Chapter Text
Jason disassembles the rifle with practiced ease, packing it back into the case it came out of when they first got up on this rooftop. Easy shot, no witnesses; couldn't have been more textbook if it had been set up as a practice run, and Jason appreciates that, distantly. The man deserved the new bullet accessory, but he's not the point of tonight. This is all just… lead up. He's got bigger things to worry about tonight, and bigger things to focus on than some asshole in a suit with too much money and not enough morals. A contract isn't why he came back to Gotham.
"You alright, kid?" Slade asks, from where he's standing about five feet away. He's not pacing — Slade doesn't ever admit to 'pacing' — he's just 'surveying the surrounding area,' because that's a completely different thing that also involves walking back and forth over the same fifteen foot stretch of the roof.
He tucks the scope away into its slot — extra padding, keep the glass safe — before looking up and lifting his hands to point out, "Third time you've asked that tonight."
Slade grunts but doesn't comment. Turns again, at the end of his stretch. Jason smirks at the victory.
He takes his time packing up the sniper, keeping an eye out. High, and low. Police, or…
He's just clicked the case shut when he sees Slade come to a sharp stop, right in the middle of his path. Still, head swiveled to look out towards the next building over, taller by a good fifteen stories. Yeah, that's what Jason expected. He always likes to come down from above. Gives weight to attacks, tends to surprise people, and there's a certain kind of terror you can inspire when someone sees you coming down at them like some kind of avenging demon.
Just like they expected. Predictable.
Jason leaves the case on the roof as he stands, following the direction Slade's looking. He can't see anything, but he doesn't have Slade's eyes, either. Not even his helmet's tech can make up for that difference; it helps his vision adjust for the dark, but it doesn't fill in for a scope or a pair of binoculars. Besides, even if it did, Jason doubts he'd see that particular shadow unless he was supposed to. That's kind of the point. Decades of experience blending in, plus state of the art tech and suit construction, makes Batman very, very difficult to see unless he wants you to.
Which apparently right now he does, because just a moment later a sweep of black fabric comes detached from the shadows at the top of the skyscraper and comes plummeting down towards their roof. Fast, he can't see the grapnel from this far but he's sure there's one just waiting to catch to slow that descent. Cape won't do all the work from that height.
And if they're meant to see it—
Jason draws his knife as he turns, and ducks right under the sweep of an escrima stick aimed at the side of his skull. Dick; teeth bared, escrima to hand but not yet spitting current, body already curving in the next strike. He leans out of the way of the kick, pulls another step back to get out of range of another, pulling the knife higher to discourage it. Dick won't do another wide kick like that against a trained opponent with an open blade; he's smarter than that, and he actually values his calves.
It'll stall him for a moment, and a few moments is all that Jason needs.
He hears the landing crunch of boots on the thin layer of gravel on the roof, from behind him. Slade shifts closer, too, with a much quieter scrape. Only a couple feet behind him now, he'd bet back to back, not that he's going to take his eyes off Dick to make sure. It was the less likely option that he'd be here, but that doesn't mean that he and Slade didn't agree on a plan in case he was. They talked this through. All of it.
He steps back and turns, taking Slade's place in the same moment Slade takes his.
There he is. Bruce. Suit's slightly different; apparently there's been some modifications in the past year. He's not surprised. Everything important is the same, though. The height, the cape, the bulk, the clenched jaw and fists. The Bat.
"I'll keep him out of the way," Slade says, quiet enough it's only the audio enhancers in his helmet that let him hear it. "Do what you need to, kid."
Yeah. Just like planned.
Jason takes a steadying breath, shifts his grip on his knife, and taps his heel on the roof in answer.
Slade lunges.
Bruce jerks forward half a step, chin lifting like he's looking over Jason's shoulder at whatever Slade's started. Jason lifts his knife a little and shifts more firmly between them. It's enough to get Bruce's attention focused back on him, jaw grinding a bit tighter, shoulders rounding that way he does to make himself look like he's looming, even when he doesn't actually have the height advantage. Tricks of the light, to mess with an opponent's mental state. Cowardly and superstitious criminals, right? Disturb or frighten someone into making mistakes, and you've already won.
"Whatever game Deathstroke thinks he's playing, I'm not fooled," Bruce growls, voice just as deep as Jason remembers it being. "Red Hood was killed a year ago."
