Notes: Hayate's explanation of events mostly references the October 10th incident in CYB's timeline, which takes place from chapter 70-76. He spent a lot of that arc unconscious.


Jason returned to his apartment a little past one in the morning. And, for the first time, he kept an eye out for a slightly subdued shadow the whole way back.

His original plan had been to take out the League assassins' cell on his own—no matter how fucking annoying that would be without Batman's tech resources—but throwing a new vigilante into the old man's path worked even better. It was nice to see a lucky break that didn't fuck up Jason's plans in whole new ways.

Even if Spike did spill every detail of the encounter to the Bats, they didn't know much. The Red Hood was an established name in Gotham, at least to supervillain history nerds, but that didn't matter so much. Jason being the living incarnation of throwing double birds in Joker's direction was more important than any conclusions the Bats could draw. As far as he was concerned, any version of Spike's confession was just fine.

If Spike told the Bats the whole story? Then they were implicated as a tangential in Red Hood's organization, because Jason knew damn well how Bat investigations went. By the time anybody believed Spike was an opportunistic hire, their trust in the Bats would be fucked beyond all repair.

If Spike tried to hide anything, well, the cocaine residue on the money would probably shoot that plan dead.

Spike made Jason's skin crawl anyway. Just talking to them for a few minutes made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, as though someone walked over his grave. The feeling hadn't gone away for hours. Knowing that he'd thrown them under the bus was viscerally satisfying.

And then it turned out that Jason didn't get even one working evening to himself, because Hayate had followed him. Not even just to a safehouse; instead, the kid tailed him all the way to one of Black Mask's human trafficking operations. Jason had spotted him, but only after he'd put an end to the shootout by killing every other participant.

"You should be back home," Jason told him at the time, barely keeping from yelling in English instead from sheer surprise. "Why the hell did you follow me out?"

Hayate had the gall to shrug, totally at ease among all the blood and bodies. "It wasn't like I had anything better to do."

"Literally anything is better than this!"

Hayate drew his sword and pointed squarely at one of the corpses. Apparently, it doubled as some kind of baton for trying to make his point. "Then why were you bothering to kill them in the first place? Clearly, not 'anything' is better."

"Kid—" Jason didn't even have to look at the set of Hayate's spine to know that he was prepared to plant his feet and argue. Which Jason couldn't afford to happen after that many gunshots, even in Crime Alley. "Dammit, go back and wait for me. I'll explain once I clean this place up."

Hayate eyed him for a too-long moment, as though to gauge his honesty. Jason still wasn't sure how. It wasn't like he could see Jason's expression through the helmet. Maybe it was just the weeks of familiarity that had Hayate entirely dialed in to whatever he could read in Jason's body language.

Jason pointed at the open door he'd kicked down not five minutes ago. "Get out already!"

Maybe getting the hint—or just deciding that a shouting match could happen anywhere—Hayate sheathed his katana and strode out of the building without a backward glance. Almost with his nose in the air.

Jason knew there'd be hell to pay later, but Jason still watched Hayate disappear with the faintest hint of relief.

Back to work.

And then Jason was alone half a dozen corpses and paperwork for more entries on his hit-list. He left the bodies where they were, but took every spent brass casing that looked like his. He also locked the building again, with a dead man's key, and checked that every camera he'd disabled before hitting this place was still out of commission. With a bullet, if necessary. As far as he was concerned, hiding bodies was for people who didn't plan ahead. If it took months for people to find these ex-wastes of oxygen, that wasn't his problem.

Human traffickers deserved to rot, and Jason was happy to facilitate the process.

So. That got him to one in the morning.

Hayate was once still awake when he arrived back in the apartment, flipping through a streaming service with the language settings on Japanese. He twisted around on the couch to look as soon as Jason shucked his boots, and said, "Welcome home."

"I'm home," Jason responded automatically, like he had since the first time Hayate said it. It wasn't real, but following this little ritual with the kid was apparently the kind of thing that helped assure both of them that things were fine. Even if they weren't. "So, how was your night?"

Habit was a powerful thing. It almost felt like they hadn't just been two seconds from yelling at each other at ground zero of a gunfight.

Absolutely fucking surreal.

"Shorter than usual, since apparently the streets aren't safe or whatever." Hayate rolled his eyes. "What else are you for?"

Jason kept hold of his temper, barely. "I can't follow you around all the time. I have work to do."

"You're too young to sound like a washed-up old man, Aniki." And with that, Hayate hopped off the couch and trotted for the fridge.

Jason let him, still reeling just a little as he processed that sentence. While Japanese had way too many terms and rules for addressing other people, Jason didn't have to look that one up. They'd watched a yakuza movie the last time Jason decided it was okay to just spend a night in, and Hayate had gone over the hierarchies of that subculture with scary attentiveness. At that point, they'd agreed to make it something of a cultural education experience and set up an American action movie for the next time.

Well, Red Hood was a mob boss. Which, apparently, made it okay for Hayate to claim him as optional, organizational family.

This did not cancel out Jason's need to sit the kid down and tell him, very explicitly, why this shit could not happen again. In fact, it arguably amplified it to heights even Bats would find unsettling.

"I made okonomiyaki earlier." Which was something like… "as you like it" when translated directly, but was in reality a savory pancake. "Not that you have the right sauces." Hayate had made such a face when he first tasted American mayonnaise. "I can still heat it up for you."

"Sure, we can go with that." Anything to give Jason a little more time to think.

By the time Jason was settled at the kitchen counter and ate the late-night snack in record time, Hayate was back on the couch and yawning. Aside from the plate left in front of Jason's spot, he'd also washed all of the dishes and cleaned the countertop. Hayate was a strictly neat roommate, despite all expectations. Jason kind of assumed that it was because the kid's boredom would otherwise drive him right up the walls. (Literally.)

It was a little like being in Alfred's presence again—

Nope. Not having that thought. Jason's mind flinched from it like he'd touched a hot stove.

And now they had to have that talk that Jason kept allowing the kid to put off. It had to be done.

"So…" Jason had never been on this side of the conversation before. He didn't know exactly how to start it. Something told him Hayate could dig his damn heels in like he had a pile driver in the place of each shin.

