Chapter Text
"You shouldn't be stealing that money, Jason! It should be surrendered to the police, not funding your criminal empire!"
Jason snarls, "The police! Don't make me laugh. I'd rather burn it than hand it over to the police. It'd be better off as ashes."
Dick hisses, "Ashes! And what's wrong with handing it over to the police anyway?"
Jason lets out a bitter mocking laugh and replies, "If you don't know by now, Golden Boy, there's no point telling you." which Duke thinks is fair enough. Everyone knows that if money gets handed to the cops, it ends up either lining their pockets, or with Falcone or Maroni or someone. The commissioner has tried, but there only needs to be one dirty cop to get anything out of lockup and gone. But if Hood gets it, well, everyone knows where it ends up then, too. It's not exactly a secret.
And then Jason says "I'd rather shoot the cops than hand over money to them."
Duke kind of agrees with Jason, but he doesn't think that that was a very helpful thing to say at this present moment. It's been a long day, and his head is starting to pound with a sleep deprivation headache. But he isn't particularly surprised when Dick takes offence at Jason's words.
Dick whitens and says tightly, "Yes, I think we've all worked that out by now. You shot three policemen last week, and now they won't ever walk without crutches again. And it's not the first time you've done this either! Do you really-"
Jason cuts him off, "-Those policemen know what they did, and they got what was coming to them-"
"They won't walk again, Jason! Is that you think-"
"-and if I could I'd have killed them for what they did-"
"-Do you hear yourself right now! Is this what you want to be, what you want to do? We don't kill, Jason! You know this, so why are you-"
Jason snarls again, and growls out, "Because they deserved it, Dickiebird. And they know it."
Dick, increasingly loud and furious, shouts, "And this is what you want the rest of us to do, is it?"
Jason steps back, then pulls himself up and says, "We all have a choice. The rest of you choose not to kill, 'cause it's Batman's rule, an' I abide by that rule when I work with you. It has always been my choice to kill, and I wouldn't force anyone else to make that choice. But those men, the cops, the drug ring, anyone else I took out, they deserved it."
Dick is so worked up that he's clearly barely listening to Jason anymore, and he says, "Oh so you would have killed them then? It doesn't matter what they did! You stole that money, and blew up a warehouse! And do you really think that the rest of us would want you to kill those cops?" as he gestures to the rest of them standing around them, watching silently. And sure, Dick and Jason had been doing their normal thing of trying to keep their argument just between the two of them, body language closed off, snapping quietly at each other, but they haven't exactly been doing a good job of it today, and literally everyone in the room has heard everything they've been saying.
So Duke looks up at last, done pretending that he can't hear them, and snaps, "Yeah, fine, but the Red Hood kept me and all my neighbours fed last winter, so I wouldn't particularly care if he had!" and then shuts his mouth, cursing his long day, his headache, and his resulting short temper.
Jason jerks backwards, and Dick snaps his head round and stares at him as he chokes out, "...what?"
Duke flushes, and says, "Last winter he took down a drug ring that was trying to set up business in Robbinsville, and it was the Narrows' turn to get the help, I guess. And good thing too, 'cause it was a cold winter last year, we needed it."
Everyone is staring at him now, and he rolls his shoulders nervously. Jason is glaring murderously at him.
Tim says slowly, "Duke, what are you...what are you talking about?"
Duke makes eye contact with Jason. His eyes are almost blazing green, even in the dim light of the cave. Do they….not know what the Red Hood does in Uptown? He says carefully , "If the Red Hood took out a drug ring, I wasn't exactly going to be grieving their loss," avoiding the subject of what Jason does with all the money he steals, because it seems like apparently Jason doesn't tell them, or want them to know, maybe?
Tim frowns at him, and says firmly, "No, Duke - what do you mean by it was the Narrows' turn to get the help? And that he kept your family and neighbours fed last winter?"
Duke watches Jason draw himself in, now that no one is looking at him. He's pretty sure Jason doesn't want them to know, though he can't tell why. The Red Hood kept the Narrows safe, and not just from trafficking and drugs and rapists. He made sure that the food banks had enough money to buy food for everyone who needed it, and that the homeless shelters had enough sleeping bags, and the clinic could afford medicine, and about a hundred other things besides. But Jason clearly doesn't want the rest of the bats and birds to know.
And though it wasn't exactly a secret what Jason was doing with the money -if you kept on top of the news of drug busts and everything, and paid attention to which charities and shelters suddenly had more money, it wasn't hard to figure out- but Hood never announced it. And well, Alley business is Alley business. If the bats want to find out the Red Hood's business, they'll have to ask him.
The Red Hood once literally dropped down on top of a john trying to rape Elly from next door, broke both his collarbones and shattered his knee before castrating him, and then walking her home. Duke knows that if it had been just a few more years ago, when the Red Hood was starting up, then the john wouldn't have been walking away for a different reason, which still makes Duke kinda shivery inside when he thinks about it, because he remembers Sam from the next street over when he was a kid, who hadn't had Red Hood there to help when the Vipers had decided they liked the look of her, and who had ended up taking half a bottle of pills to cope, and then the Red Hood had killed all the Vipers in that first year, which makes Duke feel both kinda glad and kinda ill at the same time. But he's still glad that the john didn't walk away, couldn't walk away, and that Elly is fine, and also that the Vipers can't hurt anyone else like Sam ever again.
And he remembers Andrea too, who got trafficked, and ended up in Gotham. Hood had taken out the entire trafficking ring, in Gotham and overseas - it had made the news, especially because it was early on, and Hood had apparently decided to hunt down and destroy all trafficking rings that operated in Gotham, damn near every single one: but before he'd finished up, he'd got the girls out, and to safety. And Andrea, with a few of the other girls, had decided to stay in Gotham, and Andrea had met Elly, and stayed with her, and they work together at one of the food banks that the Red Hood had had opened. Duke doesn't know what exactly they are to each other, but he does know they love each other - and that both of them owe their happiness and safety to Hood.
So he says, still careful, "I didn't mean anything by it. But the Red Hood only goes after those who deserve it, so those cops and that drug ring probably got what was coming to them, like he said. The Red Hood looks after the Alley, and most of Uptown, really. And if that means shooting some cops, then he shoots some cops."
Duke bites off the following sentence of 'And if that means making sure people can get food and shelter, then he makes sure they can get food and shelter' because he doesn't know why, but he's pretty sure Jason doesn't want them to know, and Duke isn't going to be the one to tell them, not when Hood killed the Vipers for doing the same kinda shit they did to Sam to someone else, and not when he helped Elly, and Andrea, and not when he donated literally thousands to the food banks and shelters in the Narrows last year, and thousands more to the other charities in Uptown that help people like Duke out.
