Chapter Text
ev·er·more
/ˌevərˈmôr/
adverb
(chiefly used for rhetorical effect or in ecclesiastical contexts) ; always.
—
He feels like it was repetitive, the definition of insanity, to try and keep Thanos at bay. Everyone had stiffened when Nebula muttered the truth of Gamora’s disappearance, and Tony threw himself in the middle of defusing the situation.
But he knows his mentor, like ink on a canvas, an ever-familiar curve of a letter. He knew what every stroke signals, what the definitions are.
And that letter was screaming defeat. Tony knew he wasn’t going to be able to sedate Quill fast enough. Or at all; he knew personally.
It was no surprise when Thanos was punched, and it was no surprise when he defeated them all moments later. No surprise even when Dr. Strange gifted the Titan the time stone personally, hesitantly yet purposefully. He would be outraged himself, but he’d do the same thing for Mr. Stark. In a heartbeat, maybe faster. Tony did the outraged part for him.
For a second, hope lingered quietly. Shakily. It was a match over gasoline, oxygen beside a wildfire. Nobody wanted to breathe wrong. Nobody wanted to speak and jinx the dwindling probabilities.
Then the first person went down—Mantis, with a look of confusion, fluttering away in flakes of ash. She seemed a bit frightened, not in pain but in knowing. Void eyes wallowing in preemptive defeat.
The muscle, Draxum, disappeared similarly. Though less knowing and more bewildered.
Quill cursed, as a last spite, crumpling down. Not even hitting the ground before he was gone, eyes going lifeless before his body got the chance to vanish. Panic, panic hit him violently, yanking air from his lungs—The hope was shattered. Destroyed. They lost.
Dr. Strange says something, and maybe Tony hears him, but he doesn’t. He doesn’t want to turn, and see Mister Dr. Strange break apart into little pieces, lost in the wind. A minute, then two minutes. Nebula, the blue lady, was still standing, and so was Mr. Stark, and so was he. Just the three of them? How was an 89% robot, a man with a broken suit, and a spiderling going to be able to do anything?
He doesn’t get to think of ideas, possible fruitless solutions to the back of his idol, because his Spider-Sense shrieks. Louder than before, gutting him raw in a sudden fight for survival. The last warning he gets is how he doesn’t even react at first. He goes pale, but he sways in place, eyes slightly wide.
His sense forces him to focus on himself. There was static, racing down his spine, dripping into veins. He swallows, and it’s so dry he winces. And then he sees a gentle float of brown flakes beneath him.
“Mr. Stark? I- I don’t– feel so good.”
Oh, god, he’s next. He’s so stupid. Of course he is.
“I don’t– I– I don’t—”
There was dust in his hands, but one felt like ash and the other felt like glass.
Peter can’t register the fact shards in his left hand are glowing. He doesn’t remember shards being there, but he hadn’t done an injury check on himself, not at all.
He collapsed into Tony’s arms in tandem with his spider sense losing its damn mind. He was blabbering fearful begs, sobbing out pleas for help, because everything was coming apart.
“I- I don’ wanna go- I don’ wanna go!” He gasps out, a string of something sounding like Please, Mr. Stark, Please, accompany it. “Pl— I don’t want—”
They all lost. He– No, everyone failed. His heart lurched at the thought. His knees buckle—or maybe faded into particles—and Tony shouts a warning before he’s in the ground. On the ground?
His sense, in a final sort of fuck you to him, warbles into silence. A grim acceptance, that nothing Peter could do would get him from the danger. The itch in his limbs, scratching and pressing, was his healing factor still fighting. Stitching together a dead body already going lifeless.
Spider-man chokes on his own saliva. His mouth was painfully dry, and when he flexes his fingers only a twitch escapes. The agony is tenfold, tripled, any sort of infinity and then plus. It could be because his body both ripped itself apart, then formed together again, a cycle of stabs and tears and sensations that made him want to scream.
Glass dug into his palm. Crystal-like. He can’t see it, and Tony is too focused on his patchwork face. He can’t scream.
“I’m sorry.” It sounds like a scream in the silence.
Funny, isn’t it? Peter Benjamin Parker, finally brought down by something as simple as glorified ash.
Tony Stark’s face contorts into what he can only describe as miserable. No tears are visible in his fading vision, but it doesn’t take a lot to see agony in those suspiciously shiny eyes.
And he can’t do anything but try and smile. It turns more like a grimace, but he gave it a shot. His healing factor seems to wail, the brown and black racing through veins faster than it could repair.
Pain flares in his hand, the one acting like shards of something were poking into it, needles into a pincushion. It rockets up his arm, then his torso, then his neck, into his mind. Peter makes a wounded sound, but half his body is already gone.
The itch was gone. Faded in a sort of morbid farewell. His body shuts down his enhancements, allowing the effects to rapidly continue.
He can’t recognize the feeling of something new in his soul before his eyesight is swarmed with dust.
—
The concept of death.
It’s a tricky one. The concept of life is infinitely easier to process. Moving, breathing, existing. If it exists in the universe, there is life to be had. It’s constantly shifting, squirming, evolving. No singular life is generalized, no great expanse of the wonder is stagnant. You can look at something, and know even at a molecular level there is life.
Death, on the other hand, isn’t as black and white. It’s the shades of gray, like a skull in a monochromatic medical textbook. Winding through streams of life less like disease, more like promise.
It was intertwined with prospering light. Soothing, scary, loud and quiet. It wrapped cold arms around a feverish soul. Embracing a shivering dead with warm comfort.
Ever a contradiction, ever an enigma. Death didn’t wait for something meager as humanity to attempt at deciphering it. It didn’t pause its continuous cycle for living organisms to catch up. It marched and marched, but was kind enough to offer peace, marching.
The boy finds it's a load of absolute bull. Completely. Fully and entirely.
His body– well. He doesn’t have a body right now. He barely has a consciousness, just this vague feeling of irritation and guilt. He was sorry for something, for leaving. Who did he leave?
Death doesn’t answer. Void and darkness tug gently at his mind, no, his soul. Guiding him forward, or up, or down, farther from where he wants to be.
He doesn’t like that. A new emotion joins his lone two;
Fear.
No, no wait, we aren’t done, he begs from nothing to nothing. He thinks he can see stars around them. Constellations twinkling almost mockingly, as he feels dust within his own subconscious. He hates dust. Horrified by it. He died by–
He died. He died! Oh, God, oh God he’s dead. How could he be dead? He’s– He’s Peter? Peter Parker. Spider-man. Oh God, what is he doing here?!
Peter gains a hand, much to the amusement of the cosmos, and he flexes incorporeal fingers. Is he even in a place? Is this real? No it’s not, it’s an inbetween. How does he know that?
Please, stop! Wait! His pleas register to nothing yet again, and Peter is pulled again. For a second—or however time passes, if it does—he can feel a presence. Multiple. Coaxing him, soothing him, reassuring.
It’s gone as quick as it's there. It only spurs him on, as he shoots a hand out trying to push against anything, anything possible.
He has eyes, now, too. Or he did, but he’s just realizing. He can see. Peter blinks rapidly, greedily absorbing the use of vision, God, he’s going to be so grateful for just having basic functions for the end of time.
The void makes a bit more sense around him, like it was trying to adhere to his half human brain. Forming to be comprehensible, readable. Peter stares awed at flickers of black against the backdrop of what he thinks is the whole universe.
It’s.. gorgeous. Beautiful. Streaks of light twirl around gasses of nebulas. A neutron star exploding, a magnetar forming, there’s comets zipping across, there’s planets orbiting a star, there’s debris floating, there’s–
Everything. There is everything, there. Somewhere in that grandiose and intricate, woven design of everything that exists, is home. That dot. That’s them. That’s here. That’s home.
