Chapter Text
Dick is so mad. God, he's so mad. He can barely think through the rushing in his ears. What right did Barbara have to keep this from him? How could she? It's a violation. A breaching of trust. And for her to use the status of his family against him? To keep that from him? How could she? He keeps getting stuck on that. Jason and Tim and Steph could have been dead. Babs let him think they might be dead. He's so fucking mad.
He doesn't hear the hatch close, but the woman in front of him straightens and Dick knows they're alone.
The light from the computers glints across Barbara's glasses and traces patterns across her fiery hair. She's biting her lip nervously, but other than that, she's a statue frozen in the moment. One of his closest friends. His former lover, his family. She is a piece of his heart outside of him, and Dick trusts her implicitly.
How could you?
“Dick-”
“Just. Just give me a minute.”
Barbara closes her mouth.
When was the last time Dick was this angry? Was it with Bruce? It was probably with Bruce. They're always fighting. They can't seem to stop.
Dick can't seem to stop hyperventilating.
How could she?
“How could you?” His voice cracks on the ‘how’. Dick thinks he meant for it to come out angry, but instead he just sounds small and lost.
“Listen, this is clearly some sort of fucked-up trap meant to target you and mess with your mind. This way-”
“How could you?” This time it’s an accusation, bitter and scalding as it tears from his throat.
“I- I was trying to protect you-”
“Protect me?” He asks incredulously, voice rising. “Protect me?! I thought we lost them! I thought they were dead!” And then he's laughing hysterically, tears pricking at the corner of his eyes.
“Gee,” Barbara says acidly. “It must be awful to have someone let you think a loved one is dead for a mission.”
Dick’s laughter cuts off immediately, his teeth clacking shut. That's not fair. He apologized for that. She isn't fucking apologizing. Dick grinds his jaw tight enough for it to ache at the pressure. “We're not talking about fucking Spyral right now.”
“Aren't we?” She crosses her arms. “I'd think you of all people would understand why someone might control the flow of information for the sake of success, Agent 37.”
“That was different.”
“It wasn't, and you know it.’
“We aren't rehashing this!” Dick tries to regain some measure of calm. To use one of Bruce's breathing techniques and channel the gravity of his commands. “What we're talking about is you obscuring important information and putting everyone in danger for your control issues.”
“My control issues? Pot meet kettle, Dick, you've been micromanaging everyone since Bruce disappeared. At least I have the good grace to admit it!” Her voice pitches into a shout.
“They're my family!” Forget Bruce's stupid techniques. Dick is yelling now too, pacing and gesticulating. He feels trapped. He feels crazy. “You had no right! And Zucco is my choice too! How I want to handle my parents' killer is my choice!”
“You're falling apart, Dick!” Babs wheels her chair towards him, pointing accusingly. “And you're taking everyone else down with you! Look at Damian. Look at Duke, Steph, and Tim. They are watching you. They are looking to you for direction. They need you to hold it together, and you are falling apart.” Her voice softens. “Can you honestly tell me that you wouldn't have gone after Zucco? Or that you'd have kept it together after seeing him again? Whether he was dead or not?”
God, he's so mad. Dick is so fucking mad. And the worst part is: he can't. He can't say how he would have reacted. He fell apart after letting Blockbuster die. Would he let Zucco? Would he kill him? He's resisted that temptation before. Would he resist it this time? He doesn't know. He doesn't fucking know.
Babs tried to take that choice from him.
How could she?
Babs is watching him, eyes glossy like she's near tears.
Is she right?
Would he be able to lead the others, if he went after Zucco? Dick is already falling to pieces, just at the thought of it. He's unraveling, like a thread pulled in a sweater and he's just. Coming apart.
How could she?
The clock tower chimes midnight. Zucco is a trap set for him. To break him. To break them. He's caught and tangled and drowning in it. He can't fucking breathe.
How could she.
It's working. The trap is working.
No.
