Jason was rudely awoken the next day by three harsh knocks on the front door.

"Hello?" he heard, and the knocking started again.

He could hear Dick crying in the bathroom as usual, so clearly he wasn't going to get the door. Ugh. Jason groaned and rolled out of bed reluctantly. "One minute," he called out, grabbing a shirt and yanking it over his head. It was probably the landlord about something stupid again.

He yanked open the front door, and was met with the sight of two cops. His stomach dropped.

Fuck he hated cops, and didn't trust them for shit, and it certainly didn't help that he had no idea why the fuck they were there.

"Can I help you?" he finally said, as calmly as possible.

"Are you Mr. Peters?" one of them asked.

"Yeah that's me." This apartment was leased under 'Jason Peters', and the landlord and neighbors all knew him by that name.

"Is Mr. Grayson here?"

"Uh, yeah. Why?" he asked carefully. His hackles were up, but he didn't want to sound too combative. He hadn't missed the way both of their hands had inched closer to their guns when they saw him. Cops weren't exactly known for giving physically intimidating brown men the benefit of the doubt, and even less so angry ones.

"We need to speak to him."

"Can I get a reason why?" One of their hands inched closer to the gun holster again, and Jason stood very still. "It's just not a super great time right now," he said.

"Sorry, it can't wait," the one in front said, not sounding sorry at all. "Domestic violence report, we have to check he's okay."

Jason blew out a breath. "That's a new one," he muttered. Fucking Mr. and Mrs. Donovan downstairs — he just knew it was them. They were insufferable busybodies, and they hated Jason. He was pretty sure they were racist too — always on some utterly unsubtle stuff about 'illegals' while side-eyeing Jason — but they seemed to make an exception for Dick, even though he was darker-skinned than him. He really was irresistibly charming. 

Then again, maybe they just really hated hispanic people and everybody else was fine.

"Okay," he said. "Okay, just uhm, hold on a second, let me get him." 

He heard Dick vomiting, and saw both cops look past him toward the bathroom. Well this wasn't going to be fun.

He glanced back at the cops as he headed toward the bathroom. He was pretty sure he should have invited them in or something, but it was never a good idea to let a cop in without a warrant — who knows what the fuck they'd start looking through.

Thankfully they stayed in the doorway and didn't come in after him.

He tapped lightly on the bathroom door, and heard Dick give a miserable cough. "Sweetheart?"

"Please, not now, Jay. Just...leave me alone. I know you want to help, but you can't, so please just let me be miserable alone."

Jason glanced back at the cops again, and then turned fully to the door, lowering his voice. "Dick, you know I wouldn't bother you right now if it wasn't important. Can I please open the door?"

Dick sighed, and there was a pause, before the door opened a crack. "What, Jay? What is so important?" he asked, wiping at the tear tracks on his cheeks with the back of his hand and refusing to look up at him from where he was kneeling in front of the toilet.

Fuck, this sucked. Jason knew he was the last person Dick wanted to see or hear right now when That Night was still so fresh in his mind. It couldn't really be avoided, though.

He crouched down to his level even though Dick was still staring down at the toilet away from him. "I'm sorry pumpkin, seriously, it's just, umm...somebody called the cops — I guess because of all the crying — and they need to talk to you and make sure you're okay."

"Fuck," Dick said with feeling, clenching his eyes shut for a moment. "Fuck. Okay. Hold on, just. Give me a minute." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Go talk to them before they get impatient."

He shut the bathroom door again, and Jason stood up, walking back to the cops at the front door.

"Okay, he's coming, he just...wants to clean up some. He'll just be a minute."

The one slightly behind the other cop tapped her foot. "Fine," she said. She crossed her arms, and the three of them all stood there awkwardly, waiting for Dick.

Finally, the bathroom door opened, and Dick came to the door.

"I'm sorry, thank you for waiting," he said, his friendly, personable mask firmly in place, though his eyes were still slightly red and puffy. "Jay? Could you…?" He turned to him and made a shooing motion with his hand.

