Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Who have you ever loved?

Bruce kept his head down and his mind carefully away from Mera’s pointed words as he led the Insurgency into their latest hideout. He deliberately ignored the pain of his newest set of injuries and helped Cyborg carry The Flash into their makeshift medbay. Normally, Victor would be able to do it himself without a problem, but given that he was currently down an arm until his cybernetic one could regenerate itself again, Bruce figured he could use the help. Barry made a weak noise of protest at the treatment, even as he was too weak to do anything but cling to Victor. 

It was never enjoyable to see his (non-Joker) teammates in pain, especially the kids, but it was still better than allowing his mind to drift, so Bruce stayed laser-focused on Barry’s bruised face gone deathly pale with the blood loss. His normally bright brown eyes were glassy and unfocused, flitting absently between Victor and Bruce a few times before eventually landing on the ceiling of the bomb shelter and staying there. “I. Am. Fine.” He ground out through clenched teeth.

“Liar,” Victor muttered back, not unkindly, as he maneuvered Barry out of the top half of his armor, the kid letting out small pained grunts half-muffled by the way he was sinking his teeth into his bottom lip.

Bruce eyed the massive gash in his side, noting the way the bleeding was starting to slow and the ragged edges of the wound were already slowly smoothing out. God bless the Speed Force. Barry would’ve been dead within minutes without it. “You lost a lot of blood,” Bruce told him as he turned to sift through their ever-dwindling collection of medical supplies. The kid wouldn’t need sutures, and Bruce was thankful for small mercies because he really needed to reserve those for the non-meta members of the team, for himself and… and Joker. He would, however, need a good cleaning and some bandages to prevent infection and ensure the wound closed up as quickly as it could. 

“I heal,” Barry argued, voice cracking on the words. “I heal fast, you know I do. Like, before the end of the day I’ll be good as new fast. If I just lay down and eat something, I’ll be fine eventually. You don’t need to waste the kit on me. Vic, tell him.”

"I'm siding with the big man here," Victor said. "You need help. It's okay to need help."  

“Keeping you alive and not in excruciating pain is not a waste of supplies,” Bruce added firmly, leaving no more room for argument. “If we ever want to end the fight and go home, Barry, we need you, and we need you healthy.”

“What he said.” Victor gently pushed Barry back down by the shoulders as he tried to sit up. “Jesus, you got a death wish or somethin’? Stay down. She is gone, the fight is over, and you did good. Now let us take care of you.” 

Predictably, Barry relaxed with his friend’s order, and Bruce was grateful.

Bruce worked in silence cleaning the wounds while Victor kept Barry talking and his focus away from the pain. That had always been a talent of his, which was incredibly fortunate considering they’d run out of painkillers months ago, Superman had ensured any supply lines to get more were cut off, and Barry had a nasty habit of constantly incurring the most injuries in nearly every fight they got into. 

By the time the crusted blood was scrubbed away, some of the color had returned to Barry’s face and a bit of the light was back in his eyes. “This might be a hot take,” he grunted, mouth somewhere between a grin and a grimace as Bruce dug around in the biggest gash for bits of debris as gently as he could, “but I kinda feel like sending your batshit crazy Amazon bodyguard to cut your ex-teammates to ribbons isn’t the healthiest way to cope with your wife dying.”

“Lois didn’t just die, she was tortured for days and killed right in front of him,” Bruce corrected, flat and emotionless.

There was a frown in Barry’s voice when he replied. “Yeah. By Darkseid, not by us. And Superman killed him back and inherited his army, what is it now? Three years ago, almost? Guy should’ve found some other way to deal that doesn’t involve mass murder by now. It’s not our fault she’s dead, and taking it out on us won’t bring her back. Don’t tell me you’re actually starting to sympathize with Captain Crazy, Bruce.”

“It is not sympathy. What he’s done—massacring whole cities, using a soulless, bloodthirsty army like the Parademons, torturing J’onn to death, killing Arthur—it’s all unforgivable. Diana, too. She literally stabbed Harley in the back. They’re past saving, both of them are.” Bruce swallowed hard and focused even harder on opening up the butterfly bandages with slightly shaking hands. “But part of assembling an effective strategy is putting yourself in your enemy’s shoes. I… I understand where he’s coming from. Grief changes a person.” 

Barry made a blatantly disbelieving noise. “Fuck that. We’ve all lost people. We’ve all lost people because of him. We’ve all grieved, we’re all still grieving, and none of us are making the whole world pay for our pain.”

“None of us can make the world pay for it like he can,” Bruce said quietly, motioning for Victor to hold the wound closed while he started applying the bandages. 

He only got one down before Barry’s bloodstained hand clamped around his wrist. Bruce looked up, glimpsing a translucent red blur out of the corner of his eye before focusing his attention back on Barry’s face. The smattering of bruises that had been there minutes before was already gone. “I know he was your friend, Bruce. He was mine, too. He was one of the good guys. I know it’s hard, but he is a bad man now. He’s a monster. You don’t need to pretend he isn’t, and you certainly don’t need to act like killing half the world is a reasonable reaction to losing someone you love. We are going to kill him, and the world’s going to be a hell of a lot better off once we do.” 

Bruce bit down on the words he wanted to say. I am just as much to blame for the apocalypse as Clark is. If I hadn’t insisted we take down the strongest army Earth has ever seen without the use of lethal force, Darkseid would’ve been dead before he ever got his hands on Lois. To pretend anything else would be to betray the friend I once had in him.

The kids didn’t need to hear that. They didn’t need his guilt. That was just another private agony for him to tend to in those rare moments where he didn’t need to be strong for the others or to offer himself up as a target to keep them safe. 

“Mm. You’re right.” It seemed to be enough to placate the injured speedster because he allowed Bruce to finish tending his wounds without any further protest. “I suppose it’s useless to chastise you for being reckless with your wellbeing or to make you promise you won’t do it again?” He asked once he was finished.

Barry cracked half a genuine grin. “You’re learning.” 

“And you’re not,” Slade growled as he came to a stop beside the cot. Barry sat up with a start, eyes shooting up to Slade with the same mix of carefully masked fear and more obvious anxiety that he always had when Deathstroke was near. “How many times do you have to get your scrawny little ass beat before you start using your brain in these fights, Zippy?”

Barry leveled a halfhearted glare back at Slade, but Bruce didn’t miss the well-hidden cringe that rolled through his shoulders. Clearly, Victor didn’t either. He reacted immediately, placing his massive body between Deathstroke and his injured friend. “Lay off, Slade,” he said, voice hard and commanding, though Slade didn’t look even slightly cowed. “He saved your ass today. Saved all our asses. He got cut up so you wouldn’t have to, you should be thanking him.”

Slade’s lip curved into a mean snarl. “I’m not going to thank your idiot friend for fighting with all the caution and strategy of a bull in a fucking china shop. I don’t know how many times I gotta tell you this, kid, or how many times those superfreaks need to beat the lessons into you, but if you don’t get that fucking chip off your shoulder and stop going into every damn scrap like you got somethin’ to prove, you are going to die. You know how many people I’ve seen get killed because they fight like they’re invincible? Because the only thing that will convince them they aren’t is being fucking killed for it?” Slade took a threatening step forward, and Barry’s flinch was more obvious this time. 

“I’m not afraid of dying,” Barry told him over Victor’s shoulder, voice wavering slightly. 

“You think that’s a good thing?” Slade growled. “You should be afraid of dying, dipshit. Anyone with two fucking brain cells to rub together is afraid of dying. This is not a place for you to prove what a badass you are. This is the end of the fucking world. And guess what? Regardless of how badass you are, this isn’t about you. If you die, the whole fucking world is going to pay the price for your incompetence, because without the only person in the world faster than Superman, this is a team full of sitting ducks. And when he kills us all before we can say ‘oh shit’, there goes billions of innocent people’s last chance to be free from that maniac. If you’re too stupid to be afraid for yourself, be afraid for them. And you,” Slade’s eye shifted to Victor, “if you actually give a shit about Zippy here, you shouldn’t want him to pull this shit. No matter how fast he is, if he doesn’t wise up, he will run out of time. Be. Smarter.” 

The mercenary stormed off without another word, leaving all three of them in stunned silence. Victor was the first to unfreeze, turning and placing his human hand on Barry’s shoulder, face softening as he gave it a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t listen to him. You were amazing.”

“You should listen to him, actually,” Bruce corrected, and both of them turned bewildered looks on him. “Yes, Slade is tactless and cruel and communicates just about as well as you’d expect a contract killer to, and I apologize for his bluntness, but he’s not wrong. We do need you. And,” Bruce paused to give the many, many scars that littered the pale skin of Barry’s chest and arms a meaningful look, “if you keep running headfirst into danger with no plan and no backup, you will die. This team won’t make it without you. You did well today. You fought hard, and the fact that you are willing to make sacrifices for your teammates is very admirable, but you are too willing. I need you to work on being more responsible.”

Hurt flickered across Barry’s face for a moment before resolve seemed to settle in its place. He nodded. “Yeah. Sorry, Bruce. I’ll, uh… I’ll be more careful.” 

Bruce handed him a clean shirt with a small smile. “Good. Victor, I expect you to hold him to that. I want both of you to rest up and eat something to keep your metabolism up. You’ve been through a lot. We’ll need to get moving again soon, and both of you will need to be at 100% by the time we do.” 

“Yes sir,” Barry and Victor said in tandem with matching mock salutes.

Bruce gave them half a forced smile and turned, heading for the far side of the shelter to give them some space. As much as Barry tried not to show it, he struggled with taking criticism, and while it was something that needed to be said, Slade was unnecessarily harsh about it and the kid still deserved a chance to recover from the assault with the only person who didn’t seem to make him constantly question his worth. 

The moment he stopped focusing on Barry and Victor, he heard familiar labored, ragged breathing off to his right. He did his best to block it out as he made his way to the workbench, stripped out of the top half of the Batsuit, and got to work patching the tears Diana’s sword had left in it.

“Nice that you can take care of him, I guess,” a hoarse voice came, bitter and angry and painfully familiar. “He kinda looks like me, don’t you think? If I’d actually had the chance to grow up, I mean. Does saving him help you forget about how you failed me?”

Bruce cringed but didn’t look up. He’d known this was coming, but he had hoped that he’d have a few more seconds to breathe first. “He needs my help,” Bruce muttered under his breath, making sure it was too quiet for even Slade’s superhuman hearing to pick up on. 

“Yeah? So did I.” There was an awful, sick crunching noise, and Bruce held off a shiver. “I know he’s a better son than me, B, but I still think you’ll manage to get this one killed, too. Head-first, eyes-closed, no backup—sounds familiar.” 

“I’m sorry,” Bruce said, because that was all he could ever really say, and it would never be enough. “I didn’t—” he cut himself off at the faint echo of Joker’s laugh ringing off the concrete walls, shrill and grating and unreasonably loud as it always was. Of course, the mad clown had made it out of their scrape with Wonder Woman with barely a scratch on him. Bruce had a single moment to feel angry and disgusted before a wounded, terrified noise came from that same place off to his right. Before Bruce could help himself, his eyes were shooting up to the source. 

Who have you ever loved?

And there his fallen Robin was. He was staring straight ahead, glassy blue eyes wide and frightened as he dragged in harsh, rattling breaths and tensed his broken body like he was waiting for a blow, the image just a bit wrong, not quite solid, not quite steady. The specter was hard to reconcile with the fierce little spitfire of a boy Bruce had considered his son for four years. If not for the ripped, bloodstained Robin uniform he still wore, Jason probably would have been considered a John Doe, another nameless victim to add to Joker’s ever-growing collection. His face was battered almost beyond recognition, one eye nearly swollen shut, bruises marring every inch of exposed skin, his teeth broken and bloody, his jaw so dislocated it couldn’t close all the way. Bruce had to swallow down the bile before it could choke him. 

He knows exactly what it’s like to lose someone he loves.

It was always like this. Anytime Bruce saw Jason, he always looked the same way he had when Bruce found him in that abandoned wing of Arkham. Broken, scared, and in pain. Bruce must’ve seen the vision at least a hundred times, and it never got any easier. This wasn’t how Jason deserved to be remembered. He was so much more than what Joker had done to him. 

Like a father. Like a mother.

The first time had been Jason’s funeral. Jason’s ghost had appeared beside his own freshly dug grave, stared Bruce down with haunting, dead eyes, and wheezed out the same words the real Jason had just before he died. ‘M sorry, B. I shoulda been a better Robin. And then he disappeared.

Like an adopted son. 

It wasn’t real. Bruce knew it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. Jason had been dead for years. And it probably wasn’t a ghost, either, just a manifestation of paralyzing guilt and overwhelming grief he’d never given himself a chance to feel. There had always been another mission to complete, another innocent to rescue, another Rogue to arrest. Gotham couldn’t be saved by a devastated father mourning his child. They needed Batman. There had never been time for Bruce to feel the loss, so he’d been haunted by it instead. 

A harsh shudder rocked Jason’s frail, malnourished body, followed closely by a series of fine tremors that seemed to jostle every last one of his injuries. He whimpered in pain, broken bones shifting audibly under his skin as he curled over himself. It felt so mocking, that Jason had always been so competent, so able to defend himself and Bruce both from enemies, all the way up until he needed those skills the most, and then the Joker had taken every last one of them away. He wrapped a shaking arm around himself while the other hung uselessly at his side, both wrists rubbed raw to the point that bits of stark white bone were visible. Bruce knew the Joker had broken every last bone in Jason’s right arm, crushed his whole hand, dislocated the shoulder, mangled it beyond repair.

Fifty-seven fractures, that was how many the Gotham coroner had identified in Jason’s body. Fifty-seven fractures, and the Joker was still alive. 

“He won’t hurt you,” Bruce offered weakly, knowing it was the wrong thing to say. He’d only ever said the wrong things to Jason. Even back when he’d still been alive.

Jason flinched weakly with the sound of Bruce’s voice. “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?” He asked as he turned to face Bruce. “Hard to hurt a dead person, I guess, but if anyone could manage it, it’d be that motherfucker.” 

Bruce tried to find the words to respond but found that seeing Jason head-on like this had stolen them from his mouth. He still wasn’t used to it, even after all this time. The shallow breaths rattling in his chest that never quite made it to his collapsed lungs, the way he whimpered with every movement, the thousand-yard stare in eyes that were supposed to be bright and vivid and alive, all of that was bad enough. But the smile was the worst.

The Joker had sliced his son’s cheeks open almost all the way to his ears, a gruesome grin to match the clown’s own, and whenever Jason spoke, more blood gushed from the wounds, pooling in his mouth, staining what remaining teeth Joker hadn’t yanked out, and spilling down his chin. The blood was dripping steadily onto the floor now, making an awful wet sound as it collided with the concrete and collecting into a small pool at Jason’s feet. Bruce cringed again, swallowing down the acid in the back of his throat.

The laugh came again, screeching in Bruce’s ears, and he tore his eyes away from Jason and back to his work. He wasn’t fast enough to miss the way Jason cringed in obvious fear once again. “I died trying to kill him, B,” Jason hissed after he seemed to recover from hearing the mocking, horrible laughter of the man who’d murdered him. “And I know I screwed it up and all, but at least I tried. Tried harder than you did.” 

“You didn’t screw anything up, Jay,” Bruce attempted to reassure him, knowing he’d inevitably fall short. There wasn’t much you could do to comfort a dead child who was brutally murdered because of your mistakes. “You were a good kid.” 

“He hurt me,” Jason whispered, sounding so betrayed. “He tortured me. He killed me. And you teamed up with him. It’s like you’ve already forgotten me. It’s like you don’t even care.” 

“We need all the help we can get, Jay. Even him.” 

“It’s never going to work, this stupid truce thing you have going with him. It’ll never last. Have you seen what he did to my fucking face, B? He’s a monster. Monsters don’t change, not even with the world at stake.”

“It’s a risk I have to take. We need him. I know it’s horrible, I hate it too, but the world is ending, and for now, we need him.” 

“I needed you.” 

“I know. I… I’m sorry.”

“Who are you talking to?” Mera asked, trident in hand and a concerned scowl on her face. Jason flinched with the noise and pushed himself a little closer to Bruce. Bruce resisted the urge to shift away from the chilling sensation of having Jason right next to him but being unable to feel his warmth, and ignored the small piece of his heart that broke with the knowledge that even though Jason loathed him, he still seemed to instinctively seek comfort from Bruce when he was startled. 

“Hm?” Bruce grunted, trying to tear his attention away from Jason.

“There’s no one else here. Not as far as I can see. Who were you apologizing to?” 

“That’s none of your concern.”

She shrugged like that was the answer she’d been expecting and grabbed a rag from in front of Bruce, then lowered herself into a chair across from him and started to scrub Diana’s blood from Arthur’s her trident. “Very well.”

“I am… sorry,” Mera murmured after they had worked in silence for a few minutes. “For what I said earlier.”

Bruce waved her off. “Don’t be. I know what it’s like.” 

“So I’ve been told. Did the Joker kill your Robin?”

The question was so blunt that it made Bruce’s hands pause over his armor, grief and loss roiling in his gut. He tried to swallow down the rising emotions, but his mouth had gone totally dry, and the pain was still obvious in his choked voice when he responded. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Then there should be no reason for you to keep it from me.”

Bruce scrubbed a hand over his face. “Why do you care, Mera?” 

“The clown’s taunting is tasteless and unnecessary.” Bruce nodded. That didn’t even begin to cover it. “But it has provided me with useful information, granted it is actually true. You are not a very forthcoming man. You know much about me, and I, precious little of you. It is hard to trust someone like that.”

“No one said you had to trust me.”

“If you expect me to fight for you, I need to.” 

Bruce had to take a moment to digest that. Force himself to recount his son’s murder or run the risk of losing one of his most valuable allies? He genuinely didn’t know which one sounded worse. “Mera…” 

“Do you think I will use it against you as the Joker does?” She asked, voice softening slightly. When Bruce couldn’t answer that with anything but silence, she hummed her understanding. “Perhaps if you told me, I could work to earn your trust as well.” 

“Yes,” he forced out through clenched teeth. “Joker killed him. It is ancient history now.” 

“It is not. If it was, Joker wouldn’t be able to torment you with it this way.” 

“You can speak to him yourself if you’re so desperate for the details. He actually likes talking about it. I don’t.” 

“I care very little for the ramblings of a madman. But you? I need to be able to rely on you, which means I need to understand you. I think if you were as jaded as you pretend to be, if you were numb to death as the clown claims you are, you would not be grieving this loss at all. And yet you clearly still are. You have endured many tragedies, but this is the only one that maniac seems to care about, which means it must be the worst. So tell me, why? What did he do?” 

Jason made an angry noise low in his raw throat, and Bruce stole a quick glance in his direction to find Jason staring him down with those big, dead eyes, blood painting his lips a deep, violent red. “Go ahead,” he rasped. “Tell her. Tell her how bad he fucked me up. Tell her how you promised me you’d never abandon me like my parents did and then you let him take me right out from under you. Tell her, B. Tell her how it was all your fault.” 

Bruce had to tear his eyes away and take a few deep breaths, feeling like the horrible memories might tear their way out of his throat of their own free will, and then Mera’s hand was on his shoulder. There was impossible strength in her fingers and determined blue steel in her eyes when she turned him around to face her, and Bruce knew then that the truth was his only real option. 

“His name was Jason,” Bruce said, returning to his work repairing the Batsuit so he wouldn’t have to endure the unsettling fire in Mera’s eyes any longer. “Jason Todd. He was my Robin, and he was my son. Last week he would have turned twenty-one. But… he didn’t. Because he’s gone.” 

“Happy birthday to me,” Jason muttered flatly from Bruce’s side. 

“And you loved this boy, this Jason?” She asked, the spiteful edge to her voice completely fading now.

“I did—I—I do. He was… he was a really good kid.” And god, how could it still hurt this much to talk about after all this time? “Smart, sharp, good in school, even better on patrol, actually cared about saving Gotham. I met him in the bad part of Gotham when he was eleven. He was trying to steal the tires off the Batmobile. Even as a homeless, malnourished orphan, he was bold. Spirited. I adopted him, he became my Robin shortly after, and he lived in the Manor with me for years.” Bruce’s hands made fists in the material of his suit, tight enough that he accidentally widened one of the rips. The tearing sound felt unreasonably loud and Jason cringed with it, unconsciously moving closer to Bruce again. “Joker killed him when he was fifteen,” Bruce added in a whisper, repressing the urge to comfort the vision that wore his son’s bleeding face.

“Why?” Mera asked softly after a long time.

“Because he could. Because it’s not easy to hurt me, but my children have always been my weak point, and Joker knew that. Because it was fun for him. Joker’s always been a vicious sadist, but I’ve never…” Bruce cleared his throat loudly. “I’ve never seen him do anything like that before.” 

“As a child vigilante in a city like Gotham, as your apprentice, I have to imagine the boy was well-trained. How did your Robin end up in the clown’s hands at all?” 

“He tried to kill Joker,” Bruce forced out past his anguish. “Maybe he could have pulled it off with the right plan. Jason was strong, intelligent, and ruthless when he wanted to be. But he was also emotional and impulsive. That night, Joker had murdered over a dozen children, Jason was incensed, and he didn’t trust me to do what needed to be done. He chased after Joker with no tracker and no backup. It was a trap. He was in Gotham the whole time, in Arkham Asylum, right under my nose, but Joker hid him well. It took me three weeks to find him, and by the time I did, it was too late. He,” Bruce took a deep breath, “he succumbed to his injuries, and as Joker said, he died in my arms. Hypovolemic shock.”

I’d be happy to discuss with you, in any way you like, why you sent the Boy Wonder to do a man’s job.

“How long has it been since this atrocity was committed against your son?”

“Over five years ago, now.”

“And you still mourn for him? You still love him?”

“I always will.” 

“But not enough to kill the monster who took him from you?”

“Oh, good point,” Jason murmured between wheezing breaths. “Can’t wait to see you explain your way out of the fact that Joker has always been more important to you than I was.” 

Bruce took a deep breath and forced down the tremor rising in his throat. “It’s got nothing to do with how much I love him,” he explained, for Jason and Mera both. “I used to have a rule about taking lives. By the time I broke it for the first time, we were already at the point that we needed Joker alive to put an end to the madness for good. And besides all that, I always tried to teach Jason to seek justice, not vengeance. I wanted to honor that in his death.”

“You wanted to honor him by allowing the Joker to kill countless more innocent people?”

Bruce’s eyes snapped back up to hers with a fierce glare, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see Jason’s ghost lean forward in interest. “Oh B, I like this one,” Jason said, a weak imitation of his former snark. “Take him to church, fish lady.”

“You have no right to judge my decisions,” Bruce snapped. “You have no idea what an impossible situation that was. Of course, I wanted to avenge my child. I have never wanted anything more than I wanted to kill Joker after I buried Jason. But if I had always done what I wanted to do as Batman, Gotham would’ve fallen to pieces years ago.”

“Gotham fell to pieces anyways, and the Joker got to dance on the ashes.” 

Bruce flinched minutely. “I did what I thought was right.” 

Mera planted her trident on the ground with a thunderous clang and leaned forward in her chair, returning Bruce’s smoldering glare with one of her own. “I will stop at nothing to end the life of the Kryptonian maniac who murdered my king. That is what is right. That is justice, and that is what Superman deserves. What does that savage beast deserve for torturing and butchering your son?” 

“Death,” Bruce growled, “but the world isn’t finished with him yet.”

“And you will endure him dishonoring your child’s memory by speaking about him like a meaningless pawn in a game of chess all the way up until the world deigns him fit for death? That is how you prove your love to your son?”

“I have no choice.” 

Mera rose to her feet then, eyes blazing, bright red hair like flames surrounding her, looking for all the world just like Arthur used to, powerful and fearless and untouchable. Another spike of grief stabbed through Bruce’s heart at the thought.

“There is always a choice, Bruce Wayne. And clearly, you’ve made yours.” 

Bruce pulled himself up to watch her leave in a huff, fists clenched in what should have been anger but mostly amounted to grief and loss. Eventually, she disappeared into a dark corner of the shelter, and Bruce was left with nothing but the pounding of his heart, the haunting chill of Jason’s presence, and that same damned laugh echoing off the walls. With a small cringe, Bruce settled back down to finish patching his suit and push the conversation out of his mind. 

Mera could never hate him more than he already hated himself for letting the Joker touch his son.

“You deserved better, Jason,” Bruce whispered, just above silence. By the time he finished his work and glanced to his right where the ghost of his son had been, empty space was all that greeted him. Bruce sighed and let his head fall into his hands. “You deserved better than me.”  

Chapter Text

Diana was dead.

It still didn’t feel real.

They’d done it. The plan had gone off almost without a hitch, everyone was still alive, and Diana was dead. The Batarang Bruce had used to slit her throat was still in his blood-soaked hands, she was on the ground, unmoving body, unseeing eyes, she was dead, she was dead. 

No matter how many times Bruce repeated it in his mind, it still didn’t seem possible. She was half-god, she’d beaten them every other time they’d faced off, and sure, this time they had a plan, but these days, the plans never worked, Clark and Diana always found a flaw, it was the end of the world, things didn’t go their way anymore. But they’d done it. They won. They beat Wonder Woman. That meant maybe, maybe, they could beat Superman too.

That part felt distinctly unreal. Bruce had never actually believed they could win this fight. None of them really had. They were fighting a god. A god who’d killed half the world and ruled over the ashes for years. A god with a demigod at his side. But the demigod was dead and for the first time, Superman seemed almost mortal. There was a chance.

Bruce didn’t even hear Slade come up behind him, didn’t even realize he wasn’t alone until there was a gloved hand on his shoulder. Bruce turned around with slow, jerky movements, every last bit of fight already drained from his body. Slade’s helmet was off, which was unsettling in and of itself, and there was an unreadable look in his eye that Bruce didn’t like.

“She’s dead,” Bruce said, since those seemed to be the only words his mind could provide.

Slade gave him a curt nod. “Mhm. Good work.” 

It was strange enough for Bruce to pull himself from the fog somewhat. “What’s wrong?” 

A twitch went through Slade’s jaw, too tense to be meaningless, and something cold swooped in Bruce’s gut. “The clown.”

Bruce bristled. “What about him?” 

“His whole job was to antagonize the strongest woman on the planet. She fucked him up real good. If you don’t fix him… I give it an hour tops before he’s past saving.”

The small part of Bruce that had allowed itself to be relieved about this massive victory shriveled up in his chest. “If I don’t—you want me to save the Joker’s life?” He asked, feeling detached from the bitter question as it slid over his tongue. 

“Want? Fuck no. What I want you to do is kill him in the worst fucking way you can think of. But, if you still give half a shit about saving the world, what you need to do is stop him from bleeding out.” 

And Bruce knew it was selfish, but… “There’s no one else who could…?” Because he had to ask, at least. Doing this would be a—a betrayal— and if there was some way, any way out of it, he had to at least—

“No,” Slade broke through the flood of thought before it could spiral too far, something like dread in his voice. It was more emotion than Deathstroke was supposed to show in the field, or ever, really. “You’re the least injured of all of us and the most competent with medical procedures. I will triage the others, but I can’t fix him and neither can the kids. Mera’s not human, she wouldn’t even know where to start. He’s running out of time. You’re the only sure shot, Wayne. I know it’s—”

“You don’t know,” Bruce interrupted, voice mechanical. The words felt like they came from somewhere else. He couldn’t even feel them in his mouth. His whole body was numb.

“You’re right, I don’t. But your team needs you. So get over yourself. Now.” 

Strangely, the familiar harshness felt like an anchor, so Bruce grabbed hold of it and nodded jerkily. “Fine. Where is he?” 

Slade started heading back in the direction Diana had come from, and after another split second of hesitation, Bruce followed him. “He looks like he went through a meat grinder,” Slade offered halfheartedly, sounding like he knew exactly how hollow the reassurance was. “So there’s that to look forward to.”

“Stick to killing, Wilson. Comfort’s not your strong suit.” 

Slade grunted unintelligibly, and they walked in silence for a few moments, Bruce feeling like he was marching to his death on legs made of concrete. “We won because of him,” Slade muttered after a while, sounding almost as disturbed by the fact as Bruce was. “She never recovered once he started talking his shit. We’ll never beat Super-Freak with fists alone. Same thing that makes him dangerous is what makes him weak: his fucked up head. We need the clown. He’s our trump card.”

“I know,” Bruce ground out through his teeth. He had experience. So much goddamned experience. “It was my idea to bring him on in the first place, that doesn’t mean I have to like it.” 

“None of us do.” 

Well, he didn’t murder your son, did he? Bruce thought, but didn’t say.

As they approached, Bruce was distantly aware of the Flash and Cyborg talking animatedly to each other. “You outran an Amazon! A literal demigod, she can fly, and you beat her! You must’ve set some kinda record, swear I’ve never seen you run so fast.” Victor sounded happier than he had in years. Bruce kind of wanted to throw up. 

“What about you? Wouldn’t’ve mattered how fast I ran if your new tech hadn’t worked. I still can’t believe you broke Wonder Woman’s magic armor, Vic, you should get an award for that or something. Ancient Themiscyran technology has nothing on Victor Stone, a college dropout with too much time on his half-robot hands.”

Victor snorted. “Hey, fuck you. I didn’t drop out of college, Superman blew it up.” 

“Ah, potato, potah-to—Bruce?” Barry was at Bruce’s side before his name even made it all the way out of the kid’s mouth. The Flash was still visibly buzzing with the adrenaline high. There was a blinding smile on his face. The nausea crept farther up the back of Bruce’s throat and he had to swallow to keep it down. “Uh, you know we killed Wonder Woman, right? What’s with the long face?” 

“Not now, Zippy,” Slade warned, less bite than there usually was in his voice as he pulled Barry away from Bruce by the shoulder. “He’s in the middle of something.”

“In the middle of wh…” Barry’s voice dropped into something cold and horrified. “Oh shit, Joker.” 

“Yeah, oh shit, Joker, now shut the hell up, kid.” 

“What can I do to help?” Barry asked, all the amusement gone as he trotted to keep up with them. 

Slade made an annoyed noise low in his throat, but Bruce spoke up before the mercenary had the chance to repeat himself in a less friendly manner. “We are on a time crunch,” Bruce told Barry, forcing himself to keep walking, keep his eyes focused on the red of Mera’s hair as she stood over a huddled mass a few hundred feet away. “Eventually, Superman will get wind of this and will come looking for Diana. We need to be long gone by the time he does. But, I imagine Joker is too critical for us to move him now. Can you run?” 

“Of course I can run,” Barry agreed easily, but there was something imperfect in his tone.

Bruce frowned but didn’t spare him a glance. If he took his eyes off his target, he might never have the guts to return them there again. The Joker. That was the Joker bleeding out. And Bruce was going to stop it. “Are you injured, Barry?” 

“Nothing I can’t shake off.” 

“Try again. The truth, this time.” When there was a telling moment of hesitation, Bruce sighed. “Wilson, take care of him. Keep him grounded until he can actually run without ruining his body or torturing himself, not a moment sooner.”

“That’s ridiculous, I don’t need—”

“Do I seem like I’m in the mood to argue with you, Allen?” Bruce didn’t have to look to know how Barry must have shrunk away at the harsh tone, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Not about that. Not about any of it. “Once you are cleared, if you are cleared, come to me and stay close. I may need you to make supply runs. Take care of yourself first, that is an order. I need you to be a solution right now, not another problem. I will find another way to get what I need if you aren’t well enough.” It still didn’t feel real, the facts trapped in the same foggy part of his mind where Diana is dead, Diana is dead, my friend is dead, my enemy is dead was. He was going to save the Joker’s life. He was going to save his son’s killer’s life. 

“Sure,” Barry agreed shakily. “Yeah, whatever you say, boss.” 

Bruce made the rest of the trip by himself, not really registering Mera’s presence until he was right on top of her. She blocked Bruce’s view of Joker’s body with her own, and all Bruce could see past her was a slowly growing pool of deep, red blood. He fought down the nausea once again and focused his attention on her. There was a solemn, grave look on her dirt-caked face. “Can you do this?” 

“Do I have a choice?” 

“It does not seem so,” she murmured as she moved to let him past.

Bruce had never seen Joker so broken in his life, and that was saying a lot. His face was so bruised Bruce couldn’t even see his deathly pale skin tone beneath it and half his limbs were bent at the wrong angles, jutting out strangely at his sides. The blood was everywhere; painting his lips an even more violent shade of red than usual, matting his greasy green hair down to his head, leaking from his mouth, and oozing steadily from at least a dozen gashes. As Bruce forced himself to take another step closer, he could hear the weak, wheezing breaths that indicated broken ribs and potentially punctured lungs. Did his best not to think about the familiarity of the noise. 

Strangest of all, for the first time in Bruce’s memory, the mad clown wasn’t laughing. Wasn’t even smiling. Just laid there, eerily silent, eerily still. 

It should have felt good. Bruce should have been able to feel vindicated by the rare instance of justice. But all he could think of was Jason, how even a mad demigod hellbent on world domination wasn’t depraved enough to hurt someone as badly as Joker had hurt a 15-year-old child, how no amount of pain inflicted on the Joker would ever bring his son back, and how Bruce was going to save him from that pain. The more he thought about it, the more he desperately, viscerally wanted to leave Joker to die here or speed up the process himself. Instead, he forced his mind into its well-practiced damage control mode and did everything in his power to forget that it was the Joker’s life he was saving. 

Batman saved people. That was who he was, who he’d always been, his whole reason for existence. That was what he was doing now. Saving a life that needed saving. Doing the right thing for the greater good of everyone.

“Are you hurt?” He muttered to Mera as he lowered himself to his knees and tore Joker’s shirt open, hating how gentle he had to be about it. He just needed a distraction. Something to get his mind away from how Joker’s skin was cold and clammy to the touch, how it was Bruce’s job to fix that. 

She moved to kneel on the other side of Joker’s body, and Bruce could feel the familiar itch of her dissecting stare without having to look at her. “I have no need for surface dweller medicine, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“You should still let Deathstroke—”

“You are about to save the life of the man who murdered your child,” she interjected. Bruce held off a cringe. They’d gone over a month now without talking about that whole incident. He’d really been hoping to continue that streak indefinitely. “I do not know enough of human anatomy to take that burden from you, or I would. I can still help. So I will stay and I will help. End of discussion. If he must, the mercenary can confirm my health for you once we are finished.” 

Bruce thought about arguing, but found he didn’t have the strength for it, so he nodded and got to work.

They needed him. They needed him, they needed him, they needed him. If they ever wanted to end the fight, they needed the Joker to get in Superman’s head, and Bruce’s personal turmoil was insignificant against the fate of the entire planet.

So, Bruce saved the life of the man who had murdered his child. It took over an hour and a lot of help from Mera to bring Joker back from the brink of death. Mostly it was cleaning and stitching and stitching and more stitching, plus two especially nasty instances where Joker’s heart stopped and Bruce had to give him CPR.

Jason appeared after the first time. Bruce tried not to look at him and failed, rather spectacularly. His son didn’t say a word, just stared at the clown as Bruce slowly repaired his body with those glassy eyes and that bloody smile, somehow looking even more dead on the inside than he was on the outside. 

Once Joker was loosely orbiting stability and the rest of the team had been patched up, they moved him back to their temporary base. Slade stayed behind to cover their tracks, Barry made four trips to different hospitals for supplies, and Mera and Victor offered what help they could as Bruce spent the next four hours with his son watching as Bruce saved his killer’s life. He set broken bones, snapped dislocated joints back into place, and even used his own blood to give the clown the transfusion he needed to survive. His own blood. Inside the Joker.

The moment he regained consciousness, Joker started laughing. Before he even opened his eyes, he was already laughing. Bruce couldn’t stand the sound. 

Convinced the evil maniac would pull through, he turned and left the hideout before Joker could realize who it was that had saved him. He kept walking through the desert until he was out of earshot and the strength in his legs gave out, sank slowly to his knees, and threw up everything he had left in his stomach.

Five days later, Bruce still felt sick as he watched Joker from a far corner of the hideout. The clown was still obviously riding the high of Bruce coming to his rescue, twisting a knife aimlessly between his fingers and laughing loud enough to echo off the walls of the underground cavern they’d claimed as their new base. 

Bruce told himself he had to keep an eye on the clown, make sure he didn’t endanger his own life or anyone else’s, but that wasn’t the truth. This was just how he punished himself. Allying himself with Joker had been the smartest way to move forward, saving the clown had been a necessary evil to prevent an even greater tragedy, but it still felt like selling his soul. They still felt like crimes he needed to pay for.

Logically, Joker should have been in pain; horrible, constant pain like Jason was in. But, looking at him now, he didn’t even seem bothered. Even covered in bruises and stitches with one hand in a cast, he moved his weapon deftly, graceful and deadly at the same time. It was his favorite knife, Bruce knew, just as much a keepsake to him as it was a weapon. He’d had it for as long as they’d been enemies. It was the same one he’d used to carve Jason’s face open.

Bruce couldn’t help but think about Jason’s jaw and throat covered in finger-shaped bruises, the blood and bits of skin under his fingernails, the defensive wounds that littered his body, how hard he must have fought, how little it ended up mattering. After a few moments of the flashbacks sinking into his skin like broken glass, he found enough focus to pushed them away. This was a waste of his time. 

Bruce walked swiftly past the Joker, hoping to put the whole thing behind him. Of course, he would never be that lucky.

Joker’s laugh came to an abrupt halt. “Oh Bru-uce,” he sang. 

And really, Bruce should’ve kept moving. This had been happening for ages. He should be used to it by now. But the sound of Joker’s voice pulled him under a flood of memories—the way Jason had looked so unbearably shattered as Bruce saved his killer’s life, the way Joker had started laughing before he even opened his eyes, Diana’s accusing, unseeing eyes after Bruce had killed her, the horror of it all rising up his throat as he retched—and by the time Bruce resurfaced, Joker had already risen to his feet and come to stand in front of him. “It’s been so long since we talked, my old friend,” he continued, voice slick as oil. “My partner in crime—good—whatever it is we’re doing now, mi amigo, mon amie, I haven’t even had the chance to properly thank you for saving my life. Take a load off, let’s catch up, what’s rattling around in the Bat-brain?” 

Bruce tried to tell his muscles to move, to push the Joker aside and find some dark corner the clown wouldn’t think to look, but it was weakness he shouldn’t be showing. It was inadvisable to let the Joker know how much his taunting affected Bruce. Showing weakness in the presence of an enemy was a costly mistake, he’d known that for decades.

“I’ve just been dying to know, how did it feel? Finally putting an end to the mighty Wonder Woman? It’s been a while since you last killed, did you miss it?” 

Bruce regarded the Joker impassively. “It was necessary for the mission,” he said mechanically. The less emotion he showed, the better. 

“And it’s always the mission with you, isn’t it? That’s why I’m here, after all. Because even though cooperating with me and protecting my life tears you up inside, the mission takes priority over everything. But you and her, you were allies at one point. Friends, even. Are you really telling me you felt nothing when you slit her throat with your little boomerang? Because that would be positively delicious. I was only trying to get you all worked up when I said you were growing numb to death, Batsy. It would be a truly excellent joke if it actually turned out to be true.” There was unrestrained glee in Joker’s voice, sharp and ugly, and Bruce forced back a flinch. 

It had hurt to kill Diana. The pain of it was relatively weak against the constant ache of Joker and Jason, but they had been close once. He had cared for her. And of course, Joker knew that.

“Losing her was tragic,” he replied neutrally once he swallowed the emotions all the way down. “I deeply regret the way things ended. But I have been mourning the loss of my friend since the day she turned her back on the Justice League and joined up with Superman. She hasn’t truly been Wonder Woman in years. Her death was necessary, and it was a result of her own choices.”

“Oh, fascinating,” Joker breathed, leaning in farther, a reverent note in his voice. “That’s how you live with being a murderer? Telling yourself you were just an instrument of destiny? Blaming the stiffs for their own deaths? I gotta say, I expected a bit more accountability from you, Bats. Even I don’t delude myself into believing that fate put my knife through my victims’ hearts.” Joker looked at the blade contemplatively as he flipped it through his fingers, eyes sparking madly as he turned his attention back to Bruce. “Or in their mouths, as the case may be.”

Bruce felt the taunt knock against his ribs, and the words were right there— Jason wasn’t a victim, he wasn’t your victim, he was kind, he was good, he was good, he was good and you killed him— but it was far too exploitable, far too much of a reaction, so he bit the words back. “We would never have been able to kill them both simultaneously. She was every bit as crazy as Superman was and nearly as powerful.”

Joker hummed thoughtfully, grin stretching wider across his bruised face. “You’re one to talk. You’ve been staring insanity in the face for years, but when the chips were down, you still came crawling back to me for help. Maybe you’re crazy, too.” 

“I am fully aware of how much of a maniac you are,” Bruce almost growled, losing ground in his battle with objectivity now. “But sometimes, sacrifices have to be made for the greater good. Putting up with a lunatic like you is one of them. For now.” 

Joker limped closer to Bruce, pausing just a short foot away, glee burning bright and sickening in his manic eyes. “And you do know all about sacrifice, don’t you, Batsy?” Joker’s hand kept twirling the blade seemingly of its own accord, and Bruce had to blink hard to clear the image of those skeletal fingers touching his son, hurting his son, killing his son— “After all, little Jason met his maker all thanks to you and your crusade. Such a shame a child had to pay the price for you dragging your friends into this crazy little game of ours, but then again… I’ve always been a big fan of collateral damage.”  

It was only decades of training that allowed Bruce to hold off the flinch those words wanted to force out of him. He pressed his lips into a thin line and held Joker’s eyes. They were almost glowing now, like toxic waste. Bruce had always hated those eyes. 

The lack of response only seemed to spur Joker on. “Jason Todd, I mean. Sorry, have you forgotten about him? I can jog your memory. Used to be Robin after the first one flew the coop? Used to be your son? Skinny little thing, especially after you starve him for a while? Five-foot-nothing, black hair, blue eyes, talked about as filthy as you’d expect a Crime Alley street rat to? Big ol’ smile? Oh, and he’s dead, that should help.” 

Bruce forced another deep breath and gave Joker’s many, many injuries a meaningful look. “I’d be real careful with what I said if I were you. You’re still broken.”

Joker shrugged, unperturbed by the threat. “I am alive, though, and that’s more than I can say for your boy. I get the distinct feeling he had less fun with me than I had with Wonder Woman.” 

“Are you really so eager to die today, Joker?” Empty threat, disgustingly empty threat, they both knew it. They needed each other. For now. Just for now. 

“Seems as good a day as any,” Joker purred, licking his blood-red lips like a predator ready to close in for the kill. “You couldn’t make yourself do it when I broke his wings and all his bones and put a smile on that sweet, innocent little face. Not even back when killing me would’ve solved a good deal of your problems and leaving me alive did nothing but hurt you. It’d be a lovely little bit of irony if you killed me now with the world at stake just for talking about one teensy little crime—rather insignificant, too, in the grand scheme of things—that happened half a decade ago. You know how much I love irony.” 

Bruce took a threatening step towards Joker. He looked unabashedly delighted by it, which gave Bruce pause. He shouldn’t do this. It was exactly what the mad clown wanted. But that split second of hesitation was enough for Joker to capitalize again. 

“You know, sometimes I really do regret what happened with poor Jay-Jay.” Bruce’s heart twisted so violently in his chest that it burned, and he must’ve let the reaction show too much, because Joker’s whole face lit up. “Oh no, not his death, of course. The fact I didn’t hide him better. At the time, all I wanted was for your little bird to die in your arms, but looking back, I wish I’d had the time to really break him first. Sure, if you hurt him for long enough, his tough-guy act would falter and he’d sing so beautifully, but at the end of the day, he still trusted you. Even after the adorable little insults and his sad, desperate pleas for my mercy died out, he kept on begging real sweet for you. Did you know that? That he spent every moment of those twenty-three days believing you’d rescue him? Even with all that proof you didn’t care enough to protect him from me, brave little Jason believed in you all the way up until his dying breath. How tragically hilarious.” 

And that was too much. That was way too much. Bruce snatched the Joker up by his far-too-breakable neck and held him a few inches off the ground, digging in his fingers harshly and reveling in the brief spike of pleasure that came with the surprised gasp Joker made. The knife clattered to the ground and Bruce could feel the clown’s pulse fluttering beneath his fingers, but there was still no fear on his face.

“Go ahead,” he whispered, joy dancing in his eyes as he placed his unbroken hand over Bruce’s and squeezed it tighter around his own throat. It must’ve hurt like hell trying to suck breath in past three broken ribs, but Joker didn’t seem any more bothered by it than he ever was. “Do it. Kill me. Doom the whole world and take your revenge, Brucie. Do it, do it, do it, do it, do it.”

“I could break you in half like a toothpick,” Bruce growled, low and threatening. Joker was so thin, barely half his size, it would be so easy. 

Joker just let out a wheezing laugh. “Personally, I’d recommend a crowbar,” he rasped with a widening grin. “The sound they make when they break bone is divine.”

“You think this is just some fucking game, don’t you? All the people you’ve killed, all the pain you’ve caused, it’s all one big joke to you.” Bruce tightened his grip, cutting off whatever revolting thing Joker was about to say next and turning it into a harsh choking noise. “Jason was right. Your life is worthless. You do need to be put down.” 

There was nothing but satisfaction and triumph burning in Joker’s eyes as he stared back at Bruce. He wasn’t even fighting.

It took a moment before Bruce felt the presence at his back and the hand on his shoulder, the touch gentle and strong at the same time. “While I am quite sure this beast did something to deserve all this and much more,” Mera said, “you have already made it this far, Bruce. I think it would be a shame if it all turned out to be for nothing, don’t you?” 

Reason quelled just enough of the fury for logic to rise to the surface again. He released Joker and allowed him to fall to his hands and knees, gasping. “Keep my son’s name out of your mouth, clown,” he snarled, kicking Joker in the face for good measure. The blow sent the clown all the way to the ground, flat on his back, and for one blessed moment, he was quiet. Just laid there, gasping for air, blood gushing from his nose, and didn’t say a single horrific word.

And then, the Joker laughed. Fucking laughed. 

“Still can’t do it, can ya?” He wheezed between peals of maniacal, twisted laughter, bright red blood staining the bottom half of his face. “I beat your child soldier into a vaguely sentient pulp for three weeks, and you still can’t do it! What a joke! Ahahahahaha!” 

Bruce just stared at him, frozen body incapable of doing anything more, and then Mera was in front of him, both hands on his shoulders, bodily pushing him away from the scene. He just let her do it, mind in a fog, thought and reason and sense hovering somewhere above his body. Eventually, they were far enough away that the grating sound of Joker’s laughter existed only in Bruce’s mind. 

“Breathe,” she commanded firmly. Bruce realized for the first time that he hadn’t been, that his chest was on fire and his lungs ached, and even once he focused on it and made the conscious effort, it felt like he was sucking air in through a straw. He couldn’t let Mera see him crack like that, though, so he subtly braced himself against the wall behind him and found her eyes again.

“Thought you hated me for letting him live, now you’re protecting him from me?” It wasn’t a topic he really wanted to breach, but talking made the constant mocking laughter in his mind a bit quieter, so he figured it was a fair trade.

Mera’s deep blue eyes searched his for a long moment, a frustratingly unreadable look on her face. “No. I am not protecting him. You have made your choice and suffered the consequences. I still do not agree with it, but it is… admirable. In a sense. Unselfish. Putting the world’s hope for a safe and peaceful future above your wellbeing and your son’s memory. Even though you have chosen the misery you endure every day, I still have no desire to see it get any worse. If you kill him now, months of tolerating the clown’s disrespect for your son’s memory would be for nothing. I am protecting you from making a decision that would doom the world and make you hate yourself for what little time you had left before Superman inevitably kills us all.”

“I’m not a child,” Bruce snapped, knowing he should be grateful but unable to find anything remotely soft in his spinning mind. “I am capable of controlling myself.”

“By my estimation, had you tightened your grip by 10%, you would have snapped his neck. Were you aware of that? Or were you too angry to care?” 

Bruce didn’t let her see the way his mind tripped over the words, the way he was suddenly far too aware of the fact that he had been holding the fate of his team, the fate of the world, in his hands, and all he had wanted to do was crush it into dust. “I’ve been dealing with the Joker longer than anyone, I can handle him. I don’t need you to protect me from him, or from myself.”

Her eyes softened almost imperceptibly. “Yes, you do. Every day you put your mind in the line of the clown’s fire to save the world and you put your body in harm’s way to protect this team. Sometimes, you have to let us care for you, too. I can tell he has shaken you. Do you want to talk about it?” 

Bruce made a harsh noise in the back of his throat. “The Joker just spent ten minutes describing the torture and murder of my child in graphic detail and you think I want to talk about it more?”  

“I am simply suggesting that—”

“And I didn’t ask for your suggestions!” Bruce shouted, far louder than he meant to. 

Mera didn’t flinch, didn’t falter, just took a small step back and nodded. It was just understanding where it should’ve been anger. Bruce couldn’t tell if it made him feel better or worse. “I see I have overstepped. I apologize.”

“I’m leaving,” Bruce said, even though it was obvious she already knew. “Don’t follow me. I’ll be back soon.”

“Very well. I will keep the clown contained in your absence.” 

“Don’t…” Bruce started, but trailed off soon after. Don’t get too close. He’s dangerous. He’ll hurt you if you give him even the smallest opening. But Mera was more than capable of defending herself, and even if she wasn’t, Bruce had proven time and again that he couldn’t actually protect anyone from the Joker. “Fine. Okay.” 

Bruce left their base through the back entrance before he could do anything else he’d regret, body still feeling a bit not-real, a bit not-his. He took a few deep breaths of the dry desert air and started focusing on forcing his heart rate back under control and trying to find a way to reattach his mind to his body. Distantly, he wondered if this was a new record, Joker driving him mad enough to leave the hideout twice in one week. Was that the shortest time between? He couldn’t remember anymore.

“Why do you let him talk about me like that?” 

Bruce’s hands flew up to cover his ears despite knowing he couldn’t block Jason out that way. There was still red in the corners of his vision, his heart was racing far too fast to be healthy, blood too loud in his veins, breaths scraping against his lungs, and Jason’s ghost hurt even at the best of times but right now, it was too much to ask, it was too much, it was too much. 

“Oh, sorry, is now a bad time?” Jason snapped hoarsely like he could hear Bruce’s thoughts. He probably could. “Do you need a break? Does it hurt too much?” 

Bruce stared at the sand shifting beneath his feet and took a few deep breaths. He couldn’t force himself to look at Jason right now. “I’m sorry for what he said, Jay,” 

“Are you? Then fucking do something about it.” 

“I can’t.”

“Can’t?” Jason challenged, voice trembling fiercely. “Or won’t?”

“I can’t. The fate of the world is at stake and there’s no other way, we need him.” 

“That’s such fucking bullshit!” Jason shouted, voice breaking harshly on every syllable. He’d only just barely gotten the last word out before he fell to the ground with a muted thump and a sick crunching noise, collapsing into a coughing fit. On instinct, Bruce whirled around to face him and immediately regretted it. 

Jason was on his hands and knees, looking so impossibly small and fragile, gasping desperately for the air he’d never get into his collapsed lungs again. His right arm, fractured in at least three places, buckled under his weight and he sank to his elbows, stark white bone jutting out of the torn sleeve of his uniform. Every cough tore the gashes in his face open wider, a steadily growing pool of blood collecting beneath his face. 

Just like every time, Bruce wanted to look away. This wasn’t Jason. It was the same awful thought Bruce had every time he saw his son’s ghost. Jason wasn’t supposed to live on as proof of the depths of Joker’s cruelty, as the broken boy who died in Bruce’s arms, as collateral damage. He was supposed to be fierce and bright and resilient and alive. He shouldn’t be remembered like this. And, just like every time, he couldn’t force himself to leave his son to hurt like this alone. 

Slowly, the harsh, awful coughing morphed into pained sobs, then little whimpers, until eventually, only the weak breaths rattling through his chest remained. “That’s… fucking… bullshit,” Jason repeated between ragged breaths, staring stubbornly at the sand beneath him now saturated with his blood, looking almost black in the low, dusky light. “There’s always another way… right? That’s what you… you told me… when I was Robin. If it actually… if it mattered to you… to punish him for what he did to me… you’d find another f-fucking way.” 

“Are you okay?” Bruce asked before he could process the futility of the question. 

Jason slowly picked his head up to blink at Bruce for a too-long moment, cloudy eyes somewhere between incredulous and contemptuous, and then he gave a sharp, bitter laugh. He spit onto the ground a few times, dark blood dribbling down his chin, then forced his dislocated shoulder back into place with a pained groan. Bruce had to fight back a shiver at the sight. “I’m fucking dead, Bruce, of course I’m not okay.” 

Bruce cringed in sympathy. “I’m sorry you’re always in pain.”

Jason narrowed his cloudy blue eyes. “You think I care that it hurts? I’ve been fucked up like this for over five years, B, I got used to it a long time ago. I walked onto Joker’s home turf with a giant fucking target painted on my back.” He made a vague gesture to his broken body with crooked fingers. “This part was my fault.”

“It wasn’t your fault, you were—” Bruce started, but Jason’s harsh glare killed the words in his throat. You were a child, you were innocent, you were impulsive sometimes, like children are, and you were far too brave for your own good but you didn’t deserve to be killed for it. Even if he could get the words out, though, they’d never been enough in the past, and they wouldn’t be enough now.

“I don’t care that it hurts, B. I don’t care that you didn’t rescue me in time. I’m not mad about that. We can’t save everyone, I know that, and I know you were looking, I know you tried. But that psychotic piece of shit slaughtered me when I was fifteen fucking years old and you just let him go. You told me you loved me, you told me I was your son, but when the chips were down, you just let him go. You’ve had what, a thousand fucking chances since then to right that wrong? But instead of killing him like you should’ve done decades ago, you asked him to join your team.” Jason was losing steam now, the anger fading from the words, more sadness than anything, and that was worse, that was so much worse. “And you just stand there in silence and let him talk about me like some fucking broken toy he threw away when he got bored of it. And you couldn’t save my life, but you could save his. How do you expect me to keep falling for your bullshit lies when you’ve done nothing but prove that you don’t give a shit about me ever since the day you buried me? I don’t—I don’t understand, B. Why wasn’t I enough?”

Bruce couldn’t tell if that was tears or pain choking his son’s voice, but every word carved into him like Joker’s knife in Jason’s mouth. All he wanted to do was fold Jason into his arms and promise everything would be okay. Tell him he could finally be safe now, that he didn’t have to be afraid or betrayed or in pain ever again because Bruce would protect him from all of that.

But every last word was a lie, and there had been enough lies. 

So, Bruce just sat down in the sand next to his son, listened to his pained breathing, and pretended he believed words could bring Jason peace if he just found the right ones. Even though he’d been trying for years to soothe Jason’s agony and had succeeded only in making it even worse.

“You were good, Jay. You were so good, and I loved you so much. You didn’t do anything wrong. I was the one that failed you. It’s not that you weren’t good enough, I wanted to avenge you more than anything, I just… I did what I thought was right, and I was wrong. I know that now. I wish I had more to give you than I’m sorry, but I am. I’m so, so sorry. I loved you. I love you. I wish I could help you.”

“You wanna help me?” Jason rasped out, sounding heartbroken and empty and so uncharacteristically breakable. “You don’t like seeing me miserable and pissed off and bleeding all over the goddamn place? You wanna prove you’re not a fucking liar? Kill the fucking clown. If you actually loved me, Bruce, he would be dead.” 

“Jason…” Bruce said, more of a plea than anything as he felt a small piece of his heart grind into dust beneath the weight of those words. Jason just stared down at the growing pool of blood beneath his hands. After a while, his broken arms slowly snaked around his broken ribs and he hunched over himself, whole body starting to tremble. 

“I just thought I would be the last one. Joker’s last victim. I thought you’d draw the line with what he did to me, that it would finally be enough for you to put him down. That was all I ever wanted, you know that, right? I never expected you to kill all of them. I understood why the code mattered to you, to Gotham, I never wanted you to kill all of them. Just. Him. Just Joker. And to do it because… because he took me away from you. And because I mattered enough for you to do something about it. But it didn’t matter that you lost me. I died for nothing. Nothing. Fucking. Changed.”

It took Bruce a moment to realize how hard he was breathing, the sound of it vague and hollow against the blood rushing in his ears, the way Jason’s voice sounded a bit less real than usual, like he was underwater. Bruce collapsed forward and braced himself on his hands, trying to focus hard enough to get himself back under control. Distantly, he understood that whatever this was, it wasn’t good, and if he let it incapacitate him, the team wouldn’t even know he was gone or where to look and Superman could easily find him before they did. But the well-practiced concentration that usually came so easily to him was nowhere to be found, and all he could do was try to force the air back into his body and continuously drag his mind away from the thought that he could breathe but his son couldn’t, his son never would again, his son was dead.

“Joker always said I was a slow learner,” Jason said around a whimper of pain. “But I think I finally got this part figured out. I can’t trust you because all you do is fucking lie. I don’t even know why I bother coming to see you. You’re always going to be like this. Pity and fake apologies and platitudes and lies. Seeing me hurts you, so you spout some bullshit to make me go away. You’re… you’re running out of chances, B. Maybe I should do you a real favor and just fuck off for good so you can forget about me altogether.” 

“Jason, please.” 

All the anger dropped out of Jason’s voice then, and all Bruce could hear past the noise in his head was devastation, bitter and brittle and sad. “I gotta go, dad. I… I’m sorry I was never enough for you.” 

Bruce just stayed there for a long time, feeling cold in Jason’s absence despite the blistering desert heat, still trying to catch his breath long after the sun disappeared beneath the horizon. Even once the dull glow of the moon was all that was left to keep him company, his heart was still pounding through his chest, lungs feeling raw every time he tried to take a breath, tears drying on his face. Beneath the overwhelming flood of grief and pain and regret, the thought was there as it had been for months, getting harder and harder to ignore.

Bruce didn’t really care anymore if killing Superman ended up killing him, too.

Chapter Text

Four weeks had gone by since Diana’s death.

Four weeks had gone by, and sometimes, Bruce still saw her blood on his hands, right there on top of J’onn’s and Arthur’s and Harley’s and Jason’s and so, so many more. Another body to add to the stack on Bruce’s conscience, to the ever-growing weight on his shoulders that he was already crumbling beneath. Another name to add to the list of people who’d still be alive if Bruce had made the right choices at the right times. In a distant part of his mind that Bruce was usually too numb to notice, he wondered how many more names he’d add to that list before he finally signed his own at the bottom.

Four weeks had gone by, and objectively, things were the best they had been in years. What had started as a last-ditch effort to die an honorable death before the whole world blew to pieces now had a vague prayer of being an actual success, and there was a cautious kind of lightness visible in the sane members of the team. Like a physical weight had been lifted off of them. Less tension in the way they moved, less stiffness in the way they spoke. Victor and Barry were smiling again like kids were supposed to. Even some of Slade and Mera’s sharpest edges were smoothing out a little. They looked alive. For the first time in years, all four of them looked alive. 

Four weeks had gone by, and Bruce was happy for them. In a detached, hollow sort of way that he couldn’t feel anywhere in his body, he was. He didn’t want the world to break them down into dust too. They deserved hope. They deserved a way out.

Four weeks had gone by, and Bruce could still feel the Joker’s failing heart stuttering back to life under his hands. Four weeks had gone by, and the kids were smiling brighter every day, working hard, making progress on their projects. Four weeks had gone by, and Bruce was seeing Jason’s ghost every day now. Four weeks had gone by, and they were the closest they’d ever been to ending this war for good.

Four weeks had gone by, and Bruce was starting to realize he had no idea what he was going to do with the rest of his life if he actually managed to survive this.

Four weeks had gone by—twenty-eight days, 672 hours, 40,320 minutes—and with every single one, Bruce was less and less sure he wanted to survive this. 

So, four weeks had gone by, and things were fine. The team was fine, the kids were fine, the Parademons hadn’t decimated a city in at least two weeks, and that meant everything was fine. The point of all this was to give people—people like Barry, Victor, Mera, and even Slade, people who still had something to live for—a chance at lives that were worth living. To give them back their choice, the choice that had been stolen from them, first by Darkseid, then by Superman. Giving decent people a chance. That was the mission. And even when Bruce couldn’t do anything else, he could still follow through on a mission.

Besides, the constant bitter taste in Bruce’s mouth was just because their MREs were a bit past their expiration date; it certainly wasn’t envy, and he certainly didn’t feel suffocated by the obvious hope saturating the hideout and humming through their two youngest as he sat across from them at the table. The slight shaking in his hands as he laid out his Batarangs and started sharpening them was probably just low blood sugar. Things were fine. 

“I think I forgot what it felt like to be happy,” Barry mused, jolting Bruce out of his thoughts. Bruce looked up at the sound of his voice and found the speedster vibrating slightly in his chair, blinding smile stretched wide across his face. He was wearing Victor’s old letterman jacket and moving so fast that the leather was making a constant, low humming noise, and his eyes were shifting so rapidly between Victor, Bruce, and the equations he was writing out that it was impossible to tell who he was talking to, if he was even talking to anyone. 

“Slow down,” Victor told him firmly. “Hey, Barry, slow down.” 

Barry only started vibrating more noticeably, writing faster than should be humanly possible, filling pages in seconds, seemingly totally oblivious to his surroundings now. Victor sighed in a way that sounded more fond than worried, came up behind Barry, put both hands on his shoulders, and pushed down lightly. He leaned down to speak directly in Barry’s ear. “Ayo, genius, you’re gonna pass out if you don’t step on the brakes, you got me? You already need 10,000 calories a day just to stay alive, we don’t have enough spare food to fuel your, what is this, chemistry? Your chemistry habit?” 

Even though Barry didn’t seem to register Victor’s presence at all, the vibration slowed until eventually, it was just a rhythmic tapping of his heel against the floor. One of Barry’s hands came up to rest on top of Victor’s human one, seemingly of its own free will, and the other kept writing the equations, slower now, but still a bit too fast to be natural. 

“Good job,” Victor said, low, soothing, and Barry made a soft noise that sounded like agreement. Seemingly satisfied Barry wouldn’t vibrate himself into a hypoglycemic coma, Victor made his way around the table the long way, stopping beside Bruce. “This happens sometimes,” he muttered. “The Speed Force, it makes him a little, uh… manic. If you don’t get out in front of it, he crashes real hard at the end, and it’s never pretty. Usually, all he needs is a little bit of direction.” 

Bruce frowned. “Why are you telling me?” 

“Because you’re our—” Victor cut himself off, made an uncomfortable face, and restarted. “I might not always be around. I trust you to take care of him if I can’t.” Without another word, Victor returned to Barry's side.

And Bruce really, really didn’t know how to feel about any of that, so he carefully filed it away to hopefully never think about again. 

At least five minutes passed between Victor sitting back down and Barry actually noticing his presence. “Sorry,” he said, still smiling, not sounding at all sorry. “But I can’t help it. I’m happy, my body’s not used to it, it doesn’t know what to do with itself.” 

“Wow, chemistry really does it for you, huh?” Victor asked with a grin. “The nerd thing just sticks in the gene code.” 

Barry’s smile didn’t falter an inch. “Oh, ouch, good one. But A, it’s not just the chemistry, it’s the actually doing something meaningful instead of constantly playing hide and seek with the scariest, most powerful people on the planet, and B, it’s not like this is a baking soda volcano, I’m cracking the code for making synthetic Kryptonite. No one has ever managed that, not even Lex Luthor, you can’t tell me you don’t think that’s cool.”

“I don’t think that’s cool,” he told Barry with a straight face. He gestured to the hand-drawn diagram of a Parademon that he was studying. “Not half as cool as designing an insta-kill switch for millions of nearly indestructible Apokolyptian supersoldiers, anyway.” 

That seemed to grab Barry’s attention. He put down his pencil and leaned over to take in Victor’s work. “Uh, you’ve been working on that for three years with no luck, Vic. I’m shocked you haven’t just given up.” 

“If I give up, we’re dead,” Victor said with a shrug. “It’ll be hard enough to kill Superman alone, we’ll never manage it if he can call in a literal army to back him up at any given moment. There are only six of us, remember? And I sincerely doubt you-know-who will be much help considering Parademons don’t have a treasure trove of past trauma to pick apart. All the intel we have from Apokolips says the Parademons have a built-in failsafe, I just have to figure out how to trigger it. I’m close to a breakthrough, I can feel it.” 

Barry shrugged. “Fair, but without Kryptonite, Mera’s trident is the only thing that’ll be able to make a dent in Captain Crazy. A physical dent, at least. Give my chemistry project some credit.” Victor gave him a small, genuine smile, and Barry returned it. “Anyways, I mean it, Vic. I feel good, I’ve felt good for a month, and I can’t remember the last time I felt good before then. Wonder Woman’s dead, and it actually feels real. Like, we could do this. We could do this and not die in the process, and then go live normal lives when it’s over.” 

Slade paused at their table and raised a silver eyebrow at Barry. “Better knock on some wood, Zippy,” he said. “You’re playing with fire saying shit like that.”

Even Barry’s mild but perpetual fear of Deathstroke didn’t seem to be giving him too much trouble lately, and he just snorted at the suggestion. “I know being happy and hopeful and smiling and stuff goes against your robot programming, Slade, but I still think you should try it sometime. The whole constant indifference and a little bit of condescension thing is so last year.” 

Slade actually seemed almost impressed, and after a moment, he gave Barry a sharp, almost wolfish grin. It was clearly meant to be dangerous, but it was too sarcastic to be genuinely threatening. “How’s this?” 

“Scary,” Barry said immediately.

“Terrifying,” Victor agreed.

Barry gave an exaggerated shudder. “Maybe save that for Superman, it is… chilling.” 

Slade scoffed, still not seeming half as annoyed as he used to get with the kids. His eye flicked over to Victor. “Hey, kid, if you want a hand with that killswitch, let me know. I don’t know Parademons, but I do know weapons. Might help just to have a second pair of eyes, too.” 

“Dunno how much help you’d be, then, you’ve only got one,” Victor replied with a smile. About half a second later, he seemed to realize what he’d said and who he said it to, and dread flooded his face.

But all Slade did was let out a small sound that almost seemed like a laugh. “Yeah, that’s fair. Offer still stands, though.” 

Victor just stared open-mouthed at Slade’s back as he walked away. “Holy shit, he’s not gonna kill me for that? Not even like, a token ‘Shut the hell up, Robot Kid’?” He blinked a few times. “Seriously, did Deathstroke just offer to help me and then laugh at a bad joke I made at his expense? Can someone confirm that I didn’t just imagine that?”

Barry burst into laughter. “We’re trying to kill a madman with the powers of a god who is only alive because we brought him back from the dead, I got superpowers because I was struck by lightning, and I take orders from a guy who dresses up like a bat, and I still think that might be the weirdest thing I’ve ever witnessed.” Victor laughed, too, and Bruce felt the sound like an anvil on his chest. It wasn’t long before his lack of response drew Barry’s attention. “How bout you? Is being happy against your robot programming too, Bruce?” 

“Celebrating before a victory is unwise,” Bruce replied neutrally.

Victor muffled a snort into his hand. “That’s a yes.” 

Bruce glanced between them. “You should be happy. Both of you should. This is the first big accomplishment this team has had after a long history of losses, and you have the right to be proud. Putting your life on the line to give the world a better future is also far easier if you believe you might actually get a chance to live in that world. There’s nothing with having hope.”

The bright look on Barry’s face faltered a bit. “It’s okay for us to have hope, but not you?” 

Bruce gave the kid a reassuring look and lied, smooth and even, right to his face. “I have hope.” It was easier than it should’ve been. Lying was easier than breathing, these days. “But when you spend your whole life fighting crime in a city like Gotham, you learn to hope quietly.” 

It seemed to be enough to satisfy Barry as his smile returned in full force and he turned his focus back to his work. Good. The team didn’t need to know about Bruce’s demons. Especially not the kids. Joker knew everything, of course, but for the rest of them, Bruce was their leader. It was his job to keep them together. You can’t lean on something you think will crumble beneath your weight.

Thankfully, Barry and Victor never questioned the facade. They were both incredibly intelligent, competent, good people, far from oblivious, and Bruce was proud of the men they were growing into, but beneath all of that, they were still young. Younger than Dick was now, only a few years older than Jason would have been. They grew up on stories of Batman. They looked up to him. A few well-rehearsed smiles and a lifetime of practice not reacting to Joker’s mind games was enough to convince them he was just as infallible as they wanted to believe he was.

A few minutes later, Mera joined them. Her footsteps were so light that Bruce didn’t even notice her presence until she was pulling out a chair beside Barry. She never used to walk like that. It used to be a harsh thing; boots beating against the ground, a raging, constant storm in her eyes, rage evident in every move she made. Everything Mera did used to be harsh, actually. But now, it was almost like she was floating. Again, Bruce swallowed that bitter taste back down. 

The kids didn’t see the flaws in Bruce’s composure, but Mera did. She wasn’t cruel about it like Joker was and never intentionally made it any worse, but she got this look in her eyes every time she picked up on a new crack in his foundation. It was more sad understanding than anything else, but it made Bruce feel too seen. And he didn’t need to see her face to know she was giving him the same look now.

These days, with his hope in such devastatingly short supply, Bruce mostly steered clear of her. She knew too much without asking anything, and it was never good for people to have information you didn’t mean to give them. If Mera knew the kind of thoughts that had been haunting Bruce lately, she’d think he was unfit to lead the team, and that would throw a massive wrench into everything. He was fine. Things had been like this for a long time and he’d survived it so far. He was fine. 

“This is good work, Flash,” Mera murmured, and Bruce glanced up, figuring it was safe to now that Mera’s attention was elsewhere. She was leafing through one of Barry’s notebooks, reclined almost casually in the chair, the corner of her mouth twitching up. 

Barry beamed with pride. “Yeah? You think?” 

She nodded. “Yes. Truly.” She put the book down and turned to face him. “Because of our access to magic, Atlantis was considerably more technologically advanced than the surface world. And back when…” she trailed off, sighed, and looked down. “Back in peacetime, the sciences were a passion of mine. This is difficult work; you have a brilliant mind, and I have knowledge your world never gained access to. Would you be willing to accept my help?” 

Barry just blinked at her, brows raised and eyes wide, seemingly caught halfway between terrified and thrilled. “You want to—to—yeah, yes, of course, for sure, let me show you what I have so far.” 

A genuine smile spread across Mera’s face for the first time in Bruce’s memory, small but distinctly there. “Excellent. Thank you.” 

Barry pushed the rest of his notebooks closer to her and made to open one, but his hand paused over it and he looked back up to Bruce. “Y’know, everyone’s smiling but you, old man.” 

Bruce’s mind dragged him unwillingly through countless memories of Joker’s ever-present smile and the gruesome, permanent one carved into Jason’s ghostly face. Barry and Victor didn’t seem to notice the lapse, but Bruce could feel that Mera was giving him that look again, and when he looked up, he could see the question on her lips. He got up before she could ask it. “You’re all doing good work. Keep at it.” 

As quickly as he could without broadcasting his desperation to the others, he made his way out of the main room and into the currently empty barracks, hoping for a few minutes out from under anyone’s microscope.

Unsurprisingly, he wasn’t that lucky. Before Bruce even had the chance to set his things down, Slade was already joining him, just a little too close for comfort. Bruce sighed heavily. “I’m not in the mood, Wilson.” 

The slight hint of amusement from before was gone from Slade’s scarred face, and something unreadable had replaced it. An uneasy turn to his mouth, a disproportionate sharpness in his eye, the way he was simultaneously more tense and less guarded than usual. It wasn’t vindictive or apathetic or spiteful or any of the other things he’d grown to expect from Slade. Ten years fighting Deathstroke, and he’d never seen… whatever this was. “You’re gonna be, trust me.” 

“I don’t trust you. You don’t trust me either. Whatever you want, I’m sure it can wait.”

“Wait until… what? Until you’re not on a team being forced to cooperate with the freak you hate most in the whole damn world? That seems kind of indefinite, doesn’t it?” 

Bruce stiffened slightly. Slade wasn’t supposed to notice, and Slade definitely wasn’t supposed to care enough to say something about it. Slade didn’t know anything about Jason or what Joker did to him, and Slade didn’t care about… anything, really. He cared about his contracts, sure, and apparently, he cared about saving the world despite the distinct lack of a payday, but he didn’t care about people. He didn’t even seem to care about himself, he certainly didn’t care about Bruce. They’d been at each other’s throats for the better part of ten years, and their current truce was uneasy at the best of times. He’d been putting significant effort into keeping Slade at a distance, and he’d really thought he’d pulled it off. 

But Bruce could feel it in his bones, now. His assumptions about deceiving Slade Wilson had been dead wrong. “Joker is a bastard,” Bruce conceded vaguely. “But he’s no worse now than he’s always been. I just have no desire to speak with you unless it’s strictly related to the mission, which I doubt this is.” 

Slade laughed, and it was nothing like the one he’d given Victor. This one was rough, sharp, nasty. “Holy shit, you actually think you can lie to me, that’s adorable.” 

Bruce bristled farther, then forced himself to let the tension go, exhaling an even breath through his nose. “I truly don’t know what you’re talking about, Wilson.” Easy as breathing. Too easy. “But whatever game you’re playing, I’m deeply, deeply uninterested.” 

“I’m missing an eye, Wayne, but I’m not blind and I’m certainly not fucking deaf.”

“What does that even mean?” 

“It means I can see that whatever shit is going on between you and that evil fuck is way worse than it’s ever been in the past and it’s destroying you from the inside out. It also means I heard you mention a certain name to the sea witch a while back.” Slade said it quietly and they couldn’t be overheard where they were, but anxiety still jumped to life in Bruce’s veins. 

“Watch your step,” he said through his teeth, voice low. The prospect of rehashing this whole ugly thing yet again was exhausting. He didn’t have enough energy to make himself even a fraction as threatening as he would need to be to have a prayer of getting Deathstroke to back off.

Predictably, Slade looked unmoved by the token threat. “I never really gave a fuck about whatever happened to the second bird. I was just glad he was out of the way—he was almost as much of a stubborn pain in my ass as Speedy was. Just kinda assumed he got fed up with your shit like I constantly was. Didn’t ever consider he might be dead. If someone offed Batman’s Robin, all logic dictates they’d have been shouting it from every rooftop in Gotham. Especially if it was the clown.” 

Bruce had wondered the same thing himself for a long time. It took months of being totally alone with nothing but his memories of Jason and the occasional devastating appearance of his ghost before Bruce realized that had been the point. Joker had done it to isolate him. He’d made it so that the only way Bruce would garner sympathy from anyone was to first admit he’d let a monster kidnap and murder his son. And Joker knew he’d never do it. 

It had worked, too. Bruce had tended to his grief and rage and agony alone for years. He only spoke the words ‘Jason is dead, the Joker killed him’ once, to Alfred, because Alfred had been Jason’s grandfather and the only thing that could hurt worse than saying it out loud was having Alfred find out from someone else the way Dick had. Just once, and never again, not until Mera asked him all these years later.

“I’m not interested in discussing this with you, Wilson. You and I have plenty of other things to worry about without getting involved in each other’s personal lives.”

“Ah yes, privacy, one of the known benefits of the apocalypse. You can save your sob story, Wayne, because we all have one, and they stopped being interesting a long time ago.” Slade started listing them off on his fingers. “The witch? Lost her king almost two years ago now and never fucking got over it. Zippy? His girl, both his parents, and half of Central City. Robot Kid? What’d he lose, that whole football team and 90% of the kids who went to that school? And all my kids are fucked too, y’know. Grant’s dead, Rose is worse than dead, Joey will never speak again and fucking hates me. It’s the end of the goddamn world, half the population is dead, dying, or wishing they were, your expired son is not special.” 

“Great,” Bruce said flatly. He wasn’t sure what that strange feeling stirring in his chest was, if it was anger that Slade was talking about Jason’s death so callously, relief that at least it wasn’t cruelty or pity for once, or the same unease he’d felt since the conversation started, but he didn’t have the privilege of focusing on it. Deathstroke was dangerous. And even if they were allies, for now, that didn’t mean Bruce could let his guard down. “Get to your point, or get out of my face.”

“What did he look like, your kid? Never saw him without the mask. After Joker got him, how did he look?” 

“Thought you weren’t interested in him.”

“I’m not interested in any of the gory details of your Robin’s one-way ticket to that big birdcage in the sky because I have no interest in throwing you a pity party or antagonizing you about your son’s death. His story doesn’t matter. The past is in the past. But I’m plenty interested in the kid. What did he look like when he died?” 

And Bruce would say pretty much anything to avoid having to put words to what that monster had done to his son, so he stalled. “Why? As you said, the past is the past. My son is gone. Why does it matter?” 

Slade just rolled his eye at Bruce’s obvious dodge. “Jesus fuck, fine. I’ll do it for you. Jason Todd, that was the name you gave her. Tell me if this sounds familiar: black hair, blue eyes, kinda shrimpy, looked about as rough as you’d expect a kid to look after three weeks with the Joker. Died with half his bones broken? Burns on a third of his body? Glasgow smile carved into his face?”

Bruce’s composure had been run entirely too thin by Joker and Jason and the end of the damn world, and he didn’t have any left over to use on Slade. Without thinking, he closed the distance between them, pinning Deathstroke to the wall behind him, forearm pressed firmly into his throat. “You don’t get to talk about my son, Wilson,” he snarled venomously. 

Deathstroke had superhuman strength and agility and he carried enough weapons to fill a small armory, even when he was in civilian clothes like he was now. He could get out of this hold without even breaking a sweat. But he didn’t. Just stared back at Bruce, perfectly calm. “Y’know, the ‘choke the fucker out against the wall’ bit is a little played out, don’t you think, Batman?” He rasped out.

