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"What have you got for us, Garcia?" Hotch prompted once everyone was seated around the table, effectively drawing everyone's attention in the process.
"Seven murders over four nights," Garcia began, as photos appeared on the screen behind her, "all shot at least once. Two were also stabbed and three others were beaten up."
Jason studied the photographs, trying to figure out why the backgrounds - mostly cracked sidewalks or old narrow roads, lined with trash — seemed familiar.
"That's a pretty scattered M.O.," Prentiss pointed out. "Are we sure this is all the same unsub?"
"It may be more than one unsub," Hotch answered, flicking through the file in front of him, "but ballistics shows that they were all shot with at least one of two of the same handguns."
"If there's two guns, that likely indicates two unsubs," Morgan added. "No one can shoot two guns at once."
"Someone who's watched too many movies might try it," Jason argued. "And some people can, it just takes a lot of skill." He would know. He paused, taking a moment to analyse the pictures and diagrams in the file before finishing, "though I'd say that's not the case here, with how many bullets were used to kill these people."
"It could be overkill," Reid suggested.
"That would make sense with the violence of the crimes," Rossi reasoned.
There was general nodding in agreement before JJ interrupted to say, "Garcia?"
"Yeah?"
"You still haven't told us where all this happened? Where are we going?"
It was Hotch that answered. "Gotham."
***
Gotham. Shit. Jason had always kind of assumed he’d be able to keep his work life and his, well other work life separate. Not to mention his family life, though that separation was almost more for his own entertainment at this point. But Gotham. It was his home, and he was, surprisingly, happy there, but he also knew it was very, very dangerous. Even for a team of highly trained agents. Maybe especially for a team of highly trained agents. At any rate, he didn't want his team anywhere near that hellhole.
Still, it would probably be fine. No matter how crazy Gotham was, they'd still be doing all the same stuff as usual - snooping, profiling, and catching the bad guys.
But...why were they being called to Gotham at all? He was saved having to ask by Reid, who asked almost the exact same question first.
"We're being called to Gotham? Police in the Gotham-Bludhaven area have only contacted the FBI 5 times in the past twenty years, and never for any sort of profiling work, despite both cities competing for the highest crime rate in America. They're also aided by well-known vigilantes such as Batman, who usually help solve cases such as this one. Why are they asking for us?"
"Because this is our area of expertise," Hotch answered firmly. "These murders are happening fast, but they're also out of the ordinary for Gotham. I believe the words of the detective I spoke with on the phone were that 'this is a disturbingly normal serial killer'."
"There's no such thing as a normal serial killer, though," Morgan said.
Jason couldn't help but laugh. "When you're in Gotham, anyone committing crimes in secret and without a costume or stupid name is 'normal'." He did finger quotes around the word 'normal', then tipped his head to the side thoughtfully and added, "or normal for everyone else, not normal for Gotham, hence why we're being called in, as Hotch said."
"'Costume or stupid name'?" Prentiss asked in reference to his first statement.
Jason's only answer was a shrug and, "Gotham," though Reid immediately began on a detailed explanation of the city's history of crime, vigilantes, and supervillains, which he was still going with by the time they all settled into their seats on the jet.
***
When they got off the plane, there were the usual waiting police cars. Hotch led the way off the jet, and took charge of introductions, shaking hands with a man with a thick moustache and dark trench coat who introduced himself as Commissioner Gordon. He was shadowed by a younger man, presumably a detective, with tan skin and dark hair. Derek didn't like the way the detective's blue eyes fixed on Jason with an unreadable look, even as he was also clearly paying attention to everyone else. If he had a problem with the team's youngest member, Derek would sort him out himself.
"Aaron Hotchner," Hotch replied. He waved a hand at the rest of them. "This is Doctor Spencer Reid, and Agents Rossi, Prentiss, Jareu, Morgan and-"
He was cut off as the blue-eyed man interrupted, "Todd." He was smiling as he spoke, and the smile only grew, bright and friendly, as he turned to Jason. "Jason! Why didn't you tell me it was your team coming to assist?"
Derek wondered if he had misjudged this guy's interest in Jason. Maybe they were friends.
Jason rolled his eyes. "How was I supposed to know it was your case, Dick?"
Morgan stiffened, as did the rest of the team, save Jason, who looked casual as ever. It was only the brutal glare of reprimand from Hotch that made Jason look uncomfortable in the slightest.
"Touche," the detective said to Jason, before turning his glowing smile on the rest of them, and offering a hand to Hotch. "Sorry I didn't introduce myself before. Detective Richard Grayson, but I usually just go by Dick." Hotch shook, and the team relaxed. Derek shared a laughing glance with Emily, the glint in her eye saying the same thing he was thinking. Who the hell voluntarily goes by Dick ?
Detective Grayson — Morgan decided this was the safer name to use, for professionalism — took a step back, his expression and tone changing to segue into business. "I guess you'll be wanting to see the crime scenes and get set up at the station?" He asked, and minutes later they were all splitting off in different cars, Derek, Detective Grayson, and Rossi to go to one of the crime scenes, Jason taking Prentiss and Reid to another, and Hotch and JJ with commissioner Gordon to the local police station.
***
Jason pulled to a stop at the lip of a short dead-end alley that branched off Crime Alley. It was bordered on one side by a shop with boarded-up windows and a shitty apartment building on the other. They all — himself, Prentiss and Reid —got out to take a better look at the surroundings.
