Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

—+—

Harley’s POV

Harley first saw the kid through a window on the second floor of Arkham Asylum she happened to pass while being dragged to solitary. She watched him pile out of a van, already in the standard white uniform, fighting with the orderlies and screaming curse words. Harley grinned at the sight.

     Oh, this’ll be a riot.

^—^

“Hey, Ives, you seen the new kid?” Harley asked Ivy a few days later. She’d only just been brought back to her cell, and was happy to be able to speak to her girlfriend again.

    There was a moment of silence. “New kid?”

    “Yeah, new kid! Black hair, violent–”

    “I’m right here,” Eddie called. His cell was directly across from Harley’s, and he was peering through the glass into her room, looking mildly judgemental.

    “Not you ,” Harley said with a snort. “The kid .”

    Ivy hummed. “I knew I felt something different,” she muttered, voice just barely audible.

^—^

It was another day before Harley saw the kid again. He was sitting in the corner of the cafeteria, reading a book. For a moment, Harley wondered if he was another Mad Hatter, another man obsessed with a fictional story, but quickly decided he probably wouldn’t be sent to Arkham for believing he was a part of Pride and Prejudice.

    “Stalking the kid?” Ivy asked. Most of the rogues had taken to calling him ‘the kid,’ even though he was technically listed in Arkham’s files as a John Doe.

    “Nah. Just curious.” Harley hadn’t seen a new face in Arkham in a while. It was mostly the same guys over and over. “What’s his name?” Harley asked, still staring at the kid.

    “Red Hood,” Harv answered, and Harley flinched before forcibly reminding herself he wasn’t there, Joker wasn’t there, and this kid maybe-probably-definitely didn’t work for him.

    “Uh-huh,” she said when she regained the ability to speak. “Know what he did?”

    “You could ask him,” Ivy suggested.

    The kid finally noticed her staring. He glanced up at her, waved, and looked back down at his book.

    Harley grinned. “Great idea, Ivs.” She stood, marching over to the kid’s table. He looked up at her fully, marking his page and setting the book down, not looking away from her for a second.

    “Hiya!” Harley said cheerfully. The kid continued to stare blankly at her. Harley took it as an invitation to sit down. “So,” she cooed, smiling at him. “Heard a rumor you got pinched by Batsy.” It was a decent guess. After all, this was Arkham. Roughly half the patients had been brought in by Batman.

    The kid’s eyes seemed to glow at her words, and his expression turned downright murderous in a way Harley found adorable.

    “So,” she said, “what’d you do?”

    The kid looked right at her and said, “I tried to get Batman to kill the Joker.”

    And just like that, Harley had a new favorite patient. Well, after Ivy, of course.

^—^

Arkham patients had exactly one visiting day a month. Harley normally didn’t have many visitors, but on that month’s visiting day, a reporter was waiting for her on the other side of the glass.

    She listened to him drone on for a while, something about a fall from grace and exclusive interview. He seemed to be under the impression that she would be fine using her trauma for clickbait.

    Her eyes wandered the room. Clayface was meeting with his agent. Ivy was speaking to her plant sitter, and seemed totally absorbed in her description of the proper way to feed a Man-Eating Venus Flytrap.

    The door to the prisoner’s side of the visiting hall opened. Harley glanced up, and watched a guard lead the kid into the hall. He was late, but the broken nose and beginnings of a black eye made the reason for his tardiness obvious. Poor guy, Harley thought.

    The guard practically dragged him to a free booth, shoving him into the glass before walking to the corner to join his coworkers.

    The kid’s visitor was a blue eyed man with blond hair too shiny to not be a wig, with black sunglasses that entirely hid his eyes. Even in his disguise, Harley knew who he was. What was Bruce Wayne doing, visiting Arkham’s newest patient?

    The kid stared at Bruce for a moment, jaw clenched as he glared down at him. Bruce just looked up at him with hope. After a moment, the kid unfroze and sat down, putting the receiver to his ear.

    “Fuck you,” he said immediately. Harley thoroughly tuned out the reporter and zeroed in on this conversation. Even through the ongoing discussions around her, she heard damn near every word the kid said.

    Bruce seemed to try to say something, but the kid continued, “no, fuck you, you goddamn coward. You don’t get to throw me in here and let that pasty clown motherfucker still walk free and then come here for a visit like nothing fucking happened. ”

    Bruce was speaking again. His face was mournful. The kid’s knuckles were going white around the receiver.

    “You are that fucking naïve,” the kid muttered, “you actually thought–”

    Bruce tried to talk again, motioning with his hands like he was trying to calm a wild animal. The kid’s eyes flashed bright green, and he slammed the receiver into the glass hard enough to crack it.

    “Fuck you!” he roared. The guards were running for him, but he managed to hit it twice more before he was dragged away, still screaming obscenities.

^—^

Late that night, Harley woke up to the noises of a conversation, words bouncing off the walls and across the otherwise silent wing.

    “I’m just saying,” Nightwing was saying, “you could have been nicer.”

    The kid snorted loudly. “Fuck off.”

    A terrible, drawn out sigh. “Are you okay in here?” Nightwing asked softly. “You’re not in danger?”

    The kid scoffed. “Do you even care?”

    “Of course I do.” Nightwing sounded genuinely hurt. “How can you say that?”

    The kid laughed. In sharp contrast to the Joker’s, his was brutal, guttural, and furious. “You didn’t care when you sent me here,” the kid growled. “You didn’t care when you locked me in with a bunch of your fucking villains.”

    “It’s for your own good,” Nightwing said, but he sounded entirely unsure. The kid didn’t respond. “I’ll try to visit again soon,” Nightwing said. “I’m not giving up on you, Jaybird.” He took a few steps down the hallway, then stopped. “It’s for your own good.”

    “Eat shit,” the kid said sleepily. Harley heard his snores within seconds.

^—^

The crack of Harley’s fist connecting with the guard’s face was one of the most satisfying sounds she had heard in a while. He dropped to the floor immediately, groaning wildly. Harley knelt down and hit him again before pulling him close.

    “You’re not allowed to touch the kid,” she hissed, spitting into his face. “Not again. He’s under my protection, you hear?”

    There were more guards now, swarming around her. Two grabbed her arm and yanked her back.

    “Do you hear me?” Harley shouted rabidly. She kicked another guard in the head. “None of you fuckers touch him!”

    Someone whacked her across the face with a baton, and she woke up in solitary. Good. All the better to send a message.

^—^

“You didn’t have to do that,” Ivy said when Harley was returned to her cell nearly a month later.

    “I know,” Harley said. “But I wanted to.”

    While she had been in solitary, the bruises on the kid’s face healed and faded. Harley watched carefully, but no more appeared. The kid said nothing, but he started sitting closer to her in the cafeteria, maybe to stay closer to his protector, maybe to keep an eye on her. Every time, Harley waved him over. Every time, he pretended not to see.

^—^

“I think we should break out,” Harley said. She was pacing her cell, stretching her muscles in a mockery of tai chi.

    “Oh?” Ivy said.

    “But we should take the others with us.” Harley bounced around. “It could be like a big group adventure! Plus, we’d have a better chance of gettin’ out.”

    Ivy hummed. “It could be nice,” she mused.

    “I’m in,” Eddie called. “I’ve got a few new riddles I wanna try out.”

    “Alright,” Ivy said. “So us three–”

    “And me,” Harv interrupted.

    “Us four,” Ivy corrected. “Who else?”

    “Jonathan,” Harley said immediately. She started listing names, counting them off her fingers. “Bane, too, if we can get to him.”

    The other rogues murmured their agreements, and a satisfied silence filled the wing, almost immediately interrupted by Ivy’s question, “what about your friend?”

    “Friend?” Harley repeated, but it occurred to her almost immediately. The kid.

    “You can’t exactly protect him if you’re not here,” Ivy pointed out.

    Goddammit, she was right. “Well, we could break him out,” Harley reasoned. “I mean, if we’re already breaking out half of Arkham, what’s one more guy?”

    Another bout of silence, this one much more uneasy than the first.

    “I mean, I guess ,” Eddie said anxiously.

    “What do we know about this guy?” Harv asked.

    “He’s eighteen-maybe-nineteen, he’s got some sorta glowin’ eye thing, he likes Jane Austen, an’ he tried to get Batman to kill the Joker.”

   Ivy sighed. “I want to meet him before we decide anything.”

^—^

Lunch was rice, beans, and mystery meat. Harley poked at it suspiciously as she and Ivy marched over to the kid’s table.

    He had a new book this time. He set it down when they sat across from him, eying the both of them. “What’s this?”

    “This is Ivy.” Harley gestured loosely to her girlfriend. “Ivy, this is the kid.”

    “Red Hood,” the kid corrected.

    “Nope!” Harley said cheerfully.

    “ Anyway ,” Ivy cut in. “Harley tells me you tried to kill the Joker?”

    The kid took a bite of his mystery meat. “Fucker had it coming.”

    “I don’t disagree.” Ivy’s shoulders were relaxing somewhat, and her expression was slightly friendlier. “What made you do it?”

    The kid snorted. “You sound like my shrink.”

    “Just curious.” Her voice was mild, but had a slight edge to this.

     Just fucking tell her, Harley thought furiously.

    The kid pushed at his food with his fork. “He killed me.”

    Harley’s head snapped up and she stared at him, trying to discern if he was kidding. He was decidedly not.

    It was believable enough. In a world protected by alien gods and billionaires dressed as bat-demons, someone coming back from the grave wasn’t completely crazy. Not to mention that a decent number of the rogues had died and come back. And with the sheer number of people Joker had killed, it stood to reason at least one of them would come back.

    “Oh,” Ivy said. She sounded surprised. “Sorry.”

    The kid waved a hand. “Don’t be. I’m fine now.” He took a sip of his water. “Did you want something, or…?”

     “Yes, actually,” Ivy said. “We’re planning a breakout, and we were wondering if you wanted to come along.”

    The kid chuckled, voice hollow. “Wow,” he said. “Arkham really is a revolving door.”

    “What did you expect?” Ivy asked. “The chief of security is going around wearing Armani suits and rolexes. Meanwhile, most of the guards make minimum wage, and the security system is decades out of date.”

    “Yeah,” Harley said. “Like, a while ago, Bruce Wayne donated a shit ton of money to the asylum–around the time you showed up, actually,” she said pointedly. The kid didn’t respond, and she continued. “The next day, the asylum director rolled up in a fuckin’ lamborghini.”

    “Goddammit,” the kid muttered. He shook his head. “I fucking told him.”

    “Excuse me?”

    “Nothing,” the kid said loudly. He huffed and stabbed his fork into the mystery meat. “And yeah, I want in. When’s this happening?”

    The lunch went by without much trouble. Harley and Ivy laid out the plan, the timeline; one week, therapy room 2B, bring whatever you need.

^—^

    Only they didn’t make it a week. Three days after the talk at lunch, another van pulled up outside of Arkham. Laughter echoed through the halls. Everyone who heard it knew.

    Arkham was about to explode.

Chapter Text

—+—

Harv’s POV

Harv’s cell was in an awkward spot. It was at the corner of the cell block, the door angled away from the other rogues. He could see into two cells. One belonged to a silent young woman with scars on her arms; the other to the kid Harley was protecting.

    When Joker’s laughter echoed across the halls, Harv pressed himself against the door, trying to angle his head so he could see Harley. It was entirely by accident that he caught a glimpse of the kid, white in the face and shaking.

    “Kid?” Harv called. The noise made the kid flinch back. He was mumbling something, telling someone to run, get out, go, go, go–his limbs were shaking and his eyes were staring straight through the cell door. He looked so young and so scared. 

    “Kid, listen to me,” Harv said, trying to remember all the medical shit he’d learned through years of osmosis from Harley, Arkham’s doctors, and Grey’s Anatomy. “You’re having a flashback. It’s not real. Okay?”

    “Fuck you,” the kid snarled, but his voice faltered halfway through the swear.

    Harv saw the kid staring at the space in front of him and took a wild guess. “He’s not there,” Harv said. The kid didn’t respond. “He’s not there,” Harv repeated.  It didn’t seem to be working. “Tell me what you see,” Harv tried.

    The kid glanced at Harv, gaze entirely suspicious. He looked back and forth between Harv and whatever his mind was making him see.

    “...The floor,” he said quietly.

