Hayate smashed the end of his katana into the forehead of the next Zetsu to grab at his feet. Those solid-white fingers were a death sentence if they could get a real grip. When he spotted the color of his waterlogged sleeves bleeding into the doughy hands of his attacker, Hayate spun the blade around so it sliced off the top of its head.
At least there wasn't a brain to gawk at. Zetsu clones were mostly full of whatever the rest of their bodies were made of, just in different consistencies.
Angry mochi, maybe. With teeth.
The creature collapsed, boneless, and Hayate kicked the corpse off the second story onto another Zetsu that was still climbing up. There was a squelch as both enemies hit the street and broke whatever they had instead of bones. None of the noises coming from there sounded like human pain.
Hayate knew that sound well enough by now.
"Clear," Hayate called over his shoulder. Sure, there were splatters of white and maybe some loose fingers on the roof with them, but these Zetsu hadn't been able to respawn from nothing so far. They needed most of their mass intact.
Kei muttered something and there was the sound of scraping as she slammed a kunai down through something—and a golden barrier bubble formed a dome over the roof, keeping out any further interlopers.
It didn't look exactly like Genma's first-draft defensive barriers, but it kept the Zetsu army out just fine. Seemed like Kei had managed to replicate the "rated for strikes from angry jinchūriki" property that Genma worked so hard to develop. Hayate had been there—sitting in the audience and trying to convince Raidō to hand over his genjutsu technique—during test sessions where he asked Tsunade to punch one. The pressure wave had been enough to knock people's hats off.
It was easier to test that kind of thing with friends. Or particularly bribable superiors.
A "bodega" was a bad defensive position, but they'd already thrown the wired-up fake enemy ninja to the figurative wolves in an attempt to shake pursuit. Only, after the first four had killed the dead weight actually dead and swarmed the corpse, there were like twenty more still crawling out of the dark and chasing after them. Kei could kill them all, sure, but not easily and not cleanly, particularly with innocent people and buildings in the way. Without live bait, the escape got trickier too.
So, here they were. Besieged in the open like a couple of sitting ducks. Thankfully, the Zetsu-head bomb had gotten rid of the only sneaky gun guy who had a clean shot at their current spot. There was an air conditioner in the way of the other ones.
Well, Hayate assumed there were other ones. He couldn't pick them out from range.
"Do you still have that summon scroll?" Kei's voice called from an even more sheltered spot—where two of the big steel machines met.
Hayate darted over to her, already pulling the scroll out of his sleeve. "Got it."
Kei didn't quite lift her head to look at him. While she had placed Water Clones nearby, letting them establish the Hidden Mist ninjutsu and start trying to tame the fire, the real Kei stayed by Robin's side. The stress was clear in her voice and the storm that flowed under her skin, accompanied by Isobu's backbeat, and Hayate didn't know how to help. Kei hadn't actually moved more than half a meter away from Robin even when making the clones, and the clones couldn't run too far off before they popped. Between all that and the fire, they were stuck.
Hayate thumbed over the catch of the scroll case, popping it open. "Oneesan, what's the plan?"
"Robin's crashing." Although Kei's hands were heavy with chakra as she tried to figure out how to help Robin, she hesitated to actually use any of it on him. It was being used instead just to diagnose the problem. But then what? "Call on Tsuruya and get the hell out of here."
Hayate paused. "Why me and not you?"
"They can't track you, and they can't catch her." After administering only one careful burst of healing, which pooled inside Robin's chest, Kei withdrew her hands and sat back on her heels. Crafting the point of a chakra scalpel onto one finger, she cut a thin, shallow line across her bare wrist and held out her forearm to Hayate's empty left hand. "Take it. You'll also be able to dismiss her if you have to."
The injury would be closed by the time Hayate even finished gathering the smear of a blood sample, but Hayate still winced. "I can't keep him alive. If you're a medic—"
"I'm not—"
"You were still trained," Hayate pointed out. He did reach out and swipe Kei's blood across the surface of the exposed scroll, lightning-quick. He could practically feel Robin's heartbeat slowing—even if it was a trick by Hayate's racing heart. What other reference did he have? "I can heal myself a little, but this is way beyond me."
"Better than nothing. And better than being here." Kei twisted her neck a little so her mask let her look over her shoulder, then shook her head. Another Water Clone at street level bounced a Zetsu's head off a car and set off the shrieking alarm. "I can't fight at full strength with you two stuck in the danger zone. Get yourself to safety." Kei tilted her mask up until it was on top of her head, letting Hayate see her face fully, along with the desperation in her eyes. "Can you do that?"
You have to ask? Hayate thought, but didn't say. His sister's stress levels were as catchy as a cold. Especially in this winter weather.
Kei had already put up another of her barrier bubbles in an effort to save the living civilians from the horde. Clones could be trusted to keep up the fight in the meantime. Part of the street was in pieces from where she'd smashed downward earlier to curb the number of Zetsu clones climbing up from the sewer, but that didn't solve the problem. It did weaken the street, though, and the flashy lights were headed this way and into a miniature warzone mostly managed by Water Clones and fog. There wasn't much time before Kei had to just…do everything.