Jason's shoulders visibly relax, and then he just as visibly decides to project aggression and snaps out, "Well, if that's all, I'm going." and strides away before anyone can really stop him, which neatly both ends the conversation and takes attention off Duke. Though, Duke catches Dick half-raising a hand towards Jason from the corner of his eye, and it's not clear if it's to stop him going, or to reassure him, and Jason clearly doesn't see it, or maybe just ignores it, and goes.
And then Steph sidles up next to him and says in his ear, almost making him jump, "Do they really not know? It's kind of an open secret."
Duke tilts his head towards her and says quietly, "An open secret is still technically a secret, I guess? I don't think they do, even though it's kinda obvious."
She hums in agreement, then says, "Maybe it's only obvious if like, you actually live in Uptown, instead of Bristol?"
Duke tilts his head again and has to agree. But he thinks he really ought to check what Hood wants the rest of the bats to know about this - and he's pretty sure he's right in saying Hood, and not Jason, but maybe not, so he says fast, "Just gonna check what he wants us to say!" and darts down the steps after him.
Jason is about five steps from his motorbike by the time Duke catches up to him, and he pants out, "Jas- Hood, what do you want us to tell them?" and Hood steps closer to him, whoa, way faster than Duke expected and yikes Duke forgot how big he was as Hood presses one arm fully across his chest and pushes him backwards and against the railing. Duke is completely pinned, and Dick yells out an angry "Jason!"
Hood snarls out "Watch it, bat. Wouldn't want to lose your balance." but Duke knows how to de-escalate, he's not a baby, and anyway he sounds like Riko did when she wanted someone to back the fuck up even if she wasn't going to -couldn't actually- make them, all bark and no bite, so he reaches up slowly and pulls his cowl off, says gently, "I'm not asking as a bat. I'm asking as a Narrows kid. Me and Steph, we're from your turf, or near enough. We know what you do, okay. So. What do you want us to tell them?"
Hood still isn't moving, but he isn't pushing Duke against the railing anymore, just sort of holding him there. But Duke guesses that Dick can't see that, because he yells out again "Jason, let him go!"
Duke turns his head and yells back "It's fine, I'm seventeen," which means Hood won't touch him, because he's still a kid, he's not eighteen yet. But Dick apparently doesn't know that either, which like, what?, because Duke can see that Steph has to pull him back and away from preparing to leap onto Hood, which would have just made everything worse.
He says gently, holding Hood's forearm with both his hands, just resting them there, projecting notathreat notathreat as much as he can, "Steph and I, we know what you do with the money you steal. Like I said, you kept me and my neighbours fed last winter. But it looks like the rest of them don't know what you do with it. But we're from your turf, and it's your business, so I'm asking what you want us to tell them."
Hood presses his weight against Duke's chest again, but it's more of a tired sag than anything, and murmurs, "How the fuck do you know what I do with it. I don't, I don't tell anyone."
Duke grins and pats his arm gently, "I mean, sure, you don't tell anyone. It's your turf, yeah, but it's our neighbourhood. We might only know after the fact what happens, but we still know. And you haven't been the most subtle. We know what you do for us. You're our crime boss, yeah. I'll assume that you don't want us to tell them anything then."
Hood looks at him, then pulls a smirk across his face and steps back. Duke turns and goes back to the others, but stays a few steps back - he doesn't want to invite conversation right now, even though he can see Dick do a horrifically obvious visual check that he's in one piece. Duke watches as Alfred steps to the edge of the platform, looking over the garage where Jason is getting ready to leave.
Alfred says, "Master Jason." Jason freezes, one leg over his bike, "Will you be staying for breakfast?"
Jason doesn't move, head still turned away, tension still visibly tightening his shoulders. Then he rolls them back, and sends a grin up at Alfred, says, "Just for you, Alfred." and swings his leg back over his bike, then steps quickly towards the elevator.
Alfred clears his throat, and Jason freezes again and sends a pleading look up at him. Alfred remains unmoved, and Jason dips his head, then strips off his jacket, guns, and body armour. He's left in just pants and a tank top, revealing a nasty purple bruise spreading across his shoulder. He then steps towards the elevator again, and takes it upstairs when Alfred doesn't stop him.
Alfred raises an eyebrow at them, and says crisply, "I expect to see the rest of you upstairs also. And I'm certain you will not be in your downstairs clothes, understood?"
There's a wave of agreement across the room.
Duke steps back up close to Steph again and whispers, "Steph, I don't think they even know Hood's rules. That's nuts, right? Everyone knows his rules."
Steph tips her head, listening. He whispers, "'Cause I told everyone I was seventeen, right, which means Hood wasn't gonna touch me, but Dick still looked like he was ready to jump in, I think. Was I reading that right?"
She hums, then says, "No, you were. You might be right? But also, Jason did look kinda pissed off."
"Well, yeah, okay, but I took my cowl off. 'Cause I wasn't asking as a bat, I was asking as a Narrows kid. And it worked, he relaxed. An' I think maybe if you show that you're not there to fight, he won't fight you either. Just show you're there to talk, and stay calm, and he'll back off. 'Cause I think half the time when he fights with Dick, it's 'cause Dick wants to fight, not 'cause Jason does."
Steph hums in agreement again, then says, "Yeah, maybe. So what does he want us to say?"
Duke winces, "Hood wants us to say nothing. It's not their business, it's his. And right now, they're not asking Jason, as his family. They're asking Hood, as bats. But we're from Uptown, which is basically his turf, and it isn't their business, so he wants us to keep quiet about it."
Steph nods, but Duke still feels a little twitchy, so he says, "Besides, they should have noticed by now anyway. It's not our fault if they haven't figured out his rules, or what he does after he takes some people out. It's never been a secret. If they haven't bothered to find out, that isn't on us. So I think I'm with Hood on this one. I'm not gonna tell them."
And besides, Duke thinks, sometimes, that he really hates the bats. He loves them, they're his family, they're great, but sometimes he really does hate them a little. They look at Uptown, at the Narrows, at his home, and they only see the crime, the statistics, the poverty. They never see the people, the community. Yes, he knows that his neighbours, sometimes his friends, his family, have committed crimes, have done stuff that a bat would break bones for. But they're still his family.
