Black Mask had broken Joker out of Arkham.

Joker had broken out of Arkham last night.

Joker had been hiding out somewhere in the northside for fifteen hours.

The Robins were staring Hood down on a rooftop in Robbinsville.

The Robins were supposed to be safely tucked away in their safe house in the Palisades.

The Robins were supposed to be making Talia angry with him by playing with her weapons and watching movies and discussing whether or not Little Red was the start of Tim's Supervillain area.

All of which were concerning, but not as concerning as them being in the same fucking city Joker was loose in.

Calling them both Robins wasn't entirely accurate, admittedly. Stephanie was suited up as Spoiler and Tim was suited up as Little Red, though he'd added a red domino mask and a black utility belt that Red Hood was sure had been stolen from him and Nightwing respectively. It was a flimsy distinction, not that they seemed to understand that.

"You said no Robins, so we're not Robins," Red said, gesturing at himself.

"That was not the point and you know it."

"Come on, Hood. Joker's out."

"Which is exactly why you two shouldn't be anywhere near here," Jason glared at him, then turned his glare on Spoiler.

She crossed her arms. "I'm not staying locked up at your murder house, no matter what Mom says."

He pulled out a burner and hit the speed dial. He held it out, saying, "Take that up with her."

She flipped him off, but grabbed the phone as her mom picked up and walked over to the other side of the roof to have a hushed argument.

He turned back to Red, who gave him a cajoling expression.

"Look, I get why you don't want us near Joker, but B and Wing need us. They're probably already freaking out because we've been kidnapped and Joker being out is only going to make it worse. We need to be there to help them keep their heads on straight."

"They'll survive without their emotional support birds," Jason scoffed.

"They will, but will Joker?" Stephanie joked before flinching and going back to her phone conversation.

Jason rolled his eyes. Joker had a lot worse to worry about than the dynamic duo breaking a couple of his bones. At least he would once Hood got the birds back to their cage. "Don't care. You two are going back."

Red crossed his arms. "No. You can't get us both to the Palisades without alerting someone. Even if you could, you know we'd just get out again, and it will be even easier this time considering all the damage."

Jason… did not want to know what he meant by that. Talia was going to kill him.

The kid was right, though. Hood couldn't babysit the birds this close to the endgame and he wouldn't be able to focus if he was worried about them sneaking out and getting right in the middle of things. He also couldn't trust any of his people to babysit, considering how well that worked out before Red was willing to go full Robin and had Spoiler as backup.

He needed a babysitter with the mind of a Robin, the skills to keep a pair of birds contained, and the right amount of clinginess to keep them distracted until everything was over.

Well, at least this will keep him out of the way too, he thought as he pulled another burner phone out of his jacket. Three birds, one stone.

"What are you doing?" Red asked, staring at the phone.

"Stay," he said, dialing a number he'd tried to forget.

Nightwing answered during the first ring. "Who is this?"

"I've got your birds. I'm sending you the location. Don't bring the Bat."

"I swear, if you've hurt one hair -"

Jason hung up and snorted, "That's Nightwing on his way." Now he just needed to give Big Bird a good reason to keep the kids in place. Maybe a bomb threat or…

There was a glint of light to their right.

"How does giving us to Nightwing change anything?" Spoiler asked, marching over and tucking the phone into her belt. "He'll -"

"DOWN!" Hood shouted, shoving the kids toward the edge of the roof as he saw the grenade land near them.

The bomb went off, knocking all three over the edge.

Spoiler shot her grapple off, but it missed. She hit the wall hard and was out before she landed in the dumpster below.

Hood was thrown through the neighboring building's window, hitting a bookshelf that toppled onto him.

Little Red's grapple caught, but didn't hold. It only managed to slow his fall and he hit the ground bruised but conscious. Groaning, he tried to get to his feet.

All he saw was a quick glimpse of a metal bat, then everything went dark.

Jason groaned as he watched the various warnings and errors clear from his helmet display. He took a few controlled breaths as he focused on the smell of the purified air inside his helmet, the feeling of it wrapped around his head, and the subtle clicks he'd programmed it to let out at random intervals (very different from the measured beeping of a timer). Once he no longer smelt smoke, tasted dirt, or felt satin-covered walls pressing in, he pushed off the bookshelf and stood up. He staggered over to the window and stared at the smoking roof before forcing his eyes down to the alley.