This was one of the older scenes, so there wasn't much to see, at least not to the normal observer. The blood that ran freely in the photos they had of the scene was gone, washed away days ago. Prentiss wrinkled her nose as she passed the overflowing trash can.
"It's not exactly an unconventional sort of place to commit murder," she commented. "I assume at night it would be pretty dark here, easy to stay unseen—"
"—But with an apartment building next door, you'd think someone would have heard the commotion, screaming if there was any, but definitely gunshots," Reid finished. It was a solid line of thinking, but as a Crime Alley native, Jason found it almost laughable.
"Yeah, uh, gunshots aren't exactly uncommon around here. Most people just ignore them, generally."
"What?!" Prentiss and Reid both looked at him as if he'd just told them he regularly leaves small children unsupervised with weapons (which, he supposed, if you counted Damian, he did, but whatever). "People get shot that frequently around here?" Prentiss added. "There could be hundreds of murders we don't even know about, then."
"Unlikely," Jason argued. "And I said gunshots aren't uncommon, but it's not like people are dying left and right all the time." Even if sometimes it feels like it , his mind supplied helpfully, thinking of all the corpses he'd seen (and made) in his time as Robin and then the Red Hood, and even before that as just Jason.
***
"Geographically, these unsubs seem to have a very specific comfort zone. All the killings have been centred around Park Row, which suggests at least one of them spends most of his time there, and probably lives and works in the area," Reid explained, waving at a map he'd stuck up on a whiteboard. He shot a barely noticeable, almost nervous glance at Jason, who was only half listening, devoting the rest of his attention to the files he was flipping through of all the victims. When he'd first seen the pictures, many of them had seemed familiar, but he had been able to brush it off as misplaced instinct, vague resemblances. Now, with all their lives summed up and laid out on paper, he realised he knew three of the victims relatively well, and few more in passing. All of them had been good people, people he was supposed to protect. A few of them he had personally given his promise, as the Red Hood, to keep safe. Looking through the reports, glancing over the pictures, he wanted to put on his mask and go roam the streets until these unsubs showed themselves, and then he'd put a bullet between both their eyes, remind them, and anyone else who might be getting ideas, that just because the Red Hood wasn't around as much anymore didn't mean the Alley wasn't still his, and under his protection. But he couldn't do that. There was too much risk of his team figuring things out — being profilers, it was a miracle he'd been able to keep it from them for this long — and, honestly, it wasn't like his chances of catching these guys were that much better as the Red Hood than as a member of the BAU.
"Okay," Morgan agreed with Reid, "But that still leaves us with why these people. Other than all living in Park Row, this victimology is pretty scattered."
"They're crossing age, race and gender lines," JJ agreed. "None of these victims look alike, they don't seem to share similar occupations or interests, there's nothing to connect them."
"There has to be something," Rossi said. "Has Garcia checked all of them for any crossover?"
"She has, nothing came up," Hotch affirmed. "But we already profiled that there's overkill, suggesting these kills are personal somehow-"
"And because they're in close proximity, it could be that each of them separately had some kind of interaction with one of our unsubs, possibly insignificant, but that the unsub perceived as hostile in some way," Prentiss finished.
***
"Heyyyy, Jason."
Derek tensed as Jason whirled around so fast he nearly spilled the tray of coffees he was holding. He knew the case was the priority, but he'd heard a lot about Gotham and wanted to see as much of it as he could, even if that only meant crossing the road to go to the coffee shop across the street from the police station. He had also known that Jason had grown up here, and often came back over weekends when they didn't have a case, but he still found it a bit of a coincidence that there was someone here who clearly knew the other agent.
"Heyyyyy, Tim," Jason replied in imitation, directing it at a short boy with fine dark hair that fell into his shadowed eyes. He had been tense more or less since the case had started, but his reaction to this boy made Derek wary. He settled a steadying hand on Jason's shoulder. Then, with significantly more hostility and suspicion Jason added, "what are you doing here?"
"Getting coffee," The boy, Tim, answered, holding up a tall cup as evidence. His gaze shifted to Derek as he spoke. "Is this Morgan? From your team?"
"Yes," Jason said impatiently before Derek could offer his hand to Tim in any sort of real introduction. "Here?"
"...Yes?"
"I was under the impression you thought the coffee here was 'watery, flavourless and horrendously overpriced'?"
"I'm rich, I can afford overpriced coffee," Tim retorted. Derek watched the interaction closely, trying to discern what kind of relationship these two had. Some sort of rivalry?
Jason just raised a critical eyebrow. "Are you stalking me?"
Tim put on a terrific display of mock offence. "What do you mean! I've never stalked anyone in my life! " The fact that it was clearly a lie made Derek tense. Had Jason had a stalker? It was pretty obvious that he'd been through a lot, though he was usually very cagey about his past.
Jason gave Tim an unimpressed look. Derek looked between both of them, unsure whether he should intervene in whatever was going on. But Jason, while clearly annoyed, didn't seem to hold any genuine discomfort.
"It was one time!" Tim admitted defensively.
So Tim was a stalker, possibly Jason's. Derek wondered if he should be arresting this kid, but he didn't want to interfere with what was clearly Jason's life. Jason himself was simply levelling the kid with a withering glare.
"Okay, maybe it was over multiple years, but I thought we were past that!"
