library card

by mikkal

Summary:

Jason Todd, Red Hood, and the Park Row Public Library (and her librarians).

Notes:

this is the very FIRST Jason Todd fic I wrote. I've been sitting on about 14.5k words of this and discord helped me decide to finish it up. Hope you enjoy!

(Please be mindful of the "Unreliable Narrator" tag, due to the framing device it's very important.)

Jason is freezing. He puffs hot air into his cupped hands, shrugs to bundle his threadbare hoodie up around his neck. It does nothing much, just momentary relief that disappears far too soon. His nose is red, his fingers swollen. When he blinks, his eyelashes even stick together. He has to get somewhere warm and soon, but there aren’t many options for him this late at night in Crime Alley. He side-eyes a burning fire down one street and dismisses it as quickly as he saw it.

There is an option – one he’s thought about a lot since the temperatures started to drop. Maybe if – he shakes his head – no, really, he’s not going to last the night, he’s sure. He should just…

He makes the decision and turns right instead of left.

Snow soaks through his worn shoes. Ugh. Buses generally don’t run this late in East End, and even if they did, it’s not like he has money anyway. He’d heard something about Bruce Wayne supposedly funding some sort of project to get free transportation for the whole city, like they do in Metropolis and Central, but Jason very much doubts that. Because the whole city includes East End, which includes Crime Alley and the Narrows. The dark and dirty parts you shove under the rug and pretend everything is squeaky clean even as fresh blood shows up on the sidewalks every day. If they can’t keep the dirty parts from getting good things, then no one gets good things.

He makes it a block before he has to lean against a wall, shivering violently. Cold. He’s so goddamn cold. There’s ice in his veins, his blood flowing sluggish. Exhaustion weighs him down. Everything hurts. He lets himself rest for a minute because if he doesn’t, his knees are gonna give out and he’s gonna end up face down in the snow. Something he’d like to avoid thankyouverymuch.

He wishes he could stay here even with the cold brick against his back and the lamp post blinding right there. There’s cover over him, blocking the worst of the flurries, this one spot has less snow than most places. But he can’t – he can picture what would happen if he did, if he decided to curl up right here right now. Snow would pile on him throughout the night, hiding him, smothering him. No one will look. No one will know. Winter will pass and he wouldn’t be found until summer.

If they even bothered looking.

Jason scowls at his feet. The cold is making him disgustingly maudlin. That’s a great word. Not one he wants to feel, but a good word, nonetheless. He shoves up and keeps walking.

Cars start coming more often, shinier, and not as rundown, there’s more lit streetlights than not. Jason sticks to the shadows. The buildings become a little less shabby. Not perfect, not like Diamond District or the big fancy houses up in Bristol but put-together and clean compared to well…everything else Jason knows. Barely outside the blocks that are considered Crime Alley (and spreading by the day, don’t people know ‘alley’ is singular?), and things already look better.

He scoffs, of course. He shoves his hands in his hoodie pocket, hunching over in to trap his body heat for a blissful second. He hesitates across the street before he decides, fuck it, squares his shoulders, and walks in.

The blast of warm air from the library burns. His eyes water and he blinks the blurriness away. Unwanted tears still slide down his cheeks and he sneezes. Jason freezes, wide-eyed, heart kicking into high gear. No one looks at him funny – there’s hardly anyone here to look at him but that’s not the point – except the librarian sitting at the front desk. She’s frowning, squinting at him in a way he can’t read but is probably staring in suspicion or disgust, the two most common expressions in his presence. His cheeks, paled by the cold and now turning pink from the sudden heart, flush red in angry embarrassment.

Leave. Leave before she can kick him out. Do it. It doesn’t matter that it’s warm in here – so blessedly warm, warmer than he’s known in months. He’s moving, turning to leave, when a shadow looms behind him. His heart feels like it’s going to beat right outta his chest and he goes to run.

Only, instead of a restricting hand on his shoulder or grabbing his arm or yanking his hood, a body…slides in front of him. Well, actually, not in front. That fact – the door is accessible, two large strides and he can actually be outta here – is what makes him stop and stare at the woman, the librarian, whose body language says she’s standing between him and the door but who is, in fact….standing at an angle. It would be nothing to move past her and shove open the door, throw himself back into the cold Gotham night.

Her hands are loose at her sides, she’s not wearing any shoes, and her glasses are sliding down her nose during their stare-off. She shoves them back up and folds her hands behind her back, furthering her non-threatening stance. Nowhere ready to lunge at him should he actually go – and he doesn’t want to go, he doesn’t. It smells like coffee and books and warmth - it’s so warm in here. If she kicks him out, he might actually cry, screw everything else.

“It’s late,” she says simply, blunt but not unkind. Jason can’t stop staring between her and the door, looking for a hidden motive.

“That’s what happens when the sun goes down,” he says. “It gets late.”

She grins. “C’mon, it’s even warmer further in.”

Jason hunches in on himself, refuses to look away, and now searches for a different hidden motive. “Don’t have a library card,” he mutters.

“Did I say you needed one?”

He shakes his head. The librarian huffs, sounding amused and that’s the only reason Jason doesn’t flinch, and she gestures him into the library without getting close or touching him. He watches his feet as he shuffles backwards one step, two, three, until he’s over the entryway and in the library proper, passing two security bars. They stay silent because of course they do; this is the first time he’s been here and he’s freaking entering. Still doesn’t stop his shoulders from curling to his ears. Habit.

Jason looks up to see the librarian looking at him appraisingly. He refuses to feel self-conscious about his worn clothes and smudged face and tangled curls – but telling himself he’s perfectly fine and presentable and actually feeling that way are two different things. She turns her back to him so blatantly he stares dumbfounded for a moment before he follows her. As they pass displays on their way to her desk, he eyes each book cover hungrily.

It being warm isn’t the only reason he chose a library.

Her shoes were abandoned under the desk, beat up heels that are very close to seeing the last of their days. She sits with a sigh, brushing her hair back, and cracks her neck. “What’s your reading level?” He looks up sharply. She clicks her tongue. “Yeah, okay, that’s fair. Sign this.”

She slides a small rectangle of cardstock and a pen towards him. A library card. Just like that. Even though he can read the sign – all caps and bolded, black against neon yellow – that says all minors must have an accompanying adult to sign up for a library card, a card that also cost a minimum donation of five dollars. He’s ten and alone. There’s no way he can afford library fees.

He stares at it then back at her. Jason’s never been in this library before – he’s never been in any library before. The closest thing was the used bookstore two blocks down that went out of business a few months ago and that was because the owner didn’t care about his books enough to worry about a homeless kid making them dirtier. Why is she just…doing this? What does she get outta it?

Jason continues to stare for half a beat longer, but then he signs it anyway, hand shaking and letters wobbly. Any and all of the fake names he’d been building up in his head since he was six leave him. He doesn’t know how to write in cursive and his print is fucked, but that’s his name alright. Jason Todd. Legible enough. She nods, types something, stamps it, and slides it through a laminator just like that. It’s still hot when she presses it into his hand.

“What’s your favorite word right now?” she asks.

He clutches the card close to his chest and faster than he thinks he answers, “Maudlin.”

She nods approvingly. “What’s the last thing you read?”

Jason scowls. “Is this some sorta interrogation?” he snaps. She raises an eyebrow, and he deflates at the look, eyes flickering to the books displayed on her desk so he doesn’t have to see any other reaction. “The Westing Game,” he mutters. He’d found it sitting on a bus stop bench, wrinkled from the weather. It hadn’t lasted him more than two reads before falling apart.

“Did you like it?”

“I did.”

The librarian grins. “Good.”

Then she’s up again, shoes left behind. There’s a story time corner that she’s vaguely leading him towards. It’s not any story time corner he’s ever imagined…not that he’s imagined many to be honest. Just the very thought of a story time corner, as much as he wants to pretend it’s too childish for him, is something he’s kinda…always wanted. It sounded cozy, quiet, the perfect spot to curl up and forget the world. And this place – it’s bright and colorful, filled with normal cushioned chairs and squashy bean bags, a small amphitheater sits up against the wall not big enough for anything other than sitting and reading. The bean bags are the most comfortable thing he’s seen in days.

“These are about that reading level,” she says, placing her hand on an aisle that says, ‘children’s fiction.’ “That way is lower; this way is higher. That’s the transition from children’s fiction to non-fiction into Young Adult. Try to restrain yourself from going past that for a couple years but I can’t exactly stop you. Over here is the reference material.”

“…reference material?”

“Dictionaries, thesauruses, the works. When context fails and there’s no computer available, this is your best bet.” She hesitates, considers him. Jason squirms a little, hopes she doesn’t notice. He’s being looked at too much tonight, way more than is warranted, and none of it is negative. He knows what to do with negative looks, not, not these kinds – considering, assessing, seeing something more than a ragged street rat. “Your options after that is to ask someone. Me or another librarian. I usually have the night shift.”

Jason nods silently, dazed. He just wanted a warm place to hang out until the sun rose not – not a kind stranger and a building full of books he’s being told he can go ham on. Normally he’d be okay with the information overload, really, it’s really not that much to begin with but the warmth is getting to him, his stomach is gnawing on itself – he can’t remember the last time he ate something worthwhile and not just a granola bar he’s pretending he didn’t steal from a corner store – and he’s just…tired. Oh-so-very tired.

The librarian does that little smile thing again, like she knows what he’s thinking. It’s the same smile she’s been giving him all night. Jason realizes he should probably learn her name. Tomorrow. He’ll ask tomorrow. For now, he just grabs Tuck Everlasting and wanders over to a green bean bag that’s in the corner, no one can sneak up on him here. She watches him – watches. Doesn’t follow. Doesn’t track him. Just…watches with sharp, kind eyes.

His own eyes burn but he cracks open the book anyway, careful about the spine, and props it on his chest as he slouches in the bean bag. It basically swallows him whole, and he’s never felt warmer than he does now. The librarian goes to her desk, messages someone on her phone, then goes back to whatever she’d been doing on her laptop.

They both collectively ignore Jason’s drooping eyelids and tilting book until his head falls back at an uncomfortable looking angle, Tuck Everlasting dangling precariously from his fingertips. She snorts a fond little laugh and gently takes it from him to scan it into the system – he’s the only person she’s signed up for a card in hours never mind being the last person she signed up – and plucks one of the nicer bookmarks to save the page.

Her coworker comes in a couple hours later for their morning shift, a baker’s dozen of donuts in hand, and he lets out an ‘aww’ at the sight of the ten-year-old. Two for her, four for him and the mid-shift, and three saved for the boy who looked wane and exhausted and came to a library for help.

—

Jason comes back a couple days later, still cold, still miserable. Amy – as he learned her name was, not through proper introduction, but you can’t call it eavesdropping if he didn’t mean it, right? – is there again. She wrinkles her nose at his flushed face and wild hair and his heart sinks, just for a moment, before she’s sliding over a cup of hot chocolate, the instant kind, but Jason’s never known anything else but also, it’s the expensive kind made with milk even – smooth, rich, little cheap-o marshmallows. It’s the best thing he’s had since the donuts.

In turn, he slides Tuck Everlasting to her, finished and reread twice already because it’s the only book he let her convince him to take and it’s not a hard read at all. He liked it, to be honest, wouldn’t mind giving it another reread. She scans it in, then takes out the bookmark to hand over to him. He hesitates, eyes darting from the bookmark to her face, and she just raises an eyebrow and waggles the bookmark enticingly. This above all: to thine own self be true, it says. Hamlet, act 1, scene 2. He hasn’t read it yet. He takes the bookmark.

—

Then it becomes a thing.

He comes back again and again – he meets Andrew the morning librarian, Lia the mid-shift librarian, and the rotating fourth one who comes from the main branch to cover days off. They’re hardly ever the same person in a row and Jason doesn’t come when they’re here even when he’s cold or soaked or lonely.

He comes in with bruised wrists and swollen ankles, puffy eyes, and bloody teeth. Lia lets him into the breakroom, plops a first aid kit on his lap, and chatters excitedly about whatever show she’s currently into as he patches himself up – the last time one of them tried to help found him in the corner, teeth bared and snarling. They don’t bring up the aggressive reaction and brush it off with careful concern.

It doesn’t take long to become a routine – one that he knows breaks their hearts and, and he can’t believe that, he really can’t. Lia’s smile gets small and wobbly when she looks at him sometimes, but there’s never pity in her expression. Amy’s gaze hardens and her words get even more clipped when she sees stains on his hoodie that weren’t there before. Andrew is all big laughs and loud words, but his lips always curl just a little, his fist clench, when Jason is at his most exhausted.