"So," Hayate parroted immediately.

"Can it, you little—" Jason snapped on reflex, then shut his mouth to force a calming breath through his nose. He felt his teeth click along the way. No, he couldn't start a conversation like that. He didn't want to scare the kid if he could avoid it. "Fuck, how do I do this?"

Hayate glared at him. Even if he couldn't understand English, he could track people's tones just fine.

"Do you have any idea," Jason began slowly, "what those men were doing up until I shot them?"

"Something that was worth killing them over."

"That's—" Not wrong, but not the most important part. Jason tried again, "Yes, I killed them, and yes, they were assholes who deserved it. But do you know how badly that might've gone if they'd caught you?"

This argument wouldn't have worked on Jason by the time he was Hayate's age, because by then he'd been Robin. Half the point old of putting on the mask back then was to beat scumbags like that into the ground so the cops could take them. The kind of people who'd sell other human beings deserved nothing less than acute lead poisoning, administered as efficiently as possible to cut down their numbers.

"Hayate, you could have died!"

Jason had known kids who didn't make it. Who were never seen again, or turned up as ruined corpses the cops wrote off without a thought. The vaunted wheels of justice were a millstone and ground up people like flour just because they were too small or too helpless to matter.

Being caught by the assholes Jason killed tonight was worse than death. He'd been caught up in Bat business before he had to find out if he'd survive fate's cruel coin flip. Which, in its own way, had been delaying the inevitable. Life had killed him once already.

Hayate scowled back at him, undaunted. "No, I wouldn't!"

Jason had never been a quitter, though. Not the first time, and not this time. "It's not like you're bulletproof," Jason snapped, "and if you'd been taken alive it might've gone worse!"

That gave Hayate a moment's pause. A spark of realization crossed his expression and his tense, upset spine suddenly relaxed again. His shoulders dropped. "Oh, that's what you're talking around."

"What—"

"Slave-traders," was the succinct response. Hayate's expression had cleared, all frustration melted away in favor of a calm determination that mostly settled around his mouth. "My sister told me about hunting those down before. Standing orders are 'kill on sight.'"

Fuck me running, Jason thought in horror. Was there anything this kid hadn't already been exposed to? And he'd just latched onto Jason like a goddamn duckling? An actual crime lord who'd killed twenty people the first time they'd even met. That level of non-functional survival instinct was reserved for pond scum and lemmings.

"I'd have killed them too," Hayate said, taking entirely the wrong message from Jason's surprise. "You were just faster."

Jason needed to steer the conversation away. "How in the world were you going to do that?"

And that was not far enough.

"I've been training with this sword practically since I could walk." Which was disturbing for a different reason. Jason had seen the League of Assassins in motion and had to kill most of his teachers for being abusive, being monsters, or both. Fuck Talia's tuition budget. Hayate continued, "I could help—"

No. Absolutely not. "The day I put a kid in a costume and shove him in the middle of a gang war is the day I eat my fucking gun."

Hayate took a moment or two to try and work out part of that sentence. Jason didn't know which one, but it didn't matter. In the end, the kid just said, "You can't stop me, Aniki."

Jason met that stubborn little glare and fought the urge to scream. Bothering with words seemed useless. "Don't be so sure about that."

"I am."

He could technically find a way to lock Hayate up somewhere. The kid wasn't immune to drugs, just resistant, and Jason could get his hands on enough different kinds of sedatives to put Bane down for the count. He also had access to zip ties and handcuffs and a dozen other kinds of restraints thanks to the monsters he'd put down just an hour ago. Jason had poisoned a supposedly-experienced assassin barely six months back because it was the only way he could put the guy out of everyone's misery.

If Jason absolutely, indisputably needed to get Hayate out of the way, he could. And any of those options would irreparably break the kid's trust the second he did it.

None of his earlier concerns about Hayate's safety had gone away. Killing traffickers cut down on at least one of the longstanding problems for everyone—if only because it took those fuckers time to reestablish themselves—but even dealing with Spike's creepy ass didn't necessarily remove the ninja problem. It depended on an untested freelancer actually following through. Which, given the amount Jason paid them, was probably a coin-flip on a good day.

Two-Face would be fucking proud. The thought didn't make Jason as sick as it used to, but it still left a bad taste in his mouth.

…Hayate had been awful quiet, waiting for Jason to think of a comeback. Nothing he had to say was a good way to keep the kid listening.

Fuck. What was there to say?

"You asked me something a while ago," Hayate said from his vantage point, having been watching Jason's face with the kind of intensity normally reserved for hawks. The TV was muted, and when Jason looked the kid met his eyes squarely.

It was like they'd never yelled at each other. The argument was dead.

"I ask you a lot of things," Jason replied while trying to match that energy, or lack thereof. That was what people tried to do, right? Meet someone where they were. Yelling clearly hadn't made appreciable progress. "Sometimes, that you listen to me."

And for the most part, Hayate's answers landed solidly in one of two categories: basic conversation, and various stories with horrible implications the kid didn't realize were fucked up. The latter list had been longer than the former for a while now. Pretty much from the first moment they actually started talking.

"I do listen. I just don't always obey. And I guess it was less a direct question and more of an implication." Which were nearly the same thing in Japanese. Implied everything with high context-reading requirements. Not for the faint of heart. "You were wondering why I was so okay with getting kidnapped?"

That was…a word for Jason's feelings at the time. He'd tried not to think about that lingering concern much since ramping up his operation against Black Mask, because he couldn't afford to be distracted by something that wasn't an ongoing crisis. Hayate's problems were mostly in the rear-view mirror, at least until tonight.

But what if he had gotten into something while sneaking around before Jason realized—?

Nope. Not thinking about that either.

"I was mostly confused," Jason said at last, since the kid was staring at him.

"Liar."

Well, duh.

Hayate twiddled his thumbs, which was a feat since he was wearing one of Jason's hoodies and he usually made sweater-paws out of the sleeves. He had to roll them back four times. "So, did you want to hear it or…?"

"The therapist couch is locked and loaded," Jason said, forcibly casual. He set the paper plate in the trash and joined Hayate on the cushions. The force of impact made the kid bounce. "Hit me, kid."