He doesn’t know how he knows. The constellations apparently do, clinking similarly to an abandoned wind chime, rusted with age. Peter reaches when his soul is brought to and fro again, towards a place the space hasn’t yet made understandable.
His hand. He sees his hand, and he feels himself forcing himself to grow lungs again. Just to suck in a stunned, panicked breath.
His hand. It’s scarred like it was dunked into an air fryer, rough, calloused with bumps and lines and ridges. Peter gains a new emotion. It joins the frustration, the aching grief and sadness and guilt, it joins the terror– the awe at his surroundings: Disgust.
His hand. It had glimmering shards of blue and orange, pinned into it like some fucked up doll. Yes, disgust is a good word.
To himself? Maybe to the conditions that brought him here. This was the hand that was being stabbed when he died—the one that touched a stone or two, ironically. Metaphorically? He doesn’t remember. But his body didn’t feel like that everywhere, it was just there. The rest of his body had ripped apart like cheap paper.
He felt it–
Agonizing clutters of soreness burst into shockwaves of pain. It hurt, it all hurt, his damn molecules were deconstructing themselves only barely faster than his healing factor could heal.
His enhanced healing was killing him more than the Snap was. It was horrible. He was crying. It all hurts so much, he wants his dad, where’s his dad, oh God make it stop please please Mr. Stark make it stop make it STOP!
The full-force of memories slams into him at Mach 10. His face, he has a face now, he has a head, it reels back and contorts into a crumpled wounded expression.
What was that?! He pitifully demands, even as he watches his other hand be tugged again. Firmly, never harmful. The concept of death never waited, and Peter Parker was no exception. Stop it! Don’t take me yet! Please, wait!
There is nothing for you there, child.
He recoils, the best he can with half a reforming body and a full, shaken soul. What was that? You don’t understand!
If he could be focused, he’d noticed how the very universe seems to laugh at his poor attempt at disagreeing.
The Sorcerer of Time made a mistake.
You died for it.
You did not die how you should’ve.
Don’t let me die yet! Peter sobs, and he’s almost shocked when it makes an audible, ugly sound. Now, in the vacuum of space, in a meticulously curated void, a late teenager's cries echo. Eerily; a cave. He hears his voice bounce back, sniffles and hiccups and sounds surrounding him, and the cosmos dim in an eternal ache.
You are not dead, not fully.
You are a cheeky one.
The boy curls inward, going as limp as he could while floating in nothingness. Wrapping one wispy, red-tinted arm around a thready leg. He couldn’t understand, could he? The air around him spoke—no, rather existed—and meant something about his death. He did not die right.
Death clawed up his neck in veins and cracks. The others died like checkers pieces. Dr. Strange crumpled into dust faster than Peter liked.
It took him a solid minute.
He was practically a puzzle piece, an enigma in an enigma, patching itself together with spite alone. Okay, so he didn’t die like the others, so what. The Stars hum curiously.
Yes, cheeky indeed. You should not be able to do that.
Take me back! He shouts to emptiness. The nebulas croon a lullaby, trying to shush his wails. Dying stars whisper like he knew what they said. I'll do a hell lot more than just that, I swear!
He.. he was on Titan. They were fighting Thanos– Who’s they? Some random squad of people, Peter feels familiar guilt at still not remembering their names. They– Who..
Mr. Stark, with horrifically sad eyes. He’s never seen the genius so distraught, grieving something that wasn’t even gone yet. Trying to gaslight Peter into staying. He tried, he tried so hard. I tried.
I tried. I tried, I tried, I tried. I tried! I tried!
“I tried!”
Peter screams, and it sounds less human and more animalistic. Like it was an emotion not available to his vocal cords. The universe stills, orbiting planets pausing like they felt shock. Continuing in less than a breath.
I know, child of Earth. You truly did.
Speaking into a vacuum just to say so. Impressive.
It’s not a voice. It isn’t even something tangible. Peter feels the words ring in his soul, feels them tangle themselves into the DNA that would make him him. They force themselves to be heard, force Peter to stare death in the face.
He’s not being pulled anymore. He has a form again. He’s Peter Parker.
Peter Parker. The Iron Spider suit, still slightly intact much to his disbelief, clung to his frame. Every bit of tech offline, incapable of anything in this between-realm. The sleeves of metal were cracked, torn off, broken, showing off his forearms and hands, obviously.
Guilt, again. He needs to get back. He can’t be here, Tony is worried.
Take me back.
“Please?”
That’s a weird feeling. Talking with his soul, yet words go with his bloodied lips, interchanging them both without his discretion.
He makes a pained noise. It’s then when he realizes he can oddly hear himself, and has been able to. Is this really in space then? That’s not possible—then again, the mystery thing said(?) so. And honestly nothing makes sense right now.
Little Spider. You cannot return in this state.
“But why?” He sniffles like a child. Peter doesn’t feel 17 all too much anymore. Such a tiny speck compared to inexplicable celestial structures around him, he feels tiny.
Oh, Little Spider. You have so much to do.
You are more special,
Than you know.
Peter feels tendrils gently tug at him again, this time all encompassing his form, not just his soul. Bringing him somewhere, to that patch in the blackness, to the other presences that feel familiar.
But he’s scared. The area is so beautiful, but he’s scared, and everyone is dead because they lost, and he’s angry because of it and he’s grieving and he’s sad.
He can feel it. Oh God, how he can feel.
Do not worry. You will meet them again.
Again, You are cheeky. Much more resilient,
Than expected.
You will do. You will do finely.
What does that even mean?! Peter questions incredulously, but he gets no answer. Just more twists inside, more guides, more nothing.
The last thing to reform within him is his Spidey-Sense. Obviously it takes a second to groggily stir, like he can feel it wavering within the back of his brain, before going dead alert. Haha, pun intended.
But it doesn’t screech an alarm, as he expected. It wavers in place, like it itself doesn’t know what to do, before thrumming in the nape of his neck. Quivering with him like hiding behind a shield.
The place isn’t dangerous to him right now. It certainly feels like it. Definitely feels like it.
Peter Parker. Everywhere, always, never nowhere.
Soul and space.
You always have a choice.
The existence of the words hunger inside him, a hunger pang throughout his nervous systems. Each sentence felt important, and Peter was quick to absorb everything into memory. He’s close to the edge of the place, area, realm, dimension, whatever. His body uncurls, attempting to reach forward, desperate for rescue.
For familiar.
People were on the other edge. People he should recognize, but his memories are still bleary. He feels guilt again, but not for long. Space around him thumps, beats like a heart, molding around him.
The crystal shards in his hand glow. That’s– that’s probably not normal. Blue and yellow sway together, blinking as a premature star. Then pain. Then not-pain, but it isn’t comfortable.
He can see lightning streaks of the colors zip up the arm, pulsing faintly in power, before flickering to a stop. No more glow, it was a figment of his mind. Very real, even if it didn’t feel so. Peter groans weakly when the shards dig into his hand again, morphing and horrifically melting into it. He can’t offer anything more than that sound, he’s too tired, but he watches with rapt nausea as the stone shards disappear, sculpting his hand back into what it was. As if they were never there, never existed.
His mind tries to warn him—those stones are horrifically dangerous!—but exhaustion creeps. His body is limp when the tendrils pull again, soul teetering forward.
Flashes of the colors are behind his eyelids, when he closes them. It’s almost pretty.
And then they merge.
Green swallows him whole.
Jason Todd was a tired, tired person.
But he doesn’t need to state the obvious. The looks he gets when out of costume is enough of a reminder—the worried glances from the others dig into his skin just right. Pisses him off at the perfect temperature, so he doesn’t consider forgetting.
