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Tim was brilliant.
He had always been good at costume designing. After all, he was the one who added pants to the Robin suit. But he had outdone himself this time.
See, Tim and Kon were in the middle of a prank war.
It started off with little things like jumping out from behind doors and hiding day to day objects around the Tower.
Then slowly, it started escalating.
The latest prank had been Kon dressing up as a dementor and jumping out at Tim halfway through patrol. It was one of the most terrifying moments of Tim’s life.
But a great prank on Kon's part, it was only fair that Tim repay him in kind.
But the thing is, while many things scared Kon. Only a few things terrified him. So Tim had been very selective in picking out which fear to use for his retaliation.
He didn’t want to actually traumatize Kon, too much. So that limited his options. For a while, Tim had been worried that he may never come up with the perfect prank.
Then fate, in her beautiful glory, had stepped in.
The team had been watching The Ring for movie night when inspiration struck.
The girl was doing that creepy crawl thing and Kon had jumped out of his skin, squeezing the arm of the couch so hard that he broke a piece off.
It had taken all of Tim’s self control to keep his expression free of the evil grin that wanted to take over.
That had been three months ago. Tim had bided his time, not wanting to strike too soon but now the time had come.
He had got Dick to help him increase his flexibility so that he could make his crawl even creepier than the original.
Tim had put on the white dress, the wig with long black hair that he flipped to the front of his face and he had even put some fake blood on his hands just for a bit of pizzazz.
But that wasn't all, of course not. Tim had snuck a few smoke machines into the Tower, enough so that there would be an eerie mist settling through the building. Hopefully that would make up for him not being able to crawl out of the TV screen.
He had called in a favor with Constantine to cast a spell that would give Tim temporary enhanced speed for a few hours; it could only be used in on and off bursts, which would add to the effect hopefully.
And last, but not least, Tim had made a voice modulator that would turn every sound he made into a high hiss or a demonic growl. He was thinking of using it once he moved on from Robin.
He looked in the mirror and flinched. He looked horrific.
Tim grinned. This was going to be awesome.
-
Jason chuckled darkly as he cut off all connections to the Tower. No one would be answering Robin's call for help any time soon.
The Tower went into lockdown mode, all the exits were sealed shut and the lights were flashing red.
Jason prowled down the hallway and upstairs.
His brow furrowed. The hall was fuzzy, misty, with the flashing red lights it gave an unsettling feeling.
While his lenses were good with night vision, it didn't help much with…fog.
Jason took off his helmet in an attempt to see better, it didn't help much.
He continued on, going further into the Tower. A little mist wouldn't stop him from fighting it out with Robin Three.
Jason laughed quietly, the kid was probably already panicking.
-
Tim watched calmly as Kon slowly walked down the hallway. He could only see the back of his head from here, but he could tell that Kon was wary, maybe that was why he shut the Tower down?
Little did Kon know that he had just cut off all escape routes for himself.
Tim grinned as he moved silently to the other end of the hall where Kon was walking to. He jumped down, landing as quietly as he could.
Then he rolled his shoulders back, got into position and hissed.
-
Jason froze, the hair on the back of his neck rising. A high, hiss echoed down the fogged up hall. Did the Titan’s adopt a cat while he was dead?
It didn’t sound like any cat Jason had seen, but he didn't know what else it could be.
He clenched his jaw and started moving again. Maybe he'd ask Robin, after his monologue of course.
Then he saw a still figure, obscured by the mist.
Jason grinned, pushing all feelings of unease away. Time to see what his successor was made of.
-
Tim bit back a laugh as Kon got closer to where he was. He couldn’t see too well through the curtain of hair in front of his face, but luckily he had cameras planted to catch Kon's reaction from five different angles.
Slowly, Tim started to crawl, twisting his limbs the way Dick taught him to.
And then he growled.
-
Jason faltered, the green on the edges of his vision fading away.
Making it all the more clear when the figure got closer, the mist bracketing it as it crawled towards Jason.
He stopped. His heart in his throat as he looked upon the mini eldritch horror crawling across the hall of the goddamn Titans Tower.
Its limbs were twisting unnaturally, in ways that made Jason want to throw up because no human should be able to move like that.
No human– bar Dick– could move that way. Jason eyed the creature as its pale, almost translucent foot stepped over its shoulder and its head twisted too far around its shoulder.
It's– her?– hair was flipped over her face. There was blood on her hands leaving smudges on the floor as she slowly got closer to Jason and she was wearing a fucking white nightgown, like some creepy Victorian lady.
"What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck–" Jason muttered frantically, fumbling for one of his weapons, but his hands were practically numb with fear.
The creature growled, a deep, powerful thing that should not be outside the pages of a lovecraftian horror novel.
Oh God. Jason's heart dropped. The blood. Did she kill Robin?
The creature sped up. One moment she was still near the other end of the hall, next she was five feet away from Jason. Twisting and crawling, her pale skin glowing red under the flashing lights and her hair hiding her demonic face–
She growled again, so loud that it rattled Jason's bones and Jason–
He screeched, threw his helmet at the thing and bolted.
-
Tim laughed as Kon sprinted down the hall– did the dumbass forget that he could fly?
He picked up the helmet Kon threw at him. It looked similar to what that new rogue they were dealing with wore.
Was Kon going to dress up as the Red Hood to try and scare Tim? Was that why the Tower was on lockdown?
Tim snorted, as if he'd be scared of that guy, he didn’t even have a proper gimmick yet.
He shrugged and went to chase after Kon.
Not that he was in any rush, after all, there was no way out.
-
Jason ran to the zeta, he punched in his code one, two, three times but the lockdown made it a fruitless effort.
