Red Hood: A Road to Recovery

2.

Richard 'Dick' Grayson sighed, as he ran a hand through his hair. 

He was trying. Trying so hard to make Jason see the fact he cared about him and his well-being. But Jason was blind when it came to seeing this. 

He walked back up to the Gallery. It was closed off to the public, so it had many embarrassing photos in it. He, Bruce, Tim and Damian were dead. 

Jason would tease them to death.

 Dick chuckled slightly, at the thought.

His eyes fell on the family portrait, it had everyone in it, other than...Jason. Why wasn't Jason there? He must have declined the offer, Dick decided after a moment of pondering.

-

-

-

"Hey, B," Dick called, effectively getting Bruce's attention.

"Hm?"

"Well, the portrait...did Jason decline the offer?" Dick asked, trying to word it correctly.

"He was out of town," Bruce answered.

"So he declined?"

"Not exactly," Bruce said, after a few moments.

Dick was starting to get annoyed, "Did he decline? The answer is yes and know, B,"

"No,"

"Then why wasn't he there?"

"I-I never asked," Bruce said.

"WHAT?!?" Dick and Tim burst out at the same time. Ya, Alfred, Tim and Damian are in the same room. Damian said nothing. He could not care less what happened to the ex-robin. Alfred gave Bruce a disappointed look. Bruce winced. 

If you disappoint Alfred, then you may as well have gotten yourself a one-way ticket to hell. It was in the same category as selling underage children drugs. In other words, Red Hood will be out for your blood if he finds out.

"He would have said no anyways," Bruce tried.

"Ya, but then, at least he would have known that you cared," Tim argued, suddenly the coldness that Jason had been showing recently made a lot more sense. When Jason had learned about the portrait, he had joked that they all "looked like grumpy toads,".

"If Todd had proved himself worthy of being in the portrait, he would have been in it," Damian scoffed.

That. That hit Tim hard. He knew how it felt to be replaced. It felt as though, the person who is replacing you must be better than you. And the self-doubt it created was hard to get rid of. 

"You," Tim's voice was icy, and right now, Dick could have sworn he, for a second, thought that Batman was talking, "have no idea. No freakin' idea. It hurts. The idea of being replaced. And, in Jason's case, he was told that the Joker- then who murdered him- was still alive, and more than that, still hurting and killing others. And he was replaced. Just think about it. From Jason's perspective, not Bruce's, not the world's.  From Jason's. He went down after being beaten to death. He died from torture. That is not something you can just forget. It's something you can never, ever, forget. He had to claw his way back from his grave, to be able to breathe properly."

Tim took a deep breath.

"That will cause Claustrophobia, at the very least. From the last reason alone. We have no idea about his mental state. He could be depressed. He could be...." Tim seemed scared to even say it, "Suicidal. Maybe none of these. We don't know. But, to help him, we need to know."

Dick finished the speech for Tim, "And the only way we will know is by him telling us. And the only way he tells us is if he trusts us."