Recently it’s been more evident though. He never really was consistent in family nights or game days, but now it’s practically nonexistent. His patrols got longer, his civilian appearances lower.
Eyebags under ugly, bright green eyes are stronger than before. His hair is ratty, longer than usual, only a bit kempt because he’ll sit in the shower and pretend the droplets don’t make him flinch.
He doesn’t like the water, hates it. But it’s thinner than how the Pit felt. Just enough he can survive, breathe properly, if not a bit shaky. Sometimes he thinks he can even pretend the shower is just rain.
He’ll stay there for an hour too long, then do nothing for his hair. Look at the water bill for the place and treat it as a suggestion.
His clothes are the same. He doesn’t like to shift his style; a leather jacket with tactical boots is his go-to.
Lately, he’s been declining. He was never really getting better, unless you call him not actively trying to murder Bruce anymore improvement. But now it feels worse. Jason didn’t shift his motives, he didn’t shift his behaviors.
But there was more edge, more bite, more defensive stances than wary looks. His family could accept the wariness. It was harder to accept the coldness.. Then again, they all still have the demon child laying around the Manor. So, he thinks they can manage.
It was a certain month. August was never fun, less fun when a grave haunted his already-bad nightmares. The viridescent hue in his eyes reflected in the walls of his mind. If he reached out of the dream, he’d always be met with sturdy glass and a life just out of arms length.
Deathday. Jason would love to strangle the guy who thought it was a good idea, naming the day someone dies similar to a Birthday.
He wasn’t the only one antsy, or shifting moods. Dick had been hounding him lately, insistent with phone calls or random check-ins. Barbara always cornered him if he tried to go into the library. Tim kept him at least 10 meters away at all times.
Damian is the only one practically unaffected. But one day Jason had come home to oddly clean twin revolvers, when just the day prior Damian was mocking his aesthetic choices.
The green that day was a bit less, but he pinned the blame on a drug bust he did earlier.
The date was August 5th. Mockingly hovering over his head as he grunted, sitting on the edge of his rooftop. He lets his legs dangle precariously off it, double checking his grapple was at the ready.
Gotham’s night was young. Barely 1 AM, stars were scarce and rare but that was nothing new. Even with a black backdrop, the clouds were harsh, gray, foreboding as usual.
Jason waits another second, glancing around for prying eyes before clicking his helmet off with a hiss from the metal.
It gets tugged off by calloused, rough hands. He sighs long and hard, shaking his head out and ignoring the way the white streak frustratingly bobs in front of his vision. He blows it away gruffly.
Red Hood’s helmet is put to the side, always within hands-reach, and he doesn’t bother with his domino mask. From a bag now noticed on his lap, he plucks out a burrito still wrapped in tinfoil.
This has been his only meal in..
He checks his watch, and winces weakly. 26 hours. Definitely his bad, and he’s already shuddering at the idea of Alfred finding that out.
The thought of Alfred brings his mind to Bruce. He scowls, and rips the tinfoil off the top a bit harsher than he thinks necessary. He’s eating now, so that counts for something.
Even he knows it’s not the healthiest way of looking at things. And he honest to god loves food, he lived on the notion he might not get another meal, but sometimes it’s easier to shoot another grapple hook than stop for something to eat. He can feel Dick’s stupid look, one that just screams apprehension and worry. Damn him, he mutters in his thoughts, taking a large bite of the wrapped burrito.
As he chews, his mind wanders like a traitor. Of the date, how Gotham seems to be standing still, holding her breath with him. He doesn’t like to believe in superstitions but it’s hard when almost every single time they’re proven right. And right now the wind is eerily still enough that the foil doesn’t dare to flutter. Jason swallows.
He eats relatively calmly, no interruptions save for a rather brave crow flapping overhead. He won’t look the gift horse in the mouth, this sense of peace rare. Jason is down to half a burrito when the calm is gently disrupted.
“Hey Hood, you’re active again,” the comm in his ear almost accuses, stating the obvious. His shoulders tense only for a fraction of a second. “Thought you exhausted all the bases last night.”
Bases, drug busts, gang meetings. The usual, he grimly thinks.
“Morning to you too, O.” Red Hood muttered. He doesn’t worry about her being able to hear him, gnawing into his food quickly. O, his friend in the chair, huffs over the line.
“Definitely no good morning. But morning,” she muses. Babs was like that.
There’s a long bout of silence, static being Jason’s only solace before Babs finds what she wanted to say. “Just saw your ping moving without any red dot activity. Wanted to check in.”
“You still have me pinged?” Jason scrunches his nose after gulping down another bite. “I thought you would’ve muted that by now.”
“I don’t mute your tracker J.” He winces hard at that tone, and the use of an almost-name. “I don’t ever mute your tracker.”
“Right. Right, fair.”
Now the quiet is awkward. Before it was just filler, just something that existed, in of itself. Jason kicks his legs absentmindedly, already hearing a mirage of Tim’s voice mocking the childish behavior.
“Is there really no activity up? There’s always something.” He eventually questions, if not to rid himself of the ringing in the ear with the comm.
“Of course there’s activity, but you don’t go after the small things across Gotham. You stay in the Alley. And right now, at least on my scanners, there’s—”
“Nothing, because nothing gets reported.”
“Correct,” she sighs. “But what I meant is that there aren't any large sightings or leads active right now. No red, just orange.”
Great, he’s been caught. He can almost picture the unimpressed narrow of her eyes. “That means you’re patrolling even though there’s barely anything for you to do. And that always leads to something.”
“Define something,” he snarks back, interrupting himself with a final bite of his burrito, nearly frowning when there’s nothing left.
“You know exactly what I mean.”
He does. But he’s not trying to think about that, Barbara.
“I’m just being proactive. Getting ahead of the curve this time.” Obviously this isn’t the correct thing to say, because he hears some sort of sound on Babs’ end.
“Deathday isn’t some jinx, Hood.” She almost sounds a bit sad saying that, but her best tell was her expression—which he couldn’t see. “I get it’s depressing at best, but nothing’s going to fall out of the sky just at the date.”
She’s, of course, right. And she also sounds a bit rehearsed which tells Jason she’s had to say that to multiple people. Probably Dick.
“It’s fine to be anxious over it, and even protective, but your activity is starting to seem way too self-destructive than helpful.”
Definitely Dick.
“Glad you’re not trying to therapy me about it,” he grunts when too many seconds go by. Babs gave a dry snort. “I’d probably crush the comm if you did.”
“I’m serious, Hood, just.. You’ve been getting distant again.”
Jason doesn’t have mirth in his eyes anymore. He crumples the tinfoil and throws it behind him. “I’m always distant. This is only special because all you fucks get mopey whenever reminded I died.”
He can practically feel the wince. He’d feel sorry, but he’s getting better at not lying.
“Hood, c’mon, I know but your usual distance still included you actually talking to us outside of a forced comm.”
“I’ll be back to my usual distance and bite soon enough, don’t you worry.” That’s a clear conversation end, and he zips his bag closed. “Just waiting for that other shoe to drop.”
“No. I can feel you putting words in my mouth and I don’t appreciate—”
Thankfully, a convenient explosion interrupts her.
He throws the bag to his side on the ground, jumping to his feet when the sound registers, loud and annoyingly vibrating into his bones. His head swings to the left, and he can just spot the after of the explosion, bright orange and red blazing into the air before sedating itself back to licks of flames. That area is where the warehouses were, just a few, one abandoned.