Like, for example, Jake and Will. He's pretty sure Jake had killed someone before -but Jake was from the Alley, and only got out because he met Will- and Duke still loved them. They were part of his family. He never loved them any less for killing someone, for being part of a gang that definitely hurt people. How could he love them less, when they were doing it to survive, when it was Will and Jake, when it was his family. And Jason is theirs. But sometimes they still treat him like he's about to stab one of them for no reason, at random. It's Jason. It's Hood. And Hood doesn't hurt anyone who doesn't deserve it. And Duke doesn't get how the others don't understand that.
Steph nods again, replies, "Yeah, alright. But I'm only doing it 'cause I don't want to argue with Dick and Tim, not tonight, not because Hood ordered me to. I don't like him."
She glances at the others, then drags him backwards and away from them, and says quietly, "Look, Duke, I know you see Hood differently than the rest of us. We don't see him the same way that you do.
"But- Uh, well, I wasn't here when he was first getting started. I came back after B had pulled most of us off the streets. But a month went by, and not much had happened, so when Bruce was needed abroad for a few days, he went. An' then I-" she swallows, almost convulsively, "I was on a short patrol. An' I picked up a call to a warehouse out in the Bowery. I found out later that they'd taken a kid as a hostage - they were tryin' to kill Hood, which was why they picked a kid."
She swallows again, "But I walked into the warehouse. An'. An' there was blood everywhere. An' whoever had been in that warehouse-. They weren't-. Hood killed them, but he didn't use guns. He tore 'em apart. An' it was messy, 'cause he didn't just tear them apart, he tore them to pieces. An' I don't mean that metaphorically. He just-. He had completely shredded them. The GCPD kept finding bits of 'em for days afterwards. If you saw an article about a Bowery gang getting dismembered, that was them.
"An' he wrote on the wall in their blood too. He wrote 'don't touch kids', an' after that everyone took the warning pretty fuckin' seriously. It didn't stay on the wall for long, it was gone 'fore the cops got there in the morning, but it was up for long enough that everyone on the street heard about it. An' no one touched kids after that, not in the Bowery, it didn't matter that no-one saw Hood for a week after. Before that, everyone knew not to deal to kids, 'cause Hood had decapitated some dealers who had dealt to some high schoolers, but after, they didn't touch kids at all. Not as hostages, not as messengers, as runners, anything. They didn't dare.
"An' I know you've only seen the good stuff he's done, and don't get me wrong, there's a lot of it, and I appreciate it as much as you do, you know I do. But you've never actually seen one of the crime scenes he leaves behind. An' I have, we all have. That's why we're a little slower to trust him.
"But I know what he does with the money he gets from this, so I'll wait, and not tell them, for now. But it is just for now, 'cause I don't like him, but I don't want to get into an argument about it with Tim tonight. That's all. It's been a long day already, and a long week."
She rolls her shoulders, loosening them out, and cracks her neck. She looks at him, then taps him reassuringly with a soft punch to the arm and says "I'll see you upstairs, yeah?" and heads to the elevator.
Dick and Tim look over at him, now that Steph has left him behind, and suddenly he feels distinctly abandoned.
Dick steps closer to him, and Duke resigns himself to the fact that he is actually going to have a difficult conversation right now, even though he's now got a pounding headache, and is still twitchy with the left-over adrenaline from this evening.
Dick says, "Did you mean it when you said you wouldn't particularly care if Jason had killed those cops?" and mierda did they have to start with that. It seems like Dick's taken it personally, as if he thinks that Duke thinks all cops should be shot, including Dick, because he was a cop. Which, no.
Duke says "Those cops, no, probably not. What they did, if they suffer for it, I'm not gonna be cut up about it, y'know."
Dick cuts in, "Suffering for it and dying for it are two different things. They should have gone through the justice system, and gone to prison without getting shot. The Red Hood's personal code of justice, or whatever he thinks it is, is not legal. Not to mention he kills people!" Which, whoa, Dick got a little intense there. "So why are you supporting him?"
Duke says, "Well yeah, okay. I know he kills people. Okay, I know that. But a lot of the people he kills I'm not gonna feel bad about, y'know?"
And Duke doesn't particularly like the way this conversation feels more like an interrogation than anything else, and that somewhere in the back of his brain, it isn't saying this is family, you're safe, you can talk to them, but is instead hissing rich Bristol kids and cop COP cop COP cop every time he looks at Tim and Dick, even though he knows that Tim gets it more than most Bristol kids, that Dick used to be a cop so he could root out corruption in the BPD, and that they just want to help, because they're bats, and that's what they do.
Duke keeps going, "Hell. Look, some of the people he killed lived two doors down. We used to eat together on Fridays. They were alright guys, but they worked for Black Mask. So the Red Hood killed them in that first year, y'know, when he was still killing loads of people."
And Duke can almost visibly see them dismissing their lives as less important because they worked for Black Mask, and suddenly the tension itching under his skin gets a little too unbearable and he snaps, "They worked for Black Mask because we were in his territory. They didn't have a choice." and he can almost see Tim about to sneer at that and he says as hard as he can, "They didn't have a choice. They were trying to pay rent like the rest of us in the Narrows, and the only way they could afford it was by working for Black Mask."
He can see Tim drawing in a breath, and that mean little thought of rich Bristol kids hisses in the back of his head again, and he says, again, hard as he can, "No. Do not argue with me about this. You're not from the Narrows. I am. They didn't have a choice. Hood killed them for it. I know why, and he knows why. You don't get an opinion on this. He knows what it's like, I know what it's like, they knew what it was like. You don't. Their deaths are between me and him. If I want to talk about it with him, I will. But only I get to talk about it with him, you don't. You don't get to bring it up, or throw it in his face, or anything. It's not your business."
He draws in another breath. He doesn't like fighting with them about this: it's hard, because he knows they just want to help, that they mean well, but they don't get it. And he knows that Jason does, that Steph does, that his neighbours do. And Tim and Dick think they know what it's like, but they don't. And he knows that that's not their fault, but right now it feels like it is. He takes another breath, trying to calm his racing pulse, and another, and another.
"Look, it's like this. Six years ago, they did one job for Black Mask, just to pay the rent that month, and then Jake would have started his new job. But Batman came, and shattered Jake's arm, and broke Will's ribs, and then they were so far in debt to the hospital they had to keep working for Black Mask. Jake's new job needed two functioning arms, see. So then they needed to pay rent the next month and the hospital bill, and the only job that would hire them was Black Mask.
"They couldn't find a job anywhere. Not in Uptown, not when twenty other people needed that job, an' those people had both arms working. And they couldn't go find a job in Midtown either. And yeah, fine, Wayne Enterprises offers jobs to people from Uptown, but there are only so many jobs to go around. And everywhere else in Midtown doesn't take people with criminal records, no matter that it had just been moving crates on the dock, for one night . An' jobs in Midtown wouldn't take someone from our end of town anyway, because they aren't educated enough, or happy enough, or middle class enough. So yes. They did work for Black Mask.