“I get enough of this shit from the clown,” Bruce hissed, leaning his weight into Slade’s throat. Slade didn’t even give Bruce the satisfaction of hearing him choke. “We need him a hell of a lot more than we need you. If you wanna keep talking about my dead son, I’d be happy to show you just how disposable you really are.” 

Slade raised a hand and Bruce tensed for the fight, but it didn’t come. He just slowly wrapped it around Bruce’s wrist and pulled it away from his throat just enough to make his voice audible. 

“Jason. Isn’t. Dead.”

And really, Bruce shouldn’t have let himself feel those words. Not at all, not even for a second. He should have let the obvious lie slide right off his back. If he hadn’t spent the past far-too-long being torn in two by his hatred for Joker and his grief over Jason, maybe he would’ve shaken it off. But as it stood, it was taking all his strength not to break apart at the seams at the mere suggestion. “What?” He breathed out, little more than a whisper.

“He’s back,” Slade said, voice stronger now as Bruce was losing the focus he needed to keep the chokehold. “Has been for a bit now.” 

“Jason is dead,” Bruce protested, the words tasting even more bitter than they always did. “My son is dead. He has been for years. What the hell are you talking about?”

“Well he definitely was dead, and he definitely isn’t anymore, so make of that what you will, I guess.” 

Valiantly, Bruce tried to get angry. Deathstroke was an enemy, he always had been, for some reason he was trying to break Bruce and had found a particularly deep wound to dig into. It was a low blow, even by Slade’s standards, and Bruce searched for the rage that so easily bubbled to the surface whenever Joker brought up Jason, but it wasn’t there. Bruce couldn’t find deception anywhere in Slade’s body language, and that was making it impossible to dismiss this. There was nothing to prove he was lying except for the fact that what he was saying couldn’t be the truth. 

It was overwhelming enough that Bruce took a stumbling step back and released the hold. Slade braced himself against the wall for two deep breaths and then straightened back to his full height, still a perfect mask of unemotional composure. He rubbed at his throat, but the gesture was clearly more about making a point than the result of any actual injury. “Look, I don’t like talking to you any more than you like talking to me, but can we maybe use our big boy words for the rest of this? Just to get it over with?”

“You don’t want to test me right now. My days of mercy and second chances are long behind me.”

Slade rolled his eye. “Yes, yes, you’re very scary, and your listening comprehension skills are fucking abysmal. Am I talking too fast for you? Let me slow it down a little, then. Your. Kid. Is. Alive. Jason, you know, the one that died? Your kid, Jason, is alive and he has been for years.” 

“I—there—it’s not—there’s no way,” Bruce stammered out, hearing how much ground he was giving up but unable to do anything to make his voice more solid. “That’s not possible.”

“Here’s a groundbreaking idea: get off my ass for two fucking seconds and I’ll try to explain it to you. Or, you can keep trying to pick a fight with me and I’ll keep what I know about Jason to myself. Choice is yours.”

“Start. Talking.” 

“Great, glad you still have a few brain cells lurking around in that fucked up head of yours.” Slade cleared his throat. “When he first turned up, the running theory at the time was that it had something to do with Superman’s death. Lot of weird shit happened after that; the Mother Boxes came back to life, Steppenwolf paid us a visit, and apparently, Dead Robin became Zombie Robin. But that’s just a theory. All I know for sure is what I saw. 

“I was working with the League about four years back, before the world went to shit. Talia al Ghul,” Bruce didn’t miss the way Slade spit her name out like poison, “brought in a catatonic boy she found wandering the streets of Gotham. The kid was so fucked up I was shocked he could even walk, let alone defend himself in that shithole you call home. His head was even more fucked up than his body; the kid was basically feral. So they dunked him in a Lazarus Pit. Fixed his body, scrambled his brain even worse, but woke him up enough that Talia seemed to think she could work with it. And that boy? Talia’s little pet project? He matched that description to a tee.”

“Jason’s not…” Bruce trailed off, swallowed around the confusing mass of emotions that was solidifying into a rock in his throat, and tried again. “Jason’s not the only person to ever be hurt that badly. It’s far more likely she found someone else who was injured but still alive. There are a hundred other explanations.”

“Are there?” Slade challenged. “Joker’s always been a vicious sadist, but I’ve never seen him do anything like that before. Jason is the only person the clown ever fucked up that bad, you said so yourself. Are you suggesting there’s another Gotham freak carving people’s faces into perma-grins completely unafraid of the Joker killing them just for infringing on his stupid schtick?” 

Slade was right, that was true, that was unquestionably true, but Bruce couldn’t entertain the alternative, he couldn’t, because if it was a lie, it would break him for good. “It’s more plausible than a dead person coming back to life. I saw Jason die. I felt him die. Dead people stay dead.”

Slade raised a silver eyebrow. “Seems like you’re forgetting the literal god who rose back up into the sky in perfect health after being stabbed through the heart by Doomsday.” 

Bruce let out a frustrated growl. “Jason wasn’t a Kryptonian, he was just a normal, non-meta, human boy. Humans aren’t meant to survive what he went through. They certainly don’t spontaneously reanimate afterwards. And that’s all besides the fact that he was in a coffin in the ground. I don’t know if casual cruelty is a new hobby of yours or if you’re just confused, Wilson, but whatever you saw, it wasn’t my son.” 

“Yeah, it would be pretty crazy, wouldn’t it?” Slade asked, an annoyed, mocking edge to his voice now. “For someone to dig out of their own grave with, what was it, four dozen unset broken bones, maybe more? And it’s not like they dragged this half-dead kid into Nanda Parbat covered head to toe in mud with his hands bruised and bloody and all his fingernails torn off… oh wait. That’s exactly what happened. The story pretty much tells itself, how much more proof do you need?” 

Bruce took another step back, something light and bright and unfamiliar starting to take flight in his chest. He tried to breathe through it, and when that didn’t work, he tried to choke it out, but it was still lurking there, a bit too strong to be fully contained, when Bruce found his words again. “Jason’s body was—there’s no way he’d have the strength to—” 

“He’s your kid, Wayne. If he’s even a fraction as stubborn as you are, I’m sure he found a way.” 

That wasn’t wrong, either. Jason had been relentlessly headstrong and wilful and surrender had never been a word in his vocabulary. It was fairly easy, actually, to imagine Jason breaking through a solid wood casket and six feet of dirt with nothing but the sheer force of his willpower, even with his body in ruins. If there was anyone in the world who could manage it, it would be Jason Todd.

“It’s not possible,” Bruce said again, very aware that he wasn’t even fooling himself anymore. He had to keep trying. Things were bad now, but the only way they could get worse was if he let himself believe this and it turned out to be nothing but smoke. “And it’s a pretty fucked up thing to lie about.” 

“Right, and the lie is… what? That some other black-haired, blue-eyed child was tortured and killed in Gotham by some other vicious sadist and dug out of their own grave afterwards, and somehow all of that is completely disconnected from Jason Todd because you’re physically incapable of believing in anything that even loosely resembles a reason to keep fighting?” Bruce could only answer that with silence, and after a tense moment, Slade sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. “You’re right. It would be a fucked up thing to lie about. Here’s the thing, though: I’m not the Joker. Just because I’m good at hurting people doesn’t mean I’d do it for fun. And, most importantly, I’m not lying. It wasn’t some other kid. You know how I know? He said your name.”

That derailed Bruce’s train of thought completely. “He—he what?”

“He said your name. ‘Bruce’ and ‘dad’ were the only words he spoke while I was there. Now please, for the love of god, look at this logically. What reason do I have to lie to you? You’re the least trusting person I’ve ever met and I’ve wasted at least ten minutes of my life that I’ll never get back just trying to convince you I’m telling the truth. This is a massive pain in the ass. There is no benefit for me. 

“Your kid is alive. I’ve given you all the evidence I have, and I’m getting sick of trying to convince you I’m not bullshitting. It’s on you, now. You wanna believe this is the biggest fucking coincidence in the history of mankind and keep living your life like one big suicide mission until it gets you killed? Fine. But if you’d rather take the minuscule risk that I might be wrong or I might be lying and give yourself something to live for, then I can work with that.” 

It was enough. It was more than enough, really, it had been enough from the moment Slade first said Jason was alive. Bruce had only fought it because that was what he’d always done, because distrust was safe and familiar and hope wasn’t. But hope was also stronger, it was overpowering, and Bruce couldn’t fight it anymore, he didn’t want to fight it anymore.

It was ridiculous, of course, and conceptually impossible, but they also lived in a world of Atlanteans and magic and mad Amazons and Kryptonians. Spontaneous reanimation wasn’t any crazier than those things were. Even before Superman had turned on them, Bruce had always known that the impossible was just the unthinkable lying in wait. 

Bruce’s life had been plagued by tragedies, but the rest of them were different. His parents died because they lived in a city saturated with fear and violence, Dick had left because Bruce had been reckless with Jason’s life, Jim and Alfred lost their lives because they loved Gotham enough to die trying to protect it from Superman’s invasion. The reasons were painful, but they were there, and they made sense. But the gruesome death of an innocent child? Bruce couldn’t make it make sense, he couldn’t come to peace with it, and he couldn’t fix it, either. But now, he could. Now, there was a chance. It wasn’t too late. 

“Jason is alive?” Bruce asked, just testing out the words on his tongue. It had been so long since Jason’s name tasted like anything but salt and iron and bitter regrets. Bruce wasn’t sure what to call this taste, but it was different, it was sweeter, it didn’t hurt, and there had never been a time when Jason’s memory didn’t hurt. What he did know was that there was still no lie on Slade’s face, there was no lie in his body, there was no lie, Jason was alive. 

Slade looked almost relieved. “Yeah. Jason is alive. Far as I know, anyway.” 

“He’s alive,” Bruce said again, because every time he did, it sounded a little less impossible. “Jason is alive, okay, so where is he? Is he still in Nanda Parbat? What did the League want with him?” Bruce could hear the eagerness bordering on desperation in his own voice, and it was a weakness that a dangerous killer like Deathstroke could easily capitalize on, but he didn’t care. He didn’t care about crafting the best strategic lie, he didn’t care about making the right move as Batman, he wasn’t Batman right now. He was Bruce Wayne, and Bruce Wayne couldn’t care less if he looked weak because his son was alive. Jason was alive. 

“I don’t know. When I left, they were still trying to piece his mind back together. You know what the Pits used to do to Ra’s, and for whatever god-forsaken reason, it was way, way worse for Jason. He was totally batshit insane for months. He was making progress, I think, but it was slow. Glacial. The League of Assassins isn’t exactly known for their patience, I’m still not really sure why they didn’t give up on him. I don’t think they would’ve put that much work in if they didn’t have some kind of plan for him, but I don’t know what it was. He could still be there, could be training somewhere else, or he might’ve turned back into a vegetable. Maybe they couldn’t fix him, so they killed him instead, rather than unleash an abomination like that on the world. Maybe he’s teamed up with Superman to kill you. The realm of possibility is fuckin’ limitless these days. God, I miss the times when the weirdest thing about my life was the fact that the only man I was never able to kill dressed up like a fucking bat to fight crime.” 

The last words didn’t even make contact. All that mattered right now was Jason. “Talia wouldn’t kill Jason,” Bruce said, feeling a little like he was trying to convince himself. “She knew him back when we… when he was Robin. Why wouldn’t she just tell me?” 

Hatred sparked in Slade’s single blue eye, dark and vicious and stronger than Bruce could ever remember it being in the past. Deathstroke was a generally harsh and bitter person but he didn’t hate, not really, because Deathstroke didn’t feel much of anything towards anyone, and this was more than a little unsettling. 

“Talia al Ghul is a cold, vindictive little bitch who doesn’t give a shit about anything but her fucked up cult,” Slade said through his teeth. “And I know that’s probably hard for you to swallow, since you used to fuck her and all, but it’s the truth. Considering she knew about Jason’s disappearance and found a boy in Gotham shortly afterwards who matched his description, had his face sliced up to look like the Joker, and kept saying your name, and considering she’s not a total moron, she must’ve known it was him. She probably kept him from you on purpose.” 

Bruce knew what Talia was capable of. He knew better than most. And Slade definitely had a reason to feel so strongly about her; maybe not a good one, but definitely a reason. He wasn’t sure what it was because Jason is alive Jason is alive Jason is alive was still rushing in his ears and making it hard to think straight, but this didn’t feel right. Unease crawled up his throat. “Talia, did she—did she hurt him?” 

Slade shrugged noncommittally, and there it was again, movements too practiced, too perfect to be real. Slade was a fighter, a living weapon, and he moved like one; fluid, deliberate, and often brutal but always natural. There was something Slade wasn’t telling him. “Who knows?” The hairs on the back of Bruce’s neck were standing up, this wasn’t right, this wasn’t right, but Slade was already moving on. “She definitely didn’t hurt him like Joker did, and he’s still alive, so… I’d say there are at least two people who deserve your wrath before she does. And really, even if she did play her stupid games with your kid, he was already so fucked up that I seriously doubt she could’ve made it much worse.” 

“If he was so…” Bruce trailed off, choking on his anguish for his son. The longer he spent with this knowledge, the more it seemed like a tangible reality instead of an impossible pipe dream, the more aware he became that this was a miracle for Bruce, but it had just brought Jason even more pain. He’d suffered, he died, he came back, and he kept suffering. He might still be suffering now. Bruce cleared his throat and forced the emotion down. “If things were that bad, how did you know it was him?” 

“I didn’t. I didn’t know your identity and I didn’t care enough to try and squeeze it out of the al Ghuls, Boy Wonder II was the last thing on my mind after he disappeared, and I haven’t really thought about any of it since I left the League. Didn’t put the pieces together until I heard you telling the witch about your kid.” 

A bit of the hope turned to acid in Bruce’s mouth. “Hold on—you figured out Jason was alive three months ago and you’re just telling me now?”

Slade didn’t look even a little bit sorry. “Yeah,” he said flatly, like it should’ve been obvious. “I knew your dead kid was alive and I kept it from you on purpose, because I was confident you would react by dropping everything to go after him, and you can’t do that yet. I’m Deathstroke the fucking Terminator, were you expecting a sympathy card?”

“I was expecting you to trust my judgment and not keep vital information secret from me.” 

“It’s not vital information. Not to the mission, it isn’t, and the mission is the only thing I’m obligated to keep you informed about. Like you said, I don’t trust you and you don’t trust me. And you’re just proving that I was right to keep it from you, because I can already tell you’re running the numbers in your head of what contingencies you’d need to set up and who could take over for you here so you can start looking for your kid. I’m telling you, you can’t do it. Not yet.” 

And Bruce wanted to argue, to put up an easy front of lies and slip away undetected later on, but the steel in Slade’s eye told him there was no point. “I have to,” he said quietly. “He’s alive, my son is alive . He doesn’t have anyone left, he could be anywhere, he could be in danger. He needs me and you don’t. I’m the most disposable member of this team, you’ll be fine without me. I have to go, I have to find him.”

“Good god, there are so many things wrong with that argument that I don’t even know where to start. First, finding Jason is not what you have to do, it’s what you want to do. What you have to do is lead this team so that we can save what’s left of this wreck of a planet.” Slade grimaced. “Second, as much as I’d rather not admit it, you’re actually by far the least disposable member of this team and it can and will fall to pieces without you. You’re the only one with any experience leading, you’re the only one who knows how to get a group of people with nothing in common to work together, and you’re the only one who can keep a lid on the clown. Third, we won’t be fine without you. If you aren’t here, the Joker will look for the next most vulnerable people. You know who that’ll be. The kids. And once he gets to work on them, Mera and I are going to end up killing him for it, because we don’t have decades of practice not killing the Joker, and there goes our trump card and any real chance of beating Super-Freak. You can’t leave. We don’t stand a chance without you.” 

“But I—”

“Would rather be doing something else? Yeah, no shit. This is fucking miserable, we would all rather be doing something else. Following through on this is the only way that any of us ever get back to our ‘something else’. Superman dies. And then, after that, Joker dies, because the world is the most vulnerable it’s ever been and he will be the second coming of Darkseid if you don’t put a stop to it. You have a storied history of fucking up when it matters, Wayne, but you’re not going to do it this time. I won’t let you.” 

“How do you plan on stopping me?” Bruce challenged. Jason had haunted Bruce for years and he’d never been able to do anything to help his son, couldn’t take his pain away or help him find peace, but now, he could. He could find the real Jason, he could give him his family back, he could help him heal. And Deathstroke of all people was not going to be the reason Bruce failed Jason yet again. 

“I’m not going to fight you, if that’s what your angling for. We both know that’ll end the same way it always does, with nothing solved and a lot of avoidable injuries. Sounds like a pointless waste of our very precious, very limited time and medical supplies. You wanna go find your kid. I get it. You should go find him, if for no other reason than it’ll definitely torture you if you don’t. But. Not. Yet.” Slade made a motion towards the part of the hideout Bruce had come from. “You say your kid needs you, but your other kids need you, too. They act tough, and they are tough, but they’re also barely into their twenties, they’re both orphans, and we’re asking them to kill themselves to save the world. You’re their dad, now. They can’t do this without you, and we can’t kill Superman without them. You have to follow through. That’s the only way you get to go chase after your broken little bird.”

Bruce swallowed hard. “It was my fault. Everything he went through was my fault. I couldn’t save him before, but this time, I can. I can do something about it now. This is what I have to follow through on. I have to go, I have to help him, I don’t have any other choice.” 

There is always a choice, Bruce Wayne. 

Mera had a point. Helplessness was an excuse. He did have a choice, and it was his job to make the right one. But abandoning Jason couldn’t possibly be right, not in any sense of the word, he couldn’t do it, not again. “Sacrifices have to be made for the mission. That’s why we’re on the same team as the Joker, that’s why you saved that insane fucker’s life, and it’s still true now. You love Jason. I get it. I love my kids, too. But, and listen close here: no matter how much you love him, he is not more important than the fate of the entire planet.”

“If you’re so adamant about me completely ignoring the fact that my dead son is alive, why would you even tell me about it in the first place?”

“Because,” Slade said, lowering his voice and taking a step closer to Bruce like he was afraid of being overheard, “I know what it looks like when a man is about to give up. You haunt this place like a suicidal zombie, it’s depressing as shit, half of us already know how fucked up you are and it won’t be long until the kids notice, too. You are leaning over the precipice of a total fucking breakdown, and if someone doesn’t pull you back, we’ll all be fucked sideways. This team needs you, you need something to live for, so here I am.” 

Bruce didn’t bother trying to deny it. He was seriously starting to question why he’d ever thought he could fool Slade Wilson in the first place. “So your grand plan to give me hope was to tell me my son is alive, alone, and vulnerable in an incredibly dangerous world I helped ruin, likely with no allies, likely still struggling with whatever the Lazarus Pit did to him, and that I can’t do anything but let it happen until after we kill an unkillable man?” 

Slade shrugged. “Still the closest thing you’ve had in years, isn’t it?” Bruce cringed. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. Listen, Wayne, what happened to your kid fucking sucks. I’ll never understand why you didn’t kill Joker on the spot. If anyone ever hurt Rose or Joey or Grant like that, I’d have skinned them alive.” 

“Yes,” Bruce grunted through his teeth. “I should have killed him. I know.” 

“And you want to make it right now. Good. You should. It’s a lot to ask for you to put your son on hold and go after Superman first. I know it is. So, I’ll make you a deal. If we survive this, if you keep your head in the game until we stop that would-be tyrant and save this stupid half-dead planet, I will search for Jason with you. If he’s still alive, we’ll find him together. If he isn’t, we’ll figure out how he died again and try to lay him to rest for good. I’ll take it as a contract. Superman’s death for Jason’s life. Deal?” 

“You’re a mercenary with a kill list a mile long. How could I possibly trust you?” 

Deathstroke crossed his arms and gave Bruce a hard look, more annoyed than offended but still a shade too intense to be harmless. “Sure, I’m a merc, but you know I have a code. I don’t break contracts, no matter what, unless I am physically incapable of completing them. Might I add that has only ever happened with one person: you. So you don’t trust me, great, as I’ve said multiple times, I don’t trust you either. But if I’m lying, if this is some overly complicated long-con to take you to Tibet and shoot you in the back of the fuckin’ head or something, so what? What do you have to lose? Everyone you’ve ever cared about is dead or gone.” 

“So I’ve been told.”

“You lost your parents, you lost Gotham, you lost your butler and your cop buddy, and considering no one’s seen hide or hair of Nightwing in over five years, I’m guessing you lost Grayson too, one way or another. All you have left is Jason—Jason and this team. It’s going to be a huge pain in the ass to find him considering our most current information is four years old and he learned how to disappear from both the League of Assassins and Batman, but we are two of the best trackers in the world and I am your only source of information, which makes me your best bet to find him. We need each other. Do we have a deal?” 

Bruce took a deep breath, feeling the barely-contained optimism swelling almost beyond control in his chest. Things could get better. They could. It was inadvisable to let himself feel that; none of this was a guarantee, and hope was just as dangerous and unpredictable as it had always been. But he was so out of practice trying to hold it at bay. No matter how hard he forced the feeling down, it wouldn’t go away.

You spend your whole life fighting crime in a city like Gotham, you learn to hope quietly. 

Maybe he didn’t need to smother it. Maybe he could just keep it tamed. It was harder for his whole life to catch fire if he kept the flame small. Small, but there. Things could get better. Slowly, quietly, cautiously, they could. Bruce was starting to understand how the rest of the team had felt when they killed Diana. Lighter, brighter, right down to his soul.

He held his hand out, and Deathstroke shook it. 

“Deal.”

“Good.”

“But I want you to know, Wilson: if this turns out to be a lie, it’ll kill you.”

Slade released the hold and stepped back, a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth.

“Let’s be honest with each other for once, Wayne. If this turns out to be a lie, it’ll kill you, too.”

Chapter Text

December came and went without much fanfare. Barry and Mera cracked the code for synthetic Kryptonite the day after Christmas. Two days later, Victor tested his killswitch on a Parademon they captured, and it went off without a hitch. The victories felt different than Diana had. Her death meant they had hope, but these breakthroughs… all they signaled was the beginning of the end.

The date was January 4th. 

The time was 0900 hours. 

They were going to kill Superman today.

Or die trying.

As everyone gathered at the table, Bruce could tell that the lightness that had come with killing Diana was long gone. They knew what was coming. They knew what it meant. Hope had kept them going this long, but it had no place here, now. Hope was a distraction. All that mattered was the mission. 

“We are as ready as we can be,” Bruce said, taking in their grim expressions and pointedly ignoring the way Joker’s permanent smile wasn’t wavering an inch, even with the threat of death looming directly over his head. “That means this time is yours. You keep any gods, pray to them now. You have any people left, say your goodbyes. You have any affairs to get in order, this may be the last chance you have. We don’t know if any of us are coming back.” He took a deep breath. “Your courage, loyalty, and sacrifice has brought us this far. The people of Earth have a chance at life because of everything you’ve fought for these past few years. I need you to keep fighting like the world depends on it, because it does. Does anyone have any final words?”

There was silence for a few long moments, and then Victor stood up, leaned forward, and put his hands on the table, fire blazing in his eye. “Superman took our people, our safety, and the last three years of our lives away from us. He’s not taking anything else. It ends today.” 

Barry stood too, looking smaller than usual with Victor’s jacket draped over his Flash uniform looking like it might swallow him whole. But he looked steadier, too. Almost like the constant doubt he carried around with him had lifted a little. “It ends today.” 

Bruce nodded. “Yes. It ends today. We depart in two hours. Dismissed.” 

There was a tense stretch of silence where they all just stayed there, struggling to stand under the weight of the responsibility they were shouldering, and then it broke and they went their separate ways. 

Bruce stayed behind for a moment, so of course, Joker did too. His fingers twirled the same blade they always did, now glowing green from the Kryptonite infused in it, and his eyes were fixed on Bruce as he laughed quietly to himself. Bruce reminded himself vigilantly that this was the last day. No matter what came next, this was the last day he’d have to put up with the clown. It ends today. And Batman could survive a day of anything.

“Courage, loyalty, and sacrifice,” Joker murmured under his breath. “I wonder what their body count is. Those words have killed more people than you have, Bruce. Probably even more than I have, and that’s saying a lot. Courage, loyalty, and sacrifice are more to blame for your son’s death than I am, after all. How many of your friends will they kill today?”

Bruce took a deep breath and stared back at Joker with as much indifference as he could manage. “If those are the killers, then you have nothing to fear, clown.”

Joker’s smile only widened as he leaned forward. “I really will miss this. As you said, one way or another, it ends today. You die or I do. That is if you’ve decided you’re alright with losing the only person left who actually cares about you and you intend on following through on the 87 death threats you’ve thrown my way since you first broke your rule.”

Bruce raised an impassive eyebrow. “Either way, I won’t have to tolerate the sound of your voice any longer.”

“Oh, you wound me, Batsy,” Joker pouted around a dramatic gasp. Then, after a moment, his poison green eyes lit up with the same vicious fire they always did. “You know what would be a truly poetic ending for our little band of merry men? The Big Bad Boy Scout getting his way and slaughtering all six of us. You take his woman from him, and in return, he robs you of the vengeance you’ve been dreaming of for so long. For months on end, you forced yourself to cooperate with the man who murdered your son, and it turns out to be for nothing?” Joker let out a shrill laugh. “That joke would absolutely kill .”

Bruce just blinked at him, unimpressed. “This is one of the last conversations we will ever have, Joker. That’s really the best you’ve got? That Superman might kill us both? I expected a little bit more creativity from you.”

Joker looked affronted for a brief moment, his perfect mask of flippant amusement cracking to reveal an undercurrent of rage, but it didn’t take long for him to cover the cracks and find his composure again. “I figured I’d take it easy on my favorite Bat today. You’re under so much pressure, I’d just hate to be the reason you finally crumble under all this weight. Plus, your son’s becoming a bit of a broken record now, wouldn’t you say? There are only so many ways I can talk about three measly weeks of torture before it gets a tad bit repetitive. Luckily, you’ll probably watch all your friends die today, which would give me a plethora of new material. It’s been too long since you’ve had a fresh tragedy. I’m looking forward to it.”

“Don’t use up all that sharp wit now. You’ll need it for Superman.” Bruce retrieved a folder from the file in front of him and slid it across the table to the Joker. “There. That’s all the intel we have about Lois’s murder, the demise of Krypton, Diana’s death, and any other information you might be able to use against Superman. Study up.”

Joker gave him a mock salute. “Aye aye, cap’n.”

In a routine that had become far too familiar over the past however many months he’d been working with the Joker, Bruce got as far away from the clown as he could. He was heading for the back of the hideout where they kept the safe when Mera cut him off, standing directly in his way. She was decked out in her full Atlantean armor, trident in hand, the anticipation of the coming battle burning in her eyes. “I wish to speak to you in private,” she murmured, uncharacteristically quiet. 

Bruce nodded and motioned for her to lead the way. They ended up in the underground portion of the hideout, their best bet at avoiding eavesdroppers without the risk of being out in the open. “What is it?” Bruce asked as they came to a stop. Mera took a deep breath, leaned her trident against the wall, and stared into Bruce’s eyes.

“I will die today,” she said, measured and unemotional.

Bruce’s body involuntarily locked up for a split second in his shock and confusion, not even breathing. He forced himself to unfreeze, forced his face to stay observably neutral, and frowned at her. “What makes you so sure?” 

“I can feel it,” she explained simply. 

“You seem awfully calm for someone who’s about to die.”

Mera nodded, solemn and grave. “I will give my life to avenge my king. There is no death more honorable.” 

Bruce just took a minute to absorb that. He’d had a blase attitude towards dying for a long time, but Mera wasn’t like him. She didn’t surrender like this. 

“I can see the gears turning in your mind, so let me stop you there. I am not giving up. I will fight until my last, and I will give this battle everything that I have. The Trident of Neptune will serve its purpose, but it will not strike the killing blow. Ultimately, it will take my death for us to beat Superman. I have accepted that.”

“That is a tremendous sacrifice,” he said, because they were the only words his mind could produce, and they weren’t right, but they weren’t wrong enough for him to choose silence instead. “The world will be in your debt, Mera.” 

She waved the platitude off with a disinterested hand. “My sacrifice is not for them. It is for Arthur. And,” she gave him a meaningful look, “for a few others, I suppose. Since you speak of debts though, I might ask a favor of you.”

“If it’s within my power, it’s yours.”

“When an Atlantean’s soul leaves Earth, their body is meant to sink beneath the ocean waves from whence they came. I would ask for you to bring me back to the sea so that I can return to my brothers and sisters in whatever comes next.”

Bruce pursed his lips. “Of course I would do that for you. But I might not be able.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

“Well,” Bruce said around a sigh. “I imagine this day will claim my life as well. If you want, I can pass your request on to Victor, Barry, and Slade. If you die—” 

“When I die,” Mera interjected.

Bruce stuffed down the pang of sorrow in his chest and restarted. “When you die,” he amended, the words barely making it out of his tightening throat, “whoever survives can follow through on your final request. But I don’t believe it will be me.”

The unflinching resolve that was so undeniably Mera was coming through in her eyes again as she took a step closer to him. “I doubt that very much. I will die because it is necessary for us to be victorious. I joined your team with the full intention of giving my life to kill Superman. That has been my purpose since that maniac killed my king, and I made peace with it a long time ago. But you? We gain nothing through losing you. Your purpose is not and has never been death. Your place is among the living, where you still have something—someone, to live for. And when you survive, I want you to be the one to lay my body to rest.” 

Bruce didn’t let it show in his expression or body language, but those words sent a sharp spike of confusion and anxiety through his gut. There was no reason why Mera should know about any of that. It was between him and Slade, and Deathstroke’s word was his bond.

“I’m not sure what you’re referring to,” he forced out after a too long, too telling pause. “All my people are gone. Killing Superman has been my only purpose for a long time now, same as you.”

Mera’s stare was piercing now, like she saw right through him. “After all this time, do you truly still think you need to hide from me?”

“Again, I’m not sure what you’re referring to.”

She took another step forward, crowding into Bruce’s space. “Your child is alive, is he not?”

Bruce swallowed hard and considered deception for half a second, but logic quickly overpowered it. If Mera was perceptive enough to surmise a secret that only Batman and Deathstroke knew, she would certainly be perceptive enough to detect an obvious lie. “How did you find out?”

“The same way I found out every revolting thing that savage beast has said about your son. Atlantean hearing is exceptional. Even if I hadn’t overheard your conversation with the mercenary though, it’s been quite apparent ever since. As long as I’ve known you, there’s been death in your soul, but after that, it was replaced. With light. With life. Quiet, muted, but as much as you’ve tried to hide it, it is there.” Bruce bristled, mind already running rampant with the implications of this, what else Mera could have heard, what the whole team might know now. He had known about Arthur’s superhuman hearing, he should have known Mera would have the same talents. He should have been more careful.

“Who have you told?”

Something close to hurt flashed across her face. “I think you might be the last person alive I still trust, you know. Is there a reason you cannot give me your trust in return?” It was still more sympathy and pain than disappointment or anger. Bruce realized, abruptly and uncomfortably, that if Mera was right, if today was her last day, he would find that… upsetting, at the very least. She’d earned her place in his heart, in the small circle of people he truly cared for. 

“I do trust you,” he told her honestly. “You’re one of maybe three people I can still say that about. But even trust has limits, and when you’ve been around violence and death for as long as I have, you learn to stay cautious no matter what. It’s far more difficult to be caught off guard that way.”

“It is also rather lonely, wouldn’t you say? Perhaps if you tried letting your guard down every once in a while, it wouldn’t take the miracle of a dead boy’s resurgence from the grave to give you a reason to live. Not that this should even need to be said, but I haven’t told anyone. It is not my information to share. Even if it was, I assumed you would want the pleasure of telling Jason’s killer of his failure, and the young ones… I don’t believe it would do them any good to be aware of how close their leader was to giving in.”

Bruce didn’t bother denying that; they both knew it was the truth. Instead, he gave her a curt nod. “I appreciate the discretion.”

They stared at each other for a long moment, and then the hard lines of Mera’s face softened, and she placed a hand on his shoulder. It was surprisingly gentle for such a fierce woman, and it calmed something within him. “I am glad your son is alive, Bruce. The way you spoke of him… he seemed a good child, worthy of a chance to grow up and be a good man. It is truly a blessing, and it is one you both deserve to have. I wish I could live to see the two of you reunite, but I will not be so fortunate. Might I ask you for a second favor?”

“Anything.”

“After today, I will not be around to shout at you when you are acting a coward or a fool. In my absence, do right by him. Superman is my destiny, and Jason is yours. He needs his father. He needs you. So, whoever he is now, whatever he has done since his resurrection, you must make it known to him that he is still your son and you still love him. As much as you might hide from it and deny it, you are a good man. You have done good things. This needs to be one of them.”

“I’m not—” Bruce started, but the knowing look in Mera’s eye made him stop short. Mera had never been much for changing her mind. It was useless to try and convince her she was wrong about him, so he took a breath and started again. “In the past, I failed my son. I… I failed both of my sons. I wasn’t the father they needed. No matter what I do or how hard I try, I will probably still fall short. I don’t know if I can be as good as they deserve. But I believe I can be better than I used to be. I will try. It is the very least I can do.”

Her brows furrowed. “Both of your sons? Jason has a brother?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes. They weren’t blood, and he doesn’t like me to refer to him as my son anymore, but he—he was my first Robin, years before Jason. Dick. Dick Grayson.” 

“I don’t believe I’ve ever heard you mention him.”

“We had a falling out,” Bruce explained vaguely. Mera just stood there, giving him that same piercing glare until he surrendered the rest of the information. “When I adopted Jason, Dick told me not to make him Robin. Told me I couldn’t bring another kid into this life, this endless cycle of violence and pain and death. Pleaded with me to put a stop to it. At the time, I agreed with him, gave him my word that I would keep Jason out of the vigilante life. He was right; Batman’s world was far too dangerous for a child. But Jason was stubborn and determined, and when he found out I was Batman, he begged me for weeks on end to make him the new Robin. He wanted it more than anything. I loved Jason, I wanted to make him happy, and I was weak, so I gave in. Jason died, Dick was furious with me, and he dropped out of my life for good. I… I try not to think about it. He was right to leave, but I love him. I miss him.”

Mera seemed to chew on that information for a while. She gave Bruce a searching look, almost frightening in its intensity, and then the tension vanished and she nodded. “Another thing you torment yourself with, I imagine.” Bruce just winced and ground his teeth together, wishing he could deny that but knowing it was the truth. Mera seemed to notice, because compassion and concern warmed her deep blue eyes, and she squeezed his shoulder. “Someday, Bruce, you are going to have to lay your past mistakes to rest. How can your sons ever forgive you if you cannot do it first?”

“Dick can’t forgive me,” Bruce replied quickly, without even thinking. “He won’t and he shouldn’t. What happened to Jason was my fault.” 

“What happened to Jason was the clown’s fault, and regardless, your son is alive. Both of your sons are alive, and you have the chance at a family again.” Something shifted in her eyes, something that echoed like mourning and regret, and she amended the statement. “I— we are your family in a sense, the four of us, but that was born out of necessity, not choice. Your sons need you and you need them. It is time you let the past die before you die with it.”

Bruce let out a long breath, feeling something tighten uncomfortably in his chest. “I will keep that in mind,” he conceded, knowing it was mostly a lie. Jason had suffered and died because of his decisions, and he would never be able to make peace with that knowledge. “Mera, if we both survive today, would you want to come to Tibet and help us search for Jason?”

She gave him a sad smile and let go of his shoulder, pulling away and picking up her trident. “The writing is on the wall, Bruce Wayne, and you are not a blind man. You and I, our fates are linked. There is no version of this where we both live to see tomorrow.”

The conversation left Bruce feeling shaken to his foundations, and he had to take a few solid minutes to compose himself before he could return to the surface level of the base. Mera had a tendency to be frighteningly insightful and she was hardly ever wrong. It would be unwise to discount the things she had said. Even if they defied all logic and reason.

With any luck, Superman would die today. It was hard to believe that he’d be taking Mera with him, but not Bruce.

Bruce had just barely made it back above ground when he saw Barry pinning himself into a secluded corner of the hideout, an obviously deliberate effort to hide from the rest of the team. The fact that he wasn’t with Victor was the only real indication Bruce needed to know something was off, but the pinched expression on his face, the way he was pulling Victor’s jacket tighter around him like he wanted to disappear inside of it, and the rapid rise and fall of his chest more than drove the point home. Whatever this was, it definitely wasn’t good.

Wasting no time, Bruce closed the distance between them, purposely putting his body in front of Barry’s to give the kid some weak imitation of privacy. He made his footsteps intentionally loud as he approached, and between one blink and the next, Barry had already thrown a haphazard facade of composure over the obvious panic, a shaky smile plastered on his face. 

Bruce didn’t bother entertaining the lie. There was no time, and there was no point to it. “What’s wrong?” 

“What makes you think something’s wrong?” Barry had never really learned the art of deception, hadn’t picked much up from the few lessons he’d gotten from Bruce, but even if he had, Bruce was one of the best detectives in the world. This certainly wouldn’t get past him. All Bruce had to do was raise a disbelieving eyebrow, and Barry immediately folded. “Remember when Slade told me if I was smart, I’d be afraid of dying?” 

“Yes,” Bruce said slowly, fairly sure he knew where this was headed.

Barry closed his eyes, rested his head against the wall behind him, and took a deep breath. “I am now.”

“Okay.” 

Barry took another trembling breath and opened his eyes again, a confused frown twisting up his mouth. “What do you mean, okay? Aren’t you like, disappointed in me, or something?” Bruce shook his head. “And you don’t think that I’m—that I’m not cut out for this kind of thing, or that I’m just going to be another thing you have to worry about, or that I’m gonna fuck up the thing we’ve been planning for three years?” 

“Barry, if I benched everyone on the team who was afraid of dying today, there wouldn’t be anyone left to fight Superman.” 

There was one moment where Barry almost looked like he believed Bruce, and then he let out a nervous laugh. “Ha ha, that’s a good one. The world’s deadliest mercenary, the guy who spent decades protecting the most crime-saturated city in the world, and the literal queen of Atlantis are scared of dying. Sure.” 

“None of us are going into this with a smile on our faces. Just because we’re willing to die for this doesn’t mean we want to. They might show it differently than you do, but all of your teammates are afraid of what’s going to happen today. Of what happens if we lose, and of what kind of lives we’re going to live if we win. That includes myself.” 

“That doesn’t make any sense, you’re—you’re the bravest people I know.” 

Bruce placed a hand on the kid’s shoulder. “The only time you can be brave is when you’re afraid, Barry. And you’re the only one of us who’s actually willing to admit it. Give yourself some credit.” Bruce could feel some of the tension melt away from Barry’s muscles, but the anxiety was still written deep into his face. “Have you tried talking to Victor about it?” He suggested gently. 

Immediately, Barry looked down. “No,” he admitted quietly, pulling Victor’s jacket tighter around himself, completely obscuring the red uniform beneath it. “Vic, he’s very, um… protective when it comes to me.” 

“Yes, I’ve noticed.” 

“It’ll throw him way off his game if he finds out how fucked up this has me. He’ll worry like crazy, and he’s got more than enough to worry about today.” 

Bruce sighed. If he closed his eyes, it was like talking to Jason again, back when he was young and insecure and never quite sure he was worth anyone’s time. The process of trying to convince someone they deserved to be cared for was a little too sharp to be harmless now, a little too painfully familiar. 

“Letting people in isn’t the same as being a burden on them,” Bruce said, feeling just as clumsy as he always did trying to talk about emotions. “There’s a fair chance none of us are coming back from this. I won’t tell you what the right thing to do is, Barry, but… most of my regrets in life are things I didn’t say and do. You have less than two hours, and then you might never see him again. If you want my advice, I think you should tell him the truth and let him take care of you. It might just be what both of you need, and this might be the last chance you get. No amount of time with the people you love will ever be enough once you lose them, but you should still take what you can get.”

Barry looked more sad than scared now, and even as Bruce’s heart clenched painfully at the sight, it was still better. Going into a battle sad was hard. Going into a battle paralyzed by terror was impossible. “Yeah, you’re right,” Barry said, casting a sideways glance across the room where Victor was sitting and staring with obvious dread at the killswitch he and Slade had built. “Thanks, old man. I, um… I kinda needed that.”

Rather than try to name the confusing mass of emotions tying knots in his stomach, Bruce forced a stiff nod and finally returned to the task he’d been trying to complete before he’d run into Mera. He went to the back of the hideout where they kept what few valuables they still had and pulled his laptop from the safe.

Adding to your will was a strangely pedestrian thing to do on the same day you were set to battle to the death with your ex-friend-turned-supervillain with the powers of a god, but it was necessary. Someone besides him needed to know about Jason. Someone needed to find him if Bruce couldn’t do it anymore.

Ever since Jason and Alfred’s deaths, Dick had been the sole beneficiary of Bruce’s will. Dick didn’t consider himself to be a part of Bruce’s life anymore, but he was still the closest thing Bruce had to family, assuming the impending apocalypse hadn’t taken his life. Despite all of the pain and anger between them, Bruce still loved Dick and wanted to make his life easier, wanted to show him he was still cared for. And this was all he really had left to give to a man who had made it abundantly clear they would never have a personal relationship again.

That part wasn’t going to change. Dick still deserved to have a comfortable life with his partner, Kori, away from all the pain that his life with Bruce had brought him. Bruce himself couldn’t give his son the sense of normalcy he craved, but he could give him one less thing to worry about. If Dick was still out there, Bruce wanted him to be happy. The only thing he needed to add was a note, so he pulled out his laptop and started writing. 

Dick,

I’m sorry for everything. I know it’ll never be enough, and if I could have spared you the pain of having to hear from me again, I would have. I love you, and I don’t want to make things harder than they already are, but this knowledge cannot die with me. Jason Todd, your brother, is alive. I know this seems impossible, but I promise you it’s true. He was last seen four years ago in Nanda Parbat with the League of Assassins. 

I know you said you don’t want anything to do with this life anymore, that you gave up Nightwing and left Gotham so you could find peace. I hope you found it. I don’t want to take it away from you. But please try to find him. If Slade Wilson is still alive, he may be able to help you. Do it for Jason. Please. If there was one thing we could ever agree on, it was that we both loved him. He needs his family now more than ever.

I wish I had more to give you than some money, a few words, and a slim chance of finding your brother. I loved you dearly, son, and I’ve missed you since you left. I understand why you did it, and I was never angry with you. I wish things had turned out differently for all of us. I know you can’t forgive me, and I would never ask you to. But you’ve always had a good heart. I hope you can find it in yourself not to make Jason pay for my mistakes.

Bruce had never been good with words, but it was still probably better than strictly giving Dick what little information he had about Jason and sending him on his way, which had been his first instinct. If Dick was still alive, Bruce’s surviving lawyers would track him down, and Bruce could only pray that his first son would follow through. 

The whole reason Dick had left in the first place was that he loved Jason and Bruce had put Jason in danger. Hopefully, that same love he had for his brother could outweigh his hatred and contempt for his ex-father. Dick was an emotional person, but he had an unshakeable moral compass. Finding Jason was the right thing to do. He had to trust that his former Robin knew that.

Before he even closed his computer, he could feel Slade’s presence behind him. 

“Was that your will, Wayne?” Bruce just gave an unintelligible grunt, stored the computer back in the safe, and pulled the rest of his weapons out of it. “That’s how sure you are that you’re going to die today, huh? Never pegged you for a defeatist, though I suppose the end of the world is full of disappointments.” 

So Bruce was talking about this again. Fantastic. 

“I’m a realist ,” Bruce corrected as he ejected the magazines from his guns and started loading them. “You’ve seen what Superman is capable of now. And he’s escalating, he’s cracking, the violence is totally out of control. He blames me for Lois’s death, so all of that rage will be directed at me. I’m getting old, and I’m slowing down. I’ll probably be the first casualty.”

“Joker’s only job is to drive Super-Freak even crazier. If anyone’s gonna die, it should be him.” Bruce’s hands stuttered briefly, and one of the Kryptonite bullets slipped from his fingers and rolled across the table. For a moment, an indignant flash of rage gripped him. The team was full of brave people whose lives Bruce valued, and he was about to ask them all to die for the sake of saving the world while the one person who actually deserved a horrible demise would be completely safe from harm. 

Bruce took a deep breath, tried to smother the blaze of rage growing in his chest, and picked the bullet back up, loading it into the clip with slightly trembling hands.

“It should be him, but it won’t be. We both know it won’t be. More than anyone, we need Joker to last the whole duration of the fight. He’ll be in a lead bunker five miles away, armed to the teeth with Kryptonite, using Cyborg’s tech to project his voice. In theory, Superman shouldn’t be able to figure out where it’s coming from. Even if he does, the Kryptonite will weaken him enough for Joker to get away safely.”

“In which case, we will unleash a fresh hell upon a world that can’t defend itself and start over from square one with a new evil dictator on the loose.”

Bruce shrugged, far too focused on the current apocalypse to think about the threat of a new one. “At least Joker isn’t a god. One problem at a time, Wilson.”

Slade sat down beside Bruce, grabbing his whetstone and starting the familiar process of sharpening his swords, now inlaid with Kryptonite shards. After over 20 years in his line of work, Slade must’ve done this thousands of times. At this point, he didn’t even need to look at what he was doing, and he stared Bruce down as he worked, disapproval clear in his eye. “Right, and the problem now is that you’re giving up before you’ve even started.” It was an accusation, but there was still less disdain in his voice than Bruce expected. 

Ever since Slade told him about Jason, their relationship had been different. It was more than just professional respect. They saw each other as human, as Slade Wilson and Bruce Wayne rather than just Deathstroke and Batman. And Bruce could tell in the way Slade was speaking that he wasn’t just irritated as a team member who needed Bruce to lead them to victory. He was concerned as someone who genuinely didn’t want Bruce to die.

As that thought crossed his mind, Bruce came to the disturbing realization that Slade was another person he didn’t want to lose. What a terrible time to start caring about people, when he was right on the verge of losing them all. Slade had been right in what he’d said before. They needed to think with their heads, not their hearts. Logically, their lives didn’t matter here. The loss of Batman and Deathstroke was a small price to pay for putting an end to Superman once and for all, and neither of them should be upset by that prospect. 

“Superman is totally unhinged and probably the most lethal person on the planet. With every passing day, he’s somehow still getting worse. He’s a slave to his worst impulses, a madman with the raw power of an entire army, and in his eyes, all of his suffering is my fault. So, yes. He’ll kill me long before Joker. In fact, if only one of us survives this, my money would be on Joker.”

“Glad you’ve got so much confidence in us.”

“I have plenty of confidence in the mission now that the Parademon and Kryptonite projects have officially been confirmed successes. We have three different solid plans, some of the strongest and most talented people alive, meticulously thought out strategies, and countless hours of practice on our side. If it is possible to kill Superman, I’m confident that those advantages will allow us to do it. I’m just not confident in my own ability to cheat death this time around when death is a 250-pound nearly-invincible madman. That doesn’t matter right now. I need you to make me a promise, Wilson.”

Deathstroke’s eye sharpened as he gave Bruce a long once over, an unreadable look on his face. “I think I’ve done you enough favors,” Slade countered, diplomatic and neutral, a mask of professionalism as he always was.

“It will take the place of our current agreement in the event of my death.”

Slade gave a long-suffering sigh. “Ugh, fine. I’m listening.”

“I suppose it’s two favors. Mera wants her body returned to the ocean, for one. If I can’t follow through on that for her, I ask that you do it in my place. As for our contract: if I go down and Superman goes with me, you have to kill the Joker. I don’t care how you do it, but the whole world will pay the price if you don’t. All of the sacrifices we’ve made will be for nothing. No matter what happens to me, to any of us, you have to end this. You’re probably the only one who still can.”

After a long few seconds, Slade nodded. “I can do that. I’ve been itching to put my sword through that maniac for years now, and the witch has the right to a proper burial. But I have a condition of my own.”

“Name it.”

“Get out of your own head. You’ve lived through some insane shit in the past, and it’s entirely possible you’ll live through this too. Ever since you lost Jason, you’ve been fighting for nothing, fighting because it’s all you know how to do. You finally have something to live for now, so fucking act like it. Enough with all this fatalistic self-pitying doomsday bullshit. You don’t get to give up yet, because people still need you. We need Batman, and Jason needs his dad. Get your shit together. Be who you need to be for us to win this day. And then,” Slade continued, lowering his voice to make sure they weren’t overheard, “if you give it everything you have and it’s still not enough, I’ll finish what you started. With Joker and Jason. I’ll kill the clown and I’ll track your kid down, make sure he’s safe. I promise.”

Relief unfurled in Bruce’s chest and he let out a long breath. “Thank you.” Slade gave an unintelligible grunt of his own and returned to his work. When Bruce turned his attention back to his own weapons, he caught a flash of red out of the corner of his eye. It was Jason, seated across the table from Slade, glancing between him and Bruce with something different in his cloudy eyes than what Bruce expected. Usually, it was contempt, betrayal, or heartbreak. But now, Jason’s face held the same not-quite-hope that Bruce had so recently discovered.

“He’s right,” Jason rasped out. “I never gave up on you while Joker had me, and you can’t give up on me either. You’ve got one shot to make this right, dad. Don’t fuck it up.” Bruce just gave a small nod of acknowledgment, unable to do much more with Slade right next to him.

“Good luck,” Jason added after a while. “You’re gonna need it.”

Chapter Text

An hour after he finished writing his will, Bruce took Joker to his Superman-proof bunker and locked him in, leaving a walkie-talkie behind in case of emergency. He grew to regret that choice almost immediately, as Joker started talking the moment Bruce got back in the transport. He kept talking as Bruce returned to the base and helped the team pack their gear. He kept talking as Victor triggered the failsafe and a strange vibration shook the floor beneath them as millions of Parademons dropped dead. He kept talking as the five of them piled in the self-driving APC and headed towards the location they’d chosen for the fight. For nearly an hour, he hardly even stopped to take a breath. Tone-deaf quips about the likelihood of their survival, flippant comments about all the people they’d lost, just the same shit they’d all been putting up with for far too long.

Eventually, Bruce turned the radio’s volume off, safety be damned. They needed to focus. There was more than enough tension and nerves between the five of them without Joker adding to it, and the clown was as far away from harm as he could possibly be. He didn’t need any more precautions or protections.

Looking around at his teammates now, Bruce could see that the Joker’s words and the silence that followed them had deepened their unease. This mission might be a walk to the gallows for all five of them, and they were clearly feeling it. Barry’s boot was tapping a steady, rapid beat on the floor, too fast to be human, a faraway look on his face. Out of all of them, he was the one who got caught up in his own head the most, so Bruce opened his mouth to try and give the kid something to ground himself with.

“Is everyone ready?” It was a pointless question, but it was better than nothing.

Barry flinched with the noise, almost like he’d forgotten he was in the presence of other living people, and he gave Bruce a nervous, slightly sickened look. “Define ready,” he replied, voice a little strangled, leg jittering even faster now. “Because if being on the verge of puking my guts out can be classified as ready, then yeah, I’ve never been more ready in my whole goddamn life.” Barry's frantic anxiety seemed to have returned in full force now, but judging by the way the motion of his knee stilled when Victor placed his human hand on it, Bruce figured Barry had probably taken his advice. Good. The kids deserved some peace. 

Victor gave him a small, reassuring smile. “Before… everything, when I was in high school and my mom took me to my football games, she used to say there was nothing wrong with being afraid. Cause if you’ve got a reason to be afraid, it means you’ve got somethin’ worth living for, too. Somethin’ you don’t wanna lose.” Victor’s voice was low and soft, clearly meant to be comforting, but it wasn't long before the movement had spread through Barry's whole body and he was vibrating just fast enough to make a faint humming noise.

“Right. Fighting Superman is just like football. I’ll be sure to remember that when Captain Crazy is burning a hole through my brain. Thanks, Vic.” 

“Won’t be your brain,” Slade said under his breath, almost more to himself than Barry as he kept his attention fixed on the glowing green sword laid across his lap. “To come this close to taking over the world, you gotta have a functional brain in your head, plus we already know he’s a massive sadist and he’s getting even worse. He’s not an idiot; he’ll go for your legs. Maybe melt ‘em off, maybe break ‘em. Can’t run without legs, Zippy.”

Barry just stared at him blankly for a moment, then let his head fall into his hands with a heavy sigh. “Slade Wilson, everyone,” he groused. “King of unhelpful and slightly horrifying comments.”

Slade just grunted in response, but the conversation seemed to have captured Mera’s attention, because she picked her head up and gave Barry a long, searching look, face a mask of focus and determination like it always was before a battle. “You are a valiant warrior. All four of you are. It has been one of the greatest honors of my life to fight alongside you. It will be my honor to die alongside you as well, should it come to that. You have nothing to fear, Flash. I am quite sure nothing is coming on this day that you cannot handle.”

The speedster gave her a weak, crooked grin and rubbed at the back of his neck, the vibration slowing minutely. “Oh. Yeah. Um, right back atcha, M.”

Victor squeezed Barry’s knee gently and shifted close enough that their shoulders were touching. “If I’m gonna die today,” Victor said, uncharacteristically somber, “I’m glad it’s like this. I’m glad it’s with you.”

Barry swallowed hard enough that Bruce could see the visible bob of his Adam’s apple, and then, most of the tension in his posture released. He leaned into Victor’s much larger body, letting out a shaky sigh and allowing his muscles to find something close to stillness. “Yeah, uh… me too. I think I’ll be okay if this is the last thing I do. Going out this way, trying to save the world, being with this team, it’s good. You guys are the only real family I have left, even though all of you slightly terrify me in your own individual ways.” He elbowed his friend lightly in the ribs. “Except for you, Vic, you’re a teddy bear. But, uh, yeah. I’m ready to die, if I have to.”

Bruce’s heart gave a small, painful twist, because the two of them were just kids. They were barely 20 when Darkseid invaded, their whole lives ahead of them, and they shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t be thinking about their own deaths at all, especially not as a tangible and imminent possibility. The part of Bruce that was more a father than he was a superhero, to Dick, to Jason, and now to Victor and Barry too, wished he could protect them from all of this. But they didn’t need that from him. They were smart, they were capable, and this was their decision. They had the right to choose their own fate. 

“I hope it doesn’t come to that,” Bruce said, quiet and earnest as the transport slowed to a stop. “But I’m grateful for your dedication regardless. All of you. We are asking more of ourselves and each other than anyone should ever have to give. Thank you all for what you’ve done for this team, for the world. You’ve sacrificed everything you had for the sake of this cause. Let’s just hope that’s enough.”

The five of them left the APC, took their positions, and waited. Five minutes, then ten, then fifteen, and still, there was nothing.

Superman should’ve been incensed about the loss of his army. Everything they knew about him said he’d obsess over it relentlessly until he found out who was responsible and put their heads on pikes, or whatever his latest nauseatingly violent MO was. And, considering the Insurgency was the only force that had even tried to stand up to Superman in the past year, he should know it was them. He should be here already.

Bruce cast a sideways glance at Slade, nerves slowly solidifying into a block of ice in his stomach. On the surface, the mercenary seemed perfectly unbothered by their enemy’s absence. There were no visible tells in his expression or body language, but that was the way Slade always was, the way they both were. He couldn’t see it, but he could feel it; Slade was nervous too. Batman and Deathstroke might have been the two finest strategists left in the world, but even they didn’t know what they would do if the team failed today. After a long moment, Slade seemed to sense that he was being watched, and his eye met Bruce’s. Bruce could see his own carefully masked unease mirrored back at him.

Do you think he knows it’s a trap? Bruce signed to Slade, knowing that if he spoke, Superman would be able to hear him from half a world away. 

Look around, Slade signed back with a grim look on his face. It’s not really a secret.

And Slade had a point. They were fighting a god, and even with the odds at five to one, they still needed to choose a place that would play to every strength they had, which had brought them to the west coast of Mexico. It was close enough to the equator to avoid the harsh January weather, which Superman was immune to but they were not. Near the sea to maximize the damage Mera could do with her trident, but far enough from the beach for the ground to turn flat and hard so that Barry could build up his speed. A relatively rural area to keep innocents out of the crosshairs, but not out of range of the nearby cell towers for Victor to bounce his new voice-throwing tech off of.

They had evened the odds as much as they could, but that had the unfortunate side effect of telegraphing their plan pretty clearly. Over the past few weeks, however, there had been a constant influx of horrifying evidence that attested to how far gone Superman really was. He was one gentle push away from totally losing his mind. Everywhere he went, he left carnage and pain and death in his wake. There was no apparent motivation for the drastic escalation, destruction purely for the sake of it, not unlike the way Joker used to operate. Their former teammate’s flagging sanity meant they could bank on the prayer that his base instincts would take over and he’d rise to the bait without thinking twice.

After another five unbearable minutes of waiting and worrying, Bruce picked up on a soft whooshing noise, a few mere decibels above silence. The sound was familiar, had been ever since their Justice League days, and it now came with a pervasive, foreboding sense of dread. Adrenaline flooded Bruce’s body, a rushing torrent in his veins and muscles. A call to action.

He clearly wasn’t the only one to notice. By the time the noise rose to a low and heavy hum, all five members of the team were on high alert. Their position was too far away from the ocean for the waves to be audible, but the moment Mera heard the noise, Bruce could hear the rush of the water, the way it rose to the Atlantean’s command. Deathstroke’s spine straightened and his fingers twitched towards the swords strapped to his back. The Flash lowered himself into a sprinter’s crouch. Cyborg quickly got to work calibrating the speakers he’d embedded into the ground now that they didn’t need to worry about the sound of the signal. 

The air whipped fiercely around them, the noise rising to a deafening roar akin to a plane taking off, and the familiar dread mixed with resolve and determination in Bruce’s thrumming blood. There was one final moment of nothing, when Bruce and Slade looked at each other, gave a quick nod, and drew their weapons, and then he was there. With the deafening crack of a sonic boom, Superman shot through the sky overhead, came screeching to a halt above them, and descended at breakneck speed. The collision sent shockwaves through the ground, nearly taking everyone off their feet, and for a moment, time seemed to stop.

Bruce didn’t even recognize the man in front of him. 

None of them had seen Superman in person for a month, doing their best to avoid detection as they prepared for this day, and sure, he’d looked rough back then, but this was something else. It seemed like the mad Kryptonian hadn’t slept a single minute in those four weeks. Agitation was written into his whole body, eyes frantic and paranoid, face haggard and unshaven, looking discomposed like he never was. Even the way he stood seemed unstable, leaning slightly to one side, more out of breath than he should’ve been for how far he’d flown. 

This man had the same powers as Superman did. The same black and silver uniform he’d been wearing for almost five years now, ever since his resurrection. The same S was there on his chest, but it was hauntingly obvious that there was nothing of Clark Kent left in that shell of a body. The moment he laid eyes on Bruce, he flew straight for him. He moved like a man possessed, so quick Bruce didn’t even have the time to react, and if Barry hadn’t cut him off at the pass, that right there might’ve been curtains for the Batman.

From that point on, all five of them were put on the defensive. That was expected. Up until Victor's speakers could forge a solid connection with Joker’s microphone miles away, their sole responsibility was to play for time. Their adversary was clearly incensed, his rage a splintered and uncontrollable thing, all raw power with no thought or reason behind it. It was dangerous in a way they’d never dealt with before. No amount of preparation could ready them for this blind fury. Without the Flash, Superman would’ve slaughtered them all in minutes.

Seven times in a row, the speedster outmaneuvered him, rescued a member of their team from imminent death, and then darted out of the way before his foe could even react. Despite his madness, Superman wasn’t too far gone to adjust to the unexpected interference and start to look for an opening to retaliate. 

Bruce could see what was about to happen, and he raced towards Barry to try and warn him, but it was far too late. The next time the Flash crossed his path, Superman snatched him by his uniform mid-run, flew him up 50 feet in the air, and threw him back down with enough force that his body made a small crater when it hit the ground. Superman paused just long enough for all four of them to hear the choked scream their youngest teammate let out, and then he flew back down in a frantic blur of motion, slamming his full weight into the kid’s right leg.

“Barry!” Victor shouted, but it sounded distant, muffled, and everything else was so much louder. The sickening crunch of thick bone snapping as easily as a twig was bad. The way Barry's voice broke on an awful, shrill scream that sounded like it had been ripped out of him, the way it was loud enough to reach Bruce from halfway across the battlefield was so, so much worse.

Bruce had never heard the kid make a sound like that. He'd never heard anyone make a sound like that since...

Since Jason. 

Bruce froze in his tracks, horrible, vivid images flashing behind his eyes, Jason’s dead eyes and standing outside Arkham and hearing his son’s pain and fifty-seven fractures and Superman’s eyes were glowing red, and this was it now, the kid was going to die, his kid was going to die and Bruce would never be fast enough and—

Mera was there, tearing Superman’s attention away from the injured speedster and onto herself instead with a blast of lightning that nearly took his head off. It jolted Bruce out of his thoughts hard enough to finally notice Victor flying from the far side of the battlefield towards his friend at a breakneck pace. Bruce had to sprint faster than he realized he could to cut him off at the pass. It took all his strength to stop Cyborg’s momentum, and even so, it felt like trying to hold back a freight train with nothing but his bare hands. “Get off of me,” Victor almost snarled. “He needs me, let go, let go.” Another bloodcurdling scream echoed across the flat expanse of land, and Victor flinched hard, something shattered and vulnerable in his eyes. Barry had been hurt before, dozens of times in dozens of battles. Victor had seen him hurt before. But it had never been like this. There wasn't time for this, there wasn't time for—"I have to help him, Bruce, let me help him, please.” 

Bruce gestured to the battle raging around them where Slade couldn't do anything but provide mild, temporary distractions until they could get Superman grounded and Mera was struggling to fight him off by herself. “They need you. You’re the only one who can help them. Slade is a sitting duck, Mera is entirely on her own, and if we don’t stick to the plan, we’re all dead. Including Barry. I’ve got him. I promise I’ve got him.” 

Victor still looked like he wanted to kill Bruce with his bare hands and doom them all in the process, so Bruce tightened his grip on Victor’s human shoulder hard enough for him to feel it. “Trust me, I know how you feel, but we do not have time for this. Get back in there. That is an order, Victor Stone.” 

“Yes. Sir.” Victor ground out through his teeth. The rage was still obvious in every inch of the young man’s body, but he followed the command, flying up to slam his body into Superman’s and throwing off his aim just before his laser vision could turn Slade into a pile of ashes.

Bruce couldn’t feel the relief anywhere in his body, not with how loud the adrenaline was screaming through it, but distantly, he was grateful. Attempting to ignore the threat of imminent danger on all sides of him, he zeroed in on the slumped mass of red that was Barry’s unmoving body and made a break for it. Somehow, he managed to make it there untouched. They weren't Superman's priority right now; he probably thought Barry's injuries would kill him. Bruce found the kid still flat on his back in the crater Superman had left him in, blood gushing from his broken leg. He was biting down viciously on his fist, eyes squeezed shut, breathing so hard he was nearing hyperventilation. 

“I’m here,” Bruce told Barry, grabbing him underneath the arms, wishing he had the time to be gentle about it as he pulled him from the rubble. “I’ve got you.” You’re safe, he wanted to add, but it was too obvious of a lie.

“N-no,” Barry protested weakly as Bruce dragged him out of sight behind a large rock. His body left a gruesome trail of blood behind. Bruce tried not to notice. Barry made weak, pained noises with every small movement. Bruce tried not to notice that, too. “Go, they n-need you, I’m f-fine.” 

“Quiet,” Bruce ordered. For a moment, the ugly twisting pain in his chest was so strong he could feel it over the rush of the battle. As much as he had tried to fight it, he cared about Barry, about all four of them that were here now, and he didn’t want to see them dead or in pain.

It was a useless thought. They would all get hurt. They might all die. All that mattered was taking Superman with them.

Still, his stomach roiled as he listened to Barry’s shallow, choked breathing, as he took in the blood that dribbled from his lips and the stark white bone of his femur poking out of a tear in his suit. The blood was oozing sluggishly from the wound now, already starting to slow down, the Speed Force working overtime to patch him up before he could bleed out. Still, it was a nasty break that went clean through the thickest bone in his body, a bone that would need to bear the majority of his weight in order for him to run. It would take time to heal. Time they might not have. 

“I can still fight,” Barry ground out through clenched teeth. His shaking hands scrabbled for purchase on the ground, trying to push himself back up, but he immediately collapsed back down, shaking and gasping for air, eyes squeezed shut as his hands flew to his midsection. He bit savagely into his lip to hold back another scream, a harsh, wheezing breath coming out in its place.

Bruce knew that reaction. Broken ribs. It was an effective strategy. Horrible, sadistic, but effective. Even if Barry’s leg healed, this would make it impossible for him to get the oxygen he needed to reach full speed. “Fuck,” he whimpered breathlessly. “Shit, fuck. Just… just gimme a minute.” The sounds of the fight were still raging in the background, and they didn’t have time for this, but Bruce couldn’t make himself leave.

He told himself it was just because if he stayed and took care of the kid for a few more seconds, maybe he could get the Flash back into fighting shape before the battle ended, and then they’d stand a much better chance at victory. It wasn’t the truth, not really, but there wasn’t time for that particular truth. “If I set your leg, are you going to scream?” 

Barry looked personally affronted. “No,” he grunted, body already tensing as he braced for the pain. 

“Are you sure? You need to be sure. Because if you do scream, you’re going to let Superman know you aren’t dead, and he is going to come kill us both. You’re in an enormous amount of pain, there is no shame in saying yes. Are you going to scream?”

There was a moment where Barry’s eyes went wide and frightened and he looked as young as he really was, but there was still no doubt. “No. I won’t.” He took a wheezing, painful sounding break, shoved his fist into his mouth again, closed his eyes, and nodded. “Do it. Now.” 

Bruce didn’t give him any time to anticipate the pain. He positioned his hands while Barry was still talking, and the second he finished, he made one sharp movement and realigned the bones with an awful wet grinding sound. True to his word, Barry just bit down on his hand hard enough to leave teeth marks in the leather and pulled in a harsh breath past it. God, the kid shouldn’t be so good at that. It made Bruce a little sick. There was no time. “Good job," he forced out past the nausea. "Now, I am going to leave, and you are going to stay here.” 

Barry’s eyes snapped open immediately. “I. Can. Fight." In his eyes, there were tears that Bruce did his best to ignore and a familiar, determined fire that was far harder not to notice.

Bruce planted a hand on the kid’s chest and pushed him down firmly before he could aggravate his injuries again. “Not like this, you can’t. That’s exactly what he wants you to do. If you go out there right now, you’ll be killed in seconds. You did good work. You did more than enough, and you have nothing left to prove. Don’t die for nothing. If you can come back at full speed, then come back. If not, stay here and stay out of sight. That is an order, Barry Allen.” The young speedster still looked like he wanted to protest, and Bruce gave him a hard look. “Stay. Put. Or I will break your other leg,” he snarled with venom he didn’t feel.

Barry looked sufficiently cowed, so Bruce grabbed two Kryptonite-edged Batarangs from his utility belt and rejoined the fray without another word. He returned just in time to see Superman melt Victor’s right arm off with his laser vision. It was the entirely cybernetic one, so it didn’t hurt him, but it was his most effective weapon and it would throw it off his game, not to mention the nasty implications it had for their Plan B, should things get that far. 

Losing the Flash this early on threw a serious wrench in their whole strategy. He was the only one who could match Superman’s speed, and without him, they were all far more vulnerable. Now, every time they drew the Kryptonian’s attention, they were running the risk of being fried before they even had the chance to react. Without thinking, Bruce aimed his Batarang, hoping to distract Superman before he could do any more damage to Cyborg, but the harsh crackling sound of static stopped him.

“Is this thing on?” The familiar, grating voice made them all go stock still, Superman most of all. Bruce could see his former teammate visibly recoil as Joker’s shrill laugh rang out from a place none of them could pinpoint. “Ah, yes, Superman! We meet again! Well, metaphorically, anyway, since we both know you’re too wackadoodle these days to talk to anyone face-to-face without melting them into a puddle of goo. I can’t actually see you, so I’m just going to go ahead and assume you’re smiling as wide as I am.”

Superman didn’t speak, just floated there with his mouth slightly parted, brows furrowed, looking equal parts confused, angry, and pained. It certainly wasn’t the fight that had hurt him; he’d broken at least four of the Flash’s bones without even breaking a sweat himself.

“It seems you’ve finally run out of lovers, family, and friends to torture and kill, so I suppose I’ll have to settle for you. I suspect you won’t be as much fun as all your dead loved ones were, but who knows? Maybe you won’t let me down like you let Diana down. Like you let Lois down.”

It was too easy for Joker to do this, to effortlessly unearth his target’s every weakness and pick them apart until he found their breaking point. It felt like watching a car crash in slow motion, and a small part of Bruce loathed himself for unleashing this monster, for enabling this monster, for encouraging this monster.

“I was there when Wonder Woman drew her last breath, you know. If you want, I can tell you about it, since I know you were too busy playing evil dictator to save her life, to protect her from us. We were in a bit of a hurry at the time, but I wish I’d had the time to do to her what Darkseid did to your Lois. It only took a few days for him to break your fragile human lover, but an Amazon? Might be a different story.”

For a brief moment, the look on Superman’s face was shattered and vulnerable, and although it was exactly what Bruce wanted Joker to do, it felt wrong . Even with how much of a monster Superman had become, Bruce still felt like a monster himself as he listened to it. He’d more or less unleashed the same hell on his former friend that he’d been enduring for months. It was tempting to say that no one deserved to suffer like that, but Superman and his Parademons had killed billions of people. Destroyed entire cities. He didn’t care about anything and he never would’ve stopped. It had to be done.

Joker was relentless, recounting Lois’s death in nauseating detail, critiquing Darkseid’s torture techniques, and describing what he would’ve done differently had he been the one to earn the privilege of killing her. Bruce tried hard not to vomit as his mind returned over and over again to the fact that Joker had already done most of those things to his son first.

Once Superman got over the initial shock and the battle resumed, the ceaseless taunting actually made things worse.

He was pissed off like Bruce had never seen him. Furious, reckless, taking his rage out on anything that moved. Since Barry’s injury, Mera became the most effective at slowing Superman down. She was the only one who was even remotely a match for him in terms of power, and she was fueled by the same need for vengeance as Superman was, with the added advantage of a much clearer head, a sound strategic mind.

She dodged his attacks swiftly and hammered him with tidal waves, occasionally even getting close enough to slice into Superman’s nearly impenetrable skin. As one of the most powerful magic weapons in the known universe, the Trident of Neptune was one of the only things that could kill Superman, and Mera was incredibly practiced and skilled with it. That made it their Plan A.

Eventually, Superman must’ve realized the vulnerability, because he turned his attention away from the rest of them and focused solely on her. Mera fought fiercely and bravely, full of passion and rage on behalf of her fallen king. Bruce had always admired that about her. She took her pain and made it into a weapon, rather than let it break her down and consume her, something both Bruce and Clark failed to do. Arthur would’ve been so proud. 

Mera was a powerful tide of unflinching determination, but at the end of the day, her rage was no match for Superman’s, and the clown’s merciless taunting had the unfortunate side effect of stoking that fire. As she rode a wave towards him, Superman shot Mera clean through the heart, burning a gaping hole in her chest with his laser vision. She was dead before she even hit the ground, and Bruce couldn’t help the shocked gasp it tore out of him, feeling a part of his own heart burn to ash, too.

I will die today. He hadn’t wanted to believe it. It was Mera, she was untouchable, she was strong in ways Bruce couldn’t be, in ways he’d never seen anyone be. She was—she was—she was dead. Bruce felt like he’d been punched in the gut, and it wasn’t until Slade yanked him back by the cape that he came back to himself, trying to refocus on the nearly insurmountable mountain they still had to climb without her.

It was a devastating loss, both personal and strategic, and even in the heat of battle, it left them all reeling. But, as they struggled to recover and come back on the offensive once more, it was clear that the cracks were showing in their opponent too. 

Superman was bleeding, which in and of itself was a rare sight. There were surface wounds all over his arms, the sleeves of his uniform torn to shreds, and Mera had gotten one good shot in on his chest, the slice a few inches deep and dripping blood. He was struggling to catch his breath, and his reactions were slowing. The fight had taken a lot out of him. And, as time went on, Joker’s voice was clearly becoming more of a source of anguish than anger. Superman flinched every time the clown spoke, eyes darting around the battlefield frantically, looking for a way to shut him up. The voice was a mocking reminder that Mera was dead and Joker was alive, but it was also one part of the plan that was going off without a hitch.

A red flash of movement told Bruce that Barry was up and running again. There was no way his leg was fully healed, and the broken ribs were probably killing him, but after the loss of their hardest hitter, they needed the unrivaled distraction that only the Flash could provide. Superman could almost match the kid’s speed, but it took all of his focus to do it. Between attempting to both block out the Joker and pin down the Flash, Superman didn’t have much offense left over for the rest of them.

With Mera and her trident... gone, Plan B was Kryptonite gas grenades, which could neutralize Superman’s powers if they hit their target accurately. A nearly impossible task when said target could fly, was one of the fastest men alive, and had a mind so fractured that even he didn’t seem to know what his own next move would be. As a former superstar quarterback and the sole member of their team that could fly, Victor was the only one with a vague prayer of being able to hit such an impossible mark, so the responsibility fell to him.

Cyborg had been practicing with dummy grenades for days and was nearly flawless… with his right arm. The arm that was now gone. Throwing with his left meant that his accuracy suffered, and they didn’t exactly have the spare time Victor needed to adjust to it. After six misses in a row, he seemed to give up on that strategy and flew in for a shot at point-blank range. 

It was too close. In a split second, Superman snatched him up by the throat and held him there in midair, squeezing tight enough that Bruce could hear the choked gasps from twenty feet below them. Superman’s whole body tensed like he was ready to strike the killing blow, and then— 

“Do you ever think about the fact that poor little Lois would be safe at home in her bed right now, bones unbroken, skin unmelted, if you could’ve just kept it in your Super Pants?”

It was just enough of an opening for Cyborg to pull the pin of the grenade. The moment he did, the sound brought Superman’s attention back to him. Bruce could barely see what was going on with the two of them as high up as they were, but he could feel it like a physical pain when Superman broke Victor’s neck.

Even without a clear line of sight, Bruce knew he was dead.

He was just a kid. He was just a kid. He was just a fucking kid.

Bruce felt like the world had dropped out from underneath him, and he was distantly aware that someone was screaming, the same way he was distantly aware of the fact that the ground wasn’t vibrating anymore like it did when Barry ran any faster than a light jog. There was a frantic, hysterical note to the voice that made Bruce want to respond, to help, but by then, both Superman and Victor had fallen to the ground with a harsh thud, and that needed his attention first.

The green mist was still seeping out of the bomb in Cyborg’s unmoving hand. He was just a kid. He was dead. A desperate part of Bruce wanted to keep mourning, to give up this never-ending fight and let his grief for his fallen allies consume him, but there wasn’t time for that. There wasn’t time for anything. Superman was stumbling out of the cloud, coughing and wheezing and barely keeping his feet, and the only thing he could afford to concentrate on was the mission.

Batman and Deathstroke closed in to implement Plan C. 

Even with his flagging powers, Superman was strong, fast, and brutal. He took the fight to them, managed to keep them both on the defensive even though they outnumbered him. His flight and laser vision, the two things that made him nearly unbeatable, were both completely neutralized as planned. Still, every punch felt like being shot. 

Bruce couldn’t get enough separation to aim a gun at Superman, let alone fire it, so he dropped both his firearms in favor of Batarangs, which were swifter and more useful as defensive weapons. Every once in a while, Slade or Bruce landed a hit on him, a glancing blow or a shallow cut, but it wasn’t enough. The gas wouldn’t last forever, and this was the best chance they had left. They had to act now. 

So, Batman retreated, drawing Superman’s attention away from Deathstroke. It wasn’t hard; Bruce was the one he really wanted, after all. This was the first clean shot Superman had at him since the start of the fight, and Bruce knew his instincts would take over. It didn’t matter if it was the wrong strategic move, he couldn't pass up this chance at vengeance. Bruce briefly met Deathstroke’s gaze over Clark’s shoulder as he backpedaled. He knew what the steely look in the mercenary’s eye meant.

You don’t get to give up yet.

Joker’s horrible voice was still grating like nails against a chalkboard in the background, and Bruce had to shout to make himself heard over all of the noise.

“I’m sorry, Clark! For all of this!” Something unfamiliar sparked in Superman’s expression as he closed in, hands curling into fists. He looked… wounded. Not just physically. There was something weary and pained in his eyes, and Bruce recognized it as a look that had belonged to him for years. He knew that feeling, how weak it made you, how easily it wore you down. It was the opening they needed. As much as it made him feel like the same sort of beast he condemned the Joker for being, he capitalized on the weakness. “I lost someone too, once. My son, Jason. He died young, he died horribly, and it was my fault. I know what this is like for you.”

“You don’t know anything,” Superman growled back, voice ragged. There was madness and fury just like there always was, but beneath it, he sounded tired. He sounded done. “I lost everything, Bruce. Everything. And so will you. So will everyone.” His eyes glowed red as he continued his advance, but the lasers didn’t come. They couldn’t. The Kryptonite was too strong. Bruce kept moving back, maintaining enough distance between them for him to react if Superman threw a punch. 