Just like Bruce. Pretending like he doesn't believe there's even the chance that what he 'knows' could be wrong, even when he's harboring doubts. He was like this the first time, too. This time, though, Jason's not interested in taunting him, or proving who he is. He just— He just needs to face this. He needs to know that he can get past the nightmares, and the doubt that still tugs at the back of his mind when he thinks about ever coming face to face with Bruce again, knowing that he cares about the Joker's life more than his, knowing what—
What he took. What Jason will never get back. Ever.
Let Bruce doubt. This isn't about what he thinks.
He just needs to remember what Slade's taught him. Stay calm, don't let himself be goaded into being too aggressive, take strikes where he can get them but stay guarded, above all. Bruce is strong, skilled, and experienced; even with the training, even knowing what he fights like, Jason shouldn't expect to win. Focus on the fight, not the victory.
He can do this.
Jason hears a grunt behind him; higher-pitched, Dick's. Bruce's head shifts just slightly. He takes the opening.
Bruce reacts just a fraction slower than he might have if he were focused. Not quite enough to capitalize on, but enough for Jason to prove that he's a threat worth paying attention to. That's step one.
Step two is breaking through that guard. That balance of strike to counter; almost thirty years of hands-on experience, interspersed with the best teachers and the harshest training Bruce could find or invent. All weaknesses compensated for or specifically pushed until they were overcome, enemies studied until Bruce knew them inside and out. All the gear and technological advances being a multi-billionaire can buy. It doesn't make him perfect, but it makes him very close. Hard to beat if you don't have advantages of your own to compensate.
Not impossible, though. Slade's taught him a few things.
The uppercut he lands makes Bruce stagger, and Jason pushes down every long-trained sparring instinct that says to give him a moment and pushes forward instead. Presses the advantage, driving Bruce back towards the edge of the roof and letting himself be aggressive for those precious few moments. Right up until the moments end. Bruce's guard drops right back into place like it was never open, the retaliation coming in a sharp combination counter and punch that answers the strikes he landed with an aching shoulder and side.
He still hits like a truck. Not as hard as Slade can — and was always so careful not to — but the slam of those gauntleted fists feels just like he remembers. Powerful; quick to take his breath, quick to bruise.
Reset, step back. Breathe, note the pain and dismiss it.
He can see Bruce’s jaw shift, clench for a moment. No blood; the uppercut didn’t make him catch anything between his teeth, so no real damage but that brief stun. He’ll take it, though.
“Take it off.”
Jason blinks, watching Bruce shift and very nearly missing the tiny tell before he strikes. High, nearly clipping his helmet as he ducks away. Head in the game, pay attention.
"Take it off," Bruce repeats, nearly snarling the words and aiming a second snap of his fist towards his head. Helmet, more like.
If having it on distracts him, great. If it means that those high strikes leave him vulnerable to spinning and ducking low, slicing out at his side with the knife to carve a little line through armor and skin, even better. Just the faintest little trace of blood springing up there, before it gets hidden in the whirl of the cape and a boot coming right at his gut. Quick recovery, always.
Underestimating the length of those legs is an amateur mistake he's made too many times before, so he springs back into a handstand and flip to dodge instead of just stepping. Better the added distance then getting nailed with a hit like that.
There's a flash of blue and orange in his peripheral vision at the exact moment he lands back on his feet. Dick slams into his side with enough force to send them both crashing to the ground.
Gravel digs at the little slice of his exposed wrists as he rolls, his knife slipping out of his hand to who knows where. Dick's got a grip on his jacket, and he's got an arm, and then suddenly it doesn't matter because there's just empty air and the lost sound of his gasp as gravity breaks both grips in one sudden wrench.
Freefalling is a feeling he's very familiar with, and it's not like he didn't come prepared for the potential of getting thrown off a roof. All it takes is a twist and a spread of arms and legs to orient himself so he stops spinning, and then he can grab the grapnel from his belt. Aim for the next skyscraper over — supports between levels; remember the training — fire, and brace for the catch and swing.
There's not all that much aiming involved when it comes to recovery swings like this, but the window he's heading for is dark and apparently unoccupied, so that will do fine. Duck the head, legs up so it's boot-first into the glass, and pray these guys are up to date on their specs and this is the mandatory safety glass and not a gamble on whether any shards make it past his armor. He retracts the grapnel at the same time as he crashes into the glass, letting it wind in as he tucks into the smallest ball he can and smashes through. Carpeted floor, desk that he narrowly avoids slamming into, a potted plant that he definitely shatters with a boot at the end of his roll. Safety glass, thank god.
