Chapter Text
“All-Call:” Nightwing’s voice crackled over the comm speakers, forcing Tim to sink a grappling hook into the nearest building and bring his glide over the city to a sudden halt. “There will be a break-in at Gotham General in the not-too-distant future; somebody should get on that.”
Tim frowned, tapping his locator and bringing up a map of Gotham. “I’m close,” he murmured into the comm. “I’ll take it. Any idea on the time or location?”
Somewhere across the city, Dick Grayson let his eyes drift closed and cast his mind towards the vision: a hazy, indistinct image of the future - in this case, of a thief breaking into the hospital vaults, clearly up to no good.
“Can’t pin down the time,” he finally replied, blinking back to the present. “It’ll be soon though. The break-in was at the blood-bank. Probably some prankster out to set up a good scare.”
“Or a vamp,” Tim muttered.
“Don’t you dare bring my family into this,” Damian hissed, his voice high and sharp in Tim’s ear.
"He’s stealing blood donations, Robin,” Tim bit back. “Who else could it be but your family?"
“It could be for a summoning,” Bruce interjected, ending the argument, “and a rampaging demon on All Hallow’s Eve is the last thing we need. Red, check it out. We’ll be on standby if you need back-up.”
“Got it,” Tim replied.
~~~
The hospital, unsurprisingly, was alarmingly busy - even for Gotham. The promise of magic and mayhem on Halloween night served as a siren’s call to even the most sensible of the city’s citizens. Citizens who, in Tim Drake’s opinion, should know better. One would think the denizens of one of the most supernaturally-active cities in the country would know to leave Gotham’s darker side well enough alone. But every full moon, solstice, and equinox saw an upswing in visits to the hospital or the E.R.; babbling victims of curses or jinxes or spells gone wrong, poor saps sprouting fur or antlers or scales or spines, people strung out on fey-food and moonbeams singing to lovers only they could see or hear… after his starting his stint as Red Robin, Tim Drake had seen it all and then some, and was pleased to call himself as normal as they come. It only took a little common sense.
Although the wide array of protective devices and charms from the Bat armory didn't hurt either.
No matter, Tim thought. Avoiding this madness was still more than possible. Hadn't he and his family done so for generations? A few precautions and a good head on one’s shoulders was enough to keep almost anyone out of the chaotic waiting rooms of Gotham General, even on Halloween. It wasn't rocket science.
“‘Scuse me, coming through,” Tim called, brusquely cutting through the crowded hallways. Nurses wearing black and orange scrubs and nervous smiles did their best to step out of his way; doctors carrying clipboards and decked in chintzy, half-hearted attempts at holiday spirit scurried by without even a second glance. Tim sighed. Growing up, Halloween had been his favorite holiday. It drew none of the stuffy, formal family celebrations that Christmas and New Years once had; as a child, Tim had loved the chaos and the freedom of the night. He'd dress up as Robin and dance in the streets, thrilled by the unmistakable scent of magic in the air, unaware of the safety net his parents had carefully woven around him and their family, protecting them all from the night’s true terrors.
And now he stared those terrors in the face on a near-nightly basis as he fought to protect the city from its own dark side. Tim smiled softly. How times had changed.
The sounds of the night’s chaos slowly faded as Tim delved deeper into the hospital, approaching the blood bank reserves on high alert. As nice as it was to have a Seer on the comm, Grayson couldn't predict everything. It was good to keep on his toes. As he drew near, he unclipped his bo staff from his belt and opened it to its full length, then reached into his belt and took out two screw-in metal points to attach to either end of the staff. A rather crude stake, but it would do in a pinch. And if Tim’s suspicions were correct and the thief was a vamp, he'd rather be safe than sorry, even if Damian would throw a freaking tantrum if he ever found out about it. Just because Damian was on their side, didn't mean the rest of the al Ghul vampire clan would play nice…
Through the mesh-enforced glass of the hospital refrigerator doors, Tim saw something move.
“Hell.” Tim turned on the comm. “Alright, I'm at the hospital. Target is already in the reserve rooms; I'm moving in.”
“Affirmative,” Bruce muttered. “Stay sharp.”
“Will do.” The comm went silent. Taking a single, steadying breath, Tim squeezed his staff tighter, then opened the door to the refrigerated storage vault and slipped inside.
The chill of the vault sank its claws into Tim’s skin as soon as he entered, sending goosebumps prickling down the back of his neck. Tim shivered, but pressed forward, sneaking silently through the endless rows of shelves stacked high with glass jars and plastic bottles of chemicals and medicines Tim couldn't guess the use of. The only illumination came from the dim blue halogen rods overhead, the light so weak it couldn't even cast a shadow along the floor. The sound of his footsteps were masked by the low hum of the cooling system and the pneumatic hiss of the circulators along the walls. If Tim didn't know any better, he would say the storage vault of Gotham General was one of the creepiest places in the entire city.