“I do know,” Bruce replied calmly. “I’ve already lost everything. I’ve been right where you are. I still am, sometimes. You want to blame someone else. You want to blame Darkseid, or me, or everyone who’s still alive on this wasteland of a planet for the fact that she got hurt. But we both know the truth, Clark. Deep down, you know it was your fault Lois died. When I lost Jason, I did the same thing. He was my Robin, and he died in the line of duty. I wanted to blame Joker for killing him, or Jason for being impulsive, or the world for taking him away from me, but it was my fault. I put him in danger. You did the same with her.” 

“All I did was love her,” Superman argued, quiet and shaken like he never was, sounding more heartbroken than angry.

“Our love killed them. Jason and Lois both. I know it haunts you, I know it hurts. I understand. But you don’t fix it by taking it out on everyone else. You don’t fix it by destroying cities and murdering innocent civilians. You don’t fix it by crippling one kid and snapping another’s neck. You don’t fix it by slaughtering your friends.”

Superman’s eyes glowed brighter, and Bruce could feel the heat of it from three feet away. If he had his powers right now, Bruce would be a stain on the ground. But between the Kryptonite in his veins and the pain of Lois’s memory, he was clearly too overwhelmed to do anything but talk. “Don’t speak about it like you know. She was all I cared about in the world, and she’s gone, and he—” Superman squinted in obvious pain and cringed with his whole body. “You say you understand, and you say the clown killed your son, but you still brought him here to talk about her like that.” 

“I didn’t want it to come to this, old friend, but people are getting hurt.”

“My wife got hurt,” he snapped back, voice breaking on the word. “She’s gone forever, all this useless power and I can’t bring her back. I couldn’t save her. I couldn’t protect her. She died in pain. She died because of you.”

Bruce took a deep breath and let the Batarangs in his hands fall to the ground with a muted thunk. “I’m sorry for what happened to Lois. She was a good person, she didn’t deserve that and neither did you. But you know, Clark.” Bruce paused his backward motion and held his hands up. Superman stopped too. “You know in your heart that you are the reason she’s dead. That’s what’s really tearing you apart. I know that grief, that regret, that anger. It’s enough to drive you mad, to do unspeakable things. I understand why you did all of this, but it has to end now. Nobody else gets hurt, Clark, please. No more innocents. No more kids. It has to end with us.”

Superman’s brows furrowed, like he was considering what Bruce said. The red in his eyes faded back to hazy, unfocused blue. For the first time in three and a half long years, he truly looked like Clark Kent again. He looked… human. For so long he’d been regarded as a god amongst mortals, but underneath it all, he was just a broken man, grieving the loss of his wife and his friends and everyone he’d ever loved. A human, exhausted, in pain. Chest heaving, he unclenched his fists and held his shaking hands up, almost like a surrender.

“Wilson, now!”

So quick that Clark didn’t even have the time to react, Deathstroke thrust his Kryptonite sword into his back, the green glowing blade emerging through the S on his chest. Clark let out a gasp and fell to his knees, coughing, blood painting his lips a violent shade of crimson. Bruce tried in vain not to think of Jason. 

Not wasting a moment, Slade grabbed ahold of Clark by the hair and yanked his blade back out with a wet squelching sound. He quickly brought it underneath Clark’s chin, the blade dripping blood, ready to strike the killing blow. Then, he paused, waiting for Bruce’s signal. 

For a long moment, Bruce just stared into the face of his former friend, transfixed as his expression slowly shifted, first shock and betrayal, then sadness, then resignation. Eventually, all that remained was defeat and a strange sort of relief that it was finally over. Bruce met Deathstroke’s eye and nodded.

Slade pulled Clark’s head back, and in one smooth motion, sliced his throat open. There was enough force behind it that it cleaved halfway through Clark’s neck, blood spurting out everywhere. It was certainly enough to kill even a Kryptonian, but experience had made them all paranoid. Slade kept him there by the hair. The next hack of his sword severed Clark’s spinal cord, and the final one took his head clean off. It dropped to the ground with a dull thud beside Clark’s lifeless body, blood pooling around it and soaking into the ground. 

Time seemed to come to a standstill as Bruce and Slade both stared at him, waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the beheaded man to rise once more and kill what remained of their team. Stranger things had happened. But, whole minutes passed that way, and there was nothing. 

It was long enough for Bruce to think on the fact that he should probably feel guilty. For weaponizing the Joker against Clark, for blaming him for his wife’s torture and murder solely for the sake of gaining a tactical advantage, for killing the man that used to be one of his closest friends. But all he could find was relief. The same sort of relief he’d seen in Clark’s eyes. The nightmare was over. Superman was dead. 

Eventually, Bruce realized they were missing the last surviving member of the team. With some difficulty, he finally tore his attention away from the corpse and scanned the battlefield. Bruce’s eyes passed over Mera and Victor’s bodies quickly, not wanting to face the whole truth of their deaths just yet, and that was probably why it took so long for him to find Barry.

The kid was just inches away from Victor’s body, one knee hugged to his chest and his injured leg stretched straight out in front of him, mask pushed off of his face to hang around his neck. His black hair was plastered to his forehead with sweat, faint tremors wracking his whole body, looking even smaller than he usually did. Bruce left Slade with Clark’s corpse and slowly approached, footsteps intentionally loud to avoid startling the young man. 

Barry didn’t react, not even when Bruce placed a hand on his shoulder. He just stared into Victor’s dead, glassy eyes, looking horribly dead inside himself. The silence stretched long and heavy between them for a long time before Bruce broke it.

He reached up for the release mechanism on his cowl, pulled it off, and let it fall to the ground, then sat down beside Barry and let out a long breath. “Superman is dead,” he told Barry, just above a whisper.

Barry gave a jerky nod in response, curling in on himself even farther. Slowly, Bruce’s eyes slid over him, wishing he could find what was hurting the kid but knowing there was no fixing what was really broken here. Sure, he was in obvious pain from running miles upon miles on a barely healed fracture and ribs that, judging by his tight, harsh breathing, were still definitely broken. But that would heal relatively quickly. Losing his closest friend wouldn’t. “Great, he’s dead,” Barry said, voice hollow and choked with emotion. “And Mera is dead. And—and Victor is dead.”

Bruce nodded solemnly. “Are you alright?”

The kid flinched hard. “Victor is dead,” he repeated, voice breaking on his friend’s name. It seemed like he was trying to convince himself it was real, that it wasn’t just a horrible dream he’d eventually wake up from. Bruce remembered sitting in Gotham’s morgue alone with Jason’s corpse—my Robin is dead my child is dead my son is dead Jason is dead Jason is dead Jason is dead—and doing the same thing. “He’s dead, he’s fucking dead.”

Bruce gave his shoulder a soft squeeze. “I’m so sorry, Barry.”

Bruce just watched, heart twisting painfully as a shudder ran through Barry's body and his breathing turned jagged, like he was holding back sobs. Tears made silent tracks down his face as he stared, unmoving and unblinking, almost like he was hypnotized. “He was—and now he’s—Bruce, he's my best friend and he’s dead,” Barry stammered out, sounding desperate and helpless in a way that Bruce recognized far too well.

Repeatedly, Bruce opened his mouth to say something to help, but it drifted shut every time. There was nothing to be said about this. Time was the only thing that had a chance at fixing it, and even that wasn’t a sure thing. “Tell me about your condition, Barry. I know you’re still injured, I know fighting made it worse. What hurts?”

For the first time, Barry tore his eyes away from his friend’s body and looked up at Bruce. His brown eyes were still haunted and dark like they never were, but there was a bit more clarity than there had been. This was what Victor used to do to calm Barry down, give him a simple order to follow, a chance not to have to be in control. It was the reason Barry and Victor had grown close in the first place. Cyborg was a natural-born leader, and the Flash had been such an anxious kid in the beginning. Victor had always been what kept his feet on the ground. Bruce tried very hard not to think about what the kid was going to do without that. 

“Everything hurts,” Barry admitted softly. For a moment, he just let the words hang between them, sniffling quietly and dragging the back of his hand across his face. Eventually, his mind seemed to drift far enough away from his friend’s death to notice the pain in his body, because his face screwed up into a grimace and he let a hiss out through his teeth. “He messed me up good. Half my ribs are still broken, and by the feel of it, a few of them were dislocated. I’ll be back to full speed eventually, but it’s gonna take longer than usual.”

“Can you walk?”

Barry extended his legs out in front of him and gave the injured one a reproachful look. It wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been before, the bone no longer visible and the wound almost closed up. There was still an unnatural bend in his thigh, though, and every move he made was stunted. The kid ran his fingers along the injured leg gently, sucked in a sharp breath, then looked back to Bruce and shook his head. “Not anymore. All my adrenaline is gone. I need help.”

Between Barry’s healing abilities and the pride and stubbornness that came with his need to prove himself to the team, he rarely admitted he was in pain and almost never asked for help. Another step in the right direction, then, though Bruce was fairly certain it was more a product of how vulnerable he was feeling than any actual trust.

Bruce crouched, got underneath the kid’s arm, and slowly helped him back to his feet. Evidently, he was hurting worse than he’d let on, because the moment he tried to shift a fraction of his weight onto the bad leg, it buckled underneath him. Bruce had to catch him before he could collapse all the way to the ground, and Barry let out a small whimper, the sudden motion clearly sending shockwaves of pain through his body. He had to take a long moment just to breathe, which also clearly hurt him, before they could start moving again.

“God, fuck Superman,” he muttered, voice strained. “Just had to break all my bones and kill my friend, didn’t he?”

Bruce bore almost all the kid’s weight after that. He wasn’t all that heavy, and it was the least Bruce could do. Their youngest had put himself through enough for the sake of this mission. More than enough. More than anyone should ever have to.

“You did really good work, you know,” Bruce murmured as they made their way over to Slade and the corpse of their former friend and teammate.

Voicing praise, or really any kind of emotion besides anger, was still extremely difficult for him. That was something that used to frustrate Dick and Jason both, the fact that Bruce struggled so much with basic kindness and warmth. It took losing both his sons for Bruce to realize how many things he’d left unsaid. All the chances he’d passed up to say I love you, I’m proud of you, you are more than enough for me, and the fact that he’d never get to say them again. So, he was trying to be better now, for the people he’d failed in the past, for the people who needed him now. Kindness was something Barry needed, something he deserved after everything that had already been taken away from him.

“I’m sorry you had to push yourself so hard,” Bruce continued. “Thank you for what you did. We would’ve lost without you.”

“We still lost,” Barry replied, voice low and raw and unguarded. “We killed the monster, but we lost our friends. Doesn’t count as a win in my book.” And it was strange that no part of Bruce wanted to protest that, to say that the four of them had been his professional colleagues and nothing more. Barry was right. This was the closest thing to a family he’d had in years. After losing so many of the ones he loved, Bruce had finally found a way to care about people again, and he’d just lost two of them forever.

“It was always a possibility.” It was the wrong thing to say, and Bruce knew from the moment he spoke it that it wouldn’t help at all. There was no way to truly prepare for the way this felt, the way it cut you open and left you gutted.

Bruce could feel Barry’s whole body tense under the words that were so unbearably wrong for this situation, and he made a wounded little noise before responding. “It’s one thing knowing you could lose your family. It’s a totally different thing to actually watch it happen and not be able to do a damn thing to stop it.”

“I know.” They were silent for a long time, seeing as it clearly took all Barry’s energy and focus just to breathe and move forward and not pass out from pain or exhaustion. Slade nodded to them as they approached, well-hidden concern in his eye as he looked Barry over in his obviously compromised state. Bruce mouthed he’ll be okay to him, but the concern remained as Bruce carefully lowered the speedster back to the ground. “Listen. I need you to stay here,” Bruce told him firmly.

It was a clear order that wasn’t up for discussion, but Barry challenged him anyway. “What? Why?”

Bruce crouched to look the kid in the eye, sorrow like a rock in his stomach as he took in the shattered look on his young face, the red rimming his eyes, the stuttering movement of his chest as he tried to force air into his lungs. “The only thing that will heal you is rest. I don’t want you using that leg at all unless it’s absolutely necessary, and right now, it’s not. You focus on recovering, eat something, and stay with the body for the time being.”

Incredulity found its way to the surface on Barry’s face amidst the heartbreak and devastation. “Uhh, Bruce? I know he’s Superman and all, and you’re paranoid at the best of times, but he doesn’t have a head. He’s not going anywhere.” 

“He is dead. For now. But he’s also already risen from the grave once. We know it’s possible, and we can’t take any chances. Our… our friends fought and died for the opportunity we have right now, and if we don’t handle it with the utmost caution and care, their tremendous sacrifices will be for nothing.” Barry’s bottom lip quivered briefly, but his eyes stayed fixed on Bruce, waiting for him to finish. “If by some miracle he comes back to life, we won’t be able to beat him again without them. So, until we can burn the body, we need to treat that as a tangible possibility. I know it seems like overkill, but this is an important responsibility that I am trusting you with.”

Barry raised a disbelieving eyebrow. “You sure you’re not just keeping me sidelined so I don’t let my grief turn me into Superman? Or trying to protect the last kid on the team from having to see you commit a horrifying murder? Cause I hate to break it to you, but that ship has sailed. I watched Superman set J’onn on fire. I was in Central City when the Parademons came and killed millions. I was about 20 feet away when Slade cut this fucking bastard’s head off a few minutes ago. I watched him kill my best friend. My innocence is long gone.”

It was clearly a token protest. Bruce knew that Barry was lost and untethered right now, and he needed direction, the chance to not have to be in control. So, Bruce just gave the kid a stern but not unkind look, knowing he’d capitulate eventually.

“You’re not a child anymore. You’re a hero, you may have just saved the world, and you certainly don’t need my protection. But I need Slade to come with me, which means I need you to stay here and do this. Okay?”

Barry narrowed his eyes for a brief moment, then sighed, pushed himself a few inches closer to the corpse, and nodded. “Yes, okay, I’ll stay with the dead god until my weird apocalypse dads get back, that’s fine.” Bruce gave him a grateful nod and handed him one of the Kryptonite Batarangs. Just in case. Slade was returning now, though Bruce hadn’t even noticed he’d left, with a large stack of protein bars for the speedster.

“Eat up,” he said gruffly as he set them down in front of Barry. “Good job not dying.” He turned to Bruce then, a knowing look in his eye. “Shall we?”

“Let’s go get that fucking clown.”

Chapter Text

Bruce and Slade rode the five miles to Joker’s bunker in silence. It was partially because silence was Batman and Deathstroke’s default setting, and partially because they both had so much to process. Their mission, the only thing either of them had cared about for so long, was about to finally come to an end, and with it, the lives of their two biggest enemies and two of the only people they still cared about. Even by their standards, it was a lot.

And Bruce had never liked feeling his emotions, but it was even worse now than usual. He was drowning. Grief and triumph, sorrow and relief, regret and excitement, and every time he tried to distract himself from the growing storm in his mind, his thoughts always went back to Barry. The shattered look on the poor kid’s face, that fierce tremor in his voice, the way his scream had echoed across the battlefield. It seemed cosmically unfair, that such a genuinely decent person like Barry Allen should have to suffer like that.

Bruce had never been decent, and he probably deserved to lose the people he cared about, but Barry didn’t. Not for the first time, Bruce lamented how little justice was left in the world.

But, he couldn’t say any longer that justice was completely extinct. Superman was dead, and Joker was about to join him. Bruce tried to keep his mind on that instead as he loaded his pistol, shoved it into its holster, and left the transport with Slade. There was still work to be done.

The only way Joker could’ve gotten out of that bunker was to blow the whole thing sky high, killing himself in the process, and even as crazy as the clown was, Bruce knew he would never go out like that. He’d never choose a death that didn’t involve the suffering of anyone else. Still, it came as a bit of a shock when Bruce followed Slade inside the dark, dingy bunker to find the clown exactly where they’d left him. 

Joker had always been unreasonably lucky, after all. It was well within the realm of possibility for him to escape unscathed from a place meant to be inescapable. 

He looked completely unbothered by his impending doom, reclined in his chair and whistling jauntily to himself. His poison green eyes lit up as Bruce and Slade entered the room, looking like a predator lying in wait, ready to pounce on whatever new weakness he could find. It was at least 20 degrees cooler in the bunker, since it was underground and entirely made out of lead, but the anticipation kept Bruce warm as he approached the clown for what, god willing, would be the final time.

“Wow, who died?” Joker jabbed irreverently, taking in their grim expressions. “No, wait, wait, wait, don’t tell me. Was it… Replacement Jason? You do have an admittedly shoddy track record keeping orphans alive, especially black-haired ones who masquerade as superheroes and think of you as their surrogate father. Did Superman send him to that big treadmill in the sky?” 

“The target is dead,” Bruce replied neutrally, keeping his thoughts carefully centered on Joker and away from Barry. “That’s all that matters.”

“You’re wel-come,” Joker sang, smugness thick in his voice. “Without me to grind the sad little bits of his sanity into a fine paste, you’d never have managed it, would ya?”

Bruce shrugged. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. Congratulations on doing one halfway decent thing in your otherwise meaningless life. You were useful. And now you’ve outlived your usefulness.”

The wide smile on Joker’s face faltered for a brief moment, and in that split second of hesitation, Slade closed the space between himself and the clown, wrenched his hands behind his back harshly, and cuffed them together. Then, before Joker could get any bright ideas, he crouched down and bound his ankles to the legs of the chair, too. Seemingly satisfied that there would be no surprises, he turned to Bruce and gave him a nod.

“I’d make it slow, if I were you,” was all he said before he left the bunker, closing the door behind him. Joker looked down at himself and back up to Bruce, grin returning in full force.

“This looks familiar.”

“Let me guess,” Bruce interrupted, perfectly impassive and reactionless. “This is how you tied Jason down when you put your knife in his mouth and carved his face open?”

Joker looked annoyed for a split second, like Bruce had ruined his punchline, but he quickly schooled his expression back into amusement.“More or less. I did wrap him up in barbed wire first though, which I’d highly recommend. Really makes ‘em think twice before they get all squirmy on you.”

Bruce resisted the urge to smile as vindication rolled through him. It didn’t matter what Joker said about Jason now. His son was alive, and in a few short minutes, the clown wouldn’t be. “I think I’ll pass. This will be over soon, and you’re not worth the effort.”

“So today’s the day then, huh? Did killing your ex-buddy get your blood up, Batsy? You’ve got a taste for it now, so you’ll keep the party going by offing your best pal?” Bruce opened his mouth to respond, but a flash of movement in his periphery drew his attention away.

It was Jason.

Bruce’s eyes tracked his son as he limped slowly from the door to the two of them, leaving a trail of blood in his wake. Eventually, he came to a stop behind Joker. His dead eyes fixed on the clown for a long, frozen moment, a strange mix of fear and contempt, and then he directed his gaze up towards Bruce, staring a hole right through him. Joker glanced between Bruce and the door a few times, looking uncharacteristically confused.

“Am I missing something here, or have you finally gone cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs, Bats?”

Bruce allowed himself a rare smile as his eyes slid from his dead son to his unbearably alive killer, the wave of vindication rolling through him again. For once, he had the upper hand. For once, Joker was going to sit there and listen to him. 

“It’s Jason. I still see him all the time.”

Jason’s ghost leaned back slightly, clearly caught off guard. It was the first time Bruce had ever said those words out loud, and it was undeniably strange that the Joker of all people was the one to hear them. Still, Jason deserved to be acknowledged, to be brought into the light at least once after over six years as Bruce’s dirty little secret. 

“Oh?” Joker asked, licking his lips hungrily and leaning in, attention captured. 

“It’s like a ghost, I suppose, or a manifestation of some kind. He just appeared a few seconds ago, and he’s actually standing behind you right now. Looks just like he did the night he died. He’s always in pain, and he’s always angry with me. My son has haunted me for years.”

With exaggerated confusion, Joker turned as much as he could with his whole body tied down, checking behind himself and then looking back to Bruce, a clearly mocking gesture. “I don’t want to alarm you, Bats, but there’s no one else here.”

“Of course you don’t see him. I’m the only one who can.”

Joker’s eyes sparked madly like they always did when he found a new advantage to push. Normally, that look gave Bruce a sickening feeling in the pit of his stomach, a cross between anxiety, rage, and helplessness, but there was nothing this time. It slid right off. The Joker didn’t matter anymore. “Is that right? Remarkable. How does it feel to be every bit as crazy as me?”

Bruce pulled up a chair and sat across from Joker, placing his gun on the table between them, knowing that no matter how badly Joker wanted to reach for it, he wouldn’t be able to. “Terrible,” Bruce told him honestly. It was freeing, in a way, finally being able to tell someone. And who better to confess your secrets to than a dead man walking? “You got me with that one, clown. What you did to my son, that was… comfortably the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“You flatter me,” Joker said, voice slick as oil.

Bruce gave Jason a surreptitious glance, just to see how his son was reacting to all this, but Jason’s face was blank now. Staring dead ahead, speechless and unmoving, looking just like he had when Bruce had saved the Joker from certain death. In life, Jason had always been wary of anything that seemed too good to be true, and it was clear that the habitual distrust lived on now. He was waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Bruce to screw this up, for Joker to escape unharmed once again.

Still, Bruce was glad that Jason had appeared for this occasion. He deserved to see his killer finally get what was coming to him after a veritable eternity of unpunished crimes. Deserved to see the look that would spread across Joker’s ugly face as he stared down his own demise. And yes, it was vengeance, but it was also justice. Jason used to tell Bruce that underneath all the pomp and frills, justice was just vengeance that was easier to swallow, and Bruce was too blinded by his idealism to see that. Bruce was starting to think he might’ve been right. 

“He was a good kid,” Bruce said, just as much to Jason’s ghost as the Joker. In Bruce’s chest, there was a strange peace instead of the usual smoldering chaos and turmoil. Peace while talking to the Joker. That was a first. “Jason was a good kid, and I loved him. He chose me to be his father, and that was one of the greatest honors of my life. I didn’t deserve how good he was, but he certainly didn’t deserve what you did to him.”

“I told ya, Bats, your kid had no discipline. No respect. He needed to be put in his place. You raised a mouthy little bird, and that’s on you, not me.”

“Jason was a good kid,” Bruce carried on like he hadn’t even heard Joker, “he was kind, he was fierce, and you hurt him. You mutilated him. You took him away from me.”

Joker’s grin widened at that, showing all his teeth. “And it was some of my best work, if I do say so myself. I gotta know, what’s your game here, Brucie? Normally I’m the one who takes us strolling down memory lane. After all these years of letting me hurt you, have you just finally become a full-blown masochist? Are you trying to convince yourself to kill me? Or do you just want to give me one last morsel of joy before it’s nighty-night forever? Because honestly, this conversation is the most fun I’ve had in a long time. All these years and broken little Jay-Jay is still rattling around in the Bat-brain, that’s positively hysterical.”

“No,” Bruce replied calmly, “that’s not it. I’m done letting you hurt people. I’m going to kill you, and I don’t care how you feel when I do it. But I want you to know how close you came to winning. You’ve been on this team running your mouth and talking about my son like he’s just another one of your jokes for the past… what? Eight months? Maybe more?  And you’ve been gloating about his murder for even longer. Every time you did it, Jason would show up again and remind me that it was my fault. I’d had so many opportunities to kill you, but instead, I just let you defile his memory with impunity. Between putting up with your nonstop bullshit and being constantly reminded that I was still hurting my son, even in death, you really almost had me. I almost broke. You were so, so close.”

Joker collapsed into a fit of laughter, high and shrill and awful like it always was. For the first time in years, Bruce didn’t flinch at the sound, not even on the inside. “Here’s the thing, Batsy,” Joker said when he finally calmed himself. “From where I’m standing, I still won. I won the moment Robin’s poor little heart gave out. Sure, you can kill me. You can draw it out like I did with Jason, make it last for weeks, but it won’t change anything. It won’t bring your baby boy back.”

Bruce returned the Joker’s smile with one of his own, something bright and triumphant burning where his rage and pain usually was. “I thought the same thing, clown. Turns out we were both wrong.” Bruce reached into one of the compartments of his utility belt and pulled out the playing card Joker had given him all those months ago, holding it between his fingers, just inches away from Joker’s face. “My son, Jason Todd, is alive.” 

Pure shock spread across the Joker’s face for the first time in Bruce’s memory, and he just let himself enjoy it for a few seconds, wanting to keep that image burned into his memory until his dying breath. 

He remembered Harley Quinn dying in his arms after Diana had nearly gutted her with one stroke of her sword. Remembered trying to hold the massive wound in her stomach closed, his hands slipping in a sea of blood and viscera, and her begging him with her last breath to kill the Joker slow, when the time came. To make him suffer, to punish him for everything he’d done to her, to Gotham, to everyone. 

For a long time, Bruce intended to follow through on the promise he’d made to her, but the same part of him that had kept Batman a nonlethal vigilante for decades held him back once the chips were down and the opportunity was right in front of him. There might be no coming back from that, and then he’d lose out on his chance to find Jason, something Harley surely wouldn’t have wanted.

That part of him was right, but he’d been hesitant to deny Harley her dying wish. Looking at Joker now, though, Bruce knew this was just as good. The clown’s unflappable mask of carefully constructed madness was shattered into utter disbelief, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water, that horrible vicious fire in his eyes finally dying out. Harley had always been outwardly disgusted by Joker’s decision to kill Jason, and she would be every bit as pleased with this outcome. This hurt Joker more than physical pain ever could.

Chuckling low and threatening under his breath, Bruce grasped the card with both hands and slowly tore it down the middle, letting the pieces fall to the ground. Then, he stood and pressed the cold steel of his pistol against Joker’s pale forehead.

“You lose, clown.”

And he pulled the trigger.

Killing Superman was one of the hardest things Bruce Wayne had ever done, but killing the Joker was as easy as breathing.

Time passed in a blur as Bruce stood there, transfixed, watching the blood cascade down Joker’s chalky white face, his sharp green eyes growing dull and cloudy, his permanent smile finally gone slack. Somewhere amidst the overwhelming tide of emotion, relief and closure, residual guilt and grief, Bruce could’ve sworn he heard a quiet, hoarse thank you, dad. He looked up to pinpoint the source, but Jason’s ghost had vanished, and he was alone with the clown’s corpse. 

He’d probably just imagined it, but the idea still calmed something within him. Maybe he’d finally done one thing right. One thing Jason could actually be proud of. He’d followed through. He’d kept his promise. Joker was dead.

Joker bled red. Red, like a mortal, which he was. He'd always been mortal. Just a man. Bruce wasn't sure why, but he'd been expecting something else.

Bruce didn’t notice Deathstroke’s presence until he was already beside him. It was likely the sound of the gunshot that had drawn his attention, seeing as that noise could really only mean two things: Bruce’s end of their agreement was fulfilled or Slade’s contractor was injured or dead. First and foremost, Slade Wilson was a professional, and they were still technically here on business.

He didn’t say a word, didn’t look at Bruce, just walked right past him and up to Joker’s body. Slade took ahold of the clown’s greasy green hair and yanked his head back, a reproachful look on his face, like he expected Joker to come back to life with half his brain hanging out the back of his head. Honestly, Bruce wouldn’t put it past him. If anyone could pull some shit like that, it would be the goddamned clown. After a few seconds of assessing the damage, Slade seemed satisfied that Joker’s corpse wouldn’t spontaneously reanimate, and he turned back to Bruce.

“One bullet for three weeks of torture seems a little unbalanced,” he said, sounding slightly disappointed. 

“This world doesn’t need any more violence. It needs to heal.”

Slade rolled his eye with a derisive scoff and started uncuffing Joker from his chair. “Bullshit,” he muttered as he worked. “I woulda spent weeks taking this motherfucker apart, makin’ him squeal.”

“That’s exactly what he wanted me to do. Joker’s always taken pride in his belief that he was the single most important thing in my life, and had I wasted my time killing him slowly, I would’ve just fed right into that delusion. Besides, he can’t be hurt in the conventional sense. He usually finds pain amusing, just like everything else.”

Slade made a blatantly disgusted noise as he crouched and hefted Joker easily over one shoulder. “God, he really is a fucking monster, isn’t he?”

Bruce nodded grimly, stooping to pick the pieces of the joker card up off the floor. “Worse than Superman ever was. It’s not easy to hurt someone like him, but finding out that his whole sick legacy was built on a lie, and that he’ll never have a chance to right what is now his greatest failure? There’s no torture quite like that.”

Slade let out a low whistle as he followed Bruce out into the bright midday sun.“Woulda paid good money to see the look that put on his ugly-ass face.”

“It’s the only thing that’s brought me joy in quite some time.” Bruce opened up the back of the transport, and Slade unceremoniously tossed Joker’s body in. They sat in the front on the way back, not wanting to spend any more time with that deranged maniac even if he was dead.

“How are you feeling?” Slade grunted after a while. Bruce just blinked at him, astonished, and Slade gave a rather dramatic sigh. “Now that Joker and Superman are both dead, you’re my client. That means I have to care about your wellbeing.”

“Heartwarming,” Bruce deadpanned. He debated a slight embellishment of the truth for a moment, but he knew there was no real point lying to Slade. They were going to continue working closely for the foreseeable future and needed to maintain at least a base level of trust. Also, it had never, ever worked in the past, and was probably a waste of his limited energy. “I’m glad the mission was a success. I’m very glad the Joker is dead. I am relieved, and slightly in shock, that I will get the chance to go after Jason now. But I’m also worried about Barry.”

“He’ll be fine,” Slade dismissed easily. “Kid looks soft, but he’s tough as nails.”

“That’s what I’m worried about. He’s too tough for his own good, and he’s never known how to ask for help. As long as I’ve known him, he’s always tried to do everything on his own, and if he cuts himself off from the few people he still has left… I know what that can do to someone. I don’t want him to turn out like me.”

“Then don’t let him.” Bruce frowned, and Slade stared stubbornly out the windshield at the dirt road as he elaborated. “It’ll be two days minimum before we can leave for Tibet. In the meantime, you have shit to get done. Mera,” Slade’s voice broke almost indistinguishably on the name, “Mera wanted to be buried at sea, and she wanted you to do it. You’re still alive, which means it’s still your job, so do that first. I’ll stay with the kid until you get back, make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid. After that, just fuckin’... for once in your life, act like a real person and be there for Zippy for a while. He needs someone, and you’re kind of an expert when it comes to losing people you care about.”

“You’re going to talk to me about acting like a human being?”

“Yes, yes, I’m somehow even worse at this than you are,” Slade replied flatly. “But I’m also a super soldier; I’m basically a robot. The fuck’s your excuse?”

A handful of responses flooded Bruce’s mind, each more morbid and vulnerable than the last, so he let out a long sigh and nodded instead. “You have a point. I’ll make arrangements for Victor. Try to get Barry to open up some.”

“You do that. I’ll burn Super-Freak’s body.”

Bruce nodded. “Fine. But wait on Joker. I want to be there.”

Slade held out a gloved hand, and Bruce shook it firmly.

“Deal.”

Finding a boat wasn’t difficult. With the world’s population cleaved into fractions and scattered by Darkseid’s invasion and Superman’s subsequent descent into madness, there was a lot of abandoned property. The nearest marina had an assortment of unsupervised vessels, and Bruce had found a small speedboat in decent condition to hotwire. It wouldn’t be missed for the hour or so that it would be gone. That was part was easy. It was the everything else that was hard.

Touching her was hard. Looking at her was hard. As he hefted her body into his arms, feeling painfully light and small, it was impossible not to be acutely aware of the fact it wasn’t the real Mera. The real Mera was gone. She would never again bend the ocean to her command, would never again hold the trident that was more hers now than it was Arthur’s, would never again shout at Bruce for being cowardly or complacent and verbally beat him into submission. The light that she had brought to his life was extinguished forever. She was dead.

The first thing he did when he got back to the battlefield was close her eyes. Seeing empty, glassy death where there had always been light and life was more than he could take, was somehow even worse than the gaping hole burned through her chest. That was bad too, though, so the next thing he’d done was wrap her body. Just a few weeks ago, Mera had told him the story of the blanket she’d had since she was a girl in Atlantis, and Bruce figured she’d probably want to be buried with that, too. Then, he picked up her cold, stiff corpse, laid it in the boat with her trident, and taken her miles offshore.

Bruce gave a eulogy to no one’s ears, just the crashing salty spray of the ocean and the empty expanse of water on all sides of them. Words that Mera should have heard while she was alive, but still needed to be said now. At least one time.

“Mera of Atlantis was the fiercest woman I’ve ever known,” he began, the image of the unmoving body in front of him already beginning to blur with tears. “There has never been any other like her. Fighting beside her was one of the greatest privileges of my life, an honor the likes of which I will never know again. After the death of her king, the Aquaman, Arthur Curry, Mera dedicated herself fearlessly and tirelessly to avenging him. She honored him both in her life and her death, but she did not live in his shadow, either. She was a incredible; a ferocious warrior, a dedicated teammate, and a caring soul. She…” 

Bruce drew in a harsh breath, blinked, and the tears spilled over. For a long moment, he just sat there, listening to the waves crash against the boat and trying to compose himself. His voice was choked when he found it again.

“She was one of the best people left in this world, and I am fortunate I had the chance to call her my friend. She knew today would be her last and told me her sacrifice was not for the people of Earth but for Arthur and our team. Still, she saved everyone by laying down her life, human and Atlantean alike, and we are all in her debt. I will never be able to give back to her all that she has given me. She was a part of my family, and I believe I was a part of hers too, but now, it’s time for her to go home. I hope I can help her return to her brothers and sisters in Atlantis, as she helped me so that I might someday return to my son, Jason. Rest in peace, Mera.”

Bruce would never forget the sound of Mera’s body and her trident breaking through the water, the peaceful look on her pale face as she sank through the clear blue until eventually fading out of sight, or the feeling in his chest as a part of his heart plummeted to the ocean floor with her. It was a familiar feeling. Losing a piece of himself that he’d never get back again.

Still, he wasn’t sorry he’d let her into his life. Even though it hurt, even though it might never stop hurting, she had healed him, too. He was grateful for what she’d been for the time that she had been it. And he was glad he could help her find the peace she deserved, the peace she could never find in this life of endless fighting. 

There would never be enough time to mourn everything Mera had meant to him, just like there had never been enough time to mourn everything he’d lost after Jason and Dick, but this was something. It was enough. And now, it was time to refocus.

As Bruce turned the motor on and made his way back towards land, he felt a vague tug at the back of his mind. Jason’s usual physical shape was absent, but he could feel his son’s presence, the echo of the voice in his mind. It was less hoarse and more Jason than it had ever been in the past.

“I wish I’d had the chance to meet her, B.”

“I wish you would’ve too, son,” Bruce murmured back, knowing he was talking to nothing and no one. It still helped. Helped fill this horrible emptiness. Jason probably had something angry and painful to say, something that would hurt Bruce for days to come, but the silence was crushing, and this was better. Probably. “You were both too good for me. I think the two of you would’ve gotten along well.”

“We do have a lot in common, I guess.” Bruce tensed his shoulders, anticipating the kind of devastating blow that only Jason could deliver, something like we both died because of you, didn’t we? But what he got instead was, “We both knew you were worth this. Worth following, worth fighting for, and hurting for. I’m not sorry, you know. I’m not sorry that I chose to fight for you, or that I died because I was fighting for you. I don’t think she was either.” It was the first kind thing that Jason’s ghost had ever said to him, and Bruce was so floored by it that he actually lost his voice for a few seconds. 

“O-Oh,” he stammered out after a while, throat tightening almost painfully around the words. “Good. That’s, uh. Good, Jay. I’m glad.”

“I really do hope you stop losing people, B. You, uh… you’ve given a lot. For a long time. You should get something good, too.”

“I just want to get back to you, Jason,” Bruce said quietly as the shoreline came into view again. “Just you, son.”

When Bruce returned to the battlefield once more, it was to find Superman’s body and Slade both gone and Barry Allen passed out from exhaustion next to a half-dug grave and his best friend’s body. Not surprising, given that this was probably the most injured the kid had ever been in his young life, he’d been through emotional and physical hell, and he’d been running on fumes for hours already.

I might not always be around. I trust you to take care of him if I can’t.

Bruce let him sleep. 

He thought about waiting for Barry to wake up again, to let him finish digging his friend’s grave as he’d clearly intended to. It would probably help him grieve, give him some frail sense of closure, and Bruce wanted him to have that. But he also knew how Barry was. Incurably self-sacrificial, always putting everyone’s needs ahead of his own, and if Bruce enabled him like that, he’d run himself right into the ground. Barry wouldn’t protect himself; he was always too busy protecting everyone else. It used to be Victor’s job to do it for him. Now, for the time being, at least, it was Bruce’s.

So instead, he got the kid a blanket and a clean change of civilian clothes for when he woke up. Then, he stripped himself out of the blood-spattered top half of his armor and got to work finishing the job Barry had started. When the speedster woke up, it would give him one less thing to push himself over the edge with. It was hard work, but that was alright. Having something mundane and pedestrian to focus on calmed him to some extent. By the time he finished, the winter sun was slipping beneath the horizon, painting the clouds deep shades of pink and orange. It was a disproportionately beautiful end to a day drenched in blood and tragedy.

Bruce wiped the sweat from his brow with a dirty hand, climbed out of the grave, and sat beside Barry’s sleeping form for hours, trying to let the day’s events settle within him. At some point, he must have dozed off, because things were different than he remembered them. The clear blue sky had faded to dark sapphire, the light of the full moon casting a soft glow on the fresh grave and Barry’s face, making the whole scene look almost peaceful, and a stiff soreness had sunk deep into Bruce’s old bones.

Not long after, Barry woke up with a harsh gasp, sitting bolt upright and wincing as the sharp motion jostled his injuries. He was breathing hard and there was panic lighting up his usually soft brown eyes, but his movements were less stunted, suggesting his body was starting to heal. Bruce gave him a weak smile. “You okay?”

“Oh, uh,” Barry stammered out. “Hi. You’re not Slade. Slade was here before. And it’s dark, it wasn’t dark.”

“You fell asleep.” 

“Oh,” Barry said again, eyes fading into something more weary and haunted than frantic.

“Nightmare?”

“I’m fine,” Barry replied quickly, too quick for it to be the truth.

Bruce gave him a look that he hoped was warm, knowing it would probably fall short of the comfort he was aiming for. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I’m fine,” Barry repeated, more forcefully.

“Okay. You’ve had a long day. Do you want to go back to sleep?”

“No. I have work to do. Where’s Victor?” Bruce motioned with his head to the place he’d laid Victor’s body, now wrapped in a sheet, a few feet away from the grave he dug. Barry’s eyebrows furrowed. “Is that… did you…?”

“Yes.”

“I was gonna—”

“I know,” Bruce said with a sad smile. “And I know you could’ve done it without me. But Victor was also my friend. I wanted to help dig his grave because he meant a lot to me. I can bury him too, if you want. You’re still injured.” 

“No,” Barry said firmly. “I want to do it. But, uh. You can help. If you want.”

“I’d appreciate that.” Bruce reached behind himself for the clothes he’d grabbed, a plank of wood, and a Batarang. “I have this. If you wanted to make a headstone first. Or change out of the… competitive ice dancing uniform.”

Barry laughed weakly, then took the supplies from him and got to work. It was a while before he spoke again, and his voice still sounded empty like it had since his friend’s death, but things were getting better, Bruce could tell. The progress was slow, glacial, but it was something. “I know we probably should’ve brought him back to Detroit,” Barry muttered, sounding almost guilty. “People usually get buried with their families. But I—I couldn’t. Maybe it was selfish, but I couldn’t. Vic was close with his mom, but he hated his dad. I know he wouldn’t have wanted to be right next to him forever.” 

“I’m glad you thought of that. I knew that Victor and Silas had their issues, but I probably would’ve just taken him back there without thinking.”

“This team was all he really had. He and I both. The four of us were more his family than they ever were. I think that this is where he should be.”

Silence descended for a long time, punctuated only by Barry’s clearly labored, pained breathing, which got worse after they lowered Victor into the grave and started filling it back up. Bruce thought about saying something, telling Barry to take a break, but he held himself back. The mission was done with, and Barry didn’t need him to be Batman right now. He needed human comfort. He needed Bruce Wayne. 

So, Bruce let the quiet remain. Barry was likely getting lost in his own head again, but that might’ve been for the best. Bruce had tried distracting himself from what he was feeling for years, and it never did anything but make the hurt even worse. He didn’t want Barry to turn out like him. The kid should have the chance to process and feel this. It wasn’t until after they’d finished burying Victor and placing the makeshift headstone that either of them spoke again.

“What Joker did to your Robin,” Barry murmured, voice a little strangled as he stood staring at his friend’s fresh grave, “I had no idea, till I overheard you talking to Superman about it. I always knew Joker was a monster, but that… that sounded really bad.”

Bruce swallowed hard and nodded. “It was.”

“I’m sorry about that. About your kid.”

 I’m sorry about your friend.”

Barry gave a clearly forced shrug. “He died a hero. Protecting innocents. That was what he wanted, I think.”

“Jason died a hero too. Protecting innocents. Died trying to save Gotham from Joker by doing what I refused to do. I’m proud of who he was and what he did. And none of that makes it hurt any less.”

"Did you know?" 

"Did I know what?" 

Barry cringed slightly. "When you told me I should talk to him about... about being afraid. Did you know he was going to...?"

"I can't see the future, Barry." 

"You talked like you knew."

"I know what it's like to not know your last moments with someone will be your last moments with someone. I know what it's like not to get the chance to say goodbye, I know what it's like to lose them and have a whole list of things you wish you would've said and not be able to fix it. I had..." I had the chance to tell Jason I loved him one last time before he died, and I didn't take it. The words died in his throat. He'd never been able to say that out loud, and he probably never would. "You've always been so self-sacrificial that I figured there was a good chance you'd considered the possibility of dying yourself, but not the possibility of Victor dying while you survived. When Jason was my Robin, I thought a lot about what would happen to him if I died in the line of duty. I never, not even once, considered what it would be like if I outlived him. I was just trying to stop the two of you from having the same regrets I do."

"It helped," Barry whispered, voice ragged, tears trailing down his face as he kept on staring at the grave. "It's like you said, no amount of time is enough now that he's... he's gone, but... we never talked about dying before that, not really. It was more of a maybe Superman will kill us, but if we're dead, we don't really have anything to worry about anymore sort of thing. We never took it seriously, probably because we were afraid to, I guess. But we talked about it. He told me he was scared too. I got to tell him I loved him. And I got to say goodbye."

Bruce swallowed hard. "Good."

“Does it ever get easier?” Barry asked, sounding so painfully young all of a sudden.

Bruce debated the simple truth, the overwhelmingly complicated truth, and a comforting lie for a long time before eventually deciding on a compromise. “In some ways, yes. Losing Jason… it was the worst thing that ever happened to me, and some days that loss hits me every bit as hard as it did the day he was taken from me. I’m still sad. And I’m still angry. I don’t know if that will ever change, and sometimes that makes it hard. But it also means he’s still a part of me, just like Victor is still a part of you, and knowing that has made it easier for me as time has gone on. I can’t promise it’ll ever stop hurting. But as long as we keep them in our minds and our hearts, they’re never really gone.”

Barry let out a shuddering breath. “But he is gone,” he protested, tears threatening his voice again. “He’s dead. I’ll never—I’ll never see him smile again, I’ll never hug him again, I’ll never talk to him again. He’s gone, and I can’t do anything about it. I’ve lost people before, but it’s never been like this. And I just keep thinking that—that—if I hadn’t let that bastard catch me, or if I’d gotten back on my feet sooner, maybe I could’ve saved him. Maybe he’d still be alive. Or maybe it should’ve been me instead.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Bruce replied immediately. “I know that doesn’t help, I know nothing really helps right now, but none of us could’ve asked for more from you. Barry, you ran for miles on a broken femur, Superman shattered half your ribcage and you kept fighting. You made us all proud. I’m sure you made Victor proud too.”

“It wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough.”

Bruce turned to face the kid then. “Your friend flew directly at the world’s most powerful man with a grenade full of one of the only things that could kill him. Victor knew exactly what the result of that was going to be. And we couldn’t have stopped him from making that decision. He was relentlessly stubborn, just like you. It was his life, this was how he wanted it to end, and that is not your fault.”

Barry turned too, eyes red, tears carving tracks into the dirt that caked his face. “He always protected me,” he whispered, voice ragged. “And I couldn’t protect him.”

Heart wrenching, Bruce hesitated for a long moment, then held his arms out for the kid. Barry closed in for the hug immediately, crashing into Bruce with enough force to nearly take him off his feet, arms so tight around his back that it was hard to breathe. He buried his face in Bruce’s shirt, trembling faintly against him, and Bruce carefully kept his mind away from the painful memory of the one time Jason had let his guard down enough to do this same thing.

“I miss him. He was the best friend I ever had.”

“He was good,” Bruce murmured into Barry’s sweat-soaked hair, wishing it was enough, wishing there was anything that would be enough to take the kid’s pain away. “He was so good. You are, too.”

They stayed like that for a while, until eventually the shaking in Barry’s body calmed and he seemed to ground himself somewhat. He pulled back and turned to his friend’s grave, scrubbing a hand over his face and looking despondent. “I really wanted to do a eulogy or something. Don’t wanna just leave him here in silence like this. Seems… wrong, y’know? But I couldn’t really… I don’t know what to say. Don’t know that I can get through it, either.” 

Words weren’t Bruce’s thing. They never had been. They were right up there with feelings, warmth, and openness. But he thought again about Dick and Jason, about everything he hadn’t said to them when they needed to hear it, and he knew he had to be better now. It wouldn’t be perfect, wouldn’t be as good as Victor or Barry deserved, but he could try. Bruce stooped to pick the blanket off the ground and offered it to the kid, noticing the way he was starting to shiver. 

“Of course. I understand. If you want, I can do it.”

Barry nodded jerkily, accepting the blanket and wrapping it around his shoulders. “Yeah. I think he would’ve liked that.”

Bruce draped a large arm over Barry’s narrow shoulders and pulled him in closer, took a deep breath, and began.

“Victor Stone was… exceptional. Brilliant, strong, and courageous. Without his inventions, his sharp mind, and his bravery in battle, this team, and by extension the whole world, would’ve fallen to pieces a long time ago. It is always tragic to lose someone so young. Victor deserved to live a long life in comfort and safety, but that was never what he wanted. From the age of 21 when he became one of the founding members of the Justice League, he met every challenge he encountered with unflinching determination, never backing down, never wavering. We all call ourselves heroes, but Victor truly was one.

“Beyond what Victor did for our team, though, he was a good man. He was good, even when the world around him was anything but. He brought the good out of other people, too, and so many people are better off because they knew him. Victor may not be here with us anymore, but he lives on through the countless people whose lives he touched. I don’t have the words to fully explain all that Victor gave up for the sake of saving others. What I can say is that I hope to be worthy of everything he sacrificed. I hope the people he left behind can honor his memory and make him proud. And I hope he gets back everything he’s given in whatever comes next. Rest in peace, Victor Stone.” 

Barry had curled in on himself by the time Bruce finished, feeling small and fragile beneath Bruce’s touch, and he pulled the kid a little closer. Being a real person came more naturally than Bruce expected. The truth was, underneath all the armor and anger and loss, this was who he really was. A human, vulnerable, grieving, and hopeful. He did miss Victor. He did love this team. And he did want to help Barry find peace with this, in whatever way he could. It felt like coming up for air after being drowned, this chance to drop the act and finally be human again.

“Thanks, Bruce,” Barry whispered, voice breaking, but somehow still sounding less shattered than he had before. “That was… that was… good. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I’m sorry there isn’t more I can do.”

“It’s enough.” Bruce nodded, knowing that wasn’t true. Nothing was enough right now. That was just the way that grief was sometimes. All he could hope for was that it wouldn’t be that way forever.

“So, the mission is finished,” Bruce said after a while. “Do you know what you’ll do now?”

“Victor and I used to talk about getting a place together,” Barry said softly. “Away from all of this. We never really got a chance to have normal lives, thought it might be nice to give that a shot, y’know? Everyone knows the old trope, that you can’t get out of the hero life, and we wanted to be like, the first ones to actually pull it off, or whatever. Guess it sounds kinda dumb now, but it was important to us. He… he can’t anymore, but I think he’d still want me to try.”

You can’t get out of the hero life. Bruce distantly recalled Dick throwing his Nightwing uniform off the edge of one of the Batcave’s platforms, and wondered if his first son had ever succeeded with that nearly impossible task. 

“That’s not dumb,” Bruce told him firmly. “That’s good. You both deserved that. There’s more to life than all of this.”

“I’m gonna stay here for a few days, first. Give these stupid ribs time to actually heal up all the way, and try to figure out a way to… to say goodbye. After that, I think I’m gonna go back to Central City. For a while, at least. Maybe go see Iris.”

“Isn’t she…” Bruce trailed off, and Barry gave a sad little sigh.

“Dead? Uh huh. I lost her right before I lost half the whole damn city. But her grave survived the invasion, and going there… it used to help me. Gave me clarity, sometimes, and I think that’s what I need right now. Mera, she said I could handle whatever happened today. She was almost always right. I want her to be right about this too. So, I’ll try.” 

A small, fledgling hope took flight in Bruce’s chest at those words. Barry had always been strong in ways that Bruce couldn’t be. And he’d always known that Barry could survive this, that he just needed time and guidance and support, but it seemed like maybe the kid was realizing that too. Maybe even starting to understand he didn’t have to do it all on his own. That was the hardest mountain to climb, believing in your own ability to recover. It was a thing Bruce had never quite managed, but Barry stood a better chance than he did. Barry didn’t need the miracle of a dead boy coming back to life to find something worth staying alive for.

“Slade and I have something to take care of. We’ll be far away, and I don’t know how long we’ll be gone, but it’ll probably be a while. You do whatever you need to do, go wherever you need to go, but try to keep yourself safe, okay?” Barry nodded weakly. “I’ll be in touch when we get back. Anywhere we go after that, you are always welcome.”

“I don’t need—”

“My charity? I know. I’m not offering it. But I consider you a part of my family, Barry, and I don’t have much of that left. You don’t, either. So, if you ever want me to be a part of your life again, I would be happy to have you around. It’s not an obligation. I just want it to be an option for you.”

Barry bit at his lip and glanced up at Bruce with slightly watery eyes. “You mean that?”

“Yeah. I mean that.”

Barry gave a hesitant nod, his gaze falling back down to his friend’s grave. “Okay, then. Maybe. I’ll think about it.”

A few minutes later, Slade joined them at the grave, which was a little surprising. The mercenary usually wasn’t much for emotions, even more so than Bruce, and he must’ve known Barry was still broken up about this. But, Slade had been showing a different side of himself lately. Bruce wouldn’t dare call it soft, since Slade would probably kill him for even thinking it. Still, it was about as close to gentle or caring as a contract killer could get. 

Barry separated himself from Bruce’s side and gave Slade a cursory glance, slightly wary, the way pretty much everyone looked at Deathstroke. Bruce remembered his tight, anxious voice from before the fight, all of you slightly terrify me in your own individual ways, and knew the kid was probably feeling it more now than ever, as vulnerable as this tremendous loss had left him. 

“How’re you holding up, kid?” Slade grunted, like it physically pained him to ask. Barry chewed on the inside of his cheek, a nervous habit he’d had for as long as Bruce had known him, but a bit of the tension in his body released, and Bruce was grateful. Maybe Slade was taking his own advice and trying to act like a real person for the kid’s sake.

“If I said I was good, would you believe me?” Barry asked with a small wince.

Slade’s eye softened infinitesimally. “No.”

Barry gave a rueful nod. “Won’t bother, then.”

“Victor was a good kid,” Slade said, glancing down at the freshly dug grave. “And we’d all be dead fucking meat without him. Sorry he’s gone.” Clearly uncomfortable, Slade quickly turned to Bruce. “Superman is officially a pile of ashes. Plus a couple very stubborn, apparently fireproof bones.”

“As of just now? Figured that would’ve been done hours ago.”

Slade gave a frustrated sigh. “Like this whole bullshit thing hasn’t been needlessly complicated enough, Kryptonians also aren’t very fucking flammable, as it turns out. Needed more juice than what we had on hand.”

“Good. Thank you. Barry, will you—”

Barry waved him off. “Yeah. Torch that Robin-killing maniac, give him a ‘fuck you’ for me. I’m not overly fond of the smell of burnt flesh, and I think I uh… just need some time. Alone. Let me know when you’re leaving for wherever it is you’re going, though.”

“Of course. Stay warm. Go inside if you need to.”

Barry rolled his eyes. “Yes, thank you, dad.” He was clearly teasing, but the word still sent a bittersweet pang through Bruce’s chest. “Go set your arch-nemesis on fire, I’ll be a good boy, finish my homework, and be in bed by nine.”

Joker’s body took hours to burn. The blazing pyre threw strange shadows over Bruce and Slade’s faces, and every so often, Bruce could’ve sworn the crackling sounded more like peals of maniacal laughter. The stench of singed flesh reminded him of Jason, of the burns that covered more than a third of his body, of the way that horrible smell had mixed with coppery blood and Bruce’s tears as he held his boy and felt the life leave his body. 

The memory was haunting like it always was, but it gave Bruce another small spike of triumph. Jason had always had a bit of a vindictive side, and Bruce was sure he’d be pleased that his torturer was enduring the same things that he himself had been put through, even if the bastard wasn’t alive to feel it.

The two of them watched the flames distrustfully until they died down to smoldering ashes, plus the half-melted warped remains of that god-forsaken knife. After two decades of Joker’s sick games and schemes, it seemed impossible that he might actually be dead, that all of this could finally be over, and they were both hesitant to believe it. They’d been burned enough times to speak paranoia like their native language.

It was almost midnight by the time the worst monster to ever walk the Earth was reduced to a harmless heap of nothing. Bruce had never found the darkness more comforting than it was then, knowing that there was nothing left of Joker to fuel the flames, nothing left of the man who had tormented him for so many years. After a full five minutes of total silence, Slade let out a humorless laugh.

“No touching eulogy for the clown?”

Bruce crossed his arms and glared at the ash and cracked bits of charred bone scattered at his feet. “The Joker was a bastard. He was evil just for the sake of it, and he took joy in the torment and suffering of others. He never cared about saving the world, he joined us solely for the sake of playing his mind games, of having one last laugh before the end. He made no sacrifices and saved no innocents. His life was meaningless, his death was meaningless, he was a worthless coward and a savage beast. He died for nothing, no one will mourn him, and no one is in his debt.” Bruce threw the two torn halves of the playing card into the ashes. “Rot in hell.”

“Touching. And accurate.” Slade spat on the pile, a disgusted look on his face. Then, he turned to Bruce, clearly compartmentalizing this whole thing away and shifting gears. “I chartered a jet. We depart from Mochis International in two days at 0800 hours. Take your gear and any weapons you can get your hands on. We have absolutely no idea what this is going to be like, we need to be prepared for every eventuality possible. One more thing.”

“Yes?”

“I know you’re excited about finding your kid, and that’s fine. But you’re going to be better off if you can get it through your head right now that this is going to suck. In the beginning, at least. It could take years. It could take the rest of our lives. We have very little information, the League is notoriously tight-lipped especially when it comes to the Pits, and we might be the only people who know that Jason Todd is Jason Todd. He’s a Bat. He knows how to cover his tracks. And, just as importantly, you need to remember that half the world is dead. Jason might be, too. I will do everything in my power to find him, the both of us will do everything we can, but you know as well as I do that sometimes, everything we can isn’t enough. The sooner you get used to that, the better off you’ll be.”

Bruce nodded, knowing full well he wouldn’t be able to fully follow those instructions no matter how badly he might want to. Hope was dangerous, able to sustain life and destroy it in equal capacities, and Bruce knew that, but he’d been starved of it for so long. He couldn’t bring himself to give it up now. Seemingly satisfied, Slade left him there with Joker’s ashes. 

Not long afterward, Jason turned up again.

Jason was so faint now that he was almost invisible, the details of his face and clothing faded into a vague outline, and if Bruce wasn’t so familiar with the feeling of Jason’s presence, he would’ve assumed he was imagining the whole thing. As he joined Bruce in staring at the remnants of his killer, Bruce tried to get a good look at his son, but it was impossible. The harder he focused, the less he saw, like his Robin really was nothing but a ghost now.

From what little Bruce could see, he could’ve sworn the bloody smile and bruising was gone, that it was just Jason’s normal, uninjured face again, young and bright and alive, but it just as easily could’ve been that same unreasonable hope that was getting stronger with each passing minute.

“Okay, dad,” Jason murmured, sounding for the first time just like his old self. Bruce almost sobbed in relief, hearing his son’s real voice, not the one choked by weeks of pain and suffering. God, he’d missed that voice. “I gotta go. For real this time. I, um… I’m sorry I was always so angry. You weren’t always the best dad, but I loved you. I did. I know you did the best you could. And, uh, good luck. Finding the real me. I—he—we need you. I believe in you. I know you won’t mess this one up.” 

A single tear slid down Bruce’s cheek as he stood there in the aftermath, feeling the weight of those final words and Jason’s trust on his shoulders.

“Thank you,” was what he choked out eventually, knowing Jason was already gone but needing it to be said. Just like Mera. At least one time.

Jason’s ghost never returned. Never haunted Bruce again. His Robin was dead, put to rest, for good this time. Bruce hoped he could be free now, free from the misery and anger, pain and betrayal and heartbreak he’d stewed in for all those years. Maybe he could finally find some peace.

Robin was dead, but Jason, the real Jason, was alive. He wasn’t an illusion, a memory brought to life to torment him with guilt and regret. He was real flesh and blood. And Bruce was going to find him, no matter what it took. 

Chapter Text

The green made it easier, sometimes.

That was the main thought in his splintered mind as he mowed his enemies down single-handedly, smooth and easy like a hot knife through butter. It meant he didn’t have to think; his body did all the work for him. And the pain the green brought was better than being dead, like every man who got in his way was. 

It was better than being dead, right?

Down here, it was dingy and dark and hot, adjacent to a boiler room maybe. The air was thick with the suffering he caused, sticking to his skin with the sweat and blood already there, and their screams echoed against the walls. People were way too dramatic about pain. They were lucky. This was relatively quick. It could be so much worse.

There was a noise behind him, and the blood surged in his veins, screamed at him, attack! He whirled around to face them, but he wasn’t fast enough. A blunt thing crashed into his side and then he was flat on his back, gasping. For a moment, he stayed there, the bright sun stinging his eyes and the frozen mountain air burning in his chest, wheezing through his broken ribs. 

“Get up,” a voice barked above him in a thick accent that was at once foreign and familiar. “Now.”

And he obeyed, because no matter how fried his mind was, obedience was the one thing he still knew how to do. His only remaining virtue, as his handlers often said. Before long, he was laid out again, this time face down in the dirt. He didn’t remember the fall, only the deafening crack of the staff against his skull and the grime that now coated the inside of his mouth. 

“Sloppy. Again.”

It went on like that until he could do nothing but fall and get back up. Every blow took him off his feet and every word made him flinch. Even the green couldn’t stop the assault. Or maybe it just wouldn’t. Because both he and the poison knew this wouldn’t kill him, and that was all that mattered. Through the haze of pain and confusion, the voice was the only thing that remained clear. It was every bit as cold and sharp as the wind that smarted against his face and bit into the scars there.

“Pathetic,” it spat. He planted his hands in the dirt and tried to push himself back to his feet, but his elbows crumpled under his weight. With a groan, he fell back into the puddle of wet, blood by the smell of it, and had to turn his face to the side before it could drown him. “I expected more from a child raised by the Bat. No wonder he let that Gotham degenerate have you. It is truly hard to believe you lasted three hours with the clown, let alone three weeks.”

Everyone here talked about bats a lot; he didn’t know any bats, but he knew a clown. Not a shape or a name, just a feeling. Pain, fear, hate, death. The clown had been green, but the green also hated the clown more than anything else, and the mention of him ignited the fire in his veins again, a vicious pain that dragged a harsh shout out of his aching lungs. He tried to choke it down, remembering the punishment for speaking out of turn, but it burst through him anyway, ragged and far too loud. 

The only thing that would take this pain away was inflicting it on someone else, but he couldn’t make them hurt if he couldn’t stand. Could only lay there while they hurt him.

“Go ahead and scream, cockroach. No one rescued you before, and they will not do it now.”

That was technically an order, one that was blessedly easy to obey, so he let the screams keep on coming until they left him hoarse, curled in on himself, shaking and struggling for breath.

The voice above him made a sound somewhere between disappointment and disgust. “Are you finished, then?" He couldn't offer anything but a weak whimper in response. The voice seemed to take it as confirmation enough. "Good. I am starting to wonder why they sent you to me at all. You will never be a warrior. Just a punching bag passed around amongst your betters until they get bored with you. And you are starting to bore me, too.”

“Enough,” a different voice, a woman’s voice commanded in the same accent as the other. There was warmth at his side. The new presence helped him up, let him lean heavily against it for a few moments until he got his feet beneath him, then placed cold metal in his hand. It took time before he could make sense of it as a dagger, thin and sharp and deadly. The green in his veins surged brilliantly at the feel of it.

Slender fingers came up beneath his chin, directing his gaze back up to his attacker trainer, who was staring at him with open disdain a few feet away.

“Need mother to hold your hand, cockroach?”

There was a low growl, a sound he belatedly realized was coming from his own throat, and the woman shushed him. “Go on then,” she whispered. Her voice was gentle, but he could taste the danger, the threat in it. “Take the vengeance your father refused to and kill the ones who cause you pain.” Somewhere in all the bloodstained confusion and the green rage he knew that felt wrong. He wasn’t supposed to do that. There was a deep, gruff voice in his mind that said we only have one rule. And something told him his obedience belonged to that voice more than the woman beside him. The blade threatened to fall out of his shaking hand as he shook his head ‘no’.

The pressure on his jaw tightened enough to make the bones creak under the pressure, and he winced. What little warmth there had been in her tone disappeared. “This, or back to the room for another week, waladi.”

The next thing he knew, he was drenched in something wet. It saturated his clothes, dripped from his hair, even coated the inside of his mouth. And it was dark here, the air thick again, hotter and stickier than it had been, but he still felt frozen from the inside out. “Well done,” the woman praised. “Tell me, waladi. When given the chance, what do we do to the people who hurt us?”

“Kill them,” he replied, automatic, mechanical. “Kill them all.”

She left him then, and he surrendered beneath an undertow of green rage and instinct.

“You gotta stop, Red,” a different voice pleaded some time later, lower and kinder with a desperate edge she hadn’t had. The woman’s voice had been kind, but it was a compliance-kind, an or-else-kind, an I’ll-hurt-you-if-you-don’t-kind. This kind tasted different, settled different on his burning, frozen skin. “It’s done now. All the bad ones are dead. Please, please stop.”

He paused then, eyes still unseeing, just barely aware of the weight of something in each of his hands.“Muealim?” He whispered, voice so twisted and wrong that he didn’t recognize it. He cleared his throat hard, but it sounded just as alien the second time. "Talia?" 

“No. She’s gone. She’s been gone for a long time.” That made sense, because it didn’t sound like her. It was too warm and too low, like a man’s, maybe. The voice kept on talking, but he wasn’t listening anymore, because the longer he kept still, the more the green closed in. The clown had been green, too. Why did it always have to be fucking green?

He could spill an ocean’s worth of blood, and the red would still never wash away the green.

Something in him knew the man’s voice was right, that he needed to slow down, so he tried. Relaxed his hands, let whatever was in them clatter to the ground, and sucked in a few deep breaths. His whole body was still buzzing with a dangerous amount of adrenaline, begging for more violence, more relief. This part he hated. The killing was easy. The stopping was hard.

He must’ve spent too long trying to focus the haze of his vision or rid himself of the ringing in his ears, because there was someone in front of him now, an alive someone, an only-inches-away someone, and fuck slowing down. People getting near him meant danger, and the closer they got, the more damage they could do.

So, he snatched them up by the throat, lifted them off the ground, and squeezed as hard as he could. The fight had taken away some of his strength and it was hard to get a grip with all the wet, so he dug his fingers in harshly to keep the pressure. People couldn’t hurt him if they were dead. Didn’t matter how close they were if they couldn’t breathe.

“Ja…son…” the voice gasped out, and it was jarringly familiar now.

He knew that voice. He immediately let go. Stumbled back a few steps. Blinked hard.

“Roy?” He asked weakly, grinding the word out past the growing lump in his throat. That was probably right, it was probably Roy. Roy Harper. Arsenal-Roy-Harper. And Arsenal-Roy-Harper couldn’t be in the League of Demons Sadists Monsters Assassins. 

When the haze finally cleared and he could see straight again, the lump got even bigger. Roy was pulling himself back to his feet now with a lot of help from the crate beside him, but the proof was all over, and it was his fault. The angry red bruises blooming across Roy’s pale throat were his fault, the purple tinge to Roy’s face was his fault, the labored wheeze of Roy’s breathing was his fault. 

And now Roy was looking at him like that again, not quite fear, not quite pity, but not too far off from either.

“Yeah. Just Roy, nobody else. You okay?” He shook his head hard, took another step back, ran into the rigid brick wall behind him. A flash of memory blinked behind his eyes, mockingly clear now that the green was starting to fade. A crowbar ripping through his uniform and splitting his skin open, landing just a few inches shy of his spine. A studded whip cracking against his exposed flesh and tearing his back to shreds. A blowtorch, a belt sander— “Jason,” Roy said again, breaking through the flood, and he clung to it.

“That’s me, right?” He asked, still not recognizing his own voice but knowing why now. It was the modulator in his mask. Unrecognizable by design. “I’m Jason?”

“Yeah. You’re Jason.”

“Okay,” Jason whispered, bracing himself heavily against the wall behind him and slowly sinking to the damp concrete floor. Breathing hurt. Breathing wasn’t supposed to hurt.

After a moment, he could feel Roy beside him, close enough to touch now, which meant the not-fear must be gone. Jason leaned into the archer's body, gasping and trying to banish what remained of the green, so much green. The green would hurt Roy no matter what Jason wanted.

“Is it the Pit again?” Roy asked, wrapping a warm arm around Jason’s shoulders. Jason gave a small nod alongside a groan of pain. “Okay. It’s okay, Jay. Nobody’s gonna miss these assholes until they don’t show up to their deal. We got time. Just breathe. I’ll keep you safe.”

“W-Why am I wet?” 

“You killed a lot of people, bud, and you weren’t real nice about it. It’s blood.”

He shivered. Something in him knew he should feel disturbed, worried, maybe even guilty, but the Pit had washed those feelings away a long time ago along with most of his sanity and all of his body heat. “I’m c-cold,” was what he said instead since it was the truth. Another shiver ran through him, teeth chattering faintly now.

“I know, Jaybird.” The words were calm and solid like Roy almost always was, and Jason relaxed a bit with the feeling of it. There was no safety left in his world, if it had ever been there to begin with, but Roy was the closest thing to security he could still get. “How does a hot shower sound?” Jason just grunted unintelligibly in response, feeling his grip on reality starting to loosen again. “Good. Let’s get you out of here, then, hm?”

“I’m sorry,” Jason breathed out. A shrill laugh was creeping up in the back of his mind, and he shuddered with it.

“It’s okay. You’re okay, we both are. I’m gonna take you home.”

“No, 's not. I shoulda…” The laugh was louder now, piercing his eardrums and taking root in his brain. The world lurched suddenly underneath him and he wasn’t touching the floor now, one side of his body pressed firmly into something strong and warm. Like he’d been picked up. The same feeling as when B had… “I’m sorry,” Jason repeated, turning his face into the warmth. “I shoulda been a better Robin.”

And the green faded to black.

The first thing he was aware of when he came to was the chill that had sunk deep into his bones. The second thing he was aware of was that he was alone in pitch darkness and crushing silence. The green was gone, but confusion and panic were taking its place, like ice and death in his veins, because his grave had been cold and dark and quiet, too.  He’d been alone there, too.

The air was stuffy and stale, just like it had been in that fucking underground box. Something soft was underneath him, the way the bottom of his casket had been. There was the muffled sound of thunder and rain nearby, like he’d been able to hear when he first woke up. He couldn’t feel the walls around him, but that didn’t mean anything. It was happening again. He was buried alive.

“Help!” He shouted. “I’m down here, I’m not dead, let me out!”

He shouldn’t waste his limited air like that. They hadn’t heard him the first time, they wouldn’t hear him now. If he wasn’t careful, he would die again, and that was getting really fucking old. 

Instead, he lashed out with fists and feet and elbows, trying to find a surface that he could tear at to escape. He definitely wasn’t at full strength, his reactions were slow and his muscles were weak, but he’d done this with half his bones broken, he could do it now. The next time he aimed a punch for the lid, he realized his whole body was pinned down by a warm weight above him. And that wasn’t good. Being pinned down was never good. 

“Please stop, I don’t want to hurt you.”

Jason froze as a shrill, grating voice echoed in his mind. 

Why do you always make me hurt you, birdie?

“Open your eyes, Jay,” the voice commanded. Open his eyes? They were open, it was just dark as shit because he was buried alive. “You’re okay. I promise. Please, just open your eyes.”

Jason let out a frustrated hiss because this didn’t make any fucking sense, there shouldn’t be anyone here and it wasn’t his fault it was so damn dark and… oh. No, his eyes were shut. Dutifully, he peeled them open. Whatever this really was couldn’t be worse than that fucking coffin.

Even with their faces just inches apart, it took far too long for Jason to realize the warm weight was Roy. He had Jason straddled at the hips, pinning his hands over his head, not cruel or harsh but strong enough that he couldn’t break free. Roy had always been deceptively strong. That was why he couldn’t move. No restraints, no coffin, just Roy.

“Hey, there you are,” Roy murmured soothingly, a strange juxtaposition against how much force he had just been using to keep Jason still. “You’re safe with me, yeah? You are alive and we are above ground. Joker is very far away, and he won’t hurt you anymore.” Jason let some of the tension bleed out of his body and the concern in Roy’s eyes faded into relief. “That’s my Jaybird. Want me to turn some more lights on?” Jason gave a frantic nod and Roy climbed off of him.

As Roy made his way across the room to flip the switches, Jason pushed himself up and against the wall, curling into a ball and breathing hysterically into his hands, just trying to get a grip. The wet was gone, as was the stench of blood and pain, and the green was just a faint sizzle in the back of his mind, easy enough to ignore. They were in Qiemo, just like they had been for weeks. Everything else wasn’t real.

When Roy returned, it was with a thick blanket, a sweatshirt, and a kind smile on his face. Gently, he pulled Jason away from the wall a bit and draped the blanket around his shoulders. Then, he knelt in front of Jason on the bed, put his hands between his frozen skin and the blanket, and rubbed at his arms until the friction started to banish the chills and his breathing slowed. “You’re good, alright?” He whispered soothingly as he worked. “It’s all good, I got you.” 

When Jason finally calmed down enough to speak, a weak "Fuck,” was all he managed.

Roy handed him the sweatshirt and moved to sit next to him, not touching but close enough for Jason to feel his body heat. “Does it hurt?”

Jason winced and nodded, pulling the sweater on, knowing it wouldn’t make him any warmer. It smelled like Roy though, and that was enough. He rested his cheek against his knees and turned his head so he could see Roy. “It always hurts, Ginger, you know that.”

“The Pit, still?”

“It’s never not the Pit. I’m coming down from it now, but that hurts too.”

“How many injuries?”

Jason gave his body a mental once-over. It was harder to do now than it used to be, what with the constant Pit-induced pain in his body that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once, but he managed. Bruce had taught him this skill, after all, so he’d known it like the back of his hand since he was eleven. Back then, he never thought he’d need to use it this much. Or at all.

God, he’d been such a naive kid.

“None. Shoulder hurts, but it always hurts.”

Roy’s features screwed up into a confused frown. “You sure? Cause when I checked you out, you had three broken ribs.”

“Oh trust me, I know what broken ribs feel like, and mine are not. Anymore.” Roy and Jason traded uneasy looks. Neither of them really understood what the Lazarus Pit had done to Jason’s body chemistry, but not knowing was more unsettling than whatever the actual truth was. Sometimes, Jason thought about what Joker would’ve done to him if he’d had these abilities back in the Asylum, but he didn’t let himself go there now. Instead, he worked to get his mind back down to ground level where his logic tended to be. The moment he did, his anxiety rose again. “Fuck, were we seen?”

“Uh, yeah. Child trafficking rings tend to have kids in them, that was kind of the whole reason we were there.”

Jason let out a weak, frustrated sigh. “You know what I mean. Were we made?”

“No one saw our faces, no one heard me say your name, and I got you away from them before they could see you come down. The cops will question the victims and kids like to talk, so we might have some rumors circling, but they won’t have much to go off of. Everything should be fine if we avoid drawing heat for a bit.”

Jason nodded, then grimaced as he tried to pull up any memories from the incident and found nothing. “It’s totally gone,” he muttered, a mix of fear, frustration, and resignation. 

“What?”

“I don’t remember any of it. It’s completely fallen out of my stupid swiss-cheese brain.”

“Oh. That’s… that might be a good thing, you were pretty brutal this time.”

“How many people did I kill?” Jason asked, trying to remain calm. Trying not to give Roy, the only thing that had made him feel even half-alive in the almost five years since his resurrection, another reason to leave him.

“Twenty-three.” Okay. That was too many, technically, according to Roy’s stupid rules, but it could’ve been worse. Had been worse in the past, so much worse, so many times. 

“Any innocents?” He asked, bracing himself for the worst-case scenario like he always did when Roy recounted his bloody exploits. 

“No,” Roy assured him immediately. “You know I wouldn’t let you, but you never, ever try. Not even when you’re that far gone. You never go after civilians.” 

And Jason could tell that was meant to be comforting, the usual you’re not as much of a monster as you think you are, but it just made a hot spike of unpleasantness pierce his gut. It wasn’t guilt. Lazarus didn’t let him feel guilty. But it was about as close as he could still get. Because he hadn’t hurt civilians, but he couldn’t say the same for his only ally.

“I remember one thing,” Jason muttered, closing his eyes and hugging his knees closer to his chest. “I hurt you. That’s not much better.”

“I’m not exactly innocent.”

Jason forced himself to assess the damage he’d caused. The bruises around Roy’s throat were darkening, standing out in stark contrast to his pale skin, mottled blue and purple with sickening green at the edges. Jason’s body remembered that feeling from working on the streets, from Joker, from the League, and knew it must hurt every time Roy moved, every time he talked, every time he swallowed. Jason felt sick, and he should apologize, but the green didn’t like that word, sorry.  “I still shouldn’t be choking you out,” was what he opted for instead. And then, when that didn’t feel like enough, “You okay?”

Roy smiled, but Jason could see the wince hidden within it. His ally was good at hiding when he needed to, but Jason is used to be a Bat, and hardly anything got past him. Roy was in pain. Pain Jason caused. “You made a mistake, bud. It’s not a big deal.”

“Yeah, I made a mistake,” Jason repeated, feeling self-loathing like a brick of ice where his heart should be. “The same one I’ve made dozens of times, because it is ridiculously risky to be the guy who tells the madman on a murderous rampage that it’s time for the rampage to be over. How many fucking times have I hurt you in the past five months we've been teaming up?”

“As Jason Todd? Never.”

Jason rolled his eyes. "Que te den. Crazy-Pit-Mad-Jason is still Jason. Just because someone dropped me in a puddle of chemicals doesn’t mean I’m off the hook for all the fucked up shit I do now.” 

“Yeah, right. The Lazarus Pits are just puddles of chemicals, not fucking magical torture chambers that most people don’t even survive.” 

“What if you can’t get through to me next time? What if I kill you?”

“You won’t.”

“But what if I do?” 

“You won’t,” Roy repeated like it was the surest thing in the world. Like there wasn’t a necklace of pain around his throat that spoke to Jason’s total lack of self-control. “And not that it’ll ever come to this, because it won’t, but I was Speedy for longer than you were Robin and Ollie was almost as much of a drill sergeant as Bruce. I am more than capable of defending myself.” 

“You didn’t sign up for any of this, Ginger.”

Roy gave him a lopsided grin. “Didn’t I? You were passed out on the ground drenched in blood and surrounded by dead bodies the first time I met you. Pretty soon after that, I found out you were Batman's Robin, killed by the Joker, miraculously risen from the grave for reasons no one understands. If I was expecting sunshine and roses, that is fully on me.”

Jason glared at him, but they both knew it was halfhearted. “Okay ladilla, it was never going to be good, but this is still ridiculously bad. Literally, the only two people in the world more insane than I am are Superman and the fucking Joker. I…” And he had to say it, no matter how much it hurt. Couldn’t hurt worse than losing Roy would. “I’m sorry,” he ground out, hearing the pain in his own voice as the green flared up violently in his veins. It took a solid 30 seconds of just breathing before he could see past it, another 30 before his mouth started working again. Roy just sat there patiently, waiting for him to find the words. “I’m sorry I’m like this. Sorry I’m a mess and you’re always stuck cleaning it up.”

“It’s not your fault,” Roy told him, firm, confident. “You were murdered. Horribly, violently. And you’re alive, but you still have to live with all that. It was never going to be smooth sailing.”

Jason just shook his head, uncomfortable as he always was with Roy’s unflinching kindness and understanding. “So how long have I been out, then? Couple hours?”

“Three days.”

Jason groaned and smacked his forehead against his knees. Again, too long, but it could’ve been a lot worse. Still, if he couldn’t get that recovery time under control before Roy got fed up with this shit and left, he’d be killed or arrested laughably fast. “Did I miss anything important?” 

“I dunno,” Roy said with a shrug. “Been a little busy keeping you alive and stuff.” He rooted around in the mess of blankets around them until he found the remote. “Lemme put on the news, we can find out together.”

