Pairings: Nil, zippo, nada~

Characters:Richard Grayson and Jason Todd

Rating: T (or PG-13) for attitude issues, a bit of language, the threat of violence…This IS the Batboys we're talking about.

Notes/Warnings: possible OOC-ness , language...angst, if you squint.

Summary: Jason pushes just a little too far now and again. Sometimes when he does, he realizes just how much he still doesn't know about his big brother.

Disclaimer: Dat Ass is not mine (cuz I would've kept the blue). Ooh, and the cover art eesh no mine! It belongith to kyuura_jii, a lovely little pic called 'Living Like Kings'.

Aaaaaaannnnnd... GO!

The Batcave echoed as dual motorcycles coasted into the garage area. The sound of rumbling engines bounced off cavernous walls in eerie ways. Cutting the power to both bikes almost simultaneously, two former Robins resumed what looked to have been a night-long argument. It was clear that patrol that evening hadn't been an easy one, leaving tempers frayed and both vigilantes feeling rather irritable (or in Jason's case, more irritable than usual).

"I'm sorry that I never bothered to get to know you back then, Jay, I really am. But it wasn't you-" Nightwing sounded both exasperated and remorseful as he peeled his mask off first, gauntlets following suit soon after. Red Hood removed only his helmet and glared at his predecessor's back as the black-and-blue-clad form moved to put his equipment up for the night.

Jason growled, slipping into rant mode and chucking pieces of his uniform off in random directions with more vehemence than Roy had done with his hat when he quit working for Green Arrow as Speedy.

"Don't gimme that 'it's not you, it's me' crap again! You were jealous that I replaced you, that I might be better than you were! Robin never belonged to you, you sanctimonious jackass; Bruce took you in to make you who you are, and the fact that he threw you – his first sidekick, you thought you were so special – threw you away like worthless garbage ate you up inside until you had nothing left to do but take it out on the new kid!"

Jason smirked as we watched his elder sibling tense visibly. Hands clenched into white-knuckled fists, backbone ramrod straight, shoulders pulled up and inwards in a manner that had the partially-out-of-uniform vigilante reminding his gun-toting brother vaguely of Damian's favorite cat. Dick rounded on his successor, flinty blue eyes cold and narrowed, face as closed off and unreadable as any of the bat-clan would ever be able to recall seeing. The first Robin's words were spat out in such a venomous tone so completely unlike Grayson's normal manner of speaking that Jason felt a twinge of unease as his perception of 'dear Dickie-bird' shifted a bit.

"Ya wanna know why I got pissed, Jay? Cuz Robin was mine. Not Bruce's, not Batman's, not yours, mine. It was what my mother called me after every show; her little robin -" Jay's eyes widened. He hadn't known that, and the first time he'd looked into the origin of the Robin pseudonym, Richard had made an offhanded crack about 'Robin Hood and his not-so-merry Batman, kicking butts and taking names.'

"- And not even the goddamn Batman had the right to take that away from me. But he did. He gave it away to a kid neither of us had even known existed up until he found you – stealing from him of all things – and he didn't even feel like he should ask me first?" Nightwing paused and shook his head, letting loose a single sarcastic bark of a laugh. Jason had the fleeting thought that Dick's elusive accent was only really noticeable when he was completely and totally off the deep end.

"It wasn't really the fact that he'd replaced me that set me off, cuz I knew that we were pretty much through as partners. I'd been fired twice and had quit once on my own. Hell, I'd been dumped unceremoniously on my Gypsy butt on the high road out of Gotham and told to stay the frick out." At this point the fire in Dick's eyes blazed higher and his scowl deepened to almost Bat-like proportions. "You could've taken up any name you wanted, any name at all, but he had you become Robin. It was like saying I never existed in the first place while stepping all over my mother's memory."

Richard took three swift steps across the room until they were face-to-face; he was seriously invading his successor's personal bubble. Nightwing was a good couple of inches shorter, but hell if Red Hood didn't feel like Dickie was looming over him as the vengeful wrath of God incarnate. "So yes, Jason-" Jay flinched involuntarily at the amount of pure violent force put into his name "- I was just a teensy bit miffed."

And just as suddenly as this bout of insanity had come on, Dick swept out of the room, pace even but dangerously languid to the trained eye – the walk of a person not to be messed with in any way, shape, or form if you valued the state of your continued health. Jason was still rooted to the spot he'd been the whole time, staring wide-eyed at the door.

Damn.

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