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Another goddamn idiot asshole who was obeying the rules of the road got in his way, and if he’d been driving anything sturdier than a motorcycle, Jason probably would’ve just run the moron off the road and kept going. As it was, he finally slipped through a gap in traffic - more like a gap on the sidewalk - and was able to open up the throttle. He was on a deadline and had no time for everyone being surprised to see Red Hood speeding into Bristol. He'd only gotten back to Gotham tonight, which meant he’d failed to notice what was happening until almost too late, and now he was cursing himself for not keeping a closer eye on the birds. He'd gotten complacent.
Frankly, he had expected this would happen because of the baby bat, what with his training, or even Dickie with his temper, but not the miniature detective, the perfect Robin. Well, Tim wasn't Robin anymore, and he wouldn't be the first to go off the rails when it was taken away.
When Jason had first realized what Batman was capable of, how far the man would go, he'd built contingencies. Gathered his evidence, stashed backups, and most importantly, kept a close eye on all the Bat's little birdies. Hacked their comms, bugged their safehouses, and when they got too suspicious about all that, begrudgingly made peace with the bat-cult so he could have approved access all on his own.
But then time passed without problem, so he stopped checking in every day. If he was sure the baby birds were off with their own teams, away from Gotham and from Batman’s toxic orbit, he let his guard down even further.
So he started taking longer missions farther afield. This time he'd been on the other side of the planet, wreaking havoc with Biz and Artie in Taiwan, and it was only dumb luck he'd gotten back the same night everything was going down. He hated relying on luck. He’d only been idly listening to comms, meaning to ease back into Gotham after being abroad. It was all normal - Tim called in something with Freeze, Steph stopped a few muggings, but no major Rogue plots - until the conversation between Batman and Timmers turned a bit chilling.
…I know what you did…
…killed my dad… made the right choice…
…making all the wrong ones…
…this is me …
…what about tomorrow…
Sure, Jason had several programs tracking the comm recordings to alert him to these situations, but there was really no way to identify the frigid rage in the Batman growl without hearing it himself. It chilled him to the bone, hearing it again, and he had to force down the memories in favor of scrambling to find out what was happening and suiting up to intervene.
Which led to the here and now, with Red Hood tearing through a rainy, witching-hour Gotham, desperate to reach the batcave before anything could go too far. With Captain Boomerang still alive, although he doubted Batman would care about that detail. With another little bird straying too close to Batman’s arbitrary line in the sand, and what would the big bad Bat do to stop him? He had slit Jason’s throat, after all, and Jason wouldn’t let something like that happen to his brother.
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“I thought I’d impressed upon you that we are not to play judge, jury, and executioner!” Yelling echoed down the tunnel as Jason ran from the vehicle bay to the main cave. At least, if it was just shouting, Bruce may not have attacked yet.
(He carefully avoids wondering if maybe Tim isn’t in danger at all, if it’s only Jason whom Bruce is willing to hurt.)
"Oh let's not pretend your hands are clean, Brucie."
"Hood. This isn't the time nor any of your business," the Bat attempted in his intimidating growl, but Jason had prepared for this.
"Oh I think it is, given I'm one of the people you tried to kill." He had to laugh at that. "Or were you going to sweep it under the rug so you could keep your moral high ground for yelling at Timmy, here?"
"I'm not the same as you, Hood, and I don't need your support," said Red Robin, clearly bristling that Jason might think Tim was also a murderer. As though killing was the worst any of them had seen or done.
"Didn't say you were, kiddo, just that B doesn't have a leg to stand on. Shall we review the evidence?" Raising his voice so Cave surveillance would hear him, he called out "Protocol L9-47-040."
Back when he had decided the best option was letting the Bats give him his own access, Jason had snuck several new protocols onto the batcomputer. They were innocuous and hidden amongst the expected bat-codes. Some careful timing and a manufactured emergency in the city had allowed him to install them using Batman’s login, backdated to a previous update cycle, so that no one would question the addition.
Now, with the combination of the right identification sequence and Jason's non-Hood-modulated voice, the computer minimized any current programs and began displaying several photos and videos across its many monitors. Some were pulled from cowl or mask footage, previously kept under lock and key by Batman. Some were Jason's own recordings, or stolen from various local security cameras, once he'd known to look. Others were hospital records that had otherwise been buried.
Batman, punching a thug in the face before using him as a human shield. The bullets from the man's co-conspirator thudded into his back until his body stopped spasming.
A first-person view of KGBeast, with a bat-gauntlet reaching into frame to close and lock the door. A news report from months later, of the body of a Russian agent found starved to death after apparently becoming trapped in the sewers.
Batman, dropping from a rooftop onto a man's neck. The man hit the ground chin-first with a sickening crack, Batman standing on top of him. The man didn't move again.