The blood coolers would be at the back.
And Tim could hear movement.
Just before the shelves ended, Tim pressed himself into the shadows and peered out at the the blood storage units, where a man in a leather jacket stood rummaging through the coolers.
“Ketchup not quite good enough for the prank you have planned?”
The man jumped, startled, one hand two bags of blood to his chest, the other wielding a vicious-looking knife. Tim instantly raised his staff, preparing to put as much space between him in that blade as possible.
Instead, however, he froze.
“...Hood?” Tim asked, recognizing the blood-red domino and the familiar face hiding behind it.
The man took a step back. “Red?”
Tim instantly relaxed. “Oh, it's just you,” he said, relieved. “When Nightwing said there was a break at the blood bank, I thought for sure it'd be a vamp or something… but I'm glad it's just you.”
Jason stared, stricken, at the other vigilante, feeling colder than the chilled blood in his hand.
“I thought for sure it'd be a vamp or something… but I'm glad it's just you,” Tim had said, as if…
As if…
Jason's fingers wrapped tighter around the bags of blood in his hand, the proximity of his next meal making his stomach gurgle and his parched throat desert-dry.
“Anyways,” Tim continued, completely unaware of Jason’s confusion. “Why are you here?”
Jason blinked, and pointed the blade of his knife back at himself as if to ask “ Me?”
Tim nodded. “Is everything alright? That's an awful lot of blood… but you look fine…” He frowned. “Did Roy get hurt?”
“Thought for sure it'd be a vamp or something…”
As if Jason needed another reason besides his descent into vampirism to go raiding the blood banks at Gotham General Hospital.
Unless...
“Uh. Yeah,” Jason muttered, clearing his throat once to find his voice. “For Roy.” He ducked his head, running a hand along the back of his neck. “Dumbass took an arrow to… the knee.”
“Oh. Ouch,” Tim muttered, wincing sympathetically. “Sounds like it hurt.”
Jason nearly choked. It couldn't be. Timothy Drake… Gotham’s greatest detective since the Big Bat himself… had yet to find out that Jason Todd was now a vampire.
“It did. Hurt, I mean. It hurt him.” Jason coughed. “He's on the mend though. Just needs a little blood, so…”
“Right,” Tim nodded. “I see. I mean, this isn't the most legal way to go about getting it, but then, we're masked vigilantes taking the law into our own hands so,” Tim shrugged, “I guess we're not the most legal of people to begin with.”
Jason snorted. “Right.”
“Guess I can't stop you then,” Tim said with a shrug. “Looks like my business here is done.”
Jason nodded, his red eyes wide. “See ya around,” he called, holding the bag of blood closer to his chest.
“See ya!” Tim repeated, grinning. With that, he turned and began to walk away, feeling decidedly less apprehensive now that the monster in the blood vault turned out to just be Jason Todd trying to help a friend. “Oh, and Hood?” he added, casting a look over his shoulder.
Jason flinched. “Yeah?”
“Nice costume,” Tim complimented. “Didn't peg you as the type to get in on the Halloween spirit.”
Jason felt like he'd narrowly avoided getting hit by a truck. “Uh. Thanks,” he replied nervously. “You know me,” he said, falsely cheerful. “Halloween is just... my favorite time of year.”
Tim turned and beamed. Jason blinked.
“Mine too,” Tim said with a smile.
Once he left the storage vault, Tim called up the comm. “False alarm,” he announced to the rest of the patrol. “The blood thief was just Hood, to help Arsenal with a transfusion.” When the line was still silent, he added, “Oh man, and you should've seen his costume - he was all decked out for Halloween. Red contacts, hungry stare, I even think he had prosthetic fangs or something, it looked amazing. If I didn't know better, I would've thought he was a real vampire.”
Someone wheezed and started coughing violently. Tim frowned.
“Good to hear,” Dick choked out. “Glad you're safe.”
“Thanks,” Tim grinned. “Although I don't think there was anything to be scared of to begin with.”
~~~
Jason Todd parked his bike in the warehouse’s abandoned lot and made for the stairs, clutching his cooler close to his chest, thoughts of a certain vigilante running ragged around his head.
He must've been joking...
He thought everyone knew by now. Bruce knew, of course; he'd been the one to drag his bloodthirsty ass off the street after he had escaped the vampire clan that turned him. Alfred had been the one in charge of procuring the donated blood that kept Jason fed as he had changed. Dick had Seen everything just moments before it occurred, and Damian had fucking been there when it happened, for God’s sake… everyone knew.
Had they just never bothered letting Drake in on the secret?
Jason shook his head. No. Even if they hadn't told him, Drake had to know. They didn't call him the Detective for nothing - the guy was sharp. And after a display like the one Jason had just put on, there was absolutely, no fucking way Timothy Drake didn't-
Jason stopped.