They care about him – and isn’t that a mind-boggling concept?

His mom…His mom cared about him. She loved him so much. He loved her too, but in the end it wasn’t enough. His dad. Jason thinks he loved him, at least in the beginning. That’s the reason he took those jobs in the first place – the goon jobs, the Family jobs – but Jason wonders, sometimes, that maybe things would’ve been better off if his dad hadn’t loved him as much as he did.

The three of them – they care.

They care about him in the way they don’t care about his bloody knuckles or bruised face only by the fact they still let him in, they still let him read books. They offer their supplies for him to patch him up, cluck in concern, give him food, but they don’t ban him. They don’t care about his ragged, dirty clothes beyond making sure he’s warm enough, dry enough, comfortable enough, they let him into the library anyway even with the risk of getting dirt smudged on their books.

They let him check out books even though they all know he doesn’t have a safe place for them – they don’t, they didn’t make him pay for the copy of Redwall that got stolen with his bag. Lia had clicked her tongue in a sad sorta way, patted his hand, and placed an order for a new one all in the same minute.

(And if he found another bookbag – gently used –  waiting for him with some food and supplies and hardcover notebook and a brand-new copy of Redwall that didn’t belong to the library, well, they were nice enough to ignore his tears.)

Jason comes back even when winter turns to spring and the streets warm up. He has no reason to come back, he doesn’t need the warmth anymore. But he comes in and smiles at Andrew and takes the return cart from behind the desk. He doesn’t talk as he shelves them, basking in the ability to just be in the moment, reading the spines of books, adding titles to his To Be Read list. The fact that he can even make a list like that is amazing.

He works his way around the whole library before coming back to the front desk. Andrew is fiddling with a notebook, frowning at his laptop, and Jason leaves him be to head to the Young Adult section that Lia claims is too old for him even with his reading level and Amy says it’s perfectly fine but gave him a list of books she thinks are appropriate to start out with. He doesn’t get far because a small hand fists the bottom of his hoodie, and he looks down to see a little girl with big brown doe eyes peering imploringly up at him.

“Please?” she says in Spanish, soft and sly all at the same time.

Jason sighs out a laugh. “You don’t have to pull out the puppy eyes every time, Nina,” he replies, relishing in being able to talk in his first language without anyone side-eyeing him.

She grins brightly and, in a rush of Spanish, starts going on about her day as she tugs him towards the story time corner where three other kids sit almost patiently. He responds in kind when appropriate, grinning, and greets the other kids with hair ruffles for all but one, who he pats gently on the shoulder.

It’s not home. It’s so far from home it’s not even funny, but for the first time in a long while he has a place where he feels safe and – and it’s the happiest he’s been in a long, long time.

—

Sometimes you look at someone and you just know. There’s a spark in their eye, a fire burning in their soul, and you know that you need to stoke it the best you can. Amy thought, when she first laid eyes on the kid soaked to the bone but still looking at book covers with naked longing, that this was the type of kid who had a flickering flame that just needed a little help to be fanned into something glorious. She’s seen it in a few kids, and she’s always handed them library cards under her account, and they’ve always done great things.

She’s pretty sure Jason is destined for even better things.

—

Like clockwork, Jason Todd comes to the library every other day every week. For two years.

He only checks out one book at a time, but he’s always finished by the next time he visits – usually twice over and depending on the title, even more than that. He’s always more than happy to debate the classics, getting this sparkle in his eye and his smile gets so wide and bright Amy jokes about having to get sunglasses. The kid is so smart, soaks up knowledge like a sponge, and it’s a shame he doesn’t get to go to school – damn registration requirements.

So, when he stops showing up one day after years having the routine down, after worming his way into an unofficial volunteer spot and into their hearts, after he made their director laugh outright – all three librarians are more than a little distressed.

It's like – this kid is family now, okay? Their family. And he’s gone, without a word. Maybe he disappears for a couple days more than usual, but he always comes back – with a sheepish smile and a new injury, but relatively okay.

This…is not like those other times.

He’s gone for two months.

Andrew doesn’t admit to checking down alleyways on his walk to work, but he does anyway. Amy always has one eye on the missing kids bulletin at the corner store – and wonders if he even has someone in his life to report him missing then thinks, she’s in his life, she cares enough, but, but how does she know he’s actually missing? How long does she wait before she reports it? (Will the cops even care about a homeless Crime Alley street rat?) Lia is the one who monitors the internet, waiting for the moment there’s some report about a homeless kid caught in the wrong place at the wrong time because, as awful as it is, that’s just how life works in Gotham.

And then Jason comes bouncing in after those long, terrible months and Lia nearly cries. Okay, not even nearly, she does cry, just a little. She gets a good look at him and nearly cries again for a completely different reason.

He looks happy. His clothes are brand new and clean. He’s taken a shower recently, hair a mess of wonderful curls starting to look healthy and shiny, his face clean and revealing a smattering of freckles. He grins, bright, so, so bright. His cheeks are fuller, the shadows under his eyes are almost nonexistent.

“Jason!” Lia exclaims and crushes the boy into a tight hug, rocking them side-to-side. He laughs into her chest, squirming, but he doesn’t try to get away. “Don’t ever do that again, young man.”

He wraps his arms around her, hugging her back just as tight. “I’m sorry,” he says into her sweatshirt. “I didn’t know it was gonna happen ‘til it did.”

She pulls away just enough to see his face and she cups his jaw, thumbing over his cheekbone. He leans into the touch, eyes squinting from how hard he’s smiling. Lia thinks back to those days, in the very beginning, when he would shy away from their touch, their presence alone, obviously wanting it but dreading it all the same – and then months and months after when he was so tentative and hesitant.

Then before he disappeared, when he would make a game of it – get close enough for a hair ruffle or a side hug then dance just out of reach before they could make contact. Over and over again until someone finally gave up with a huff and took up chasing him down just to hug him.

“Are you safe?” she asks. He nods. “Are you happy?”

Impossibly, his smile gets bigger. A little crooked, a little shy, but so, so bright. “I think I am,” he whispers, like if he says it any louder something might break.

“Good.” She folds her arms around him again. “I’m so fucking glad, Jason.”

“Swear jar,” he mumbles, and she laughs louder than is appropriate for a library.

—

Bruce Wayne Adopts Homeless Orphan is a headline that shouldn’t surprise them. But it does, because how on Earth did a man like that meet someone like Jason?

—

It’s fall and overcast, clouds hanging lowlowlow to the ground, spreading like smoke through the streets when Gotham goes on lockdown.

Amy dims the lights, doesn’t lock the doors, and clutches her rebreather to her chest. She’s sitting at her desk – can’t think of anywhere else to go – her own breaths loud in her ears. The few patrons that’d been in here scattered the moment the batsignal lit, and she almost booked it when the news reports finally announced an Arkham breakout.

She didn’t, though. Amy doesn’t check her phone, it’s too dark in here and it’ll just be shining a beacon of fresh meat for whoever escaped – please don’t be the Joker, please don’t be the Joker – but despite all the fear, she doesn’t lock the doors.

Silence reigns. There are no cars, no late-night passersby. She squeezes her eyes shut and curls into a ball in her seat. Gotham is never quiet, not like this – oppressive, smothering, choking. Please don’t be the Joker. Of all the Rogues to break out, he’s the worst. Scarecrow is next on the list. But the Joker – God, the fucking Joker. She doesn’t lock the door.

Something explodes in the distance, and she flinches as it tears violently through the silence. Sirens start up, faint and nowhere near here. Amy almost relaxes, eyes opening, her death grip on her phone loosening, but only almost. Arkham breakouts are never just one Rogue, usually whoever orchestrates it wants as much chaos as possible to get away with whatever they’re attempting to get away with – that’s half the breakouts, someone corrupt, someone infiltrating, someone wanting to distract the Batman with the Rogues and get away with shit.

The news doesn’t always report it as such, but Gothamites have learned to read between the lines. Arkham isn’t the greatest place in the world, security is a shit show and that’s what makes the rent so cheap here, but it’s not nearly as bad as people seem to think.

Amy sits there for what feels like hours, listening to sirens and bombs, staring as the batsignal cycles on and off as Batman takes care of whatever and more situations crop up.

She’s still sitting there when a shadow throws itself against the front doors.

She yelps, nearly falls off her chair, scrambling to keep hold of her rebreather. The shadow slumps, hands scrabbling at the handle. Soft, frantic muttering reaches her ears, hitching with sobs and choked breathing. She blinks, and the shadow coalesces into Jason – the kid with the bright eyes and the adorable scowl that’s almost a pout, and such fierce love for reading and books their hard-ass director had instantly crumbled. She’s out of her chair before she thinks about it, yanking open the door within seconds –

This, this is why she kept the door unlocked.

For Jason. Jason with his ragged clothes and too thin cheeks, without a home and out on the streets, with those bright eyes that expose something sad and empty on the worst days, with the cocky smile when he quotes classical literature and bright laughter when he wins a verbal sparring match.

Jason, who she knows has a home now – with Bruce Wayne of all people – who laughs louder and smiles brighter than she’s ever seen – Jason who started to gain weight, who has clothes that fit him, who brings homework to the library because he has a home, he can be registered now, he can finally go back to school, and  --

– and she told him years ago the library was always open for him and damn it does she intend to keep that promise, fuck any Rogue rampaging through Gotham, fuck any logic that tells her he has a safe place now, one that gives him food and new clothes and makes his expression brighten in ways she’s never seen before.

The shadow staggers through the open doors and into her arms and – fuck, that’s a cape. Dim lights catch green and red and yellow. Not Jason – Robin.

Amy catches him. He yelps and chokes on it, throwing himself out of her arms. His hair is plastered down with sweat, curling on his forehead. His hands tremble, his entire body shakes. He’s covered in splotches of soot and that’s the only reason she can see the tear tracks down his cheeks, clean lines of skin through soot and, and blood.

“Robin?” she whispers, hoarse and a little hysterical if she’s being honest. He crashes against a display table, hands snapping out to keep the books from toppling, but he’s still shaking, knees wobbling. “Robin, are…are you okay?”

What kind of stupid question is that?

Robin crumples to his knees, panting, one hand holding onto the display table as if it’s the only thing keeping him from straight up hitting the floor. He’s not putting any strength into it, like he’s trying not to tear it down – which Amy appreciates, Andrew and Jason spent a good hour putting it together, it’s a collection of books trying to entice non-readers to pick up the classics and Jason had been so proud of it especially when it worked.

She inches closer and Robin throws his hands up to protect his head. She freezes even as the kid – ah shit he’s just a kid – finally hits the ground, knees curling to his chest, shoulders hunching to his ears, arms over his fucking head.

Amy drops with him, hands on the ground in a crawling position though she doesn’t move. Robin trembles in his ball, sobs hitching quietly, murmurs of pleads she doesn’t understand but gets the gist of it. She scoots forward and he shuffles back until he’s under the table. It’s summer now and he’s wearing the lighter uniform, the one with short sleeves and strategic layers to keep cool and still give protection (tabloids and fashion websites, Lia is obsessed and as a Gothamite, Amy can’t help but be interested as well).

It means she can see the jagged hole on his arm, small and long like, like someone’s taken a needle to him and he yanked away with it still in there. Scarecrow – he normally uses canisters, tests his shit on Crime Alley because no one cares about them, but when he has a target, God, the number of news reports about people’s hearts giving out from the fear alone –

“Shhh,” she says softly. “It’s okay. Whatever you’re seeing, Robin, it’s not real.” She slides ever-so-slowly closer. “I promise it’s not real. You’re safe, yeah? You’re safe here. I swear it.”

He doesn’t respond or react to her words, but he doesn’t move when she finally gets close enough to loom a shadow over him. Doesn’t back up, doesn’t curl tighter. Something loosens in her chest.

This close she can hear, “Please, please. Stop. I – I promise – Please –,” with a litany of apologies trailing, mushed together in their rush to get out. That thing that loosened tightens back up.

Another explosion sounds, closer, and she ducks, instinctively curling her body over Robin’s. He doesn’t make a sound – and that’s worse than anything else because he doesn’t make a sound, his voice cuts off, his breathing quiets, he’s frozen still like a baby rabbit caught in the shadows under the eye of an owl – a fledgling robin fallen out of his nest.

Fuck. He’s only been Robin for what? A year – no not even, it’s only been a few months, right? The transition wasn’t hard to notice, the first Robin got older and older, then there wasn’t a Robin at all, then suddenly he was a kid again who didn’t flip like the original, who squared up like a street brawler, who smiled just a bit brighter, laughed a bit louder and wild-free. The first Robin had been jokes and quips and fun, this Robin is sarcasm and soft smiles and there was something magic about him, about the way he directs focus on Crime Alley like they matter, how whenever there was a city-wide crisis Robin was always with them first and longer like they deserve it. A street kid turned hero – a street kid turned hope.

