A few days later, another text came.

Alice, sent 8:34 PM: can we skip tonight?

Alarm bells went off in Jason's head. He frowned.

Old Man, sent 8:34 PM: why

Alice, sent 8:35 PM: hurt my ankle

Alice, sent 8:35 PM: avoiding ladders

Old Man, sent 8:35 PM: where r u

It took a few minutes for a response, and he spent it imagining her finally deciding she'd had enough with his questions. But eventually . . . .

Alice, sent 8:41 PM: harrow and st marcus

He sent a thumbs up and got up from his couch. It took him seven minutes on his bike to make it to the cross street she'd sent and another minute past that to find her farther along Harrow on a bench. When he approached, she looked up cautiously. She was turned on the bench so that her left leg was stretched out. Her crossbody was held tight in one hand, her phone in the other.

"What happened?" he asked, crouching down by the bench. He lifted a hand towards her ankle but didn't touch.

"Couple jerks tried to take my stuff." She lifted her chin.

"You were mugged?" he asked, incredulously eying the bag and phone she still had.

"They tried," she huffed. "I shot them both in the legs and ran." She flushed, looking away. "That's when I fell."

That was a lot to unpack. She had a gun? He didn't quite like that after how he'd found her when they'd first met. Although that wasn't the most important thing right now.

"Can I look?" he asked, hand still hovering.

When she nodded, he carefully rolled up her pant leg. Her ankle was definitely swollen, accompanied by ugly developing bruising. He loosened the laces on her shoe and gently tugged it off. He peeled back her sock enough to properly expose her ankle. He prodded at it carefully

She hissed. "Ow."

"Doesn't look great. We need to get it x-rayed to make sure you didn't break anything."

She stiffened. "I'm not going to the hospital."

"Not the hospital," he placated. "There's a clinic I can take you to. I know the doc, Leslie Thompkins. She won't call anyone, and she won't make you answer any questions you don't want to. She's great at keeping secrets; I go to her myself if I really need some outside help."

She eyed him for a long moment, which was better than the immediate rejection he would have gotten a couple weeks ago. And then, to his shock, she sighed and muttered, "Fine. How far is it?"

"It's a good distance. I brought an extra helmet for my bike if you think you can ride with me."

She gnawed on her lip. She nodded.

"Alright. I'm gonna carry you, okay? You need to avoid walking on that until Leslie looks at it."

She made a face at that but didn't protest, taking her shoe and sock to hold onto as he then lifted her into his arms. He settled her onto the bike and gave her the helmet to put on. Once he was satisfied that it was secured, he swung on behind her to make sure she couldn't fall off. They took off.

"Keep the helmet on," he said when they reached the clinic. He lifted her up and carried her inside, doing his best not to jostle her as they went through the door.

There was only one person in the waiting room, and they quickly looked down when they saw Red Hood. The receptionist eyed them and got to her feet. "I'll let Doctor Thompkins know you're here." She went through the door into the back of the clinic.

Alice—helmet on—peered around, and he could guess that her heart rate was skyrocketing. She was still holding her shoe with one hand, but her other was curled tight into his jacket. He wasn't sure what to say to comfort her and doubted she would have appreciated him saying anything at all, so he just stayed silent.

Eventually, the door opened again, and Leslie stepped out. She kept the door open with one hand and looked them over, frowning. Then she jerked her head back to motion to him. "Head on back."

As he followed her down the hallway and Alice relinquished her hold on her shoe to take off the helmet at his direction, Leslie said, "Who do we have here?"

The girl in his arms stayed tense, staring Leslie down, so Red Hood said, "Alice. She fell and hurt her ankle."

Leslie held another door open into an exam room. "I'll take a look. Then we'll take an x-ray just to be safe." She motioned to the exam table and turned away to start washing her hands.

Red Hood sat Alice on the exam table and moved to step away. He was stopped by the death grip she still had on his jacket. "C'mon, Al," he murmured. "Gotta let go."

She jerked in surprise, as if she hadn't realized she was still holding on. She loosened her grip, blinking.

"Do you have any allergies, Alice?" Leslie asked, coming to stand beside her.

"No."

"Go ahead and lie back. Knee bent."

Leslie helped to adjust her leg properly, and Red Hood could see the way Alice tensed with the need to run. Her gaze flicked to him, and he gave her a nod. She switched back to staring at Leslie as the exam continued.

Alice only spoke in direct response to Leslie's questions, otherwise staying dead silent throughout the exam and x-ray. When Leslie announced it was just a sprained ankle, Red Hood was the one to ask follow-up questions to her recovery directions. He was the one to take the ice packs and compression brace. Alice didn't respond to Leslie's friendly goodbye, and she didn't say a word when Red Hood helped her pull on the compression brace first, then her sock and shoe—which he left unlaced—and finally the helmet.

"Hungry?" he asked, carrying her back out to his bike.

"Sure," she said, the first thing she'd said in a while.

"We'll head over to Timber Street. They've got some good food trucks. Any special requests?"

She shook her head. "You pick."