He gets just a second to tuck the grapnel back under his jacket before Dick comes rocketing in through the now open window, backflipping up off the end of the swing and landing in a crouch, like he doesn't feel any need to dispel momentum by rolling or anything so laughably ruled by gravity. Nope, just flips. Motherfucking Dick Grayson.
Jason pulls one of his guns to hand as Dick straightens up, escrima coming free from the holster on his back just as easily. There's a light smile on his face, and maybe Jason doesn't know Dick as well as he knows Bruce, but he's pretty sure it's not half as friendly as it looks.
"There we go," Dick says, and it sounds oh so cheerful. The kind of cheerful that makes your teeth grit. "I figured we should tag out for a few minutes; give us a chance to talk, you know?"
Dick's going to be real disappointed if he thinks any conversation is going to happen. Can't hurt to stand still and let him run out some time, though. The more energy Jason can conserve for when he gets back to Bruce, the better.
"You know, if realism is what you're going for, the stoic and silent gig really isn't doing you any favors. The last time I ran across the Red Hood, he was a bit of a chatterbox; all taunts and little speeches, you know? You're really not doing him justice." Dick's remarkably still, for him. Poised on the balls of his feet, clearly ready to react if Jason twitches towards pulling the trigger, but he doesn't seem to have any current goal but to block the escape route of the shattered window. "Deathstroke's usually better about his imitations than that, though, which makes me curious what the point of this is.”
Jason holds his ground. Dick flips one escrima up in a quick spin, easily caught. Almost an opening, if it were a little higher, but not quite. Test, maybe, to see if he'd try for it anyway.
“If you were just supposed to be a distraction,” Dick continues, “Slade would have been gone already. And if he really wanted to convince us you were the Red Hood, you'd be talking. Or have some blatant reason you couldn't, if he thought you couldn't pull off sounding like him even with the helmet. Could be some kind of puppeteering or android, I suppose, but you don't move like either of those, and Slade's not usually the type to put that much effort into things like that. He goes more for straight manipulation, blackmail, or drugging when he wants to have someone under his thumb, in my experience, and it's gotta be a pretty personal job to make him go that far. So then, why the masquerade, 'Red Hood'? What's the point?"
There's a pause, clearly inviting him to answer, and oh, he's got answers. A hundred words at the tip of his tongue, easily, but there's not a one that's ever going to make it free. Be tipping his hand, no joke intended, to sign any of them, too. Not yet. This isn't about the shock, or giving them answers. It's not about them at all.
He holds.
Dick clearly decides there's no response coming after a few seconds. He shifts, voice lowering as his grip on the escrima tightens. "Here's the thing… The man that helmet belonged to? He died. Deathstroke cut his throat. So you really, really don't want—"
There's more, but Jason really doesn't hear it.
Is that—? Is that what Bruce told him? Is that what he let them believe? That Slade was responsible for that? Was it just easier to pretend that the mercenary that supposedly killed him was the one that sliced his throat open, too?
That cowardly, hypocritical, lying, piece of—
Dick lunges.
He jerks the gun up, but the distraction's damage is already done and he can't get a clean shot aimed at anything but Dick's head — Jason doesn't want to kill — before he's on him. One escrima smacks the gun out of his hands, and the other follows up with a targeted crack into his ribs before his disarmed weapon has even hit the ground. Hard enough to force his breath out in a harsh burst, leave him sucking in a breath through his teeth as he staggers back.
Dick's a completely different beast than Bruce. Faster, more fluid, more aggressive, and maybe he doesn't hit with the same kind of brick-wall force that Bruce does, but pure force doesn't matter as much when you're using electrical weaponry. Doesn't leave much chance to block, either.
Fuck, he should have worked some kind of insulation into his gloves or something. Sure seems like an oversight now.
Maybe he should have pressed Slade to teach him a little more about how to counter the way Dick fights, too.
Arm, ribs, a sharp blow across his helmet that cracks the outside, near his left ear. Audio immediately goes dead on that side, which doesn't help his defense. It's not one sided, though; Jason gets some good hits in, retaliating and targeting those little open spots Dick's style leaves that most people don't have the reach or skill to take advantage of. His armor's thinner than Bruce's, but he moves with hits better, to lessen the impact. Fuck, Jason does not remember this being so difficult when they fought last time. Did that brace for his knee really slow him down enough to make the difference? Or has Dick just upped his game since last time?
