Persona: the mask or façade presented to satisfy the demands of the situation or the environment and not representing the inner personality of the individual. —Dictionary. com

Chapter 1

Robin's Back

Tim blinked once, sleepily, trying to dispel the cobweb-like clinging of a dream lingering past its expiration, distorting reality. He expected the blurry, nonsensical images to fade into the soft down of a mattress and cocoon-like coziness of the comforter wrapped around him, to wake in the warm darkness. The dream only solidified though: the prick of gravel beneath his bare feet, the chill night air through the thin protection of pajamas, the bark of a dog. A car horn honked suddenly beneath him, loud and shrill, blasting apart what dream-daze remained, startling him rudely into instant and full consciousness. Tim sucked in a breath, fighting sudden vertigo, because he was on a roof and those were real cars beneath him. He jerked back away from the edge, gasping for air through the panic constricting his lungs and reeling at the veritable flood of unexpected sensory input.

He couldn't remember having gotten there. He'd gone to sleep, that was all. He'd gone to sleep, and he'd woken up on some forsaken rooftop in downtown Gotham—what he hoped was Gotham. For a minute the panic consumed him, burning high and bright, his heart thudding painfully fast as his eyes darted around, trying to take in the unfamiliar buildings around him, the flickering of streetlights, the whistle of the wind. He was still backing up, one foot after the other, clutching his shivering arms, shoulders hunched around the pounding of his heart. He only realized it when he nearly tripped over a protruding pipe and his heart redoubled its efforts in renewed panic. The world tilted alarmingly, edging toward black, and he realized he didn't know if he was going to have a heart attack or hyperventilate first. Swallowing down the hysteria that threatened to consume him, he stopped, took a minute to just clench his chattering teeth, fill his lungs, and get a grip.

He was in Gotham—those were Gotham buildings, they had to be. He could figure this out. He could find a way home.

Slowly his breathing steadied, his heart rate slowed. First things first: get off the roof.

Cool logic prevailing now, he found the fire escape easily, the wind whipping his pajamas tight to his legs and chest as he made his way down into the alley below. Eyes glanced up as he jumped the last couple feet to the ground, watching him from the darkness between garbage cans and old cardboard boxes.

"You all right, boy?"

The question caught him off guard, and as his head jerked to look, his feet stomped down on broken glass. Tim hissed, hobbling helplessly for a minute in the alleyway's grime, but the man was standing up now, ratty blankets falling to the ground, stumbling toward him. Tim took off at a limping run, heading for the street, ignoring the raspy "Hey, wait!" called out behind him. He didn't want to find out whether the man really intended to help or not, or what he might have to trade for that help.

More eyes turned curiously as he burst onto the street. Eyes he ignored. There was no way he was going to avoid catching unwanted attention. Not barefoot in pajamas. Not looking like a lost little rich kid. He ground his teeth, but there was no helping it.

Several blocks later the fear was wearing thin into growing frustration with still no recognizable landmarks. As the alarm faded though, he began to realize just how sore his arms and legs were. Tim frowned down at roughened, bruised knuckles and rubbed at the burn in his biceps and thighs. He couldn't make sense of it. Not any of it.

If someone had kidnapped him, why leave him on a roof? If he'd truly been unconscious at all, why the bruised knuckles? Why the sore muscles? And if he hadn't been unconscious, why couldn't he remember?

Despair began to sweep in, clogging his thoughts. He didn't know how he'd gotten here. He'd been walking for blocks. He didn't recognize anything.

Suddenly a hand slid around his shoulder, gripping tight.

"Whoa-ho!" A man stepped out in front of him, barring his way with a, "Lovin' the jammies, kid. What you–" He didn't get any further. Tim broke his wrist and dodged past, leaving the man cursing, bent over his hand, his comrades too inebriated to do more than laugh at his predicament instead of coming after Tim. It was just as well. Tim didn't know if he could have dealt so easily with more than one.

He ran, feet numb now to the glass shards still embedded there, the sharp concrete, and the cold. He ran from the pointed curses echoing off the brick behind him, from the outstretched claws of the city waiting to swallow him, from the whole nightmare. Running like that, everything turned into a rush of color, streaks of grays and browns and pastel streetlights.