    He got him to talk. What was he supposed to do now? “That’s good,” Harv said, trying to be encouraging. “Keep going. What else do you see?”

    “You. Bricks.” The scar on his neck rippled as he spoke. “The stupid white paint. The cell door.”

    “Okay,” Harv said. “You’re doing good.”

     What else could he do? He tried to think of what Ivy tried with Harley the last time Joker was thrown in Arkham. She’d tried to get her to follow her breathing pattern. He couldn’t remember how well it worked, but he didn’t exactly have a plethora of options.

    “Deep breaths,” Harv said. “Follow my breathing. 1, 2, 3, in…” The kid inhaled sharply, chest and shoulders puffing up like a bird in winter. “1, 2, 3, out.”

    He repeated the process a few times. The kid didn’t stop shaking, but color returned to his face, and he stopped staring straight ahead. His glassy eyes were still fixated on the ground.

    1, 2, 3, in…

    The laughter was gone. The kid was soaked with sweat. He wasn’t making eye contact, but at least he was looking at Harv.

    1, 2, 3, out.

    It took an hour for the cellblock to calm down from two minutes of faint echoes of laughter.

    When it was over, when they were calm but still shaking, Harley said, “we’re changin’ the plan.” She shook her head and inhaled so shakily it sounded like she had marbles in her lungs. “We’re changin’ the plan,” she repeated fiercely. No one argued.

    “Alright,” Ivy agreed. “We can speed up the timetable. We can be out of here by tomorrow–”

    “Now,” Harley said. “I can’t–I won’t be here while he is.” She shook her head. “We’re breaking out now. Today.”

—+—

Eddie’s POV

The average Arkham breakout took exactly thirty seven minutes and twenty two seconds.

    Three quarters of that time (twenty eight minutes) were traditionally spent within the asylum walls, wreaking all sorts of havoc, while the remaining nine minutes were spent getting the hell out of dodge before Batman, Nightwing, Batwoman, or Robin showed up. The twenty eight minutes, which Eddie found himself in, were necessary for the sake of the escape. Twenty eight minutes was how long it took to get an asylum-wide riot going, which was needed in order to distract any Bats who may bring it upon themselves to intervene.

     And so, Eddie ran through Arkham’s halls, scanning the cells until he located who he was looking for. He stopped, and reached out for the lock. It was easy to pick; most of Arkham’s patients had grown skilled at undoing the basic electric keypads that kept the cell doors in place. Eddie had become so skilled, he was able to bring down the entire system on his own, and it only took another few seconds. Eddie pulled the door open, looking up at the man towering above him with a grin.

    “Breakout?” Bane grumbled.

    “Breakout,” Eddie confirmed.

    Bane stretched, cracking his knuckles. He lumbered out the door past Eddie.

    “Meet us in therapy room 2B,” Eddie called, and continued on his quest of chaos with twenty four minutes remaining.

—+—

Ivy’s POV

There was something about a good riot that every good rogue could get behind. 

    Ivy was standing in the center of the mess hall, waiting for the signal from Harv. In the meantime, she created as much chaos as she could. It seemed a very unfortunate doctor thought it was a good idea to use some orchids to decorate his office, and now their massive stems tossed orderlies through the air.

    The kid was to her right, using a piece of a broken chair to beat a security guard’s head in. The plants seemed to like him–each time his eyes glowed green, they seemed to heal from their wounds faster, and seemed to regain some of their energy.

    Ivy wondered, in the scientific part of her brain, what was the cause of this; maybe this kid was some sort of metahuman, or maybe it had something to do with his resurrection. She’d have to ask him once they were clear. It didn’t seem like he was doing it on purpose–she wondered what he could do if he tried.

    All at once, the asylum seemed rocked to one side. A loud explosion boomed from the other side of the building. That was the signal. Ivy tossed off the remaining orderlies.

    “Come on!” she shouted to the kid. He got in one more good hit on the guard and followed her out the door.

    Therapy room 2B was one of the few rooms in Arkham that had windows on multiple walls. By the time Ivy and the kid got there, those walls had been completely destroyed, leaving the room exposed. Three people were already there–Bane, Harv, and Eddie. Ivy’s heart sank into her stomach. Harley was nowhere to be seen.

     It’s fine, she told herself, brushing off the worry the way one might swat a fly. Harley’s fine, she’s smart, she wouldn’t do anything stupid.

—+—

Harley’s POV

Harley stalked through the cell block, gripping her gun. Minutes earlier, she’d raided the pile of weapons at the front desk and grabbed the first thing she saw; a Glock 19 attributed to a John Doe. Now, she walked through the hall with her finger on the trigger.

    There was no one else in the cell block; probably because no one was stupid enough to go near Joker during a breakout. There was no one to try to stop Harley from slipping into his cell.

    He was still in there when Harley got there. She wasn’t sure why. Maybe he was waiting for something, maybe he thought it’d be fun to stand back and laugh at the chaos before he left. Harley didn’t know, and she didn’t care.

    “Hoodie,” he crooned when she got close. His voice made her skin crawl. His back was turned. His green hair was wild and messy.

    Harley wanted to remember everything about this moment; his ruffled straight jacket, the scratches on the walls, the feeling of her finger on the cold, metal trigger.

    “Nope,” she said. He turned, the manic grin spreading wider across his face as he confronted the barrel of her gun. “Just me.”

     Bang!

     His head jerked back and he dropped to the floor. Blood and brain matter splattered onto Harley’s uniform, the red and pink dripping down the white fabric. Harley ignored it, keeping the gun aimed at him. One shot wasn’t enough. She wanted him dead, and more than that, she wanted him to stay dead. No more fakeouts, no more surprises, just a dead fucking clown.

    Bang! Bang! Bang!

    She poured her clip into him, hitting every vital organ she could. The bullets tore holes in him. When she was done, his torso looked like uncooked hamburger meat.

    Harley panted. Her ears were ringing. She felt like she might pass out. She checked him over again, making sure he was gone. When she was sure–when a giddy, free feeling rose through her chest–she spat at him.

    “Rot in hell, Mistah J,” Harley said. She wished she’d come up with something better to end it with, but she didn’t have time. The others were waiting for her. She pocketed the gun and left him behind.

—+—

Ivy’s POV

“We need to leave,” Eddie said. Ivy couldn’t hear any emotion in his voice past anxiety, but that didn’t stop her from shooting the man a glare.

    “Give her a minute,” Ivy said, glancing back at the door. Another security guard somehow broke through their makeshift barricade–Bane snapped his neck without a second thought.

    “Harley wouldn’t want us to stick around long enough to get caught,” he argued, angling the guard so his body would fall away from him.

    “We’re not leaving her here,” the kid said. He brandished the piece of wood he was holding in Bane’s direction. Bane shot him a truly terrible glare, shook his head, and turned back to Ivy.

    “We can’t wait here,” he said, voice harsher now.

    “We’re running out of time,” Eddie warned anxiously.

    “If you two want to leave, fine,” Ivy said. “I’m not leaving without Harley.” She was either going to be free with Harley or in prison with Harley, but she wasn’t going to leave her behind.

     Assuming she’s still alive, something in her brain whispered.

    Bane stared at her, something close to pity in his expression. “Ivy–”

    Harley picked this exact moment to come running in, red splatters on her uniform, with a gun in one hand and a bat in the other. “Sorry I’m late,” she panted. “Had to make a real quick stop at the front desk an’ get this back.” She hefted the bat.

    Ivy smiled, shoulders slumping in relief. She reached out, ignoring the blood and brain matter on her girlfriend’s clothes as she pulled Harley close. “Oh, thank fuck, you’re alive.”

     “I know you’re having a moment, but can you have it when we’re not in prison?!” Eddie shouted. Ivy glared at him but stepped to the edge of the building, still holding onto Harley’s hand. It was a two story drop down, but that was manageable. Ivy stared down at the barren lawn and summoned the few weeds that had managed to grow in the rocky soil. They sprouted and bloomed, rising until their now thick stems reached the edge of the building.

    The rogues started to climb until they reached a safe distance to drop down. Bane didn’t even bother with the plants and just leapt down. The second all their feet hit the ground, they ran across the lawn. The weeds followed them, snaking through the dirt until they reached the chain link fence that surrounded the asylum. They burst through the barbed wire, leaving a massive hole for the rogues to clamber through. The rogues sprinted in their mad dash down the hill to the beach. Arkham technically had a bridge connecting it to the rest of Gotham, but that would’ve been put out of use the second the riot started. The only way out was through the water.

    They reached the beach; someone in one of the guard towers had started shooting at them, but they were too far away to shoot accurately. The group leapt into the water, and started the rest of their journey home.

—+—

Oswald’s POV

Oswald had long become used to the other rogues’ antics. At some point over the years, he’d become accustomed to Bane's habit of accidentally breaking any piece of exercise equipment he touched, and Ivy’s practice of “liberating” the plants he kept in his office, and Harley’s love of stealing food and liquor from his club’s kitchen.

    However, when Harv, Eddie, Bane, Ivy, and Harley showed up at his club soaking wet with a teenager in tow, he still found himself mildly surprised.

    His employees quickly ushered them out of the club and into his office (Rule one of the Iceberg Lounge: if any of the rogues show up, send them to Oswald immediately). He stared at them from behind his desk, trying to hold off the migraine he could feel forming.

    “What did you do,” he asked. Harv, Ivy and Harley immediately started talking over each other. Oswald held up a hand. “I rescind the question.”

    He looked over at the teenager. He was a tall Latinx boy with green eyes, a scar on his neck, and a streak of white in his black hair. He looked like he was around eighteen, and he looked like a fucking weapon.

    “Who exactly are you?” Oswald inquired.

    “This is the kid,” Harley answered cheerfully. The kid nodded silently and glared at Oswald.

    “Alright,” Oswald relented with a sigh, accepting the fact that he likely wouldn’t learn the kid’s name anytime soon. “What’s happened? One at a time,” he added quickly when he saw Harv open his mouth.

    “Joker’s dead,” Harley said. Her grin was so wide, she looked like she’d been Joker-gassed.

    Oswald stared at her. “He’s dead?” Harley nodded enthusiastically. “Are you sure? You saw the body, right? This isn’t another fakeout?”

    “I shot him in the head,” Harley told him. “An’ a couple other places, too.” Oswald saw the faded streaks of blood and what looked like brain matter on her uniform.

    He reached for the phone on his desk and called his secretary. “Elaine? Could you get some champagne? And have the kitchen whip up some cake. Multicolored, preferably. We have something to celebrate.” He leaned back in his chair and grinned at the other rogues. “Now–tell me everything.”

Chapter Text

—+—

Jason’s POV

Jason listened to Harley tell the story six times. He pictured it differently each time as he learned more information. Joker lying dead on the floor, bullet between the eyes, green hair mixing with blood. It didn’t feel real.

    “Kid, you need to eat,” Harley said. She held out a piece of pink velvet cake on a paper plate. She kept being nice to him–actually, nice wasn’t the right word. She kept bending over backwards to make sure he was safe and alive and happy. He didn’t know why–what exactly did she think he was? Another rogue or a weapon?

    It didn’t matter. Jason could live with it. At least Harley treated him like a person. She treated him more like a person than anyone had since his death.

    Jason eyed the food, but accepted it, as well as the glass of water Harley held out to him. No one would let him have a drop of champagne. The minimum drinking age was apparently the one law the rogues wouldn’t violate.

    “Thank you,” Jason said automatically. Alfred’s manners were still drilled into him, even four years after the last time he saw him.

    “So,” Harley said, plopping down in the seat next to him. “You okay?”

    Jason snorted. “I’m still breathing, aren’t I?” It was supposed to sound sarcastic, but it came out bitter.

    Harley shrugged. “Fair point,” she said humorfully–oh, thank fuck, she thought the joke was funny. They sat together silently, watching the others talk–Harv was trying to convince Oswald to send some goons to get his coin back from the cops.

    “Are you sure he’s gone?” he asked, slightly anxious about the answer. He remembered all the explosions the Joker had survived, all the decoys and red herrings, all the times they’d thought he was gone only for him to pop up a few weeks later with some horrible new joke.

    Harley nodded. “One bullet to the head, two to the heart, three to the stomach and several to the fun bits. Trust me, kid, I made sure. He isn’t coming back.” Harley hummed, playing with one of her pigtails. “He won’t hurt us again,” she said, an emotion in her tone Jason couldn’t quite name but somehow understood entirely.