Hayate stared at him, which let Jason know he'd just slammed English phrases through Japanese and come up with something weird again. Before Jason could correct himself, Hayate obligingly kicked him gently in the leg anyway, just to follow through.

Jason looked down, made sure Hayate knew he saw it, and then said, "So, your story?"

Hayate defaulted to staring at the slowly rotating ceiling fan, pulling his limbs back so he was sitting with his arms folded on his knee. His other leg dangled. "This is a little related to what happened tonight. Just so you know." Hayate glanced at Jason sidelong. "It happened a few years ago. And some of this my sister had to tell me about later."

Jason nodded along.

"The first thing you need to know is that my sister…is a disaster magnet." Hayate took a deep breath and held it, puffing out his cheeks and releasing it slowly like a balloon. Then, he continued, "To the point where other people don't want to take missions anywhere near her team, in case something happens and they can't survive it. I think there's a betting pool now."

"There's a betting pool…about how badly your sister's job goes?" Jason tried to feel out the shape of the idea. Honestly, how much weirder could it be than growing up in Gotham? Or hanging around all the Bats? Arkham existed because the entire area was some kind of cursed.

"Yeah. She doesn't complain about it much, but everyone knows it. But one time, something…" Hayate took another fortifying breath. He curled inward a little, resting his head on his arms and looking sideways at Jason. "Something followed her home."

Ice trickled down Jason's spine. "How old were you?"

"Almost twelve." Eleven, then. Great. Hayate's gaze slid toward the coffee table. "There was…an attack, and then people screamed outside, and our mother went out to try and help. Our house was the safest place for me, since we'd secured everything already."

"Until it wasn't," Jason guessed. He resisted the urge to rest a hand against Hayate's shoulder, because there was something distant in his expression. The kid probably wasn't dissociating, but he was pulling his emotions back under some kind of defense, and Jason wasn't sure if it was safe to try and draw him out.

Hayate nodded. "They tunneled under the house and came up through the floor. Got sick of trying to bait me out." He reached up to rub the side of his neck. It was an obvious self-soothing gesture. "I tried to fight, but—uh, the leader broke my leg, then grabbed me by the throat before I could scream, and—and that's the last thing I remember."

Imagining that blank space probably gave Hayate nightmares as suspicion and fear filled in the blank. God knew Jason wasn't going to be able to shake that image for a while, and it hadn't even been him.

All this and the kid still didn't flinch around Jason at all.

"When I woke up, maybe the third thing I heard was that my mom died. She'd—she'd managed to find me, in the middle of everything, but…" Hayate's breathing hitched and he tried to get that back under control. His fingernails dug into his sleeve. "The report said she was trying to shield me. There was—a chance, maybe, but I slowed her down and" —Hayate tapped his chest with his fist— "it was over fast. Through and through."

Christ. "I'm sorry, kid."

Jason—didn't like to think about finding Catherine that last time. Realizing she'd gone cold sometime in the night, before he got back with the money from the neighborhood's quietest fence, and then trying to wake her. The woman who was his mom, even if she wasn't his biological mother, and who'd raised him despite everything until she couldn't. And he'd stayed—tried to stay—until the landlord threw him out.

For two full years after, he'd clung to the memory of her love like it could keep the cold off his skinny, starving self, because he didn't have anything else. Getting caught up in Bat shit didn't cancel out everything that happened before.

"The first time I tried to go back after, um, what happened, my sister said I had a panic attack. Even thinking about it… I couldn't." Hayate raised one shoulder in a half-shrug. He was back to staring into the middle distance, past the coffee table and off toward the scuffed-up wood that made up this apartment's flooring. "We sold the house."

"I think most people would." Most people who weren't strangled by rent prices, anyway.

"Maybe." Hayate's gaze flicked to Jason's face, then his arm, and he slowly leaned sideways. When Jason finally got the hint and gripped his shoulder, some of the tension drained out of Hayate's frame. At the same time, he seemed a little more grounded. "But anyway, that was my first time getting kidnapped. Not counting a plan or something."

"Well, we can talk about damning with faint praise another time." No idea if that was a good thing or not. Jason eyed him carefully, his hand moving in slow circles against Hayate's back, and said slowly, "So you're saying that nothing in Gotham is that intense."

Hayate nodded firmly. "You don't need to worry about me. I've gotten a lot stronger since then, and the guys you fight are nothing like Zetsu." He actually smirked.

What a brat. See if he was half as chipper after the next mass Arkham breakout. "You did get shot, remember?"

"Once! And I still got the guys who did it." Hayate didn't seem deterred. However much he'd been running wild behind Jason's back, he'd gotten his confidence back. "And I haven't gotten caught since."

Going by his own testimony on the matter—and Jason's investigation of the problem roof afterward—Hayate could overpower League assassins even with a three-to-one disadvantage. Which was…a lot, for anyone. And if that was a hint, then the kid had gotten into scraps while Jason was busy and made it back to the apartment without a single scratch on him.

He'd also gotten pretty good at playing innocent and ignorant.

"You fucking terrify me, kid."

"You kick in the front door to other gangs' hideouts and shoot them to death," Hayate said flatly.

"Different kind of fear entirely." It was the kind that'd give him a whole head of white hair before he turned twenty. He needed to change the subject. "Is that why you carry those glorified icepicks around all the time? In addition to the sword, the shuriken, and whatever else you're packing."

"Oh, you mean the kunai." Hayate undid the catch to the holster on his thigh and drew one, holding it up in the light. It might've been one of the ones Jason had to pry out of a dead guy's head. "They're standard issue."

"Same thing with this?" Jason flicked a hand in the direction of the dulled blue material.

"Duh." With a couple of quick moments, Hayate stowed the blade and unbuckled the holster, handing it over so Jason could take a closer look. "I'm right-handed, so I tie mine here."

Jason tested its weight, frowning a little. Hayate needed a more stable setup, in Jason's opinion. Having multiple knives rattling around in there was an excellent way to lose them the second he did some ridiculous flip. Jason didn't lean toward doing a gymnastic routine through fights much anymore, but Hayate had the flexibility and the metahuman strength for it.

…Wait a fucking minute. He'd seen this equipment on someone else. Recently.