Somewhere along the way, the blur of colors faded into black. Later, much later, when he thought about it, he'd realize there might have been screaming before everything faded out completely. As it was, when he woke later that morning, back in his snug bed, he was more than glad to let the relief flood his body and accept the whole thing as a too-real, too-strange dream. Except… He threw back the blankets with arms that nearly shook with unexplainable fatigue for a night spent in quiet slumber, and felt the relief drain away as quickly as it had come.

There was still glass embedded in his bloody, ruined feet.

Nightwing and Red Hood disagreed on a number of things. How to do their jobs. The vessels they'd chosen. The fact that Hood existed at all. Whatever the case, it was never a surprise to see them arguing instead of crime fighting. Or arguing and crime fighting as was currently the case.

Jason gleefully took out the knee of the man rushing at him with a bullet, hammering an elbow into his face a moment later. More because it ticked off Nightwing than because it was necessary. And it kept Red Hood happy. Always a bonus. Though in truth, his pleasures had long since meshed inseparably from the Persona's.

"That kind of needless damage…"

"Take a night off, Pretty Boy. I got this."

"Taking them out doesn't mean leaving them in the hospital!" Nightwing's escrimas caught one poor bugger brutally hard in the ribs, his irritation showing through.

"This was my fight in the first place!" Jason growled, even as he pressed back-to-back with the other man, working together even when they weren't. "Go find your own!" If he were honest, he enjoyed Nightwing's presence—Dick's presence, the man under the mask just as present as Jason was in Hood. In any fight, there was no one better at his back, no one more interesting to trade quips with. Even Hood had some appreciation for the other Persona's moves.

"I would!" Nightwing's sleek boot stomped hard into the chest of a mace-wielding punk, sending him crashing back into his friend behind, and that, that right there, was one of the reasons he liked Nightwing despite the annoying lectures: he could be so beautifully violent. "If you didn't need so much babysitting!" Jason's own boot crunched the fingers of a man grasping desperately for his knife, even as he grinned maniacally—a grin echoed by Hood, or maybe Hood's glee seeping into him. They'd been born in blood and pain, walking the razor-fine edge of sanity. He opened his mouth to retort…

And then a Robin-rang flew past him and embedded in the shoulder blade of the man sneaking up on his left.

Jason blinked, instantly forgetting what he'd been about to say, eyes going wide at the flicker of green and yellow and red.

"Robin?!" he yelped disbelievingly—it was definitely a yelp, a very undignified yelp. Had that been Robin?!

"What?" Even Nightwing startled, wiping out their last opponent with a kick to his temple that crumpled him on the spot, and went springing to the side of the building to see. Because nobody, not a single good Persona in Gotham, wanted to see Robin again. Not after last time.

Not that anyone could stop the Persona from choosing a new vessel, just that Jason had seriously thought it was the end after Joker had beaten it to a pulp. But down beneath them, soaring around the corner of the alley, was the definite flicker of a cape, flaring yellow along the underside.

"Hell." Jason threw himself over the railing, Nightwing following, and just that quickly the night went from routine bickering to chase-the-Robin.

"He's back? Why is he back?" Nightwing demanded as they landed on the ledge of an adjacent building, wind whipping past, already running before their feet had even touched down.

"Like I should know!"

"You said he died!"

"He did die!" Jason ground his teeth. When he caught that little Persona, he was going to tear its little cape off. The traitor. Maybe demand to know (forcefully) what it thought it was doing dragging another kid into this mess—a kid who wasn't him. Which idiot had wished this hard for its return (so he could go teach them a lesson or two). Maybe put it out of commission more permanently.

Ahead of them, Robin ducked between a wind-whipped wall of second-story construction tarps, vanishing into the unfinished building behind. Nightwing leapt after him, landing gracefully moments behind. Jason hesitated a moment and then swung around, hoping to cut the littler Persona off on the other side. Slipping in through an unfinished window, he made his way to a central hall, examining the darkness for movement. Finding none, he chose a direction, glancing down connecting corridors as he passed, looking for the familiar green and yellow and red. Hurrying around a corner, he finally caught sight of Nightwing, who was running toward him, waving his arms.

