Robin's Egg

A Change in Persp-Egg-tive

Saturday night started off like normal. He woke up in the late afternoon, took a shower, ate some microwave ramen, then cleaned his guns until it was time to suit up and do his nightly rounds in Crime Alley and the Narrows. The usual.

Jason's night got immediately better when some of Joker's men walked into his open arms. They had escaped into the Narrows, trying to get away from the batclan only to aid Hood in some much-needed anger management. The cheeky bastards even tried to gas him with Joker Toxin.

If a few of them no longer had kneecaps that was their problem. Not his.

Oracle had hacked open his comms again during that joyfully aggressive therapy session, to which he promptly turned back off. Whatever Batman wanted from him could wait until he was finished giving Joker's men a well-earned thrashing. It had been a while since he had worked out his aggression, and Jason was going to take full advantage of the opportunity. They would escape with their lives but not much else.

However, Jason's night turned for the worse when Oracle reopened the comms about fifteen minutes later and hacked it so that they would STAY open. From that moment on, he was begrudgingly pulled into Riddler's stupid game. Hood followed the coordinates Oracle gave him and met up with Nightwing right outside an abandoned building with a weird timer on the front door. The eldest filled him in, and Jason did not like what was happening.

Jason would never admit it out loud, but he didn't mind that he was paired up with his older brother. It was better than being paired with Steph, Tim, and the demon brat. All he had to deal with was some bad jokes which he could counter with his own dead ones. Watching Dick get uncomfortable whenever he brings up his death was rather funny. It was a little petty but sue him; he hadn't entirely forgiven his older brother for how he was treated. The same went for Bruce.

The fact that he allowed them to add him to the comms was worlds apart from how he pushed everyone away previously. Things weren't going to be able to return to the way they were... but it was a start.

Baby steps.

Soon it was time to enter the building, and just like Superboy had stated and Batman theorized, they had a room full of dead bodies. Significantly more than the two youngest of the team. It looked like a party gone wrong with several people sprawled out on the floor and furniture. At the head of the long table was a woman in a wedding dress, tied up, mouth muzzled shut with tear tracks trailing down her face. Her gaze looked straight at them but not. Looking far beyond at something the two vigilantes would never see.

The other groups confirmed similar morbid scenarios over the comms save for Robin's. All they got from him was static, and it unnerved them all that they lost contact with the youngest in the group so quickly. There was nothing they could do for now until they were freed from these real-life murder mysteries that the bats had been tasked with.

The night couldn't get any worse right?

Wrong.

Red Hood was facepalming hard as the alarm blared above them, and a mysterious gas began filtering into the room. "Why."

"Why, what?" Nightwing responded as innocently as he could but the guilt showed through in his facial features.

"Why did you add a w?!"

"Why ISN'T there a w?!"

Jason heaved an exasperated sigh. "I can't believe one of the best detectives in Gotham and Bludhaven failed a riddle because he SPELLED THE ANSWER WRONG!"

"Oh, come on! French is full of unnecessary letters and stuff. It was an honest accident!" Dick exclaimed and then froze in dread. "You aren't going to let me live this down, are you?"