A kid. A kid. Amy curls further over him, blocking him from the windows even though she’s pretty sure no one’s out there.

“You’re safe,” she says softly and firmly. “You’re safe, Robin. I’m going to keep you safe; you hear me?”

Amy brackets her arms around him, ducks under the table to protect him better. She can feel him trembling under her, his panting too loud in this bubble she’s made. They can’t stay here, too close to the windows and the street, this table isn’t sturdy enough to protect them.

“Robin,” she whispers. “We gotta move, okay? Everything’s fine. We’re just gonna move to somewhere safer, can we do that? Can we move?”

Robin shifts, pulls tighter. Her heart leaps to her throat. Amy’s not strong enough to force a kid – a young teenager – high on fear toxin somewhere else. She has no way of protecting herself if he lashes out in fear if she tries to move him. If he doesn’t want to move, they’re not moving.

“Please – please – pleasepleaseplease.”

Her heart breaks. “Yeah,” she says roughly. “Yeah, c’mon.”

He clings to her in a way that’s unexpected as she maneuvers them from under the table and deeper into the library. He stumbles and flinches, bites off whimpers and sobs. She wraps her arms around his shoulders, ignoring the blood, and lets him huddle in her embrace, choking on words she half-understands, barely English, mostly Spanish, incoherent.

They go to the story time corner even though the breakroom is more secure. This isn’t about that kind of security, it’s only half of it. They need to be safe. Safe is beanbags and blankets. Safe is bright colors and books.

Amy sets Robin down against the wall, shushing him gently when he whimpers and refuses to let go. “Two seconds,” she tells him, uncurling his fingers. He folds his hands to his chest, tears leaking from underneath his domino mask.

She can’t see his eyes, but she can tell he’s tracking her. She wonders what he’s seeing, what he’s hearing. She hopes…she hopes he thinks he’s even a little safe, that she’s not holding him against his will. She hopes that his complacency isn’t because of the fear. God. A sick feeling bubbles in her stomach at the thought.

She’s back in more than two seconds, but Robin doesn’t seem to notice. He doesn’t relax in her presence. He doesn’t tense either. Amy carefully grasps him under the elbows, light and unrestrictive, and leads him to the pile of beanbags she made on top of the amphitheater. Specifically, she leads him behind the beanbags she’s made as a barrier and to the nest of  blankets she pulled from the chest.

His legs fold under him gracelessly, completely at odds with the grainy video footage of him and Batman leaping over rooftops, and he smothers another sob. Amy bundles the thickest blanket they have into his arms for him to clutch and he curls around it, burying his face into the fabric, shoulders shaking. He’s got to have a tracker, she decides. Batman doesn’t seem like the kind of man to let his sidekick out without a tracker, especially during an Arkham breakout.

With that thought, she settles between Robin and the beanbag wall – which puts her between him and the door no matter how far it is. She’d grabbed a stack of books and now she stares at them, glancing between it and Robin, thoughts whirling. Hesitantly, she takes one from the middle and sits back, shoulder brushing Robin’s. He stiffens then slowly, so, so slowly, he leans into her, face still hidden. She can hear small sniffles and her heart breaks all over again.

Amy turns on her phone to the lowest setting, props it carefully, and opens the book –

“’The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before…’”

—

With Crane locked away, Batman – no, he’s Bruce right now he doesn’t care he’s in the cowl – Bruce follows Robin’s – Jason’s tracker to one of the few quiet areas tonight. He checks the tracker one more time, blinking steady, and squints at the building front and the peeling words that proclaim Park Row Public Library. This is…the library Jason always talks about, the one he stops by at least once a week if he’s able, the one whose tags he sees every now and then on a book Jason’s reading. Bruce owns most of the classics, can buy any book Jason wants, but he’s always reading at least one library book.

The door’s not broken down and the lock’s not picked. Bruce frowns, on high alert for a trap, and gently pushes the door open. The lights are dimmed, and everything is quiet. He sees the bright flash of a phone screen before the owner is quick enough to tuck it away. His footsteps are silent as he makes his way over, hand going to his utility belt.

What he finds isn’t what he expected – a young woman kneels in front of him, eyes defiant, holding a hardcover book threateningly (Pride and Prejudice, Jason would have a fit). Behind her is – thank God – Jason curled into a ball, a blanket clutched to his chest, and another tucked around his shoulders. There’s a stack of books and one dropped haphazardly on the ground. Tuck Everlasting, he notes absently,

The woman gasps, book falling from her lax grip. “Batman,” she breathes, shoulders slumping in relief.

“You’re safe,” he assures her. “The big hitters are locked up.”

She shakes her head and shuffles to the side, not going far from Jason, but giving him room to move to his Robin. Bruce takes the opening and climbs carefully over the beanbags into the enclosed space. Jason’s breathing is too fast, gasping like he can’t get enough air. The librarian hovers anxiously.

“He’d calmed down a bit earlier,” she says, voice hushed and worried. “But it started getting worse a few minutes ago.”

Bruce doesn’t sigh. His heart breaks. Seeing his kids dosed with fear toxin is something he will always hate experiencing. Gently he presses the antitoxin into Jason’s arm, chest clenching at the flinch and whimper, and keeps his touch slow and careful as he pets through Jason’s hair, tugging at the ends with each motion.

It takes both too long and not that long before the death grip he has on the blanket loosens and Jason’s slumping.  Bruce catches him before he can go horizontal, half-cradling him in the nook of his arm. He’s knocked out hard, and Bruce can’t stop staring at the clean tear tracks on his cheeks.

“Thank you,” he says, heartfelt in a way Batman hardly ever is. The librarian blinks at him in surprise then smiles a crooked, embarrassed thing.

“Of course,” she says. “He’s – He’s Robin,” but she says that differently, hesitantly. Batman raises an eyebrow behind the cowl, knowing she can’t see it, but she shuffles like she knows he’s staring. “Robin is hope,” she says more confidently.

He nods in agreement and gathers Robin more securely in his arms. As much as he would rather go home and be there when the kid wakes up from his first encounter with fear toxin, he can’t. Even with all the big hitters off the streets now, there’s a few loose ends that require his attention – like the source of this breakout. Sometimes he wonders what he’s doing, especially now when he stares at the too young face of the kid in his arms.

(Bruce does note to make a large donation tomorrow to the Park Row Public Library and wonders if he should set up repeat payments.)

(Gordon takes one look at him on the rooftop, rolls his eyes, and all but bullies him into going home to Robin. Batman bites back the smile and takes advantage of Gordon’s rant to disappear mid-word. Mild swearing follows him across rooftops. This time he does smile.)

—

Tim needs somewhere to just be for a couple hours before Batman and Robin start their patrol. His house is too quiet, too lonely, and the whole city is drowning in paranoia after the last Arkham breakout a week ago – even though it was only Harley, the Riddler, and Poison Ivy this time, and both Harley and the Riddler were caught within forty-eight hours and Ivy has been low priority for a few years now, so he doesn’t really get what the fuss is – he doesn’t really want to be on the streets. The library seemed like a good place to hang out, close to where he wants to stalk – hm – follow Batman and Robin, warm, and noisy enough to be soothing.

It's emptier than he’d been expecting, but he’ll take it. It’s not as empty as home.

There’s only a librarian, a college study group at the back table in the non-fiction section, an old man helping a young girl pick out a book, and a boy a few years older than him camped out on a green beanbag in the story time corner. He’s asleep, Tim notes curiously, head tilted back, a worn, non-library copy of a book limp on his chest. He can’t tell what the book is, the cover nondescript, and the title in Spanish. The library book tucked under his elbow he can read and it’s Hamlet.

“Nuh-uh, Drake, I’d know that look anywhere. Leave Jason alone.”

Tim smiles brightly at Lia, the day shift librarian. She smiles back, just as bright. Her hair is forest green today, last time he saw her it’d been purple. She’s always been a fan of Poison Ivy – no red hair, though. Some people get unreasonably twitchy (in his opinion) with Ivy on the streets even though she hasn’t used that pollen in years. (Not that Tim’s supposed to know about any of that, but he’s nine not stupid.)

“I like your hair.”

She flips the long box braids over her shoulder, preening. “Thanks.” Her smile drops. “Serious though, I see those cogs turning. Let him sleep, ‘kay?”

Tim looks back at the boy and reassesses him. A worn Wonder Woman hoodie, like it’s a long-time favorite, clean and relatively new jeans, shoes that are scuffed but obviously well cared for. He’s got scrapes on his knuckles, two fingers are wrapped up, and he’s got a split on his lip that seems darker against the bruise on his chin. He looks tired even while sleeping, shadows under his eyes, face pale, curly hair a mess that goes beyond ‘casual’ and into ‘stressed.’

“You don’t normally let people sleep here.” It used to be one of those firm, no exception rules until a couple years ago, but even after Amy announced it was overturned by the director herself, they were careful about it.

“Jason’s a special case. Don’t you dare wake him up.”

He nods seriously. Lia doesn’t look like she believes him, but the old man is calling for her and she has to go – not without pointing two fingers at her eyes then back at Tim, expression stern. Tim almost, almost goes in the direct opposite way of Jason just to prove to her he’ll listen, but – but something steers him back.

Tim fiddles with his camera, glances sideways, then inches closer. Lia’s back is to him, seemingly occupied. He inches even closer. Up close Jason doesn’t look as bad – something niggles at the back of his mind – and he’s pretty sure the opposite is usually true, right? He doesn’t look homeless, doesn’t look like he’s scraping by for food. Tim’s taken enough pictures of people in Crime Alley and the Narrows to recognize that on sight. He just looks beat up and exhausted – but beat up like he’d given it back just as good.

And his injuries look…not old, but not fresh.

He stares for too long, his brain itching – the lightbulb clicks! on at the same time Jason shifts and his eyes flutter open.

Jason Todd – Robin! He’s staring at Robin! – tenses first then blinks when he catches sight of Tim staring wide-eyed at him. Tim wills himself to take a step back, personal space and all, but he can’t, not when his hero (!) is staring right back at him. His heart flutters in his throat, his palms get sweaty. The camera slips from his fingers and it’s only by the strap around his neck that keeps it from shattering on the floor.

“You good, kid?” Jason – Robin! something inside him won’t stop squealing – drawls, sitting up with envy inducing grace.

Tim fumbles awkwardly. “I’m, uh, yeah. Sorry, I just, um – whatcha reading?” he blurts out, face instantly flushing, and starts rambling, “I mean, it’s not, not a library book so I was curious and, like, the cover – I couldn’t tell by the cover you know? And my Spanish is stupid bad which, which is dumb because I’ve been taking it for years, but I’ve always been better with numbers and stuff, you know? And I don’t even want to talk about my English grade and I, I really– .”

“Breathe,” Jason says with a crooked smile, amusement in his eyes.

It’s not the smile of the previous Robin – Dick Grayson – it’s not a genuine showman’s smile, but something softer, grounded, and Tim finds…he kind of likes it better. First of all, this one he gets to see in person. And second, Dick was Tim’s first Robin but – he was young and there was a long stretch of time when Batman didn’t have a Robin when Dick became Nightwing.

And Batman had been, not necessarily cold, but definitely cooler in that long year. It’d help to know Dick was only in Blüdhaven not even an hour away. Tim could tell, though, that the split wasn’t completely amicable.

When Jason came around though – Jason? He’s been Robin for a  year and a half now. He’s seen him down on the streets in Park Row – Crime Alley – personally helping as many people as he can as both a vigilante and as his civilian self, completely disregarding the fact he’s a high-profile target now as Bruce Wayne’s son. It does something to you, seeing a thing like that through the lens of a camera, knowing he’s one of the few, if only, people to witness it and know.

“Sorry,” Tim mutters, lowering his gaze to his shoes. Out of the corner of his eye the beanbag shifts.

“Hey, no worries. I get it. It’s Sense and Sensibility, just, ya’know, in Spanish. Nothing special.” Tim doesn’t dignify that with a response. Nothing special, puh-lease. “You here alone? Where’re your parents?”

Tim jerks at the question, misses the way Jason’s eyes narrow as he shrugs and hunches in. “Out of the country,” he mumbles. “They’ll be back in thirty-two days.” And then probably leave a few hours later. If they even come back at all instead of just going straight to their next destination. It’s only after he said it, he realizes his mistake. “I have a nanny, at, at home! She – She went to the grocery store? And I snuck out?”

