Work Text:
“That’s the Red Hood,” Diana said, openly incredulous.
Peter had to agree with the sentiment. It wasn’t supposed to be anything more than some preliminary investigation into a money-laundering scheme. But for once, they’d decided to send Neal into the bar that the suspect frequented. He’d claimed to have some remaining connections with this particular part of the criminal underworld. And it seemed he did.
Everything had been going wonderfully right up until a known criminal had walked into the bar. And then, the criminal walked up to Neal’s table.
Not just any criminal, either. It couldn’t have been a low-level drug dealer, another art forger, or anything like that. The rest of the people in the bar were almost certainly criminals too, but they weren’t problems in the same way. No.
Instead, Neal was engaged in conversation with a notorious drug lord known for depositing duffel bags filled with severed heads on the police’s doorstep.
Neal’s voice floated over the comms, a little staticky. “Oh, Hood, good to see you again.” He offered a smile. Despite the low-quality visuals provided by the bar’s sole camera, Peter could tell that it was the practiced smile Neal used on FBI higher-ups. The kind he displayed when he was displeased with someone but only wanted people who knew him well—like Peter—to be aware.
Red Hood grunted. “Hm,” he said. “Remind me who you are, again?”
“Neal Caffrey,” Neal offered. This time, his smile was a little more sincere—but far more genuine than it should have been after giving his real name to a serial killer drug lord.
Peter groaned. Leaning closer to the microphone, he hissed, “Neal. What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Onscreen, Neal’s expression didn’t betray any emotion. He couldn’t break cover, of course, but Peter hoped he’d taken it to heart. Neal obviously knew who Red Hood was, and if they’d had dealings in the past, Neal must have been all too familiar with Red Hood’s violent tendencies.
Red Hood tilted his head. “The art forger?” he said.
With a nod, Neal said, “We’ve had some dealings in the past, I think.”
“I wouldn’t have expected to see you here,” Red Hood mused.
“I could say the same. Last I heard, you were busy dropping criminals’ heads off with the GCPD.”
“Please, for the love of God, stop antagonizing him,” Peter said. “If he decides you’re going to be the next duffel-bag severed head, we won’t be able to stop him in time.” That was—well, more likely than Peter would have preferred. He doubted that the Red Hood would snap and murder Neal in the middle of a crowded bar, but with how provocative Neal was being, he wasn’t willing to count on Red Hood being reasonable.
But rather than threaten Neal or grow angry or anything else that Peter had expected, the Red Hood laughed. Visibly. Neal’s comms picked it up, of course, but even on the grainy camera footage, the Red Hood tipped his head back, shaking slightly. “Hah, good one, dickhead. Last I heard, Neal Caffrey was still in jail.”
Thanks to the helmet covering his face, Peter couldn’t see the Red Hood’s expression. But if he could, Peter was pretty sure that Red Hood’s eyebrows would be raised.
Neal shrugged. “I got out,” he said.
“Right,” Red Hood drawled. “So, then, what’s an art forger like you doing in the seediest bar this side of the Hudson?”
Humming noncommittally, Neal replied, “What’s the Red Hood doing so far away from Gotham that he knows which bar in eastern New York City is the seediest?” Gesturing around the two of them, Neal said, “Besides, it seems pretty upscale to me.”
“If you knew what was really going on in here, you’d think it was seedy. And I happen to be chasing down a child trafficker who thought they could get away by crossing a few state lines,” said Red Hood. He crossed his arms.
Out of the corner of his eye, Peter saw Diana pull out a fresh notepad and start scribbling something down. Good. She could record all of the information that Red Hood was dropping, and Peter could keep an eye on Neal.
“In the spirit of reciprocity and brotherhood, then,” Neal said with a small smile, “I happen to be looking for a money launderer.”
“Well, if that’s all you wanted, you should’ve known that I’d be happy to help you legalize some of those more, hm, ill-gotten gains from forgery anytime you wanted. Why not come to me?” Red Hood’s voice was hard to read, being that it was twice-filtered: once through Red Hood’s own voice modulator and again through Neal’s comms, but Peter could’ve sworn that it was almost snarky.
Neal laughed. Honest-to-God laughed at a crime lord offering to launder money for him. “Ah, not in that sense. I need help tracking down a specific person. She’s going by Francisca Lamprise, though I doubt it’s her actual name.”
At this point, Peter was half-convinced that Neal had somehow deactivated the comms. He certainly wasn’t paying attention to what Peter said, either way. Still, though, Peter said, “Neal. Neal. Why are you trying to get details for an FBI case out of the Red Hood himself?”
Diana cast Peter a sympathetic glance, and Jones gave him a commiserating pat on the back. At least the rest of his team understood how batshit insane this was.
“Sorry,” the Red Hood freely apologized, “no luck. I’d offer to look into it for you, but I’m more than a little wrapped up with this trafficking case.”
Sighing, Neal replied, “Well, I wasn’t expecting you to know. If you hear anything, I’d appreciate it if you let me know, though.”
Cheerfully, Red Hood said, “Don’t worry, I’m more than good enough to do your job for you, golden boy.” With that, he reached over and patted Neal on the shoulder—easy familiarity, Peter noted, Neal didn’t seem surprised and leaned into the touch if anything—before turning away and sauntering over to a gambling table.
