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He had already done it before, so it shouldn’t really be as big of a shock as it was now.
This suit was much larger though, and sagged over his body like melted ice cream. The shirt with the red bat crinkled over his chest, the hem nearly reaching his knees and the leather jacket’s sleeves were several inches past the tips of his fingernails. Thankfully the holsters were adjustable and the helmet had straps which he could tighten, and his pants were his own. But still, that needed to be fixed. And that too in two hours.
Tim rushed through the manor, trying to find something that would help. As he dashed past Dick’s childhood room, he suddenly halted and then backtracked.
Dick’s childhood room. AKA the room where all the kid stuff was stored. Including adjustable pillows that a new parent Paranoid Bruce would get.
Tim tentatively turned the door handle. The door creaked shrilly as it opened, the light from the hallway behind him casting a long shadow into the darkness of the crowded room.
He stepped in, flicking the light switch on. Mountainous piles of everything from clothes to stuffed toys were crowded in the room. Whoa. Bruce was one paranoid parent. And Dick was one spoiled brat.
Tim gazed wide-eyed at his older brother’s old baby things. Then his eyes landed on the pile of pillows and blankets and stuffed toys. He smiled.
Thirty minutes later, Tim had managed to adjust the pillows by taking out its stuffing to make it so that he could fake having muscle. Sure Hood seemed a little bulkier than usual, but that wouldn’t really be too much of a problem, would it? The more intimidating the better.
The only problem now was the height.
There was no sugar-coating the fact that Tim was short—as Jason and Damian loved teasing him about it. Dick didn’t tease him as much because he knew the full story of how malnourished Tim was, but even he indulged in the jibes from time to time.
While wearing his Red Robin boots which had a bit of a high sole to store all the gadgetry in, Tim only came up to Jason’s ear. That man was tall. And Tim was not.
He scrolled through the settings of his boots, trying to see what would help with giving him that extra boost. Ten or so minutes passed until he finally found something worthwhile.
Inflatable mode.
Huh, interesting. He didn’t even know he had that.
Tim clicked on the screen of his wristband and the boots swelled up. From the inside. Yet they looked normal enough on the outside.
Tim put them on and ran all the way from the Cave to the measuring wall near the kitchen where each section of the wall was assigned to measure the growth of all the inhabitants in the house. (Even Bruce and Alfred, the story was that little Dickie had grown lonely seeing only his lines on the wall, so Bruce and Alfred decided to add their own even though they had long passed their puberties and growth spurts.)
He stood beside Jason’s measurements and flipped the camera of his phone to check the height.
Okay, so he was still a forehead shorter than Jason, but hopefully with the extra muscle, people wouldn’t notice.
He went back to his room to do the final checks (and some final selfies, he had recently taken up scrapbooking for Dinah’s therapy advice on doing something fun). Once he deemed himself ready, he nodded at himself in the full-length mirror and stepped down to the Batcave.
The Cave was currently empty since everyone was on patrol and Alfred was tending to Jason. Babs had time tonight with no new Birds of Prey missions, so she had taken up comms.
Tim walked on the stone floor, the inflatable shoes squeaked a little in the silence of the Cave and Tim had a slight bounce in his step, but it was fine. He could play it up to Hood being angry.
Tim strolled past Redbird and stopped in front of Jason’s bike. It gleamed with deserved care and shone with the aura of being well-loved. He gulped as he carefully touched it. If he messed this up and it resulted in Jason’s bike earning even a small scrape of its paint, family or not, Tim was going to die with a bullet in his head.
But he needed it to keep up appearances. Hood’s bike was dark and coated with such a shade of red that at first glance, it fooled anyone to think that Hood was sitting on blood. And the engine roared with such sentient fury that criminals had already handcuffed themselves before Hood arrived at the scene.
So yes, he needed the bike. If push came to shove and the bike did get “injured’, Tim would just put a bullet in his head on his own.
Tim took a deep breath before swinging onto the bike. He powered it up, bypassing the lock (of course he knew Jason’s password) and kicking back the brake stand.
Whispering a prayer, he revved the engine and then took off.
Jason’s bike was fast.
