Chapter Text
“Put your mask on.”
It's Black Bat, on the comms.
…She sounds pissed.
Why, though?
Confused, he says, “What?”
“Put. Your mask. On.”
“Uh. Okay?”
He does so.
Cass- Black Bat drops down on him from several stories up and flattens him into the ground.
Ow.
Very pissed, apparently.
What the fuck for?
He rolls to his feet, tentative. “Black Bat?”
“How dare- how dare you!”
Oh. Okay. It's about that, then. Red Hood had made his point pretty emphatically: he doesn't tolerate traffickers.
Well, it's party time then. Except he's not stupid, he knows there's no way he's gonna win. He's just gotta try and not get too badly hurt.
Black Bat lunges, he skips back a step, she follows, moving fast- ah, shit!
Mother fucker that hurts.
He stays down this time.
Black Bat snarls, “And that's for Red Robin.”
His arm is broken.
-What? Oh.
…Yeah, okay. That's fair - he had broken Red Robin's arm, and badly too. There’d been so much happening, that night and since, he'd kinda forgotten he did that.
(Though, he does remember warning Duke, who would've warned the others not to get in his way. He's also pretty sure he heard Dick over the bugged line, telling everyone to use Fear Toxin Protocol E. E for evade, do not engage - they aren't registering anyone as friendlies. If you ignore that, getting hurt is your own fault, which is probably why no one had been pissy about it.)
Still, warning or no, he'd broken RR's arm. Payback is fair.
At least it's not an open fracture, which is nice of her.
Black Bat stares down at him, nods decisively, and then leaves.
After a moment, Sam sneaks over.
Well. That's a little awkward, getting taken out in front of one of his lieutenants like this. He's the Red Hood, shit like this isn't supposed to happen to him.
But it's Black Bat - she's the One Who Is All. He didn't have a chance.
Fuck it. He may as well lean into it, make sure everyone knows not to fuck with her. They really should know that by now, but it can't hurt to reinforce the idea. (If she is gonna be the Bat…)
Cautiously, Sam says, “You didn't fight back.”
“Uh, no.”
“Why?”
“Because I can't fight Black Bat and win.
"Batman, yeah.
"But not her. No one can.”
That's not strictly true, but no one in Gotham can fight her and win. It should make her life easier if they get that into their heads now, and don't try to fight her at all.
(Besides, his arm is -fuck, it actually really hurts. He doesn't want her hurting his people, and that means they need to stay outta her way. However dangerous they think she is- she's worse.)
Hell, when he took out Black Mask, he'd only managed to outmanoeuvre all the Bats because he'd been planning it for a couple years, and had several dozen people providing necessary teamwork. His people, they wouldn't have that. (If she went after them like this, instead of focusing on him… He doesn't want that. He doesn't want his people getting hurt. That's the whole point of being the Hood.)
Sam looks up at where Black Bat had vanished. “She's that good?”
“She is the best,” he warns. “Categorical, definite article, superlative, the best.”
He makes eye contact. “Do not cross her.”
Sam swallows, pale. “Got it, boss.”
Sam's steady, and he's not stupid. When Red Hood gives a warning, he listens.
He'll spread the word.
*****
They've already apologised to each other for that kerfuffle, but it doesn't look like Cass thinks their conversation is over yet.
Uncertainly, she says, “You aren't upset at me?”
“No. Why would I be?” He's nice and comfy right now, and she's brought him apology snacks.
(He's not doing the silent festering thing anymore. Any grievance they might have with each other, if they're not willing to say it out loud, then they don't have it. They've both said sorry, and said what they were sorry about. If he was still upset, he'd tell her.)
“I did this to you.” She gestures at his arm. Which- yeah, okay, Jason's a little fucked up right now.
And look, he's not super psyched about getting flattened the second he had the right mask on, but, “You kept it between Black Bat and Red Hood.
“I don't- getting beat into the ground isn't exactly what I'd call a fun time, but you did what I asked you to do.
“So no. Not upset. It's all good.”
He's known for a while that Black Bat doesn't approve of what he does as Red Hood. He hasn't really had to plan for it before. But she didn't fuck with what he needed to do, and that's the important part. And yeah, she hurt him about it, but people had ended up dead because of him, and he knows she gets particular about that. She'd warned him -not by very much, but she still had- before she'd attacked him. That's more than he'd have got from B. And B wouldn't have apologised.
But more importantly, he'd told her what he needed, and she'd listened.
Black Bat had attacked Red Hood, but she hadn't attacked Jason. And Jason's feeling the effects of it, sure, but that's fine. He's been hurt as Red Hood before, and had to deal with it as Jason. It's just physical pain - he doesn't really care that much, beyond the inconvenience of having a non-functioning arm. And the traffickers will stay out of Gotham for a while, so he has time to heal. He can deal with being hurt for warning them off, especially since she did it after he'd dealt with the problem, not before or during. That, he would have been upset about.
(And anyway, he shouldn't’ve broken Tim's arm, way back when. He doesn't regret it, as such - it had been worth it, for the Joker dead. Besides, he'd warned them all to stay out of his way or he'd go through them.
Tim's arm was- bad, obviously. But it had been a clean break, not comminuted. And the wound hadn't been from the bone forcing its way out, which would have been worse. Obviously it could have been better, but it could have been worse too. He's got complete functionality in his arm, he's fine.
Even so, a broken arm is a broken arm.
Which is why Cass had broken Jason’s arm in turn. She'd even been nice about it, and just made it a transverse fracture - one of the easiest to heal from.)
He's not thrilled about having a broken arm, but Black Bat does go harder than some of the others. (He'd heard once that she'd stopped someone's heart for thirty seconds, so that they knew what it was like to die.) To come away with only a broken arm is getting off lightly, especially with what he'd done to piss her off.
Red Hood knew the consequences of his actions. It didn't matter who it was he had killed - the Bats thought that any killing was bad.
People in his territory tended to disagree. From them, the reactions he got were mostly fear or gratitude or both. Fear, because he was a killer, and didn't hide it. Gratitude, for stopping the people who hurt them, by whatever means necessary.
But he knew a Bat getting upset about it was a possibility, and he did it anyway. Some shit, if you do it in Gotham, you couldn't be surprised if a Bat came and broke your bones about it. He did it, and a Bat came to break his bones. Actions, consequences.
He doesn't do what he does without being ready to accept the consequences. It is what it is.
Cass murmurs, “Thank you, little brother.”
He pouts. He's not little.
But he's watching her too - the unhappy twist of her mouth says she won't do something like this again. She doesn't separate her shit the way he does, and she's actually not okay with hurting him like that.
Fortunately, he won't be doing much Red Hood stuff in the future, so if they're lucky, there won't be any further disputes about it.
“You good?” he asks.
She makes a vague noise in answer.
Well, that's not really what he wanted to ask anyway. “We good?”
She looks at him searchingly.
After a long moment, she gives him a tiny smile, “Yes,” she says. “We're good.”
And then she leans into his side, tucking herself under his arm.