Chapter Text
Rico’s Supplies sat on the corner of 12th and Linton, three floors of rotting brick and bad decisions. The ground level pretended to be a convenience store — dusty snacks, flickering fridge lights, a lottery counter no one ever won at.
The real business ran out of the back rooms and the basement. Jason Todd knew the layout better than the people who worked there.
Front entrance. Stockroom behind the counter. Stairwell in the back right that led down to processing. Secondary exit through the alley. Emergency hatch in the basement freezer. Hidden crawlspace behind the chemical storage wall.
He’d memorised it all two weeks ago.
Now he stood in the alley, rain dripping off the lip of his helmet, listening to the muffled bass of music through brick.
“Alright,” he muttered. “Let’s go ruin some lives.”
He kicked the front door in.
Wood exploded inward. The bell above the door screamed. Three men at the counter jolted like startled deer.
“What the fu—”
Jason shot the first one in the throat before the word finished forming. The second reached for his waistband; Jason put two rounds in his chest. The third stumbled backward, tripped over a crate of cheap beer, and screamed.
Jason stepped over the counter, grabbed him by the collar, and slammed his head into the register.
“Welcome to customer service,” Jason said. “How can I ruin your night?”
The man sobbed.
“Yeah,” Jason sighed. “That tracks.”
He shot him.
The music from the back rooms cut abruptly — someone had hit pause, not knowing what else to do. Jason rolled his shoulders, reloaded one pistol, and walked toward the stockroom door.
“Good news,” he called casually. “You’re about to have a really educational evening.”
The stockroom smelled like bleach and old cardboard. Boxes stacked to the ceiling. Two men froze near the shelves, both holding guns they clearly didn’t know how to use.
One blurted, “Don’t shoot!”
Jason tilted his head. “That wasn’t on my agenda until you opened your mouth.”
The guy bolted.
Jason fired once. The bullet caught him between the shoulder blades and threw him into a wall of cereal boxes.
The other one screamed and dropped his gun.
"Please— I got kids—”
Jason shot him in the knee.
The man collapsed, howling.
“There,” Jason said. “Now you still got kids. You just don’t got legs.”
He crouched in front of him. “Question time. Basement door. Locked or unlocked?”
“I— I—”
Jason pressed the barrel into his mouth.
“Locked or unlocked.”
“Unlocked!”
“Good boy."
Jason stood and shot him in the head anyway.
He moved through the stockroom into the back hallway — narrow, concrete, stained with chemical spills and old blood no one had bothered to clean.
The stairwell sat at the end, metal steps descending into the basement.
Before taking it, Jason reached up and unplugged the security camera.
“Smile,” he told it. “You’re off duty.”
He descended.
The basement was wide, low-ceilinged, lit by buzzing fluorescent strips. Folding tables lined the room, covered in baggies, burners, chemicals, scales. Six men were mid-process, hands gloved, masks half-on. For half a second, they just stared at him.
Jason raised both pistols.
“Hey.”
The room exploded.
Two dropped instantly. One dove behind a table. Another ran for the freezer door. Jason shot the runner in the calf and watched him slam face-first into the concrete.
“Leaving so soon?” Jason called. “Party just started.”
One man fired wildly from behind a table, bullets shredding cardboard boxes and chemical containers. Jason rolled sideways, came up behind a pillar, and leaned out just enough to shoot him through the neck.
Another tried to rush him with a knife.
Jason stepped forward instead of back and drove his elbow into the man’s throat. Bone crunched. The knife clattered. Jason grabbed his hair and smashed his face into the table edge.
“Jesus Christ,” the man choked.
Jason smiled under the helmet. “I get that a lot.”
He broke his neck.
The last one tried to crawl toward the freezer.
Jason walked after him, unhurried.
“Hey,” he said. “Nope.”
The man sobbed. “I’ll quit. I swear. I’ll quit.”
Jason grabbed him by the ankle and dragged him backward across the concrete.
“Buddy,” he said, “you’re in a basement lab processing drugs for kids. Your ‘I’ll quit’ speech expired like three crimes ago.”
