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Jason resisted the urge to groan and face-palm.
“No! I told you it’s this way!” one of the brats he’d somehow picked up insisted, crossing his arms.
“And I’m telling you it’s not!” the other insisted, stomping a foot down.
“If you would listen to me…!”
“You’re wrong!”
“Both of you shut up!” Jason cut them off, rubbing his temple in a futile attempt to prevent a migraine. Two pairs of eyes turned to stare him down. Jesus, why did both of these kids have the brightest possible eyes a human could have what the fuck.
“Here’s what we’re gonna do. You both going to calm down and listen for a sec?”
He waited until he received two hesitant nods. Before taking in a deep breath and continuing.
“Okay. We’re going to follow me and stick together until we either manage to get out on our own or Batman, Nightwing or Batgirl come to get us out.”
He didn’t wait for a reply this time before stalking forward, leaning on the hope that the two brats had at least enough of a self-preservation instinct to actually follow. He thanked his lucky star he was here in costume, since kids in Gotham were significantly more likely to listen to the boy wonder rather than Brucie Wayne’s latest charity case. Though it was highly probable he wouldn’t have gotten caught up in the Riddler’s latest scheme in the first place if he’d been out in civvies.
After all, Nygma paid no mind to airheaded Brucie Wayne and his presumably equally airheaded sons. Robin though? The boy detective, Batman’s right hand man? Fit right into the maniac’s standards of intelligence.
His point was further proven by the pair he found himself stuck in the escape room slash maze of doom with. Both boys, Jason had learned, had a habit of solving puzzles-games in a popular children’s magazine (from Central City, no gothamite was stupid enough to have anything to do with puzzles originating in their city) and unfortunately for them, the magazine had ended up featuring a supposedly unsolvable puzzle in the last issue, which low and behold had been created by none other than Gotham’s very own Riddler.
Nygma, who’d been out of Arkham on the grounds of “good behaviour” had noticed his work being plagiarised and launched an attack on the magazine headquarters. And wouldn’t you know it, the magazine kept the data of the only two kids who had successfully solved and sent in the answer to his puzzle. And Edward Nygma had decided to reward them. By kidnapping them and putting both in the gameshow of horribleness. At least most of the traps weren’t deadly if you failed to solve them correctly, most only caused something embarrassing like being dunked into a tub of water or covered in glitter to happen to you. Several could still cause some grievous body-harm, as proven by Jason’s singed cape, from when an actual fireball had shot out of the wall because of a typo in his answer.
He'd cussed out Nygma after that bad enough that the man had reprimanded him over his language.
“You kiss your mother with that mouth, boy wonder?”
“She’d dead, you puke-coloured creep!”
That had made the Riddler finally shut his big mouth.
Still, even if Eddie was usually one of the less lethal rogues, he was also one of the most annoying ones. Chasing him around while solving all the “fun” side-quests he’d set up could take days at a time. Jason utterly despised having to deal with him.
So yeah.
Waking up in what had been clearly one of the man’s lairs with a pair of tiny, way too bright children had not been in his plans for the evening.
Speaking of…
“Hey look! I think I see something over that way!” Timothy Drake, rich kid with appallingly underdeveloped sense of danger called out, stepping towards a fork in the maze as if they weren’t in the middle of being held hostage by a crazy person.
When Jason had first woken up and tried to reassure them both he’d get them back home to their parents the little shit had only shrugged and told him it didn’t matter since “Don’t worry Robin, there’s no one who’ll worry if I didn’t go home for a while.” and “Oh, it isn’t the first time I’ve been kidnapped, it’s fine, I’ll get out at some point.” The kid genuinely seemed to think the things coming out of his mouth were reassuring and not causing Jason to go grey prematurely. Safe to say, Jason was not going to be taking Tim home. Or, he will, but not to the kid’s home.
At least the second one had seemed normal. Mostly. Duke Thomas was a Narrows kid, which automatically made him significantly more trustworthy in Jason’s eyes. He wouldn’t have survived in that neighbourhood without possessing some amount of common sense. Or so he’d thought. Because the kid was way too quick to follow in Timmy’s hare-brained schemes.
They’d gone through half of the maze in the last hour, jumping from one trap right into the other. And the runts actually seemed to find the whole thing enjoyable. Insane, utterly crazy.
If this was how Bruce felt all the time with Dick and him, Jason was never having kids.
“Hey, munchkins! What did I just say?”
Tim scoffed at him, the brat.
“Well, I’m not going to just stand there like a damsel in distress. We aren’t going to get out of here unless we move, and you weren’t doing that.”
Jason glanced at Duke, hoping for support, only for the kid to glance away and fidget slightly.
“He’s not wrong.” the youngest mumbled under his breath.
Jason wanted to tear at his hair. Where were the adults when he needed them! Even Dick would do!
“Children. I am literally begging you not to put yourself into more danger.”
“You’re barely older than us!” Tim rebuffed, huffing. Interestingly not arguing the second half of Jason’s statement at all.
“And how would you know how old I am? For all you know I’m not even human, but an immortal like Superman or Wonder Woman and I just look young.”
Tim opened his mouth to say something before glancing at the cameras and seemingly reconsidering, snapping his mouth shut hard enough Jason could hear his teeth click. Ouch.
“Uhh, Robin?” Duke piped up from the side. “There’s an exit sign.”
