everytime he turns around, he finds nothing but an empty alley, so he shrugs if off as him getting hit tooo many times.

While Batgirl excitedly chats with two of the women about their future employment - one of them is in this line of work just to get by, the other genuinely enjoys sensual dancing as a form of art but wishes she could work somewhere better - when the third of them discreetly detaches herself from the group to walk closer to Red Robin.

She still looks tense and guarded, her arms tightly wrapped around herself and Tim wishes he had a jacket to offer her. The way she sideeyes him says she wants to say something, but is too nervous to start. Not wanting to betray his persona, he simply waits, trying to appear as non threatening as possible.

“Thanks a lot for savin’ us, Red Robin,” the woman says finally. “I can’t believe I’m meetin’ ya.”

He gives her a small smile. “I’m just glad you’re safe, ma’am, there’s no need to thank me.”

“I just wanted ta say… I get ya.”

Red Robin tilts his head to the side. “Ma’am?”

“The thing with your man. Must ta’ be hard dating the Red Hood. I know how it is.”

He was… He was getting sympathy from a stripper with bad taste in men.

“There’s nothing gross between Hood and I!” He lets out before he can help himself, his voice a little louder than intended.

The other women startle at his outburst and turn to him, wary. One of them reaches for what is clearly a pocket knife that she thinks is cleverly hidden in her bra.

He sighs. “I’m sorry, ma’am, just… Batgirl, I believe you’ve got things from here. I’m taking off.”

She gives him a concerned look, but ultimately nods. Under Batgirl’s and the three strippers perplexed glares, Red Robin grapples his way out of there.

Tim wakes up around noon feeling as though he was hit by a truck, as he does when he sleeps longer than three hours a night. He slowly sits up and looks around his messy room, wondering how come he’s feeling so miserable. The smell of food stirs him into some sort of alertness.

Right. He’s not home alone today.

Yawning and scratching his belly, he forces himself to get out of bed. He know that the longer he stays the more likely he is to slip into a coma, his body demanding compensation for years of sleep deprivation. Tim drags his feet towards his kitchen where he finds one of Gotham’s most dangerous vigilantes humming to himself as he makes breakfast. Or Lunch. Brunch. Whatever.

“And here I thought I was the family’s zombie,” Jason says in lieu of good morning.

Tim grumbles something about his brother being too comfortable in Tim’s kitchen, but he doesn’t dare complain. Jason is probably the only person that uses Tim’s stove and one of the perks of having him over is that he does cook. A lot.

The one disadvantage about having Jason over is…

A knife lodges itself on the counter in front of Tim when he tries to reach for the coffee pot. Tim didn’t even see him throwing it. He glares at his brother.

“Food first. Coffee after,” Jason says.

“I’m too nauseous to eat, I just woke up.”

Again without breaking eye contact with the pot he’s stirring, Jason blindly reaches for a package of crackers casually left on the counter and hands it to Tim.

Tim makes sure to give him his best rebellious teenager glare before grabbing the stupid crackers and sitting down to eat them. Stupid Jason with his stupid boredom. Tim had forgotten Jason goes into full mom mode when he has nothing else to do and that he’s particularly obnoxious about Tim’s eating habits.

“I consume the necessary calories,” Tim mumbles over his cracker.

“Okay, Damian.”

Tim throws a cracker at him. Jason easily dodges without looking, which is kind of annoying.

After that, the two brothers fall into comfortable silence. Tim knows Jason wants to talk about their plan of action, but he knows Tim is nowhere near awake enough to hold a conversation. Besides, Jason doesn’t like being bothered while he’s cooking anyway.

By the time the food is ready, the crackers worked their magic and Tim no longer feels as though his stomach is ready to puke out its emptiness. He grabs dishes he hadn’t used in quite a while and sets the table for the two of them. The brothers start eating in silence, Tim slowly recovering his sense of self - no wonder he goes for so long without sleeping, he takes too long to reboot when he does - and Jason mindlessly scrolling through his phone.

Then something on the small screen makes Jason choke on his food.

Tim quirks an eyebrow. “You okay?”

“Hm… Timmy, you may wanna take a look at this.”

“What?” Tim takes Jason’s phone. “Oh, for fuck’s sake !”

It’s another news article. The picture is fortunately less detailed, just a red and black silhouette against Gotham’s sky that may or may not be Red Robin standing over one of the many gargoyles. The text, however.

RED ROBIN MAKES HOMOPHOBIC REMARK AND SHOCKS ADMIRER

Gotham’s newest vigilante busted an underground gambling den last night. Despite his heroic deed, his words after the fact were less than commendable. When questioned about his relationship with the Red Hood by one of the women he rescued, the hero allegedly said that there’s “Nothing gross between him and Hood.”

“Personally, I was shocked,” said the woman in question, Krystal Math, 25 years old. “Red Robin became my favorite hero when I heard he also has a dead-beat boyfriend. I was starting to finally see myself in one of those bats, you know? I couldn’t believe when he said being gay is gross. Never meet your heroes, I guess.”

THE BIRDNEST

WonderWing sent a screenshot.

WonderWing: red robin is cancelled for homophobia, pass it on

Robin: Good. It’s about time we rid ourselves of him.

Cassandra Cain: Little brother does not approve gay rights? :(

yumm: im literally bisexual

spoiler alert: he avoiding the question

in the hood: #redrobinisoverparty

yumm: I hate this fucking family

Tim hasn’t stopped pacing around the room since he read the most recent article. Those were his exact words by the letter, meaning someone had been listening. He doubts Krystal, bless her heart, was the one going to the news with his “homophobic remark”.

Having basically given up on getting Tim to calm down, Jason is the one to get the porch door open for Steph. Because apparently she’s been learning from Jason and acquired his hatred for front doors. Steph knows how Tim gets, so she promptly ignores him and gets comfortable on the reading chair to check the article fully.

“This is nuts,” Steph says. “We were being careful. I made sure of it.”

Tim believes her. Batman and Robin are basically public figures at this point, even if they don’t interact with civilians if they can help it. Red Robin and the Signal were heard of and spotted around the city, but not a lot of people really know of them. Red Hood was basically a urban legend until recently and Black Bat sill is. Batgirl, however, is known for being a people hero.

She was, back in Barbara’s time, stopped for a bit with Cass, but Steph embraced the old tradition whole heartedly. She would walk people home late at night to make sure they were safe, wave at little girls in the bus, talk to kidnapping victims until they were under heavy blankets handed by the police. Steph was extroverted and charming and she used that fully as Batgirl like she never could as Spoiler. That being said, she and Barbara always made a point to avoid pictures, security cameras and whatnot. If there was a hero good at hanging with civilians while unnoticed by the media, that hero was Stephanie Brown.

Tim’s phone is buzzing. He ignores it in favor of stomping around some more.

“Well, something must have slipped your watchful eye,” Jason says, shrugging.

Steph glares at him. “Mine, perhaps, but are you implying someone went unnoticed by Oracle?”

“Well, someone obviously did,” Tim snaps, tossing his phone at the couch in frustration. “What happened after I left, Steph?”

“Nothing,” she says honestly. “I walked the ladies home. Krystal was a bit miffed but she didn’t say anything, so I thought she was just a shipper upset that her OTP wasn’t canon.”

“You think she went to the news after?” Jason suggests.

Steph frowns. “Why would she? She didn’t look like she had media connections exactly.”

Tim’s phone, that bounced off the couch and fell with a soft thud on the carpet, continues to explode with texts. He sighs and stops to pick it up and finally answer them.

“Appearances can be deceiving,” Jason argues. Then turns to Tim: “You should look into her. I’m gonna check other possible sources.”

“Hm-hum, just a second,” Tim mumbles, typing furiously. “Damian is being a nightmare and asking for help on a case.”

“Wack. Are you telling him to solve his own cases instead of using your intell to impress Bruce?”

Tim glares at Jason.

“Really? C’mon, Timmy, we’ve been over this.”

Stephanie gives them a puzzled look. “You’ve been over… Dami being a nightmare?”

“Jason says that whenever someone is mean to me I should reply by attacking them where hurts the most,” Tim explains.

“He knows all of our weaknesses and he has the quickest thinking,” Jason says, frustrated. “The least he should do is stand up for himself with that knowledge!”

"Kinda rich coming from the guy that tried to kill him," Steph says, quirking an eyebrow.

"Steph," Tim scowls. "He didn't know me then and the pit rage--"

"Timmy," Jason cuts him off.

Tim sighs. "Besides now I could off him in 20 different ways if he tried any of that shit again. There. Happy, Jason?"

"That's my baby brother."

Steph smiles at him. “You know what? You’re onto something, Jaybird.”

Tim interrupts his walk of worry again to smile a bit. Something about Stephanie and Jason agreeing on something is immensely satisfying.

Still, on the matter at hand, Tim says, “If I go off on Damian, Dick’s gonna get mad…”

“Then go off on Dick as well,” Steph promptly suggests.

Jason high-fives her. “Atta girl. Besides if Dick doesn’t want us to tell Damian to fuck off he has to work harder on teaching him not to be a little shit. Everyone here has a tragic backstory here and we all know Damian goes too far sometimes.”

Tim shakes his head again. “Regardless, Damian’s case will have to wait. We’re gonna go with your plan, Jay. And Steph…”

“Wow, no way, José. I’m just here as an eyewitness. I don’t want to get involved with homophobes and end up shipped with Jason or some shit.”

Tim glares at her. “I was going to offer you some of our leftovers, but since you’re not interested, that’s fine.”

While Jason laughs and Steph protests, he proceeds to look for his laptop, hoping this isn’t going to be a dead end.

“This is a dead end,” Tim declares.

From what he can find, Krystal wasn’t even paid for her impromptu interview. Apparently Vicki Vale showed up at her place to confirm the veracity of a story that she heard God knows where.

Dick is in Bludhaven, but he insisted on facetiming them when he realized his brothers were struggling, even if he mostly just made worried faces from Tim’s phone as Tim, Jason and Steph exchanged notes. As a rule of thumb, Tim doesn’t involve his siblings in his cases since he became Red Robin, but this is definitely an all hands on deck situation. Tim isn’t desperate enough to get Bruce involved, but he’s getting there. Especially when Dick says:

“Babs couldn’t find anything in Vicki’s email or phone. She’s double checking all of Vicki's sources, but so far it’s been no good.”