"Hayate, does anyone you know wear this…white mask?" he asked, getting a bad feeling. And these days, he fucking listened to his gut.

Hayate blinked. "ANBU agents do."

That feeling got worse. "Which means…?"

Hayate shot him a measuring glance. Startlingly shrewd, he carefully asked, "Why?"

"Look, I swear I have a reason to ask." And if Hayate hadn't been weirdly focused, he might not have gotten away with such a weakass justification.

"Fine. The full term is 'Ansatsu Senjutsu Tokushu Butai.'"

Jason took a long moment to try and translate that. Word by word…compensate for sentence structure being weird… "Special Assassination and Tactical Squad." And even the acronym meant something like "Black Ops."

Fuck.

"You saw one of them, didn't you?" To Jason's astonishment, Hayate perked up. Actually seemed excited instead of sullen or upset. He leaned forward to peer at Jason's face. "What animal was it?"

"...Some spiky thing?"

Hayate immediately kicked him in the leg again.

"Ow!" It was more from surprise than pain.

Jason had sparred with the kid a few times and worked out that, while he was strong and very fast, Hayate just didn't have the weight or reach to get out of a submission hold if he got caught. Jason could pin the kid with a tight enough joint lock if he had to. That alone would have disqualified Hayate from running around at night.

Turned out the kid was also secretly a walking stun gun, which solved some of those problems.

"Every agent has their own mask." Hayate mimed a beak in front of his face, and then a pair of stubby, triangular ears. "Falcon, Horse, Rat, or a bunch of other stuff. It's important!"

"Fine, Jesus." Jason honestly didn't have a fucking clue what animal it was, though. Unless it was a made up one. "Maybe a sea urchin?"

Hayate scowled. "What the hell kind of mask would that be?"

"Spiky!" Under increasing scrutiny, Jason scooped his helmet off the coffee table to use it as a model. "Okay, look. It was all white, with these horn things sticking out of the top here." Jason drew a jagged line poking out of the forehead, like some weirdly intense crown. "And down here." Spikes on the chin had looked a little like a beard. "And there was red paint over the eyes, with a zigzag mouth down here."

Hayate squinted as he tried to picture it. "Was…this person about two hands taller than me?"

What, like the horse measurement? "I guess? Definitely more than ten centimeters taller."

"Black hair, uses ambient water to fight?"

In fact, Jason hadn't seen Spike's hair or honestly all that much of their fight with the assassins. It looked like it was over brutally quickly. "I couldn't really see anything like that. Their hair was covered, and I missed most of the fight because of all the fog. It came out of nowhere."

And just like that, the intensity was back. "That's my sister!"

What. "What?"

"The mist is something she uses practically every time she fights alone. It keeps her enemies from being able to see her, but she can trace their movements as long as they're in it." Hayate's eyes glittered with pride, but there was a little wry twist to his face. "She uses it against me all the time."

"Are you totally sure that's enough to be sure it's her? Because Spike had this…vibe." Even now, Jason could only describe it like the awareness of a bomb. The inevitability of death. But after watching the timer literally tick down on him once, he couldn't voice that thought.

And yet, Hayate was nodding along like he expected it. "Like you're being stalked by a predator? Or there's an earthquake happening and the building's about to fall in? Something uncanny and creepy that can't be pinned down?"

"...Sure. Let's go with that." What the fuck.

"Yeah, she can get intense like that. Mostly when she's angry."

"You do see how that's absolutely not normal, right?" If a seemingly ordinary civilian gave kid-Jason that kind of bad feeling, he'd have been across the street in a heartbeat. Possibly while holding the biggest, sharpest piece of glass he could get his hands on, while fully prepared to run all the way across town.

That seemed to snap Hayate out of his excitement a little. Then: "Oh. I guess I just got so used to people knowing…"

That bad feeling returned with a vengeance. It brought its whole family along for the trip. "Knowing what?"

"What that feeling means." Hayate took a breath. "My sister is a jinchūriki."


Honestly, Dick half-expected to never hear Genbu's voice again. The newbie was a jumpy metahuman with wide-ranging powers, and sooner or later people like that started up fresh in a new city, where the bad guys were less established and someone could do with a new theme. Maybe somewhere coastal, given their weather powers. On a cleaner coast, there'd be room to spread their wings.

Or flippers.

The turtle theming was gonna get run into the ground sooner rather than later, and Dick didn't regret contributing to that. Better for Genbu to steel themself early on, and then turn it around and make all the relevant jokes first. Some heroes even decided to call out special attacks based on puns, though Dick hadn't gone that far since his Robin days.

They seemed like the quiet type, anyway. A little broody or maybe shy, and with a quick enough mind to get the drop on both Tim and Dick when they were paying attention. Not knowing what a meta's powers were wasn't supposed to stop a Bat from outthinking them, even if the metahuman in question mostly came across as harmless.

And then Dick spotted the same near-opaque, uncanny fog rolling out across the Diamond District about a week after that first encounter, he called Tim over the comm link and said, "So, I found our new friend again. Seems like they're sticking around."

"After they spooked that badly?" Tim asked, but it wasn't really a question. He'd run the predictive models for supercriminals the world over, and a lot of the profiles in the Batcomputer now were Tim originals. Sticking Genbu into the numbers wasn't that hard, especially when Tim had a no-patrol weeknight in the Batcave to do it. "That's weird."

"I'll go say hi and clarify things. Notify B for me?"

"He's busy with a drug bust across town, but I'll let him know," Tim replied. There was some clicking noise. "I don't have eyes on Genbu yet. O might. I'll buzz her too."

A second later, Barbara's voice was loud and clear in Dick's other ear. "Crossing fifteenth and Broadway, now."

Only a block away.

"They're being pursued."

Dick was off like a shot, Barbara's directions providing him with constant updates from then on. Given the heights of the buildings in the area, it was easier to ride the overhead railway to catch up with the coordinates Barbara reported. The A-line was on an intercept course and the two o'clock train was passing overhead.