Batman, beating muggers and thieves unconscious. Associated medical reports, of the same criminals dead in back alleys and emergency rooms from internal bleeding or blunt force trauma. Their deaths were attributed to gang violence.
Windows of various murders kept popping up until there wasn’t an empty space left on the screens, then kept going.
The cowl footage only existed in the bat-archives, but the medical records and some security footage were there for anyone to find. GCPD may be corrupt enough to ignore it all, but Jason was surprised Godfrey or Vale or any other Batman critics hadn’t dug them up. Then again, he wasn’t sure if Batman had truly deluded himself with his claims of not killing, or if he was actively covering it up.
Batman and Red Robin seemed frozen, staring at the screens. Tim had lowered his cowl, and though he maintained a stoic expression, Jason could see the clench of his jaw.
“It’d be awfully hypocritical for me to say you can’t be Batman because of this; the rest of your birds can deal with that. But if you touch any of the kids, if you lecture them too harshly or ever raise a hand to them, I will go nuclear. You try to take me out, then Talia gets access to the evidence and you can deal with her." Actually, Roy would respond first, but there was no reason to put a target on his back prematurely. Plus, dropping T's name would just further irritate Batman.
"Hood, you can't–" but Batman was cut off by Jason's disgust.
“And Bruce? At least I do my research before killing anyone.”
That said, Jason dismissed Batman from his mind - or at least pretended to. He was ready for any kind of response from the man, and he would not risk another batarang to the neck just so he could appear nonchalant. Turning to the little bird, “You gonna feel safe here if I leave, Timmy?”
Tim looked like the world had collapsed under his feet, and maybe it had. He may have seen Batman at his “worst” after Jason’s death, but the kid had always thought he’d stopped the man from going too far. Jason almost felt guilty for revealing the truth, but he wasn’t going to let his little brother take the heat when he hadn’t even killed Boomerang.
“I… yeah, um, Jason, I’ll be fine.” Tim’s voice was distant, empty, but it was also the first time that night anyone had referred to Jason by name instead of as ‘Hood.’
Jason chose this moment to slip away. He’d made his point, no reason to stick around and be a target once Bruce got his jaw off the ground. If his threats weren't enough to keep Batman on his best behavior, at least now Jason was a higher priority target than Tim.
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He had returned to his safehouse and started packing up in preparation to bolt. Jason hated to leave his territory unprotected long-term, but the gang was used to Red Hood taking jobs out of town, and they could manage on their own until Batman was less likely to put him in the ground on sight. He could monitor the bat brats from a distance - and full-time - to be sure they were safe, but he’d need to go further to ground than usual while Bruce was pissed. Just as he was writing messages to Roy and Talia, letting them know the plan was in motion, there was a firm-but-not-frantic knock at the door.
He would have expected the bats to use the windows as usual, but he wasn’t fool enough to think this visitor had nothing to do with them. Sure enough, opening the door revealed Timothy Jackson Drake.
Jason set down the gun he was gripping like a lifeline (just in case, he'd told himself, not because he was scared) and leaned against the doorframe.
"What're you doing here, kiddo?"
"Not going to invite me in?"
Jason rolled his eyes but stepped back so the kid could enter. Tim still didn’t bother to explain his presence, just cast a critical eye over the room. Jason had just returned from a mission and been in the process of settling back in when he noticed the situation, and his hurried re-packing hadn’t done much for the tidiness of the apartment. And while this was his favorite place to crash, the safehouse that felt most like a home, that didn’t change that it was, in fact, a bolthole that could be abandoned if needed. Dirty clothes - with both sweat and blood - were dropped on the floor where he’d made room in his go-bag for clean laundry. Various safes and explosive-lined burn-bins were open where he’d been choosing the intel and equipment he wanted to take with him.
Most notably, the jar of his favorite tea - the one he used to drink with Catherine, that Alfred had taught him to brew perfectly, that Talia had paired with new spices and a local goat milk - had been moved from the kitchen to sit in his open duffel bag.
Jason wasn’t sure if he was coming back, and he knew Tim could see that from the evidence in the room.
Eventually, Tim broke the silence. "Bruce went to the Watchtower. I think he might be trying to turn himself in," he supplied.
"Huh." The kid could keep his idealism, but Jason wouldn't believe that 'til he saw it. More likely, Batman was trying to preemptively get the Justice League on his side.
"And we, um, I saw the video of you. You and Bruce and Joker, I mean," Tim continued. "Why didn't you say anything before?"
Honestly, Jason didn't know why he'd included that footage at all. Lethal force against a murderous drug lord was hardly Batman’s worst crime, especially given Red Hood was clearly still alive. Few people would likely even care, except that it had resulted in prolonging Joker’s reign of terror. All in all, it was an insignificant accusation amongst all the dead civilians - albeit minor criminals - that Batman had trampled in his crusade.