It was a big one too. Horrifically large. It could’ve wiped at least a block out, hopefully at most. It only takes a few glances around to tell where it is, and it’s right inside Crime Alley territory
Jason swears, long and colorful, yanking his helmet on and he’s very grateful he decided on the helmet instead of his mask and hood for this patrol. Crap, that bomb was close. He can just barely pick up some ringing in his empty ear, and the wind billows around him as if mocking his thoughts from before.
“Red Hood, what was that?!” Babs asks, wariness coating her words. Jason doesn’t bother with an answer. He slings his bag over a shoulder, whirling around and jumping backward off the roof.
He shoots out his grappling gun. It locks on the edge of the rooftop, slowing his descent dramatically.
“Something just blew up,” Jason hisses, voice modulator warping everything he says. He can almost pick up the flurry of fingers across a keyboard from Barbara. “Oracle– get me eyes on Jug Street and counting, I think it was one of the warehouses across it.”
“Holy crap,” a whisper answered him, and he subconsciously moved faster down the scale of the building. He lands with a vengeance, snapping his grapple gun to his side and bolting it to his motorcycle—sitting pretty on the side of the road. “It’s not good, at all. At least half the cameras around the place were blown out. I can barely see a concrete spot.”
“Civilians, anybody, anything,” He rattles off, throwing himself on the bike and revving it dangerously. “It’s an abandoned place but people get desperate.”
“No heat signatures from what I can tell. Christ, it’s like a dead town there, only some people in other blocks around it are even reacting. Nobody close enough to get too spooked.”
“Better eyes, O.” Jason hates pushing this hard, but he was barely in an OK mood. This plummeted. His bike shoots off the ground, swerving into traffic and going down the street as a metal bullet. “Red dot activity?”
“Nothing, nothing, and more nothing. I’m only just getting some straggler witness reports, but all of it is muffled. It’s like someone just randomly dropped a bomb and left.”
Bullshit, he thinks with his grip tightening on the handles, but he doesn’t voice it. Babs feels it anyways.
“My starting theory is that this is leftover anger from yesterday’s busts,” Babs sounds like she’s taking in multiple inputs at the same time. Jason silently makes a note to lower his questions. “But this is literally out of left field. Only vigilantes that out are Robin and Batman, and Nightwing was spotted in Blüdhaven earlier tonight. No external pressure from them, they’re all way too far from Crime Alley.”
“Strictly my circus then,” his glitched voice grumbles. He makes a sharp turn, almost going flying out of his seat, speeding down the next few blocks. He’s just a minute out from the explosion site.
“Jason, that explosion was at least a good block or so. Whatever caused it wasn’t something quiet or small.” She pauses carefully, making ice drip in Jason’s veins. “I don’t like the idea of you going there sans backup.”
“I’m not waiting for B to drop in. I’ll kill him and you know I would.”
Babs does. She makes no more comments other than relaying whatever she could see. Then again, it doesn’t matter, because Jason drives right into smoke, arriving a lot sooner than he expected.
Another string of curses leave him, his motorcycle screeching to a side while turning it. He sticks out a foot to support him and the vehicle up, eyes darting all over the scene from behind his helmet.
The street was already practically no-mans land. It sported a singular shop that acted more like a pawn shop, and nobody bothered to stick around. Some thought it was haunted with the dead that die in Crime Alley. Most people don’t want to risk tetanus with the amount of rusted metal in the damn place.
But now it’s wasted. From the pawn shop and farther, black ash marked everywhere the explosion touched. Metal scorched but not melted showed Jason where the street ended and the destruction began.
When he got off the motorcycle and ran forward, the scenery easily morphed into melted steel or ashen ground. Fire scattered like splotches on paper.
But this was just the damage. He’s looking for the source.
“Okay, I got a camera! It was blocked by a wall, so the blast didn’t reach it.” Jason is quick to sigh with relief. As much as he is willing to run into fire (bad analogy, he shudders), he feels better thinking of his eyes in the sky. “I can see you properly. It’s the second warehouse, the one abandoned.”
He wants to ask how she knows there was an abandoned one apart from (previously) in use ones. But this is Babs, and he knows the answer before he even asks it, so he shuts his mouth and trudges forward.
It takes another minute of going through smoke and dust flaring up all around him before he even spots the building. His vision was impaired even with the lenses built into both his helmet and domino mask, and he almost cursed again when the building nearly snuck up on him.
On instinct he unclips a gun from his thigh. “You can see with me, yeah?” He mumbles, feeling like the silence was a bit too still for his liking. It was hot, too, fire was caught on the tip of the warehouse, greedily eating drywood and leftover ash.
“Yeah I’m tapped into your helmet. Pretty please don’t take it off, Red Hood.”
Ouch, full vigilante name. He doesn’t make that comment, nodding because she’ll be able to tell now. “Copy that.”
Jason creeps around the front door– or what used to be one. Cringing at how just a gentle nudge from his shoulder sends a skeleton framing crumpling down. His steps crunch on burnt wood and cracked stone and brick.
He tries to think on the bright side. When one particular crunch sounds a bit squishy, he steps over the spot and rids his mind of imagery that comes from it.
The place was abandoned. It’s abandoned. Nobody was here, I am not stepping on squishy dead burnt bodies. Nope.
“Oracle, you got anything?” Jason looks around slowly, keeping a gun raised, safety clip neatly off. It’s hot enough that Jason’s already getting impatient.
The crackle in his ears subconsciously assures him. “Geez. Practically everything is just smog. It’s not much better on my end.”
“Damn it,” he mutters. His helmet turns with his feet, and he ventures deeper into what used to be a building. “The only reason there isn’t more fire is ‘cause there’s nothing that could even catch.”
“That’s all to the main level?”
“Seems like. There wasn’t a second floor from the outside.” A beat. He frowns with another step. “Or, there isn’t a second floor anymore.”
“Yeah that's safe to think. Got some eyewitnesses to the GCPD already saying the explosion was high up, much more height than this warehouse could give. It probably came from a second floor then toppled it in response.”
He waits another second, letting Babs compile more info. “Shit. None of the reports were close enough, everything’s coming in from outside the Alley.”
Jason knows what that means, while ignoring the second bit. “Someone wanted whatever was on that second floor dead and gone.”
“They succeeded,” Babs hums, keyboard sounds in the back. “There’s no heat signatures, hell I can’t see anything that isn’t either ash or blackened metal. Pretty powerful bomb.”
“But why so randomly? I’ve been keepin’ an eye on the gangs that keep poppin’ up, and I’ve heard zilch on any rogues out and about in my area.” Jason kicks an ashen desk, scrunching his nose when it falls easily. “Why would some random be so paranoid they set off a detonation?”
“It could’ve been a test. This is practically an abandoned district, perfect for dangerous practice runs for something.”
Not much better, but he’ll take that theory over something major going on under his nose.
“Okay, so it was a test run. Some specific bomb type?” He bends down to prod at the ground. Most dust smudges with his gloved finger, but it’s practically ingrained so deeply he wouldn’t be surprised if it traveled meters underground. “Can’t find any bomb fragments, and this looks pretty typical.”
Jason dislikes the quiet after that, as he stands properly and continues forward. He keeps a glance over his shoulder and to his back, preemptively making sure nothing sneaks up. Though it might be his paranoia by now; like Babs said, no heat signatures.
As he walks, he notes the plain feel of everything. There was no roof, barely a wall or two, but even the inside felt relatively bland. He’ll chalk it up to the explosion ridding any personality from the deserted place.
“I know someone who could check if it’s anything concerning.”
He doesn’t have to ask. His answer is sharp, immediate.
“My territory, my rules, my clearance. Replacement isn’t allowed within a damn ten mile radius.” His boot kicks harshly at some blob of grey, watching it clunk across the barren room. “Again. My circus.”