Jason realizes the mistake the second he makes it. He overextends, swinging for a grab, and can't get his arm reeled back in in time to block the escrima stick that slides right in and blasts the side of his helmet.
Everything goes dark in a burst of static. He staggers back, hits something with his shoulder and hip. (The wall? Was he close to the wall?)
Through the muffled dark he hears a slight whistling warning, but the reflexive jerk of movement doesn't do a thing. Something cracks into the back of his further out knee and sweeps it right out from under him. The impact that follows it, right into his chest as he falls, slams him to the floor with more than enough force to knock every hint of air out of his lungs.
Jason chokes, tries to suck in a breath and can only get a harsh little gasp out. His gloves scrape the ground, legs starting to shift in to get leverage as he forces himself through the pain and starts to push up. He just has to— He has to—
Some kind of weight pins his right arm to the ground, shoving him back down. There's the feel of something at the front of his neck, the muted scrape of gloves over his— his helmet, the fucker. He twists his head away, shoves at the solid form that his free hand finds above him.
He can hear the hiss, loud as a gunshot in his ears, as Dick finds the catch at the back of his neck.
The helmet comes off.
Dark room, black and blue suit poised above him, the rush of wind from the broken window and the distant sounds of the city, filtering in loud and clear without the muffling of his fried helmet. And above him, a sharp gasp. A recoiling.
"Jason?"
With vision, it's easy to wind up and slam his fist into Dick's side. Knock him off balance and flip him off. Get just enough time to roll away and get back up to his feet, backing off far enough that Dick can't just lunge at him and close the distance. He has to fight to keep his breathing even and deep enough to get some actual air out of it, through the sharp ache of his lungs.
Dick gets back to his feet, escrima tucked away in their holsters, his hands held slightly out to the sides. Doesn't look aggressive anymore, or at least not nearly so much. Priorities shifted with the revelation, apparently; not a surprise that he'd do that. Dick's always liked to talk more than Bruce. If it gets him a chance to actually catch his breath, Jason doesn't care if he swaps tactics to try and talk him down or something. Dick's not going to get anywhere, it's not like he actually understands what's happening here, or why Jason's doing any of this. Bruce didn't give him any information, apparently.
Fucking bastard.
"Jason, I— What happened? I thought you were dead. We all did."
Of course they did. That was the point, wasn't it? Get Roman off his back, get him out of Gotham, get him away from all this bullshit. Family and loyalty and caring but it doesn't mean a fucking thing when it all comes down to it. Bruce still—
Not right now. It doesn't matter right now. They made their choices, and Jason made his, and the only important thing right now is proving to himself that he can do this. He can face down Bruce, and be in this city, and get past that last scared little corner of his mind that's responsible for all his nightmares and flashbacks.
He can do this.
"Look, whatever Slade did, whatever he has on you, you know we can deal with it, right?” Dick sounds just as earnest as Jason would have expected, offering the out. The reassurance. “I’ve dealt with him before, I can do it again. I know his blackmail always seems like there’s no way out, but it’s not true, Jason. We can handle it. Just talk to me.”
Maybe Dick would have kept talking. Wheedle, convince, and plead until his voice ran out, to try and get Jason to engage. Or maybe he would have just gotten frustrated and decided to bring him down first, and try talking later. Either way, Jason doesn’t get to find out.
There’s a whistling thunk and both their heads twist in reaction, turning in a sharp jerk to watch just as Slade swings in through the shattered window, landing in a heavy roll. There’s a moment where Dick starts to reach for his escrima, and Slade’s momentum carries him back to his feet, and then the moment breaks as he lunges.
Twenty feet like it’s nothing, and Dick slams into the wall hard enough it cracks.
Jason sucks in a sharp breath.
“Not your fight, kid,” Slade growls, with his arm pressed up across Dick’s collarbone, threatening his throat if it were just a little higher. “Sit this one out.”
Dick bares his teeth in response, and his voice is downright venomous. “Whatever you did to him, you’ll pay for it, Slade. I’ll make you.”
Slade snorts, “Love to see what that bill looks like.”