"Yeah." Jason gratefully retreated into the bedroom and shut the door, leaning back against it and releasing a deep sigh. They weren't in the clear yet, but just being out of the presence of the cops was a relief.

He was slightly worried about Dick, but he was a charmer and he would likely be okay.

Dick leaned against the doorframe and put on a small smile.

"I heard you're here on a domestic violence report, I'm sorry to waste your time here. I used to be a police detective in Blüdhaven," he pointedly didn't mention quitting because of the toxic environment, and the toxicity of cops in general, "so I understand that you have to check in, but everything's fine here."

The cop in front cleared his throat. "I see, so you understand we have to ask some questions."

"Of course," Dick said calmly.

"Could you explain the prolonged crying every day for the past week or so that the downstairs neighbors have reported?"

"Yes, I've been having night terrors. When I wake up, I have trouble calming down for a while afterward."

"You're talking to us just fine now," the other one pointed out, and Dick turned his smile on her.

"Yes, well these are extenuating circumstances," he said politely.

"And these night terrors just started suddenly?" the male cop asked suspiciously.

"...Yes," Dick said. "I had an...unpleasant encounter a little bit ago that made them start up again."

"Something you need to make a police report on?"

"No thank you."

"Where did you get that bruise?" the woman asked, gesturing to the large bruise on his arm from a patrol the week before.

Dick flinched as the officer's hand came toward his arm, but he recovered his composure quickly. 

"And why are you flinching?" the man added.

"I'm sorry, I don't like to be touched, and it seemed like you might," Dick explained. "And I grew up as an acrobat, as I'm sure you know;" he didn't kid himself that the cops weren't aware of who he was. They were Gotham cops, after all, "I was practising on the balance beam last week, and took a tumble. It happens."

The cops were silent for a moment, and looked at each other.

"And you're sure you have nothing to report?" the woman asked.

"No, nothing to report," Dick said with finality.

"Alright then, if you're sure… Have a nice day, sir."

Dick nodded and gave a friendly wave, before shutting the door and letting his mask drop.

"Fuck," he whispered, sinking down with his back against the door and putting his head between his knees.

"You okay, sweet pea? Everything turn out alright?" he heard Jason ask.

"Everything's fine," he mumbled into his knees. "Please just leave me alone."

Jason once again retreated back into the bedroom, and Dick felt more miserable than before. He didn't really mean to do it, but it seemed that no matter what he did, he was always being an asshole and pushing Jason away.

◇◇◇

The first time it happened, it caught Dick horribly off guard.

"Hey man. I saw the video, sorry about—" the man had started as Dick was zip-tying his hands, voice thick with pity.

"What?" Dick cut him off. Then his brain caught up with what the man was referencing. "Th— that's absolutely none of your business," he said, dropping the man's wrists as if burned and stumbling to his feet.

He'd practically fled the scene.

Unfortunately, it was not the last time, and Dick found himself at a loss for what to say when criminal after low-grade criminal expressed their sympathies to him. It felt deeply violating that something so personal was apparently known by everyone in the goddamn city, and, more than that, it felt cruel that his escape from the thoughts and memories of That Night was now marred by reminders of it. Reminders not only of the occurrence, but that everybody knew his shame.

He thought, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he should be angry about it all. Or that maybe he would be, in other circumstances. But as it was, he just felt drained. Horribly, horribly drained and empty.

◇◇◇

"I hope you're prepared for the backlash when Hood finds out that you've dealt with this without him and that it's all connected," Barbara said through the private comm link as Bruce headed toward Gotham General Hospital.

"Hood doesn't know? He knows Davies' identity, are you sure he hasn't made the connection?" Bruce asked.

"Would they both be sitting there, unshot if he had? Yes, he knows who Davies is, but apparently he didn't go looking into his background and Nightwing didn't share his research on O'Leary."

"Hm. Well let's plan to keep it that way as long as possible; we can't be handling Hood taking matters into his own hands right now. This is about information-gathering so we can bring them to justice, not revenge." 

"He's bound to find out Davies is awake by tomorrow."

