The Batcave was quiet, except for the steady hum of machinery and the echo of water dripping somewhere in the dark. The glow of the massive screen cut across the cavern, throwing Bruce, Dick, and Damian into sharp outlines.
"I didn't know being the hero of the people was part of the résumé for an up-and-coming crime lord," Dick said, lounging in his chair with that smug grin of his. Sarcasm practically rolled off every word.
Bruce didn't even turn his head. Damian didn't either. They just gave him the same look—flat, and unimpressed. Damian even tilted his head and shook it slowly, like he was silently wondering if his brother could possibly lower the bar any further.
"What?" Dick lifted his hands in mock defense. "I'm just saying—I don't get the guy's angle."
"If Jason killed the ones responsible while rescuing the kids, the police would've found bodies by now," Bruce said evenly, his eyes fixed on the shifting data across the screen. "Which means either he had discreetly disposed of their bodies, or they're still alive."
Damian slid into the console's chair, cape brushing across the stone, then he began to type. "It's just as I thought but I don't know if it's connected," he said, his voice clipped, "but among incidents that occured on the night of halloween, two of Gotham's politicians had an incident. Possibly at the mayor's halloween party, or right after."
Bruce frowned, already having something in mind. Dick leaned forward, curiosity tugging him out of his sarcasm.
"This wasn't in the news," Dick said. He'd checked. Bruce had checked. There was no way either of them missed it.
"It wasn't public," Damian explained.
"They've got the pull to keep it buried. This only came up on a smaller site with a stubborn reporter who refuses to let go of city scandals." He pulled the main page up, and the three of them leaned in as the screen washed their faces in pale light.
The report was thin but it wasn't nothing.
"They were admitted to a private hospital that night," Damian read, "the other thing they have in common apart from politics is that both are close friends with the mayor. John Stuart."
Bruce's eyes narrowed as his memories from the halloween night flashed through his mind. Unconscious guards pilled up on the ground as he and Selina left the manor. He hadn't told his sons.
He couldn't.
If he admitted he'd seen something and walked away, the judgment would come fast and hard from both of them. They'd assume Selina had blinded him to his duty. He didn't have the patience to fight them on it. Not tonight.
"So what happened to them?" he asked, keeping his tone neutral. Damian scrolled. The reporter rambled about conspiracies and cover-ups, but little else.
A few more keystrokes, then Damian stopped. His eyes flicked across the page.
"Here. One was shot in the kneecap. The other suffered a shattered vertebra. First one may never walk properly again. The second… paralyzed for life."
Dick exhaled sharply through his nose. "Sounds like Jason. Great."
"And they've said nothing about who did it?" Bruce asked.
"They refused to speak to the press. Not a word." Damian leaned back with furrowed brows as thoughts weighed on him. "But why would Jason do this? What's the reason he would attack politicians who could influence the public's narrativeas regard's his own image?"
"For what reason does Jason ever do anything?" Dick muttered. "We know he's got a plan. We just don't know what it is."
Bruce's jaw tightened. The Mayor was the one common thread. The place to start.
"I'll speak to the Mayor tonight," he said, his voice hardening. "Find out what he knows."
With that, the tension in the air thinned. Dick leaned against the console, smirking, as he slid back into place. "Speaking of plans—The Titans are throwing a party this weekend at the Tower. You should come, Damian. Meet the team. Maybe get a social life."
Bruce's eyes flicked sideways toward his son, waiting.
"No," Damian flatly denied with swift rejection.
Dick blinked. "What do you mean, no?"
"It's just as I said. No." Damian's tone was dismissive, and with a tone of matter-of-fact.
"Damian, you should go," Bruce suggested, calm and firm. "It would be good for you to be around heroes your age. Kids who actually understand what it means to live a double life."
"Come on," Dick pressed, grinning, leaning into his younger brother like he was trying to charm him. "It'll be fun."
"I'd rather tie an anchor to my legs and throw myself off the pier," Damian replied with a steady voice, eyes locked forward.
He wasn't joking.
Dick raised his brows. "Wow. Can you be more dramatic?"
Bruce sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He could understand why his son pushed so hard against this. No friends.
No normal childhood. No outlets. For a boy like Damian, a team should've been an essential. But Damian had no interest in those.
"Yeah, sure," Dick shot back, "but if you're gonna do it, at least do it at the docks. That way no one's around to ruin your wretched attempt at a suicide."
"Stop it," Bruce cut in sternly. Both sons glared at each other, neither willing to give ground.
"What? If he's gonna do it, he should at least do it right," Dick muttered as he crossed his arms crossed.
Damian folded his arms tight across his chest, chin lifting and with a rebellious glare. "What's your team like, anyway? A social club for weirdos and freaks?"
Dick tapped his chin theatrically, pretending to consider it. "Well… yeah, actually."
Damian gave him a look that could've burned holes. Was he serious?
"Either way, you're going," Bruce said with finality in his tone.
Damian's jaw locked. He didn't answer, just stared back at his father with clear defiance in his eyes. Inside, though, the resistance was more than just a childish tantrum. It was pride. He didn't need a team.
He didn't need peers. The Titans could never understand him. Not his childhood. Not the training that had honed him since birth. Not the weight of being raised as both heir and weapon.
He wasn't like them, and he didn't want to be.
What would he even gain by socializing with the Titans? Friendship?
Camaraderie?
He'd survived without those his entire life.
He'd thrived without them. Opening himself up to others felt pointless, dangerous even.