    Jason nodded, settling into his chair. “Okay,” he said. He wasn’t quite sure what to say beyond that. Thank you was something you said to someone when they held open a door for you, not someone who killed your murderer.

    The realization fully settled on him. There was something unspeakably comforting in the knowledge that the man who killed him wasn’t going to kill again. Joker wasn’t going to kill again, laugh again, breathe again. There wasn’t going to be another victim. It was over.

    And to think Bruce hadn’t wanted this for him.

    “Hey,” Harley said. “Just, so you know, Ozzy’s got some rooms we use when we break out–y’know, just so we have a place to sleep when we’re hidin’ out. I could help you pick one out, if you want.”

    “Um…” Well, he didn’t really have anywhere else to go. He was sure Bruce had found his safehouses before sending him to Arkham. And he didn’t want to leave Harley after what she’d done for him. “Yeah,” Jason said. He set the cake aside. “That sounds great, actually.”

^—^

Jason toppled onto the bed. The room was small and barren save for barebones furniture; a bed, a dresser, a night stand. It was like arriving in Wayne Manor, before he decorated his room, when it was just empty eggshell walls and the barest essentials.

    He was too tired to think about the past anymore. He passed out, soaking wet and aching, and quickly fell asleep. He dreamed of countdowns and crowbars.

^—^

Jason woke up unspeakably early–the side effect of keeping a fucked up sleep cycle for years on end.

    He got up quickly and checked the room for bugs. His search didn’t produce any spying equipment, but he found a change of clothes roughly his size in the dresser. He briefly considered staying in the Arkham uniform, but he still smelled like the inside of Gotham Harbor, so he swapped the stained white jumpsuit for jeans and a tee shirt.

    Okay. What now? His first step would have to be finding Harley, at least until he could figure out the way of the place. If he couldn’t find Harley, he’d have to find one of the other rogues.

    He stepped out of the bedroom, scanning the empty hallway. It was a sort of more domestic version of the cell block in Arkham, down to the placement of the rooms. There was one room at the end of the hall that had a big metal door and radiated cold. Jason took one look at it and decided it was better if he didn’t know what was in there.

    He started down the hall in the other direction. Harley’s door was closed and locked, and Jason wasn’t about to test his luck with the other rogues, so he kept walking.

    The hall led to a sort of lounge area; a half room with two large cream colored couches, two bookcases with books that looked like they hadn’t been picked up since the fall of Rome, and a window made of what looked like bulletproof glass. Jason stopped for a second and squinted out at the city. The remnants of the dawn bounced off the fogged up glass windows of the skyscrapers, creating a mini sunrise in each one.

    Jason hadn’t seen a sight like this in–well, it would have been years, right? Wayne Manor wasn’t close enough to Gotham the see this, the League sure as fuck didn’t have sights like this, and all while he was Robin, Alfred had a rule that he had to be back in bed before sunup so he got some sleep, so it wasn’t then. It would’ve been when he was still in Crime Alley. That’s it–the last time he saw a sight like this, staring out the window of Willis’s apartment. 

    Jason felt sick all of a sudden–he wasn’t sure why. He took a step back, trying to tamp down the nausea.

    He felt movement behind him and he spun. Standing behind him in the doorway to the lounge was a man with a bald head and a black appendage wrapped around his mouth, dressed in a tank top and sweatpants. Bane. Fuck.

    It was fine. Jason had fought Bane before, and now he didn’t have his steroids, or any goons to throw at him. He looked…pretty normal, actually.

    Jason took a breath. He was fine, he was safe, and he probably didn’t need to fight Bane.

    “Where is everyone else?” Jason asked, eying Bane’s outfit with as much judgment as two eyes could produce.

    “Busy,” Bane said. Jason just stared at him. The older man let out a dramatic sigh. “Harley’s bothering Oswald, Harv’s trying to find a quarter, Ivy’s stealing Oswald’s plants, and Eddie is wandering around, looking for someone to test his riddles on. Just you and me.”

    “Fun,” Jason said, voice as flat as he could manage. “Where’s Harley, again?”

    “With Oswald,” Bane replied. He sauntered closer, examining Jason like a specimen under a microscope. Jason inhaled deeply, trying to suppress his inexplicable urge to throttle the man when he said,“¿Hablas algo de español?”

    That…was a surprise.

    Jason eyed him. “Un poco,” he said. He mostly learned from the League. It was useful to have a weapon that could speak more than one language.

    Bane’s shoulders slumped–not quite relaxation, more like an untensing. “Gracias a Dios,” he muttered, then immediately started speaking in rapid-fire Spanish. “Hacía mucho tiempo que no podía hablar con alguien en español. El segundo Robin a veces me insultaba en español, pero eso no lo cuento. De todos modos, ¿estás bien? ¿Necesitas ayuda para encontrar algo?”

    It took Jason a second to fully translate all of that. “Um, sí,” he said when his brain finally caught up with his ears. “¿Dónde está H–”

    He didn’t get to finish his sentence. Before he could fully get through the last word, Harv’s voice shouted, “Does anyone in this fucking building have a goddamn quarter?!” Jason and Bane looked towards the door where the shout came from just in time to see Harv come marching in. He was wearing a suit, one side green, the other purple. His hands were shaking.

    “Kid, you got a quarter?” he demanded when he saw Jason.

    “No,” Jason said.

    Harv let out a series of colorful swear words. “How the fuck is there not a single fucking quarter in this entire goddamn building?”

    “Ask the waitstaff,” Bane suggested benignly. “They probably have some in a tip jar somewhere.”

    Harv nodded, shoulders slumping as he smiled. “You’re a genius,” he proclaimed. He glanced at Jason and paused. “Have you eaten breakfast yet?” Jason shook his head. “C’mon. Let’s get you some food. Bane, you want in?”

    “Actually, I was gonna head to the gym–”

     “Good for you,” Harv interrupted, immediately switching his attention to Jason. “Now, hurry up, I need a fucking quarter.”

^—^

The waitstaff did in fact have quarters. They also had blueberry pancakes and eggs. Jason downed two platefuls without hesitation. He figured pancakes were worth risking poison for.

   “Thanks,” Jason told Harv. Harv was sitting at the bar next to him, flipping his new quarter to decide whether or not to flip it again.

    “Hey, we’ve gotta stick together, right?” he said. Jason’s face must have given away his confusion because Harv gestured loosely to the scarred side of his face, then to the long slice on Jason’s neck. Jason nodded, fighting the urge to touch it. It was still barely healed–it had only fully closed a few weeks prior, and the skin around it was still a sort of pinkish color.

    “Can I just say,” Harv continued, “and I know this isn’t exactly my place to say, but–I know when I first met the others, I didn’t trust them either. But you can trust us.”

    Jason stared at him for a moment, trying to figure out if he believed him. He was slightly surprised when he realized he did. He shook his head and cut another piece out of his pancake.

—+—

Ivy’s POV

Ivy dug her trowel into one of the mini flower beds built into the floor of her room. She had three stolen plants at her side, two ferns and a lemon tree. Harley was lying on her bed behind her.

    “Are you sure you’re fine?” Ivy pressed. She’d been asking variants of that question since the party.

    “Yeah,” Harley said. There was a smile in her voice. “He’s finally fucking gone.”

    Ivy hummed and planted the first fern. After all the people he’d killed, all the atrocities he’d committed, all the rogues he’d beaten and betrayed, he was finally fucking gone. And speaking of people he’d killed...

    “How’s the kid holding up?” she asked curiously. She remembered the look he’d had on his face when Harley was telling the story during the party; happy, and a little doubtful.

    “Hmm? Oh, fine.” Harley paused. “I should probably check again,” she said. Ivy wasn’t looking at her, but she knew she was frowning.

    “You realize he’s never gonna leave you alone now, right?” Harley hummed. Ivy packed dirt around the base of the fern. “I mean, you killed his murderer,” she continued, “he’d probably walk through hell for you if you asked him to.”

    “Yeah.” Harley sighed languidly, rising from the bed so she could dramatically drape herself against the doorframe. “I guess I’m officially a single mother,” she lamented with all the believability of a high school drama kid.

    Ivy barked out a brief laugh. “Single my ass.”

    Harley giggled and left.

    Ivy looked back down at the garden and continued to pack the dirt down to support the roots of the fern. The last time she’d liberated a plant from the confines of Oswald’s dreary office, he’d threatened to burn every plant in her room. She doubted he would, and if he ever did, at least vengeance was one kiss away.

    “Ivy!” someone shouted. Ivy glanced up in time to see Eddie charge into her room. He nearly tripped over the roots of a ficus.

    “Whoa, slow down,” Ivy said, leaping up to keep him from hurting any plants, “what’s wrong?”

    “We need to find Harley and the kid,” Eddie said. He righted himself, sweating and panting. He looked like he was on the brink of an asthma attack.

    Ivy held up a hand, trying to calm him down. “What’s going on?” Please don’t be Batman, please don’t be Batman–

    “What’s black and white and red all over?” Eddie asked.

    Ivy blinked. “Newspaper?”

    Eddie nodded. “Close enough. I couldn’t think of a riddle for television on short notice.”

    “Eddie, what–”

    “We need to find Harley and the kid,” Eddie repeated. “It’s an emergency.”

    “Harley was just here,” Ivy said. “She went to find the kid.”

    Eddie nodded. He stepped out of the room and started running down the hall. Ivy followed, keeping pace.

    They were at the bar. All of them were; Bane, Oswald, Harley, Harv, and the kid all sat together, waiters and waitresses quickly swapping out empty plates for ones filled with pancakes and eggs and bacon and sausage.

    “Harley,” Eddie shouted, gasping between syllables.

    Harley’s head snapped up. She had blueberry juice and syrup smeared across her mouth. “What’s up?”

    Eddie inhaled deeply. “I have a plug but I’m not a sink,” he wheezed. “I can be mounted but I’m not a horse, I’m found in the living room but I’m not a sofa, I have a screen but I’m not a laptop, I have a remote control but I’m not a drone. What am I?”

    They glanced at each other. Oswald let out a little scoff. It took a moment for Harv to finally say, “A television.”

    Eddie nodded. “It’s all over the news,” he said. He was looking straight at Harley. “Everyone thinks the kid killed the Joker.”

^—^

The reason the world thought the kid killed the Joker: apparently, the kid had a gun taken from him upon his arrival at Arkham. The staff at Arkham were lazy, so they hadn’t removed the clip or given it back to the police, only put it on a shelf where it was forgotten until Harley’s hands found it.

    To make everything so much more incriminating, the keypads were tied to every electrical system in the building, so when Eddie brought the system down, he also brought down the WiFi, the lighting, and the security cameras. He did this just in time to keep Harley off the recordings.

    When Harley and the kid heard the full story, they both started laughing so hard the other rogues became concerned for them.

    “It’s not funny,” Eddie said sourly.

    “I mean, it kinda is,” Harley said between giggles. The kid was laughing so hard, he had to hold onto the bar to keep from falling off his chair.

    “Alright,” Harv cut in, speaking loudly to be heard over their cackles. “So the news thinks he killed the clown instead of her. So what?”

    “What has four ears, a cape, and far too many children?” Eddie asked.

    “Batman,” Ivy said. The kid stopped laughing after she said that.

    “Okay,” Harley said, her frame still shaking with laughter. “So he’s lookin’ for the kid. We’ll just stay here a bit longer than usual. No big whoop.”

    “I don’t think you understand,” Eddie said. “He’s out in daylight.”

    The rogues sobered immediately. It was a well known fact among the populus that none of the Bats–especially not the Bat–ever patrolled during the day unless something truly terrible was happening. Signal was the only exception to that rule.

    “Jesus,” Ivy muttered. The kid didn’t look like he was breathing. He was looking over at Harley, who was staring with all her intensity at Eddie.

    “Huh,” she said. She leaned back in her chair, drumming her fingers tunelessly on the bar counter. “Okay, then.” She stood, pushing the plate into the waiting hand of a waitress. “Hey, Ozzy, any chance you have the backup bat I left with you?”

    “It’s in a safe somewhere around here,” Oswald said.

    Harley nodded. “Excellent. Ives, Bane, you up for an adventure?”

    “Sure,” Ivy said, watching her girlfriend. Bane grumbled an agreement.

     “What’s happening?” the kid asked. He was staring at Harley with a look that was somewhere between suspicious and surprised. Harley smiled at him.