“We could always get Vale and hang her by the ankles on top of some building until she talks,” Jason suggests. "Let's go old school on her."

Everyone ignores Jason. Tim stands for another mug of coffee. Dick lets out a frustrated sigh. Steph keeps watching all of them from the couch, where she’s been lying down and tossing gummy bears into her mouth for the past half-hour.

When no one acknowledges him, Jason sighs and stands. “Alright, this’ been fun. I’m going to patrol.”

Dick frowns. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

“He can’t vanish,” Steph says. “One thing is crashing Tim’s place to make sure he won’t get ambushed in his down time. If Red Hood goes AWOL he might as well admit he’s working with the Batclan.”

Jason nods. “If I don’t do my job, next thing I know Black Mask takes over my stuff.”

“Can’t have Black Mask taking over his stuff,” Steph agrees.

Dick glances at Tim as though expecting him to disagree with the plan. Tim lets out a defeated sigh. “He’s right. Just… make sure to find a safe place to change into your gear so no one sees you. If there are any safe places, that is…”

Jason rolls his eyes. Tim knows he’s going full Robbie Downer mode, as Jason likes to call it, but he can’t help it. It’s not often that he finds himself without any ideas. He should have been able to solve this already. Since nothing comes to mind, he starts imagining unrealistic scenarios in hopes that they’ll give him some insight outside of the box. AU in which I was never shipped with my brother by some nosey reporter. AU in which I went out Damian instead of Jason that night.

Tim groans in frustration. “Why did it have to be Jason? We could get away with me having a thumb war with literally anyone. If it was Batman out there, this wouldn’t be that much of a problem.”

“Maybe if you hung out with all your brothers and not just Jason there wouldn’t be as many rumors about you and Red Hood,” Dick mumbles.

Tim glares at the phone.

“Really? You wanna go there? You wanna talk favoritism, Richard? Because you’ve been favoring Damian for-freaking-ever.”

“Drag him!” Jason cheers.

“Tim,” Dick says, looking genuinely upset, “I love all-”

“Save it,” Steph cuts in. “We all have favorites Dick, there is no use denying it.”

Because Dick’s eyebrows are knitted in confusion, Tim clarifies: “Bruce’s favorite is Cass, yours is Damian, Jason’s is… I don’t know, his guns. Steph is my favorite, unfortunately. Steph’s favorite is Cass, Cass’ favorite is Duke, Duke doesn’t have favorites, he’s the only good person in this family, and Damian’s is also you.”

Steph nods. “You did it! You broke the Bat Family dynamics to its bare essentials!”

“And that is why Tim is my favorite. After my guns,” Jason adds.

“Jason, we do not rate our siblings.”

“That’s why you’re in last place, Dick.”

Ignoring Dick’s enraged noises, Tim sets his mug aside. “I’m going patrolling, even if today isn't my turn. Solo this time. Hopefully Red Hood and Red Robin being separate out there will help the rumors die down a bit.”

No one has a better idea - Tim’s least favorite sentence - so that’s what they do.

It’s another infuriatingly quiet night.

Red Robin stops a couple of muggings, scares the crap out of some drug dealers. At some point, he considers contacting Poison Ivy and asking if she has any corrupt CEO she wants help with. He could, you know. It’d stop Ivy from killing someone and on his last run with Harley Quinn she did let slip that Tim was Ivy’s favorite Robin.

He almost falls mid swing at the memory, thinking he might be onto something, but then he remembers Harley hadn’t particularly recognized Red Robin as the third Robin. She was just ranting about how the new tiny Robin had no sense of humor and Ivy missed the last one. Besides of course Harley Quinn wasn’t feeding Vicki Vale some BatFanfic. Tim’s brain must be really burnt out if that’s the best hot take it can come up with.

It’s almost 3am and he’s taking a pair of muggers that can’t be much older than Tim to the police. He’s about ready to call if a night when someone shouts:

“Red Robin!”

He looks on instinct and his stomach drops when he sees Vicki Vale running towards him. Crap.

“Red Robin, can I get a statement?”

He keeps walking. He’s just one dirty alley away from GCPD, otherwise he’d just tie the stupid muggers to his back and would use his grappling hook to get out of the situation, grapple safety be damned. The muggers gingerly attempt to hide their faces as the reporter runs to them swinging a digital recorder. Vicki acts as though she can’t see them.

“Red Robin, what do you have to say about the rumors of your relationship with the Red Hood?”

The rumors you created? Red Robin quickens his pace and the muggers trip over themselves. He stares straight ahead, pretending he doesn’t notice the woman basically running in heels to keep up with him.

“Are you ashamed of it? Is it because he’s a criminal or because he’s a man?”

Red Robin wonders if the muggers would walk the rest of the way and turn themselves in if he asked nicely.

“Don’t bother, lady,” one of the muggers says. “He’s a nasty bigot.”

The other mugger nods and the two of them are wearing matching pouty expressions. Now Tim just feels bad. He didn’t become a hero for the recognition and he’s not in the business of doing PSAs like Superman, but he doesn’t want the strange socially woke criminal youth of Gotham to think they’re being arrested by a homophobe.

“I have no problem with two men in a relationship, I’m bisexual,” he tells the muggers. “Still, I’m not dating Red Hood. Just because I’m bi it doesn’t mean I’m dating every male vigilante I run into.”

At that, the two crooks look mildly surprised and suddenly they seem to feel a bit better about being arrested. Would you look at that.

Red Robin delivers them to the police, painfully aware that Vicki Vale is nowhere to be found anymore. He feels like he’s going to pay dearly for being too prideful to let himself be mistaken for a heterosexual person.

Lo and behold, Twitter, on that very same morning.

@Gotham_Gazette:

Red Robin hints that he might be bisexual. “No, I’m not dating the Red Hood, just because I’m bi it doesn’t mean I’m dating every male vigilante,” said the hero on the rumors about his relationship.

@dgraysonman hints??? he literally said he’s bi smh

@stephssss wow only the male vigilantes? biphobic. let red robin date batgirl too

@babsgeez be gay do crime, be bi serve justice

@thomascommaduke no cops at pride, only Red Robin using a bi flag as cape.

“Timmy…” Jason starts.

“Don’t. Just leave me alone to die.”

“That’s fair, have a nice day.”

At this point, Tim is surprised Bruce hasn’t intervened. As unaware of social media as Bruce can be, he’s always on the look for anything that might compromise their secret identities. Tim pulls two all-nighters in a row doing detective work and still makes no progress on his search for the person that sent Vicki that picture and overheard his conversation with Krystal. He fully expects Batman to jump him on his next patrol and give him a lecture.

When he comments that to Jason, he gets a confused look in response.

“You didn’t get a lecture? Bruce was the one that told me first. I had to hear about being careless for 20 minutes before I got home and could take off my comm.”

Tim frowns in confusion. Bruce had talked to him once or twice after the news got out and he didn’t comment anything on it.

“That’s Batman’s psychological profiling,” someone suggests.

Tim almost jumps out of his skin when Steph casually walks into the living room with a bowl of chips.

“What are you doing here? And are those my clothes?”

Steph shrugs in the sweater that clearly doesn’t belong to her. “Jason and I are doing movie night.”

“Movie night,” Jason mocks. “She’s been here for the past two days. Did you seriously not notice, Tim?”

Tim’s jaw drops.

Steph sighs and her expression turns guilty. “Fine. My mom is out of town for the week and Jason is a better cook than I am. Is it a crime to bum off your ex-boyfriend and his bizarrely talented in the kitchen brother?”

Before Tim can say anything, Jason interrupts: “What were you saying about Batman, Steph?”

She heads to the couch and starts looking for the remote, her feet propped on the coffee table. “B knows Jay will just shrug it off and deal with the consequences, hence the need of a lecture. If he annoys Jason, he’ll stop and reflect on it, even if out of rage. He knows Tim’s already overthinking and working his butt off to fix it, so he doesn’t want to add any pressure.”

Both Jason and Tim stand in dumbfounded silence. Since when does Steph know Bruce so well?

She raises her gaze when the quietness stretches and quirks an eyebrow at them. “What? Am I wrong?”

“Hm. No. That’s pretty much what we’ve been doing,” Jason admits, if a big begrudgingly. “That’s annoying though.”

Steph simply makes a dismissive gesture and pats the sit beside her. “Tim, you need a break. Wanna join us?”

Tim hesitates. On one hand, the fact that Bruce trusts him that much is a tad touching… and knowing it makes him feel he has to solve this as soon as possible. On another… it’s kind of annoying that Bruce knows him so well and yet doesn’t think about offering any assistance. Tim is not stubborn enough to refuse a helping hand when he’s on a pinch.

“You’re not going to solve anything if you’re hallucinating from sleep deprivation, Timbers,” Jason points. “Besides we’re watching Avatar.”

“Fine,” Tim says.

If for nothing else, just to prove to Bruce that he’s not an overworker and he can slack off in the absence of a parental figure.

Tim falls asleep in the middle of the second episode. Steph and Jason vow to take him to bed once they’re sure he’s completely out, but they only last until the end of the first season. The three sleep soundly on the couch for good eight hours and regret dearly when they wake up with necks too sore to fight crime for at least a day.

Consequences. They always come.

Almost a week goes by in which the rumors are but an annoyance to Jason and a source of stress to Tim - but almost anything can stress Tim if he tries hard enough, so that’s not saying anything. Jason is still staying at Tim’s, but he’s considering going back to his own place when they go for three days with no new article and nothing unusual has happened.

Until it does.

It’ a rainy night Tim is going over reports for the next WE meeting when he hears a noise coming from the balcony. His stomach gives a familiar twist when he recognizes Batgirl hunched over the weight of one Red Hood.