It took maybe a minute to enter the wall of artificial mist and get his thermal optics up, just in time to see four figures convening on the rooftop of a parking garage. The harsh LED lighting turned the area shock white instead of blurry enough to hide a sheer drop, and Dick watched the bright shadows tear at each other. He wanted to leap there, buzzed with pre-fight adrenaline, but he had to wait until the train slowed on a curve and—

There.

There was the distinct ping of an aluminum baseball bat just as Dick landed, rolled, and strolled into the fight. His escrima crackled as he activated the taser mods, glowing blue amid the swirling fog.

"Did you start the party without me, Genbu?" Dick called out, and all of the shapes twitched in his direction. Except the one lying on the ground already.

And then the fog was gone, shoved to the edges of the roof like it was a hurricane's eye passing overhead. The glorified porch light was suddenly even brighter, casting all their shadows into sharp relief. The security cameras were going to be Oracle's job tonight, as with all nights, and oh boy was there going to be something to analyze later.

One of the warm silhouettes Dick had noticed earlier was unconscious at Genbu's feet, and Dick flicked his mask's settings from thermal to plain view in an instant.

Genbu wielded an aluminum baseball bat that was dented a little in the middle, like it'd been bought secondhand. Their katana was still sheathed, but strapped to their back this time, and Dick didn't know exactly why they hadn't just committed to the ninja bit instead of going for "Gotham late night special." It definitely made his job easier, though—less chance of a body count.

Little metal syringes, tipped with bright artificial feathers littered the ground around them, and three of them were sticking out of the down-and-out guy. Dick had no idea what was in them, but that heat signature only looked stable when he last looked; the dosages in those things could be absolutely anything.

The downed guy and his two friends, who were still sizing Dick up like they expected to win, were all dressed like League assassins.

Using what looked like tranquilizer darts.

On a new metahuman, whose abilities and apparent training was the right size and shape for League reconditioning.

"I have questions," Dick said brightly, sidling into melee range like the performer he was. His smile automatically shifted a gear past that persona, into something he'd been told was more like being stalked by a lion. "And I think you've got answers. So, are we gonna do this the easy way or the hard way?"

One of them drew his dart gun and pointed it squarely at the bird on the Nightwing uniform. Where his armor was thickest.

Some people really couldn't take a friendly jab.

The other one immediately went for Genbu. He didn't retreat into the fog to flank them at all—that way lurked a seven-story drop into pavement—but instead drew two swords.

Genbu scoffed. Audibly. Their sword was out of effective reach, but they swung the the baseball bat up like it'd do the job just fine.

Dick decided he liked this version of them. Even if he could definitely see a minute tremor in those lean limbs—a giveaway for pure exhaustion—the surety was encouraging. He had no idea how long Genbu had been dealing with these glorified stalkers, but that ended here and now.

"You had your chance to surrender, Abomination," said the guy with the swords, in an accent Dick automatically identified as halfway between League chatter and Queen's English. So, essentially, what the League's goons used.

"So what?" Genbu snapped back. Their accent got harsher, and yet their word choice was still the same. Clipped, uncomfortable with banter in a fight. "I said no. Leave me alone."

And then, violence!

Dart Gun Guy made the mistake of taking his sights off Dick to try and argue with Genbu, which meant Dick closed the meager distance and immediately clocked him in the arm with the first taser-shot. The tranq shot flew wide, skipping off a parked car and its parking ticket, and Dick smacked him again because some people needed that lesson repeated.

The current penalty rate was one limb per offense.

Across the way, Sword Guy closing with Genbu turned out to be a really bad idea. Like on the rooftop where they'd met, Genbu did the water balloon impression again and vanished, leaving the assassin searching the clear zone frantically.

"Water you doing, man?" Dick yelled at him, fighting the urge to laugh. "You mist them already!"

Genbu made a noise that might've been a laugh.

"Now, now, I think we're having a shell of a time."

Somewhat unsurprisingly, Dart Guy tried to shoot him in the face after swapping hands. Failed, of course, but what else was new?

"Augh!" Apparently, Genbu had just used that baseball bat to ping a piece of gravel into Sword Guy's shoulder.

Dick hit Dart Guy with an escrima in the face, then bounced back a little to watch and see if the taser lesson stuck yet. Going by the twitching, not yet. The bruises would be spectacular with that busted nose, though. A real Gotham sunrise for the road.

Past Dart Guy and Sword Guy, a quick swap to a thermal view showed Genbu flitting around in the fog in an attempt to get a better angle on both opponents, still moving like they were holding the bat.

Good.

"Y'know, I might've let you off easy any other night," Dick told Dart Guy, who was trying to reload, "but I actually like Genbu! Targeting them was a mistake. Step right up to receive your prize!"

Dart Guy yelled something unflattering, drawing a kris with his still-numbed hand, and tried frantically to slash at Nightwing's arms before he could get in a real knockout blow.

It didn't work. These League types never learned.

Dick grabbed Dart Guy's arm, twisted just so as his momentum carried him too far, and drove the guy face-first into the floor. Arm locks didn't work for long on League assassins because they tended to train for pain tolerance first, so Dick popped the shoulder out of joint.

Dart Guy screamed, briefly, before trying to get the gun to his other hand. Persistent as hell.

And then Dick hit him with a knockout shot. Technically could have done that earlier, but he'd been hoping Dart Guy might have tried to fling accusations and give Dick more details to work with. "Abomination" was illustrative, but not actually indicative of their plans.

Ping! Another rock went high as Sword Guy ducked, and this time he spotted the void in the fog and charged right in. His disembodied voice bellowed, "You belong with us. No other knows how to wield you—"

And he flew right back out like a soccer ball, because apparently Genbu hit much, much harder than any normal human. The fog burst into loose water droplets, leaving nothing but clear night air, and Genbu stalked in the wake of that strike with all of their body language screaming bone-deep fury.

"Fuck. Off," Genbu hissed, their voice taking on a strange, rumbling quality that hadn't been there before.

The assassin wheezed on the ground as Dick moved to intercept, every single hair on the back of his neck standing up at the sudden shift in Genbu's mood. If he'd thought for a second that the baseball bat was a power downgrade, it was up in smoke now.

"All I want is to be left alone," Genbu went on, ignoring Dick almost entirely. They actually tried to step around him, mask barely shifting from the predator lock-on mode that followed the assassin's attempt to crawl backward. "Take a hint."