Peter tapped the microphone a few times. “Is this even working?”
Wincing, Neal raised a hand to his ear. “Yes,” he hissed quietly, “so would you cut it out?”
Relaxing slightly, Peter sat back in his seat. “I will when you explain why you and Red Hood seemed to be best friends.”
“Sure,” Neal said. “But let me finish gathering some intel first.” He walked to the bartender. “Hey, could I get a drink?”
“Neal—”
“On the rocks is fine. If you have any lemons, that’d be great.”
Peter groaned and dropped his head in his hands.
Unsurprisingly, Peter accosted Dick the minute he walked through the door of the FBI office. Striding up to Dick, Peter grabbed him by the shoulders and said, “Neal, why were you talking with the Red Hood? Actually, scratch that, why the hell do you know the Red Hood in the first place?
From behind a computer, Jones chimed in, “Don’t forget the part where he was joking with the Red Hood.”
“Yeah, and Red Hood joked back,” Diana added. “You had nicknames with each other. Hood? Golden boy?”
Pointing an accusatory finger in Dick’s face, Peter said, “Exactly. Explain. Now.”
Dick sighed. He held up his hands placatingly. “I made a few forgeries for Hood once. We’re business associates, that’s all. As you can tell, considering he didn’t even recognize me.”
Peter raised an eyebrow. “For business associates, you seemed pretty comfortable with each other.”
Honestly, Dick hadn’t known how to indicate to Jason that he had an FBI comm in his ear. They had signals, of course, but Peter would have picked up on any of their standard code words as being a code word. And no matter how little reason Neal Caffrey might have to know Red Hood, he would have even less reason to have established code words with Red Hood. The Neal Caffrey identity had, after all, been in prison for the last four years, which was before Jason had returned.
“We haven’t seen each other in a while,” Dick settled on. Which was true enough. He’d thought Jason was still running around the world with Roy and Kori, and Jason hadn’t even been aware of Dick’s long-term undercover mission. “But we parted on good terms, and he appreciated the work I did for him.”
“Yeah, see, so actually, I would think that dealings with a big-time drug lord—who happens to be on the FBI’s Most Wanted List for mass murder—might actually be on your record. Which it’s not. Just a thought,” said Peter flatly.
“It was in Gotham,” Dick said as if that explained everything. And for the FBI, it might as well have explained everything. Between the corruption, frequent attacks by Gotham’s rotating cast of villains, vigilante activities, and a public uninterested in tipping any authorities off, Gotham was well-known for being the equivalent of an information black hole.
Peter pressed two fingers to his temple and exhaled. “Right. Of course. Red Hood. Remind me, again, why did a drug dealing, serial killer crime lord need the services of an art forger?” The emphasis placed on the last two words made it clear that he didn’t quite believe that those were the crimes Neal had committed for Red Hood.
“Look, I didn’t ask questions, I just made the art. We might be friendly, but that’s not the same as close enough to ask about Hood’s criminal activities. Plausible deniability. And I was never a big enough fish to want to be involved, anyway, even before Hood became a crime lord.”
If they started poking around any deeper than surface level, Dick’s cover story was going to fall apart. Neal Caffrey existed—and thanks to Tim and Barbara, he also had a conveniently deceased family, birth certificate, and other important identification information—but a Neal Caffrey that had connections to Red Hood didn’t. By what the FBI knew, Neal should’ve been a con artist and nothing more. A fantastic con artist with a criminal record a mile long, admittedly, but nowhere near the level of the Gotham Rogues.
For one thing, Neal was non-violent and didn’t know how to fight.
Peter’s eyes narrowed.
Shit. Months working with Peter had taught Dick to be wary of the agent’s intellect. To start with, he’d been the reason the Caffrey cover had been burned originally. If there was ever a time for Peter to inspect Dick’s cover identity a little too closely, it was now. Thanks to someone deciding to approach Dick while he was on an undercover op. He thanked his lucky stars that Jason had at least had the sense to realize Dick was undercover.
“You knew him before he was the Red Hood? For all we know, he materialized out of thin air for his rapid rise to drug lord.”
Dick pressed his lips together. “Well, I wasn’t exactly making him forgeries over the last few years,” he said.
“Does that mean you know more about his identity? Even a cover that he used before becoming the Red Hood?” Peter leaned in a little closer. “If you do—”
Sighing, Dick said, “He’s paranoid, alright? He was using the same helmet and name even back when I knew him, so if you haven’t turned up anything by now with that information, I doubt you’re going to.”
Peter still looked suspicious.
With his best innocent ‘I-did-not-steal-the-Batmobile-again’ look, Dick smiled guilelessly.
“You didn’t con or scam him, right? Because, Neal, trust me, the Red Hood is not someone you want to have after you,” Peter said. “Maybe it was different before he was the Red Hood, but if he decided to get revenge for a years-old slight, it wouldn’t end well for you.”
Dick gave a relieved sigh. “Of course not. I’m not an idiot.”
“Only halfway to one,” Peter muttered, “considering that you know the Red Hood at all.”
Peter was reconsidering the life choices that had led him to this point.
He carefully glanced around him, taking in the room. It wasn’t anything unusual, as far as kidnappings went. A basement, if he had to guess, going by the concrete walls and lack of window. In Peter’s opinion, it was also far too drafty to be comfortable.