    “Don’t worry, kid, we’re just gonna make sure Batsy knows who he’s messin’ with. Ivy, Bane, you’re with me. Harv, Eddie, stay here, keep an eye on the kid.”

    The kid frowned at her, half rising from his seat. “I can–”

    “I’m sure you can, but you shouldn’t have to,” Harley interrupted. “Finish your breakfast, we’ll be back in a bit.”

    She walked over to Ivy, linking arms with her. Bane had already vanished–he was shockingly good at that for someone his size.

    “Come on,” Harley said, “let’s go fuck up the Bat.”

—+—

Bruce’s POV

It was a one in a million shot. The first bullet hit the center, the exact center, of the Joker’s forehead. The coroner even measured it to have it confirmed.

    Hood always did have good aim.

    “Are we sure?” Tim asked, voice tight.

    “It’s his gun,” Barbara said. She was still looking at the Batcomputer. On the screen were three pictures: the Joker’s body, the ballistics of the bullet, and Hood’s mugshot.

    His mugshot wasn’t really a mugshot. It was a photo of him a few weeks into his stay at Arkham, when the police said they really needed some sort of photo on file, and the Arkham staff finally got around to sending them something. Hood was standing in front of a generic white wall, disheveled and beaten and bleeding from his nose onto his jumpsuit, glaring at the camera. There was a bandage wrapped around his neck. The caption labeled him as a John Doe. He looked better than the last time Bruce had seen him, and at the same time, so much worse. He didn’t look at all like Jason.

    “I know it’s his gun,” Tim was saying. “But we found Harley’s DNA at the scene, she could’ve used it–we don’t have security footage of him, it could’ve been–”

    “Tim,” Barbara interrupted, turning her wheelchair to face him. “It’s him.”

    Tim opened his mouth, but no sound came out. All eyes turned to Bruce. He hadn’t said anything since the ballistics test came back. There wasn’t anything to say.

    Oh, God, Jason.

    “Bruce,” Dick tried, but his voice faltered. Bruce’s eyes snapped up and he stared at Dick. He couldn’t afford to think of Hood as Jason. He knew, as clearly as he knew his own name, that he needed to treat this like any other case.

    “He escaped with others,” Bruce said. He tried to keep his voice robotic and emotionless. “We have to assume he told them…everything.”

    Everything meant everything, about Bruce, about Batman, about all their strengths and all their weaknesses. Their names. Their home addresses.

    “He wouldn’t,” Dick said, but he didn’t look sure.

    “Robin, you’re off patrol until he’s back in Arkham,” Bruce said. Tim immediately started protesting, but Bruce just continued, “Oracle, start transitioning operations to the Belfry. We’ll operate out of there until J–until Red Hood is back in Arkham. Our priority now is finding Red Hood before someone else winds up dead.”

—+—

Harley’s POV

It was a neat little plan. Ivy’s plants were already wrapped around the Novick Building, bright green leaves bursting through broken windows, their roots gripping the base of the building and tunneling into the earth below the concrete.

    Harley was sitting on a desk overrun with moss, waiting for the Bat to show up. It was only a matter of time. In the meantime, she played with her bat, practicing a neat little trick where she rolled it across her wrist before grabbing it out of the air.

    When Harley saw him, a dark shadow in the center of all that greenery, she didn’t flinch. Instead, she tilted her head up and stared at him, as unnervingly as she could.

    “Hiya, Batsy,” she said. “Heard you’re lookin’ for me?”

    “Harley,” he growled, stalking closer. He was always so serious, but now he just seemed on edge. There was something tight and controlled in his motions. “What is this about?”

    Harley drummed her fingers tunelessly. “This is about you tearin’ the city apart lookin’ for my kid ‘cause you think he killed that piece of shit.” She smiled. “He didn’t, for the record. I did.” No sense in letting her achievements go to someone else.

    Batman stared at her, the slightest hint of confusion in his expression. “Your kid,” he repeated. Harley tossed her head back and laughed. Of course, out of all the things she said, that was what he zeroed in on.

    “Yeah, exactly,” she said, clapping her hands as best she could, “my kid. Not yours.” Her eyes narrowed, and she waited for him to get it. He finally did.

    “You mean Red Hood,” Batman said.

    Harley grimaced and shook her head, trying to knock the mental image of Joker out of her brain. “That particular nickname aside,” she said, “he’s mine. Not yours.” Then she giggled and shook her head. “Or well, maybe not mine. More like ours.”

    The plants at Batman’s feet exploded out at him in a mess of moss and black fabric. Bane charged, Ivy right behind him. Harley jumped into the fray, bat in hand.

    The fight was a mess of vines, fists and metal. Harley felt a batarang slice through her arm. She saw blood burst out of Ivy’s nose after a punch. She watched Bane break one of the ears off Batsy’s cowl, before forcing him onto the ground, pinned down by a large, meaty hand. Harley pointed her bat at Batsy’s head.

    “Stay down,” she snarled. She panted and felt the blood drip down her arm and onto the ground. She was only thinking of how scared the kid had looked when he heard Batman was looking for him, how ready he had been to fight with her. A fucking soldier at eighteen. She slammed the end of her bat into Batman’s head.

    “The next time you try to put our kid back in Arkham,” she snarled, “you’re gonna have to go through me, her, him, and all our buddies. Ain’t that right, guys?”

    “Sure,” Ivy said, little droplets of blood leaving her mouth as she spoke.

    “Yes,” Bane growled, tightening his grip.

    Harley smiled. “See?” She stepped back, twirling the bat just like she practiced before she smashed it into his mouth. “Consider this your only warning.”

^—^

It was damn near night when they got back. They’d left Batman in the Novick Building and escaped the police by trespassing through Killer Croc’s home. Oswald freaked out when he saw them, half beaten and covered in sewer grime.

    “You can’t do this twice in two days,” he said, voice rising to a pitch that made him sound like the bird he was named for.

    They changed into clean clothes, putting bandages on each other’s wounds without a word. Harley kissed the forming bruise on Ivy’s forehead, offered Bane a drink from a bottle of scotch she stole from the kitchen, and decorated the starch white bandages on her arm with dinosaur bandaids.

    Harley found the kid in the open area with bookcases and sofas, completely absorbed in a copy of Sense and Sensibility.

    “Hiya, kid,” she said, plopping down next to him, letting her tired bones sink into the couch. The kid startled and looked up, as if he’d only just realized she was there.

    “Hi.” His eyes went straight to the bandages on her arm, face tightening in concern. He closed the book. “Are you okay?”

    Harley shook her head and waved her uninjured hand. “Fine. What about you?” she asked. “You okay? You had a good day?”

    The kid nodded somewhat distractedly. “Um, yeah. I found a couple books–really, are you okay? That looks pretty bad.”

    “Yeah, I’m fine.” Harley huffed out a sigh. “I just had a little run in with the Bat.”

    “Oh,” the kid said.

    “Don’t worry,” Harley assured him, glancing sideways at him. “He knows he’s gonna have to go through us if he wants to get to you.”

    The kid’s expression morphed into the most adorable shade of annoyance. “I don’t need you to fight my battles,” he said irritably. “I can handle him on my own.”

    Harley shook her head. “You’re my kid,” she reminded him. “As long as I’m around, you won’t have to do it all on your own.”

    The kid just stared at her, his expression a sort of jumble of surprise, confusion, and happiness. “I can still handle him,” he mumbled after a moment, turning back to his book.

    And Harley smiled at him, and for a few glorious, solitary hours, she sat with her kid.

Chapter Text

—+—

Bruce’s POV

I can still save him.

    That was all Bruce had been thinking since Harley told him she was the one who killed the Joker. I can still save Jason. Save him from Harley and Ivy and Bane and Two-Face and the Riddler. Save him from whatever was in his head.

    Save him from Bruce.

    Bruce was lying on his back staring at the green of the plants above his head. It was overwhelming, vines as thick as Bruce’s arm pushing through the walls. He didn’t know how long he’d been there.

    “Batman,” Kate shouted, voice distant. Bruce didn’t know if the echo was from the distance between them, or from the cracks running along his brain. When had she gotten there?

    “Oh, God,” Dick said. Blue came into Bruce’s vision. Dick’s head snapped towards where Kate’s voice had come from. “He’s over here!” he screamed, screeching like a bird of prey. Bruce recoiled, the sound echoing through his head. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying in some vain effort to push the tiredness from his eyes. He squeezed them until he saw red–red like the paint on Harley’s bat, red like that glossy helmet, red like the blood that had burst from Jason’s neck.

    Bruce felt the sting of a palm on his cheek. “Hey, hey just stay awake,” Dick said. Don’t sleep with a head injury. Bruce wasn’t sure if he’d said that or if his brain had filled in the blanks.

    They helped him up, holding him by the shoulders. Kate asked, “Can you stand?” He couldn’t, but that didn’t stop him from trying. Bruce took two steps on his own and pitched forward, his feet not agreeing with where he was trying to put them.

    “Okay,” Kate said, catching him by his shoulder. “Okay. Help me.”

    Dick took his other side, helping him towards the door. Bruce wanted to tell him everything, about what Harley said, about how Jason needed help, about how he didn’t do it.

    I can still save him, he thought dizzily. And then, even better: there is something left to save.

^—^

Leslie waved a light in front of Bruce’s face. This was in the Belfry. Bruce was sitting on the tiny cot they’d turned into a med-bay. He could guess from the tutting sounds Leslie was making that he had a concussion–now it was just a matter of how bad it was.

    Leslie sighed, putting away the flashlight. “A concussion,” she said unnecessarily. “It looks bad, but it could have been worse.” She eyed him as she packed up the first aid kit. “You’re not going to listen to me if I tell you to stay off patrol, are you?”

    Bruce shook his head, ignoring how it made the pressure behind his skull feel like it was about to explode out. “It’s too busy,” he said. “Between the Arkham breakout and Ja–Red Hood–I can’t take a break. Not now.”

    Leslie peered at him, then shook her head, muttering something Bruce couldn’t quite hear. She left, exchanging quick niceties with Alfred on her way out. Bruce sighed slowly.

    Dick was hovering nearby. He had been since they’d gotten Bruce back to the Belfry. He had a look on his face Bruce couldn’t read. Bruce missed when he was a kid, when he’d just spit out every thought as it came into his brain instead of hiding it all.

    “I heard her,” Dick said suddenly. Bruce glanced up at him. He was bouncing on his feet, a stim Bruce recognized all too quickly. “Harley,” Dick clarified. “I heard what she said over comms.” He was silent for another moment. Bruce couldn’t stand the sound of silence.

    “He’s not her kid,” he said. “He wouldn’t–Jason’s not her–” He couldn’t keep going, so he stopped, finishing his words with a sigh.

    “Are you sure?” Dick asked. He had some unspeakable emotion in his eyes, and Bruce couldn’t tell if it was hope or sorrow.

    The answer was no. He wasn’t sure. He remembered the glow in Jason’s eyes on visiting day, and now all he could think of was how angry he’d looked, and how well he’d fit with the rogues. It would be so easy for him to just vanish into the crowd of costumed villains, just another rogue with another gimmick.

    “We left him,” Dick mumbled. He wasn’t talking to Bruce, or even himself.

    Bruce stood. He walked out of the room, into the armory. He got into his backup suit, head still pulsating painfully. No one tried to stop him as he vanished into Gotham.

^—^

Selina was stroking the head of a cat in her lap when Bruce came in through her window. She didn’t startle–over the years, she’d become immune to his sudden appearances.

    “Hello, Bruce,” she said without looking up from the cat. Bruce could hear its purrs from the other side of the room. He took a step towards her, startling a tabby that had been napping near his feet. Selina glanced up at him, a look of disdain on her face. “Please don’t scare my cats.”

    “We need to talk,” Bruce said. Selina eyed him and turned her attention back to the cat.

    “What about?”

    “Do you know where Harley Quinn is?” Bruce asked.

    Selina stared at the cat for a moment, then shook her head. “No.”

    “Are you sure?”

    Selina looked at him dubiously. “What is this about?” she asked. Bruce said nothing. She tilted her head to the left. “The breakout,” she guessed. “No, you’ve never broken in over a breakout–what’s different?” She squinted at him, then blinked, eyes widening with realization. “Oh. The kid.”

    “Red Hood,” Bruce corrected. Selina snorted, shaking her head slowly.