He rushes to her aid, already feeling nauseous. There’s no blood in sight but whatever happened must be serious if Jason is willing to let Batgirl give him a piggyback ride. Tim lets them drip water all over the floor and, in his panic, has half a mind to appreciate that Batgirl’s boots have enough traction that she doesn’t slip.

“What on Earth…”

“The most ridiculous thing,” Steph bables as she and Tim drag a very dizzy Jason to the couch. She then starts ranting so fast Bart Allen would be proud. “He was doing his thing as usual, but some of his people turned on him and there was an ambush and so many flipping people against one poor Hood and good god that guy shot his helmet at point-blank which, damn , that was so stupid, of course the freaking helmet is bullet proof, it just ricocheted and…”

“Steph, calm down,” Tim interrupts. “Jason, can you report?”

When he gingerly attempts to take off his helmet, Steph takes over and undoes the safety measures before carefully removing it. There is a dent on the back part where he had been presumably shot.

“Hm,” Jason grunts, squinting even behind his domino mask. “Ambush. Shot. Concussion. Very concussion. Ankle hurts? Prolly not broken, tho. Also stabbed?”

Tim nods. “Steph, get the medical supplies. Where’s the stab wound, Jay?”

Jason points to his thigh and there is an improvised bandage keeping him from losing too much blood. Considering how well done it is, Tim figures it’s Steph’s work. He nods and starts checking his brother’s vitals and making sure there aren’t other serious wounds.

When she comes back with the supplies Tim needs, Steph has her cowl down and a somber expression. She turns off the lights for Jason’s sake, the only source of light left on being the lamp near where Tim is already ripping off a piece of Jason’s pants to have better access to his wound. Steph sits by Jason’s side and grabs his hand, much to Tim’s surprise. He’s too busy taking care of the stab wound to ask, but he doesn’t have to. Steph breaks the silence:

“I’m so sorry, Jason.”

Jason gives her a confused look. “You saved my ass?”

“Yes, but…” Steph sighs and turns to Tim. “Babs is with the Birds of Prey tonight, so I was on my own. I was messing around with my comm frequency when I accidentally got into Jason’s. I heard the mess and it sounded like he was in trouble so I panicked. I went to get him and… Well, if there was any doubt that he’s working with the Bats, there isn’t now. It was too obvious that I was protecting him.”

Jason squeezes her hand. “Hm. Pigs.”

“Right. Then the police arrived and instead of leaving right away I stopped to make sure Jason wasn’t bleeding to death. More than a few cops saw me patching him up.”

Tim sighs. Well, shit.

“It’s not your fault, Steph,” Tim says. “I mean… he literally wears a bat on his chest. People were bound to find out it isn’t just to stick it to Batman.”

“Is too,” Jason mumbles.

Tim ignores him. “The situation isn’t ideal, but we all prefer people knowing Red Hood is associated with the Bats than him being dead.”

“I died before.”

“We know, Jay.”

“Do not recommend.”

“We know, Jay.”

Steph fidgets a bit, still looking guilty, but ultimately nods. Tim is about to start stitching Jason’s wound closed when she says: “There’s more. You, hm, you know Renee Montoya?”

“The one valid pig,” Jason says. “I like her.”

“She was there. She helped a ton keep the other cops away from us before we could escape,” Steph says. “I think she wanted to check on Jason and…”

Tim stops moving. He knows Montoya, worked with her before and she’s a nice woman. That being said, she doesn’t have any connections to Hood. Why would she… Oh. The gay rumors. Damn wlw/mlm solidarity.

“What happened?” Tim asks, already fearing the worst.

“Hmmm, we’ll tell you, but I’m concussed, so you have to promise you won’t be mad.”

“Jason.”

Jason sighs. “Well. She asked about our relationship and… Hm. I might have told her we’re brothers.”

Tim stares at them. Steph is cringing and Jason is too out of it to care. At this point… Tim starts laughing, making the other two - even the concussed one - frown in worry.

“Aw, man,” Tim says between chuckles. “What the fuck, am I right? I’m too old for this. Who cares? Not me! Fuck it. Fuckety fuck fucky-fuck.”

“I think we broke him,” Steph whispers even as Tim resumes stitching his brother.

They went from not-sure-if-real to a freaking cop knowing about their family in the span of a week. Tomorrow #TimDrakeIsRedRobin could be trending on Twitter and Tim wouldn’t care. Not anymore. Let them come.Literally everyone in his friend circle is a vigilante, a hero or a criminal at this point, he doesn’t even care about endangering anyone.

It takes actually two days for it to hit the news. He’s alone in his office when Tam texts him a link to Gotham Gazette online. Judging by the lack of other words, Tim figures she’s cutting ties with him again.

The newest article has no actual pictures, but a sketch of Red Hood standing with his guns pointed at the viewer and Red Robin standing behind him, his face only partially turned. The thing looks more like superhero fanart than an official sketch, but that never stopped Vicki Vale before.

VIGILANTE FAMILY? by Vicki Vale

Red Robin, one of Gotham’s many masked vigilantes, was cause of intrigue recently. Many people noticed the hero doing his work around Red Hood’s territory, something not even Batman dares on the regular. Speculation turned into a craze of theories when both red-themed vigilantes were caught sitting on a roof sharing a meal from Batburger and many thought perhaps there was more than your regular vigilante team up.

Turns out the hero and the mob boss aren’t lovers, against popular belief. When questioned about the nature of their relationship, Red Hood snapped and confirmed one of the less popular theories: the two men are, in fact, related. “Red is right and he should say it,” said Red Hood to a bewildered policewoman. “Of course he’d say it’s [REDACTED] gross, he’s my little brother.” When asked about the conversation overheard by our reporter, the policewoman in question refused to give any more details and requested to remain anonymous.

It’s hard to be sure how such development came to be. The Red Hood has been active in Gotham for years as a mob boss and, more recently, a vigilante and ally to Gotham’s bats. While Red Robin is a newer vigilante, could it be that he was trained by the Red Hood? And how do the two brothers fit with Gotham’s oldest vigilantes? Unlike his older counterpart, Red Robin has been often spotted working side-by-side with the likes of Batgirl and Robin, making some question whether Red Robin is distancing himself from his criminal brother. However, sources spotted Hood being aided by Batgirl more recently. Could it be that his former sidekick is bringing Red Hood closer to the side of justice? More on the Red Twins as the story develops.

THE BIRDNEST

spoiler alert: RED TWINS

WonderWing: R E D T W I N S

send me a Signal: ~ * R E D T W I N S * ~

in the hood: uhhhh my bad?

yumm: dis is great

yumm: now im hoods stranged sidekick

yumm: i fucking hate u jason.

in the hood: hey, if you didn't want to be my sidekick you should've picked another color

yumm: screw u u dont own the color red

in the hood: I was born first

yumm: u died first 2

WonderWing: Tim!

spoiler alert: oof

send me a Signal: wow Tim that was too far

in the hood: I’ve never been prouder to be your brother I taught you so well Timmy

send me a Signal: … I stand corrected. I sometimes forget everyone in this family is clinically insane

“Hey Tim. There is discourse about you and Jason now.”

Tim lets out a whimper.

“So apparently some people still ship you two. But those people are being cancelled because shipping incest is problematic.”

“Steph, are you planning on going home? I noticed you took one of my drawers.”

“There’s fanart of you two.”

“I don’t want to see it. That'll scar me for life."

“I’m DMing it to you. By the way there is civilian Red Robin fanart and for some reason they made you blonde.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, I guess it’s more fun to ship people with different hair colors. Should we dye your hair?”

“Why.”

“That way when you finally hook up with Co-”

“Finish that sentence and I kick you out of this apartment for good.”

With the cat out of the bag, they start doing different damage control.

Red Hood is now openly working with the Bats, so Steph and Cass dismantle Hood’s former safehouses around Gotham which mostly means getting Jason’s books and bringing them to Tim’s place. Jason suggests the places should be converted into something useful for the neighborhood, such as libraries or a community center of sorts, so Tim starts working on what needs to be done by WE to make that reality. Tim also makes sure Bruce pretends not to know Jason is using a lot of money illegally acquired to getting himself new hideouts.

They dance around the topic a lot and nothing is really said until Steph brings it up. Steph, whose mother returned days ago. Steph, that definitely doesn’t want Jason to leave, because apparently she suddenly has a new favorite ex-Robin. Steph, that is currently eating homemade waffles in Tim’s kitchen, even though Tim is 83% sure she didn’t sleep over last night.

“Why doesn’t Jason just moves in?” she asks.

When neither boy replies immediately, she continues:

“I mean, it’s more practical, isn’t it? Tim’s place is already secure, he has a hero hideout downstairs and you two already work together all the damn time. Tim’s office can be converted into a room for Jason, because, let’s face it, I spend most of my free time here and Tim never uses it. I once saw him take his laptop with him to the bathroom and then return to the kitchen table instead of using the office. We wouldn’t even have to take the shelves, because Jason would fill them.”

They exchange a look.

“You know, she’s right,” Tim says. He shrugs like it’s no big deal, really.

He isn’t nervous at all while Jason stands there, his expression unreadable. It’s not like he enjoys way too much having his brother around and got way too comfortable with having a roommate and a half (if you count Steph) on the past weeks. Tim doesn’t care, he’s cool like that.

“I mean. I guess having you as a roommate beats living alone,” Jason finally says.

Tim fails to hide his grin. “We can start working in turning the office into a room this weekend.”

Jason smiles back and messes his hair.

Tim’s first theory is that Steph wants Jason off the couch so she has an official place to sleep, because apparently Jason’s cooking is that good.

His second theory is that she noticed how happy Tim is to finally share a house with family. The Wayne Manor had been home for a while, sure, but despite Alfred’s best efforts the place wasn’t the coziest. It wasn’t the same as sharing an apartment with a brother, bickering about sharing chores and openly discussing their night jobs before shifting the conversation to a video game they want to buy. Sharing actual meals and making sure one another wouldn’t end up dead in a ditch.

Tim decides to stick with his first theory, after all it’s easier for Steph to make Red Twins jokes if Jason and Tim are under the same roof.