The last he remembered, they’d found Francisca but had decided to follow her in hopes of catching some of her clients. Peter was trailing her into a building, but there was a biometric keypad—the first indication that this was something beyond their usual corporate embezzlement and Ponzi schemes—and he hadn’t been able to slip in the door before it closed behind her. So he’d gone up to the keypad, inspecting it as Neal chattered away in his ear, and then—
With his arms tied to the chair, he couldn’t reach up to his head and check for a bump. But if the throbbing sensation at the back of Peter’s head was anything to go by, his recollection of events was accurate.
Slowly, Peter began running his fingers over the knots, searching for some give. There wasn’t anyone else in the room—unusual, he would’ve expected an interrogator or at least a guard, but maybe they were outside the door—so he was willing to risk it. His comm was gone. And going by the fact that he was still tied up, Peter didn’t feel like waiting for a rescue that might not come in time.
Nothing in their files had indicated that Francisca was involved in the kind of shady business practices that involved murdering people. But nothing in their files had indicated that her associates would be willing to kidnap an FBI agent, either, or that they needed biometric security, so Peter wasn’t going to put much stock in the files.
He was halfway through the first knot when the explosions began.
Nowhere near him, thankfully. But even muffled, the noise was unmistakably that of a bomb going off.
Peter cursed aloud and began trying to unravel the knots at a more frantic pace. His only consolation was that his kidnappers were as bad at knot tying as they were at guarding their prisoners, and once he untied the first knot, sliding his fingers out was an easy task. From there, the loops around his wrists came undone easily, and Peter stood, shaking out his hands.
The explosions had stopped, but considering the echoing gunfire, that didn’t mean much. Whatever Lamprise was involved in, it had gotten violent.
Tentatively, Peter sidled up to the door and tested the handle. It swung down easily, which wasn’t a guarantee of opening, but he applied some pressure, and the door began to creak open.
This was actually a little embarrassing. The rest of the office would be laughing at him and bringing this up for months at Peter’s expense. It was bad enough that Peter had been kidnapped by a money launderer of all criminals, but on top of that, he’d been kidnapped by an organization of incompetent money launderers.
Neal was going to get such a kick out of this. That said, Diana and Jones weren’t going to be much better.
He slipped out the door, casting a wary glance down both directions of the hallway. There was no one in sight. However, if the abandoned can of soda overturned on the ground was anything to go by, there had been someone present recently. Peter guessed it was a guard who’d abandoned their post—probably either towards or away from the shooting—but there wasn’t any way to be sure.
Right. Now, which way was out? Peter made an executive decision and headed down the right hallway. Both directions looked identical, as far as he could tell.
He rounded the corner and headed down the nearby stairwell. It might have been a sealed door once, but someone had blasted the hinges off the door if the smoking metal wreck was anything to go by. The building Lamprise entered was supposed to only extend upwards, though Peter couldn’t rule out falsified blueprints. If they were accurate, though, down meant out. Or if there was a basement, down meant being one step closer to cracking the secret of what Lamprise was really involved in.
The staircase kept going down. And down. The sound of gunshots grew louder as Peter did so, which was probably not a good thing, considering that his abductors had taken his gun from him. He did not need to get involved in the middle of a shoot-out.
That said, normal stairwells had landings. Assuming an average of fourteen feet per story—which would match the height of Peter’s ‘cell’, accounting for floor height—he’d descended at least two floors and not a single floor access within sight.
Abruptly, the gunfire ceased.
That couldn’t be good.
Peter started taking the steps two at a time, keeping a hand on the railing, which was probably the opposite of the intelligent choice. The intelligent choice would have been to run—but away from the violent conflict that had likely just ended in a large number of deaths. Or to escape and call for backup.
But depending on who’d won and who attacked Lamprise in the first place, that could be the difference between catching the criminals in the act and all of the evidence disappearing between Peter escaping and contacting his team.
Finally, the staircase ended. This time, the door was still intact, if open and swinging inwards.
Peter approached it slowly, sticking to the wall nearest to the hinges in order to get a fast appraisal of the situation inside.
His first thought was that there was blood. A lot of it. Covering the floor, covering the walls, and Peter might have been an FBI agent, but his stomach still turned. There was definitely stuff in the mixture that wasn’t just blood but had still come from a human body. Agents working with white-collar crime simply didn’t see as much graphic violence as other FBI departments did.
The second thing he noticed was the sound of crying children. Someone was speaking in low, hushed tones, but it was barely noticeable under the wail of kids. Between that and the cages that were built into the walls, there was only one conclusion to draw.
Lamprise hadn’t been laundering money from forged securities or heroin deals. She’d been working for an organization of child traffickers.
A spark of anger lit in Peter’s chest. Child traffickers were scum.
Peter inched closer to the door. There was no way in hell that he was going in. Judging by the low conversation, someone was talking with the children, and whoever it was had to be the sole survivor of the gunfight. But if he could just get a good look at them—
The door slammed against the inner wall, pulled fully open faster than Peter could react. Peter froze. That had a lot to do with the fact that the business end of a gun had found its way to press against Peter’s face. “Hands in the air,” said a mechanized voice.
He swallowed. Slowly, with his fingers spread to show his hands were empty, Peter lifted his arms. His eyes darted around the barrel of the gun to identify his assailant. And they weren’t exactly hard to recognize.