There were pumpkins sitting outside his safe house, actual, real-life, pumpkins, painted with startled expressions or merry grins and stacked one on top of the other on either side of the door. And he definitely hadn’t been the one to put them there.
With his free hand, he reached for the doorknob and found it unlocked, the discovery filling him with apprehension as he imagined what he might find inside… Who of Gotham’s underworld would so blatantly compromise his safehouse? Some up-and-coming drug lord trying to make a name for himself? A sorcerer looking for an undead to bewitch? Certainly any number of Gotham’s A-list baddies would have the cajones to try to piss him off like this… Black Mask maybe… or worse, the clowns...
Letting the door swing open, he drew his gun and stepped inside.
The entry was dark, but the kitchen - a little farther inside the renovated warehouse space - seemed to be… glowing, and the whole place smelled strongly of spices. A sorcerer, then, or some sort of hedgewitch, Jason corrected, quietly relieved that the intruder didn’t seem to be any more dangerous than the typical Gotham fare. Silent as he could, he placed the cooler on the floor and then crept towards the kitchen, calling to mind common protections from spellcraft just in case things went south.
But the intruder wasn’t a witch.
“Oh. Hi, Jay,” Tim said easily, plucking the oven mitts from his hands and turning to the stack of dishes in the kitchen sink. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
It took everything in Jason’s power to keep from pinching the bridge of his nose and storming back out of the kitchen. Somewhere along his temples, he could feel a headache coming on. He holstered his gun.
“What are you doing here, Drake?” Jason grumbled.
Tim shot him an exasperated look, as if it was exceedingly obvious what he was doing - and it was. The scent of cinnamon and ginger and allspice and cloves rose headily from the pumpkin pie nestled in the oven, and the strings of pumpkin-shaped paper lanterns cast the room in a warm, golden light.
“I thought about calling ahead, but I wanted to surprise you,” Tim said with a shrug.
Jason thought about the cooler sitting in the shadows of the other room and his stomach squeezed painfully. “Color me surprised,” he said with a grimace.
“The rest of the crew is always on high alert on Halloween,” Tim informed Jason. “Honestly, I think most of them dread it, and I can’t really blame them. There’s never a quiet All Hallow’s Eve in Gotham, right?”
Though Tim kept his eyes firmly on the dishes he scrubbed, Jason could see his wistful smile.
“So there never seems to be a good time to celebrate,” Tim continued, “and even if there was, everyone is busy trying to save the city.”
Jason scoffed. “Can you blame them?”
“I don’t,” Tim replied. “But I do miss it. There’s a lot more to Halloween than hunting monsters.”
“Oh yeah?” Jason asked, feigning interest. “Like what?”
“Well, costumes, for one,” Tim offered, meaningfully meeting Jason’s too-bright red eyes. “And Trick-or-Treating, of course.”
Jason stared. “You… do realize how late it is, right?” The digital clock on the oven read a little past one in the morning. “No one in their right mind is going to be Trick-or-Treating now.”
Tim grinned. “I know. But I have something a little different planned.”
“So is that what the pie is for?”
“Nope.” Tim grinned. “The pie is bribery.”
“For…?”
“You. To coerce you into my dastardly Halloween scheme,” Tim elucidated. Looking enormously pleased with himself, he pulled the pie out of the oven and set it proudly on the cooling rack in front of Jason. “Tempting, right?”
He truly had no idea.
“Smells good,” Jason said weakly. Pity he wouldn’t be able to eat it.
“Right?” Tim beamed, then turned his back on his creation - and Jason’s slow, self-inflicted demise - to open the refrigerator and pull out a bowl of fresh whipped cream, which he had made from scratch before Jason had arrived. “Alfred and I made it earlier and he says it’s best served warm, so I figured… butter you up with a piece of pie, and then you’d have to go along with my plan.”
“Oh.” Jason floundered, the dry ache of his hunger suddenly turning into a sharp pang of nausea at the thought. “It’s… fine, Tim, I don’t need the pie - I’ll go with you anyways.”
Tim paused, the smile slipping off his face.
“You… don't want to try it?” Tim murmured, sounding hurt. “Alfred said it used to be your favorite.”
Jason winced. It used to be his favorite. But things had changed. While the scent of the familiar spices still brought a nostalgic smile to his lips, the thought of tasting them again made his stomach churn. Hungry as he was, the only thing he’d be eating was hidden in the cooler in the other room.
Tim looked crushed. He studied the whipped cream sadly, trying not to think about how happy he had been at the thought of celebrating his favorite holiday again, the thought of not letting it pass by alone…
“ Dammit,” Jason muttered.
Tim looked at him.
“One slice,” Jason allowed. “A small one.”
Tim perked up. “Really?” he asked hopefully.
