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Jason knows what he's doing, alright? He knows how to hold back, how to track injuries as he inflicts them, how to get someone close to dead without going over the line, how to convince someone that they were at risk of doing so whether or not it was true- All that mumbo jumbo. He doesn't always bother with percise measures, sure, but he's good at what he does, and he knows exactly how to do it exactly how he wants it done, when the occasion arises.
Thus he knows, without question, that Batman's new and shiny pet bird should be licking his wounds for at least three months. With Alfie's brand of coddling, probably closer to four, no matter what the kid says.
He knows that. He is damn sure of it. He fucking planned around the bird being benched for at least a quarter of a year, giving him more then ample time work Bats into such a tizzy that he can't smell what's brewing under his own nose and then striking when all the cards are on the table and it's just him, Bruce, and the ghosts they can't help but share.
(Ideally the Joker would be there too, but that rat bastard went missing months ago, and not even Talia could find him.)
It was a good plan. A well thought out plan, with contingencies and back-ups and minimal human error and all that shit that solid plans needed, a plan he was proud of. Dramatic, of course, Cathartic, without a doubt- but simple. Carefully and rationally set up and triple checked. Like dominoes, or an Agatha Christie novel.
But not a perfect plan, apparently, because he hadn't even considered this.
Jason stumbling home to stitch himself up after a little spat with a particularly rebellious kingpin- She was dealt with now, of course, but he had to hand it to the old crone; she was an unexpected hell of a shot- only to find his replacement, sitting in his living room on his couch, reading his copy of The Art of War, not a single fuck in sight.
Immediately, he levels a gun at the brat's head but finds the willpower, against literally all odds, to not pull the trigger. His head flushed with green, trying to wash his consciousness away- though that might also just be the blood loss that has him gritting his teeth till he hears them creak in his mouth. Bit of a toss up.
His heart jackhammered like a rabbit on Speed, as he watches the little shit shatter all of his plans, with a blood boilingly casual air. Robin dogears the book as he closes it- which only brings another wave of homicidal rage- and turns to Jason with a friendly fucking smile.
Jason felt like he was being pulled in a dozen directions at once. His hands started to shake, and he couldn't tell if it was from rage or pain or exhaustion or terror or blood loss or-
He hit the floor with a thud, biting back a keen of pain as the fall jostles his shoulder, blood gushing messily out.
"Jason?" The replacement asks, appearing in front of him with a concerned expression. Jason didn't respond, hands pressed to his face in an attempt to ground himself with pressure, an idle intrusive thought urging him to press his eyeballs into his own skull. Or the kid's into his, for that matter.
"Where." Jason gritted through his teeth, glare focusing back on Robin as he creeped forward. He shot another paranoid look around his apartment, cursing the long shadows for the first time years. "Where the fuck is he?"
This is Bad.
Robin tilted his head thoughtfully, kicking the gun- fuck, when did that fall out of his hands?- behind him and far out of Jason's reach.
That was fine. It was hardly his only gun- he had another holster on his hip with....probably at least one bullet, though he couldn't quite remember, which was very concerning. And the back-up on the small of his back- though the thought of reaching for it made his head spin, he could probably manage if he had to.
Probably.
Shit. He took a deep breathe in, leaning against the wall behind him, since he was on the ground anyway apparently. Shit. This is so bad.
"Where is...." The kid trails off curiously, creeping close enough to touch. "Oh, you mean Batman? He's off playing Matches in Club Penguin."
"Uh-huh. Sure." Jason nodded, then winced because moving his neck meant moving his shoulder meant ow. "Then what's a broken bird like you doing in my safehouse?"
The Replacement huffed, squatting on the balls of his feet and studying Jason carefully. "You give yourself too much credit. I'm fine." he shrugged, waving a hand dismissively. Jason opened his mouth to snarl a threat, but was cut off by the kid stabbing his bullet wound with his freakishly long fingernails. "You, on the other hand, seem to have a serious case of Ugly Bullet Wound. Where's your med kit?"
"Get your derriere out of here or I will give you a bullet wound." Jason claimed, as clearly as humanly possible. He braced himself against the wall behind him, took a deep breath, and pushed himself to his feet with minimal torso movement that was still far too much.