Peter didn’t have high hopes for making it out alive. Still, though, he was alive, and that was more than Lamprise could say. Out of the corner of his eyes, Peter could see Lamprise laying on the floor, eyes staring blankly at the ceiling and a hole in her head. Next to her, the bodies of several security guards had matching bullet holes, some in their chests.
Behind them, though, was a group of several kids, huddled together. Unharmed, insofar as the last twenty minutes went.
Carefully, he began, “Red Hood, if—”
The Red Hood scoffed. “Can it, fed. I’m not gonna hurt you.”
Concealing his surprise, Peter said, “You’ll have to forgive me if I find it hard to take you at your word. Given the gun in my face.”
He must not have hidden his shock very well because Red Hood followed up with, “It doesn’t matter what you think, but di—the dickhead will be on my ass if I let one of his precious teammates get hurt.”
Peter stiffened. He’d heard Red Hood use that nickname before. “Neal?”
Red Hood sighed, mechanical and raspy through the modulator. “Who else? You’ve lucked out tonight, fed.”
That implied a lot of things. Most of them weren’t good. Sure, it was looking like if Peter died, it wouldn’t be at Red Hood’s hands, but Red Hood had recognized him. More specifically, Red Hood had recognized him as Neal’s handler. And a mere two days ago, Red Hood hadn’t even recognized Neal.
So somewhere in the intervening time, Red Hood had dug up enough information on Neal to know the faces of all of his teammates. Which also meant he knew Neal was working with the FBI. Either that or—
Peter didn’t really want to think about the idea that Neal might have given Red Hood intel about his team.
“Look,” Red Hood said, drawing Peter’s attention away from his thoughts, “can I trust you not to attack me if I put the gun down? And we can talk this out like reasonable adults.”
Peter nodded.
Shockingly true to his word, Red Hood lowered the gun.
Behind the Red Hood, one of the children gasped and stood. Biting their lip, they said, “Hood, he’s a fed!”
“I know, kid, but this one’s trustworthy.” Red Hood jerked his head at Peter. “Swear on my life.”
This, Peter reflected, was one of the strangest situations he’d ever been in. The reversal of the usual relationship between victims, criminals, and federal agents where the crime lord was suddenly the trustworthy one was bizarre enough. But the children seemed to know Red Hood, who had come to rescue them.
The Red Hood was known for not dealing drugs to children. Peter hadn’t realized that extended to personally coming to rescue trafficked children all the way in New York.
Peter cleared his throat. “Right, then, what’s the plan for getting out of here? Will the kids make it up the stairs?”
They looked malnourished, for one, and although they were huddled protectively and Peter couldn’t make out all of the children, he thought one might have been unconscious.
“No,” Red Hood said. “Mianning has a broken leg, and Phoebe was dosed with some sort of knockout drug a few hours ago. Nothing immediately life-threatening, but we’ve gotta get them medical attention.”
Grimacing, Peter offered, “I can carry the unconscious one up the stairs if the other kids support the injured one, and you can cover us.”
Red Hood’s helmet covered his face, but he was clearly taken aback by Peter’s suggestion. Peter didn’t like the idea of occupying his hands while Red Hood wielded the guns, either, but there was no way that Red Hood would be willing to arm Peter and carry the kid himself. As much as he hated to admit it, the drug lord was right. Saving the children had to be their priority.
Peter didn’t like Red Hood. He was a serial killer and Gotham drug lord. Peter certainly didn’t trust Red Hood either, but he didn’t think that Red Hood was planning to kill him. Whatever connection he shared with Neal, that and the necessity of helping the kids was enough to keep Red Hood on Peter’s side for now.
That certainty lasted for all of two milliseconds.
Shoving the kids behind him, Red Hood raised his gun and fired at Peter.
Peter recoiled, and someone screamed. Someone who wasn’t Peter. He spun in time to see a person dressed in a security uniform topple over the staircase railing and fall to the ground, blood pooling beneath them.
Briskly, Red Hood picked up the unconscious girl and shoved her into Peter’s arms, who accepted her numbly. “I’m taking the front,” Red Hood declared, and Peter was hardly going to argue with putting the armed crime lord at the head of the group. Red Hood pushed his way in front of Peter, a gun gripped in each hand.
Dual-wielding guns was a lot harder than the movies made it seem. Given that Red Hood was known for dramatics like a bag of severed heads, Peter really, really hoped that Red Hood actually knew how to use those guns simultaneously.
Then, again, if the dead bodies scattered across the floor were anything to go by, he did.
“Stay back,” Peter murmured to the children. Wide-eyed and pale, they all nodded. “Help whoever’s got the broken leg and be ready to run.”
Red Hood strode through the door to the stairwell, and the gunfire began immediately. Ducking and taking cover underneath the staircase, Red Hood poked his head out a few times to fire shots at whoever was at the top of the staircase, then retreated after hearing someone’s cries. A bullet skimmed the Red Hood’s jacket, tearing a hole in the leather, but it didn’t draw blood. Kevlar, if the black material underneath was anything to go by.
Peter hung back and felt perfectly useless.
But someone was running down the staircase. At the sound of footsteps, Peter stiffened. Red Hood had seen and heard it, too, because he fired a few shots. He must have missed, though, considering that the clattering was getting louder.