Genbu reached the assassin first and knelt next to him, bat resting gently back on their shoulder. Perfect swinging position.

"Genbu—" Dick began carefully. If he had to stun Genbu to prevent a murder, he would.

"If it wasn't for Batman's rules," Genbu snarled, "you'd be dead."

Nope, too far. "Genbu!"

They jolted like they'd forgotten he was there, then drew a breath that was clearly an attempt to claw back control. After two more, they backed off so suddenly that they staggered as they stood again. Lightheaded, maybe. Maybe an adrenaline crash.

Dick didn't let them tip over. He powered down one of his escrima in an instant and let Genbu catch themself on it, just for an instant. "You good?"

Genbu managed a watery, "Nightwing? I'm…really tired. Could you just…?"

Definitely not okay.

Dick obligingly kicked Sword Guy in the crotch to keep him down, then stepped over the writhing assassin to reach Genbu's side properly.

Genbu was a wreck. While their mask was intact and it didn't seem like they'd been hurt, the tremors from before were so bad that they sank to the ground. Their breathing followed the careful tempo of someone trying grounding techniques, and their baseball bat rolled out of their grip like they'd forgotten it was there. Instead, their hands went up to clutch at the sides of their head.

And the strange, creeping feeling of threat was gone. Their vibe was suddenly a lot less "Killer Croc" and a lot more "exhausted kid."

Dick raised an escrima-free hand where Genbu could see, noted the lack of reaction, and set it against their shoulder. After a further second or two, half-expecting to be shaken off, he squeezed carefully.

Solid. Shivering, but solid. No exploding into a puddle this time.

Genbu turned their head slightly toward Dick's grip. Their mask's black lenses fixed on Dick's face. A sigh creeped out from behind the scribbled scowl. "Thanks."

It was not the voice of someone who had anything in common with the League of Assassins aside from an aesthetic. It was the tone used by a person pushed to their limits, desperate for a reprieve, and had been cheated again.

Dick could relate. He'd had that thought before, while chatting with Genbu on that rooftop as they got more and more agitated, but, but he could finally be sure about it now. Genbu didn't have Bat backing in Gotham—always a dangerous choice—but they did have a bit of Dick's sympathy.

"I'm so sick of this." Rage still threaded through their tone, but Dick didn't let go. Didn't run. None of that anger was directed at him. "Weeks of—I can't—I refuse to let them win now."

"You didn't and you're not," Dick told them, shifting a little as Genbu leaned into the contact. It wouldn't be the first time a shellshocked vigilante cried in front of him, and the reverse was also true. There was no reason for Genbu to feel ashamed when these bastards were clearly targeting them. "Listen, Genbu, I still had a few questions. You feeling up to answering some?"

Genbu lifted their head, then let a hand drift up to poke at Dick's armored glove. The blue stripes on his costume went all the way to the fingertips. As though suddenly realizing he was there, Genbu's hand immediately pulled back. "I—yeah. I wanted to do that."

Dick let go. "Here, or somewhere else?"

All of their body language had slammed right down through tense and into something completely locked down. It was almost like the panicked moment hadn't happened, except for in Dick's memory. "Probably not h-here. I had to flashbang some other guys."

Dick blinked. Tilted his head in wordless curiosity because…well, nothing Genbu had brought along in these two encounters showed that they were all that interested in hardware. Besides the baseball bat. "What with?"

"That's…complicated."

"And the baseball bat? You already had a weapon."

"A lot less complicated." Genbu rubbed the back of their neck as they got to their feet, gathering the bat and uncertainly shifting it from hand to hand, as though they'd just realized they didn't have any kind of carry-strap for it. Out of Dick's reach, they muttered, "It's embarrassing."

"More or less embarrassing than dressing up as a giant moth and trying to terrorize a whole city while your biggest weakness is bright lights?" Killer Moth had a few things to answer for. Most of them started with "why?" in various inflections of increasing incredulity. Tim had made a flowchart once, while they were waiting on that after-fight GCPD pickup for ol' Mothy.

Genbu's body language read as a little baffled by the question. "…Less?"

"Great! Then you'll be happy to tell me all about it?"

Genbu grumbled something. It was such pitch-perfect teenage sullenness that Dick nearly laughed.

"Come on, I have to know the whole story."

"Later. Not near"— Genbu waved a hand to encompass and the cars and the unconscious assassins—"any of this."

"It's not scenic, but—"

And then Genbu froze, half a step through the motion to flee. "Ah."

Dick reacted more to their body language and the sudden flash of terror than their voice. "What is it?"

"This…" Genbu dropped to one knee next to the guy who'd been unconscious since the beginning of the fight, yanking the usual League mask down under his chin. They ripped off their glove without a second thought and pressed two fingers into the hollow under a stubbly jaw. "Something's wrong."

The darts—

"Three whole darts, calibrated for my height and weight. Unknown contents," Genbu muttered, half to themself. They jerked their head like a dog after someone touched its ears unexpectedly. "I think… Yeah, he's overdosing. Do you have a phone?"

"Better," Dick replied. He lifted his hand to his ear. "O, you get everything?"

"Way ahead of you," came Barbara's voice in Dick's earpiece. "Emergency services are headed your way, N. ETA one minute."

Genbu pulled their glove back on, as though hearing the faint buzz of an active comm link. Then they tipped the man onto his side with care that belied the fight and the anger earlier. "I…don't think we can stay. Right?"

"You could." There were already sirens splitting the air. This was still the Diamond District, after all, and the response times here were shorter than almost anywhere besides a GCPD doorstep or Gotham General's front lawn. "How's your freerunning?"

"Good enough." And probably proportionate to their strength, if they'd gotten this far. Genbu still clearly itched to run away.

"Then you should go before the paramedics arrive." The idea of subjecting Genbu to yet more social interaction seemed like a bad one. Dick could take this burden off their hands for a little while. "I'll catch up after I give them an update, all right? Just meet me…oh, a couple roofs that way. See what I mean?"

Genbu nodded as they followed the angle of his pointing finger.

"Good! Then I'll see you in a bit."