Even without new gossip, the idea of vigilante brothers is too interesting for the general public to let go. Tim and Jason start acting mostly in the shadows and having no interaction with civilians at all and they’re still the topic of Gotham’s variety shows and online discussions from time to time.

Because they don’t slip again, Bruce has yet to bring up the subject with Tim, but the mystery remains. Who listened to all those conversations and how? Tim keeps expecting the other shoe to drop, to get a message demanding ransom for their secret identities, something, anything , but nothing happens. Nothing freaking happens and he’s never been this frustrated.

That is, until, it happens. The ultimate betrayal.

Dick’s next visit coincides with the time Cass is over for the week. Because Bruce is secretly a sap in the wrongest way, he suggests they all go patrolling together. Such great family time.

Despite their initial protests, they must all be the same kind of freak, because they all agree. They split up soon to cover more ground, but keep their comms on so it still feels they’re all in a big menacing group.

Red Robin is somewhere near the crime alley when Nightwing announces he noticed some of Two Face’s goons getting into a building. He checks his wrist pad for their locations and notices Nightwing isn’t that far from where he is. The next closest person is Red Hood.

“I’ll take care of it,” Nightwing says over the comms.

“Negative. Two Face himself might be there,” Batman intervenes. “Wait for backup. The Red Twins--” And he stops himself as though realizing what he’s saying.

“Batman!?” Red Robin gasps in a betrayed voice.

Nightwing is already having a laughter fit over the comms almost drowning the sound of Bruce’s disappointed sigh.

“I’m sorry, Red,” his father says and he even forgets to use Batman’s scary voice. “Nightwing and Batgirl have been saying it so much that-”

“Save it,” Hood groans. “And stop laughing, Jerkwing!”

The worst part is knowing that, even if he solves the mystery, the Red Twins thing is probably going to follow him to his untimely death.

Tim all but lost hope when he gets an email from Barbara. “To my favorite Red Twin” says the subject. He groans, but opens the email, because one does not simply ignore a message from Oracle. Then he almost drops his phone.

Attached there is a grainy picture of a young woman talking to Vicki Vale. The image had certainly been enhanced digitally as it’s probably from a shitty security camera, but you can still see the woman’s face clear as day. She looks like she’s handing Vicki something, her shoulders tense and her expression wary. The body of the message is, most likely, the woman’s personal info. Her name is Lisa Harris. She is 27 years old. She lives somewhat close to Jason’s territory. And, most importantly, Babs added to the end of the message:

The picture is from the night before the Red Twins article ;) Vicki didn’t talk to anyone other than her coworkers and our pal Lisa on that night.

Jason comes out of his room when Tim trips on the coffee table in his hurry to stand. “What’s up?”

Tim hands him the phone. Jason’s eyes grow wide. “I don’t care about subtlety. We’re both going after this chick.”

“Agreed.”

“Should we wait for Steph? She’s gonna be mad that we went when she’s in class.”

“Jason, Steph doesn’t live here.”

“Doesn’t she, though?”

“We’re not waiting for Steph. She’s not involved.”

“Aight, but when she’s bitching I’m gonna say I remembered her and you said no.”

They leave their bikes behind first for stealth sake, but mostly because the place they’re going isn’t that far from their place. Tim shivers at the thought of someone so dangerous living near him. He wonders what kind of information Lisa might have gathered and for how long she’d been watching them. Is she a new enemy? Perhaps a member of the league?

The shitty building she lives in doesn’t suggest that. It’s just another grimy Gotham apartment complex that didn’t age well. The place they’re looking for doesn’t have a balcony, only a useless fire escape so rusty it would probably crumble under any sign of flames. It’s a perfect hiding spot, because nothing suggests a villain lives there. It’s just a building, home to many underpaid bachelors, nothing too suspicious about it.

Red Robin reminds Hood of that before they nod to each other and split. Jason goes into the building with a ton of confidence, for such a big guy trying to go unnoticed. Tim uses his grapple to reach the right window, not trusting that fire escape for even a second.

The window is open and he finds himself looking at a place not that different from the one Jason lived before moving in with Tim. Mismatched furniture of the living suggests whoever lives there didn’t have money for fancy decor or that they don’t mind how the place looks. However, something about the place looks… well, lived in. It doesn’t look like a criminal temporary hideout, but rather someone’s place.

As he hesitates, a woman walks in. The woman of the picture, Lisa Harris. Her long blonde hair had been tied in a knot on top of her head and she’s getting ready for bed, if her oversized T-shirt and pajama pants say anything. She’s holding a bowl of cereal.

She reminds him of Steph and that causes him to hesitate for a second. What if this girl is innocent? Their evidence is circumstantial. Maybe she just happened to talk to Vicki Vale at the wrong time.

That hesitation costs him dearly. The woman appears to feel his eyes burning the back of her head. She glances at the window and their gazes meet.

Crap.

Lisa inhales sharply and drops her cereal bowl. Before he can reassure her of anything, she’s bolting for the door. He pats himself in the back for his backup plan, because just as she opens the door she runs right into Red Hood’s chest. Lisa stumbles backwards, her expression horrified.

“Knock knock?” Hood quips.

She lets out a squeak and guilt makes Tim wince. Once again he opens his mouth to tell her they’re not here to hurt her when she… vanishes.

She simply disappears right in front of their eyes.

“Shit, she’s a meta,” Hood hisses.

Red Robin’s thoughts fly a thousand miles per hour, finally making the conexions he stupidly missed for so long. Of freaking course. He was so used to dealing with a bunch of idiots in colorful costumes and assassins and whatnot he hadn’t taken in consideration that ninjas aren’t the only exceptional enemies they face. And if his theory is correct.

“She’s still here,” he says. “If I’m right, she can turn invisible. That’s how she’s been listening to private conversations.”

A soft gasp follows his statement and Hood is moving almost as fast as Red Robin’s insights. An invisible woman is still solid and her clumsy footsteps are still audible, so on the moment that follows Jason seems to embrace air.

“No!” She cries out, flashing in and out of sight for a few seconds.

“Careful,” Red Robin warns.

Hood is wearing his helmet, but Tim knows him well enough to know his brother is glaring at him as if saying duh?

Lisa tries to stomp on Hood’s feet, she squirms and grunts, but he doesn't budge. Apparently invisibility is her only power and she looks terrified.

“It’s okay!” Red Robin hurries to say. “We’re not going to hurt you!”

She turns her frantic gaze to him. Her brown eyes suddenly become watery.

Shit.

“Hood, let her go,” Red Robin says.

“Seriously?”

“Yes. You’re not going to try to escape again, are you, Lisa? We just want to ask a few questions.”

He wishes they had waited for Steph.

Lisa hesitates, paralysed, but slowly nods. Her eyes never leave Red Robin once their gazes met, not even to check whether Hood is going to let her go or not.

“Hood,” he calls again.

Groaning something about being too trusting, Jason lets her go. He is gentle about it, too, making sure to let her feet touch the floor carefully instead of simply dropping her. Regardless, as soon as she’s left to stand on her own legs, her knees give in and she drops on the floor. At that, Tim can tell even Jason is hiding guilt behind his helmet.

He shakes his head to regain focus and crouches in front of the woman. If at this point they just apologize and leave, they’ll have traumatizes this poor woman for nothing.

“Lisa Harris,” he starts. “That’s your name, right?”

She trembles when he says her name and that should have been the first red flag. He blames it on the stressful situation and moves on.

“I’m sorry for startling you,” he says. He keeps his expression empty, even if he again can tell Jason is cringing at the understatement. “No one here is going to hurt you. We just want some answers. Is that alright?”

Her hands are balled tightly on her lap as though she’s making a lot of effort not to move them - perhaps to punch them, defend herself? But again she doesn’t look prone to start a fight.

“You’re him,” she whispers, her voice heavy with… something. It almost sounds like affection. “You’re really the Red Robin. In my room.”

That red flag is harder to ignore. He is about to check for other shock symptoms when Hood calls.

“Hmm… Red? Are you seeing that?”

He follows his brother’s gaze… and his chin drops. On the wall opposite to the door hangs a giant corkboard. On the corkboard, held by black and red tacks there are dozens of Red Robin pictures. Some blurry, some taken from so far that you can barely be sure it’s really Red Robin or not, the infamous picture of the thumb war (demon horns had been disturbingly scribbled on Jason on that one) and… He doesn’t have words.

“You’re my hero!” Lisa claims.

“Is he? I couldn’t tell,” Hood says.

Red Robin punches his knee, which is all he can reach from where he is, and turns his attention to the woman in front of him.

“Lisa, for how long have you been following me?”

“Since you saved me,” she says. “Well… Hm. You didn’t save me. But you stopped a heist at the Central Bank a couple of months ago and I was there. I could've died without you.”

Aw, crap on a stick.

“Do you… do you know who I am?”

“You’re Red Robin,” she repeats.

“He’s asking about his identity behind the mask.”

The way she glares at Jason doesn’t suggest she had been shaking in fear moments ago. “He’s Red Robin,” she insists. “I don’t need anything else.”

“If you don’t know… how do you have so many…” Hood gestures vaguely at her creepy corkboard.

“I did detective work,” she says and glances at Red Robin as if expecting a pat on the back. “I noticed you always go on patrol on mondays, wednesdays, fridays and saturdays. Then if I wandered around long enough… It was just a matter of hard work and bit of luck, really.”

Damn. Now that Tim thinks about it, the one time he went on patrol spontaneously was also the night Vicki Vale found him by coincidence rather than magically knowing what happened.

“Fuuuuck,” Hood groans. “I told B patrol schedule was a dumb idea!” Then, in a deep growly voice, “ It’s a matter of efficiency Hood, don’t be paranoid. Who’s paranoid now, Batloser?”

“Not the time, Hood.”

“Right. Proceed.”

Red Robin sighs. “Why did you sell my pictures to Vicki Vale?”

At that, Lisa looks suddenly ashamed. “I.. I’m sorry. I thought… I thought you were involved with him and I panicked. I thought… I thought seeing what it would do to your reputation would make you see that he’s not good enough for you.”

“Rude.”

“Hood.”

“What? She is.”

