Chapter Text
The first time Dick meets the infamous Red Hood, he’s unprepared for the man’s hostility. He’s just finished delivering three crates of guns into the hands of two of Hood’s henchmen when he hears the telltale thud of steel-toed boots hitting the cement floor, followed by an oddly mechanical voice.
“Well, fuck me with a harpoon. This is not the nice kind of surprise. What the hell is Dick Grayson doing in my warehouse?”
Dick smooths his posture into something non-threatening as he turns and gets his first good look at the man who’s been plaguing Gotham’s underworld for the past several months.
Traffic-stopping helmet. Fully-loaded thigh holsters. At least three knives that he can see. And a kevlar-reinforced tac suit that says, I mean business. The aesthetic is halfway between edgelord cosplay and biker gang chic, which is par for the course in Gotham. The rogues in this town love a gimmick, and everything about Hood’s getup says he got that memo loud and clear.
Dick does not grimace, but it’s a near thing. From what he’s heard, Hood is definitely not the kind of crime lord who sits behind a desk and makes other people do his dirty work for him. In fact, if the story about the eight heads in a duffel bag is true, Hood has zero qualms about getting his own hands dirty.
The two henchmen snap quick salutes. Their expressions, though, are perplexed.
“I thought Dick Grayson moved out of Gotham years ago,” the first one says, brows furrowing.
“Yeah. Ain’t he supposed to be in Bludhaven?” the second adds. He actually does a quick 360-look around, like Dick Grayson might have popped up from behind a stack of cocaine while he wasn’t looking.
They’re standing in one of Hood’s warehouses, which boasts enough floor space to park a commercial jetliner. Everything is meticulously organized — rows of drugs piled in tall, clean stacks, each section neatly labelled.
The two lieutenants look straight through Dick as they survey the space, but Dick can’t blame them. He’s been out of the limelight for over five years now. Never even made the pages of a gossip rag in all that time. Never appeared next to Bruce at a gala. Living in Bludhaven has downgraded him from third-string celebrity to forgotten has-been. Nobody should recognize his face out of context unless they’re a die-hard fan.
“I know a billionaire’s scion when I see one,” says Hood, turning that inscrutable helmet towards Dick. “So don’t try to pull one over me, Grayson.”
Dick holds up both hands. “Look. I’m just here to deliver the guns you ordered. You know, the ones from Tommy Tevis?”
“And who the fuck are you supposed to be? His delivery boy?”
“His enforcer, actually.”
Hood makes a derisive noise as he grabs the front of Dick’s shirt and gives him a hard shake. “Right. And I’m a ham sandwich.”
Dick doesn’t fight it. The best way to mollify a mobster is to give them no sharp edges to grind up against.
“Wanna try the truth this time?” says Hood. “Because I can only think of a couple of reasons why you’d be here, and none of them are good.”
Dick’s used to people reacting badly when he drops in as Nightwing or Officer Grayson, but he wasn’t expecting this level of suspicion directed at Dick Grayson. Coming back to Gotham was a terrible idea. He should never have let Tommy talk him into it.
Hood lets him go. “Search him,” he orders.
Four men watching idly from the sidelines leap to obey.
Dick grits his teeth as rough hands pat him down and reach into places they have no business being. He knows this is standard procedure; he’s seen enough clandestine deals to know the drill. In a past life, he might be watching a handoff like this go down from the skylight, ready to swing into action with a birdarang in one hand and a grapple gun in the other. In another past life, he might be crouching outside the door, kevlar vest snug over his blue uniform, badge in hand, ready to burst in with the rest of his team. But the mask and the badge are both things of the past. He’s not either of those things anymore.
So he submits to the indignity of being searched, because he needs this delivery to go smoothly — needs to not make waves in Gotham — needs to stay in Hood’s good books so this will work out in Tommy’s favor.
Working for Tommy is the one good thing he’s got going for him. If he loses this too, he’ll have nothing left.
“Satisfied?” Dick says when the goons pronounce him clean.
“Not yet,” says Hood.
And then, without warning, he shoves two gloved fingers past Dick’s lips.
Dick gags at the taste of gun oil and distressed leather, but a hand at the back of his neck keeps him from jerking away. Hood spends a small eternity fishing around in his mouth before he withdraws his hand.
“Huh. No sublingual microphones or trackers hidden in your teeth. You really came in here with nothing.” He sounds both surprised and disappointed.
Dick spits on the ground and works his jaw from side to side. “Happy now?”
Hood turns to survey the three large crates Dick just delivered. Sixteen silver handguns are neatly packed inside each one, snug inside their felt trays. Hood picks one up and peers at it from several different angles, like he’s checking for flaws on a diamond.
“These all Double A’s?”
“Every single one,” Dick confirms.
Double A’s is the street name for the new kevlar-piercing handguns on the market, and they’re distributed exclusively by the Tevis Family. Armor Assassins, is what people like to call them.
Red Hood takes the gun apart with expert motions and inspects its innards. Then he snaps the whole thing back together and offers it, grip-first, to Dick.
“Want to give me a demo, then?”
Dick doesn’t reach for it. “I don’t use guns.”
“What kind of arms dealer doesn’t use arms?”
“The kind who only delivers.”
Hood waits a beat. Two. When Dick still makes no move to take the weapon, he makes a low, humming sound. His men shift uncomfortably. Dick can hear the unmistakable promise of hurt behind that tone.
“Now that sounds like some Grade A hypocrisy to me. Your refusal suggests there’s either something very wrong with the guns, or something very wrong with you. So which is it?”
In one smooth motion, Hood flips the barrel around so that it’s aimed at Dick’s head.
Instantly, the mood in the warehouse shifts. Dick can feel the frisson of hostility in the air as Hood’s men reorient themselves towards him as a threat. Some are starting to reach for their weapons, in solidarity with their boss. Shit. Dick’s supposed to be making nice with Tommy’s newest buyer, cozying up to the Red Hood. But fifteen minutes in, and he’s already fucked up.
“Wait. I know what you’re thinking —” Dick begins.
“I sincerely doubt it.”
“— But Mr. Tevis would never give you defective merchandise, you have my word on that. His reputation is solid; he wouldn’t send you anything but his best.”
“And what are you, Grayson? Are you also his best?” The barrel of the gun hasn’t wavered. Hood’s hand is extraordinarily steady.
Dick takes a careful, measured breath. Ignores the prickle of nerves in his neck. “Look. We’re a small outfit, by most standards. We only distribute in Bludhaven. The only reason my boss sent me here is because I know this city better than he does. Mr. Tevis wants to expand his business into Gotham, and he knows the best way to do that is to impress the bigshots in this town.” Dick does his best to approximate eye-contact through the helmet. “Bigshots like yourself, sir.”
Red Hood makes an odd noise. It could have been a choked-off laugh or a spluttered snort. “Christ. You’ve really committed to the bit, haven’t you?”
Abruptly, he swings the gun to one side and squeezes the trigger. The crack of the bullet makes Dick flinch. At the far end of the warehouse, a weighted dummy wearing a kevlar vest sways violently and almost tips over. A blackened hole has appeared over its vest, right over where a person’s heart would be.
Whatever else people say about the Red Hood, his aim is no joke.
“Well.” Hood tilts his head. “At least you weren’t lying about the quality of the guns.”
Dick says nothing; clearly, the merchandise can speak for itself. Hood seems more inclined to believe that than him anyway, and Dick doesn’t want to set him off. It's not that he's particularly intimidated by Hood’s greater height and muscle mass. Dick has spent his entire life fighting opponents bigger and heavier than him; it's practically his specialty by this point. But there is something fluid and practiced and professional in Hood's movements that Dick recognizes as dangerous. Years of combat have honed his instincts about this. He can’t underestimate this man.
“Here’s what I don’t get,” says Hood. “If you’re not here to spy on me, or to sabotage me, then what the fuck are you doing here, Richard John Grayson?” His voice is turning into a low, silky snarl. “I don’t believe for a second that you’re actually working for a mobster, so this is a very strange tactic to take. Does your daddy know you’re here?”
Apropos nothing, he tips his head back and looks up like he’s searching the rafters. Word on the street is that for a Gotham rogue, Hood is actually one of the saner ones, but if he’s jumping at shadows like this, maybe he isn’t as stable as everybody thinks he is.
Dick ignores the daddy remark. He’s not in the mood to discuss Bruce Wayne. “If you still don’t believe me, feel free to give Mr. Tevis a call.”