"And that's why I'm already making arrangements for him to be transferred, and you're going to cover our tracks so Hood can't find out where."

Barbara sighed. "I know. But he's going to know it was us, and he's going to be pissed."

"I can live with that. I've handled Hood being angry with me before and I'll surely handle it again."

Bruce got out of the Batmobile and grappled up the side of the building to the top floor.

"Room 1607, correct?" he checked with Barbara.

"Yes."

He worked the window open, and slid inside.

The sleeping man startled awake as a warm breeze came in through the open window, and he gave a small noise of alarm when he saw the large, shadowed figure beside his bed.

"Good evening, Mr. Davies. I believe we need to have a chat," he growled.

The man fumbled for the call button on the little fob beside his bed, but with the plaster mitts surrounding his destroyed hands, he couldn't get a grip. Bruce stepped forward and plucked the fob from his tentative grasp.

"You won't be needing that. You won't be screaming either," Bruce added, when the man took a breath. "Not if you don't want me to pay a visit to your daughter."

The man shut his mouth. "God help me," he eventually whimpered out.

"God's not up here. Only Batman."

Bruce heard Barbara snort in his ear, and he knew a recording of that would be finding its way to Tim, who would tease him mercilessly about stealing a line from a parody musical about himself, but it was worth it for the way the man quaked in fear, looking like he might actually piss himself.

"I— I was only trying to protect my daughter," the man stuttered out.

Bruce stepped forward menacingly. "And committing unspeakable acts against my son did that how? Do you think that's going to hold up in court for what you did? Do you think anybody is going to buy that any of that was somehow defense?" He shoved his index finger against the man's chest, jarring his broken clavicle, which made him open his mouth in a silent scream. "You, Ephram Davies, are going to tell me exactly what your plans were and why, and you're going to tell me now."

"I— I have a broken jaw, talking is bad for it, it hurts if I talk too much."

"Well too bad," Bruce said. "Maybe you should have thought about that before you put your filthy hands where they didn't belong." He pressed his finger harder against the man's chest, before pulling back. "Talk."

The man gasped, trying to get a handle on his pain. "Alright, I will, I will." He paused, and swallowed hard. "It started with my daughter—"

"Irene O'Leary," Bruce supplied.

The man closed his eyes. "Yes. She had been dating a man for quite some time, and then out of nowhere he dumped her and then showed up with someone new just a few days later. Clearly he had been two-timing her, and my little girl doesn't stand for none of that. So she went after him.

"Your little birdie tried to stop her, but I taught my girl how to fight, and she doesn't go down easy. So she got the better of him and then the Red Hood," he spat the name, glaring, "decided to come stick a gun in her face and threaten her life just for winning the damn fight."

"You are wildly misinformed, but go on."

The man directed his glare up at Bruce, his hate clearly winning out over fear, giving him bravery he didn't possess just moments before. "Well then correct me, what am I so wrong about?"

"No." Bruce said. "You're doing the talking. Go on."

The man's glare didn't subside in the slightest, but he continued. "Well I don't take very kindly to my only daughter being threatened, so I developed a plan to get back at your Jay."

Bruce internally flinched at the use of Jason's real name, but outwardly he stood stonily silent and unmoving, waiting for the man to continue.

"It was easier than I thought, once I found out Nightwing had lost his comm and I found both it and a smashed one on the rooftop.

"I've dabbled in electronics for years, and once I got my hands on them, it didn't take long to figure out how they worked. At first I just listened in, but your Oracle caught onto that quickly and I had to turn it off. But it gave me an idea. Hood was so extra protective of Nightwing, so if I wanted to hurt him, going after 'Wing seemed like the obvious thing to do. As a first step at least. 

"What I really wanted was to find out Hood's identity and blackmail him with it, and it seemed like I might be able to kill two birds with one stone. Buying small spells is easy enough if you know where to go, and if I could just impersonate Hood, then I could surely manipulate Nightwing into telling me a name at the very least. And then I could give Hood a front row seat to his little boy toy betraying him while he couldn't do a thing about it. It was perfect."