While Hayate could pick a Zetsu out of a lineup—a term he'd learned from Akaboshi—any day, Kei was just seeing that they were chakra signatures in a world where that was rare. If one of them copied Hayate, she wouldn't know the difference immediately. That split second could cost her.
And Hayate might have to kill a monster wearing his sister's face. The best thing he could do for her was be somewhere else.
In the end, Hayate nodded. "Yeah. You can count on me."
"Good." Even as she said it, Kei got to her feet and got to work. The first step was putting the mask back into place, and the second was pulling out more weapons from the earliest seals on her storage scrolls.
Even not knowing Robin that well, it was hard not to notice that Kei had specifically noted him as a high-value target for the bad guys. It all snapped Kei into mission mode and made it necessary to talk into the ear radio she'd picked up earlier.
In English, though, so Hayate decided he didn't have to care about the specifics.
While she was busy with that, Hayate flipped the summoning scroll free from its container and made the appropriate hand seals with his sister's blood on his fingers. Then he slammed his hand down on the exposed seal before the rain could get it.
Smoke and rushing air filled Hayate's view, but it didn't last long. An instant later, a beak as long as a sword poked through and rested against his neck like a threat, but Hayate just raised a hand to briefly grasp it and acknowledge Tsuruya's presence.
The smoke mostly cleared and left the huge crane free to make a sweeping bow that whisked away the rest. As Tsuruya lifted her head again, there was absolutely no surprise in her dark eyes. Only a steel-strong composure that brooked no challengers. "Keisuke-sama, I am at your command."
"You're Hayate's bodyguard tonight." Kei had pulled out her ear-microphone thing and had it grasped in her fist. Maybe to keep someone from eavesdropping? "And I'm sorry I didn't pack your saddle, but try to forgive him if he yanks on any feathers."
Tsuruya tapped Kei in the side of her mask with her beak. The sound of porcelain clacking was sharp amid the sounds of urban chaos. "Of course, Keisuke-sama. I will treat him as my own."
"Please don't." Hayate glanced from Kei to Robin and, when she nodded, got the unconscious Robin cradled in his arms. "Sorry in advance, Tsuruya-san."
"Ah, I understand the warning somewhat better now. By your command, then." Tsuruya lowered herself to the roof so Hayate could easily drape Robin over her back, then stood so that Hayate could more easily determine how to pin Robin to her for the flight. Rope would be ideal, right up until her feathers cut through it. This was just going to suck, and maybe Tsuruya was going to hate him by the end, but Kei's goals were clear. And that was the important part for a battlefield summon partner. "Remember to hold on tight, Hayate-kun. We will be traveling quite fast."
If Hayate didn't, he wasn't sure he'd live long enough to regret it. Unlike Kei, he didn't have the time to learn how to use his nature transformation to catch himself in freefall. "All right."
Kei dismissed the barrier around them.
Tsuruya flapped her wings a few times, probably to get a feel for the local air currents, then turned in a quick circle as though to test Hayate's grip. As she did so, she paused for an instant with her head facing Kei and her wings half-unfurled. "What will you do when we leave, Keisuke-sama?"
"Hopefully, a lot." Kei held up three kunai by their rings. Each one had a densely-packed talisman tied around the handle. Hayate had no idea what they were supposed to do, but Tsuruya's head jerked like she did. "I'll be fine.
Hayate reached out for Kei's empty hand. "Promise?"
Kei laced her gloved fingers with his, just for an instant. "Promise."
With a bow, Tsuruya took off without a running start, wordlessly shaping Wind chakra with just her wings. Almost immediately, she tilted dangerously as the weight on her back shifted.
Hayate's stomach lurched unpleasantly, but he didn't give up to just try again later. Instead, Hayate stuck one hand low in Tsuruya's feathers, over Robin's shoulders, and the other closer to the base of her skinny neck. Between the Lightning-charged grip there and in the mess of static running up and down Hayate's body in an effort to stay in place, he'd probably fried every electric thing Robin owned. It was still better than dropping the other person Kei wanted to protect onto the unforgiving ground. That would be a failed mission right on the spot.
So, Hayate secured Robin to Tsuruya's back by pinning him there, even more carefully than the times he'd ridden Akaboshi's motorcycle as a passenger. He felt like a lizard just for trying, or a living harness, but it was working as Tsuruya accelerated into the air. Wind ripped at Hayate's clothes and hair—if gentler than it might've with a mount who didn't have ninjutsu of her own—and failed utterly to pull Robin out of Hayate's grip.
The wind got a little less annoying a few seconds later, as Tsuruya stopped ascending. Maybe she thought it was safe. Maybe it was. Or maybe they were all going to get jumped by worse things.
Either way, Hayate tried to get a better look at the ground.