“I was trying to learn more about him, you know? I was. When I found out he was your brother, I realized you had no option, right? Family is family. I even told the news again to clean your record.”

So he had a stalker. A stalker concerned about his love life, no less, that’s… great. Just great. Of all the scenarios he considered they’d have to face, this is not one of them. Before he decides what to do, however, Lisa speaks up again.

“You sound so… nice.”

Tim stares at her in confusion, unsure whether to thank her or not. Regardless, she didn’t sound like she was complimenting him.

“I mean… aren’t I supposed to be?”

“No! I mean… you’re… you’re dark and brooding and serious and you don’t waste time with civilians unless forced…” She frowns and Tim figures she’s thinking about the night with the strippers. “You’re… the night.”

Jason snorts. Tim punches his knee again. “Lisa, I’m pretty sure you’re thinking of Batman, not me.”

Her expression twists in such fury both vigilantes prepare to restrain her, but instead of directing her anger at them, Lisa scoffs.

“Don’t get me started on Batman! All that crap about being mysterious and working alone? Then he joins the freaking Justice League? Just… Batman, in the middle of a bunch of rainbow wearing clowns. And then… all those freaking kids. Why does he have so many kids?”

“Lady, we ask ourselves that everyday,” Tim admits.

Lisa is wearing the same expression Krystal had when Red Robin denied his relationship with Hood.

“I’m sorry, Lisa, I’m grateful that you admire me, but you can’t keep following me like this.”

Her eyes teary again, Lisa swallows dry. “Clearly, if you’re sorry about it.”

They can’t exactly take her to Arkham for taking pictures. Tim feels less bad about the whole thing when the woman stands and starts telling them in a very loud voice to get the hell out of her house.

“Fine,” Jason says, heading to the corkboard. “But I’m taking this.”

“Take it,” she shouts. “I don’t need it anymore. You’re just like Batman!”

And that’s how Red Hood and Red Robin find themselves standing in the middle of a dusty hallway, Hood with a conspiracy board under his arm.

Well, that happened.

In the end, Steph was furious about them going to the stalker’s house by themselves, but there was not a lot she could do except doodle on every picture of the stalker board.

There must be something very wrong with their sense of humor, because their text group becomes a mess of jokes about the stalker Robin being stalked. At that Tim has no problem exercising Jason’s lessons in holding grudges and refuses to help them with any of their cases unless they stop it. The thing is that all of them find the whole thing hilarious.

All of them except Duke.

“Give it a while,” Tim tells him. “You’re the most recent acquisition to the family. In due time your idea of funny will be just as warped as ours.”

“Hm. When was the last time you slept, Timmy?” Duke asks.

“Tuesday.”

“Today is Tuesday.”

“Hahahaha yeah.”

“... Jaaaaasooon! Come over here! Tim is going into The Ring territory! Do something about it!”

Bruce doesn’t find it funny either. He isn’t happy that there’s a deranged meta he didn’t know about, but Tim thinks that was the least surprising part of the whole ordeal. He reckons a lot of metas doesn’t want to be a hero or a villain, they’re just regular people that live regular lives and happened to win in the metagene lottery.

Or… well. In Lisa’s case, not so regular.

And that’s why upon hearing the story for the first time, Bruce completely freaks out. He starts considering possibilities from scaring the woman as Batman - “That’s a terrible idea, dad, you heard she likes that shit,” says Dick over facetime - or having her arrested - “Father, having bad taste in men is hardly a crime. She has yet to do anything to harm Timothy” Damian helpfully reminds him - and finally to fill out a restraining order - “For who, Karen?” Jason snaps. “Red Robin? Or you want to walk into that nut job and tell her she’s not allowed near Tim Drake-Wayne?”

Long story short, it’s chaos. Tim has had enough of a crazy night, so he sits back near the training area of the cave and sips the tea Alfred made him. Bruce is doing Tim’s stressed out circuit, pacing back and forth around the cave while his children follow him - Damian is holding the phone higher than his head so Dick can talk to Bruce at eye level - and they try to talk him out of doing anything stupid.

Most of them, anyway. It looks like Duke is definitely looking into the possibility of a restraining order.

Cass detaches herself from the mess and heads towards Tim. She looks calm, as Cass always does, and some of that calm transfers to him. When she takes a seat by his side, he smiles at her.

“Okay?” she asks.

Tim shrugs. “Weirded out, mostly. I’ll be fine.”

She points at her then signs Tim’s house as a question. She’s asking him if he wants her to come over.

While Cass is one hell of a bodyguard, Tim thinks of Steph, who’s most definitely playing with his video games back at home, and of Jason, whose schedule mostly matches Tim’s, hence he is, more often than not, at one shout of distance. Tim can’t think of any place that feels safer than his home right now.

“I’m fine. Jay and Steph are taking care of me. I’ll just have to be twice as careful during patrol,” he says.

Cass nods, satisfied. She gives him a forehead kiss and leans against his side. The two of them watch their family yell at each other for the next ten minutes, matching serene smiles on their faces.

Bruce settles for keeping Lisa under occasional watch.

Barbara stalks her online and finds that Lisa has left a Red Robin fanclub (Tim did not know those existed) and closed all of her threads on the Red Robin subreddit (Tim knew about those, but kept his distance), making it seem that learning that Red Robin is just a polite-ish kid really killed her love.

Bruce says he’ll keep tabs on her because he know she’s a meta, it’s not like he’s being overprotective, he totally knows Tim can take care of himself, really.

Other than that, Bruce is way too happy about Jason’s new living arrangement. He even almost smiles.

Tim… is fine. The whole thing is creepy, for sure, but he finds out that his siblings making so many jokes about it makes it easier to handle. Yay for their unhealthy coping mechanisms.

He doesn’t think he will ever be okay with media, though. It’s annoying enough that he has to deal with reporters as Tim Drake-Wayne, he definitely doesn’t need the attention as Red Robin.

Luckily for him, his siblings help him with that too. One time he’s wrapping a gang bust with Nightwing when a reporter comes running towards them, begging for a few answers. Red Robin cringes inwardly realizing there are no close buildings to use his grapple, but before he can say anything, Nightwing squeezes his shoulder.

“Go, Timmy. I’ve got this.”

Tim smile. “Thanks, Dick.”

And he leaves the silent and swift way only a Bat can do.

Things are great. As great as they can be in Gotham, at least. Tim wakes up at 9am - an early time for a vigilante, but he got at least 5 hours of sleep, so that’s something - and heads to the kitchen. He finds Steph (who still swears she doesn’t live with them) and Jason bickering over pancakes they’re making. Smiling to himself, Tim mumbles a good morning and starts washing the dirty dishes from last night.

The peaceful morning is interrupted by Steph’s phone buzzing. She use a paper towel to clean her hands before checking it and…

“Uh… Timbers?” she calls.

He freezes, the pan he’s washing suddenly forgotten. “What now?”

Steph is trembling with contained laughter when she hands him the phone. Duke just sent her a link to a news article. Tim clicks and finds himself staring at the headline RIVALRY BETWEEN HEROES? followed by a clear picture of Nightwing and a blurry shot of Red Robin.

The article follows:

After dealing with an infamous gang of contrabandists that operated near Gotham’s harbor, Nightwing and Red Robin went their separate ways without much courtesy. Despite the short collab, it appears that Red Robin didn’t appreciate Nighwing’s help, his farewell words being a sarcastic “thanks” followed by calling Bludhaven’s hero a “dick”.

Tim raises his eyes to the other two. Steph is hiding her face into the crook of Jason’s neck, her shoulders still trembling a bit. Having read the article over Steph’s shoulder, Jason is biting his lip.

Tim deadpans: “This is the funniest shit that ever happened to me.”

The three of them explode in laughter and they cackle for a good minute, until the three of them are breathless and their cheeks hurt.

“I-I want to print that and frame it,” Steph manages between giggles. “Let’s hang it on the living room.”

“Good… ahaha… Good work, Timbers,” Jason says, smiling wide. “For that, you can have extra pancakes.”

Tim is still grinning when he goes back to his dish duty. Maybe being under the media attention isn't so bad after all.

#batfam #red robin #tim drake #jason todd #red hood #stephanie brown #red bros #poteto writing #lmao here take this

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violetsmoak · 5 years ago

Text

Philtatos [3/?]

https://archiveofourown.org/works/20101543/chapters/47654632

Blanket Disclaimer

Summary: During a patrol where Red Hood and Red Robin cross paths, Jason is infected with the blood of the Eros, the ancient God of Love, who informs them that they must track down his missing bow and arrows, or Jason will go slowly mad with an obsessive desire–for Tim. Though overwhelmed by the sudden attention being paid to him, Tim sets to work trying to solve the case, before Jason succumbs to madness. In the meantime, Jason discovers that there’s more than godlike powers at work here, as well as a legacy that reaches back through the sands of time.

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

Beta Reader: None at the moment.

JayTimBingo Prompts This Chapter: # fate #gods in disguise #reincarnation #secrets #titans #wings

First Chapter

________________________________________________________________

As a general rule, Tim avoids going to Batburger when in uniform; it feels as if he’s endorsing a company that capitalizes on cape and rogue identities, and which he knows for a fact treats their employees like chattel.

But apparently mythological gods of love have insane metabolic needs.

He makes a mental note to ask Bart to send some of those special high-calorie protein bars he eats. There’s no way Tim intends to spend valuable time playing delivery boy if Jason’s in trouble.

He frowns at the thought, causing the girl at the takeout counter to step back nervously.

Jason was his usual charming self tonight. But it was a bit off.

The older vigilante, never the paragon of patience and gratitude, was on a hair-trigger tonight. Under normal circumstances, there’s more verbal sparring between them before Jason things get physical. Even then, their altercations are usually because some villain is trying to pit them against each other.

Or he really was just pissed off I was following him.

But Tim can’t help thinking that’s not it. The whole thing has been nagging him since the night before, drowning out what would normally be frustration and hurt after his encounter with the Red Hood. There’s no time to be hurt when there’s a problem to solve.