Genbu was already rushing for the edge of the roof, so Dick made sure to let Barbara handle at least some of the middle, fiddly bits.

Talking to the paramedics didn't take too long. Nightwing might have debuted and mostly operated in Bludhaven, but Dick showed his masked face in Gotham when necessary. Occasional spats with Bruce aside, plenty of the people he cared about lived here, so Dick drove up when he could and patched holes in the patrol schedule while also spending time with his family. And building public trust. Win-win all around.

Dick did make sure to pocket one of the discarded darts before the assassins were all carted away, though. Genbu had fought them off for some time now, but they didn't seem to have the resources to determine the latest chemical nightmare to debut on Gotham's streets. The Batcomputer could work it out faster and give the specs to GCPD and Gotham General if needed.

And then he was flying again, catching up with Genbu in only a few seconds. They'd actually listened to his suggestion. Neat!

Upon landing, Dick waved them onward with a challenging grin.

Insisting on carrying the baseball bat meant Genbu couldn't use a grapple line to bolster or replace the leap, but even when facing a gap that even Dick couldn't cross unassisted, all Genbu did was speed up. They had a good head for launching points, sure, but that was another sign of the superhuman strength they'd hidden until now. They didn't even bother to roll on the far side.

It wasn't exactly uncommon for metahumans with some power to have secondary ones, which was how all the Flashes kept from setting themselves on fire from friction. Genbu's weren't mapping to an Atlantean's—mostly because of the puddle impression—but it was an interesting thought.

Dick put a hand to his ear, even as he rushed after Genbu again. "O, you mind finding us a spot without extra eyes? I think this'll be serious."

"Of course." There was the faintest sound of typing. After a second's thought, Barbara rattled off an address and then commented wryly, "Now you just need to catch them before they overrun it. I have some footage to doctor."

"You're the best, O."

Genbu slowed down just enough for Dick to tell them where the destination was, and they obligingly changed directions.

This, eventually, put them in a back alley boxed in by shitty Gotham infrastructure. Someone's warehouse had suffered a smokestack collapse ten years back and an economic downturn kept people from bothering with cleanup. While that obstacle wouldn't compare to Genbu's jumping ability, Dick didn't really think the meeting would end with people throwing smoke bombs or drawing stun guns. Heaven forbid batarangs ended up flying around. They were just going to have a civil conversation.

…As soon as Genbu finished their current project.

Dick was perched on the fire escape, watching Genbu fling a pouch full of something into the beaten-up old dumpster. They slammed the lid down and started in with duct tape, sealing the entire thing shut.

Dick kind of just wanted to see where this went. They were showing ten times as much personality and initiative as they had a week ago. Sure, most of it was miserable frustration, but still. They were active.

"Cover your ears?" After the fight was over, Genbu went back to being shy. They didn't bark orders; they suggested things, and most of their statements were either curled into questions or just didn't have a lot of impact.

Dick obligingly covered his ears where Genbu could clearly see.

"Okay." Genbu held up their hands and knit their fingers together.

Inside the dumpster, there were twelve spaced-out explosions, barely muffled enough to not sound like someone unloading an entire magazine. Or a bag full of cherry bombs. Smoke started seeping out of the gaps, so Genbu stripped the tape with ease and flipped the lid open. The smell of burning garbage and plastic seeped out, along with a grayish cloud of smoke.

"I still don't have a full explanation of what you used to make flash grenades. If one of them was a baseball, I gotta commend you leaning into that Gotham Knights fan vibe you've got going on," Dick quipped once he flipped back down to the ground. The smell was wafting, and he wasn't dealing with that. "Was one of them a baseball?"

"Sure, if you want. I always wanted to be a Gotham theme villain." Good, the sarcasm was back. Genbu lowered the lid after confirming the fire was already dying. "Because being beaten up by Batman sounds like a great career move." There was a brief pause as Genbu's brain tried to catch up with their mouth. "Why did I just say that."

"When was the last time you slept, Genbu?" Dick asked gently.

"…a bolthole in Robinson Park, yesterday? For at least a couple hours." Genbu shook their head. "I couldn't point it out now."

Worrisome at best. "Not in a bed?"

"Not after those—uh." It was kind of adorable that Genbu though they had to censor themself now. They toed the baseball bat off to the side, which certainly didn't count as disarming with the number of other straps and pouches on their costume. "I had a room. But I—I didn't shake them before going back the other night, so they followed me. It's not there anymore."

Dick carefully did not react with shock or outrage. "Robin, O, can either of you confirm?"

There was the sound of typing. Then Tim's voice, saying, "That motel on Pine went up yesterday. The preliminary report says it might have been a gas explosion."

"How many dead?" Dick asked, already dreading the answer.

"One," said Genbu and Tim at the same time. Tim's voice added, "And two injured."

Shit.

Genbu's shoulders dropped in resignation. "So. There you go."

"You could try to start at the beginning," Dick suggested, summoning up a bit of compassion for the League of Assassins' current stress ball. Genbu looked at him like he'd just said the sky was blue. Or, in Gotham: Reddish hell-haze lit by a city's worth of light pollution, at this moment. "It doesn't sound like you're up for more complicated story formats right now. No psychological thriller movies for you."

"I hate those— Okay, you know what? Sure. You're probably right." Genbu rubbed at the sides of their head again, like they'd been doing pretty consistently since that first night. They should have tried avoiding more cameras and bought more ibuprofen. "The League of Assassins is after me."

Well, that was obvious. Still, Dick prompted, "Any idea why?"

"I have an idea, but it's not one that makes sense. The first time I met them, they attacked me." Genbu finally seemed to notice that Dick was in their space and leaned back, irritable. "What?"

"Traditionally, the League prefers covert work and avoids Gotham because Batman will come down on them like a ton of bricks." Dick could practically feel Genbu's skepticism from three feet away, despite not even seeing their expression. "They like to think they're actually a secret society. As opposed to, y'know, being named the 'League of Assassins.' Anyway, attacking a vigilante in the middle of Gotham is not their usual M.O."

Genbu stared up at Dick for a long moment. Then, holding up a finger in a clear gesture to wait, they dug around in their pockets until they produced a trio of the darts that had originally been scattered around the fight ten minutes ago. "These are from the first time."