The broadcast was in Chinese, which Jason spoke fluently on the days his brain worked correctly. Roy didn’t though, so English subtitles scrolled across the bottom of the screen of their crappy tube TV, several seconds delayed from the audio. For a while, Jason just let the noise wash over him, not bothering to concentrate hard enough to fully comprehend it. He trusted that Roy’s reactions would tell him if there was anything worth paying attention to, but then his ears caught on a word.

Biānfú xiá.

Batman.

Jason could feel his whole body freeze up, nerves jumping to life like he’d touched a live wire, and the slight lingering buzz of the green in his veins got stronger until it was a dull roar just under his skin.

Roy’s eyes immediately snapped to him. “What?”

Jason pointed at the TV with a slightly shaking hand. The words were appearing at the bottom of the screen now.

BREAKING NEWS: We are just now getting word that, several days ago, the Batman and his team successfully defeated and killed the Kryptonian tyrant Superman. No update yet on the condition of this group of brave heroes.

“Woah, holy shit,” Roy breathed out, a reverent note in his voice. Jason barely heard him, already tearing his attention away from the broadcast and forcing away the fierce rush of green that always came when he thought about Bruce. Bruce was the whole damn reason the green happened at all, the reason Jason had been out of his mind or on the run for the past almost five years. 

“Bruce, you motherfucker,” he snarled at the ceiling once he was convinced that a conversation about this wouldn’t end with Roy’s blood on his hands. “So you can kill Superman. Yeah, way to go, B.”

“I mean, Superman definitely needed to die,” Roy argued gently. “You know that, right? He’s killed more people than any dictator in the history of the world. This was always going to happen eventually. Bruce has been after him since day one and he’s got most of Earth’s best metas on his side.”

Jason uncurled slightly and balled his fists in the sheet beneath him, willing himself not to go off. It wasn’t Roy’s fault. Wasn’t Roy’s fault Jason was a fucking wreck. Wasn’t Roy’s fault he still couldn’t let his shit with Bruce go even after all these years. “I know that,” he snapped. “Yeah, fuck Superman. He killed Alfred and half of Gotham, absolutely fuck that guy.” Jason carefully kept his mind away from Alfred’s memory, the same way he had since the day he’d found out and flew into a heartbroken rage that almost ended in Ducra's blood. “He deserved to die, and I hope they made him suffer.” 

“So what’s the problem then?” 

“The fucking problem, Roy, is that Clark was a good guy at one point, whereas the fucking clown has spent his whole-ass life maiming and torturing and murdering. Bruce can kill Superman, but not the Joker? Joker, you know, the guy who tortured and killed me, his fucking Robin? Are you fucking kidding me?!” Roy was silent for a long time, and then a warm hand fell on Jason’s shoulder. He immediately smacked it off. “Don’t fucking touch me, Roy.” Then, he pushed himself to his feet and started pacing back and forth across the length of the room, hands fisted in his hair. 

“Sorry,” Roy said quickly, hands held up in surrender. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think about that.” For a few beats, the only sound was Jason’s breathing, jagged and uneven as he tried to walk some of his anger off. Then, when the silence stretched out just long enough to be slightly uncomfortable, Roy filled it again. That was a nervous habit of his, Jason knew, and one he usually found endearing. Usually. When he wasn’t a light push away from an absolute breakdown. “Where do you think he’ll go now?”

Jason didn’t look at him, just kept pacing until the green had mostly faded away and he could see straight again. “With any luck,” he said, turning to Roy with a scowl on his face, “he’ll go jump off Mercy fucking Bridge.”

Roy gave him a thoughtful look, slightly too knowing. “You don’t miss him? Ever?”

“I hate him.”

“I know. I hate Ollie too, but I still miss him sometimes.” Jason frowned and crossed his arms, waiting for Roy to crack a smile and admit it was a bad joke. But his ally just stared back at him, unflinching and uncharacteristically serious. “I’m not kidding. Yeah, he was an asshole, still is, but he was also my dad for a while there. Things weren’t always bad. I do miss him sometimes, and I miss how simple my life used to be when I was Speedy and all I had to worry about was impressing him and keeping myself alive. It’s okay, you know. If you miss Bruce too.”

Jason didn’t let himself think too hard on that. He was pretty sure he wouldn’t like what he found. “It doesn’t matter,” he dismissed. “He thinks I’m dead, and I’m still not more important than the Joker, so he can get fucked. If I ever see him again, I’ll kill him.”

Roy raised a doubtful eyebrow. “Don’t lie to my face like that.”

Jason just gave a dismissive scoff and abruptly changed the topic. “Who the fuck is even on that team now? Bruce was never exactly Mr. Fucking Friendly.”

“Dunno. Last I heard of them was when Martian Manhunter died and they picked up Deathstroke, but that was over a year ago now.”

“Oh, that’s a fucking good one too. Team up with Deathstroke. It’s not like that guy also tried to kill us a bunch of fucking times.”

“Fair, but you know he's a kill-people-for-money guy. He could definitely…” Roy trailed off. Jason glanced at him, a question in his eyes, but Roy’s attention was captured by something on the TV, his mouth slightly parted, looking horrified. 

Jason slowly turned to see what the big deal was, then recoiled with his entire body, stomach wrenching so hard he thought he might puke. On the screen were six images, the members of Bruce’s team according to the news station’s most current information. There was Batman, the Flash, and Cyborg like there always had been, Aquaman’s successor Mera, Deathstroke, and— 

“Turn it off.” 

It was meant to be an order but it came out as a plea, weak and desperate and just above a whisper. When Roy didn’t react fast enough, Jason’s shaking hands instinctually retrieved a knife from his belt and flung it straight through the center of the TV. The screen shattered with a loud crash and sent a shower of sparks out around it, but Jason couldn’t find any satisfaction in the destruction. It was too late. The image was permanently burned into his Lazarus-soaked brain.

The Joker. Bruce had been on a team with the Joker. Which meant he was cooperating civilly with the Joker, which meant he recruited the fucking Joker!

Jason couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, couldn’t feel a single inch of his fucking body, and he had to brace himself against the wall behind him just to keep his feet. Everything was submerged in sickening, toxic green, like Joker’s eyes, like poison in Jason’s veins, like his hands around Roy’s throat, and he couldn’t tell if he wanted to cry or scream or die all over again. All his body allowed him to do was turn to Roy, shaking and panting, and as calmly as possible, say: 

“I need to kill someone.”

“No.” 

“Sorry,” he ground out through the pain and the madness, “did that sound like a fucking request? Let me rephrase: I’m going to kill someone. Right. Now. Come with me or don’t, but you’re not my fucking keeper and I don’t need your fucking permission.”

“Killing someone won’t fix this, now sit down and breathe.” It was a command, and equal parts of Jason wanted to obey and wanted to beat Roy within an inch of his life for daring to order him around like a fucking sidekick, like a fucking child.

“Fuck you,” Jason snapped back, voice breaking harshly on the words. “You don’t—you don’t understand, I have to—that—fucking—I have to!” 

“No. Your body is exhausted, you’re in a terrible headspace, and you’re seven over the kill limit already. I’m not letting you out there. If I do, you’ll never stop, or you’ll get yourself killed. It’s my job to stop you from doing dumb shit like this, so sit down and let me help.”

Jason let out a mean snort and headed for the exit. Roy didn’t fucking get it. The only thing Jason could do to fix this was wash it away in blood like the League had taught him to do. He reached for the knob, but there was something warm and solid in the way. Roy was standing in front of the door. Jason hadn’t even noticed him get up.

“Let. Me. Help.” Roy repeated deliberately. Snarling with rage, Jason planted his hands on the smaller man’s shoulders, pulled him forward, and then pushed him hard, the back of his head slamming against the wood door with a nasty, satisfying crack. Roy winced but didn’t budge, and that made the green angry. Jason geared up to make it hurt worse, to send the message loud and clear, but Roy caught him by the wrists and switched their places. He pinned Jason against the door and held him there, refusing to let up no matter how hard Jason struggled. Seconds later, the floor dropped out from under him and Jason was left frozen in terror. 

“No,” he breathed, small and helpless. “Please, no.” Breathing was harder than it should’ve been and there was a bruising grip on his jaw, migrating down to his throat and tightening mercilessly. He opened his mouth to tell Roy to stop, that he didn’t have to do this, that Jason would be good and obey, but the hand was so tight that he thought his windpipe might collapse and the only noises he could make were weak wheezes and whimpers.

The hands around his wrists were metal now, the burn of the green under his skin feeling more like barbs that poked at him through his uniform and tore into his flesh every time he moved. A shrill laugh echoed off the walls and he cringed, but that just brought his attention to the cold blade in his mouth and the green eyes blazing with sick satisfaction just a few inches away from his own. Fear shot through his heart and spread out in every painful inch of his body. "Don't do this," he pleaded, voice sounding strange, too frail, too high, too hoarse to be his own. "Please, not this, anything else." 

The eyes just burned brighter, almost glowing now. The cold steel pressed down against his tongue. "But you've been so sad lately, birdie. I think it's time we put a smile on that face." 

"No, no, don't—" but the grip on his throat was too tight for him to get any more words past it. Serrated steel slowly began sawing through the soft flesh at the corner of his mouth, leaving ragged flaps of skin behind as it cut into his cheek. Blood flooded his mouth and drowned the scream attempting to escape his throat. A ragged sob was dragged out of him, and Joker's grip tightened further, cutting off his air along with the noise.

“Hush now, bird boy. Children are meant to be seen and not heard, and I’d hate to have to cut out your tongue, too.”

Roy was still there an hour later when the green and the memories subsided enough for Jason to get a loose grip on reality. They’d ended up on the floor, ragged carpeting under Jason’s fingertips, Jason’s head in Roy’s lap, and Roy’s long, thin fingers running through his hair. Jason tried to surge away from the contact, but he was far too weak now, and he didn’t really want to, either. Instead, he just curled up on his side into Roy’s heat until the chill of the Asylum left him. 

“Hey there.” Roy’s voice was gentle, but it felt jarringly loud within the small room and Jason cringed, curling farther into the archer’s body with a broken little noise. “Been a while since you’ve had two in one day, you alright?”

No. No, he wasn’t. But he didn’t need to worry Roy like that.

“Hrgh,” was the intelligent alternative he chose.

Roy pulled his sleeve over his hand and used it to wipe the tears off Jason’s face, his reassuring smile looking vaguely guilty. “I’m sorry. It was me grabbing you, right? That’s what did it?”

Jason shook his head immediately. It wasn’t Roy’s fault. It was never Roy’s fault. Just Joker, Joker and the League and Bruce, and really, it was Jason’s fault, because he was the one who let it keep hurting him even though it was all so far in the past. But even if Jason could speak those words, and he very much could not, that was way too much to dump on Roy. “No,” was all he could manage. Then, after a moment, the lingering untethered fogginess bowed under a sudden flood of panic and he snapped his head to the side to look at Roy. “Fucking shit, who did I hurt?”

“Yourself, mostly. Took a nasty fall and landed right on your head. Probably a concussion.”

“Mostly?” Jason repeated, ignoring the pounding headache in favor of the frigid curl of anxiety in the pit of his stomach.

“You also did a number on our TV. But, you didn’t hurt me, and I know that’s what you’re actually asking.”

“Are you lying? You know how much I hate lying.”

“Are you dodging? I know how much you love dodging.”

Jason scoffed. “Oh, dodging the fact that my kind-of-dad is working with my definitely-killer? God, no. Why would I be dodging that? It’s not like that hijo de puta tortured me for 23 days and killed me when I was fifteen fucking years old.” Jason forced himself to take a pause before this could spiral into a tirade. “Whatever. I don’t even care. Fuck them both.”

Roy gave him a blatantly doubtful look. “Wanna try telling me the truth?” He asked, voice soft and forgiving like Jason had never, ever deserved, especially not after all the shit he’d already pulled today.

Jason sighed, buried his face in Roy’s shirt, and nodded, surrendering. “Bruce was my dad,” he admitted in a small voice. “More than Willis or anyone else ever was. Maybe I was stupid for thinking that, but I did. He was my dad for four years, and as far as he knows, I’m dead. I’m dead, it’s Joker’s fault, and he teamed up with him anyway.”

“Jay, I’m sure that—” 

“Don’t,” Jason interrupted sharply, voice starting to tremble. “I know what you’re gonna say. Bruce probably has a good reason for doing this, and saving the world matters more than some kid who’s been dead for six years. Yeah, fine, that’s true. But Roy,” Jason said, and that came out like a plea, “that—that fucking—my brain doesn’t work right, my body is a fucking mess, I spend 70% of my time wishing everyone around me was dead and the other 30% wishing I’d go back to being dead, and it’s all because of that fucking clown. If Bruce ever gave half a shit about me, there is no reason good enough for him to forgive all of that. I can’t. I can’t logic my way out of the fact that he’s buddying up with the monster who ruined my life.”

“Can’t blame you there, Jaybird,” Roy murmured, clearly giving up on trying to comfort Jason or bright-side the shit out of this train wreck of a situation like he tended to do. “I’m sorry this is happening.”

Jason shuddered, remembering the wording they’d used on the news broadcast. “They called him a fucking hero,” he whispered, voice raw. “Decades of the worst shit Gotham’s ever seen and he’s a hero. It’s not like I was the only one, Roy, he’s been ruining people for as long as I’ve been alive. He’s a fucking monster.” Roy just nodded, scratching his fingers across Jason’s scalp with the same endless patience he always had. “Do you know what my first complete post-resurrection memory is?”

“I don’t think so, no.”

“I’m in Nanda Parbat, in that fucking room they always kept me in, wrapped in a straitjacket and chained to the wall. Talia comes in, stands too far away for me to reach her, and tells me I was murdered over a year ago. She says you remain unavenged by your father. Before I knew Bruce or Joker’s names, before I knew my own name, I knew that. All this time later, the rule’s been broken and he still hasn’t done it. And now they’re what, fucking friends?”

“If Bruce is actually friends with the Joker now, I’ll kill him myself,” Roy almost growled.

“God, there’s just always something going wrong, huh?” Jason muttered, feeling more exhausted than angry now. “Can’t have like, a five-minute break or anything. I should track them both down and kill them right now, bet that would uncomplicate my life in a hurry.”

“Or,” Roy countered gently, “we can order takeout from that one place that survived the last invasion, you can kick my ass at cards, and we can lay low for two days until your kill count resets.”

“Why did I ever agree to that shit?” Jason groaned, not much heat or fight in the words. “Why in god’s name do I let your scrawny little ass stop me from killing every motherfucker I want to?”

“Because my scrawny little ass keeps you out of jail.” Jason rolled his eyes, but Roy kept on going anyway. “Because you don’t want to go back to the way you were with the League. Because even if you won’t give yourself any credit for it, you’ve made significant progress towards staying in the driver’s seat even when the Pit gets bad. Because you don’t want to give that up and start at square one. You’re pissed off and hurting, and that’s completely justified, but that doesn’t make any of those things less true.”

“I hate you, pendejo.”

“Also not true, and once again, I think it's deeply unfair of you to insult me in a language I don't understand."

"And once again, I'd remind you that you could just fucking learn Spanish, and then you would understand."

Roy sighed, exasperated, but Jason could tell there was something fond in it. "Listen Jaybird, if you agree to my boring nonlethal plans for the night, then tomorrow, we can start searching out the next ring of scumbags for you to slaughter, alright? Maybe go after a crime lord?”

“Oh Ginger, you tease,” Jason jabbed with a reluctant smile. “You know how much I love killing crime lords. Almost as much as I hate your stupid twenty kills per week rule.”

“Please, Jaybird?”

“Fine. But I'm still gonna drink until I forget about this Joker shit, and if for some ungodly reason we run into Batman, I’m killing him. Rules or no rules.”

“Deal.”

Chapter Text

“Well, shit,” Slade muttered. “We’re off to a good start.”

Bruce scanned over the wreckage again, then sighed heavily, the breath quickly crystallizing in the frozen air. “For as long as I can remember, Nanda Parbat was always an untouchable fortress. It’s hard to believe it could be decimated like this.” And then, because his desire to avoid vulnerability was weaker than his concern for Jason’s wellbeing, he followed up. “You don’t think he was here, do you?”

“No. Chances are slim to none.” Bruce could’ve sworn he heard something almost like reassurance in Slade’s usually gruff and emotionless voice, but he was probably just projecting. Slade was a businessman. They were there on business.

“What makes you say that?”

“Talia and Ra’s are too smart to let their cult get burned alive, and while Jason was with them, that cult included him. If he was still here when it happened, he probably survived it. The only reason I can think of that he wouldn’t is if the fire was set specifically to kill him, which is not the League’s style whatsoever and seems unlikely given they’re the ones who dunked him in the Pit.”

Bruce nodded. “Makes sense.”

“We should still search the place, though. I doubt we’ll find Jason’s body, but we could find some clues.”

They must have combed through the charred remains of Nanda Parbat for hours with no luck. Every time Bruce turned over another chunk of rubble to find nothing but ash and snow, he felt his heart sink a little more. Not only were there no clues, but they still couldn’t even figure out what the hell had reduced the League of Assassins’ ancestral home to ruins.

It might’ve been Superman; the lunatic had left enough carnage in his wake that it was impossible to keep track of it all, and anywhere there was a disaster, there was always a chance that he was the cause. But it just as easily could’ve been an inside job, the League covering their tracks after whatever morally questionable almost-crime they’d most recently committed. They couldn’t know for sure, though, because it had all been burnt to a crisp.

Slade was right about the League. It was incredibly unlikely that a fire, Superman-induced or otherwise, would lead to their extinction. Ra’s was nearly invincible after all, and Talia was one of the most cunning people on the planet. They, and by extension, the many soldiers they had trained, were incredibly hard to kill. This had likely only left them scattered. 

So, there was good news and bad news.

The good news was, the only people who could give them more information about Jason probably weren’t among the sea of ashes at their feet. The bad news was, they were going to be almost impossible to find. When a member of the League of Assassins didn’t want to be found, they wouldn’t be found. They had their work cut out for them.

For the better part of a month, they chased whispers and rumors of Talia al Ghul. It was one of the most frustrating tasks of Bruce’s life. She was always ten steps ahead of them. Bruce knew she could keep it up for as long as she wanted to, and he wasn’t willing to waste the time he should be spending searching for Jason on her. So, he opted instead to sacrifice the element of surprise and risk his own security by leaving a message with his name and the number of a burner phone at her latest abandoned hideout.

Predictably, it worked. A day later, he received a text with a time, location, and instructions to come alone. He brought Slade. She brought six League assassins. Neither of them had ever really been people of their word.

“Oh beloved,” Talia said around a sigh as she took in Bruce and Slade and their armor and weapons, carefully masked irritation in her brown eyes. She was dressed to the nines as always in a skin-tight black dress that definitely had at least four weapons concealed within it. “And here I was hoping this might be a social call.”

“Do you usually bring half a dozen trained killers with you for social calls?”

She raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow at him. “A lifetime of fighting teaches one to be cautious. You know that just as well as I do.”

“This is a little less grand than your usual choice of locale.” The place was nothing to scoff at, a small mansion with lavish decorations, but it definitely couldn’t house the League’s army and it was far from the palace they used to call home.

“Desperate times make for limited choices, and you must forgive me for not wanting to lead potential enemies into the heart of our main headquarters. Speaking of enemies, congratulations on your great victory. You have our thanks for disposing of Superman. He was rather inconvenient.”

Bruce stiffened slightly, thinking of Mera with a gaping hole burned into her chest, the sickening crunch when Superman snapped Victor’s neck, the shattered look in Barry’s eyes as he stared at his friend’s grave for hours on end. “We lost good people. If you had answered when we called for aid, things would never have gotten as bad as they did. You had an army at your disposal and we had to fight the world’s most powerful man with four metas, a homicidal maniac, and an ordinary human.”

“As I told you back then, beloved, I don’t fight your battles and you don’t fight mine. Would you be so kind as to call off your dog so that we might get reacquainted properly?” Slade let out a low growl through his teeth and she sent him one of her carefully rehearsed smiles. “Not that it isn’t always a pleasure to see you, Mr. Wilson.”

“Wish I could say the same,” he hissed at her.

Unimpressed, Talia turned back to Bruce. “Well?”

“That won’t be necessary. This shouldn’t take long, and as you said, it isn’t a social call.”

There was a hint of disappointment and annoyance in the way the corners of her meticulously painted red lips turned downward. Bruce couldn’t quite discern whether or not it was genuine, and he was starting to remember now why he and Talia had been so bad together. Batman was one of the greatest detectives in the world, and even he struggled to see past the facade she put on. Impossible to get a steady read on, and impossible to trust because of it. “Very well,” she conceded. “What can I do for you, my love?”

“I’m looking for Jason.”

Her brown eyes went warm and vaguely pitying. It was a look Bruce had been accustomed to since he was eight years old, but it was different on her. Too perfect to be real.  “Beloved, your son has been dead for over half a decade.”

“Yes, he was. But as I’ve recently learned, that’s no longer the case. I’m not interested in your games, Talia, nor am I interested in interfering with the League’s business. My days of unsolicited heroism are behind me, and all I care about now is finding him. Tell me what you know about my son, and I’ll be on my way.”

Talia gave Slade a furtive glance, quick but venomous, like he’d betrayed her. That was all the confirmation Bruce needed; Talia had known from day one that the catatonic boy she picked up in Gotham had been Bruce’s son. She looked like she was ready to spin a new web of lies, lips twisted into a thoughtful frown, but after a moment she seemed to do away with that notion and Bruce was relieved. He really wasn’t in the mood to do intellectual battle with an al Ghul. Actually, he was pretty sure he’d never be in the mood for that again.

“The boy was with us once, but I’ve not seen him for years now.”

For a moment that seemed to stretch out infinitely, Bruce was too breathless to speak, because there had really been a part of him that never believed Slade’s story. It broke apart at her words, bringing an overwhelming flood of emotion with it. It also brought about a hundred thousand questions up in his mind, but he forced himself to prioritize the one that mattered most. “Is he alive?”

“To my knowledge, yes.”

Something released in Bruce’s chest, but he didn’t have the chance to call it relief, because a tidal wave of indignation and frustration was already swallowing it up. “So,” he said, keeping his voice as level as he possibly could, “let me make sure I have this right, then. You knew Jason, you knew how much I loved him and how much his loss affected me, you knew he had miraculously come back to life, and you kept him away from me intentionally?”

“No. I kept a monster away from you knowing that seeing him in that state would cause you nothing but pain. That thing is not your son anymore. He bears an uncanny resemblance to his killer, in fact.”

“Don’t talk about him like that,” Bruce snapped before he could stop himself. “Jason is not a thing, and he’s not the Joker.”

Talia raised her chin like she took that as a challenge. “Oh, isn’t he? Have you seen him? Do you know? Tell me, beloved, is the Joker more man or beast?” Bruce just stared at her in response, but she nodded like he’d given a verbal answer. “Your silence is telling. And if Joker is a beast, then surely, someone who kills as ruthlessly and senselessly as he does must be one too.”

“You’re one to talk,” Slade cut in, not even trying to hide his contempt. “Like you’ve got a fuckin’ leg to stand on judging anyone else's character. Glass houses and all that.”

Talia shot Slade a quick glance, seeming unamused. “The League acts in service of the greater good, Mr. Wilson, something you often seem to forget. The boy you wish to hunt down acts in service of the Lazarus in his veins and the hatred in his heart. We are not the same.”

Bruce felt a harsh pang in his chest at that. Jason had been impulsive and irrational at times, and he had a well-defined vicious streak that Bruce had sometimes struggled to keep at bay, but his kind heart ruled over all of those things. He knew Jason and he knew how bad things would have to get for him to lose that part of himself. Things clearly hadn’t ended with Joker, they just kept on getting worse. What if Bruce couldn’t reach him?

Whoever he is now, whatever he has done since his resurrection, you must make it known to him that he is still your son and you still love him.

Mera had said that with so much confidence, like she already knew the things Bruce was now learning. It was like Barry had said: Mera was almost always right. She deserved the same faith now that Bruce had given her when she’d been alive. Jason wasn’t a monster, and Bruce wouldn’t fail him again.

“How did it happen? What did you do to him?”

Talia turned her attention back to Bruce. “You think I would hurt a child? Your child?” Her face was carefully expressionless, but there was something imperfect in the tone of her voice. Again, Bruce couldn’t tell if it was indicating a lie or the truth, and he suppressed a groan of frustration.

“I think you’ve done worse in the past.”

“I saved his life. Which, if you’ll recall, is something you failed to do.”

“Would you like me to thank you? You condemned him to a lifetime of suffering. The way you talk, it seems he might have been better off dead.” It was difficult to force those words out. Implying that Jason’s resurrection was a cosmic mistake when it was the first taste of hope he’d known in years was nauseating, but it was also the provocation Talia needed to divulge more details.

Sure enough, for a split second, the perfect mask of grace fell into something uncomfortable. “I did all I could for him,” she said, uncharacteristically quiet and reserved even as she built her facade back up. “This was not the outcome I intended when I took him in. Lazarus Pits are known to cause insanity, but as far as I knew at the time, the effects were always temporary. He was catatonic when I found him, and I thought it might at least make him responsive enough that we could start putting his mind back together. It should have worked, but he reacted poorly. 

“At first, we thought it had destroyed his mind altogether; he was lost in his own world of pain and madness for months. Eventually, he gained some coherence, enough that we could let him out and begin his training, but that directionless insanity was replaced not with humanity but with uncontrollable bloodlust and rage. I spent two years trying to get through to the boy I once knew, but the only language he speaks now is pain. Dealing it out and receiving it. The thing you once called your son is a lost cause and a danger to himself and everyone around him.”

“If he’s so dangerous, why did you let him leave?”

She pursed her lips. “I didn’t. At first, I kept him here hoping that training his body, giving him something to direct that bloodlust at, would allow me to reach his mind or at least teach him some self-control. I admit that was a mistake. It did nothing to balance him out; all we accomplished was making him even more lethal than he already was. More of a weapon than a person.”

“And that bothered you, why? The League’s whole purpose is to turn people into weapons.”

“Only when they can be controlled, and even we could not control that abomination. For a time, he was useful, seeing as we could point him at our targets and he would take them down single-handedly with hardly a scratch on him, but once he started, he never stopped. He made no judgments between good and bad, friend or foe. If it was breathing, it was his enemy. We had to take… extreme measures just to keep him contained.”

“Extreme measures?” Bruce repeated, voice cracking almost imperceptibly as bile crept up thick and bitter in the back of his throat.

Talia’s eyes flashed the same warm, insincere pity as before. “Knowing the details would do nothing but hurt you, beloved.”

“Talia, what did you do to my son?”

“Stopped him from turning into the next Superman. You’re welcome. I don’t think you’re grasping the gravity of the situation. He beat my father in one-on-one combat, something even you have struggled to do in the past, and he did it with nothing but a bo staff. Beat him to the point of unconsciousness and likely would have killed him had I not taken the extreme measures I took. 

“The boy picked up physical training as easy as breathing, but self-control? Respect for himself or others? Discipline? These were lost on him. He could not be taught the things that differentiate a mindless animal from a warrior. That made him too dangerous to be kept alive. Father and I decided to take mercy on him and deliver him from his endless misery, but somehow, he must have discovered our plans. The day we came to end his life, he had disappeared.”

“You were going to kill my son?” Bruce hissed, trying and failing to keep the bitter fury out of his voice. “Again? After you were the reason he was that far gone?”

“Once again, I am the reason he is alive and once again, he is not your son.”

“You just said you wouldn’t hurt a child.”

“And I wouldn’t have. I took no joy in his torment and I was endeavoring to end it. It would have been quick, it would’ve been painless, and it would’ve been far kinder than whatever suffering he’s enduring now.”

“How do you know he’s still out there?” Bruce asked, trying not to let that unreasonable hope rise above his anguish for his son and his anger at Talia’s highly questionable methods of ‘rehabilitating’ him.

“I don’t. However, I do know that Lazarus is stubborn. It does not fear death, but it does loathe it, and as a result, so does anyone who carries it in their veins. Out of all the people I’ve seen survive the Pits, that boy is the only one for whom the intensity of the side effects didn’t fade over time. I imagine the Lazarus within him would be even more resistant to fatality; even if he wanted to die, it wouldn’t allow him to. It’s even less likely his enemies would manage it.”

“Okay,” Bruce breathed out alongside a short sigh of relief. “Good, that’s good.”

Her brows knit together tightly. “Good? Have you heard a single word I’ve spoken? That boy is better off forgotten about and you are far better off leaving this stone unturned.”

“It’s not about me. It’s about Jason. He needs help, and now, I can give it to him. You may not care what happens to him now, you may have washed your hands of this mess you helped create, but I’m well aware of how much suffering I’ve caused him. I won’t stop until I right that wrong.”

“We took our records with us when we left. I am sure I have some film of him in the League archives if you are really this desperate to torture yourself.” And part of Bruce wanted nothing more. Even if things were as bad as Talia said, it was a chance to see Jason alive. For the first time in six years, Bruce could see his son, not an apparition created by his guilt and grief but his real son.

Before he could give in to that temptation, Slade’s gloved hand was on his shoulder, pulling him back with a clear warning in his eyes. “Don’t,” he said under his breath, too quiet for Talia to hear. “Don’t. Just trust me.” Reluctantly, Bruce nodded and turned his attention back to her.

“Why did you leave?”

“We abandoned Nanda Parbat because we expected it was only a matter of time before the monster we created would return to seek vengeance on his would-be killers.”

Bruce frowned. “What was the point in burning it, then?”

Talia looked genuinely puzzled. “We did not burn it. That would have been a waste.” Her expression shifted rapidly then, confusion morphing into realization followed by a barely visible cross between anger and fear, until finally settling back into her impeccable mask. The only thing that remained was a shadow of arrogance, an unspoken I told you so. “That would be your son, then, beloved. Trying to murder hundreds for a mere taste of revenge against my father and I, so wrapped up in his blind rage that he never even noticed the whole place had been abandoned. And yet you still do not believe the things I tell you. Even after all this time, such little faith.”

“Can you blame me? I can count on one hand the things you’ve told me that I’m certain weren’t lies.”

“I care for you,” she said, suddenly so intense that Bruce almost wanted to take a step back. “You can be certain that is not a lie. And in the name of the love we once had, I am telling you now that the boy you used to call your son is now a pestilence upon this Earth, perhaps the worst curse left alive now that Superman is dead. Should you miraculously track him down, you likely will not even recognize him. Let him go, my love. It is time to move on.”

“Do you have any idea where he would have gone?” 

“Am I talking to a brick wall? How are you still this stubborn?”

“Talia, please. This is the last thing I will ever ask of you.”

Still, she hesitated, and that must have been the last straw for Slade. Metal rang against metal as he unsheathed his sword and brought it up underneath Talia’s chin, so quickly that neither she nor her guards had the chance to react. Bruce knew Slade had been feeling agitated since the moment they arrived, and the tension visibly bled out of the mercenary’s body as he pressed the blade into the vulnerable hollow of Talia’s throat, just deep enough to draw a single bead of blood. The six League assassins drew their swords in response, but Talia waved them off. “I’d just love to see one of you Lazarus Pit motherfuckers try to rise from the dead without a head,” Slade growled. “Even Superman couldn’t manage that.” 

“Mr. Wilson—”

“Don’t bother responding. I’ll assume it was something clever. Answer the fucking question and we’ll be on our way. Jason Todd. You are the last known person to see him alive. Where would he have gone?”

She turned her eyes back to Bruce once more. “If I had to venture a guess, he would have gone anywhere he could do more damage and cause more death. Or perhaps, if he regained a hold of his mind for long enough, somewhere he could learn how to do both with even more efficiency. But that was over three years ago; by now, he could be anywhere. It’s possible he even switched continents. That is what you and I would both do. You are looking for a madman who was trained in the art of disappearing by both the League of Assassins and the Batman. You will never catch him if he does not want to be caught.”

Bruce nodded and motioned for Slade to stand down, which he did with an unhappy huff. Talia didn’t even look his way, just brushed her spotless black dress off and gave Bruce an expectant look.

The father in him wanted to let Slade kill Talia, or to kill her himself for what she’d done to Jason, because it was clearly even worse than she was letting on. For all the years he’d known Talia, she’d never bothered pulling a single punch or even softening her blows, and whatever happened with Jason was bad enough that even she refused to tell him the full truth. 

It wouldn’t help anything, though, so he reined in his worst impulses and held himself back. Whatever damage the League had done to Jason couldn’t be undone; all Bruce could do now was try to find Jason and help him through the aftermath. That was all that really mattered, anyway. Not justice, not vengeance, not the mission. Just Jason. And besides, having the League of Assassins on their tails for killing their second-in-command would slow down their search for Jason far too much to be worth it.

“Thank you for your help,” was what he ground out instead.

“You can thank me by leaving this whole thing alone, beloved. Please. I implore you, do not search for him. You will not like what you find.”

“You know I can’t do that, Talia.”

She crossed her arms and gave him a cold stare. “I see. I would say that I wish you success, my love, but it would be dishonest.”

“Of course,” Slade muttered as he motioned Bruce towards the door. “God forbid an al Ghul tell a fuckin’ lie.”

Bruce and Slade made their way out in silence, wary of the League’s penchant for posting their disciples in every shadow and dark corner they could find. They had disrespected Talia by refusing to heed her warning, and the League had killed people over a lot less. It wasn’t until they were halfway down the mountain Talia’s mansion was perched upon that either of them spoke again.

“I fucking hate those immortal sons of bitches,” Slade muttered, a vicious, spiteful edge to his voice.

“Never would have guessed,” Bruce replied flatly. “You hide it so well.”

Slade shrugged. “No point to it. She knows what I think of her.” 

“I know you tend to hold a grudge, but even so, this is considerably more visceral than your usual brand. What happened between you and them?”

For a few seconds, the only sound was the snow crunching beneath their boots and the howl of the mountain air as Slade seemed to consider the question. “You probably think that the League of Assassins and I are on roughly the same level of morality.” Bruce nodded. He wasn’t sure if that statement was entirely true, especially given the recent developments in his relationships with both Talia and Slade, but that thought had definitely crossed his mind at least a few times. “The differences between us might seem small, but those differences are the reason I fucking despise them.”

“Like?”

“I have a code. I have rules that I don’t break. I don’t kill kids or people who can’t defend themselves, I don’t torture needlessly, and I don’t break contracts. But with that fucking demon cult, anything goes. While I was here working with them, I watched them kill kids. I watched them torture needlessly. I watched them betray their allies as soon as it was convenient. I think the shit they do is fucked up. They’re soulless cowards with God complexes and they take the ends justify the means about 27 steps too far. Superman could’ve been dead years ago if Talia and Ra’s had let go of their egos and temporarily aligned their interests with ours. But it didn’t fit their stupid little agenda, so they just let him keep going. I’m not a good man, but I’d never do that. Fuck them.”

“Normally the only way out of the League is in a body bag. They just let you leave?”

Slade laughed bitterly, a harsh, sharp noise. “They did not. I tried to be decent and peaceful about it, and they sent five assassins after me. Kept sending more for a year or so, then they gave up. So, they get bonus points for that petty shit, but I don’t hate everyone who’s tried to kill me. I can forgive that. It’s just business. But they don’t stand for anything, they don’t give a shit about the consequences of their actions, and they don’t care who gets caught in the crossfire as long as they get their way. I hurt people because it’s my job. They hurt people because they enjoy it. Not a whole lot better than Joker, if you ask me.”

Bruce hummed thoughtfully in response, considering not for the first time that the Slade Wilson he thought he knew when they spent years at odds with each other might not have been the real Slade Wilson at all. They walked in silence for a while after that, until eventually, Slade gave one of those dramatic sighs that meant he was about to do something he felt obligated to do because Bruce was his contractor.

“Anyways, that was a lot. How are you doing?” 

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to you asking me that.”

“I’d advise you not to get used to it because the moment we find your kid, you’ll never hear it again. You know how I feel about repeating myself, and that al Ghul bitch already has me on edge, so answer my goddamned question before I lose my patience.”

“It’s more information than I thought we would get.”

“It’s also worse information than you thought you would get. Even I didn’t know it was as bad as she made it out to be. And Talia is notoriously untrustworthy, but I don’t think she was bullshitting. At least, not all of it. Be straight with me here, Wayne. You’re sure you still want to do this? Because there’s no shame in backing out now. As much as it pains me to say this, Talia al Ghul might be right. Some things are better left alone.”

Bruce stopped in his tracks and turned to Slade with steel in his eyes. “I’ll save you some time, Wilson. Don’t bother asking me that question again, because the answer will always be yes. Of course, I’m upset that Jason’s had to endure so much pain, but that doesn’t make him any less deserving of help. What happened to him was not his fault. It was mine, it was Joker’s, it was Talia and the League’s, but it was never Jason’s, and he shouldn’t be punished for it. The only thing that will stop me is if I hear from Jason’s mouth that he doesn’t want me to be a part of his life.”

Slade nodded and motioned for them to continue their descent. “I respect that.”

Bruce thought about bringing up how Slade had intervened before Bruce could ask Talia to show him the League’s film of Jason, but he held himself back. There were a lot of potential explanations he could think of, and none of them were good. Living in the past wouldn’t help. He needed to be present and focused on finding the real Jason, not any version of him that lived in anyone’s memory.

If Bruce had learned one thing from all the time he spent working with the Joker, it was that sometimes, he didn’t need all the details. Sometimes, there really was nothing to be gained through punishing himself.

Two days later, Bruce and Slade were still trying to figure out how to move forward. Talia had given them more information than they’d expected, but not much of it could actually help them find Jason or even point them in the right direction. They knew enough about what happened to him, but that had very little bearing on where he was now. Batman and Deathstroke weren’t about to embark on a mission without a plan, which meant they were stuck in their run-down motel room until they thought of one. 

Slade had gone to the nearby market to replenish their supplies, leaving Bruce alone in their room staring at four different maps of Eastern Asia and trying to make sense of the giant expanse of land. He didn’t know what he expected to find within the pages, but he couldn’t stand the thought of doing nothing while Jason was out there enduring god-knows-what. So, he kept studying the maps until his attention was stolen by the buzz of his phone against the table. The only person he had regular contact with anymore was Slade, but the text wasn’t from him. No, shockingly enough, it was the text Bruce had been hoping for since the day he killed Joker. The text he was starting to think he’d never receive.

There is a reason you have
not heard from him in six
years, Bruce Wayne.

He does not want to speak
to you.

It wasn’t much, but he did have a foot in the door, which was more than he could say for the past month and a half he’d been trying. Already, he’d run through half a dozen contacts with no luck, all of them either dead, unreachable, or unwilling to help. Bruce hadn’t wanted to go to her; he knew exactly what she would say, and quite frankly he didn’t want to drag another good person into this mess, but he’d run out of options. Both of your sons are alive, and you have the chance at a family again. He had to give it a shot, at least. 

Just one conversation, Kori.
That’s all I need.

If he never wants to speak to
me again afterward, I swear
on my life that I will respect
that.

What could possibly be
so important?

His brother.

Bruce held his breath as he watched Kori’s texting bubble disappear and reappear. It happened four times before she seemed to decide on a response.

You cannot be referring
to Jason Todd.

I can and I am. Please. Just
this one time. I need him
to hear it from me.

Fine. But if you hurt him
and I find out, I will kill
you myself.

A moment later, she sent a phone number with an area code Bruce didn’t recognize, and he let out a long sigh of relief. Kori had always been the light in Dick’s life even before Jason’s death; a kind person with a good heart and a loyal soul. It was good that they’d both survived Superman’s reign and they still had each other. Dick deserved that. He deserved a happy, peaceful life, a life Bruce had never been able to give him. 

Bruce knew she was furious with him too and that she was only doing this out of her love for Dick, but he was grateful for her cooperation nonetheless.

Two minutes later, he had locked the door, sent a text asking Slade to stay away, and was standing in the middle of the room with his thumb hovering over the number, totally frozen. Ever since he started running through Dick’s contacts, he’d been steeling himself for this, but that didn’t make it easier. Dick’s tear-streaked face and his choked, trembling voice were still burned into the back of Bruce’s mind, the memory of the last time they talked just as scalding and painful as the day it happened.

Jason was a good kid, Bruce! You could’ve given him a good life, a normal life! This didn’t have to happen! Jason didn’t have to die with that fucking clown’s smile on his face! I told you not to do this to him, you promised me you wouldn’t, and then you turned around and made him Robin anyway, and now my 15-year-old brother is dead! He’s fucking dead! You know this is all your fault, right? You killed him every bit as much as Joker did. At least that maniac hurts people on purpose, you just do it because you’re fucking careless!

You—fucking—you know what? I don’t need this crazy shit in my life anymore. Not Gotham, not Nightwing, and not you. I never want to see you again. Don’t follow me, don’t contact me, I am not your son and I don’t want anything to do with you. And if you ever try to bring another child into this stupid game you play, if you ever pick up another kid and make them Robin, I will break the rule. Just for you.

Bruce took a deep breath and dialed the number before he could talk himself out of it. He’d let Dick down at every turn, and he owed him this much.

“Hello?” Bruce had to take a moment just to breathe as a sudden wave of nostalgia and relief hit him. In the past, he’d done his best to keep Dick off his mind, to avoid mentioning him or thinking about him as his son, to give the first Robin the space he’d asked for after Jason’s death. Eventually, the wound had closed up and he’d done his best to move on and accept that he and Dick weren’t a part of each other’s lives anymore. Still, he’d never stopped loving his son, never stopped missing him, and it felt like coming up for air after being drowned to hear his voice again. “Hello?” Dick asked again, sounding at once older and younger than Bruce remembered.

He forced himself to focus. “Please don’t hang up.”

There was silence for a long moment and a dramatic shift in Dick’s tone when he replied. “Bruce?” Bruce could tell it was supposed to come out hard and unfeeling, a strategy he’d taught Dick so many years ago, but Bruce could still hear the shock and confusion in it. Even if Dick was furious though, he was still there, and that was something.

“Yes, it’s me. Please, Dick, don’t hang up.”

“What the… how the hell did you get this number? Didn’t I tell you to stay away from me?”

“You did, and I wanted to respect that. I still do. I’m sorry for doing this, but something has come up. Something I think you need to know.”

“Yeah. Superman is dead. News broke worldwide a while ago already, I’m well aware. Congratulations, I guess, for cleaning up your own mess.”

“What? No. No, that’s not why I wanted to talk to you.”

“Joker, then? Is he still alive? You had that insane fucking alliance with him for long enough that you’re buddies now?” Bruce felt ice slip into his veins because he hadn’t known that information was public. He sent a small prayer to a God he never believed in that Jason didn’t know about it yet, that he might have a chance to explain himself because that was the sort of thing Jason would never forgive. “After everything he did to Jason, to all of us, after you broke your rule dozens of times, you still couldn’t make yourself do it? Because I swear to god, if that’s what you’re about to tell me, I’m going to come out of retirement and kill him myself.”

“No, he’s dead too. None of that matters anymore, Dick. Please, just let me explain. And then, if you never want to hear from me or see me again, I promise you I will honor that.”

“Fine,” Dick snapped, and Bruce could hear the vicious anger in it even after six long years. Beneath that, though, there was just the faintest hint of intrigue, which was what he’d been hoping for. Dick had always been curious to a fault, something that clearly hadn’t faded with time. “But this had better damn well be good.”

“I wish that I could tell you in person, but it’s urgent, and I don’t even know where you’re living now—”

“It’s none of your business. Get to your point before I lose my patience, Bruce.”

“Jason is alive.”

There was silence across the line for 73 seconds, and Bruce counted every single one internally, feeling them like needles on his skin. He had to check several times to see if they were still connected because he could hardly even hear the sound of Dick’s breathing over the thunderous pounding of his own heart.

After half an eternity, there was a wet, shuddering sound, and Dick’s voice came through again.“What the fuck is wrong with you?” He snarled, rage mixing with something close to hurt in his strained voice. “What kind of fucked up joke is this? Have you just fully and completely lost it now? Did that psychopath rub off on you with all the quality time you spent together? It’s not bad enough you joined forces with the monster who took Jay away from us, now you’re taking on his schtick, too?!”

“It’s not a joke,” Bruce explained, taking care to keep his voice as level as he could. “It’s not a lie. I swear. I wanted to start looking for him the moment I first heard, but it would have put the world at risk. Now that Superman and the Joker are both dead, I’m in Tibet trying to track him down.”

“Bruce…” Dick said, sounding closer to sad than angry now. “Look, whatever it is that you’re going through right now, you can’t drag me into it. I don’t know if working with and fighting against madmen for years on end has turned you into one, if you’re trying to con me into forgiving you, or if this is just your fucked up way of processing your grief, but it’s not my problem. I mourned my brother for years, and I moved on. It’s not my job to help you move on too, or to entertain whatever delusion this is.”

“I know it sounds crazy, but we already have a lead.”

“We? Who’s we?”

“Me and Deathstroke.”

“Oh, good, Deathstroke’s involved in this? He only tried to kill me, you, and Jason about a dozen times, I’m sure he’s a very reliable person to take on your field trip to madness.”

“I trust him.”

“Then you really have gone insane.”

“Dick, listen to me,” Bruce said, the words coming out harder and more commanding than he meant them to. Knowing Dick would react defensively to being treated like he was still Robin, Bruce did his best to take the authority out of his voice when he tried again. “I know how this sounds. No one really understands how it happened, but Jason came back to life, the League of Assassins took him in, they put him in a Lazarus Pit, and to the fullest extent of their knowledge, he’s still out there somewhere. Information is scarce and we might be years off from finding him, but both Slade and Talia have corroborated that story. Jason was alive, and he was here.”

Dick let out a frustrated sigh, and Bruce could hear the years of trauma and loss and anger in it, the way it had weighed Dick down, and how much it hurt him to have to talk about it again. Bruce hated bringing this kind of chaos and strife into Dick’s seemingly peaceful post-Nightwing life. Despite all that pain, Dick hadn’t hung up the phone, so he must still care. About Jason, at least.

“You just can’t let him go, can you, Bruce? You have to stew in your guilt and torture yourself with his memory and you can’t move on. You’re right. It is your fault he got hurt, and it is your fault he’s dead, but now it’s over. It’s in the past. Jason was a good kid, he was my brother, and I loved him. But he’s gone, Bruce. He’s gone, he’s dead, and he’s never coming back.”

“Dick, he already is back.” Bruce could hear how desperate he sounded, and he knew in his gut this was a losing battle. Dick had no reason to give him the benefit of the doubt. The trust between them had been broken years ago, and there was no way to salvage it now. Things might still be fixable with Jason, but his relationship with Dick was the kind of broken that stayed broken.

“I know you miss him. I miss him too. He was really, really good; probably better than either of us deserved. If I could bring him back, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But we can’t change the past. Joker killed Jason, and he is gone for good. You can’t let his loss define the rest of your life, okay? Jay… this isn’t what he would’ve wanted. You know it isn’t. He would’ve wanted you to move on.”

“You don’t have to believe me, Dick, but we both loved Jason. I thought you deserved to know. You can come search for him with us if you want. You don’t have to. I just wanted it to be an option for you, and I wanted you to hear it from me now instead of someone else later.”

“Oh,” Dick said around a bitter laugh, “you mean like how I first heard about my brother’s disappearance from Danny fucking Chase and I found out he was dead from the fucking coroner instead of you?”

A hot spike of guilt pierced through Bruce’s stomach, an all too familiar feeling. “I’m sorry so—Dick. I’m sorry for that, and everything else. I made a lot of mistakes, and I know that sorry will never be enough, but I never meant for you to get hurt.”

Dick let out a long sigh. “Jesus, Bruce—you know what? If chasing Jason’s ghost halfway across the globe is what you need to do to finally move past this, then do it. My, uh... my therapist said grief affects everyone differently, and if this is your thing, then whatever. But I can’t—I can’t, okay? I can’t hold onto this half-baked fever dream that my dead brother isn’t dead anymore. I spent years getting to the point where I could let him go. I can’t do this to myself again. Keep me out of it.” 

“I understand.”

“One more thing.”

“Yes, Dick?”

“To be clear, I am not saying I believe a fucking word of this, because I don’t. I think you’re crazy for trusting a contract killer and your evil ex who is also an al Ghul and for believing that anyone could come back from all the shit Joker did to Jason, but if by some completely insane miracle he is back…” Dick paused, and his voice shifted into something almost kind, the exact tone he used to take with Jason when he was angry or hurting. “Try not to fuck it up. And tell him that I love him, okay? Give him this number if he wants it. If having a relationship with me is something he’d be open to, I would, uh… I would like that.”

“Do you want me to let you know if we find him?”

“No.” And Dick’s voice was unforgiving steel once again. “I stand by what I said back then, Bruce. I can’t forgive you for what you let Joker do to Jason, and I exorcised all this stupid vigilante shit out of my life a long time ago. After all the insanity that came with being your kid and your Robin, it was really hard to figure out how to be normal, and I’m not going back. It’s in my past, and so are you.”

Bruce nodded and swallowed hard. “Of course. It’s just… it’s been a long time, Dick, and I’ve mi—”

“Don’t,” Dick interjected sharply. “Just don’t, okay? Don’t make this harder. I don’t want to hear from you again, tell me you understand that.”

“Yes. You won’t hear from me again. Thank you for giving me a chance to explain.”

“I didn’t do it for you. I don’t do things for you anymore. I did it for my brother’s memory. I try to do things to honor him now. Maybe you should try that, instead of chasing down ghosts and pipe dreams.”

“Take care of yourself, okay?”

“I’d tell you the same. If I thought you’d actually listen. Try not to die, I guess.”

“I’ll do my best,” Bruce muttered when he finally found his voice again, long after the line went dead and the screen turned black. “I’ll do my best, son.”

Chapter Text

“You don’t have to do that,” Jason muttered. “It’ll be fine in a few days.”

Roy just rolled his eyes, not looking up from his work splinting Jason’s broken ankle. “He says, like it won’t take twice as long and hurt ten times as much if I don’t do something about it.”

“It’s fine. I’ll survive. I always do. You don’t need to waste your time on this.”

“Jaybird,” Roy said around a sigh, “taking care of you is not a waste of my time, and just because you’re used to being in pain doesn’t mean you deserve it. As someone who gives a shit about you, I’m not going to leave you to suffer just because it won’t kill you. I can help, and I want to help, so shut the hell up and let me help.”

Jason still disagreed, but he knew better than to argue with Roy about things like this, so he kept his silence as Roy finished with his ankle and scanned the rest of his body for injuries. It didn’t take long for his eyes to land on Jason’s bad arm, which was hanging limply at his side at a slightly unnatural angle.

Jason cringed under the attention. “Just… just don’t, okay?”

There was no anger in Roy’s expression, just concern as he took a step closer. “The Pit heals you insanely, inhumanly quick. How come that shoulder still gives you problems?” 

“Because I have the worst luck of anyone in the known universe,” Jason replied flatly. And then, because he knew he hadn’t really answered the question, “It’s the same reason I still have the, uh,” Jason motioned to his face with a small wince, “the scars. From what I can tell, the Pit heals new injuries and it helped with most of the internal stuff, but some of it stuck around. Apparently, a debilitating injury to my dominant arm was just too much fun to leave in the past.”

Roy gave the injured arm a meaningful look. “It’s dislocated again.” 

“What an astute observation, pendejo. I’m really glad you noticed, ‘cause the blinding pain and lack of motor function weren’t enough for me to make such a groundbreaking conclusion.” Roy sighed, sounding more like an exhausted father than a vigilante, and it drained the snark right out of Jason’s body. “I know it’s dislocated, Roy. I’ll fix it myself.”

“Why do you always do this? We both know it’ll be easier if I do it. I’ve fixed your left shoulder before, along with about half the joints in your body. I have plenty of experience.”

Jason let out a shuddering breath and looked down at his scarred hands. “You know why.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Jason could see Roy’s hands twitch forward like he wanted to reach out, but at the last second, he pulled them back again. “I would never hurt you, Jay.”

Jason gave a jerky nod, wishing he could fully believe that and knowing in his gut there would probably never be a point in his life where he totally let go of the self-preservation instincts that years of hiding and running and hurting had ingrained into him. “It’s not about you, it’s…”

Jason cut himself off with a strangled noise as the memory slammed into him like Joker’s crowbar, knocking the wind out of him and sending him to the cold, damp floor of the Asylum. It was his first day as Joker’s prisoner, back when the clown used to bind him only by his hands and let him get back up to his feet and try to fight before he knocked him down again. Knowing what was about to happen, he tried to tell himself to stop, but he was trapped here and all he could do was watch it unfold the same way it had the first time.

His child self slipped his right arm out of its restraint and punched Joker so hard in the face that he broke his nose. The vindication of that small act of defiance coursed bright and triumphant through his veins, but Jason could feel the undercurrent of panic beneath it, knowing now that it was the last good feeling he would have for… probably years afterward.

Joker had been furious and Jason had been cocky back then, and even after Joker thwarted his escape attempt and beat him to shit with that damned crowbar, Jason had laughed through it. Laughed right in Joker’s face all the way up until the clown strapped him down to a table and methodically crushed his whole right arm. The fingers, then the wrist, then the radius and ulna, then the humerus. And then—because that hadn’t been enough—Joker had forced his shoulder out of its socket, hung him from the ceiling by his arms, and kept him like that for two days until Jason’s resolve had finally broken and he begged to be let down. Jason never tried to hit him again.

“Jay,” Roy said gently, close enough to his ear that Jason could feel the heat of his breath, “come back to me.” Jason surfaced back into reality with a harsh gasp, the sudden movement sending a sharp spike of pain into his bad arm. He took a moment just to get his bearings in the room and fend off the panic attack he could feel coming, and Roy stayed there at his side, just murmuring those soft things in his ear that couldn’t be Joker, couldn’t be anyone but Roy. “There you go, you’re okay, I got you.”

“Fuck,” Jason breathed, chest heaving. It took a long time before he could bring himself to look Roy in the eye again, and by the time he did, he could feel how weak he must look. “Just let me do it. Please.”

Roy nodded and turned away, making his way across the room to their first aid kit. Before he could give himself a chance to anticipate the pain, Jason grabbed his right arm by the wrist and pulled it forward harshly, the sharp, familiar agony punching a strangled groan out of him. By the time he could see past the onslaught of feeling and fully banish the lingering flashes of memory, Roy was back at his side with a sling for his arm and a sympathetic look on his face.

“I’m fine,” Jason dismissed as he took the sling from Roy and carefully maneuvered the bad arm into it.

“It’s a good sign that you’ve been staying conscious lately, and I’m glad you didn’t need me to stop you when it was over, but those guys were tough and you’ve gotta be exhausted. Try to get some sleep.”

Jason blinked slowly, noticing the weight of the fatigue in his bones for the first time. “Thanks, Momma Harper, but I don’t need you to tell me when it’s nap time.”

“And yet here I am, doing it anyway.” Roy turned off the overhead light, leaving the hallway one on as he always did to remind Jason he wasn’t in his grave. “Want me to stay or leave?”

“Is there an option where you treat me like I’m twenty years old instead of two?”

“There might be if you ever acted like you were twenty and didn’t fight me every time I try to get you to take care of yourself. Stay or go?”

Jason sighed, shivered, and shifted to the side to make room for Roy on the bed. “Stay. I’m cold.”

Roy complied wordlessly, pulling the blanket over both of them and situating himself just a few inches away from Jason, who obediently closed his eyes to avoid being lectured. He could already tell he wouldn’t be able to sleep; usually killing left him feeling too dead or too alive and it was the latter this time. Jason knew from experience that if he laid here trying, all the evil and pain in his mind would eventually close in and he’d be trapped in a labyrinth of horrible memories until he could find his way out. Instead of volunteering himself for that waking nightmare, he searched for the memories that didn’t hurt.

“Hi,” a man’s voice chirped from above him, rousing him from his slumber. “You passed out. I saved your life. You’re welcome.”

Green surged through every inch of him, blotting out his vision and forcing his body into action. The voice was unfamiliar and the place didn’t feel right, and the best way to fix that was to drown the green away in blood until he could see straight again. He lashed out blindly with fists and feet until he could tell by the way the air tasted that he was alone. Maybe he’d always been alone, maybe he’d hallucinated the other presence. Wouldn’t be the first time. 

The words echoed between the cracks of his mind for a long time afterward though, rose above the screams of his victims and his own desperate cries as he fought with the poison in his blood. I saved your life. He didn’t like that. He didn’t need saving.

The man returned later, though how much later, he couldn’t be sure. It wasn’t the voice that tipped him off this time—he couldn’t hear anyone over the heat of the battle and the thrum of the green—it was the arrows. He had an enemy’s head in the sights of his pistol, but between one breath and the next, the man was on the ground with one red arrow straight through his heart. No one ever fought on his side, only against him, and somehow he knew in his gut that it was the same man, I saved your life man.

He didn’t fixate on it, too caught up slaughtering everyone in his path, until he reacted just a little too slow and he was on the ground, blood gushing from a gash in his femoral artery, fading in and out of consciousness. The archer was still fighting, a flurry of red above him, and then he was patched up and far away from wherever they’d been before. 

“It’s me again.” It was the same voice. Softer than an enemy’s and kinder than his handlers’, but there were a lot of good liars out there. A lot of dangerous people who were smart enough to fool him. “Hey, maybe don’t try to kill me this time? You’re injured.” He tried to push his body to its feet, but the exhaustion was heavy in his limbs now and all he could manage to do was prop himself up on his elbows. A pale hand planted itself on his chest and pushed him easily back down to the ground. “Take it easy there, big guy, I’m not gonna hurt you.”

“Who’re you?” He slurred out, trying and failing to get his bearings through a haze of green and pain and panic. It was so hard to focus, so painful to even try, but eventually, his eyes locked on the outline of another person. He could just barely make out bright red hair and bright red clothes—distantly he thought that was an incredibly stupid choice, that bright clothes painted a massive target on your back, and he felt that danger a bit too vividly in his body for it to mean nothing, a red and green uniform, red blood, green eyes, shake it off, shake it off—there was a bow and arrow, a trucker hat, and a stranger’s face covered by a red domino mask. None of that helped quell the fear stabbing into his heart.

“I’m Arsenal. I tried to tell you that last time, but you were too busy trying to add me to your ever-increasing list of victims. Who are you?”

He squinted and tried to retrieve that information, but there was a sizzling hole burned through the part of his mind it was supposed to be in. “I’m… I—I don’t know.” 

“Gotcha. That’s cool, I guess.” Arsenal looked him over and shrugged. “I dunno if your clothes were always that color or if it’s from all the blood you spilled, but I’m gonna call you Red until you figure it out. What’re you doing out here all alone, Red? Trying to take down thirty guys single-handedly, again? You’re gonna get yourself killed.”

“Ugh..." he groaned, just as confused as Arsenal was. "What... what was I doing? Where’s here?” There was silence for a long time, too long, long enough for anxiety to spread out under his skin and conflict painfully with the green already lurking there.

“Oh, so you’re like, crazy crazy, huh?” Arsenal eventually replied. “Figured you had a couple of screws loose if you were killing that many people without even flinching, but you’re not just like, a froot loop. You’re about two clowns short of a circus there, aren’t you, Red?” 

Immediately, the world around him darkened and his senses zeroed in on a cruel, vicious laugh echoing in his ears, more and more deafening by the second. The clown. The fucking clown. It sent him reeling so hard he could barely breathe, and by the time he could get his vision to focus again, the man’s face was different. Darker, angrier, and terrifying in its familiarity.

“I saved your life,” the voice said again, but it sounded older, deeper, wrong, “and this is what you do with it? Senseless murder? Meaningless violence? I rescued you from the streets, made you my partner, just to have you turn into the Joker?”

Danger, danger! The green screamed, but he was frozen to the spot. “B-Batman?”

“What have you become, Robin?”

“I—I’m—dad, I didn’t—”

“I can tolerate the rest of those psychopaths, Crane, Dent, Joker, but you are too dangerous to be kept alive.”  

That was enough for the green to fight back. It surged through his muscles and into the darkest parts of his mind, fighting back against the clown’s laugh and Batman’s threats. He sprang to his feet, drew his guns, and fired at any part of Batman he could see until he was out of ammo. And then, he ran. The green took over, plunged him into survival mode, and he didn’t surface again for over a month.

Once he came back up, it was with a few more memories and a lot more paranoia. In the however long that followed, Jason—that was his name, former Robin, former League Assassin, former member of the All-Caste, currently who-knows-what—did his best to stay away from the red-haired archer who’d saved his life. Last time, he’d given far too much away, enough that if Ginger had a brain, he could easily figure out Jason’s identity. He started wearing a mask, too. Wasn’t about to make it easy for him. 

Things were different the third time. The green was sharing control with him for the time being, it was a decent day, and all Jason had wanted was to get some sleep and try to recover from the months-long tear he’d been on. Those hopes were dashed when Ginger infiltrated his base of operations.

That wording was a little strong. Ginger walked into the clearing where Jason had set up a bedroll and a fire. Still, that was his bedroll and his fire, and his hands were already on the guns strapped to his thighs before the oddly persistent archer even came into his view. The moment he set foot in the camp, Ginger dropped his bow on the ground and held his hands up in surrender.

“Could we please skip the attempted murder part this time, Red?” In response, Jason unholstered one of his guns, flicked the safety off, and cocked it, aiming steadily for the other man’s forehead. “Seriously? Have I not given you enough evidence yet that I’m not your enemy?” 

Jason growled low in his throat. "I should carve your fucking eyes out with a grapefruit spoon."

"Well that's... creative, but again, I think you know if I wanted to hurt you, I'd've done it already."

“You signed your death warrant the moment you first put your hands on me.”

The man just cocked a red eyebrow, unfazed. “You mean when I saved your life and you tried to punch me out? Or that other time when I also saved your life and you shot at me? I am flattered that you mistook me for Batman even after I told you my name, which again is Arsenal, but I think you might need your eyes checked. Or your brain. Batman could eat me for breakfast, and he’s also thousands of miles away.”

“What the fuck do you want from me?"

Arsenal shrugged. “You’re the most interesting thing that’s happened to me since I got here. And I think you could probably use my help. Not that you aren’t impressively and terrifyingly efficient at killing people or anything, but you’ve also been half-dead both of the times I’ve run into you.”

Something in the farthest, quietest recesses of his mind bristled at that. Nothin' for nothin', it muttered. Somethin' for everythin'. Jason let out a scoff, mostly an effort to push it back down. There was never anything good hiding in that part of his brain. “Full offense, Ginger, I don’t do people and I don’t need anyone’s help, least of all some cheap Robinhood knock-off who doesn’t even use a real weapon.”

Ginger let out a full-on snort at the jab, and Jason was just about ready to put a bullet in his head for it, but then the gun wasn’t in his hand anymore. It took him way too long to realize that Arsenal had crouched, picked his bow up off the ground, nocked an arrow, and shot the gun out of his hand before he even had the chance to react. Jason was so stunned that for a moment, he couldn’t move.

“Bow neutralizes gun. It’s kind of a rock-crushes-scissors situation.”

Jason turned back to Arsenal then, body starting to tremble faintly, just as much fear as it was anger. “How far away are the cops?" He asked with forced indifference.

Arsenal left his bow on the ground, straightened back to his full height, and looked at Jason with pure, unadulterated confusion. “Uh, cops?”

“You’ve witnessed me kill at least forty people. I know you snitched on me and now you’re here to stall me with your nice guy bullshit until the cops come and take me in. How much time we got, la rata alada?”

Arsenal frowned. “Okay, first of all, I'm not a snitch. If I got the cops involved, I'd have to turn myself in right alongside you, which I think you know considering I saved you by killing a man the last time we saw each other, so is that like, a joke? Is that what the, uh,” he made a vague motion to his own face, “smile is for? Cause you tell jokes?”

The green flared up viciously, cold flames licking up Jason’s spine, and he had to take action, to do something to outlet the feeling. He drew his other handgun, closed the distance between them, and pressed the muzzle up underneath Ginger’s chin. They were close enough now that he could see the freckles that dusted his nose and cheeks and the deep forest green of his eyes. Normally, green eyes sent him into a full-blown panic attack or flashback, but they were different on him. Human in a way that Joker’s never had been.

“I should kill you for that. You better give me a damn good reason not to.”

Arsenal held his gaze without a trace of fear in his eyes. That was as refreshing as it was unsettling, because it had been years since anyone looked at him like he wasn’t a bomb about to go off. Even Talia and Ra’s had been afraid of him. “I have two reasons, actually. The first is that I haven’t had a lot of social interaction in the past couple years and I don’t always think before I talk, and it’s just now occurring to me that it was kinda dickish to say that.”

“So I should spare your life because you’re a dumbass? I hope for your sake the second one is better.”

Ginger’s not-Joker green eyes warmed and the corners of his lips quirked up into a small genuine smile. “I might be the only person in the whole world who doesn’t want to hurt you.”

A soft, stupid part of Jason truly wanted to believe that, but the green quickly swallowed that naivete up and left safe, habitual distrust behind. “Bullshit,” he hissed. “I don’t know who you are or what your game is, Ginger, but the people who lie to me don’t live very long.”

“Good thing I’m not lying then,” Arsenal replied coolly. “You don’t know who I am? Okay. I can tell you right now. My real name is Roy Harper and I’m from America. Star City. I used to be a non-meta vigilante’s child sidekick and his adoptive son, and now I’m on my own in Asia trying to get as far away from that part of my life as I can. Sure, I didn’t die and come back to life, but it still seems like we have a lot in common, huh?”

Jason channeled every bit of self-control in his body trying to hide the flinch, trying to mask any reaction at all. It didn’t work the way he wanted it to, but he prayed it would be enough to avoid detection. “I’m not whoever you think I am, and I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Ginger—Roy—gave him another one of those unnervingly kind smiles. Jason’s intuition was fucking phenomenal, especially when the green let up long enough for him to concentrate, and he was nearly flawless at picking up on deception. But with this, now, he couldn’t smell a lie, couldn’t taste one either, and Roy seemed way too dense to be such a good liar.

“I think you do. Your name is Jason, right? Jason Todd?” Roy’s voice faded into Joker’s for a brief moment, I’ll give you a chance to rest if you just tell me your name, bird boy, and Jason had to bite savagely into his lip to keep himself present and focused on the current threat. “...line of duty? My old mentor, Green Arrow, he told me about your death. I’m starting to think that, judging by the uh, the scars, maybe it was the Joker who did it? Which, I’m really realizing how fucked up that joke was now and again, I’m sorry. So you’re like, alive now, I guess?”

Jason knew he should try to play it off again, but he was too busy just trying to keep himself standing as a flood of terror and memory threatened to send him to his knees. “How—how did you—” he stammered weakly.

“There aren’t too many people out there who called Batman ‘dad’. He never took another Robin after your death, and you’re not Dick Grayson.”

Jason must have fucked up and let the fear show in his eyes because there was a shift in Roy’s expression. It wasn’t any of the dangerous shifts he was used to; Joker’s smile turning sharp when he pinpointed a weakness, Bruce’s mouth twisting into a scowl when Jason failed to keep his emotions in check, Talia’s face going cold and hard when he collapsed from exhaustion. The shift on Roy’s face was soft and warm and a strangely powerful part of Jason wanted to believe it was the truth.

“You really are a dumbass, huh?” He ground out when he finally found his voice. “You just admitted to me that you know my identity, and you think I’m going to let you walk out of here alive?”

Roy gently placed a hand on top of the barrel of Jason’s gun, a bizarrely trusting gesture. “Like I said, I don’t want to hurt you. You’ve been through some fucked up shit, and I’ve seen what it does to you. I don’t know what happened to you to bring you back, why you seem like you’re in a trance most of the time, or why your eyes get all glowy when you’re cutting dozens of people down solo, and I don’t need to know. But I can see that it’s hurting you. And I think if you’re not careful, it’s going to hurt innocent people, too. I don’t think you want that; neither do I.”

“Don’t pretend like you give a shit about me, pendejo,” Jason snapped, pressing the cold steel more insistently into Roy’s pale skin. “I can take care of my shit on my own.”

“Maybe you can, maybe you can’t, but what does it matter? You don’t have to. There’s no shame in accepting help when you’re struggling, Jason, and that’s all I wanna do. Help you. Maybe if we work together, I can help point your horrifying and insatiable thirst for violence at people who actually deserve it, and I can pull you out when you drop so you don’t get killed or arrested.”

“I work alone,” Jason replied automatically, not even considering the offer.

“And are you happy doing that? Do you feel safe? Or are you constantly worried you’re going to do something horrible or have something horrible done to you?”

Jason should kill Roy. He should, it was dangerous to leave him alive, but he couldn’t make himself do it. That was the sort of thing the League had taught him to do, and he was supposed to be more than Talia’s pet killer now. Roy (probably) wasn’t evil, and Roy (probably) didn’t deserve to die just because he was nosy.

Jason sighed and lowered his gun. “There’s no helping me, Roy. Get the hell out of my camp before I change my mind about killing you.”

Roy nodded, seeming unbothered as he stooped to pick up his bow. “Mmkay. I’ll leave... for now. But I’ll warn you right now that I’m incurably stubborn and I very rarely learn from my mistakes. I guarantee you’ll give in long before I do.”

Jason’s blood rose slightly with that comment. “Is that a challenge?” He asked, but Roy was already heading back into the woods.

“Guess you’ll find out,” Roy called back over his shoulder.

There were six more battles—six that Jason could remember, anyway—where Arsenal came to his aid. Four of them definitely probably would’ve resulted in Jason’s death had it not been for that stubborn moron’s interference. The seventh time, the tables turned.

It had started with green and ended with blood as it always did, but when Jason’s vision cleared, it was to find Arsenal unconscious a few feet away, a large gash in his side that cut clean through his armor and deep into his skin.

The next thing he knew, he was on his knees at Roy’s side, letting out a long string of Spanish curse words as he assessed the damage. "Maldito idiota," Jason muttered under his breath. “Why the fuck are you here again, pendejo?”

Roy’s breathing was weak and ragged and the bleeding wasn’t slowing at all, and Jason knew what it was like when someone’s life was in danger. He knew how they sounded, how they looked, how much blood they could lose, and how long they could be unconscious, and he knew this would kill Roy if he didn’t act fast and act right. 

That should’ve been fine. He’d be free of Roy’s constant meddling, he’d eliminate one of the only people who knew his identity, and his life would go back to normal. It should’ve been fine. But by the time Jason reasoned his way through that, Roy was already gathered up in his arms and he was moving on autopilot back towards camp. The smaller man was heavier than he’d expected, all lean, densely packed muscle, but he still felt so small and breakable and why was Jason so fucking worried?

Not wanting to examine it too closely, he focused intently on the sound of Roy’s breathing, listening for any changes that might signal imminent danger, that Roy needed help Jason didn’t know how to provide. If Jason took him to a hospital with both of them covered in scumbag blood, they’d be thrown in jail for the rest of their lives. Even with how scattered and pathetic law enforcement was in the face of the impending Superman-induced apocalypse, that was way too obvious to be overlooked. Still, if Roy needed a doctor to survive this, Jason was actually considering it.

“I can’t believe you’re making me save your stupid life, Roy.”

Roy was still breathing, shallow and ragged, when they arrived at Jason’s camp, which was a good sign. Jason put him down gently and knelt beside him, and for a moment, nothing but paralyzing panic and terror rushed through his body, because Jason hurt people. That’s what he’d been taught to do, what he’d been training his whole life to do, what he’d done to Roy. He knew how to take people apart; he didn’t know how to put them back together.

“Shut the fuck up, Jason,” he hissed at himself. “Get your shit together and save your fucking self-pitying meltdown for when Ginger isn’t bleeding out.”

Jason sliced Roy’s armor open and got to work cleaning the area surrounding the wound, cursing under his breath the whole time. Every time he wiped some of the blood away, it revealed a mess of bruising underneath, some of it fresh, some of it weeks old, a well-defined map of pain that detailed all the shit Roy had gone through just trying to keep Jason alive. “You’re just a normal fucking human, tonto del culo,” Jason whispered, voice cracking as the almost-guilt singed his blood. “Nobody threw you in a Lazarus Pit. You can’t do shit like this, it’ll kill you.”

Roy was somehow still getting even paler, and Jason fought to find the sense of clarity and focus the All-Caste had taught him. He hadn’t been able to channel it since he left them, but if the green took hold right now, it would kill Roy. He had to hold it at bay. So, he did his best to find an island of calm in a roiling sea of fear, dug sutures out of his first aid kit, pushed his sweaty white bangs out of his face, and got to work.

An hour of work and two hours of anxious waiting later, Roy’s eyes fluttered open and he let out a weak whimper of pain. Jason fought hard to resist the urge to bolt right there. Every time he went through this, Roy stuck around and made sure he knew he was safe and he wasn’t alone, and the least Jason could do was give Roy that same comfort.

Or, whatever.

So instead, he shifted closer, close enough that Roy could feel his presence. Roy’s eyes were unfocused as he let out a ragged groan of pain, hand flying to the wound in his side. When his fingers made contact with the stitches, his eyes widened, clear and alert enough that Jason figured this was a fine time to start talking.

“Hi,” he quipped flatly. “You passed out. I saved your life. You’re welcome.” Roy’s whole head snapped to the side, all shock and alarm, and Jason was definitely going to fuck this up because he hadn’t tried to comfort anyone since he was Robin and that was—he wasn’t sure how long but a long time ago. Already uncomfortable, Jason reached behind himself for a bottle of water. Eyes still wide and mouth still parted in bewilderment, Roy made a sluggish move to take it from him, and Jason used his free hand to hold Roy’s arm down. “Don’t. Let me.” 

Roy nodded slowly, and they sat there in surprisingly comfortable silence for a long time. Jason fed him small sips of water until the color returned to his face and the life returned to his eyes and he looked like Roy again. “Jas'n?” He rasped out. “Wha’ hap’nd?” 

“Like I said, you passed out. I saved your life. You’re welcome.”

“Mm? Tha's... tha’s my line.”

Anger rose in Jason's veins, cold and familiar and way too easy. “And now it’s mine, because you’re comfortably the dumbest person I’ve ever met and you just almost got cut in half trying to do—fucking what, exactly? What the fuck were you thinking? Why do you keep following me?! You could’ve fucking died, dipshit!”

Roy gave him a bleary little smile. “Told ya, ‘m stubborn.”

“You’re a fucking moron, that’s what you are, and if you ever make me save your life again, I’m gonna kill you." Jason muttered half a dozen more Spanish insults under his breath, but Roy's smile only got wider.

"Breakin' out th' Spanish. Guess 'm in big trouble."

"Yeah. You fucking are, pendejo, and you're lucky it's not a lot fucking worse than it is. It's time for this to be over now, Arsenal. You had your little adventure, added some spice to what I’m guessing was a boring-ass civilian life, and now you’re done. You’re good with that bow, but you have absolutely no business tangling with the people I take down, and you’re not gonna die because of me.”

Roy let out a weak, wet-sounding laugh. “Can’t give up now.”

“Why’s that? Because you want me to have a heart attack from all this fucking stress?”

“No. ‘Cause now,” Roy picked up a hand and drunkenly pointed it at Jason, “you like me. You don’t give up when you start winnin’, Jay.”

“You’re an idiot.”

Roy’s smile widened. “Maybe, but even I know you don’ save people’s lives if you don’ like ‘em.”

“Go back to sleep,” Jason deflected, feeling an uncomfortable flush rising in his cheeks. “You have a lot of healing to do.”

The dopey smile stayed plastered there on Roy’s face as he held Jason’s eyes, looking stupidly, unreasonably satisfied and at peace for someone who must be in excruciating pain. “Issokay, Jay. I like you too.”

“Cállate la boca," Jason growled. "You know what that means? It means shut the fuck up." And then, softer. “You need rest. I’ll… I’ll be here when you wake up, alright?”

The next time Jason opened his eyes, he wasn’t laying on bloodsoaked grass or hard dirt or an old sleeping bag, he was in a bed. The fuzziness in his head told him he must’ve fallen asleep. Someone’s arm was wrapped around his shoulders and his head was on their chest, a pleasant heat surrounding his body. And he knew without even looking that it was Roy, because Roy was the only person who could touch him like that without earning a knife in their throat. Jason could hear Roy’s heartbeat and feel the way his chest rose and fell with his breathing, and it sent something deep and calming into his chest where the pain and anger usually was. 

His bad arm was in a sling, hand on Roy’s midsection, and what he remembered as a sharp, burning pain in his shoulder was now a dull ache. Still in a bit of a sleep-induced fog, Jason’s fingers migrated to Roy’s side and ran along the thick ridge of the scar. He could feel it through Roy’s shirt, and it was still gnarled and rough but it was healed because that had been months ago already. The knowledge grounded what was still untethered in Jason. Those were just old memories, and Roy was okay. They both were. They were… friends, now. No, not friends, Jason didn't have friends, Jason didn't need friends, but—allies, maybe. They were something. 

Roy’s breathing changed, like maybe he was waking up too, and the ugly, broken parts of Jason wanted to pull away before Roy noticed, to reject the contact like he always did because he was too ashamed to admit how much he needed it. But for once, those parts were quiet, and the parts that liked Roy and maybe even trusted him a little were louder. Jason let himself enjoy the rare moment of warmth and closeness with a soft, pleased noise. It was the most like an actual human he’d felt in a long time.

“You good, Jaybird?” Roy asked, sleep still thick in his voice.

Jason nodded against him, then chuckled under his breath as another memory of the early days of their partnership popped into his mind. “Choose between Jaybird and your trachea, because you can’t have both.”