The man stopped, and Bruce pressed his lips together impatiently.

"Continue."

"My jaw really h—"

"Continue." Bruce interrupted him.

The man sighed. "Well from there it took me a week or so to build a device to control a comm unit remotely. Once I got that done, all I had to do was wait for Nightwing to go back to Blüdhaven on his own." He paused. "By the way, did you know your boy went to The Dragon's Lair? You know what that club is for, right?"

Bruce gritted his teeth. He did unfortunately know the club's reputation, but he also knew that Dick had been there for a case. He had been doubly displeased to find out that it was that particular club that Dick had been going undercover in, but by the time he'd found that out, it had been much too late to stop him. Not that Dick had been receptive to his earlier attempts to get him to drop the case.

"I'm just saying," the man said, to Bruce's stony silence. "If you're going all protective parent, I'm definitely not the only one who's had his hands all over him."

A muscle in Bruce's jaw ticked. What a disgusting attempt at an excuse.

"Continue," he ground out.

The man rolled his eyes. "Well once Nightwing finally went to Blüdhaven on his own and not in the middle of a crowd in a sex club, it was pretty easy. Seemed like the easiest way to set him at ease and disconnect him from the comms input was to come onto him, and it's not like it was exactly a chore, he's pretty easy on the eyes. And from there I got a little carried away, but who can blame me?"

Bruce felt his face curl in disgust. Bruce could blame him. Anyone with a lick of common sense would fucking blame him.

"Don't act disgusted like you haven't thought about it too. Probably done it."

Bruce's jaw creaked alarmingly, and he started to seriously be concerned he might crack a tooth with how hard he was clenching it. 

It was nothing Bruce hadn't heard before — especially back when Dick had first started as Robin — and he knew that the man was likely saying it to get a rise out of him, but he felt his blood boil nonetheless. It was all just so heinously repulsive; of course there was a resurgence of those sorts of vile rumors every time there was a new child joining the ranks of the bats, but Dick in particular never got a single break in or out of costume.

As Bruce Wayne's ward and as Robin, he'd had to listen to speculation that his adoptive father was a pedophile only looking to bed him. As Robin, he'd had his costume, which had been based off of his costume from Haly's circus, mocked as pedophile bait, as if he — a child — was the one responsible for how adults looked at him. In his public persona as Richie Grayson, he was constantly objectified, and his body was subject to all sorts of scrutiny for trashy tabloid articles. Nightwing's body was also talked about and thirsted over all over the goddamned internet. In both his vigilante and personal lives, he'd been unwillingly kissed, groped, and leered at more times than Bruce could possibly count, and he didn't kid himself that he had even witnessed half of them. Even his name in his personal life was subject to constant sexualization and derision. 

Why, why could his eldest child never seem to be allowed any escape? Why was it that at every single turn there was always another person, another rumor, another implication? Why could everyone not just leave him alone for once? Let him exist without existing for their consumption?

"'S that why you and the Red Hood don't get along so well? Pretty little Robin was yours first?"

Bruce fought to maintain his composure. He'd liked it better when the man had been scared out of his mind.

"Oh damn, I'm right aren't I?" the man said, with a surprised laugh. "Wasn't actually expecting that."

Bruce grabbed his face by the chin in one gloved hand, pressing his thumb hard against the fractured spot and forcing his face up to make eye contact. Pained tears streamed out of the man's eyes and he made a strangled sound, but Bruce couldn't bring himself to feel any remorse.

"There aren't words for how wrong and how utterly repulsive you are." Bruce let the man go, and he slumped back against his pillow. "I think we're done here. Stay away from my children."

He turned with a whirl of his cape, and slipped back out of the window. 

He shot his grappling gun up, and then paused before he could head back down to the street.

"Red Robin. I know you're up there. What are you doing here?"

Tim peeked over the edge of the roof, frowning.

"How did you know?"

"Not the question. I've already talked to Davies, and made arrangements for his transfer so Hood can't find him. There's no other reason for you to be here."

"What if I wanted to talk to him."