It wasn't much of a view from thirty meters up. Tsuruya's wings angled enough to let Hayate see some things as she circled like a big vulture. But between the rising smoke, the way the local power lines kept getting in Tsuruya's way, and the rain, Hayate could only identify his sister's chakra signature because she was putting out power like a geyser. It kept everyone's attention on her.
There was no telling from on high how many people hadn't gotten to safety in time. Kei was the one making those calculations. Making them as fast as a special jōnin could, and there was no way to be sure how long she'd have to fight alone.
Hayate didn't want to watch the horde swarm her position. It made his stomach flip to even think about it.
"Tsuruya-san." Hayate said it into the feathers over her shoulder. He couldn't easily move well enough to feel Robin's pulse, but the sluggish thrum of his mind was still present. That would have to do for now. "How fast are you?"
"Oh, very." Tsuruya's voice was as pleasant and gentle as a breeze, with only the tiniest hint of stress in her chakra to give her away. She felt like resolve-confidence-pride all the way down to her honeycombed bones. "Especially with proper conditions, when I can hit full speed."
"Think we're gonna need all of that." Rain wasn't a great sign, and less so the distant flashes of lightning. Tsuruya's feathers were too close to real metal for comfort.
And then Kei's voice boomed up at them, clearly enhanced by a ninjutsu: "Suzaku, get out of here! I can't fight with you here. Tsuruya, just go!"
The urge to scream back his defiance of the order and of abandoning his sister rose up in Hayate's throat, but he bit it down. He had a mission. Even the complaints he'd had about being crammed into that apartment with Kei for two full days were silent now.
A second later, it didn't matter.
Tsuruya's Wind manipulation shot them a dozen more meters in the air in an instant. It was just one boosted wingbeat. Two more flaps of her huge wings got them far enough above the street that Kei's ninjutsu obscured most of the details that weren't light or darting shadows. Rain took the rest without mercy. And once Tsuruya was clear of the rooftops, she circled only once to give Hayate a chance to choose their heading.
And his stomach did enough swooping with the change in altitude that he had to think about what he wanted to say. Kei wasn't his current concern anymore.
"Hayate-kun?"
"To the northern island, Tsuruya-san," Hayate managed into her neck. He was a little busy trying to cover himself and Robin with his coat and avoid letting the wind wrench it away. They were probably destined for drenching no matter what. "I'll be more specific once we're there."
"Of course," said Tsuruya, and the air cracked as she threw herself into the task. "Here we go."
Hayate didn't get to enjoy the trip much. The city lights were reduced to rapidly-closing bright blurs in every tone from white to amber amid the lashing rain. To make things that tiny bit more uncomfortable, Hayate had never even ridden a horse before. Every mission he'd ever took involved either moving under his own power or maybe riding on a wagon. The closest comparison he could think of now were the times when Akaboshi let Hayate sit behind him on one of his motorcycles. And even then, Hayate didn't have to worry about a motorcycle falling out of the sky—just on its side, and flaying both riders alive against the pavement.
At least, that was what Akaboshi said. Hayate still generally found it easier to go across the rooftops than bother with vehicles except when specifically offered. In weather like this, he would've just stayed inside instead.
Tsuruya, meanwhile, sacrificed comfort for even more speed. Even with his borrowed goggles, Hayate had to hide his face against her feathers to keep water from flying up his nose and maintain his grip on Robin. The wind ripped at his hood and ballooned his clothes out with sharp snapping noises that drowned out almost everything else besides the storm. If Tsuruya tried to talk to him at all during the flight over the river, Hayate didn't hear a word of it.
Thankfully, the weather didn't take the crossing as a golden opportunity to blast Tsuruya out of the sky with a bolt of lightning. The low rumble of passing thunder hinted at how much of a lucky break that was.
It wasn't the first time Hayate wondered how the hell his sister traveled like this, but it was probably the most intense.
Tsuruya slowed as they approached the island, giving Hayate a chance to lift his head. His hood and sleeves were soaked through around his head and shoulders, but the rest of him was better off thanks to the angle. He hitched himself a little farther up on Tsuruya's back, grimacing at the feel of going against the flow of her slick feathers, inhaled sharply, and said, "Land over there."
Tsuruya jerked to a stop in midair and started circling again, twisting her neck until she had a good enough view of Hayate's pointing finger. Strictly speaking, she could probably coast on thermals or maybe even hover if she was willing to put in the work. But with only ambient moonlight and the city's glow to see by, caution was a better plan. They needed to avoid trouble, and the docks around here didn't have security cameras on the arms of their big metal hook-frames.
They did, however, have decent lighting all along the machines.
So, Tsuruya landed lightly on the midpoint of the long arm and let Hayate do what needed to be done.
With their forward momentum no longer a concern, Hayate slid off Tsuruya's back and onto the metal beam. It was wide enough that even in the rain, he didn't have trouble keeping his footing. Then he tried to check on his fellow passenger.