Hood immediately takes out his phone with a flourish, like he’s planning on calling Dick’s bluff. “Tevis,” he drawls as soon as Tommy picks up. “Top of the evening to you. This is Red Hood.”
“Hood. Perfect timing,” says Tommy. “I was just about to call. Did the shipment arrive safely?”
“It did. But I have some questions about your delivery boy.”
“Oh?” Concern colors his voice. “Did Crutches not make it there okay?”
“Crutches?”
“Yeah. Dick ‘Crutches’ Grayson is my point man for delivery. Did something happen to him?”
“Are you telling me,” says Hood slowly, “that you hired a billionaire’s son to deliver your illicit cargo?”
“That’s not who he is anymore.”
“Do you —” Hood stops, pulls the phone away from his face to give it a look, like he’s not quite sure he’s talking to a real person, “— do you even know who he is? This guy’s a fucking household name in Gotham. He could have Bruce Wayne jumping down our throats for this.”
“He won’t,” says Tommy with calm certainty. This isn’t the first time he’s had to explain Dick’s unique situation to a skeptic. “Crutches cut his ties to Wayne and gave up his claim to WE a long time ago. He and his old man are estranged. I don’t even think they’re on speakin’ terms anymore. You don’t need to worry about his family.”
“And you trust him?”
“Why wouldn’t I? He’s been working for me for the last six months. Practically living under my roof. I’ve never trusted anyone like I trust Dick. He’s a bright kid, you know? Hands down my best enforcer. I’d stake my name and reputation on it.”
The henchmen relax infinitesimally in the corner of Dick’s peripheral vision. But the set of Hood’s shoulders stays tight. He’s not convinced.
“Okay. Say I believe you. What’s with the extra crate of guns? I only ordered two.”
“Call it a ‘nice doing business with you’ present.”
Also known as a bribe. Red Hood tips his head back to look at the ceiling. “I’d rather have something else.”
“Anything. You name it.”
“I want Grayson. Call it a loan.”
Dick’s spine goes rigid with alarm. Even though the gun is no longer trained on him, he still feels like he’s just stepped into a bear trap. Like one wrong move will make a pair of metal jaws snap tight around him.
Tommy sounds just as wary as he feels. “Why? You take a shine to him or something?”
“You said he’s a good enforcer, right? I’ve been needing some extra muscle.”
“For how long?”
“Let’s say a month. Just as a show of good faith. If I’m happy with him, I’ll be ordering all my guns from you from now on.”
It’s a good deal. Red Hood might be the proverbial new kid on the block, but he’s expanding fast. At his current trajectory, Hood’s worth six, maybe seven figures in added revenue.
“You gonna give him back to me in one piece?” Tommy says.
“Sure. I can return him in any shape you like.”
“Let me talk to him.”
Hood tosses him the phone, and Dick must be more off-balance than he realizes, because he almost fumbles the catch.
“Sir?” he says carefully.
“Everythin’ good over there? He ain’t threatenin’ you or anything, yeah?” Tommy voice takes on a different timbre now that he’s speaking with Dick. Softer around the edges. Less brusque.
“Nothing like that,” Dick hedges.
“If he’s got a problem with you, you tell me,” says Tommy.
“I don’t think it’s that. It’s just… people think I’m some entitled trust-fund brat here. They know my face in Gotham. He didn’t believe me when I said I’m working for you.”
“Then why does he want you for his hired muscle? Is he that impressed with you?”
“I’m not sure, to be honest…”
“Not that I’m surprised, mind you.” Tommy chuckles. “Someone would’a tried to poach you from me sooner or later. It’s your gift, kid. You can charm the pants off anyone you meet.”
Dick keeps one eye on the back of the red helmet as Hood wanders out of hearing range. “Pretty sure Mr. Hood’s pants are still firmly on,” he mumbles.
“Listen. If you agree to do a stint for him, this could be our way of breaking into the Gotham market.”
Dick’s hand tightens around the phone. “I'm not sure if I can. Red Hood is…” Psychotic? Unbalanced? A complete unknown?
He trusts Tommy to look out for him. Tommy knows his boundaries and respects them, which is why working for him feels safe. He’s never made Dick do anything he’s not comfortable with, for which Dick is endlessly grateful. But Hood won’t give a damn about his preferences. Hood probably doesn’t care if he lives or dies.
“It’s up to you, of course,” says Tommy. “But Ray’s startin’ to make noises about introducin’ you to Amato’s benefactor — man called Black Mask, you heard of him? If this deal with Red Hood falls through, he’s next on our list.”
A shock goes down his spine. Dick’s not sure he has it in him to look Black Mask in the face without kicking him through a wall. Not after what he did to Steph. There’s too much bad blood there.
“You know I wouldn’t normally ask you for somethin' like this,” Tommy continues. “But I need to get my foot in the door in Gotham, and Hood might be a small outfit now, but that man’s going places. He’s a sure thing. I’ve decided to hitch my cart to his rising star.”
On the far side of the warehouse, Hood appears to be counting crates and marking down the inventory in a little red notebook.
“So what do you say?” Tommy asks. “Can you run a couple jobs for him, just until he trusts us?”
In all the time Dick has been with him, Tommy has never once pushed him for a ‘yes’, or pressed him when the answer was ‘no’. Paradoxically, this makes Dick even more determined not to let him down. Even now, Tommy’s tone isn’t coercive, or pleading, or desperate. He’s really just asking. And that’s what makes Dick capitulate.
“All right. I’ll do it.”
“Ah, kid. You’re still the best decision I’ve ever made, you know that?” Tommy says, and that warm, fond tone seems to reach right inside Dick’s chest and squeeze until he has no breath left. “And remember: I always got your back. Anything you need, just give me a call.”
Dick swallows down the lump in his throat. “Will do.”
“Don’t forget to come see us on your day off. I’ll have Lynette make your favourite dishes.”
They exchange a few more pleasantries. Then Dick hangs up and takes a steadying breath. On Gotham’s sliding scale of depravity, Hood’s probably a safer bet than any of the other nut jobs running around. Given the choice between Black Mask and Red Hood, Dick will take Hood any day. It’ll be fine.
Besides, Tommy is counting on him to make sure this deal goes through, and Dick hasn’t had anyone put that kind of trust in him for awhile now. God knows he’ll never get it from Bruce again. But Tommy took him in when he had nothing, and he gave Dick a home and a family and a purpose again. Tommy’s faith in his abilities eclipses anything he could ask for. Dick owes him everything. Whatever he needs to do to keep Hood happy, it’ll be worth it.
“Guess I’m yours for the month,” he says when Hood returns from making his rounds.
Hood snaps his notebook shut and puts it down. “Guess you are, Dickie boy.”
~~
The wrongness creeps up on him gradually, like the tide coming in.
Hood’s eyes seem to follow him around constantly, like he’s waiting for Dick to trip up. Even when Dick isn’t doing anything wrong, he still can’t shake the feeling that Hood is watching him. Assessing him. Judging him. And finding him lacking, somehow. Dick can’t figure out what the man wants.
And that’s not getting into the tests that Hood keeps throwing at him.
Three days after Dick signs his soul away, Hood drags him to his office three blocks from Crime Alley — a bare, underground dungeon of a place — and says:
“You might have Tevis fooled, but your little act isn’t that convincing. Mob enforcer, my ass. I bet you’ve never even tortured a man in your life.”
“Not true,” says Dick, tiredly. They’ve been having some version of this same conversation for the past couple of days, and he’s sick of it.
Hood goes to one of his holding cells and drags out a terrified man in a dirty grey suit. The guy hasn’t even been roughed up yet, and he’s already sweating and trembling.
“You’re going to have to prove it, then. Pogo here pimps out underage girls to businessmen in Gotham, which is a big no-no in my book. I need the name of his supplier.” Without warning, he shoves the man in Dick’s direction.
Dick catches him with one arm and puts him in a choke hold. “Is that all?”
“Time to earn your supper.” Hood crosses his arms and leans back against the wall. “Let’s see some action, Crutches.”
Dick rolls his eyes as he drags Pogo into the middle of the room and knocks him to the floor. Hood’s talking like he thinks Dick will…what? Balk? Fail to perform? He does this kind of stuff for Tommy every day. He’s doesn’t even need to use any of his flashier moves. For a middle-aged sleazebag like this, all he needs are some good, old-fashioned brawler’s fists and a willingness to draw blood.