"An' we could tell, y'know, that if Batman had paid them another visit, Jake was going to take out some life insurance, and pay off the bills that way - because at least then it would be quick. It wasn't a secret that they'd have rather had a quick death than a slow one.
"An' I get that Batman doesn't kill. But in the Narrows, all that means is that he doesn't do it himself. He just condemns you to a death that lasts months or years and takes your family with you. 'Cause, sure, Batman tries to avoid permanently crippling strikes. But he doesn't avoid strikes that become permanently crippling if you can't afford healthcare or physical therapy. And people in the north of Gotham can't. And sometimes, if you leave it long enough, those permanently crippling strikes are fatal.
"Look, everyone knows the risks of joining a gang, that death is a possibility, and they accept that. They just also know that they'd rather a quick one to a slow one given out by Batman.
"'Cause, look, okay, I remember once, y'know, Tom from three blocks down had a slow death: Batman took his knee out ten years ago, an' he couldn't walk well enough to work, so he couldn't pay rent, and then he was homeless, and starving, and he was in pain all the time. So when Batman took out Mikey's knee two years ago - in the same way he broke Tom's, Mikey looked at Tom, an' decided that he'd rather go quick than go slow.
"So yes. Hood kills people. But he gives them quick deaths, and most of them deserve it. And Hood doesn't-" and Duke cuts himself off. It isn't his secret to tell. But he knows that the rest of the sentence goes like '-doesn't leave the families out to dry. He makes sure they can get food, and shelter, and help.' But Jason- Hood doesn't want them to know, and Alley Business is Alley Business.
Duke knows, he's worked out, that Hood-, that Jason does those things because when he was growing up, that's what he had needed, and he doesn't want to see another kid suffer like he did. Duke knows Jason had it rough, that he'd spent a few years on the streets - it had been all over the Gotham news, and Duke had looked everyone up when he first got adopted by Bruce. And Duke knows that street kids in the Narrows had it tough, but Alley kids had it worse.
'Cause Duke knows that while he grew up in the Narrows, Jason grew up in Crime Alley - and not even Narrows kids go to Crime Alley, not if they can help it. For as much as he knows that while growing up in the Narrows was dangerous, the Alley was worse, especially for kids, and especially a decade or two ago. Jake had once described the Narrows as skirmishes, and the Alley as all out warfare in the turf wars between different mob bosses, not to mention the Rogues.
Duke can't really imagine what it must have been like growing up there in the Alley, actually on the streets, every day. He knows he understands more than the others do though, bar Steph - that for both of them, and Jason, they'd known that if they weren't careful, they'd end up as cannon fodder in the fights and battles of north Gotham, as just another body on the pile of dead bodies.
Duke read a book once, a civilian's diary of life in London during WW2: where another country kept dropping bombs on the city, and everyone was prepared at all times to hide in a bunker, or if they couldn't, then under a metal table, and they had to carry gas masks everywhere, and how even years later when they heard the air raid siren go off, their heart jumped, and they panicked a little, and every so often, they'd turn down a street and find out that the street was no longer there. He'd read it, and just had the crystal clear thought of 'Oh. That's Gotham.' and then had to sit down and breathe hard for a couple minutes, because an account of life in a country at war, in a city that was attacked at least weekly - it shouldn't-. Duke shouldn't be able to recognise a significant amount of his own life in that.
Duke managed to get out though -and he hates phrasing it like that, like it's something he had to flee, like it wasn't his home- but it's the closest words he has to an explanation without going into his tangle of feelings about the Narrows. But he did, and it was even before he had to do anything he didn't want to: yes, he got turned into a meta, which is a whole different thing, but at the same time, he never had to go hungry, or steal anything, or even think about joining a gang. Instead, he got swept up to Bristol, to Wayne Manor. But he did leave the Narrows. And he has choices here, he has options. And he wouldn't have those back in the Narrows - and he hates that he wouldn't have had those options there, too.
But he does know the Narrows - both how it is now, but also how it used to be. And if things had been even a little different, he knows he would have ended up in a gang, probably Black Mask's, with Will and Jake. He wouldn't have had a choice: sooner or later he'd have been guarding a warehouse, or running drugs, or driving a truck for Black Mask. And he knows that maybe it would have taken years, but he would have probably ended up killing someone, like Jake. And maybe he would have managed to get out after that, but when Duke was a kid, he was pretty sure that he would grow up to be like Jake, not to be like Will. He's never had many illusions about that.
But Hood changed that, and at first he thought that maybe he could grow up to be Will, and not have to kill anyone; and then Hood kept protecting everyone, and he thought that maybe he could grow up to be Robin; and only last year, he thought that maybe he could grow up to be himself. But Duke remembers that when he was a kid, he thought he'd grow up to kill people, and he wouldn't have a choice about it, no matter what his parents wanted for him. That was just what happened to kids in the Narrows. He doesn't know what Jason thought he'd grow up to be, but he'd be surprised if it was all that much different to what Duke had thought. Kids -boys- in the north of Gotham grew up to join gangs, no matter what they wanted, and they killed and died in those gangs, like they were soldiers in the war that was Gotham.
When Duke was a kid, he never thought it could be any different. He'd known, even then, that when he got older, he wouldn't have had the luxury of morals, not in the Narrows, not if he wanted to stay alive. He doubts it was much different for Jason, in Crime Alley. Gotham- Uptown isn't, or wasn't, a place that really allowed people to have morals, not ones against killing at any rate. People tried, as best they could, but they could only do so much.
And Hood changed that. And yeah, maybe he used lethal force, displayed very openly, but it worked. It was working, the Alley and the Bowery were getting safer for most people, and then Batman stopped him. So now Hood has to keep patrolling basically every night, to make sure everyone keeps to his rules, and to make sure that none of the Rogues are hurting anyone in his turf, not Scarecrow, not Joker, not any of them. And Uptown is getting safer, because of Hood - but it's getting safer a lot more slowly, now.
But then Dick says "Hood doesn't what? You said Batman gives slow deaths, but Hood doesn't- what, exactly? He brutalises people." and don't they get it?
Duke says "Those people probably deserved it. I know they'd probably rather have died than get so badly hurt, but Batman doesn't kill. So Hood doesn't kill. Publicly, anyway. But the people he goes after, well, I'd probably break their legs too, if I knew what they'd done. And it's- look, the people Hood hurts like that, they're not doing it 'cause they have to pay rent, or bills, or anything like that. They're doing it 'cause they like hurting people.