So, definitely Jason's stalker then. But the second part of the statement was... confusing, to say the least. Jason rolled his eyes. "We are, except you're stalking me again. So spill."
"Spill what?"
Jason twitched, but it seemed to be more out of irritation than anything else. He continued to glare at the kid, expression unchanging.
"Okay, fine, I was maybe stalking you a little, but only 'cause I was curious, and I kinda wanted to see your team, like, for real and—"
Surprisingly, Tim's words struck true, though they only confused the possible link between him and Jason, who didn't even wait for Tim to finish before turning to leave. Derek followed him, gaze lingering suspiciously on Tim, who stood frozen for a moment before chasing them out onto the street.
"Also—" He called after them "—Alfred wants you to know that dinner's at eight."
"Alfred knows I'm busy," Jason muttered to himself while Morgan shot him a questioning look. That was a lot more than he'd expected when he'd volunteered to help carry coffees.
***
"Who was that guy?" Morgan asked Jason while they both distributed coffees to the rest of the team. "You never said you had a stalker." He paused, then his tone changed to something that Jason thought was bordering dangerously on suggestive. "And who's Alfred? Why's he inviting you to dinner?"
By now they had the whole team's attention — there may have been a rule about not profiling teammates, but there was nothing stopping gratuitous gossip.
"Alfred is my grandfather! " Jason spluttered. "And Tim's my weirdo little brother, who was, once upon a time, my family's weirdo little stalker, but... well, Bruce sees a kid with blue eyes and dark hair all alone in the world and immediately has to adopt them. So." He shrugged, like w hat can you do?
"That is so weird," Prentiss commented before Hotch made an expression just short of rolling his eyes and called everyone's attention back to the fact that they were, actually, here for a case, and not idle chit-chat.
Jason once again only half-listened to the team's theorising, opting instead to stand near the evidence boards, looking them over for the detail that would make the stupid, niggling feeling in his mind coalesce into an actual thought he could understand. But for once his instincts were extremely muddled, and though he was fine with the conversation and theories being tossed around, the consistent anxious tapping from opposite him was actually driving him crazy. He took a deep breath to try and focus, but it slipped again almost immediately as his gaze roamed the room and zeroed in on Reid opposite him, tapping on his knee with one hand and the table with the other. Usually Jason wouldn't have minded; he was used to noise and movement around him, not just from Reid and the team but also his generally hyperactive/paranoid/generally busy family, but there was something about this case that was getting under his skin and making everything unbearable. Plus, Reid himself seemed unduly agitated and restless.
Still pretending to pay attention to the conversation — he was technically listening, really, he was great at multitasking — Jason reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys, slipping the fidget cube off the ring.
"Catch." He waited a moment to be sure Reid was ready before he tossed it across the table. Reid actually managed to catch it, then held it up in front of his face, examining it as if it were a bomb about to blow up in his face.
"What is this?" He asked.
"Play around with and find out," Jason answered unhelpfully, shrugging, as Hotch levelled a glare at him for interrupting the conversation, which picked up again quickly as Jason went back to thinking and Reid started playing with the fidget cube with one hand, relaxing incrementally.
Jason was only pulled out of his head again by a knock on the doorframe as Dick stuck his head into the room, looking grave. He glanced at Jason in a way that almost seemed nervous before setting his gaze on Hotch as he said, "You might want to see this."
He beckoned them all out of the room and led them through the precinct to the labs, where someone had set a dark, stained duffle bag on a long steel bench. Jason knew the sudden feeling of cold he felt wasn't just the usual chill of the room, just like he didn't need to see inside the bag to know what it contained. At least it explained the nervous glance.
Dick strode over to the table and gestured to the bag, addressing the whole team.
"This was left outside about fifteen minutes ago—"
He didn't get a chance to continue.
"Outside where?" Morgan interrupted. "Here?"
Dick nodded. "Yes."
"In broad daylight?" Prentiss said disbelievingly. Everyone else looked like they rather wanted to know the same.
Dick glanced dubiously at the overcast sky outside the window. "Broad daylight" was mostly nonexistent in Gotham. "Pretty much."
"So, what's inside?" JJ asked.
"I was getting to that." With a gloved hand, Dick pulled the bag open and the team crowded forward to see. "Severed heads. We haven't ID'd them yet, obviously, but at least one of them was shot in the face...we're running ballistics."
It wasn't necessary. Jason could already tell that this was all the same person's doing, because that nagging feeling in the back of his mind had just crystallised into a very, very clear thought. He suspected Dick was thinking the same thing.
He stood, almost shell-shocked as his mind raced to review all the facts of the case, just in case he was wrong, or seeing connections where there weren't any. The rest of the team was still crowded around the duffle.
"Why would someone do something like this?" Prentiss asked, sounding disgusted. It was probably partly rhetorical, considering it was their job to know things like that. Still, Jason couldn't stop the sarcastic thought of oh, gee, yeah, I wonder . He almost wondered if he'd accidentally said that aloud when he noticed Reid shooting him a quick glance.
Actually out loud he said, "to send a message." Everyone turned to him as he added, "or because they think they're someone they're not."
There was a beat of silence where everyone processed this. The whole team looked confused, and it was Morgan who spoke up first, "Okay, man, what the hell does that mean?"
Jason sighed and looked at Dick. "You have the Red Hood files?"
Dick nodded. "Yeah." He didn't need to be asked before he was stripping off his gloves and heading for the door. Jason followed, telling the team, "I think I've figured out...something. There's still a lot that doesn't make sense, but let me explain it all in full."