A little frantically, Peter cast his gaze around the room, looking for an alternative exit. No luck. The stairwell was their only way out, and if they tried to run up the staircase, the traffickers would shoot them like fish in a barrel. In fact, all the traffickers even had to do was gas them, but they clearly hadn’t thought that far ahead.
Bullets flew at Red Hood. Judging by the changing angle, whoever was descending the stairs was firing at them.
Peter’s heart rate picked up. Before, with where the top of the stairwell was located, none of the bullets had been in Peter’s direction. But now, they were getting alarmingly close to the doorway.
And the kids.
“Back up, back up,” Peter said, pushing the children back. As he narrowly dodged tripping over the body of one of the security guards, he paused and knelt. With a wince, Peter set the unconscious girl on the floor. It was better than possibly getting shot. Just as he’d suspected, the dead guard’s fingers were stiff, curled around the grip of a gun. Peter pried it loose and stood.
Red Hood was still taking potshots at their attackers, but he was clearly struggling. No matter how skilled the crime lord was, they’d been in a disadvantageous position, to begin with. He was firing less often, too. Grimly, Peter wondered how much extra ammunition Red Hood had brought.
Mentally, Peter offered a quick prayer. If he didn’t make it through this, he hoped that Hood would at least win the fight. Save the kids.
That said, he also wanted to live. Get home. See El again. See his team again.
Tightening his hold on the pistol, Peter entered the stairwell.
Dick paced in tight circles. They’d retrieved Lamprise and the ringleader of what had turned out to be a trafficking ring. Retrieval, not arrest, due to the fact that both had to be carried out of the building in body bags. And the SWAT team also found the bodies of several other notable criminals. Enough bullets to supply an army for a day were littered all over a secret staircase.
What they still hadn’t found was the trafficked children. And Peter.
Preliminary testing had revealed Peter’s fingerprints all over a chair in a makeshift cell on the top floor. The ropes had been untied, not cut. Most likely, Peter had broken out on his own, not been moved to another location. And going by the number of dead traffickers in the basement and distinct lack of any dead non-traffickers, whoever had so thoroughly massacred the operation had taken the children.
And potentially Peter.
Diana walked up to him, and Dick looked up. “Any signs?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No,” said Diana, “but we managed to identify the head of the trafficking ring. It’s Miller.”
That meant absolutely nothing to Dick, and he said as much.
“Jade Miller,” she clarified. Dick’s eyes widened. “A Gotham-based mob boss. And pretty recently, the Red Hood was talking about investigating a Gotham child trafficker.”
It fit Jason’s methods. Dick couldn’t deny that. The explosives, the guns, what seemed to have been a solo operation. And Dick knew how Jason felt about child trafficking—which was to say very violently, in both senses of the word.
In Dick’s pocket, his phone started buzzing silently. It wasn’t the FBI-approved phone with a list of contacts six people long and every conversation wiretapped. It was his phone for contacting the rest of the family in an emergency. He paused. Considered the fact that Diana was standing right there.
He pulled out the phone and answered it, holding it up to his ear. “Hello?”
“Hey, Big Bird,” Jason said, confirming Dick’s suspicions. “So, I may have a bit of a problem on my hands.”
“It’s Red Hood,” Dick told Diana. It also let Jason know that Dick wasn’t exactly alone, so he wouldn’t let any sensitive information drop.
Probably. On the bright side, Dick’s name could always be explained away as an insult, assuming Diana managed to overhear anything.
“Speak of the devil,” she muttered. “What’s he got?”
Dick sighed and said, “Alright, Hood, I don’t suppose this has anything to do with the missing children and Peter?”
“In my defense—” which was never a good sign, coming from Jason “—I did my part perfectly, but your pet agent went and got himself shot. And is bleeding out and unconscious.”
“He’s what?” Dick yelped. Diana’s eyes bored lasers into his skull, but Dick was a little preoccupied.
A little raggedly, Jason said, “Shot, so if you could let me know where your apartment is, that’d be fan-fucking-tastic.”
Automatically, Dick rattled off his address. Then, he said, “Wait, why?”
Judging by the grunts coming over the speaker, Jason was moving Peter. “He needs better medical supplies than I have on hand.”
“Take him to a hospital, then! I know it’d be bad if Hood showed up at a hospital—” he paused and cast a glance at Diana “—but if it’s life or death, he needs urgent medical care.”
“Your apartment is fully stocked, right?”
“Of course, but—”
Impatience bleeding through Jason’s voice, he snapped, “They were Gothamites. Some of Ivy’s latest concoction was on the bullets, and there’s no way in hell that a hospital in New York City is carting the antidotes for a Gotham villain’s poison. I’ve got a car; he’ll survive the twenty-minute trip.”
Dick pressed his lips together. That was… a fair reason. “Fine,” he said. “I’ll meet you there.”
“Great. I stashed the kids in the closed café down the block, so if you could pick them up first, that’d be good. Rattled and traumatized, but uninjured, thanks to your fed.” Jason heaved a sigh. “Make sure they get home safely, Goldie, because I’m trusting you with them.”
The phone beeped, and the line went dead.
Dick turned to Diana and said, “Take some backup and head down there to look for the missing children.” He pointed down the street. “There should be a café somewhere nearby where you’ll find them. I’m going after Peter.”