Dick looks up to the rafters, swallowing the rage, and the despair, and the betrayal that chokes his lungs and threatens to swallow him. He lets Nightwing take over.
It's Bruce's voice that he hears in his head. Breathe, Dick. In for five. Hold. Out for seven.
Coolness, and calm, and a mask within a mask slots over his panic. If you pretend something long enough, does it make it true?
In for five. Hold. Out for seven.
“We aren't good, Barbara,” Dick says flatly, deliberately avoiding her pet name. She flinches. “We aren't okay. We'll talk about this at length when this mess is over, but you're right. We need to keep it together.”
“I'm sorry,” she says quietly.
Yeah, sorry you got caught.
Dick works his jaw, chewing on the burning pit of anger that's scorching him from the inside out. Nightwing is a salve, and it soothes the rage down into an ache. A problem for later.
In for five. Hold. Out for seven.
“Brief me on every lead you've got so far. I think we're missing the big picture.”
And Barbara does.
The clock beneath them strikes midnight, the sound echoing, lonely and haunting through the city. The bats all try to hide the way it startles them. The ringing of it sinks beneath their skin like an elegy.
Smoke settles in Jason's lungs as if it was always a part of him, nicotine pumping through his veins, waking him up and calming his jitters all at once. Tim eyes him irritably across the rooftop, wrinkling his nose at the smell. The kid could have been a poster child for D.A.R.E. if he was a little less of a loser. He's tapping away at something on his tiny wrist computer. Fucking workaholic.
Jason exhales, blowing the smoke out. He inhales. And he exhales again.
He breathes in the chemical haze like it's oxygen, like he's tasting it for the first time. Maybe Gotham trained him into smoking with its factory smog and its air that's thick enough to chew on. Maybe he was born just to fill his lungs with soot.
It's admittedly a nasty habit, lingering from a childhood spent scrambling and scraping about in Crime Alley when he never expected to survive past the next month. At least, that's what Jason tells himself. It feels better than admitting that his lungs were restored and revitalized after his dip in the pit, and that this new and improved version of his addiction was mostly to cover the taste of warehouse ash coating his teeth.
That's how it started, anyway. Now it just feels familiar. And the chemical buzz helps him stay awake.
Damn, does a nap sound good right about now. Jason hates back-to-back all nighters. When he's tired, he gets irritable, and when he's irritable, everyone seems to go out of their way to piss him the fuck off. Like now.
He inhales.
They get mad when he doesn't follow protocol, and they get mad when he does. There's no fucking winning with these people. How was he supposed to know that Tim didn't want him to check in with Dick? It was a fucked up plan anyways. Jason's glad it failed.
Cass is watching Jason, from where she's crouched on the roof. It's making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Jason likes Cass. He really does. But some nights, he wishes she saw a little less.
He hates that she probably knows he's thinking that, too.
He exhales again, tilting his head to let the smoke trail and wisp from his lips. Jason tracks the way it rises and dissipates into the starless Gotham sky. This city just eats things up sometimes. If it even bothers to spit them out, they're all kinds of fucked up afterwards. Just look at Jason.
He takes another drag, the burn of it soothing. The ember is almost down to the filter, and Jason puts it out on the heel of his boot, then flicks it onto the gravel of the rooftop.
Damian huffs indignantly from a few feet away and Jason rolls his eyes skyward. “Yeah, yeah. Can it, brat.”
Jason picks up the butt anyway, sticking the remains into a spare evidence container in his belt pocket, and ignoring the sting on his fingertips.
If he has to sit through another PowerPoint about the ecological impact of cigarette littering on wild animals, Jason's gonna wish his death had stuck the first time. Damian seems mollified though, his eyes going back to the hatch from which Dick still hasn't climbed out.
Jesus, the kid is like a little lost puppy, waiting for his person to get home.
Tim clears his throat. Jason turns to look at him.
“We can't let Nightwing go to Blackgate, it's playing into the enemy’s hand,” Tim says coolly.