Jason blinked down at the kid before glancing up at where he’s pointing. Sure enough, painted directly onto the wall was a large arrow pointing in the exact opposite direction they’d been heading. It was surrounded by bright green LED lights too. Tim voiced his exact thoughts.
“This feels like a trap.”
“Yeah, sorry to dash your hope kiddo, but it probably is.”
“I know.” Duke nodded. Jason stared at the boy incredulously “I mean, it’s where the Riddler wants us to go and at least thus far, all of his directions have let us progress and haven’t really… hurt us?”
Tim nodded at the other boy, grinning before patting his shoulder.
“You’re right! We’re going that way!”
It was decided, Jason was never having kids.
With no other choice he followed the two gremlins to what was absolutely certainly a trap.
They walked through a few more meters of hallway before the corridor opened up into a larger open space, and… of course they were in a warehouse, what had Jason expected. The Riddler had set up a podium in the middle of the far wall. The man himself was sat down on a computer chair with his back to them, a bunch of computer monitors showing various parts of the maze lit up in front of him. What a creep.
Confetti shot up in their faces the moment they entered the room, their captor spinning around in the chair like a bona-fide comic book villain. Jason almost expected to see a fat white cat in his lap.
“Congratulations! You three have passed my challenges and gotten to the end of this adventure.” He spread his arms out dramatically.
“So… you’re gonna let us leave?” Jason suggested.
Nygma clicked his tongue at him.
“Of course not! I have one last game for you little brainiacs!”
“Oh yeah, of course not.” He groaned. Where was Bruce? Shouldn’t he be bursting in about now?
“Robin, Robin,” the man shook his head in disappointment. “Do you not see the value of entertainment and education together?”
Uh yeah, Jason would not call any of what Nygma was doing education in any sense of the word.
“Young Mr. Drake gets it!”
And yup. There it was. The glint of excitement in the kid’s massive bright blue eyes.
Jason was done. He tried to move further to punch the asshole and be done with it, only to find his feet stuck to the floor in a glue trap.
“What is coloured yellow, green and red and cannot get ahead?”
“Really, Eddie? That one’s bad even for you.” Jason quipped.
“Never mind the grumpy-bird, are you two ready for the final game?”
“I guess.” Duke shrugged.
“Sure.” Tim confirmed.
The Riddler grinned widely, gesticulating to the changing screens behind him. Envelopes appeared on the screens behind his back, forming a three-by-three matrix.
“In order to escape, you must answer my riddles three… in such a way to win the game. But wait! To raise the stakes, you both shall go against each other…” he paused for dramatic effect. “And only the winner will go free.”
Jason stiffened. This was bad. Up until now he’d been fairly certain the rogue wouldn’t actually harm either of the younger boys, but apparently keeping one of them didn’t count as harming them to the man.
He could see both of the kids glance uncertainly at each other. Before he could say or do anything though, Tim’s expression hardened with determination and he stepped forward.
“Tell me the right upper edge riddle.”
“Our first brave contestant has stepped up!” Eddie gestured and the screen showed an animation of the envelope opening. “Every night I’m told what to do, and each morning I do what I’m told. But I still don’t escape your scold. What am I?”
“An Alarm Clock.” Tim shot out before his face scrunched up, as if he hadn’t meant to answer. Holy shit, was this kid planning to lose?
“Good! Good!” Eddie clapped before turning to Duke. “And you, Mr. Thomas?”
“Uh, middle spot.”
“I know a word of letters three. Add two and fewer there will be.”
The kid thought about it for a second before answering.
“The word ‘few’!”
“Ding, ding, ding!”
“Are you kidding me?” Tim complained. “These are easy!”
Jason smacked his forehead. Audibly. This kid had a death wish.
“Oh? And what should you have me do, Mr. Drake?” the man’s voice had lowered, making Jason’s hair stand on end. “The next one might just be more difficult. How about you try?”
“Sure, give me lower left corner.” Tim rolled his eyes.
“The maker doesn’t want it… The buyer doesn’t use it…. The user doesn’t know it… What am I, Mr. Drake?”
Tim paled significantly before glancing at Jason, fear creeping into his eyes for the first time since they’d woken up.
“Go ahead, answer.” Nygma hummed.
Tim gulped before opening his mouth.
“…A coffin.”
“Correct.”
And that’s when a shadow dropped from the rafters. Batman, knocking the rogue down with a single move.
Jason breathed a sigh of relief.
“Finally, old man! You sure took your sweet time!”
“Robin.” B grunted. “Are you injured?”
He came over to pull him out, being careful about any possible injuries.
“I’m fine, B.”
“Holy shit, that’s Batman.” Duke whispered, finally drawing the Bat’s attention to the two brats.
Tim said nothing but his eyes were wide and Jason could swear he could see the twinkles. They got even bigger when Dick dropped down as well, complaining about B not waiting for him.
Bruce grunted in confusion and looked at Jason in a way he knew meant ‘Help there are small children and I have no idea how to talk to them.’
If it had been any other two children Jason would have helped.
He stared straight into the eyes of the cowl.
“B, meet Timothy Drake and Duke Thomas. They’re your responsibility now.”
He straightened up and walked away. Let the actual adults deal with the two little shits.
He heard Dick make a confused sound as he was walking out the door.
“What just happened?”
B only grunted again.