It’s laughably easy to break the man’s nose and smack him a couple of times against the cement walls. To snap the ligaments in his hand one by one. To dislocate his shoulder just enough to make him scream. Dick has mastered enough martial arts to know exactly how to apply non-lethal force in a way that will still cause maximum pain, and just because he’s never used those skills prior to the last six months doesn’t mean he can’t.
“I want a name,” he snarls at Pogo, over and over, until the man breaks down and starts babbling through the blood running down his face.
Dick’s good at this part, too. He knows when someone’s finally spilling his guts, and he can separate fact from fiction. He pulls names, dates, and locations from Pogo. When he’s finally gotten everything he wants, he knocks him out.
Halfway through a cursory inspection to make sure the man’s still breathing, he’s interrupted by clapping. Red Hood, leaning against the far wall, is politely applauding him like he just hit a hole-in-one.
“Wow. Color me stunned. You’re vicious when you want to be, aren’t you? Tevis must have worked some real magic if he could bring that out in you.”
The blood is still thrumming in Dick’s ears when he straightens up to his feet. Doing this kind of thing always makes him feel like he’s wound way too tight — all that energy coiled up in him, waiting to explode. He shuts that down before Hood can see the extent of it.
“You don’t know a fucking thing about me.”
Hood makes a low, amused sound. “Evidently not.”
~~
What really pisses Dick off is that Hood’s antipathy seems specifically reserved for him. Hood gives his lieutenants long, plodding lectures that make their eyes glaze over, and he barks orders at his grunts, but the only one he really yells at is Dick. The only one he hits is also Dick.
It’s nothing egregious. Just a smack upside the head, or a shove between the shoulder blades, but Hood seems to like getting physical with him in a way he doesn’t with anyone else. Its enough to make Dick feel like a glorified whipping boy.
It doesn’t help that Hood is actually perfectly civil to the service workers of the city. He’s also downright courteous to the street kids and working girls on Park Row, which comes as a real shock because Dick had been under the impression that Hood’s don’t give me that bullshit attitude was his baseline. But no, it turns out he’s scathing with Dick and fine with just about everyone else.
On top of that, Dick still can’t shake the feeling that when Hood looks at him, he’s expecting someone else entirely. It makes the flesh between his shoulder blades crawl. He feels like he’s walking a tightrope he can’t see. Like Hood is a circling shark just waiting for him to put one toe wrong.
One night, Hood takes him out on a circuit of his territory. Dick expects the usual activities Tommy sends him out to do — collecting protection money, shaking up the local businesses, making nice with potential customers. Instead, Hood drags him on ‘patrol’ through the heartland of Gotham’s worst district — the twelve blocks around Crime Alley.
The evening is going well right up until Hood catches a rapist in the middle of pushing up some girl’s skirts. He literally drags the man into a back alley by the hair while swearing up a storm. Dick escorts the terrified girl away and returns in time to hear Hood snarling into the man’s ear.
“I gave every one of you shitheads fair warning. I put up notices. I dropped emails. I sent messengers. I did everything short of yell into fucking megaphone. But you didn’t listen, did you?”
The man blathers a denial until Hood folds a gloved hand over his mouth.
“Nope. That was your final warning. Guess what happens now, cupcake?”
Nausea crawls up Dick’s throat as Hood draws his gun. It’s one of the ones Dick delivered only a week ago — he’d recognize the shiny chrome on those Double A’s anywhere.
“Sir…?” Dick says.
Hood makes a low, chuckling sound. “God, it’s funny when you call me that.” He flips his victim around so that he’s facing the wall and continues, “Don’t start the lecture. This one goes after kids. Scum like him don’t deserve to live.”
The safety comes off the gun and the man begins squirming harder, hands clawing at the brick wall ineffectually. Angry bluster falls from his lips. Protestations of innocence. Some drivel about how he didn’t know the girl wasn’t legal.
Dick’s mouth is dry. “Hood. We’re standing in the open. Anyone can hear you.”
“This is Crime Alley. I could drag a dismembered corpse through the street and nobody will even blink.”
An exaggeration, but not a huge one. Dick knows people get shot in these streets with depressing regularity. Hell, Bruce’s parents had been shot only two blocks from here.
Hood tilts his head. “You gonna stop me?”
The question is odd — odder than anything else Hood’s asked him so far. Is Hood issuing a challenge? A dare? Or is this just another test, to see what he’s made of?
Hood presses his gun against the top of the man’s spine, where his brainstem is. “You squeamish, Dickhead?”
“I’m not —”
“Last chance.”
No way to know if it’s an invitation or a warning. But Dick’s feet are suddenly ten tonnes too heavy to move. What is Hood actually expecting Dick to do? Hood’s his boss, and it’s not like Dick’s going to wrestle the gun out of his hand. So why is he looking at him like he expects him to weigh in on the decision?
“Batman patrols these streets,” Dick says finally, and that is a warning.
Hood laughs. “Wrong tact to take with me.”
“Why even ask me, then, if you don’t care either way?” says Dick quietly. Why is Hood still looking at him, still talking to him, like anything he says would make a difference?
Red Hood shrugs and pulls the trigger. Dick flinches and looks away. When he turns back, Red Hood is already dragging the body into an even narrower strip of alley, deeper in the shadows, where no one will find it until morning. There’s a smear of crimson across the ground. Dick’s throat feels like sandpaper. His heartbeat is way too loud in his ears.
He just aided and abetted a cold-blooded murder. And he didn’t just allow it to happen. He’d fucking facilitated it. There’s really no denying his involvement this time, not when he’d literally put the gun into Hood’s hands. This is Blockbuster all over again, but worse.
My fault.
Of course, it’s not like his hands have been clean since that night. It’s not like he’s any more a murderer now than he was last week.
My fault.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Hood says when he returns.
The voice modulator wipes his voice clean of inflection, but Dick can hear the disapproval there nonetheless. It’s one of the side effects of being raised by Batman. Like a shark that can sense a single droplet of blood in an ocean of water, Dick can hear disapproval in a single, grunted syllable.
He opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. Hood is saying something to him, but Dick suddenly can’t make out the words over the roaring in his ears. He feels like he’s underwater.
Hood grabs him by the arm and steers him roughly out of the alley like he’s pushing an uncooperative shopping trolley. The walls around them are a blur. Stepping back out into the main thoroughfare feels like coming up for air. The blare of angry car horns cuts through the cacophony in his head. The acrid stench of piss and exhaust fumes wakes him up like a slap to the face.
“Don’t freeze up on me now, chum.”
The nicknames have gotten progressively weirder since Day 1, but this one plucks at something inside him. Something old. Something fond. Chum? No one’s called him that since….
It’s only when Dick trips over the curb that he realizes his legs have turned to jello. No wonder Hood’s grip on his arm feels like a vise. He’s probably the only thing keeping him upright. Even after more than half a year, Dick still can’t shake his knee-jerk reaction to the sound of a gunshot. The instant lightheadedness. The curl of shame in his belly. Each time he hears it, the guilt digs a little deeper under his skin.
“You gonna hurl on me, Crutches?”
Dick shakes off Hood’s hand and is surprised when the man lets go without a word.
“I’m fine,” he says. He grabs a streetlight to steady himself.
“If you say so,” says Hood. He doesn’t look away from Dick’s face once.
Dick wonders what he sees there.
~~
Two nights later, Hood drags him to a bar. The owner pays protection money to Hood and his gang on the weekly, so he welcomes them inside and immediately sets them up at a corner table with two beers and a bowl of salted peanuts.
“So I heard a funny story,” says Hood.
Dick keeps his eyes on the table as he fiddles with the colourful napkin. He doesn’t touch the beer. “Yeah?”
“About your resident vigilante. The Bludhaven one.”
“Who?”
“Nightwing.”
Dick doesn’t look up. “What about him?”
“You heard anything about him recently?”
“Why would I know anything about Nightwing?”
Hood leans towards him. “I’ve asked around. Seems the blue bird hasn’t been seen for a good, oh, six months?”
Dick suddenly remembers Tommy telling Hood exactly how long Dick has been working for him. Six months. A little flare of alarm goes off in his head. But just because he’s been trained to put together disparate pieces of information in an organized and analytical manner doesn’t mean Hood can automatically do the same.
“I might live in Bludhaven, but that doesn’t mean I keep track of Nightwing. I mean, do you keep track of Batman?”
“Sure do,” says Hood without missing a beat. “Every single day. In fact, since you brought him up. There’s an idea. How about I go ask the Caped Crusader next.”
This sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. “Ask him what?”
“Ask him where his little blue bird has gone.”