They're outside of the safety of the Clocktower, even on its roof. Back to code names, then.
Bruce had told him once, “Keep your identities separate, even in your head, Jaylad. It helps to keep your mannerisms distinct and your emotions from running high.”
“That's psychotic, old man,” little robin Jason had replied. But he'd done it anyway. Well, sometimes.
Damian straightens, and nods stiffly, arms clasped behind his back like one of the League’s ninjas. “Loathe though I am to admit it, I agree with Red Robin.”
Sheesh, for how smart these kids are, they really can be fucking idiots some times.
Jason sighs, long and aggrieved. “We can't force him to do one thing or another.” He gestures at Steph. “It's like Blondie over there with Mask. We couldn't stop them from going if we tried.”
Steph makes a tiny irritated noise, but she purses her lips. “I don't think he should go.”
Tim looks at her in surprise.
Steph shudders.“Seeing Black Mask strung up like that really sucked, even if he fucking deserved it. I wish I had listened. And don't you dare say ‘I told you so’,” Steph points accusingly at Tim, who puts both hands up, placating. “But ultimately Hood’s right. It's up to Nightwing and it was up to me. I would have just resented you for trying to stop me and gone anyway.”
As far as Jason is concerned, Mask got his just desserts. So did Flamingo. Jason can't say he'd be particularly broken up about it if Zucco died either, but he's not sure Dick will handle it well.
Duke shifts uncomfortably. It becomes clear why, when the hatch opens a few seconds later. Jason tries to push down the shiver. It's not Duke's fault that Jason thinks retrocognition is a little creepy, and he's damn sure not gonna tell the kid that.
Cass keeps watching Jason, and he knows she sees that in his body language too.
Fuck, he's tense.
He roots around in his jacket for the damn pack of Marlboros. Jason's gonna run out before the night is through, at this rate. He's very carefully not thinking about the implications of someone going after all the enemies of the bats right now, sitting somewhere between desire and dread.
Jason is lighting another cigarette when Nightwing's head pops out, flame of the lighter inches from Jason's face. The tiny glow of it reflects across the rooftop to dance on the lenses of Dick's mask, orange and gold flickering through the dark expanse of the night. Dick’s face beneath the domino is impassive as he pulls himself onto the rooftop. He looks around at all of them, who stayed despite Alfred’s tepid attempts to dispatch them. The fire department and GCPD have the arson and warehouse covered for now. And Zucco can get fucked for all Jason cares.
Not a chance in hell are we leaving you, Dickwing.
Dick stands to his full height. Jason's taller than him, since his dip in the pit. He likes it most of the time. But it's still weird. In his mind, Dick is sometimes still inexorable and larger than life. A little like Batman used to be. It feels wrong to see evidence that he's not some mythic figure. Either of them.
Nightwing looks at him. And Jason feels his spine straighten despite himself. “Nightwing and Black Bat will go to Blackgate.”
Almost incongruously, Jason sees Tim and Damian exchange glances. They're tensing like they're gonna jump Dick together and chain him to a radiator to keep him from going. Seems the only thing those two can agree on is that this is a terrible fucking idea. But, Jason's a big believer in free will. He mercilessly squishes down his own very slight concern, catching Tim's eye and mouthing “calm the fuck down.”
It doesn't look like Tim calms the fuck down. He just looks more irritated, mouthing back “fuck off,” and flipping Jason the bird.
Maybe he should try a cigarette. Might help his mood.
Actually, that'd probably snap Dick right out of this insanity. He'd be too busy trying to beat the shit out of Jason for getting Tim addicted to nicotine to freak out about Zucco. That can be Jason's backup, ‘cause if Dick's made up his mind, there's no stopping him.
Jason rolls his shoulders, and cracks his neck, taking one last drag of the Marlboro. He points it at Dick challengingly.
“Alright, but you better have a plan.”
