Night draped the manor like a velvet curtain, thick and quiet, the sort of quiet Jason Todd hated. It was the kind of quiet that made the grandfather clock tick like a taunt. He sat at the dining room table, hunched over a history worksheet that looked more like a punishment than homework. To him, it was a punishment—Bruce had benched him from patrol tonight. Something about “reckless decision-making.” Jason called it “initiative.” Bruce called it “grounded.”

He tapped his pencil, imagining Gotham’s skyline humming under the Batmobile’s wheels while he was stuck memorizing dates about grain tariffs. The air felt stale and restless, like even the chandeliers were impatient.

Then the manor trembled.

Not much—just a shudder, the bones of the house gasping. Jason’s head snapped up. Before he could stand, the distant groan of metal drifted down the hallway. A car door slamming. A muffled voice. Alfred’s, tight and urgent, wrapped in a kind of fear Jason rarely heard from him.

Jason pushed back from the table. “Alfie?” he called.

No answer.

He tried again, louder this time, but the manor had suddenly become a maze of doors clicking shut, hurried steps, whispered orders. Jason followed the noise toward the cave, but Alfred’s voice—sharper now—cut him off.

“Master Jason, return upstairs at once.”

Jason froze mid-stride. Alfred never used that tone unless something was deeply wrong. And wrong in the manor meant only one thing.

“Is Bruce back?” Jason asked, heart thumping, but Alfred had already swept past him, arms full of supplies—gauze, antiseptic, things Jason had learned to recognize during the darkest nights.

He tried to follow again, but this time Alfred shut the study door firmly in his face.

Jason’s throat tightened. “Alfred, what’s going on?”

“Not now, my boy. Please.”

That “please” made it worse.

Jason stood there, fists curling, the manor swallowing his questions in its echoing halls. He paced. Tried to listen. Heard only fragments—Alfred’s quick footsteps, the hiss of medical equipment, a pained groan that didn’t sound like Bruce but absolutely was.

And then—

A rush of air, a set of heavier footsteps, and the front door swung open with a gust of cold Blüdhaven rain. Dick Grayson, still wearing half his Nightwing uniform, stormed in like a lightning bolt.

He didn’t even glance at Jason.

“Where is he?” Dick demanded, tossing his gloves aside as he moved straight for the study door Alfred had disappeared behind.

Jason blinked. “Dick? Why are you—”

But Dick didn’t hear him. Didn’t see him. Didn’t acknowledge the way Jason’s voice frayed with worry.