    “From what I’ve heard, no one calls him that.”

    “So you have heard something?” he said. Maybe he was too eager in his tone, or maybe he spoke too quickly, because Selina’s expression turned unreadable.

    “What’s going on?” asked Selina. Bruce said nothing. It was so much easier to just stay silent and let people fill in the blanks. In this case, Selina filled it in with disappointment.

    “Bits and pieces,” she said after a moment. “No one calls him Red Hood. He’s always the kid.”

    “Do you know where he is?” Bruce asked.

    Selina just stared at him. There was something careful in her body language. She stretched backwards, scratching behind the ears of her cat. She asked, “What are you planning to do, Bruce?”

    “Fix the problem,” said Bruce. It felt like the safest answer, but Selina’s expression told him that it wasn’t.

    “Is he a problem?” Her voice was mild, but the question was loaded with meaning.

    “No.” Bruce wasn’t sure if he was lying or not. There was far too much doubt in his mind. “I’m only trying to do what’s best for him,” he said, trying to pretend the answer was clear cut. “We don’t know what Harley wants from him–”

    “And what do you want?” asked Selina, her head tilted to the left. Bruce stopped. He wasn’t sure how to answer that question. Selina just stared at him, gaze growing increasingly impatient the longer he stayed silent.

    “I want him back,” Bruce said, but at the same moment, realized he didn’t. When he said that, he meant he wanted Jason to go back to the smart, happy boy he’d been. He wanted Jason Todd back, not the Red Hood.

    And Selina–Selina’s face was nothing but a sea of pity. Her shoulders hunched ever so slightly. “I don’t think he’s yours anymore,” she said, slow like she had to spell it out.

     No.

    Bruce gritted his teeth. He couldn’t be there anymore. He couldn’t answer another question.

    “If you hear anything, you know how to reach me,” he told her, dropping his voice back to a monotone. Selina sighed.

    “Bruce–”

    But he had already vanished again.

—+—

Jason’s POV

“Kid! Kid!”

    Jason’s eyes snapped open at the shout. He bolted up in bed, shoving off the bed sheets and racing to the door. He needed a weapon. Fuck, he didn’t have a weapon. He should’ve asked Harley for his gun back–no, he could regret that when he knew Harley was alive–

    Jason shoved his door open and was greeted by Harv, carrying several plastic bottles in varying pastel shades.

    Jason scanned for the source of the emergency. Harv didn’t look injured–his expression was more scolding than anything–there wasn’t any smoke, no sign of a fire–and Jason couldn’t hear anyone yelling in the distance. Given all that, he could only come up with one thing to say.

    “The fuck is this?”

    “A lecture,” Harv said, and shoved some of the bottles into Jason’s arm. He started talking–something about aloe and dry skin–and Jason took a deep breath to force his racing heart to calm the fuck down. The adrenaline faded into his system. He looked over the bottles’ labels. Lotion, cream, aloe. The hell?

    “What’s all this for?” he asked, entirely confused.

    “It’s for the scar,” Harv said. “Works for me. Obviously yours is much less…severe…but I thought it might help. There’s also this cream rich people use, it’s pretty good for phantom pains. We can steal some when it’s safe. It’s great, I think it’s made from workers' tears or something? This–” He held up a green bottle. “–is a pretty cheap substitute, but it’ll work just fine. These are specifically if you have to work around Victor,” he said, holding up a blue and white vial. “It’s made to keep the scar from hurting in the cold–definitely apply it if you go in that room down the hall.”

    “Okay,” Jason said, brain lagging as he tried to absorb that information. It was useful shit. He hadn’t really learned how to take care of his scars, just how to slap bandages on them and ignore them when they hurt. He knew Harv was saying everything he needed to know, he just didn’t know why he was saying it. “Quick question–why?”

    Harv huffed. “Cold air is gonna dry your skin out, hurts like a mother–”

    “No, I mean why are you doing all this?” Jason asked, shifting the bottles around in his arms as much as he could without dropping them.

    Harv immediately turned his attention to the bottles, a degree of defensiveness leaking into his body language. “I just–I didn’t have anyone to explain this shit to me when I first started out, and I figured I might as well make sure you didn’t repeat my mistakes,” he growled. Jason blinked.

    “Oh.” He blinked again, the action pulling him from his shock. His manners returned first. “Thanks,” he said quickly.

    Harv grunted an acknowledgement and held up a pale pink bottle. “Okay, so this one–”

^—^

When Jason’s feet hit the treadmill runway, the entire machine seemed to rock with him. He’d been running for a bit–lately he’d been feeling entirely too stationary, and moving helped him feel a little less stir-crazy. He switched through the settings, let the incline rise and fall, sped it up and slowed it down as he searched for a rhythm that didn’t knock the wind out of his lungs or make him feel like he was going to explode.

    The door to the gym swung open with a bang. Bane lumbered in, hesitating for a moment before stepping onto the treadmill next to Jason’s. Jason watched him, nodding at him in some sort of greeting.

    “Hey,” he said, his already aching lungs strained in protest.

    “Eh,” Bane replied, flipping the machine on.

    Jason nodded to himself. He kept running. If his footsteps made the machine shake, then Bane’s made the building shake. It was like running through an earthquake. Jason gripped the handle to keep from being knocked off his feet.

    “¿Cuánto tiempo llevas aquí?” Bane asked.

    When Jason thought about the question, he realized he wasn’t sure how long he’d been there. He’d come straight to the gym after waking up. Everything else was a tired blur.

    He shook his head and lowered the speed of the treadmill, trying to find a good rhythm. “No lo sé,” he said. “Unas horas, creo.”

    Bane stared at him, shock stretched out across the parts of his face Jason could see. “Son las tres de la mañana.”

    Jason frowned. That–made sense, actually.

    “¿Qué has levantado entonces?” he asked. Three in the morning was still intensely early to most normal people. Of course, none of the rogues were anything close to normal and Bane was certainly not an exception, but he wouldn’t have thought he was nearly as nocturnal as Jason.

    Bane shrugged. “No podía dormir,” he said. He didn’t have to say why. The answer was obvious.

    “Yo tampoco pude,” Jason offered in some sense of solidarity. The Joker’s death might have helped him–had given him a sort of safety he hadn’t known he was missing–but it hadn’t stopped the nightmares.

    Bane glanced at him, regarding him. He nodded curtly–a small acknowledgement of the camaraderie–and turned back to face the wall ahead of them. The earthquake rumbled along. Jason sped up silently, and fell in rhythm.

^—^

Eddie was not nearly as sneaky as he thought he was. Honestly, Jason saw him almost immediately, his shadow spilling out from his hiding space onto the floor.

    “Hey, Eddie,” he called without looking up from his book. He marked the page with his thumb and shut the book, glancing up as the older man sidled into view. There was a slightly annoyed look on his face and Jason just smiled pleasantly.

    “How’d you know I was there?” Eddie groused.

    “You’re not stealthy,” Jason said easily. “What do you want?”

    Eddie frowned, but shook his head and gestured to the book in Jason’s hands. “You’re reading Hamlet,” he said simply. Jason nodded at the non-answer.

    “Okay,” he said. “So? Is this copy yours or something?” He hoped it wasn’t. He’d already dog-eared several pages, and Eddie didn’t seem like the kind of person who’d just be okay with that.

    “No,” Eddie said, shaking his head. “It’s nothing like that. I have a few riddles written in Early Modern English that I’ve been meaning to test out, and no one else has been able to help me with them. I thought you might want to help.”

    Jason considered. Honestly, it sounded more interesting than rereading something he’d already read fifty times.

    “I’m not great with riddles,” Jason warned him.

    Eddie shook his head. “Yeah, you don’t need to solve it, just make sure it makes grammatical sense.”

   Jason nodded. He memorized the page number and set the book aside. “Let’s go,” he said.

^—^

“I’ve got a couple of questions,” Ivy said. Jason glanced over the flower bed at her. They were in her room, planting some seeds of a plant Jason couldn’t name if he tried. He’d been gardening with Ivy a few times a week for about a month. It was a nice, calming activity, and when he was in her garden, he could pretend the green tint in his vision was just a reflection from the shrubbery all around him.

    Jason shrugged. He couldn’t really see the harm. He had a slight suspicion that she was going to ask him his name, though he wasn’t sure. None of the other rogues had asked him. “Fire away.”

    “Are you a meta-human?”

    Jason’s brain stuttered to a stop for a moment. Ivy was staring at him with a mixture of curiosity and expectancy. He couldn’t tell if she was asking out of malice or if she was actually interested.

    “No,” he said, which was true. At least, he thought it was true. No, it had to be true. That green tint had to be a reflection from the grass, and the glowing of his eyes were just the remnants of the Pit in his system.

    “Oh,” Ivy said. She frowned and leaned forward slightly, voice dropping to a hush as she said, “You know it’s okay if you do, right?”

    “I’m not a metahuman,” Jason said. “Why would you even ask that?”

    Ivy eyed him like she didn’t believe him. “The plants keep getting stronger around you,” she said. That sentence made absolutely no sense to Jason, and it must have shown in his face, because she continued, “When your eyes glow green, it causes–I don’t know, something in the plants.”

    Oh. Oh, fuck.

    Jason’s first thought was about the dramatic irony. The former son of a man with an infamous “no metas” rule winds up with superpowers.

    If Bruce somehow didn’t hate him already, then he sure as shit would now.

    Ivy was still talking. “It’s nothing bad,” she said, some reassurance in her voice like that was what he was worried about. “It’s pretty useful, actually.”

    “Useful,” Jason repeated numbly.

    Ivy looked up at him, stopping what she was doing. “Are you okay?” she asked, concern in her voice, in her posture.

    “I don’t know,” Jason said. He blinked a few times, trying to jumpstart his brain. “I don’t–fuck. Fuck, I might be a metahuman. Goddammit.”

    Ivy tilted her head, eyebrows furrowing slightly. “Would it be so bad if you were?”

    No. Yes. Maybe.

    Jason sighed, trying to figure out how best to phrase it. “My–someone I used to be close to doesn’t like metahumans.”

    Ivy nodded, looking like all the mysteries of the universe had just been revealed to her. “I see,” she said. “Let me guess: family member who was very vocal at Thanksgiving?”

    “...Something like that,” Jason said.

    Ivy hummed, going back to her gardening with a smile. “Well, take it from a metahuman who has several shitty family members–anyone whose love was entirely conditional on you being anything you’re not can go die in a ditch. I’ll help you dig it if you need me to.”

    That might be the nicest thing anyone’s ever promised Jason, and that’s how he knew it wasn’t going to happen.

    “...Even if it's Batman?” he asked slowly, waiting for her to take it back.

    But instead, she barked out a short laugh. “Oh, especially if it’s Batman,” she said, tone still laden with humor. “We can get the others in on it if you want. Make it a family thing.”

    Jason stared at her. “You’d do that for me?” he asked, surprise leaking into his voice. He couldn’t think of a single other person who would go that far for him–who would have ever gone that far for him. And here Ivy was, nodding along about how awesome it was going to be to get vengeance for someone she’d met six months ago.

    Since his death, Jason hadn’t met a lot of people he could trust. First there was Talia, who might have been acting in his best interest, but it was just as likely she had some sort of ulterior motive. Then Bruce, who let his murderer walk free over and over and over. Then there was Dick, his older brother, who had barely tolerated Jason when he was alive and now seemed intent on putting him back in a fucking asylum.

    Harley had been the first person he’d met since coming back that he could actually trust. Her and the rogues had been the only ones to prove they actually accepted him, no matter what he did, no matter who he was.

    No matter who he used to be.

    “Something wrong?” Ivy asked.

    Jason blinked, then shook his head. “No,” he said. “Just–just thinking.”

^—^

    Jason looked at Harley. She’d just thrown a paper airplane at Harv and was still giggling, looking so encouraging and safe and–well, they had to find out at some point, right?

    “Hey,” Jason said. She turned, the smile still stretched across her face. Jason somehow found the strength to smile back. “I think I’ve got a few things to tell you.”

—+—

Harley’s POV

Harley squinted at her kid, trying to discern what he might mean. His eyes were an acidic green–Harley had learned she could tell his mood by his eye color. She liked it. It was nice to not have to decipher someone’s expression.

    “Cool,” she said. “Whatcha got, kid?”

    “It’s Jason,” the kid said.