The trapeze set on top of Blackgate is as impressive as it is cruel. A trap meticulously constructed out of aluminum scaffolding, steel wire, and old wounds.
The sheer amount of work and planning that must have gone into it is kinda worrying. This is more than what two mind-controlled kids could set up in a week, let alone an afternoon. They somehow anchored two aerial frames up onto the roof spanning the minimum security prison to some other building in the complex. There's a fly bar dangling on each end and one in the middle, as well as a riser platform on each side with a ladder. It's not exactly a circus grade aerial rig but it's elaborate, and public, and it had to have been expensive. Though the obvious lack of regard to safety probably made it a slightly faster build. Regardless, it's unnervingly clear someone's been planning this for a long, long time.
Visible even from the ground, an armed guard wearing a purple hoodie sits on the riser with a machine gun. It's aimed threateningly at him, tracking Nightwing's movement through the cops on the ground. It feels like somewhere, whoever is pulling the strings of this operation is laughing. Dance, little puppet, dance.
God, he's fuckin pissed.
The star of the show holds desperately to the middle of the three fly bars, which dangles in the space between the buildings. He's nearly four stories up, one arm hooked over the bar in a desperate attempt to gain some leverage. His spindly feet kick, and he shakes with the effort of holding on for his life. Tony Zucco has aged poorly, sallow and pale with fear and the stale air of life in prison. He looks thin and frail from this distance. As the cherry on top, Zucco is obviously starting to slip.
Good, a vicious part of him thinks. Let him feel that fear first hand. He deserves this.
The cops had barely spared a glance at them when Nightwing and Black Bat arrived. Of course, it's really only Nightwing they saw, with the way Black Bat melted into the shadows. Questions of how this happened, and who was responsible were waved off. They can wait for after Zucco has come down, one way or another.
Some asshole detective (Bullock?) told him that the perps had barely spoken. They'd forced fifteen other captured inmates to build the rig at gunpoint, after shooting the guards on top of the building, then made them sit down on the roof next to the rig.
They'd been very clear. Only Nightwing is to approach. Anyone else will be shot. It's good he's the one who came. This wouldn't have gone well otherwise.
And if his grin was a little sharper than usual? If he moved a little more like something hunting? If his quips leaned more towards the brutal and the hungry? Well, who could say. The GCPD did what Gotham cops do best. They minded their own fucking business and looked the other way.
Nightwing had pulled out his grapple, anticipation humming in every fiber of his muscles. He was itching for this fight, even knowing how careful, so careful he'd need to be so as not to hurt the kids in the hoodies, ‘cause right then everything inside of him was calling for blood.
When he’d landed atop the roof, he’d come face to face with another hoodied kid wearing green.
Now a gun is aimed directly at him, less than three feet away. Over a dozen inmates sit cross legged on the roof, eyes wide, while the green hoodied kid gestures with the gun at the trapeze.
Okay. Message received. Nightwing trudges towards it, inspecting the details. Light weight aluminum scaffolding and steel wire. It should hold his weight. Hopefully. He can see Zucco losing leverage, arm slipping another inch.
Nightwing puts his hand on the rope ladder leading up to the first bar and hesitates.
The gun presses into his back, pushing him forward. He grins.
They got too close.
He turns rapidly, pushing the barrel to the right and yanking hard. The kid opens fire in the second before Nightwing has the gun, but too late to hit him.
He clocks Green Hoodie hard in the face, only remembering to pull his punch at the last second so he doesn't break the kid's jaw. Green goes reeling back. Nightwing looks down at the M-4 Carbine now in his hands. A not-inconsequential part of him is tempted to just end this whole thing and shoot Zucco. He's just dangling there like one of Roy’s archery targets. It'd be so easy. That'd definitely take the bastard who planned this by surprise. End this whole bullshit pantomime now.
From up high, Purple Hoodie seems to take offense to his resistance, spraying down bullets next to him in warning. Nightwing freezes. A bullet goes wide, hitting one of the inmates. They cry out.