Sure they had raced around Gotham for fun, but Tim had never noticed just how fast his bike was.
Fortunately, Tim’s Redbird was faster.
So he had no problem in maneuvering the bike to where he wanted to go. The only concern was that this bike was bulkier to fit Jason’s build and Tim was currently stuffed with pillows, so balancing was a thing he needed to look out for. Fortunately, his training kicked in and kept him from swerving too widely.
It was a good thing that there wasn’t much traffic on this route because Tim really couldn’t stick to one lane in favor of balancing his lightweight on the heavy bike.
Twenty thrilling and chilling minutes later, Tim was pulling into the parking of the abandoned office building.
He took a minute to calm his nerves down, reassuring himself that the bike was okay and so he was going to be okay too. Once he deemed himself confident enough, he got off and started walking into the building.
He had already snooped on Jason’s plans for today’s meeting, so he knew the agenda and he knew what Hood’s objective was tonight. Tim thought he would be more surprised when he hacked into Jason’s plans and saw how organized and laid out everything was, but then he remembered how often the crimelord spent categorizing every single book in the manor’s library once he made amends with Bruce and suddenly there was nothing to be surprised about.
He strode into the building and made a beeline to the elevator. He pressed the button to the basement and braced himself.
This was the moment. He had practiced his lines and dialogues and even came up with possible challenges he would have to face to prove himself and possible things people would say and the responses he would need to give them. He practiced his language style and body language cues and had even written it in the notes app of his wristband that he was wearing under the shirt and jacket—just in case. And if all went south, he still had his emergency comm and panic button that would alert Oracle of his location.
It was going to be okay. He was doing this all for Jason. For the days spent eating his cooking and watching movies and the nights spent literally blowing up rogues’ plans and having each other’s backs during fights. For the genuine apologies, cuddles and moments of brotherhood that little Tim had only ever dreamed of. For Jason.
The elevator pinged and Tim straightened his posture and shoulders in the way Jason did. The doors opened and he found a panel of Jason’s men standing around a man blindfolded, gagged and tied up in a chair in the middle of the room.
Tim— No. Red Hood stepped out of the elevator and everyone’s heads turned to him.
Tim cracked the joints on his neck, pleased when they made audible pops. He stepped forward and recalled all the memories he could of Titans Tower.
He was here to intimidate. And never had Hood been more intimidating than at Titans Tower, sneering at the lesser version of the Robin model.
Despite the inflatables, the boots managed to make audible sharp footsteps that echoed across the space. The room wasn’t as cavernous as the Batcave, so the squeaks of the balloons under his feet and the rustles of the pillows stuffed under his shirt went unnoticed.
Tim stopped behind the chair.
Then he panicked.
Shit, he forgot to note down how Red Hood would normally greet his men. Did he shoot a bullet at one of them like Two-Face? Did he complain about the performance of one of his goons like Penguin? Did he get straight to torturing the victim like Black Mask? Damn it, Tim had studied so many mafia bosses’ tactics, yet he forgot to study his own brother’s.
The silence was stretching and the timer for how the acceptable length was running out.
Think, Tim, think. Enter Red Hood’s head. Become him.
What would Red Hood do in this situation?
“Hey, Tim.” Tim froze. “I was here first.”
Well… was it a good or bad thing that he was able to quite clearly visualize and replay his memory from when his idol and now-brother attacked him and nearly left him for dead at a place where he was supposed to feel safe?
Right now, he was leaning towards it being a good thing.
“I was expecting more from you, Gary,” Tim taunted, the same way Hood had at the Tower. The modulator in the helmet filtered his voice, so it sounded the same no matter the person who was wearing it. He was so thankful for that.
The man on the chair went rigid.
No one else reacted or called him out on his bullshit, so Tim took that as his cue to move on.
“When you signed my contract, I thought we had come to a peaceful agreement.” Tim rounded the chair, coming to stand in front of him. “Tell me, Gary. Do you like peace?”
The man—Gary—was sweating buckets and the droplets flew from his face as he frantically nodded.
“Tell me something else, Gary.” Tim bent forward, his helmeted face inches away from Gary’s. “Do you like keeping your teeth?”