He screamed in frustration, slamming a fist against the keypad.
Part of Jason wondered if the creature was a demon sent to drag Jason to hell for coming back to life. It didn’t feel like an unreasonable assumption.
Like hell was Jason letting that thing drag him away from his second life.
Then he saw it. The emergency signal, he could get a message through.
He heard a hiss that wasn't as distant as he'd hoped it would be. Shit.
Jason pressed the button and leaned in to speak. "Emergency, extraction needed, there's– there's a thing in the Tower, it killed Robin and it's after me I–"
A growl. Jason's blood went cold as he slowly looked round.
There, shrouded in mist, was the creature.
They both stared at one another for a moment. Then, the creature started singing.
"Here we go, the world is spinning. When it stops, it's just beginning…" Her voice was a high pitched hiss, making Jason shudder. "Sun comes up, we all laugh. Sun goes down, we all die."
"That doesn’t even rhyme." Jason breathed, for a single blissful moment, he was more appalled than fearful.
Then the creature went silent. One second she was at the doorway, next, she was halfway across the room.
"No, fuck no, nope, no fucking way–" Jason’s voice cracked as she shifted forward, her arms twisted in unnatural directions.
Jason had never been more terrified in his life. And he had died. Holy fucking shit, he was pretty sure his heart had stopped.
The edges of his vision were black. Jason was really starting to miss the Pit.
He blinked, trying to reorientate himself. When he opened his eyes the creature was right in front of him.
She slowly stood up, her bones popping and cracking. Jason pressed himself against the closed door of the zeta.
She stood up to her full height, barely reaching Jason's nose, yet he still felt all of two feet tall. She tilted her head, hissing, then growling and reaching towards him with pale, bloodstained hands, a pale blue eye peeking out from the shroud of hair and–
Jason's eyes rolled to the back of his head as he collapsed to the floor.
-
Tim took his wig off to get a better look at the man who was decidedly not Kon.
He had managed to stop the guy's head from hitting the floor when he fainted. Luckily, otherwise he'd have a pretty nasty concussion to go with the unintentional trauma Tim had inflicted on him.
He squinted down at him. The guy kind of looked like–
Oh God.
Jason. Tim had just spent the last half hour terrorizing Jason Todd.
Jason Todd, who was also the Red Hood apparently.
Tim laughed.
Best day ever.
-
Jason slowly blinked himself awake. He squinted as his eyes adjusted to the light above him.
His head felt surprisingly good considering how he fell–
Wait. The creature.
Jason sat up, frantically looking around for any sign of her–
"Master Jason." A warm and familiar voice greeted him.
"Alfie," Jason smiled up at the man for a moment, then he remembered. "The thing at the Tower, is it–"
"Ah, about that." Alfred's lips twitched. "It seems young Master Tim has gained our affinity for certain… theatrics."
Jason's brow creased in confusion, then it clicked.
No way.
He looked at Alfred with wide eyes, silently pleading for him to say he was kidding. Alfred laughed softly, looking more amused than the time he had caught Jason trying on the Batman suit.
Jason hid his face in his hands and groaned.
"Uh…so that wasn't actually meant for you." A voice piped up from the doorway.
Jason looked up to see a kid in a white, blood splattered nightgown waving at him, smiling sheepishly.
Jason scowled. "I can't believe that was you." He exclaimed. "You almost put me back in the grave."
"I was playing a prank on Kon, you just happened to get in the way." Tim shrugged unapologetically.
"You growled at me!" Jason glared.
Tim lifted up a small, sleek box. "Voice modulator."
"You had super speed." Jason pointed out, repressing shivers as he recalled his fast the creature– Tim– moved.
"Constantine." Tim chirped, smiling brightly.
Jason blinked. The kid went to John Goddamn Constantine for help with a prank?
"We will be talking about that, don't think you're off the hook." Bruce appeared beside Tim in the doorway, giving him a stern look that Tim couldn’t seem to care less about.
Why would he? Walking nightmare that he is.
Bruce's face softened as he looked at Jason.
Then he just stood there, staring. It was a weird mixture of nostalgic and awkward. Like whenever Jason used to get sick, he'd wake up to Bruce sitting at his bedside, staring intently like those creepy kids who go into their parents room at 3AM.
Tim rolled his eyes. "B, stop being creepy and go hug your son, he's traumatized." He shoved Bruce further into the room, kind of like an owner shoving a reluctant cat towards the vet.
"Yeah, by you." Jason pointed out. Because dying was way less traumatic then the clusterfuck that went down at the Tower.
Tim raised an eyebrow. "Dude, you had guns, you could have stopped me at any point."
"I–" Jason cut himself off, his face heating up. The kid actually had a point.
Bruce squeezed Jason's shoulder, smiling down at him like a total sap. "Jaylad." His voice was soft.
Jason glared back at him. "Don't think that we're suddenly good just because your latest psycho decided–"
A guttural, terrifying growl sounded from beside them.
Jason yelped, jumping into Bruce's arms. Looking around frantically for whatever the fuck that was.
Tim held up the modulator, grinning. "Sorry, the button's a little finicky." He shrugged, unrepentant.
Jason stared for a moment, Tim stared back, his eyes held not a single shred of remorse for the hell he rained down on Jason. In fact, the little sicko looked happy.
"Where the hell did you find him?" Jason hissed at Bruce.
"He found me." Bruce whispered back, holding Jason tighter. It was kind of nice. "I was too scared to make him leave."
Jason eyed the kid warily as he hummed to himself, fiddling with the modulator.
Well, that explanation made more sense than what Talia told him.