Whoops.
Looks like just a flesh wound. Probably fine.
Nightwing empties the clip and tosses it off the roof. Then he pulls an escrima, advancing on Green.
Green backs up slightly, pulling a smaller handgun out, and turns partially to face the inmates. It looks so big in his tiny hand. Just a fucking kidnapped kid under there, now holding a gun to a red-haired prisoner's head. The threat is clear.
…he probably shouldn't push his luck.
Nightwing holds his hands up, backing up to the trapeze ladder. Oh well. It was worth a try.
He climbs. The hoodies watch him.
Where is Black Bat?
Nightwing reaches the riser platform, grabbing the flybar in one hand and testing for give. It's a long way down. He might be able to just grapple by and grab Zucco instead. Clearly he's intended to make the leap from one bar to the next to save the bastard.
This is so fucked up.
He needs to get to Purple Hoodie. They're on the riser across the way, but they'll be able to shoot him before he even gets close. Cass can take the green guy on the ground, Purple is his job.
He tests the give again, jumping slightly when Purple opens fire, shooting warning through the dead air beneath Zucco's legs. Nightwing tries and fails not to take pleasure in it as Zucco cries out and nearly slips.
“Okay, okay, I'm working on it!” He yells at Purple across the rig. They stop firing. Just waiting.
Deep breath in.
Nightwing jumps, pumping his feet back and forth and trying to find the familiarity of momentum.
About a year after Jason became Robin, after Dick finally got his head out of his ass and stopped taking his anger at Bruce out on Jason, Dick had made it his project to teach Jason the trapeze. It wasn't too dissimilar from grappling, and they'd spent many many afternoons on the rig Bruce had built in the third ballroom, laughing, and trying absurdly dangerous stunts out of view of Alfred's watchful eye. They'd practiced swinging, and flips, and passing one another from bar to bar. It'd been fun. It'd been easy.
He's not sure why the memory comes to him now, except that might've been the last time he attempted this particular move.
The way Zucco is holding on, it's not like he could support another person, and he's not sure Zucco could hold on if Nightwing even grabbed him. If he wants to save him, and that's a big if, they have two options.
Grapple by, grab Zucco, and hope they don't get shot by either of the kids. Or just try to grab the bar and Zucco at the same time. Honestly, he's tempted to take down the hoodies first and let gravity and fate do its thing for Zucco. It might be the more tactically sound option too.
Cass seems to read his mind from within whatever shadow she's hiding. “Everyone lives,” she reminds him through the comms.
Yeah, yeah. Whatever.
The rig creaks against his weight, another concern to add to his rapidly growing list.
He sighs. Zucco first. If Nightwing hasn't been shot yet, there's probably a reason. They're acting like he's the guest of honor, after all. And they went through all of this effort for him. Might as well oblige with a little acrobatics.
Do they want him to save Zucco? Or kill the man himself? Or just witness it all? This plan makes no fucking sense to him.
Best to just keep his guard up.
He doesn't see Black Bat, but when he hears the other hoodie open fire, he knows it's go time. Purple switches focus presumably to Cass, and it's now or never.
Nightwing swings through the sky, the wind whistling in his ear. The suit is too tight, his muscles too stiff, his body too full of irritation. It's all too much, and with each swing of his legs the thrum of ‘how dare they’ roars louder over the rushing air.
With the distraction from Cass, Nightwing reaches one-handed into his belt. Shit. The damn Wing Dings were fuckin’ moved since the last time he wore the suit. No time. He swings back, pumping his legs one more time.
Fuck it. He pulls an escrima, clicks it twice so it stays crackling, and chucks it at the purple hoodie when he reaches the height of his swing. He hears it make contact and the clatter of a rifle going over the edge. He thinks maybe the kid does too and nearly changes his trajectory, but Black Bat is on it, grappling rapidly through the air up to the riser.
Back swing, then forward. More momentum. It's a far jump.