“Hood, I can only do so much with a sample and cameras. The best I’ll be able to tell you is the blast radius and kind of damage.” He despises that she’s making good points. “Red Robin is very used to deciphering these sorts of readings and you know well he’s more than capable.”
“Hard no, O,” Jason hisses, green glinting beneath his double layer of masks. “This has some freaky shit written all over it in bold—”
He pauses himself. There's a dip of black in front of him, a warp in wooden floorboards. Like the ground right there was hollow, reinforced. His frown goes deeper, and he abandons the exploring in favor of inspecting.
Jason saunters over, keeping his gun to his side when ducking under a jutted out pole. The place is relatively the same to the other parts, but this felt less.. Destroyed, somehow. There was some gleam of steel, a hint of lighter colors around, like the fire didn’t quite reach this corner. And the ground was scarily sturdy, he felt more stable walking here.
“Bold, red marker,” he whispers, finishing his sentence. An experimental few stomps with his foot get him an answer. The dip in ground is absolutely an entry underground, if the hollow thumps are any indication. “Abandoned warehouse, creepy explosion, now a secret trapdoor. Can my luck get any better?”
“That’s definitely some sort of door downward. A basement base, most likely.” Babs doesn’t offer any response to his quip save for a smile in her voice. “Still no heat signatures. You’re alone, Hood.”
“That’s what I like to hear,” Jason snarks, crouching fully down to the supposed door. He keeps the gloves on, obviously, palming around the rectangular dip, checking for any groove or ridge. When his fingers catch something, he grins under the helmet.
He doesn’t wait for a response before tugging upward, unsurprised when the door gives without a fight. Ash and soot flake off the top as it’s pulled up, and Jason can see steel gray and white paint beneath.
The trapdoor is bigger than he had expected. Around the size of two him’s, maybe a bit more. It makes it harder to push the door over, letting it fall open with a less-than-savory slam.
Jason peeks over the edge, noticing how it tapers into a steep staircase down. Creepy white and off putting gray. Right up his alley. Pun intended.
When he quietly checks if Oracle was correct, looking all over the stairs and even behind him for a living soul, he nods assuredly to himself. It takes another second for him to swing a leg over the hole, letting his weight drop onto the first step.
Then heaving his whole body down. He doesn’t like the feeling he gets, now halfway into the mystery exploded warehouse base, but he’s quite literally too far in. Oracle mutters something about going quiet, to let him concentrate, and he hears the telltale click of her muting herself.
He nods again. His gun is held in front of him with both hands as he ventures deeper.
Boots tapping on metal is all he really hears, descending down the staircase. When the ceiling is no longer so close, the steps become less steep, much to the gratefulness of his long legs. It takes a minute or two of cautious downward spiraling before he spots a ground floor.
Which leads him into hallway galore. He groans in frustration.
“What is with people and these damn hallways?” He curses, tightening his hold on his weapon. Jason is quick to investigate, checking doors and looking around corners. It just seems like your typical science facility, just abandoned and cleaned out.
And also underneath an empty warehouse that just exploded. Y’know, typical. His nose pinches a bit at the smell behind one room, some sort of examination room with broken vials and bloodied sheets, closing it quickly.
He’s seen a good horror movie or two to not trust that. His heart thumps a bit faster at the theories that brings. He continues down the main hallway.
Bleach follows him, wafting from doorways and hovering within rooms. He’s found at least three separate rooms solely dedicated to storage, if the cabinets and empty boxes were a hint. Stepping farther, he sees a beaten door to the left.
It’s dirtied to all hell, a dark brown and gray on what he thinks used to be starched white. When he opens it—having to break the handle off, it’s like the only locked door in this entire place—he’s met with a short, claustrophobic hallway.
The door at the end is dark gray. It has two screens to the right, still in pristine condition. A locking system. Vents along the bottom of the hallway yell sterilization to him. This creepily feels like a holding cell.
So he doesn’t bother with it. If the top of this warehouse was blown to kingdom come, he has a bad feeling nothing’s inside that door. And plus, he’s not willing to test any alarm systems right now. Jason is quick to exit the small hallway, closing the uncared for door behind.
There seems to be a main area, by his eyes. No light means he’s been relying on nightvision, so he wouldn’t be surprised if he missed a thing or two, but when the hallway ends is where a circular common room begins.
A door leads into it, and he frowns at how reinforced it is. It opens with a rusty creak, just from a simple push. The common room is just that: common. Blank walls, blank floor, blank everything. In fact every single room in the past 15 minutes has been emptied, cleaned, or wiped of anything useful.
This room feels no different. Smudges on the ground tell him furniture was moved or thrown away. Stains on the walls scream that life was here. The more potent smell of bleach makes him wince. The only thing left is a beanbag against a wall, beside another door.
“More doors. Yay.”
He keeps his gun loosely to his right. He hasn’t heard a single sound out of place, not even a twitch in light. There’s nobody here, so he feels comfortable enough to let his paranoia fade a bit.
A quick approach to the new door, and he notices that it’s welded shut. That sends an alert to his brain. Nothing good comes from something that had to be sealed away.
But when he reaches to inspect the door, maybe see if he can find a mistake to abuse, it falls forward.
Jason yelps, sidestepping quickly to avoid getting crushed by steel twice his size. It slams against the floor with a deafening crash, splitting in two. Okay, it was welded, but apparently that didn’t work to keep whatever inside contained.
Now that he can look on the other side of it, the door seems practically torn apart. Deep, weird-looking claw marks dig around where a handle would be. The thing probably gave up, punched it open, because there’s a hefty dent on its lower half.
The thing was short, then. Why was the door put back up? Maybe the thing had manners.
He snickers to himself. Mood restored, he carefully steps over the mangled door and into the room. It’s mostly dark, but there’s a light source ahead.
Green. Sickly green, just barely enough to give luminance. Jason thinks back to his eyes; this is scarily similar in color.
His comms get cut with static, before, “Hood wait, maybe you shouldn’t explore this without–”
Jason almost runs forward. Babs curses on her end, when he stumbles toward the green and up a few steps. The bleach from before was nothing compared to the nausea now.
He can’t retch, or throw up his lunch, or even gag. Behind his mask and helmet his face goes pale, eyes dimming, mouth open.
The green was liquid. Thick liquid, sick, twisted, contained in an oval container. No, a pit. That’s a pit of the damn liquid, with monitors behind like people were recording data from it. The entire room is like a cave, like everything before was built around this particular place.
A Lazarus Pit. Sitting pretty right in the middle of his territory, underneath a now-burnt building for who knows how long. He feels sick. His back shudders hard thinking about how old some things looked, because that means there’s been people around a thing like this for longer than necessary.
“Hood, Red Hood, I need you to get your head back on.” Babs sounds uncharacteristically sharp, but even Jason could hear the radiating concern. “Nobody, and I mean nobody, is around. Best case is that they never were able to use the Pit.”
“It’s never the best case.” And Jason is almost surprised when his voice is a snarl. Almost. “The– The LOA wouldn’t hole up like this, but that doesn’t mean they’re above it.”
“The sightings have been few and far in between, and Robin himself has been saying they wouldn’t have–”
“I don’t give a shit what that demon brat thinks!” Jason whirls around to shout at empty air. He turns back to face the Pit and another wave of disgust rolls over him. “I’m pretty damn sure what I’m seeing in front of me.”
He can notice his anger, he’s become begrudgingly used to doing that, and right now it feels like it’s skyrocketing. The green glow isn’t limited to just the Pit in front of him, and he can notice it’s in his helmet too.
Acid viridescence reflected in his lenses, a vignette around his vision. Jason swears on gods he doesn’t believe in, holding his gun in a death grip while pacing back and force.