Tim accepts his order, and after ensuring it’s triple-bagged, tips the girl at the counter for her time before taking off. Swinging across the rooftops of Gotham carrying ten times more than he ever buys for himself is too awkward, so he ends up jumping on the roof of a passing bus and riding it toward the old theater district.

His eyes automatically flick to the passing buildings, wondering if his progression away from Jason’s part of town is being watched from up top.

Or if he should be ducking an impending sniper shot.

Jason’s words echo on repeat in his mind, needling deeper each time. It shouldn’t sting as much as it does, but they were just getting to a good place in terms of trust.

“If I need help, I’ll ask. And chances are, I won’t be asking you.”

“So much for that,” Tim mutters to himself as he prepares to disembark from his ride.

Upon arriving back at the Nest, he skips changing out of his gear and heads straight for the subbasement. The containment unit there was build with Poison Ivy and Scarecrow related emergencies in mind, but it’s come in handy since he acquired an Olympian roommate of sorts.

Normal protocol after a twenty-four-hour observation period would be to send Eros off to a prison for metahumans, but Tim is wary about giving up custody of him any time soon. The potential danger to Jason aside, he’ll need to get his hands on a good deal of null technology and fortified transportation just to move the guy without setting off his powers.

That memory induces a shudder; it’s been a day, and he’s still tasting pomegranate.

Tim doesn’t wish that on anyone. And if that lack of control seizes Jason, forcing him to throw himself at Tim like a ravenous dog?

A visceral swirl of nausea settles in Tim’s gut. Jason’s always had strong ideas on consent, even before his death. It’s one of the few things that didn’t change following his resurrection. If Jason becomes the very thing he’s been fighting his whole life, Tim worries he’ll break for real this time, and in a manner very different than when he first broke The Rule.

Tim isn’t going to let that happen, even if that means working with an entitled godling that’s already become more trouble than he’s worth.

It was hard enough just getting him here, the guy’s way heavier than he looks…

He wonders if it’s the wings, if their mass is still discernible even when they are out of the visual spectrum, and how strong they’d have to be to carry something person-sized. They probably aren’t like a birds’ appendages, and Eros is clearly not hollow-boned, so either they’re extremely well-muscled or of some metaphysical material construct that—

“Hey! Are you going to feed me at some point, darlin’? Or is part of your brand of hospitality enforced starvation?”

Tim jolts back to present from his drifting thoughts and glances across the open space of the Nest toward the containment unit. It’s a hundred square feet of bulletproof glass and filtered air designed by S.T.A.R Labs specifically to counteract the abilities of metas and other enhanced humans.

Eros lounges on his cot, wings out and examining the feathers with his lips pressed together. He’s been annoyed with Tim since waking up in the in custody, though Tim thinks he’s more upset about the whole being knocked-out thing. There’s some kind of telenovela playing in the background.

He wasn’t sure how long he was going to have his guest, so while Eros was still unconscious, Tim hooked up a television screen inside, and brought several books and a mp3 player. He also brought every piece of art from his apartment upstairs and crammed it inside the unit. Eros’ abilities may not have affected Tim when he put him in there (this time), covered as he was, but as those powers grow beyond his control, he’s going to want to siphon it off however he can.

Eros finally looks up at Tim, narrowing his eyes. “For your sake, I hope you got the fries Jokerized. And your channel selection sucks. What kid your age doesn’t have at least one Adult channel?”

“The kind that finds them gross and exploitative.” Tim makes a face as he pushes back his cowl, though he keeps his domino on.

And who has two full-time jobs that make sitting down to watch anything like that pretty much impossible.

He can’t remember the last time he went on a date or did anything nearing the realms of sexual. Normally he just sees to his needs in the shower and that’s that, since there’s no time for much else. He’s even gotten in the habit of not taking more than five minutes so he can do other things. What’s the point of taking longer if there’s no one there with him?

Eros is watching him with a cruel twist to his lips, and Tim’s ears warm. He has a flash of worry that the Olympian can read minds but then decides if Eros had that ability, he’d be using it mock Tim by now. The guy's sort of a dick.

Tim scowls at the notion and opens the hatch in the side of the unit and shoves the takeout bag inside, punching in the code to decontaminate the area.

Eros gets up from the cot, stretching in a languid movement that’s distracting for reasons other than his shirtless state, and stalks over to the hatch on the other side. As he moves, he brushes his fingers across a bronze Grecian krater from the Classical period. Something like golden wisps of smoke swirl around it and then settles into the piece, which gleams a bit brighter.

He wasn’t kidding about that, I guess.

Eros clutches at the takeout bag and begins unloading it on the table by the door hatch, stuffing fries in his mouth and making borderline pornographic noises that have Tim swallowing uncomfortably.

“So where’s Tall, Dark and Angry?” the Olympian asks. “I figured you’d be wrangling him back here—force him into a sweet set-up like this one.”

He kicks at the glass.

“There’s no wrangling when it comes to J—Red Hood.”

“And you’re not worried at all?”

Tim considers the last meeting and carefully says, “He seemed fine when I ran into him tonight.”

But he can’t quite hide his unease. Eros picks up on it.

“You get that that’s only temporary, right?” he asks, stuffing a handful of fries in his mouth.

“I also know that going at Hood head-on isn’t the way to convince him of anything. He’s got to reach out for help himself. The most I can do is monitor him from a distance until he’s ready.”

He wanders over to his main computer and brings up the tracking program for the bug he planted on Jason when he grabbed him tonight. The other man was more distracted than he let on if he didn’t notice Tim slip it on him.

And he hasn’t gotten rid of it, judging from this.

It’s not making a quick exit via sewer or a passing truck, which is par for the course when ditching a tracker. He’s chased enough of those to know what that pattern looks like. And when Tim pulls up camera footage from the surrounding area, he catches several shots of Jason making his way to the safehouse in Coventry no one’s supposed to know about.

“Really?” Eros drawls. “Are you sure it’s not because you’re perfectly happy with this state of affairs? Maybe you’re hoping you’ll finally get some recognition from the guy you’ve been pining for?”

Tim tenses and turns, forcing a blank look and neutral tone. “I’m not pining for him.”

“Don’t lie to me—God of Love, remember? I could smell it on you the minute you were both in the same room.”

Tim clenches his fists, a pit forming in his stomach at the idea that someone knows, followed by disgust as he registers what Eros just said.

“No, I’m not happy about it,” he growls. “Why would I be happy about him being forced to do something against his will? Especially if it’s giving a crap about me?”

“Hey, no offense meant,” Eros says, holding his hands up in surrender; the effect is ruined by the burgers clutched in each fist. “My mother and I have made a career off guys wanting the object of their affection to pay attention to them, at whatever the cost. And there was no such thing as dick pics back then. It’s kind of a question I’ve got to ask in my line of work.”

“Your line of work? You mean you still fly around the world making people fall in love?”

“Uh, no, human beings fall in love fine on their own. I just…make it happen faster and last longer. To my mother, love is a whimsy, gossamer thing, all moonlit strolls, and flowery words and basking in the newness of it all. For me, it’s fierce. Intense. Something that when denied guts you like a knife and hollows you out with desperation.”

A hungry expression passes over his face that has nothing to do with food, and Tim shivers, disliking how a lot of that sentence is hitting too close to home. Rather than betray his discomfort, he takes a chiding tone. “If that’s what you do, no wonder people kill themselves after bad break-ups. Some people aren’t able to deal with that sort of pain—do you even care?”

“Not particularly. Besides, it’s only the interesting ones we get involved with. They tend to be stronger at heart.”

“Because that makes it so much better!”

“Do I tell you how to do your job? No. So how about I get a little less judgment and a little more ‘start finding my diviners’ from you?”

“Oh, we’re going to find them,” Tim says, fighting to control his anger. Whether I’m letting you have them back is another story entirely. If I can figure out some way to keep you and your bow locked up, it’d save a lot of people grief. “But just so you understand, Red Hood is my priority here, not you or your toys.”

“Really?” Eros purrs, sneering skepticism on his face. “Even though I could ensure he starts to return those pesky feelings of yours? In a less life-threatening way, of course.”

“He might not even be affected.”

“Naivety’s not a good look on you, darlin’. But seriously—all I have to do is use an arrow, and you two could retire from the cape gig and go antiquing in New England once this is all over.”

Tim snorts at the ridiculous image and shakes his head. “No.”

“Really? You’re still willing to fight for him, even if he goes back to treating you like an afterthought if you help him?”

“When I help him. And it’s not like it would be something new.”

And, yeah, that still hurts.

Eros huffs, his expression suggesting he’s not sure what to think of that, and then shakes his head.

“Self-sacrificing as ever,” he pronounces and pops the top on a can of Zesti.

Tim puzzles at that remark for all of five seconds, when the screen of his computer lights up with an incoming transmission from Titans Tower. Tim accepts it and the screen fills with a familiar face.

For the first time that night, his mouth smooths into a genuine smile. “Hey, Cassie.”

“Red Robin,” she replies, eyes flicking over him as if to assess him for injury or danger.

She keeps to his rules about secret identities in his base. Sometimes he wishes his identity was public like hers—and then he remembers that he gets enough unwanted attention as Tim Drake-Wayne, it would be worse if people knew for sure he was Red Robin.

Vicki Vale would be the first in line to turn my life into some kind of reality TV show…

“You tried to get a hold of me earlier?” his friend asks, and Tim nods. He’s never been the type to leave anything to chance, and last night while Eros was still conked out, he shot an email to Cassie asking her to get back to him as soon as she could.

“How are things in California?”

“A hell of a lot warmer than where you are, but I don’t think you want to talk about the weather.”

“Nope. How much have you heard about Eros?”

“Eros?” she asks. “Like Cupid?”

“Really?” the winged Olympian groans. “You too? You’re supposed to know better.”

Cassie’s eyes narrow as she takes note of the figure in the containment unit behind him. “Who is that?”

“He says his name’s Eros, and from what I’ve seen, I’m inclined to believe him.”

Eros gives Cassie a smarmy smile. “Hello, Auntie. Nice to meet you finally.”

She wrinkles her nose, and Tim can’t help mirroring the expression. “And I thought my family was messed up.”