    He was so quiet, Harley almost didn’t hear him. Her brain screeched to a halt before exploding into activity. She felt like she was on cloud nine. Her kid trusted her enough to tell him his name–her kid trusted her.

    “Just,” the kid faltered. “You keep calling me the kid, and that’s not really…” He trailed off, gesturing vaguely.

    “Oh,” Harley said, then cursed herself for not being able to think of anything else to say. “It’s a nice name,” she managed, trying to salvage something from this interaction. And it was–or at least, it was better than Red Hood, at least.

    Jason was staring at her. He looked like he was trying to decide whether or not he should run.

    “Do you want me to start calling you Jason?” Harley asked.

    Jason shrugged, a move that wasn’t quite perfunctory. “It’s better than ‘kid,’” said Jason. He seemed entirely superficial in his casualness.

    Harley smiled at him. He trusted her–she resolved to make sure that trust wasn’t misplaced.

    “Okay, Jason,” she said. The green damn near vanished from his eyes. He shook his head and cleared his throat.

    “And there’s, uh–there’s a few other things you should know.”

Chapter Text

—+—

Jason’s POV

Jason inhaled slowly, scanning the room for an exit. Most of the doors just led back into the Lounge, which was never ideal for an escape plan. His best way out would be through the window, but he didn’t like his chances of surviving a four story fall. There wasn’t an easy way out. The realization made his heart sink into his stomach.

    “Hey,” Harley said, nudging him with her elbow. Jason flinched back, then instantly hated himself for it when he saw worry flicker across Harley’s face. It was so easy to mistake it for hurt. “It’ll be fine. Just tell ‘em what you told me, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

    Right. Right, he’d already gotten through this with Harley, now he just had to get through it with four other people. Piece of cake.

    And if it wasn’t, that window was right there.

    The rogues finished filing in. Harley raised a hand to her mouth and whistled. “Everybody shaddup!” she called. She grinned at the silence that fell over the others. “The kid’s got something to tell us.”

    Every eye turned to Jason. He wrung his hands together, trying to feel a bit less like a sitting duck. “So, um.” Well, it was better to just spit it out. “My name’s Jason Todd,” he said, words flying out of his mouth like bullets from a gun. “I was murdered when I was fifteen. But before that, I was the second Robin.”

    He braced, waiting for someone to try to kill him, waiting to lose another family in a mess of fury and fighting, waiting to have to run again—

    “Second Robin,” Eddie repeated slowly. Jason nodded mutely, scanning Eddie’s expression for any sign of hostility, but all he saw was confusion.

    Harv clapped, letting out a triumphant yell that made Jason flinch back. “I fucking knew it!” he shouted, shaking with excitement. Jason stared at the man. Harv grinned at him, holding up two fingers. “Second Robin! Number two! I knew there was a reason I liked you!”

    “You’re the kid who cursed at me,” Bane breathed. His expression was somewhere between wistful and offended. “You called me a dickhead!”

    Jason winced, newfound guilt surging over him. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

    Ivy frowned, then inhaled sharply, leaning back in her chair with her hand over her mouth. “Oh God,” she said. She pointed at him. “You’re the Robin he killed.”

    Harley’s eyes went wide. “Oh!” She spun to face Jason. “Oh, shit, I’m so sorry, I didn’t even think of that.”

   Jason shook his head. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, offering a brief jokey smile. “Most of the shit I’m dealing with has more to do with what happened after I died than my actual death.”

    Harley made a noise he couldn’t quite understand the tone of. “How do you feel about therapy?” she asked, her low voice making it seem like they were having a private conversation.

    Jason frowned, slightly confused. “Um, ambivalent?”

    Harley nodded. “Okay. How do you feel about meeting with me a few times a week and just talking about what’s on your mind?”

    Sometimes Jason forgot who Harley used to be, but it was extremely clear now. He chewed on the inside of his lip, doing a quick internal assessment. “Depends,” he said, “are we gonna just sit in a room talking, or can we do something?”

    “Absolutely we can do something,” Harley said. Jason nodded, relieved. The last thing he wanted to do was sit around and try to have a conversation entirely about everything that happened to him between the ages of fifteen and eighteen.

    “Yeah,” he said. “I think I’d like that.”

    “Hey,” Eddie called. “I hate to interrupt this little conversation, but you just dropped a bombshell on us, and I’ve got questions.”

    Jason turned back to him. He shrugged loosely, the motion only half fake. “Fire away.”

    Eddie nodded, a look of deep concentration on his face. “So,” he started, and Jason knew instantly this was going to turn into a rant. “You’re Jason Todd, the son of Bruce Wayne, who was always rumored to be Batman, and you died around the same time as the second Robin, and since you were that Robin–”

    “Lemme spare you the headache,” Jason interrupted. “Bruce Wayne’s Batman. Dick Grayson’s Nightwing.”

    “And Robin?” Harv asked.

    It was like all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room. The other rogues fell silent. Jason’s jaw tightened, and he tried to think of something to say.

    “Doesn’t matter,” Harley said before he came up with anything. Her gaze swung back to him. “Right?”

    Jason fiddled with the zipper of his jacket. He knew a bit about the new Robin. Talia had liked to make a habit of mentioning him, telling him all about Bruce’s shiny new son. His name was Timothy Drake. He was thirteen when he first became Robin. He’d be fifteen now.

    It didn’t help the green.

    Jason glanced around the rogues, a sea of expectant faces. He trusted them–more than that, he knew that trust wasn’t misplaced. But this…

    “No,” Jason said with a tight nod. “It doesn’t. I know you call me a kid, but he’s an actual kid.”

    Air slowly trickled back in. Harv nodded, accepting his answer. None of the other rogues pressed it. Jason exhaled slightly, tension flowing out of him.

    Eddie raised his hand again. “Yeah?” Jason said, slightly grateful for the new distraction.

    “How comfortable are you with riddles about your death?”

    Jason paused, considering. After a moment, he shrugged. “As long as they’re funny.”

    Eddie nodded, a sly smile slipping across his face. Jason could practically see the wheels in his brain turning. “I can work with that.”

    “Anything else?” he asked, bracing for more questions.

    Nothing. No more questions, or chatter. The sudden silence was slightly jarring. Harley clapped her hands.

    “Kay,” she said, “meeting adjourned!”

—+—

Tim’s POV

“Are we sure we found all of his safehouses?” Tim asked.

    “I’m sure,” said Barbara. She was chewing on the end of her pen and staring with concentration at the map of Gotham, red pins marking where Red Hood’s safehouses were.

    “Do we know where any of the rogues–?”

    “This group of rogues has about forty safehouses between them,” Barbara said without looking at him. “And those are just the ones we know about.”

    Tim suppressed a sigh. Waiting for Dick and Bruce to clear them was shaping up to be monotonous and entirely too time-consuming. He wished Bruce would let him out in the field.

    “Any word from Bruce?” he asked. He’d been gone for hours without checking in, and his trackers had all been disabled.

    “You would’ve heard if there was,” was Barbara’s clipped response.

    Tim nodded. “I know.”

    But still, he’d hoped Bruce somehow messaged her, updated her, informed her that he was fine. It had only been a few weeks, but it was clear where this was going: Bruce was going to drive himself into the ground trying to find his son.

    Tim glanced up at the pictures of the Joker’s body pinned up on a cork board, eyes glassy and mouth slack jawed. His gaze slid to Jason’s photo, guilt washing over him.

    Tim had tried to help Bruce after Jason died. He’d done his best: given Batman a Robin, got the family to stabilize, kept Bruce from fully self-destructing. He’d thought he’d helped, but now it was clear he hadn’t. He’d slapped some bandages on a bullet-wound and called it healing.

    Tim inhaled deeply, gripping the side of his chair to try to ground himself. He needed to focus on finding Jason. Otherwise, Bruce was just going to get worse.

    He refocused on his computer. The safehouses were spaced out across Gotham, except for one area. There were only two in the entire East-Side, both of which had already been cleared by Bruce. Everywhere else had at least seven.

    Tim frowned. The East-Side was one of the richest areas in Gotham, filled with banks and jewelry stores and rich peoples’ homes. Why wouldn’t they want a foothold there?

    Unless…unless they already had one.

    Tim pulled up a map of Gotham on his laptop. He added a quick filter for known criminal hideouts. The East-Side was filled with safehouses and strongholds belonging the usual suspects: Carmine Falcone, Black Mask, and the Penguin.

    Black Mask had an ongoing feud with both Jason and Harley, so he likely wouldn’t have agreed to house any of them. Carmine Falcone mostly left the rogues alone. But Penguin had ties to almost every single escaped rogue.

    Tim added another filter to the search: safehouses belonging to the Penguin. There were a few, but there was only one big enough to fit all of the rogues.

    Tim stared at the Iceberg Lounge on his screen. He wasn’t supposed to be on patrol. He knew he wasn’t supposed to be on patrol. But Bruce was also not supposed to be on patrol with a head injury, and it wasn’t like anyone was gonna listen to him if he told them, and before Tim could sort through all the justifications, he was already rising from his chair.

    “Where are you going?” Barbara asked, slightly distracted. She barely glanced up at him.

    “To check something,” Tim said. He figured if he gave her plausible deniability, Bruce might just be mad at him. Barbara nodded, turning back to her computer. Tim picked up a domino mask, and left.

^—^

Tim panted, squinting up the side of the building. There was a vent a yard or so above him. It looked big enough for him to fit through.

    He scrambled up the side of the white spike, internally cursing out whatever architect designed the club to be impossible to climb. He hadn’t taken a grappling gun with him, and was deeply regretting that decision.

    The concrete below his hands turned smooth. He frowned, examining the now glossy surface. It looked sort of like a mirror–no, not that. It looked like a one sided window.

    He had just enough time to think that before the ground burst beneath his feet.

    Tim fell backwards, body twisting midair. He threw out his arms, desperately trying to grab anything to slow his fall. His hands met air.

    Tim slammed feet-first into the concrete, ribbons of pain running up his ankle. The crack was sickening. He bit back a yell, teeth slicing into the meat of his tongue, blood filling his mouth. He inhaled shakily, mind blanking through the pain.

    There was shouting now. It wasn’t his voice. He spun his head towards the source, and a white streak and a familiar face filled his vision.

    Tim’s blood ran cold. He froze. Jason looked down at him, a towering figure with flickering eyes. It was one thing to discuss Jason over a laptop in the Belfry–it was a whole other thing to see him in person.

    Tim braced for an attack, but Jason didn’t move. He just stared at him, shock written on his face. His eyes moved to Tim’s leg. Tim followed his gaze and instantly wished he hadn’t. His foot was twisted, and he could see bone.

    “You good there, Replacement?”

    Tim tore his eyes away from the wound to look up at Jason.  Something in him seemed to have short circuited. The shock had been replaced by concern.

     It’s a trap, the paranoid part of his brain whispered, but Tim wasn’t sure. Jason looked genuinely worried.

    “...I’m okay,” Tim said, his voice weak even to his own ears. He winced, propping himself up on his arms. “Could you just–just call a cab for me?”

    Whatever spell Jason was under shattered when he said that. He snorted, slowly shaking his head. “You’re not going home like this.” He started forward.

    Tim’s heart sank. He couldn’t run, he couldn’t hide, no one knew where he was–there was only one option left.

    The second Jason stepped into range, Tim threw himself at him, fist angled up at his face. Jason caught his wrist and pulled. His other arm wrapped around Tim in some sort of inescapable bear-hug. Tim fought, rioting against the contact. He landed a hit to the kidneys and Jason let out a little grunt.

    “Goddammit, calm down,” he snarled. “You’re gonna hurt yourself!”

    The door creaked open behind them. There was another rush of voices.

    “Shit,” Two-Face mumbled, swears falling from his mouth like some sort of prayer. “Shit, shit, fuck.”

    “Oh, that leg doesn’t look right,” Poison Ivy said. “Jay, you good?”

    Jason let out a low growl. “Yes.” Tim hit him in the shin. “Nope. Any ideas?”

    “Get him inside,” Penguin said. Tim’s heart sank at the same time a latent adrenaline rush poured into his veins. He yelled a mangled objection, fighting with futility as Jason dragged him towards the door. Every fiber in him screamed no, don’t go, don’t let them get you inside!

     But he couldn’t break Jason’s grip, and when he dragged him towards the mouth of the door, hand clamped over his mouth so he couldn’t yell for help, all Tim could do was keep fighting.