Roy laughed too, and Jason could feel the way it reverberated through his body. Jason hadn’t really liked laughter, his own or anyone else’s, since Joker, but this wasn’t bad. Feeling it and knowing it couldn’t be Joker, because Joker had never been warm and Joker had never once touched him gently like Roy was now, it was… comforting? Was that the right word? “Don’t believe you, Jaybird,” Roy muttered into Jason’s hair. “Didn’t believe you then, definitely don’t believe you now. You’re soft on me.”

Jason curled farther into Roy’s body. Told himself it was just for the heat. “I only like you ‘cause you’re warm, Ginger. The rest of you I could take or leave.”

“Liar.”

“Dumbass.” As the word crossed his lips, Jason’s mind circled back again to the flood of memories he’d revisited in his dreams. “Why’d you save me back then? And why’d you keep coming back after I tried to kill you so many times?”

Roy seemed to take a minute to wake up, and he sounded clearer and far more alert when he replied. “That’s kind of a random question. God, it was so long ago now.”

And Jason heard something strange in Roy’s voice. It wasn’t quite the sharp, bitter sting of a lie, but it didn’t settle like the truth, either. “That was only like, a year ago, there’s no way you don’t remember. Forgetting important things that happened recently is my job, don’t steal my thunder.”

Roy shrugged. “I dunno. You needed help.”

Jason craned his neck to look Roy in the eye, even more sure now that something was off. “I find it hard to believe that you have such a vague, generic reason for risking your life to save some asshole you never met.” Something uncomfortable flashed in Roy’s eyes. The soft part of Jason that cared for Roy and didn’t want to cause him pain told him to back off, but there was another part, a stronger part, solely a product of Bruce’s training, and it spurred him to push harder. “You can tell me the truth, y’know.”

Roy sighed, tightened his arm slightly around Jason’s shoulders, and turned his eyes to the ceiling. “When I was your age, just a little while after you died, I went through a rough patch.” Roy gave a bitter little laugh and ran his teeth over his bottom lip. “That’s—that’s putting it mildly, I guess. I had a drug problem, heroin, and I got in deep, fast. Ollie found out, fired me as Speedy, and things fell off a cliff after that. I didn’t give a shit about myself and nobody else looked at me and saw anything worth saving, so things just stayed bad for… I don’t even know how long. Wasn’t until after an OD ended me up in the hospital for a week that I even bothered trying to get clean. It took me a long time to get my shit together, and once I did, I came here, just trying to get away from who I used to be. Eventually, I ran into you. I saw you go down in that fight and it was like watching 20-year-old me shoot up in some crap safehouse, not really caring if I woke up or not. I knew where you’d end up if you didn’t have anyone who thought you were worth saving, either.”

Jason laid there frozen for way too long just trying to breathe through everything that was hitting him because his first instinct was kill and his second one was fight and there were about thirteen more unhelpful reactions he ran through before he realized what he was doing. The Pit solved everything through retaliation, but there was no one to punish for this. It was no one’s fault. It was just something bad that happened to somebody he cared about, and killing wouldn’t make it better. Ducra’s voice echoed in his mind.

There is no healing to be had through vengeance, man-child, only more pain.

Swallowing hard, Jason searched his mind for something decent to say, something Roy would deserve to hear, but the feeling of Roy’s chest stuttering beneath him derailed his train of thought altogether. He looked up again to find Roy wiping at his eyes and glancing down at him with a forced smile, and holy shit, Roy was crying. Roy was crying. Roy was the one who always had his shit together while Jason was falling apart and now he was crying, and seeing him so vulnerable like that didn’t feel right. “Sorry. I just haven’t talked about it in a long time.”

“It’s okay,” Jason said because he couldn’t say nothing but everything felt at least a little bit wrong. The next thing his stupid brain supplied was my mom died of a heroin overdose, but even someone as emotionally stunted as Jason knew that was a horribly inappropriate response. “That’s fucked up,” was what he settled on. It was good enough, and the thought of being silent for any longer after Roy had just bore his fucking soul was unacceptable. “Sorry you went through it. I’m glad you’re not dead.”

“Yeah, me too,” Roy said, voice breaking slightly. “I’ve been clean for four years and sober for three, but I was flirting with a relapse when we met. Being alone out here for so long, not really knowing the language, half a world away from the only home I ever had… I got low. Things were bad. And I kinda got back to that point where I didn’t really care what happened to me, if I got hurt, if I died, so I thought, what the hell? I’ll try crimefighting again. It’s better than puking my way through a withdrawal every time I run out of money. At least this way, I’m helping people. And maybe Arsenal would be a good enough distraction from how much I was starting to hate myself, or the adrenaline would be enough of a fix that the cravings would go away, but it wasn’t. Things were still bad, really bad, and getting worse. 

“Then you came along. I took one look at you and it was like relapsing wasn’t an option anymore, because this kid needed help and I could give it to him. And I didn’t really care if helping you ended up killing me, cause I was headed towards that before we met, anyway. Rather die trying to do some good than die of an OD a thousand miles away from anyone who would give a shit about it. You needed me. And maybe if I could be better for you, you wouldn’t turn out to be the worst version of me.”

Jason looked back down then, uncomfortable with all this honesty, all this proof that Roy was a good person who cared about him and unable to banish the all-consuming thought that he didn’t deserve that. “O-Oh,” was all he could manage.

“And that’s why I never gave up on you, Jay. I, um... I wish I’d had somebody who never gave up on me.”

“You shoulda given up,” Jason muttered when he finally got ahold of himself again. “Stubborn cabrón.” And then, the same way he had when he’d stitched Roy up all those months ago, he followed it up just above a whisper, muffling his words into Roy’s shirt. “Thanks. For saving my life so many times, or whatever.”

Roy let out a long breath, and Jason could feel the way the residual tension and sadness and pain left his body. His fingers threaded into Jason’s hair and Jason relaxed with the soothing, familiar touch. “You saved my life, or whatever, too.”

Jason shrugged, feeling lethargy taking hold of him again. “Least I could do, you’ve stitched me up dozens of times,” he said around a yawn. Jason closed his eyes and settled back into Roy’s body, that satisfying little buzz of peace settling into his bones once more.

He could feel Roy’s chest vibrate underneath him, could tell he was talking, but the words were getting fuzzier as his consciousness started to waver.

“Oh, Jaybird,” he thought he heard Roy say just before he drifted off. “I’m not talking about the stitches.”

Chapter Text

I don’t know if you’re trying to con me into forgiving you, or if this is just your fucked up way of processing your grief, but it’s not my problem.

He’d deserved that.

I can’t forgive you for what you let Joker do to Jason.

He’d deserved that too.

Don’t make this harder. I don’t want to hear from you again, tell me you understand that.

He hadn’t really believed that the phone call was going to fix anything.

I did it for my brother’s memory. I try to do things to honor him now. Maybe you should try that, instead of chasing down ghosts and pipe dreams.

Dick’s rage was justified, but was Dick right about Bruce, too? Was this just a delusion he overinflated in his mind, a new distraction to avoid facing what his life was without Batman? Was Slade just here humoring a sad old man gone mad with grief? 

“Still bothering you, huh?” Slade asked from behind him, peering over his shoulder at one of the maps on the table.

His voice jolted Bruce from his reverie, but he was still only half-present in the current moment when he replied. “Hm?”

“You talked to big brother about Jason. I’m guessing it went badly because it’s been two days since and you’re still even sulkier than usual.”

And that was enough of a shock that Bruce turned his full focus to Slade. “I didn’t—” he started, but he could feel it in the air. In the way Slade’s gaze was boring into the back of his head. There was no chance that any lie, no matter how intricate or masterful, would erase the fact that Slade already knew the truth. Instead, he got up and turned to face him. “How did you find out?”

Slade let out a dramatic sigh and rolled his eye. “C’mon, really?” When Bruce didn’t waver, Slade started counting the reasons off on his fingers, sounding flat and bored. “One: there were 28 minutes between the text telling me to stay away and the text telling me to come back. Too long to be something insignificant and not long enough for it to be a ‘fuck you, I haven’t been in constant close contact with another human being like this for six years and you’re driving me insane’. Two: when I did come back, you spent hours glued to your phone, checking it obsessively, something you never do—that means whatever happened in those 28 minutes probably had something to do with your phone. Three: you were in an especially shitty mood all night, so the content of the actual correspondence was probably negative. Four: every time you checked it and found nothing, you were both relieved and disappointed, meaning there was a chance for the message to be good enough for you to be looking forward to it and bad enough for you to be dreading it.

“Now, there’s almost no one still alive you care about enough to have that sort of reaction. The only ones I can think of are Talia, Jason, maybe Barry, and Dick. No way you’d bother keeping it a secret if it was Barry, and I sure fucking hope you’d’ve told me by now if it was Jason or Talia, seeing as that’s vital information for our mission. That means it was almost certainly Dick. And you’re not a total asshole, so I’m guessing you wanted to let your son know his brother was alive even if he’d bite your head off for it, and you’re logical enough that you’d wait until you had proof solid enough to justify getting his hopes up like that. Him having a negative reaction is plausible, since he seems to hate you. It wasn’t that tough to reason through. You’re a lot worse at hiding your emotions now than you used to be.”

Bruce had to take a second just to absorb all of that. Of course, he’d always known Slade wasn’t an idiot. Ever since they’d first become enemies, Bruce would’ve estimated his intellect somewhere between Scarecrow and Mr. Freeze, which was nothing to scoff at. Still, that level of deductive reasoning took years of training and practice to master, and Deathstroke’s intelligence had always been based more in combat and strategy than observation and deduction. He didn’t think Slade had this in him.

“No reason to bother with it,” he admitted eventually. “You’re not my enemy anymore.” And then, because he knew now that Slade saw right through him and there really was no point in hiding, “I’m impressed. That was solid detective work.”

Slade just gave a derisive snort at the sentiment and pulled up a chair. “You don’t survive in the mercenary industry as long as I have without a brain. I’m guessing Boy Wonder I had his reservations about believing Boy Wonder II had risen from the grave?”

Bruce sighed, took a seat beside Slade, and returned his gaze to the maps. “Mm. ‘Had his reservations’ is an understatement.”

“Yikes,” Slade muttered, not unkindly. “He’s still that pissed at you? Really? Hasn’t it been like, a long-ass time?”

“Dick has the right to be angry,” Bruce said, still not looking up as he felt the furious echo of Dick’s voice bouncing around in his mind once again. “He has the right to be angry for the rest of his life if he needs to be. Time doesn’t heal wounds like that. He lost his brother; it almost destroyed him. And I brought all of that pain and madness into his life again by contacting him again after he told me not to. I just… I hoped he would have enough faith in me to know that I wouldn’t make up a lie about a person we both loved and cared for just for the sake of being let back into his life. And I was wrong to hope for that.”

“That blows. Like father like son, I suppose. Here’s hoping you didn’t pass the infamous Wayne Eternal Grudge Gene down to Jason, too. If his everlasting bitterness is even a fraction as bad as yours and Dick’s, you’ll get two in the back of your head the moment he lays eyes on you.”

“I don’t need Jason to forgive me,” Bruce told him honestly. “And I don’t expect him to. I just want him to know I still love him. That he doesn’t have to be alone anymore. That he still has a family if he wants one. And that I’m sorry for everything he went through because of me. That’s it. So long as I get to say that, I don’t care what happens to me after.”

Bruce could see Slade lean back in his chair out of the corner of his eye. “You’re just… fine with that? With all this work being for nothing? That doesn’t sound like the Batman I know at all.”

“I think we both know I’m not really him anymore. I haven’t been for a long time, especially not since Superman. And it wouldn’t be for nothing. Jason knowing he’s cared for is more than enough. No matter what happens once we find him, I’m done with the hero game. For good. The world doesn’t need Batman anymore. He’s an old symbol that hasn’t stood for hope since before the war and people associate him with years of chaos and death now. I actually think the whole recovery process will go much smoother without him around.”

“Huh. Never thought I’d see the day the Bat chose to hang up the cape and cowl. Thought death was the only thing that would stop you.”

Bruce took a long moment to think about that. “It did. Just not my death. Jason’s death, Alfred's death, Jim, Mera, Victor, even Clark... Batman does more harm than good these days. I’m starting to think that might’ve been the case this whole time.” Bruce took a deep breath and forced himself to look up with a small grin. “Don’t tell me Deathstroke would miss dealing with the one person he never managed to kill.”

Slade shrugged noncommittally. “Fighting you was frustrating as shit. You just wouldn’t die. My reputation took a serious hit and I had a lot of pissed off clients because of you. But… I appreciate a good challenge. I rarely get one. And you were a challenge.”

Slade seemed to realize he was dangerously close to paying Bruce an actual compliment because he abruptly shifted topics.

“Any new groundbreaking insights on where we should go to start tracing an untraceable person who doesn’t want to be found?”

“Anywhere he could do more damage and cause more death.” 

“Thanks,” Slade deadpanned. “That’s just as tremendously unhelpful as it was four days ago when it came out of the Demon Bitch’s mouth.”

“It’s just so vague,” Bruce groaned. “I know it’s probably all the information she had, but we don’t even know what we’re looking for. There are a hundred different things someone with a talent for hurting could do with their life.”

“Probably more in the fallout of an almost-apocalypse.” 

“Guess we both have unhelpful thoughts, don’t we?” Slade shot back a small grin of his own. “It’d narrow things down a lot if we could exclude harmful occupations, hitmen, enforcers, and the like, but—”

“We can’t,” Slade cut in. “I know it sucks, but there’s no guarantee that Jason is anything more than a senseless killer. That’s what he was when he fled the League, and if things haven’t changed, chances are good he’s hurting people indiscriminately.”

“I know, I know. I’ve already accepted that fact that he’s probably a crim…” Bruce trailed off, feeling like a lightbulb had gone off in his mind. “A criminal!”

“Uh, yeah? Why do you sound so excited about that?”

Bruce was already gathering up their markers and pulling a map of the major cities in China towards him. “Objectively speaking, Jason is probably a criminal right now. He’s known how not to be found since he was six years old, and me and the League only made him better at it. Even if his mind is completely gone, his self-preservation instincts would likely take over to ensure he doesn’t get caught, captured, or killed. If you’re a murderer on the run with a significant body count, what’s the best way for you to avoid detection?”

“Find somewhere to blend in,” Slade replied automatically.

Bruce snapped and pointed at him. “Yes. And after all the death and destruction of the past few years, the vast majority of the planet has been plunged into chaos. Especially more densely populated areas. Even with the population thinned as much as it is, crime worldwide is at an all-time high.”

“Bigger cities mean higher crime rates,” Slade finished for him. “The higher the crime, the less likely people are to notice or care about a few extra dead bodies. The more criminals there are, the easier it is for a killer to disappear. Plus, bigger cities mean more eyes. More people who might’ve seen Jason, even if they didn’t know who he was.”

“Exactly!” Bruce exclaimed, feeling some of the depression and doubt of the last few days start to seep out of him. “Let’s map out a, say, 500-mile radius from Nanda Parbat. We can set criteria for conditions that would need to be met for Jason to consider going to a certain place, identify cities that match up, and start visiting them and feeling things out, investigating anything unusual. Anything that could point us towards Jason.” 

The list was a long one. Too many potential leads were far better than none at all, though. They took their JLTV from city to city trying to get to know the locals and understand the climate of eastern Asia post-Superman. There was no guarantee Jason had stayed here. He could be thousands of miles away, and he could just as easily be lurking unseen right under their noses. Still, it felt good to dig in and start learning something, even if it didn’t end up leading them to Jason.

Bruce and Slade learned quickly that it was better to try to pass as civilians and establish a bond with the people they talked to rather than intimidating the information out of them as Batman and Deathstroke. The vast majority of the people they ran into were jumpy and anxious, and a good portion of them refused to talk to them at all, like they thought they’d be punished just for speaking about harmless things like their families and work lives.  Years of living in terror had left them scarred; they didn’t need another reason to be afraid.

Seeing how far-reaching the wounds of the war were awakened the same thing in Bruce that had spurred him to become Batman in the first place. It told him to stay put, that this was where he could do the most good. Helping those who could not help themselves. He pushed it away every time he felt it, though. For years—the whole time he’d known Jason, really—he’d prioritized the greater good above his son’s welfare. That attitude had cost Jason his life. Bruce wouldn’t make that same mistake again. 

With time, they learned how to blend in with the common people. After years upon years of leaving their civilian identities entirely by the wayside, it was challenging for Batman and Deathstroke to go back to being Bruce Wayne and Slade Wilson, but they managed. They adjusted the way they dressed, brushed up on their Chinese dialects, and learned what behaviors got them labeled as untrustworthy outsiders. 

Not long after they found their footing, Bruce heard the first story. Under a highway overpass in the worst little corner of a city in northern China, he ran into a young woman. She looked tired like everyone always did, but there was a spark of hope in her eyes that Bruce didn’t often encounter. After making small talk in Chinese for a few minutes, she seemed to let her guard down. That was when she leaned in and gave Bruce his best lead since Talia.

“Things seem bad now, but they used to be so much worse,” she said, and Bruce was grateful his Chinese had improved so much since they arrived, because she spoke it so fast he struggled to make the words out. It was different with her, though. Normally, people spoke quickly and quietly because they seemed to be afraid of being overheard, but this seemed to be more excitement than anxiety. “It’s fortunate you never came to our city before him.” And she spoke that word with so much reverence that Bruce knew there had to be more to it than that.

“Him?” He asked, taking care to keep his voice gentle and inviting rather than resorting to the belligerence he was used to. “Who’s him?”

She leaned in farther. “The Wang family used to control the whole city. Ever since I was a girl, they had their hands in everything, ruling with an iron fist. We all lived in fear. Then, six or so months ago, we woke up to find them all killed. At least 30 people, all shot dead. A few people claim to have caught a glimpse of the one who did it; they say it was a single masked man in red. He left no traces behind, and we didn’t call the police—they were the ones who let the Wangs rise to power, after all, and we feared they might try and capture the one who saved us—so there was not much of an investigation. Some are not convinced he was a real person. They claim it was an act of the gods, an angel sent to deliver us. I think if gods were real, they would not have let that flying man kill my mother and my brothers. Those who believe call him xīng hóng èmèng. ” Bruce took a quick moment to think through it. Xīng hóng èmèng. That roughly translated to the Crimson Nightmare.

“And you put faith in these legends?”

She gave him a hopeful smile. “I know he’s real. Xīng hóng èmèng saved us all, sir.”

Bruce figured it was a freak thing. A myth brought to life by people looking for a reason not to give up. Maybe just one girl with a very active imagination. There was a nonzero chance that a particularly skilled subset of the city got fed up with the Wang family and took matters into their own hands, but a single warrior taking down thirty plus men and leaving no evidence behind was probably the least likely explanation.

He’d tried to find other people to corroborate the story, but no one else he talked to mentioned the Crimson Nightmare. The few times he brought it up, he got a door slammed in his face for his efforts. That had probably blown his cover, but it was worth it to try. They were planning on leaving the city in the morning anyway.

Despite how implausible the whole thing seemed, Bruce relayed the new information to Slade, and they agreed they’d be on the lookout for other similar stories. They had another week of fruitless searches, amassing more bleak details of the struggle for survival that ordinary civilians endured every day and precious little else. Then, over 70 miles away from the Crimson Nightmare town, they got a second hit.

They were sitting down with their dinner on an outdoor patio as they often did, positioned just close enough to eavesdrop on the conversations around them and far enough away to speak to each other without being overheard. “This place has another one of those ghost stories,” Slade said in a low voice.

“Oh? What of?”

“I heard four different passing comments about vengeance and three about mercy while I was in town today. I thought it was just the same bitterness we’ve been running into, people being rightfully pissed off about Super-Freak destroying their lives and keeping themselves going with revenge fantasies, but I heard it enough times to ask. Turns out, Vengeance and Mercy are actually people.”

Bruce put down his chopsticks and leaned forward, attention captured. “And what did Vengeance and Mercy do?”

“People’s young daughters were being abducted in this city and others nearby. The youngest one was six fucking years old, but moving past how disgustingly fucked up that is, it’d been going on for months. Nobody knew where they were going or why. And then one day a few months ago, all of them come back. Some were unharmed, most were worse for wear, a few of ‘em were dead, but I guess even the corpses were returned.”

“If they brought the bodies back, someone must’ve gotten a good look at them, right?” 

“That’s what I thought too, so I followed a few leads around until I ended up finding one of the older girls. More pissed off than scared, kind of seemed like she wanted to talk about it. She told me that Vengeance was a brave warrior who came to the place they were locked up and attacked the pervs who abducted them with some kind of blunt weapon. He moved so quickly she barely even saw him; one second this guy’s beating the shit out of everyone in sight and the next he’s gone and they’re all dead. 

“The moment he disappeared, Mercy showed up. It kind of seemed like Mercy is to Vengeance as Robin is to Batman. Not in the sense that he’s the sidekick, more that Vengeance does the intimidation and the violence aspect, and Mercy comes and comforts the victims in the aftermath and makes sure they’re taken care of. He released the survivors from their cells and led them to safety. Even searched the place for the bodies of the ones who didn’t make it, found out where they were from, and sent them back there with the other victims. She said Mercy was a man with long red hair who spoke very broken Chinese, but that she couldn’t remember anything else—you know how PTSD wreaks havoc on your memory. Apparently, neither of them actually set foot in the villages, but Mercy seemed pretty adamant about getting them all home safe.”

Bruce just sat with the information for a while trying to make sense of it, because that sounded like hero work, and heroes were basically extinct these days. Sure, it was probably the bloodiest hero work Bruce had ever heard of, but maybe that was what the current landscape required. Years ago, he would’ve said there was no excuse for resorting to such vile and horrifying methods and that Vengeance was no better than the men he slaughtered, but now? Fighting Superman for years had taught him that the whole world was composed of various shades of gray, very little black or white to be had at all. Maybe the broken world Superman had left behind needed heroes willing to choose vengeance over justice. 

“Do you believe it?” Bruce asked when he finally sorted it all through in his mind.

Slade blew out his cheeks and stared at his dinner thoughtfully for a while before he replied. “I don’t know. It sounds pretty outlandish, but we have seen far stranger. A flying man made of steel tried to take over the world, and we beat him with two kids too powerful for their own good, two burnt-out old men, a sea witch, and a lunatic. Compared to that, this is just a regular Tuesday.”

“If it is real, do you think there’s a link between Vengeance and the Crimson Nightmare?”

“Their motives line up, but Crimson Nightmare girl said nothing about a partner and the MO is completely different. It’s way too soon to assume a connection. There are plenty of people out there who could massacre a dozen or so pedophiles single-handedly.”

“Sure, there are probably hundreds. But how many of them target guilty parties on purpose and care enough about victims to bring along someone who could save them?”

Slade shrugged. “Shit, before today, I would’ve said zero. But now, who the hell knows?”

A lot of the places they visited had stories like that. It didn’t take long for Bruce and Slade to surmise that the various legends were almost certainly referencing the same person. On paper, it seemed impossible, that one man could cover so much ground and spill so much blood, but the body of evidence was getting harder and harder to ignore. Sometimes the stories mentioned a partner, a guiding hand for the killer or a compassionate presence for the survivors, but it seemed that he mostly stuck to the shadows and never took part in the killing.

The reverent whispers always spoke of a single warrior committing the massacres.

A man—more of a ghost than a man, really—an enigmatic guardian angel who protected the innocent and vulnerable. Tales of his deadly accomplishments stretched from Nepal to Japan and everywhere in between. From what they could tell, he’d been active in some capacity for a long time; most of the especially gory stories were years old, but a few times, they only missed the killing sprees by a week or two. The core was always the same: a man shrouded in blood and mystery had delivered them from the evil that plagued their city and took violent retribution against the monsters who destroyed their lives.

He’d been called many names.

Some were creative, the stuff of legend, and they felt so strangely familiar to Bruce. The Angel of Death. The Shadow Slayer. The Red Hand of Justice. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but it was something about the way they said it. Awe and reverence and relief. Maybe it was the need for a symbol of hope that he recognized. After all, that same need created the Batman in the first place. The resemblance was uncanny, actually. The common people spoke about him like he was a god, the only thing they could still rely on in a world that had left them for dead.

For other cities, he was one with the darkness, as were his stories. Those people were all backs hunched and eyes wide and hands shaking, clearly terrified of returning to the way things were before the legend they spoke of in hushed tones had come and changed their lives. The End. Red Man. Reaper. Blood.

There were even some places where people were so tight-lipped that they couldn’t get a single shred of information out of them, but even then, there was a feeling. The same feeling there had been in the towns that were willing to recount their stories. A sense that light had dawned again in a place once plunged into eternal night, a permanent darkness that was just now beginning to miraculously lift. Bruce didn’t need any tangible proof to know that the ghost had been there too. Even without a name, a face, or a story, he always left an invisible mark behind on the people whose lives he’d touched.

The red imagery in his names could have been a reference to the way he dressed or the extensive trail of blood and carnage he left behind, but the lack of congruity between physical descriptions made it impossible to know for sure. After the fourth red name he heard, Bruce remembered with a quiet flood of hope that red had been Jason’s favorite color.

Even as the stories piled up, they didn’t give Bruce and Slade any useable information. Witnesses hardly agreed on anything. He was an efficient assassin performing execution-style shootings in some towns. In others, he was a vicious and brutal warrior who was so incensed that he just picked up the first thing he could use as a weapon and killed everyone who stood in his way. He favored blades—no, blunt melee weapons—and he killed swiftly and silently—except for when he was a typhoon of rage who cut people down indiscriminately. The red-haired partner watched his back the whole time until the fighter collapsed from exhaustion and the partner had to help him up and carry him out. No, that was wrong, the partner was there but he only showed up after the vigilante left. Oh wait, the ghost was completely alone and didn’t seem to need anyone’s help. It was infuriatingly inconsistent, but there were a few common threads.

He never hurt innocents, never showed his face, and never got caught. He rarely spoke, and when he did, it was in a robotic, inhuman voice. He came in the night and was gone by morning, and no one who crossed him lived to tell the tale. Sometimes the locals were afraid of him, and many didn’t believe, but the ones who did worshipped the ground he walked on.

Children saved from massive human trafficking rings. Drug empires reduced to ashes in the span of a single night. Corporate moguls beyond the reach of the law made into grisly examples. His deadly crusade had claimed hundreds of lives, but his intentions were always righteous. Countless innocents had been spared terrible fates thanks to him. As time went on, Bruce became more and more sure that there was something more to this. He saw a little piece of himself in every story he heard.

“I’m just gonna go ahead and say what we’re both thinking,” Slade said as they made their way out of yet another city that had been helped by eastern Asia’s lethal vigilante protector. “This could be Jason.”

Bruce let out a long breath, beyond grateful that he wasn’t the only one. “It could be,” was the careful, measured response he chose.

Slade didn’t speak again until they were outside the city limits and coming up on their vehicle. Bruce made to get in the driver’s side, but Slade’s hand on his shoulder stopped him. “It could be Jason,” he said again, “but that is a massive maybe. Not a guarantee. And if you want to survive this mission long enough to track down Zombie Robin, you need to keep that in mind. Hope is dangerous. You need it to keep you alive, but too much of it will destroy you.”

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were worried about me, Wilson.”

“I don’t break contracts,” Slade said, just like he always did. It sounded a little off, though. A little too rehearsed. Like maybe this time, it wasn’t the whole truth. “Let’s say I let you jump headfirst into these legends and they turn out to be nothing but smoke, or this benevolent psychopath is real but he isn’t Jason. If that’s what we find out and it breaks you and you give up altogether, that’s my fuck up. That’s my reputation that takes the fall. Once we find Jason or we find out when and how he died again, I’m out. I'll get you that far, but no farther. So, after that point, you can fuck up your life however you want. But until then, you are my responsibility, which means I cannot and will not stand by and allow you to do something that could potentially derail or fail our mission.”

“Your contractual obligation to care about me is touching as always. You’re the one who brought this up in the first place. If I’m taking it too seriously, then you tell me what you’re thinking.”

“The violence lines up. This amount of vigilante-style killing is unprecedented, and it makes sense that a severe external trigger, like the side effects of the Lazarus Pit, could be the cause of it. But after that, it’s a crapshoot, because we have no idea to what degree Jason has improved since he left the League. This guy is deliberate with who he’s killing and where and he seems to have found someone at least halfway competent to team up with. Going off of what Talia said, Jason wasn’t capable of that.”

“If we trust her, which neither of us fully do.”

“Yeah. She’s a two-faced bitch who only does things that directly benefit her and her fucked up little cult, and I don’t believe for a second that she tried to help Jason out of the goodness of her fucking heart. But you’re not exactly an objective third party here. You want her to be wrong, but you can’t wish that into existence. We need to treat Talia’s information like it’s plausible at the very least until we can definitively prove that it isn’t.”

“Even if she is telling the truth, it’s still not impossible for him to be Jason. Sure, it’s unlikely, but her information is old. Anything could have happened in those three years. Maybe the Pit’s side effects just needed more time to fade. Or maybe he got more training, training that could help him control himself.”

“So it’s a possibility,” Slade conceded. “One possibility out of hundreds. Just because it’s the outcome you’re hoping for doesn’t give us the privilege of ignoring the others.”

“Yes. Jason could potentially be anywhere doing anything. But we’ve been in Asia for almost four months, Wilson. This is the only thing that’s taken us anywhere. Sure, Jason could be a random thug doing hits for a mob, he could be in the middle of nowhere killing people no one would miss, he might not even be in this part of the world anymore. However, we’re going to be hard-pressed to find proof of any of those things; they’re basically untraceable. This is the only thing we have that’s pursuable.”

“We’re on the same page then, more or less. But I need to hear it from your mouth right now so I can hold it over your head later when you inevitably get too invested in this. This series of myths and legends will get most of our attention for now, but if anything else promising comes up, we will also devote our time to that and treat it as just as much of a valid possibility as this is.”

“Yes. Deal.”

“Alright, good,” Slade said around a sigh that sounded almost relieved. “And who knows? If the ghost is real and he’s not Jason, he’s still sure to be someone interesting. Maybe we’ll get a new ally. Or, at the very least, a memorable fight.”

Two weeks later, things took a turn.

It was just a stroke of dumb luck. Bruce and Slade were on their way towards another high-crime town, suited up as they always were while traveling between cities. Since they made their deal to shift their focus mostly onto the ghost, they’d been attempting to pick up his trail instead of just collecting obviously cold and months-old stories. That meant trying to anticipate his next move, which had taken them towards Golmud. About 20 miles out from the city, they ran into a crime scene.

‘Crime scene’ was a gentle way of putting it. It looked more like a slaughter.

“God damn,” Slade muttered as he kicked one of the lifeless bodies. “If this really is your kid’s work, Wayne, he mighta been better off dead.”

“Don’t,” Bruce warned halfheartedly, too nauseated by the gruesome sight before him to fully feel the weight of Slade’s words or care about shutting him up.

“Yeah, I know,” Slade murmured back, hands held up in surrender. “I’m just saying. Shit’s nasty, and that’s coming from me.” 

He wasn’t wrong. It was… well, it was horrifying, there was really no other way to put it. Bruce had witnessed Wonder Woman nearly cut Harley in half, he’d seen Martian Manhunter’s charred body after Superman tortured him, he’d stared on in horror as the Parademons massacred entire cities. Even stacked up against all that violence, this stood out.

There were a dozen men dead in the forest clearing, and most of them weren’t even recognizable as human. It seemed they'd been attacked by one assailant with two swords. Dismembered body parts littered the ground. The grass was so saturated with blood that it pooled up around their boots and made a wet squelching noise when they walked on it. The coppery stench of it was thick in the air, mingling with the stink of rot, decay, and death. The faces Bruce could make out were contorted in agony. Most of the deaths seemed to have been relatively quick, but none of them were painless. 

There was only one exception to that rule. One man’s mutilated corpse left in the center of the clearing with his hands still tied behind his back. Even though the body had been decomposing for at least two days, Bruce could still see the map of pain painted across his skin. Dark bruises from a blunt weapon, surface wounds positioned to maximize pain while minimizing the possibility of loss of life, deep gashes placed methodically to avoid the risk of a bleed out. All five fingers on his right hand and both his ears had been severed, most of the skin was flayed off his back, and he’d been castrated. Unequivocal evidence of torture. Whoever had done this had taken their time, drawn it out as long as they could. It looked like a vendetta. It looked like revenge.

There was no solid proof it was their ghost, but it felt the same way that the stories did. The same kind of bloody vengeance that people consistently described. The same sense that even though the attacker was outnumbered twelve to one, his opponents hadn’t stood a chance. The whole camp had been destroyed; safes looted, identifying information taken, and everything that still remained had been torched, which made sense for a vigilante trying to avoid being tracked down. Still, without knowing who these men were or what they were being punished for, speculation was essentially just grasping at straws.

Slade and Bruce searched the place for over an hour and found nothing but one set of bloody tracks leading away from the clearing. They weren’t distinct enough to make out a tread pattern or a shoe size and Bruce lost the trail after a few hundred feet. So, probably no partner, but that was it. No proof it was the ghost, no proof of where he might’ve gone, only a disturbing amount of evidence that meant there was at least one brutally efficient killer out there with a penchant for doing damage and causing death. Bruce reminded himself vigilantly that that didn’t mean it was Jason. There were plenty of people out there with a gift for causing harm.

They were just about ready to call the whole thing a wash, accept what little information they had gleaned, and move on when they ran into a child who seemed to be approaching the scene with a purpose. He stopped about ten feet short of them when his gaze locked on the Bat symbol on Bruce’s suit. His eyes snapped up to Bruce’s face, looking awestruck. Batman didn’t enjoy the same fame and notoriety in Asia as he had in America, but he was still decently well known, especially after Superman’s death. It was probably just a fan.

“Do you know the man who saved us?” The boy asked in Mandarin. Bruce was so caught off guard that he couldn’t speak for a moment. Undeterred, the boy took a few steps closer and pointed at Bruce’s chest with a tiny hand, eyes bright and hopeful. “He had that too. Are you friends?”

“He had… what?” Bruce asked, unable to mask the confusion.

The boy gestured to his own chest. “The mark.”

“The… the Bat symbol?”

He gave a gap-toothed grin and nodded eagerly. “I was heading here to play hide-and-seek and I watched him fly away into the trees. It was only for a moment and he didn’t see me; all I saw was what he had painted on his chest. It looked just like that, but red. In our village, we call him the Blood-Red Bat. Do you know him?” Bruce shook his head ‘no’. The boy’s face fell a little bit, but he still managed a smile. “Okay. If you ever do meet him, tell him thank you for me. I found out from mother today that he got rid of the man who hurt my sister.”

Bruce was left speechless and reeling as the boy disappeared back into the trees he came from. He turned to Slade then, hope soaring bright and unrestrained in his chest for the first time.

“A bat. It’s Jason.”

Chapter Text

“Hey, first fully solo mission,” Roy said as Jason slipped in through the back door of their house. For a long moment, Jason just tried to catch his breath, supporting himself against the wall, his glove leaving a bloody handprint on the white paint. Roy didn’t look up from his workbench, but Jason could hear the smile in his voice. “How’d it go, Jaybird?”

“I’d say ‘good’,” Jason muttered, still a little winded, more from the adrenaline than the exertion, “but then karma would inevitably exact its vengeance on me for it. So, let’s call it decent.”

Roy nodded, holding an arrow up to the overhead LED light and inspecting it carefully before responding. “Seems you aren’t dead or grievously injured, that’s a pleasant surprise.”

Jason snorted. “Good to know you’re still keepin’ the faith, Roy.”

“If I really thought your life was in danger, I would’ve gone with you. How many bodies and how many injuries, Red?”

“Twelve, as planned, and,” Jason paused and gave his body a mental once-over. “Huh. Zero. Can’t remember the last time that happened.”

Roy gave him a blinding smile. “That’s awesome, Jaybird. And did it feel good? Saving people by yourself?" 

"I don't save people," Jason corrected flatly, the same half-argument he and Roy had had a thousand times. "I just kill the evil people so the good people can save themselves."

"Ugh, it's always the semantics with you." Roy laid the back of his hand against his forehead dramatically and lowered his voice in an obnoxious parody of Jason's. "No, Roy, please, don't vaguely insinuate that killing people who victimize innocents and making sure they can never hurt anyone else again makes me a good person! It's too horrible, oh god, anything but that!"

Jason groaned. "Where's your off-switch, Ginger?" 

"I think you should know by now that I don't have one. How’re the swords?”

“Mm. They’re good. Really good, actually. They feel… I dunno, right? My training has always been majority hand-to-hand and melee, and the green is much more willing to tolerate a lower body count if I kill in a bloodier way. It’s a win-win. But,” Jason carefully removed the sheathed swords from his back and laid them on the table beside Roy, “I gotta admit, I do miss the All-Blades.”

“The what-whats?”

“Oh, just some enchanted swords I used while I was training with the All-Caste. They’re the best weapons I’ve ever had my hands on but they’re… unavailable to me now. The ones you made are a pretty good replacement, though.”

“I’m honored, but I’m sure they’re far from perfect. I’m a little out of practice with most things that aren’t archery-related. Once you come down all the way, I’d love a full report so I can start making tweaks.”

Jason made a thoughtful noise as he peeled the bloodsoaked leather jacket away from the compression shirt beneath it. “You’re really leaning into this whole craftsmanship thing, huh?”

“Mhm,” Roy hummed as he took one of the swords out of its sheath and started wiping the blood off. “Why not? We have the money for it, it gives me a chance to help you when we aren’t in the field together, I’m good at it, and it makes me happy. Having a hobby that doesn’t involve chopping people up into little bits is good for the soul, Jay. Maybe you should try it.”

Jason scoffed, letting the rest of his armor and weapons fall to the floor with a thud. “Great idea. I’m sure there’d be absolutely no consequences from the Pit if I reverted to my 15-year-old self and traded the killing in for cooking and reading.”

Roy glanced up at Jason for a moment and offered a quick smile. “Do I need to force some food and water down your throat, or are you capable of taking care of yourself?”

"Que te den, pendejo," Jason muttered with a roll of his eyes.

Roy's grin went crooked. "Fuck off, stupid isn't really an answer."

"Finally learning Spanish?"

"You've used the same handful of insults for the past year plus. A guy picks up a few things eventually." Roy paused and his smile went rueful. "Or a guy breaks down and uses Google translate."

"Mm, yeah, that's much more like the Roy Harper I know."

"As much as I find your love of changing the subject endearing, Jaybird, you haven't actually answered my question. So, I repeat, will you take care of yourself, or do I have to do it for you?" 

Jason turned around with a sigh. “I really hate you sometimes.”

“And I love it when you lie right to my face.”

“I’m lying to the back of your head,” Jason called back over his shoulder as he reluctantly crossed the room to follow Roy’s instructions. Mind still buzzing from the rush of the fight and the conflict of the green, both satisfied with the level of violence and still craving more, Jason couldn’t stand the thought of letting silence stretch long enough for his thoughts to start turning dark, so he filled it. “Hey, wanna know something funny?” 

“I doubt it’s actually funny as much as it is morbidly fascinating or shockingly dark but yeah, sure.”

Jason made an indignant noise. “Jeez, you got me in a box there, huh?”

“Am I wrong?” Jason opened his mouth to protest, then shut it again. “Go ahead, Jaybird, I’m used to it by now.”

He paused for a moment, hesitant to prove Roy right so overtly, but even a few seconds of silence felt like needles in his spine and he couldn’t, he had to. “Back when things were really bad, I’m pretty sure I went into most of my fights unarmed.”

Roy put his work down then and turned backward on his bench to fix Jason with a knowing smirk. “Yup. There it is, classic on-brand Jason Todd ‘humor’. Damn, I’m good.”

“Okay, shut up. I thought it was funny.”

Roy laughed and shook his head, and the sound made the prickling feeling vanish entirely for a few blessed seconds. “Of course. I was miraculously brought back to life after my murder by a magic torture pit that drove me so insane for so long that several years of my life have almost entirely dropped out of my memory, and said torture magic cared so little for my wellbeing that it dove headfirst into nearly unwinnable fights without even bothering to pick up a weapon. What could be funnier?”

“Ugh, whatever,” Jason grumbled, turning back to the counter to fill a glass with water and load his pockets with protein bars. “Your lame sense of humor isn’t my fault, ladilla. Don’t tell me you’ve never made light of your trama because it makes you feel like less of a damaged freak.”

Roy let out a resigned little sigh. “Technically yes, but my whole ‘Ollie firing me as his sidekick and his son simultaneously’ situation is so bizarre that it’s at least a little funny if you ignore the surrounding circumstances. Yours is just… it makes me sad to hear you talk about how you were literally tortured by the poison that was put in your blood without your consent like it’s not that big of a deal.”

“My alternative is putting a bullet through my own head,” Jason replied flippantly, “so you tell me what’s worse.” Without another word, Jason turned off the tap and made his way across the room to sit on Roy’s table. Normally that’d pull an irritated noise out of him, sure, go ahead, sit on my hard work, that’s fine, but it couldn’t faze the not-quite-pity thing Roy was clearly already caught up in. 

“Jay—”

“Nope,” he interrupted, absolutely unwilling to open up that can of worms today. “All I’m saying is, I’m glad I get the choice now. Killing with blades when I’m outnumbered twelve to one takes thinking and finesse, and it’s harder for the Pit to put me on autopilot when I have to focus like that. No blackouts at all during that fight. I still felt the green, and it hurt to push it back and try to fight at the same time, but I remembered who I was and why I was there the whole time.”

“Holy shit,” Roy said around a laugh, the mournful look replaced with hope and relief. The expression sent a bright little spark through Jason’s still-agitated body, a brief pulse of calm in residually choppy waters. “That’s fantastic news, Jaybird. Did you stick to the plan?”

Jason let out a token groan and opened up one of his protein bars. “Unfortunately yes, I followed our stupid, boring plan right down to the letter. Twelve kills, no witnesses, trashed all the evidence, no unnecessary torture.”

Roy raised an eyebrow at the wording. “Unnecessary?” He emphasized.

Jason stared back, unwavering. “You know what that hijo de puta did to those people. Innocent people, most of ‘em kids. Little boys and girls.”

“Yeah, I get it, but Jay—”

“No. No but Jay. 46 counts of sexual assault, Roy, and those are just the people who were willing to come forward. Not a single one of them saw the inside of a courtroom because he had the whole damn city in his pocket. You’re out of your mind if you think I’m going to show someone like that any mercy. He deserved—” Jason sucked in a shuddering breath and pushed those old memories of dark alleys and cold hands away, restarting the sentence and taking care to keep his voice level. “He deserved to feel just as much fear and pain as his victims did. You know where my line is, Roy, and he crossed it.”

Roy nodded solemnly, still looking vaguely uneasy. “And you’re sure you did that because he’s a disgusting scumbag who deserved to suffer and not because the Pit made you?”

Jason wolfed down a full protein bar to hide the way he had to force his breathing back under his control before he responded. “The Pit doesn’t love this controlled chaos arrangement, and it was definitely happy to hear that fucking coward scream his pathetic lungs out, but it was my decision. It was the right decision. And it felt really fucking good.” 

Roy reached out and gently placed his hand on top of Jason’s, and Jason jerked back as the touch scorched his nerves and sent a burst of fiery pain up his arm. Jason could feel the Pit surging in him, trying to find some relief for the sudden influx of rage, and he squeezed his eyes shut before it could choose Roy as its target. When the feeling faded and he could open his eyes again, it was to find concern, bright and sharp, written deep into the lines of Roy’s face.

“Jay, you’re glowing, are you okay?”

“Just… Just gimme a minute, it’ll go away,” Jason forced out through clenched teeth and labored breaths.

“Bud, you’ve been glowing since the moment you walked in the door. I could feel it before I even looked at you. This is not a gimme a minute and it’ll go away situation.”

“I—I have?” Jason asked, picking Roy’s phone up off the table and opening the camera to look for himself. He usually avoided his reflection as much as he could; between the Joker laugh track that popped up in his head every time he caught sight of his mutilated face and his residual resentment that the stupid Pit had changed his eye color for good, it was just a trigger waiting to happen. But this was important, so he forced himself into it anyway.

Sure as shit, his irises were burning that familiar toxic, poisonous green, the exact color of the Lazarus Pit, the exact color of Joker’s eyes. It wasn’t a temporary flare, it was too bright for that, giving off a faint luminescence just this side of unnatural. Jason grimaced at the sight and quickly returned Roy’s phone to the table, heart pounding, trying not to feel the thrum of pain buzzing just under his skin.

“I thought I’d come down, but I guess I haven’t,” he admitted. “Not all the way, anyway. I could probably sleep it off, but, uh…” They both knew what would happen if he tried to rest after fending off Pit madness for an entire battle. It would take hold of him in his sleep and drag him under, and the night terrors would last for days before he’d be able to find his way to the surface again. He had to force himself to stay awake until the last dregs of adrenaline bled out of his body.

“Yeah, you probably shouldn’t,” Roy said, probably so Jason wouldn’t have to. After a moment, his gaze fell from Jason’s eyes to his chest. “And you’re really sure about the bat, Jay?”

Jason looked down at himself and then back up with a shrug. “What’s the harm? The Bat symbol is cool as hell. It didn’t leave me to die with the Joker. Why shouldn’t I use it?”

“Because you’re paranoid at the best of times, Jaybird. I’m shocked that you really wanna chance it that it’ll never get back to Bruce that there’s a vigilante in Asia who’s wearing his symbol.”

“The odds that someone connects all these killings to a single person are astronomical. News travels at a snail’s pace these days and law enforcement is a joke. Also, there are three total people who know I’m alive and one of them is you. Even if by some ridiculous miracle Bruce finds out about Red and cares enough to come after me, he still doesn’t know it’s me, me. I’m good at disappearing, and if he does catch up, I’ll kill him. Still not seeing a problem.”

“Hold up, you were with the League for what, like two years, give or take? And you’re telling me in that time frame, not a single person found out you were Batman’s kid?”

Jason flinched and forcibly pushed back the memories of all the sadistic bullshit the League had passed off as training. “Talia and Ra’s knew,” he explained carefully. “Them knowing my identity was the whole reason they bothered with bringing me back to Nanda Parbat; I think maybe they were trying to train me to kill Bruce. But, they didn’t want it to get back to him that I was alive. Nobody ever called me by my real name and the only people they told my identity to were the people they had me kill. Y’know, so my ‘trainers’ could say a bunch of nasty shit about my death and my dad and my killer until I finally snapped and butchered them.”

“That’s fucked up,” Roy said in a strained voice, that same look on his face that he always had when Jason talked about his past. Empathy and heartbreak with a calm, neutral mask thrown hastily over it.

“Add it to the list. Right along with everything else they did to me.”

“So, chances are low,” Roy said, clearly changing the topic for the sake of Jason’s comfort. “But as a killer whose safety is predicated on being invisible to the public eye, you’re still willing to risk Bruce tracking you down just because you wanna look cool?” Jason cringed slightly, and Roy made an understanding noise. “Ah, got it, that was a lie. Wanna tell me the real reason?”

“It’s not a lie.” Roy gave him that look again, that exhausted dad look, that I’m-doing-my-best-give-me-a-break look. For whatever reason, that look made Jason weak, and he capitulated. “But you’re right, that’s not the main thing. I… I don’t want to be a monster.”

The confession did nothing to lessen the confusion on Roy’s face. “I mean, good. I’m glad. But what’s that got to do with wearing your ex dad’s vigilante logo on your chest?” Jason sighed, rested his elbows on his knees, and let his head fall into his hands. 

“Bruce can get fucked,” was the delicate way he chose to start. “But... those years I was his Robin were the best years of my life. I was making a difference, I was helping people, I was happy. And now everything’s a disaster and I’m way too fucked up to ever be that kid again, and the green doesn’t want me to be a hero, it wants blood and vengeance and it doesn’t care about anything else but I… I want to try to do things the right way again. I miss…” Jason cleared his throat loudly and hunched his shoulders, trying to shrink as small as he could. “Roy, I miss not hating myself.”

“Jaybird…” Roy started, an unmistakably anguished note in his voice.

Jason held up a hand to stop him. “Don’t. Just let me talk. I’m not a good guy anymore. I haven’t been for a long time. But I miss the way that felt. Especially now that I’m trying to do some of this work solo. I wanna be more than just a trained dog who gets pointed at guys who are worse than he is and rips their throats out, y’know? I wanna do this stuff because I think it’s right, not because I’m scared of what’ll happen to me if I don’t. I wanna be better than this.” 

Roy’s hand fell on Jason’s knee, and this time, he didn’t pull away. This time, he looked up at Roy, cringing and preparing for a bad reaction, for Roy to rightfully lambast him for how weak he’d been for so long, how hard it was for him to do the simplest things on his own. But there was just sympathy and warmth in Roy’s eyes with none of the judgment or disdain that belonged there.

“It’s not your fault. Years of League brainwashing and reinforcement from the Lazarus Pit brought you to this point. There’s no shame in struggling with it.”

Jason heard what Roy wasn’t saying. Maybe you can’t be better than this.

“There’s a good chance that I’m just a bad guy now,” Jason conceded. “There might be no fixing it. But I think maybe… maybe I’d be less angry at myself all the time if I at least started trying. Wearing the bat, it helps. It reminds me there was a time that I liked myself and what I stood for. Remembering that might help me get back to that point. It’s worth the risk.”

Roy squeezed his knee, something simultaneously gentle and fierce in his eyes. Was that—was that pride? Jason couldn’t remember what it looked like anymore. He hadn’t seen it since Bruce, and even then, it was rare. “That’s awesome, Jaybird. I’m thrilled for you, I want you to try, and I’ll still be here regardless of how it turns out. And I’m not trying to be devil’s advocate or anything here, but you’re really not worried he’s gonna…”

“Find out? C’mon, Roy, be realistic. Superman is dead, which means Batman’s got no reason to stay away from Gotham, his one true love, any longer. What the fuck would Bruce Wayne be doing in China?”

There was screaming. Constant screaming. Hoarse and ragged, like it’d been going on for days already, interspersed with pathetic little sobs. Jason wasn’t sure how long it took him to realize the sound was coming from him. “You know how much I’ve loved playing with you, Jay-Jay,” a shrill, gleeful voice crooned over his cries. “But, I’m afraid our time together is coming to a close.”

“Please…” he heard himself say. This wasn’t the worst the pain had been, but the way it mixed violently with helplessness and exhaustion and a painful, terrifying, frozen numbness was overwhelming, and he could do little more than scream, gasp for the air he couldn’t quite pull into his collapsed lungs, and beg for a reprieve. “Please,” he whispered again, “B, I can't... I can't do this anymore... please." Bruce, please, the hysterical thoughts kept running through his head, though he didn't let any more out of his bleeding mouth. Please, please, please, I need you, I'm so sorry, please.

Green eyes glinted in response, an impossible blood-red grin getting even wider, and long, thin arms finished their work fastening his wrists to the scaffolding above him. It tore another hoarse scream out of his aching chest as his broken arms took on his full weight. He tried to bite into his lip to stop the noise, not because he didn’t want to give the clown the satisfaction—he’d abandoned that sort of pride over a week ago now—but because nothing had ever hurt more than the way every movement tore the gashes in his face open wider. He tried, but Joker didn’t like that, and he ground his elbow into Jason’s broken ribs until his resolve broke and he started screaming again.

“That’s it. Just a little louder, pumpkin, I want Daddy Bats to hear you.” Jason’s mind couldn’t register what that really meant, too foggy, too cold, too much, and the next thing he knew, his throat was dry sandpaper and the world was dark, quiet, still, freezing. Only one thought made it through the folds of his mind, over and over again like a broken record.

Is this what dying feels like?

Then, there was a voice breaking through the shroud of fog and silence. “Robin?” Deep, rough, and familiar. Not in the fear-way, but in the safe-way, and Jason sobbed aloud at the thought, because it couldn't be real, would probably never be real again, and god, he missed that feeling bad enough to burn. 

The dark was lighter, then, and there was a face and a body in front of his, close enough for him to feel their heat. Jason couldn’t make sense of the sudden input of feeling and information, could do nothing but collapse into a solid wall of warmth as his restraints were released and his arms fell useless at his sides. Too big to be Joker, too kind to be Joker. It gently lifted him and held him against its chest, but the sudden motion was still agony against all the broken things and he groaned through his teeth, the hollow sound just barely audible.

“Robin, report.” It was an order, low and sharp, a tone as familiar as breathing, and oh—oh—that was Batman.

Jason would’ve cried tears of joy if he had the strength for it. His mind instinctually responded to his mentor’s command. “B?” Was all he could wheeze out, the jagged edges of the world slicing his throat to shreds as he spit it out.

A sound that tasted like relief echoed above him and the arms tightened around his shoulders and knees. “My son,” Bruce breathed, softer than Batman had ever been, and this was wrong. The pain had gone distant and aching, numb in a way it wasn’t supposed to be, and everything was sluggish and heavy and cold like a corpse, like death and misery in his bones, and every sign his broken mind registered was warning-bad-danger.

“B, I’m—I’m gonna die.” He knew it was true. They both did. Still, Bruce let out an angry growl, and Jason cringed, knowing he’d disappointed his father yet again. He wanted to be a good son, a good Robin, but he couldn’t. He wasn’t strong enough. There wasn’t much he could make out through the eye that wasn’t swollen shut, but he could tell Bruce wasn’t looking at him, and he couldn’t help but wonder if he was really so disfigured that it was too sickening to look at, or if Bruce was so ashamed he couldn’t stand the sight of his greatest failure, the fuck-up Robin, the broken Robin, the dead Robin. “I’m sorry,” he blurted out at the icy flood of terrifying thoughts.

“Jason,” Bruce said, and it was probably meant to be an order, but it was definitely a plea, and maybe Jason was already dead, because he’d never heard Bruce plead before, let alone Batman. “Don’t apologize.” He took a single step forward, and the shock of it ran through Jason’s whole body, a hot stab of agony against the sea of numbness. Jason made a small pathetic noise, tried to say stop, it hurts, but those words wouldn’t come. “Relax, you’re safe now.”

Jason shook his head weakly, wishing he had the strength to grab Bruce by the cowl and force him to listen. “No, ‘s too late,” he rasped out, more urgently. “Lissen to me, ‘m sorry, I gotta go.”

“Don’t give up.” Jason could feel the way his heart was slowing down, the blood leaving his body from so many wounds before it could make it to where it needed to be, numbness rapidly setting in, and he was so cold, too cold to be alive, and he knew what this was. He knew exactly what this was, and time was running out. 

“Too much. Dad, ‘s too much, ‘m sorry, can’t do it.”

A command, “You have to.” Then, something else, something gentler. “Please, son.”

From the moment he’d been captured, Jason had been making a list of things he’d say to Bruce once he finally saw him again. At first, the list was long. I love you, and it wasn’t your fault, and I’ll never do anything this stupid again, and please don’t send me away, and I’ll take any punishment, anything, really, just please don’t take Robin away from me. None of those mattered anymore, though. As his imprisonment had stretched on and he became more and more certain he wouldn’t survive this, he’d still held onto the hope he could make his last words count.

It was broken glass, acid down his throat, salt in every wound, but he’d screwed up the best thing he’d ever had. He needed to own that mistake if it was the last thing he did. 

“‘M sorry, B. I shoulda been a better Robin.” 

“No,” he heard just above the darkness closing in all around him. There was a jolt through his body like Bruce had dropped him. Wetness on his face and a deep, stoic voice turned desperate and terrified, breaking on the words. “No, please, no, Jason! Please, please, don’t do this, please…”

There was one moment where Jason couldn’t hear anything, not even the beating of his own, dead heart, and then there was light and sound and motion and something warm touching him and he screamed because it was the only thing he could do. A sob was torn out of his chest and once it came, it wouldn’t stop. He curled into a ball, made himself as small as he could, and cried until his chest ached and his throat was just as dry-sandpaper-glass-shards as it had been back then when Bruce held him as he took his dying breath.

“You’re okay,” a gentle voice repeated over and over, a soft litany of murmured reassurances. “You’re okay, you're okay.”

Jason just shuddered and curled up even tighter, another sob ripped out of his aching throat. “I’m dead,” he breathed into his hands, hysteria climbing with every word. “I’m not okay, I’m dead, he killed me, I’m dead, I’m dead!” 

“No, Jaybird, you’re alive.” The voice was close enough that he could feel breath on his ear. “Listen, it’s just me, Roy. You’re alive, it’s over, and he’s never going to hurt you again.” 

And he was talking about Joker, but that wasn’t the problem, Bruce was the problem, and Bruce could easily hurt him again. Bruce wasn’t even on the same continent as them and he still hurt. He knew he should put his defenses up, force himself to his feet and go have his meltdown in safe, lonely solitude, but it was too late, he was too weak for that, so he turned over and curled into Roy’s chest instead. Roy’s lean, strong arms immediately pulled him in, one hand on the small of his back and the other coming up to rub soothing circles into Jason’s scalp, and the ease of the familiar gesture only made Jason cry harder. He couldn’t even find the energy to be ashamed of it. 

“C’mere, that’s it. There you go, sweetheart. Just breathe for me, alright? That’s all you need to do. Let it out. You’re safe, I got you, I got you.”

“I never said g-goodbye,” Jason whispered, muffling the confession into the soft fabric of Roy’s shirt. “I said I was s-sorry, I never said g-goodbye. And I don’t—I don’t even remember the last time we said we loved each other, or if we ever even s-said it out loud.” 

“Your dream was about Bruce?”

Jason gave a miserable nod, unable to calm the tremors wracking his body. “It was so real. Normally I can’t remember it clearly but it was so real, it was like I died all over again, and I—I—the last thing I said was sorry, I forgot that the last thing I said was s-sorry.” Roy tucked Jason’s head under his chin and wrapped his arms tighter around him, waiting patiently like he always did for anything else Jason wanted to say. The fabric underneath Jason’s face was wet with his tears by the time he found the words. “I hate Bruce so f-fucking much,” he hissed. “And he obviously moved on fine and I’m the only one who’s still all fucking hung up on this, but—but—” Jason let out a broken sob and buried his face deeper into Roy’s chest. “I’m never gonna see him again. I wish my last words to my dad hadn’t been sorry I fucked up and got myself murdered.”

“Do you think it would help to talk to him again? Cause I’m sure it wouldn’t be that hard, he’s not much for disappearing anymore.”

Jason cringed with his whole body, a weak wave of green and indignant rage crashing over him before he could push it down again. He debated pushing Roy away altogether, but couldn’t stand the thought of allowing the chill of death to seep back into his body just yet. “He’d be disgusted by me.”

“Oh, Jay…”

“He would, I know he would.” Jason choked down another sob and fisted a hand into the sleeve of Roy’s shirt. He hated how fucking hurt he sounded, he didn’t give a shit about Bruce, what was his fucking problem? “I’m everything he hates, everything he became Batman to get rid of. I know what he’d say about Red, he’d say he’s no better than—than the clown— and I can take a lot of things, Roy, but being called the Joker isn’t one of them.”

Jason could feel Roy’s body deflate beneath his cheek, a telltale sign that he wouldn’t bother disagreeing; resignation, more sadness than frustration. “Alright. Don’t beat yourself up about it too bad though, Jaybird. Nobody’s better at disappointing their surrogate father figure than I am.” And then, after the tears had run out and the violent shuddering had faded into weak tremors, he spoke again. “You know I love you, right?” Jason’s whole body froze in panic-danger-defense mode, but Roy didn’t give him a chance to stew in it. “You’re my friend and I love you, Jaybird. I know that’s the sort of thing that freaks you out a bit, but I just… I wanted to make sure someone said it out loud. At least one time.” And the panic was still there, but it was weak, and it folded easily under the desperate, starved part of Jason that needed to hear Roy say that.

Even if he didn’t fully believe it, even if he was still waiting for the other shoe to drop and Roy to realize he was way too good for Jason, it still brought something to life in him that he’d thought was forever buried in the grave he’d dug himself out of. He rested a hand on Roy’s stomach and sighed, unsure what to make of that. 

“Mm… okay,” was what he settled on because he wasn’t brave like Roy and he couldn’t put words to whatever this feeling was, and even if he could, he certainly couldn’t say it out loud. That didn’t quite feel like enough, though. Roy probably deserved more. So, quieter, he added, “Thanks. My life’s pretty fucked up, but I’m glad you’re in it, Ginger.”

Two days later, it was still hard to shake the sense of unease the nightmare had left him with. He never dreamed about Bruce. Joker? Constantly. Talia and the League? Way too often. Ducra, the All-Caste? A decent amount, mostly when he really wanted to torture himself with guilt. Roy? Unfortunately rare and blessedly peaceful when it did happen. Sometimes a freakish combination of all of them, but never Bruce. Even his subconscious preferred avoidance when it came to that particular never-quite-healed wound.

It must’ve had something to do with the Bat. Wearing Bruce’s symbol was basically an invitation for all of this complicated, confusing shit to make its way back into his life. The dream was probably some bullshit sign that he wasn’t as over all his Bruce-related baggage as he claimed to be, but Jason had no interest in unpacking that issue. He didn’t know what he would find, but he knew it wouldn’t be good.

Denial and avoidance were good friends of Jason’s, so he returned to their familiar embrace and threw himself into his work. Sure, he still had to adhere to Roy’s stupid rules, ‘20 kills per week’ and ‘don’t go off on a murder spree without running it past me first’, but he could still keep an eye on things and plan his next moves. If he wanted to be more than the mindless, nameless weapon the League had fashioned him into, he couldn’t just take direction from Roy, execute his targets, and move on. He had to give a shit about if he was actually making things better. So, he spent his time masquerading as a civilian and revisiting the nearby cities that he and Roy had helped.

It was the right move. Most of the time, the places were significantly better off now than they had been before Red intervened, and that helped dull the ever-present sting of self-hatred in Jason’s veins a little. He still wasn’t doing this the way he wanted to, and things weren’t right, but they were less wrong.

And the unfortunates of poor, crime-ridden cities didn’t care why this crime family or that drug ring or the other human trafficking empire had been taken down. They didn’t care that the main reason Red was killing the people who hurt them was that he was trying to avoid the punishment he’d receive for refusing, they only cared that they had the chance to live their lives with a little less fear and a little more hope. It felt good to see that happening and know that he was part of the reason for it.

It had felt good, anyway. Felt good all the way up until Jason returned to that forest outside of Golmud. He couldn’t get back to the house he and Roy had set as their unofficial home base fast enough.

Jason burst through the door, and Roy sprung up from his workbench to meet him there, clearly alarmed. “Somebody’s chasing me,” he explained breathlessly, slamming the door behind him and pinning his back against it.

Roy glanced over Jason’s shoulder out the window like he expected an army to launch an all-out assault on their tiny ranch home in the middle of nowhere. Upon finding nothing, his eyes came back to Jason. “You sure?”

Adrenaline and an undercurrent of fear still slamming into him, Jason punched Roy in the shoulder a lot harder than he needed to. “Not right now, moron!” Roy winced and rubbed at his arm, but concern still won out in his forest green eyes. And Jason could tell by the way Roy was looking at him that he must be glowing, and he knew Roy could worry himself sick and miserable, and Roy had enough on his plate without dealing with another one of Jason’s meltdowns, so he took a deep breath and tried to force calm out over the panic. Roy didn’t need to see how scared he really was. “The legends or whatever, the stories that people tell about me. I think someone is putting all that shit together and coming after me for all the motherfuckers I’ve killed.”

Warm sympathy turned into something nervous and uneasy on Roy’s face. “Woah, okay, slow down. Talk to me. What makes you think that?” 

“I was on my way back to check on that village near Golmud with that scumbag rapist and his scummy little friends that I killed last week, and I came up on the crime scene. Signs of an investigation. Fresh tracks all over the place. Two sets, neither of the tread patterns were mine.”

“Oh,” Roy said, body relaxing considerably. “Okay. Chill out, buddy, that was probably just the cops.”

Jason shook his head frantically. “No, that’s not it, I know that’s not it. Those people don’t trust the cops, the cops are the ones who let their kids get raped. Red was their savior, they’d never call the cops on him. And the bodies were still there. Police never leave the bodies behind.”

Roy still looked unconvinced. “C’mon Jaybird, I know you’re feeling jumpy and that dream messed you up, and that’s totally understandable, but it was probably just a freak thing. Some curious kid or hiker came across the scene by mistake, went in to get a closer look, but decided for whatever reason not to call the cops. And even if someone was investigating, there’s a very slim chance they connected Red’s killings to a single person. This is the same stuff you’ve been saying forever. It’s probably nothing to worry about.”

Jason gave Roy a hard look, faint tremors running through his body. “No. All the cities I’ve been to have been more eager to talk about Red, tell their stories, almost like someone else had come along and asked questions first so now they feel like it’s safe to talk about. I don’t know if it’s a revenge thing or a bounty hunting thing or a contract thing or whatever, but I can feel it. I’m being hunted. It’s not serious yet, they’re not close, but they could catch up with me, Roy, they could, and," he shivered, feeling the panic and dread turning his bones to ice, closing their hands around his throat, "I haven’t felt safe in so long and it felt so good to finally have that again while I was here with you and what if it’s gone now? What if I can’t get it back? What if I get locked up? I can’t be a prisoner again, Roy, not like Arkham, I won’t survive it, please, I can’t.”

Roy placed a gentle hand on Jason’s shoulder and squeezed. “Okay so let’s figure out what to do. Maybe you go to ground and stay dormant for a bit? If they don’t have any new information, they’ll probably assume the trail is cold and lose interest.”

“I can’t,” Jason said, desperation curling the edge of the words, and he was gasping for breath now, feeling like his lungs were collapsing underneath this impossible pressure, this terrifying weight he'd never be able to carry, and fuck, how the fuck was he going to get himself out of this one? “I can’t. I can’t stop or I’ll explode. Having a consistent outlet for the… everything, it’s the only thing that’s ever helped. The green knows if it’s patient, it’ll get its violence eventually, so it’s willing to wait. This is the most in control I’ve ever been, I can’t give that up, I won’t be able to start over again from scratch. Everything will go to shit, and I’m gonna hurt people who don’t deserve it, and I can’t do that. I can’t go back to how things used to be, Roy, I can’t, pleasehelpmeIdon’tknowwhattodo.” The last sentence Jason forced out in a rush before he could lose his nerve and he cringed, waiting for Roy to tell him he’d made this mess and it was his job to figure a way out of it. 

But the disdain and rejection never came. Roy’s other hand came up beneath Jason’s chin and directed his gaze to meet Roy’s. Part of him wanted badly to smack Roy’s hands off and growl a don’t fucking touch me because that sort of loneliness was safe, but a much bigger part of him wanted to lean in and never let go because Roy was warm and Roy was calm and nothing could fix this, but Roy came close.

“Listen, Jay, you're having a panic attack. You're spiraling, sweetheart. Just take a few deep breaths, you're okay.” Roy’s voice was getting quieter, bowing under a flood of memory of the weeks he’d spent in prison, as Joker’s prisoner, the months he'd spent in that room with the League, the punishments he’d endured for trying to permanently suppress the green in the past, and a mocking laugh screeching in the back of his mind. Jason felt like his skull was splitting in two, and he let out a weak whimper at the pain. Roy’s eyes sharpened again. He held his arms out. “Can I hug you? Would that help?”

Jason nodded jerkily before he could think better of it. Slowly, like he was approaching a wounded animal, Roy stepped forward and folded Jason into his arms. At first, Jason froze up, because sure, Roy touched him to comfort him after particularly bad triggers or to keep him warm when the constant chill in his body escalated to the point of pain, but it was never really a hug. Jason hadn’t had a real hug since he lived in the Manor, and it was equal parts relieving and terrifying. He didn’t pull away, didn’t say a word, just froze up from head to toe as Roy’s arms snaked around his midsection, loose enough for Jason to pull away easily, and rested his chin on Jason’s shoulder.

Even though Jason was probably the most dangerous person Roy had ever known, there was nothing but trust and care in the way Roy held him, and that was dissonant enough from the way Joker and Talia and his handlers had touched him that Jason couldn’t do anything but surrender. He melted into the embrace with a relieved sigh.

He couldn’t carry this burden on his own; it was too heavy, and he’d been so weak for so long. But Roy wasn’t. Roy was strong in ways Jason hadn’t ever been, and Roy had always been willing to shoulder the weight of the things that Jason collapsed beneath. And Jason felt about three seconds away from falling to pieces right now, so he figured it was probably okay to let Roy hold him up for a little while. He stood there clutching Roy tighter and tighter by the second until the weight dissipated and he could finally breathe again.

“I got you,” Roy murmured, the same words that brought Jason down every time things got bad. “We’re gonna figure this out together, Jaybird.”

And a small, hopeful part of Jason that never should’ve made it out of his grave actually believed him. “Yeah,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “Yeah, okay.”

“You know I’ll keep you safe, right?” Roy asked, and Jason wasn’t sure if that was true or not, but he knew that the feeling of Roy’s voice vibrating through his own chest was the only thing that had made him feel more than half alive all day, and that was something, wasn’t it? “I’m never going to let anyone hurt you again. Never. Not like that.” 

Jason could feel that familiar discomfort with Roy’s loyalty and kindness creeping up the back of his neck again, and for a brief moment, he thought about making a bad joke and walking away before things got too real, too vulnerable, but he managed to rein that impulse in. It was a nice moment. Jason didn’t have the right to wreck it. 

“I know you’ll try,” he said instead, because he’d been burned too many times to say yes but he trusted Roy too much to say no. He took half a step back and Roy immediately let him go, seeming to expect Jason to blow him off like he always did, but Jason crossed his arms and forced himself to stay put. “Thanks for giving a shit about what happens to me,” he added, since it was definitely the truth, and even if acknowledging it out loud felt like jumping off a cliff, it had been the truth long before Jason was at all deserving of it, and it was the least he could do. “That’s more than anyone else has given me since I came back.” 

And the smile Roy rewarded him with, bright and grateful with a little bit of surprise glimmering in his eyes, the way it lit up his whole face, it actually made the jump worth it.

“Anything for you, Jaybird. You have any thoughts on how to outmaneuver these sad sons of bitches who think they can pin you down?”

And thinking about it didn’t feel like falling into an active volcano anymore, so Jason actually took a moment to consider. “As much as I like this house and having the chance to live in one place, it’s a luxury we can’t afford anymore. We should switch countries again for sure. Find a decent place where you can set up a shop again, and make sure Red’s kills are far enough away from that place that he can’t be traced back there. Maybe that’ll throw them off the scent.”

“I’ll be sad to see it go, but I do love a change of scenery,” Roy said with an optimistic little grin. “You thinking someplace specific? I hear Mongolia is beautiful in May.”

“Anywhere is fine with me.” And then, just above a whisper, quiet enough that he kind of hoped Roy wouldn’t hear, “So long as you’re coming.”

Chapter Text

“One child’s hero-worship colored anecdote is not a reliable source of information,” Slade said for what must’ve been the hundredth time, eye fixed on the road as they headed into the final stretch of their six-hour drive to the town they’d pinpointed as a possible next target for their ghost. “And even if he is wearing a bat, that in no way means he’s Jason. Could just be a fan of yours. Could just be a guy who really likes bats.”

“It’s been two weeks since we heard the Blood Red Bat story,” Bruce muttered back, still half-engrossed in the notes spread across his lap. “How many more times are you going to repeat that?”

“As many as it takes for you to start listening, which seems to be an unachievable goal, so I guess you’d better get used to hearing it. I really don’t see why you’re so fucking desperate to believe this is your kid anyway. These are some of the bloodiest massacres I’ve ever seen. I’d expect you to be looking for reasons to believe your Robin isn’t a horrifying murderer who has a higher body count than you and I combined.”

Bruce glanced up and to his left, mildly annoyed. “I already know Jason is a horrifying murderer. Or at least, he was at some point. The Jason I knew wasn’t a killer, but the Jason I knew also hadn’t been killed. I have to imagine that changes a person. The ghost is trying to do something good for desperate people who have been left to fend for themselves. I think that’s what Jason would want to do if he managed to get himself under control.”

Slade rolled his eye. “Liked you better when you were a cynical bastard instead of an unbearable optimist,” he grumbled. “I hate being the voice of reason.”

“You said it yourself: he’s sure to be someone interesting. It’s better than nothing and we’re getting closer.”

“Closer. There’s a generous fucking word. Now we’re investigating crime scenes that have been scrubbed squeaky clean and give us no usable information or leads. Those are far better than second-hand ghost stories half lost in translation that give us no usable information or leads. No motive, no MO, massive geographical area, several steps behind every time. Loving our odds.”

“We could get lucky,” Bruce said, and maybe Slade was right, maybe he was turning into an optimist. “He could slip up and leave something behind. Crime scenes give us a shot at finding clues we’ll never get from the legends. There’s always a chance.”

“The only things he leaves behind are bodies and his technique gets more refined with every kill. The chances of him making a mistake now are about as high as the chances of him giving up on killing altogether.”

Bruce sighed inwardly, feeling Slade’s pessimism start to drag him down as it so often did. “This relentless negativity is why you don’t have any friends.” And Bruce didn’t mean for it to sound as harsh and bitter as it did, but he wasn’t sorry for it, either.

“And your naive belief in everyone’s capacity for good is why all your friends are dead,” Slade snapped back immediately.

Bruce set his jaw to avoid turning this into a full-blown shouting match, tightened his fingers around his notes, and dragged a deep breath in. “We’re spending too much time together,” he said, forcing his voice to stay even as Slade brought the transport to a stop just outside the city.

Slade nodded, and Bruce could see the visible decrease of tension in his muscles. “You’re probably right,” Slade conceded, voice tight. “Text me if you find anything promising. If not, meet back here to consolidate information at 1800 hours.”

Slade left the JLTV and headed west towards the markets, and after taking a moment to collect himself, Bruce made his way to the east side. The ramshackle shelters that the city had hastily put up to mitigate the sudden spike in poverty and homelessness that came with the local drug lord’s rise to power were that way, but mostly, Bruce just started walking because he needed to blow off some steam. He wasn’t concentrating that hard on the conversations around him, but after months of chasing ghost stories, they stood out like a sore thumb to him now. The second time he heard someone mutter the word wrath with that familiar combination of wonderment and fear, he knew he had a lock.

Mulling over his increasingly strained relationship with Slade could wait. It was time to focus up. Bruce started to feel things out, not wanting to alert Slade until he was certain there was some substance to the story. He spent some time observing, doing his best to avoid alerting anyone of the intruder in their midst. For the first time in what felt like ages, luck seemed to be on his side. The story was new enough that the whole city was buzzing with it, and he didn’t have to open his mouth a single time to get all the important details. All he had to do was plaster himself to the dark side of a building and listen closely as a girl in her early teens recounted her experience for a small throng of children.

“...always in cages in that office. Frozen darkness for days. And then… Wrath comes. Swift and silent in the night, he sneaks in, dressed in red with gleaming swords on his back, and becomes one with the shadows. A whisper behind us, deep, robotic: close your eyes. So we did. The bad man came back and we could hear the fighting, but we did as Wrath commanded us until silence fell once more. Another man came along, said we were safe—I think so at least, his language was broken—released us, and led us to freedom.” 

“You didn’t look?” A small child with wide, awestruck eyes asked.

She gave him a small smile and leaned in closer. Bruce did the same. “I tried. Wrath was gone, after all, I thought he wouldn’t mind if I took a small peek. But the bad man’s body was covered by Wrath’s red shirt. Like he didn’t want us to see. There are no more guards at the scene now, I probably could return to look, but Wrath saved my life. I should do him this small favor in return, I think.” The audience bombarded her with questions the moment she closed her mouth, but Bruce had learned everything he needed to know. He was already stealing away towards the affluent part of the city to find the crime scene and shooting a text to Slade to meet him there.

It was just as she described. A single body covered in a red hooded sweatshirt. It had been dead for days, but even with the rot, there was visible evidence of torture on the body, a gag stuffed in his mouth to quiet the screams, further evidence that the ghost had been trying to spare the girls the trauma of having to witness such violence. More self-control than they’d ever seen in the past. 

They smuggled the sweatshirt out of the building and spent days searching it for blood or hair but found no DNA besides that of the dead drug lord. It was the first thing the ghost had ever left behind at the scene of the crime, though, so the name they settled on for him was Red Hood.

Bruce wasn’t sure why, but the Red Hood incident made his struggle to keep hope at bay nearly impossible. Maybe it was the memories tugging at the back of his mind of the times he’d asked Jason what color he wanted something to be—his Robin uniform, his gear, his sheets, the walls of his room—and Jason had always chosen red. Maybe it was the evidence of compassion for the survivors; in the past, that had been more the partner’s style than Hood’s. Maybe it was the fact that Hood could’ve gone through the city and killed every last accomplice and underling in the drug lord’s small empire, but he hadn’t. Whatever it was, Bruce was in too deep and he knew it. Slade knew too. Bruce could feel his frustration in the constant thick tension between them.

It made everything harder, but Bruce couldn’t help himself. Slade didn’t know Jason like Bruce did, he didn’t understand. Sure, Bruce didn’t recognize Jason’s hand in the rage and brutality and struggled to imagine Jason’s signature at the bottom of a kill list with hundreds, maybe even thousands, of names. But he heard his son’s voice in the stories, felt his presence in the cities he saved, saw the way his spirit lived in the hearts of the people he touched. Bruce knew it in his bones. Eastern Asia’s guardian angel was Jason Todd. 

The part of Bruce that was horrified that the thoughtful, kind child he knew had grown into such a violent, vicious man was strong. With every bloodstained crime scene he encountered and every time he envisioned how incensed someone would have to be to enact violence on this scale, he was more and more grateful Dick had declined his offer to search for Jason with them. Dick had always played down Jason’s vicious streak, said it was just a phase he would grow out of, and he didn’t want his first son to remember his brother like this. It would only cause him pain, and Dick had been through enough. 