Dick finally looks up with a frown. “At the risk of stating the obvious, Nightwing and Batman don’t actually work together.”
“I’m aware. But like most Gothamites with two brain cells to rub together, I know the first Robin vanished right around the time Nightwing made his splashy debut. So it’s not like that’s a big mystery. You follow me?”
“Post hoc ergo propter hoc,” says Dick. Then, feeling the creeping weight of Hood’s stare, he quickly adds, “That means —”
“Logical fallacy, I know. Just because one follows the other doesn’t mean they’re causally linked.”
So Hood’s had at least a high school education, maybe even a couple years of college. Based on what he knows about the Robin-to-Nightwing transition, Dick guesses that he’s older. Mid-twenties, maybe. Early thirties?
“I’m not saying one was caused by the other,” says Hood. “I’m saying Robin was a fucking Pokemon who hit a certain Exp. Level and instantly evolved into a newer, cooler version of himself. Spiffy upgrade. More HP. Fancier attack moves. Voila, you have Nightwing.”
Dick mentally subtracts a few years off his estimate of Hood’s age. “Cute theory. Is that why you’re so interested in him?”
“I know Nightwing used to have a good handle on the crime in Bludhaven. Controlling the mob there was his entire raison d’être. So I’m just a little bit curious what’s happened to him.”
Dick starts shredding his napkin into long, translucent strips, just to give his hands something to do. “I don’t keep up with vigilantes. I don’t have anything to tell you.”
“See, the reason I decided to import my guns from Bludhaven instead of buying local, is because I don’t need a Bat on my back. Unfortunately, our sister city is watched over by a certain bird. So I assumed I would incur his wrath when I ordered the guns from Tevis. But lo and behold, the bird fucking vanishes.”
Something about the way he’s talking makes Dick’s gut clench unpleasantly. He knows his own body, knows it hasn’t betrayed him. But Hood is looking at him like he can see right through him anyway. Like he can see straight down to the bottom of his soul.
Dick takes a swig of beer. “Shouldn’t you be happy he’s not around?”
“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? But no. For starters, it suggests he’s definitely up to no good. And I prefer to have Nightwing right where I can see him, instead of hidden somewhere out of sight.”
This conversation is turning too intimate, too fast. Dick doesn’t like any of the insinuations Hood is making, and he likes the man’s way of speaking even less. Hood’s not commiserating or venting. He’s talking like Dick is somehow personally responsible for this state of affairs. His tone is almost accusatory.
Dick takes another pull of beer. “Maybe you shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”
Hood snorts. “You know, I had a whole plan for dealing with Nightwing. It was crafted with loving attention to detail. I spent weeks working on it. Would be a waste if I couldn’t use it.”
“Maybe he’s already dead. You ever thought of that?”
Hood gives him a flat look. “Dead.” He sounds incredulous.
Dick is starting to get better at reading his body language. To most people, Hood’s headgear would be a blank wall, giving nothing away. But Dick’s spent a solid decade deciphering Batman’s micro-expressions through a cowl, and a couple of years learning to read Deathstroke’s moods through a full-face mask. A helmet doesn’t pose that big of a challenge to him.
“I mean, he’s in a risky line of business. Maybe someone finally popped him off.”
“Wouldn’t the city know, if their favourite boy died on the job?”
Dick shrugs. “He was never that welcome. I used to be B.P.D. Most of us didn’t trust him.”
Hood shifts back in his seat. “I thought he was well-regarded. Isn’t he supposed to be a hero?”
“Not anymore,” says Dick. He reaches for his beer and is surprised to find it empty.
Hood slowly pushes his own, untouched bottle towards him.
Dick, feeling reckless, downs half it in one shot. He’s a lightweight when it comes to alcohol. He doesn’t drink often enough to build up any kind of tolerance. Which is ironic, because he’s got ten years of joker antivenom and sex pollen antidote and fear gas inhibitor swimming in his system — enough to survive anything a Gotham rogue might throw at him. But one beer, and his head already feels like it might float off his neck. That doesn’t stop him from wishing the bartender had given them one more bottle, though.
Anything is better than talking about the life he left behind. As much as he misses flying over the rooftops, he knows he doesn’t deserve to be a hero anymore. Nightwing might as well be dead. Dick’s not even sure what happened to the uniform. He just knows he doesn’t want it in his house, where it’ll remind him of his sins every time he opens the closet. It’s probably still mouldering away somewhere at the bottom of the Batcave, where he tossed it. Maybe Bruce can put it up next to Jason’s glass case. Another failure for him to brood over.
“So spill. What did he do to give himself such a bad rep?” says Hood.
Dick laughs — a threadbare sound. “Does it matter? He crossed a line. Can’t come back from that.”
Hood is silent, watching him.
“It’s better that he’s gone,” says Dick. He throws back the rest of the beer in one resolute pull.
~~
The next week, Hood caps two more drug dealers. He doesn’t bother looking in Dick’s direction anymore before he pulls the trigger.
Dick can feel himself going number and number with each execution, like a scab that’s been picked raw too many times to heal properly anymore. He’s losing the ability to tell where the skin ends and where the wound begins. Where does he draw the line?
There was a time when he would’ve stepped in without thinking twice. Grabbed Hood’s hand before the gun could discharge. Tackled him to the ground. Thrown himself between the bullet and the target. But that was before Blockbuster took his entire life apart and threatened everyone he’d ever known; before he stepped aside to let Tarantula shoot the man who’d made his life a living hell.
That night had plunged him into a world of grays, where before he’d mostly lived in black and white. And working under Hood is compounding his internal struggle in the worst possible way. The truth is, he prefers Blockbuster gone; he just wishes with all his soul that he hadn’t been the one responsible for it. The fact that he’ll have to live with this forever now — that he’ll never be free of his memory — doesn’t diminish his relief at knowing he’ll never have to watch Blockbuster kill another civilian.
That night, Dick had weighed the costs against the benefits and made a choice. From what he can see, Hood is making a very similar choice. Only he’s doing it with way more gusto (and way less guilt).
So far, Hood has only gone after scumbags. The targets might not be as bad as Blockbuster, but they’re undoubtedly terrorizing their neighbourhoods in ways that are actively making Gotham worse. Hood goes after them and warns them — he has a whole system. Three strikes, and they’re out. Everybody gets a fair chance to turn their lives around. And if they don’t, well. Hood’s brutally efficient with his Double A’s.
Dick hates everything about the situation that Hood’s put in him. But at the end of the day, his own calculus is pretty simple. Tommy’s depending on him to make a good impression. For Tommy’s sake, he needs to keep it together long enough to make sure Hood knows he’s on side, that he can be useful, that he won’t interfere with his operations. So Dick does his best to reserve judgement when Hood goes after the worst of the worst. He vacates the vicinity each time Hood takes out his gun. And he reminds himself who he’s doing this for.
The irony is that instead of being pleased, Hood seems to grow more irritated with every passing day. Dick isn’t sure where the problem is. Outwardly, he’s doing everything right. He’s exactly what a good enforcer should be. He’s letting Hood call the shots without a word of complaint.
But somehow, he still feels like he’s failing some kind of test.
~~
Things come to a head when Hood drags a man out of one of his holding cells one day and tosses Dick a long, curved knife. Dick catches it deftly by the hilt and tires to ignore the sense of foreboding in his belly. This can’t be the start of anything good.
“All right, Dickface,” says Hood. “I need you to execute this guy for me.”
Dick stares at the knife, then at Hood. “Why?”
“Because I need bloodsport for entertainment. Why do you think? This fucker’s on his third strike and I’m not letting him hurt another kid.” Hood gives the man a kick to silence his babbling. “Shut up, scout. I can blindfold you if you don’t want to see it coming.”
“No,” says Dick.
“I’m not giving you a choice. And I’m not even making you do it with a gun. I’m feeling generous today.”
“I’m not killing for you.”
“You were fine with watching me kill someone yesterday.”
“That was different—
“You tell yourself that at night?”
Dick drops the knife and kicks it away.
Hood punches him. It’s telegraphed from a mile away, but Dick eats the hit anyway. His head snaps to one side. It hurts, but in the good way — like plunging burned skin into ice water. Dick’s been waiting for the other shoe to drop for so long that finally feeling the consequences of his own actions feels cathartic. Symmetry snapping into place.
He knew this would’ve happened sooner or later. He’s been expecting it. To finally have it happen is almost a relief. Dick knew from the beginning that Hood harboured an inexplicable animosity towards him. One way or another, he would have found an excuse to beat his face in. Dick’s just glad they can finally get it over with.