Robin didn't stir at all. His whole body was corpse-limp in Hayate's hold, and even after shaking him gently, there was no conscious response. Tsuruya's back wasn't stable enough to check his breathing or pulse until Hayate got a free hand up to Robin's high collar, which wasn't possible until they landed. Only the occasional spikes of dull terror— "fear toxin" and sedatives fighting each other, at least according to Kei—let Hayate easily tell Robin was still alive during the flight.
And now he was half-sprawled across Hayate's lap and in his arms, with his legs dangling off the beam. Not really a great place to wake up if this was the moment for a miracle.
"Is he well?" Tsuruya asked, stooping to speak to them.
"Fading," Hayate corrected. Robin's heartbeat was wonky, as was his breathing, and Hayate couldn't fix that. Even if what he knew about using Lightning ninjutsu for medical purposes wasn't mostly theoretical, it was still better at stopping a heart than steadying one, and that didn't help with poisons.
They needed a doctor right now. Only…
"Hayate-kun, where do we need to go?"
The only place that would treat people in Crime Alley was the clinic, but Hayate couldn't talk to them. None of the informational packets he'd seen included words he could read. If he got trapped somewhere and needed to get Robin out, any shred of forewarning he scraped together was better than none. With his sensing range so much smaller than his sister's, the language thing was cutting it too close. His phone hissed and smoked while Kei got Robin out of the hideout, probably because of his Lightning ninjutsu, and Hayate didn't know how to fix it. Or get a new one. That narrowed his options to almost nothing.
Almost. There was still one person on this island suited for assisting on his mission.
While Akaboshi hadn't replied to any of the texts or photos Hayate sent him earlier—dense technical writing was a huge pain in any language besides one's first, he knew—but he was still Hayate's best bet for finding somebody who would put caring for an injured person over reporting them to one of the local authorities. Maybe the clinic would work out in the end. Maybe Akaboshi would have to drag some crime doctor out of a hole and threaten him into listening. Either way, it was a step closer to a solution.
Hayate had a whole month of proof he could throw in Akaboshi's face if he tried arguing against getting involved with the Bat-clan. He had practice making Akaboshi listen to him and was willing to use all of that experience now.
Because, at the end of everything, there was no level of bad blood between Bats that was worth another kid's life.
"Let me get a genjutsu on you," Hayate said, already in the middle of the hand seal sequence, "and then we'll find my friend. They don't get birds your size around here."
"I see. Then I will endeavor to be stealthier from now on."
Raidō's camouflage genjutsu wrapped around them all like a huge blanket or tarp. Any kind of material that would keep anybody from noticing the giant bird and her passengers as they sped toward Akaboshi's place. Hayate felt a buzz start in his fingers and creep toward his brain as he stretched his chakra reserves and the genjutsu farther than either really wanted to go, but they had to hold.
Had to.
Tsuruya was kind enough to crouch again so Hayate didn't have to jump to get Robin situated. While Robin's belt and its dead zappy device were probably decent resources for making a harness, once tied to Hayate's sword belt, Hayate had gotten them this far already with just his limbs. He'd be fine. And anyway, adding more variables to his workload now was asking for trouble.
Okay. Back to the mission. All too aware of Tsuruya's weak night vision, Hayate scanned the area until he found a landmark shape in the darkness. A spot where, a lifetime ago, he and Akaboshi had dangled their legs off the roof and eaten midnight takeout together. "Starting off, do you see that water tower?"
"Ah, I have it." Tsuruya spread her wings again. "Prepare yourself, Hayate-kun."
The swooping in his stomach was matched by Tsuruya's flight arc, and Hayate did as she asked. Hopefully she was as good at avoiding power lines here as she was back home.
The Joker wasn't as unpredictable as he liked to think he was.
Sure, the details of his schemes were a complete grab-bag of bullshit. The man took a sick satisfaction from swinging wildly back and forth between merely humiliating his victims and utterly ruining lives, lethally or not, with only a thin veneer of "humor" plastered over a thousand murderous impulses. Ultimately, though, the man cycled through a pretty basic three-step order of operations each time.
First: Break out of Arkham. A "maximum security mental hospital" that was basically none of those things, everyone from the street kids to political pundits in California knew the joke about the revolving doors there. Jason didn't doubt that the clown schemed while inside his padded cell, too, but it didn't matter much until some stooge—like Black Mask—slipped him the keys.
And, well, mission accomplished. Sionis was going to regret that choice sooner or later. It didn't really matter who dealt out the punishment this time.
Second: The clown always went to ground. Well aware that a straight fistfight with the Bat was going to end with broken bones and the umpteenth trip to the ICU, the Joker avoided those where possible. He was a particular sort of rat that almost always managed to snatch funding from Gotham chumps and then gather minions to his cause. Then the Joker hid and cackled and plotted his next dance with Batman. Sometimes, it took Arkham's Swiss cheese security weeks to notice that the clown had slipped through their unwary fingers.