"Hm. I'll go check the bathroom." Robin t yawned, not sparing another look as he disappeared into said room. Jason shuffled himself over to the couch and lifted the top of the coffee table up, revealing his hospital grade patch-up-gear, because he actually wasn't predictable enough to keep his med kit in the bathroom. Bathroom med kits are for people who don't live alone and needed the privacy of a locked room to tend to themselves, or people who care about bloodstains on the carpet and furniture.
Jason was neither of those. Jason had a ratty old red couch for this exact purpose, and a full body mirror nearby for the same.
What the hell was he supposed to do now? His adrenaline was crashing hard from the night, there was no chance he could run, even less chance he could fight, but- this couldn't end here. It couldn't.
"Well, not in there." Robin sighed, coming back into the living room to see Jason staring a little dumbly at his coffee table. He wanted to say he was lost in thought, but honestly he was more desperately trying to find coherent thoughts. "Oh! Guess you found it. Here, let me-" The younger teen walked toward him, stripping him of his jacket and Kevlar- slashed by a knife literal hours before the bullet, of all the rotten fuck luck-
"Holy mother-" Jason hissed in pain, stomach twisting a little at the feeling of soaked and flaky fabric pulling out of the half-scabbed wound. The replacement had the gall to giggle, leaning over to grab two something. Jason opened his eyes, ignoring the slight prickle of tears with practiced ease. He opened his mouth to say something, and was immediately gagged with a roll of bandages, mask ripped off as an afterthought.
He couldn't tell if he was liable to pass out, throw up, or both.
"There's an exit wound." He observed lightly, still fucking smiling, and Jason couldn't help but wonder how he was so jovial about the whole thing. It made sense that he knew how to patch up a gunshot wound, Robin training and all, but he didn't seem the least bit bothered by the sight or the smell or the sound or the general squicky sensation of such serious wound care. "Oh, and a nasty exit wound at that, huh?" He said, pouring a bit of something- antiseptic, probably- on a towelette and starting to clean around the wound, pressing a wad of sterile bandages to the wound proper.
The brat rubbed and poked and prodded at his shoulder, ignoring Jason's muffled protests and half-formed screams, almost as if he didn't even hear them. For a Robin, he had terrible bedside manner.
When Jason was his age, his could barely set a broken bone without swallowing a bit of bile. Either the new kid had a stronger stomach or a more watertight act, and he couldn't tell for the life of him which it was. Or which was worse.
Robin was humming some repetitive melody as he discarded the towelettes to the side, leaning back and popping his knuckles as he considered something in the kit. Jason wished he could say he used the brat's distraction to his advantage and attacked, or maybe made a run for it, but really he just took the reprieve gratefully, panting noisily through the gag. His vision started to swim and he realized, a little numbly, that he was going to pass out in the very near future.
It burned like hot coals being dropped into the wound, when Robin hummed lightly and poured the probably-antiseptic directly onto the wound itself, once again not sparing Jason's cries and thrashing so much as a glance.
For such a sickly looking guy, he had some strength. It wasn't a surprise, obviously, but it was well worth noting again, as Jason tried to squirm away. Jason was no longer the malnourished street kid he once was; after his Lazarus Spa Experience and a few years of hellish training for good measure, he was built almost as large as B himself, with strength and skill to match. He braced himself and redoubled his efforts, trying to get out of Robin's restrictive hold.
Robin made an annoyed sound, shifting to keep Jason down a little more pointedly. Never one to be so easily discouraged, Jason sneers and tries to buck away again-
He can't quite bite back the scream, this time. Pain whites out his vision, making his head spin, and by the time he's blinking back to awareness he's in a more typical and rough pin, unable to get out unless he dislocates the shoulder that has already been shot.
He can barely breathe without bringing tears to his eyes, holy shit.
"Are you quite done yet?" The Replacement wonders, voice close enough to his neck to make Jason shiver. He opens his mouth to respond, but has to bite his tongue as the bastard tugs the pin tighter and pulls on his shoulder again. "Because if you aren't, I'm going to sedate you, and then you're going to kill me for giving you morphine and it'll be, like, a whole thing."
Toxic green anger surged through him at the threat, not even leaving him a choice in his thrashing this time. Robin cursed, and Jason had a moment of freedom, pushing onto his feet as quickly as he could-
There's a prick in his neck, the nauseating push of something cool into his veins. A rush of fear and adrenaline keeps him aware for a few extra moments, as he's pushed flat onto a surface and a blurry face hovers over his.