It’s not a complete lie, only a stretched truth.

Jason raises an unimpressed eyebrow, a calculating look in his eye. Tim’s heart seizes in his chest. He didn’t forget Robin is smart – he has to be, to be a teenager keeping up with Batman – but he…sort of forgot Robin is smart. He groans internally at himself.

“You’re the Drake kid,” Jason says slowly – Oohhhh no and Robin knows who he is! is at war in his head – and now he looks thoughtful instead of calculating. He glances from Tim’s face to his camera, something flickering in his eyes. “Cairo, right?”

“What?” he squeaks.

“Your parents, they’re in Cairo. I overheard them at the last gala.”

Tim shakes his head. “They finished that. They’re in Dubai now.”

Jason hums. “Interesting,” he says, like Tim’s entire world isn’t crashing around him right this very second. Then, like a switch is flicked, he continues with: “When you say your Spanish is bad, how bad? – Actually, no. What’s your English grade? I doubt it’s as bad as you think, you’re what, eight? I don’t think Sense and Sensibility is your age level, but maybe – .” He laughs at Tim’s wrinkled nose. “Literature is good for you, kid. Broadens your horizons.”

“So does my economics class and I’m nine.”

“Nine and taking economics? Christ, Timmy, you’re smart.”

He ignores the blush crawling up his neck at the compliment and nickname. “You’re smart too!” he insists.

Jason’s eyes fracture just a little bit, his crooked smile gets smaller. Tim frowns and takes a breath, about to completely blow the fact he knows Batman and Robin’s identities if only so Robin can know exactly how smart Tim thinks he is and how much Tim admires him for everything, when a shadow looms over them.

“Tim!” Lia scolds. “What did I tell you about waking Jason?”

“Lia,” Tim whines at the same time Jason says, “He didn’t wake me up.”

Lia shoots him a disbelieving look – Tim has to agree, vigilante vigilance and all that, Tim definitely woke him up. Tim deflates, ashamed.

“I’m sorry for waking you up, Jason,” he mumbles.

A hand descends and ruffles his hair. Tim peeks up through his bangs to see Jason grinning at him – not quite at the level of his previous smile, but his chest still warms at the sight.

“Don’t worry about it, Timbit.”

—

Like a moth to a flame, Tim keeps coming back to the library when, really, he has other things he needs to do. Not important things, in his opinion, but just other. He doesn’t always see Jason; he doesn’t expect to. Usually seeing Jason means Robin isn’t on patrol and usually that means he’s been injured in some way. Jason always blames it on the various self-defense classes he’s signed up for, but Tim knows so he doesn’t believe it, tries not to indicate he doesn’t believe it. Sometimes they change it up so there isn’t a routine, and Tim has to admit that makes sense.

There’s teasing comments about his increased visits that he ignores. Jason smiles every time he sees him, which is always the highlight of Tim’s day. His English grade really isn’t as bad as he made it out to be, yet Jason still stops to check over his homework, brows furrowed and completely focused on the task at hand. Tim feels ridiculous, having Robin checking over his homework, and elated, Robin’s checking over his homework. He doesn’t know if they could be called friends, he’s never really had friends-friends before, but he knows that he definitely feels like they’re something.

These are some of the greatest days of Tim’s life.

—

Of course, these things can’t last.

—

Everything. Everything comes crashing down around him and – and why did he expect anything different? Because of course, this is Jason’s life. Good things are temporary and when bad things happen, they’re pretty fucking bad.

Like now.

Jason slinks through the door silently, shoulders hunched, ribs aching. No one notices his entrance and that’s perfectly fine with him. He wraps a bracing arm around his chest, ignores the beanbag in the corner that has more or less become his, and heads towards the study tables in the non-fiction section. People aren’t used to seeing him there, chances of him being overlooked are pretty high and that’s what he needs right now.

He pulls out his homework and kinda just, just stares at it blankly. He’s just so tired. It drags him down like he’s been thrown in the harbor with bricks on his ankles. Even though it sets his chest on fire, he slumps against the table, blinking burning eyes. All he can see when he closes them is that poor woman’s terror – Gloria. Her name is Gloria. Don’t forget. – and her swinging body, face bloated and neck snapped. His stomach churns. Bruce’s disappointment, his distrust, looms like a crawling shadow. He pulls his arms over his head, blocking out the light, and shudders.

(“Consequences, Robin. There’s no escaping them.”)

“Hey, Jason,” a voice says soothingly. He feels the presence of a hand over the crown of his head before it smooths between his shoulder blades. “You okay there?” Jason shudders again, throat closing up. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”

No. No he’s not. He’s never going to be okay – Bruce – Batman doesn’t trust him anymore. If, if he ever did. Jason thought he did, at one point, but now, now he’s not sure of anything anymore. He squeezes his eyes to block the tears, but they trickle out anyway. He stifles a sob into his homework – fuck homework. Why the fuck did he come here in the first place when Garzonas, when he fell, when – he swears he fell and, and Bruce doesn’t believe him, he doesn’t. And Jason’s just been making it worst.

Robin’s going to be taken from him.

He tightens his arms and gasps on the pain it sparks. The hand pauses then curls around his shoulder, pulling him up. Jason fights it briefly before giving up. Head hanging low, he lets Andrew pull him into a slouched sitting position, lets him see the result of Jason’s recklessness and brutal methods. – he saw the way Batman’s been looking at him ever since Garzonas, the careful way he interferes with Jason’s takedowns and even his patrols.

He’s heard Alfred and Bruce talking in his study.

It’s only a matter of time.

“Oh kid,” the morning librarian says softly. “You get that looked at?”

Jason nods wordlessly. He doesn’t look up. Because…because they’re right. Bruce is right. Alfred is right. He’d thought he’d been doing good as Robin, he thought he’d finally found a place to call home. Dick hated him when he first showed up, but he, he kinda started warming up to Jason and he thought he finally had a brother, a home, a life that was worth it.

But no, they’re right. Of course, they’re right. You can take the street rat out of Crime Alley, but you can’t take Crime Alley out of the street rat. No matter how hard he trains or tries, he’s always going to be the scrappy kid who’s seen the worst of people, the kid who hates rapists and abusers like Felipe Garzonas. People like that don’t deserve – and, shit, that’s what got him into this spiral to begin with. He thought he could handle how Batman dealt with criminals, but he can’t. The victims deserve security, and they don’t get that when, when – fuck.

He didn’t kill Felipe Garzonas, but the condemnation makes it feel like he has.

Andrew doesn’t touch his face like he obviously wants. He kneels down until he’s lower than Jason, peering up at him with big, wide eyes. Jason averts his gaze, his own eyes stinging again.

“I’m sorry,” the librarian says, so sincere and worried Jason just wants to start sobbing. “Whatever’s going on, it’s gonna be okay.” No, it’s not. “You can talk to me – you don’t have to if you don’t want to. But I’ll be here, all three of us, if you need it, yeah?”

He doesn’t deserve this. He doesn’t deserve any of this – scorching hot self-loathing suddenly burns through him. Jason tears himself from Andrew, knocking the chair back with a loud clatter, trembling like he’s coming down from some high. It was a mistake to come here, here of all places – the one place where he’s always felt safe before Bruce, before the Manor, before Batman and Robin. This library was almost home and the safest he’d ever been.

And now Jason’s ruined that too, tainted it like he’s tainted everything else.

He shouldn’t have come here.

Jason pushes away Andrew’s reaching hands. He slams his hands on the table and shoves his homework, his bookbag, his goddamn copy of Things Fall Apart off in a flurry of violence. Papers float in the air silently. The only sound is his harsh panting.

“I’m sorry,” Jason croaks out, tears blurring his vision. “I’m sorry.” And he doesn’t say what he’s sorry for because he’s sorry for everything, please, I’m so sorry.

He leaves without looking back.

—

Jason doesn’t return. Days turn to weeks turn to months. They hit the two-month mark, the longest he’s ever been gone from the library, and they pass it without ever seeing Jason again.

Then Robin disappears too.

—

They don’t know why until it hits the news weeks later, showing a closed casket funeral with only Bruce Wayne and his butler at the gravesite even though – isn’t there an older one? Dick Grayson, right? Where’s he during his little brother’s funeral? (and they don’t know that Dick is off-planet and doesn’t find out until months later, coming to a Gotham that’s wrapped in misery for two different reasons that are the same.)

Rumors sweep the streets of Robin missing and Joker’s involvement. No one knows what happened – Harley loses it one day, lunging at her Mistah J with a screech that startles birds. They break up and, and suddenly Harley is as low priority as Ivy and no one knows what’s going on, but, really, it just proves what they all assumed.

Lia stares blankly at her tablet, tears she doesn’t bother stopping silently drip down her cheeks. The news report is muted, but she can read the closed captioning well enough. Wayne Son Dead in Terrorist Attack says one tab. Robin Missing. Joker Involved? says the other.

They’re posted weeks apart, neither of them interconnected in any way. One’s a repeated headline on every major news source. The other is in the blogs, the tabloids, the speculating social media posts from Gothamites, the only ones who seem to care.

Knuckles to her mouth, she swallows thickly, throat burning. The picture they chose is one of Jason’s official school pictures, one where he’s smiling fake and strained, eyes screaming to get away from in front of the camera. He doesn’t look right, barely looks like the kid she knows, and she thinks about all the people seeing this article, the live feed, and how they don’t know him like they do.

Andrew is silent, but Amy sobs quietly. “Was it really the Joker?” she asks. Lia pulls up another tab, and another, and another. None of them are reputable sources, this kind of thing is sketchy to begin with. There’s conflicting information, as there always is about Batman and Robin, but the evidence all agrees. She nods and Amy crumples in on herself. “Damn him. Fucking damn him.”

For the first time since its inception, Park Row Public Library doesn’t open.

—

They keep Jason’s display of classic literature for people who hate classic literature, barely updating it as the years go by. His favorites linger on the display, the careful way he arranged them never changes. Their director had looked at the table once and, other than suggesting different spots for it throughout the years, never told them to take it down.

It’s a paltry memorial, but the only one they have.

—

Then. The Red Hood shows up.

—

Andrew expected this to happen. Sort of. They all know Red Hood has a soft spot for Crime Alley, for the street he sounds like he grew up on according to the people who get to hear him talk without worrying whether they’re going to live through the encounter. He doesn’t hurt kids, people whisper, and they believe it, there’s no proof otherwise.

So, he’s expecting it, hoping for it – daring, really, for the bastard to finally show his face. And, as he’s walking up the sidewalk for his shift, it’s like the fates have come together to offer him this boon.

He’s got a baker’s dozen in hand and his grip tightens enough to dent the box when he sees Red Hood staring at the library front from the opposite sidewalk. Andrew takes a deep, calming breath and – nope, fuck it – he’s stalking across the street, anger, and grief in his eyes, and gets right up in the crime lord’s helmeted face.

“How dare you,” he spits, righteous fury and hurt shaking his bones. He can’t see Hood’s expression, can’t tell how close he’s coming to dying. He doesn’t care. “How fucking dare you, you use that name after – after everything that bastard’s put us through. Robin was ours,” he grits out, choking on it. “He was ours and he took him from us. You can’t use that fucking name.”

There’s a long, tremulous pause before a mechanized voice in a Crime Alley drawl says, “Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

Andrew bristles at the flat, dry tone that makes its way through the modulator. “Fuck. You. I don’t care about your so-called ‘clean up’ of Crime Alley or your beef with the Bat or whatever shit you think you’re doing. Never come here again – we don’t, you – Robin was ours,” he repeats helplessly, tears sting his eyes. He brushes them away roughly, words locked tight behind his teeth that he can’t say no matter how much he wants.

Red Hood is silent, watchful. Andrew is so outclassed it’s not even funny, but he’s surprised the man hasn’t gone for a gun or just walked away. He almost, almost wants him to twitch a finger just to give him an excuse to bleed out this energy running a current under his skin, but he values his life mostly. Red Hood isn’t wearing a bat symbol like he’d been when he first got here – in a wave of violence and blood, fire blooming all around him.

They’d missed the climax, but everyone was there for the rising action and now they’re here for the fall.

He doesn’t wear a bat insignia and that feels like a warning, a threat.

“Makin’ a lot of demands for a nerdy librarian, aren’tcha?”

Andrew lets out a soundless shout, drops his donuts, and, and shoves Red Hood. The crime lord stumbles just the slightest. He freezes, ooooh shit – oh shit he did not just do that did he – shit, shit, he just shoved the fucking Red Hood. Doesn’t hurt kids and innocents, yeah, but Andrew just shouted in his face and shoved him.