“You letting yourself go, buddy? What the fuck is this shit?” Hood snarls, hooking his feet out from under him.
Dick goes down, rolls and springs back up. Ready for more. Hood, he realizes with a thrill of trepidation, is good. The bulk isn’t just for show, and it doesn’t slow him down as much as it should.
You can learn a lot about someone through their fighting style, and Dick can tell — almost instantly — that Hood’s been trained by the League of Assassins. This one’s easy because Dick has all the same moves, too, just the de-fanged variety. Bruce took Ra’s teachings and modified them into non-lethal versions years ago, then taught them to Dick when he was first training him up to be Robin.
“You holding back on me? Take me seriously, dammit — ” Hood punctuates each word with a lightning-fast jab.
With every blow, Hood gets more and more vicious. Dick’s going to be black and blue by tomorrow, but there’s a sick sort of satisfaction in his gut every time Hood gets in a solid hit. Letting someone hit him, bruise him, cut him, feels perversely good. A part of him knows he deserves it. So he takes the hits and waits to see how far Hood plans to go.
But instead of punching him in the face, Hood gets a hand around his throat and slams him against the wall. Dick spits a mouthful of blood at him. Hood’s shoulders are heaving with exertion — the first time Dick’s seen him this worked up.
“You gonna fight me for real, or are you going to just stand there and take it like a chump?”
“I am fighting you for real,” Dick rasps through bloody lips.
“No you aren’t. What happened — did you gain some weight? Forget to hit the gym? Does Tevis let you laze around on your fat ass all day?”
Dick shakes the sweat out of his eyes. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I wonder,” says Hood, in a tone that promises nothing good, “if you’d let me kill you. I’ve never seen fighting this pathetic before. You wouldn’t even last five seconds against the Replacement like this.”
“The who?”
“Nevermind.” Hood releases him and stands back. “You wanna come at me for real this time?”
Dick sags back against the wall, letting it hold him up. “I’m not going to kill for you, Hood.”
“That’s where you draw the line?”
Dick’s crossed so many lines that he can’t afford to cross anymore. This is the only thing he has left. So he steels himself and nods.
“You should be better than this,” Hood snarls. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
It’s the second time he’s asked the question, but Dick doesn’t know how to answer him now any more than he did the first time. There’s a whole laundry list of things wrong with him. Most times, he’s not even sure how to answer the question himself.
“You won’t fight me, you won’t defend yourself, you won’t lift a fucking finger to even —” Hood stomps back up to him. Shoves his thigh between Dick’s legs. Grabs Dick’s chin and tilts his head up so that he’s forced to bare his throat.
“Would you let me do this?”
Dick shoves back reflexively, but Hood immobilizes his wrists and crowds in closer. Dick almost expects to feel hot breath ghosting down his neck — except, of course, the helmet blocks it from happening. Small mercies.
“What are you doing?” He tries to summon up some anger, but he’s too tired to care.
“Trying to see where your fucking line is.”
It’s not the first time someone bigger and heavier has come on to him. It’s definitely not the first time he’s had to fend off unwanted advances. The dissonance of Hood doing it, though, flips his head to white noise.
A low buzzing starts up under his skin. Microscopic ants are suddenly crawling over him, millions of them. A hand travels up his sternum, skimming over his thin shirt. Dick’s extremities go numb. He suddenly can’t feel his hands.
“You’d prefer this to killing a man?” says Hood.
Dick’s heartbeat trips into something high and fast and frantic. He drags in a desperate breath. The smell of leather and sweat and blood and tobacco fills his nose.
Not floral perfume.
A inane thought flits through his head. At least Hood doesn’t remind him of her. Hood is tall enough to conjure Kori’s towering stature, and massive enough to evoke Slade’s solid bulk — both of which are miles away from Tarantula’s petite, wriggling limbs. That’s… something, at least.
“You still doing this for your precious Tevis? Would you get down on your knees for me if I asked?” says Hood. “How much do you love him, that you’d do this but not that?”
He hasn’t reached for Dick’s belt. His hands haven’t gone anywhere lower than his waist. Hood is touching him with only his fingertips, five of them splayed over his chest, but even that’s too much. Everything in Dick wants to back up, to get away, to disappear through the unyielding wall behind him.
“—you even listening to me?” Hood growls into his ear.
Dick swallows down his nausea. At least with the helmet between them, he doesn’t have to brace for the man’s lips or tongue or teeth.
“All the fight gone out of you already?” Hood sneers.
Dick can’t speak. He can barely breathe.
“Oh, come on. Nothing to say to me?”
The idea is laughable. What is he supposed to say? Don’t touch me? It’s not like those words would work. His words hadn’t counted for anything that night, either — he couldn’t have stopped her no matter what he said. People like that don’t take no for an answer. And Dick is so, so tired of trying to change outcomes he has no hope of affecting. Outcomes like Tarantula. Outcomes like that rooftop, under the rain.
Hood raps his knuckles against Dick’s forehead. “Hello? Anyone home? Not even going to struggle first?”
Somehow, Dick finds his voice. It comes out hoarse, like he’s been screaming. “What would be the point?”
“What would be the — are you shitting me right now?” Hood’s volume rises to apoplectic levels. “You’d let some creep rape you without a fight?”
“You wouldn’t be the first,” Dick says.
Hood rears back. His grip goes slack. He actually takes two steps backwards and puts his hands on his hips.
Dick uses the reprieve to catch his breath. When he looks down, a distant, relieved part of him notes that the line of Hood’s pants is conspicuously loose. Not aroused. Maybe that’s why he wanted Dick to struggle first. Maybe extreme violence is the only way he can get it up.
Dick stays very, very still. “Having second thoughts?”
Hood takes another, measured step backwards. “You,” he says, “are fucked up.”
“That’s rich, coming from the guy who’s currently trying to fuck me up.”
“I come back to Gotham thinking I’m an unholy mess, but somehow, you’ve still got me beat. Fuck you, Dick. I don’t know why I’m even surprised. I just can’t win against you, can I?”
Dick blinks. And then blinks again. The cogs in his head turn sluggishly. “Have we…met? Do I know you?”
There’s something off about Hood, a piece that doesn’t quite fit. Rapists don’t usually call themselves creeps. They also don’t call what they do rape.
“Maybe if you had any brains left in that screwed-up head of yours, you’d have already figured it out,” Hood says, voice dropping into a lower register.
Dick barely has time to regain his equilibrium before Hood attacks him again. This time, he goes for the most vicious, debilitating blows — ones which, if they connected, would probably break something. Dick dodges the next five hits while he desperately tries to come up with a strategy.
This isn’t vigilante work, where beating Hood means he can send him off with the police and head home. There’s no end goal here, no point to winning, no ambition beyond survival. The best he can hope for is that the man will eventually tire himself out. And with all the noise Hood made about wanting a struggle, Dick’s pretty sure that giving it to him right now would be a bad idea. The last thing he wants to do is accidentally turn him on.
But the less resistance Dick puts up, the more Hood’s rage seems to escalate. Decorative ornaments go flying. Furniture is knocked over. A wall rack holding an assortment of auto-repair tools goes crashing to the ground.
“Are you trying to kill me?” Dick asks breathlessly as Hood bends over and gets his hand around a long metal rod with one end bent at a right angle.
“I’m gonna maim you, Golden Boy. I don’t know why you’ve turned into this — this sad, crumpled dishrag of a person, but it makes me sick. I can barely stand to look at you like this. Christ.”
He bashes the rod through a glass-topped table. Dick narrowly escapes filleting his hand open on a shard the size of a coaster.
“Hood—”
“Pick up a fucking weapon.”
“Hood!”
“Who did this to you? Tevis? I’ll rip him into a hundred pieces.”
He’s gone completely off the deep end, Dick thinks, horrified.
Something strange is happening to Hood. A spasm is working its way through his muscles, giving his movements a jerky, stop-motion animation quality. It looks like the shakes of someone going through sudden withdrawal. Dick doesn’t like this at all.
“You need to calm down,” he says.
“Shut up. You’re the one who needs to let loose and meet me up here.” Hood punctuates this with a blow that scrapes a bloody line right down the side of Dick’s face. “Stop holding back and show me some teeth.”
Something else is happening to Hood’s voice. It still has the mechanical distortion from the helmet, but now there’s a manic, sing-song lilt to it that makes the hair on the back of Dick’s neck stand on end.