The last thing he sees before he fades out completely is ice blue eyes that practically glowed.
--
Jason doesn't know how long it is, until he wakes up again. He's watching the sun set, though, which- from what he's put together of his addled memories- is a bad sign.
He comes to himself piece by piece. The pain is first- burning like a star in his shoulder, and pulsing uncomfortably in smaller bruises and cuts. More general feeling goes hand in hand with pain- the familiar scratchiness of his blankets, a pillow propping him up more then he'd like, the pressure of bandages and maybe-stitches making the skin of his wound feel tight. A few absent weights around his waist that unsettled him for a reason he couldn't quite place yet.
Then is sight, and the aforementioned sunset. The taste of iron in his mouth, but not the feeling of it in his throat, so he probably didn't cough up blood, or swallow much of it. Hearing after that- howling wind outside, creaking of the cheap couch and even floor under him, a white noise that he knows but can't quite place.
Finally, smell, and that was when he finally remembered that a certain bird had paid him a visit. He lurched up to his feet, sudden headache almost laying him back down, and he couldn't deny the smell of eggs and bacon.
Sizzling, the 'unidentified white noise' was the comfortable sizzling of grease in a pan.
His Replacement was in his kitchen, using his groceries and utensils, humming an annoyingly repetitive tune that looped around maddeningly, looking entirely too domestic for the guy who giggled as Jason writhed in pain- or even the guy he beat half to death in the safety his own base, not ten weeks ago.
"Afternoon, sunshine." Robin greeted, not even trying to suppress his amused- mocking?- grin. He turned the stove off, splitting the food in equal portions and plating it.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Jason demanded. It was intended to be threatening, but his voice was terribly cracked, and he couldn't even draw himself up to stand upright. Robin, cocky bastard, rolled his eyes.
"Besides saving you from blood loss?" He asked, somehow sounding more curious then mocking, despite the words themselves. Really, it was kind of impressive. Kind of.
"You did not." Jason scoffed, sitting a little straighter just to prove he could. "That shot was nothing I couldn't handle alone."
It was true, too. Jason would have been fine. He would have patched himself up, passed out, clean the stitches up more in the morning, and carry on with his life. Easy.
"Oh? Then why did you pass out halfway through the procedure?" Robin pressed, nudging the plate of breakfast a bit closer to Jason pointedly. Jason knew far better then to eat food offered by an adversary, and didn't even look at it.
Honestly, the question sounded so earnest that Jason almost took it at face value. Then he winced as another fragmented memory surfaced, and he recalls just why he passed out.
"Because of you." He snarled, hand going to a gun that isn't there. Fuck. "I would have been fine if you didn't show up and fuck with me for no reason."
"Oh?" Robin blinked and, there, that taunting smirk from the night before that almost sent a shiver down his spine. "Funny, that."
Jason narrowed his eyes in thought, connecting the dots that should have been obvious. would have been, on a better day.
"Is that why you're here?" He asked, his own bit of amusement bubbling up. "Revenge? You want a fucking rematch, Replacement?"
He almost laughed aloud at the thought. Injured and unarmed or not, his replacement didn't stand a chance. Especially when he was also still injured, from their last fight.
(Or...Should be still injured. He sure as hell wasn't acting injured at all but, then again, Jason was doing his best to seem so himself. Maybe Robin was a better liar? The thought seemed familiar, at least. Somehow.)
Only....That didn't really make sense. Because, no matter how sadistically he went about it, he did patch Jason up, and didn't seem to have actually injured him any more then he was when he got home. Pain thrummed acutely through him, too, so he probably wasn't even drugged.
"No?" Robin scrunched up his nose, like he hadn't even considered the prospect, before shrugging. "The spot of revenge was purely circumstantial, promise. And it wasn't even very much revenge! Cleaning your wounds is important. There was sludge in it. Gotham sludge." Robin scolded.
He wasn't exactly wrong, but there was a line between cleaning wounds and pouring alcohol onto them while giggling like a psychopath, and from what he remembered Robin had gleefully danced over it- and then, for some unfathomable reason, back again. Because, at the end of the day, his injury was well wrapped, and apparently cleaned, and it was the best he felt after a gunshot wound in....a while.
A long while.
"Why are you here, then?" He asked, instead of pressing the point further. The mental ringing of Robin's giggling sent a shiver up his spine, sure, but priorities were either kept in mind or lost forever, no in between.