Bruce frowned. "No."

"That's not very cash money of you," Tim mumbled.

Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "English, Red."

Tim just huffed and crossed his arms.

"Please return to your regular patrol."

Bruce started to grapple down, and then had to stop again. Oh for fuck's sake.

"Robin." he said through the window. "No."

Damian had his katana pointed at the man, who had his plaster mitts raised in surrender. Damian frowned at Bruce.

"No," Bruce repeated. "I've already dealt with him. Go back to your regular patrol."

Damian looked incredibly displeased, but he sheathed the katana. "Tt whatever," he finally said. And then, to the man, "This is not the end of this. Watch your back."

He turned on his heel and strode back out into the corridor.

Bruce really hoped his child wasn't being as reckless as he thought he was just walking through the hospital in costume.

◇◇◇

It hadn't taken much for the rest of the bats to piece together most of the story, even without Tim hacking into Bruce's private records to read exactly what The Man had said when Bruce had questioned him. He'd definitely done that, though. And shared it with all the others.

It was also possible that all of them had tagged his car and entire house, but nobody would ever be able to prove it. 

In totally unrelated news, the front of The Man's house now read 'RAPIST' in dripping Nightwing-blue spray paint, amidst other various unsavory epithets.

More importantly, both The Woman and The Man were now in police custody.

The Woman had attempted to end her ex-boyfriend's life again, apparently complacent that the bats had their attention elsewhere. She could not have been more wrong, and they had stopped her and sent a copy of the CCTV footage to the police.

As for The Man, Barbara had created a copy of the comms recording from That Night and of Bruce's interrogation, editing out Jason's name and ending it just before Dick started beating The Man, and that too had been sent to the police.

All in all, it wasn't as satisfying as they had hoped, but it was comforting to know that both of them would face consequences for their actions.

◇◇◇

Jason was livid when he found out. He had been pissed off enough that Bruce and Barbara had had The Man transferred and had wiped the records (meaning that Jason had had to go hospital by hospital checking for any sign of a man matching his description), but now the rest of the bats had gone and gotten the two creeps taken into police custody. And they'd all gotten their little petty revenge without him, and hadn't bothered to even fucking tell him that it had all been connected. He'd had to find that out by hacking into Bruce's files trying to get the full story on The Man.

He got the full story alright, but it was too late to fucking do anything. At least The Man would rot in prison for what he'd done, and his creep daughter would too for her attempted murder — Bruce would definitely see to it that they got convicted. 

Jason still wanted to shoot them.

And the part that got to him the most was that when he'd told Dick about it all, he'd barely reacted. He just didn't seem to give a shit, and that made Jason feel like he had to be angry enough for both of them. Just because Dick was too numb right now to feel it didn't mean that the rest of the bats going behind both of their backs was okay.

Right now, he was wandering around Crime Alley spoiling for a fight to blow off some steam. It was just so unfair. He deserved a fucking chance to make them pay, he deserved a chance to strike fear into that scum's eyes— 

A light in his helmet blinked on. Shit, one of the working girls was sending out a panic signal. Guess he got his wish for a fight.

He ran flat out — the signal wasn't coming from very far, and it would probably end up taking more time to go get his motorcycle.

The signal led him to Phoenix, who was pacing nervously, and Bubbles, who was leant back against the brick storefront anxiously chewing her thumbnail.

"What's wrong?" he asked. "Are you guys okay?"

"It's Tootsie," Phoenix said, pointing to the alleyway a little ways down the street.

"Thanks," he said, quickly taking off again.

He screeched to a halt at the mouth of the alley, where a man was holding Tootsie against the brick wall by the throat.

"Do you think this is a game?" he was spitting. "You don't get to tell me no." The skin around his eyes was red and inflamed, and his eyes and nose were streaming — clearly he had been pepper sprayed.

Before the man had even realized he had company, Jason punched him hard in the teeth. The man went down, his hand releasing Tootsie and letting her slide down the wall to the ground.