"So Hood hurts them hard enough to stop 'em, maybe permanently, if that's necessary, and definitely hard enough to make sure that other people, who were thinking about maybe doin' the same kinda thing, change their mind in case Hood comes after them too. There ain't no one who thinks that Red Hood is someone to take on lightly, not someone who takes out drug cartels and trafficking rings in his spare time."
Dick kinda starts screwing his face up like he's going to object to that, or to something anyway, and Duke can't take it anymore, so he interrupts him first - and Duke can tell he's about to start dropping his consonants everywhere, 'cause that's what happens when he gets stressed, but he keeps going anyway and says "An' besides, I know a lotta people that say Batman shoulda let Hood go after the Rogues for at least a couple more hours. I don't know all the details, I was twelve, but even though it was kept quiet, people talked, y'know.
"They know something went down with Hood, Batman, an' the Joker, an' afterwards, Hood wouldn't touch the Rogues. They didn't say what, dunno if they knew what, but everyone knows that Batman and Black Mask had a screaming argument 'bout Red Hood right on the street an' not half an hour later Batman hauled Joker outta a building an' threw him back in Arkham, the building blew up, an' no one saw Hood for a while, an' when they did, he wasn't going after the Rogues no more, an' he was a helluva lot quieter. A lotta people, a lotta people blame Batman for stopping Hood from killing Joker. I dunno if that was what happened, but that's what people reckon.
"An' it's- I know you guys don't see it so much up here, but Joker's caused a lotta hurt to a lotta people. There's no one that'll mourn his death. Everyone thought that Hood was working his way up to taking on all the Rogues - like, he'd been working on Black Mask for a few months, and he was about to take out the Joker-! And then maybe he'da properly taken out a few more of the nasty ones, like Scarecrow. Croc, I don't know. Ivy, he'd probably have left alone, 'cause she grows food in the parks for homeless kids, but hell. There's no other city in the world where people have to carry round gas masks in their bags all day. That ain't normal. It's just Gotham where we have to worry about that. And Hood woulda stopped Joker, and Scarecrow, and probably the other worse ones too. And people woulda thanked him for it. But Batman stopped him."
And here's what Duke leaves unsaid: he's one of the people who would have thanked Red Hood. Maybe not then, when he was still a kid, but now? He wouldn't hesitate.
Because just last year, Joker thought it would be hilarious to release a virus that was worse than his laughing gas into Gotham, which was already bad enough, just to mess with Batman some more. Duke's parents weren't the only ones to get affected by it either, and they're still affected by it, even now. They can't even talk to him anymore. That's why he got adopted. And if Joker had been dead, he would have never had the chance to do that to Duke's parents.
But Duke knows that even if the Joker was in front of him right now, he wouldn't be able to kill him. Not for his parents' suffering, not when they just wanted him happy and safe. They wouldn't want that for him. Duke couldn't do it. But Hood could - Hood would. And Duke wouldn't blame him for it.
So he says, "An' I get why, killing is wrong, you know I agree with you on that. But Gotham is almost functionally a war zone, and no one judges soldiers for killing. Except Batman did. He stopped Hood, an' a lotta people are still bitter about it. 'Cause they think maybe Batman sees them as acceptable losses. An' they know Hood doesn't. They forgive Hood for not killing 'em, 'cause they know the bat won't let him, an' if he could, he would. 'Cause they know Hood kills to protect them, not just 'cause he can, or for power, or anything like that. Hood kills so they stop hurting people. An' that's why most people in Uptown trust him. 'Cause they know why he kills. An' it seems like, just from what I've seen today, you guys up here don't."
And Duke can't bear to keep talking about this: he doesn't want to be cross-examined. Not at any point, but especially not today. He's already in pain from his headache, he has no desire to add to that. And he's said pretty much everything he has to say to Dick and Tim - he's hit the high points of why he trusts Hood, or at least the points that Hood is okay with him talking about to them.
So he dips - he raps his knuckles twice against the railing behind him as final punctuation, and takes the elevator upstairs, before they can stop him.
Once he gets upstairs though, pulling his suit off in the actual elevator: he'd forgotten to take it off while talking to Dick and Tim, and while he wasn't going to disobey Alfred, he wasn't going to head back down just to put his suit away downstairs -it would fit in his hamper upstairs just fine- he thinks he probably ought to talk to Jason, while he has the chance. He's pretty exhausted, but if he doesn't try now, he's not going to see Jason for weeks, or get the chance to talk to him for months, unless he goes actively looking for him, which just sounds like a bad idea, if all he wants is to talk, especially about something Jason pretty clearly doesn't want to talk about.
But Jason is in the first room he looks in - one of the smaller sitting rooms. It's actually the one right next to Bruce's study, more of a waiting room than anything - and really, a house is too big when it gets a waiting room just for someone's study, but then, the Waynes were and are filthy rich. Duke guesses Jason is in here purely because it's so close to the study - anyone looking for him would assume that he'd go somewhere further away, or maybe closer to the kitchen, 'cause Alfred had asked him to breakfast, and that was why he'd stayed, not really for any other reason.
Duke steps in quietly, and when Jason doesn't immediately snarl at him to leave, or make any indication that he doesn't want Duke there, he reckons he's probably in the clear.
He flops down gently onto the chair opposite Jason - there's still a few seats between them, 'cause there's actually a crazy number of armchairs in here for such a small room - but he isn't blocking Jason in, so if he wants to go, he doesn't have to go over Duke.
Jason tilts his head inquiringly at him -Duke clearly isn't the only one who's tired- and Duke explains "Just got done talking to Dick and Tim-" and Jason's face and body wipe themselves of all expression. It's the creepiest thing Duke's ever seen.
Normally, how Jason feels is written all over his face and body language. Granted, they don't talk often, and half the time they do see each other, Jason is arguing with Dick -but even then, when Jason is keeping his body language focused tight, keeping it all locked down quiet, matching his volume level, so he's just arguing with Dick, and with Dick alone- how he feels is still visible, you just have to look. And his face is generally fairly easy to read as well - or at least, it has been the few times Duke's actually talked to him. But right now Jason has no expression, and Duke has no idea what he's thinking, but it doesn't seem like it's going to be anything good.
He keeps going anyway, "-when I told them that you'd killed some of my neighbours when you were first getting started, so they didn't get to talk to me about why you kill. An' also that most of us in the Narrows, we get it, we get why you kill. An' you'd probably have killed the Joker, if Batman hadn't stopped you.