(Alfred used to say that. Damnit.)
"You never answered my question." He claimed, easily enough. Jason, frowned and waited for Robin to elaborate, but instead he just lifted a fork and remembered that he had made food.
"What question?" Jason pressed, because he was many things, but patient had never been one of them.
"What do you want?" Robin asked, taking a bite and not even bothering to swallow while talking. Jason looks away before he gets the urge to gag. "What's the point in all of this? Why aren't you just coming home?"
"I want the people of Gotham to feel safe, at any cost." Jason answers, easily, because that's always been true. "I want the people who stand in the way dead, and I want B to stare the consequences of his actions down and, for once his his damn life, blink first."
"Ah." Robin swallows with a disgusting smack, wiping his face on the sleeve of- was that Jason's shirt? "I...I can work with that, I think. At least mostly. I can't kill, and I may or may not be willing to help you psych the Boss out. Have you tried talking to Oracle yet?"
"No?" Jason scowled. "Why would I?"
Robin gave him a curious look, like he was only just realizing that he was talking to someone without a brain. Jason bristled returning with his sharpest glare. It had no effect on Robin.
"Because she's....you know. Batgirl." Robin huffed, gesturing vaguely with his free hand and finally swallowing his food, though he didn't wait a moment before taking another. "You know. Her dad's a cop, her friends are war vets and assassins and other terrifying badasses. She doesn't kill people as far as I know, but she doesn't seem to have much opposition to it when it's justified or needed or whatever. If you were just trying to clean the streets up, I'm sure she'd be more then happy to help."
"Oh yeah?" He asked, not even trying to downplay the doubt in his voice. He remembered the Batgirl of his first life; the fiery red-head with the same unwavering morals of her Golden-boyfriend, who butted heads with Bruce because didn't everyone but still ultimately ceded to him because he was the authority on how things got done. "What about Batman?"
Robin snorted, and spent an almost-concerning amount of time choking on food before he coughs and draws himself back to his plate. "What about Batman?" He scoffs, shaking his head and greedily gulping down water. "He's not the boss of her."
"She's in Gotham." Jason rebukes, like that's all the argument needed, because it pretty much is.
"Gotham needs her." Robin claimed, with a calm certainty, like it was obvious. "Batman needs her too, which matters less overall, but enough to him that he knows better than to piss her off. Kinda like Agent A, you know? Except instead of giving him passive aggressive comments and British glares, she just locks him out of the bat computer or shuts off his comms or makes the Batmobile play really shitty kids music until Bruce's ears bleed and he gets over himself enough to make it up to her. Or worse she just ghosts him and watches him run himself ragged until Dick comes in to fix it himself, and then Bruce has to deal with them combined, which no one wants. Ya know?" Robin rambled, finishing his food quickly. He seemed to get more energetic the more he talked; not really relaxing, but edging a bit closer to Tim then Robin for Jason to be comfortable. "Anyway. O is the best, so probably talk to her about your plans so she can make them better. Or me! You can tell me too, I'd love to hear 'em."
What the fuck was wrong with this kid? Conversing with him led to tonal and emotional whiplash severe enough that Jason was a bit tempted to check for a concussion. His brain could barely keep up with the words, much less their meanings or implications or possible deceptions and manipulations.
Then he remembered that he probably did actually have a concussion, and felt a little better about his disorientation.
"Why would I, crime lord serial killer Red Hood, tell you, Bristol born goody-two-shoes batboy Robin, literally anything about my plans?" Jason asked, against his slowly calibrating better judgement.
"Because we're family!" The Replacement beamed, like it was that easy.
Like he wasn't limping around the kitchen, on a leg Jason broke with a bloodthirsty smile. Like Jason wasn't liable to do it again, expect this time no one would be coming to save the little bird that wandered too far from its nest.
Jason almost laughed again, though he didn't feel any sort of amusement. Jason hadn't had a family since his mom died- his actual mom, not his birth mom. He thought, for a few years, that the Wayne's were his family, but they weren't, and he would not engage with that sort of bullshitery. Not so early, especially not in his own home. Not a chance.
"No we aren't." Jason growled, green tinting his vision again. When all this was over, he was going to have the migraine of a century.
"You're B's son." Robin claimed, just as simply. He was still speaking slowly, like he couldn't believe he had to explain something so obvious.