It isn’t until he feels glass crunch under his boot that the green wavers in his eyes.
“What the..” He mumbles wide eyed, glancing downward. His night vision lets him spot shards of glass scattered around, acting like rocks beneath feet.
Glass had broken nearby, but the monitors were intact and anything else was cleared out. Confusing, and no sense.
No, the door was broken open. Something wanted out really bad, and was ready to destroy everything to do it.
The Lazarus Pit enters his mind again, even though he hasn’t fully checked it out yet. He blanches further.
Or someone. Someone wanted out, probably rage driven, or fear driven. But why the glass? Maybe some vials as collateral?
Oh he’s going to regret this. Jason stops his pacing to hesitate, tentatively approaching the blackened container of his nightmares.
“Jason? Hey, Jason, what’re you doing?” He misses the fact Babs is using his real name, and the fact she sounds slightly panicked. “Uh, let's not go close to it, we still don’t know that much about Pits.”
The green is a disgusting hypnotizing light. He’d rather retch his guts out than get any nearer, but he needed to know. Needed to see.
Oh god, oh god not another person. The only guy he’d ever wish the horror show that’s coming from a Pit would be the Joker, and even then he’d rather just kill him one and done.
“Jason! Come on, you don’t gotta check it out! Don’t do that to yourself–”
He had to see. He had to. Every crunch of glass makes it ten times worse but he had to.
Jason is just tall enough to glance over the edge. Green liquid bubbles and ripples in thick, slow rings, undisturbed. A sheen of light cracked around the edges, the only evidence of tempered glass, previously had sealed it shut.
They were sealed inside.
He barely is able to throw his helmet to the ground hard, run back to bend over and vomit the meager food he had eaten half an hour prior. It comes out mixed in acid and makes him gag in his mouth.
The liquid was half in, half out. Someone was sealed inside. Who the hell knows if they escaped quick, or if they died in the very thing reviving them. The fact the Pit lost half its weight of the thick sludge is evidence of the damn struggle.
That thought makes him retch, but nothing more can make its appearance. Babs is politely quiet, but she also can’t see anything anymore, just hear. For minutes, all that echoes is cluttered glass, heavy, raspy breaths, and the drip of water on stone, water on metal, green on flesh.
His vision is practically gone, replaced with a furious viridescent hue that threatens to swallow him whole. And worse, he wants to let it. Let himself drown in the green that killed him and brought him back.
It takes five minutes for Jason to uncurl, to stand, to grimly wipe his mouth with the back of a fingerless gloved hand. Babs had been gently trying to talk to him, but his brain felt fizzled. A stale soda can, buzzing with carbonation. He shudders again.
“Yeah, yeah ‘m here.” Jason doesn’t sound all here, but it’s the best anyone’s gonna get from him right now. Barbara accepts this with a relieved inhale.
“Thank god, I thought you were going to collapse.” He blinks dazedly at that, but shakes his head and grunts that he heard. “Can you put your helmet on again? If not for me then to make sure your identity is secured.”
“I have my–”
“The domino mask doesn’t count.”
Jason throws a curse. Babs barely even huffs, which drags Jason back down to Earth enough to step around and find his helmet again.
Luckily it missed the puddle of green goo, so when he picks it up he doesn’t get a panic attack. Then again he’s probably been experiencing one.
Future Jason problem. He equips his helmet and relaxes at the added protection.
“Okay, Hood. We have enough info on this place. You can visit later, but for now, we have to either regroup or retreat to think about this with level minds.”
He wants to vehemently disagree. Say, no, we need to find everything out, we need to find this person, but he feels too queasy and he’s close to going back to old habits. One of which is breaking the comm and vanishing from the public eye.
Jason holds himself back, barely. He takes some steps backward, breathing through his mouth, muttering rounds of foreign curses before turning away.
“Good. Okay. With how the glass is, and how the liquid seems to puddle in a trail, I’m guessing this friend of ours got themself out, broke down the door, and left on his merry way out into Gotham.”
“And we don’t know if it’s an old body or a recent death,” Jason points out, settling into stage two of the panic scale; avoidance. It can’t hurt him if it can’t catch him!
“Basically. There could be someone wandering the streets still thinking it’s 1990.”
“Why specifically that year?” He hears Babs shift in her chair. Jason steps over the welded door with a slight grunt.
“I don’t want to think about the person being older than that.”
Fair. He doesn’t want to either. Quickly rushing out the common room, and ducking back into the hall, he’s quick to go to the exit. The entire place gives him, for lack of better words, heebie jeebies. Goosebumps. The ick. Really, anything.
He’s started to climb the stairs again, before he talks to air. “There’s nothin’ to really take, anything important is practically scrubbed clean from this damn place. I’ll need better lighting to actually double check.”
“This isn’t the only time we’ll be visiting, then. I don’t like what kind of picture this all paints.”
Jason releases a breath, popping his head up from the trapdoor opening, reintroduced to fresh air. A much needed inhale is taken, before he’s clambering to get out, using most of his strength to yank the door close with a slam.
He heaves a larger sigh, standing with a groan scarily similar to an.. Older man. His knees pop too, much to his dismay.
“Alright. That was.. What, a good 30 minutes of sleuthing about?”
“More like two hours. Give or take, from when I contacted you to now.”
Jason paused, then his face contorted. “Damnit, Alfred would kill me.”
“I’m sure Agent A is already preparing for that.”
He can just hear the hidden words behind that, the hope, the request coming from Babs that was left unspoken. His mood somehow sours further, as he stomps his way out of the ruined warehouse.
His bike was down the street, and now he could actually see the street with most of the smog cleared and fires extinguished naturally. It wasn’t pretty, at all.
“Lucky me, I’m not planning a visit.” Babs hisses a sigh at those words, and the line is tense. “So I’ll be able to avoid his wrath for a good while.”
“Red Hood, your patrols aren’t getting shorter, your vitals have been sporadic at best, and the only way I can ever contact you is over comm lines.”
Jason doesn’t bother with a reply. When Babs waits for one, two, three minutes for him to respond, he’s made it to his motorcycle before she gives up. “Fine. But you need help with this case. No matter what sort of things you get in your head, this isn’t something you’ll be able to solve on your own.”
“Oracle–”
“Jason.”
“Babs!”
She curses loudly, something he hears even over the roar of life from his engine. Jason shares her sentiment, grunting under his breath as he revs his bike once, twice, before pushing down and speeding back out. The silent treatment from both is deafening.
He’s more than happy to stay quiet, he doesn’t squirm in it, he thrives in it. It lets him think for a second, and it lets him put duct tape over his green little heart.
Babs, however, did not. That was evident. While Jason turns on a red light, she holds out for another minute before hissing over the line.
“It’s either you choose who helps you on your own, or I call the first person on the main line. Do not test me, Hood.”
Ah, joy. An ultimatum. “This feels like defamation.”
“Wrong term.”
“Then classism. Absolutely classism.”
“Then I get Orphan here.”
“Fuck.”
It’s easy to fall into a rhythm, he finds. Wake up, do the day things, nap, do the night things. There’s a lot of nuance between, and some gray areas that get a bit complicated, but it’s all in all pretty simple.
At least, Grayson thinks so. Or thought so. He’s always included at the minimum one visit through his week to Gotham, not always for vigilante work but absolutely for his family. The trip isn’t insanely long from Blüdhaven to the Wayne Manor, because the former and Gotham were sister cities. And he doesn’t mind the time it takes, or how draining back and forth can be.
He gets to surprise Alfred at the door, who happily takes his jacket and points him to the kitchen like he’ll be able to forget his way around. Dick gets to sneak up on Tim from behind because the boy is pulling a third all-nighter, and hear him shriek in fear-joy when he realizes.