***
Five minutes later they were all crammed back into the meeting room where they'd been set up, all the GCPD's files on the Red Hood laid out on the table side by side with their current case files.
Looking at all the photos of his past crimes, and having to talk about them as if he didn't know them intimately, made Jason cringe a little inside, but outwardly he did his best to keep his composure — his secret identity was a secret but he was sitting in a room full of profilers; if he wasn't careful, it wouldn't be secret for long. Assuming none of them had figured it out already, which, well, none of the team were the sort of people to bet against. Ever.
"So," Jason said, sifting through files, "our unsub definitely isn't the actual Red Hood, they're far too sloppy for that, but..." he looked around for the file he wanted, and picked it up when he found it. Paperclipped to the front was a rare, grainy image of the Red Hood, a gun in each hand. "There's a lot of similarities. We profiled that multiple guns means multiple unsubs, but the Red Hood uses multiple guns. Hood's territory is Crime Alley, that's this guy's zone, too." He paused again as he looked again through all the files for the one that really brought it all together. He found it and held it up. "Last but not least, the Red Hood famously delivered a duffle bag of severed heads to a bunch of crime bosses. I know that none of this matches up exactly, but I think the Red Hood probably plays a part in whatever delusion this unsub is operating under — maybe copying the Red Hood helps justify what this unsub is doing, or makes them feel invincible, since the real Red Hood has never been caught."
There was silence as everyone considered this new information.
"You're probably right," Hotch finally said as, at the same time, Prentiss, Morgan and JJ all asked, "Crime Alley?"
Jason ignored Hotch momentarily to answer the others. "It's what the locals call Park Row."
"That's...depressing," Morgan said.
"Yeah, well, that's Gotham," Jason replied with a shrug. Non-Gothamites were always so weirded out by everything, and he always forgot that the things in his life were what most people would consider "not-normal".
"This place is seriously fucked up," Prentiss affirmed.
"As concerning as Gotham in general is, can we please stay on task?" Hotch reminded them.
They all nodded and started sorting through files, thinking, and discussing exactly what else they could profile and deduce from the new information.
***
By nightfall, they were getting somewhere. They had a profile, and Hotch was talking with Commissioner Gordon while JJ and Jason were trying to organise the rest of the cops, and Morgan and Prentiss had left in search of food. Jason had offered to take that job, claiming he knew all the best takeout places in the city, which Reid didn't doubt, but Prentiss and Morgan had decided they wanted to “explore” in spite of Jason's protests that exploring Gotham was both a pointless and potentially dangerous endeavour. Reid was with Rossi, still holed up in the meeting room combing through the profile and evidence again and again, though they both were running out of energy — and leads — by the time Jason and JJ finished up and met up with them again.
Reid glanced up as the two of them entered the meeting room, then back down at his file. He watched out of the corner of his eye as Rossi threw down the file he had been holding and stood up. "I think I need to take a break. Been in this stuffy room too long." Without further ado, he walked out. Reid glanced up and watched him go, eyes flicking back to Jason and JJ, who each took a seat at the table. They had barely sat down when JJ's phone rang and she left the room too as she answered it. Leaving him alone with Jason. Reid fixed his gaze on the file in front of him as Jason fixed his gaze on Reid. Reid could feel the weight of it, and hoped that maybe if he ignored it, Jason would leave him alone. If he never spoke, Jason might not realise Reid knew. The words on the file blurred together as he stared at them, trying to calm his rapidly beating heart. He'd faced down all kinds of killers and generally despicable people and won, one more shouldn't be this big of a deal. But this was Jason . Jason, who despite being a year younger than Reid and therefore far younger than anyone else on the team was still just as smart, Jason, who was built like a tank, Jason, who was part of the team and supposed to be trustworthy. Jason, who was also the Red Hood, one of the most deadly vigilante killers ever.
Reid was alone with the Red Hood, and he really didn't want to be. He risked a glance up, eyes sweeping the room. He couldn't help the way they swung back to the open door. He was sure Jason would notice. Best to get out quickly. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to do about what he knew, but so far his strategy was avoidance. Slowly, he set his file down on the table, facing away from Jason as he stood.
"I, uh, I'm gonna—" he mumbled out an incomprehensible excuse and rushed past Jason.
He made it to the door before Jason said, "Reid."
Reid turned, careful to keep his face blank and calm. There was a good chance Jason could see through the lie. The look on his face said he absolutely could. "What are you scared of?" He asked, casually. He had definitely noticed Reid's anxiety, then.
Reid hesitated, and glanced down the hallway, wanting to bolt. It was empty. He looked back at Jason. there was something in Jason's expression, the genuine worry, the familiarity, that made Reid answer. "You—" Reid blurted out, the word sort of choking off at the end.
At his seat, Jason went still, even his breath pausing, then he moved slowly, deliberately, to lay his hands, palm up and open, on his knees where Reid could see them. "I would never, ever hurt you," he said plainly.
"You've killed before," Reid said quickly, confidently, and then immediately regretted saying anything at all. Reminding a killer that they were a killer was rarely a good idea. That it was Jason he was talking to had him letting his guard down.
