Chapter Text
Tim flew down the stairs, running and jumping down the half flights as fast as he could. His speed couldn’t even compare to the speed of a vampire, he was so screwed. He was just lucky that he’d been wearing his Robin gear, otherwise that first hit would’ve taken him down. Dick and Bruce hadn’t said anything about the Red Hood being a vampire, so Tim had no way to be prepared.
Something hard hit him from behind and Tim slammed into the wall at the bottom of the half flight of stairs. That was going to leave a bruise, if not a broken rib or two. He fell to the ground, coughing as he tried to get air back in his lungs. He fought down the panic response when his breath got knocked out of him, but still he couldn’t even move. There was an angry murderous vampire behind him for god’s sake, and he couldn’t move.
Slowly he rolled onto his back, still gasping, and pushed himself across the ground, finally able to see the Red Hood where he was just standing and watching.
“What-” gasp “do you-” gasp “want?” Tim’s chest was heaving. As soon as he’d seen the Red Hood’s speed, he’d run. The vampire had been too amused in chasing him to catch him quickly. He was playing with his food.
“Well, replacement,” Tim was backing up, sliding down the stairs backwards, one stair at a time as the Red Hood slowly moved closer. “I wanted to teach someone a lesson about what happens to birds when they’re not kept in a cage.”
“You’re going to kill me?” Tim guessed, moving back another step.
“What a smart Robin, no wonder he kept you around!” The Red Hood laughed.
“You going to drink me dry? Turn me?”
“No. I won’t drink a drop from you. I’ll cut you open and bathe the floor in your blood. I’ll carve you up and spell out my name with your organs.” Tim flinched, that was dramatic.
“Listen, I know how it gets when you don’t get enough good blood. I’ve fed your kind before, I know what you need. It’ll help with all the anger and bloodlust and whatever the League told you was natural.” The Hood stopped moving, Tim kept backing up. “Look at Ra’s, he doesn’t have to deal with all the hungry instincts. You’re hungry for blood yes, but it’s more than just blood, I can help you get some, then we can talk this out?” Tim had no chance of stopping the Hood if he decided to kill him, but everything Tim said was true. And it was his only chance of getting out of this alive.
Hood was frozen and Tim backed up another step. “You’ve fed a vampire before?” He asked.
“Yes, my sister, listen I can help, you don’t want to kill me.” Tim really was gambling here, he wasn’t sure he trusted this vampire to feed off of him safely, but if making this bargain was his only way out then he was using it.
“Shit fuck!” Hood swore, walking back up the stairs and punching the wall so hard that it made a dent in the concrete.
Tim flinched, his eyes wide. “Uhhhh…”
Hood pulled off his helmet and Tim sucked in a breath. Jason? Why was he wearing another mask under his helmet? “Wait: sister?” Hood, no, Jason turned around and pointed a very aggressive finger at him, advancing angrily. Tim hurriedly backed up another two steps.
“Yeah, uh, Black Bat. She was League, then joined us.” Tim wasn’t sure if he was giving away too much information, but if it was actually Jason in front of him then he already knew his identity and could easily find Cass.
Jason smashed his hand through the railing on the stairs and Tim finally had backed up far enough that he was on the lower landing. He put the wall at his back, chest heaving with short breath. This confrontation had evolved into ten different kinds of dangerous in the past few minutes and Tim was still reeling.
“Does she drink from Dick and Bruce too?” Jason asked and Tim figured they were just letting go of all the secret identities at this point.
“Uh, no. B forbade it, but Cass needed live blood so I offered.”
“Fuck!” Jason screamed at the ceiling. Tim was really confused. There had to be something he was missing.
“Uh, I’m happy if this means you’re not going to kill me, but like, why are you so mad?”
Jason looked at him consideringly then explained: “You’re her Thrall, a willing one at that. I can’t even touch you according to Vampire law.”
“... There’s a Vampire law?”
“Yes.”
“And you follow it but not human law?”
“Shut up.”
“Why?”
“Cause if I don’t Ra’s will eat me.”
“... Metaphorically?”
“Literally.”
“Yikes, sorry dude.”
“Thanks.”
“Glad you’re not killing me though.”
“Can’t say I feel the same.”
Tim shrugged in response to Jason’s complaint. That wasn’t his issue. As long as he was safe from vampire Red Hood/Jason he was happy. Well, he was depressed that his childhood hero had become a murderer intent on killing him, but that was something to figure out another day. He held a hand to his ribs as he pulled himself to his feet.
“Dammit, I can’t believe I didn’t smell it earlier, you really do reek of vampire.” Jason backed up a step from Tim.
“I reek?” Tim raised an eyebrow, he hadn’t seen Cass in almost two weeks, he’s taken a bunch of showers since then.