Dick’s spent enough time watching deranged villains lose their shit to know the warning signs. After a decade of fighting men like Joker and Two-Face, Dick can practically smell insanity when it rears its ugly head. And Hood is standing right on the precipice now.
Dick should have grabbed a weapon when he had the chance.
“Too late for you,” Hood croons, swinging his weapon as he stalks forward. “Tick tock, Dickory Dock, you’re out of time.”
Hood is blocking the exit, so Dick can’t even escape the death trap rapidly closing around him. Every part of him is focused on navigating the trashed space without letting Hood get too close. And then he spots the pair of broken-off chair legs, rolling amongst the detritus. Close enough to be escrima. Dick makes a grab for it.
Hood lunges at him at the same instant in a blur of red and brown.
Sudden, splintering pain cracks through his leg.
Fuck. Dick hits the ground and rolls. Reflexively, he tries to curl in around himself to protect his vitals, but his right leg is suddenly refusing to obey him. Searing fire engulfs his thigh. Double fuck.
“Whoops.” Hood leans over him dispassionately, tapping the metal rod against his thigh. “Guess you’re back to limping for the next couple of months. On the plus side, this means you can keep using Tevis’s nickname for you. Pity about your leg, though, Crutches.”
Dick’s too busy gasping for breath to register anything. Six months ago, a bullet had splintered his femoral bone during Batman’s War Games. Somehow, Hood had unerringly aimed for — and connected with — the exact place where his leg was broken the last time. The pain is beyond anything he can describe.
The last thing Dick sees before he blacks out is a red helmet staring down at him.
~~
He wakes up in one of Hood’s containment rooms. Blood from the cut on his face is obscuring his vision, but he can see Hood standing across from him, arms crossed over his chest.
Dick carefully takes stock. He’s propped up against the wall, legs stretched out straight in front of him. No ropes or zip ties or duct tape. At least Hood doesn’t seem interested in restraining him. In the corner of the room are a sealed pack of water bottles and several boxes of dried rations, like Hood’s planning to keep him here for awhile.
Shit.
“For the record, this was not my original plan for you,” Hood says. “But since you’ve apparently turned into a wet doormat, I’m taking drastic action.”
Dick peers up at him dazedly. Every part of him hurts. “What?” he rasps through dry lips.
Hood crouches down so that his head is level with Dick’s. “You used to be smart. You were trained by the best. So where’s that all gone, hm? Do you even remember who you once were?”
“What do you want from me?”
“Tell you what,” says Hood. “Why don’t you figure out who I am under the hood, and I’ll let you out.”
Dick blinks up at him in disbelief. For a second, Hood’s calm demeanor almost fooled him into thinking the man was reasonable again. “You want me to guess your name?”
Hood tuts at him. “Time to use that poor, neglected noggin of yours.”
“What is this — the Rumpelstiltskin Game?”
“There you go, boyo. Knew you’d catch on fast.”
“Or what? You’ll take my firstborn child?”
Hood throws his head back and cackles. It makes him sound so much like the Joker that it steals Dick’s breath away. “Now that’s more like it. If you can still quip at me, maybe you’re not a lost cause just yet.”
He leaves and slams the reinforced steel door shut. A lock on the outside clicks into place. The echo of his boots pound into Dick’s head long after he’s gone.
Well, shit. So Hood’s even crazier than Dick thought.
~~
For the next little while, time stretches out like taffy.
The cell has no windows, no vents, no furniture; nothing but a narrow grate on the floor. Dick’s free to move around as he pleases, but the real problem is his leg. There’s just no way he’s getting past Hood with an injury like this. He can’t even stand up on it, much less fight with it. And re-breaking a bone that was previously broken hurts worse than anything he could have imagined.
He’s underestimated Hood. It was too much to hope that Gotham might have produced one sane villain for a change. Clearly, this man is a full-blown psycho on the same level as the Riddler. Actually, the Riddler would have been an improvement. At least he supplies people with actual, solvable puzzles that rhyme. Hood has given him nothing to go on, outside of a vague hint that he might be someone Dick once knew, and Dick knows a lot of people. Short of spontaneously developing telepathy, he’s not sure how he’s supposed to pluck the correct name out of the thin air.
His only consolation is that at least there are no civilians in danger if he fails this time. No threats to his loved ones. No death trap counting down to someone’s eventual demise. If the only person who gets hurt is him, he’ll count himself lucky.
With that thought in mind, Dick slides into a dreamless doze, somewhere between despair and half-imagined hope.
~~
There’s a longer gap in time after that. Hood returns after what feels like a solid twenty-four hours.
Dick’s awoken by something banging into the door frame. He opens his eyes to the sight of Red Hood leaning against the wall next to the corner where he’s sitting.
“So. I just came back from having a chat with a little bird.”
Dick closes his eyes and pretends to go back to sleep, but Hood keeps talking.
“Found Robin sitting pretty in his Tower, all by his lonesome. It was so easy to get in, I could have cased the place blindfolded. Is this what passes for security at Titans Tower these days?”
Dick’s eyes snap open. Hood is dangling something in front of his face.
It takes Dick’s pain-hazed mind a few seconds to recognize it as a scrap of cape — specifically, Robin’s cape. Only his broken leg stops him from rocketing to his feet. Ice trickles down his spine. Hood broke into Titans Tower? His friends live there. No one’s ever managed to do that before, not even Deathstroke the Terminator. Holy shit. Who is this guy?
“What did you do to him?” Dick snarls. Slowly and awkwardly, he levers himself to his feet.
“Nothing really.” Hood shrugs. “Well. I thrashed him within an inch of his life, but it’s his own damn fault for being unprepared.”
Dick lunges for Hood’s lapels and manages to snag a fistful of leather jacket. Hood’s body language isn’t even annoyed. He seems to regard Dick’s threat level as on par with that of a lame kitten.
“And where is he now?” Dick says through gritted teeth.
If anything’s happened to Tim, playtime is over. He won’t let another Robin die on his watch, he won’t. Not after what happened to Jason and Steph.
“I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re asking. You should give me a medal for my restraint.”
Dick sways forward and damn near loses his balance out of sheer relief. He expects Hood to shove him away, but the man doesn’t seem miffed that Dick is clutching his arm for dear life.
“Why were you looking for him?” Dick asks.
He can feel Hood’s arm snake around his waist, holding him steady so that he doesn’t tip over. It’s a surprisingly gentle gesture, though Hood doesn’t seem to be aware that he’s doing it.
“Needed to ask him some questions about Nightwing. Like what the hell happened to make him disappear.”
Dick’s mind blanks. Hood’s Nightwing obsession is reaching new heights if he’s going after Robin for answers. If Dick were exercising his usual level of caution, he might have attempted to change the subject. Nightwing and Robin have nothing to do with Dick Grayson. Dick Grayson is supposed to have zero interest in the fate of two random vigilantes. But that ship sailed the moment he realized that making sure Robin was safe trumped everything else — even his secret identity.
“And did you get your answer?” he asks.
“In a fashion.” Hood tilts his head to one side then the other, like he’s inspecting Dick’s bruised face for clues. “Robin told me that nine months ago, Nightwing beat the Joker to death.”
Dick shifts backwards instantly, and Hood drops his arm. Dick lets his back hit the wall. It feels good and solid against his spine — a grounding point.
“You seem unusually interested in Nightwing,” he says.
“What can I say? The man intrigues me.”
“Last I heard, though, the Joker’s still very much alive in Arkham.”
“Oh, I know the bastard got revived. But props to Nightwing anyway. A+ for effort, am I right?”
Dick doesn’t say anything to that — he’s too busy biting back a scream of pain as Hood puts a heavy hand on his shoulder and pushes him down. Dick slides until his ass hits the floor, broken leg stretched straight out in front of him.
Then Hood crouches down too and puts his knee on Dick’s ankle, effectively trapping his leg against the floor. Gloved fingers scrape along his leg. Cold sweat is already beading along Dick’s temples. All thoughts of fighting die in a smear of sensation — hurts, hurts, hurts — interrupted by spikes of brain-melting agony as his leg is jostled, shifted, and yanked, again and again.
Abruptly, the pressure abates and the hands disappear. Something shaped like an M&M is pushed between his lips. A gloved palm covers his mouth, preventing him from spitting it back out on reflex.
“Swallow.”
Dick makes a noise of protest.
“Don’t lose your shit. I know you hate painkillers, but you’re just going to have to suck it up, okay?”
Dick looks down and sees that Hood has wrapped a complicated splint over his thigh. It looks hospital-grade, all velcro straps and moulded plastic. He swallows the pill.