The man whimpered pitifully.
Tim winced under his helmet. He wasn’t actually going to pull out his teeth. That was gross. And he didn’t think he had the nerve to after how Steph had died. But it was an intimidation tactic, so he was allowed to use the threat for now.
Red Hood sighed disappointedly and straightened up. “At least,” he said wistfully, “there are some people here who are willing to uphold the rules. And I’ve always been a fan of Skinner and his theories on operant conditioning.”
Tim backed up a step. “Miller.”
Thankfully, he didn’t have to actually face Miller. The guy walked over to him himself. Which was a relief because Tim had no clue what Miller looked like.
“Boss.” The man inclined his head respectfully.
Tim pressed down the urge to stare. Wow. Jason had done quite a number on them. They were actually respecting Red Hood and weren’t just scared of him. Honestly, kudos to Jay.
“You’re a nice guy, Miller, aren’t you?”
“I’d like to think so, boss.”
Red Hood hummed. “What do you want, Miller?”
“Same thing I told you when I first joined.”
Fuck. Tim hadn’t researched that far back. “Remind me again what that is."
Miller smiled. “To keep the Claire’s of Gotham safe after I lost my own. Your rule of no hurting kids was what made me join. I knew you would protect the children as they deserve, unlike the others.”
Tim blinked. Well, fuck. That was oddly sentimental. Was Jason running a therapy group instead?
No, no. No getting off script, Tim. Stick to the notes Jason wrote. “Well, Miller. I need to do something about the reinforcement part of operant conditioning. How about you get yourself a break and a nice little vacay to Central City? Fully funded.”
Miller’s eyes grew as wide as saucers. “Do you really— I—”
Tim smiled and let his amusement show with the tilt of his head. “Go on, Miller. You deserve it.”
“I— I— Thank you, Mr. Hood, sir. Thank you.” The man gushed and hurried to the elevator, a big smile on his face.
“I don’t know about you, but in my territory, snitches don’t get stitches,” Red Hood drawled, addressing the room. “There’s a different rule here. You follow what I say, you get nice little vacays and piña coladas. You don’t—” Hood pulled out his gun, shot it at the man’s feet then pressed it against his head, “—you get a bullet instead.”
Jason sometimes used real bullets to keep up his intimidating crime boss persona. He made sure to avoid shooting for the kill, but some shots were made to be life-threatening if not attended immediately. This was one of the nights he had scheduled for his guns to hold real bullets. Tim hoped his shot was as good enough as Jason’s tonight.
The man whimpered again through his gag, feeling the hot metal of the barrel burning his forehead.
Tim winced again in sympathy. He knew how painful the burn was from experience. But once more, he reminded himself that the guy deserved it.
“Do you feel that, Gary?” Hood asked. He shot the gun at the floor in front of his feet again and pressed the barrel harder against his head. “Do you feel the burn?”
Gary sobbed.
“I’m helping you, really. It’s practice for when you really burn in hell. And I, for one, have been there personally.” Hood slid the gun to the man’s shoulder and pulled the trigger.
Jason never gave up on a chance to make a joke about his death, and he was sure Red Hood wouldn’t either.
Blood splattered across the floor and Hood’s clothes and the muffled scream rang through the air as sharp as a siren. Some of the men present flinched but quickly composed themselves.
Tim almost flinched too, but caught himself in time. He swallowed at the mess of blood on the man’s body and the floor. But it was soon overshadowed when he took a peek around and saw everyone’s grim faces.
He… he was doing it. He was successfully impersonating Jason!
Wow, maybe he should consider a career as a supervillain instead if he was really this good at it.
Gary sobbed and said something unintelligible through the gag.
Tim, still in shock at the realization, didn’t register what he was doing at first.
Gary mumbled something through the cloth wound around his mouth again and Tim blinked.
“He’s trying to say something,” one of the men said unsurely. “Should I…?”
It took a second, but Tim recovered. “Go ahead.” He lazily waved the gun. Oh, he should probably put the safety on for that.
The guy removed the gag and Gary immediately gasped, sucking in large breaths and panting through the pain. “Please, p— please,” he pleaded, looking up slightly to the right of where Tim was standing because of the blindfold. “Please.”