Dick gets to crash Steph and Cass’ video game night, he gets to ruffle Damian's hair on his way to his room and see the boy fight a smile back. He gets to shock Duke when he’s working on a school project, and laugh when he gets spluttered indignation back.
And sometimes, he even gets to pull Jason into a hug, whispering hey little wing while his younger brother huffs an annoyed laugh and hugs him back a little tighter. He gets to drag Jaybird down the hallways and force him into his seat at the family dinner. Sometimes he gets his whole family, and that sometimes makes so much of this worth it.
He hasn’t gotten that sometimes in a while. He wants to think it’s because of the month, but Jason rarely showed his face even in summer. And even though he promised he’d be okay with it, that he wouldn’t push his little brother into anything he didn’t want to be in, it hurts. It started as a small ache but it grew and grew that Dick started to focus more on the Titans as a result.
Nightwing says it's because he’s just been trying to get ahead of the curve. Dick whispers to Wally he’s a bit too scared to look in Gotham’s direction every now and then.
But, that’s not too important right now. Dick has been hellbent on making a proper homecooked meal, and he didn’t mind doing it in the middle of the night. He wrapped up a lazy patrol just an hour ago, which left him with energy and little to do. So here he is with sizzling bacon on the stove and uncooked hotdogs to the right.
He, uh, hasn’t done a grocery run in a bit. Maybe he should use that calendar. Probably. Definitely. Wait, fuck, the bacon’s about to burn–
His phone starts ringing. Dick panics, shoving the pan forward so it’s not on the heated circle, throwing the frying pan lid into the sink (and nearly missing), scrambling to his phone.
Dick’s ringtone nearly gets to another verse before greasy fingers rapidly press the answer button.
“Hello?!” He yelps into the mic, wincing at his own tone. He didn’t check the caller ID, and for all he knows someone is dead or dying. Why is someone calling at—he checks the time—4 AM? “Are you okay? Who is this? Who’s dying?”
The line terrifies him because it’s silent, save for wind and static. That’s not a good sign at all. Could this be Wally? No, the speedster adored rambling everything, vomiting words immediately.
Maybe his family? Who would even call him? Maybe Tim. Tim’s always awake. By the time the call restarts, Dick is already running out the kitchen, hunting for his shoes.
“Hey, golden boy.”
That is the last voice he’d ever expect to hear. On his phone, willingly. Willingly. It stuns him so bad he inhales sharply, eyes blown wide in his stillness.
“...” Jason doesn’t say anything for a second, wind blaring over the speaker again. “Uh, I don’t think I woke you up, so I’ll be quick. Something.. happened.”
Dick suddenly regrets ever mentioning someone dying. He’s going to kill past him. No– damn it he did it again, fuck!
“What? Jay, what’s wrong?” He can’t even try to smother the high-pitched worry that filled his voice. Much to the disgruntlement of Jason a city away. “Are you in Blüdhaven? Where? I’m already dressed, I can pick you up quickly!”
He’s not wrong; after throwing himself out of his stupor, he sat on the couch to tug shoes on, phone tucked between his head and shoulder.
“No– God, Dick, you haven’t changed,” the voice sounds exhausted. Like, crying worthy exhaustion taints the words. “I’m not in your damn city. Something happened in the Alley.”
After a second to consider those implications, Dick decides that’s much worse than his previous theory. “In– In Crime Alley? Jay, there’s always something happening there.”
He doesn’t mean it in a downplaying sense, he’s not saying that whatever happened doesn’t matter because there’s always worse happening. Actually, he’s terrified, because whatever did happen had to have been really, really shocking for Jason to call someone.
“I don’t think exploding warehouses are all too normal for here. Despite how the past makes it seem.”
Dick’s heart actually stops. For a second, Richard Grayson died where he was just standing up, face paler than falling snow. Some sort of strangled noise escapes him, and numbly he registers the last time he made that noise was when he was burying a brother.
Said brother must notice how his phrasing sounded, because a rather colorful ring of curses sound out, muttering under breath.
“No, Dick, god no– Bad phrasing, fucking– really bad phrasing, I’m alive idiot.”
Dick releases a breath he knew he was holding, sinking back onto the couch. Jason sounds like he wants to go on a homicidal rampage, but alive nonetheless. Dick is fine cleaning up a few bodies as long as it’s for a brother still able to bleed.
“Okay, okay, good, little wing,” he exhales, one hand holding his phone while the other catches his head, sighing. His shoes are haphazardly on, and he thinks he somehow lost a sock during the process? “That’s very good. Can I please know why you’re calling before I go into a new panic?”
More silence. “Jason, I’m not against going over there right now. I swear.”
“That, uh, that’s the problem. I might need you to get over here, when you can.”
Dick’s heart plummets. Before Jason can get another sentence out, his older brother is flying out the door with a hastily packed go-bag at the ready and a spare grapple gun.
“Jay I can be over in less than two hours, maybe less than one if I don’t make stops,” he’s quick to assure, words falling quick from his mouth. “Which, if I don’t get any traffic, it’s more than likely—Just stay where you are I swear it’s gonna be just fine!”
“Dick–”
“Oh, crap did I– Yes, okay, definitely less than an hour, I got my suit in here! I got this, definitely got this, plus it’s so early nobody will be out–”
“Dick–!”
“Fuck, I need to change, and the damn elevator– No, wait, the roof is just a floor up, okay it might get a bit windy on my end but I’ll stay on call, so you can tell—”
“DICK!”
The man snaps his mouth shut, wincing a little at the shout, but still climbing the stairs with inhuman steps.
“Okay. Let’s start over. Hi Dick, morning. A warehouse exploded without me inside, I investigated, and I found shit that needs a half-decent detective and you fit the bill.”
Grayson doesn’t say anything, but he’s frowning when slamming open the roof door. Okay.. not bad so far. But Jason has always typically gone to the main comms for stuff like this, if Batman’s not on them.
Maybe it has something to do with Jason not being around. Was it as simple as that?
“So you need a second opinion?” He asks, shrugging off his bag and making quick work of his portable suit.
“More like a third.” Yep that checks, even if Dick pouts slightly. He’s pulling up his pants and putting his arms through holes while hobbling forward to the ledge. “Babs gave me the best rundown she could, but..”
“But both of you are drawing blanks,” Dick finishes for him. Jason grunts an affirmative. “Okay, that’s better than some of the problems I thought of. I can definitely help with that, little wing.”
“Great. Awesome. Thanks. Yep. Thank you, Dickiebird.”
…
“Jason, what did you find?”
He knows that tone of voice. That’s the I’m gonna break down and either kill someone or myself tone.
“Nothing. Nothing. Not a big deal. Honestly it's probably not even important to the—” Jason cuts himself off, a shuffle is heard, and Dick assumes something got his attention. By his intake of breath, it's on a comm, so Babs.
Jason continues, slowly, like he’s gritting every word out. “..I found a secret base inside the warehouse. It’s why there’s this whole problem– the base itself is weird, sure, but it’s what someone was hiding in it that.. Uh.”
Quiet. Dick flips off the ledge, wind whipping by his ears until he shoots a grapple out and then he’s soaring.
“I might’ve lost it a bit. I dunno if I can get through this whole investigation without compromising myself.”
Now that’s scary. Dick, Nightwing at the moment, verbally frowns at that. “Compromising yourself? Jason, if what you found is seriously dangerous, maybe I should swing by Robin and the others to—”
“I found a Lazarus Pit, Dick.”
He nearly falls out of the air, stuttering in his next motion, falling a good few feet before his grapple lands on a brick and pulls him back up. Dick curses, hauling himself onto a roof and having to breathe for a moment.