The part of Bruce that was mourning his Robin was strong too. Bruce had always regretted never saying goodbye or I love you as Jason had died in his arms, a deep and aching sense of loss that had dulled significantly when he found out about Jason’s resurrection. The pain of it came back now. He would never be able to tell his Robin that he’d done well, that he had nothing to be sorry for, that he was everything Bruce hoped he’d be and more because even though Jason was alive, his Robin was dead. For good. Jason could never be that child again after everything that had happened to him. There was no fixing that mistake.

He quieted both parts every time they came up. If he couldn’t get over it now, he’d end up taking it out on Jason whenever they finally tracked him down. That was something Jason would never forgive, something their relationship would never recover from. It wasn’t Jason’s fault. None of this was Jason’s fault.

Stronger than either of those things was Bruce’s pride. Jason had endured lifetimes worth of suffering and betrayal and he’d still turned out good. It was different than when he’d been Robin—jarringly, shockingly different—and his methods were extremely questionable, but his intentions were good. His heart was good. Bruce was proud of the man Jason had become. That was what mattered.

So when they came across another crime scene a few weeks later, six bodies, no evidence, but a note stuffed in one of the corpse’s mouths, suffice it to say Bruce struggled to hold back his emotions.

Give up your pathetic chase now, and I may let you live.
You have seen what I do to those who wrong others.
You do not want to see what I do to those who wrong me.

“At least he’s consistent about using the swords now.” Slade’s voice sounded underwater, far away, detached. “One decent thing in a miserable, endless wild goose chase.”

“Two,” Bruce mumbled, handing the paper over to Slade with a slightly trembling hand, drowning in the thunderous waves of unnameable emotions slamming into him from all sides. Shock overwhelmed most of it, but beneath that, there was something adjacent to hope, a frigid curl of anxiety, and a surprisingly painful little tug of disappointment.

There was a piece of Bruce, small and fragile but distinctly there, that believed Jason wouldn’t be angry at him for trying to find him. It was unreasonable—after all, Jason had a hair-trigger temper as a child and there was no way years of suffering had done anything but make that even worse—but Bruce had never been able to fully banish it, and now, it was stomped flat. Of course, this might not be Jason, and it was more than likely that Red Hood didn’t know it was Batman and Deathstroke tracking him, but it was still a serious, painful reality check. Red Hood wasn’t just sticking to the shadows because he felt comfortable there, he was doing it because he was viscerally, violently opposed to being tracked down. That made him more dangerous than they were giving him credit for.

Bruce was fairly sure Slade said something about dusting the note for prints but it wasn’t until he was grabbed by the shoulder and shaken harshly that Bruce realized he’d retreated inside of his own mind to try and make sense of all this.

Slade was giving him a strange look. Bruce couldn’t quite tell what it was, but he knew it wasn’t good. “What are your thoughts?” Slade asked, speaking slowly and annunciating carefully like he thought Bruce had slipped into a coma. Bruce blinked a few times and forced his blurring vision to lock onto Slade, making sure not to clue the mercenary into his unsteady mental state.

“I’m surprised,” he replied levelly.

“Uh huh, me too,” Slade said, relaxing slightly with the proof that Bruce hadn’t turned to stone. “This was a pretty big risk on Red Hood’s part. His urban legends, inconsistent names, and vague descriptions were his strongest defenses, and he just gave up his whole sense of enigma. Just willingly told us he’s one guy and that he’s at least a little concerned about the fact that we’re onto him. Where’s the benefit?”

Bruce took a moment to search his thoughts for an answer, but for once, he came up with nothing. He genuinely wasn’t sure. It wasn’t the sort of thing Jason would do, especially not while deep in hiding. “I don’t know. Hood clearly has no qualms about adding to his body count and he seems to enjoy the violence. Why would he care if we chase him?”

Slade placed the note in an evidence bag and glared at it like it offended him. “For him, we’re a problem that could easily be solved through killing. And usually, he’s all for drowning problems in blood, but not this one. In some way, this is different. So, either we need to adjust our theories on his motives and attitudes, or—”

“Or he doesn’t want to hurt us, specifically.”

Slade narrowed his eye in an accusatory fashion. “Don’t. Don’t do it again.”

“I’m just saying—”

“I’m just saying don’t fucking do it again, Bruce,” he repeated, louder, sharper at the edges. “Every time we learn something new, you always find a way to twist it into ‘evidence’ that Red Hood is your kid. And now, I can already tell you’re thinking Jason has magically already forgiven me for letting him die even though his anger issues are very well documented and he’s had nothing but time to stew in his rage and betrayal and he left me this note because somehow he knows it’s me who’s chasing him and he doesn’t want to hurt me. God, you’re so—” Slade seemed to catch himself before he could let any more vitriol loose. “That’s a totally unrealistic explanation.”

“That’s not at all what I said, for the record,” Bruce replied tersely. “And it’s not what I was going to say.” That was only a partial lie. Bruce was trying to fit this new information in with his existing knowledge of Jason and there was a part of him that wanted to believe Jason might be able to forgive him, but he wasn’t about to say that. After all the arguments they’d had as of late, Bruce knew better than to discuss his Red-Hood-is-Jason theories with Slade until he was confident that they were rock solid. 

“Oh? And what were you going to say?” Slade snapped back, sounding a bit mocking, a bit acerbic.

“We are proficient at covering our tracks, so chances are slim that Hood knows it’s specifically Slade Wilson and Bruce Wayne on his tail. But he’s been active in some capacity for years, and regardless of who he is, he’s smart. He probably picked up a few tricks along the way, like how to tell the difference between the police opening up a case on you, bounty hunters chasing a payday, and something else. He could have surmised that we’re something else and he doesn’t want to hurt people who he doesn’t think deserve it, so he wants to give us a chance to get out of his way. That is one of the only things we’re sure of when it comes to him, that he doesn’t hurt innocents.”

“He’s also been on the run for years,” Slade countered. “No way he’d cover this much ground while still managing to fly under the radar otherwise. Constantly running away from everything takes its toll on a person no matter who you are. Maybe he just doesn’t want another thing to run from.” 

That chafed. The contrast between that explanation and his existing ideas of Jason was so sharp that the two were nearly impossible to reconcile in his mind. The Jason that Bruce knew never ran from a fight, not even when it would’ve worked to his benefit. If he was feeling the pressure, it would only make him go harder on the offensive. Bruce resisted the urge to immediately shoot down the idea, knowing it would only damage what little credibility he still had with Slade. Instead, he took the evidence bag and inspected the note again, searching for anything he might’ve missed.

“This handwriting is terrible,” he observed under his breath.

Slade snorted. “I’ll make sure to let Red Hood know that he should go back to third grade and brush up on his cursive when we finally track him down.”

“I mean, it’s not just messy, it looks wrong.”

“Well since there’s no guarantee that this guy is a native English speaker because there’s no guarantee he’s Jason, it’s entirely possible he’s not used to Latin alphabets. It’s repeated in Chinese below the English, and it’s a lot neater. The English is stiff, no contractions, formal tone, far less natural. He may be from around here. Plenty of the victims have heard him speaking Asian languages, and it’d make a lot more sense for him to risk his life helping these cities if he had a personal connection to them.”

“Maybe,” Bruce conceded. He should’ve ended it there, but the rest of his theory was already falling out of his mouth. “But languages were always something Jason excelled at. I never taught him Chinese, but I know he’d be able to pick it up solely through immersion and speak and write it fluently with time. To me, this looks like something Riddler did years ago when Jason was Robin. Nygma was trying to hide behind a new civilian identity; he wrote with his non-dominant hand so we wouldn’t recognize his handwriting. If Hood is Jason, it would make sense for him to use that strategy. People knowing that he’s alive puts him in danger, so he’s probably used to hiding his identity. I taught him a long time ago not to take chances, and having his handwriting recognized is an unnecessary risk.”

“Jesus Christ. Red Hood has bad handwriting, and now that proves he’s Jason?” Deathstroke turned his back and returned to examining the other bodies and the charred camp that surrounded them. “You’re fucking hopeless.”

“I didn’t call it proof. I’m just synthesizing information. Adding to the increasing body of evidence that suggests this could be Jason’s work.”

“Do you know what confirmation bias is, Wayne?”

Bruce frowned. “The tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one’s existing beliefs or theories,” he recited. “Why?”

“Why,” Slade repeated, voice dripping with derision. “Isn’t that the fucking question? Starting to wonder why I even bother. Just… just get your head back in the game alright? Let’s finish combing through this, see if there’s anything else we can use.”

A week later, things hit their breaking point.

“Sit down,” Slade ordered the second Bruce walked in the door of their room. “We need to talk.”

Bruce gave him a skeptical look but didn’t object, taking a seat opposite Slade at the folding table they’d spread their information out on. “Yes?”

“You’re getting too close to this.”

There was a bloated pause where Bruce waited for the rest of the explanation, but apparently, Slade wasn’t inclined to provide it. “What do you mean? We’re searching for my miraculously resurrected son who was killed by the biggest monster I’ve ever fought. I’m not going to be able to fully keep my emotions out of it.”

“Not to Jason. You’re getting too close to your idea of Red Hood. Even though I’ve warned you not to about fifty thousand times, your attachment has now reached the point that you don’t even know where an anonymous, faceless murderer ends and your dead kid begins.”

Bruce felt a quick flash of something too hot and sharp to be annoyance, but just a bit too dull to be rage. “You’re the one who said he could be Jason in the first place, and now you’re turning around and getting upset with me for believing it?”

“I was trying to manage your fucking expectations, Bruce! There was no chance you wouldn’t connect Red Hood to Jason, so I acknowledged it first to play it down and keep your feet on the ground before you had the chance to get all invested in it. Apparently, that was a waste of my fucking breath, since you did it anyway and now you’re so biased that it puts the mission at risk. You’re not even considering other possibilities. The only thing that will convince you to tear yourself away from this idea now is if you track him down, unmask him, and find out for yourself that he’s not Jason, which might never happen! Do you hear how insane that sounds?”

“You want to talk about bias?” Bruce snarled back, leaning over the table, that familiar old flood of adrenaline he usually associated with the cape and the cowl rushing through him. “How about the fact that you refuse to consider it at all? You’re just as convinced Hood isn’t Jason with no more proof than I have, and even though I know Jason better than you possibly could, you discount everything I say as though it’s too emotional to bear any weight whatsoever! There’s nothing that will convince you he’s our best shot, you want to tell me where that’s coming from?”

“He was a fucking mess, that’s where it’s coming from! You heard Talia! He was not capable of organized, calculated shit like this!”

“Three years ago! We have no idea who or what he is now, you said that yourself! Everything is always about contracts and integrity with you, but the deeper we get into this, the more I’m starting to doubt that you care about finding Jason at all. Because, from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re trying to torpedo our only lead with nothing to replace it with. If we give up on Hood, then what? Do we just sit and do nothing and hope Jason chooses to seek us out? How is that any better?”

Slade pushed himself to his feet so fast that his chair fell with the force of it, and Bruce followed him up. “Did you really just fucking imply that I’m trying to weasel my way out of my oath to help you find your dead kid?” There was fire in Slade’s eye, fire like there hadn’t been since Superman’s death, and if Bruce wasn’t so caught up in the moment, it might’ve made him nervous. That was how Slade looked at his enemies. It’d been a long time since Slade looked at him and saw an enemy. “You know that’s one of the only things I don’t do, right? Go back on my word? I don’t break my code the second it gets inconvenient. I’m not you. I made it very clear since the moment you asked me to be on team let’s die trying to kill a god that I had my own rules and I wouldn’t budge on them, did you think I was bullshitting? You think I’m like all those Gotham freaks you chased around, that I just lie and cheat and fuck everyone else over for shits and giggles, is that it?”

“I think you have a very vested and suspicious interest in believing there’s no link between Red Hood and Jason Todd,” Bruce replied coolly.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Slade growled, his hands clenching and unclenching rapidly at his sides. “You know why I’m trying to get you to back off? Because unlike you, I was actually there when this whole bullshit thing got started. I saw him come out of the Pit kicking and screaming. I’m telling you, this can’t be that same kid.”

“I already know how bad it was, that’s not a valid reason to abandon the Red Hood theory.”

“No, you don’t.” Slade sounded more defeated than angry as he put a few more feet between himself and Bruce and ran a hand through his silver hair. “You don’t know how bad it was, because I’ve been protecting you from it.”

That made something in Bruce rebel. He wasn’t a child. He didn’t need to be lied to for the sake of saving his feelings. “I don’t need your pity or your protection, Wilson.”

“You did. You were on the verge of total collapse when I told you he was alive. If I’d given you all my information then, it would’ve destroyed you. You were my contract, and once again, I don’t fucking break my contracts, so I protected you from what I knew, and I protected you from what Talia knew. I’d argue that you’d still be better off not knowing now, but that ship has sailed. There was a reason I told you not to look at those tapes when she offered them, Bruce.”

A little bit of the rage burning in Bruce’s veins cooled off into the chilling press of anxiety. “Tell me,” he ordered.

“I was there for five months after they threw Jason into the Pit. For the first four, they kept him locked up in a padded room in a straitjacket. And he,” Slade shivered almost indistinguishably, “he’d just sit in there and laugh for hours on end. Laughing and sobbing and screaming until his voice gave out, laughing just like the fucking Joker. If I closed my eye, I could’ve sworn it was the clown in that cell and not some broken Pit-mad child.”

Bruce took a step back and swallowed hard, disturbed. “But you said—” 

“Yeah,” Slade interjected, looking almost as haunted as Bruce felt, “he said your name, and he said ‘dad’ when he was somewhat lucid, which was extremely rare. Happened maybe three times in those four months. Mostly, it was the laughing and crying and smashing his fucking head against the wall until he cracked it open and they had to staple it shut again. And then, when he finally collected himself into some vague imitation of sanity, the League…” Slade trailed off and made an uncharacteristically uncomfortable face. Bruce had never seen him like this before, trying to spare anyone any pain or anguish. It only made the dread solidify like a rock in his stomach.

“Tell. Me.” Bruce repeated forcefully. Slade shot him a glare, but his mouth was still pressed into a hesitant line like he hadn’t fully let go of his desire to lie to Bruce to keep him placated. “Wilson!”

“Fine, fine, Jesus fucking Christ. I don’t know what they did. It was all behind closed doors. All I know is the kid went in half catatonic and basically defenseless, then came out—or was carried out—a few hours later all broken bones and blood, skin more black and blue and red than brown. Some fucked up kind of training if I had to guess.”

Bruce breathed the anger in and let it out again, crossing his arms to avoid punching Slade out like he’d really like to. “And you just stood by and watched them hurt him like that? You did nothing as my son was tortured, again?”

Something flashed in Slade’s eye that was simultaneously harder and softer than anything Bruce had ever seen from him in the past. It was fire and brimstone and fury, but it was also… injured? “God, you really think I’m a fucking monster, huh?”

No. He didn’t. He never really had—a murderer, sure, a villain and a threat, absolutely, but he’d never put Deathstroke in the same category as Joker. Bruce opened his mouth to say any one of the many things he should, but just like so many times in the past, they wouldn’t come.

Slade nodded like he took the silence as confirmation. “Do you not remember when I said I don’t torture needlessly and I don’t hurt kids? He was a fucking child, fifteen, not even old enough to have a fucking driver’s license, and his brain went through a fucking blender. He didn’t even know his own name. I felt bad for him. Kid needed a shrink, not constant beatings so brutal that they likely would’ve killed him if he was normal. I went to Ra’s and I told him to stop sending your kid to get the shit kicked out of him.” Bruce took a step back in his shock. “Yeah. He told me that ‘pushing bodies to their limits’ was the only way to activate the Lazarus Pit healing factor, that they weren’t doing any permanent damage, and essentially that breaking him was the only way to fix him.”

“God…” Bruce breathed, bile creeping up the back of his throat.

“I tried a few more times to convince him it was fucked up and it wasn’t worth whatever results they wanted, he told me to go fuck myself, and I wasn’t about to be complicit in some innocent kid’s torture. So, I left.”

“So Talia—she just—”

“Lied right to your face, banking on the hope that I’d keep the oath of secrecy I made years ago? Essentially. All that smoke she blew about how what a monster Jason was and how all he knows is hurting and being hurt, that’s what she and her dad did to him. They’re the reason he’s like that. I have to imagine things escalated after I left until even they couldn’t control him anymore.” Slade scrubbed a hand over his face, looking exhausted. “I wish I could’ve stopped it. What they did to your kid was fucked up. But I’m telling you, I saw what he was like. He was already fucked in the head and they purposely made it worse. He’s not capable of the shit Red Hood has done, okay? He just isn’t. I’m, uh... I'm sorry.”

Bruce couldn’t feel a single inch of his body. He didn’t even make the conscious decision to collapse back into his chair, it just happened. His head fell into his hands and he just breathed through it until he could see again, until he worked his way through all of this in his mind and convinced himself he wouldn’t throw up if he opened his mouth.

“Okay,” he croaked out.

“Okay?” Slade repeated cautiously.

“Okay. I understand why you kept that from me. And I understand your reluctance to believe Hood could be Jason.”

“You’re taking this strangely well.”

“It’s bad,” Bruce admitted. “But I don’t have the luxury of fixating on it right now. There’s work to be done. It’s information that I can use, that’s the important thing. And while I’d really like to go kill both Talia and Ra’s so they can never hurt anyone like that again, that would take a lot of planning, and finding Jason takes priority. I… I appreciate that you tried to help him. You didn’t even know who he was and you still intervened, even though intervening could’ve cost you your life. I don’t think you’re a bad person and I’m sorry I insinuated that you weren’t a man of your word. You’ve been invaluable on this mission and I wouldn’t have made it this far without you. I trust you. But I need you to trust me too. I need you to trust that you can tell me the truth about things like this. I need us to be on the same page if we’re going to continue this mission.”

Slade nodded. “Yeah. Sure. I don’t think we should totally give up on Hood, though. Just so you know.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow. “Then why—?”

“I stand by my reasoning for thinking it’s not him, and you still need to be more realistic with your expectations, but Hood is our best lead and you’re right, I don’t have anything to replace that with. It’d be stupid to give up. Jason was like that when I left and was probably even worse by the time he fled Nanda Parbat, but that doesn’t mean he can’t recover.”

Oh. Was that comfort? Kindness? From Deathstroke?  

Bruce had to take a second just to process it, unfamiliar with anything even remotely soft or caring coming from Slade, especially in the immediate aftermath of a shouting match. It was a sacrifice Slade didn’t often make, one Bruce was grateful for, and Bruce figured he should probably give a little bit too.

“Red Hood may not be Jason. We will keep searching if he is not. Up until we find something more promising, he will continue to get the majority of my attention. But… you are right about the sustainability of this mission. I will also prepare myself for the possibility that he is not my son, and that we’ve spent seven months in Asia and we’re no closer to finding him.”

“Good,” Slade replied gruffly. “Let’s get back to work, then. Jason isn’t going to find himself.”

Chapter Text

“You look like shit.”

It was by far the gentlest insult Jason had ever received, but it still hurt. He hardly even acknowledged Roy as he shuffled into the kitchen of their new safehouse (Jason refused to call it a home in fear that if he let himself feel comfortable here, it’d be taken from him again) to inject some caffeine into his system and brace himself to slog through another day.

“Thanks,” Jason replied flatly.

“I didn’t think being chased was going to get to you like this. You’ve been killing so aggressively for so long and you’ve only recently started being subtle about it, Jay. Someone was going to catch up to you eventually, you had to have known that.”

Jason shot Roy a venomous glare. “Really? That’s what you wanna say to me right now, that I’m taking this too hard?”

Roy held up his hands in surrender. “Sorry.”

“Whatever.”

“The note didn’t make you feel any better?”

Jason groaned, pouring coffee grounds into the coffee maker with sluggish, clumsy movements. It’d been a week since he left that note and nothing had changed. He felt every bit as shitty as he had before. Fucking typical.

He debated trading the coffee for a mug of straight whiskey, but decided against it. There was an excellent chance getting drunk would just invite the Pit to make him even more miserable than he already was, and besides, the concern in Roy's eyes whenever Jason drank to numb the pain wasn't really worth the temporary reprieve. Especially not when Jason knew exactly where it was coming from. If anyone in the world had the right to be a little uppity about Jason using substances to cope with the stresses of being a vigilante, it was Roy. And after seeing the way addiction had rampaged over Roy's life and ended his mom's, Jason wasn't real keen on going down that path either.

“No. The note didn't help. Didn’t really think it would, but I hoped… I guess I dunno what I hoped. I don’t wanna kill them if they aren’t evil.” That wasn’t who he was anymore. He didn’t kill people because they were inconvenient, he killed them because they destroyed the lives of innocents. And sure, these people were destroying Jason’s life, but Jason was about as far from innocent as it got. “But knowin’ they’re out there and they haven’t given up… it’s fucking with me.”

“Really? I couldn’t tell.”

“Fuck you,” Jason snarled halfheartedly.

“Jaybird, you don’t sleep, you hardly eat, and I haven’t seen you crack a smile in at least a week now. You’re falling apart. I can’t keep watching you kill yourself. Let me help you.”

Well, that wasn’t entirely fair. Jason had tried sleeping, but after the seventh nightmare he’d had of Ducra telling him how he’d shamed the All-Caste by devolving into a mindless killer, he’d pretty much given up on it. He wasn’t sure why it was always her now, but the guilt was worse than the pain of his usual nightmares, and sleep deprivation certainly hurt less than Ducra’s disdain did. For Roy’s information, he’d tried eating, too. There was just no point to it anymore when he couldn’t keep the food down.

He was right about the smiling, though. His fucking depression was a bitch. Always had been. And for someone like Jason, who wouldn’t know a healthy coping mechanism if it hit him with a crowbar, it probably always would be.

“I’m fine,” was the obvious, half-assed lie he chose.

“For someone who hates being lied to, you sure do it an awful lot.”

“Great. So I look like shit, I can’t take care of myself, and I’m a hypocrite. Wanna keep on going, Roy? Cause I’m a murderer and a bad friend and I’ve fucked up pretty much every single thing I’ve ever given a shit about, too.”

Jason didn’t look at Roy as he made his coffee, kept on not looking at him until it was finished percolating, and didn’t raise his head again until he was fresh out of excuses not to. When he finally did look up, the heartbroken not-quite-pity thing he’d known that statement would create still hadn’t left Roy’s face. “I care about you, Jay,” Roy said, quiet and painfully sincere. “I’m bringing this up because I don’t want to see you in pain, not because I want to add to it.”

Jason downed his whole mug of coffee in one go, finding a bitter comfort in the way it scalded his throat, and refilled it before he found the guts to grind out a reply. “For this past, what, month now since I found out they were after me, I’ve felt like I’m staring at a countdown clock on a bomb,” he confessed, voice hollow and haunted, keeping his eyes firmly affixed to the hardwood floor so he wouldn’t have to see the look it would put on Roy’s face. “I can’t do anything but watch the numbers get smaller and wait for the bomb to go off and my life to explode into enough tiny little pieces that I can’t put it back together again. Every time I try to defuse it, the timer just starts ticking down even faster.”

Roy didn’t reply and Jason didn’t really blame him. There wasn’t much you could say to that.

“I don’t even know what they want from me or who they are because sticking around long enough to find out means running the risk of them catching me. It’ll end in a fight. I mean, of course it will, it always ends in a fucking fight, and that’s fine, I don’t care about that but if I lose the fight, Roy? Whatever happens after that, it won’t be good. If they don’t kill me on the spot, they’ll do something worse.”

“So let’s take the fight to them,” Roy said, so stupidly optimistic and confident. “There’s two of us and two of them. We have a lot of experience fighting together and you basically have superpowers now. With enough preparation and the right circumstances, we can beat them no matter who they are. Then you won’t have to choose between being Red and feeling safe. Problem solved.”

Jason bristled at the thought. He’d never forget the sound of Roy’s shallow, weak breathing after he’d gone down in that fight or the relentless anxiety of not knowing if he would pull through. When they’d finally started working together, Jason had agreed to it under the condition that Roy would never do anything that fucking stupid again. Eventually, that translated to I’ll do the killing and you just watch my back and deal with the fallout. Roy was hardly even involved in the combat aspect of their missions these days, which was by design. Jason’s life was expendable, after all, but Roy’s wasn’t. And Jason would be damned if he put Roy in danger now. 

Everything Jason touched died. It was something Talia used to say whenever he would start to stray from the path she'd led him down. There's no use trying to be anything else, waladi. You are the pride of the League of Assassins, born and raised to be the perfect weapon. Just look around you. Everything you touch dies. She had always sounded proud when she said it, but it only ever made Jason sick to his stomach.

Everything Jason touched—everything he loved cared for—always died. Roy hadn't yet. And Jason was going to keep it that way.

“No. It’s too much of a risk for you.”

Roy glanced at his workbench covered in weapons, then over to his bow and quiver hanging on the wall, then back to Jason with doubt clear in his eyes. “Sorry, Jaybird, did you miss the part where I’ve been a vigilante with no superpowers on and off for over a decade and it hasn’t killed me yet? Or the part where I’ve been fighting literal supervillains since I was thirteen? Or maybe the part where I’ve been the one to save your life dozens of times? What about that suggests to you that I won’t be able to handle two goons with nothing better to do than hunt down a guy who just wants to help people?”

“That’s not what I meant,” Jason said immediately, because that wasn’t it, not at all, Jason knew Roy was fearless and skilled and he was proud to fight at Arsenal’s side. But the chance of being killed on the job was never zero, and Jason wouldn’t be the reason that chance finally caught up with Roy. “You’re good at this, you're one of the best to do it, I’m not saying you aren’t.”

“Okay, so let’s get these motherfuckers, Jay. I’m really not seeing the issue.”

Frustration boiled over in Jason’s exhausted blood and he hurled the mug in his hand across the room to shatter against the far wall. Roy flinched at the noise but Jason didn’t care, he didn’t care about anything, it was too much.

“I’m afraid, okay?!” He shouted, voice hoarse and desperate. “I’m afraid they’re stronger than we are, I’m afraid of finding out what kind of people care so much about tracking Red down, I’m afraid they’re going to hurt you, and I’m afraid they’re going to hurt me! And I know how weak and fucking stupid that sounds but I am, I’m afraid, I don’t want to go back to being someone’s little torture bitch and I really don’t want you to find out what it feels like to be that scared and hurt and alone and—” Jason clamped his jaw shut before he could let any more horrendously vulnerable bits of truth spill out, turned his back on Roy, and braced his hands against the counter. If a panic attack was coming, it could wait until after Roy left.

“Jay…” Roy’s voice was so faint and he sounded so sad and Jason had done that to him because all Jason was good for was breaking. Breaking coffee mugs and breaking people, breaking himself and breaking Roy. He couldn’t do this anymore.

I’m sorry, he wanted to say. I’m sorry all I ever do is make things worse.

“Just go to work, alright?” Was what he said instead, voice forcibly level, since it was easier than the truth just like everything always was. “We both know there isn’t anything you can do to help and you have an appointment in an hour. Plus, once you leave, I can smoke without you guilt-tripping me.”

“Jaybird, c’mon—” but Jason was already waving him off and heading to the living room.

“I’ll survive,” he interrupted firmly. “It’s kind of my thing.”

Once Roy finally left, Jason spent a long time working through the panic and fear before it could swallow him whole. Vigilantly, he pushed away the images of Roy trapped in the Asylum with Joker, Roy digging out of his own grave, Roy being forced to choose between allowing himself to be turned into a weapon or returning to solitary confinement indefinitely. Those thoughts were useless; Jason would never let that happen to Roy. 

By the time he was able to fully banish that train of thinking, an equally miserable one had taken its place. The chase. He always ended up back at the chase eventually. This kind of abject terror was supposed to be in his past. He was stronger now. He’d worked so hard for this. He’d earned his right to feel safe. Hadn’t he? Hadn’t he?

For the first time in years, in the spaces between his regularly scheduled fits of violence, when he took the bat off and just existed in peace here with Roy, Jason’s life sometimes bore a vague resemblance to normalcy. And two nameless, faceless jerk-offs were going to take it all away.

It was the most powerless Jason had ever felt without chains around his wrists and after weeks of letting it destroy him, he was getting fed up. So, he did the only thing he knew of that might help. He lit some incense, sat lotus style on the floor, and closed his eyes.

“Okay, All-Mother,” he muttered, voice breaking slightly on her name. He knew she couldn’t hear him, knew he’d probably let this skill deteriorate past the point where it’d be at all useful to him, but it was worth a shot. Jason was running out of options, and Ducra was the only one who ever taught him how to solve problems with anything other than blood. “I feel like maybe you’ve been trying to tell me somethin’, huh? This passive-aggressive haunting my dreams bullshit was never really your style, but I guess I didn’t leave you with much of a choice. And this has got me so fucked up. I think… I think I need you. And I know what you’d say,” he gave a weak, rueful laugh. “That things must be really shitty if I, the infamously stubborn man-child, am admitting I need help, and you’d be right. But, uh, there’s no shame in leaning on others, that’s what you used to say, right? And even if there is, I still think it’s better than whatever bullshit I’m doing right now, so let’s give it a shot.”

Jason spent a long time there just feeling the expansion and contraction of his lungs, noticing his breathing, and tracking the flow of energy through his body and the room around him. Jason had never liked being alone with his thoughts; it never led him anywhere good. With a lot of time and diligence, meditation had gotten easier, but he’d had to train the skill every day just to manage it without going into a panic attack or a fit of rage. That was over a year ago now.

In for four, hold for four, out for four, pause for four. In, hold, pause, out. 

He spent at least fifteen minutes like that, trying to call up memories from his time with the All-Caste, feeling slightly ridiculous and struggling to keep the negative cognitive distortions at bay. He never should’ve let his meditation skills deteriorate this much. It had been hard enough to do this when he had a teacher with literally thousands of years of experience under her belt, but alone? Alone and severely out of practice with the knowledge looming over him that he was being hunted and that without distractions the green could overpower him at any moment? It was impossible. 

Impossible is an excuse, the faint echo of Ducra’s voice reminded him. There is no reason good enough for you to give up without a fight.

Jason tried to grab ahold of it, but the memory vanished the second he reached out. 

Frustrated, Jason let out a harsh breath through his teeth. He knew what the real problem was. He’d repressed all those memories to shit. That was how he avoided the guilt and shame that came with knowing how badly he’d failed his teacher, how he’d given up a year’s worth of progress within days of leaving, how he’d basically spat in their faces on his way out. He’d worked hard to lock it away in one of those dark corners, and there were few people in the world more talented and experienced at repressing painful memories than Jason Todd. 

Still, sitting with his fucked up thoughts in the relatively safe space of his and Roy’s house was a hell of a lot better than sitting with his fucked up thoughts in a Chinese jail or in the captivity of the bloodhounds chasing him, so he kept on trying. What could have been three or thirty minutes later, he finally found a memory that hadn’t been split into indecipherable pieces. It was an old one, maybe a week or so after they’d agreed to take him in.

“I can smell the Lazarus Pit on you, man-child.” It was Ducra’s voice, old and gravelly but surprisingly steady like it always had been. “It must have been years, but it feels fresh, no? The amnesia is clearly affecting you. Does it still hurt?” A familiar wave of terror crested over him because yes and no were equally disappointing answers and both were worthy of punishment. Yes was weakness and no was deceit. Before he could decide which was worse, Ducra seemed to interpret the silence as answer enough. “The All-Caste will never harm you for telling the truth, man-child.” Okay. The expectations were clear enough now. Lies were worse than weakness. This was just a new game. New rules to learn. He’d spent every second of his life that he could remember learning and relearning how to survive. He could do it again.

“Yes,” he rasped out, bracing himself for the beating. “It hurts.”  When the blow didn’t come, it only made the tension in his body increase to the point of pain. It must be a questions-first, punishment-after sort of game where they added up the sum of his failures and inflicted them on his body when the talking was over. He hated that game. Anticipation was just as bad as pain was.

“Very strange. The maladaptive effects are supposed to wear off within a few days. How about the benefits? Do you still heal?” He nodded tentatively, remembering how the League used to train and test the healing factor. “Very strange indeed.”

“I’m sorry,” he said automatically, tensing further. “It’s always been like this, nobody could figure out what was wrong with me, I’m sorry.”

She arched a white eyebrow at him. “Why would that be your fault, man-child?” Why would that be his fault? What a ridiculous question to ask. Of course, it was his fault. Everything that was hurt-wrong-punishment always was. 

“I just—shoulda tried harder, didn’t know what to do, still don’t, ‘m sorry.”

“Hm,” was the only reply to that. After a while, she spoke again. “And how about your name? Do you remember it?” His breath caught and he curled in on himself from his place on his knees in front of her. He knew that faltering from position also had painful consequences but he was unable to stop picturing how bad it would be when the punishment did come and the green was already getting ready to protect itself. Lies are worse than weakness. So he shook his head no. Ducra’s wrinkled face twisted up into something that felt dangerous, and again, he shrunk away. “Are you lying to me, man-child?” The fear was a block of ice in his gut now, and that was even worse, lying was even worse, he remembered what the League did to liars.

“She called me waladi,” he blurted out, trying to swing the balance back in his favor. They couldn’t be worse than the League, right? Ducra’s voice was kind and low and nobody had hit him in the past six days and surely they wouldn’t break all his bones or electrocute him until he stopped breathing and they had to pause to administer CPR, right? Right? Panic rising, he tried to find more words. “It means ‘my child’ in Arabic. I don’t have a name, all I do is execute the will of the Demon’s Head. I just did what I was told, I promise, that’s all I know.”

“Before that,” she cut in before he could spiral any father. “Before your death. You had a family, I imagine; a life and a name. Tell me what you remember.”

He shook his head again, desperate and frantic, chest starting to heave though the breath wouldn’t quite make it to his lungs. “I’m not allowed to—I can’t—that’s all over now, who I used to be doesn’t matter.” 

She frowned and took a step closer to him, and he instinctively lowered his head in a show of submission, trying to hide the flinch. Lies are worse than weakness. But weakness was still dangerous.

“And yet I am telling you that it matters now. Where is your loyalty, man-child? To the Demons, who beat you, chained you, ripped away everything that made you human, and plotted to kill you? Or with the people you asked for help?”

“How do you know about that?” The question came out in a rush before he could stop it, before he could remember the repercussions for speaking out of turn, before he could think of anything except the way the League used to pounce on every weakness he ever showed and exploit them in a hundred terrible ways. The only thought in his mind was that if Ducra knew, then Ducra could do it too, and he’d risked his life fleeing the jaws of a beast just to run right into another one.

“I know a great many things, man-child. Just like I know what will become of you if you continue on this path. You were right to come here seeking guidance. You were right to resist the Demons’ plans for you. But how am I meant to help you if your allegiance still lies with them?”

He swallowed down a sob, hands drifting unconsciously up to cover his ears like that might help him block out the throb of green and the simpering hiss of Talia’s voice. “I’m sorry,” he said again, pushing down the jolt of pain that always came with apologies.

She frowned at him. “Sorry does not help us, man-child. Answers help us. If the Demons took your name away from you and you cannot retrieve it now, so be it. If you are keeping it from me out of fear or lingering obedience to those monsters, however, that becomes a problem.”

He flinched. “I don’t remember, All-Mother,” he breathed out shakily. “Truly, I don’t. I’m s—” he cut himself off as her hand landed on top of his head. He could feel the strength in her spindly fingers, the authority in the way her piercing eyes tore right through the walls he put up and into his soul. She was three feet tall and (if legends were to be believed) 3,000 years old, but he could still tell she was every bit as powerful as Ra’s and Talia had been. He tried not to cringe away from the touch. Tried not to anticipate how Ducra would wield her power against him. But her hand was still gentle, and no one had come up from behind him to chain him down or hold him steady for the punishment he’d earned yet. 

“Forgive yourself, man-child.” His eyes shot up to hers then, questioning and distrustful, but all he found in her expression was sincerity. Terrifyingly good liars in the All-Caste, he was going to have to improve his detection skills if he wanted to survive here. “You were never meant to be perfect. Your suffering is not your fault, but your recovery is still your responsibility. I will train you. I will help you build a new life for yourself, one that you can take pride in, a path that diverges from the Demons' plans for you. I will teach you to contain the beast inside of you, the one that threatens to consume you and leave nothing behind, but it will take everything you have and more. To join the Caste is to make a vow to pursue the best version of yourself no matter how perilous the path is. The Demons do not control you any longer. Your journey is your own. Is this where you want it to lead?"

And the idea of wanting, the concept of choosing a path for himself was still so hard to wrap his mind around and even harder to trust but this particular choice, at least, was easy. Because really, his only other choice was death, and there was a frothing green tide within him that stalwartly refused the idea. He swallowed hard and nodded. "Yes."

"And do you vow to see this journey to the end no matter what sacrifices it demands of you?"

He bowed his head. "Yes, All-Mother. I promise."

"Good. Meditate with me, then. Let us find the truth together.”

Bringing himself back to the present, Jason took a deep breath and tried to remember what it had been like to meditate in the Chamber of All. Calm the storm within you, Jason. Another breath. This one felt cleaner, more useful. It made the next memory easier to retrieve from the swirling black mass of his mind. 

It was a short while later, just long enough that he’d remembered his old name and parts of his old life. By then, he was fairly convinced the All-Caste was a bit nicer than the League, though in all honestly, he preferred his former handlers’ harsh, direct approach over Ducra’s endless patience that always left him wondering when the floor would drop out from under him. It was just a new game. Joker used to say he was a slow learner but he had learned. He knew the rules, which meant he knew how not to lose.

He was sitting lotus style with Ducra on the floor of the meditation room. She had said they couldn’t move forward until they’d mapped out what brought him to this point, and Jason had been trying. Really, he had. But his memory had been torn to shreds and all the gaps were filled up with toxic green and it was slow, slow, slow going.

“What were you doing before you came to us, Jason?” She asked, the same way she always asked questions when she wasn’t sure Jason would be able to answer them. He hadn’t trusted her the first time she said he wouldn’t be punished for failing anymore. He still didn’t fully trust it now. But the way she always talked to him with caution and care was almost enough to make him believe the truth really was safer than a lie.

And that small scrap of kindness was something he’d been starved of for so long that he’d do anything to make sure he didn’t lose it now. So, he closed his eyes and searched his battered mind for any information it could provide.

“I hurt people,” he said slowly since it was the one fact he was sure of.

“And why did you hurt people, Jason?” She said his name a lot, too, like she thought he might forget it again if she didn’t. It was so different than the League. Here, he was allowed to be a person. It was okay for him to exist outside of what he could do for others. He reminded himself of it vigilantly, but it still felt too implausible to be the truth.

“Because I had to.” That he knew was the truth, too. He knew it in the flashes of memory; green bursts of fury, being beaten until all the thoughts fell out of his head, collapsing on bloodsoaked battlefields surrounded by corpses. “I had to, Ducra, I didn’t have a choice.”

She placed a withered hand on top of his and smoothed a thumb over the back of his palm. Jason tried not to feel the scars there or remember their origins. “You do not have to convince me. I believe you. But tell me, Jason, why did you have to?”

“It was the only way to make it stop,” he rushed out before fear and indecision could take hold. “They…” beat me, whipped me, burned me, broke me, “punished me when I resisted. Eventually, I learned to stop arguing.” It was weakness, Jason knew, but it was also the truth, and truth was the All-Caste’s game. He knew how to play.

“And after you left the Demons?”

Jason did a quick, desperate search through the scorched graveyard of his memories from that time. Most of it was ashes and everything that wasn’t was still shot full of holes and darkness. When he came up with nothing, Jason clenched his fists, squeezed his eyes shut, and tensed his shoulders.

Ducra was better than they had been, after all, but nothing was painless.

“I don’t remember,” he confessed, voice cracking.

“You remember nothing? Not even a feeling or a fleeting moment? Anything at all could help us move forward.”

Jason sat with the question for a few solid minutes, trying to copy the breathing techniques Ducra had taught him and block out all the nasty things interfering with his concentration. After a while of snatching up every small detail he could, he figured he had enough feelings and fleeting moments that he might be able to bail himself out of a punishment.

“I can remember walking through fields of blood like a zombie, no thoughts or memories, trying to count the bodies and losing track up in the fifties. I remember fear. I remember going back to Nanda Parbat and being surrounded by black rubble and I think I might have been the one who burned it but I’m not sure. I don’t even know if anyone was still there. The green was trying to kill Talia and Ra’s, I think, but I can feel it in my bones that they’re still alive.”

“They are,” Ducra confirmed gently. “The Caste continues to have our problems with the Demons.” Jason’s whole body froze up and Ducra ran a bony thumb over the back of his palm again. “Do not fear. They will not find you here, I swear it.” Well, that was easier said than done. The kindness that the All-Caste had shown him was a much-needed reprieve, but it also activated all the warning centers in his brain because he couldn’t trust kindness anymore. He still wasn’t convinced Ducra wasn’t dangerous, he certainly couldn’t take her word for it that she and her clan of strangers would protect him from any other danger.

“Okay,” he said when it became clear she expected an answer.

“Do you remember why you came to us, Jason?”

Again, it took a while for Jason to pull scraps of sensation and thought together into something comprehensible, but once he did, that day came back to him in a surge of clarity so violent and sudden that it drew a gasp out of him.

“I killed two innocent people,” he whispered, horrified. “The League had me kill plenty of people who were probably innocent but this was just me, I made the choice. I don’t remember why I killed them or how I knew they were innocent, I don’t think I even knew their names, but I’ll never forget their faces. I know I made it slow—or, the green made it slow, but I let it—because it was hungry and I was exhausted so I let it take over until it was satisfied. I remember it like ice in my guts when I realized what had happened. I remember wanting to feel guilty for it, but I couldn’t because the Pit wouldn’t let me, and I remember trying to apologize to their bodies and then passing out from the pain because the green doesn’t like sorry and the green doesn’t like when I try to act like a person again. I remember waking up next to them and realizing my only choices were finding someone who could help me or sending a bullet through my brain before I could hurt anyone else. And then I was here. That’s it, that’s all I know, the rest of it is gone.”

“Good work, Jason. Very good. I think that’s enough for today. Do you agree?”

Jason nodded quickly, relief settling tentatively in his chest. He didn’t like digging around in his mind. There were too many dark corners filled with green and laughter and pain, and even with Ducra’s help, it was easy to be swallowed up by them. “Can I start fighting again? I haven’t gone this long without combat in years, it’s making me kind of edgy.” Understatement, massive understatement, but need was weakness and she couldn’t know how much he needed this.

“No.” Her voice was obstinate, left no room for argument, but that had never stopped Jason in the past.

“Why not? I’m actually good at that. Whereas this,” Jason blew his cheeks out and made a vague gesture with shaking hands, “I’m garbage at this.”

The deep lines of her face got even deeper as she stared a hole through him. Jason almost wanted to shrink at the feeling of it, but he couldn’t back down. If he didn’t let it hurt someone else soon, the green would take the blood from him instead. 

“In the All-Caste, combat is an exchange of trust, and there is no trust here. You do not trust us, we do not trust you, and you do not trust yourself. The Demons’ training and the Lazarus Pit have made you exceptionally dangerous and you have no regard for the lives you put at risk when you fight. Until I can say for certain that you will not massacre your fellow warriors the second I allow you within striking distance of them, you will remain a student in mind and not body. I will not inflict you upon them. I will not put their lives in danger to satisfy your primal urges.”

“Then I don’t have to fight them,” Jason protested, hearing the slight edge of desperation in his own voice and knowing it wouldn’t get past Ducra. “Just let me leave for a few hours, I’ll go down the mountain and kill some scumbags and I’ll be back before you know it. It’s not like that I have some twisted need to hurt people, it’s the Pit. It hurts to say no. I have to fight.” He paused and swallowed hard, quieting the painful hiss of green in his veins that told him to kill her if she dared to oppose him. “Please.”

“No,” she said again. “You are in no position to make decisions about who deserves life and who does not. Respect and control are what you came here to learn, man-child. That means you will not take any more lives until you learn them. If you aren’t willing to abide by my rules, leave now.” When Jason just stared back at her with wide eyes and slightly trembling hands, she nodded sagely. “Good or evil or anything in between, you kill with respect for the lives you take or you do not kill at all.”

Jason took a shuddering breath. "I'm a living weapon," he argued, hearing the words in Talia's voice even as he felt them in his own mouth. "That's what they always told me. There's no use trying to be anything else. This is what I'm meant for. Everything I touch dies."

Something warmed slightly in Ducra's small, sunken eyes, something a little fond, a little caring, but the firmness didn't waver an inch. "Not anymore, Jason."

Jason sighed and bowed his head, folding his hands in his lap to stop them from curling into fists.

“Yes, All-Mother.”

The next memory Jason found was significantly later on. Time passed differently in the Chamber of All, and the more time he spent there, the less he’d been aware of its passage. It was long enough for his hair to tickle the back of his neck and his white bangs to fall into his face. It was also long enough for Ducra to deem him worthy of a chance to prove he could control himself during a light sparring session. It hadn’t taken him very long to break that trust.

“Let me go,” he hissed, copper in his mouth, blood pouring down his chin, green ablaze in his veins, eyes on fire. Ducra was right in front of him but he didn’t care. His eyes were still fixed on his fallen opponent. She wasn’t much older than him, but by god, she fought like a child. He watched her struggle to her feet with help from two other members of the Caste, badly beaten and bleeding heavily. The only thing Jason felt about it was rage that he hadn’t had the chance to end what he’d started. “Fucking let me go, I’m not finished yet!”

“Yes, you are,” Ducra said, voice harder and colder than it’d ever been.

Jason let out a growl in response, fighting harder against the magic restraints she’d locked him in. Every time he moved, they got even tighter until his arms were wrenched so far behind his back that his forearms were touching and his knees were digging painfully into the floor. Fucking magical bullshit. The only movement he could manage was the weak trembling in every inch of his body and the heaving of his chest as he stuffed down the panic as hard as he could.

“There is no point in struggling, Jason. You are finished with this sparring match, and if you aren’t careful right now, you will be finished with the All-Caste, too. Permanently.”

“Fuck this,” he snarled, pain lancing through his bad shoulder as he tried to shift enough to dislocate his thumb and slip out. Hopeless. There was no way out of these. “I’m never going to be anyone’s fucking prisoner again, Ducra, not even yours. Now let me the fuck go!”

The Lazarus Pit’s lingering side effects meant that fighting gave Jason a much larger adrenaline spike than it used to, and he had no tolerance for it now thanks to months of Ducra refusing to let him fight. It made him lethal as hell, but it also put him on edge constantly. So, when something in Ducra’s face twisted and she took a step closer. Jason couldn’t help but flinch back and plaster himself to the wall behind him. That was hopeless, too. There was nowhere to run.

“I will never make you a prisoner, Jason. You trap yourself. The Lazarus Pit has put you in a cage of anger and violence and you convince yourself you are helpless to it and make no attempt to escape. The chains around your body are not the ones you should be concerned with.”

“You’re not going to make me a prisoner?” Jason snapped venomously. “And why the fuck would I believe that? You have me chained to a fucking wall, Ducra!”

“Because you attempted to beat to death someone who put her life in your hands. You broke her trust. You broke my trust. As soon as I am convinced you will not do it again, I will release you. Until then, you and I are going to talk about why you thought this was acceptable behavior. You are not in the Chamber of All to be a mindless killer.”

Jason strained against the chains hard enough to wrench his shoulder out of its socket. The sudden burst of white-hot pain dragged a groan out of Jason and he tried to hide the very exploitable weakness with an angry growl. She could pounce on it as punishment for his insubordination, and Jason couldn’t risk that when he was already so vulnerable. It seemed he hadn’t been quick enough to obscure it from her, though. There was a mix of disapproval and sadness in her sunken eyes as she glanced from his obviously pained face to the injury and back again.

“I will fix that for you once you’ve calmed yourself, man-child.”

Jason wasn’t sure why, but the fact that she didn’t immediately capitalize on the opening drained almost all of the vicious, insatiable fight out of his body. Pain and fear were all that remained then and he collapsed against the wall behind him, breathing hard. “I am a mindless killer,” he said hoarsely, feeling the shame start to seep in the cracks that the green was receding from. “That’s all I know how to be.”

“Which is why you are here. To learn to be more. That means you no longer have the option of coping with your pain by falling back into your base instincts and seeking to destroy everything that moves.”

“I have to,” he said, knowing that excuse wasn’t within a country mile of sufficient. “I can’t resist it, I’m not strong enough.”

“You are far stronger than you realize, man-child, and if you cannot learn to direct your strength with intention and purpose, you will be the death of us. The death of countless people, many of them innocent. You will bring misery and suffering to everyone you care about and you will be a plague upon this world. No different than Superman is now. Is that what you want?”

It was still so strange, the idea that what he wanted mattered, and it didn’t sit quite right with Jason, but he still knew the answer. “No.”

“And do you want to be the same kind of heartless maniac who tortures a child for weeks and kills him for the sins of his father?”

Jason cringed, feeling the constant chill in his skin sink deep into his bones, like he was frozen all the way down to the marrow, but he didn’t bother asking how Ducra knew. She knew everything. Especially the things Jason didn’t want her to. “N-No.”

“So that means you have to be better than him, that you have to overcome your worst impulses, does it not?”

“You don’t understand,” he whispered, voice strained, the last bits of fight fading away into that ugly brokenness that had lived in his chest ever since Joker. “Like I told you before, I can’t fix this. I can prolong it, sometimes, but it just hurts me worse and worse until I can’t hold it back anymore. And I’m…” he swallowed down a broken noise. “I’m sick of being in pain. I can’t stop it.”

“The Pit feeds off rage and hatred,” she insisted. “It is salt in your wounds, Jason, and if you never take the time to let those wounds heal, then the Pit will never run out of fuel and will always overpower you.”

“Maybe your strategy has worked on other people, Ducra, but I’m not them. Talia said it herself, she’d never seen anyone take to the Pit the way I did. The effects aren’t supposed to last this long, they’re supposed to fade and they haven’t. It’s out of my hands. This is just the way things are.”

Her mouth set into a hard line and she crouched to his level. “Surrender is unbecoming of you, man-child. You spit and rage and curse at me for putting you in chains, but this is a prison of your own design, and you will still be in it long after I release you. You chained yourself to that wall by convincing yourself you are a victim of fate when that could not be farther from the truth. You are the master of your own destiny, and it is long past time you learned that for yourself. You must challenge the broken things within you, Jason. If you do not, then nothing will ever change.”

“I’m just broken, Ducra.” Jason could feel the tears carving tracks into his face as he let out a quiet sob and slumped against the wall in defeat. “There’s no fixing it.”

Jason cringed with his whole body and forcibly tore himself away from that memory. It was like sandpaper grating against his skin, the knowledge that despite all Ducra’s efforts and the progress Jason had made while working with her, he’d turned out to be every inch the monster she’d prophesized him becoming. 

"Fuck," he whispered shakily. It was fine. It was whatever. Self-loathing was nothing new and was no more useful now than it had been at any point in the past. "Fuck, fuck. Okay, refocus, Jason." He searched his mind for something else, something constructive, and landed on one of the last meditation sessions he’d had with Ducra before he left the All-Caste for good.

“Jason.” The way she said his name had become the closest thing to comfort Jason had known since he lived in the manor. It was familiar with just the faintest hint of fondness, and it never, ever hurt. One of the only things that never did. “You have to focus, child.”

He let out a frustrated groan and shook his head, opening his eyes again even though he knew he wasn’t supposed to. She wouldn’t punish him for it. Unless that devastating disappointed look in her eyes counted as a punishment. “You know I’ve tried. I can’t do it. Not right now, at least. Maybe I’m having an… off day.”

“An off day? We have been working on this together for nearly a month.”

“Okay, fine, yes, it’s been more than a day,” he muttered, discomfort crawling like a spider up his spine. "Lo siento, All-Mother. I’m hitting a snag, I admit that. Can’t we just, I dunno, come back to it later?”

She gave him a doubtful look. “Time has never made you more willing to confront your demons, man-child. You are stalling. Not doing a very good job of it, either.”

“Any chance I could persuade you to skip over it?” He asked with a cringe, knowing full well what the answer would be.

Sure enough, a storm came over Ducra’s face. “Skip over the single most important step in your journey towards freeing yourself of the Lazarus Pit’s hold on you? You must know that is not an option, man-child. Of course this is difficult for you. But you have done difficult things in the past. You survived years in the League of Assassins’ captivity. You bested the All-Caste’s finest warriors while keeping your rage in check. You have channeled the All-Blades, something only a handful of warriors have managed in millennia. Your memories cannot hurt you anymore.” 

“Yeah, Ducra, of course I can handle the fighting stuff. That’s been my thing my whole life. I’m used to it. I’m good at it. I obviously have no talent for this whatsoever, so maybe it just isn’t my thing. Plenty of the Caste’s warriors have weaknesses. Maybe this is mine.”

“Our skills lie in different places, yes, but no one is afforded the option of bypassing the parts of their training they find tedious or unnecessary.” Jason wanted to cut her off, to say this wasn’t tedious or unnecessary, it was fucking terrifying and it hurt worse than anything had in years, but he knew better than to interrupt the All-Mother. “This does not have to be your most proficient skill, Jason, but your training is not complete without it. You must commune with the darkest parts of yourself, come to peace with them, and learn how to use them for good. That is far more important than any physical tactic or weapon I can teach you to use.”

Yeah, yeah, Jason groused bitterly inside his head. Your body is strong, Jason, and you’re real good at killing, but who cares? Your brain is a disaster. You’re so broken even we don’t know what to do with you. Every warrior the All-Caste has ever trained made it through this trial, and you’ll be the first one to quit. All because no amount of training will ever change the fact that you’ve always been a coward.

“Forgive yourself, man-child,” Ducra told him gently, like she could hear his thoughts. That phrase was familiar by now, though he never quite managed to follow the instructions no matter how many times he heard them. “You have more darkness to fight than most. I do not expect perfection, but you do need to try.”

So Jason did. He pushed himself to his feet, having realized long ago that doing this sitting down immediately sent him back to his padded room with the League and kneeling felt like Joker’s hands on him and both nullified any positive progress. Then, he tried as he had been for weeks to go back to the Asylum, back to his grave, back to the League. The most important part was facing it; not punishing himself, not conquering it, only acknowledging it as a part of who he was. He tried. 

But the moment he let his death grip on his focus loosen and he started wandering through those memories, terror gripped him. It was an icy hand around his throat and he choked on the fear and the cold and the painful knowledge he was helpless and alone. It sent the green surging into defend-attack-don’t-let-them-take-you-alive mode, and that was bound to eliminate any chance of success here, so he tried to suppress it too. To ignore the fear and push through the pain like he’d done so many times before. The green had always hated being ignored, though. It burned hotter and brighter, feeding off his terror and coalescing into a raging mass of poison and pain until he couldn’t see past it anymore and he collapsed to his knees, panting and shaking.

“I—I can’t,” he stammered out, wrapping his arms around his midsection tightly and curling in on himself as much as he could, the world around him a screeching haze of green. “I can’t, I can’t go back there, I’m sorry. I am, really, I’m sorry, but I’ve tried so hard and I just can’t.”

She sat down in front of him and he forced himself to look up at her. There was no satisfaction in her wizened old face, no pleasure taken from his suffering, but she wouldn’t let up, either. Her small, deep-set eyes sparked with the same fire they always did when she believed in Jason more than he believed in himself. “You can, Jason. And you have to. Or you will remain a prisoner of your own mind forever.”

The green surged at those words, almost like it knew that Ducra was its enemy, that she wanted to tame it, weaken it until it bowed to Jason’s control and not the other way around. “Things are fine,” he forced out through his teeth. “You’ve taught me a lot, All-Mother, and I’m grateful, but I can take it from here. I don’t need this part. I’m fine without it.”

“You have made progress since you joined us, man-child, but it is not permanent. If you leave now, it is only a matter of time before all of this work slips away and you are right back where you started, a killer who cannot remember his own name, much less the names of those he’s killed. If I let you go, I am no better than the Demons who taught you to kill and never how to live with that burden. Without acknowledging what brought you to your lowest point, you are doomed to return there.”

“I’m always going to be a killer. It’s the only thing that keeps me alive.”

“Killing is a small bandage you slap on a gaping, festering wound. It fixes nothing. Is that why you asked for my training? So that you could fix nothing and carry on enduring and causing suffering until your dying breath? If you wanted someone to enable your journey towards self-destruction, Jason, you should have stayed with the Demons.” 

If I’d stayed, they would’ve killed me, he wanted to say.

Immediately, the hateful, vicious, distinctly green part of his mind snapped back. You wish they would’ve just done it though, don’t you? You wish you’d stayed and let them kill you because you’re too much of a coward to kill yourself.

Jason tried not to think on that too hard. Tried not to think about the times he’d watched the green patch up gashes that should’ve been fatal and wished it’d be just a little slower. A little too late. 

“Every time I try to go back, the green stops me. If I push too hard, it could take over. I could hurt you. I could hurt all of you. Remember what happened in that sparring session? Remember what happened when you told me about Alfred?”

“I put you in your place on both of those occasions and I will do it again now. You cannot hurt me, man-child. And you are a very bad liar. Speak the truth or not at all.”

Jason’s eyes found the floor again, a cold wave of shame rolling through him. Not for the first time, he wished Ducra was more like Talia and the League. That she would just hit him when he fucked up instead of being so reasonable and decent all the time. “Going back there scares me,” he admitted in a small voice. “And my anger scares me too. The green is bad, but it’s a reaction to the fear, not to the memories. The fear is why I can’t do it.”

“Good. And what is fear, Jason?”

“Weakness,” he replied automatically.

“Wrong. I did not ask you to parrot the lies the Demons taught you. I asked for the truth.”

“Fear is… fear is…” Jason searched his tattered memory, trying to find Ducra’s wisdom amidst the constant deafening and unhelpful buzz of Joker and Talia’s voices. “A sparring partner,” he finally recalled. “Fear is a sparring partner. It will hurt you if you let it, but if you take it as a challenge, it can only make you better.”

“Well done, man-child,” she said, the fondness just a bit more noticeable than usual. “And what does that mean for you?”

“That Joker and the League and the Pit are just going to keep hurting me until I stop running away from them.”

“So, when do you stop running, Jason?”

Jason opened his mouth to find that he didn’t have a reply he actually believed was the truth. He’d love to say he could do it today, or tomorrow, or ever. Lies are worse than weakness. He didn’t bother. 

“I don’t know,” he said eventually. “Not yet. I’m not ready, All-Mother.”

He’d left not long after that. Ducra had been… displeased, to say the least. Told him he was so much more than what he limited himself to. Jason did wish he hadn’t left things like that. She’d helped him so much, probably saved his life, and they’d parted angry, hurt, and frustrated with each other. Another wrong he’d never right. Another entry in Jason’s long list of regrets.

Still, he had to leave. It had been too much. He couldn’t face the demons of his past, and as long as he was unwilling to take that step, the All-Caste couldn’t help him anymore. Ducra told him he should return to them once he realized he’d quit too soon and had more to learn, that he should come ask for help when things inevitably spiraled out of control again, but he knew in his heart he couldn’t go back.

Now, he was even more sure of that fact.

One day, your heart will shine brighter than the dark fury inside you. And that day will be glorious. 

It might’ve been the first thing she was ever wrong about.

“Maybe she doesn’t have to be wrong,” Jason muttered to himself, eyes still closed, trying to work through the messages in his head and figure out what it all meant, what Ducra was trying to tell him. There were so many things he’d forgotten until now, so many things he’d purposely pushed down because remembering them meant remembering there had been a time where things had been almost okay and he’d thrown that away out of cowardice. 

Forgive yourself. But he never really had.

You are the master of your own destiny. It’d been so long since he’d really felt in control.

When do you stop running, Jason? Now. Maybe the answer was now.

This is a prison of your own design. Ducra was right, Ducra was right. He’d worked so hard for his freedom. He’d fought and killed for the sake of it.  Swore up and down he’d never be taken prisoner again. He’d make them kill him first. But he’d never really escaped, had he? Not from the Asylum, not from his grave, not from the Pit, not from the League. They all still held him down. How long had it been since he’d actually been free?

This is a prison of your own design. Jason had a lot of experience with prisons. Maybe it wasn’t too late to break out.

Chapter Text

With the first real sliver of hope he’d had in weeks, Jason took one more deep breath and pushed the memories away, carefully inviting reality back into his mind in place of the reverie. After a few square breaths, he opened his eyes to find Roy’s face just a few inches away from his own. 

Jason recoiled with his whole body, the stark contrast between the hazy flashbacks and the very vivid, very sudden appearance of a real person in front of him kicking his anxiety into high gear. Hastily, he tried to cover the reaction, heart still racing, but he must not have fully hidden how badly Roy had startled him because the concern was already carving deep lines into Roy’s freckled face.

“Fuck,” he murmured, sitting back on his knees and shifting to give Jason an extra few inches of breathing room. “Sorry, bud. Did I scare you?”

“Uh,” Jason stammered out stupidly. “Nuh uh, no, you’re good. I just—I thought you weren’t supposed to be back until 1900 hours.”

Roy raised a red eyebrow, his eyes shifting from Jason to the windows around them and then back again. Jason’s gaze followed his and he realized belatedly that dusk was settling. The midday sun had been streaming in when Jason had first sat down. Now, his incense was long burned out, his throat was like sandpaper, and there was a deep ache in his bones from sitting in the same position for so long. That was a miscalculation. Ducra had always told him the darkness could swallow him whole if he left his mind so open for so long.

“It is 1900 hours, Jaybird.” 

“Got it. Sorry.” Jason pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them and trying to hide the way he was starting to shiver.

Roy clearly picked up on it because he held up a finger, reached behind himself, and grabbed a blanket and a bottle of water. Jason took them gratefully, knowing the blanket wouldn’t make him any warmer but needing the weak sense of safety it provided and the reminder that Roy gave a shit about what happened to him. “Anyways, what’re you up to? Not that sitting on the floor in silence isn’t always a blast or anything, but normally being still and quiet isn’t your jam. Not even when you’re asleep.”

“I was meditating,” Jason said quietly, taking a long drink of the water.

A sheepish look came over Roy’s face. “Ah crap, I messed you up, didn’t I? I’m sorry. I would’ve left you alone except for the part where I think out of everyone I’ve ever met in my whole life, you are the very last one I’d expect to be meditating. You’ve been in a pretty rough headspace lately. Kinda thought you might’ve slipped into a coma or something.”

“Fair.” His voice still sounded hoarse enough that he cringed at the sound of it, so he finished the water bottle before he started talking again. “It’s fine, I’m done now.”

“Uh, okay. Cool. Can I ask why you were doing that? Is everything okay?”

“I was communing with my memories to find guidance. You were right with what you said before. I’m running on empty. This isn’t working. I can’t do it anymore.”

Roy’s face crashed through the floor, looking fucking scared like he never, ever did, green eyes wide and color draining out of his face. Roy didn’t react like that, not ever, not even when Jason was bleeding out in his lap, and it was unsettling to see it now. “You can’t do… what?” Roy asked, a vague tremor in his voice.

Jason just blinked at him and frowned for a long moment, and then he realized what the problem was. I can’t keep watching you kill yourself. Fuck, shit, fuck. “No,” Jason said immediately, reaching out and grabbing Roy’s hand before he could think better of it, grip tight enough that it must be painful. “No, it’s not—no. Don’t even go there. Dying was bad enough the first time around, I’m not about to do it again on purpose.”

A little bit of the horror faded from Roy’s eyes, but he still looked uneasy as he placed his other hand on top of Jason’s. “Alright, that’s a relief. What’s the problem, then?”

Jason scrubbed his free hand across his face. “Everything short of wanting to kill myself is the problem,” he admitted in a sigh, hearing the exhaustion in his own voice. “I’m still not killing for the reasons I want to be, I can’t kill without feeling that ugly thing that isn’t guilt but isn’t not guilt because I’m not killing for the reasons I want to be, and those jerk-offs are still crawling up my ass every time I make a move as Red. The one thing that brought some fucking order and peace to my life is crumbling down around me, and I’m sick of just laying here and taking it. I’m done being somebody’s victim, it’s happened too many times already. Something’s gotta give.”

“You want to stop killing?”

Jason let out something close to a laugh, too harsh and sharp to be genuine, more incredulous than amused. “God, I wish. I wish I could want to stop killing. Maybe someday, but not today. That’s not a change I can make right now, but I can make other changes, I think. For so long I’ve been so preoccupied with making sure I never became a prisoner again, especially since those two assholes came along, but Ducra used to tell me that I’ve been a prisoner for years. That I never really stopped being a prisoner from the moment the League dropped me in the Pit. She said that letting the Pit force me to kill, letting it control me and make my decisions for me, that’s its own prison. I called bullshit at the time but now I’m thinking she was probably right. I haven’t really felt free since before I died.”

“Okay,” Roy said slowly, still looking very confused. “So, you’re in a metaphorical jail cell while simultaneously facing the threat of being put in a real jail cell. How does knowing that help anything?”

“Because, Roy, if I was the one who put myself in the cell, that means I can get myself out of it too. The All-Caste believed that killing is just as sacred as healing is and that it requires control and respect for the life you’re taking no matter how evil that life is. I believed in that. I still do. That code is what separates us from the real bad guys. Red doesn’t have anything that separates him from the people he kills, not really. Like sure, I think they deserve to die, but that’s not why I kill them. I kill them to satisfy the Pit. It’s a temporary solution to a long-term problem, and every time I do it, I reduce a sacred act to a meaningless transaction of blood and violence and short-lived relief. Ducra was right. If I keep treating the symptoms instead of the actual sickness, I’ll be a broken fuck-up forever.”

“You are not a broken fuck up,” Roy protested fiercely before the words even made it all the way out of Jason's mouth. “You were tortured for years, you were brainwashed into believing that killing was the only way to lessen your pain, you’ve been through some horrible shit, that’s not your fault.”

“Yeah, that was a fine excuse in the beginning, Roy, but I’ve been hiding behind it for way too long. I’m sick of belonging to the people who have hurt me in the past. I’m sick of letting them go on hurting me now. I’m sick of allowing anything or anyone else to decide what kind of person I’m going to be or what I’m going to do with my second chance at life. It’s my chance, not theirs. Ducra used to say I’d destroy the world and everyone I cared about if I didn’t get my shit together and I don’t want to find out if she’s right about that. I’m too fucked up to quit killing altogether—I have a nearly insurmountable pile of shit I have to work through before there’s even a slight chance I could put an end to the Pit madness for good—but I can’t just sit here and say I want to be a hero again, I want to do things the right way. I need to take action, or the words don’t mean anything.” 

“Take action,” Roy repeated with a skeptical look on his face. “What does that mean?”

“I need to fight back. Instead of telling the Pit to be patient until the time is right for me to kill again, I need to tell it no. Just no. Full stop, because it doesn’t get to decide. I need to meditate and work through the shit I’ve spent the last few years avoiding, and I need to keep working through it until I can use it to my benefit. I don’t think I’m ready to do everything Ducra wanted me to, but if I can take the time to figure out who I am if I’m not Robin and I’m not Joker’s broken toy and I’m not the League’s weapon, maybe I can find a path towards healing like she always wanted me to. And I think that when I do kill, I need to channel the All-Blades.”

Roy cocked his head to the side. “Those dope magical swords? The fabled ‘best weapons you’ve ever used’ that you compared my very first draft of your swords to?”

Jason rolled his eyes. “For the record, I wasn’t comparing them and I didn’t expect you to be able to recreate them at all, let alone on the first try, but yes.”

“I thought you said you couldn’t use them anymore.”

“Yeah, I couldn’t. Before. They don’t have a corporeal form. They’re summoned out of thin air. I can only manifest them if I can focus my anger and I’m not too wounded or exhausted, because they take their power from my life force. I haven’t been able to channel that kind of concentration since I left the All-Caste. Haven’t even tried in over a year because the Pit has been so bad that I know my body and mind aren’t well enough for it. They’re enchanted to only work on evil and I need to be right with myself to use them. I think they'll probably come back to me if I can get my shit together, and maybe they can help me get closer to being a hero instead of just another killer.”

Roy nodded. “Okay, this sounds like a solid plan. I’m glad you’re having this spiritual epiphany, that’s fantastic, and I think this change could make things a lot better for you.” There was something strange in Roy’s voice, a hesitant edge and an undercurrent of dread, and it brought something ugly to life in Jason’s veins.

“But?” He prompted.

Roy made an uncomfortable face and squeezed Jason’s hand again. “But, putting an end to a bad habit that’s been reinforced for years is incredibly difficult, especially when you get rewards for continuing the bad habit and punishments for stopping it. Assuming you can make the change to be a hero instead of a killer, to kill with respect for the lives you’re taking instead of killing to satisfy your need for violence and avoid the consequences from the Pit, what happens when you relapse?”

Jason bristled at the wording, at the when instead of the if, at the idea that Roy really had so little faith in his ability to straighten his own life out. Roy might’ve been the only person whose opinion he still gave a shit about, and that hurt in a way he hadn’t expected it to.

“Excuse me?” 

Roy didn’t falter, determination in the hard line of his mouth and the sharp sting of his eyes. “You’re an addict. Remember when you found out Joker and Bruce were working together and your immediate reaction was that you needed to kill someone? When things get stressful, an addict craves their fix. Trying to quit is going to be the most stressful thing you’ve done in quite some time. No matter how important this is to you or how confident you are in your ability to succeed, that doesn’t change the fact that this habit is the result of years of reinforcement and dependency. Take it from someone who’s been around this block a few times. If you don’t prepare yourself for the possibility of a relapse, it’ll hit you like a truck when it does happen and you might not get the chance to pick yourself up and try again.”

You’re an addict. Jason couldn’t help but picture his mother splayed out on their bathroom floor. He grew up with addiction all around him, saw the way it broke people down, tore apart families, destroyed everything in its path. He’d sworn he’d never turn out like her. He’d sworn he’d never turn out like her.

The spitting mad, acidic green part of his mind wanted to beat Roy to a bloody, unrecognizable pulp for daring to suggest he was anything like Catharine, anything like the woman who’d left him to fend for himself on the streets for two years. Immediately, he pushed that part away. Addiction wasn’t an easy thing for Roy to talk about. It was a sacrifice. A sacrifice he was making for Jason, a sacrifice Jason should be grateful for, not angry about.

The second that faded, what remained of Jason wanted to break down and never move or speak or think again because Roy was fucking right. Roy was right, Jason was an addict, and he was running out of chances to get clean. 

“Lock me up,” he breathed when he finally found his words again.

Roy visibly recoiled, determination fading to heartbreak in the green of his eyes. “You’re joking, right? That’s your biggest trigger, Jay. It could destroy you. Send you back to I-don’t-know-my-own-name square one.”

“I don’t care. I have to do this, Roy, because I’m coming up on the point of no return right now. I’m running out of reasons to keep going. It’s like Ducra said: I’m already a prisoner. If I can’t break myself out of the cage the Pit put me in, what’s the point? What’s the point of keeping myself out of prison if I’ll never actually be free? If this is going to work, I need to be willing to do whatever it takes. So, if you can’t talk me out of killing to placate the Pit, then lock me up in one of our safe houses until it passes. If you can’t do that, or if trying to do that puts your life in danger, then turn me in.”

Roy shook his head, eyes wide. “I can’t do that to you, Jaybird. I can’t be the reason you get hurt like that. I can’t.”

Jason gave him a hard look. “I need you to. This thing with the people chasing me is ruining my life and the Pit is only making it worse. I can’t take it coming from both sides like this. If you don’t stop me from pulling the same bullshit I have been for the past year, the Pit is going to keep breaking me down and those cabróns are only going to get even more persistent. And… I dunno… maybe if I can show them that I’m like, a good guy, that I’m not a threat to innocent people or fucking whatever, maybe they’ll leave me alone. Or at least, if I get a lid on the violence, I can decrease my frequency to the point where their leads will run out and they’ll give up.” Roy’s eyes turned sad and Jason immediately crumbled. “I know, I know, that’s wishful thinking.”

“The kind of people who chase like this won’t be convinced by a sudden apparent change of heart. The only two things that will stop them are death and completing their mission.” 

“Yeah, yeah, I know. That’s a whole other problem, but maybe it’ll feel more manageable if I can get the green under control first. Me being a good guy won’t stop them, but if things stay the way they are now, they’ll catch me and turn me in anyway. If I’m going to lose either way, I’d like to retain what little control I do have, and I’d much rather be locked up by someone I actually trust.”

Jason felt the weight of those words bearing down on him like an anvil, and judging by the way Roy leaned back and blinked at him, eyes impossibly wide, the significance hadn’t been lost on him either.

“O-Oh,” he said, just above a whisper. 

“Tell me you’ll do it, Roy. Please. Tell me you’ll do whatever it takes to stop me.”

“Yeah,” Roy said shakily. “Okay, yeah, I’ll do it. But first, I’m going to do everything I can to make sure it doesn’t come to that.”

Chapter Text

Tell me you’ll do whatever it takes to stop me.

Jason had said it, and Jason had meant it. At the time.

But, truthfully, he hadn’t taken much time to consider what whatever it takes would end up being. On the day he’d forced that promise out of Roy, all he’d known was he was remembering the taste of hope for the first time in years and he had to do whatever he could to avoid losing that. Nothing could be worse than being stuck in a prison of his own design for the rest of his life, always terrified that the day would come when he snapped and hurt Roy or killed innocents or forgot his own name. Nothing could be worse. That was what he told himself, anyway.

And then, whatever it takes stopped being a nebulous hypothetical and started destroying what few good things Jason had claimed as his own over the past year.

Whatever it takes turned out to be innumerable panic attacks, two bloody fistfights, and Jason and Roy’s friendship becoming so strained that it was rivaled only by Jason’s contempt-love-hatred-sorrow not-relationship with Bruce. Whatever it takes also turned out to be Jason being unable to kill for the better part of two months. It had to have been one of the hardest things Jason had ever done, not at all helped by the fact that he and Roy were hardly on speaking terms for most of it.

The first incident came and went in a flurry of blood and handcuffs and Roy standing across the room with his bow and pointing an arrow directly at Jason’s chest for over an hour. Jason couldn’t remember most of it, but that didn’t stop some sad, broken part of him from flinching every time he saw Roy. They both pretended not to notice it; the new distance between them, the way Jason never quite met Roy’s eyes, or the fact that in the span of a single day, Jason had gone from relying on Roy to get him through panic attacks to refusing to be in the same room with Roy while he had them. Jason told himself vigilantly and repeatedly that he wasn’t afraid of Roy, but he never fully believed it.

The second one was significantly worse. Afterward, Jason started opting for sleeping on the couch and freezing his ass off rather than sharing a bed with Roy. They didn’t talk unless they had to. Jason almost forgot what Roy’s easy smile looked like and the old, fond nicknames that Roy had once replaced Jason’s full name with gathered dust on a shelf. On the rare occasions Roy did use them, they sounded rusty and painful and foreign. Neither of them bothered pretending. It didn’t feel like they were friends anymore, hardly even allies or roommates or acquaintances. Just two hollow shells that happened to be haunting the same house.

It wasn’t anyone’s fault, not really, just a perfect storm of too many wrong things all colliding at the wrong time. But, when your best friend has to stop you from going mad and relapsing back into your addiction to violence and murder by breaking your bones and calling you by the same name your handlers used to use to bring you to heel when you were a brainwashed assassin, well. There isn’t really a normal to go back to after that.

Jason didn’t just feel like he’d lost a friend. He felt like he lost a limb, an integral part of who he was, and he didn’t know how to adjust to life without it. Nothing could ever be the same now, just like nothing could be the same with his old family. He couldn’t go back to an effortless friendship with Roy any more than he could go back to Gotham with Bruce and Dick and pretend he wasn’t an irredeemable killer they’d never be able to love like they’d loved their Robin. Somehow, it hurt even worse with Roy than it had with them. Jason was used to being in pain, but not like this. He didn’t know how to bridge the jagged, gaping chasm between them. All he knew was that he missed his friend.

As it turned out, there was exactly one thing worse than being stuck between Red and green for the rest of his life, and that thing was losing Roy. Changing Red from a mindless killer into a hero took Jason’s focus completely off of the people chasing him and probably ran their trail ice cold, but a new countdown clock had taken that one’s place. And Jason could feel his time with Roy running out.

It was that helplessness and loneliness and fear that ended with chains around Jason’s wrists for the third time. Consequently, it was also the last time. It had to be the last time, because Jason was pretty sure he wouldn’t survive it if it happened again.

So, Jason gathered up his courage and his convictions for doing this in the first place, his I swore I’d never turn out like her, and I’ll never be a victim again, and my life isn’t going to happen to me anymore, and I’m the master of my own fate from now on, fought back everything in him that wanted to solve this with a full relapse, sat Roy down, and talked to him. No defensiveness, no anger, full eye contact, the whole nine. Because Jason might have been much better at breaking things than he was at fixing them, but he couldn’t do that with Roy. Roy was the only thing he had that was worth keeping whole.

So, for the first time since he left the All-Caste, Jason told as much of the truth as he could find in his mind. For the first time in at least six years, he said ‘I love you’ out loud and meant it, too. For the first time in probably longer, he also said ‘you’re my friend’. Jason told Roy that the fear he had spoken like a second language while he was under the League’s control wasn’t easily forgotten and just because he unconsciously linked Roy to that feeling didn’t mean it was Roy’s fault. That he was grateful Roy followed through on his promise, that Roy was the only reason he hadn’t totally given up on this whole thing and gone right back to the addiction he was trying to escape. He put words to his fear that he was going to lose Roy for good, and those words had barely made it past his lips before Roy folded Jason into his arms for the first time in weeks and swore fiercely that he would never leave. Jason let himself cry for the first time in years. And as Roy squeezed all the air out of his body, Jason finally felt like he could breathe again.