“Please what?” Hood snapped.
Gary sobbed, “Please n— no more.”
“We haven’t even started yet, Gary.” Tim managed to add a little whine to his tone. “There are still so many things we haven’t done yet.”
“No!” Gary screamed. “Please— you don’t need t— to convince me like th— that. I— I— I’ll cooperate. Promise.”
“Why?” Tim bit his lip at the question that slipped. That wasn’t on the script. He was just wondering how easily he had broken already. One non-lethal bullet wound? Seriously? Tim had endured much more until Hood had managed to finally get him to say a “please”. And even that was the only please he had said because it had slipped out by accident. Were the criminals of Gotham really getting this wimpy?
Gary gulped. “I know your tortures,” he whispered. “P— please spare m— me from those.”
…You know what, fair enough.
“You said you’d cooperate.” Tim pressed the gun against his jaw, earning another whimper. “Then do it.”
Gary nodded frantically, hissing when the hot and bloody barrel swiped against his skin. “I— I didn’t h— hurt those kids cuz I w— wanted to,” he stammered. “I was h— hired to— to do that.”
“Why would someone hire you to hurt a couple kids?” Tim asked incredulously.
Oh wait, oops. He went off-script again.
“And who hired you?”
Fuck. This was why his audition for his school’s play in seventh grade never got accepted. He was a bad actor under pressure.
“B— Black Mask hired m— me. And he— he wanted to get r— revenge on their pa and I was the— the only one who— who could get c— close enough,” Gary answered the questions nonetheless. Jason’s torture methods must have been vicious if Gary chickened out this easily.
“Interesting, Gary.” Hood stepped behind the man and ruffled his hair. “Interesting.”
What was he supposed to do now? Those were two bombshells and they were barely ten minutes into the torture session. How long did Jason usually take anyway to get information? He knew from experience that Black Mask liked to take at least two hours.
“He can’t have worked alone,” one of the men stepped forward.
Scratch that, those were now three bombshells of information.
“Expand,” Tim ordered wearily.
“The kids’ father is Conan. And he was under Batman’s personal protection because of his link to a case. The traitor can’t have gotten to his kids that easily by himself.”
It was like the back gears of Tim’s brain that had been lagging now kickstarted with the information. Hood’s case was linked to Batman’s?
AKA, the Batman who had his cases lying open on the Batcomputer which Tim liked to read in his free time and solve some of them as Red Robin when he got bored?
Oh, he was so in his territory.
Tim combed through the files in his head, searching for the one.
Conan… Conan… the name sounded familiar. Cona-
Tim nearly gasped out loud. Conan Honter! The witness to the murder of Graci Styles, one of Black Mask’s recent victims. Conan had gone to GCPD, asking to see the commissioner himself about what he had witnessed, knowing that there would be spies within the force. Gordon had then gone to Batman about the recount and Batman and Robin had hunted down the murderers who were found to be Sionis’s close men and turned them in. So that meant… Gary was one of Mask’s men and was sent by Mask to get revenge on Conan for taking two of his prized workers!
This was familiar territory! Tim knew what to do now!
He slowly turned back to Gary who had gone completely still in his seat. “Well, Gary,” he grinned. “I wonder what you have to say about this.”
Gary said nothing.
“Tsk, tsk.” Hood shook his head with disappointment. “And here I thought we were all going to have an early night.” He reached over and pulled the blindfold off him.
Gary shut his eyes against the overhead light right in front of him. Hood noticed that he was covering some of it, so he moved to let the let happily pierce his eyes.
“We can still all go home quickly, you know. And with less cleanup too.” The gun came back to rest on Gary’s knee. “If you answer my questions.”
Gary squinted against the light, but his lips pressed together.
Hood didn’t hesitate (well, maybe a little), he fired the gun pressed against the knee.
This scream was more blood-curdling than before. And it didn’t stop as soon. It kept going.
Tim knew the pain. After all, he had seen Bart go through it as well.