Diana nodded sharply, which Dick appreciated. For the criminal consultant to take charge of an FBI investigation was unusual, to say the least, but it spoke volumes to both how much the team trusted Dick and how badly Diana wanted to get Peter back. Walking off, she began barking commands to some of the police officers on the scene.
Dick hurried over to Jones and tapped him on the shoulder. As Jones turned, Dick said, “Jones, I need the keys to the van.”
Jones blinked. “You’re not supposed to drive.”
“I know that,” Dick said irritably, “but I know where Peter is.”
“Why didn’t you say so to start?” Jones asked. He fished the keys out of his pocket and started for the van. “Diana can handle it here; tell me where Peter is, and let’s get in the car.”
Sighing, Dick responded, “He… he’s with Hood. And Hood trusts me, but if any government agents show up, it’s not going to end well.” Jason was hardly going to open fire on Dick’s team, but it was going to be awkward explaining why the Red Hood was in Dick’s apartment, to say the least. Not to mention that it would delay the situation, and if Jason’s assessment was accurate, Peter needed an antidote as fast as it could be synthesized from the materials on hand. Dick’s apartment wasn’t exactly the Batcave, but his lab setup was good enough to deal with most of Ivy’s biochemicals.
Jones’s hesitation was plain as day. It made sense. Dick was planning to run off and meet with a drug lord on the FBI’s Most Wanted List, and as a criminal consultant, he wasn’t allowed to be driving in the first place. Jones sighed.
Considering that there weren’t any other conveniently located vehicles around, Dick was going to have to take the keys by force. The last thing Peter needed was for Jason to spend half an hour figuring out where Dick hid his vigilante equipment and cracking the code on the safe.
This was going to be really awkward to explain in the aftermath, but he didn’t have any other choice.
Jones tossed Dick the keys. “Here,” he said. “Please try to return the van in one piece.” His gaze was piercing. “I’m counting on you for this one, Neal.”
Dick swallowed past the sudden lump in his throat. That wasn’t even his name.
“You won’t regret it,” he told Jones, and he hoped his voice wasn’t cracking.
Consciousness returned in slow spurts. Muzzily, Peter cracked his eyes open. For a hospital room, the bed was surprisingly comfortable. Though the springs were a little more prominent than Peter would’ve anticipated for a sickbed.
With a yawn, he sat up—damn, the sudden vertigo was no joke—and opened his eyes fully.
Oh. That wasn’t a hospital room.
Instead of the sterile white environment that Peter had expected, it was almost eerily domestic-feeling. He was sitting on a pull-out bed in someone’s bedroom. An apartment, judging by the view out of the window.
“Oh, you’re up.”
Peter stiffened, but the modulated tone of the Red Hood was unmistakable, and he relaxed slightly. Which was a ridiculous thing to feel in the presence of a serial killer, but Red Hood hadn’t killed him yet, had presumably been the one to save Peter after he got shot, and had taken him to—
“Is this a safehouse of yours?” Peter asked. Normally, he would’ve been less direct, but he blamed it on the head wound.
Red Hood scoffed. “Of course not. This is Neal’s apartment.”
Sure, because why wouldn’t Red Hood know where Neal’s apartment was. He was already close enough with Neal to save Peter’s life over it, so for all Peter knew, they were roommates. Maybe Red Hood hadn’t even needed to break in, and he’d just walked in with his key. Which he did every day, for all Peter knew.
Setting down what looked suspiciously like a copy of Pride and Prejudice on the bedstand, Red Hood walked up to Neal. “How’re the bandages?” Red Hood said.
“Uh,” Peter said eloquently.
“Good news is, you got shot, but you didn’t get shot. Just a graze to the ribs. A nasty one, but at least we didn’t have to pull the bullet out of you. And the blood loss wasn’t as bad as I thought.”
Peter’s gaze drifted down to his chest, and yup, it was swathed in bandages. The fog in his brain had to be painkillers, or his chest would’ve hurt far more than it did. “I passed out,” he pointed out.
“Well, you’re lucky that Neal’s got a lab setup ‘cause you got dosed with some of Ivy’s poison. Nasty stuff.”
“Poison Ivy?”
Red Hood nodded. “The one and only. No idea how some goons got their hands on Ivy’s stuff—she’s gonna be pissed,” he said, seemingly an afterthought, “but it was all over their bullets. And between us, I was the one wearing bulletproof armor.”
For a mass murderer, Red Hood was surprisingly chatty. And friendly. He’d dropped more information in the last thirty seconds than most criminals did after a thirty-minute interrogation.
Peter tried to focus past the drug-induced haze. “We? Neal has a lab setup?”
“I mean, in the first place, I didn’t kill you because of Neal,” Red Hood drawled. “So when I dragged your sorry ass out of there, bleeding out all over my good leather jacket, the obvious solution was to call him.”
“Can I—”
“Yeah, yeah, cool your heels, fed.” Red Hood strode to the door and cracked it open, sticking his head out of the bedroom. “Dickhead!” he called, a little muffled but still audible. “Your fed’s awake!” Then, Red Hood pulled himself back from the doorway.
A good decision, considering that Neal burst through it half a second later.
“Peter,” Neal said, unmistakably relieved. A smile broke out on his face, and he rushed forward to envelop Peter in a hug.