Jason shifts a little bit forward as Slade's arm slides a half inch up, forcing Dick up on his toes to keep breathing. He's been on the receiving end of that arm; maybe Slade was always careful while training him, but Jason knows the kind of damage that strength could do, if he wasn't holding back. Dick's not— It's not his fault. But he knows there's a lot of history there, and maybe Slade—
"Relax, kid," Slade says, and before Jason can fully decide whether it's aimed at him, he adds, "I'm not going to hurt him any more than he makes me. We're just going to stay nice and out of the way while you do what you need to."
Dick all but snarls, teeth bared as he tries to leverage off Slade's arm with the one free hand he's got. "Is that what this is? You bring him here and make him do your dirty work for you?"
That's not—
"Kid, no one could make your brother do anything he didn't want to."
Dick's head jerks a little to the side, and Jason's had years of reading people through masks so he knows the gaze behind that domino has to be looking at him. It doesn't matter, though, because the background sound of Gotham's wind changes slightly and his ears catch the difference. A slight catch of air where it was moving free, the slight sound of gear made to be soundless except if you've been around it as long and as close as he has.
Bruce comes in through the window, cape spread wide to slow before he tucks and rolls. It's neat and perfectly executed and if Jason wasn't so familiar with it he would be just like all those other bastards Bruce has caught off guard with it over his decades as Batman. He can meet it, though, come up against all that momentum before Bruce quite has the chance to get his feet fully under him and press all that forward movement into a strike. Kick into the path to force the quick reversal of direction, make him waste that momentum on just getting out of the way, instead.
Jason resets instead of chasing; arms up, hands loose, weight balanced but light across the bend of his knees. Staying roughly between him and Slade, or at least where he remembers Slade being. He's not taking his eyes off Bruce unless he has to.
He's so ready that it doesn't occur to him until Bruce is back on his feet and looking right at him — and there's a sudden waver in his stance, a half step forward that stops just as sharply — that the helmet is gone. Bruce can see his face, and whatever theories or ideas he'd put together up on the roof, they're all being proven wrong. No robot, no illusion, no imposter. Just Jason.
Must sting.
There's just a moment of it, though. Just enough for Bruce's jaw to clench down — there's a fresh scrape on one cheek, just barely bleeding — and his weight to settle back on both feet. "Let him go, Deathstroke."
Jason's not about to look, but he does hear the derisive snort. And, just after it, a breathless but sharp, "B—” as Dick tries to say something and is apparently cut off.
Slade will keep him out of the way. They agreed on that, and if there's one thing that Jason's learned this past year it's that Slade always keeps his word. He wouldn't have promised to do it if he didn't think he could, and Jason doesn't have the time or the spare focus to be worrying about whether or not Slade's part of all this goes well. That kind of a split in his attention is the fastest way to lose this fight.
He can't get distracted.
Bruce apparently can, though.
He retaliates when Jason moves in, and he blocks and strikes, but it's not the same as it was on the roof. There's not the same intensity or the same focus, and that starts to wake up the anger that Jason had buried deep in the back of his head, safely out of the way of costing him this fight with a stupid mistake. His teeth grit, and he makes more of an effort to get right in Bruce's face, right in the middle of that line of sight he keeps glancing towards to check on Dick. Like he matters and Jason's just the distraction in the way. Something he has to deal with while he keeps an eye on the really important things.
Why can't he focus on Jason, just this once? Why won't he just pay attention?
He hits a little harder.
An elbow to the soft spot of the shoulder. Clip of a fist to Bruce's jaw. A quick jab in retaliation that forces him back one step. A glance to the side, again.
Anger puts power into the boot he lands right in Bruce's gut. Knocks him down with a grunted rush of air.
He wants to yell, wants to shout right in Bruce's face to just fucking look at him, but there's nothing that comes out. Words right on his tongue and in his throat but there's no way to get them out.
His second gun comes easily to hand, though.