He trusts Cass to make sure the kid doesn't fall. The riser is only twenty meters away from Nightwing, so he's ready if Cass won't make it, but she will. He doesn't trust Zucco to keep his grip though, so Nightwing kicks his feet into a launch and at the highest arc of the swing, he lets go of the bar, flipping twice through the air.
For a second, up is down and down is up, the ground rapidly rising up to meet him. There's a swooping feeling in his stomach as he tumbles through the air. A sliver of doubt runs up his spine. This might have been too far of a jump.
It's not even worth it, risking a fall right here and now. He should just pull his grapple and end this. Swing over to the Hoodies and forget all about Zucco until he's a smear on the pavement. He vaguely remembers falling the last time he tried this move, actually.
He didn't need to worry. Gravity has never had any say on the ways in which Nightwing soars through the sky. Nightwing slams bodily into Zucco as he grasps the bar, but the impact of it jolts Zucco's weak hold. The man let go with a cry.
Shit. He grabs for Zucco on instinct more than intention, grasping Zucco’s forearm with his left hand, and the bar with the other. His body jars with the impact of two people's mass fighting with gravity, aches zapping up and down his arm as old wounds remind him of their presence. He hears a pop, and for a second he thinks it's from his body, but a glance down shows that Zucco's arm is dislocated from his socket. Nightwing grins. Whoops.
The man is crying and sobbing and begging, tears and bubbles of snot pouring down his face. He desperately tries to grab at the hand holding his injured arm and begs him not to let go.
Nightwing holds on to the bar and the murderer both, swaying still from the momentum of the jump and just thinking. The ground is far beneath them, unforgiving asphalt and cold concrete.
His next move should be to let go of the bar, and pull his grapple to swing them both over to the other riser with Cass. Easy enough. He’s pulled a grapple mid-fall before. It's not ideal with another person, but B drilled that skill into him relentlessly back when he was Robin, and he's used it plenty since.
On the ground Nightwing can see the green hoodied kid, incapacitated on his side. The inmates still watch wide-eyed with shock. Turning to look to the other building, Cass eyes him from the roof as she carefully binds the hands of the unconscious Purple hoodied kid. She'd see it, if he dropped him.
He looks down at Zucco. The former mob enforcer looks old and sad. His eyes are watery and his sallow jowls quiver as he begs for his life. Pathetic. He was pathetic, killing innocent people for something so little as money. Orphaning a kid. He was scum. He wouldn't be missed.
“Thank you, thank you Nightwing!” Zucco blubbers. “ You're a hero! Ow. P-please pull me up. Thank you, thank you for coming for me.”
Nightwing loosens his grip. Just to see how it feels. Just to watch the fear and panic creep in on Zucco's face. “I didn't do it for you,” he says with a sharp grin.
“W-wait. Wait! Please, I'm sorry! What did I do? What did I do?”
What did I do?
Nightwing's smile, if anything, turns colder, a hateful thing of ice and broken glass. What did he do? Well. In a way, he started all this. He made the first Robin.
Nightwing lets the moment build. Lets Zucco start to slip, crying and begging even harder for his life. Feeling it out.
He grabs Zucco's hand tighter again. He watches the relief. Hears the thank yous. Rides out the waves of righteous anger that swell inside him with each terrified plea. Nightwing loosens his grip again.
Deciding still.
Cass shouts something, and Nightwing assumes it's about him fucking with Zucco, until he feels the sharp impact rip through his bicep holding the man. The gunshot hits his ears at the same moment, and it's like time slows into jello around him. His arm lets go at the force of a hole being torn through it, not even feeling the pain yet.
Zucco falls.
Down, down, down, gravity pulls him towards the inevitable. His mouth forming a surprised ‘o’ and his watery eyes wide. Terrified. Nightwing watches it happen. Sees the realization play out in Zucco's eyes. He's gonna die.