“Your family is messed up,” she retorts. “Mine’s just been doing it longer.”

“Touché.”

“So, why’s he in a cage?”

“The real question is why isn’t he gagged,” Tim replies, earning a smirk from Cassie and an offended ‘hey!’ from his detainee. “Basically, he’s losing control of his powers and when that happens apparently there will be a nuclear explosion of desire.”

And that’s possible the weirdest sentence he’s ever said.

“Super orgy,” Eros agrees. “Which though fun in theory, is a lot messier than any of us want.”

Cassie and Tim shudder.

“Not that Gotham couldn’t use a collective chill pill,” Cassie says, “but that sounds like an easy fix. You’ve got him locked up, send him on to Iron Heights or one of the other places that have meta containment.”

“Hey! What’d I ever do to you?!”

“I would, but there’s a complication,” Tim sighs. “He was wounded in an altercation involving a bunch of mobsters, and some of his blood infected a human—no, not me.” He is quick to add that at her widening eyes. “But the individual in question isn’t exactly known for being in control of their emotions. They have a history of trauma as well that could turn this into an issue, so I need to find a cure as soon as possible. Preferably before the symptoms Eros insists are coming manifest.”

He purposefully downplays Jason’s involvement, since the Titans aren’t his biggest fans. Even the ones who weren’t around at the time have heard the story of unconscious bodies, a message written in blood and Tim nearly dying. Heroes are supposed to be above grudges, but they are still teenagers.

“Not sure what I can do for you on that front…”

“Eros says his arrows will reverse it, but they’re missing, along with his bow. I’m looking for that. But I have to find out how bad this could potentially get, and how long it will take.”

“I could tell you that,” Eros grumbles.

“I need independent corroboration because I don’t believe he’s being completely honest with me,” Tim finishes, ignoring him.

“I know nothing beyond what I’ve heard in the stories, and those you have to take with a grain of salt,” Cassie muses.

“Told you,” Eros informs Tim.

“But I’ll contact a few people in my family. They might know something concrete.”

“Thanks,” Tim says, relieved. “Other than that, everything’s good with the Titans?”

“Just the usual stuff. Nothing end-of-the-world bad this week, but it’s only Tuesday.”

“Don’t jinx it!”

“We live in a jinx,” Cassie replies with a roll of her eyes. There’s a crash somewhere in the distance, and the trumpeting of an elephant and she winces.

“Beast Boy?”

“I’ll see you later, Red, I’ve got an idiot to kill,” Cassie sighs.

“Isn’t it fun being the leader?”

“Shut up.”

The screen goes blank, and Tim can’t help his grin.

“So, you know my aunt.”

The grin vanishes as he turns to face Eros. “First, stop calling her that, it’s weird. Second, she’s with the Titans. Of course I know her.”

“Titans,” the Olympian scoffs. “You call yourselves that, but you’ve never met an actual Titan. They were formidable warriors. So fearsome they had to be thrown into the deepest pit of Hades to ensure they never rose up again to threaten the gods.”

“Clearly they weren’t all that if they got locked up,” Tim retorts, offended on behalf of his team.

Miraculously, Eros has nothing to say to that.

⁂

Jason wakes to the sensation of lips between his shoulder blades and someone’s fingers sliding down the curl of his spine. He grumbles in dozy annoyance, shoving his face deeper into his pillow. It took him way too long to fall asleep last night, his overactive imagination plying him with thoughts he does not want to be having. Whoever’s bothering him is about to—

He jerks upward then, fingers clenching around the pistol beside his bed and whirls around to aim at whatever intruder has slipped into his room.

Because he went to sleep alone last night, and no one should know about this safehouse or how to bypass his security.

(Well, obviously there are the members of the Family, but Jason’s fairly confident none of them would be waking him like that.)

He faces the emptiness of the room, breathing hard as he tries to gather his wits. The space is too sparsely furnished for someone to find a place to hide, the shadows already eaten away by the sunlight. There’s no question he’s utterly alone, gun pointed at nothing and his body heaving like he just went three rounds with Bane.

What the hell…

He lowers the gun, scowling, and rubs the back of his head with his free hand. He’s used to having realistic dreams, but that’s new…

Jason scrubs a hand down his face, gives one last bleary glance at his surroundings, and heaves himself out of bed. There’s no way he’s falling back to sleep after this.

He’s distracted the rest of the morning, paranoia higher than usual as he takes second and third glances around the room before getting in the shower. He really shouldn’t have skipped it last night, because his skin is sticky with dried blood.

The wound in his shoulder is completely gone now.

If he’s learned anything in his life it’s not to ignore when things magically appear or disappear.

And yet…

If he acknowledges it, it means acknowledging the fact that he’s starting to fixate—hell, already is fixating—on Tim, and that’s something he can’t give in to.

Repressing shit is a time-honored Bat tradition, and he decides for once he’s going to partake for as long as possible. He’s still able to function, which means there might still time for him to figure all of this out on his own.

He returns to the location of Eros’ warehouse, hoping to find some trace evidence left from the night before. If he can get an analysis of the blood that infected him—

Except, the person he’d usually ask for that is the one he should be avoiding at all costs. The other options are ten times as unpalatable.

Damn it.

It turns out there’s nothing to be found anyhow, although Jason isn’t sure it’s because someone cleaned it up (the GCPD crime scene cleaners or the ever-diligent Red Robin) or because maybe Olympian blood doesn’t stick around. His wound is healed like it was never there, it’s possible it’s the same with the blood.

The day gets steadily more discouraging.

The first time Jason hears the voices, he’s in the middle of busting up a shipment of drugs he stumbled onto while leaving the warehouse district. The Triad flunkies seeing to said shipment aren’t exactly happy to see him, which is why things quickly devolve into fisticuffs.

As one of the knife-wielding henchmen take a run at him, Jason crouches, ready to engage, when without warning, someone whispers in his ear.

“Ready to lose?”

“Do your worst, infant.”

Somehow, he can feel warm breath along his jaw, even though he’s wearing his helmet.

Jason jerks to one side, prepared to pull whoever is behind him over his shoulder, only to find the air behind him empty. His pause allows his opponent to shove his knife at his ribs.

Body armor and his own deflection abilities keep the blow from being fatal, but the rest of the fight, Jason is thrown. There’s no one else but him and the Triads, but the sensation of someone hovering behind him doesn’t disappear.

Tim?

He’s looking for him before he even registers it, stepping over the groaning bodies of his opponents and examining the shadows for any sign of Red Robin. It would be just like him to sit and watch from the shadows, the little stalker. Dick told him stories about what little Timmy was like as a kid, and it wouldn’t surprise him if he still liked to sneak around with a camera.

That idea makes the blood rush to his cheeks for some reason.

Disappointment rises when he confirms he’s completely alone—followed by the queasy realization of what he was just doing.

He doesn’t even bother calling the GCPD to do a clean-up as he flees the scene.

As he stitches himself up later in his safe house, Jason eyes his reflection in the mirror, glaring at himself in reprimand. He should be stronger than this, damn it! If not because of his All-Caste training, then even thanks to Bruce’s insane regimens for dealing with poisons.

His gaze flicks over his scarred body, assessing the damage. He’s used to the litany of scars that cut across his skin, this latest is just part of a growing collection. The other one, though—

He studies the healed part of his shoulder and swallows.

If he hadn’t known there was something wrong with it before, healing as quickly as it did, he knows now. The raised skin of the new scar looks as if it’s been glossed over with gold; fine threads of it follow the surrounding capillaries like loose threads.

If this is some kind of King Midas deal, I’m going to kill that winged douche. Though, turning into a golden statue is potentially a better outcome than what could happen if what Eros said was true. At least this time Bruce will have something better to stick in the case than an empty suit.

The grim humor usually makes him feel marginally better; today it doesn’t.

After that, the voices are everywhere he goes, needling at him in a way that is somehow more present than the insanity of the Pit, more maddening. At least when he was driven by an insane rage, the voices egging him on made sense. There was a purpose, a logic behind their prompting.

“Always planning, aren’t you?”

“Well, someone has to.”

The whispers that dog him are more like snatches of a picture or a dream, without context, and yet each word murmured to him falls on him like a searing iron on his heart.

“Should e’er I go, will you go with me?”

In the next few days, things get steadily worse.

Jason’s all but given up on sleep, since every time he closes his eyes, Tim’s face seems engraved on the backs of his eyelids. Only not Tim—sometimes he looks different, but the image is so fleeting Jason couldn’t even explain how. And when it’s not Tim’s face or his voice, then his slumber gets interrupted by vibrant flashes of color and sound. There is warmth and laughter that abruptly turns to crushing, wrenching pain.

“You think of me as a shield?”

“I think of you as my shield.”

“You’ll have to catch me!”

It’s not an echo of the physical, the way nightmares about his death tend to be; the bone-shattering imprint of the metal bar against his bones. No, this pain is something else, a gaping hole, someone shouting into a dark void that no one will ever hear.

“I would that you would leave them all to perish.”

“Bury us together.”

During the day, he experiences a bitter longing, like he’s missing a limb or a lung. By night, his patrols are more vicious, bloodier as he tries to exercise his frustration the best way he knows how. As if hitting harder, and faster, will bleed out whatever is slowly poisoning him.

By the middle of the week, Jason is smoking a pack a day and filled with the manic energy of the perpetually exhausted. He’s started seeing things out of the corner of his eye—full lips tilted upward in amusement, flashes of blue eyes, dark hair disappearing into a crowd—that makes his stomach flip.

“Come back to me.”

He picks his phone up and puts it down several times one morning, each time getting closer to calling Tim until he throws it at the wall. He leaves his apartment before he can do the same to his tablet.

There’s no point carrying out his usual errands, and he ends up wandering aimlessly around the city for a few hours. Somehow he ends up on a building across the street from Wayne Enterprises, staring at the floor where he knows Tim’s office is. Where he knows Tim is.

Even on a case, pretty boy has to be the model employee or no allowance from B.

It would be simple for Jason to get into the building if he wanted to. There’s Bat access points all over the place, and secret corridors and doors. He wouldn’t even need a disguise to keep anyone from recognizing Bruce Wayne’s dead kid.