Oh, ouch, that was a horrible reminder. Maybe he should have shot another body part instead. Ouch, ouch. Sorry, Bart. He made a mental note to visit Manchester tomorrow morning after this to check up on him and maybe bring his favorite box of cookies and a video game too.
“Are you done yet?” Hood drawled, once the screams subsided a little.
Gary sobbed.
“Right.” Hood sighed. “Let’s try this again. Who is it?”
Gary shook his head.
“This will all be over if you tell me, Gary.” He pointed the gun at his collarbone. That was a safe body part, wasn’t it? He was sure no one he knew had seriously or permanently injured their collarbone.
“I can’t,” Gary wailed. “Mask forbid me t— to.”
Oh. There would only be one reason why he would refuse to out the mole now. “So Mask has another spy planted in my ranks now, does he?”
Gary’s eyes snapped open. “N— no! I—”
Hood laughed cruelly. “You’re so helpful, Gary. You’ve come this far, let’s go all the way, shall we?”
Gary shook his head wildly.
“Who’s your accomplice?” Hood hissed, a sudden shift from the dark amusement before. He had seen Jason do that many times and it had always worked.
Gary shook his head again.
Okay, well. So maybe Tim wasn’t an A+ student in terms of impersonating his brother’s crimelord persona. Sue him.
“Gary, Gary.” He brought the butt of the gun down hard on the injured shoulder, earning another scream. “Who’s your accomplice?”
“I can’t—”
He slammed the gun against his shoulder again. “Who is your accomplice?”
Gary whimpered.
“WHO IS YOUR ACCOMPLICE?” Tim swung the gun again, but the trigger accidentally went off.
The third man standing on his right went down, a bullet in his stomach.
Oops. He had forgotten to switch off the safety.
Tim took a step forward, an apology nearly leaving his lips when—
Gary watched the man groaning on the ground and turned to him, wide-eyed. “How did you know that it was Charles?” he asked fearfully.
Tim blanked out.
Oh.
The gears in his head stuttered for a few moments before coming back to life. He switched on the safety of the gun.
“That’s for me to know and you to suffer for,” he replied briskly.
Gary hung his head in defeat, weeping softly.
The man on the floor—Charles—writhed in pain, holding his stomach which was gushing blood. Hood walked over to him and loomed.
“Pathetic,” he spat, exactly in the way Jason had in the Tower and— whoa, that sounded too similar.
Ugh, flashbacks.
“We’ll take care o’ him and Gary, boss,” the same man who had removed Gary’s gag said with a determined nod.
Hood hummed. “You know what to do?” Tim was ready to get out of here now.
The man nodded. “You can count on us, boss. Swear on my daugh’er.”
That was good enough for him. He turned around and walked back to the elevator, spinning the gun around his finger as he walked—just because Jason had taught him a couple of months ago so they could annoy Bruce together.
He holstered the gun, double-checking that the safety was on, before stepping into the elevator.
Before the door closed, he saw a glimpse of the dark room. Red Hood goons tying a groaning Charles and cutting Gary from the chair to replace his bindings with cuffs instead. The floor held splatters and pools of blood from the torture. The men were grim, but Tim could spot the smugness underneath at seeing the traitors outed and seeing revenge served.
“How did boss even know it was Charles?” one of the men said in amazement to the other.
“You don’t question boss, Ravi. He smart like that.”
“That’s why we his men,” one of them said with a proud smile. “Mask can’t top shit.”
The elevator dinged and the doors closed.
Tim smiled under the helmet.
Okay, maybe he wasn’t that bad at the whole crimelord stuff and representing Jason’s murderous alter. He only hoped Jason would find it that way too.
--------------------------------------------------
Jason stared in horror at the iPad screen when the camera recording finished playing.
Tim had recorded the whole thing through the helmet’s camera feature so he wouldn’t have to write a report and so Jason could know the exact details of the night if he needed it for something later on. And also so he could see how well Tim had done in handling his things.
“So?” Tim asked eagerly, nearly vibrating on the chair beside his bed, a grin on his face. “How’d I do?”
Jason slowly turned his head to look at him.
Tim beamed at him.
Jason’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down once, before he finally spoke. “What. The fuck. Did you. Do.”