Before the man could hit the ground, Jason grabbed him by the throat, and slammed him up against the opposite wall. "Yeah, not so fun now that it's you, is it?" Jason said.

The man spluttered and gasped for air, and Jason leaned closer.

"You listen up, and you listen well," he snarled. "Tootsie here, and all of the ladies around here, are graciously offering a service for you to buy. And just like anybody else selling a service, they have the right to refuse customers for any reason. 

"The way this works is you come around here asking for a service, and they say yes, or they say no. If they say yes, you pay them, you get what you came for. You don't hit, bite, scratch them, pull their hair, or anything like that before, during, or after, unless you specifically asked and they said yes. And when you're done, you thank them, and you go on your merry fucking way. 

"If they say no, you skip right to the last step and you fucking leave. You don't argue, you don't hurt them, and you don't try to take what you came for by force. Because if you do, you know what that makes you? It makes you a rapist, just like any other. It doesn't matter that they're selling sex, they get to say no, just like any other human being. If you don't listen to them, you are a rapist. And do you know what the Red Hood does to rapists?"

The man was still struggling for breath, but he shook his head, fear in his eyes.

"Are you sure you wanna find out?"

The man shook his head more frantically.

"Right answer." Jason slipped the man's wallet out of his pocket with his free hand and flipped it open, looking at his ID.

"Robert Decatur. At 14 East 5th Street, apartment number 6D. I'll be remembering that."

He flipped the wallet shut again and shoved it back into the man's pocket.

"You and any buddies of yours better not show your fucking face in this part of town again. And you keep in mind that the Red Hood's got his eyes on you now — wherever you are — so you better keep your ass in line if you don't wanna learn what it means to cross me. Now get out of my sight." He released the man's throat, and he sagged against the wall, gasping in air. 

"Get. Out. Of my sight," Jason repeated dangerously low, and shoved his shoulder harshly, turning his body toward the street.

"Y-yes sir," the man stuttered out, scampering away with a last fearful glance back.

Jason stepped out of the alley and watched until he disappeared completely down the street, before turning back to Tootsie and holding a hand out to help pull her up.

"Hey Tootsie. Sorry you had to deal with that — good on you for pepper spraying his ass. He and any of his friends ain't gonna be bothering you anymore, I'll make sure of that."

She grabbed the proffered hand and slowly got to her feet. "Thanks, Hood," she whispered.

"Just doing my job. How you feeling?"

She shrugged. "I'm fine." 

She didn't look fine at all, and she was still squeezing his hand in a death grip.

Jason brought up his other hand partway, and then paused. "Can I touch your back?"

She nodded, and he rubbed a soothing hand between her shoulder blades. "I think you should go home for the night, okay? You want me to walk with you?"

"I can't— I—" She burst into tears. "I can't go home," she sobbed out. "I'm already behind on rent, I need the money, I can't just skip out early. My landlord is gonna kick me out if I don't make this month's, and I'm still a couple hundred short and I've only got 'til tomorrow—"

Jason continued rubbing her back and squeezing her hand. "Hey, hey, it's okay."

"It's not!" she cried.

"Aw, Tootsie, come on — I'm supposed to be the dramatic one here." She gave a small, watery laugh, and his voice softened. "Why didn't you tell me before? All you gotta do is say if something like that comes up and you know I'll take care of you. I'll get everything squared away with your landlord by tomorrow, okay? I promise. It's gonna be okay, I've got you."

"I don't— I should be able to do this by myself, I shouldn't have to rely on someone else to come swooping in just to make ends meet; I'm supposed to be an adult."

"We all need to lean on friends sometimes, there's nothing wrong with that," he said firmly. "Come on, let's get you home."

"O-okay." She took a deep breath and slowly let it out. "Okay. Thank you." 

They made it out of the alleyway, and Jason waved at Bubbles and Phoenix, who were still waiting a little ways down the street, sharing a cigarette. 

"Thanks again, ladies. I'm taking Toots home."

They waved back, and Jason and Tootsie turned away down the street.

They made their way to her apartment in amicable silence.