It took time for the wounds to heal, but they did. They fell back into their rhythm. Every time Roy said Jaybird or sweetheart, he broke the words in a little more, until eventually, they fit into the cracks in Jason’s heart the same exact way they used to. Jason started meditating again with a clear head and an open soul, and soon after, the All-Blades returned to him. He did a few patrols in nearby cities as Red, just to knock the rust off, but held himself back from killing for the time being. Jason had given up a year of progress after he left the All-Caste. He wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice.

Life was pleasantly domestic for the most part. Jason would cook for the two of them while Roy was at the shop, and then Roy would animatedly recount the stories of whatever strange request or odd character he’d encountered that day over dinner. Sometimes, they’d watch a movie or play a card game and Jason would sit close enough to Roy to feel his body heat, never quite touching, the memories of old hurts still keeping a few inches of tension and space between them. After a lot of second-guessing, Jason eventually let his guard down and started sharing a bed with Roy again and finally, blessedly, remembered what it felt like to be warm.

Things were constantly getting better, but it wasn’t until August 16th that Jason was convinced they’d really be okay.

Usually, the nightmares were what brought Jason out of his slumber. Sometimes, it was Roy shaking him out of his nightmares instead. On rare occasions, he woke up because that’s just what bodies do after they’ve had enough rest, and every once in a great while, Jason’s body actually worked like a normal person’s would.

However, he could safely say that he’d never before been woken up by Roy Harper relentlessly poking him in the nose, leaning over him with one knee on the bed and a plate of food in his hand, trademark goofy smile plastered across his face.

Jason was so stunned that he plastered himself to the mattress beneath him, fists clenched and muscles tensed in an instinctual defensive reaction. A now-familiar flash of heartbreak and guilt flickered in Roy’s eyes as he set the plate down on the nightstand and held both his hands out to show Jason he wasn’t armed.

“Just me, Jaybird. I won’t hurt you.” Again, the silence added.

“You s'prised me,” Jason explained as quickly as he could with sleep still making his tongue thick and his brain foggy. "That’s it. Y'aren’t in m' nightmares anymore, told ya that already.” Roy nodded, looking very unconvinced as his green eyes searched Jason’s face like they now tended to do ever since they made up. “Do you not remember a very long conversation in which I embarrassed myself half to death for the sake of not losing my friend who I love and I promised as much honesty as I could physically stomach from now on?”

Roy nodded again, most of the light returning to his eyes as he glanced down at the plate and then back to Jason. Jason’s eyes followed his and he had to blink a few times to try and make sense of the images. He must still be half-asleep because that was definitely Roy and this was definitely their semi-permanent house, but the food on the nightstand and the mouthwatering smell that came with it must’ve been a dream. His reality getting crossed with old fossils of memories from his time in the Manor, right? Because those couldn’t actually be… 

“Chili dogs!” Roy nearly shouted, flashing white teeth in a blinding grin. “It’s your birthday, Jaybird! I made your favorite food and I didn’t burn our house down and it’s your fuckin’ birthday! Even you can’t be a big ol’ grouch about that!”

Watch me, Jason instinctively wanted to snap back, but he was still too confused to manage it. Instead, he just blinked at Roy because really, that didn’t clear anything up. “How’d you know?” He asked slowly.

“How’d I know it was your birthday or how’d I know chili dogs are your favorite?”

“Either. Both. Yes.”

Roy gave him a devious smile. “Birthday was easy enough. I knew you wouldn’t tell me what it was if I asked, so I googled you. Jason Todd-Wayne was a minor celebrity before he mysteriously disappeared years ago, after all. You’ve got a Wikipedia page and everything. As for the chili dogs, do you remember the first time I hauled your undead ass back to one of my safehouses?”

Jason frowned. “Uhh… no. I remember waking up there, I don’t remember how I got there.”

“Makes sense, you were about two inches away from dying the whole time. I kept you conscious by asking you questions, one of which was your favorite food, you said chili dogs. So really, all of this is your fault, Jay. That’s what you get for being honest with me.”

“Ugh,” Jason groaned dramatically. “This can’t be happening. Just smack me or something, I’m obviously having a nightmare.”

“No way you’re honestly telling me there’s no part of you that wants to celebrate your birthday.”

“I’m dead,” Jason replied flatly. “Kind of defeats the purpose of a birthday.”

“You aren’t dead.  If you were, you wouldn’t be able to pull the classic Jason Todd bullshit you’re currently pulling.”

“And what Jason Todd bullshit would that be?” 

Roy took on a mockingly low, growly voice. “I’m Jason Todd, I’m so mean and nasty and unloveable. I can’t admit that this nice thing you did makes me happy, so I’m going to pretend to be grumpy about it for the next ten minutes until I inevitably cave and admit my undying love for you and your immaculate cooking, Roy.”

Jason cocked an eyebrow and obscured his amusement at Roy’s surprisingly accurate impression of him. “Wow, so we went from surprise, I didn’t burn the house down to just call me Chef Harper in about five minutes flat, huh? Gotta say, Roy, I’ve been unlucky enough to know a lot of cocky bastards in my day, but I’ve never seen anyone believe in themself as much as you do with as little evidence as you have.” 

Jason didn’t mean it. What he meant was God, I’m so fucking grateful we can talk like this again without feeling like we’re reading from a script written by our former, happier selves. He didn’t have to say that, though. Roy already knew.

Eyes still the brightest and most alive they’d been in far too long, Roy leaned over Jason to grab the plate and place it on the bed between them. He sat cross-legged in front of Jason and pushed the food closer, an expectant, eager look on his face. “You aren’t dead anymore and I want to celebrate that, so shut the hell up and eat your delicious chili dogs.”

Jason’s eyes flicked between the surprisingly appetizing food and his best friend’s unbearably hopeful face for a few long seconds, reluctantly admitted to himself that being forced to celebrate his not-birthday was still a country mile better than disappointing Roy now that things were finally bordering on normal again, and gave in. The triumphant look Roy gave him as he picked up one of the chili dogs made it more than worth it and sent a deep, sorely missed wave of calm into Jason’s chest.

“Excellent friend Roy, one,” Roy teased as he grabbed a chili dog for himself. “Fake grumpy Jason, zilch.”

“Dunno where you got all this audacity from, Harper,” Jason muttered, taking a small, tentative bite of the food, “but you need to… woah, holy shit.” The words came out in a shamelessly satisfied moan before Jason could stop them, and maybe he should’ve been embarrassed by it, but ever since he’d bore his fucking soul in that conversation, he hadn’t really been feeling embarrassed around Roy at all anymore. All Jason felt was a comforting buzz of nostalgia under his skin and the gentle fire of his fondness for Roy keeping him warm. Roy couldn’t cook for shit, how was this food so fucking good? How did it taste like fucking happiness smothered in chili?

“You can say it, sweetie. I’m God’s gift to cooking. Don’t worry, I won’t let it get to my head.”

“That’s about 37 steps too far,” Jason argued, not bothering to hide his smile as he wolfed down the rest of his chili dog, savoring his favorite food for the first time in six long years and licking his fingers clean before picking up another one and continuing. “Though I will acknowledge that these are shockingly edible.”

“I know I can’t beat Alfred’s cooking, but I will settle for an honest and much-deserved admission that I’m second best with a massive lead over all other chili dogs.”

Even the twinge of grief and loss that came with the mention of his late grandfather’s name was a weak protest to the peace and happiness Jason was cocooned in. He didn’t bother putting up a fight. “Yes, Ginger, you’re second best. Suppose we’re both used to holding that title with a disproportionate amount of pride. But seriously, you can’t even make ice, how’d you manage this?”

“I practiced,” Roy admitted sheepishly. “A lot.”

There was an ugly moment where the green surfaced in a bitter hiss and said why would you bother? Why would you waste your time on me?  “How come?” Jason managed, since that wouldn’t make Roy’s face crumple quite as much as the self-loathing Pit questions would.

Roy cocked his head to the side, chili smeared around his lips and chin, looking genuinely confused. “Uh, because I love you? Because these past few months have been the drizzling fucking shits and we finally have a chance to let that all go and be happy for a day, and I didn’t want to let that go to waste?” Roy poked Jason in the nose again, leaving a small dot of red sauce there. “Maybe because I think it’s adorable when you pretend to be mad at me for doing something nice for you when we both know it’s exactly what you need?”

Jason stuck out his bottom lip and pouted playfully at Roy. “Jeez, take pity on me and stop calling me out, Ginger. It’s my birthday.”

“Damn right it is! Speaking of, I’m not actually sure how old you are now. Like, are you technically legal yet?”

Jason snickered into his third chili dog. “Sure, I’m legal. Legal...ly dead. In the eyes of the law, I’m cursed to stay fifteen, the world’s shittiest age, forever. I don’t think there’s a universally agreed-upon set of legal implications for dying and coming back to life. I don’t even know if August 16th really counts as my birthday anymore.”

Roy’s grin didn’t falter an inch. “Get outta here with your technicalities. You don’t even know what day your re-birthday is, do you?”

“Mm. S’pose I don’t. Don’t really know how long I was dead for, either. Most of what I remember is that it was cold and rainy when I dug out, but the cold could’ve been because I was dead in a box in the ground and it rains nine months out of the year in Gotham, so that doesn’t narrow it down by much.”

“So it sounds like today’s as good a day as any to celebrate.”

“Why do we even need a day to celebrate?” Jason groaned, not bothering to hide the petulant note in his voice as a little bit of the happiness curdled like spoiled milk in his gut. “So some time has passed and I’m yet to die for a second time. Another year, another couple hundred people I’ve massacred. They’re bad guys now, though, so that makes it okay. I’m a god-awful person Roy, why would we celebrate me?”

The mischief in Roy’s expression faded into something sober and honest. “First, you are more than just the people you’ve killed and the things you did for years when you didn’t have any other choice.”

“Even if I didn’t want to, I still did them,” Jason interjected, trying not to sound as haunted and distant as he felt thinking about who he used to be, who he’d just recently gained a little bit of separation from, who he could easily become again. “And I did have a choice. I could’ve followed orders for once in my life and not chased Joker into Arkham Asylum, and then the massive chain of bullshit events that led to me becoming a living weapon wouldn’t have been triggered and the people the League sent me after would still be alive. Killing machines don’t get birthdays.”

Roy’s lips twisted into a concerned frown. “You said you were going to work on the self-loathing thing.”

“Putting an end to a bad habit that’s been reinforced for years is incredibly difficult,” Jason parroted in an obnoxiously bad imitation of Roy’s slightly higher voice. “It’s a work in progress, Ginger.”

“That brings me to my second point. You’ve been working really hard to get away from who you used to be. You’ve busted your ass trying to replace your self-destructive tendencies with healthy coping mechanisms and your thirst for violence with respect for human life. It’s been really, really hard on both of us, it’s actually going pretty well these days, and we’ve earned our right to celebrate. You’re not a killing machine, you’re my best friend, and you deserve chili dogs and people who give a shit about you. So, I repeat, shut the hell up and eat them.”

“Que te den,” Jason muttered, not a single shred of actual spite in his tone. "That means fuck off, by the way, since you're out of practice now." 

“I love you too.” When Roy seemed convinced Jason wasn’t going to argue anymore, his frown quickly quirked back up into a teasing smile. “So, you’re eternally fifteen. But this is like, what, the sixth anniversary of your fifteenth birthday? I feel like we should just say you’re twenty-one and call it a day. My Jaybird. So young, so full of life.” Jason let out a genuine snort.

“Oh yeah, that’s me. Can’t generate body heat, dead in a box for at least a year, could probably find a copy of my own coroner’s report. Nobody’s more full of life than I am.”

“Still. Twenty-one. You’re just a baby, you have your whole undead life ahead of you.”

Jason rolled his eyes, but the sour taste in the back of his mouth had faded into the background again and the simple pleasure of not being in pain and knowing Roy wasn’t going to leave was all that remained, and that brought a smile to his face that no amount of exasperation could eradicate. 

“Whereas Old Man Harper’s got one foot in the grave. You’re six years older than me and you talk like you’re my grandfather.” Jason took on a mockingly old, shaky voice. “Why, when I was your age, Jason, it was still cool to use the same color scheme as McDonald’s for your superhero costume and play sidekick to a guy with a gimmick even more ridiculous than Batman’s and the worst goatee of all time. Every day, I walked five miles with no shoes in the snow to archery practice, uphill both ways, and everyone saw in black and white.”

“You had the same color scheme as a traffic light,” Roy groused halfheartedly. “And your boss dressed up as a bat, so I’m really not sure why you think you have any room to talk.”

“Don’t pretend Speedy’s uniform wasn’t worse than Robin’s. You wore a yellow hat with a feather in it. You and Ollie weren’t even trying to pretend you weren’t ripping off Robinhood. And then you came out East and you finally had the chance to design your own hero outfit and what did you do? Chose a hat that was even worse! Just picked up the first, worst trucker hat you could find, probably grabbed it off the top of a fuckin' dumpster, and made it an immutable part of Arsenal's uniform for the next year." 

”Hey, no fair! I got rid of that hat!"

"I got rid of that hat, you were just smart enough not to fight me on it. Even that little girl in Qiemo knew your hat was atrocious, that's the real reason she gave you those feathers to put in your hair instead."

"The feathers are dope, you like them, too."

Jason felt a bit of heat creep into his cheeks and did his best not to think too hard on it. "Yeah, it's a good look on you, Ginger, but I'd've taken anything over that godforsaken hat. You don't have half a leg to stand on talking shit about other people's fashion choices." 

“God damn, you turned out mean, Jaybird,” Roy jabbed, pushing him lightly on the shoulder. “Dick was a lot nicer, guess he didn’t rub off on you one bit, did he?”

There was a split second where Jason felt like he’d been pushed into a freezer, where the room got too dark for the middle of the day and dread crawled down his spine, and then there was a different voice; disdainful, angry.

“Who is that and why is he wearing my suit?” Jason blinked in confusion because that wasn’t Roy and Roy was supposed to be the only one here. It took a minute for him to place it. After all, it’d been years, and the voice was so much harsher and colder than it was supposed to be. “You’ll never be Robin. You’re just some kid.” That was closer, louder, and Jason couldn’t help but flinch.

“Dick?” He breathed, shaken to his core. This was wrong. Dick had been mad at first but they’d both been kids back then, Jason was angry and defensive and Dick felt betrayed but it was no one’s fault. They’d gotten over it. It was just one bad day. They were brothers before the end. They were brothers, weren’t they? 

“Robins are supposed to fly, little wing,” and that wasn’t from any memory Jason could recall, it was fresh and sharp like it was happening right in front of him. “But all you ever did was break.”

Someone was touching him, but all Jason could think of was how Dick used to pull him in for a hug every chance he got. It flashed through his mind, how he’d snuck out of the Manor after an awful fight with Bruce had him convinced he’d be kicked out, running all the way to Dick’s apartment, and all but tackling the older man the moment he got there. Eating ice cream for dinner, trading stories of their worst patrols with Batman, commiserating over all the things he wouldn’t let them do. The memories were warm until they weren’t anymore because Jason wasn’t the kid Dick loved, he wasn’t Robin, he was Red, he was a murderer, and Dick wouldn’t even recognize him and— 

“He’d hate me,” Jason whispered, unsure who he was talking to.

“Jaybird, you’re slipping. I need you to open your eyes and come back to me, alright?”

“He’d hate me,” Jason repeated, hearing the desperate urgency in his own voice. 

“Look at me.” That voice felt more right than Dick’s did, the authority in it more natural and less threatening, so much kinder and softer than orders were supposed to be. And Jason still knew obedience even when he didn’t know anything else, so he obeyed. Bright lights, red hair, freckles, worry, and Jason took a few gasping breaths, trying to make sense of it. “Who are you talking about, Jay?”

“Dick,” Jason choked out.

Roy’s face twisted into something mournful. “Dick? You’ve never cared about what he thought of you before,” Roy said softly, like he already understood the reasons.

Jason held back both the part of him that wanted to snap I don’t, since it was a lie, and the part of him that wanted to blurt out the whole, unfiltered truth, I can’t stand the idea that every single person I used to consider my family would rather go on believing I’m dead than take me for what I am now.

“I didn’t know Dick all that well, but he didn’t hate easily,” Roy added when Jason didn’t offer a reply. “And you’re his baby brother.”

“If Red was in Gotham instead of Asia, Dick would lock him in Arkham without a second thought no matter who was underneath the helmet. And I hate that I care, but I guess I still do. Like, I fucking idolized him. I thought Nightwing hung the moon. Sometimes I was petty and I hated him because he was so much better than me, but that was never it, not really. I loved him. And now, he’d hate me.”

“I’m sorry for bringing it up,” Roy whispered, the same unbearable guilt in his eyes that had been ever-present since the first time he put cuffs around Jason’s wrists. “I didn’t know it still bothered you.”

Jason wanted to say something to comfort Roy, to tell him it wasn’t his fault and that he didn’t want to go back to this vicious cycle of self-blame they’d been in for so long, but his tongue had already chosen other words. “I hate Bruce, but Dick…” Jason swallowed hard to stop his voice from breaking. “Dick was only ever good to me. So I can’t get angry. It’s just guilt. Bruce fucked up and he hurt me, but after four years of calling Dick my brother, I’m the one that let him down.”

Roy reached out and took Jason’s hand. “He’d be an idiot if he let the things you’ve been through and the things you’ve done destroy his opinion of you. If he can’t love you without changing who you are, he’s not worth it.” Jason scoffed.

“You’re dreaming, Harper. I’m a fucking mess. Who would look at me and see nothing they want to change?”

“Me,” Roy said, giving Jason’s hand a gentle squeeze, voice fonder and softer than Jason could possibly deserve. “I would. I do.”

“You don’t have to lie to me just because it’s my not-birthday.”

“I don’t lie to you, Jaybird. I love you and I don’t want to change you. I’m helping you change what you do as Red because I know it’ll make you happier and I hate seeing you in pain, but even if you relapsed and starting killing the way you used to, it wouldn’t stop me from loving you. If Bruce and Dick can’t accept you the way you are, then fuck them. Now, let’s get you out of bed. I made cake.”

“No fucking way,” Jason argued, even as Roy’s words warmed what was still cold in him. “The chili dogs are one thing, but there’s no way you made a cake and the whole house is still standing.”

Roy pressed his lips together, but his eyes still danced with mischief. “Okay, so I may have bought the cake.”

“I don’t lie to you, Jaybird,” Jason mocked.

“It’s only half a lie! I made the frosting, it only took me three tries to get it right, and I made it boozy since it’s your 21st. It’s like, 50% Irish cream.”

“Age of majority in China is 18, dumbass. Plus, carding people for booze has been a pretty low priority since the fucking apocalypse, and as you know, I started drinking well before the law said it was okay.”

“Yeah, well, you grew up in America where it’s tradition to make an unnecessarily huge deal out of turning 21 and get utterly trashed to celebrate, so that’s what we’re going to do anyway. Besides, it’s chocolate cherry cake, it’s fucking delicious, and it’ll get you drunk, so stop whining.” 

“Chocolate cherry cake?” Jason repeated, mouth watering.

Roy’s whole face lit up. “Oh hell yeah! I win!”

Roy dragged Jason out of bed by the hand and Jason went without a fight, reluctantly pleased by the idea. “Fine, whatever, but no singing.”

“But Jaybird,” Roy whined.

“No singing, Roy.”

“Ugh, you’re no fun.”

Roy did end up singing ‘Happy Birthday’ anyway, and Jason found that he didn’t really mind. Things felt blessedly ordinary again, almost identical to how they’d been before whatever it takes had split the healthiest relationship Jason had ever had in two. They were okay. And really, that was the only birthday gift Jason needed.

After the fight, things between Bruce and Slade got better. 

Usually, Bruce was hesitant to categorize anything as ‘good’ lest it be thrown back in his face later on, but it was just a fact. They weren’t at each other’s throats anymore. In fact, with their complementary skills and devotion to their goal, they made a pretty damn good team. And even though they’d spent over a decade as sworn enemies, Bruce still caught himself thinking on certain occasions that he was glad to have Slade here, was grateful for his single-mindedness and brutal honesty. It blocked out distractions that could interfere with the mission. Stopped him from getting too emotional. Kept his feet firmly planted on the ground.

It was good timing, too, because shortly after their fight, the Red Hood lead went dead in the water. Two whole months passed with only one crime scene that even vaguely resembled Hood’s work. Even that one had a far more refined style than they were used to from their mysterious vigilante; the execution was essentially flawless and eight out of the ten criminals had been left alive at the scene for the authorities to pick up. They were scared out of their wits, sure, and none of them were unharmed, but that was still evidence of a level of self-control Hood had never exhibited in the past. 

Bruce would’ve written the whole thing off as an unrelated incident if the men left alive hadn’t provided a description that fit right in with all the common threads of the Red Hood stories. Robotic voice, covered his face, dual swords, compassion for innocent lives, a red bat on his chest. Several of them swore up and down that the swords vanished into thin air once the fight was over, though, so they might not have been the most credible sources.

It was incredibly frustrating. Like Red Hood himself had disappeared without a trace just like his supposed magic swords did. His trail was invisible. 

In those two months, a handful of flimsy leads took the Red Hood’s place. An especially aggressive bouncer at a club, a police officer with an obsessive fixation on stopping and punishing sex criminals, a frighteningly efficient hitman, a few patients in mental institutions with histories of escape attempts and violence. True to his word, Bruce had given them equal attention, but they always went cold in a matter of days. Red Hood had been hot for three months before they lost track of him. They’d never had anything even close to that promising since. That made it impossible for Bruce to fully let eastern Asia’s guardian angel go.

Maybe Red Hood had finally gotten so skilled at disappearing that even his killing sprees flew under the radar. Maybe, despite all the evidence that he enjoyed the violence and even seemed like he couldn’t stop, Red Hood had given up killing for good and gone to therapy instead or something. There was always the possibility he’d died, given his incredibly high-risk lifestyle and clear disregard for his own wellbeing, but something in Bruce’s bones told him that wasn’t the case.

Both Bruce and Slade seriously considered scrapping the Red Hood theory altogether, but every time the thought crossed Bruce’s mind, he heard Jason’s young, raspy, broken voice in the back of his mind. 

I never gave up on you while Joker had me. You can’t give up on me either.  

So, he didn’t. Because he couldn’t. And Slade seemed to understand that. They kept searching for Red Hood’s invisible trail with very little hope they’d find anything, Bruce obstinately refusing to let himself fall as low as he had before Slade had first told him that his son was alive.

And then, five months after Bruce first heard of the Crimson Nightmare, August 16th came around.

“You’re looking more sullen than usual.” Bruce just barely glanced up as Slade walked into the motel room before his eyes slipped back to the floor. “Not that I don’t love when you get into moods like this or anything, but what’s your problem?”

Bruce considered a lie for half a second, remembered who he was talking to, and decided not to bother. “It’s Jason’s birthday. He’d be 22 if he hadn’t been dead for a year or so in the middle.” 

“Okay… so?" Slade asked, a frown in his voice. "You’ve got no reason to sulk about it. He isn’t dead, we’re literally in the process of finding him, you can throw him a belated birthday party afterward if it means that much to you.” 

“That’s not it. I just… I’ve missed so much time. Thinking he was dead, mourning his loss, and that whole time he was alive. Alive and hurting, and I could’ve helped him, but I was off fighting other people’s battles, totally oblivious to it.”

Slade sat down in front of him with a heavy sigh and shoved a plate of food into his hands. Bruce gave him a brief questioning glance, and he could tell the look in Slade’s eye was supposed to be annoyance, but it fell just a bit short of steely indifference, and Bruce didn’t fully buy it. “So, you’re sad. What else is new? You still need to eat.”

Bruce gave a small, reluctant nod and started shoveling the food into his mouth and forcing it down his throat. He couldn’t really taste it. That was a feeling he remembered far too well from the months following Jason’s death. He could still recall having his arm broken by Bane and not even being able to feel the pain. 

This was the worst that things had been since Victor and Mera’s deaths. He’d had a small, persistent flame of hope in his chest since they first departed for Tibet, but it was hard to find that flame now amongst the waves of loss and regret. They would find Jason. Bruce knew they would. But that didn’t change the fact that he’d missed over five years of Jason’s life, which was more time than he’d had with Jason as his son in the first place. It didn’t change the fact that Jason was still out there alone. And it didn’t change that they weren’t gaining much ground when it came to finding him.

“You know I’m a contract killer and not your therapist, right?” Slade asked after the silence stretched out so long that Bruce could feel it like a physical weight on his chest.

“You’re the one who asked. I’m fine not talking about it.”

Slade let out another sigh, unnecessarily loud and dramatic in Bruce’s opinion. “No, you’re not. You’re going to be unbearably fucking moody all day if you bottle your shit up. Listen, we’ve been spinning our wheels for a while now. Our leads are dry as shit, we’ve gotten all we can out of the locals in this town, and clearly Red Hood is not interested in giving us any new information. I think the best thing for us to do right now is to consolidate what we do know and try and get in front of him instead of just chasing his tail all over God’s creation. That way, if he does surface again, we might actually catch him before he’s in the fucking wind for the millionth time.” Slade paused and his voice softened almost indistinguishably. “While we do that, why don’t you tell me about your kid? We’ve been risking our necks and dedicating months of our lives to tracking him down, and I can probably count the things I know about him on one hand.” There was a bloated pause where Bruce tried and failed to reconcile this bid for connection and comfort with everything he knew about Slade. Eventually, the mercenary rolled his eyes, gave Bruce a glare that said do I have to do everything myself? and prompted, “How did you guys meet?”

If asked, Bruce knew Slade would say he was only doing this because he didn’t break contracts, because if Bruce broke and gave up it would be Slade’s reputation that took the hit, but he knew that wasn’t the full truth. As much as Slade would never admit it, he wasn’t just a businessman anymore. They weren’t just there on business.

A weak wave of fondness rolled through Bruce as he cast his mind back to that day. “Eleven years ago, I parked the Batmobile in Crime Alley…”

Most of the day passed that way, the two of them doing mundane grunt work while Bruce shared his memories of the time he’d had with Jason. With each story, he felt the weight on his shoulders lessen just a little bit. 

He started with Jason’s childhood at the Manor. That was easiest and came with the least guilt and grief. He told Slade about how Jason used to help Alfred cook dinner, both because Alfred was secretly his favorite person in the Manor and because he was uncomfortable being waited on after living on the streets for years. How he always used to beat Bruce and Dick at cards no matter what the game was. How he’d had this constant and overwhelming anxiety about being thrown out of the Manor and back onto the streets once he made Bruce angry enough. What a relief it had been once Bruce had finally convinced Jason that he wanted him around, that even when they fought, it never meant that Bruce loved him any less.

Eventually, he started talking about Jason’s time as Robin, too. That hurt a little since it brought with it the knowledge that Jason wouldn’t have died if Bruce hadn’t put him in harm’s way, but the memories themselves were still warm and fond. Jason had adored being Robin. He must’ve told Bruce a hundred times that it was the best thing that ever happened to him, and even if Jason (almost certainly) didn’t feel that way anymore, it was still an important part of his life that deserved to be remembered.

The good had come hand-in-hand with the bad the whole time Jason had been Robin, so Bruce talked about them both. Jason had been bright and sharp; smarter than anyone ever gave him credit for. He’d picked up new languages effortlessly and came into the Manor already speaking—and swearing—fluently in English and Spanish, and he had excelled in school despite having dropped out for two years while he was homeless. That same underestimated intelligence had given Jason a chronic inferiority complex and a desperate, insatiable need to please Bruce and prove he was just as good as Dick. 

And sure, Jason had been a very different Robin than Dick was, but he was just as good. The problem was, Jason didn’t believe that for himself, a fact that wasn’t at all helped by Bruce’s total lack of emotional competence and inability to say things like I’m proud of you and you’re good at this and you don’t have to be perfect, I don’t need you to be perfect, I don’t want you to be perfect. He talked about all the things he never said when Jason needed to hear them, and how Jason probably spent his whole tenure as Robin thinking he wasn’t good enough as a result. 

He talked about Jason’s stubbornness in all aspects of life. How his relentless refusal to stay down had saved both their lives dozens of times, seeing as the Rogues were always frustrated by the never-say-die Robin and were often lured into making mistakes because of it. How that same quality caused Jason and Bruce to butt heads endlessly about the right way to do vigilante work, the hypocrisy of the no-kill rule, and whether or not Batman’s methods were actually improving the wellbeing of Gotham’s innocents. How often those fights resulted in Bruce benching Jason from patrol, the way Jason had flinched whenever Bruce said I can’t trust you to do the right thing tonight.

Fondness overcame his grief and guilt as he recalled the time Jason had retaliated by recruiting Dick to help him spray paint the whole Batmobile red and green and had even convinced Alfred to distract Bruce for them while they did it. Enjoy your solo patrol in the Robin-mobile, B!

It had taken all of Bruce’s willpower to pretend to be angry instead of bursting out laughing at the time, more impressed by Jason’s sheer, unapologetic audacity than he was upset about the damage. His Jason had been fierce and fearless, and even when it caused problems, Bruce loved that about him.

Jason’s fearlessness had allowed him to take down Scarecrow single-handedly at 13 years old after Bruce had been taken out of the fight by fear toxin. His fierceness had led him to nearly take Two-Face’s life after finding out Dent had been responsible for his father’s murder years ago, but his good heart and loyalty had overcome his need for revenge and held him back. 

That brought Bruce to Jason’s birth family. His mother’s overdose, his father’s physical and emotional abuse and subsequent disappearance, and how Jason had seen and experienced first-hand the worst Gotham had to offer in the years afterward. He kept that part vague. Even after all this time, all this distance put between Bruce and his son, he could still remember the way Jason had hated talking about that part of his life and knew he wouldn’t want it repeated for a former enemy’s ears. 

He talked about Jason’s deep and pervasive trust issues in the aftermath of all that trauma. How even years after Bruce adopted him, Jason had been so convinced that family could only ever hurt him, that he couldn’t rely on anyone but himself. How even after Jason had let them in and allowed himself to love and be loved in return, that anxiety clearly never fully went away.

Bruce even talked about the memory he’d been working hard to avoid ever since Jason’s death.

Jason had been fifteen at the time, and he’d had a nightmare. That in and of itself wasn’t uncommon; Jason had been plagued by bad dreams for as long as Bruce had known him. It was almost impossible to avoid for anyone with as much trauma as Jason had. What was unusual was that it was so intense that Bruce could hear him screaming through the walls. He rushed in and woke Jason up, expecting to earn a punch to the face or a shouting match for his efforts. Jason had always hated being vulnerable, especially around Bruce. In Jason’s eyes, vulnerability was weakness and weakness was danger.

But Jason didn’t fight him that night. He’d just collapsed and cried into Bruce’s chest. They’d stayed like that for a long time, Bruce holding Jason, rubbing soothing circles into his back and whispering soft assurances to him until he calmed down. And Bruce could still see like it was happening right in front of him, how Jason had separated himself from Bruce, looked up at him with red eyes and a tear-streaked face, and spoke the words that hadn’t left his mind since.

Thanks for being my real dad, B.

That was the first time Jason had ever called Bruce ‘dad’ and Bruce remembered how he’d sat there frozen on the bed with the weight of Jason’s trust, trying to find something to say and knowing nothing could possibly capture how much those words meant to him. Jason had stared for a long moment too, then wrapped his arms tight around Bruce and buried his face in his shirt again.

Um, would you, uh… would you stay, B? Just for tonight? You’re, um, you’re the only thing that makes me feel… safe.

And Bruce had given in easily, had stayed in Jason’s bed with his son pulled tightly into his chest to protect him from any more bad dreams, and it was probably the most at peace he’d seen Jason in the four years they’d been a part of each other’s lives. Jason had slept like a baby, but Bruce had stayed awake for the rest of the night just mulling those words over.

Thanks for being my real dad.

You’re the only thing that makes me feel safe.

And then, two months later, Jason had died in Bruce’s arms.

“You know you did the right thing, don’t you?” Slade muttered after Bruce finished that story and they’d been silent for a good ten minutes. He was bent over a notebook and the words came out in such a flippant, neutral tone that they flew right over Bruce’s head.

“Huh?” He asked distractedly. 

Slade picked his head up to stare Bruce dead in the eye. “You did the right thing taking that street rat off Crime Alley and giving him a family.”

“Jason wasn’t a street rat,” Bruce protested immediately, Slade’s words still not fully sinking in.

“Yeah, he was. You just told me he was.”

“That’s not the word I used.” Jason had hated that, hated any words that reduced him to the worst things that happened to him, hated that idea that no amount of distance or growth could scrub away the person he used to be. Bruce couldn’t help but be defensive about it now.

“Yeah, but a thing doesn’t really need to be said for it to be true, does it? Crime Alley kids are street rats. And street rats who don’t make it off of the Alley end up thugs, hookers, junkies, or worse. Jason could’ve ended up working for freaks like Dent and Crane, but instead, he got to kick the crap out of them. He was a homeless tire thief with no people and no hope, and you made him a hero. And sure, three weeks with the Joker is a fucked up way to go and two years with the League is a fucked up way to come back, but he would’ve died anyway if you hadn’t tried to give him something better, and he would’ve died as a nothing nobody on Crime Alley with no one to mourn him. He had a good life. A life you gave him. I know I’m not exactly the supreme authority on right and wrong, but I think you did the right thing.” 

Bruce just sat there in stunned silence for at least three full minutes, trying to convince himself those words had really just come out of Slade Wilson’s mouth and finding it harder and harder to believe every time he tried. 

“Uhh,” was all he could manage, even all that time later.

Slade seemed to realize by then that he’d let his tongue slip enough to say something almost kind to Bruce, because he was absorbed in his work again, glaring at the page he was scribbling on like it had offended him. “You’re letting your emotions cloud your logic,” he grunted. “It’s my job to stop you from doing that. You act like you threw your kid into the Joker’s arms or something, but all you really did was give a boy who’d been dealt a shit hand four years of happiness. You didn’t know Joker was gonna get him. Time to let it go.”

“His last words were ‘I’m sorry, I should’ve been a better Robin,’” Bruce said quietly, more to himself than Slade. “He was dying and his last thought was that he wasn’t good enough.” 

“So, you were a shitty dad sometimes,” Slade dismissed with a casual shrug. “I was a shitty dad all the time, and my kids are all fucked up in a way I can’t fix. At least you have a chance to do something about it now. You fuckin’ Bats and your savior complexes. Everything’s always on you. You’re out here saying it’s my fault a psychotic clown murdered you, Jason, and with his dying breath, your kid goes no, it’s my fault a psychotic clown murdered me. You’re both being emotional dipshits, and you’re both wrong. It’s Joker’s fault that Jason died, Joker’s dead now, and your kid is alive. That means you can still make it right. So get over yourself and don’t fuck it up now.”

Bruce nodded, the sharp edges of the words hardly even noticeable after how much time he’d spent getting used to Slade’s surly, abrasive demeanor. The message was there, and Bruce was grateful for the small kernel of hope it gave him. There was a lot to make up for, a lot of wrongs that needed to be righted, but at least he had a chance. A chance for him and Jason to let old wounds heal. A chance this would be the last birthday his son spent without a family.

He thought about thanking Slade, about saying he was a good man and Bruce was grateful to have him around, but he knew Slade would just deny it, then brush it off with a mean comment and a humorless laugh, so he didn’t bother. 

Besides, a thing doesn’t really need to be said for it to be true, does it?

Chapter Text

Red Hood was back. 

That, or a far saner man with the same style, description, and motive had taken his place. Where there once had been nothing but blood and carnage, there was now careful reconnaissance and meticulous planning. Hood (or whoever it was doing a frighteningly accurate impersonation of him) didn’t show up nearly as often, had a far lower body count when he did, and now seemed to prefer efficiency over horrifying brutality. 

Well, most of the time, anyway. The vicious streak still made itself known in his merciless slaughters of sex offenders, who Hood had shown a clear vendetta against since day one. Bruce tried not to think of what Jason had gone through on the streets, how rapists and human traffickers had always brought out Jason’s ruthless side when he was Robin, or Felipe Garzonas, the serial rapist Jason denied having killed when he was thirteen. Technically, that was all circumstantial and in no way proved a link between Hood and Jason. Plenty of people hated sex offenders. They were the worst of the worst, and Bruce could hardly say he was sad to see Hood refusing to take mercy on them.

Hood’s new apparent preference for tactically sound and well-thought-out missions over outright massacres wasn’t just lucky for his victims, it was lucky for Bruce and Slade as well. While he still covered a ridiculous amount of ground, acted quickly, and disappeared even quicker, there was a method to the madness now. They learned what kind of people would earn Hood’s wrath and which ones weren’t worth his time. A sane man could be understood. A sane man could be tracked down. 

Sometimes, they only missed him by a hair. The dead bodies they happened upon wouldn’t even be cold yet and the ones left alive were yet to regain consciousness. They’d find out about the hit before the city’s population did, but even then, Red Hood evaded them. The crime scenes were always scrubbed clean of useful evidence. They spent two months dangling over the precipice of a breakthrough, never quite able to cinch it.

And then, on a warm night in mid-October, all of that changed.

“Suit up,” Slade ordered as he burst into the room with enough force to slam the door against the wall behind it. “Now. I just found our breakthrough.”

Bruce just blinked at him for a moment from his place on the bed, caught off guard by the sudden urgency. They hadn’t had anything worth getting this worked up about in a long, long time. “What happened?”

Slade let out a frustrated huff and chucked Bruce’s utility belt at him, which Bruce just barely caught before it could smack him in the face. “Sorry, have you stopped caring about finding the unfindable man who we haven’t had a genuine lead on in the last seven godforsaken months? Suit the fuck up, Bruce. There’ll be time to explain on the way.”

Bruce thought about protesting, but he’d grown to understand the steely warning that was in Slade’s eye now, and he knew it wasn’t worth the effort or the delay it would cause. It had been a long time since Bruce had put on the Batsuit for any reason other than protection as they traversed isolated country roads between cities, and it brought a tumultuous mix of apprehension, adrenaline, and anticipation to a roiling boil in his blood. He just barely managed to keep himself composed long enough to make it out of the motel and into their transport, and then he couldn’t take it anymore.

“What the hell happened?” Slade didn’t react, just turned the key in the ignition, shifted into drive, and pulled out onto the dirt road. “Wilson!” 

A hint of a smirk tugged at Slade’s lips, and Bruce was reminded a little too vividly of years of feuding with Deathstroke and the pleasure he always took in being two steps ahead. There was less malice in the hard lines of his face now, but it still sent a vague twist of unease into Bruce’s gut. “No need to get your tights in a twist,” he muttered, amused. “Remember Hood’s accomplice/partner/whatever guy? The one who used to tag along and take care of the victims? I found him. He’s a lot worse at covering his tracks than Hood is, probably because nobody’s really looking for the mass murderer’s nonlethal running buddy.”

The blood surged brilliantly in Bruce’s veins, and it took most of his self-control to keep his expression pinned down. “Oh? And how’d you manage that? We know even less about him than Hood. All we have is red hair and bad Chinese and Hood’s a solo act these days according to witnesses, so we’re unlikely to get anything new.”

“You know how we wrote this town off as a bust since their Red Hood story is too vague and old as shit?” Bruce nodded slowly. “Yeah, well, it’s kinda weird that they have so few details and yet they keep on talking about it, so I started thinking maybe they were vague with us on purpose. Maybe this is one of those towns that think they have to protect Hood from us. So, I did some eavesdropping today and I came across a kid talking to his friends about how he was there the night Hood took down that crime family. Despite what we were told, apparently the partner was there, and the kid lifted a souvenir from the scene.” Slade reached into the center console and handed a red arrow covered in old bloodstains to Bruce.

Bruce just blinked at it for a moment. “Okay, so you stole an arrow from a child?” He asked flatly, carefully masking his disappointment.

Slade shot him a venomous glare. “Fuck you. I collected evidence. You’re welcome.”

“Looking past the fact that a child trying to impress his peers is one of the least reliable sources I can conceive, how does this help us?”

“Archery is not Hood’s style. Never has been, not even in his ‘pick up the first thing that can be used as a weapon and kill a bitch with it’ days. It takes training that he must not have. That means this has to be the partner.”

“So the other guy shoots arrows. Plenty of people do.”

Slade slapped a palm to his forehead and groaned. “Aren’t I supposed to be the unreasonably cynical one? What happened to the guy who annoyed the shit out of me for months on end by obsessing over anything that could be loosely construed as a lead? The first time we find something decent that could lead us somewhere and now you decide to be a realist about Red Hood?”

“I was annoyingly hopeful before Hood’s trail went cold for two months.” 

Slade rolled his eye. “Okay, well try to channel that guy for two seconds and think real hard about all the ginger archers you know of who are skilled enough for the Red Hood to want them on their side.”

It took way too long for the pieces to come together in Bruce’s mind, clouded as it was from months of chasing an invisible man’s invisible trail. “You think it’s Speedy?”

“I know it’s Speedy. Back when I took contracts in Star City, I tangled with Robinhood and his colorful sidekick a few times. I’ve seen their arrows up close, and that one is constructed the same way, almost down to the letter save for a few minor improvements. You cannot pick that shit up at a store or through a simple apprenticeship. I’ve been in weapons for a long time and I’ve never seen anyone but Oliver Queen and Roy Harper use arrows like that. Green Arrow’s not much of a team player and Super-Freak melted his draw arm off, plus he’s been sighted in Star City helping with clean-up, so there’s no way it’s him. That just leaves his kid.”

“I just assumed Roy was dead,” Bruce said quietly, remembering the haunted look on Oliver’s normally smug face when he came to Wayne Manor just months after Jason’s death to tell Bruce about his surrogate son’s addiction, how he’d overreacted and taken Speedy away from Roy, and now he couldn’t find him anywhere. Harper hadn’t been spotted since. “The end of the world hasn’t been kind to people who were already struggling.” Slade’s head perked up a bit at that, his eye sharpening almost imperceptibly. 

“What was his poison again?” He asked, voice just a shade too perfectly casual to be genuine. It gave Bruce a slight foreboding feeling, but that was probably just the nerves. He and Slade trusted each other. There was no reason to keep anything from him.

“Heroin. If I had to guess, probably liquor, too. Ollie said he fell off the wagon pretty hard after being fired as Speedy.”

Slade let out a low whistle. “Seems like he fell all the way to Asia and into the Red Hood’s lap. Harper is a stray, and strays who don’t end up gutter trash or jailbirds usually end up adopting other strays. Speedy wasn’t a bad kid, just made some bad choices, maybe he came out the other side lookin’ for someone to save. And nobody ends up like Hood without a truckload of trauma to back it up. The motive fits.” 

Bruce nodded, features still drawn up into a frown. After months of endless frustration and dead ends, the idea that a lead could just appear out of the blue like this felt distinctly too good to be true. And Bruce could hardly fault Slade for looking for evidence in places it wasn’t.

“This seems… convenient. Too convenient. And the last I heard of Roy, he was way too far gone to be fighting crime in any capacity, let alone in an organized team where he seems to be the more put-together one. You’re sure?”

“I would recognize that arrow anywhere. Tried to copy the design for myself in case it might come in handy, but it was too complex to reverse engineer, even for me. There’s hardly a person alive who could duplicate it without being taught. Trusting my instincts is what’s kept me in the merc game this long. I’m telling you, it’s gotta be Speedy.”

“And how did you track him down?”

“How many pasty white boys with long red hair do you think live in this neck of the woods?”

“In all of Eastern Asia? 4.5 million square miles? I’m willing to bet there’s more than one. Green Arrow was fairly well-versed in espionage and undercover work, and he taught Speedy everything. The kid knows how to disappear, just like Jason does. If he’s actively working with one of the most dangerous men in this part of the continent, he’s probably keeping a low profile.”

“I haven’t fully pinned him down, but I have a handful of strong leads. Since he’s taking less of an active role in the nitty-gritty these days, he’s gotta be doing something else with his time, right? And you and I both know it’s tough to get out of the life, so he’s likely doing something that at the very least keeps his skills sharp. I looked into occupations that fit and narrowed it down considerably from there. We need to act now before he figures out we’re onto him. Like you said, kid knows how to disappear. This is the closest we’ve ever been. We have to get this right.”

“We will,” Bruce said, voice solid and sure, the most confident he’d been in a long, long time. This was the last piece they needed. The key to finding Red Hood. And after everything they’d slogged through to get here, they weren’t about to let it slip through their fingers. “I know we will.”

“Before we get there, I want to make it abundantly clear that we won’t be doing this the Deathstroke way,” Bruce said when they were about 10 miles out from the third lead.

They’d driven through the night to chase the first one just to find the blacksmith shop abandoned months ago. Then, they’d spent two hours investigating the second one, a PI who couldn’t look less like a vigilante if he tried. Despite the annoyance and frustration, Bruce had a good feeling about this one. A mechanic in a small town in eastern China. The right profession, the right level of anonymity, and a logical location central to many of the places Red Hood had been sighted.

He knew the way Slade handled delicate situations like this. If Bruce let him go in without a leash, he’d annihilate the first real chance they’d ever had at tracking Hood down. “Wilson, tell me you understand.” 

Slade let out an amused snort. “Get off your high horse, Wayne. The Deathstroke way is just the Batman way with a little more mustard. And don’t act like you wouldn’t enjoy scaring the shit out of this kid.”

“I wouldn’t.” And sure, the main reason for that was because Bruce was still very attached to the ‘Red Hood is Jason’ theory and didn’t want to hurt someone his son cared for, or at the very least had allied himself with, but Roy was also innocent. Maybe not in the eyes of the law, but as far as Bruce was concerned, he was. Trying to heal the world Bruce had a hand in destroying wasn’t a crime Roy deserved to be punished for. “We are not going to hurt him. We are not here to scare him. And we are definitely not torturing him, so get that idea out of your head now.”

“That idea wasn’t in my head.” Bruce actually turned in his seat so he could express his doubt for the truth of that statement with his whole body. “Okay, yeah, fine, it was. He’s a regular human archer with no powers and he’d snap like a twig. But I wasn’t planning on like, fucking him up. Just putting the screws to him a bit. I don’t enjoy torturing, but it’s practical and it has its place. Sometimes, it’s just the smartest, quickest means to an end.”

“It is not an option,” Bruce repeated firmly. "Even if I could look past how incredibly unethical it is to use torture for the sake of convenience, I sincerely doubt it would work on Speedy, anyways. He was Green Arrow’s partner, which means he went up against supervillains like Vertigo and Merlyn for the better part of ten years. Heroin withdrawal isn't exactly a walk in the park, either. His pain tolerance is probably through the roof. We are not going that route, tell me you understand.”

Slade rolled his eye. “I could break him.”

“We won’t be finding out today. Harper has been risking his life for Hood for at least a year now. Anyone who inspires that kind of loyalty likely returns it. If we hurt Roy, there won’t be any more give up and I’ll let you live. Hood will be livid. And if this is Jason, I don’t want a fight.” Honesty was a dangerous game, but Bruce had to admit at least one truth to himself. If it came down to that, and if their mystery vigilante did turn out to be Jason, he’d accept death by the Red Hood’s blade long before he ever hurt his son again. “I just want to talk to him. So we aren’t going to antagonize Hood unnecessarily by hurting or upsetting his ally. Okay?”

Slade gave a long-suffering sigh as he pulled the JLTV off to the side of the road.  “Sure, fine, whatever. Why would we do something the easy, convenient way after seven fucking months of horseshit? Let’s go interrogate Speedy in the most boring, ineffectual way possible: through polite conversation.”

Deathstroke fastened his helmet over his head and Bruce pulled on the cowl, then they traveled the rest of the way on foot. They moved swiftly and soundlessly, virtually undetectable even without the cover of night. It felt strange doing things as Batman again, but it was a familiar kind of not-quite-right and it came back to him as easy as breathing. 

They paused a safe distance away to assess the lay of the land before going in, watching from between the slats of a worn wooden fence as the owner of the shop emerged from underneath a car, pushed himself to his feet, and wiped the grease off his pale face with a rag. His hair, red like fire, was pulled back in a messy bun, a bandana tied around his forehead, and his bare arms were smudged with dirt. He was bigger and more muscular than Bruce remembered Speedy being, but they’d never actually met face to face and the photos Bruce recalled had to have been almost ten years old by now. 

He was in good shape, and even in such a mundane setting, he looked like a fighter. Like you’d expect a man who spent his free time backing up a vigilante who killed dozens of people in the span of a few hours to look. It was proof enough.

The man turned his back on the fence to reach for his phone, and that was when Bruce motioned Slade forward and they approached the shop. The mechanic didn’t look up from his typing until they were close enough for him to hear their boots scraping against the dirt road.

Bruce watched his expression carefully as he turned around and took them in. He seemed only mildly alarmed by two massive men in full combat gear approaching his meager shop, and within a few moments he subtly schooled the reaction back into something wary and confused. Interesting.

There wasn’t much left behind of the young man who’d lost his dream job and his surrogate father in one cruel twist of fate remaining in the redhead’s face. Faint lines were etched into his skin now and there was a depth in his eyes like he’d seen too much, but he also looked happier. Far more at peace than any film or photo Bruce had ever seen of Speedy.

Bruce and Slade joined him in the garage and the man tensed almost imperceptibly, taking a single step towards the workbench beside him, only about ten feet between them.

“Uh, hi?” He said in a voice slightly lower than Bruce had been expecting. “Welcome to Outlaw Auto and Repair Shop, I guess? Can I help you?” When neither of them immediately responded, he frowned and repeated himself in stiff Chinese. It wasn’t as broken as witness accounts suggested, but that was also old information.

“English is fine, Mr. Harper,” Bruce said, pitching his voice deep and gravelly like he used to as Batman but keeping the harsh, demanding note out of it. Roy Harper wouldn’t be intimidated easily like a small-time Gotham crook.

The man just crossed his arms and raised an unimpressed eyebrow in response to the name. “Harper. Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

“It’s your name,” Slade cut in, clearly not bothering to take the same caution Bruce had and keep the dangerous Deathstroke growl out of his voice. “So yeah, it probably should. We know who you are, Roy Harper, and we know about your little hero side gig. I’m sure you remember what I do to people who waste my time, so let’s just cut the bullshit, shall we?” That was… unsettling, but hopefully just an empty intimidation tactic.

The man still didn’t look intimidated, not by Deathstroke or by the revelation of how much they knew. “Okay one-eye, I’m pretty sure that’s Batman,” he jabbed a thumb in Bruce’s direction, “but who the fuck are you? And what are you doing at my shop? Maybe you couldn’t tell by the everything, but I’m just a small-time mechanic trying to make a living. By the look of the two of you, I doubt you have anything for me to fix that you can’t do yourselves.”

Slade made an aborted motion like he was going to reach for one of his swords, and Bruce’s gloved hand shot out in front of him. When the battle-ready tension didn’t leave Slade’s body, Bruce added a harsh glare. “Oh, sorry,” Slade snapped at him even as his hands dropped back to his sides dutifully. “Thought we were here to get answers, not make a new friend. My bad. Go ahead, take your best shot, Batman. Kill ‘em with kindness.” It was at least partially an act to make Bruce look more approachable and trustworthy by comparison. But, the chance of Slade Wilson resorting to underhanded, villainous tactics never quite reached zero.

Bruce turned back to the mechanic then and noticed the small trace of very well-hidden anxiety in his dark green eyes. He took a deep breath and tried to start again. “You’re a long way from Star City.”

“Could be because I’ve never been. I’m from Chicago. Before I came out this way, I’d never left the state of Illinois. This dude you’re after, Ron or Rob or whatever, I’m not him. You got the wrong guy—uh, what should I call you? Do you still go by Batman? Or is it something else when you’re interrogating civilians who are minding their own business?”

“Bruce is fine. What should I call you, then, if you aren’t the man I’m looking for?” 

“You can call me your mechanic, Bruce, or you can leave my shop. You’ll have to forgive me, but the four-year apocalypse has made me a bit wary of strangers decked out in combat gear, and I’m really not interested in… whatever this is.”

“Just a conversation. I have reason to believe you know some things I might find useful. Perhaps we can help each other.”

“You want information? I can tell you what local restaurants are good or which businesses are out to scam tourists like you two. But I’m seriously just a regular guy trying to get by after the end of the world, okay? And I’m real grateful you guys killed Superman and all, but I still don’t have anything special to offer Batman and his scary friend.”

“I suppose you wouldn’t mind if we took a look around your shop, then?” Bruce asked casually.

The redhead still bristled in response, the movement so subtle that Bruce almost didn’t pick up on it. “Unless you’re gonna buy something, I’d really prefer you didn’t.”

“Got somethin’ to hide?” Slade asked, voice harsh, narrowed eye just barely visible through the single eyehole in his helmet.

The mechanic smiled at him, the sweetness in his expression obviously forced. “No, Scary, I don’t have anything to hide. But you two seem the type to break things and people to get what you want, and you aren’t paying customers. I’d prefer you didn’t run roughshod over my shop, mess up my projects, and potentially ruin my expensive equipment. I know you have the kind of money that lets you run around the globe chasing after Superman, but I don’t. If you wreck my stuff, it’s hard for me to get new stuff.”

“Like I said,” Bruce replied gently, zeroing in on the opportunity, “I think we can help each other. I have the means to improve your situation—”

“If I give you information I don’t have?”

Okay, never mind. Another swing and a miss. Bruce let out a frustrated sigh. There weren’t many non-violent ways to move past an impasse like this. Slade must’ve sensed that they were coming up on a dead end, because that was when he made his move. 

So fast Bruce could barely make sense of it, Slade retrieved a throwing knife from his belt and sent it sailing towards the man’s shoulder. The second it left his hand, an arrow whizzed through the air, went straight through the small hole at the end of the blade, and pinned it to the wall.

Reflexes and marksmanship only a handful of people on the whole planet could manage.

Bruce glanced from the arrow embedded in the drywall back to the redhead and found him poised and ready, holding a collapsible red bow like an extension of his hand with another arrow nocked and aimed for Slade’s head. There was a full quiver behind him, the tarp that had covered it now thrown back, and even from the distance, Bruce could tell the red arrows inside it were identical to the arrow found at Red Hood’s crime scene.

It eliminated what little doubt there still was. This couldn’t be anyone but Green Arrow’s fallen prodigy.

“Regular guy my ass,” Slade growled, all spite. “Can we stop playing make-believe now, Harper?”

The facade of a simple, ignorant civilian faded entirely from Roy’s body language, muscles drawn as tight as his bow, mouth set into a hard line and a dangerous glint in his eyes. “What the fuck do you want, Deathstroke?” He hissed, seemingly labeling Slade as the more immediate threat. “I’d love to say I’m happy to see you again, but it’d be a fucking lie.”

“We know you work with the Red Hood,” Slade replied, just as sharp, just as dangerous.

Roy just stared at him like he was waiting for the rest of the explanation. “Who the hell is that?”

Slade rolled his eye. “Jesus. Like you don’t know. The mass-murdering fucking madman in red who’s been running around Asia offing empires of bad guys for the past however many years. We know he’s your partner or your buddy or whatever, Speedy, so tell us where he is.” 

Roy quickly schooled his puzzlement away and put up annoyance and distrust in its place. Clearly Speedy training and Robin training had a lot in common, because Roy was even better at hiding his emotions than Jason had been. Still, the two of them were similar in a lot of ways. Jason and Roy would’ve gotten along well.

“I go by Arsenal now,” Roy countered, still not lowering his bow, jostling Bruce out of his thoughts. “I haven’t worked with Arrow in years. These days I go solo and I only work where I’m needed. Maybe you haven’t noticed, but I am one guy with no powers and a bow and arrow. Unlike the two of you, I have no interest in adding any more chaos to this world. I’m not going after any big fish around here. Those days are over for me.”

“Another lie, you’re fucking exhausting. We could already be done by now if you weren’t such a fucking drama queen, Arsenal. Did you not just hear me say that we already know who the fuck you are and what you do? We aren’t going to turn you in and we don’t want to hurt your friend, either. So calm the fuck down, I’ll put my weapons away, you put your adorable little toy away, and we can talk about this like adults.”

Something hot and vicious sparked in Roy’s eyes and he seemed to fully give up on pretending. “You don’t want to hurt him? Bullshit. You’ve been hunting him for months.” They’d definitely found the partner. That was something, at least. “God knows what the fuck your problem is, why you can’t just leave good people alone after everything you’ve done to blow the world to pieces these past few years, but people don’t chase the way you chase if they’re harmless. I know what you’ll do if you get your hands on him, and I won’t let you. I’m certainly not going to help you. Leave him alone. Leave us both alone.” 

“We can’t do that.” Bruce kept his voice level, just trying to defuse the sudden spike of tension.

“He helps people,” Roy said, just a bit too insistent for Bruce to believe he wasn’t emotionally invested in this partnership. “You know he does. You’ve been to the places he’s helped. They have hope now, they have lives, they’re not afraid, because of him. And yeah, he’s bloodier than most, but so what? He’s a good person and he’s done more for them than anyone else ever has. I won’t let you stop him.”

“We don’t want to stop him, Roy. We don’t want to fight him, either.”

“Then what the fuck do you want?” And there was something simultaneously weary and desperate in his voice, like it was Roy who they’d been chasing these past few months, Roy feeling the pressure, Roy constantly looking over his shoulder. But they knew Roy wasn’t Red Hood. There was no reason he should be taking this so personally.

“It’s complicated,” were the only words Bruce could put to this.

“Uncomplicate it. Cause if you think I’m about to deliver my partner to you on a silver platter for no fucking reason whatsoever, you’ve got another thing coming.”

Bruce pressed his lips together. They couldn’t admit their hunch that Red Hood was Jason Todd. Even if it was true, he could already tell Roy would never admit it, and if it got back to Jason that they were onto him, it could spook him bad enough that he’d disappear for good. “I just want to talk to him,” he explained clumsily.

Roy laughed, bitter and humorless. “Oh, that’s rich. Let’s be real with each other, huh, Batman and Deathstroke? You both know as well as I do that nobody ever actually wants to talk. You,” he pointed an accusing finger at Bruce, “are just an even more cynical Oliver Queen whose morals consist of whatever you find most convenient on any given day, and you,” he turned to Slade, “are a fucking supervillain.” Roy pulled the hem of his cutoff shirt up to reveal a thick white line of scar tissue just to the right of his navel. “You put a knife in me when I was sixteen because I was in your way. You tried to fucking kill me. I’m not about to do you any favors.”

“Sucks to be you,” Slade replied flatly. “But if I wanted to kill you, you’d be dead. I’d’ve thought you’d learn your lesson after that, but it seems I was wrong, because you’re in my way again right now.”

“Good to know you haven’t changed a bit,” Roy snapped. “Am I really supposed to believe that Batman doesn’t want to arrest an unrepentant murderer, lock him up, and throw away the key, and Deathstroke doesn’t want to gut, torture, and/or kill him? That’s what the two of you do, isn’t it? Wreck people’s shit when they get in your way? You're not gonna do it to him, too. I won't let you. Nothing you can do to me would even crack the top ten shittiest things I've been through. You're wasting your time. You won't get a damn thing out of me." 

Slade’s hands twitched towards the knives strapped to his thighs as his grin turned sharp. “Man, I hope for your sake that you’re not banking on that, Harper.” The threat came out in a deceptively even tone, but there was no mistaking the danger in it.

Roy held his hands out at his sides, not letting go of his bow but leaving his body open and vulnerable to attack. “Go ahead, Slade. Try and break me. I guarantee it’ll be the last thing you ever do.” 

Slade snorted derisively. “So Legolas is threatening us now? You don’t even carry a gun, short stack. Sit down before you hurt yourself. You’re way out of your league.”

“Oh, I’m not gonna kill you,” Roy explained, face blank, eerily calm. “My partner will. You’ve seen what he’s done to legions of scumbags, and that’s him holding back. That’s me holding him back. What do you think he’ll do to the two scumbags who torture or kill the only person he gives a shit about?”

“Roy,” Bruce said imploringly, feeling this crucial chance to find his son starting to slip from his grasp. “All I want is to talk to him. I promise I don’t want this to turn ugly any more than you do.” 

“Oh, you promise?” Roy hissed, disdain and contempt thick in his voice. “And what’s your promise worth these days, Bruce? Aren’t you the guy who got your last partner tortured for three weeks and murdered by the fucking Joker? Aren’t you the reason a 15-year-old kid died with a smile carved into his face? Did you promise your son you weren’t gonna leave him to suffer and die with that sick freak, too? You promise. What utter bullshit. I’ve known career criminals more trustworthy than you are.” There was a small but unmistakable pained edge in Roy’s voice that made Bruce’s blood run cold. Why would Roy be talking about Jason’s death like it hurt him?

“How do you know about that?” Bruce asked carefully, mind going a mile a minute as he tried to sort out how much of that was public knowledge, how plausible it was for Roy to know it all.

Before he could reach a conclusion, Roy was talking again. “Ollie told me. Cautionary tale and such. Don’t go after Vertigo by yourself or he’ll fuck you up like Joker fucked Robin up. You are a pretty fine example of what not to do.” Bruce must’ve let something in his expression slip because Roy’s free hand clenched into a fist at his side and his face hardened. “Aww, you’re real broken up about it, too, aren’t you? That’s why you teamed up with the sadistic bastard who killed your kid, cause you were so consumed with grief?”

“Roy, what happened to Robin—” 

“Jason,” Roy interjected in a fierce growl, and Bruce couldn’t help but wonder why. Why would Jason be the thing that got Roy’s blood up? Roy didn’t even know Jason. “What? If you’re gonna talk about him, you might as well say his name instead of pretending he was some meaningless casualty in a never-ending war. His name was Jason Todd and he was a human being, not just your fucking Robin.”

It was plausible for Roy to know Jason’s name. Dick and Roy were acquainted with each other and Ollie knew Jason’s identity, too. It made sense that Roy would pick up the late second Robin’s name at some point.

What didn’t make sense was the way Roy held Jason’s name in his mouth like broken glass, like it might cut him if he turned it the wrong way. It was the same way Bruce had said it for years after his son’s death. 

“Why do you care?” The soft, slightly trembling words were out before Bruce could stop them because really, that was the only question that mattered now. There was no reason for Roy to have any personal stake in the tragedy of Jason’s death unless they had a relationship that they’d never had while Jason had been alive.

Roy shook his head, his expression a cross between disgusted and mournful. “Because obviously, you don’t. And someone needs to.” The way he said that, raw and angry and vulnerable, it carved Bruce's chest open, but it couldn’t mean nothing, there had to be a reason, and—that was it. That was it. Every light bulb was going off in Bruce’s head, the pieces finally fitting themselves together in the only way that truly made sense. They’d gotten what they needed, what little they could get out of someone as stubborn and loyal as Roy was, and they should leave now while things were loosely civil.

He opened his mouth to thank Roy for his time and tell Slade to back off, but Slade had other ideas. “Alright, enough stalling, Harper. Tell us what you know about Red Hood and we’ll be on our way.”

Bruce knew what Slade sounded like when he was about to deliver a devastating blow, and that tense note in his voice promised ruin for Roy and this whole conversation. He knew he should get between this before it could go that far, but the revelation still kept him rooted to the ground and glued his mouth shut.

There was nothing Bruce could do as Roy set his jaw and brought the bow back in towards his body, arrow caught between his fingers as they hovered steadily over the string. He tensed like he was steeling himself and raised his chin to Slade. 

“No."

“You’re making a big mistake, kid.”

Deathstroke was one of the most dangerous and intimidating people left on the planet, and that threat should’ve been enough to make even the bravest man cower, but Roy wasn’t fazed. “Great. It’d hardly be my first.” Arsenal wore his loyalty to Red Hood like armor, and Slade should be able to see that anything he said or did wouldn’t make a dent in that shield.

Slade was already barreling forward, though, the frustration of nine months of chasing dead ends in Asia boiling over as he flipped his helmet off his head and took five swift steps forward, close enough to Roy that the smaller man had to look up to maintain eye contact.

“Jesus Christ,” he snarled, a dark cloud over his expression like there used to be in the heat of his and Bruce’s rivalry. Bruce needed to stop them, Slade clearly didn’t understand why this was the wrong move, he couldn’t know because he didn’t have the information Bruce did, but it was too late. Slade pounced. “I really don’t know what the fuck I expected from you. Always were the poster boy for fuck-ups, weren’t you, Harper? Never good for anything besides taking a knife here and a beating there.”

Roy didn’t react, but the slight bob of his Adam’s apple told Bruce the remark didn’t slide off as effortlessly as the younger man would have them believe. “Very original. You’ll have to do a little better than that to get under my skin, Wilson.”

“You still smoking dope? Or was shooting up more your style?”

Slade’s smile was razor-sharp and vicious as he snatched Roy’s free arm up by the wrist and pulled him forward, holding the inside of his arm up to the light. There was a frozen moment where Roy just stared at Slade with wide eyes, looking every inch the kid he’d never had a chance to be, and then his face shuttered again and he pulled back like the contact had burned him and put another foot of distance between himself and Slade. The motion itself was so weak that Slade must’ve let him do it.

“No new track marks, but maybe you’re just getting better at hiding them. Got a lot of practice with that, don’t you? When I found out you’d come all the way out here, I thought maybe the end of the world had given you a little bit of perspective and you’d stopped treating your body like a toxic waste dump, but I guess I was giving you too much credit. Now I’m thinkin’ Hood’s just your new hookup.”

Roy flinched like Slade had hit him.

Whole seconds passed in total silence, Roy seemingly unable to cover the lapse. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” he ground out eventually, a vague but unmistakable tremor in his voice as he held the arm Slade had grabbed close to his chest like it was injured.

And Bruce definitely should’ve intervened then, because not only was this unnecessary and doomed to failure but it was also about a country mile too far to be justified, but his mouth still wasn’t working.

Slade laughed, a mean, sharp sound. “C’mon, kid. Your fall from grace was pretty damned public. At this point, who doesn’t know Speedy was a junkie? And now you’re aiding and abetting a serial murderer and adding dozens of felonies to your already extensive record because you’re still a smack baby. You blew all your money on dope and ended up on the streets for the, what is it, sixth, seventh time now? And he picked you up and got you your fix in exchange for protection. Am I getting close yet?”

Roy flinched again and took two steps back, chest heaving, something in his eyes that was just as shattered as it was furious. “I haven’t touched that shit in years,” he said, the words coming out in a rush, just above a whisper, like they’d been punched out of him.

“Oh, gotcha, so it’s not heroin anymore? What’s your new hang-up? That’s what addicts like you do, isn’t it? Trade one addiction in for another cause you’re too weak to get through life without getting high?” Slade snapped his gloved fingers and shot Roy a nasty leer. “It’s the adrenaline, I bet. You get your dopamine hit from backing your buddy up while he slices two-bit criminals into ribbons.” 

“Slade, that’s enough,” Bruce finally managed, but it was far too quiet to be heard and easily drowned out by Roy’s louder, more desperate, “That’s not what he does—” but Slade cut them both off.

“Does your murderous little friend know you’re a user and he’s nothing more than your new drug of choice?”

“Fuck you,” but he sounded young and frightened like he had been when he’d lost everything years ago. “You don’t—”

“I get it now. That’s why you’re protecting him, because the rush of being an accomplice to violent, sadistic murders distracts you from how empty and sad your life is without heroin. Do you hear how fucked up that is?” 

“I-I’m not,” Roy stammered, and his voice was shaking but his fingers were steady as they tightened around the grip of the bow seemingly of their own accord.

It felt like watching a car crash in slow motion, the damage growing closer to irreparable by the second while Bruce could do nothing but watch the whole damn thing burn to ashes, unable to look away.

“Don’t kid yourself, Harper,” Slade sneered. “You’re not hiding what you know from us because you think we’re gonna hurt Red Hood. You’re doing it because you don’t know where your next fix will come from if he’s gone. You know we’ll find him with or without your help, you know it’s within your power to make it easier on everyone right now by spilling your guts so we don’t have to flush him out the hard way, but you don’t care about that. You don’t care about him, either. Because all you are, all you’ll ever be, is a junkie desperate for his next high.”

And Roy snapped.

Snapped like the string of his bow as he took a step back and launched an arrow right into Slade’s shoulder. It was aimed for his heart and probably would’ve broken through the armor too, considering how much force was behind it, if Slade’s superhuman reflexes hadn’t gotten him out of the way just in time. Slade barely had the chance to grunt in pain before the next arrow came flying at his head. That one he was able to duck, and his hands reached for the knives strapped to his belt to retaliate.

Blessedly, Bruce was finally able to unfreeze long enough to grab him by the swords strapped to his back and haul him backward. If Slade killed Roy, the whole world would feel Red Hood’s wrath. “Enough!” He shouted, putting his body directly between them and holding his hands out to keep them apart. “That’s enough.”

“Get the fuck out of my shop,” Roy commanded, voice somehow threatening and vulnerable at the same time as he kept his bow drawn and aimed steadily for Slade’s head. Bruce could’ve sworn those were tears shining in his eyes. “You should know as well as anyone that Arrows don’t miss twice, Wilson, and the next one’s going through your brain.”

“Roy, please,” Bruce implored, knowing it was too late but hoping against hope they could avoid making an enemy out of their only lead on Red Hood. “I’m sorry this has gotten so out of hand, we only want—”

“I don’t give a shit what you want,” Roy spat, the green of his eyes like a forest set ablaze, so powerful and deadly that Bruce almost wanted to take a step back, “and I won’t tell you again. Take your dog and get the fuck off my property before I change my mind and call my partner here to kill you both.”

Slade glanced from the blood staining the orange of his armor back to Roy, then shrugged his good shoulder and pushed Bruce off of him. “You’ve got so much talent, but you’re still too damn soft, Harper,” and the smugness was gone from his voice now, a strange sobriety and seriousness taking its place. “A word of advice? Next time you try to kill me, don’t think about it. Don’t hesitate.” Slade turned to head for their transport with the head of the arrow still jutting out the back of his armor. As he walked away, he tossed the words back over his shoulder. “I’d hate to have to give you more scars to remember me by.”

“That was way too far,” Bruce muttered, just barely managing to keep the fury out of his voice as he sat Slade down next to the transport and put the first aid kit down beside him, then sliced the head of the arrow off and slowly slid it out of his shoulder. “Way, way too far.”

Slade let out a harsh breath at the pain which quickly morphed into a groan of annoyance. “Not far enough if you ask me, considering we got nothing out of it.”

“We got nothing because it was the wrong strategy! It was never going to work no matter how hard you pushed, something you should’ve realized from the moment you opened your mouth! And yet you kept on pushing and pushing even once it became abundantly clear that he wasn’t going to give up his partner and all that would come out of your interrogation was pain. I know you’re used to not caring who you make an enemy out of, but Harper was far more valuable as an uncooperative but civil known associate of Red Hood’s than he is now as a hostile.”

“That’s peacekeeping bullshit,” Slade hissed. 

“At least peacekeeping bullshit doesn’t result in years of an innocent man’s trauma being dragged through the mud for no goddamn reason at all.”

“Harper’s not innocent. None of us are. And we’ve all got fucked up shit in our pasts, you don’t see me crying and bitching about it.”

Bruce let the broken pieces of the arrow fall to the floor and helped Slade out of his armor, shooting him a disapproving scowl as he tried to do it himself and pulled a sharp breath in through his teeth as the movement jostled the injury. “Stop moving.”

They were silent for a few minutes as Bruce used a tweezer to dig around in the wound for bits of Slade’s compression shirt and other debris, not bothering to be gentle about it, and Slade practiced the same stoic silence he always did when he was trying to hide the fact that he was in pain.

When he was finished, Bruce soaked a cloth with disinfectant and pressed it to the wound, purposely waiting until then to continue talking as Slade would be too occupied with the sting of it to interrupt him. “You purposely triggered a recovering drug addict for the sake of gaining a tactical advantage that you didn’t even gain.” 

Slade’s head snapped to the side at that, and he carefully hid a wince as the sudden motion jarred the wound again. “I saw a weakness and I capitalized on it to help you find your son. Big difference.” 

“There’s effectively no difference when the results are the same. Good intentions don’t undo the damage you caused, both to our now non-existent working relationship with Harper and to Harper himself. He’s definitely going to relocate now and we’ll lose his—and by extension, Hood’s—trail altogether. And you know he’s clean, you know he gives a shit about Hood, you were ruthless and cruel just to force a reaction out of him and you got nothing out of it. He’s just a kid, and what you did to him was fucked up.”

“Speedy’s not a kid anymore, he’s gotta be almost 30.” 

Bruce sighed as he wrapped the wound with gauze, knowing there was no point in doing anything more since Slade’s meta healing factor would patch it up within a few days. “You’re deliberately missing the point because you know you were an ass.”

“Whatever. I’m not gonna apologize for pursuing an opening. That’s what you do in an interrogation. Just because it didn’t pan out doesn’t mean it was the wrong move.” 

“You went into that conversation knowing you were going to use Harper’s past against him if you deemed him too resistant for too long.” 

Slade pushed himself to his feet. “Okay, so? You said I couldn’t hit him and I didn’t.”

“I said we weren’t going to hurt him, and you did. Just because you enjoy tormenting people and find it more convenient than cooperating and forming relationships with them doesn’t make what you did to him okay. You know that's how we took Superman down, right? By breaking him down psychologically and using his past against him? You really think Roy Harper, a man who's spent half his life risking his neck to save others, deserves the same level of punishment as an evil dictator who killed billions?”

Slade's eye narrowed slightly at the accusation, but the reaction was gone within a moment. “I gotta say, I did not miss this side of you these past few months. Roy Harper is a nothing nobody to whom you probably haven’t spared a single thought in the past five years, but for some ungodly reason, you feel the need to stand up for the little guy no matter who he is. Everything’s still gotta be done by the book even though the book has literally been set on fire, you’re a murderer just like me, and the world’s such a chaotic shit show that the rules don’t apply to anyone anymore. So I hurt Harper’s precious little feelings. So fucking what? He’ll get over it. And even if he doesn’t, he’s still not our problem.”

Bruce gave him a hard glare, a patented Batman glare, and wished not for the first time that Slade wasn’t totally immune to his intimidation tactics. “What's the matter with you? Usually, this whole heartless monster thing you do is at least 75% an act, so why were you such a bastard today?” 

“Because Speedy is tough as nails and he always has been," Slade said with a shrug, like it should've been obvious. "He can take it.”

Bruce stared at him blankly. “Do you think that explains or justifies anything?” 

Slade groaned, obviously annoyed that they hadn't moved on from this topic yet. “Fine. Ten or so years ago I was contracted to break both of Green Arrow’s arms. Harper was making it difficult, so I stabbed him in the gut because it hurts like hell but it’s not lethal if you aren’t a moron about it. I thought it would be bad enough to get the kid out of my way without killing him.” Slade’s expression went unusually grave, unusually honest. “I put a six-inch blade through his stomach and the kid didn’t even scream. Twisted the knife and he still didn’t go down, then I left it in him so he wouldn’t bleed out. He should’ve been in too much pain to even fucking see straight and I had Arrow right where I wanted him, but somehow Speedy picked his bow up again and kept shooting at me with my fucking knife still in his gut until Canary came in as back up and I had to split. And he was sixteen at the time. There’s no way that overcoming a drug problem and the end of the fucking world did anything but make him even tougher. 

“Bruce, I know exactly what Roy Harper is made of, his self-sacrificing loyalty bullshit and his ridiculous pain tolerance. The physical stuff won’t break him. Never has, never will, and I knew that, so I thought I might have a better shot with words. And, for the record, that wasn’t fun for me. I don’t take pleasure in hurting decent people who probably don’t deserve it. But I knew you wouldn’t be willing to do what needed to be done, so I did it for you.” 

And yeah, all of that checked out. It was the exact kind of twisted up but not entirely unjustified logic that guided most of Slade’s decisions, which meant it was probably also the truth, but that knowledge didn’t banish the guilt he was still feeling. He couldn’t stop picturing the way that years of Roy’s carefully constructed armor had broken apart underneath Slade’s verbal assault, the way Roy held himself together just long enough to force them to leave, and he couldn’t help but imagine what had happened afterward, a thousand terrible what-ifs building to an unbearable crescendo in his mind. 

He knew what it felt like to have your past mistakes weaponized to tear down everything you built to protect yourself with. It was what the Joker had done to him constantly for the months they were forced to work together, and Bruce had stood by and watched while the same thing happened to Roy. And now Roy would inevitably go back and tell Hood what Bruce had let Slade do to him, and knowing what he knew now, thinking about the consequences of that was unbearable. 

“I told you that we weren’t there to break him, we were only there to talk, and you agreed with me. You lied right to my face when you said you were considering physically torturing him, you were planning on doing what you did the whole time, and you didn’t even bother to tell me. We are a team and you broke my trust, and what you did to Harper was cruel and unnecessary no matter how justified you think it was.”

The earnest seriousness from just moments before vanished entirely from Slade’s face. “You’re really getting pissy with me because I hurt Speedy’s feelings? Some ex-junkie you’ve never met or given a shit about before today? Even I know him better than you do, why do you have such a stick up your ass about it?”

Bruce scrubbed a hand over his face and resigned himself to having this conversation now. “Because he’s Jason’s friend, Slade. He helped my son when he needed it the most. He’s a decent man. He didn’t deserve any of that.”

Slade raised a silver eyebrow. “Uh, he might be Jason’s friend."

“It’s not a might anymore. Not after what we learned today.”

“Oh god,” Slade groaned. “Like the hole in my shoulder isn’t bad enough, we’re hopping back on the ‘Red Hood is without a doubt Jason Todd’ bandwagon of insanity? Could that wait until I stop bleeding, at least?” 