Maybe he just wanted to know if any of the bats knew. If they would care, once they found out.
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” was the answer he decided on. “By that point I’d already attacked you and killed dozens, wasn’t like I had a leg to stand on.” He carefully didn’t mention that his body count is much higher now. Tim still hadn’t said why he came, and Jason didn’t need to add more fuel to the fire if this turned into a moral debate.
“And yet you included it in your ‘mutually assured destruction’ file? Which you bothered to create at all, rather than immediately telling the media that Batman was a killer?” Timothy Drake was apparently a master of the unimpressed eyebrow, rivaled only by Alfred, and he clearly had no qualms about using it on Jason.
“Must’ve just gotten picked up in the ‘Batman’s a hypocritical asshole’ search function,” Jason retorted. If he wasn’t ready to admit to himself why he’d included it, then he certainly wouldn’t discuss it with this twerp.
The answer didn’t seem to satisfy Tim, but he mercifully let it drop, instead meandering over to the bookshelf. He wrinkled his nose at the sight of a random engineering manual shoved between The Hobbit and Twelfth Night, as though the little shit would be any better organized on his own if he didn’t have Alfred picking up after him. “Not taking these with you?”
“Got books where I’m going. No need to carry everything around.” Jason wasn’t an idiot, anything important that couldn’t be kept on his person was stored either in Talia’s fortress or on Kori’s island. Even then, there was always a chance it’d be lost forever.
“Why’re you here, Tim?” He needed to know if Red Robin had sided with Batman and was here to destroy the evidence. He surreptitiously hit the send button on the message to Roy, even though it was only half written. The man would panic, but panic might be justified if Jason never got to send a follow-up.
"I want to know why you waited until now. You've had this information for years and did nothing!" Apparently that was the last of Tim’s patience for pretending this was a social call, but Jason almost wished they could go back to the strained civility.
“What was I supposed to do, Timmy?” he sneered. “Go public and let the world know the Bat’s a hypocritical monster? Or take care of it myself, ‘cause you know how Red Hood would handle this sort of thing!”
“You could have told us!” Tim was practically hissing; probably the only thing keeping him from shouting was the concern for what any neighbors might overhear. "Goddamnit Jason, I was living with him, Damian still lives with him, and you clearly think he’s willing to hurt us too!”
“Fuck you, I was keeping an eye on it! Why do you think I showed up tonight?”
“That’s not good enough! We didn’t even know we were at risk. People were dying, Jason, and you let it keep happening!”
“‘Let it’? Why is this my responsibility?” Jason was done with caution and rounded the table to start looming. “I call EMS for his victims, I hire henchmen into other jobs, why do I have to stop the bat, too? You’re hardly innocent yourself! Tell me, Timbit, have you never heard of blunt force trauma? Internal bleeding?”
A brief flash of shame - or embarrassment that he hadn’t seen the problem for himself - crossed Tim’s face before he buried it. “Like I said, you should have told us and let us deal with it.”
“Oh come on, like I would give up my only bargaining chip for nothing, with no guarantee any of you would care!” This ungrateful little shit, no appreciation that Jason had sacrificed his only leverage in order to help Tim of all people. “I’m supposed to just hand over the evidence and trust that you lot would do anything but continue enabling him? That he wouldn’t immediately start the public relations machine?”
Tim cursed softly, eyes closed and head thrown back, which was apparently enough to summon back his polite façade. “This is getting us nowhere.”
“You expected anything else?” Jason spit back.
“I actually came to thank you. For standing up for me. Even if I wish I’d known about all this sooner.”
“You’re welcome.” He only just managed to keep it from sounding like a question. “ And I’m… sorry, that I didn’t think you’d care, before.” A beat, and it felt like they’d come to something like an understanding, before Jason dared to ask, “What’s your plan now?”
“Bruce can’t be trusted as Batman anymore, if he can kill without realizing or acknowledging it. I’ll tell the rest of the family.” Tim broke eye contact then. “They’ll probably want to talk to you, too.”
“Yeah yeah, I should’ve solved all your problems sooner. I got it.”
A frustrated sigh. “I meant– I’m sorry too. You were also… hurt,” Tim avoided the word victim. “We shouldn’t’ve let that happen either.”
“Oh.” They both stood in awkward silence for a moment.
“And Jason? I didn’t kill Boomerang. I’m not about to start murdering my enemies just because Bruce did.”
“And I’m not going to stop just because he went overboard. Trust me, kid, I’ve learned my lesson about trying to convince anyone to deal with revenge my way. This wasn’t about Batman’s fake morals, just keeping his little flock safe.”
They held eye contact for a moment before Tim left, using the front door again, which Jason didn’t even know the bats could do. Jason sank into his chair with a sigh. He’d still go to ground for a while, but maybe… maybe he’d come back to Gotham sooner than expected.