"What?" Jason paused, confused. But it was too late. Feet stomped down on his shoulders, and even as light as the weight was, the unexpected force still drove him to the ground, knocking the breath out of him. Robin didn't stay to press the advantage, using it instead to bound away, out the glass-less window in the room to the right. Jason rolled to his feet, swearing, and for just a second, as Robin dropped out of view, he thought he saw the Persona flicker. It was the kind of flicker reminiscent of a dying neon sign, a short somewhere in the wiring, and it froze Jason mid-crouch, because... What had that been about? He'd almost seen the kid under the costume, the pajamas under the Kevlar, and that was dangerous. Even Hood seemed distinctly unsettled, materializing the boot knife uneasily, as though he might need to protect Jason. Or maybe it was Jason unconsciously wanting the extra protection. It was hard to separate the two.

He was still staring when Nightwing reached him.

"Hood?" the man asked, sliding to a worried halt, but Jason batted the concern away.

"It's nothing. Come on!" He shoved the older man toward the window, following on his heels. They reached the window just in time to see a familiar cape disappear around the corner of the building one over.

"Why?" Nightwing asked, even as he swung his legs over the sill and shot his grapple. "Robin should recognize my Persona. Why is he running from us?"

"Because he knows I'm going to strangle him when I catch him," Jason growled. He couldn't get that flicker out of his head though, couldn't wash the bad feeling away. He kept seeing it as he swung across the street below, landing beside Nightwing on the ledge of the building one over. Instead of following the ledge around though, he jumped for an outcropping, swinging himself up onto the next level higher, trying to get above Robin, maybe get the drop on him. Below him, Nightwing shook his head, answering his own thoughts.

"Poor kid's probably frightened. Maybe it's affecting the Persona."

Jason considered mentioning what he'd seen, the worrying flicker, but it didn't matter if they couldn't get their hands on him.

"All the more reason to catch him," he replied instead, putting on a little burst of speed.

But after another forty-five minutes got them no closer to bagging the little vigilante—in fact, they'd nearly lost him twice—Jason realized they weren't going to catch up. Robin knew Gotham just as well as Nightwing and Red Hood and had the advantage in speed and agility, the body it possessed small enough to squeeze through openings they couldn't.

Losing patience fast, Jason skidded to a halt along a wrought-iron balcony, punching the rusted rail as he watched that same flicker of a cape they'd been trailing all night gliding away into the gloom. Taunting him. Jason had had enough.

Sighting for that faraway flicker, he aimed a Glock. A bullet through the knee would put him out of commission for a while, keep him safe, and it was a lot kinder than what Gotham would do to the kid. Merciful like. Of course, he hadn't accounted for his companion.

"Jeez! That's a kid in there!" He didn't see Nightwing's fist coming. In retrospect, he should have. It came from the left, fast and hard, and that was the last thing he remembered that night.

When the morning of the third day found Tim standing dazedly in the middle of the lawn, wondering why there was no longer a toothbrush in his hand and a sink in front of him—he'd definitely been brushing his teeth only a moment before—he had to admit he had a problem. He didn't even know what the problem was—sleepwalking, amnesia, kidnapping, possession (hey, it was Gotham!)—but he had it.

It was the third time in a row, and while neither of the second two instances had left him quite as far from home as the first, he felt dead on his feet, used up, sleep deprived, a general mess. And the dew glistening across the manicured lawn was slowly soaking into the hem of his pajamas while he stood there freaking out. Hastily, he sprinted across the grass back toward the house, hoping no curious neighbor was looking. Not that there were many. And there were even fewer who'd be up two hours before dawn happening to look over at the Drake estate. But if there was one thing he'd learned, it was never to underestimate the idle rich. He'd definitely seen the billionaire next to them, Bruce Wayne, out on his balcony at all kinds of odd hours.

Worse, Jack was home, asleep in the master bedroom, and if he didn't hear his son opening the sliding-glass door or crawling into bed, it was only a matter of time until the man noticed the circles under his eyes or the haggardness he could hardly hide, or just how many times he was ducking out of family activities, too worn out to participate.

By the time Tim reached the back patio, pulling the hidden key and letting himself in, the hem of his pajamas was drenched. He took them off rather than drip water across the linoleum and headed to his room to change. He was exhausted anyway, desperately in need of sleep… sleep that wouldn't come as he stood staring at his bed, heart thudding desperately quick, panicked at the idea of giving up consciousness again.