This time, the murdered gangsters and two dead Arkham guards left strewn across the grounds made the breakout difficult to miss.
Honestly, Jason didn't expect most of the Joker's new minions to survive the buildup phase, but there was always a lingering goon or two by the time fighting broke out.
And finally: A big reveal. The only thing the fucking Clown Prince of Crime cared about was getting Batman's attention. There'd be some public attack, or a string of grinning corpses left all across the city, or maybe he'd just coerce some unlucky soul into carrying out the legwork phase right up until the bomb hit the fireworks factory.
Batman stopped the bastard after stage three. Often after the second or third run at it, because the Joker would rinse and repeat the second and third steps ad nauseum and rack up the highest body count he could. Or maybe he'd just find one person and destroy them utterly, while dangling their fate in front of Batman's nose and using the futility of hope against the city's biggest naive, furry idealist. God knew Bruce—he couldn't fucking help himself. He really couldn't.
Luckily, neither could the Joker. As clever as he could be, the trick was to make a target that giggling jackass couldn't resist. It helped that he was all about brand recognition. By picking up the Red Hood, Jason was the biggest single "come at me!" taunt in the entire world.
So Jason informed the relevant competents under his control to keep an eye out—while they independently determined traveling in groups was safer—and got back to work. No crisis in Gotham could go to waste.
It was one of those "win some, lose some" nights.
Jason reclined on his apartment's couch, wincing a little as he adjusted an ice pack on his thigh. While the meeting with his lackeys tonight went well, the patrol afterward was a little less so. A brief tangle with the Bat wasn't anything he couldn't handle—particularly after blowing through a wall in the condemned apartment complex with one of Hayate's paper explosives. Batman didn't seem to really have an answer for magic, especially when judiciously applied to launch him through an old cockroach hideaway. Of the two of them, it was Batman who had to fucking walk home after Jason's EMP—undetected until too late—turned all his fancier equipment into paperweights.
Sure, he'd gotten a good shot in with the ridiculous boots, and the disengagement had cost Jason a helmet bomb in the process, but those hardly mattered. He had backup gear and he still healed faster than a normal human might. Running into Bats before clowns wasn't a dealbreaker yet.
And before all that, Jason still got that asshole pimp Rossi on Park and Eighth to learn a valuable lesson about relative balance of power and about respecting Red Hood's rules. The GCPD would be finding pieces of him for about a week, but only if the current was slow and the wildlife left in Gotham Harbor did a subpar cleanup job. He'd been briefly tempted to just shoot Rossi and call it a wrap, like with every other Black Mask holdout, but then Lily—who looked out for anyone she accepted on her corner—had sought out Jason's men specifically.
Vitaliy put in a request after hearing her story. No one cared how Rossi was removed as long as he never darkened another doorstep.
Jason was nothing if not a conscientious employer.
Not that the Bat could see it. He was as shortsighted as his poetic namesake and made as much excess noise. "I don't want to fight you," he'd said, while trying to pin Jason to a wall. To cuff him and drag him down again. As though it made up for anything. As though it was his windpipe being compressed by the spikes on those heavy black gauntlets, hooked under the chin of Jason's helmet where even the armored collar had to be flexible to function.
The old man did always lie like a goddamn rug. Jason had no use for it. He'd blasted his way free before any more poison trickled into his ears.
He'd cut it close, undoubtedly. Maybe too close without Hayate's secret weapons. The nature of fighting around Gotham's vigilantes was that nobody really slipped the net. Maybe at different speeds, depending on the specific opponent, but the Bats worried at extremities and corralled their targets until the trap snapped shut. Worse than a pack of wolves.
Jason slid the ice pack back into the dish towel he used to keep it insulated, momentarily annoyed that it had slipped free. The pain-killing patch on his throat was similarly unhappy with his treatment methods, but he'd be fine.
Probably wouldn't even need to be careful of the bruise by the time that grease-painted chucklefuck finally crawled out of his den to start the "fun."
Jason's preference, today, was to cut the Joker's legs out from under him at step three. The first time. Ideally, being reminded that kneecaps were privileges would slow the clown's roll a little for the next step in the plan. He only needed to keep that fucker alive for the rest of the dominoes to continue on their prepared route.
It couldn't be long now. Between Jason's lackeys and the people of Crime Alley, and a police scanner squealing away on his coffee table, Jason would know the second anyone saw something useful.
Discounting the superpowered brawl one island over, anyway. He knew what it sounded like when locals got caught up in something like that, down to memorizing half the fucking police codebook. It wasn't the kind of shindig local villains generally attended, for fear of being upstaged or maybe killed in the crossfire. Most of Gotham's roster understood that as long as they kept to their own beats, they could reign uncontested until Batman finally got off his caped ass and kicked them off their personal soapboxes. Outside villains generally got ganked the second they looked the wrong way in Gotham. Going by the screeching chatter between police units, it wasn't a local problem.
