Chapter Text
Of all the things Dick Grayson expected to find on the roof of his rarely-used Gotham apartment at two in the morning, a beaten and bloody Red Hood was not one of them.
Eight minutes prior, Dick had thrown back the sheets with a sigh of defeat. Insomnia had been a common companion of late and being back in Gotham wasn’t helping. He’d worked out, meditated, and cleaned the apartment. He’d had a cup of the soothing tea Kori had given him but even that wasn’t helping tonight. In his line of work, medication was out of the question.
So instead he slipped out his window and wound his way up the fire escape to the roof. He heaved a deep breath, staring up at the stars. It was a rare cloudless night in Gotham, the stars muted by the glow of the city but he could still identify a few familiar pinpoints of light. The city hummed below him, ever restless. There was an energy here, dark and smothering. Electric in a way that felt like it was crawling under Dick’s skin.
The roof was ice under his bare feet but it helped to clear his head. He wandered the perimeter of the roof, doing his breathing exercises and slowly feeling the tension drain from his muscles. God, he was not looking forward to dealing with his family the next day. They were difficult enough to deal with on a good day, let alone on two hours of sleep. He was so tired that he didn’t see the shadowy form on the ground until he was almost tripping over it.
The metallic smell hit him about the same time he realized the the form was a body, a man by the size of those shoulders, sprawled on his side with one arm hanging precariously over the edge of the roof. “Ah shit,” Dick gasped as he dropped to a knee and carefully rolled the man onto his back. He froze, muscles tensing as his body snapped into hyper awareness. Red metal and black leather glared up at him, shining wetly in the yellow glow of the streetlights.
“Red Hood?” Dick breathed.
He hadn’t seen the man since the warehouse explosion a few months ago, where the vigilante had set a trap for Batman. Dick had arrived too late to help. He’d waded into the aftermath, finding Bruce pulling the Joker from the rubble of the building and no sign of the red masked man. Recently, there had been whispers the man had resurfaced, carving a place for himself in Gotham’s underbelly. But those were just rumours and besides, Dick no longer lived in Gotham. The city wasn’t his responsibility anymore.
He hesitated, hand still clamped to the vigilante’s shoulder. He really hesitated, staring down at the man who had murdered his way through half of Gotham just to get a swing at the Batman. Then Dick cursed as his hand came away sheathed in scarlet. He didn’t hesitate after that. Tim always said he had a tendency of being too rash, not thinking through all the ramifications of a decision until it was too late. “Do not make me regret this,” he grumbled to the unconscious vigilante as he heaved the man into his arms bridal style.
“Someone’s been eating their spinach,” Dick grimaced, trying to distract himself from the sensation of the other man’s blood dripping down the back of his shirt. It wasn’t easy getting a two hundred odd pound man covered in armour and kevlar through a window and ended with Dick sprawled on the kitchen floor with Red Hood half across his lap, hands carefully cradling the man’s head. “Okay, easy does it,” Dick murmured, easing Hood the rest of the way onto the floor. His hands fluttered over the man’s torn leather jacket, finding the man’s left arm sheathed shoulder to elbow in blood. There was more blood seeping from the man’s thigh, slowly pooling on the tiled floor.
“Shit,” he breathed.
His assessment also found two nasty looking handguns strapped to the man’s thighs along with a plethora of various knives hidden in sheaths strapped to forearms, hips, and calves. “First things first,” Dick sighed as he began to disarm the man of his vast arsenal. He didn’t want to be on the receiving end of any of it in case Hood woke up in a bad mood. Given his previous experiences with the man, Dick wasn’t sure if the man had any other moods.
Figuring the easy-to-clean tiles of the kitchen was better than trying to get bloodstains out of the carpets, Dick left Hood on the floor, storing the weapons in the same safe along with his own gear. He paused, then on a whim grabbed his domino mask and fixed it to his face as he snatched the first aid kit from the bathroom. Never could be too careful.
It took a while to get Hood out of the thick leather jacket and the armour underneath. He left the mask alone, worried about triggering any nasty countermeasures. Eventually he had the vigilante down to a black singlet. The man had been shot through the shoulder, blood running down the muscled arm in rivulets. Dick hissed as his own shoulder twinged in sympathy. He remembered all too well the feeling of that bullet ripping through his armour, burrowing its way through flesh. Dick bit back a curse as he felt carefully behind Hood’s shoulder. No exit wound.
He packed the wound tight and checked for other injuries. Bruises danced across the man’s torso and ribs, dipping low across one hip. Removal of the armoured leather gloves revealed bruised and torn knuckles. A deep stab wound that had struck just under the armoured plates on the side of the man’s thigh was the source of the rest of the blood. With a resigned sigh, Dick carefully stripped the man’s pants off, beyond thankful to find a pair of black boxers underneath.
He worked quickly, seeing the tremors racing through the man’s muscles as shock and bloodless symptoms started to take hold. Lying mostly naked on cold tile wasn’t helping either. He stitched and bandaged the man’s leg in record time before moving back up to the shoulder. Dick got the dressings off, steeling himself with a breath. He was beyond grateful the man was unconscious for this next bit as he picked up a set of forceps and began to explore the wound.
The metal tip of the instrument had barely touched the wound before hands grabbed at the front of his shirt and Dick was slammed back against the cabinets. His head bounced painfully off the wood as cool metal pressed against his throat and where the fuck had the man hid that knife? Dick stared up at the narrow eye slits that betrayed nothing. “Easy,” he murmured, holding up his hands and trying to look as non-threatening as possible.
The stare down lasted longer than Dick would have preferred, especially with the sharp edge of a knife pressed against his windpipe. “Easy,” Dick repeated, unable to stand the silence any longer. “I’m not gonna hurt you.” A long stony silence followed, broken only by the two men’s breathing. Finally, the man spoke, voice low and distorted with that voice modulator of his.