Red Hood just laughs, sharp and surprised, and Andrew shudders at the way it warps through the modulator. He rocks back on his heels and there’s a smile in his voice when he says, “Huh. You protective of all your kids like that?”

“…I try to be,” Andrew says, a wobble in his voice.

The crime lord hums. Next thing he knows, a box is being shoved in his hands and Red Hood is shooting a grapple towards a rooftop. Andrew looks down dazedly at his no longer dropped box of donuts. Fuck.

—

Either Andrew actually scared him off (doubt) or what, but Red Hood keeps away from the library.

For the most part.

—

Barbara Gordon sighs and slides her glass up on her head to rub her burning eyes. The box of books on the sidewalk is a nice present. The little marking on one of the flaps is less so.

“Is there a reason why Red Hood is dropping off books?” she asks Lia.

“He’s not allowed to be here,” the mid-shift librarian replies, frowning in a way Barbara figured out years ago is a ‘new normal’ for her. From the pictures in the breakrooms and the stories they tell, Lia had been the bubbliest of them all. Barbara remembers Jason – she remembers other stories about her smiles and her kindness, Tim actually brought it up a few times, too. “Andrew yelled at him and told him to stay away and…he has? Weirdly enough.”

She sits her glasses back on her nose to make sure her unimpressed stare is properly conveyed. A library, just on the outskirts of Crime Alley. A library that allows kids to spend as much time as they need, even overnight. A library that violent, brutal Red Hood got shouted at in front of. And he just… leaves it alone except for donating books?

Bruce won’t tell them what happened during his confrontation with Red Hood. Whatever it was, it shook him to the core. She’s backtracked all the way to his arrival in Gotham to two hours before his showdown with Batman and then, poof, the crime lord disappears almost completely off her radar.

If it weren’t for the occasional hint of his red helmet on various CCTV, she’d believe he left Gotham altogether. As it is, he’s oddly proficient at avoiding them. It almost feels like he’s only being caught because he wants to be. Tim and her ducked their heads together to try and figure out a pattern to his appearances, but it’s been slow going and practically a dead end.

Hell, he hasn’t been seen on camera in two weeks and she almost believes he finally left Gotham except –

The statistics for Park Row and the surrounding East End have never been better.

And –

She sits here, staring at a box of books with a bat scribbled onto the cardboard in red permanent marker. Red Hood hasn’t worn a bat in months – not since the confrontation – and he keeps taking lives, but she’s seen red bats everywhere. Spray painted onto brick, over doors, scraped into sidewalks and wooden posts. Claimed by Red Hood. Try It Fuckers. A dare and a promise all tied up into one violent, wordless threat.

Barbara even knows that it’s not Red Hood putting up these marks. It’s the kids, the street girls, the young twenty somethings who feel like they’ve got nowhere else to go. The ones Red Hood laid claim to. The ones he protects so viciously that she’s been trying to convince Batman to let him continue.

She doesn’t like the killing. She doesn’t like brutality. But sometimes – She slides her hands over the wheels of her chair, hums under her breath.

“Just like that?” she asks.

Lia nods. “Just like that.” She chews on her bottom lip, hefting the box into her arms. She glances up at the roof across the street and Barbara follows her gaze to spot a flash of red disappearing. “I don’t get it,” she whispers.

Preaching to the choir, not even the Bat clan gets it.

—

Amy adds a period to her last sentence and sighs. She slumps in her chair, staring at the ceiling, and rubs her eyes until they hurt. Her head lolls to look outside and – nearly screams at the goddamn Red Hood staring back at her. She leaps to her feet, brandishing pepper spray like that’s going to do anything against his helmet.

Red Hood doesn’t move except to wave. She would almost call the move sheepish if it weren’t for the guns strapped to his thighs and the blood staining his jacket cuffs. He makes a motion like he’s asking to come in – and she thinks, kinda hysterically, the door is unlocked why the fuck is he asking. She shakes her head before she can think better of it. Her hand trembles with her finger on the trigger.

He doesn’t make any aggressive movements, only shifts to the side to reveal a kid clinging to the back of his jacket, teary-eyed and terrified.

Amy’s out of her chair and to the door within seconds.

“What the hell?” she hisses. The kid flinches, ducking back behind Hood. She glares accusingly at the crime lord.

He raises his hands disarmingly, palms out. “Listen,” he says in that mechanized Crime Alley drawl. “I needed somewhere safe for her.”

“And you thought here was an okay place for you to be?” Amy rages.

Red Hood tenses, shoulders curling in something aggressive. “I know you don’t fuc – freaking care about me, but at least care about the kid!” he snarls. The girl whimpers and he forces himself to relax, swinging a big hand around to touch her head. It’s a testament to the amount of trust the Alley kids have in Red Hood that she doesn’t even flinch. Amy hates that she softens at the sight. “Please, I need her safe for just a couple hours.”

Really, it’s the please, so much desperation in a single word, that does her in. Amy stares at him then the girl then back to him. “What are you planning?”

“Her dad,” is all he says.

She squeezes her eyes shut and nods. “Fine. I’ll take care of her. Just – God, whatever. Just be careful.”

“Aw, you do care about me,” he drawls even as he maneuvers the girl with gentle hands until he can pass her off to Amy. The girl clings to Hood’s jacket until the very last moment. Amy is careful as she folds her into a hug.

“Not even a little bit,” Amy says into the girl’s hair. When she looks up, Hood’s already leaping across rooftops.

—

The next time there’s a book drop off, there’s toys too. Little plushies and fidget toys. And donuts. Andrew stares at the box. It’s the same brand from when he shouted at Red Hood, still sealed up nice and tight. A baker’s dozen.

—

Jason doesn’t know what he’s doing. Actually. No. He knows what he’s doing, he doesn’t know why. Yet, despite all the anxiety and fear churning uncomfortably in his chest – he would almost call the feeling foreign, but he’s been feeling shit like that for months now since he, he came back – so, yeah, despite all that and every smart brain cell he currently has telling him to turn back, he secures the hood over his head, shoves his hands in his pockets, and slouches through the library’s front doors.

No one looks at him twice – he’s big and broad, yeah, but while he may not be as good at undercover work as Dickhead or Bruce, he does know a thing or two. Between being a street rat then a vigilante, knowing Clark Kent and his whole thing, then with everything that came after – yeah, he’s gotten pretty good at it. He’s cultivated a college kid look right now; a black Gotham U hoodie, worn-but-not-too-worn jeans, motorcycle boots, and a bookbag with random notebooks and books that’s half open to keep people from wondering and getting suspicious.

It's perfect.

And he’s so, so goddamn stupid.

Because he catches sight of Lia sitting at the front desk and it feels like he’s been punched in the gut by Killer Croc. He freezes, limbs locked, and he forces himself to breathe slow and even. Lia doesn’t notice him, too focused on the conversation she’s having with a little girl, and Jason beats a hasty retreat to the history aisle, blood roaring in his ears. She looks older – it’s been four years, of course she’s older – and sad. Why does she look sad? Lia should never look sad. She was always so bubbly and chatty. Amy had been clipped sentences and sharp smiles, Andrew soft words and loud laughs, and Lia was happy. What happened?

There’s such a big difference between seeing her from across the street and seeing her in the library.

Jason pulls a random book off the shelf then two more just to be safe. If it’s the same as four years ago, no one will ask him anything if he looks like he knows what he’s doing or otherwise deeply engaged in the text.

Why is he here? Andrew told him to stay away. Lia looks so sad. Babs works for this library now – and wasn’t that another punch in the gut, so much as changed – and he’s seen her every couple weeks filling as the forth rotation. He didn’t know the same person was allowed to show up so often.

His eyes burn under the shadow of his hood. God, he’s pathetic. He’s been back for months, suffered the disappointment of Batman choosing his murderer over his own son, dealt with the resignation that came when the Bats started going after him in earnest –

They know, they know, he tells himself, and they don’t care. He’s replaced. He’s forgotten. He’s not a Bat, not a Wayne, not family. – and yet it’s being here in the library that’s making him cry like a fool in the middle of the day in public (as opposed to in the middle of the morning, still a fool, at one of his safehouses).

He turns a page, doesn’t read the text. Lia finishes with the little girl and her voice is chipper when she greets someone else. Jason peeks out the corner of his eye and chokes.

It’s official, he’s the unluckiest bastard in the entire goddamn world.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Dick Grayson greets Lia like they’re old friends and Tim fucking Drake smiles something small and wane. Jason very-carefully doesn’t slam his forehead against the tabletop, but he comes pretty damn close to it. Why are they here? To taunt, maybe. They know, if they even remember, that this was Jason’s place. Ugh. They know Jason’s Red Hood, Barbie’s seen some of his drop offs – he just screwed himself, didn’t he?

Except – they’re not looking around. Dick stays focused on his conversation with Lia while Tim heads to the story time corner and the gaggle of children who were apparently waiting for him because they greet him with laughs and his name. Tim’s just as enthusiastic, patting some on the head, carefully avoiding touching others even as he turns his attention to them. Jason’s chest aches at the sudden flashback. He even spots a girl who reminds him of Nina and, hell, she looks the right age, she could be Nina for all he knows.

There’s no green beanbags anymore. Tim sits on the lowest step of the amphitheater; book open on his knees. Dick takes a return cart and starts putting books away. Jason sees green. Because those were his. That was his shit that he did even after Bruce took him in. The library was his, became even more so after his first incident with fear toxin and Bruce got that sad, pinched look on his face and encouraged Jason to go more often, even came himself a few times.

He comes back to himself to find a tear at the very top of the book’s spine and his knuckles bleached white, the binding pulls and threatens to rip all the way. Jason drops it like he’s been burned, clutching at the edge of the table instead and taking deep breaths. It’s been a while since the Pit gained a majority influence – the longer he gets from his first dip, the less the rage pops up – but of course now it would come back.

Lia’s following Dick, helping with the returns, but mostly just chatting. They’re talking about Red Hood’s drop offs – why are they talking about Red Hood’s drop offs – and how the books can’t be put in circulation, but they’ve made up a section of them all for people to freely take and, oh how did he miss that? Jason scans the library and spots it on the wall flush against a window so anyone walking by can see it.

It’s stuffed full. Shit, he dropped off way too many. Little colorful papers separate the categories, there’s a sign he can’t read next to it, and he wonders why they kept the books even though they know Red Hood dropped them off. They hate him. They hate him in a way he hadn’t anticipated – the murderer he stole the name from killed Robin and, he knows Bruce reported Jason’s death as the result of a terrorist attack, but Robin’s death – Jason shoves his face into his hands, biting the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood.

He shouldn’t have come here.

(Jason doesn’t see the little table tucked to the side, but not out of sight. It has a handwritten sign, familiar and old, that says Classics for People Who Don’t Like Classics and it hasn’t changed more than a single book in years.)

And – shit, that thought just sends him spiraling. Jason shoves himself up, chair teetering and falling back with a crash. He keeps his chin tucked to his collarbone; arms folded across his chest like that’s gonna keep him from falling apart. Jason doesn’t have to look to know everyone’s watching at him now. He hunches, something in his chest giving.

“You okay?” Dick asks, tone concerned but detached in the way it gets sometimes when he talks to civilians but something else is going on that might, is probably, more important. Civilians never catch on because this is Robin-Nightwing-Dick Grayson, too starstruck, too traumatized by whatever caused him to start talking to them in the first place. He cares, too much usually, but even he knows when to step back…sometimes.

Jason can’t stand hearing that tone directed towards him.

Because, because it’s one thing to hear Nightwing treat Red Hood like a stranger, like the villain he is – not quite a Rogue. He doesn’t grandstand, not since, since that night, so really, he’s not…he’s not – it’s another to hear the big brother he never got to fully have talking to him like that.

Jason grabs his useless bag and storms out of the library, shoulder checking a curious and approaching Tim hard enough to make him stumble. He doesn’t hear Lia calling for him – and if he did, he’s a stranger, a stranger told to stay away. He needs to find something to fucking shoot before the green crawling across his vision has him doing something he might regret.

Red Hood doesn’t show up in Gotham for a while.

—

And when he does, it’s weeks later. Nightwing, in his bid to lessen the load on Bruce, Babs, and Tim during the aftermath of The Stand Off, had taken over his territory in the meantime – told himself it was just to keep an eye out for the…the villain (no, not villain, Dick can’t think of the right category, but it’s not villain) and bring him in, but really, he knows himself better than that.

Habit kept him lingering on the edges of his territory even after Hood came back, so he’s the one who finds the crumpled form in the alley behind the library.

