Chapter Text
Dick twirled his escrima sticks in his hands, trying to get some rid of the stress running through his body, “Have you found him yet?”
“No. Red Hood either got rid of all his trackers or has him somewhere that blocks the signal.”
Tim glared at his wrist’s computer, “How did Red Hood know to remove all of them, how did he know there would be any, let alone that many. He grabbed B as Brucie.”
Dick grits his teeth, “How did he know to be there to catch B? Even the Joker didn’t know B would throw them both off a thirty-story building after giving him a drug to lower his inhibitions and increase his anger.”
“Considering Joker is now a sidewalk pancake I have to agree Joker didn’t predict B’s reaction.” Tim scowled, “How did Red Hood know to be there to catch B?”
“Do we have anything but how?”
Barbara’s, no she was in work mode, Oracle’s voice came over the comms. “There. I didn’t get any GPS location but I’ve been attempting to hack Red Hood’s helmet for a while now and I’m in. Only visual and sound, with memory of both but that’s it.”
Dick bit his lips, “What do you have for visual?”
“Right now, it looks like Red Hood has B sitting on a couch.” Confusion started to lace her voice, “He’s not bound and I think Red Hood’s trying to give him a bottle of water? B has a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. I think he has B at his actual apartment… I just saw a bookcase and that’s a plant.”
“But B looks safe?”
“Yeah, this is weird.”
Tim pursed his lips, “You said you had history?”
“Just from the last twelve hours.”
“Can you start with shortly before B jumped?”
Dick grimaced, remembering that Brucie hadn't just tried to push Joker out the window but flung them both over the balcony as a tape started to play.
What must be Red Hood’s voice started speaking, or well continued speaking, “-ala? You’d think you’d find something to do today other then go to a fucking gala. What is this even about?”
Dick worried his lip as Red Hood paused, he wanted information that would lead them to a location.
“Adoption support? Alright I guess I can give B something for that, but why does he look so fucking miserable.”
Oracle asked, “Why does Red Hood care about adoption?”
Tim frowned, “How does he know B isn’t enjoying himself? He was hiding it well enough that I could barely tell.”
“I officially,” Dick sighed, “hate the words ‘how’ and ‘why’ but I’ll add to the questions with why does he call Bruce B? That’s what we use because of the Bruce Batman confusion.”
Oracle shushed him, “Red Hood’s talking again.”
“Looks like Dickhead is trying to find something to eat at the gala provided food. Good luck at that. I’m going to enjoy my honey and strawberry sandwich while you starve.”
‘Honey and strawberry?’ Tim mouthed to himself, not quite whispering as he considered why that felt familiar.
“Right where did I pu-” The words cut off as they heard Red Hood open a comm line, “Carmen. Why the fuck am I seeing the fucking Joker? Who missed him breaking out?”
Oracle sounded confused, “He really didn’t know Joker was out? Why the hell was he at this gala, or watching this gala?”
Red Hood’s voice came over the line, panic in his tone, “You didn’t think an unconfirmed rumor was enough of a reason to interrupt my brooding? One; news on the Joker is always worth interrupting me for and two; I am not brooding.” There was a brief pause, “I’m not teenage angsting either! Get me connected to the sound system in there!”
Tim shot Dick a confused look, “Red Hood is a teenager?”
Dick shushed him as Red Hood continued.
“Done. Oh, thanks, turn it on.” There was a pained gasp before Red Hood spoke, “I-I’m fine. Back to work!”
“Joker was laughing when Red Hood connected to the sound system in the gala.” Oracle informed them.
Tim nodded, “Potential link to Joker then, we suspected that with the name, but a negative one, highly likely to be a past victim.”
Dick pursed his lips, “Can you get a line up with the audio from the gala? Let us hear what he’s hearing?”
“One second,” Oracle went quiet, “there?”
Joker’s voice had all of them tensing, “-u lost this birdie. Celebrating the day, you collected your second birdie but you lost him. Going to celebrate that as well?”
Brucie’s voice was much closer to Bruce’s voice then it had ever been, “You don’t care why we’re here. What do you want?”
“I don’t know, seems a bit of a joke to me, celebrating getting something only for it to die. Do you think that will happen to the others? Do you want it to? Make them feel what you did? Or do you wish you never took him in? Maybe he would have lived,” Joker paused, “well he was gutter trash though, so he’d probably be dead anyways, or maybe turning tricks? He was rather cute.”
Everyone jumped as Red Hood spoke, “You bastard you really went there?”
“Jason was a wonderful boy,” Bruce’s teeth were obviously gritted as he spoke, “and every moment I spent with him was worth any amount of pain and don’t you dare speak of my son like that.” Anger was lacing Bruce’s voice, “What do you want.” It was a demand, not a question.
“I wanna know what you really want, what you really want to do, and I brought just the perfect thing to find it out!”
“Fuck,” Red Hood voice broke in again sounding panicked, “he’s going to gas him with some truth shit or something. If it’s a gas he’ll hot box everyone in there, turn off the air. B can not be left in a room of civilians like that, even with the others there, especially with the others there.”
Joker kept speaking, unable to hear Red Hood, “Just a sniff of this and we’ll see what you really want.”
“Oh, only B, that’s not good but shit does he know B is B? Fuck I have to stop this. Shoot the window and burst in and distract people from whatever B does if Joker does get him.”
“Now Brucie, big breath! OR my men will drop some of my normal gases with all these poor people here.”
“Fuck where’s my sniper rifle? Shit I didn’t bring it, there’s got to be another way to get in.”
Tim sighed hearing the gasps from the gala room, “There’s B breathing in the gas.”
“Now Brucie,” Joker’s voice was gleeful, “What do you want?”