He saw Spoiler in a dumpster. He saw a black and blue figure climbing around in the dumpster. He saw a red scarf near the end of the alley.

He kept his eyes on the ground as he swung out of the window and dropped into the alley. He walked up to the scarf and knelt next to it, looking around for its owner. He picked it up and something fell out of the folds.

Before he could see what it was, he was slammed into the ground. An escrima pressed against his neck as Nightwing hissed, "Where's Robin!?"

Hood blinked and turned to see Spoiler lying next to the dumpster, her cape bunched up under her head like a pillow.

Nightwing pressed down harder on his throat. "Tell me where he is right now, you monster! I killed the first Red Hood without blinking, so if you think I won't put you six feet under, you have another thing coming."

Six feet under. Satin walls pressing against him. Frantic clawing. A belt buckle. His fingers. Blood. Dirt. Mud. Rain.

Nightwing. Spoiler. Smoke. Brick walls. A dumpster.

The cracked concrete floor. The pressure of my helmet. The escrima against my neck. The soft leather of my gloves.

Wing's heavy breathing. The clicks. The sirens coming closer.

The helmet's chemically smell. The garlic on my breath from lunch.

The coppery taste of blood from where I'd been biting my lip.

Hood shivered and grabbed Nightwing's wrists, thinking through the rest of the older vigilante's demand as he tried to find an opening to toss him off.

He froze.

"You ki-Joker's still alive. He just broke out of Arkham. You didn't kill him."

"Only because the messed up cocktail of toxins in his bloodstream restarted his heart." Nightwing pressed even harder. "I doubt you'll have that kind of luck. So tell me where. Robin. Is. Now!"

"You…" Nightwing had killed him. Dick had killed the clown. "You killed him?"

"He took my brother away from me."

Jason had thought… Joker was alive. Jason had died, but no one had done anything. Jason had known that wasn't going to change, hadn't even considered trying to get Bruce to put the clown down. He just wanted Bruce to watch, to be there for him as he did it himself.

He'd never considered that someone else - that his big brother - would do it instead.

"And I won't let anyone take another sibling from me, especially not you."

Jason shook his head. "I don-I never wanted to kill him, or Spoiler either."

Nightwing's hand tightened on the stick. "Then where is he?"

"I don't know," he admitted, turning to look at the scarf. His breath caught as he finally saw what had fallen out of it.

A playing card was lying innocuously next to him.

A Joker card was sitting next to Little Red's scarf.

"Don't lie t-"

Using a move Nightwing had taught him a lifetime ago, Hood twisted his hip and knee just right to kick the older vigilante. He couldn't get his foot quite as high as his brother would have been able to, but his strength made up for it and Nightwing was flipped off him.

He rolled onto his feet and ran further into the alley.

"Hood!"

He slid around the corner and climbed onto his bike. He kicked it on and took off, swerving to the side to avoid a wingding.

He hit a button hidden on the neck of his helmet and said, "Locate Little Red."

His shoe trackers were still in San Francisco and his bracelet had been left in the Palisades. His earrings had been ditched in an apartment Hood knew was a Bat safe house while his scarf was back in the alley.

However, his tattoo was still right next to the trackers sewn into his jacket and pants, en route to Mask's hideout near Amusement Mile.

"I'm going to kill them."

Bruce's hands were tight around the Batwing's yoke.

Stephanie and Tim were missing. Joker was loose. Black Mask and Red Hood's war was hitting its peak.

Red Hood was Jason.

He hadn't wanted to leave Gotham, but he'd finally pinned down Talia and he needed to see what she knew in hopes it would help him track down his children. She had talked around the situation as much as she could, but he had at least gotten her to confirm Red Hood was truly Jason.

His Jason.

She wouldn't tell him how Jason had ended up with her or why she'd kept him from Bruce, though she had admitted she'd placed him in the pit before sending him off for training to protect him from her father's anger.

She hadn't known why he'd taken Stephanie and Tim as that hadn't been part of the plan Jason had given her, but she wouldn't tell Bruce where he might be hiding them either. She also wouldn't tell Bruce what Jason's plans were.

They'd argued, then fought.

He'd demanded she call Hood off.

"Beloved, if I had any control over your son, we wouldn't be having this conversation," she had scoffed, pressing her sword closer to his neck.