Of course. That’s almost expected at this point. Even though he’s only seen Red Hood with his own two eyes a handful of times and usually during a fight, he’s fully aware of his strange overprotectiveness of the Park Row Public Library. It’s the sun and Red Hood is a helpless planet caught up in its gravity.

He drops down, rolling with the impact, and approaches the figure slowly, cautiously. The other man doesn’t even twitch. He’s face down, arm pinned under him, legs sprawled out. His other arm is reaching out like he’d been crawling. Nightwing follows the angle of his body, the limp direction of his hand, and something in his chest tightens because –

Because he was crawling towards the library.

And he’s lying in a puddle redder than it should be.

“R, you nearby?” he whispers into his comm as he settles on his knees. He shoves Hood over, hissing at the man’s weight. He’s nearly as heavy as Batman and Dick has a new appreciation for the acrobatics he’s seen on grainy CCTV. Between his armor and his bulk, he’s surprised he can pull off moves not even Batman can. “Bring a kit to my location.”

“N?” Oracle crackles over the line. “You good?”

“Yeah,” he replies, and doesn’t elaborate. Babs goes quiet, keys clacking.

Dick shouldn’t be doing anything about this. He should call the cops – or just straight up call B – but, but he can’t find it in himself so do so. Red Hood is brutal and violent. And he kills. And Dick can never be okay with that, he can’t be, but he – he disappeared.

For a full two weeks he disappeared.

No deaths. No violence. Then,

Red Hood’s been back for even longer than he’s been away and – there’s still violence. He’s still brutal, violently efficient, but no deaths. No deaths at all.

He’s restrained himself to rubber bullets or non-lethal live ammo. Even more so he’s started using (re-using?) melee weapons and his fists, his guns used as a last resort. They see him even less now – they, being Babs and Tim, who’ve been watching the CCTV footage like stalkers. He’s been taking up the disappearing act like his life depends on it. Instead, they see what others do with his presence. The graffiti of Crime Alley staking claim to their, their vigilante. The red bats that never look the same, giving away a dozen different artists. The crime rates never surged despite his disappearance and subsequent lack of killing.

Batman still doesn’t approve. But he also won’t tell any of them what happened all those months ago with him, Hood, and the Joker. So, Dick’s not really concerned about his approval right now.

Red Hood is doing good things for Crime Alley. He’s stopped killing. Dick can’t – Wow, okay. There we go. Dick can’t treat him like a villain when he’s heard the way kids talk about him, in awe and with a little bit of hero-worship. Villains get weird groupies, but nothing like this.

He wouldn’t go as far as calling him an outright hero. But maybe he’s got more in common with them, with vigilantes, than he thought now that he’s laid it out like that.

Tim drops down near silent, sucking a commiserating breath between his teeth. “Damn. What got him?”

“No idea.”

There’s been no gang activity this close to the library. Hood’s book drop-offs are more than enough to prove the building is under his protection even if it hasn’t been tagged. Nightwing made sure to pay special attention to it during his absence. No reports of gunshots nearby, which is definitely the cause of blood seeping from his abdomen.

They patch him up the best they can in a dingy alley. It’s kind of a subpar job. Dick and Tim are in silent agreement to not call B. Oracle hasn’t said anything else.

Hood’s new suit makes it easier to find the clasps to open it up, revealing a skintight compression top similar to what most of them wear. The bullet grazed him deep, tearing through his suit like tissue paper, but only that. A few stitches, a pressure bandage, and he’ll be up and at ‘em soon. It’s the bruises that appear when Dick lifts the shirt up higher that has him worried, makes him double check the suit itself.

His chest piece is thick enough to stop bullets dead on, leaving only deep bruises behind, but the rest of it let a bullet through.

Minimalist armor is never the way to go. The guy has funds, he has to. The armor he started with was leagues better than this, this cheap getup. It doesn’t make any sense.

Deep, dark, and agonizingly purple, his chest is a grotesque watercolor painting of the night sky. He presses carefully around them, relieved when his ribs don’t give. He moves to pull away and vice locks around his wrist.

“Fuck off,” Red Hood wheezes. Tim leans back out of reach, threading a needle. Hood kicks out in his direction, misses, and chokes on a groan. “Get the fuck away from me.”

“We’re trying to help you,” Dick says firmly. Hood pauses. He pulls his wrist, frowning when the grip doesn’t let go. It loosens, ever-so-slightly and – there’s a pained grunt as Tim starts suturing the graze closed, the grip retightens, but a couple degrees less than the initial grab. Oh. Okay. “Do you know who it was?”

Red Hood’s head thunks back. Dick inspects his new mask set up, surprised to see the red hood – and actual hood this time – attached to the mask with releasable clasps similar to the capes some of them wear. He’s obviously staring up at the sky and Dick has half a mind to believe he’s going to ignore the question.

“Some wannabes messin’ with the corner girls,” Hood finally mumbles. “Don’t worry about it.”

“And they got you?” Tim asks incredulously which, fair. Red Hood is trained. Trained enough their fights either come to a stalemate or he pulls out something fast and brutal that leaves their ears ringing because he’ll take cheap shots the rest of them will only take when they’re desperate.

He wonders if Hood is always desperate – to win, to live, to survive. Dick wants to know what happened to him to make him lash out like a cornered animal when a fight doesn’t go his way.

Hood groans again and this time he sounds exasperated. Dick bites back a grin. “Fuck. Off,” he says with feeling. “I don’t need your help.”

“Yet here I am, helping.”

“Didn’t ask.”

“Didn’t need to.”

Red Hood falls into startled silence at that, neck craning to stare at Tim. He wishes he could see the other vigilante’s expression just so he could capture the disbelieving look with his own two eyes. Tim has that way of bulldozing right over you that never fails to leave Dick delighted. He can’t even take credit for teaching him that. For all Dick is good at the same thing, Tim comes by it naturally.

“You get ‘em back?” Dick asks.

“Fuck yeah I did,” Hood says. He grunts again, flinching as Tim finishes up. “Bastards won’t be tryin’ again any time soon.”

Dick breaths in through his nose. “Did you kill them?”

“…no,” Hood admits. “Wanted to, though.”

Tim exchanges looks with Dick and despite the domino he knows exactly what kind of look that is, Dick agrees. What the hell? Weeks ago, the bastard was, well, not ‘mowing people down left and right’ like some sensational tabloids liked to say. He didn’t kill indiscriminately. But this – these would be the kind of guys he’d kill. He even admitted he wanted to.

They sit there, silent except for Hood’s wheezing breaths. Dick stares at the grip around his wrist. There’s white, faded scars on his exposed forearms, on his fingers. They’re crooked, his fingers, like they were broken and never healed right. Not broken. Smashed.

Tim clears his throat. “Why’d you leave the library in such a hurry?”

Red Hood tenses then yelps when his chest contracts and jostles his ribs. His grip gets painful before backing off. Dick doesn’t let him drop, grabs him back until their hands are clasped. Hood curls slightly, shoulders heaving. Tim swears and lunges for him, shoving him back down until he’s flat and not putting undue pressure on his ribs.

His breaths are painfilled and sucking, Dick wonders if he misdiagnosed a rib. “You – knew, knew, it was – me?” he says in such a small voice Dick regrets not stopping Tim when he realized what he was going to ask.

“Not at first,” Dick admits.

Red Hood mutters under his breath, too low for this modulator to catch anything but hissing. Dick waits patiently for Tim to press on a bandage before he starts shifting. Hood’s hand in his tenses, a knee-jerk reaction, and Dick freezes.

“Gotta get you out of the alley,” Dick says quietly. “Got a safe house nearby?”

He’s quiet for a long moment before he sags, body going boneless. Resignation radiates off of him in miserable waves. “Why are you helpin’ me?” he slurs.

“That’s sort of what we do,” Tim says as he packs up his kit. His casual tone does nothing to hide his concern.

“I shot you.”

Dick grins, brightly and only a little strained. “You haven’t shot Robin! And you barely got me in the arm. So, I’m not too worried about it.”

“Fucking hell. You’ve got the self-preservation of a goddamn lemming, birdbrain.” He sighs. “What would Batman think?”

“Batman’s not here soooo,” Dick deliberately drags out the word and is rewarded with a half-wheezed laugh from the ex-murderous vigilante.

It’s true, though, for all the hard hits and threats, Red Hood never took actual shots at them. Nightwing getting hit in the shoulder months ago was just really bad timing on everyone’s parts and he’s threatened to kick Robin off a roof multiple times but has yet to actually go through with it. Dick hopes, with all his heart, that maybe they can work something out. But first, safehouse.

—

She spots a flash of red on the roof opposite of the library and, in a stunning display of no self-preservation, she climbs the fire escape in her worn-out boots. Crime Alley kids gotta know their fire escapes. Red Hood is still there when she comes up even though he had plenty of time to make it all the way to Metropolis by now.

They stare at each other for a long moment, Lia assessing him carefully. She doesn’t know what she’s looking for – injuries, to explain why he’d been gone for so long? A bat insignia, to explain the sudden lack of lethal takedowns? She sees none of that, just a new red hoodie under his leather jacket and a red mask over the bottom half of his face and a domino over his eyes instead of his helmet.

Yet, the lack of a bat doesn’t feel as threatening anymore.

“You can’t keep doing this,” she says, exhausted.

There, an imperceptible twitch. If she didn’t know better, she’d call it a flinch. He shuffles back, a hand coming up to press under his ribs. Flat, open palmed. Bracing is the word she’s looking for. She winces. Red Hood disappeared, came back with a warehouse explosion and several Bats. Then only popped up again once before going underground. His book drop offs have narrowed to a trickle. There’s no new tags anywhere in East End with that flair that distinguishes his personal tags from anyone else’s.

“I thought you were dead.”

“What, suddenly care about me?” the mechanized voice drawls. Well, good to know that hasn’t changed.

Lia rolls her eyes, huffing. “We don’t need protection and we definitely don’t need it from you.” He flinches again. “But. I have to admit, you’re doing something for Crime Alley. I just wish you’d stop lurking around the library. I don’t even know why you care. You know we hate you.”

Red Hood shifts. “Not me.”

“Yes, you,” she snaps. “You don’t get it, do you? Just because you weren’t the one who killed Robin doesn’t mean you get to prance around with that goddamn name, okay?”

“Why do you care so fucking much?” Hood has the audacity to demand. Lia refrains from grabbing her taser, only because she knows it’s never going to make it through his stupid armor.

“Robin was ours!” she shouts. It echoes across the rooftop. “Andrew told you this. The streets told you this. Robin was Crime Alley’s. Everyone else may have forgotten you – him – your namesake, but we haven’t.”

“You didn’t even know him.”

Lia stomps her foot childishly. “You’re so goddamn stubborn. We knew him! He was a sweet kid. Smart. Happy. Every time he smiled; it lit up the room. Everyone loved him. And then he was gone.” Her eyes burn. She rubs at them, refusing to let the crime-lord-almost-a-vigilante see her cry. “The Joker – It was the Joker. So no one is under an assumption that it was a nice, pleasant death. He doesn’t even let people he’s indifferent to have nice deaths, why would he give Robin one?”

Hood takes a step back, his other arm coming up to clutch his shoulder in some pathetic half-hug. Something about it makes him seem small.

She smiles, sad and wobbly, and the words come spilling out. “I just can’t help thinking about how Robin must’ve felt under that bastard’s thumb. You know he wasn’t around for a couple weeks before he died? What if he was with the Joker the whole time? What if he was alone? Scared and alone and, and he died like that,” she sobs. “And I think – I think about it and it’s so much worse because I don’t actually know. I don’t know if it was worse or better. I just know he’s gone. And, and we miss him so much.”

Tired. She’s been tired for years. They all have been. Something fundamental broke all those years ago and Red Hood is keeping the fissure open even if he doesn’t mean it.

“Leave us alone,” she begs. “Please.”

Hood is quiet then, “You’re too close to Crime Alley,” he says weakly.

Lia lets out a sobbed laugh into the palms of her hands. Because he’s right. That’s what makes this so frustrating. Red Hood is doing something good and worthwhile, and they have no right to ask him to stay away just because of his name – the kids he watches out for, they come to the library on their worst nights, say that Red Hood told them to come here and that they would be safe and warm and, and that alone is going to keep him coming back time and time again because – because for some reason he chose this library, this place.

She doesn’t understand. Doesn’t want to understand. Not really.

“Just – Just try to be more subtle,” she says. “Andrew’s getting jumpy.”

“Sure. Yeah. Whatever.”