It had just been the lawn this time, no sudden jump to downtown Gotham, no ledges under his feet, but he hated not knowing whether he was going to wake up tomorrow in his bed or the middle of the interstate. He hated worrying that his father would come check on him and find him gone, that some neighbor or friend would see him standing here in the lawn or some rooftop in his pajamas and realize he'd finally snapped. He wasn't completely sure he hadn't.

In the end, he curled up downstairs on the couch with a mug of cocoa and watched the dawn spread across the sky.

Dick clung upside down in the shadows beneath the eaves, one foot hooked through a loop in the architecture. Or rather, Nightwing did, the dark domino a shadow across Dick's face. As still and as hidden as he was, tucked silently away high above the ground, there were few to notice. Except the one he'd been waiting for.

Batman stopped mid-stride across the roof, head turning straight toward him.

"What do you want?"

"Have you heard?" Dick grinned, a combination of Nightwing's joy and his own, not put off in the least at Batman's gruff greeting. "Robin's back."

"Robin?" Batman asked sharply, the smallest jerk in his shoulders the only indication that the news had rattled him. "Are you sure?"

"Hood and I ran into him the other night. It's him." Dick twisted gracefully from his hiding spot before stepping from the shadows into the faint light of the city. "Couldn't catch him. Couldn't identify his vessel."

Batman looked away, out toward the jutting, grungy fingers of the city, head bowed in contemplation.

"I'll keep a look out," he said finally, not looking back, and then he was gone, no more than a whisper over the edge of the roof.

Nightwing hoped they found the boy soon, before the little Persona could get into any trouble.

Most of the time, Jason had control. If he lost it every now and then, well, pretty boy Nightwing didn't need to know. Neither did the Bat he hung around with. Usually it was anger, blinding anger, that separated him from Red Hood, allowing the Persona to take full control, make a bloodier mess than usual. Sometimes… it was accidental.

Jason didn't see the sideswipe coming. It was that dang tail. Croc wasn't supposed to even have a tail. It sent him flying—spinning and flying—straight into a brick wall full tilt. His head cracked dangerously and he slumped into the stagnant water.

Jason scrambled for control, but the blackness was creeping in, and Hood didn't take kindly to anyone injuring his vessel. So when Jason lost the fight for consciousness permanently, Hood didn't see anything wrong with braking every bone in Croc's body... and then paying a visit to Robin's vessel. Maybe it was his own vessel's previous connection with the tinier Persona, but Hood could feel Robin like an itch—an unacceptable, lingering attachment to the human that was his, his, his—pointing the way.

After all, he wouldn't let just anyone take his vessel's previous Persona for a spin, and it was only proper big brothers pay little brothers a visit when they returned from the dead.

By the end of the week, Tim was starting to wonder if he'd lost his mind. Was this what losing his mind would feel like? Certainly, only people who'd lost their mind would consider putting up cameras to record their own nightly activities because they couldn't remember doing them. He was seriously considering sleepwalking a valid possibility at this point. Or sleep-marathon-running, judging by the continued burn in his arms and legs. It was either that or psychotic breaks. He preferred sleepwalking. And no friend telling him he was supposed to be asleep for sleepwalking to work was going to convince him otherwise. He couldn't remember getting home yesterday.

To say nothing of the little things: the notepad paper askew on his desk, or the curtains pulled back, or the toothpaste left on the wrong side of the sink.

Like now. Tim paused three steps into the bedroom, having found the window open. A window he had definitely left closed. It was the third time that week.

He barely had time to register any significance it might carry other than his own pockmarked memory before he was slammed back against the wall. Then there was a gun in his face. "Found you."

Tim reacted on autopilot. He grabbed the hand holding the gun, shoving it up and kicking out hard towards the gut. It would have been a solid hit, if he hadn't been barefoot and his assailant wearing… body armor? Definitely body armor. He got the gun though, wrestling it away and rolling out of reach, coming to his feet in one agile motion, all smooth grace. The gun leveled on the man who'd brought it a second later.

"I'm having a bad week," Tim warned, pulling the safety. The man only laughed, a deeply unsettling laugh, reaching a hand out toward Tim.