“Yeah, only vampires can smell it. It lingers in your blood for a while though, so you can’t wash it off.” Tim was learning a lot more about vampires from just this conversation with Jason than the information Cass had given him. To be fair he’d been most concerned with vampire biology so that he could make sure Cass didn’t die or go crazy.
“Maybe you should make sure your helmet doesn’t filter it out.” Tim suggested.
“If I came here for advice, I’d’ve asked for it.” Jason complained. Tim started limping over to the med bay, thankfully it was on the same floor. Jason followed and Tim wasn’t really sure why, but apparently everyone else in the tower was unconscious and Jason wasn’t going to attack him or the others, so he wasn’t too worried.
“So I guess you can’t drink my blood, then?”
“No can do Mr. Thall.” Tim glared at Jason, did he have to be so annoying? Tim moved over to the cabinet to get wrappings for his ribs, he’d have to make sure they weren’t too badly damaged.
“I keep some enriched blood in the fridge over there, it’s labeled for Black Bat, you can have some, it should help at least.” Tim pointed in the vague direction of the fridge, leaning against the cabinets and beginning the painful process of cutting off his uniform with broken ribs.
“Enriched blood?” Jason asked, but he still went over to the fridge.
“Yeah. You still need vitamins and shit, stuff that’s easiest to get from a variety of live victims. You don’t even need that much blood to subsist on as long as it has the nutrients or whatever.” Tim explained, breathing heavily and trying to distract himself from the pain coming from his ribs.
“How’d you figure this out?” Jason said, biting straight into one of the bags and drinking it like a capri sun. He left the fridge door open. Asshole.
“Cass let me experiment.”
“Nice.” Jason eyed Tim’s slow process of removing his gear wearily, “Speaking of Cass. You should call her.”
“Can’t, you shut off all the signal in the tower.” Tim answered without looking up. Jason hmm’d in response, then there was a whish of air as he ran off at a speed only vampires could use. Tim just waited.
“Back on now.” Jason returned within a few seconds. “Call her.”
“Why?”
“Cause she’ll know that another vamp was messing with you and I’d rather talk it out before she hunts me down.” Tim finally peeled off the remnants of the top of his uniform, so he went ahead and grabbed his arm gauntlet to call Cass.
“How’ll she know?” Tim asked while he tracked down a number to call Cass at.
“Did she tell you anything about being a Thrall?” Jason blanched.
“Listen, I didn’t even know I was a whatever until you said it.” Jason looked angry at that, apparently he didn’t approve. Tim found the number for Cass and hit call.
“I’m gonna have some questions then.” Jason said threateningly. Tim swallowed, Jason was a dangerous being of the night and Tim couldn’t forget that.
Cass picked up right away, her face appearing immediately. She signed to Tim: Tim, let me see the vampire . Right to the point then. Tim turned slightly so that Jason was visible as well. Cass squinted at Jason for a second then signed again: He is young, regretful, and scared. I will not kill him .
“She says she won’t kill you.” Tim translated for Jason, who had moved a bit closer, still staying a distance from Tim.
“Thank god.” Jason sighed, tension releasing from his shoulders.
Tim signed as he spoke, looking at Cass, “What is a Thrall?” He had to spell out Thrall with letters.
You are mine. No one touches you.
Tim sighed, he understood that part already. “Were you going to tell me?”
You smell. Other vampires will know. If they disobey I hunt them down .
“How did you know there was another vampire here?”
You are my Thall. She said it like it was obvious. Tim rolled his eyes.
“We’re talking about this more later.” Tim promised, this was not a conversation that was going to be easy to have over facetime.
Okay. Bring vampire back home. I want to meet.
“I’ll see what I can do. Be safe.”
Always.
Tim ended the call. He turned towards Jason. Cass was requesting he bring him back to Gotham and undoubtedly Dick and Bruce would want to see him now that they knew Red Hood was Jason. The only problem was how Tim was going to convince Jason to come back with him.
“Cass told me to bring you back to Gotham with me.” Tim said, leaning back against the counter. He started poking at his ribs to see how damaged they were. “She wants to meet you.”
“... Fine.” Jason said, watching Tim gingerly poke at his ribs.
“Really?” It was that easy to get him to agree? Tim looked up.
“I have no idea how old she is, but she’s definitely significantly older than me. I’m not disrespecting an older vampire any more than I already have.” Jason defended, “And give me that-” He grabbed the wrappings out of Tim’s hand, “You’re just gonna mess it up.”
Tim let Jason move him slightly so that he could wrap the bandages around Tim’s ribs. It was surreal. Jason gave him those injuries in the first place, but he wrapped them and tied them off nicely anyway.
“If you make me talk to Bruce I’m telling him that you feed Cass blood.”
“Fucking fine then. I won’t make you talk to Bruce.”