Those pale eyes follow him, never closing even as Antonio Zucco splatters on impact with the ground. He doesn't die immediately. Oh, no. It takes a second. Two. Three, gasping breaths even as his eyes glass over and his chest stills. Blood spreads dark onto the ground, catching the lights of Blackgate’s guard towers, and the reflection of the sirens from the GCPD cars.
And all Jason can think, as he shoots his grapple towards the armed and probably puppeted inmate that just shot him, and seethes at being played like a fucking fiddle, is that he's so glad that Dick isn't here.
“Nightwing and Black Bat will go to Blackgate,” Dick declares into the tense silence of the rooftop. Damian and Tim shift to argue.
Jason stares Dick down skeptically. “Alright, but you better have a plan,” he says after a pause.
Dick flashes him a grateful smile. “Oh I do,” he says, grin turning slightly manic. “While you two head to the prison, Red Robin and I will check out the fear gas in Newtown, and Signal, Spoiler, and Robin will investigate the fire near the Bowery.”
Jason's own words die on his tongue as his mind catches up. Wait, what? Nightwing is going to a different place than Dick? Is Jason just off the fucking job then?
“Huh?” says Spoiler eloquently.
“Someone else,” Dick looks right at Jason, “will be going as Nightwing. It's been pointed out to me that I-” Dick falters “-that I may be compromised in this situation. This is a trap meant for me. I'm not going, but I think Nightwing should. This asshole’s been one step ahead of us, let's see if we can catch them off guard for once.” He points at Jason. “So I think we should switch suits, and I'll be Red Hood tonight.”
“Wow, Oracle really got through to you,” says Tim skeptically.
Nightwing's face does something funny, but he covers it quickly with a grin. “You don't need to sound so surprised, baby bird. It was my idea.”
He looks back to Jason. “If that's okay with you, Hood?”
He's sending Jason? And Cass? Does he want Zucco dead or not, ‘cause these are some seriously mixed signals.
“Not that I'm arguing or anything, Dickface,” Jason says carefully, “but are we sure it's a good idea to send me to a prison full of cops?”
Working with the Bats or not, Jason is still wanted for murder amidst a long laundry list of other crimes. A RAP sheet like that doesn't just disappear because he and the Bats can stand to be in the same room again. He can do a decent Nightwing impression, but still. It feels like a fucking risk. And that's assuming Waller isn’t hanging around at 12:30 at night. She’d clock him in an instant.
Nightwing tilts his head, tone playful, as if he and Babs weren't about to start strangling each other less than ten minutes ago. “What, can't handle a few cops, Hood?”
Jason's about to retort, but Dick holds up his hand. “Honestly, I think you're the only one who might fit in my suit. But I also trust you. You're going to be fine.”
“Of course I am, I'll just do a bunch of flips and make some stupid jokes and no one will know the difference,” Jason mutters, still reeling at Dick. He's frankly a little surprised at the trust. Jason hasn't worn Dick’s suit since that time he dressed up as Nightwing in New York and publicly offed a bunch of scumbags to mess with Dick and turn the city against him. Dick had been pissed.
…yeah, not Jason's finest moment. Not his worst either. He's tried therapy since then and worked through some things- if you can count bashing in the skulls of the worst Gotham has to offer as working through some things.
So the therapy didn't last. It's the trying that counts, right?
Dick's grin widens. “Perfect.”
Back to the matter at hand. Anyone who knows Dick and Jason can see the difference in muscle build and height, but it should at least fool the cops, and the psychopath targeting his family. Hopefully.
Dick is trusting him with this. With his parents' killer.
Jason doesn't know why his throat feels thick. Probably the chain smoking or the smog. He nods ‘cause he's not wearing his helmet, and has no voice modulator to catch the hitch in his voice that'll surely be there if he tries to speak.
Cass is still watching.
Jason swallows whatever frog is trying to make its home in his voice box and grins. “Better get to it then, you can't keep the outfit though. I like this one, and my style's been copied enough times.” He winks at Tim, who scowls.