Weak.
Still… it was just for the weekend. A weekend party. If he'd made it through school this long without snapping anyone's neck, he could probably suffer through a room full of caped weirdos. Not because he wanted to. And clearly not because he needed to. Just to prove he could.
- - -
Later that evening, Mayor John Stuart was still buried in his office, long past the hours most men would've gone home.
Election season was close, and the weight of re-election pressed down on him like a pile of lead. His secretary had already left, the hum of the city outside his window reduced to muffled traffic and the occasional siren.
The stack of documents on his desk didn't seem to shrink no matter how many he signed, and his eyes were heavy from hours of reading.
He rubbed his temples, muttering under his breath, when the lights overhead gave a faint flicker, then went dark with a pop.
"What the hell?" he hissed, pushing back from his chair. He thought about calling maintenance, maybe even checking the breaker himself, but the thought irritated him.
He reached for his phone, thumbing the flashlight on. The beam reached across the room, a narrow cone of pale white that swung toward the door—and landed on something that froze him in his chair.
A massive silhouette stood framed in the doorway. The pointed ears. The cape. The eyes that glowed faint and predatory in the dark.
"Jesus Christ—" Stuart flinched so hard he dropped his phone, the flashlight beam tumbling across the floor until it lay useless against the carpet.
"Mr. Mayor." The voice was low like gravel dragged over stone.
Stuart swallowed, his heart hammering in his chest. "Batman. Damn it—this should be made a crime. Scaring the mayor like that and intruding on my personal space like some stalker." His eyes flicked toward the phone on the ground, then stopped.
Something told him reaching for it would be a mistake. The room was exactly how Batman wanted it—dark, silent, his presence filling the room and weighing upon the mayor with increasing pressure.
Batman stepped forward, his boots thuding against the floor. "Scalan and Hubson. What happened to them?" His tone made it clear that he wasn't asking a question—it was more like a demand for something he was certain Stuart knows.
The mayor's face twitched as muscles tightening in his jaw. He tried to sit taller, to play the politician even with sweat prickling at his collar. "I don't know what you're talking about," he said smoothly with a voice trained to lie.
"Don't." Batman growled. "I know they suffered those injuries at your manor on the night of halloween. I don't have time for lies, Stuart. Tell me what happened—and who was responsible for putting them in that condition."
The words came heavily induced with threat, but Batman never raised his voice. That was the frightening part. His presence. He didn't have to shout to make the mayor feel cornered.
Stuart tried to steady his breath, trying not to look like prey. He met the glare beneath the cowl, though every instinct screamed not to. "I swear, I don't know—"
The mayor's words cut short with the crack of Batman's gauntlet against the desk. Wood splintered under the blow, the sound reverberating through the office like a gunshot. Papers scattered as the lamp on the side table rattled, and Stuart flinched back in his chair, nearly toppling it.
"Keep lying," Batman said, stepping in closer, his shadow swallowing Stuart whole, "and you won't be in shape to run for your next term."
For a second, Stuart wondered if this was it—if Gotham's Dark Knight was about to cross the line, prove himself no better than the Red Hood. His pulse drummed hard as sweat clung to his temples.
He forced himself to speak quickly, weaving together fragments of truth with practiced lies. "There was… a play. At the manor that night. During the party. My security team pulled me aside, said there'd been an incident. Scalan and Hubson were attacked, but nothing was caught on camera. Too much smoke in the room. They couldn't identify anyone." He tried to steady his hands, clasping them together on the desk as if prayer might keep them from trembling.
Batman leaned in closer, face half in shadow, eyes narrowed into slits of white. He could tell there was more that he wasn't saying, but at least he had confirmed his suspicion."Then why hide it?"
Stuart wet his lips. "It was their choice. They didn't want anyone to know. Maybe they had enemies. Maybe business that wasn't mine to pry into. I've begged them to give me answers so I could help them and bring punishment upon the perpetrator—but they won't say." His voice softened, slipping into a tone of guilt, as though he was the one wounded by all this.
He pressed a hand to his chest, the image of a politician trying to look vulnerable. From the faint wash of moonlight through the window, his eyes gleamed, wet with unshed tears.
"Believe me," he whispered, "I don't know who did this. If I did, I'd have already acted. This happened under my roof, Batman. They were my friends."
The silence between them stretched, thick enough to make Stuart feel even more unease. Batman's gaze locked onto him, unblinking, as though peeling away every layer of his performance, and weighing his words.
Stuart could feel the weight of it, the way the Dark Knight pressed in on him without even moving a muscle.
Stuart reached for a handkerchief, dabbing at his eyes, and when he looked up again, the space in front of his desk was empty.
And then, just like that, the pressure Stuart felt had also vanished.
The lights flickered back on, humming softly as though nothing had ever happened.
But Stuart knew better. His hands trembled as he exhaled, sagging into his chair. Batman was frightening—but restrained. He'd leave you shaken, maybe frightened, but still able to walk home.
Red Hood was different. Red Hood would leave you broken, both literally and metaphorically. He'd drag your filth into the light, tear away your mask, make sure the world knew exactly what kind of man you were. And Stuart knew what that meant for him—his secrets, his sickness, the truth that would destroy him if it ever came out.
He couldn't cross Red Hood. He couldn't risk it. Not when he knew exactly what happens to pedophiles who abuses little boys in prison.
Not when he knew there was nothing he could do to silent Red Hood.