Jason sighed but kept his gaze level. "I'm not proud of it, but you know those people deserved it." He paused, and Reid considered it. That the people the Red Hood killed were despicable was true, but had they deserved it? As Red Hood, Jason played judge, jury, and executioner. He couldn't always be right, could he? Reid didn't respond. "You're a good person, Reid, and more than that, you're my friend," Jason said, and this time there was a note of desperation and sincerity in his voice. Reid still hovered in the doorway, unconvinced. "I'm not going to hurt you, I swear, not now or ever," Jason went on. "Can you please trust me and close the door so we can talk properly about this?"
Reid hesitated, then slowly dragged the door closed behind him. Still, he stayed just inside the doorway, far from Jason. A distance like that wouldn't stop the Red Hood, but it still felt better than nothing. There was still a chance Reid could get to his gun if he needed to. Except, oh god , Jason had his gun, too. Why hadn't he just left when he'd had the chance?
"You figured it out, huh?" Jason asked lamely.
"You thought I wouldn't?"
Jason let out a low chuckle at that. "I guess it was pretty inevitable, yeah. But it's not like I could just tell you, I mean...does anyone else know? Have you told anyone?" He paused. "How much have you figured out?"
Reid hugged himself as if he could protect himself from the Red Hood. "...No, I haven't told anyone." Yet . "And as to how much I know...your whole family. All the bats." He paused, thinking, pulling together all the dots. "And Superman."
Jason laughed, fully this time. "Thank you," he said sincerely, "for not telling anyone. I know that maybe it's a lot to ask, but could you please not tell anyone? I know you're supposed to, since you're law enforcement and we're literally vigilantes — particularly me — and even if you weren't you'd still want to, but if even one of our identities got out, it would put a lot of people in danger, you and the team included. Can you keep this secret, please?"
Reid hesitated, standing slightly straighter. He took a moment to think. It was true, he supposed, that there were reasons to keep this secret. That people could be hurt if it ever got out. Children could get hurt, even if they were vigilantes. And for all that Reid was kind of terrified of the Red Hood, Jason had yet to do anything he considered unreasonable or threatening. He still seemed more concerned about Reid than himself, even with his secret and his family at stake. "...Okay," he decided. "Your secret is safe, and your family's too. But I want to know everything. I have so many questions and I get that now isn't the time or the place but—" Reid began rambling, fear switched out for curiosity at the agreement, as he realised all his theories and questions about the superhero community could be answered.
"Sure," Jason cut him off with a smile. "We'll work something out. But for now we should probably get back to the case."
"Yeah," Reid agreed, very close to breathless. "Yeah." He pushed the door open, but was stopped by Jason's voice at the last second.
"Wait." Reid turned around, pulling the door shut again. "You know how important our secret identities are," Jason said seriously, "but you're important too. There's one rule that Bruce tells everyone who knows, and that I agree with: if it's your life or our secret, your life is more important. Always." He switched tone, and joked, "Don't play hero, that's our job." He winked.
Reid let out a weak laugh, then he nodded seriously. "Okay. Got it. Keep the secret under threat of anything but death."
"Hopefully it won't come to that."
"Okay," Reid repeated, then pushed the door open and left before Jason could say anything more. So, he'd just made a deal with arguably the world's most dangerous vigilante, who also happened to be his friend and co-worker. Well, Gotham was certainly as weird as promised.
***
A new day, and new crime scenes. Despite their efforts to put out a profile, to catch this guy, they had had no success, and last night there had been two more kills, neither of which the police had been alerted to until daybreak. Emily had received the call from Hotch at 5:01 am, exactly one minute after she had woken to the sound of Jason's ringtone in the next room. Blinking away sleep, she rolled out of bed and began pulling on clothes. She was doing up the buttons on her shirt when there was banging on the bedroom door. "I got Hotch's call, just a sec!" She called. Unlike most of the rest of the team, who were staying at one of the few respectable hotels in Gotham, she was at Jason's apartment — he'd argued there was no point in the FBI paying for a hotel room when he had a perfectly good bed of his own, and had offered up his guest room to whoever wanted it. Emily had been the first of the team to call dibs, curious to see what his home looked like, so she had been sleeping there. So far, she hadn't had a good chance to look around, but what she had seen was nice. She wasn't entirely sure what she'd expected from the team's newest and youngest member, but it wasn't an apartment as tidy and comfortable as this. Admittedly, it was a little sparse, a little industrial in style, but overall it worked — the couch, though plain, looked comfortable, and a whole wall of the living room was lined with packed bookshelves.
It took her less than a minute longer to get dressed and then they were both ready and Jason was locking the door behind them. He tossed Emily a muesli bar as they walked down the hall to the stairs. "Breakfast."
"Thanks."
When they stepped out into the frigid morning air, Jason quickly started heading down the street. Emily had to jog a few steps to keep up. "We're not driving?"
"One of the new crime scenes is less than a block from here, it's probably quicker just to walk."
Emily cringed. Someone had died less than a block away while she had been sleeping peacefully, and she'd had no idea. "Uh-huh." She nodded, hugging herself against the cold while biting into her muesli bar.
They reached the crime scene quickly as Jason had promised, long before the rest of the BAU could arrive. A flash of their badges and the cops let them into the slim alleyway where the murder had taken place. Jason stepped around spilled trash and Emily followed, scanning the area for any details that might be useful. There wasn't a lot of blood splatter, but there was a large pool, dark and congealed, around the body. She quickly catalogued everything she could see, and had no doubt Jason was doing the same at her side. The victim was young, 15 to 20, she would guess, of Mediterranean descent, maybe Greek or Italian. Probably local to the poorer part of town by the clothes. No noticeable gang signs. Bruising to the left side of the face, multiple stab wounds and/or gunshots to the body. It was hard to tell among the mess of blood and torn fabric.