The man screamed as Jason slammed his head into the floor.
Then shot him.
Silence.
Blood pooled under the tables. Chemicals burned in the air. The fluorescents buzzed overhead like insects.
Jason exhaled slowly.
“Messy,” he muttered. “But thorough.”
He stepped over bodies and kicked open the freezer door. Inside, frozen meat crates. He shoved one aside, reached behind the wall, and pressed against a loose panel.
Click.
A hidden hatch opened into a narrow crawlspace.
Jason grinned. “Still got it."
His helmet pinged.
Once.
Soft. Internal.
Bat in radius.
Jason froze.
Then laughed.
“Shit,” he said. “That’s my cue.”
He didn’t rush. Didn’t panic. He holstered one gun, pulled a small black marker from his belt, and turned back to the processing room.
He walked to the metal door leading to the secondary packaging room — the one off the basement where the more valuable product was stored.
He’d cleared it earlier through the crawlspace, silently. Six men inside. None breathing.
The room was a slaughterhouse.
Blood sprayed across the walls. Bodies collapsed over crates and tables. One hung half-off a chair, head twisted wrong. Another lay face-down in shattered glass.
Jason uncapped the marker and wrote on the metal door:
oops!
Then, beneath it, a small sad face.
He stepped back, admired his work.
“Art,” he murmured. “Really."
His helmet pinged again.
Closer.
Jason sighed. “God, Bruce, you’re predictable.”
He turned, ducked into the freezer crawlspace, pulled the hatch shut behind him, and slid sideways through the narrow tunnel until it opened into the emergency hatch beneath the alley dumpster.
He shoved it open.
Rain poured in.
Jason emerged behind the building, unseen, boots splashing in puddles. He closed the hatch quietly and leaned against the brick wall, listening.
Footsteps hit the front of the store.
Glass shattered.
Someone landed inside.
Jason smirked.
“Too slow,” he whispered.
He walked two steps down the alley — then stopped.
Reached into his jacket.
Pulled out a small tracking monitor.
Three dots lit the screen.
One big.
Two smaller.
Jason’s grin widened.
“Oh, damn,” he muttered. “Whole family reunion.”
He tapped the screen.
“You boys lost?” he asked softly. “Need directions?”
The building behind him erupted with movement — doors slamming, boots pounding, voices calling out.
“Clear!”
“Basement’s a mess!”
“Jesus Christ—”
Jason winced theatrically. “Language, kids.”
He moved — not running, just walking — toward the fire escape at the end of the alley. He climbed halfway up, then jumped sideways onto a neighboring rooftop, landing in a crouch.
He paused, looking back at Rico’s.
Police sirens wailed in the distance.
Bat-grapples fired.
Jason tilted his head.
“Hey,” he called into the night. “Check the basement!”
Silence.
Then —
“What the hell—”
Jason laughed.
“Yeah,” he said. “That.”
He turned and jogged across the rooftop, rain slicking under his boots, city lights stretching endless and rotten around him.
His helmet pinged again.
Closer now.
Jason slowed instead of speeding up.
“Okay,” he muttered. “Okay, fine. Let’s play.”
He dropped down into another building through a broken skylight — abandoned office space, moldy carpet, empty cubicles. He moved through it like he owned it, cutting through hallways, hopping desks, ducking through a maintenance door he’d unlocked earlier.
Out the back.
Another alley.
Another rooftop.
Another fire escape.
The pings faded.
Jason stopped.
Breathing steady.
He leaned against a water tower, rain dripping off the red curve of his helmet.
“Still got it,” he murmured.
He pulled out his comm device and tapped a button.
“By the way,” he said casually into the empty channel, knowing damn well someone was listening.
“You missed a spot.”
Silence.
Jason tilted his head.
“You know,” he added, “the room with the sad face.”
Still nothing.
Jason snorted. “Rude.”
He looked out over Gotham — neon, rot, sirens, shadows, crime crawling through concrete veins.
“They’ll get the message,” he muttered.
"Eventually.”
Then he disappeared into the night.