Fifteen minutes crawl by while Hood does something to the cuts on his face and hands. Dick lets him, mostly because this sudden and complete about-face has him utterly bewildered. Hood even stitches up the laceration on his shoulder.
His movements are unexpectedly gentle. There’s something almost tender in his ministrations. Dick wouldn’t have thought Hood capable of it. The care and attention he’s getting feel like a ploy — a way to make him let down his guard. But that doesn’t stop it from feeling…nice.
Against his will, his eyelids begin drooping. Hood must have given him some kind of narcotic. Already, his limbs feel detached from his body. On the plus side, the pain has evaporated into a kind of eerie numbness. Hood’s still talking, but it’s getting harder and harder for Dick to follow his words. With an effort, he rallies his concentration.
“You think the Joker had something to do with Nightwing’s disappearance?” he asks.
Hood snorts. “No. The Joker’s not even dead. Somehow, I don’t think Nightwing’s too broken up about that.” He ties off the last stitch and puts a fresh bandage over it.
Then, apropos nothing: “Tell me something. What made you join the mob? You’re Dick fucking Grayson. You lead a charmed life. What would make you choose to work for Tevis?”
The true answer, the honest answer, is that he’d made a mess of life, and just thinking about it makes Dick’s gut lurch like he’s in freefall. He doesn’t deserve Nightwing anymore, not with his tainted record. But how is he supposed to move forward without it? Who is he, if not a hero? How can he begin to explain the depths of his disconnection?
Dick feels like someone has pulled him inside-out, and all the ugliest parts of him are on show. But there’s no way to explain this to Hood without explaining Nightwing. Even drugged and vulnerable, Dick is very good at keeping his secrets compartmentalized.
“Someone died because of me,” he hears himself say. Except no, that's not what actually happened. Even now, after all these months, he's still too much of a coward to face the facts. "It was someone who hated me, and I chose to let him die," he corrects. There. The ugly, unvarnished truth at last.
It's the first time he's ever admitted it out loud in so many words.
“Okay,” Hood says, nonplussed. “But I’m willing to bet my entire warehouse that the bastard deserved it. So what’s the problem?”
“Someone died. There’s no fixing it.” Dick gives a hopeless laugh. “Can dead men come back to life?”
“Sure they can.”
No hesitation. No sarcasm. No mockery. But it doesn’t sound like comfort, either. Dick can feel his eyebrows pulling together in confusion. He must have heard wrong.
“What? You don’t believe that.”
“As a matter of fact, I do.” Hood straightens up and puts the disinfectant and bandages away. “Murder isn’t the unforgivable sin, and death isn’t final. You don’t have to spend the rest of your life paying for it.”
He tosses down a first-aid kit even though he’s already done 90% of it. The slam of the door as he leaves isn’t quite as loud this time.
~~
A bucket of water to the face wakes him up sometime later. Dick chokes and splutters as Hood looms over him. He feels sticky with pain-sweat and grimy with dried blood. On the plus side, the cooling water makes his fever headache recede just enough for him to feel the contours of this thoughts again.
“How’s the leg?” says Hood.
“How’s the arm?” Dick shoots back. Because there is — hilariously — a batarang sticking out of Hood’s bicep. Oddly enough, even with a bloodstain blooming on his leather jacket, Hood barely seems to notice the injury.
“Guess who I just talked to?” he asks.
“…Batman?” says Dick.
Hood heaves a long, drawn-out sigh, like he really needs to emphasize how much of an imposition Dick is. “Yeah, and it wasn’t supposed to go like this. I had plans for Batman, you understand?” Hood is pacing his cell rapidly, like he’s got too much energy trapped under his skin. Dick is getting dizzy just watching him.
“Plans,” says Dick.
“I had schedules drawn up. I had budgets set aside. I had bullets and bombs and ballistic missiles prepared, just in case things went sideways. I had every contingency plan all mapped out, just for him.”
There’s an audible snarl on the last word. Dick’s stomach drops.
“And then you had to come and mess it all up!” Hood continues. He’s working himself up into a rage now, hands gesticulating wildly in the air. Dick almost expects to see smoke coming out of his helmet. “So I had no choice but to go ask Batman about it, and do you know how fucking hard it is to pry a single piece of information out of his mouth? Do you?!”
Hood slams a fist against the wall, and white plaster rains down on him. He reaches up and plucks the batarang out of his arm as an afterthought.
It’s one of the more compact models, only the size of a zippo lighter. Hood peers at it and makes a sneering sound. “Well, at least he’s making ‘em sharper these days. This one could almost be lethal, if he aims it at an artery.”
Dick takes a careful breath. “Why,” he asks, “are you telling me this?”
Hood flicks the batarang at him, and Dick leans reflexively to one side. The weapon thunks into the wall exactly where his head was.
“I was gonna surprise him, you know? It was gonna be an extravaganza. Instead, I spent two hours dancing around the rooftops with that close-lipped bastard, trying to get him to tell me the name of the bastard you let die.”
“What?” Dick gapes at him, half-laughing, trying to decide if this is supposed to be a joke or not. He’s having trouble following this conversation and he’s pretty sure it’s not just because his brain feels like soup. Insane, he reminds himself. Hood’s insane. “Why would you be asking Batman about me?”
Hood stalks closer and nudges Dick’s good leg with the toe of his boot. “Curiosity got the better of me. It’s a character flaw of mine. From what I’ve pieced together, this is about a girl you put behind bars and the guy she killed? It was kind of vague, to be honest. But it turns out you’re twenty fathoms deep in some guilt trip of your own making! Why am I not surprised? No wonder you’re so fucking miserable.”
Dick’s breath gets shorter. “I’m very confused. Are you still talking about me?” And then, just to remind Hood of the facts: “Batman doesn’t know me from Jack. He doesn’t give a shit about me.”
“It does seem that way,” Hood agrees, tapping at his chin with one finger. "Which begs the question: why? Batman and Nightwing used to be on much better terms than this."
Another weird non-sequitur. Why does the conversation keep circling back to Nightwing? Dick is so tired. "If you're so interested in Nightwing, why don't you go find him and ask him yourself?"
If he can send Hood off on a wild goose chase looking for a vigilante that doesn’t exist anymore, maybe he can get him to leave Batman and Robin alone. At least until he can figure out a way to escape this stupid cell.
“Why don’t I,” Hood repeats. He sounds like he’s trying not to laugh. “That’s an excellent idea, actually.”
He couches down and crooks two fingers in a cough it up gesture. “All right. Let’s hear it. I’m done humouring you, Dick. Did you fall out with the Bat? Is that why you gave up Nightwing, hm?”
Dick’s brain screeches to a halt. Static fills his ears. Damage control protocols spin through his head. “I’m not sure what you're talking about —”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know the drill. Let’s skip to the part where you just accept that I know.”
Hood straightens up, all casual, as if he hadn't just pulled the rug out from under his feet and thrown Dick's biggest secret in his face. The oddest part is, Hood doesn’t even sound all that triumphant. Most rogues are unbearably smug when they drop a bombshell of this magnitude. Hood’s tone is blander than oatmeal, like he couldn’t possibly care less.
Dick falls silent for a long moment. Then he pulls Hood off-balance by hooking his ankle. When Hood tips forward, Dick snaps his good leg up and slams the ball of his foot into his gut. Hood staggers backwards and hits the opposite wall with a curse.
Dick puts his foot back down and glares at him. “If you know, then I don’t have to hold back."
To his surprise, Hood dissolves into laughter. “Glad to see you haven’t been completely neutered. After that sad display two days ago, this is almost a relief.”
Hood words, recontextualized in this new light, are suddenly making a lot more sense. His obsession with Nightwing, the barbed comments, the knock at his fighting abilities. The bastard knew all along. Dick rapidly reshuffles everything he knows about Hood while trying not to panic.
“What are you going to do with that information?” he asks. For the first time, fear is clawing up his throat. If his identity is compromised, then this isn’t just his problem anymore. He needs to get a message out to Tim, so he can warn Bruce.
But Hood’s body language says he’s already bored with the entire subject. He waves a hand like he’s dispelling a miasma. “Nothing you need to worry about. But now that we’ve established who you are, let’s talk about who I am. Got any guesses for me?”
“Go to hell.”
“Been there, done that.”
“Maybe you should give me a bit more to go on.”
“I’ve given you everything short of dancing around a fire singing my own name,” Hood says. “Come on. You're supposed to be a detective. You cannot be this stupid.”