While Jason didn't need a degree to figure out Hayate and his sister were involved, Twitter updates indicated the fight was over in less than fifteen minutes. Hell, his run-in with Batman started earlier and ended later. With GCPD and fire and rescue units on hand, not to mention the casualty reports, Jason was staying right where he sat.
During that first minute or so after checking his phone and the police scanner, the knowledge that Hayate was almost certainly getting in trouble had stopped him dead in his own entryway. As the crackling signal and frantic data rolled in, though, he recovered. There was no way someone as unrepentantly deadly as the kid's sister would've let him get involved.
After all, Hayate sent him reams of foreign paperwork photos with a steady hand, good lighting, and an awful lot of complex characters. It didn't even look like the kid had noticed that Jason turned off his phone. He was probably fine.
With that thought in mind, Jason tried to relax by reclining carefully on the couch. He'd spring into action if and when—
Clack.
On reflex alone, Jason snatched his sidearm out of its holster and pointed it at the blackout curtains across the room. Letting the ice pack flop onto the couch cushions, Jason silently stalked across the room and clicked the safety off, even if he rested his trigger finger straight and level against the guard. Slowly, he flattened his back against the brick nearest the window and drew back the curtains with his free hand.
Even with the table lamp's light streaming out, the blunt end of a kunai tapped on the upper edge of the window again. And when Jason looked up, he recognized the pale fingers wrapped around the hilt and the bracelet above them.
Jason's brain offered up one candidate: Hayate?
But it was only the hand. The kid must've been using his invisibility magic again, because it seemed like the hand was just floating in midair with no other flesh attached. Everything above the wrist was gone.
Dammit, couldn't this wait?
Jason shoved the window open, drawing a squeak from the ninja brat clearly perched on his fire escape. He shoved his gun back into its holster, trying to keep his voice down as he hissed, "What the hell are you doing here?"
"I'm home," Hayate replied, and his disembodied hand flipped around to show that the body it was invisibly attached to had done the same.
"Welcome home," Jason said immediately, and grabbed at Hayate's hand to draw him inside. The kid had him trained. "Come on, you're freezing."
Hayate gripped Jason's fingers back with surprising fervor. So he was all here and not just fucking with Jason's head for the fun of it. He still couldn't think of any better explanation for the ceiling-walking. "Hang on, I should probably—"
Jason pulled Hayate inside. From what he could tell, the kid's body maneuvered a little like a snake, though Jason still couldn't see much, and it sounded like his footsteps were heavier due to fatigue. Jason took note and closed the window behind him, then drew the curtains shut. Something had the kid spooked.
"—I mean, sure, that's safer." Hayate shivered. Jason could hear his coat shift with the movement, and a light spray of Gotham rainwater sprinkled across Jason's clean floor. "Aniki, I need your help."
"Obviously," Jason turned to face him properly, already thinking of grabbing the mop. He squinted suspiciously at the notable lack of a visible teenager. Except for the hand. It was hanging in the air at an angle. "What happened?"
Hayate's squeaking shoes shifted a little, and the floor creaked under the movement. "This." With that, all of Hayate was visible at once. Rain-soaked overcoat, borrowed mask and goggles, the works. His hair hung damp over his face, dripping between his boots, and he was as sad and ragged as something a cat dragged in.
And Jason's world flipped sideways when he realized Hayate was carrying a body slung over his shoulders. Someone too small to be his sister, though they also wore a lot of black.
Hayate pleaded, "Help us."
Every thought fled Jason's head aside from one: "Put 'em down right now!"
While Hayate handled that, Jason practically vaulted the couch to reach his bathroom and the first aid kit.
By the time he got back and started laying out supplies neatly on the coffee table and within reach, Hayate had stripped out of his soaked-through winter coat and Red Hood gear and tossed them into a nearby chair. He'd laid the stricken victim across the couch and tossed the melting ice pack to the floor in the process, and the pile of cutlery here and there said that Hayate had almost entirely disarmed in the process. One hand was at his former passenger's throat, monitoring that pulse, and his gaze whipped to Jason imploringly.
No need for the puppy eyes, kid.
It took Jason a few precious seconds to regain the self-control to get to work. To look at the—victim. And even then, he felt ice spreading up his body. His drumbeat heart thudded in his ears and time slowed into syrup.
That was a domino mask. The high collar Hayate fought to get a pulse through was armored, if thinly. Draped over the arm of the couch was that signature yellow-lined black cape. The red tunic was different than the one Jason wore as a bright-eyed, snot-nosed brat, with a spikier R on the chest. Both gloves were still on, and rain still dripped off the boots—off the whole traffic-light ensemble—onto Jason's couch.
Jason hadn't been this close to the Robin uniform since before he died.
He'd avoided the title's current bearer—little Timmy Drake, the third model in a line of eager toy soldiers—because even as late as his return to Gotham, Jason didn't know if he'd lose all objectivity. If he'd abandon the plan and chase the brat down and scare the shit out of him, all to keep another precocious teen hero from following in Jason's footsteps six feet straight underground. Jason had been the first to die. He hadn't been the last. Not even close.