—+—

Jason’s POV

By the time they got inside the Lounge, Jason’s vision was entirely green. He’d been steadily growing more and more angry the longer he thought about what had just happened.

    Another Robin, alone, bloodied and half-broken on the ground. Jason was spiraling slightly, coming up with new scenarios of what could have happened–if he hadn’t been the first outside, if Oswald had reached for a gun instead of opening the window, if Tim had landed on his head instead of his leg–

     No, he couldn’t think about that. He needed to put that shit aside until he made sure Tim was okay.

    Tim was still fighting him. There wasn’t enough distance between them for a good attack, but Replacement had managed to get a few decent kicks in with his uninjured leg. Jason just took the blows and held on.

    “Hey,” Jason said, somewhat awkward in his words. “It’s okay.” Another kick landed on his stomach. He buried a grunt in his throat and held on. “We’re not gonna hurt you, we just need to make sure that leg is dealt with. Okay?”

    “Let go,” Tim hissed, weakly smashing a hand into Jason’s shoulder. “Put me down!”

    Jason held back a snarky remark, the green flickering. He glanced at Ivy. “What’s the plan?” He needed something real, something he could work towards.

    “I’m not sure,” Ivy said. “Oswald is on the phone with a mob doctor, but it’ll likely be a while.”

    Tim lashed out again, his elbow sending a spike of pain through his kidneys. This time, Jason couldn’t hold back his groan. “Bane?” he bit out.

    “I can’t take him,” the older man said immediately. “I would crush him instantly.”

    Jason huffed out a sigh. “I can’t hold him forever.” His arms were already starting to get tired, and Replacement’s writhing wasn’t helping.

    Harley nodded, miraculously appearing next to Jason. “Let’s find a place to put him.”

^—^

They put him in one of the bedrooms. They argued about which for a bit before settling on Eddie’s, since his had the least amount of explosives.

    Eddie’s was an odd room. The walls were covered in some sort of paint that acted like a blackboard. Green chalk covered every surface, even the ceiling. There were stim toys on the nightstand and several random books piled on top of the wardrobe.

    Harley locked the windows and door. Tim stopped writhing. When Jason looked down at him, he saw his head angled up at him, absolute terror written across his face.

    “Jason.” His voice was small and pleading and strained with desperation. “Please. I–I know you’re mad, but please.”

    The green recoiled and receded from Jason’s vision. He was hit with a million different impulses: run, hide, kill every member of that god-forsaken family.

    He bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted copper. He needed to leave.

    “Harley,” he called. The older woman looked away from the windows at him. “When’s that doctor getting here?”

    “I think he just pulled up outside.”

    Jason bobbed his head. He looked back at the kid in his arms. The green was returning, screaming for blood.

    “I’m gonna put you down,” he said. He carefully dropped Replacement onto the bed. Tim whined slightly, pulling at his injured leg closer to him. “It’ll be okay,” Jason promised. Tim just stared at him in suspicion and fear. Jason shook his head. “Harley.” He gestured her over. She stepped away from the window.

    “Something up?” she asked, but she clearly already knew something was wrong. 

    “I think I need to go do something,” Jason said. His hands were shaking. “Right now.”

    Harley blinked. “Oh. Okay, cool. Um, lemme just check with Ives, get her to hold down the fort–wait in the hallway. Deep breaths until I get back, okay?”

    Jason nodded distractedly, inhaling slowly. “Yeah,” he said, “yeah, sure.”

^—^

Jason started to feel better around the time he shot out the kneecaps of one of Black Mask’s goons.

    He was in a warehouse. Harley was next to him, twirling her bat around and breaking skulls like they were eggshells. She twisted, smashing the bat into a goon’s kneecap.

    “Hey, as much as I love this,” she said, “and trust me, I love this, I can’t really help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”

    Jason spun, easily gunning down a man to his left. “What’s up is I’m pissed off.”

    “Why?” Another dead goon. Harley paused in the fray, squinting at Jason. “Is it Robin?”

    “No,” Jason said immediately. He was mad, and the green wasn’t helping, but even with it in his head, he knew that kid wasn’t the issue. He growled the name, “Bruce.”

    Harley nodded knowingly. “Batsy.”

    “He let my murderer walk free, and then he just–just got another kid.” Another Robin. Jason shot another goon, letting the blood wash out the green. He reloaded. “I don’t want anyone to hurt that kid like I was hurt.”

    Harley spun like a dancer, her bat cracking a goon’s skull. “I can help you with that.”

    Jason poured the last of his clip into the remaining goons. He scanned the warehouse for remaining signs of life, but it was entirely empty.

    Harley hummed tunelessly, tapping her bat on the ground. “Anything else you wanna tell me?”

    Jason huffed out a sigh, the green ebbing and flowing from his vision. When he looked back at her, she was staring at him intently, looking more like Harleen than Harley.

    Jason wanted to tell her everything. More than just sardonic jokes or the plain facts, he wanted to tell her about what happened to him–about how scared he’d been when he died and then woke up, about how painful it was to be dragged back to life, about the piece of him he left in the bottom of that pit. If there was anyone in the world he could tell, it was Harley.

    But his mouth was filling up with lead, and no matter how safe Harley was, the words just wouldn’t come, and his brain wouldn’t function, and–

    “I think I need time.” The words sounded emotionless to him, far too close to Bruce’s monotone for his comfort. He shivered slightly, straightening. “Just to figure it out.”

    Harley just stared at him. She nodded. “Okay,” she said. “I’m right here when you do.”

—+—

Tim’s POV

Tim stared into the darkness of the room, blinking several times in a fruitless attempt to wash the tiredness out of his eyes. The pills the doctor had given him had kicked in–the pain had ebbed from his leg and his eyelids were starting to grow heavy. Everything was starting to feel distant.

    He knew he should try to stay awake. He knew he wasn’t safe here, in the heart of the Iceberg Lounge, surrounded by threats. But his head was so cloudy, and the bed was just so comfortable.

    The door creaked open. A spike of panic ran through Tim. He tilted his head towards the door, but he couldn’t quite see who it was in the half-dark.

    “Hey, Timbo.”

    So it was Jason. That shouldn’t have been nearly as reassuring as it was.

    Tim tried to sit up but failed. He looked up at his would-have-been older brother, barely more than a silhouette in the dark. His eyes weren’t glowing anymore. He looked almost normal. Tim tried to imagine what it would’ve been like to have him around, but his brain just returned to the glass case in the cave.

    “Do you want me here?” Jason asked. His continued steps rendered the question a moot point, so Tim remained silent. Jason stopped. “I won’t stay if you don’t want me to.”

    “No, I don’t wanna be alone,” Tim blurted out, then winced at the mistake. He shouldn’t want Jason there. The closer a guard was, the harder it was to sneak past them. The painkillers must have worn through his filter.

    Well, it wasn’t like he was going anywhere anyway. And it was true, he didn’t want to be alone.

    Jason let out a little chuckle, walking closer. “Fair enough.” He sat down awkwardly on the bed next to Tim. Silence filled the space between them.

    “I tried,” Tim offered, his voice barely above a mumble. Jason remained silent. “I really thought I did something. But Bruce is still–” Tim’s voice faltered. He shook his head. “I tried to help him, but I think he’s going back to…”

    “Okay,” Jason said. “It’s okay.”

    It wasn’t. Not really.

    Tim thought he’d been able to help. He had helped, and then everyone started backsliding, and everyone stopped listening to him, and all that hard work had come undone around him. He’d failed.

    He tried to sit up again, his limbs faltering under his weight. “I just thought–”

    Jason put a hand on his shoulder, and the weight alone was enough to push Tim back down. “Easy.”

    Tim slumped. He sniffled. “I’m sorry.”

    “I know.” Jason hummed. His hand was warm. “It’ll be okay, Timbo.” It sounded like a promise the way he said it. He sounded so reassuring. “Try to get some sleep, okay?”

    Tim hummed tunelessly, a painkiller-fueled fog overtaking his brain. He was safe. Jason would keep him safe. He could rest.

    He leaned into Jason’s warmth, sleep dragging him down, but before he went, he heard Jason’s voice: “You don’t need to worry about them now, Timbo. I swear.”

—+—

Dick’s POV

Dick flipped over an alley that was sandwiched between a pharmacy and a weed dispensary. He stuck the landing and glanced over his shoulder to check for Bruce’s shadow before running again. He wasn’t supposed to be patrolling alone. It was one of the five million rules for what to do after an Arkham breakout. But they had a better chance of finding Tim if they spread out, and Dick didn’t want to see Bruce if they found Jason instead of Tim.

    He sighed, raising a hand to his comms. “Any updates, Oracle?”

    “Okay, good news,” Barbara said, voice crackling slightly. “It looks like Tim took a domino mask with him when he left. The camera was disabled a few hours ago, and the tracker went a bit after, but the last ping had him somewhere in the East End.”

    The connection came to Dick almost instantly. He let out a low sigh, shoulders slumping. “The Iceberg Lounge.”

    “Probably,” Barbara agreed.

    “I’m en route,” he said, changing direction. Barbara stated confirmation, and logged off, presumably to inform Bruce. The silence left Dick with nothing but his thoughts.

    Best case scenario, Tim had only confronted Penguin; which was bad, but manageable. Tim could handle a fight with some mob goons. The worst case scenario, he’d walked into a den full of rogues. In that scenario, they put aside their no-kids rule and–

    Dick shoved that particular thought out of his mind, not wanting to think about what they might do. He could only really worry about what he knew anyway. He flipped and ran over rooftops towards the East End, the silhouette of the Iceberg Lounge beckoning in the distance.

Chapter Text

—+—

Tim’s POV

Tim woke up entirely alone in a bed that wasn’t his. He tried to move and his leg screamed a dissent that made him let out a whine of pain. He took a breath, giving him a second to just wallow in it before taking stock of where he was. The room he was in was dark–where was he?

    It came back to him slowly: the fall, the rogues, the doctor, Jason.

    It was tempting to write the last part off as a hallucination from the pills, but it didn’t feel like any hallucination Tim had been through.

    He huffed out a sigh, reaching in the darkness for the bedside table, hand searching for literally anything–a book, a weapon, some more painkillers. His hands met nothing. Great.

    He stayed there for a while, both bored and slightly terrified, before the door opened. Tim glanced over, sitting up like he could do anything to any of the rogues in a fight in his state. He squinted at the figure. His first thought was Bane, but whoever was in front of him was too small.

    “Oh, you’re up,” Jason said. He held a small plate in his hands, a slightly burnt smell filling Tim’s nose. “I have toast, if you’re hungry.”

    His words seemed to wake up the void in Tim’s stomach. He hesitated, debating the odds of it being poisoned, but quickly decided it wasn’t Jason’s style. He nodded and accepted the food.

    He ate like a starved animal, scarfing down the food as fast as he could. Jason was still nearby, acting as a sort of guard. Tim watched him out of the corner of his eye.

    Tim knew two things: one, that he needed to get back to the Belfry as soon as possible; and two, that Jason was probably his best bet at getting out. Maybe–and this was a slightly delusional hope, he knew–he could convince Jason to return with him. He hadn’t thought that was possible, but if Jason was here, making sure he was healthy and okay, that meant he still cared.

    Tim chewed on a bit of toast. “You know,” he said, trying to plaster some sort of casualness onto his words. “They want you back. The others, I mean.”

    Jason snorted out a laugh, then caught a look at Tim’s face. The smile faltered and slipped into something more serious. “No, they don’t,” he said, voice entirely matter-of-fact.

    “It is!” Tim insisted. He needed Jason to hear him, because even though his memorial was still in the cave, even though his real name hadn’t been spoken in the manor since Red Hood’s identity was confirmed, Jason was still a part of the family.

    “Even if that is true,” Jason said. “I don’t wanna go back.”

    The way he said it made it clear it was the end of the discussion. Tim bit back his fear and ignored the barrier.

    “The rogues aren’t good people, Jason,” he said, quiet in case someone was listening in.

    Jason’s smile was sardonic. “And I am?”

    Tim couldn’t answer that the way he wanted to. He bit his lip, considering his next move. “You were Robin.” He thought maybe, if he could just get through to the tiny part of Jason that remembered who he used to be, he could get him on his side.

    Jason fell silent. Maybe that meant Tim won, or maybe it meant he was about to get shot. He waited for it either way.