Peter grunted, but he returned the embrace. “Good to see you, too.” Neal’s arms continued to tighten around Peter’s chest, and he was forced to say, “Easy on the ribs, there. They’re not broken, but they will be at the rate you’re going.”
Red Hood snorted. “The patented—Neal octopus hug,” and okay, Peter had absolutely caught that moment of hesitation before Neal’s name. But he was a little too preoccupied with being slowly squeezed to death at the moment to bring it up.
Also, Peter wanted to wait until it was just him and Neal before asking his many, many questions. Ideally, no crime lords in the room at all.
Reluctantly, Neal released Peter and stepped back from the bed. He turned to Red Hood.
Waving his arms, Red Hood said, “Nope, none for me, thanks. This jacket’s covered in blood, anyway.”
“You could take it off,” Neal pointed out.
With a sigh, Red Hood said, “So maybe I might have a rib fracture or two. Just a few. Nothing serious. I’ve walked off worse. Off death’s doorstep, really, out of the grave.”
Neal gasped. “Little Wing!” he said dramatically. Which, also, a very weird nickname. “Death jokes aren’t funny.”
“They’re always funny,” Red Hood argued.
“Besides,” Neal said, “what would Agent A say if he heard about you ignoring injuries like this?”
“Nothing?”
“I’m going to tell Agent A unless you let me help you,” Neal insisted. “And you know what that would mean.”
Red Hood seemed almost alarmed, but that couldn’t be right.
Enough was enough, though, and Peter had gathered plenty of information from the brief interaction.
“So, you obviously know each other a little better than you let on,” Peter said, gaze flicking between the two of them. Red Hood’s expression was, of course, unreadable, but Neal wouldn’t meet his eyes. “After all, business acquaintances aren’t usually in the business of rescuing each other’s FBI teammates after going on a murder spree in front of said FBI agent. You have mutual acquaintances like this Agent A—” Neal looked briefly sheepish “—call each other nicknames, and clearly have a history.”
Neal coughed, but he didn’t deny it.
Peter had been thinking. A lot. He wasn’t sure how much of their story to take at face value, but he didn’t think they were lying about the fact that they hadn’t seen each other in a while. Neal had been in prison for four years, with no opportunity to escape while on the work-release program, and even prior to that, Peter honestly couldn’t pinpoint a time when Neal might have gone to Gotham, though he knew there had to be one.
But they were close. Incredibly close for not having seen each other in over four years. Red Hood had known where to find Neal’s apartment. Between the casual physical intimacy, some of the hints Neal had inadvertently dropped, how much they knew about each other, the nicknames that were so blatantly obvious that Peter was astonished he didn’t realize it earlier—
“Neal,” said Peter, tone low and serious, “I realize that having slept with a crime lord isn’t exactly a crime—” he held up a hand to forestall the remark clearly on the tip of Neal’s tongue “—and he wasn’t a crime lord when you were, uh, partners with him, but you obviously don’t want the FBI to know. That said, going forward, if anything like this comes up again, I would appreciate knowing it before your ex saves me from traffickers.”
Red Hood burst out into full-body laughter. “Oh my fucking God,” he crowed, “your FBI handler thinks that—he thinks that we were—”
Leveling Peter with a desperate look, Neal said, “You have it all wrong. We weren’t—together. Not in the way you’re thinking.”
“Oh, c’mon, we lived together for years! You can’t just throw that all out the window when it’s convenient for you.” Red Hood stepped towards Neal. He sighed. “B would be so hurt to hear that you’re disowning me like this, after all the work he did.”
“B?” Peter questioned.
“My adopted father,” Red Hood explained. “But he’s basically like a father to Neal, too.”
Honestly, Peter hadn’t expected their relationship to have been that serious. He’d been thinking more along the lines of a quick, mutually enjoyable fling and friendship. But he wasn’t judging. Nope. Definitely not judging Neal. He’d been a criminal. It wasn’t that serious for one criminal to be in a relationship with another, even if said other happened to be a serial killer.
Maybe Red Hood hadn’t been a serial killer back then. Yup. Peter could dream. The homicidal, decapitation-causing urges had suddenly manifested from nowhere. The fact that Red Hood had been told the location of Neal’s apartment—and presumably been to Neal’s apartment—in the last two days meant absolutely nothing, either.
Neal’s voice was muffled by the fact that his head was buried in his hands. “Hood. This isn’t funny. Stop encouraging Peter. That’d be so gross,” he protested.
Red Hood gasped. “You’re ashamed of being in a gay relationship? Really, Neal? I never took you for a homophobe. Wally is going to be so—” Red Hood paused.
Peter filed the name away for later reference.
“Just, please, shut up,” Neal grumbled. “Have you ever heard of the concept of a filter?”
“Oops?” offered Red Hood.
“You know,” Peter said, “it would have been less suspicious if you kept going, but now that you’ve stopped, it’s pretty obvious that this wasn’t a name I should know.” He pinched his brow. “Please don’t say this is a different crime lord.”
Silently, Peter also pleaded for Wally not to be another crime lord that Neal had slept with. It was someone who Red Hood knew, after all. Sure, Neal flirted with basically everyone he met, and Peter wasn’t judging, but having sexual relations with drug lords seemed a bit extreme. Red Hood alone was bad enough.