Jason, obviously stiff on the line, says nothing of comfort. He thinks that’s very, very fair.
“Oh boy. Jason,” Dick whispers, like he’s going to say something, but then he stops himself.
Nothing he could say would sedate whatever storm his little brother has been in. So he picks himself up and continues on his quick path. “I’ll be over soon. You can give me a better debrief, and then we can head to breakfast together.”
His brother is humming to his words, but splutters a bit at that last add on. Dick expects this, and even quirks a small smile at his correct prediction.
“Wh– that last part is not happening.”
“You said it yourself, Jay, you need help so I will happily help you.” He grins brighter at the angry swears on the phone. How has Dick been swinging and been on the phone? He’s just better like that.
“I didn’t say—that doesn’t count Dick, you dick.” Jason sounds like he’s moving something, hissing into his phone's speaker. “I already ate, I don’t need your stupid dumbass motherhenning.”
“Too late!” Dick calls cheerily. “We can get some burgers as a treat, I’ll see you in an hour!”
“What?! No! And what do you mean an hour, it’s double that ti–”
“Love you little wing,” He sings-songs, “Stay put!”
He hangs up on Jason’s indignant squawk. Satisfied, utterly terrified, and not-collected, Dick Grayson twirls in the air and falls upside down.
It was high time for Gotham to have Nightwing within its protectors again. A sort of freedom burrows into his bones as he whips his grapple out, gravity bending to his whim. And it was high time he saw his little brother once more.
—
Lo and behold. One hour later, almost on the dot, there is one Dick Grayson entering Crime Alley. It’s the early hours, too early for anything to be sane, but no Gothamite would bat an eye to it. Heck, as Nightwing zips through the clogged night sky, he spots some Alley kids mingling in the shadows. Darting from eyesight.
He always gets soft around the edges, coming towards this place. Heck, he even spotted one of the kids glance up at him. Round hazel eyes with shock, barely more than thirteen, if that. But Dick has a mission, so he darts across a rooftop and jumps the gap.
More quick footsteps, another mile worth of running, and he’s panting again by the time he reaches where Dick got the call from. Obviously his little brother is smart, so he’s not where he sent the call out, but Dick expected that. It doesn’t take that much to look around with a smart gaze, spotting a distant red figure on a taller building overlooking the warehouse district.
The district, which… didn’t look too much like a district anymore. Soot, blackened, blown from the inside. Dick gets goosebumps; and a gut feeling he’ll definitely be around for a bit.
“When I say I’ll be an hour,” Nightwing starts, landing silently on the roof and recalling his grapple gun. Jason doesn’t twitch. “I do mean it. Have a bit more faith in your older brother, yeah?”
Jason is sitting on the ledge, his own grapple laid in his lap. He’d long since scrapped off the bat insignia off it, and carved a crude vision of his own emblem. Dick looks past that, in order to approach and take a confident seat by Jason with a small huff.
“Been a little bit.”
Still no response, but he can just pick up a near-silent crackle from Jason’s head. Probably from his comm with Babs. Dick knows if he turns his main comm line on, he won’t hear anything, so he doesn’t bother.
He’ll wait. He won’t push, even though every little bone in his body really, really wants to. They spend a little bit watching the last of the smoke disappear into the atmosphere, and Dick counts the rooftops absently.
“More like a while,” Jason sighs, and Dick almost, almost yelps. The calm his face exudes is a well crafted mask, and he’s slightly proud of it. “On purpose. Wasn’t really planning for this to happen.”
That doesn’t sting. Dick doesn’t know what you’re talking about.
“Hmm,” he muses, kicking his feet a bit while the silence brews again. Jason tenses, then relaxes, and repeats that motion a few times. Obviously having a one-sided conversation that he couldn’t hear. “What were you planning?”
“Too soon.” Dick can’t stop the wince at that. Jason notices, and begrudgingly curves his voice to be a pinch kinder. Which isn’t saying much. “How about we focus on why I called you.”
Which, in every part of it, Dick is still proud of Jason for. Super proud. He even shed a few tears coming over, that he’s ever thankful nobody saw. “Okay. Let’s do that.”
“You know about the warehouse,” Jason says while waving a vague hand to the ashened district. “The explosion, and weird secret base that has my lovely second mother.”
Not a good way to phrase. Dick flinches, and Jason eventually winces at it too. A lot of wincing has been happening lately.
“The Pit was just.. Sitting inside it?” Dick questions, prodding this entire situation with a ten foot pole verbally. Neither brother seemed keen to be investigating this. “Nobody around, no backup measures, no defenses?”
“The running theory is that the bomb was the defense, to kill anything left over. Maybe even wipe anything useful from the above floors.” There’s a beat where both men consider it, and a sinking mood. “Which, they succeeded. Nothing but the base itself is anywhere close to salvageable. Basement’s pristine.”
“People don’t do that unless they’re confident they can hide stuff well enough,” he offers. Looking forward to eye whichever warehouse could be in question. “Like, bars or codes, things that wouldn’t be as simple as you opening a door and waltzing in.”
“But I was able to.” It’s not really a protest, more just a fact. “Dick, the trapdoor it was under wasn’t even bolted. No cameras, no mics, it felt weirdly purposeful. And everything, everything was cleaned out. Nothing of interest except for the Pit.”
Dick sighs. Fiddles with his hands in his lap as he thinks. “Have we ruled out this was a diversion? Some sort of red herring?”
Jason shakes his head firmly, tilting it to the side like he was listening to a voice. Which, partially true, and Dick catches a pinched look beneath the domino mask.
“Couldn’t be. Nothing other than this could warrant attention, all over Gotham it’s just been petty crime and the usual. And this was in my territory.”
The tone in his voice sets Dick’s nerves on end, and his feet itch to start pacing.
“You think someone is targeting you?”
“I think someone knows the Red Hood has experience with the Pits, and this is the result.” Jason tosses a rock he’d been turning over in his hands, watching it clatter a minute later below. “Weird creepy warehouse, explosion, weird setting, weird revival green goo.” He ticks each bullet point off his fingers. “All we’re missing is the foreign country bit.”
“...And we don’t bring the others into this.. why?”
Jason huffs with annoyance, twisting around to look at Dick as if the man was an idiotic teenager. “Because of that, we don’t bring anyone else in. Do you know the shit B would pull if he heard about this?”
“Yeah. Because this is concerning. And he’d be concerned.”
“Dick, c’mon. You’re not seriously–”
“I’m not recommending Batman. I didn’t say that.” Dick sighs loudly, dragging a hand down his face with the exasperation of a middle aged man. “Hell, I went through a decade keeping stuff from him.”
He can spot the contortion on Jason’s face, like he was holding back from saying and look where that led.
“But, I’m also not not recommending we get some backup. Whoever was in charge of.. this, probably didn’t do this as a one and done. And B’s been talking about some odd leads with the LOA.” Dick feels the tension before he sees it. “It doesn’t have to be Batman. It can be anyone, but it has to be someone.”
Jason opens his mouth, but Dick cuts him off. “No, Oracle doesn’t count.”
Pause.
“..No offense, O.”
Another crackle from Jason’s ear tells him enough, and he risks a smile. Jason warily smoothens his face. Not a return smile, just, less sharp. And defensive.
The silence returns but it’s calmer. Dick goes back to his observation of the warehouses, and Jason goes back to doing Jason things. His fingers tap idly on his thighs, and he hums a quiet rhythm.
There’s no surprise when Jason gives a suffering exhale, acting like the next words were torturous to form.
“O, can you get me a reading on where Replacement is?”
Dick’s smile grows a bit. He makes a mental note to add Lunch to the schedule.