Jason did laugh, then. He put his hands on the counter and leaned forward. He was looming over the little bird now, close enough to lash out, and Robin rolled his eyes. Jason's fingers twitched, and he again considered ripping those pretty royal blues out of their sockets.
"Sons don't get replaced." Jason rumbled, voice low and cold. "Soldiers do."
Because- because that's all he ever was, really. He thought he was family, a son, a brother. He thought so every time Bruce talked him into watching boring old black and white movies, or every time Dick kidnapped him for 'bonding' or- or every time Alfred requested help they both knew he didn't need in the kitchen. Bruce told him that he was special, that he was clever, and brave and kind and that he could make a change in the cruel city he couldn't help but care about. But really, in the end, all he ever was was a stupid kid.
A kid that tore his bleeding heart out for the mission, and was beaten bloody and blown up for his trouble. A kid who didn't change jack shit, because he clawed his way up from hell and Gotham was the exact same. Paranoid self-righteous furry, child solider in traffic light colors, and all.
"You weren't replaced." his fucking replacement scoffed. The fucking audacity. "You just have a nasty case of confirmation bias. Maybe if you got over your abandonment issues, tapped that green pool water out of your ears, and looked two inches past your own nose then you'd see that." Robin proposed, voice still infuriatingly light, almost innocent. Jason couldn't even lash out, cause he'd be proving him right, and he was pretty sure that was intentional from the challenging smirk on the bird's face.
They sat in silence for a moment, Robin giving him ample time to respond. Jason would love too, really, but he had the tiny problem of his Jaw being locked in place, aching from how tightly he was clenching his teeth together.
(He couldn't move his jaw, and, in the back of his throat, he swore the toxic aftertaste of Joker Venom lingered, which didn't even make any sense. That thought was much easier to turn directly into rage. Fear always was.)
His head spun with things to say, but none of them could be bothered to orientate themselves into sentences, and his mouth stayed closed. Robin sighed, leaving his dirty dish on the counter and pushing himself up to sit on Jason's counter. They were eye level again, Robin sitting in a relaxed position with an elbow on his leg to prop his head up, fingers fidgetingly restlessly.
"I'm working with patchy info here, so correct me if I'm wrong." Robin started, with the arrogant air of someone who doesn't actually expect to be corrected. "I'm not sure how you're alive, but a Lazurus pit was involved, so it was either Ra's or Talia. If it was Ra's, you'd probably actually be trying to kill us, so my money's on Talia. You've obviously trained with the LoA and at some point someone- again probably Talia- told you what had happened while you were dead."
Jason hissed, through his teeth, not even entirely sure why he did it himself. Robin paused, raising an eyebrow, all but daring him to correct him. Jason tensed his jaw, but had nothing to say.
Robin nodded to himself and continued. "That you'd been replaced, that B had been all too eager to kidnap a new naïve starry eyed loser, that you weren't memorialized or remembered beyond that, admittedly, pretty insulting display case in the cave." Robin bobbed his head a bit, like he was conceding a point. "That your killer had been alive and well for years after your death, and whatever happened to him, it wasn't Batman. That some kid got plucked up and fed the same shiney promises that you were, and Bruce carried on his merry life like he lost a dog and not a son."
He fell silent again, tilting his head. Jason felt like he was frozen, vision clouding with green.
"Well? Have I lost you yet?" He asked, sounding like it was an actual question and not a formality. Robin smiled with what had to be too many teeth, like a cheshire cat with a canary, or a little bird with a death wish.
Jason's hands were bone white where they sat, clenched on the table.
"How did you know about the Pit?" Jason rasped, voice barely working when he told it too. Forcefully, out of pure spiteful refusal to prove the pretender right, he dragged himself back into the moment instead of letting the Green wash him away. "There's no documentation of that."
Robin looked a bit shocked, but it quickly faded into amusement. "Jason, your eyes flare green when you get....not just angry, exactly, but violent. Or sadistic, at least. That's just how the pit works."
Well. That would have been nice to know. Was it common knowledge? Did he know it, before he died? Those memories were still murky sometimes.
"What about it?" He demanded, wanting nothing more then to wipe the taunting grin off of Robin's face. What was the point in telling him what he already knew? Laying it out coldly, like a case file instead of his life?