"What do you mean by that?" he had growled, tightening his grip on her hair.

"If I had my way, his business would have been taken care of within a night. Unfortunately, he has your flair for the dramatic and distaste for collateral." She'd traced the logo on his chest, then shoved him away. She'd swiped at his wrist, forcing him to let go before she could cut his hand off.

Then her men had attacked him while she'd fled. By the time he'd defeated the assassins, she was gone.

Angry, he'd returned to the Batwing to fly back to Gotham.

He could just see the lights of the city appearing on the horizon when Oracle connected to the plane.

"Batman."

"Hn?"

"Red Hood has made contact."

He sat up, staring at the growing city. "How? What did he say?"

"He called Nightwing's civilian phone," she said, her voice barbed even through the distorter.

When the Titans reported that Jason's codes had been used to access the tower and put it into lockdown, Batman had reluctantly admitted that Red Hood was the most likely suspect. All the kids were furious to find out he'd known there was a chance their security was compromised and demanded to know how Hood had Jason's codes, especially after Cyborg and Barbara realized Jason's codes had also been used on the Tower's zeta-tube to take Hood, Tim, and Stephanie back to Gotham.

Dick had even called in Clark and Diana to yell at him, which meant he'd been forced to admit his suspicions to the two. They'd understood why he'd wanted to protect the kids if Jason hadn't turned out to be the real Jason, but Clark still pressed for Bruce to tell them the truth. They'd managed to reassure most of the Titans (the former members of Young Justice were barely talked down from their plan to ransack Gotham in search of Tim and Stephanie), but Barbara, Cass, and Dick were less inclined to believe Diana and Clark's claims that Bruce had a good reason to keep what he knows hidden.

Now that he was sure of Jason's identity, he'd planned to tell them as soon as he'd returned. Something told him it wouldn't be that simple, though.

"What did he want?"

"To talk about Spoiler and Robin. He hung up before I could get a location, but Stephanie must have gotten a phone somehow because she just called my auto-tack number. Nightwing and Batgirl are on their way to their location."

"Tell them not to approach until I get there."

"Not happening."

"Oracle."

"I'll update you when I know more."

She disconnected before he could argue.

He growled and pushed the Batwing to go faster.

He'd made it to the edge of the city by the time she reconnected. "Nightwing has Spoiler. She's taken a blow to the head, probably concussed, but otherwise okay."

"Robin?"

"He wasn't there. Nightwing found Little Red's scarf, though, so we assume he was there but was moved."

"Where?"

"An apartment complex in Robbinsville. I believe they were on the roof, but something exploded and they were knocked down into an alley. The explosion's origins are not yet certain. Spoiler had her gear, which means the two must have previously escaped and Hood recaptured them. The bomb might have been the two attempting to escape again or it could have been an attempt from Hood to keep them in line that backfired. Nightwing was still a minute out when the bomb went off and Stephanie was unconscious on arrival and hasn't woken up so we can't be sure."

"Hood?" Batman asked, opening Batwave's tracking program. Stephanie's and Tim's subdermal trackers still weren't responding, but if Little Red's scarf was at the scene, then Tim might have been wearing the rest of that gear for some reason.

"Escaped. Nightwing tried to apprehend him after checking Spoiler, but wasn't able to follow when the man fled without risking Spoiler since Batgirl was still a few minutes out. Did you seriously put trackers on a set of gear we were planning to get rid of?"

He grunted and redirected the Batwing towards the northside as Tim's location came up, heading through the Narrows. "Just in case Robin stole it back. Was there any other evidence left behind?"

"It looks like Robin lost his grappling gun and his scarf was damaged, revealing a tracker inside. It must have been dormant before to allow it to slip past our scanners, but it's live now and I'm trying to backtrace it." She paused for a moment, then two. "There was also a Joker card."

"Hood's not working with the Joker," he denied, knowing that's exactly where the others' minds would have gone. It would make sense. The name and the focus on the Bats - Batman, in particular - pointed toward Joker. And he'd tortured Jason before killing him so it wouldn't be strange if Joker had found out a few secrets while he was at it, like Jason's codes.

However, no matter what Jason had done or how far he had gone, Bruce just couldn't imagine he'd ever work with the man who killed him.

No, this was painting a different picture.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. The bomb was Joker's. He kidnapped Little Red."