"Uh-uh. That's mine." The gun disappeared—it literally desolidified in Tim's hand—and reappeared in the other man's grip. Tim's eyes widened, eyebrows hiking into his hairline as he stared disbelievingly at his empty hands and realized how much trouble he was in. There was only one thing he could be dealing with considering that little stunt. He'd heard of it, read about it in reports from Arkham. Sometimes, when people wished hard enough, wanted it bad enough, they became something different…

"Persona…"

He didn't have time for anymore thought before the gun went off. He threw himself to the left and the bullet hit the wall millimeters behind him. The report was still ringing in his ears as he slid in low toward his assailant, aiming for the legs. The man kicked out at him, and Tim caught the foot. He pulled the knife he could just see sticking out of the man's boot, but it dematerialized before he could slam it into the man's knee. Then there was a hand in his hair, jerking him to his feet. Tim gritted his teeth as he was unceremoniously slammed back into the wall, that emotionless red helmet bearing down on him. He tried to twist free, but that same knife whunked into the wall beside him, nicking his ear by a hair's breadth, the man's fingers following up with a sharp jab to his shoulder that pushed the humorous bone from its socket. The world whited out for a full minute at that. Sound faded. Colors narrowed to the white-hot heat of pain. When he could think again, the man's gloved hand was crushing the fingers of Tim's good hand hard against the Sheetrock. He'd managed to stay on his feet, but that might have been the man's body trapping his own.

"What do you want?" he growled, staring up boldly into that red helmet even as he trembled under the pain coursing along his nerve endings, one arm hanging uselessly. There was no point calling for help. Jack wouldn't be home for at least another thirty-six hours, still away on business, and there was no one else to hear for miles. That was fine. That was the way Tim liked it.

In response, the Glock reappeared in the man's free hand, barrel pressing against his temple. There was no hesitation in the grip of that hand, held perfectly steady on the trigger, no indication of anything but emotionless resolve from the man under the hood.

Bang. The noise was sharp and loud. Deafening at such a close range.

Tim didn't blink. Didn't flinch. Not even a little. Maybe his breath hitched, maybe his heart had to re-find its rhythm when he realized he was still alive. That was all.

"What do you want?" he demanded more harshly. And now, finally, that red helmet tilted just a margin, a considering cant. The Glock faded from its owner's gloved grip and the palm of that hand slid into his hair, jerking on it just a little, and the way he used that grip to tilt Tim's head minutely made him think the man was searching for something in him. Tim bared his teeth, the fingers of his good hand clenching where they meshed with the man's, pushing back a little. The man chuckled—a low, raspy sound—and even though Tim couldn't see the face behind the red helmet, he knew the man's eyes were locked on his, staring into him, deep beyond the blue ring of his irises into the darkness.

"There you are." The hand in his hair moved again, this time to slide under Tim's chin instead, despite the little jerk Tim gave, trying to avoid it. He ended up swallowing instead against the leather-bound bars of fingers stroking his throat.

"You'll do," the man said. Tim had the distinct impression he'd just been approved of. For whatever reason, this very dangerous, very alarming intruder… approved of him. Abruptly, he stepped back, leaving Tim to hold up his own weight against the wall, good hand going to his injured shoulder. "Try not to screw up too badly."

Then it vanished. The red helmet, the body armor, the guns, all of it. And a very unconscious man dropped to Tim's floor.

Tim felt a little justified in freaking out for the following five minutes.

Author Notes: I am aware that there is a Persona anime. No, this is not based off that intentionally. I'm not even sure how close it is. This is mostly because of Lady Yunalesca on AO3. She's writing a fic where Tim doesn't know his friend Dick and his friend Nightwing are the same person, and I had this weird thought occur to me, like, "what if Dick didn't know either?" And then I jotted down the idea for Persona. I didn't know if I'd ever get time to write it, so I prompted Ladelle with a similar idea to get her back into writing, and she did an amazing, awesome job, and I've linked her drabble on my profile. Needless to say, reading her amazing work re-interested me, and now we have this. Story. Thing. And despite the original idea being about Dick, this story is largely about Tim and Jason with side support from Bruce and Dick.

Thank you, all you lovely people, who took the time to vote at the end of my last story and chose this idea to follow up on.

As usual, I'm posting before I really should be posting, when there are still some details that are up in the air. Chapter 2 may be quite a ways out (Jason is going to have a very rude awakening). Also, if there is anyone interested in this fic who can be brutally honest, I may be in need of a Beta in the future...

PS: The Dick&Tim Persona fic on my Tumblr Masterlist is NOT the same as this. I will be changing the name of that eventually so they don't get confused.