“Really.”
Jason glared viciously at the pie as Tim eagerly set about the task of serving up a slice, scrambling around the kitchen for plates and spoons and a knife to cut into the pie with. Why this, Jason asked himself repeatedly. Of all the hells he may have deserved for being what he was, why did he have to endure this?
“Alright, here you go,” Tim said, sliding the pie-laden plate to Jason with a grin. It looked amazing - the freshly warmed pie settling onto the white ceramic, topped with soft peaks of whipped cream and drizzled with caramel - the scent was heavenly, and Tim looked veritably smug about the whole affair.
I hate everything, Jason thought to himself.
He grabbed the spoon and took a bite.
Jason tried - he really did - but the gag reflex was called a reflex for a reason, and no length of time spent being undead would rid him of it. He coughed. He choked, the cloying taste of the pie lingering in his mouth like poison as the half-chewed bite lodged in his throat. Just when it seemed as though the pie had lodged in his airway and Jason would experience his second death by pumpkin spice, it passed, sliding down his esophagus and reaching his stomach with a violent pang.
“...That was a bad idea,” he whispered hoarsely.
“Jason!” Tim panicked, lurching around the kitchen island and rushing to his side. “Oh my gosh, Jason, are you okay?”
Jason shuddered as another wave of nausea overtook him. “Yeah, Timbers,” he joked. “Peak of good health right here.”
“Oh my god, your skin’s like ice,” Tim said, feeling at Jason’s forehead like a concerned parent. Jason jerked away from Tim’s grasp and rolled over before Tim could make other observations about Jason - like the fact that he didn’t have a pulse.
“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Jason groaned, pushing to his hands and knees. He staggered to his feet and immediately stumbled, only to be caught on Tim’s shoulder.
“Let’s get you to the bathroom,” Tim muttered, and Jason felt too sick to argue as Tim led him away.
~~~
It was almost two by the time Jason felt well enough to stagger back out of the bathroom, feeling like his stomach had been run through a taffy machine. He found Tim sitting at the kitchen counter, smearing caramel sauce across a now-empty plate with the back of the spoon, his expression too thoughtful for Jason’s comfort.
“Feeling better?” Tim asked quietly, not looking up from the pattern he had swirled across the ceramic.
Jason grimaced. “A little,” he replied. “Sorry ‘bout that. It's something that happens…” - every time I eat human food- “ every once in awhile,” he finished.
“I see,” Tim murmured. His gaze flickered up to Jason’s red eyes and then returned to the empty plate.
If Jason still had a normally-functioning circulatory system, his blood would’ve run cold.
“...I’ve been thinking,” Tim said, keeping his voice as calm, as normal as possible.
“About?” Jason asked carefully. His feet felt rooted to the floor; every muscle in his too-cold body felt like he’d suddenly turned to stone.
“You,” Tim answered. “Your… condition.”
Jason flinched.
“I… I know what you are,” Tim whispered.
Jason couldn’t bring himself to look at him. “Say it,” he said hoarsely.
Tim was silent. Time stood still.
“Out loud,” Jason demanded, his hands balling into tight, white-knuckled fists. “Say it!”
“You’re…” Tim paused. Swallowed nervously. “Allergic to lactose.”
Jason stared into the distance like he expected someone to be filming the entire scene for some horribly-scripted comedy show.
“No wonder you never come around for dinner at the manor anymore…” Tim mused, running a hand through his hair. He looked up at Jason, studying him seriously. “You know Alfred would be more than happy to use a substitute, Jay, I know it - remember Steph’s vegan phase? You don’t have to hide it from us.”
Lactose intolerance.
Not a vampire.
Fucking lactose intolerance.
And they said this kid would one day outmatch the Batman.
“Tim,” Jason said, cutting him off in the middle of a lecture about the health benefits of switching to soy milk.
Tim shut up.
“‘S’fine,” Jason muttered. “It’s all fine. I don’t need any lactose substitutes, I just avoid it.” Like he avoided all human food, now. “It’s no big deal, really. You didn’t know.”
Judging by Tim’s expression, Jason hadn’t convinced him. He sighed, deciding to try a different tactic.
“So, now that I’m all pied-up and unable to escape, are you going to share your dastardly Halloween plan with me?” Jason asked. “Isn’t that how all the baddies do it?”
Tim cracked a small smile. “Is that what I am now, Jason? A bad guy?”
“Well, you haven’t died a hero yet, so I suppose becoming a villain is all that’s left for you,” Jason chuckled.
“You’re horrible,” Tim replied, but he was smiling a little wider now. “I really just wanted to go Trick-or-Treating.”
Jason shook his head. “We had this conversation already,” he retorted. “It’s what, 2AM now? No one’s passing candy around anymore.”
“Oh, I know,” Tim said with a grin. “I have something a little different in mind.”