“Oh please,” says Dick. He sounds relieved. “I’m the OG, you all copied me.”
“Yeah, whatever you say Mr. Scaly Panties and Pixie Boots,” Steph quips.
“Hey, those were Flying Grayson family designs, I was honoring a legacy-” Dick grin freezes on his face, then slowly drops into a blank set.
“Let's get changed.” Dick says quietly after an uncomfortable beat.
They go back down into the Clocktower bathrooms to swap. Neither of them are particularly shy, but Jason will need the mirror for the shitty dye job he's about to give himself.
Babs and Dick icily ignore each other when Jason and Dick walk by her desk. Yeesh. The tension is thicker than Robinson Park’s foliage the day after a Poison Ivy escape.
Jason and Dick switch suits in silence, only breaking it when Dick grimaces at Jason's stale sweat smell in the helmet. It's not exactly the easiest thing to clean, unfortunately. Jason actually does have an older spare somewhere in his cache at the Clocktower, but he hasn't updated the tech in awhile. He dropped it way back when he first started his tenuous truce with Oracle. His current one has better shock absorption, improved HUD with increased range on thermals, and most importantly no bomb an inch from his cranium.
Hey, Jason did learn something from therapy.
He should probably remove that one from the Clocktower, actually. But it's not that big of a bomb. It also is in that stupid red pill shape, and Jason wouldn't be caught dead (again) having Red Hood be seen in his old gear from back when he’d been rampaging. That helmet design should have been his first clue that he needed serious help. Dick would probably like it though, he still thinks the Discowing was a good fashion statement.
“Ugh, Jay, do you ever wash this?”
“Like you're the picture of hygiene, Dickface,” Jason says, rubbing black dye from Babs’s disguise kit into the stubborn white streak the Lazarus pit left in his hair. He doesn't bother to rinse it, just pats it dry with paper towels. It wouldn't stay if he did, dye just washes right off it. The pit’s claim on Jason is hard to deny.
“I saw your apartment back when I first became Robin, Dickhead. It was a fucking pigsty.”
“Yeah, but I clean now. I needed to learn how! I’ve had a butler since I was nine, and before that I lived on the move, in a literal circus-” Dick falters, jaw clenching.
He's staring down into Jason's helmet like he's looking through the past.
Oh boy.
“Do you want him dead?” Jason asks bluntly, point blank.
Dick closes his eyes, his body seems to collapse in on himself with the force of his trepidation. “Yes. No. Maybe.”
“Say the word and it's done, Dickie. The others don't even have to know.”
Dick swallows, and doesn't speak for a long, long time.
Jason tosses the dye-covered latex gloves into the trash and rinses his hands. The color between his natural hair and the dye is not quite right, and his hair is clumping from where the chemicals rest and leaving residue on his forehead, but it's close enough. It's also pretty dark out. Should be fine.
Dick's voice is small, when he finally responds. “Please don't put that choice on me Jay. I don't think I'm strong enough. If he's dead, he's dead. But I don't think I want you to kill him either.” Dick pauses, opening his eyes to stare down again at the helmet he's rotating in his hands. “I know you haven't been killing lately, and I know you don't do it for us, but still. I'm proud of you. I don't want you to change that for me.”
The thing is, Jason does do it for them. As much as he might have denied, and snarled, and fought about it in the past. He stopped killing for the Bats. To belong, to placate, to seek forgiveness.
There's a lot of people out there that Jason still thinks deserve death. He just decided they weren't worth trading his relationship with Bruce and Dick and the others for, contentious though those relationships may be. It would be no hardship to kill Zucco. He wonders if Dick would stop looking so haunted if he did.
“Okay, Dickie. I'm gonna go then. I'm not entirely sure I could sneak it past Cass anyway. But if you change your mind, let me know.”
A hint of a smile flickers across Dick's face. “Thanks, Little Wing,” he says softly.
Jason smirks, and pastes on the domino. “That's Nightwing to you, Hood.”