Three pulls of the trigger, gunshots louder than any scream he could manage as Bruce jerks into motion to get out of the way. Two whizz harmlessly through the defensive swirl of the cape, but the third hits armor. Spins Bruce to the side with a grunt and a reflexively protective curl over the injured side. His caliber won't pierce the armor, but it'll bruise and crack ribs. Not lethal, but it'll hurt. Isn't that his fucking rule? Don't kill, just take, and take, and take until they can't ever get it back and—
His mind registers the whirl of black fabric, the swing of the hidden arm underneath. Black metal slicing through the air with nothing but the faintest whistle, and by the time he's pulled the trigger again there's already been a sharp impact to the side that makes the shot go wild. He yanks the gun back up, steps back to get the shot lined up with that erratic pattern of movement that takes Bruce up, and sideways, and forward. This time he sees the glint of metal right before Bruce throws; two batarangs, different angles, one for the gun and one to make him—
Jerk to the side, get his head out of the way as they slice towards him. Whistling as they fly past, and a sharp flash of pain on the back of his left hand, a thin nick to the corner of his jaw just under his ear that—
pours blood down the side of his throat, hot and wet and choking—
The gun goes flying from his hands, and Jason sucks in a sharp breath just in time to have it knocked loose by the fist that cracks across his face. He staggers, throws up an arm that doesn't do enough to stop the downwards drive of an elbow that slams him right into the waiting crook of a knee. Nausea surges up his throat, and choking it down costs him the time it takes for Bruce to shove him back far enough to hit him again. High on the shoulder, ribs, black armor and cape the majority of his vision as he stumbles back and tries to just get his arms up in time to block the blows raining down.
His breath whistles through his teeth. He can't— He can't get his feet back under him. He can't get enough room to—
Bursts of color explode in front of his eyes as Bruce's fist slips over his guard, snapping his head to the side. The world spins.
He hits the ground without fully being aware of falling. His knees scrape against the floor as he moves on automatic, pressing up, blinking to try and get his vision clear, get focused, get—
Hands grab the back of his jacket and yank him up, and he sees one flash of teeth and a moving fist — shadowed armor and a roar in his face — before it slams into his chest.
Pain.
Jason's back hits something hard and unforgiving, his chest heaving as his lungs try and drag in air. He can see Bruce coming, but he can't— Fuck, he can't— He can't breathe, and he can't get out of the way, and his chest aches and he can feel the phantom crumble of the wall at his back, feel how it will hurt when he hits the ground on the other side. He can taste the blood on his tongue, and in his mouth, and in his throat as he swallows and swallows and still chokes.
Orange and black armor smashes into Bruce's side.
Jason stares as Slade straightens up, hands clenched at his sides and barely more than a few feet ahead of him. Above him. He's— He's sitting on the floor against the wall and he doesn't know when it happened.
"You're done," Slade says, deep and steady as Bruce gets back to his feet, one hand at his side. "Back away."
Bruce bares his teeth. "Get out of the way."
Slade doesn't move an inch. "I don't think so." Jason blinks as one gloved hand swings back to be in front of his face, palm open. "You good, kid?"
Jason stares. Swallows down that copper tinge on his tongue and reaches up to take Slade's hand. It lifts him to his feet in one easy pull, and it— it hurts. Fuck. He leans heavily against the wall, arm pressed against his chest as he tries to even out his breathing.
"Move," Bruce demands, from somewhere past Slade's bulk. "You're not taking him again."
Slade's hand compresses around his, slightly. Just one quick squeeze. He should answer, he should let Slade know that he's alright, but…
Jason squeezes twice.
Slade's hand slips out of his, and his stance shifts a little further apart, shoulders rolling underneath the armor. "I'd like to see you try and stop me."
"We're not leaving without him. I'll go through you if I have to, Deathstroke; but he's coming with me. He's coming home."
Slade scoffs. "Your little manor isn't his home."
Jason looks up, and he can just see Bruce around the edge of Slade's shoulder. His hands are clenched. "He's my son."
"I saw exactly how much that meant." The mask is still on, but Jason can hear the sneer in Slade's voice. "I might have been the one with the contract but you did all the work. If I'd wanted to kill him, all I would have had to do was stand and watch."
Across the room, Jason catches Dick moving. Getting up with one hand braced on the edge of a tipped desk, his other hand tight around an escrima stick.
"I didn't—”
"There's a reason he didn't come back to you, Wayne. If he'd wanted to, he would have. He stayed away from you by choice."
Bruce steps forward, voice rising. "Then he can tell me that himself!"
"No, he can't."
Jason feels the ice settle in his stomach. There's a sharp moment of silence.
"What?" Bruce asks, after that delay.
Slade's hands flex, at his sides. "At least when my son had his throat cut, I wasn't the one holding the knife."
He can feel it. The slice through his neck, the wetness and the pain and the complete shock of trying to understand what had even happened. That Bruce had actually picked the Joker over him and— (Jason swallows, and forces his mind to finish the thought) and cut open his throat.