“Nope!” Red Hood said cheerfully. “Wally just happens to be the guy that Neal got together with a few years back. And, y’know, without my knowledge.”
Oh, God. This was so much worse than Peter had thought. Neal hadn’t just slept with a crime lord. Neal had cheated on a crime lord known for brutally decapitating people.
Neal looked as if he was quietly dying.
“Neal,” Peter began patiently, “I know you said that you hadn’t scammed the Red Hood, but cheating on him—”
“That’s it!” Neal burst out. Looking up and straight at Peter, Neal said, “I’m not dating Red Hood. I have not, and I never will. Nor have I—” he made a face “—slept with him. Ever.”
Red Hood tapped a finger on the bottom of his helmet where his chin must have been. “Dunno about that, dickiebird. I seem to remember crawling into your bed more than a few times.”
Whirling, Neal stabbed a finger at Red Hood. “And you! This is not nearly as funny as you seem to think it is.”
In a faux-affronted tone, Red Hood said, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Jason, you—”
A silence fell over the room.
“And you accused me of having no filter,” Red Hood—Jason—said dryly. “B’s going to kill us both.”
“Oh, shit,” Neal breathed, eyes as wide as saucers. “He totally is.”
For a moment, Peter worried that he was going to be eliminated for knowing their secrets. But neither of them moved.
It didn’t seem like Peter was going to get murdered for knowing Red Hood’s first name. Probably. No one had drawn a gun, at least. Still, it was with a healthy dose of caution that Peter said, “Okay, clearly, I wasn’t supposed to hear that. But, Neal, if you weren’t romantically involved, and you haven’t seen each other for four years, why are you still so close? And why did you lie to me about what you knew about Red Hood’s identity?”
He trusted Neal. He really did. And Peter wanted to trust Neal. It was just… hard. There weren’t many explanations for being so deeply involved with a drug lord, and none of them were good.
Neal picked up on it. The way his lips pressed together betrayed his uncertainty.
“B will actually murder you if you tell him more,” Red Hood said, but it sounded less like a threat and more like a warning. “He’ll flip his lid, at the very least.”
Closing his eyes, Neal exhaled slowly. “I’m tired of lying about this.” He opened his eyes and met Peter’s gaze calmly. “We’re brothers. And there’s more, but…” Neal grimaced. “I can’t tell you that part. Or Hood’s full name, or anything like that. But if you have questions, I’ll do my best to answer them.”
Reeling, Peter gaped like a goldfish. He was stunned. That would not have been his first guess. Hadn’t been his first guess, in fact.
“There’s nothing in your file about siblings,” Peter remarked.
Neal ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, well, my family is a little… unusual.”
Peter never would have guessed from the fact that Neal had the Red Hood for a brother. Nope. Never.
“There was a vested interest in ensuring that no one knew about our connections,” Neal continued.
In secretly-has-a-crime-lord-brother-Neal-speak, Peter was pretty sure that meant the rest of his family was involved in some major criminal activity. He wanted to ask. He really did.
But it was probably better for his safety if he didn’t.
“Okay,” Peter said. “Okay.”
Neal searched his gaze intently. “That’s it?”
Peter shrugged. “I’m a little hurt you lied to me. But I get it. There’s no way I would’ve trusted you at the start if you said Red Hood was your brother, and later, it’s not like there was a good way to explain it. And honestly? If Red Hood hadn’t rescued me on your behalf, I’m not sure I would’ve believed you.”
“I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone,” Neal said quietly. “I’m sorry for lying, but you weren’t ever supposed to find out. No one was.”
He knew Neal was still hiding secrets. But as foolish as it might have sounded, Peter still trusted him. So he looked Neal in the eye and stated, “You don’t have to explain.” He paused. “Not to me, at least. The rest of the team… they’re going to have questions.”
Neal grimaced. “I’ll tell them what I’ve told you, too. Diana and Jones deserve to know what happened these last few days.”
“This is heartwarming and all,” Red Hood cut in, “but I think you’re forgetting someone.”
“I’ll explain everything to him. He’ll understand.”
Red Hood snorted. “Of course, he will. It’s you, the golden child.”
Scowling, Neal said, “He’d understand from you, too, ‘Mr. Decapitated-heads-and-murder-spree-who-tried-to-actually-kill-B’.”
Dramatically, Red Hood gasped. “Slander. That never happened. You can’t prove anything. That could have been anyone in a red motorcycle helmet. There are hundreds of copycats running around in red helmets.”
“Only these days,” Neal retorted, “because you started the trend! You were going around in that hideous crime against fashion before anyone else.”
“Me? A crime against fashion?” Red Hood said incredulously. “You don’t have much room to talk, for someone who thought pixie boots were the height of haute couture!”
Neal flushed. There was a story there. “I was nine.”
“Yeah, well, you weren’t nine for Discowing.”
That was the last straw. Neal vaulted across the room—Peter instinctively flinched back, but Neal somehow cleared the bed in his leap—and landed on Red Hood. Peter didn’t know what ‘Discowing’ was, but going by the mechanized shrieks, it was embarrassing enough for Neal to mercilessly tickle Red Hood over it.
Watching them, Peter couldn’t help but smile. He wasn’t sure how he’d missed it.
Those two were unmistakably brothers.