Normally, Dick doesn’t let villains toy with him like this. He doesn’t indulge their twisted whims and he definitely doesn’t play their stupid games. But this situation has just escalated to a full-scale catastrophe. His old secret identity is only a hop and a skip away from a whole slew of other secret identities. If Hood decides to turn nasty, he could bring the whole domino tower crashing down on Batman’s head. Tim and the Titans could be in danger, all because of him.
Dick needs to fix this. This one’s on him, and it’s his fault if Hood goes after another vigilante. He’s already got enough sins to his name — he doesn’t need another reason to castigate himself.
"Who are you?" he asks, hating the desperation in his voice. "Just tell me."
"No more hints, Dickie bird." Hood looks over his shoulder at him just before he closes the door. "Figure it out yourself."
Well, begging didn't work. Fighting isn't going to work. Dick closes his eyes with a shudder and settles in to puzzle this out. He's got to get out of here, as soon as possible, and it's been a long time since he's worn his detective hat.
~~
On the third day, he hears Hood talking to someone. It’s a low murmur in the distance. The other voice is a baritone. Older, male.
Dick fights his way out of his fever haze, clutching at lucidity by the fingernails. Gradually, the voices grow louder. Footsteps tromp towards his holding cell. Murmurs resolve into sentences, and Dick finally recognizes who Hood’s talking to. The voice is achingly familiar, and Dick doesn’t realize how much he’s missed it until it’s only one door away.
“— did you even find me?” Hood is asking.
“Did a bit of askin’ around. You have no idea the trouble I had. Took all last night and most of this morning. Had to call in every favour, just to get an address.” Dick can’t see the speaker, but he knows the warm cadence of Tommy’s voice by heart. At the moment, he sounds irritated and unamused. “You must like your privacy, Red Hood.”
“You can tell, huh? I really wasn’t expecting guests.”
“I’m not gonna make any noise about it, trust me. I only came to see my boy.”
“You said he was mine for the month.”
“I did, yes. But I haven’t heard from Crutches since last week, and the kid always comes to Sunday dinner with me and the missus. Yesterday he didn’t show, and I thought it might’ve been because you were workin’ him through the weekend again. But if that were the case, he would’ve called.”
“You came all this way up to Gotham because he missed a dinner?”
“Thought I’d check in on him. Is he around?”
“Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Tevis. But your boy got on my nerves.” Hood clucks his tongue in disappointment. “Had to show him the meaning of respect.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” His tone goes sharper, testier.
“Nothing you need to worry about. But I might have left a couple marks on him, just to teach him a lesson.”
“Are we talkin’ about the same person? Because Crutches is the most respectful kid on God’s green earth.”
“He won’t even pick up a gun. Is that how you’re training ‘em these days?”
“You got him all wrong, Hood. He’s not made for wetwork or painting houses. He’s too good for that sort of thing.”
“So you’ve never asked him to shoot anyone?”
“What? No. ‘Course not. He’s never killed anyone workin’ for me.”
“Then what the hell do you keep him around for?”
For five surreal minutes, Dick listens as Tommy extols his virtues and praises him to the skies. He uses words like “sharp as a tack” and “real polite” and “wonderful instinct for business” and it’s so much all at once that Dick can barely believe Tommy is talking about him. It’s almost embarrassing, having someone else brag about him like this. Even after six months of this treatment, he still isn’t used to it.
Tommy wraps up by saying, “He’s never once let me down. So I don’t know what he’s done to upset you, but he didn’t mean none of it, I promise.”
“You know,” says Hood after a pregnant pause, “of all the people I thought would come looking for him, you were the last on my list. I left a trail of breadcrumbs for four or five likely candidates. No dice. Yet you show up.”
It’s hard to tell whether Hood is disappointed, offended, or impressed. Dick’s already on his feet, clutching the wall for support, when the latch on the door clicks open and it swings wide.
If Tommy is surprised by the state of him — the bandages, the splint, the half-healed cuts — he doesn’t show it. He just turns around, eyes accusing, and stabs his index finger against Hood’s chest, twice.
“Thought you promised to give him back in one piece,” he snarls. It’s the first time Dick’s ever seen him this angry.
Hood spreads his hands. “And have I cut any bits off of him? No.”
“This is unacceptable. You had no right to touch him, much less hurt him.”
“Sir,” Dick interrupts before this can get any more heated. “I’m fine, really. It’s just a scratch, I swear.”
Carefully, he maneuvers himself over to the door, where he can insert himself between the two men if Hood decides to pop off without warning. Tommy has the martial arts instincts of someone who grew up watching Bruce Lee in the cinema. He can karate chop a carrot in half and that’s about it.
“Kiddo, I’m not going to let an insult like this stand. Anyone who messes with you messes with me, and you know that.” Tommy puts a firm hand on his shoulder.
“It wasn’t like that,” says Dick quickly, keeping his eyes on Hood. “I disobeyed an order; it was my own fault. I… I’m happy you came. I’ll come see you when my month is up?”
“Not a chance. You’re coming home with me now.” He levels a glare at Hood that’s impressive, considering the fact that he’s never had to deal with Gotham’s brand of crazy before. “Deal’s off, Hood. I’m takin’ my business elsewhere.”
He gets his shoulder under Dick’s as he talks, and Dick has to pretend to trip to distract him from saying anything else. It warms his heart to have someone square up against the Red Hood on his behalf, but he really doesn’t need Tommy antagonizing Hood any more than he already has. He knows how volatile Hood’s temper is by now, and he’s not confident he can keep Tommy from getting hurt if Hood decides to lose his cool.
Thankfully, Hood doesn’t seem angry. He merely goes to lean against the wall further down the hall, arms crossed over his chest, posture relaxed. He's still watching them intently, but he doesn’t stop Tommy from shuffling Dick awkwardly through the door.
“You sure that’s a good idea, Dick?” he says quietly. “Going back to the man who sold you to me for the price of a gun contract?”
Dick opens his mouth to answer, but Tommy gets there before him.
“He’s worth more than anythin’ I could sell you,” he snaps in Hood’s direction. “And if I’d known you were going to work him over like this, I would’a sent you a rope to hang yourself with instead of three crates of my best.”
Shit. Dick tenses for some kind of reprisal. Even with one broken leg, he probably can do some damage to Hood before Hood pulls his gun. But all Hood does is huff.
“Okay. I can see why you picked this one.” He turns to Tommy. “You’d better take good care of him, Tevis. He’s in a state.”
Dick pauses when they draw abreast of him. Half of him is concentrating on his balance, but the other half needs the confirmation first.
“You’re letting me go?” He doesn’t want any blowback from this to land on Tommy, not even indirectly. Doesn’t want Tommy to suffer the consequences for anything he’s done.
Hood shrugs. “You’re next to useless right now, and a fucking danger to yourself besides. Get out of here before I change my mind.”
Then he pushes himself off the wall, turn his back to them, and walks away in the opposite direction.
“Who the hell does he think he is?” Tommy says under his breath.
And that’s the question, isn’t it? Who does he think he is? Dick cranes his head around to watch him go. He thinks about Hood’s riddle. Guess my name.
On the surface, the question would seem to require a wild stab in the dark. But in the fairy tale, it hadn’t gone like that. The miller’s daughter had already known the name of her imp when she finally made her ‘guess.’ And Hood had implied more than once that the answer should be obvious. With his arm slung around Tommy’s shoulder, Dick finally feels safe enough to pick through the implications of that.
Puzzle pieces in his brain slide around, adding up to an impossible picture.
He thinks about Hood’s utter disinterest in his secret identity, the way he acted as if he'd known for years. Then there was his weird fixation with Nightwing. His easy access to Titans Tower. His strange vendetta against Batman. The obnoxious nicknames. The random things he knows about Dick. The way he could throw a batarang — even though they’re designed to be unusable to the general populace. The familiar way he speaks with Dick sometimes, as if he expects them to share a common frame of reference. And underneath it all, his strange, unwavering expectation that Dick should be someone different — someone better than who he is now.
Dick had initially assumed this was because Hood has some weird grudge against him. But maybe the reason is simpler than that. Maybe Hood expects him to be different because he’s only ever seen Dick at his best.
Occam’s Razor. Sometimes, the simplest solution is the correct one, even if it’s impossible. Even if there’s no logical way. Even if it’s only a vain and gutted hope.
Dead men can come back to life.
“Little Wing?” Dick whispers.
At the other end of the hallway, Red Hood stops and turns around.