The words are clipped, but she hears the hurt behind them anyway. Lia doesn’t want to look into that. She turns heel and walks off towards the roof access. She has to pass Red Hood to do so, and she’s not scared of him. Not anymore. He doesn’t stop her. Doesn’t even twitch a finger in her direction.

She leaves him on the rooftop, standing there so very alone. And she tries not to think about the slump in his shoulders – tries to ignore the little niggle of guilt that suddenly appears. She doesn’t owe him anything.

—

Not long after, they realize –  there hasn’t been a book drop off in a while.

It’s not that they need them, it’s just – now they have a harder time knowing if Hood is alive. And it’s so stupid, because – because they don’t care. They don’t, they swear. But it’s…it’s like Robin all over again. Their protector. Theirs. Maybe Hood is missing the personal connection to the three librarians that Robin had, but it’s hard not to begin to view him the same way, with the same protectiveness he shows them in return.

It’s not fair. His name doesn’t negate the good he does. It just. Hurts. So much.

Andrew fiddles with a fidget toy, chewing on the inside of his cheek, doing his best to not think too hard about any of this. Tries not to feel guilty because – he’s the first one to tell Hood he wasn’t allowed at the library. It doesn’t matter that he wasn’t a vigilante then, or even an anti-hero. What matters is, is – he’s not sure what matters now.

What matters now is that – is that Robin is staring at him through the window.

Andrew stares back, wide eyed and slack jawed, hand frozen midair and midclick. Robin grins, sheepish and still so bright. It’s a small smile, not wide and laughing like the first Robin and not a crooked, shy thing like, like the second Robin. But it’s still so Robin.

And he’s holding a box in his arms.

A box with a red bat scribbled on it in wobblier than normal lines.

Andrew sticks his head out the door. “Normally he just drops them off,” he says blankly.

Robin hefts the box up higher. Jesus, how strong is this kid?

“He’s banned, I’m not,” Robin replies, a strange little twitch to his smile.

Andrew steps aside to let the vigilante in. The library is mostly empty this time of morning, thankfully, and there’s something about Robin that makes you kinda not look at him all the way – everyone else is like that too. Batman, Nightwing, Batgirl, all the Robins. Just – an air about them, a feeling, that lets them get away with being on the fringes, being in the corner of your eye.

He’d almost accuse them of being metas, but what are the chances all five of them are metas with the same power?

Anyway, Robin sets the box in the back room with little fanfare, the few patrons barely even glancing up when he walked past. His cape is not even a sigh when it swishes.

“Are you guys…friends, now?” Andrew can’t help but ask before Robin can leave the back room. “Is he, yanno – ?” He taps his own chest, right where a bat insignia would be.

Robin huffs a laugh. “We’re getting there,” he admits. “There’s a lot to it that I can’t really go into detail about, but I think – yeah, I think you can consider Red Hood Bat affiliated now.”

Andrew can’t stop the wince when he says Red Hood. Of course, Robin notices, the corners of his lips quirking into a frown. He rests his hand on top of the box thoughtfully.

“He told me about your hang up with his name,” Robin says with a considering hum to his words. Wow, really? Okay. Andrew doesn’t know how to feel about that. “Do you know why Batman chose Batman?” Andrew shakes his head. “He’s scared of bats.”

“…What?” God, is he, is he even supposed to be hearing this? Is he allowed to know this?

Robin’s laugh this time is louder, brighter. “Yeah, he’s scared of bats. Thought he could put on a bat suit and overcome his fears that way while putting the fear of Gotham into criminals. It worked, didn’t it?”

“So, you’re saying…?”

No, he can’t be.

He shrugs. “Maybe it started like that then turned into something else. Or maybe it was something else and turned into that. But sometimes the best way to face your fears is to confront them everyday until you’re not scared anymore.”

“That sounds awful,” Andrew whispers.

“Didn’t say it wasn’t,” Robin replies. “Didn’t say it was a good way to do it either. And maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m right. But he didn’t pick the name to hurt you. He didn’t pick the name to hurt any of you.”

He just picked the name to hurt himself, is what Andrew takes from that. Or, or he picked the name to hurt the Joker. Somehow. Andrew closes his eyes, brows furrowing.

When he opens them, Robin is gone.

—

It’s winter and overcast, clouds hanging lowlowlow to the ground, spreading like frost on a window through the streets when Gotham goes on lockdown.

Amy ushers the kid still in the library into the break room, tucking them in a corner with a heavy-duty metal flashlight and a flare. Will that do anything? She’s not sure. This is the first time she’s had anyone around when lockdown hits and she doesn’t know what to do but give them everything she can to protect themselves. She grabs her pepper spray, her little HAM radio, and sits at her desk with the lights inside turned off. The only source of light are the streetlamps outside, made fuzzy by the flurries.

She turns the radio on, adjusting it so it’s barely a whisper. With her eyes on the windows, she puts her ear to the speaker, waiting for the read off of who escaped Arkham this time. Her heart is lodged in her throat, her hands shaking. Normally, she’d be calm. Normally, this would be okay. But – but…

This is just so similar to that one night, years and years ago, when the city was scared-prey quiet and she was the only one here and Robin came, bloody and crying and she helped, she helped him the best she could and sometimes she thinks it wasn’t enough. She squeezes her eyes shut against the sting. Robin. She’s never going to forgive herself.

A growing spark smothered too soon.

Killer Croc. Scarecrow. Firefly. Not too many, but heavy hitters and mass casualty makers. She drops her forehead to the surface of her desk, resisting the urge to cry outright. This is fine. This is totally okay. It’s not just Batman and Robin and Nightwing out there tonight, they have – they have Red Hood. He wears the bat all the time now, she’s seen him with the other Bats here and there, mostly through grainy CCTV footage in tabloids that Lia still reads.

But he was definitely with them. Definitely not fighting them.

And she’s near Crime Alley. Well, the library is. So, they’re doubly safe, right? There’s four vigilantes out there, for the first time in years and years since Batgirl disappeared – then… Robin disappeared. Then those scary six months when it was only Batman, then sometimes Batman and Nightwing. And, suddenly, there were three again, a new Robin and – and –

Amy bites her lip. Nope. Nope. Okay.

She sees a flash of fire in the distance, barely visible above the buildings. Firefly. He seems far away enough. Amy cuddles her radio closer, pressing her cheek to the corner until it hurts then rests her chin on it, stares unblinkingly out the windows for anyone in need. Her rebreather is in easy access under her desk, pressing against her knee. She knocks it every now and then just to make sure it’s still there, jiggles it to make sure it’s not stuck.

The batsignal is barely visible through the flurries that have turned into actual snowfall.

Amy’s staring at that when a dark shadow appears out the corner of her eye and – bang! bang! bang! She shrieks and jumps to her feet, flashlight in hand like she’s gonna throw it…or something.

Light reflects off red – that’s way lower than it should be. Her brows furrow and she glances down to see a pre-teen shivering against the bulky form of Red Hood. There’s another kid, younger, pressed to the back of his leg, clinging to it like it’s their only anchor to reality. They’re both wearing rebreathers. One normal and the other – Her eyes drift back up and – and –

Oh.

She can’t see his face through the shadows, but she sees the curve of his chin and her stomach drops out.

Amy hurries to the door – thinks, the door’s not locked, why doesn’t he just come in – and yanks it open, gesturing the group inside. The two kids go, stumbling over each other, flinching, and cowering in a way that tells her they got dosed just a little bit with fear gas. Which means…

Red Hood stays on the sidewalk. His shoulders are hunched, hands shoved into his pockets. He’s shivering, trembling really, and something tells her it’s not because of the cold.

“Hood,” she whispers –

And he flinches.

Amy, Amy takes the teeniest, tiniest step back, clutching the flashlight to her chest. Her heart is beating so fast she feels breathless, her mouth dry.

“Hood,” she says again, quiet and unobtrusive – and it sounds like a gunshot.

“Goin’,” he rasps out, voice hoarse and wavering. “Don’t –  ,” he swallows thickly, “Don’t need to tell me twice.”

He turns to leave. He turns to leave, shoulders shaking, his voice sounding like he’s close to tears or, or he’s been screaming. Amy can’t – She can’t, in good consciousness, let him go. Not when – not when she’s thinking of another vigilante who came to the library tagged with fear gas.

She lurches before she even fully thinks about it, hand wrapping around his bicep. He yanks his arm out of her grip, recoiling so sharply he stumbles, tripping over his own two feet. His knees hit the ground with an audible crack, and he grunts, swaying back and forth right in the middle of the sidewalk.

Amy presses her fingers to her mouth, tears pricking the corner of her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He doesn’t respond.

She reaches out again and realizes that he can’t see her, not like this. She carefully slides around, swings wide, and comes up in front of him. She’s taller than him like this, his head tilting back. She can’t see his eyes under the hood, pretty sure he’s still wearing a domino anyway, but she doesn’t like – she doesn’t like this. Doesn’t like the way he then hunches over, arms wrapping around his stomach in the mockery of a hug. Doesn’t like the full-body shudder that wracks through him.

“Come inside,” she says, hands held palms out for him. He ducks his head, chin pressing into his collarbone. “C’mon, it’s warmer further in.”

Hood chokes on his next breath and it sounds like a sob. Amy carefully presses her hands to his shoulders, pushing him up. He grips her wrists loosely, carefully, and she can tell he’s trying so very hard not to grip tighter. Another shudder goes through him, and he crumples. She holds him up.

“Why did you bring them here?” she whispers.

He leans, pressing his forehead against the back of his hand. This close she can feel heat radiating off him, can feel the slide of sweat.

“Safe,” he breathes out. “It’s safe here. For them.”

A tear escapes and runs down her cheek. Oh. Right. She clears her throat harshly. “C’mon,” she says, urging him up. “It can be safe for you too, yeah? Get inside, get warmed up. I won’t let anything happen to you.”

He resists her, shaking his head rapidly. “No, no, no,” he murmurs. “No. Not – Not safe.”

She frowns. “It is safe,” she insists. “You just said so. You’ll be safe here.”

Hood starts to pull away, climbing to his feet on buckling legs. He holds her apart from him, hands still around her wrists. She stares up at him – can see, from this angle, the way his chin wobbles, sees the tell-tale shine on his cheeks. Dark hair curls along his jaw, just barely visible. She can see the lower part of his domino and – she wonders if Batman has a tracker on him like he did Robin.

He chokes again, doubling over, flinching at something unseen. His shoulder jerks suddenly, like it’s been struck, and he lets out a sharp sob that cuts in half. He lets go of her abruptly, hands curling into fists around nothing. It’s only by the grace of his gloves that his nails don’t dig into his palms and draw blood.

“Please,” she hears. “Pleasepleaseplease. Stop. I can’t take – I can’t do this again.” He presses his closed fists to either side of his head, beating them rapidly like he’s trying to knock something out. “Stop. Stop.”

“Hood – .”

“I said stop!” he howls, whirling away from her and driving a fist into the brick wall. Something snaps in his hand, but he doesn’t even notice, pulling back to punch it again. She lunges, wrapping both arms around his, digging her heels in to pull him back. He snarls, yanking his arm up. She goes on her tiptoes, hissing out a surprised sound. “No!”

“Stop!” she shouts. Her voice echoes down the empty street. “Hood! Please!”

He raises his arm further, muscle flexing. Her toes don’t touch the ground now – she’d be impressed if she wasn’t so scared.

For a moment she thinks – she thinks he’s going to throw her. Toss her away as easily as she thinks he can. But then he freezes, his breaths whistling harshly between his teeth, and he lowers his arm, her feet settling back flat on the ground. She lets go immediately, hands up. Her heart is beating like a hummingbird’s wings, trapped somewhere between her chest and her throat, her pulse a flutter in her neck. Hood backs away from her slowly and she goes with him, shuffling her feet around.

And – And she’s scared, yeah, but he’s terrified. She can’t not.

“It’ll be safe here,” she assures him.

“Not for you,” he croaks out.

And, yeah, she kinda got that. Fear gas affects people in too many different ways to be fully prepared for it. He’s violently scared, lashing out, but fuck that shit. This library is safe. He cares so much about them, about the kids he brings her, she’d be damned if she lets him think, for even a moment, that this place isn’t safe for everyone including him.

“For me,” she says firmly. He doesn’t notice the way she’s carefully maneuvering him towards the door. “For you. Please, I’ll keep you safe. You’ll keep me safe, yeah? I trust you.” He shudders. “You hear that? It’s your name we have a problem with, not you. You just –” she swallows thickly as she presses him through the door. He doesn’t notice the sudden lack of light. “There was this kid,” she starts. “He was so, so smart. Happy, despite some of the shit he had to go through. He was the best.”

“Robin,” she thinks she hears mumbled from his lips. She shakes her head.