"But a lot of it was about trying to survive in the Narrows, about how there's a difference between a quick death and a slow one, and also that often, there isn't much choice about working for a gang. 'Cause Will and Jake, my neighbours, they worked for Black Mask, they drove a truck for him. And you killed them. And I said that was between you an' me. An' Hood, it is between you an' me."
Jason looks at him and says quietly, "Alright Duke. Uh, I know it doesn't make it better, or okay, but you're a Narrows kid, an' a bat now, and you should know, or you'll keep pushing when you shouldn't.
"It's-. I got put in a Lazarus Pit. It made me awake and aware, but-. Well. I wasn't particularly sane.
"Someone once called me almost sociopathic, which as far as I can figure is about right. 'Cause, uh, intellectually, see, I knew what I valued, what I wanted to do, what I cared for. But I didn't feel it. It was just-. Cold. Focus. The pit takes a while to settle down, and most of what I felt otherwise was rage. But the rage at least was all me.
"So yes. I killed your neighbours. I didn't care then. I care now, but that doesn't change much. But I am sorry."
Duke looks at him. Jason shifts, and says, "I'm sorry that you lost them. Not really that much for killing them. I, uh, I was focused on what I was trying to do at the time, between me, B, an' the Joker - so I prioritised that over anything, everything else.
"An' I, uh. Those first few months, I um. I went a little overboard. I was trying to piss Black Mask off by taking out his entire operation. I tried to keep it to people who really deserved it, but uh. My estimation of who deserved it was a little broader then, as was what exactly it was that they deserved."
Duke nods. That seems more accurate. He says, "They didn't particularly want to work for Black Mask, but they knew the risks. They knew that dying in a turf war might happen. And I know that they'd rather have had a quick death than a slow one. From what I heard, you gave them a quick death. But they're still dead.
"I don't like mob bosses. As a general rule, I don't like people who kill others, no matter how justified they think they are. Will and Jake were good men, who were just trying to pay rent. But you know that. And I know people who got caught up in your turf war with Black Mask, and got hurt or killed for it, and some of them didn't deserve it. Some of them might have done, I don't know. I do know they were complicit in what Black Mask was doing. But they were from the Narrows, and I knew them. And now they're dead.
"One of them, someone else I knew, Antonio, he'd been talking about saving up to move out of Gotham, go study something in IT maybe. He didn't say, hadn't got that far yet. I knew he'd killed people, but he wanted to go do something different with his life. And you killed him when you blew up Black Mask's office. You should know that, too."
Jason is still silent, eyes fixed on Duke's face. He isn't moving, is tense as anything, but Duke doesn't think he's about to spring into violence: It feels more like Jason doesn't want to give anything away, or interrupt Duke, so he's holding himself still as stone - and he still has barely any expression on his face.
Duke sighs. He doesn't like that Jason kills people. He doesn't like that Jason brutalises people. But he also doesn't like that Batman throws people off buildings to interrogate them, and breaks people's knees and arms, crippling them for life, either. And the Red Hood at least made it clean when he fought with Black Mask.
From what Duke remembers, because it was a few years ago, and he was twelve, there wasn't much actual violence in the streets, just in random warehouses and abandoned buildings. Duke remembers seeing a picture in a newspaper of an apartment that had been used as a drug lab: Hood had blown it up, and left the two buildings on either side completely untouched. And afterwards, once Hood was in control, he made sure that people on the street were as safe as he could make them.
Duke pauses a moment, and tries to see it from Tim and Dick's perspective - just the reputation of Red Hood the crime lord, without what every kid in the north of Gotham knows: that he's not a threat to them, that he gives back to the community, that he protects them. He can just about see where they're coming from - hell, he doesn't like that Jason kills people. But. Nor does he hate it either.
He doesn't think he could hate his family, shove them away, condemn their actions in the way that Dick and Bruce do to Jason. He's pretty sure that's because he's from the Narrows. Someone would have to do a lot to get kicked out of the family there - the community in the Narrows is tight-knit, because it's all they have. And maybe all they can give sometimes is a meal, or turning away when someone needs to go unnoticed, or a glance to say they're not alone: but that's not nothing.
And sure, Jason has done a lot - Duke thinks about the most brutal parts of Hood's reputation: the horror story of him dropping off eight people's heads in a duffel bag; of him killing one of his closest lieutenants; of him walking into a warehouse filled with Black Mask's men, and being the only one to walk out; even what Steph said about Hood walking into the headquarters of a gang from the Bowery, and the GCPD still finding pieces of them even days later.
But Duke also knows why Hood did that - and he didn't find out from Jason either. He knows that the eight men were the lieutenants of the biggest gangs in Gotham, that each and every one of them was responsible, even if not directly, for hundreds of people getting addicted to drugs, and being forced into joining the gangs, and dying for it. He doesn't mourn those deaths. He heard from Elly that the lieutenant that Hood killed, his own lieutenant, was found raping someone, and that Hood only waited long enough to get the girl home before castrating and killing him. He doesn't mourn that death. He knows that the warehouse of Black Mask's men that Hood killed was pivotal in establishing the Red Hood's reputation and control over north Gotham. He does mourn some of those deaths -he mourns the people he actually knew- but he also knows what Black Mask and his gang did in Gotham. And he knows from Steph why Hood killed the gang from the Bowery, and honestly, he can't say that if he were Jason, or Hood as it were, that he would have reacted differently.
Hood used those deaths to make a point, and no one has ever dared to even think of trying it again - which was why Hood did it. And Duke himself has benefited from that - he knows it's at least reasonably safe to go into Crime Alley now (well, not at night -not even the cops go in at night, they wait 'til morning to even go near, even now- but during the day at least), and that is because of Hood, and his exceedingly strict enforcement of his rules. And he knows what Hood did to the Vipers, for what they did to Elly and to others like her. He doesn't mourn them either.
So Duke thinks, even besides what Hood does with the money he gets from the drug rings and trafficking rings, he doesn't exactly grieve their deaths. He isn't like Dick in that way. Yes, he grieves for some of them - for the ones he knew personally, who he knows wanted to do better and leave the gangs, even leave Gotham. But the rest of the people that Hood kills? How could he grieve their deaths when what those people had been doing was hurting so many others, and so often the reason for that pain was because they felt like it.
Maybe the rest of the bats haven't noticed, but the crime rate in Uptown has gone down, and stayed down: it's safer there now, and not all of that is because Hood made sure any drugs in his territory weren't cut with anything dangerous, or even because of the increased donations to multiple charities.