"Whatever money you've got for this month's rent, you keep that, okay? Use it for groceries, we can't have you starving now," Jason said, dropping the hand from her back, once they got to her door and she finally let go of his hand to fish out her keys.

"Thank you, Hood. You're a really good guy. I'd invite you over to dinner sometime as thanks, but you can't really eat with the helmet on."

Jason laughed. "Oh I've got a domino on under here too if I gotta take it off, but don't you worry about that, you don't owe me anything."

"Still, I want to do something. What's your favorite type of cookie?"

"If you must...snickerdoodles."

Tootsie smiled. "Expect a batch of those sometime this week."

"Lookin' forward to it. 'Night, Tootsie." He waved and turned away.

"'Night. Oh, and Hood?" she called, when he was halfway down the hall. He turned back. "Half of them are for Nightwing, so don't eat them all yourself."

Jason laughed again. "I'll be sure to tell him; I'm sure he'll be looking forward to it too."

She bit her lip. "And tell him— tell him he's not alone. I'm sure any of us would be willing to talk with him if he needed."

Jason's smile turned sad. "Thanks, Tootsie," he said softly.

◇◇◇

Bruce was off-planet with half the Justice League when Barbara finally got intel on an auction held by the human trafficking ring Jason and Tim had both independently been trying to take down for quite some time.

It was going to be a big bust, and Barbara had called in all the bats to help with it.

Jason, Dick, Tim, and Stephanie were currently on the roof of the warehouse where the auction was set to have started just a few minutes before, and the others were already on the ground below.

Jason felt keyed up and full of adrenalin like he usually did before a big bust. He looked over to Dick, who just looked strained as he attempted to imitate excitement.

Dick just seemed so...empty every time Jason looked at him recently. Sometimes, for a few minutes, or even a day, he could keep up the mask and pretend to be alive inside. But Jason saw it slip, sometimes in little ways, just a flash of a microexpression, and sometimes it fell away completely as soon as he went out on patrol. 

He seemed to be trying to fake it for Jason's sake, to give him a smile or an 'I love you' sometimes, and Jason appreciated it, but it was so obvious his heart wasn't in it. Dick seemed more and more like an empty shell of himself as the days went on.

"See you on the other side," Jason said, holding out two fingers for a Vulcan kiss. Dick tapped his fingers against Jason's and grinned. It was obvious it didn't reach his eyes, even with the mask in place. 

"See ya." A bare echo of his old tone. He grappled down off of the roof.

"Was that…?" Tim paused. "Oh you are such a fucking nerd."

"Can it, birdbrain," Jason snapped, not looking back at him. 

Tim just snorted.

"What am I missing?" Stephanie asked.

"Nothing. None of your business," Jason replied, at the same time Tim said, "Hood's embarrassing love affair with Star Trek."

This time Jason did turn to glare at him. Not that Tim could see it through his helmet.

He really didn't need his little replacement picking at the one thing that Jason had found to bring them closer together as Dick continued to grow more and more distant.

Plus, he was still angry at the kid — and all the others — for that stunt they'd pulled last week going behind his back, so Tim really wasn't doing himself any favors getting himself more on his bad side.

"Well you recognized it, so apparently I'm not alone," he shot back.

Tim checked his watch. "Would you look at that — it's showtime," he said, grappling down from the roof.

"I'm still lost and you're explaining to me later!" Stephanie called after him, before kicking out the skylight and grappling down into the building.

Jason scowled and headed down after her. Maybe punching some dickbags would burn off some of his frustration — if he was lucky, he might even get to shoot some of them.

He was, in fact, lucky, and he took great satisfaction in taking out the knees of several creeps.

Tim came up to high-five him after all was said and done, and Jason purposely left him hanging.

"Just because Nightwing doesn't care doesn't mean I'm not still pissed with you all for leaving me out of the loop and robbing me of my well-deserved chance to make him and his little creep daughter suffer. You're lucky I even agreed to a team up today."

Tim's grin dimmed slightly. "So...no high-five?" he asked.

Jason took off his helmet just so Tim could see his scowl.