“Robin is great,” she says – and because she can’t let him think this story is about Robin even if it kinda is, she derails her own story to add: “Robin was great. I’m talking about a different kid. His name was Jason.”

Hood staggers like he’s been hit, collapsing against a table. He clings to it, holding it up more than it’s holding him up. He presses his face against a book cover, violent tremors tearing through him. He splays a hand under his face, a barrier between it and the book, then – then he starts crying in earnest. So, so scared and trying hard not to show it, his cries muffled and trapped between his lips.

She wonders, then, exactly how old he is.

“Please,” he croaks out like there’s something shattered inside him. “Please, I just want it to stop.”

He slides to the ground, knees curling to chest, arms over his head in a protective gesture. Amy goes with him on her hands and knees, inching closer and closer. He doesn’t cower away from her – seems to want to lean towards her instead – and she brushes her fingertips on his elbow, up his forearm. They linger there, hovering. She doesn’t know what she intended on doing, but she can’t pull away.

“It’ll stop,” she says. “Whatever you’re seeing, Red, it’s not real. I promise it’s not real. You’re safe, yeah? You’re safe. I’m safe. You’re not going to hurt me. I swear. And soon this will all be over like, like a bad dream.”

“Bad dream,” he latches on to, repeats it under his breath like if he says it enough times it’ll come true.

Amy nods. “Exactly.”

Hood scoots under the table – not necessarily trying to get away from her – and he’s just a little too bulky for it to be comfortable. He pulls his arms down, his hood goes with him. Amy presses close to the table, unable to do anything but rest a comforting hand on his knee. His chest heaves with his breaths, his cheeks blotchy and red. She rubs her thumb in small circles, humming soothingly.

He shifts, the light from the street slides just right and – and she fucking freezes. Stares.

Stares and, and thinks, fucking impossible.

Amy closes her eyes. It’s suddenly hard to breathe, a vice around her chest, tears caught in her throat. It burns, it hurts. And she just wants to collapse into a puddle and start wailing. She taps her forehead against the lip of the table hard.

“Let’s get away – Let’s get away from the windows,” she chokes out. She takes his hand and tugs ever-so-gently. “Please. I can’t – We can’t – C’mon, please.”

Hood follows her without protest, unfolding gracefully from under the table despite…everything. She steers him towards the amphitheater, blood roaring in her ears, her palms sweaty. He whines when she settles him on the bottom step and starts to pull away.

“Two,” she swallows. “Two seconds, okay?”

Oh, god, now that she can see him – there’s a streak of blood on his cheek, his curls are a disheveled mess. She just wants to drop right next to him and sleep for a year. He’s tracking her, she can tell by the slow movement of his head, but he doesn’t get up.

Amy checks the breakroom, eyeing the splay of shadows that indicate the kids. The one who was here originally peeks up from the smothered light of their flashlight and flashes them a thumbs up. She nods and ducks back out, heading to the storage room. It takes her a minute, but she finds what she was looking for and brings it back out, snagging a couple books on her way.

Red Hood is where she left him, only his elbows on his knees, face buried in his hands. He’s crying silently, shoulders shaking. He flinches every now and then, like someone’s shouting in his ears.

She sets the books on the step then holds out the other item in front of him, nudging it against his head. He peeks over his fingers then his hands fall away completely, lips parting in surprise.

The beanbag is comically small. It’s meant for children, after all. He picks it up anyway and clutches the green beanbag to his chest, not caring about the musty smell from being in storage for almost five years. She sits at his side, shoulders brushing.

“It’ll be okay,” she whispers again, picking up a book. “You can come back, you know.”

He doesn’t answer her, just buries his face into the beanbag. It’s okay, Amy hadn’t expected an answer anyway. She settles back, makes sure they’re touching from hip to thigh at least, smiling a little even with the tears at how he leans into it. She cracks open a book and clears her throat. Then, with her phone on the dimmest setting, she begins to read.

“’The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning. The weeks that come before…’”

—

Waylon and Garfield are caught without much fanfare – which makes them nervous for what Firefly is planning long term because he’s never that easy to catch. Crane is…a bit more difficult. But while Batman escorts the Rogue to Arkham once more, Robin drops down in the alleyway next to the library on silent feet. They don’t need trackers to know where Jason went. He creeps around the corner, peering through the window.

The library is dark. Ominously so. Nightwing is waiting up on the roof, but Tim wanted to do this on his own.

Robin pushes the door open anyway and walks in on the balls of his feet, his cape barely a noise as it whooshes behind him. There’s a flash of a phone screen in the back, bright and blinding even on the low setting. Instead of disappearing, it points in his direction, and he goes towards it like it’s a beacon in the dark.

Which, actually, it kind of is.

What he finds both surprises him and makes him think of course – Amy is there, and so is Jason. He’s wrapped around a green beanbag clutched tightly to his chest like it’s an oversized stuffed animal and he’s absolutely trembling, breaths hitching with each jerk of his shoulders. Amy’s draped half over him from the higher step of the amphitheater, arm curled around him protectively, a book in hand –  Tuck Everlasting – with her fingers between the pages. She’s staring narrow-eyed, curling tighter around Jason with each approaching footstep – until she finally clocks him as Robin.

Amy blinks, tilting her phone face down to hide the light, then quietly asks, “Do you have a tracker on him?”

Tim startles at the sudden question. “Uh…no?” he replies awkwardly. She wrinkles her nose. “We’ll, uh, get right on that?”

She nods firmly. “Good.”

Then she turns away from him, dropping her phone unceremoniously on the ground, setting the book down more carefully. She cards her fingers through Jason’s hair and he twitches at the touch, like he can’t decide if he wants to get away or lean closer.

“Hey, Hood,” she says softly. Fondly, Tim realizes. “Robin’s here for you.” He shakes his head, folding tighter around the beanbag. She laughs and it sounds like she’s forcing it out around tears. “Yeah, I know. But he’s gonna help. And see? You were safe. You didn’t hurt me at all.”

Tim’s heart sinks to his stomach. Oh.

Robin inches closer, palms out, tries to ignore the prick of tears in his eyes – tries to ignore the memory of green flaring in Jason’s eyes and the way he would slam them shut, spinning away from them, shoulders pulled tight, blood welling between his nails and palms as he tries to control the very thing that brought him back. Tries not to remember Bruce’s broken expression and the twist of rage in Dick’s pained smile when Jason would stalk out of the room, desperate not to hurt them, to not take the Pit out of on them.

Jason sits up when Tim brushes his fingers over his forearm, leaning towards Tim until the top of his head presses against his chest. His curls are even more of a mess than normal, sticking up in every direction. Tim bets if he could see the older boy’s face, he’d be blinking blearily at him like he’d just woken up. He smothers  a smile from that mental image. Not yet. Not yet, but one day. When things are a little less tense, he’ll get to see Jason at the breakfast table.

“Ready to go?” he asks, keeping his tone low and even. He keeps his touch light as he drags a hand up and down his arm, his other hand carefully pressing the antidote to the gas into Jason’s neck. There’s a quiet hiss and Jason sags, his weight enough to send Tim staggering back a step. “Oof!”

“You got him?” Amy asks.

He nods. “Of course. Nightwing’s up top just in case. I just…I just wanted to come in my, myself.”

Jason stands on shaking legs and Tim braces him, doesn’t take the beanbag from him as he hesitates, staring at it before he slowly places it on the amphitheater. Without it in his grip he seems to lose stability. Tim scrambles to catch him, knees almost buckling as Jason just drapes himself over Tim with a small little sound.

Amy giggles. “Are you sure?”

Tim wheezes. “Yeah – Yeah. C’mon, Hood. Let’s go home.”

Jason lets Tim lead him away, one foot after another – and Tim closes his eyes briefly, suddenly overcome because, because this –  this is Robin. His Robin, who trusts him amid the spiraling terror that is fear gas. He came here, to his library, to the library that, that they used to help remember Jason, to help feel closer to after his death.

And he’s just so incredibly happy and relieved that the library still is, and probably will forever be, Jason’s.

—

Jason is freezing. He hunches his shoulders, turtling into his jacket. It’s bulky and warm like his Red Hood one, just not lined with reinforced, flexible plates. He shoves his hands into his pockets and hesitates across the street before he decides, fuck it, squares his shoulders, and walks in.

Amy’s head jerks up so fast he’s surprised she didn’t give herself whiplash. She leaps to her feet, bracing herself against her desk like it’s the only thing keeping her from collapsing right then and there. Jason hunches a little further, tucking his full six-foot frame into something small and unnoticeable.

Which is kinda stupid because he’s pretty fucking noticeable.

She steps around the desk on wobbly legs, hand coming up to cover her mouth. There’s tears in her eyes that quickly spill over down her cheeks. She sobs sharply, squeezing her eyes shut.

“It’s true. I thought…” she says thickly. Jason doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t know what to do but meet her halfway. She hits his chest with a closed fist, absolutely no strength behind it at all. Amy splays open her hand, palm over his heart. Her head bows. “Why didn’t – you died.”

Jason huffs – not a laugh, not anything but a sound. “I got better,” he replies, a sardonic twist to a bitter smile. She chokes on a laugh, and it comes out more like a sob. “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you sorry?” she asks the ground.

“I didn’t tell you.”

Amy laughs and it’s so shattered that Jason feels guilty all over again. He doesn’t remember much from last week, but he remembers enough and, and he may not remember much from before he died, but he remembers enough.

Jason wraps his arms around her shoulders and hugs her as tightly as he can. She’s small in his arms and he’s never been more aware of the growth spurt the Pit gave him than he is right now, practically towering over a woman who used to be able to manhandle him into a hug when he was being a brat. Amy presses her face into his shoulder and bawls, clutching his jacket in her hands, her hair tickling his chin.

He’s had so many people crying over him these last few months. More people than he expected and he – he doesn’t know what to do with that.

“Can I be unbanned now?”

She smacks his arm without lifting her head. “Fuck you, Jay,” she says with no heat in her voice. “I can’t believe – I can’t believe you’re back.”

Jason turns to rest his cheek on the crown of her head. “I can’t believe you knew I was Robin and didn’t tell me.”

“Wasn’t hard to figure out. You’re such a nerd.”

He digs his chin into her head, making her yelp and squirm. “Hey! I’ll have you know that my love of books was devotedly cultivated by the most badass people I know. If I’m a nerd for that, than I’ll be a nerd.”

Amy sags into him, giggling helplessly. Jason’s cheeks hurt from smiling and he finally lets her go. She holds onto the edge of his jacket, tugs him towards her desk. They trip and stumble towards it until she makes him stop on one side and she goes around, sitting down.

She slides a small rectangle of cardstock and a pen towards him with a giant smile on her face, eyes sparkling. “What’s your favorite word right now?” she asks.

Jason takes the pen, presses the tip of it to the line next to ‘name.’ It sits there for a long time, a black spot forming, as he stares, thinking. Finally, he says:

“Reclamation.”

She smiles and nods sharply. “Good word right there.”

He hesitates, then signs Jason Todd – his signature neat and flourished in the way Alfred taught him. She stamps it and runs it through the laminator, handing it over while it’s still warm. Jason takes it, sets it down, and takes her hand instead, squeezing it gently.

“Thank you,” he says, a lump in his threat and his heartbeat making him breathless. “I don’t think I said this enough before – before. But thank you. I’m so sorry for the hurt that I caused you with, with everything.”

Amy’s chin trembles and she can’t stop smiling even as tears spill over anew. “It’s okay,” she says, squeezing back. “It hurt, yeah, but – It’s okay. Because you’re back. You’re – .” She takes a steadying breath –

“Welcome home, Jason.”

Jason chest gives in and his eyes sting. “It’s good to be home,” he whispers back.

—

—

Notes:

It started with Amy and it ends with Amy! (and Jason)

I think one of my favorite literary devices is bookend(s). Basically, the end (or close to) the end of the story parallels something in the beginning (or close to) the beginning of the story. Maybe the first line and the last line are the same (or slightly different), or the first scene and the last scene are almost word for word except one change that shows the character development (or, if the one thing doesn't change, the lack of character development). Think - The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. (Spoilers?) The first line in the first book is "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed" and the last line in the last book is also "The Man in Black fled across the desert, and the Gunslinger followed," to show that nothing has truly changed, he's stuck in a never-ending loop. It's probably one of my favorite representations of a bookend. ANYWAY. Went on a tangent. The point is that I had the bookend device in my head as I was writing this, just a little tidbit for you :D

I hope you liked this! I hope some of it broke your heart while reading it like it broke mine while writing it.
love you all! until next time <3