"It's definitely our guy," Emily said, crouching down to get a better look at the body.
"Yeah," Jason agreed. "This kind of overkill is pretty unique, even here. The real question is, what else can we learn about him from this?"
Emily leaned back from her examination of the body, taking a moment to think. She looked over the scene again, taking in all the angles, the victim type, all the little details, fitting them together with what they already knew. So far only four victims had been stabbed, though all had been shot. Even beating someone up wouldn't be too hard if you could pull a gun on them if they started fighting back. Slowly, her dark eyes met Jason's blue-green ones. "We profiled that this guy is physically strong, fit, due to the brutality of the murders, but we know he's sloppy, has a reliance on firearms, has primarily been going for reasonably easy targets — women, kids, prostitutes, homeless. How much strength would it realistically take to carry out kills like this?"
Jason's eyes flicked back and forth over the scene as if taking it in for the first time again. A considering look took over his face. He nodded and took a step back.
"Come here." He gestured and guided Emily around so she was facing the mouth of the alley. "So, you're...going somewhere, maybe home, maybe somewhere else. I'm the unsub. If I pull a weapon, maybe a knife, let you see it, you might just freeze long enough for me to hit you in the face." He mimed the action slowly, stopping long before his fist touched Emily's face. "Doesn't take too much strength yet. Particularly if I hit you with something hard like a gun or the butt end of a knife." Emily nodded, seeing all that he was as they played out the scenario. "Maybe I get in a lucky hit and you go down, but it doesn't look like that's what happened. "
"So I either try to fight or flee," Emily continued for him. "If I fight—"
"Then I either stab or shoot you. If it is a stab, it doesn't have to have enough force to kill, only to weaken, because I always still have my gun to finish you off."
"And if I flee—" Emily exaggeratedly turned away from him.
"I can shoot you," Jason finished, miming the action in time with his words.
They both stood for a moment, turning over what they'd just deduced.
Emily pulled her phone from her pocket. "I think we need to revise the profile."
***
By lunch, Jason and Emily had shared their idea, and after half the team had checked out the other crime scene from the last night they had agreed unanimously to revise the profile. They were getting closer to figuring out who this guy was, but still seemed far from catching him. Jason had even talked to Dick, who had told him that even the Bats hadn't found anything, despite their constant patrols. Now, the whole team plus Dick and Commissioner Gordon were crammed into the conference room to eat and consult all at once. As there were one too few chairs, and not enough space to cram another in around the table, Dick had apparently decided he must throw professionalism out the window and was perched on Jason’s knee. When he had sat down there, Jason had glared at him. “You could go get another chair, you know.” Dick had grinned back. “I would have to sit behind someone then.” He had then refused to move from his spot, ignoring all the odd looks the team sent him. Jason glared at the back of Dick’s head, then tried to focus on his food, though that was difficult when half the team were not-so-subtly whispering to each other about Jason and Dick. He sent them his best death glare and they all immediately snapped their mouths shut. There was a brief beat of quiet, then Rossi of all people spoke up, brow raised. “So, are you two…close?”
Jason gave him an unimpressed glare and answered flatly before Dick could, “he’s my brother.”
Without missing a beat, Rossi held out a hand and JJ, Derek and Emily all handed him crisp ten-dollar banknotes. Jason rolled his eyes and tried to not think about what those three had bet on.
They all looked over, a little startled as Hotch cleared his throat pointedly, putting a stop to the conversation. Jason was grateful, but also a little annoyed Hotch hadn’t interrupted sooner. Knowing Hotch, he’d probably wanted to know just as badly as the others, though unlike them would deny it until the day he died.
Hotch hit dial on his phone. A moment later he warned, “I’m putting you on speaker,” then did just that, setting the phone down in the centre of the table.
“Hello, my heroic crime-fighters, what scandalous stories do you need me to uncover?” Garcia’s cheerful voice sung out.
Dick turned to Jason with a questioning smile. Jason just glared at him, and Dick turned around again.
“We need a list of all current or former residents of Park Row,” Hotch said.
“Okayyyy,” Garcia replied, dragging the word out. Typing could be heard in the background. “I’m guessing you’re going to help me narrow this down.”
“Yes. Men aged between nineteen and forty-five, possibly with some sort of disability or addiction,” Hotch answered.
“That’s still quite a long list, sir.”
“Limit it to people with a record of assault or violent behaviour,” Morgan suggested.
More typing came through the phone speaker.
“That’s nearly thirty people,” Garcia said when the typing stopped.
“We can work with that,” Hotch said. “Send us everything you have on those people.”
“Already sent.” Jason could picture her saluting with her feathered pen. The call ended.
***
Everyone had dispersed a little to read and sort through the files Garcia had sent them. The team was still crowded into the one room, though many of the chairs had been pushed away from the table, while Gordon and Dick had left, the Commissioner to attend to other things, Dick to read through a few of the files at his own desk. Jason was leaning back comfortably in his chair as he looked over the file he’d been given. It wasn’t all that exciting, and so far it didn’t fit the profile. He was about to close it when JJ spoke from the other side of the table.