"Then they've gotten a little more predictable since the last pajama party foray. Any idea what's in these?" Dick took the offered darts and checked the hypodermic needles for caps. And of course there weren't any. The only thing supposed to depress the plungers on these things was a sudden impact.

He didn't mention that he already had a sample.

Genbu sighed. "I'm not going to take a shot from their rhino tranqs just to see what it's like." Their shoulders hitched defensively. "Especially not after that guy OD'd."

"Reasonable." Dick still didn't take that as a full answer. And he'd have to check in with Barbara about that guy later. "I didn't expect to see you in the middle of the Diamond District after our last meeting. What changed?"

If possible, their body language took an even unhappier turn. All in a rush, they said, "Red Hood paid me fifteen hundred dollars to distract you and I don't know why."

Alarm bells rang in Dick's head. "Excuse me?"

Red Hood was—well, the only one Dick had truly studied was the one who took a bath in an ACE Chemicals vat and waltzed out cackling once the screaming was over. That the Joker had been a random red-wearing stooge was something that certainly hadn't made the headlines. Aside from a file on the Batcomputer, that information was probably only swirling around Arkham in some capacity, like sea detritus. No one else should have known, not without a prior connection.

With someone out there who was stealing the clown's show, every Bat needed to consider the newcomer a threat for more than just the murders. The upheavals to Black Mask's organization alone were enough red flags for a Communist parade.

Though the new Red Hood apparently hadn't paid enough to buy Genbu's loyalty. Or even their silence.

But that wasn't true for every ninja in town. Tim's most recent solo patrol into the city had added a new profile to the list of Gotham rogues. Associated with the new Red Hood's incarnation of the gang, Suzaku was another unknown card added to the deck. According to the report, Suzaku was around Tim's age or a little younger, about the same size, and dressed like a Red Hood underling while defending most of the crime lord's more heinous activities with the fervor of a recent convert. Which was terrifying on several levels.

The original Red Hood was a fall guy for the entire gang up until fate kicked him hard enough. The new one set actual policy and wasn't afraid to go out and do his own dirty work. "Enforcement" was certainly a word for it.

As far as Tim could tell, Suzaku could only speak Japanese, but Tim didn't have enough of the language under his belt to name a specific regional accent. If he was communicating with Red Hood at all, then there was yet another layer of strangeness. Most Gotham criminals tended to stick to their own and only hire muscle—if that—from any other background. Another factoid tossed into the pile.

And the Bats were only working off of Tim's memory—sharp as it was—because something Suzaku did had fried everything without shielded circuitry as a parting shot. All the way down to the computer in Tim's gauntlet.

Suzaku and Genbu sharing the Four Gods theming was a connection Dick honestly hadn't expected to come up, given how Genbu talked about other ninjas. Both were metahumans, both leaned into the ninja theme, and there was the language connection they shared that the League didn't. It could have just been a coincidence.

Dick might have mentioned this to Genbu, but it sounded like Red Hood was on their shit list. Genbu didn't look like someone who needed yet more stressors. While Dick didn't begrudge them that, whether it was motivated by dented pride or something else, the last thing anyone needed was two sneaky, combat-trained metahumans deciding that they'd like to hold a cage match in Gotham's streets.

Especially over Red Hood. He'd probably cackle in the ashes if he was anything like his predecessor. Dick knew about the duffel bag full of heads. It seemed like every two-bit goon in Gotham had heard about it, which could only be by design.

"He's a big guy with a helmet and guns," Genbu tried to explain, while picking around for a place to sit down. "And…" Genbu went very still for a moment, then dropped squarely onto the brick. Disbelief reigned. "I was actually bribed by a mob boss. Personally! Fucking Gotham."

Dick sat down a careful distance from them. Not close enough to be a threat. "Hey, there's a reason I work in Bludhaven most of the time."

Genbu gave him a Look even from under the expressionless mask, then went back to having their crisis. "Red Hood said that we had the same problems." Genbu crossed their arms, half in thought and apparently half to stave off a shudder. "I don't know if he meant the assassins or you. He spoke their language well enough to offer me a translation, though." A pause. "Should I have mentioned that before?"

"Would've been helpful." But it mostly sounded like Dick needed to find Genbu a safehouse yesterday. And get Tim to update the file on Red Hood to include "associated with the League of Assassins," which wildly threw off most of the calculations about his capabilities. There was a wide gulf between the playbook of a Gotham-spawned mob boss and a League-affiliated killer.

Genbu's hand hit their mask in a clear facepalm. "Sorry. I didn't even know Red Hood existed until the other night."

"You and me both, apparently." Dick could already hear frantic typing through his comm link and hushed voices as Tim and Barbara rushed to add information to the relevant profiles. He shook himself out of that potential distraction and turned his attention back to Genbu. "Putting the Red Hood stuff to the side—mostly—I think it'd be a good idea if you could hide for a while. With the League of Assassins after you, you're planning to go to ground after this anyway, right?"

Genbu nodded, despite the way their shoulders went up and hesitation was front and center. Again. Earning their trust was clearly going to be an uphill battle.

Might as well start now, for real this time. Dick held out his hand, clear of any tracking devices. He'd learned. "Then we can find a place."


Notes:

1. In Konoha's legal system, human trafficking is punishable by summary execution. Bloodline theft is related, but distinct, and Obito could specifically ask for Kei/Rin to transplant his eye without all of Team Minato being raked over the coals due to an exception regarding the Sharingan. The Uchiha regret their ancestors' insistence sometimes.
2. In this story, Catherine Todd was Jason's adoptive mom. I think there's a retcon in the comics that she's his bio-mom, but I can't remember if that was Nu52 or not and don't really care. Also, Willis Todd was an abusive asshole who got killed by Two-Face for crime reasons.
3. The assassin who got hit with three whole darts was being used as a human shield at the time. Kei is not going to tell that to Nightwing. Ever.
4. Kei's actual reason for using a baseball bat was going to be more convoluted and honestly pretty funny, but she just grabbed it for lower-lethality reasons here. It came from the night manager's desk at the motel. (And this version of events does not involve her using baseballs as grenades, despite Nightwing's tacit encouragement.)