No, a lot of it is because none of the criminals there dare to touch a kid now, or rape anyone, or traffick anyone. And that is because of Hood killing people. And those that try it, Hood comes down on them hard, and if they keep going regardless, they just kinda quietly disappear after a bit -and everyone's pretty damn sure that Hood takes 'em out, even if there's no proof- Duke's heard of it happening more than a few times, from Aunty, and Aunty knows everything.
So sure, Duke might be more lenient towards Hood because he donates an absurd amount towards keeping the people of Uptown safe, but no small part of it is also because Hood stops anyone who threatens the people in his territory, permanently. And yeah, maybe he doesn't care quite so much about people getting killed, but it worked. It works, and is still working. And the rest of the bats don't see that, even if they should.
But then, Duke knows he's never seen the actual aftermath of what Hood does, just the impact of it. And the rest of the bats have. He knows Steph, for one, saw what happened to the gang from the Bowery - she'd said so, earlier. And he'd reckon that if they didn't just see the reports for it, then the other bats saw the dead Vipers, or the duffel bag with heads, or Black Mask's warehouse, or any number of other things, and saw it in person. Duke hasn't. He wasn't old enough to be a vigilante when Hood was still taking over, and after a few months Hood had stopped killing publicly. Duke only ever saw what Hood did secondhand - and it's not like Hood is the first person to kill members of his community, his neighbours, either.
Duke thinks, yeah, it's true he doesn't like murderers, but at the same time, those are his morals in an ideal world, in a vacuum. And that's not where Duke lives. He lives in Gotham, the crime capital of the world. Jason is not the first member of his family that he's forgiven for killing other people - that honour goes to Jake.
And Hood had solid reasons for doing what he did, and that's good enough for Duke. Maybe he'd think differently if he'd grown up somewhere else, but he didn't. He grew up in the Narrows. And he's self-aware enough to know that his dislike of murderers is only because he got to grow up -in recent years anyway- in a city where he knew he wouldn't have to grow up to kill or hurt people himself. And that he did get to grow up in a world where he could choose his morals like that, he knows, is in large part thanks to Hood.
And in a perfect world, he probably would condemn Hood for killing people, but for one, it's not a perfect world, and for another, in order to do so he would have to ignore everything else that Hood has done - including letting Duke grow up in a city that was safe for him to choose what he wanted to be, to do, to value.
When Duke's parents got hurt, he would have ended up either in the system or the streets - but he got swept up by Bruce Wayne instead, and he's grateful for that, he is. But he also knows that if he hadn't, and if it had been a few years ago, before Hood got going, Duke would probably have ended up having to hurt people in order to survive. He knows how the system used to be -and that it's improved in the last decade and a half, but it's still not good, not yet anyway- and that he'd have taken his chances, sooner or later, and ended up homeless and boosting tires, or worse. Except Hood had made sure that kids had somewhere to stay that wouldn't turn them in to CPS, and would feed them and keep them warm, without having to steal to survive, and run the risk of getting a criminal record.
And okay, Duke doesn't like murderers. He doesn't think that anyone should be killed for their crimes. He definitely doesn't think that vigilantes should have the right to perform capital punishment. He does think that criminals should go to prison, and learn how to do better.
But at the same time. He knows what happens to people who have a criminal record. It nearly happened to Will and Jake, and only hadn't because the testimony of a vigilante isn't accepted evidence in court - though everyone knew what the combination of broken bones and an address in the Narrows meant, so the lack of a formal criminal record hadn't mean much if anyone joined the two dots together, which a lot of employers had.
And Duke also knows that in Gotham, prison didn't mean much anyway, not if people were already involved in a gang. Sure, they went to Blackgate for a while, but it never took that long before they were back out, and straight back to doing what they were used to.
And Duke knows that for some people in Gotham, they weren't doing it to survive: it didn't matter what happened to them, how long they were in Blackgate, or how many times Batman stopped them, they just wanted to hurt people, and they were not going to stop. He knows that the Vipers were like that. And Hood stopped them. And he did it by killing them. But Duke knew the Vipers. They weren't going to stop any other way: prison hadn't worked, Batman hadn't worked, but Hood had worked. And now they wouldn't ever hurt another person again. But they were dead. And Duke doesn't know how to balance that: that some people had to be killed in order to stop them from hurting other people.
And he definitely doesn't know how to balance that with the fact that beyond the effectiveness of Hood's methods, Hood spends most of his time keeping his patch of Gotham running, and all its neighbourhoods safe - whether through charity work, or through direct violent action as the Red Hood. 'Cause with Elly, he'd broken the guy's collarbones and knee, sure, but he'd made sure she felt safe getting home, however she wanted - which had been him walking her home personally, and he hadn't made any indication that it was a bother, or that he was in a rush, or anything: Elly had made that clear. And Elly isn't the only person he's helped like that. Nor was walking her home the only way that he had helped.
And a small part of the balance is that he's pretty sure he can only operate as Signal because Jason looked into him, and his life, and everything about him, and decided that he was fine to keep operating in the Narrows: it's Hood's support, not Batman's, that lets him patrol in the Narrows. Duke remembers the first few months seeing people tailing him on patrol, and a lot of people side-eyeing him too. He knows that not all of those people were from the Narrows, that some of them were on Hood's payroll, keeping an eye on how he worked. He still spots a few of them sometimes, but he thinks it's now to keep an eye out for him, not on him - and that they're still on Hood's payroll for it, as a safety net, in case he gets in trouble.
And then the third big part of the balance: that several of the people Duke loved, like Will and Jake, had been directly complicit in helping Black Mask run a lot of Gotham's underground -and that the underground had hurt a lot of people - not many that Duke knew, not directly- but Black Mask had been an almost-ally of the Vipers, and Duke's pretty sure that he had helped establish a contact and base in Gotham with the trafficking ring that Andrea came from too, and a whole load of other bad shit. And the Red Hood wasn't responsible for those, he wasn't responsible for a lot of the bad stuff that had been around while Duke was growing up, or while any of his neighbours, his friends, his family, was growing up either.
So he scrubs a hand through his hair and rubs the back of his neck, says, "But it's the Narrows. I can count on two hands the people I know that you hurt and killed, but there are dozens more I could count that got hurt and killed just 'cause it's the Narrows. And I know what you do after you've taken out a drug ring, and I know what you do most evenings too. Like, a few months ago, you saved my neighbour Elly, and walked her home. And you saved Andrea -she lives with Elly- from a trafficking ring." He shrugs, "You should know that, too."
Jason's eyes are still fixed on him, but they're wider than normal, and something about his expression, which has finally slipped from its eerie blankness, reminds Duke that Jason, by most standards, is still very young. Hell, he's only just hit his mid-twenties.