“I think this is it.” Having successfully gotten the whole team’s attention, JJ laid the file down, open on the table. “Charles Gemmell. Currently 22, grew up in Crime Alley, got into drugs young. He was charged with aggravated assault when he was fourteen and went to juvie, and he’s been homeless since he got out at 17. Reportedly he was part of a drug operation the Red Hood busted three months ago.”
It all checked out. Jason leaned forward and tugged the file closer to have a look at the photo. The mugshot showed a gaunt, skinny man with limp hair hanging past his shoulders. Jason couldn’t be totally sure, but he thought the guy maybe did look a little familiar — he could vaguely recall that bust, and he thought this guy might have been one of the few he hadn’t bothered to shoot. If that was true, then he was kind of regretting that now.
“Do we have an address?” Hotch asked.
“Yeah, we do.”
***
When they got to the address, Jason lingered just behind Hotch as he banged on the door of the run-down apartment where their suspected unsub lived.
“FBI! Open up!” Hotch called. They all waited, tense, for the door to open. It didn’t, but there was the faint sound of movement from inside. Hotch glanced back at the team. Jason nodded to him and Hotch stepped aside to let Jason kick the door down. It fell off its hinges relatively easily, and Jason led the charge into the apartment, gun held up as he scanned his surroundings.
The apartment was dingy, the exposed lightbulb in the kitchen smashed, the only light coming in through an open window where torn curtains billowed inward. The only furniture was a chair missing a leg and a couch that was more stains and tears than actual couch. There was rubbish and other detritus scattered over the floor. Jason went straight for the window, trusting the team to watch his back and search the rest of the place. He looked outside and swore. The guy they were after was running down the street. Wearing a red hoodie of all things. Jason communicated this to the team at the same time as climbing through the window and dropping the short distance to the pavement. Then he didn’t bother wasting his attention on talking, and ran.
He caught up with Gemmell disappointingly quickly. “Charles Gemmell! Hands up!” He yelled, poised to shoot. Gemmell spun, a gun of his own glinting in one hand. Jason let off a shot, not deadly, just to Gemmell’s hand, forcing him to drop his weapon. Jason approached deliberately and quickly. He could hear footsteps behind him, a familiar pattern and sound: Morgan and Emily. “Hands up,” he repeated, and this time Gemmell obeyed. “On the ground.” Gemmell went to his knees and Jason wasted no time in pulling his hands into cuffs while Emily scooped up the fallen gun.
***
Jason pulled on his jacket and grabbed his keys from the bowl on the counter where he left them when he was home. "You ready?" He asked Emily as she exited his spare bedroom, pulling her hair free from the collar of her coat.
"Yep. Let's do this." She almost literally bounced where she stood as she gave an excited smile. Jason rolled his eyes. After the case had wrapped up, Alfred had invited Jason to dinner; when he'd tried to decline, Alfred had extended an invitation to Jason's whole team. Though the exchange had happened over text — Jason had been planning to not tell the team, then tell Alfred they'd unfortunately declined — Emily had been reading over his shoulder and upon seeing the invitation had immediately gasped with excitement and told everyone. So now they were all going to Wayne Manor for dinner. Jason and Emily had gone back to his apartment to get cleaned up, the rest of the team to their hotel, but Jason and Emily would pick them up on their way to the Manor.
And Emily, like the rest of the team, was practically bursting with excitement at the prospect of meeting Jason's family. He wasn't entirely sure how much of it was genuine curiosity and how much was related to the bet he knew the whole team had on exactly how many siblings he had. He was pretty sure they all thought he had no idea, but for a group of profilers, they weren't all that subtle about their gossip. He'd even made it a bit of a game for himself, trying to keep them guessing. Before they'd come to Gotham, he hadn't given away a single name, though had dropped various inane facts and stories about his various siblings.
Now, he drove to the hotel the team was staying at and waited while they hurried out of the lobby and into the car, then continued the drive to the Manor as bubbly conversation struck up around him. The Manor gates swung open when they approached, and he didn't miss the way the team craned their necks to look around, especially as they went up the drive and the Manor came into view.
"Holy shit. You didn't tell us you were rich, man. Richer than Rossi rich," Morgan said, eyes fixed on the grand building as they pulled up in front of it. In the rear view mirror, Reid made a face at Jason that said he still hasn't figured it out . It, this time, being the whole "Wayne" thing, which Jason was pretty sure Reid had figured out within a week of meeting him. At longest.
"Technically, my dad is rich," Jason answered, and Morgan just waved him off.
"You still grew up in a fucking castle."
"It's a manor, not a castle. There's a significant distinction," Jason quipped as he opened the car door and stepped out, the team following suit. They hadn't even gotten to the front door before it swung open to reveal Alfred, a restrained, welcoming smile on his face that grew into open fondness. "Master Jason, a pleasure as always," he greeted. Jason leaned in and gave him a quick hug as his own greeting, then turned to the rest of his team.
"Alfred, this is my team. Guys, this is Alfred, he's the coolest person you'll ever meet."
The team offered Alfred various greetings as they filed inside, from a friendly nod from Hotch to a "hi" and a hug from JJ.