And here they were again. Another kid in that costume, utterly helpless.
When will you learn, old man? How many dead kids in capes will it take?
Hayate knocked his shoulder against Jason's and stuck with it, applying constant pressure.
Jason blinked rapidly, clearing spots from his vision, and dragged his gaze to Hayate's worried face. Inhaled sharply at the sight of a familiar dart resting between the fingers of the kid's free hand like a cigarette. Jason had three of them in a locked box under his bed, for analyzing another day, but this one was empty.
"I don't know what to do," admitted Hayate, "and my sister didn't have enough time." Full of faith Jason had never earned, Hayate's voice cracked as he said, "What happens now?"
Jason's hands were already moving while his brain ran down lists of symptoms—assessing, diagnosing. Bat-training was there and running triple-time. It was like being possessed by his own training. All the while, a particular thought trampled up and down Jason's brain like a line of army bootprints: This never should have happened.
It didn't take a genius to put two and two together, either. Robin 3.0 had taken a dose of this hell-cocktail designed for a metahuman whose powers included "superhuman durability" as a part of the package. He wasn't coming out of that on his own.
Funny how Jason felt like he was the one whose heart was failing. He'd deal with it later. Crisis wasn't managed yet.
"Aniki?" Hayate asked, his voice hardly above a whisper. It told Jason he'd been quiet for way too long.
Somehow, Jason gathered enough pieces of his shattered, scattered self together to say, in a rock-steady tone, "We move him when he can still breathe on his own. He just needs a little help with that."
Jason pulled the naloxone autoinjector from the kit. It sat next to the nasal spray and the EpiPens, and across from a handful of antidotes to old Fear Toxin variants and whatever the hell the Joker called his laughing gas this week. After a second's thought, he also grabbed both of the sprays and laid everything out.
In a place like Gotham, any emergency responder worth their title either carried or had quick access to basic antitoxins because so many of the city's terrors had degrees in chemical engineering. Fear Toxin antidotes had to be changed every time some Arkham guard fell asleep on duty and Scarecrow got loose. And that didn't even get into the fun foreign fuckery brought in by contractors from various assassination organizations, like the rash of animal-derived neurotoxins. For Jason's territory, due to the Red Hood purge of various lowlifes, cases not involving extremely acute lead poisoning were mostly drug overdoses. And while he wasn't a Bat, it paid to be prepared.
Some design iteration had reinforced the pant legs to the Robin costume, so Jason wasn't sure an autoinjector would make it through cleanly. The last thing the kid needed was kevlar weave inside his thigh, assuming the needle even got that far. So, Jason chose one of the sprays and lined up the nozzle with the kid's nose.
Four milligrams didn't seem like a lot. But unless they were too late, or were dealing with fentanyl, it should be enough.
Tim Drake stayed as limp as a doll, though hopefully his breathing was a little easier when Jason set him back down. Unless Jason's mind was playing tricks somehow. Honestly, there was a tiny part of him that would sit up and cheer if the brat snapped awake and cussed them out in three languages. At least that would be progress.
Hayate noticed the change in mood—sometimes Jason wondered what did slip by this kid's sharp eyes—but he just kept his fingers against Tim's pulse and counted under his breath.
"Keep me updated on any changes," Jason said, a little uselessly. It wasn't like he had the equipment to monitor Tim's oxygenation levels. Somehow, getting one of those tiny finger clip devices had slipped his mind amid all the schemes.
"Can do, Aniki." Now that they were in motion, the kid had snapped into "mission-ready" so fast it made Jason's heart clench again.
The feeling paired well with the way Jason's rage simmered below the surface. Below the analysis and the fluttering ghost of hope, clawing at the inside of Jason's ribcage. What part of "no one gives drugs to kids" is so fucking hard to understand?!
Ra's al Ghul might've thought himself above mere mortals. He could probably whip out a century's worth of nihilistic "experts" to back up his genocidal aspirations at a moment's notice, usually pulled from the ranks of his cultists. His accumulated wealth certainly didn't go anywhere useful. But unless he particularly wanted to experience hacksaw head removal, that immortal fuckwad should've known better than to cross lines like this.
No more dead Robins. The words blazed bright across the inside of Jason's eyelids when he blinked and then sank in, joining the fire in his chest. The flame that always, always threatened to burn him to cinders from the inside out. It'd been tinged poison-green by the Lazarus Pit for that initial burst of terror and let-me-live, but now the embers were all his.
And that meant he could use them how he saw fit.
"How long since he was shot?" Jason asked, after he shoved the used spray unit into a waste container in the kit. He needed to restock at some point.
"Probably less than ten minutes. I think my sister did something that gave him more time." Hayate took a second to run his hands through his still-wet hair and tie it back into a pathetically small bun, then clicked his tongue. "But she's not an expert on poisons, and I'm not either."