Duke can see the deep purple bruise colouring his shoulder, already browning at the edges, from getting thrown across a roof at the end of patrol tonight, just at the edges of his shirt, even from several metres away, and he knows that the only reason Jason is talking to him, is being honest, and not driving him away with the prickly defensive aggressiveness that seems to be half of Jason's personality around the bats, is because it's been a shitshow of a week, and they're both exhausted.
Because normally, every time Jason sees a bat, Duke can visibly see his walls go up, even though every time Jason has talked to Duke when he's on his own, he's been civil - sometimes almost kind, in a gruff kind of way. Hell, before Duke became Signal, he didn't know that Hood was a bat - he knew they worked together sometimes, when there was an Arkham breakout, but pretty much everyone had reckoned that was 'cause Hood didn't want bats chasing a Rogue into his territory. Not even Aunty knew: Hood certainly doesn't show in any way that he works with them, let alone is part of the family. And yeah, maybe some of that is 'cause it would be a bad idea for the bats to be associated with Gotham's most powerful crime lord, or the other way around, but it doesn't seem like that's everything there is to it - not from the way Dick and Jason argue sometimes.
Duke keeps looking at Jason, and he's lost the wide-eyed look, at least a little, but Duke can literally see bruises under Jason's eyes, and his skin has a terrible sallow cast to it, and now that he can see Jason without his helmet on, and is actually looking at him, he looks awful, like he's soul-deep exhausted.
But Duke is exhausted too - his own exhaustion is most of the reason he's being quite so honest tonight as well. Or, well, not that he isn't normally honest, but often he keeps some stuff to himself, and if he doesn't, he's normally better about phrasing it better, so the other person doesn't take it the wrong way and get hurt by it. Duke, at least in this family, normally has to take the role of the reasonable level-headed guy, because everyone delights in putting on a costume and punching people in the face, which isn't exactly conducive to being normal about anything, ever, so Duke has to, even though Duke is not exactly normal himself - he too puts on a costume and punches people in the face, but someone has to be reasonable, at least some of the time, and apparently in this family, it's Duke.
And then Jason finally says "Āi yā, Narrows, I think you trust me too much. I've still got enough Pit left in me that if I pull on it, or shit gets too much, I stop caring. Earlier, you got too fuckin' close to gettin' your head taken off.
"I said focus earlier, but it's focus, not clarity, even though it feels like clarity, an' the focus comes at the detriment of everythin' else, 'cause you need a focus or you go fuckin' insane, probably. No one ever actually said. An' I probably coulda, or shoulda had a different focus, but T didn't have much time, an' the only thing I had reliably responded to was violence. She did the best she could.
"But look, Duke, I nearly started valuing your life less than I valued keeping my secrets, 'cause I nearly stopped fuckin' caring. Don't fuckin' push it again, ese. Scares the shit outta me."
Duke grins and says, "Yeah, but you didn't. That's why we trust you, y'know. Because yeah, you took people's heads off sometimes, but you care too. Nearly not caring doesn't count."
--Because sure, Hood took Crime Alley as his territory, and he basically took The Bowery as well -to the extent where most of the bats don't step foot in either of those neighbourhoods- but Hood built his territory up from Crime Alley to include the rest of Uptown. It had taken a while, Duke knows that, because he hadn't taken it, wrenched it out of the other gang's control with as much brutal force as he had the Alley - he'd built into it slowly. And Hood's territory does now stretch from Robbinsville to the Heights, right across the island that is the north of Gotham, including Duke's home neighbourhood of the Narrows. And yeah, the rest of it doesn't belong quite so thoroughly to Hood, at least by the bats' standards -he lets the rest of the bats onto the rest of the island, but not the Alley- but it does belong to him. And Hood takes care of the neighbourhood, and the community in it. If Duke had gotten into trouble, he could have gone to the Red Hood for help, he'd have been able to -and he would have done, but Batman had been there first, and it all ended up alright- but Duke knows that if he needed help, even just for something small like walking somewhere dangerous late at night, then Hood would have made sure he was safe. Duke couldn't ask Batman for something like that, half 'cause he wouldn't be able to find him to ask, half 'cause he wouldn't dare, but he could ask Hood for it, because Hood is theirs.--
"And Steph is from Uptown too, she knows what you do for us, she gets it. She said she'd keep quiet about what you do for tonight.
"But uh, she's been friends with Tim for years, since before you came back to Gotham, so she'll probably tell him soon, and 'sides, I'm pretty sure she's got a different opinion on you than I do, so I dunno, you should probably ask her about it.
"An' 'sides, 'course I trust you: we're technically brothers, y'know. An' I don't think you'd kill your brothers. Adoption still counts past death, an' B adopted me a while ago, so, brothers." Duke grins again.
He doesn't know Jason all that well yet, beyond the whole Hood thing, but he's pretty sure that they'll be fine. He might not like murderers, at least in the abstract, but he does like Jason -a small part of the reason Duke is fine about his business as Hood is because he knows about Jason, from Alfred, a bit- Duke has heard good things about his cooking and his love of literature.
Jason stares at him, then says quietly, "We aren't brothers, Duke. M'sorry."
Duke's grin slips off his face. Jason didn't sound angry, just tired, in a bone deep kinda way, as he says, "It's a little patchy, but before I left Gotham the first time, I remember- B said he wasn't my father, an' he didn't need teenage rebellion from me. An' the other thing he did, too. So. We're not brothers. I like you though, Duke. I think you'd be a good brother. You just ain't mine." and then Jason rolls to his feet and slips out before Duke can reply. Fuck. Fuck. That didn't sound good at all.
Something's clearly very very wrong, but Jason very very clearly doesn't want to talk about it, like he hadn't really meant to say it at all. And Duke's not gonna bring that up to anyone until he figures out what's going on there, even though he thinks he might not ever get the chance again. It certainly didn't look like he would, judging from how fast Jason left.
And actually, a helluva lot of how Jason was acting this evening is actually kinda really worrying, if Duke thinks about it. He'd missed it, down in the Cave, 'cause he'd been hurting from the sleep deprivation headache, and he still is.
But-. The way Jason didn't want to tell Dick why he was doing anything, or what he was doing - that wasn't right. Or shouldn't be right. Jason should be fine with telling them why he shot those cops, or what he did with the money, or what he does with all the money he ever gets. But he isn't.
And Duke isn't sure how much of it is just 'cause Jason seems to like his privacy, or how much of it is 'cause there might actually be something very very wrong. He thinks it might be the second one. But Duke isn't gonna be able to work out why tonight, if ever, maybe. He's pretty sure Jason won't let anyone close enough to get all the clues and info they need to work out why.