That wasn’t quite the response Tim was expecting. He expected more of a “Wow, Tim, I didn’t realize we were so familiar with one another that you were able to successfully play me and out two traitors at once all the while, boosting up my reputation.”
Still, maybe he was just too in shock.
“I helped you!” he said with a smile, bouncing on his seat. “You had to stay at the manor and miss the important meeting because of that cut on your abdomen and you only got injured because Ra’s was trying to kidnap me and have my babies again. So I thought to repay you back!”
Jason gaped at him in horror. “So you’re saying… that you put on my suit, then took my bike, rode all the way to a crimelord’s meeting where you proceeded to torture a man and shoot another, all without B or O knowing?”
Tim nervously chewed his bottom lip. “Yeah?”
Jason looked back at the screen. “What the fuck?” he mouthed to himself.
The giddiness that had filled Tim drained from his body. Did… did he not do the right thing?
Jason stared blankly at the iPad screen. "I don't know whether to be angry or scared," he mumbled to himself. He cleared his throat and faced him again. “Hey, Tim? Are you like… uh, ever planning on becoming a villain?”
Tim shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe.”
Jason’s eyebrows shot up, disappearing into his hairline. “Maybe,” he mouthed the answer to himself again, turning back to the screen. He slowly closed the iPad, put it to the side and smoothed out his blanket.
He cleared his throat again. “Just— just do me one favor, will you?”
Tim cocked his head to the side.
“Give me at least a one-week notice before you turn into a villain, ‘kay?”
Tim frowned in confusion. “Okay?”
Jason gave a tight smile. “Good, good.”
Tim bit the inside of his cheek. “Did… Was that alright? I mean— I tried to be as intimidating as possible, but not outright cruel, you know. Cuz your men really respect you.” Tim smiled. “I like that about you.”
Jason’s features softened. “Yeah?”
Tim nodded. “If B were to actually listen to you, I don't think he’d object much to you being Red Hood. I think he would be proud.”
At that, Jason’s face split into a smile. “Thanks, baby bird,” he said softly.
Tim beamed.
“Say…” The smile turned into a smirk. “Since you did such a good job as Red Hood…”
Tim tilted his head.
Jason’s smirk grew. “I have an idea.”
-----------------------------------------
Red Hood swung across Gotham City, cackling.
The laugh sounded odd, jagged and eerie with the modulator, but it did its job of striking fear into criminals’ hearts because, by the time Hood landed in front of them, they were shaking from head to toe. It was never a good thing for the rogues of Gotham when Hood was evilly happy.
Unfortunately for them, Red Robin’s primary mode was evil happiness.
“Oh, sonny boy,” Tim clicked his tongue, the modulator turning that jagged and harsh too. “You picked the wrong night to try and touch a girl.”
The man trembled as he held out a knife in front of him.
Red Hood stepped forward with a grin. “I’m going to make sure you never walk again,” he hissed.
-----------------------------------------
Jason wheezed on the floor of the Batcave, pounding his fist against the stone in his fit of hilarity.
Bruce frowned at the Batcomputer. “Jason… who is that?”
Jason took a break between his manic fits, managing to choke out, “Your greatest nightmare,” before resuming.
Bruce frowned, calculating the possibilities in his mind.
Red Hood shot the guy in the nuts, then fished out his phone and took a selfie before grappling away.
Then it clicked and Jason watched with glee as Bruce’s eyes widened in fear. “No.”
Everyone knew Tim’s recent selfie phase that he had taken up for his scrapbook that Dinah encouraged him to make.
“Yes, old man,” Jason said, clutching his stomach in pain, but unable to stop the laughter. “Your third son who was hanging onto the rules you stuck on the fridge by a thread has now tasted the sweetness of villainy.”
Bruce couldn’t seem to pry his eyes away from Tim as Red Hood playfully shot the ground beside two drug dealers while chasing them across the streets.
“Mercy! Mercy!” the criminals cried.
Red Hood laughed. “Mercy? Nah, Batman’s the only one who believes in that word. And fuck him for that.” He fired another shot.
“Welcome to the cause of your new grey hairs,” Jason crowed as he went back to laughing.