"Or the batarang, as it were," Slade adds, low and vicious. "You should be thanking me, Wayne. If I hadn't pulled your 'son' out of the pool of his own blood he was lying in, all you would have found was a corpse."
Around Slade's shoulder, he catches that glimpse of Bruce again. Completely still. Not a twitch, except the stir of the cape behind him.
"What?"
Jason turns his head. Dick's standing straight now, staring. The escrima hangs loose at his side.
"Didn't tell you that part, Grayson?" Slade asks, without looking over. "Your Bat cut his own son's throat to save a mass-murdering psychopath. Every bit of what you saw in that picture was his handiwork; I never touched him."
There's a quick jerk of Dick's head, like a denial. Bruce doesn't say anything.
The stunned disbelief takes just a second to morph into anger. Dick looks to Bruce. "You— You told me that it was Slade. You said—”
"No I didn't," Bruce interrupts. "I never said that."
"You let me believe it!" The escrima swishes through the air in a sharp gesture as Dick steps forward. "You let us all believe it! You—!" Dick visibly reins himself in, hand drawing tight around the escrima stick, teeth gritting together. His head turns to Slade, next. "Like Joey?"
Slade doesn't move. "Yes."
Jason watches Dick react, in a wave of motion from the tensing of his shoulders down to the hard press of his wrists in against his thighs. There's one long breath, in and out in the silence in the room. "You and I are going to have a long talk about this, B," he says, and then the escrima is lifted and tucked away, in one sharp movement. He turns, and his hands are open, his lips pressed together. "I'm sorry, Jason. I didn't know. I took his word for it, and I shouldn't have."
Jason hesitates for a second, before he haltingly lifts his hands. "Didn't have a reason not to. It's alright."
Dick shakes his head. "It's not."
"This isn't—” Jason clenches his hands for a second, and then takes a breath and finishes, "This isn't about you."
And he has his answer, anyway. He can't do it. He can't… He can't be here, he can't fight Bruce. One good punch and a little cut on his jaw and he was right back in that shitty little apartment building, right back to hearing that batarang clang off the pipe and slice through his neck. Right back to being beaten down like he didn't matter, like nothing the Joker does ever matters. Not as much as him pulling a trigger does, anyway. Not as much as Bruce's rigid grasp on morality. All it took was one wrong second.
Maybe someday. Not now.
Jason pushes off the wall, grimacing at the remaining pain in his chest but forcing himself straight. He steps around the other side of Slade, away from Dick and in view of Bruce, now. Still just standing there. Silent and unmoving as a brick wall. Slade stays at his side as he turns words over in his head for a few long seconds. All those conversations played out in his head, all those speeches, but he can't remember a single one, now.
He lifts his hands.
"You killed me," is what comes out, somehow. Jason's gaze comes off the ground, and back to Bruce's face. All he can see is the tight clench of his jaw, and the impassive mask of the cowl and its lenses. "Slade is right. If he hadn't been there, I'd be dead."
"It wasn't supposed to go that way," Bruce says, a sharp edge to his voice. "You set off the explosives. I could have gotten you help."
His immediate reaction is to want to shout, to rage against the idea that any of this is his fault. But reaction isn't something he has the luxury of, anymore. It all takes thought. Translation. He has to get the words together in his head before he can make his hands form them, and by the time he's gotten that together he's brushed aside reaction and gotten to, "It doesn't matter. I told you him or me, and you picked." His hands are trembling slightly, but he breathes in and repeats the signs. "You picked."
"Jason, I…”
"My death didn't matter," he signs, before Bruce can add on anything else, "and you sacrificed my voice for him, too." He can feel the knot tightening his throat, and the beginning of a burn at the back of his eyes. "You— You took this from me. You took it. I don't ever get to… to speak, or yell, or laugh ever again. I don't get to talk over coms, or use a phone, or have any casual conversation with most of the world, because of you."
Bruce doesn't say anything. Just stands there, the stoic statue where Jason feels… unglued. Raw.
Fuck. Fuck, this wasn't supposed to— He just has to make his hands work, and let them be steady for one more minute. He just has to say what he decided he needed to, before he and Slade ever came to Gotham (and what he hoped, down in the dark, hurting corners he knows he still has, that Bruce wouldn't make him say).