“Where am I?” he asked sharply.
“My apartment,” Dick replied calmly. “I’m just trying to help.”
“Why do you care, Bat-bitch?” the man sneered, knife pressing threateningly closer.
Dick hissed, feeling the sharp edge slice into his skin. “Hey, the fire escape’s that way asshole, feel free to go back to bleeding to death on my roof,” he snapped as a trickle of blood slithered down his neck. It was easy to imagine the man’s glare through the helmet. He could practically feel the heat of that glare even through the metal.
And then Red Hood laughed. The crazy fucker actually laughed, low and harsh and haunting as it filtered through the voice modulator. “Get on with it then,” he rasped. The knife disappeared only to reappear with the point nestled dangerously between Dick's ribs as the vigilante leaned back against the cabinets.
“Do you mind?” Dick bit out, sending him a sour glare.
“I said get on with it,” the man growled warningly. “Nice civies, by the way,” he snarked.
Dick flushed, glancing down at the Batman and Robin fan shirt Tim had got him for Christmas as a joke, now flecked with blood. He could feel the blush burning up his neck and up his ears. Red Hood chuckled nastily. “I’ll try and be gentle,” Dick said stiffly as he placed a hand on the man’s shoulder to steady him. A small flinch rippled through the muscles under his touch. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I know it hurts but it has to be done.”
The vigilante merely shrugged, masked face tilted away. “Life is pain,” he said, voice flat and detached sounding.
Dick forced down the shiver the man’s tone sent up his spine and focused on the task at hand. He tried to be as careful as he could as he saw the way the Hood’s muscles were cording up his neck. Through the entire ordeal, the man didn’t make a sound. Just as he extracted the last fragment, he felt Hood suddenly go lax. The knife slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor. Dick’s fingers scrambled under the edge of the man’s mask, letting out a relieved breath as he felt a pulse thrum strongly under his touch. He’d just passed out. Dick cleaned and stitched the wound in record time before bandaging it tightly.
“So now what?” Dick muttered to himself as he stripped off the surgical gloves, staring down at the unconscious man. He had an injured yet extremely violent man who had previously tried to kill him currently passed out on his kitchen floor. “Tim was right,” he muttered as he hauled the unconscious man onto his couch. “I really do make a lot of rash decisions. Like rescuing dangerous murderous vigilantes as if they were stay kittens.”
Exhaustion weighed heavy across his shoulders as he stared down at Red Hood, taking him in as he hadn’t really had the time to earlier, nor months ago when the vigilante had rained preverbal hellfire on the Bat family and Gotham alike. If Dick was being honest, he was more than a little curious about the man who had bested him, had nearly bested Bruce. If the outcome had been different, if Bruce hadn’t walked away from that warehouse explosion, maybe he’d feel differently right now. But as it was, Dick was just curious. Bruce had refused to talk about the man, had shut his oldest son down at every question. He never did say what exactly had happened in that warehouse, or how the Joker had become involved.
Red Hood was massive. Standing, he would have a good few inches on Dick. Broad in the shoulders and chest, the thin black tank top and briefs did nothing to hide the fact that the man’s muscles had muscles. A plethora of scars peppered skin that Dick was amused to see was lightly dusted with freckles. His fingers itched to remove that helmet, to see what kind of jawline would go with that set of abs.
“Fuck my life,” Dick muttered as he turned back into the kitchen and began mopping up the blood.
Dawn was slowly approaching now, if the birds were anything to go by. Dick made himself a pot of coffee and perched at the kitchen island because there was no way in hell he was going to let himself sleep while Red Hood was passed out on his couch. He kept the living room in his peripheral vision, where the vigilante hadn’t moved an inch in the last three hours.
He yawned, eyelids drooping even as he finished off the last of his fifth coffee. “Might as well make it a sixth,” Dick muttered as he got to his feet. He threw another cautionary look in the direction of the living room before moving to pour another mug of coffee. He was just putting the empty carafe back on the counter when the hair on the back of his neck stood up. He whirled, just in time to see something fly towards his head. Then everything crashed to black.
Dick stirred with a groan, wincing against the pounding ache in his skull and the sharp pain that snapped across his temple. He opened his eyes and immediately regretted it as the light made his head hurt even more. The room swam dizzyingly as Dick sat up in his bed. He scrunched his eyes closed, hand reaching for his temple. His fingers brushed past his domino mask, which was a puzzlement. He didn’t remember going out on patrol the night before. Also even if he had, he’d never forget to take his mask off. The adhesive had a tendency to chafe if left on too long.
His fingers slide off the edge of the mask to find tape and gauze, That was even more strange. He’d been injured? And if so, how? He sat up with a wince, trying to piece together a timeline. The last thing he remembered being unable to sleep so he’d wandered up onto the roof, where he’d found….
Red Hood.
The memories of the previous night hit like a ton of bricks and Dick was out of the bed and into the living room in a flash, fighting back a heavy wave of nausea. He found the apartment empty, the window to the fire escape closed but unlocked. Dick bit back a groan as the room spun dizzyingly. He was screwed. How could he have let himself slip like that, let Red Hood get the jump on him like that?
A horrific thought struck him and he scrambled back into his room. He threw open his closet door, fingers shaking as he punched in the security code for the safe. He flung open the heavy door to find….everything where it should be. His suit was hanging just where he had left it, his belt and escrima sticks right where they should be. What was missing was the pile of weaponry he had stripped from Red Hood. In it’s place was a note, scribbled on a dirty napkin.
Might wanna change your combination, pretty bird
Dick was so screwed.