    “I know the rogues aren’t good people,” Jason said, slowly, like he was still working through it himself. “But they’re good to me. They actually give a shit about me.”

    “Bruce gives a shit about you,” Tim said, faltering slightly on the swear. Jason chuckled.

    “He cared more about the Joker’s life than he cared about me,” he said, low voice not quite masking the rage in his words. He paused, then shook his head. “I need to go talk to the others about something,” he said. He was moving away, towards the door, but before he left, he tossed out, “scream if you need anything.”

—+—

Jason’s POV

Jason started down the hallway automatically, mind entirely blank as he navigated towards the main floor of the club. It looked ugly in the light, the pale walls and synthetic icebergs looking like something out of a cheap zoo exhibit. There were two people in there already–Harley and Ivy.

    “But we can’t do that either,” Ivy was saying, voice terse. “Otherwise, Batman’s gonna tear the city apart looking for him.” She sighed, one hand tugging on her red hair. “One Bat already found us, I can’t imagine it’d be too hard for another to track us down.”

    “So basically,” Harley said, “we’re fucked?” Ivy nodded. She caught sight of Jason in the doorway, tapping Harley’s hand to get her attention. They both were looking up on him.

    “Hey, kid,” Harley said. “How’s Robin?”

    Jason shrugged, walking onto the floor. “He’s up and eating,” he said. He bit the inside of his lip, considering for a moment before he added, “And he tried to talk me into going back to the Bats.”

    Like there was something to go back to. Like they wouldn’t ship him back to Arkham as soon as they could.

    “Hey, you got any ideas?” Harley asked.

    Jason blinked, the question jarring him out of his thoughts. “On what?” he asked, unsure of what she meant.

    “What to do.” She made a broad gesture, as if to encompass the entirety of the situation. “We can’t keep him ‘cause Batsy might find us, we can’t send him back ‘cause he already knows where we are, and we don’t–I don’t know what to do.”

    Jason frowned, trying to come up with some sort of plan, but nothing real came. He didn’t know either. After a moment, he shook his head.

    Harley sighed, dramatically dragging the palms of both of her hands down her face as she groaned. “Well, that’s just perfect.” She let out a sigh, then spread her hands out. “Okay. Fuck what we can do, ‘cause it doesn’t seem like we can do anything anyway. What do we wanna do? Do we wanna keep him?”

    “Yes,” Jason said immediately. The answer didn’t surprise him–there was no way in hell the Bats were getting Robin back after letting him almost die–but the speed at which it came out was slightly shocking.

    Ivy hummed agreeably. Harley nodded in accord. “Okay,” she said. “Do we wanna stay here?”

    This time, the answer wasn’t immediate. Jason wanted to stay–stay in the safety of the only place he’d truly been able to rest since his resurrection–but that wasn’t an option.

    Well. It wasn’t like they could stay there forever.

    He shook his head slowly.

    “Honestly, I’ve been in and out of Arkham so many times, I’ve stopped caring,” Ivy said, a little laugh hiding how awful the truth of her words were.

    “So we’re leavin’ then,” Harley said. She sighed, then nodded. “I’ll tell the others.”

—+—

Dick’s POV

Dick slid through the window, dropping onto the ground with a thump that was muffled by the carpet. He scanned the darkened hallway for lurking shadows, but saw nothing. He moved silently, arm pressed against the wall. He was somewhere near the kitchen–he could tell from the smell.

    He was struck by how dumb the plan was. He had no idea where in the Lounge the rogues were keeping Tim. He couldn’t search the entire club alone, especially not with rogues randomly scattered around the building.

    “Oracle,” he said into his comms. “Could you pull up the schematics for the Iceberg Lounge?”

    “Looking at them now,” Barbara said. There was a brief silence. “It doesn’t look like anything is wrong. It looks like everything is accounted for on the blueprints–huh.”

    “Huh?” Dick repeated.

    “The heights’ are off. Just give me a second.” A pause. Dick could hear her rapid typing. “Alright, there’s something above the club. It looks like it’s built into the iceberg spikes.”

    A hidden room. Dick grinned. That sounded like the place to start. “Any idea how to get there?”

    “No.” There was a little muted ping on Barbara’s side of the comms. She sucked in a sharp breath.

    “Oracle?”

    “Batman knows Robin is missing,” Barbara said. “He’s on his way.”

    Dick sighed. If Batman was on his way, it was all about to turn into a shitshow. He needed to get to Tim before then. “Okay.”

^—^

The door opened easily. Dick scanned the hallway it opened into, moving down the plush blue floors.

    He stopped at the corner, staring at the shadows cast onto the wall. He listened for voices, before a yelp startled him out of his concentration.

    “I’m fine!”

    Tim’s voice. Dick straightened, relief washing over him. He was still alive. He hadn’t lost another brother.

    “I’m already kicking you out,” Riddler said. “Last thing I want is Jason to kill me because you got hurt–”

    “It is literally right down the hall!”

    Were they…arguing? Dick blinked in confusion. He wasn’t entirely surprised Tim was arguing with his captors. He risked looking down the hall. Riddler was a few paces in front of him. There were no other minders in sight.

    Dick moved fast, slamming the ends of his escrima sticks into Riddler’s back. He let out a mangled cry, electricity seizing his limbs, before he fell to the floor, entirely too loud. Tim yelped, jumping back, wobbly on his feet. Dick’s hand went out just in time to catch him.

    “Tim!”

    His leg was wrapped in white gauze, supported by a long piece of wood. It looked broken.

    “Are you okay?” he asked hurriedly, already searching for other injuries. It looked like it was just the leg and a few scrapes on his palms, but there could have been invisible injuries, deadly and hiding and waiting to take away another brother.

    “I’m fine,” Tim said–a lie, paired with off-beat cadence. “I just fell–I’m fine,” he repeated at Dick’s worried look. It was very clear he wasn’t going to admit to any other injuries. They’d have to deal with that at the Belfry.

    “Can you walk?” Dick asked.

    Tim shifted on his feet, head ducking a little too late to hide his wince of pain. “I think so.”

    “Okay. Come on. We need to go,” he said. They were lucky it was Riddler guarding him, not someone like Bane or Red Hood.

    Tim hesitated briefly, but nodded. He took one faltering step forward and Dick reached out, arm wrapping around his little brother to keep him upright.

    They stumbled through the halls together. The first window they found was in an alcove. Relief flooded Dick’s veins. They were going to make it out.

    “Hey, Dick!”

    Dick froze at the shout, heart dropping into his stomach as he was confronted with his other brother’s face. There was a gun in his hand, aimed straight at Dick’s eye. He could see into the blackness of the barrel.

    “Let him go,” Jason growled. It would have been so much easier to think of him as Red Hood, but this was all Jason–hair messy, eyes green, snarl slicing across his face.

    Dick pushed Tim further behind him, arm wrapped around him. “Hi, Jason,” he said, voice faltering with fake cheer.

    “You heard me, dick,” Jason said, and something about the way he said it made it sound like an insult instead of his name. “Let him go.”

    No. No way in hell.

    Dick couldn’t fight him. He was too far away–Dick would get shot before he could take him down. Backup couldn’t be counted on. There was only one last option.

    “You don’t have to do this,” Dick said. He could hear footsteps in the distance. “Okay? Just let me take him home–” Footsteps were pounding down the hallway. They were running out of time.

    “You wanna die?” Jason demanded, taking a step closer. Dick just needed him to get a little closer, and he could disarm him.

    But before he could, the footsteps reached their hallway. Red hair came into view.

    “Kid!” Poison Ivy shouted. Her eyes dropped to Riddler on the floor. A low rabid hiss left her mouth, and she looked up at Dick with a poisonous glare.

    “Oh, you’re dying for that,” Poison Ivy promised.

    She started forward. Something exploded behind them, glass showering onto their backs. Dick swung around, shielding Tim from the worst of it. He looked up at the cause and watched as Batman, in all of his glory, entered the fray.

—+—

Jason’s POV

The pain of glass shards slicing through Jason’s arm was almost enough to distract him from Bruce’s presence.

    He was moving fast, and between the speed and the cape, he was practically a blur. He went after Harley first, his fist colliding with her baseball bat. Jason’s bullets missed. Harley’s bat missed. The vines Ivy summoned missed. Bruce threw something at her and the ground exploded into gray smoke. Ivy coughed and stumbled back, pale in the face, tripping over her own feet.

    “Ivy!” Harley shouted. She ran for her girlfriend, and suddenly, it was Jason’s job to keep Bruce’s attention off them.

    “Hey, old man,” he shouted and fired off six shots before Bruce even had enough time to turn. He dodged, but it worked, because instead of going after Harley or Ivy, he launched himself at Jason. He dodged Jason’s blows over and over and over. He didn’t target the cuts on his arms. He was holding back. The realization made the green flicker, then explode. Jason shouted again–not a word, a warcry–and aimed for the face. Bruce didn’t block in time and his jaw made a cracking sound. He lurched forward instead of back, the move taking Jason off guard. He aimed for Jason’s torso. Jason brought an arm down to block, but something small and sharp slid into his wrist. He felt cold bloom into his veins.

    “Sorry, Jay,” Bruce said, his voice a distant growl. The pain disappeared and he stalked away. Jason took a step after him, but his legs weren’t supporting him. He finally realized what had just happened.

    He’d been tranqed.

    Fuck.

    He fell fast, arms sprawling out in a fruitless attempt to keep from hitting his head. He clung onto consciousness desperately as his head filled with lead, but it soon became clear. It was over. They’d lost.

—+—

Bruce’s POV

Bruce stared at the police vans ahead of him. The rogues were there, being escorted in cuffs into the back of the escorts. Jason was still unconscious and had to be dragged–Harley was yelling threats at the people carrying him.

    “Good on you for catching them,” Gordon was saying. “Really, I was starting to get worried there.”

    Bruce was barely paying attention to him. His eyes were firmly fixed on Red Hood. Three officers were forcing him into the back of the transport. Blood was dripping from his nose down his lip. When he looked at Bruce, his snarl was down right homicidal.

    Bruce heaved out a sigh. He’d hoped it wouldn’t happen–especially not like this. But as Bruce watched the transport leave for Arkham, he realized he had been proven wrong.

    There was nothing of Jason left to save.

—+—

Harley’s POV

Harley slammed hard into the ground of the cell. The orderly let out a short chuckle as the door rattled shut. She sprung to her feet, spinning around with her tongue stuck out and her face stretched into a childish taunt. She memorized his face and planned his murder in the next breakout as he retreated down the cell block.

    When he was gone, Harley looked back out at the cells. “Is everyone alive?”

    The rogues all muttered agreements, confirming their continued existence. Harley let out a long, relieved sigh. Then she laughed. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was laughing about, but there was just something so funny about the situation.

    “That,” she proclaimed between giggles, “was a fucking disaster.”

    “Is she okay?” Jason asked, sounding slightly confused.

    Harley continued, “That’s gotta be one of the funniest disasters we’ve had in years.”

    “Hmm, I don’t know,” Ivy said. “That time Harv broke out because he was craving a latte was pretty funny.”

    Low laughs broke out amongst the rogues.

    “Worth it,” Harv called.

    “Batman broke a chair over your head,” Eddie pointed out.

    “Yes, and it was worth it.”

    “No, no, no, the funniest was that thing with Condiment King and Mad Hatter.”

    “Oh, my gawd, I forgot about that,” Harley said. The memory made her laughter start all over again. “Did we ever get that cat back?”

    “What the fuck is happening?” Jason muttered, loud enough for Harley to hear.

    Bane clapped his hands, the sound booming through the cell block. “You’re all wrong,” he said. “Funniest breakout was Christmas Eve five years ago. The one with the turkey.”

    Harv and Harley barked out a laugh at the same time Eddie yelled, “I was hanging from that tree for three hours!”

    “What’s going on?” Jason asked. He sounded confused and slightly concerned. “Did you all get Joker gassed or something? We lost. We’re back here. Why are you laughing?”

    “It’s like you said,” Harley said. “Arkham’s a revolving door.” Jason made a quiet noise of confusion and fell silent at that.

    Ivy hummed. “It was nice to have a place to go immediately after a break out.”

    Harley shrugged and let her arms take up the majority of space in the cell. “Eh, we’ll manage. Besides, it was always so cold in the Lounge.” She looked back towards where Jason’s cell was. “So, kid,” she said, “ready to do it again?”