"I don't matter to you. Not enough." One last deep breath, enough to ache in all the places Jason knows are going to bruise. "And I'm done trying to get you to prove me wrong. We're leaving. Don't follow us, don't track us. Don't come after me."
Still, there's nothing. Just, silence, and maybe he shouldn't have expected anything else. Bruce hasn't— He got one speech, last time. Why should he be surprised at getting even less, this time around? (Why should it hurt?)
Slade shifts forward, and gets between them again. Not fully, but enough that it's obvious as Jason adjusts his path, letting Slade do his defensive positioning as he starts towards the open window.
"Jason," Bruce suddenly says, when they're about halfway across the room. "Wait."
Jason's not quite sure what he's expecting, or hoping for, but he stops to listen anyway. Maybe… Maybe it'll be—
"I can fix it."
He blinks.
"I can find someone. Or something. I can fix it. Just wait until I've looked."
That's so— That's so far outside of anything that he wanted. It's so missing the point. But it's so like Bruce. No acknowledgement, no apology, just his self-important need to fix everything, no matter what anyone else wants or needs. That's all he ever wants to do, is solve problems. Even the ones that don't belong to him. Even the ones that nobody asked him to fix.
He— Yes, he wants his voice back. He wants it so bad it hurts, but that doesn't— Bruce doesn't get to just reverse what he did and pretend it didn't happen. If Jason's going to get his voice back through some magic, or science, or deal with the devil, he's going to do it himself. Not through Bruce. It's his choice, and he's not going to let Bruce use it as some kind of splint to put them back together.
Jason inhales, and exhales just as slowly. Then he looks Bruce in the eye. "Don't. I don't want anything from you."
He heads for the broken window.
"Jason—"
"That's enough," Slade interrupts, somewhere behind him. "Like the kid said, we're leaving. You follow us and I'll shoot right through your line, Wayne; I'd like to see you try and fly without that toy holding you up."
Jason stops at the edge, reaching for the grapnel tucked in under his jacket. There's a good spot back up at the top of their original building. Nice solid strip of concrete at the top, above the highest windows. Momentum should do the rest, and a little bit of acrobatics. Easy skills; he's done it all a thousand times, on a thousand roofs.
He lifts his arm, and his chest sends a sharp slice of pain down through his side and back, bad enough to make his breath catch. Fuck. He's not sure…
"I've got you, kid," Slade murmurs, suddenly at his side.
Jason lets him take the grapnel, one big arm wrapping around his waist and taking his weight as Slade fires the grapnel up towards that same spot he was eyeing. The yank as it secures and goes taut to pull them up barely feels like anything, with Slade taking the brunt of it. Jason's definitely glad about that, because even just the pressure of Slade's arm around him hurts. It doesn't feel like anything's broken, but he wouldn't be surprised if he's wrong about that, and the thought of trying to hold himself up on a grapnel, of trying to flip to get over the ledge of that roof…
Yeah. Not a good idea.
Jason closes his eyes against the wind and lets Slade carry him up. To the edge where the winding sound of the grapnel stops, and then Slade says, "Come on, kid, up and over. Get a grip, I'll lift you."
His eyes come open to the sight of the ledge. He takes a breath and grabs the edge with both hands, bracing to pull up. It's stunningly easy, with Slade's strength pushing him up and over, and it's simple to get to his feet from there and wait just that single moment for Slade to grunt and hoist himself up to join him on the roof. Rifle case is still over there, where he left it. The building across the street is still mainly dark; no one's found the man he shot, yet. That's good.
"Just like we planned," Slade says. "Same way we came in; stairwell to the bottom, to the car. You good to carry the case, kid, or do you need me to?"
No, he can get it. But—
"Thank you," he signs, first. "For doing this."
"Said I would," Slade says, the way that he does. Like it's nothing that he came all the way out to Gotham and faced down Nightwing and Batman just so Jason could resolve his issues. For free.
(Jason's not an idiot. The contract on that man he killed isn't a number that Slade would even glance at, and only half of it is his, anyway. That's practically pocket change in comparison to Slade's usual prices, and there's no way that getting to hit Dick a couple times would have made it worth it.)
"Yeah," he agrees, "you did."
Slade reaches out, gloved fingers clasping the back of his neck. They squeeze for just a moment, and release. "Come on, kid," he murmurs, "Let's go home."
Yeah. Yeah, he'd like that.