Alfred waited patiently for them all to strip off their coats and hang them on the coat stand in the hallway, then led them all through the house to the dining room where the rest of the family was waiting. Jason let them all shuffle inside, crowded just inside the doorway, before he introduced everyone. He pointed to each person as he said their name, “Emily Prentiss, Derek Morgan, Spencer Reid, Aaron Hotchner, David Rossi and Jennifer Jareu, this is Tim, Damian, Cass, Steph and Bruce. You already know Dick and Alfred.” He glanced at the team and saw Morgan gaping, most of the rest of the team with similar expressions, though perhaps better hidden. Morgan looked at Jason in shock. “That’s Bruce Wayne. You didn’t tell us you knew Bruce Wayne.” Jason waited a moment. “ Bruce Wayne is your Dad!?” Jason chuckled.
“Yeah. Don’t look so surprised. Sit down.”
He herded everyone to the table. Various greetings were exchanged and everyone swarmed the table to find a seat. Jason ended up between Bruce, at the head of the table, and Prentiss. Beside her was Damian, who Jason was sure had chosen his spot based on the knowledge that Emily had a cat, and was therefore the most likely to engage him in conversation about his pets. Around the table, everyone quickly settled into conversation with the people around them as they also scooped up the delicious food. Hotch and Bruce had struck up talking about…fatherhood, it seemed. Beside them, Rossi and Alfred were discussing wines. Reid and Tim were both talking so fast and over each other, Jason wasn’t sure how either of them understood anything the other was saying. Cass and Steph, side by side as always, were joking with Morgan, and JJ and Dick were chatting happily, too, though as they were at the other end of the table Jason couldn’t quite pick what about. He joined Emily and Damian’s conversation which had somehow moved from cats to lizards and snakes. It was nice that everyone was getting along. Even Damian seemed content, and he hadn’t issued a single threat all night. It was a good sign, Jason thought. That everyone got along. He wasn’t sure what he would’ve done if they hadn’t. He wasn’t quite ready to say the BAU was like a second (or third, or fourth, technically) family to him, but they certainly mattered to him, and he was learning to trust them.
His thoughts were interrupted by Steph, who yelled across the table “Hey, Jason!”
He looked over at her. “What, Blondie?”
“Where’s the amazing tech goddess we were promised?”
Jason laughed. He’d told his family about his team before, and Steph and Cass in particular had been begging to meet Garcia for ages.
“Garcia doesn’t usually travel with us. She’s still at Quantico.”
“So you say. Maybe you’re just trying to keep us apart.”
“Yeah, yeah, ‘cause I’m terrified of the potential of your combined power,” Jason answered sarcastically.
“Exactly,” Steph said, eyes glinting.
***
In the jet, early the next morning, Jason was reading a worn copy of Frankenstein when there was a tap on his shoulder. He looked up to see JJ.
“So, that was all your siblings we met last night?”
Jason suppressed a smile. While he’d been reading, everyone else had crowded around the table in the jet where they usually mulled over cases — only this time they were all arguing about their bets on the number of Jason’s siblings.
“Yes.”
“And everyone there except Bruce and Alfred was one of your siblings?”
“Yep.”
Behind him, he heard Morgan say, “I told you so.” And then a sigh and a protest that sounded suspiciously like Reid.
“But—”
Jason decided to put them all out of their misery. “Is this about the bet you all have running about how many siblings I have?” He asked, turning around and sticking his head up over the seat to look at the group.
They all looked at each other sheepishly. There were various nods and “yes”es.
Then they all looked at him expectantly. When he said nothing more, Morgan prompted him, “So, if we count everyone there last night, that’s three brothers and two sisters.” Everyone nodded. “Damian and Tim look like they’re younger than you, Steph and Cass, too.” Jason nodded. “And what about Dick, is he younger or older?”
“Older,” Jason answered.
Morgan turned to the group. “Nobody guessed it.”
Jason raised an incredulous eyebrow. He would have thought that among all of them, at least one of them would have gotten it right, even by accident. Or Reid, since he had figured out that Jason was Jason Todd-Wayne. He’d probably not counted Steph. “Nobody?”
They all shook their heads. “Nobody,” Garcia confirmed from the laptop screen which displayed her image.
“Okay, now I have to know what all your bets were. How wrong were you?”
Hotch, as the team leader, seemed to take it upon himself to answer. “Some of us were closer than others. Reid guessed one older brother, two younger brothers, and a younger sister.” So Jason was right, Reid had probably missed Steph in his research. Hotch then went around the table, listing everyone’s guesses, finishing with the most ridiculous. “Rossi guessed you had ten siblings all up — three older brothers, one older sister, two younger sisters and four younger brothers.” Jason laughed.
“You seem like the sort of person with a lot of siblings!” Rossi said defensively.
Hotch, meanwhile, had paused, and everyone waited. Hotch still hadn’t revealed to Jason what his guess had been. “And you?” Jason asked.
Hotch’s stoic expression didn’t waver.
“None. You were making up the stories either for clout or entertainment.” Jason burst out laughing, properly and deeply this time. “I had to guess something different from everyone else,” Hotch explained. “I was reasonably sure I was wrong, but it was entertaining to argue anyway.”
Jason pulled himself from his laughter. “I think you should be declared the winner of the bet simply for that.”
Everyone immediately began to protest. Jason held up a hand. “You wanted a mediator, since none of you got it right. Well, I just meditated.”
The team grumbled, but quickly money was pulled out and handed over. Jason grinned, and went back to his book. He was definitely getting used to this: to the team being like a second, equally chaotic, family. Even if he still wasn’t sure when, or how, or if he should reveal his secret second identity to all of them.