Chapter Text
“Okay, Hood. I found the feeds for the cameras on and around that roof. It took me way too fucking long, but they’re cut off, feeds coming to my servers instead. You’re clear.”
“Copy, Spiros.” Hood threw himself up and over the edge of the roof he’d been crouched on and shot his grapple at the roof across the street.
It had taken Jason a few weeks of searching, but he’d finally found where the Bat’s newest little bird was holed up. Staking out the Manor had been useless, as had waiting outside Thomas Wayne Memorial. Turns out, the Pretender had somehow wormed his way into the no-longer-short pants despite still having two parents, parents who were pretty fuckin’ decent, as far as Jason could tell (though to be fair, his bar was in the ninth circle of hell). (Ya know. Where traitors end up.)
(Anyway.)
Tim Drake had a nice house, never had to worry about food on the table… fuck, he was able to go to school, which was more than Jason could say for himself before Bruce took him in (read: low-key kidnapped the kid who tried to steal his tires).
Once he knew where to find the shiny new birdy if he wanted, Jason figured he could leave his replacement alone. He had bigger birds to fry right now (flightless arctic ones, in specific). But the last few times Jason had caught sight of Batman and Robin out on patrol, the cuckoo bird had seemed… off. Subdued, less likely to poke fun at the baddies, and almost silent when it was just him and Bruce alone.
Jason had decided to swing by the Drakes’ neighborhood in Old Gotham tonight to see if he could get an idea of what was up—not because he was worried about the Walmart-brand Robin, alright? He was just… assessing the enemy. Gathering intel.
As he landed on the rooftop two doors down from the Drakes’, he caught a glimpse of a bright blue light shining on what he thought was Tim Drake’s roof. Jason made the short jump to the roof directly adjacent to the lightshow and crouched down, hiding his silhouette as he creeped towards the low wall dividing the housetops.
“Hood. How are things going.” Spiros’s mechanical voice would have caused Jason to jump, if he hadn’t had his startle reflex beaten out of him.
He flicked his eyes to the corner of his HUD to make absolutely sure his external speakers were muted, and only then did he respond to her, keeping his voice to a whisper. “I’m on the next-door roof, which you should be able to see if the bird put up his cameras right.”
“I can see you.” Spiros’s response came at a much lower volume, but still with the same even, computerized monotone. “I just need to know how far into your information gathering mission you are, so I know how long I need to keep these cameras from transmitting their feeds to their original receiving point.”
That caused Jason to pause. He couldn’t read any emotion from Spiros’s words (obviously), so instead of trying to puzzle it out himself, he just asked, “Is there a high chance of that happening? If so, how much time’ve I got?”
“Yes,” she responded matter-of-factly. “The original controller of the cameras is attempting to take them back. I’ve isolated the camera feeds so they cannot be followed back to us without a great deal of skill, but I am unsure how long you have before you will be seen.”
Jason cursed internally. “Keep me posted. I’ll be radio silent, but keep the updates comin’.”
“Copy that, Hood.”
Now aware of an imminent time limit, Jason reassessed his surroundings and resumed his silent walk to the wall dividing the rooftops. He peeked his head up just enough to see what was going on on the next roof over, then raised his head a bit more, certain he had to be wrong about what he was looking at.
But no, in spite of his growing incredulity, there remained a hologram of Alfred standing (hovering?) a few dozen feet away, facing Robin, who had his back to Jason. It sounded like Alfred was talking to the bird, but before Jason could try to move closer to hear, the hologram vanished.
Jason’s vision suddenly went white, then dark. He blinked the spots out of his eyes while he waited for the helmet’s night vision to readjust.
When he could see again, Jason realized that the box that had been projecting the hologram was gone (in a small but powerful explosion, based on his brief loss of vision and his own personal familiarity with explosions). Robin was left alone on his roof, just… staring at the houses across the street.
Jason focused very, very hard on staying very, very still, desperate not to do anything that might give him away to the guy standing only a dozen feet from him.
Spiros’s computerized voice came through again over his helmet’s comms. “Hood, you must get going soon if you do not wish to be seen. You have only one-to-two more minutes at best.”
Jason didn’t respond, frozen as he was while diverting all his focus to not shifting any loose stones that might be below his feet and giving himself away, dammit.
It seemed like Robin was frozen too, over there on his own roof.
Hood was starting to worry that he’d have to start sneaking away while one of the Bat’s hypervigilant birds was silent and within spitting distance. That did not feel like a plan with a great chance of success.
Then again, neither did being caught on Batcam.
Just as Jason was gearing himself up to make use of every ounce of stealth training still embedded in his muscle memory, all the tension dropped from the substitute-Robin’s body, and he let out a half-sigh, half-growl of frustration, which was… A sound. That he made. That Jason heard.
He had to blink a few times and recollect his thoughts from where they’d been scattered through his skull before he looked back across the roof.
Tim Drake looked… fed up. And exhausted. He raised his hands up, tapped the button on the side of his domino that Jason knew raised the lenses, and rubbed his eyes.
“Of course. Of fucking course.”
Jason’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. He… he hadn’t had a whole lot of opportunities to see the third-round-pick Robin up close, but this sort of reaction was… different, then what he had expected based on what he’d seen and read about Robin III.
“Sure, why not!” Tim Drake continued yelling towards the sky. He dragged his hands down his face. “Time travel and upcoming betrayal! Might as fucking well!”
Jason stayed frozen as Tim shot to attention in response to something Jason couldn’t see. “Hey, O… Yeah, I’m on patrol tonight… Oh, uh. Thanks… Yeah, it was… it was fine… Got it. On my way.”
Robin shot out a grappling line and was gone before Jason had time to blink. He sat down out of his crouch and leaned back against the half-wall.
What the fuck was all of that? Jason thought. Why was Alfred…? Time travel? Do I need to be watching out for–
“Hood, time’s up. I killed the feeds before they locked me out, but that will likely only buy you a minute, maybe less. If you still desire to remain an unknown, you’ll need to get off those roofs and away from that house.”
Jason cursed. “Yup.” He fumbled with his grapple gun, hooked it to the backside of the roof, and launched himself over the edge. “Thanks, Wormy, I’m gone.”
“Avoid a route that passes our remote network point on the Hill. That is likely where Robin is going to investigate the source of my hijack of the cameras. And I have told you all that I do not enjoy that nickname.” Even without a tone to read, Jason knew with absolute certainty that Bookworm was raising her eyebrow in disdain.
And that she was trying (and failing) to fight a smile.
Jason grinned too as he hit the ground, reeled in his grapple, and shot off at a dead sprint into the Gotham night.