And Jason was, though he had no idea how Hayate might've guessed that. He'd been careful to avoid giving away his connections to the League in front of this starry-eyed kid. That secrecy didn't change the fact that Talia's hired tutors had provided excellent learning opportunities—if not the way they intended. Jason still kept the memory of putting Egon down close to his chest.
"If he's been out cold this whole time, how did you get him here? You didn't carry him, did you?" The big blow-up fight was on a different island, and that was a twenty-minute trip even with no traffic on the bridge. On one hand, successfully carting someone from Midtown indicated Hayate's strength, speed, and endurance was an order of magnitude beyond Jason's initial assumptions. Which was good for his chances of surviving in this city. But having to put the onus on this kid to get another whole child somewhere for medical treatment that wouldn't rip his mask off? Bad.
Hayate shook his head. "Tsuruya-san gave us a lift. I asked her to stay on the roof while we talked."
"That's—great." At least there was maybe an adult involved. Potentially one with flight capabilities? Anything would help. "As soon as this dose takes, we have…half an hour of effectiveness, minimum, whether he wakes up or not. Let me gear up and we can go."
Checking the wall clock, two minutes gave the medication enough time to stabilize the other kid's breathing. By the time Tim's still-gloved hand twitched in Hayate's, Jason had retrieved his domino mask and most of the Red Hood gear that survived the Batman confrontation, and Hayate had put his borrowed goggles back on. He held out the red mask to Jason in a silent offer, which Jason turned down in favor of taking his backup helmet out of storage. Something told him that the Bats were gonna be too busy to bother with little old him again tonight.
"Sorry about this, Robin," Hayate muttered, resting the back of his hand against Tim's forehead as he kept up the medical monitor job. Apparently, Jason was taking so long that he felt the need to talk to someone who couldn't snap back. "But all of you Bat-people are just so complicated that this is as fast as we could go."
Ain't that the truth, Jason thought darkly.
"Nnnn…" was the first sound out of Tim's clenched teeth, maybe in response to Hayate's ministrations. Now that there was a receptor inhibitor in his system, whatever the fuck else was floating around in there was shifting up the priority list. If it was Fear Toxin, they only had minutes before the hallucinations started.
"You'll be fine. Aniki knows what to do."
Hayate's conviction—in Jason's compassion, in his sister's strength, in the mission—was going to kill him someday.
But only over my dead body. Again. With a silent chuckle at his dark joke, Jason adjusted the holsters of his sidearms more out of nerves than need and then started reactivating every security measure he owned. All except the window. And he definitely packed most of the antidotes he had, in case Leslie was running short thanks to all the ninja attacks.
Jason made a mental note to drop a dozen bricks of C4 into the next Lazarus Pit he found. It'd be therapeutic. "All good, Hayate?"
"Yeah, I think so."
In the course of their preparations, Hayate and Jason quickly determined that getting Tim to the clinic was easiest if Hayate carried him again, because the kid made skeptical noises about his invisibility spell when Jason suggested the bike. And pointedly eyed Jason's sorest spots like he had X-ray vision. Even if nothing else went sideways, Hayate couldn't talk to Leslie or her nighttime volunteers at all without his phone (which was not available). And that meant Red Hood had to do another good deed for the night.
"Today's your lucky day, Robin," Jason muttered as Hayate dragged the brat out the window like a sack of rice. "Picked up by a couple of costumed killers. And you might even live through it."
Tim didn't respond this time, either. Just shivered like a chihuahua. Or someone whose body was gearing up for the worst trip of his life. It was just that, with the unknown chemicals playing havoc with his system, there were limits to what it was safe to give him without tests. Worse, Fear Toxin antidotes didn't play especially well with naloxone. Tim was in for utter hell.
He's just a kid, a scrap of Jason's soul howled.
So was I, was the rejoinder from the deepest depths of his wrath, and it rang painfully hollow now. Dragged into the light, it was a shriveled, hateful thing. Something so terrible to look at for long. It didn't matter then, did it?
Shut the fuck up, Jason snarled around the chasm in his head. It mattered now.
From the roof, Hayate snapped, "Aniki, hurry up! Quit wasting moonlight." It was the harshest tone Hayate had ever taken with him, almost like lightning.
"All right, all right, I'm following." Jason did not sigh, but he did tweak Hayate's little man-bun when he caught up on the next roof. It didn't seem like Hayate had any patience at all for other people's problems tonight. It was…probably for the best. "Just let me do the talking."
"Well, obviously."
Notes:
Hayate's POV: Akaboshi will definitely help us!
Jason's POV: Definitely didn't know that.
1. There's a cut scene here where Hayate gets to Jason's apartment and has a momentary "oh, crap" reaction upon realizing he can't break into the place while carrying an unconscious person. It would have revealed how Hayate keeps getting in and out. But I guess it'll just have to stay a mystery. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
2. Bruce and Jason? Confronting each other and resolving nothing? It's more likely than you think! (Somehow.)