"Because you got a....highly inaccurate version of the story." Robin claimed, pursing his lips and vanishing that terrible smile. "What you didn't hear was that, a week after you died, Superman had to physically restrain B from beating the Joker into a stain on the street. Twice. You didn't hear about the months that I spent running after him in a home-made outfit, the time that he threatened to break one of my legs if he saw me again in his son's colors, the fact that I had to drag Dick back home and get him to talk some sense into B before he killed himself alone on the streets, because that was the only logical endpoint for how he was going. More and more injured every night, closer and closer to breaking his one rule, held together only by his obligation to make you proud and the strange rightous spite he's always had. You think you lived in Dick's shadow? I-" Robin faltered, like he was considering his words. He licked his lips, took a deep breath, and shook his head, cutting off his rant mid sentence.
Jason felt like time had come to a crawl, freezing around him like it expected a response as much as Robin himself did, and- fuck. What was he supposed to say to that? Any of that?
"How do I know you're not full of shit?" He demanded, suddenly unable to fathom why he hadn't asked Talia the same all those years ago. Was it the shock? Or the bleeding-raw anger of the pit?
(First Shelia and then Talia- Was he really that easy to manipulate and lie too? Did he only need a kind face and something he wanted- or needed- to believe?)
Robin hummed, pulling out a phone. "The Superman thing is recorded in a report- B took a leave of absence when the JLA deemed him unfit for work until a grieving period passed, and Black Canary got called in to fill his place. I doubt he talked about me in reports, but you can check the dates I started as Robin- six months? Eight maybe? I'm not entirely sure how long B stayed in denial. Injury reports are testament enough to how he was basically actively suicidal, and police reports- especially from Gordon- show exactly how close he got to murder, even on smaller crime. It'll take me a little while, probably, but I can dig it all up for you." He laid out, closing his phone and putting it back in his pocket. Jason bit his lip, but nodded. "I could..." he hesitated, but pushed through with a deep breathe. "I could try looking through the LoA systems, too. See if I can find what information they had, or what they gave you, or even maybe why they gave it to you, depending on how deliberate and planned it was."
They stared at each other for a moment, equally unsure exactly how to continue. Then Robin took a few bites of the food he plated for Jason and pushed it toward him, more insistently, and started to wash the dishes Jason had been neglecting for who-knows-how-long. Jason considered the silent- olive branch? Order? Apology?- and sighed, picking the fork up. If Robin was going to drug him-
He was over the counter in an instant, slamming Robin against the counter.
"Holy- what now?" The Replacement yelped, nothing but surprise in his voice. Jason wondered, idly, if he sustained brain damage from their last fight, because he didn't seem to remember just how much of a threat Jason actually was at all.
"The morphine." Jason demanded, memory a hot flash in his brain, pressing a fork to The Replacement's neck. "You said I'd kill you. Give me one reason not to."
"It was a joke!" The Replacement exclaimed, more exasperated than frightened. What was wrong with him? "C'mon, if I gave you morphine, you wouldn't be as coherent as you are, or in as much pain. It's only been a few hours. Why would I even carry morphine?"
"Why would even joke about that?" He returned evenly, but he let the bird go and took a step back. Robin rubbed his wrists absently, but went back to the dishes. He was doing them at a notably slow pace, and Jason wondered why.
Robin shrugged. "I- you- huh. There's no good way to say this." He realized aloud, with a strange giggle. "I said something to piss you off to make sure your eyes were green." He admitted, turning on the faucet.
Jason was left again in that strange state of wanting to say something, but his words being too jumbled and not-quite-right to articulate anything. He forced his jaw to relax and went back to eating the breakfast.
The sun had set, and Robin made breakfast, and he played mind games with a violent murderer like it was nothing. The whole situation stirred a viscous nostalgia deep within him that made him ache. Stubbornly, as always, he pushed the unwanted feeling down and funneled it into anger and drive- all that training with Batman was good for something, he guessed.
Jason finishes his meal, giving his dirty dish to Robin just as the bird finally finishes doing them. He gets a scathing look but, shockingly, no smartass comment.
"So." He starts, then stops, because he had no idea what to say next.