"Puttin' a lot of faith in me, kiddo."

She scowled. "Don't call me that."

He laughed. "There you are. Helmet on, Al."

It was as they were in the batplane flying to where Firefly was wreaking havoc that Red Hood got out his phone.

Old Man, sent 10:07 PM: dealing w firefly. wont make it

Old Man, sent 10:07 PM: see u tmrw

Old Man, sent 10:08 PM: do NOT go near east side stay safe

Alice, sent 10:10 PM: 👍

The confirmation made it a bit easier to breathe, but that only lasted so long. Ten minutes later, even with the respirator in his mask, he could still taste and choke on the ash Firefly had laden the air with.

"Hood!" Nightwing yelled out in warning, giving him just enough time to grapple out of the way of the fireball.

The apartment building wasn't so lucky. The blast took out its remaining main support.

"It's coming down," Batman growled in his ear. "Hood. Red Robin. Get as many civilians out as you can. Nightwing, Black Bat, and Robin will stay on Firefly while I find a way to support the—"

His plan for keeping the building from collapsing ground to a halt as glowing green geometric shapes and lines in languages they didn't recognize wove together across the apartment building, keeping it stable and keeping it from tilting any more.

"Haunt is on the scene," Oracle announced, sounding surprised.

Red Hood landed safely atop another building and took a second to scan the area. He spotted them. "North-east. They're flying," he announced to the team.

Sure enough, Haunt was floating about fifteen feet above the cross-street, both hands extended towards the apartment building thirty feet away.

"They're keeping it up," Red Robin said as he swung in through one of the building's busted windows. "We have a chance to get everyone out!"

It took almost a half hour to clear the entire towering apartment building. A few times, the building swayed or shook ominously as Haunt struggled to hold their spell or had to dodge out of the way of one of Firefly's attacks the team hadn't managed to protect them from. As soon as the last of the civilians were out, Red Hood turned towards Haunt and yelled, "Clear!"

Haunt twisted their hands, and the building started to move, following the shimmering spell down farther and farther. It finally hit the ground as the spell dissipated, a heavy thud instead of the dangerous crash of an uncontrolled collapse.

Speaking of uncontrolled collapse, Haunt dropped like a rock.

Batman finally got the cuffs on Firefly, and Nightwing was the first to reach Haunt as they struggled up to their knees. "Haunt!" he yelled, holding a hand out towards them. "You good? Can you stand? Are you hurt?"

Haunt staggered to their feet for a moment only to fall to one knee again. "Fine," they rasped, voices more sporadic than normal.

"Haunt," Red Robin said, joining Nightwing. "We can help. We—"

"No," Haunt said firmly, forcing themselves up. "No. I'm fine."

Nightwing hesitated. "Thanks," he said after a moment. "Really. If you hadn't—"

"I'm aware." Haunt moved both hands, shaking, and drew a circle in the air. A portal appeared, looking into what they could briefly see was a dark alley. Haunt stumbled through, and the portal vanished.

It wasn't for almost an hour that Jason finally felt he could breathe again, his ribs no longer strangling his lungs, and his lungs no longer churning ash. Alfred had been satisfied with his treatments, and he'd agreed to crash at the Manor instead of heading out for the night. Lounging on his bed in a set of the comfortable clothes Alfred had stocked his closet with, Jason fought against the temptation to close his eyes. He had one more thing he had to do.

Old Man, sent 2:11 AM: check in when ur up

With that done, he could finally—

His phone dinged.

Alice, sent 2:11 AM: im fine old man

He sat up in alarm and was calling her before he'd even thought it all the way through. After a couple seconds, the call was answered, but her end of it was dead silent.

"Ya didn't go near East Side, didja?" he asked first.

She scoffed, the first sound she'd made. "Do you think I'm stupid?"

Right. That was a sore spot with her. "'Course not. Just tryin' to figure out why you're still up if you're not hurt."

"Insomnia sucks, 'kay?"

He breathed a sigh of relief and tilted his head back against the headboard. "I'll see if I can get my hands on some chamomile tea for you to use in the future. It helps."

She paused. "It does? I just like how it tastes."

"Yeah. It's pretty great for helpin' ya get to sleep. Al," —he reminded himself that she didn't know who Alfred was— "my grandpa would give it to me growing up when I couldn't sleep."

"Huh." And then. "I have some of that."

"You do?" he asked, unable to keep the surprise out of his voice.

"Yes," she said in clipped annoyance. "I have tea stuff."

He thought back to the glimpse he'd gotten of a tea kettle in her bag and considered the new fact that she seemed to also have a selection of tea. And that she had to have some way to heat up the tea, whether a fire or, he suspected, some kind of camping stove. "Makes sense," he decided, as if it was totally normal for a homeless kid to carry around a kitchen.

She grunted in response.

"Get some sleep," he said, sitting up with a groan and reaching for his phone charger.

"Don't tell me what to do," she snapped. She hung up.

Alice, sent 2:17 AM: i want burgers

He grinned and started mentally compiling a grocery list.

Old Man, sent 2:17 AM: 👍