No Nuance November

In the Dead of the Night

Jason relies heavily on the fact he isn't as good as some of his peers. It makes people underestimate him. It's useful. It means he isn't suspected if he does get into something and they notice. They know it happened, not who did it.

It gives him some time to hide his tracks, which he is really good at. Better than most.

It leads him to here and now. Going through secure files on the Batcomputer while everyone else is either away or busy.

He had originally come to get some intel for a case he was considering looking into. Always go to the best source for all of the information. He'd normally ask Oracle for details. Their relationship was significantly better these days, and as far as he knew she didn't mind doing things like that for him.

But she'd been busy and he hadn't wanted to bother her. Tim and Dick would've asked too many questions so he decided he'd look on his own. And since he was here why not dig into files Bruce seems to think need to be kept secret. He clearly hadn't learned that keeping secrets from the people closest to you is the worst idea in the world. Natural consequences hadn't caught up to him enough times to keep him from pulling this crap.

So, Jason made an executive decision, using a key Oracle had made to break into programs like Bruce's locks on files, he'd bring these secrets to light. Bonus it would be perfect blackmail material if needed but more importantly he couldn't be surprised if there was something incriminating on any of them.

Jason hadn't been expecting what he found.

He'd gotten through two other files. One was from when Bane broke Bruce's back a while ago, Bruce admitted to Dick being very against his ideas on how to handle the situation and how he was going to go forward with it anyway. Jason knew how that had ended. Bruce likely had this locked out of embarrassment. Dick had been very right. The other was about Stephanie Brown. Jason didn't know much about her, he never saw her let alone spent time getting to know her. But he did know she had some shit in her life. He talked about her failed mission that had led to her death. Jason hadn't been able to finish it, it felt wrong. He wasn't going to disrespect her like that.

The next file he found was about Tim.

More specifically Dick and Tim.

Jason had expected blackmail material. Something to hold against Bruce's favorites. The two people he knew Bruce trusted the most out of all of them.

That wasn't what he found.

The file was dense. The other two had just been his reports of the situation. This one had everyone's report on every detail, security camera footage from all relevant locations at the time, footage from the cameras on their suits, police reports from GCPD, even medical records from Arkham and Gotham General. Locked away to die.

As he got into it, it read like another dead Robin report. Tim had been captured by the Joker, he escaped (somehow), then he got captured by Killer Croc, they thought he died, they went to go get him, he escaped again (not uninjured but alive) and Batman hauls ass across town to deal with another problem.

Nightwing hadn't gone to help Robin, he'd gone after the Joker.

Jason read that part a few times. He'd never seen Dick not immediately go and help one of them. Instead he went after the Joker. They didn't even think the Joker killed Tim, but that hadn't mattered. For whatever reason Dick didn't go with them.

He hesitated on the footage from that date. Something was off, from the way the report was written to just the sheer amount of stuff in it left a bad taste in his mouth. He went over the security cameras first. A lot of it was capturing images of their movement all over Gotham, he watches Robin stumble out of where the Joker had been holding him only for him to vanish not too long afterwards, he watches everyone swing across the city, the Batmobile peel across the city in record time.