"So." Robin hums, finally turning the faucet off. "Are you going to tell me any of your plans?" Robin pressed. He started to bounce on his feet, suspiciously eager for crimes. "I've been told I'm really creative and clever, and I know lots of stuff that you might not! like how leeches work and their- uh, theoretical- effects on stomach lining. Or how the Ramirez child trafficking ring that you thought you shut down is actually probably still around and being run by the sister who's legally dead- maybe you can bond over that. Or probably not, if you're gonna kill her. And dolphins are the only animals besides humans that are known to hunt for sport-" He enthused, getting quieter as he just....rambled about dolphins.
Jason wondered if he actually was on drugs, somehow. There was no way he was in his kitchen at ass-o-clock in the morning listening to Robin graphically describe fish gore, as if it was the most important thing he'd just mentioned.
"You said what about the Ramirez case?" He snapped. Robin froze for a minute, like he was replaying the conversation.
"Hm....oh! Right!" He nodded, resuming his strange idle bouncing. How was he so energetic? It hadn't even been 10 weeks since Jason beat the bastard bloody. It hadn't been 10 minutes since the kid was all clinical and assholish. "Well, I was, like, really bored while everyone was insisting that I couldn't do, like, anything because you wrecked my shit so hard. And you were obviously on the brain anyway, between everyone talking about you when they thought I was asleep, my excitement for having another brother, and my festering annoyance with being benched for so long- so I spent most of my time looking into you! I think I have a pretty comprehensive timeline of what you've done since you got to Gotham....Five months ago? B thinks it's been Four, but one of Talia's pseudonyms bought plane tickets for a 'John Peter Doe' to arrive Five months ago, so that was my working theory."
Geez, did this guy have an off button? Other then the one between his eyes, at least. Jason couldn't tell if he was more annoyed by the cheerful rambling or the fact that the bird hadn't said a thing wrong yet. Ugh, this was bad, and he couldn't even do anything about it because his brain was trying to melt out of his ears and there was still a bird in his safehouse, and also maybe he wants a hug more then he wants to keep fucking with B?
Maybe. Probably not, but. Maybe.
"Ok." He holds a hand up again, though Robin been quiet for a minute or two anyway. "Ok. Here's what's going to happen." He sighed, massaging his forehead with two fingers and absolutely not realizing he picked that up from Bruce. "You're going to go get me an account of everything that I missed, with proper diversified citing's and evidence and shit, like you said. I'll look into Oracle and see if we're as....compatible as you claim." And also scrap and rebuild my plans. "Then....we'll meet back up, I guess. Reevaluate stuff. And once I find the Joker and get him dead, I'll...consider your advice. On the off chance I haven't killed you yet."
There's a long moment of silence, while Robin pauses in his slight bouncing and leans forward, giving Jason a long and considering look. Eventually, his expression shuttered into something that sent a shiver up his spine and reminded him of the feeling of fingers in a bullet wound.
"It's not much of a chance, when I'm working with loaded dice." Robin claimed vaguely, sticking a hand. "Shake on it?" He offered, expression as sharp as a knife and twice as deadly.
Jason shook on it firmly, gripping Robin's hand probably far too tightly. The teen's expression didn't even twitch, starting to buzz with excitement again, melting from his quick icy disposition immediately back into 'child who's parents aren't home when he finds the cookie jar'.
"You have three days to get those files to me." Jason demanded. "As well as anything useful you found while cyber-stalking me."
It was an unreasonable request, he knew. Years and years of files to sift through for obscure dates and off-hand details, on multiple networks if he wasn't bluffing about JLA involvement.
The kid nodded easily, grip tightening on Jason's for a spit second before he stepped away. "And the LoA's files?"
"Sure." Jason agreed, tone entirely dubious but willing to play along. "As long as you can prove they aren't forged." He tacked on, eyes narrowing.
The kid laughed, shaking his head. "Oh, I wouldn't do such a thing! Not in such a delicate situation, at the very least. Not when I'm telling the truth."
"Sure." Jason repeated, twice as dubious. The kid's face finally pinched a little, annoyance there and gone again in an instant. He felt a childish curl of satisfaction.
"Well." Robin took a deep breathe, stretching as he stood back. "I, for one, am very excited to work with you. And drag you back to the Manor by your stupid hair stripe, if needs be."
Jason cackled, the noise surprisingly genuine and unquestionably Robin for the first time in....a long time.
"Good luck, Replacement." He huffed, running a hand through his hair. "I regret this already."
The teen disappeared with a blinding-white smile and, horrifyingly, Jason wasn't sure if he meant that or not.