Yeah, and then what, moron? What exactly is the game plan once you get in?

He can’t even answer himself and lets out a wordless yell of rage that gets lost in the whipping wind.

“Screw this,” Jason growls and turns his back on the WE building. It galls him that it’s difficult to do even that.

Time to get some answers.

Since there haven’t been any reports of arrests of winged metas, he knows exactly where to look. Tim’s as paranoid and as much of a control freak as Bruce, and he’s not about to let a potential resource go before he’s used it to its full potential.

And there’s no way babybird doesn’t have a secret hideout under his place.

It’s a short journey back to the old theater district, or at least it feels that way; Jason’s more distracted than he’d like and barely registers the trip. Once there, he circles the block where Tim’s apartment is located a few times, making sure that there’s no sign of its owner (even though he knowsTim’s at work, there’s a part of him that keeps hoping) and then breaks in.

It’s a bit of effort to disable the security system (the little shit is too paranoid and smart for his own good) and then even longer to start looking for a way into Tim’s base of operations.

He may or may not get side-tracked snooping through the kitchen (no wonder he’s so scrawny, he’s got barely any food in here) and rummaging in the bathroom medical cabinet (at least he’s well-stocked, it’ll keep him from bleeding out the next time he gets injured) and picking through various DVDs (of course Tim has the extended versions of Lord of the Rings, why doesn’t that surprise him?). It’s only when he peeks into Tim’s bedroom, sees the king-sized bed and has a sudden image of the younger man sprawled out on it that Jason remembers the actual reason he’s here and almost runs back downstairs.

It takes longer than he’d like to find the trick to opening the secret door, though when he finds it, he snorts.

Because fish? Really?

When would Tim even have the time or patience to remember to feed them, unless he was coming over to the aquarium every day? It’s the only thing in the apartment that doesn’t feel like Tim.

Jason scowls, wondering when he started being so familiar with Tim’s esthetic. They’ve barely hung out together since his grand and bloody return to Gotham, and they’re both always traveling the world or wide void of space, there hasn’t been the opportunity to get to know the kid. Yes, he once studied his replacement obsessively, but that was to find his weaknesses, to learn how to take him apart, to destroy him and in turn destroy Bruce.

None of that should translate to knowing minutiae like how Tim takes his coffee.

When did I even pick that up? Could it have been that time with the waffles?

His ruminations trail off as he takes in the vast, three-level cavern he’s descended into.

And…okay, this place is way cooler than Jason’s pseudo-Batcave, but he guesses that’s par for the course when a tech nerd whose Daddy bankrolls everything.

Though he doubts Tim would have used Bruce’s money to finance this. He likes his independence; Jason learned that for himself about the time he found the kid holed up in Lex Towers. It’s one of the things he likes about him.

He finds Eros in a containment unit.

Bingo.

The guy has a decent set-up too, from the look of it; he might as well be in a swanky hotel room.

“Back so soon?” Eros calls, not looking up from his show right away. “I thought you had work or whatever it is you humans force yourselves to endu—” He glances up and sees that it’s not Tim, and his sentence trails off, expression becoming almost gleeful as if he’s been waiting for him a while.

“Kairόs dé, poimḗn laôn,” he purrs.

Jason blinks, not understanding the words even as they tug at something in him. It’s like being spoken to in a dream or from beneath running water.

He shakes his head. “Sorry, that’s not one of the languages I had drilled into me.”

Eros’s face morphs instantly.

“Well, you’re no fun,” he says, and though the words are accompanied by a childish pout, Jason thinks he senses actual disappointment there. Normally he might investigate that, but he’s here for a reason, and that involves figuring out what the hell is going on with him.

“You know why I’m here.”

“Indeed,” Eros says. “Starting to get that unscratchable itch, aren’t you?”

“What do you think?”

“I think I warned you and you didn’t believe me. Not sure what you expect me to do about it now.” The Olympian examines his nails.

“Oh, I don’t know--fix it, maybe?!”

“I already told you how to fix it. You could have been helping the pretty boy the past few days and possibly gotten closer to sorting things, but then you had to be all brooding and tortured and stomp off like a teenager.” Eros considers him. “Unrelated, but have you ever actually seen a bird brood? I’m curious, if you took that bucket off, would there be actual similarities?”

Jason tells himself the reason he clenches his fists is because of the Olympian’s flippant manner, and not because he called Tim ‘pretty’.

Which, no, not relevant.

“You said I’d be going out of my mind over T—Red Robin,” Jason growls. “That including hearing voices? Or seeing things that aren’t there?”

“It might? To be honest, I have no idea,” Eros says with a yawn. “I’ve never had anyone with your particular…history exposed to my blood. There’s any number of things it could be.”

“My history,” Jason repeats.

“Well, to start with the most glaringly obvious, you’ve returned from the dead. There’s an odor Revenants like you give off…hm, sort of like dirt and petrichor. If they’re brought back properly, I mean, otherwise it’s all rotting flesh and bodily fluids.” He shudders. “And there’s the unmistakable seal of the All-Caste on you. Ducra’s work, I’m guessing.”

Jason’s mouth twists. “And you can just…tell all that.”

“It’s written in the story of your soul,” Eros intones, and then looks smug, “among other things.”

“Yeah, I’ve seen too much in my time to go for that poetic New Age crap.”

“Oh, it’s far from New Age, boy, it’s from an olden time when men were men—”

“And sheep ran scared?” Jason interrupts. “Spare me the walk down memory lane and just answer my questions.

“You haven’t really asked me anything yet.”

“How long do I have before I completely lose it?”

“Again, no idea. Though no one’s ever made it more than two weeks, and by that point, there’s not really much left to save, if you know what I mean.”

Kind of figured that.

“And before it gets to that point? Is there a way of putting off the…urges?” he almost gags on the word.

“Depends.”

“On?”

Eros smirks. “On how far the object of your obsession is willing to go to save you.”

Rage frissons through Jason’s body. “Fuck you. That’s not happening.”

“Then you’d better get your affairs in order and say your goodbyes, et cetera…”

“I’m going to kill you.”

“Oh, do try,” Eros sniggers. “Birdboy took great pains to tell me there’s no way into this shiny prison cell unless you unlock the door from the outside. And if you walk in here now…well, you might end up seeing those troubling hallucinations and hearing those whispers a little more clearly following a second exposure.”

Jason snarls with rage and punches the glass in front of Eros’s face; it doesn’t even make a dent, and his knuckles immediately burn with pain.

“Feel better now?” Eros simpers, and then his face goes cold. “I don’t care if it’s with or without your little crush, it’s in everyone’s best interest to get my toys out of the world and back in my hands as soon as possible. You two have already withstood enough tragedy, don’t you think?”

“That written on my soul, too?” Jason spits but doesn’t wait for an answer. He whirls around and stalks away from the containment unit. This was a waste of time, and he needs to get out of here before Tim returns.

He’s not sure what he’d do if he actually ran into the other vigilante just now.

But one thing’s for sure: he’s going to have to start taking this seriously.

Knowing Tim’s already investigating the bow and arrow angle, Jason decides on a different take. There’s something not entirely above board about Eros, and Jason has no illusions the guy wouldn’t screw them over in a second. He’s calculating, like Tim, except in the Olympian’s case, the only one to benefit from that calculation is himself.

And there are some things he says that don’t jive. Jason’s not sure what exactly he’s been picking up on—going over all of their interactions, there’s nothing that stands out—but his gut is telling him there’s more going on here than the Olympian is telling.

The problem is, who the hell is going to help him out with this?

He can’t work with Tim, for obvious reasons, and contacting Bruce or Dick to use their Themysciran connections is right out. He doesn’t have any of his own, not really—Donna doesn’t really talk to him anymore. Even if he did have an in somewhere, he’d want to have at least enough background on the issue to understand whatever mindfuck logic usually comes along when dealing with Olympians or magic or anything like that.

He needs information, and he knows who he needs to reach out to to get it since Tim isn’t an option. He’s not looking forward to it.

It’s always a toss-up if she’ll help or not.

Or make him beg or demand a favor in exchange.

Though at this point, the sooner he unravels the shitstorm that his life is devolving into, the better. Then he can hightail it out of Gotham and not come back until he and Tim have forgotten all about this little bit of awkwardness. Perhaps get back to the Ally-Possibly-Friend-Kinda-Brother-Sort Of? thing.

And so, before he can talk himself out of it, he taps into the private comm line to Oracle, the one he purposefully keeps muted whenever he’s back in town.

“Red Hood,” the familiar digital voice acknowledges a few seconds later.

“I need a favor.”

“Will wonders never cease.”

“I’ve been asking myself that for years.”

“You’ve been pretty adamant about not wanting help from me,” she remarks, and even with the lack of intonation he can hear the rebuke and rolls his eyes.

“Look, can we skip the guilt-trip? I’ll owe you.”

“I know you will.”

“It’s more your research skills than hacking.”

“Oh?”

“I need to know as much as you can find about the Greek god Eros.”

Oracle is quiet for a long moment, and he wonders if she hasn’t logged off, but then she says, “Does this have anything to do with Red Robin asking me to watch for reports of individuals carrying a bow and arrows over the past few weeks?”

“It might,” Jason allows, a smile in his voice at the mention of Tim. He forces that back down, mentally castigating himself.

None of that!

“Are you two working a case?”

“Sort of. Not together—” Definitely not together! “—but same case. We’re approaching it from different angles.”

“But you’re reaching out to me, which you don’t do unless things have the potential to take a turn for the worse.”

“I’m reaching out to you so that they won’t have to later on, and that’s all I’m going to say. Can you help me or not?”

Another pause.

“It will take some time.”

“We’ve got less than two weeks. Think you can manage that?”

“What did you boys get yourselves into this time?” Oracle sighs. Her cooperation is implied, and Jason relaxes a hair.

Things are going to be fine.

“Thanks,” he says, and then pauses. “So, when you spoke to him—Red Robin, I mean. How did he sound?”

Or not.

⁂⁂⁂

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