“It’s your fault you’re bleeding and this is the most urgent news we’ve had in seven months. Let me explain. Roy never had a relationship with Jason or anyone close to him. He and Dick were acquaintances, but just barely. The details of Jason’s death were kept on a need-to-know basis only, and Roy was not at all included in the circle of people who knew, yet Roy still had information that he never should have been able to access.”

“That’s not all that crazy,” Slade said, shrugging his good shoulder. “You told Arrow, didn’t you?”

“Yes. I told him my partner was killed in the field in the hopes that he’d be more cautious with Speedy than I was with Robin. But I didn’t tell him any of the things Roy knew. The few people who did know about Jason’s death—Alfred, Dick, Jim Gordon, the Gotham City coroner, and myself—didn’t share the details with anyone. Not even the identity of Robin’s killer, let alone the gory specifics of his death. And Joker made a point not to make any of it public. Yes, it’s not that hard to connect the dots back to Joker, but none of the rest of it was public. Not to mention, the way Roy said Jason’s name, the way he accused me of not caring… you heard it too, didn’t you?” 

“I mean sure, the guy was obviously pissed, but there are a hundred explanations for that.”

“That wasn’t just anger. That was hurt and betrayal, two things Roy wouldn’t feel on Jason’s behalf because he didn’t know Jason and he didn’t care for Jason. A child’s death is always a tragedy but that was visceral and personal grief. You can’t fake that kind of pain, Slade, we both know that. Everything lines up.” 

Slade gave Bruce a long, searching look, clearly trying to move past his impulse to dismiss this as more of the same hopelessly hopeful delusions that had carried Bruce for the first few months they’d investigated Hood. “You’re sure Queen didn’t know that Joker killed Jason?” 

“Or how old he was. Or how long Joker had him for. Or that he died with his face cut up like that. None of the people who knew would’ve been willing to talk to Roy about it, and Roy had no reason to be asking, either. And it would’ve been a massive strategic flop for Roy to say those things to me if he didn’t know they were true since I’d be able to disprove them and use that as a rationale to justify disregarding everything else he said. Massive risk, no reward. Roy is too smart to slip up like that. Roy Harper has knowledge that should be impossible for him to have and he talked about my son like he knew him, like he took what happened to Jason and my supposed apathy towards the situation personally despite never even having met Jason before his death. Slade, I’m not crazy. This is proof. You know it is.” 

Slade blinked a few times, took a breath, and nodded. “Shit,” he breathed, quite possibly the closest thing to awe or reverence to ever come from Deathstroke’s mouth. “Okay. Hood is Jason. Why aren’t you freaking out?” 

“Because,” Bruce said, clenching his fists to keep his frustration at bay, “we just talked to the only friend Jason has had in over half a decade, and in the span of a single conversation, made him hate us. I had gathered all the information I needed before you started antagonizing him, and then you went on to make him so angry that he tried to shoot you through the heart. And now, if we do manage to track Jason and Roy down again and confront them, Jason is going to be coming for your blood because you hurt his friend. Things have become about a hundred times more complicated. The implications are solely negative.”

“...oh.” And Slade didn’t quite sound sorry, didn’t quite sound cowed, either. Neither of those reactions were in Deathstroke’s repertoire, but Bruce was fairly certain it was as close as he could get. 

“Yeah,” Bruce replied through gritted teeth. “So, it’s your job to figure a way out of that mess, since you’re the one who made it.”

“S’pose that’s fair.” Slade rubbed at his wrapped shoulder, twitched the injured arm experimentally, then glanced back at Bruce, lips pressed into a thin, unhappy line. “So we found your kid. Congrats.” 

“There isn’t much to celebrate since you called his friend a smack baby and a desperate junkie.”

Slade rolled his eye, but there was still an edge, so thin it was almost invisible, of contrition in the twist of his mouth. “Yeah, I fucked it up. That’s on me. I’ll un-fuck it somehow. Merc’s honor.” 

Bruce took a deep breath. “Mm. I know you will.”

And Bruce was still angry. He still felt the guilt like fire in his chest because he should’ve stopped it before it went that far, should’ve been able to spare Roy the pain Slade had put him through, And he still couldn’t help but imagine the reaction his son would have to all of this, whether he’d be relieved or furious that it was Bruce looking for him, if he’d be able to forgive Bruce for letting Slade hurt his friend or for any of the other mistakes he had made. The turmoil was still a raging torrent inside of him, but he couldn’t bring himself to be solely upset.

Hood was Jason. 

The Red Hood was Jason Todd. 

After six years of mourning and nearly a year of searching, Bruce had finally, finally found his son.

Chapter Text

I need you to stay home
today. Got it?

The first text caught Jason a little off guard. Just this morning, Roy had been excited for him to visit, said he had a lot of potentially frustrating clients scheduled to come in today and it would give him something to look forward to. Immediately, Jason’s mind started thrumming with what’swrongwhathappenedareyouhurt.

Why? Are you okay?

I’m fine jaybird, but
something’s up.

And then, about six seconds later.

CODE RED. STAY PUT.

“Oh, you gotta be fucking kidding me,” Jason muttered, fingers tightening around his phone, eyes burning with a sudden surge of rage and panic the likes of which he hadn’t felt in months. “Please tell me you’re joking right now, Roy.” 

Whole minutes passed with Jason just trying to tame the fear clawing at his chest, and there was nothing from Roy. With every breath he took, Jason had to force down his urge to throw his phone and watch it shatter against the wall or demand to know what was happening. Part of Code Red was no contact until further notice, and holy fuck, he didn’t realize how much he was going to hate that. Roy said he was fine but that didn’t mean he wasn’t in danger, anything could be happening right now and Jason should be there to protect Roy, Roy always protected him, fuck, fuck, fuck. 

He had to follow Roy’s orders. They’d established this system for a reason. Some things were safer and easier for Roy to handle without Jason there, and there was a nonzero chance that Roy was currently dealing with people who were looking for Red, in which case Jason would lead them right to him by replying or showing up at the shop. 

So, Jason did as he was told, put his phone on the other side of the room with the ringer turned all the way up, and waited. For what could’ve been an hour or four, all Jason could do was try his best to hold off a panic attack, weakly attempt a visualization meditation, and channel every scrap of his willpower into not getting up and checking his phone every five seconds. And yeah, maybe he stress-smoked an emergency cigarette or four despite having promised Roy he'd try to quit. Whatever. If any situation warranted a small bump in that road, it was this fucking one. 

When his phone finally did go off again, Jason couldn’t help but feel like he was back with the League being let up for air after a waterboarding session. He scrambled up to his feet and snatched the phone off the end table so quickly it almost flew out of his hand again. 

You still home

Jason let out his breath in a sudden rush, noticing the empty, raw burning in his lungs for the first time, then typed out his reply with shaking fingers.

Yeah I’m still here

Phase b dont leave
till I tell you

Ok

A hundred questions were screaming through Jason’s mind, but he didn’t know how much time he had or if Roy would even respond, so he prioritized the only one that really mattered. 

Are you safe?

The reply took a long time to come, and with every second he didn’t receive an answer, Jason’s grip tightened on his phone until the plastic groaned beneath his fingers. Eventually, he had to put it down before he could accidentally break it and lose contact with Roy altogether.

Dont worry

That was all he got. It didn’t answer anything and really only made everything worse, and it took everything Jason had not to read into the fact that the texts were so short and they felt so forced and mechanical and not-Roy. Jason typed out several responses but deleted them every time. 

How the fuck am I
supposed to not worry
when you won’t tell me
a single fucking thing? 

So you’re not safe. If
you were you would’ve
just said yes so what
the fuck happened?

You’re not dying are you?
You would’ve fucking
called me so I could hear
your voice one more time
if you were dying right?

Jesus christ please just say
something normal so I can
stop freaking out

Eventually, he decided on something just as vague and unhelpful as Roy’s message. 

K.

Phase B meant Roy was going to go to their emergency safehouse, investigate the place, wait for ten minutes to make sure he hadn’t been followed, then text Jason from a burner phone when he was sure the coast was clear. Phase B meant Jason could do nothing but wait around and try not to have a heart attack from all the fucking stress. 

Roy wasn’t dead. Dead people can’t send text messages. So, that would have to be enough to hold Jason over until he could see Roy with his own eyes and confirm for himself that the only person he cared about hadn’t been stolen away from him just like every other good thing he’d ever had.

Jason wasn’t actually sure how he made it to the safehouse. All he remembered was getting the go-ahead text and seeing green for the first time in weeks and not even having the time to be disappointed in himself because all that mattered was Royisindanger, and the next thing he knew, he was jumping off his motorcycle before it even came to a full stop and sprinting to the door. 

The moment Jason walked inside, he felt like he’d been shoved into a waterfall.

It took easily 30 seconds of him just standing frozen in the doorway before he recognized the mass of red fabric slumped on the couch as his best friend. Roy was wearing one of Jason’s oversized sweatshirts and had the hood pulled up over his head; the damn thing was so big on him that he was nearly drowning in it. He was curled into a ball, knees pulled up to his chest with one arm wrapped around them, and the only visible parts of him were his right arm where the sleeve was pulled up to his bicep and the top half of his face. Jason was rarely aware of the size difference between himself and Roy due in large part to Roy's loud personality and ability to hold his own in combat, but looking at him now—whole body trembling faintly, folded in on himself like he was trying to disappear—Roy had never looked smaller. 

He was frighteningly pale even by Roy’s standards, an almost deathlike pallor to his skin (and Jason had to keep his mind away from what the fuck he would do if Roy died because the slight rise and fall of his friend’s body told him that wasn’t the case and he couldn’t stand entertaining the thought if it wasn’t true). When Jason finally found the nerve to look into Roy’s eyes, usually dancing with mischief and light, it was to find them flat and haunted as they fixated on the exposed patch of freckled skin on the inside of his elbow. It was so dissonant from how Roy was supposed to be that it knocked the wind out of Jason and he had to bite down on the gasp before it could escape his mouth.

Jason could still feel his heart in his throat when he finally found the words. “Roy?” He asked cautiously as he eased the door shut behind him and approached with steps purposely loud to avoid startling his friend. “Y’alright?”

Immediately, Roy’s eyes snapped up to his and he scrambled up to his feet, yanking the sleeve back down and plastering a shaky smile on his face.

Fake, wrong. Roy’s smile had never looked like that.

“Hey, Jaybird,” he said, voice unsteady, cracking on the nickname, wrong, wrong, wrong. Roy crossed his arms, probably to hide the shiver that ran through his body, but Jason still saw it. “You weren’t followed, were you?”

Jason knew he should be careful right now, tender and gentle like Roy always was with him when he was hurting, but his hands had never been good for anything but breaking and he was already snatching Roy up by the collar of the sweatshirt and pulling him closer so quick that the hood flew off his head, inspecting him for damage. 

There was nothing visible on him and he wasn’t moving or breathing like he was hurt, but Roy wasn’t above hiding injuries to ease Jason’s anxiety and Jason knew better than anyone that the worst wounds were almost always the ones you couldn’t see.

“No, I wasn’t followed. Who hurt you?” Jason demanded, the words like acid on his tongue. No one should be hurting Roy while he was under Jason’s protection. Red helped people. That was what he did now, that was what he’d spent so many months trying to make himself into, a hero, a defender of the innocent. All the people he’d saved, but he hadn’t been able to rescue Roy from whatever happened to him before it could do whatever it had done to him. Roy gave him another weak smile, and Jason couldn’t take this, he couldn’t take the thousands of painful lies he saw in Roy’s face. “What happened? Who do I need to kill?” Jason kept scanning Roy’s seemingly unharmed body, but all he found was an unnatural stiffness in Roy’s posture like he was resisting the urge to shrink and flinch and hide away.

That was how Jason used to react to Talia when she’d come to see him after his daily ‘training’ regimen was finished and the resulting punishments had been carried out. They’d had to beat him within an inch of his life to earn that response. What the fuck had happened to Roy?

“Down boy,” Roy murmured, placing slightly trembling hands on Jason’s chest. “I-I’m—I’m okay, I’m okay.” 

A very small fraction of the gargantuan iceberg in Jason’s gut melted, but it wasn’t nearly enough for him to let go of Roy or the subject. “No, you’re not. I know what not okay looks like, Roy, I’m the leading expert in not okay, so tell me why you aren’t okay.”

An uncomfortable twitch went through Roy’s face and his hand—half engulfed in the sleeve of the red sweatshirt—came up to cup Jason’s chin. A distant part of Jason still wondered how Roy could be mere centimeters from touching Joker’s scars and not be disgusted, but most of him was occupied with the fact that there was none of the usual ease and sureness in the way Roy was touching him. “I’m not hurt, Jaybird, I promise.” But his fingertips were cold. Roy was never cold. Never. “It’s just been a long day, okay?” 

“Okay,” Jason said, trying to put a little bit of gentleness into his hard, obviously strained voice. He stowed this away to talk about later because they were absolutely going to talk about it later and Jason was going to hunt down whoever had turned the fire in Roy’s eyes to dull cinders and skin them alive. Jason had put a lot of work into not being that kind of monster anymore, of not solving his pain with someone else’s, but for Roy, he’d make an exception. 

“I think you should sit down.”

And the way Roy said that, the foreboding heaviness and dread in it, brought the green to the forefront of Jason’s awareness again, crashing and burning like it hadn’t in so long. Jason wasn’t used to it anymore, and he had to dig his teeth into his lip to keep the cry of pain locked away in his throat where it couldn’t worry Roy. A few shuddering breaths replaced it. “I think you should tell me why you sent me a Code Red, because you have to know that I’ve done nothing but obsess over it for the past however many hours.”

“I will tell you,” Roy said, the fake mask of composure clearly coming easier to him the more he practiced. It had never occurred to Jason before that Roy was probably a very good liar after studying under Oliver Queen for the better part of ten years. He’d never had to think about it before, because Roy had never lied to him before and why the fuck was he starting now?! “I just want you to sit down and take a few deep breaths first because you’re getting pretty glowy and neither of us wants you going green right now.”

Jason took a minute to breathe and notice the way his eyes felt like they were made of fire and his veins were pumping poison instead of blood and his whole body was a wretched mess of tension and conceded that yeah, Roy had a point. “Okay,” he gritted out through his teeth.

Roy gave him another one of those horribly wrong forced smiles, then moved to let him through to the couch. It took everything Jason had just to get his concrete limbs to cooperate long enough to sit down and his acid lungs to fill with air again. He closed his eyes just to try to cut down on the input. Everything in him wanted to surrender to a fierce undertow of green until this feeling went away, but he had to be better than that now.

After a long moment of green and hesitation and nothing, Roy’s weight joined Jason’s on the couch. Somehow, the cold sank even deeper into Jason’s body, like someone had shoved an icicle down his throat until it impaled him. Because Roy was sitting as far away from him on the couch as he possibly could, too far away for Jason to feel his presence, let alone his warmth, and Roy didn’t do that.

Still, he didn’t have the privilege of hyper-fixating on something distressing right now. He had to calm down if he wanted to get to the bottom of all this, so he returned his focus to the pattern of the plaster ceiling and the hum of the refrigerator in the background until the screaming buzz under his skin faded into a painful simmer, the closest thing to calm he would get under these circumstances. He pushed his back against the arm of the couch to face Roy. “Tell me.”

Roy took a breath so big it looked like it might bust his chest open, directed his gaze to his own sweater-covered hands, and said, “I found out who’s been chasing you.” 

Jason felt like the months-old balloon of stress in his chest had just been popped. Jesus fuck, that was it?

“Oh, cool. That’s good,” he breathed, grateful that this would be a short conversation and they could go back to talking about why Roy looked like a shattered pane of fucking glass soon, but he could feel the increase in tension without even looking at Roy and all his senses were suddenly on high alert. “Is that not good? Why is that not good?”

Roy cringed slightly and threaded his too-white fingers together. “They came to see me at the shop today. Two of them, just like we thought. They knew I was working with you.”

Jason felt the pit in his stomach stretch into a yawning, endless abyss. “Who is it?” He asked, little more than a whisper.

“Jason, listen—”

“Who is it?!” He roared, so loud that Roy flinched with the noise. A small, soft part of Jason wanted to apologize but there were too many other things at war inside him and all of them were louder than sorry was. His fists clenched and he could feel the green rising inside him, threatening to take over, he had to know. “Roy, fucking tell me!”

Roy closed his eyes and braced himself. “It’s Bruce.”

“Alright,” Jason said, forcing a bit of the tension out of his body. It couldn't be him, and Jason didn't know any other Bruces, so it was probably just some nothing nobody, right? “Bruce who?”

There was a bloated pause, but Jason could’ve sworn he heard the answer in the way Roy cringed without opening his eyes, the shift in the air, the mockingly loud thump of his own heart. But wasn’t. It couldn’t be. "Bruce who?" He repeated, voice trembling faintly.

“Bruce Wayne.”

Jason stopped breathing.

No. 

No. 

No please god no not him please not him I can’t please nonononono— 

All of his senses shorted out, leaving nothing behind but a haze of green and terror. There was no blood, there was no breath, there was no beating of his heart because Bruce wasn’t supposed to be here. Bruce wasn’t allowed to be here. Bruce Wayne was still in the bottom of Jason’s dug-up grave in Gotham right beside his Robin suit and his childhood and what little had remained of his innocence. That part of Jason hadn’t come back when he’d been resurrected. It was dead for good. Bruce couldn’t be here. This was the one place where Jason was safe from everything he used to be.

Robin, report. He couldn’t. Robin was dead. 

Relax, you’re safe now. He wasn’t, not anymore, never again, not if Bruce had found them. 

Don’t give up. He had to, what other choice did he have? 

Please, son. Bruce’s son was gone. Jason wasn’t him anymore and Bruce would loathe him for it, Bruce was a killer now, too, and what if jail wasn’t good enough for Red, what if Bruce wanted to kill him? 

Please, don’t do this, please. And Jason had done this to himself, he’d let himself become the monsters he swore to fight and he couldn’t blame Bruce for wanting to take him out. Even if he was a hero now, there was a sea of blood on his hands that neither time nor good deeds could wash clean. 

“I don’t want to die,” Jason rasped with the last bit of oxygen in his lungs, not sure who he was talking to. He thought he heard someone say you won’t, but the voice was hollow comfort, it was in just as much pain as Jason was, and he was floating in the purgatory between the most miserable parts of being alive and the fear and black and cold of being dead and there was no one to save him now and—and—  

He saw green. 

It overtook the black in a sudden vengeful rush, singeing the floating-numb-dead haze into an inferno, painful and alive, and all Jason could do was gasp and let the air back into his lungs. It felt like breathing in broken glass. The green was ragehatepainbloodvengeance, a vicious beast with long claws and bloodstained teeth, and Jason felt like he was being eaten alive.

He came back to the sensation of cold hands against his, peeling his fingers away from the painful, bloody divots they’d carved into his palms. Tears were drying on his face, throat like sandpaper, muscles coiled up in a painful tense knot he couldn’t escape. The last bit of energy trickled out of him and the tension bled out with it, leaving him collapsed back against the couch like a puppet with its strings cut.

Roy was holding his hand. It should’ve been enough. Back when Roy was warm, it would’ve been. As it stood, nothing felt warm and nothing would ever again, not with Batman chasing him. Still, even if Roy was cold, Jason craved the contact he usually received wordlessly as he came down from a… whatever the fuck this had been, but Roy was so far away and there was a gaping crevice between them and Jason didn’t know how to get rid of that distance or ask for the closeness he needed, so he just sat there and tried to remember how to breathe.

A manic laugh echoed in his head. The memory of a crowbar and trying to force the oxygen into collapsed lungs that wouldn’t fill no matter how hard he tried. Joker was just a part of who he was. Joker was just a part of who he was. 

“It’s okay,” Roy said, sounding so far away. Jason almost wanted to call him an imposter because by now, the real Roy would have basically pulled Jason into his lap, pressed Jason’s hand to his chest to feel the steady rise and fall of his breathing, and held him close until he was warm again, and there was none of that. Only a hand so cold it might as well have been Jason’s own. “He didn’t, uh… um, he didn’t like, attack me or anything. I won’t let him hurt you. Just breathe, okay?”

Roy sounded like was reading from a script. Jason wanted to scream.

“I can’t,” he gasped out, desperate, ragged.

“You can.” It was still soft and genuine but it was also tired and painful and maybe Roy was just finally getting sick of him. All of this was Jason’s fault, after all. That shattered look on Roy’s face was probably Jason’s fault, too. Bruce wouldn’t have come anywhere near Roy if he hadn’t insisted on trying to love an unlovable wreck like Jason. “Can you look at me, Jaybird?” 

And Jason knew how to obey because obedience was his only remaining virtue, no. The League was just a part of who he was. The League was just a part of who he was. 

Still, Jason could follow a command. His eyes found Roy’s and they were eerily lifeless but they were still Roy’s and they still helped. The smile Roy gave him was just a few degrees closer to real, and that helped, too. Jason dutifully dragged a few weak, shuddering breaths into his body, and Roy smoothed his cold thumb over Jason’s equally cold knuckles as a reward. “Good boy. I got you.”

The words were right on Jason’s tongue, can you hold me, please, please, but if Roy wanted to, he would’ve done it already. And Jason couldn’t take the rejection as fragile as he already felt. He forced his mind away from how cold and lonely he felt and back to the matter at hand, smothering the panic and fear with more appropriate spikes of anger and contempt.

“Bruce fucking Wayne?” His voice was raspy but it was harsh, violent, frightening, even to himself. “Batman, Bruce Wayne? Left Joker alive after he fucking killed me and then teamed up with him, Bruce Wayne? What the fuck is he doing in China?!” There was hysteria beneath the rage and he knew it was audible but he couldn’t mask it even if he wanted to. And some distant, detached part of Jason knew it was okay to be like this with Roy, even when things were as bad as they seemed to be right now. He could be weak and wrong and hurting and Roy wouldn’t punish him for it.

“He’s looking for you.”

“For me? I’m fucking dead!”

“Well, he’s looking for—he called you the Red Hood, I don’t think he knows it’s you, you.” 

“Oh my god,” Jason breathed, grip on Roy’s hand so tight it must’ve been painful. “Jesus fucking Christ, this cannot be happening.” 

“I’m sorry.” There was guilt in Roy’s expression, green like sickness, and Jason felt sick, too. He should be able to tell Roy that he had nothing, fucking nothing to feel guilty about, but he couldn’t find anything soft or comforting within him, just the abject terror crushing everything in its path and the bile rising in his throat.

“Is he gonna kill me?” Jason asked, hating how small his voice sounded.

Roy’s face fell even farther. “No, Jay, of course not.” 

“But you don’t know that, you don’t, you can’t.”

“I do know that. I’m the one who was actually there, and I’m telling you, he won’t.”

“Why? Why wouldn’t he?” 

“You’re a good guy now. Batman doesn’t kill the good guys.”

“But when he first started chasing me, I wasn’t. The first scene I know of that Bruce was on was with that rapist motherfucker, and he was unrecognizable by the time I was done with him. I beat the shit out of him, I tortured him, and I slaughtered eleven other men along with him. God only knows what else Bruce has seen. He knows exactly what I was and the Batman approach is he could turn into a monster again, we have to stop him before he can hurt anyone else. He won’t just let me inflict myself on the world, Roy.” 

“Jay—”

“What did he say, then? What did he tell you he wants?” 

“To talk to you,” Roy said with a small cringe.

Jason scoffed. “Nobody ever just wants to talk, least of all fucking Batman.”

“Yeah, that’s what I said too, but he was very insistent that he didn’t want this to get ugly.”

“Things are only ever ugly with him,” Jason whispered, voice hollow. “The only thing he’d want from Red is his life or his freedom. I’m the worst killer alive apart from Joker now that Superman’s dead. My name is on his list and now he’s trying to cross it off. Of course, he wouldn’t say that to you, he was probably trying to win your trust.” Jason felt a sudden weight come down on his shoulders, bones crunching to dust under the weight of it, and he kind of wanted to punch himself in the face for taking so long to ask. “Did he hurt you?” 

Roy flinched, so slight it was barely noticeable. “No.”

Lie.

“Roy…” 

“Bruce didn’t lay a hand on me, Jay, I swear to god.” That seemed like less of a lie, but there was something in the way Roy said Bruce’s name that turned Jason’s blood to ice, that hollowed him out and stole the words from his mouth for a few too-long seconds before he could find them again.

“You said there were two of them,” he said, voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “Who’s the other one?”

Roy shuddered with his whole body and his eyes went wide and scared for a moment before he tore them away from Jason’s and fixed them on the worn, shredded fabric of the battered couch beneath them. “Deathstroke,” Roy said, voice breaking harshly on the name.

And that told Jason enough. He dropped Roy’s hand and shot up to his feet, a fearsome and fearful rage alive in every cell of his body. “What the fuck did he do to you?”

Roy shrank farther into the couch like he thought he could disappear inside it. “Jason, please—”

“What the fuck did that freakish super soldier cabrón do to you, Roy?! I’m gonna put his head on a fucking stick, tell me what he did!”

Roy recoiled violently, shoulders hunched, head bowed, and as Jason stood over him and watched him react with such obvious fear, a series of horrible flashes hit him at once.

Willis, belt in hand, towering over Jason at eight years old as he cried and braced himself for the beating. 

The Joker, laughing as he beat Jason with a crowbar until there was so much blood that Jason’s hands slipped in it and he stopped trying to get back up. 

Talia, just standing there impassively a dozen different times as Jason was forced down to his knees, chained, and whipped until he learned to react to the cracking sound with submission and the expectation of pain. 

And now, Jason was standing above someone who looked every bit as small and afraid as he had felt, fucking yelling at them and making it even worse. Roy wasn’t supposed to look like this, wasn’t supposed to act like this or feel like this and it was freaking Jason out but it wasn’t Roy’s fault and now Jason was just another thing that hurt him. Jason wouldn’t allow it any longer. Roy would never be hurt the way Jason had been, least of all by Jason himself.

Monsters had stood over Jason once, made him weak and helpless. Jason wouldn't be like them. He wasn’t a monster anymore.

Gathering up every last bit of his strength, Jason took a deep breath and pushed away every sharp, hard emotion that could hurt Roy. “You’re not okay,” he said quietly. It wasn’t a question.

Roy’s eyes found his for a brief moment, then returned to the couch, still looking cowed and frightened. Roy grabbed his right bicep with his left hand and started kneading it hard enough that the pressure must have been painful, but he didn’t even seem to feel it.

“What happened, Ginger?” 

“Nothing,” Roy repeated, voice rough as it broke on the word. “Like I told you, they didn’t attack me or anything.”

Jason took another deep breath, imagining the blood (not green poison, just red blood, the way it was supposed to be) flowing from his heart outward, down through his legs and arms, and into his fingers and toes. Jason and Roy were here. Batman and Deathstroke were somewhere out there, and all that mattered right now was here.

The vicious parts of Jason that belonged to his father and Crime Alley and Batman and Joker and Ra’s and Talia wanted to burn the world to ashes until there was nothing left because no one, no one, was allowed to hurt Roy like this, but Jason didn’t belong to anyone anymore and viciousness had no place here. It wasn’t what Roy needed.

There is no healing to be had through vengeance, man-child. Only more pain.

Ducra’s damned nonviolent wisdom had more or less become his mantra these past few months, and even when he was fucking sick of her always stopping him from doing things the easy, satisfying way, she was no less right now than she always had been.

“I didn’t ask if they attacked you,” Jason said once he was entirely certain he could channel kindness and care and block out the violence. He knelt beside Roy and set his hand on top of the one Roy was digging into his own arm, pulling his fingers back and threading his own through them to stop Roy from bruising himself. He couldn’t physically warm Roy up, but maybe this could do something. “I asked what happened.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

Lie.

Obvious lie, so obvious that it burned Jason’s throat like bile.

But Roy was justified in wanting to lie, wanting to hide from the things that hurt him. Jason had done it for years.

“And I didn’t rat you out if that’s what you’re worried about," Roy added, clearly doing his very best impression of indifference.

Ouch. Just… ouch.

“That’s not it,” Jason said, forcibly soft. He hated that he even needed to say that out loud, hated that Roy didn’t know Jason cared about what happened to him far more than anything else, including his own safety. “And I wouldn’t be angry with you if you had given me up, for the record. I never expected or wanted you to hurt for me. That’s not part of the deal.” He squeezed Roy’s hand gently. “Please. I just want to help.” 

Roy frowned at the couch beneath him. “Jason, seriously, you don’t need to do this. I’m fine.”

Lie.

“If it hurts too much to talk about, I understand.” His voice was a weak imitation of the absolute sense of safety and comfort Roy gave him so effortlessly, too gruff and gravelly, obviously meant for hurting and not healing just like the rest of Jason was. But he had to try. He had to. “You don’t have to tell me, but I’d rather you didn’t lie to me.” 

Roy crumbled visibly beneath the words. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, voice cracking. “I’m not—I’m just—I’m sorry, Jay.”

And Jason was only human. There was only so much he could take. 

Without thinking, he pushed himself to his feet and returned to the couch. This time, though, he wrapped an arm around Roy’s shoulders (and god, Roy had never felt so tiny), laid back, and pulled Roy with him. Roy’s smaller body ended up sprawled half on top of Jason’s larger one, his head resting on Jason’s chest. It was what Roy would’ve done for him, and it felt right. Or, it felt less wrong, at least.

Jason took a long moment to breathe, to steel himself for the potential rejection, but Roy just let out a massive shuddering breath and deflated, all the tension leaving his muscles as he melted into Jason and started crying quietly into his chest. 

Relieved, Jason tucked Roy’s head under his chin. “I love you,” he murmured into Roy’s red hair, the twinge of discomfort that usually came with those words a bit weaker than usual. Roy let out a quiet sob in response, burying his face in Jason’s neck and wrapping an arm around Jason’s midsection, holding onto him for dear life. Roy was usually so solid but now he was trembling violently against Jason, and Jason did his best to ignore the way his heart cracked clean in two at the feeling. “I’m sorry I yelled. It scares me when you get hurt.”

“N-No, ‘s okay,” Roy stammered out between little sobs. Jason could feel the hot tears dripping onto his skin. “It’s me, I just—I d-don’t know what my p-problem is.” 

“Shh, I got you. It's alright, it’s not your fault.” Jason couldn’t help but wonder if this was how Roy felt every time Jason broke apart in his arms. He told himself it wasn’t possible. This felt like being flayed to the bone and Roy had easily held Jason through a hundred breakdowns and if Roy had hurt this fucking bad a hundred times, there’s no way he’d still be breathing. “It’s over now, alright? That hijo de puta is never going to hurt you again.” 

Jason couldn’t promise that, not really. Still, judging by the shaky sigh Roy let out, the somewhat empty sentiment must have helped a little. Roy shifted down some so he could muffle his words against Jason’s broad chest. “Just g-gimme a minute and I’ll t-tell you.”

“Okay. Take your time.” After a bit of awkward stretching and bending, he slid the first aid kit out from under the couch, grabbed some hot packs, and slipped them beneath Roy’s shirt to rest on the small of his back. He pulled a blanket over both of them and did his best to relax, not wanting Roy to feel the remnants of anger lurking in his body. “I got you, just let it out.”

As gently as he could, Jason slid the tie out of Roy’s hair and let the curtain of red fall down to his shoulders, running his fingers up the nape of Roy’s neck, into the soft downy hairs of his buzzed undercut and up into the long part, then back again. The easy, repetitive motion was soothing for Jason, too, and it gave him something neutral to tether himself with. The soft, affectionate touches didn’t feel as awkward and alien as he had expected, either. In fact, in a different situation, it might’ve been nice. Watching strands of orange fire slip through his fingers and feeling Roy’s solid-but-not-suffocating weight on top of him, keeping him grounded, it might've given Jason that happy little buzz of safety and contentment that often came along with Roy.

But, as it stood, Roy was still crying into his chest and Jason still felt so damn clumsy trying to comfort Roy in the few ways he knew how to, and with every broken little noise Roy made, Jason felt another piece of his heart crumble into dust.

Jason had seen Roy cry before, but only twice. It had been different than this, just a few tears, calm enough that Jason wouldn’t have even known if he hadn’t been looking at Roy while it was happening. That wasn’t a breakdown. He hadn’t been able to hear that the way he could hear this. Not that it was loud now, because it wasn’t; mostly, it was just some weak whimpering and sniffling with the occasional soft sob muffled into Jason’s shirt, but somehow, it was worse that way. When Jason cried, it was loud and violent and painful just like everything always was for him, which meant he had enough to distract him that he didn’t have to face how exposed it made him feel. But this, the quiet way Roy let himself break down while still clinging to Jason, it couldn’t be anything other than trust that Jason had never in his whole life been deserving of. 

Rather than think too hard on how that trust hurt like being shot in the fucking chest when it should’ve been heartwarming, Jason spent the time swearing to everyone and everything he’d never believed in that he would do anything for Roy to be okay. He’d willingly submit himself to Batman’s custody. He’d go back to the League, to Joker, to both of them if that’s what it took. Anything, anything, so long as he never had to hear Roy cry like this ever again.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Roy said eventually after the sobs had died out. The damp spot on Jason’s shirt and the way Roy’s powerful archer arms were still squeezing the air out of him told an entirely different story, but Jason didn’t bother pointing that out. Roy knew. “Dunno why I can’t get my fucking shit together.”

“Ginger,” Jason chastised softly, not missing the soft, pleased hum that escaped Roy as he gently ran his fingers through his hair again. “I’ve been having breakdowns every day since we met, I think you’re allowed to have one. I know exactly how tough you are. You can be tough and still be hurting.”

Roy released his boa constrictor hold on Jason’s ribs and picked his head up to rest his chin on Jason’s chest, red-rimmed eyes and a trembling little grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Not every day,” he rasped out. “Just most of them. We had your birthday. We had the day you decided to be a hero. We had—”

“We have you stalling, which is usually my job,” Jason teased, feather-light, knowing Roy could still easily shatter even if he was looking more whole than he had all day. 

Roy’s still-red eyes turned a little sad, a little ashamed. He turned his head to rest his cheek against Jason’s chest again, fingers tightening slightly in the fabric of his shirt. “Yeah, we really have switched places today, huh?” 

Jason saw so much of himself that he could feel it like a physical ache; nights spent trying to explain to Roy why he was like this, forcing the words out clumsy and shaky on a weak prayer that they might ease the load he always carried or at the very least convince Roy he wasn’t a total psychopath and hope it was enough to get him to stay. The words were right there, let’s just let it go, we don’t have to talk about it, and Roy would probably give him a stiff nod and say yeah, I don’t think it’ll help, anyway, and they’d just go on lying to each other until the pain faded enough to ignore or they crumbled beneath the weight, and even though it was a miserable prospect, it was a familiar one. But Jason was better than that now, better than lying and hiding from the things that hurt most. They were both better than that. So he just waited for Roy to find the words.

“Deathstroke, he just… he said some stuff.”

Jason stiffened slightly, nervousness mixing with revengerevengerevenge in his blood, but he pushed them both away lest Roy notice the tension and take it as danger. All of it could wait until Roy was okay. “Did you kill him?” He asked before his mind could get too carried away with plotting its vengeance.

“Tried to, but I hesitated, and that’s all it takes with him. I was, um… I was too shaken up to get it done.”

“Okay.” Jason took a deep breath. “So what did he say?” 

“Y’know,” Roy murmured into Jason’s chest, just loud enough for him to hear. Jason could tell just from the single word that Roy was going to try and play this off as a minor thing to spare them both the pain of admitting how bad it actually was, and he gave Roy’s shoulder a gentle squeeze, trying to convey without words that he didn’t need to bother. He didn’t need to protect Jason. He could let Jason protect him for a change. “How, uh…” Roy cleared his throat loudly. “How I’m junkie scum. And everyone knows I’m junkie scum, and all I’ve ever been is junkie scum, and all I ever will be is junkie scum. And that, um, how did he put it… oh, yeah. The rush of being an accomplice to violent, sadistic murders distracts you from how empty and sad your life is without heroin. Something about me not giving a shit about you or anything besides my next high, too. So, um, yeah. A fun little trip down memory lane.”

Jason felt like his insides were made of gasoline and he’d just swallowed a lit match. He was going to kill Deathstroke. Bruce, he’d maybe consider having a conversation with first but that one-eyed bastard was going to catch the business end of the All-Blades the second he showed his stupid black and orange armor anywhere in Jason’s vicinity. 

He tried to distract himself from the hot sear of fury, but then he recalled the moment he first walked in, Roy staring at his right arm with deep, haunted eyes, and fire flashed through him again. Jason had seen the scars before; about a dozen small white bumps raised just enough to feel the difference, concentrated around the blue veins that stood out on the inside of Roy’s elbow. When things were at their worst and Roy’s apathy towards his own survival reached its highest point, he’d stopped caring about hiding the evidence. Figured he wouldn’t live long enough to see the consequences. Just stuck the needle into the closest available vein, track marks and scars be damned, and that had been the result.

Usually, the scars didn’t bother Roy. They were hardly even visible and he didn’t try to hide them. He never stared at them like that, like he was worried they might come to life and force him to start using again if he wasn’t careful. Deathstroke had done that to him. Jason wanted to break someone something.

But Roy was still trembling against him, feeling like he might shake apart in the span of Jason’s arms. Jason noticed belatedly that there was tension lighting up Roy’s body now, and it took way too long for him to realize Roy was bracing himself for Jason to blow up and start screaming again, or for him to leave the house when Roy very obviously still needed him and go tear Deathstroke limb-from-limb.

Jason wasn’t going to do that. He wasn’t going to abandon Roy. After a lot of trial and error, he had finally figured out which problems could be solved with violence and which ones couldn’t.

No healing to be had through vengeance. 

No healing to be had through vengeance.

There was only one way to move forward.

“He’s wrong.” Jason kept his voice low and soothing as he pulled Roy a little tighter to him and hooked one of his legs around Roy’s like maybe he could shield his friend from the pain with his own body. “Slade’s wrong, Roy. That’s not what you are. He doesn’t know what you are.” 

Roy sniffled quietly. “I know, I know.” God, he sounded fucking miserable. “And like, it’s fucking Deathstroke, the guy’s a class A jerkoff, why do I give a shit?” 

“It doesn’t matter who he is. A trigger is a trigger.”

“I mean, yeah, like, I get that. I dunno, I just… I don’t have to think about that part of my life anymore. I haven't for years. I never told you this, but I left Star City because, um, mostly because I was ashamed of myself. Once people find out you’re an addict, that’s… that’s all you are. And I knew even if I got clean, I’d never stop being Speedy the Junkie, so I ran away from all of my fuck-ups to a place where no one would know who I was. I got a fresh start. I got you. And I never had to face anyone who knew the real me.” Jason winced at that, the real me, but didn’t interrupt. “Slade knew me as Speedy. He’s the first person I’ve spoken to in like, five years who did. So when he started talking, I guess I heard Ollie and Dinah saying it instead of him. And ever since I left home, I always told myself I didn’t care about them or what they thought of me anymore but, um… now, that’s all I can think about. How much they must hate me for fucking my life up and running away instead of trying to fix it, and how they’re probably relieved thinking the apocalypse killed me, and how they were good to me and all I did to repay them was break their hearts and drop off the face of the Earth. And that, fuck.” 

Roy cut himself off with a sharp inhale, and the next breath was too fast, and the one after it was even faster and they just kept coming until the noises were high and harsh enough that Jason could feel them in his own chest, too rapid and constricted for the oxygen to reach his lungs. He knew what that was. Oh fuck, he knew what that was.

If Roy had a panic attack, Jason would probably have one too, and then they were really fucked because Jason had no idea what Roy responded to and he had precisely zero experience trying to hold himself together while someone else fell apart because between the two of them, he was the one who was always a fucking wreck, not Roy, never Roy. So Jason did what he could, what little he knew how to do, and ran one hand through Roy’s hair and the other up and down his spine underneath his shirt, made soft shushing noises in his ear, and fucking prayed that would be enough.

“I got you,” he murmured. He should know what Roy needed, but he didn’t. He only knew that what Roy did always helped him. “I got you, you’re okay.”

It was enough. It took time, but it was enough. After a few minutes, the violent shudders died down into weak trembling, the hysterical moment breaking before it could spiral out of control. “It’s hard, um…” Roy sounded like he’d gargled broken glass. “It’s hard not to hate myself for what I did to them when I think about it like that. And that’s fucking me up bad enough that it feels like someone’s splitting my chest open with an ax.”

Oh, Jason was so going to kill Deathstroke. 

Fuck everything he’d ever said about killing with respect and reserving his wrath for evil people, fuck any rationale that justified leaving Slade Wilson alive, Jason was going to kill him and then he was going to beat the shit out of Bruce for teaming up with another monster and just standing by and letting him do this to the only person he still loved.

Jason didn’t open his mouth to respond until the strongest of his murderous urges had faded into the background enough for him to think straight. “What you did when you were young and broken and afraid isn’t the total sum of everything you are, Roy. You hurt yourself and you hurt other people, but everyone does that sometimes. You’ve also done a lot of good, more than most people do. For years, you risked your life to save innocents, and that counts just as much as the bad stuff does. I’d argue, actually, that it counts for a lot more. You saved lives as Speedy. You’ve saved lives as Arsenal. You, uh… you saved my life. Saved the lives of a lot of people who could’ve been my victims, too. 

“Being decent is hard, and it’s a lot harder once you’ve gotten kicked around the way you have. But you still did it. Everything you went through and you still turned out good. I never knew Ollie or Dinah, but I think they’d be proud of you.” Roy shuddered, but it wasn’t all bad. It wasn’t all hurt. “I’m proud of you. I think you’re probably the best person I’ve ever known. And I distinctly remember you saying that if people can’t love you without changing who you are, then fuck them. You ever try taking your own advice?” 

Roy propped his chin up on Jason’s chest again, and the tears were back in his eyes, but they looked alive now. He looked alive. “Never. My advice sucks.” And it was hoarse and choked with emotion and made it very clear that Roy had been just barely holding himself together for far too long, but it was Roy. It was the real Roy. There was a spark of light and warmth in his voice that made Jason’s heart soar.

“Well,” Jason murmured, placing a quick kiss to the top of Roy’s head before he could think better of it, “now might be a good time to start.” 

Killing Deathstroke could wait. Bruce could wait, too. Nothing mattered more than Roy did.

Chapter Text

Jason didn’t care that it was Bruce Wayne chasing him. He didn’t care. Not even a little bit. It didn’t matter that Bruce used to be his dad, it didn’t matter that being chased had sent him into a spiral so debilitating he barely survived it, it didn’t matter that Bruce was probably out to kill him. All that mattered was that Bruce was complicit in hurting Roy. 

Roy was Jason’s family. Bruce wasn’t. Not anymore.

“I’m fine,” Roy insisted the day after the Deathstroke Incident. Jason gave him a once-over. Sure, the dull, hazy look in his eyes had been replaced with lit kindling that, given time, would return to the flames that used to dance in Roy’s eyes, but Jason still didn’t bother entertaining the lie. He’d spent the last six hours holding Roy while he shuddered and whimpered through his nightmares and people who were actually fine didn’t wage war against their own minds while they slept. 

But Jason could see the bruised pride lingering in the forced curve of Roy’s half-smile. Roy was the fixer, not the one who needed fixing, and now he felt like he needed to compensate. Batman had done the same thing when Jason had been Robin, rushing himself through his recovery every time he got injured so he wouldn’t have to face how vulnerable it made him feel to have to lean on someone else. Bruce would get defensive when Jason pointed out how stupid he was being. So, rather than lambast Roy for lying, Jason gave him a small smile and replied, “It’s more for me than you, Ginger. I get paranoid about this shit. I’m not gonna be able to relax until I’m 1000% sure you’re okay. Okay?” 

Roy rolled his eyes, muttered something about Jason being more of a mother hen than a Robin, and gave in. 

So, for a while, Jason just took care of his friend. He talked Roy down when he panicked over the possibility of relapsing and cried so hard that he threw up, cooked all his favorite foods, and every time a bit of shame or pain crept into Roy’s eyes, Jason casually closed whatever space there was between them and let Roy wrap himself around Jason like a fucking koala until the shakes eased and his breathing evened out again. It was clumsy and messy and Roy with his smooth, soothing voice and relentless cheerful optimism was much better cut out for it than Jason was, but up until Jason could kill Deathstroke and maybe Bruce, this was the most he could do to help. 

At night, he kept Roy tucked protectively against his side and listened for any more nightmares, comforting him through the quieter ones and waking him up when they got particularly bad. In between those episodes was the only time Jason let his mind get anywhere near the things that ignited green behind his eyes. Roy’s peaceful, sleeping face would warp back into haunted misery in his mind’s eye, Jason would hear the echoes of his choked sobs, he’d think about how Roy cried himself to sleep that first night, and he burned. 

Jason wasn’t on fire. Jason was the fire. Every thought of Roy’s it’s hard not to hate myself for what I did to them and Deathstroke remaining unpunished and Bruce just standing by and letting it happen and the fact that most of it was Jason’s fault because Roy wouldn’t be anywhere near this crazy bullshit if not for him just added fuel to the flames.

Even if Roy wasn’t awake to see it, the blaze could still scorch him if it burned too hot, so Jason started talking to his unconscious friend just to get some of it out. “I didn’t know I could still hurt this bad,” he started, voice low and hoarse. “Or maybe I hoped I couldn’t. I thought I was too numb after all the shit I’ve gone through for anything to tear me up like this is. It’s one thing when someone breaks half the bones in your body and carves your face open to the ears and tells you that you fucked up so bad your dad’s given up even lookin’ for you and stuff, but Joker only ever hurt me. The League only ever hurt me, too. And I can take that, y’know? Hurting and being hurt, I’m good at that, but nobody’s ever hurt me through somebody else. And I’ve been thinking like, is this how B felt? Joker used me to hurt him, I was targeted because of my relationship with him, it’s the same thing that happened to you. But then I think nah, there’s no way, because I’m going to burn the whole fucking world down to ashes for what they did to you. But I died. And Bruce didn’t do anything. 

“And I’ve been trying,” Jason could already hear the pain choking his voice, his throat going tight with the anguish, fuck, “I’ve been trying so fucking hard not to let you see what this is doing to me. I know you never liked seeing me green, and you didn’t really have the stomach for some of the bloodier shit I did in the beginning, and none of those motherfuckers ever made me as angry as this did. And maybe that makes me a bad person, cause I’ve killed monsters, fucking animals who traumatized little kids, and I never wanted to make any of them suffer as much as I do Deathstroke and Batman. But they don’t get to fuck with you, Roy. They can take anything else away from me, but they can’t have you. You’re mine. And I’m going to bleed them the fuck out for even trying to take you from me.”

Roy made a small, unhappy-sounding noise and his fingers tightened slightly in the fabric of Jason’s shirt. Jason just watched him for a long moment, the moonlight streaming in through the windows and casting a soft glow on his freckled skin, a bit of a downward twist to his lips which, Jason noticed for the first time, had freckles on them, too. The distress was subtle, just a small increase in tension, a slight shift in energy, but Jason felt it, and he knew it was his fault. He took a few deep breaths and tried not to hate himself, just in case Roy could sense that, too.

Jason slowly rotated their bodies until Roy was half on top of him, close enough for him to feel Jason’s heartbeat as he tried to keep it slow and steady. “You know, it’s really not fair that you can still tell when I’m pissed off even when you’re asleep,” he groused, even as he lowered his voice to a smooth, soothing register to try and show Roy’s unconscious mind it was safe.“Sorry. For gettin’ worked up and for, um…” Jason swallowed hard, and his voice was weary and strained when he found it again. “I should’ve been there. I care about you, so much it fucking scares me sometimes, but you needed me, and I wasn’t there.  It’s my job to keep people safe, to keep you safe, but I just sat at the apartment and let that happen to you. I let you take the hit for me. I know you'd never tell me if you thought it wasn't worth it, but it can't be, can it? Nothing could be worth you getting hurt like that. I should be able to say this when you’re awake, but I’ve been too much of a fucking coward, so… I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Roy. I’m sorry this happened to you. I’m sorry I let this happen.”

A bit of the tension faded from Roy’s body as Jason spoke, but Jason knew it would take more than an even tone and a gentle embrace to banish the kinds of demons that must haunt a recovered drug addict terrified of relapsing after five years clean. Still, when Roy's face went slack and he nuzzled into Jason's chest, Jason couldn't help but think he looked... good like that. Softer. Young in a way neither of them had ever really been allowed to be. Jason didn't get to see peace on Roy's face very often, not with the life they'd both chosen for themselves, but it was a good look on him. Jason wished he could give it to Roy more often. 

“It’s okay if it still hurts, tough guy," Jason murmured into his hair, breathing in the familiar smell and wishing he could be as effortlessly comforting for Roy as Roy always was for him. This was all Jason could really give him, though, so it would have to be enough. "You’re, uh, um. Probably the strongest person I know, so. Yeah. If anyone can do this, it’s you. And if it doesn’t go away, if it hurts forever, that’s alright. Cause I’ll always be here.”

Jason didn’t care that it was Bruce Wayne chasing him. Seriously. He didn’t. He cared a little bit that it was Batman, only because it was difficult to best someone using the strategies they taught you, but Bruce? He meant nothing to Jason. Hadn’t for years. It’d be a relief, actually, to finally have him dead.

Two weeks passed with Jason repeatedly telling himself that in the empty spaces between Roy’s panic and fear. Two weeks. That was how long it took for Roy’s eyes to lose that haunted edge and for him to look half alive again. And Batman and Deathstroke were going to pay for every single fucking second that Jason had to see that broken look on his friend’s face.

Jason didn’t buy that two weeks was enough for Roy to fully recover—trauma like that tended to overstay its welcome and he still caught Roy staring at his arm for just a bit too long—but Roy wasn’t any more fond of being fawned over than Jason was, so he backed off a bit. He still worried, but it was a quieter sort of worry. One that didn’t send him into a muted panic every time he saw Roy, just made him a bit too aware of how reliant he’d become on the overeager little archer man who never knew when to quit. 

A very small part of Jason thought about leaving now that Roy was loosely orbiting stability. Deathstroke and Batman weren’t the giving up sort, Roy was their only connection to Red, and if they came for him again, they wouldn’t take no for an answer. And Jason really, really didn’t want Roy to find out what it was like to be tortured by someone who spent decades figuring out the best ways to do it. Without Jason around, that target would be off of Roy’s back. If Jason were a stronger man, he would’ve cut ties then and there. 

Roy would hate him for it, would probably never forgive him, but he’d live a long, safe life of hating Jason instead of a dangerous and probably short one defending him. It was the right choice. 

But, the thought of Roy ever looking at him with raging black contempt in his lively green eyes was more than Jason could bear, as was the prospect of being the reason Roy cried like he had after the Deathstroke Incident. Jason could take anyone else’s hate, anyone else’s anger, but not Roy’s. So, he stayed, pretended it wasn’t one of the most selfish things he’d ever done, and tried not to think about how all this rage and loathing he had for Slade and Bruce probably should’ve been aimed at himself instead.

Planning how to put them both in the ground was a good enough distraction.

On the kitchen table in front of Jason was a scattered pile of loose-leaf paper, two notebooks, a map, and his laptop, which was playing a grainy old YouTube clip of the one (yes, one, on the whole Internet he’d found one) Deathstroke vs. Batman fight that had been caught on tape. “Just had to be you two, didn’t it?” He grumbled, squinting at the screen just trying to identify a single weakness in either of them. “Couldn’t have been like, Riddler and Penguin or somethin’, just had to be the only two pendejos in the world better at fighting than I am. I’d so much rather solve one of Eddie’s stupid puzzles than deal with this shit.”

Jason replayed the video again, smacking a hand to his forehead in frustration. “C’mon Jason. You won’t always be the strongest person in the fight, or the smartest, but you can always be the most prepared.” 

Bruce always used to tell him that. He probably thought Jason never listened to it, that he was nothing more than an impulsive hothead who ran head-first eyes-closed into Joker’s arms, but Bruce could go fuck himself. Jason didn’t go into everything guns blazing anymore. He was too smart for that.

There. Slade reacted just a second too slow and ended up with a Batarang lodged in his shoulder. “I hope that hurt, fuckin’ cabrón.” Jason replayed the clip again at half speed. “I’m quicker than you,” he added with a triumphant smirk. “And look at you compensating, bet that’s not the first left-arm injury you’ve had, is it, old man?” He jotted both things down on the weaknesses page of his Deathstroke notebook, then reached across the table for his Batman notebook, which was dishearteningly barren in the weaknesses department. The only thing written there was non-meta, which, really, who cares? All the lasting marks left on Jason’s body and mind were made by people without powers. It shouldn’t count, but it was too depressing to have the whole thing blank. Reluctantly, he flipped to the strengths page and added good eye for vulnerabilities—protect right shoulder to the list with an unhappy sigh.

Deathstroke landed a flurry of blows, too quick for Bruce to dodge or block. Half of them were powerful enough to send Bruce back a step, but Slade was slowing down and showing clear signs of injury. “Okay, Slade, so you’ve got more power but I heal faster,” he observed, adding them both to his notes. “And you, B, I’d love to say I’m stronger than you, but we both know it’s a lie.” 

“Whaddya up to?” Roy asked from somewhere behind him, voice thick with sleep. Jason hadn’t even noticed him come into the room. He debated adding easily distracted to the list of Red’s weaknesses, but decided against it. He was in his own home. He didn’t need to be on constant alert here. 

“Hm?” He asked after a few moments. “Oh. I’m killing Deathstroke.”

Roy let out a little snort of amusement, and a soft, pleasant wave of relief washed over Jason. He’d been trying not to say the one-eyed bastard’s name because he remembered too clearly how he used to react to the words “Joker” and “clown” like a whipped dog responding to its master, but if Roy could laugh about it, it must be at least somewhat okay to bring up.

“Right. So, has Deathstroke recently added invisibility to his meta repertoire, or are you trying to kill him with your mind?” 

“Neither. I’m planning. But if I say ‘I’m killing Deathstroke’ instead of ‘I’m sitting and staring at a pile of bullshit papers and watching a bullshit video on repeat that barely gives me anything useful’, it helps me be less pissed off.”

“Pissed off about what, exactly?”

“About the fact that I’m sane enough to know this needs to be done properly. What I’d really like to do is strap myself with every weapon I can find in case the Blades are dumb enough to think they’re not guilty, let the green take over, and hunt them both down without thinking about the consequences like I would've done a year ago. The fact that it’s been two weeks already and I still haven’t killed them feels like ants crawling underneath my skin. Unfortunately, I worked really hard to not be that kind of killer anymore and thanks to your sorry ass, I have a life that I give a shit about now and I’m not overly keen to give it up at the moment. That means I have to use my brain. Thanks for nothing.”

“Well, I think self-control is a gorgeous color on you, sweetheart.” 

A few minutes later Roy came up behind Jason, placed a (blessedly) warm hand on his shoulder, and set a mug of coffee down on top of his notebook. “Maybe this’ll help quell your rage,” he said, a teasing note in his voice as he gave Jason’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “It’s sweet, just like me.”

It was the first time Roy had made coffee since before the Deathstroke Incident, and Jason was so grateful to see him acting like himself that he wasn’t even annoyed that Roy had deliberately placed a very spillable drink on top of his hard work. He picked it up and took a second to appreciate the warmth of the mug and the sweet smell. Before he met Roy, he hadn’t known coffee could taste good. Jason had never bothered to put anything in it, but Roy had always liked things sweet. Enjoy your hot bean water, I guess, Roy had remarked the first time he'd seen Jason down a mug of black coffee. I'm using creamer because I love myself.

“Mm," Jason hummed with a contented sigh after a few sips. "Is this your weird flavored crap?” 

“French vanilla coffee with cinnamon and almond milk, yup. Don’t bother pretending you don’t love it, I see right through you.”

Same old Roy. Jason kind of wanted to cry in relief. 

“I won’t. It’s really good, thanks.”

Jason could feel Roy looking over his shoulder at the mess in front of him, and he didn’t have to see his face to know Roy was frowning. “How come you have a book for Bruce, too?”

“Uh, cause he’s going to be harder to kill. Slade hasn't fought me since I was fourteen, he doesn't know dick about the way I fight, but Bruce taught me at least 50% of what I know now.” 

Roy’s grip on Jason’s shoulder tightened for a moment. “Woah, hold on, you’re planning on killing Bruce?” 

Jason didn’t bother looking up, too focused on the incredibly frustrating task in front of him and not wanting to give Roy a chance to find conflict in his eyes. “Of course,” he replied flippantly. “This is just as much his fault as Slade’s.”

“You know Bruce is not the one who called me a desperate junkie, right?”

Jason didn’t miss the way Roy’s voice broke slightly on the word.

“Doesn’t matter. Slade was probably there because Bruce has him on contract to hunt Red down and regardless, he let it happen when he definitely could’ve stopped it.”

“Even if those were on the same level of badness, which I think you know they aren’t, it doesn’t change the fact that Bruce is your dad. That makes this a lot more complicated than just he fucked up, so I’m going to kill him.”

“Bruce is not my dad, and the only complicated thing about this is that they’re two of the best fighters on the planet, so it’s going to be difficult for me to kill them both by myself. Before you ask, no. I’m not letting you anywhere near Deathstroke after what he did to you last time, and I’m never going to be the reason you get hurt again. I won’t be able to cut them down effortlessly like I have every other motherfucker who’s gotten in my way. Hence, the planning.”

With a quiet frustrated noise, Roy reached over Jason and closed his laptop, then gathered the papers up before Jason could stop him and moved them over to the counter, out of Jason’s reach. “Alrighty then, I can see you’re going to be a Jason about this, so let’s try a different approach,” he muttered as he took a seat opposite Jason.

A foreboding feeling solidified into a block of ice in Jason’s stomach and he let out a groan to cover up the anxiety. “Please don’t tell me you were using your good coffee to lull me into a false sense of security.”

“That doesn’t sound like me at all,” Roy said with half a smile. There wasn’t much light in it. Fuck, fuck, fuck. “I just think it’s probably past time we stopped pretending you don’t care that it’s Bruce chasing you.”

Jason shrugged. “I don’t care. If anything, it makes it easier. He stopped caring about me a long time ago, I’ve wanted him dead for years, and now I have all the justification I could possibly need, plus I know where he is.” 

“You expect me to believe you haven’t seen or heard from Bruce in seven years, you find out he’s the same guy who freaked you out so bad you went through a total moral and spiritual metamorphosis just to cope with him coming after you, and you just… don’t give a shit? Nice try, but no.”

Same old Roy. Jason kind of wanted to punch him in the face.

“Ginger, you know I mean this with all the love in the world, but I don’t really care what you believe. I don’t expect you to understand why I have to do this. I just need you to trust me when I say that I do.” 

The sternness in Roy’s eyes faltered a little bit. “Normally, I’d say yes. Absolutely. I trust you. Do what you need to do. But you have to know this is different. You’re not going to let yourself feel this unless someone makes you do it, and avoidance gets a lot harder when the thing you’re avoiding is standing right in front of you. What happens if you see him and you freeze up?” Jason scoffed, but Roy looked distinctly unconvinced. “What happens if he finds out it’s you you and that sends you into a panic attack? Do you think Deathstroke is gonna wait until you calm down before he puts his sword in your back? What happens if you do kill him and then you regret it and you can’t live with yourself afterwards? Have you thought about any of this, Jay?”

“I’m not the fucking wreck I used to be, alright? This isn’t going to break me. I don’t give a shit about him, and I’m stronger than all that now.” 

“I know how strong you are, sweetheart, I know it better than anyone. That doesn’t change that this is a batshit insane situation that anyone in the world would be having difficulty with. Your ex-mentor is hunting down your vigilante alter ego not knowing it’s really his dead sidekick who’s miraculously come back to life. No matter what happens, seeing Bruce again after all this time is going to be hard. And there’s really no version of killing Deathstroke that doesn’t involve seeing your dad.”

Jason’s spine straightened. “Again, Bruce is not my dad.”

Roy gave him the not-quite-pity look, something Jason was starting to realize was actually nowhere near pity. They looked similar, sure, but Roy had never pitied him. It was somewhere between concern and empathy, and the gap between them was bridged with love. It was something Jason definitely didn’t deserve. “Are you sure?” He asked gently.

Jason didn’t even let himself think about it. “Yes.”

“And there’s no part of you that misses him?”

“No.”

“And if you had to live the rest of your life knowing that the guy who took you off the streets, adopted you, and made you a superhero was dead because of you, that wouldn’t bother you at all?” 

Jason’s hand tightened around his coffee mug, but he barely even felt the heat stinging his fingers. “You can’t fucking say that like the only thing Bruce ever did was help me,” he ground out through his teeth.

“I’m not trying to say that, but you’re acting like the only thing he ever did was betray you and hurt the people you care about, which is also wrong.” 

Jason put the cup down before his too-tight grip could shatter it, then dropped his eyes to the table and his hands beneath it so Roy couldn’t see the way he was clenching his fists hard enough to make his palms bleed. His voice lowered into a dangerous whisper. “Up until you go through twenty-three days of torture and die just to come back and find out the guy you thought was your dad didn’t give enough of a fuck to do a single goddamn thing about it, then tack on an extra two years of torture and brainwashing courtesy of your dad’s ex-girlfriend and her psycho cult, you don’t get to tell me how I’m supposed to feel about Bruce.”  

It was harsher than Jason meant for it to be. A lot harsher. He wanted to take it back, wanted to be gentle with Roy, he was still recovering and that was totally uncalled for but there was green at the edges of his vision and a burning in his eyes and his heart was pounding so loud he couldn’t hear anything else and god, he hated Bruce. He fucking hated Bruce, why the fuck was his throat so tight?

“I’m not saying he didn’t hurt you.” Roy’s voice was soft and forgiving. And Roy was still half-broken, how was he so much better at being good than Jason was? “What happened to you was fucked up. You have the right to be angry about it. All I’m saying is, this is different than killing Joker or Talia or even Slade, because things haven’t always been bad between you and Bruce. And you need to face that if you’re gonna come out of this in one piece.”

Jason tensed further, his shoulders creeping up towards his ears as his breathing picked up. “Do you think I’m wrong for wanting to kill him?” 

“No. But I do think you’re wrong for believing he doesn’t care about you.”

Jason picked up his coffee and shotgunned it all, letting the heat of it singe the pieces of his heart that wanted to believe Roy until all that was left was rage and distrust, safe and familiar. He picked his head up and stared daggers at Roy. “Why? He’s done nothing to prove it. Even after seven years, my death is still Joker’s fucking crowning achievement and I’m sure he brags about it all the time. If Bruce gave a shit about me, he’d never be able to stomach choosing to team up with Joker knowing he’d be talking shit about me all day, every day. Bruce has forgotten me. I was a convenience until I became inconvenient, and then he threw me away like I was trash, like I was worthless, Roy, fuck him!” Jason clamped his mouth shut so hard his teeth clicked. Too loud, too much, fuck, he wanted this to turn into a fight except he really didn’t want this to turn into a fight, fuck. 

“That’s not true, Jay,” and Roy sounded strangely insistent, almost pleading, why would he sound that way—

“And why the fuck should I believe that?”

Roy pushed himself up from his chair so fast it fell down behind him, eyes blazing, palms flat on the table as he leaned forward, almost within striking distance of Jason. Jason couldn’t help but hold his breath and force himself to hold Roy’s gaze and wait for the blow that part of him knew wouldn’t come. “Because, Jason, I’m the one who actually saw him! The guy showed up looking like he’d spent the last seven years being beaten to shit by his own mind! He was just barely keeping his shit together, and when I said your name, he fucking broke!” 

No. 

No, Roy must have misunderstood, or maybe he was just lying to make Jason feel better, because there was no way. Absolutely no way. Jason didn’t matter to Bruce. Jason had been a child soldier who died in the suit, who died in Bruce’s arms, and still, nothing had changed. Bruce kept being Batman, kept letting every monster in Gotham go on wreaking havoc on the innocent people of a city he claimed to care about, kept putting the mission above everything and everyone else. Bruce hadn’t taken another Robin, sure, but that was only because Jason had proved Robin was a liability and confirmed Bruce’s suspicions that no one would ever measure up to the Golden Boy, so there was no point.

For so long, all Jason had wanted was proof that he’d meant as much to Bruce as Bruce had meant to him, and he’d received nothing but a hundred cold and bitter reminders that the only thing that mattered less than Jason’s life was his death. Actions spoke louder than words, and it was obvious that Bruce didn’t care. Not anymore, probably not ever. But now was the time Bruce decided to give any indication at all that he mourned, that he grieved, that Jason ever even crossed his mind? Now that he’d finally grown out of his need for Bruce’s approval and affection?

It couldn’t be true. Bruce didn’t care. Bruce didn’t care. Jason had accepted that a long time ago and the idea that he could’ve been wrong this whole time was enough to bring bile rushing to the back of his throat. Roy was wrong. But the cringe happened before Jason could stop it. His brain was too fucking loud and the information felt like a hundred hot irons burrowing into his skin and it hurt to think about but now he couldn’t stop thinking about it. 

Roy must have noticed because his voice softened slightly. “He misses you,” but that hurt worse than the yelling had and he wanted to cry scream beg plead order Roy to stop talking about this, but all he could manage was another weak flinch. “Before everything went to shit that day, I reamed Bruce out for leaving you to die and teaming up with Joker and he dropped his whole Batman facade because hearing it hurt him that much. You were Robin for four years, so you tell me. How many times did you see Bruce falter while in the field? While actively interrogating someone who was withholding information vital to his mission?” Jason dug his fingers into his pant legs instead of responding. “How many times, Jay?” 

“Never,” he whispered.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought. But in the middle of asking questions that could lead him to the person he’s been chasing for months, all it took was me saying your name for him to give up what little edge he did have and drop an act he spent over twenty years perfecting. Losing you…” Roy’s voice dropped into something warm and soothing, and even as Jason recognized it as his bad news voice, his subconscious only saw safety in the softness and the rapid beating of his heart started to slow. “Losing you changed him, Jaybird. I don’t think he ever really recovered. He misses his dead son. He misses you. Listen, have you thought about letting go of this revenge shit, at least for a little while, and going to see him? Without the masks, without the violence, just as Jason Todd?”

Jason scoffed harshly to hide the vague, twisted-up things that echoed like grief and loss and longing in his chest.

“I could go see Bruce tomorrow, unmasked, scars and all, and he'd still think I was a stranger. He wouldn’t even recognize me anymore.”

Jason didn’t care that it was Bruce Wayne chasing him. Despite what Roy thought, he couldn’t care less if he tried. Jason didn’t even think about Bruce beyond what he’d look like with one of the All-Blades speared through his chest. The part of Jason that cared about Bruce was dead. So what if his not-dad had missed him? So what if he still cared? He had a really fucked up way of showing it, and Jason didn’t need that shit. He didn’t need Bruce. 

Except… except sometimes, when his guard was down and his thoughts drifted, instead of going to Roy’s shattered face and the sound of his sobs muffled into Jason’s chest, they went to the tentative idea that it might be okay to see Bruce again. They went to the way Bruce used to say Jason’s name like he gave a shit, how he was the first person to ever say Jason’s name like that. How Bruce used to call him Jaylad every once in a while and how that would always warm Jason’s heart and drain the anger out of him no matter how upset he was. And how, if Jason was incredibly, obscenely lucky like he never had been in his whole life, he might be able to get one of Bruce’s hugs that had felt like being cocooned in warmth and safety before Bruce realized what a monster Jason was and disowned him for good. 

There were even a few times where Jason thought it would be enough just to know Bruce hated him instead of always having to wonder just exactly how much he would. If it would be enough to throw Jason in prison when Bruce must know it would be one of Jason’s biggest triggers.  If it would be enough to kill his own son partner. Jason had been dangling over that terrifyingly uncertain ledge for years now and he’d never been much for waiting. It might be nice to just take the plunge and get it over with, even if he broke all his bones when he inevitably collided with the hard, unforgiving ground below.

The soft, hopeful part of him that never should’ve made it out of his grave, the same part that believed Roy when he said everything would be okay, only knew that he wanted to see his dad again. 

And then, he remembered Joker. Just a little louder, pumpkin. I want Daddy Bats to hear you. Bruce had teamed up with him.

He remembered Talia. You remain unavenged. Bruce still hadn’t killed the Joker. Still. 

He remembered that news broadcast and seeing Bruce and Joker’s faces side by side. No update on the condition of this group of brave heroes. Joker wasn’t a mass-murdering, child-torturing monster in the world’s eyes, not anymore. He would go down as one of the saviors of the planet, because of Bruce. Jason had died in agony and Joker was still breathing and everyone was just okay with that, because of Bruce.

He remembered how the last thought that went through his head before he died was god, I’m such a fuck-up. And he still was. And it was all he ever would be, and Bruce would hate him for it.

Bruce wasn’t one of the good guys anymore. Batman dedicated his whole life to protecting innocents, but Bruce Wayne had stood by in silence while Deathstroke weaponized an innocent man’s trauma just for the sake of rattling some answers out of him. Bruce wasn’t who Jason thought he was, and Jason didn’t know what he was capable of now.

And Jason could push away the fear that came with Joker and Talia and Ra’s, but he could never quite banish the soft, childish thing in him that was afraid of Bruce. Afraid of what Bruce would think of him, afraid of what Bruce already knew, afraid of having to justify years worth of unjustifiable actions and explain all the shit he’d been through that had turned him into what he was now, afraid Bruce would use his triggers against him just like Slade had done to Roy, afraid he’d lose this fight, afraid he’d win it, afraid he’d have to kill Bruce when he wasn’t sure he wanted to.

Even as many times as Jason had been broken in the past, he was pretty sure no one knew how to break him better than Bruce did. Bruce was ruthless and cunning when he needed to be, and he wouldn’t show mercy just because Jason used to be his son. If anything, that fact would only fan the flames.

So, Jason stayed angry and kept planning his attack, a powerful wave of fear-sorrow-yearning-fury crashing over him every time he imagined himself putting the light in Bruce’s eyes out for good.  Jason didn’t care that it was Bruce Wayne chasing him. And when those thoughts did come up, Jason didn’t allow himself to think it might be okay to see Bruce again.

Jason didn’t care that it was Bruce Wayne chasing him. He was like, at least 90% sure. Sure, Jason had gone on patrol as Red with Bruce consuming his thoughts but his mind was only on Bruce because he was planning, and a good strategic mind never rested. He had an important fight coming up that needed his full attention, that was it, that was the whole reason. And it just so happened that when Jason’s full attention was somewhere else, scumbags sometimes found openings they shouldn’t have.

“Ow, shit!” Jason hissed through his teeth as Roy snapped his shoulder back into place with a single well-practiced motion. Normally he’d keep quiet during this part, but the broken clavicle amplified the pain and he wasn’t used to this feeling anymore and his stupid brain trusted Roy too much to try and hide the pain. “Shit, fuck, son of a goddamned motherfucking—”

“Language,” Roy muttered flatly, sounding distinctly unamused. 

"Fuck you," Jason said, mostly just to be a bitch, then repeated the whole list of curses in Spanish for good measure. “Lemme break your fucking collarbone and dislocate your shoulder, let’s see how you like it, Ginger.” 

Roy gave him a stern look. “What happened to ‘I’m getting cabin fever working on this plan all the time, Roy, I’m just gonna blow off some steam and then come back, don’t worry’? You were out on a light patrol for three hours and already you come back to me with four broken bones and a dislocated shoulder. What the fuck gives, Jay?” 

“Cabrón just got lucky.”

Roy carefully guided Jason’s arm into a sling, the gentleness dissonant with how clearly infuriated he was. “You’re one of the best fighters in the world, people don’t just get lucky with you. How many of them were there?” 

Jason debated the embarrassing truth against an obvious lie for about three seconds, recognized that he was already wheezing through three broken ribs and he didn’t really want to add the strain of lying on top of that, and surrendered. “Six,” he said quietly, eyes dropping to his bare chest, focusing on the intricacies of his tattoos from the All-Caste instead of the scars they covered.

Jason didn’t have to look at Roy to know the mix of anger and worry that was on his face. “Six," he repeated, and Jason recognized that voice, it was Roy's I'm staging an intervention because you're obviously a self-destructive wreck voice. Jason hated that voice. "I’m supposed to believe you, Jason Todd, killer of thousands, former Robin, and terrifyingly lethal assassin, couldn’t fight off six untrained grunts without getting your shit rocked? And that it’s just a coincidence that you were injured in the field for the first time in months on the first patrol you’ve done since Deathstroke and Bruce?”

"Que te den."

“You told me you weren’t too rattled to patrol and you were going to take it easy and you obviously lied. We don’t lie to each other, that’s part of the deal.” 

“I’m not rattled. And I didn’t lie. I had an off fucking night. I’m allowed to have those.” Jason grunted as Roy started wrapping his ribs, a bit too tight to be painless, and that was surprisingly passive-aggressive for Roy. 

“But you don’t,” he protested as he worked. “You don’t have off nights, not ever. Not without a reason. The reason is obviously Bruce, Slade, or both, so stop acting like the stubborn ass you were a year ago and talk to me so I can help you.”

God, Jason missed the early days of their partnership when Roy was just a happy-go-lucky doofus who wasn’t comfortable or close enough with Jason to emotionally dissect him like this.

And yeah, he hadn’t been using the All-Blades because he was worried they’d judge Slade and Bruce as not guilty, so he needed to get used to not relying on the magic anymore. And sure, when he’d accidentally given away his weak shoulder in the fight and then one of the bastards almost immediately wrenched his arm behind his back and popped it out of its socket, Jason’s first instinct had been that’s exactly what B would’ve done, but, whatever. None of that meant anything.

“I was a little preoccupied, but that’s just because I’m planning how to kill two nearly unkillable men, motherfuckers that even Superman couldn’t kill. That takes a lot of focus. It’s not a big deal. My body used to kill dozens of people while my mind was hundreds of miles away getting its ass beat in Nanda Parbat.”

“That’s our standard?” Roy countered, voice raised and almost venomous as he tore the gauze off the roll with a harsh motion and tucked the end in. “Really? Literally one of the most violent and out-of-control periods of your whole life, that’s what we’re comparing this to? The only reason you even survived that was because the torture magic doesn’t want you to die and I was there to pull you out after you dropped. The torture magic doesn’t take over anymore, you do all your missions solo, and for some godforsaken reason, you fucking turned your comms off today! Now, if you get into a deadly situation, you just die! You should know better than to put yourself in this position by now, Jason, what the fuck?” 

“I get it, okay?” Jason snapped, examining his bloodstained hands so he wouldn’t have to face Roy. “I fucked up. I know I did. I’m fucking sorry, or whatever. How long are you planning on yelling at me for it? Because if I wanna get a half-hour lecture about what a disappointment I am, I can just go find Bruce.”

Roy didn’t snap a response, and part of Jason was angry because Roy wasn’t rising to the bait and Jason needed someone to just be ugly with right now, to hurt and be hurt until this horrible clawing feeling disappeared. The rest of him, though, was already feeling the remorse crawling up the back of his throat because all Roy ever wanted to do was help and all Jason did was make it even harder and god, he wanted to deserve Roy’s kindness but he never had, and at this rate, he never would.

“I’m not mad at you for making a mistake, Jay,” Roy said around a sigh, sounding tired and worried and caring when he should be bitter, closed-off, resentful. “It happens to the best of us. I’m upset because you don’t see the very obvious problem with what you’re doing right now.” 

“I got my ass handed to me tonight, obviously there was a problem.”

Roy placed a clean red shirt in Jason’s bloodstained hands, and Jason pulled it on slowly, inhaling sharply through his teeth as every movement sent another bolt of pain into his ribs. “So what is the problem, Jason?” Jason sensed a trap, so he kept his mouth closed. “Here, let me help you out. When you decided to make Red into a hero, what were the three things you wanted to change?” 

It still felt like a trap, but the thing in Jason that was calmed by the chance to follow a simple order was already responding. “Exclusively use the All-Blades unless I’m too injured to manifest them, kill with respect for the life I’m taking, and meditate before I go out as Red,” he recited dutifully, the same words he’d scrawled on paper and mirrors and walls for weeks on end until they were burned into his mind.

“And how many of those things did you do tonight?” 

Jason opened his mouth, then slowly let it drift shut again as defeat coated his throat, thick and bitter. “Zero.”

“And if you were to go kill Batman and Deathstroke right now, today, after all this planning and strategizing you’ve done, how many of those things would you be doing?”

“Fucking hell, Roy—” Jason spat, but Roy cut him off. 

“How many?” 

“Zero.”

“Then what is the point?” Roy asked emphatically. “I get wanting to kill the people who hurt you, Jay, I get it better than most. But if you have to give up everything you’ve worked and fought and suffered for just to do it, then what is the point?” 

Jason clenched his fists. “The point is that they hurt you, Roy! Fuck what Red stands for, fuck all the work I did to get here, none of it matters if I can’t protect you!” 

There was a bloated pause, and then Roy took a deep breath. “Jay, sweetheart, killing Batman and Deathstroke now is not going to change what’s already happened.” 

“Killing Joker wouldn’t have changed the fact that he killed me, but Bruce still should’ve done it.”

“Is that what this is about?” And Roy’s voice was just sad now. “You think the only way you can prove that you love me is by killing the people who hurt me?”

Yes.

I have to.

I don’t know how else to do it.

Jason didn’t let any of it out of his mouth, knowing it would just make Roy sound even sadder and that was a fucking unbearable prospect.

After a too-long silence where increasingly horrible, miserable, self-loathing responses continually flooded Jason’s brain, Roy sat on the bed next to him and took Jason’s hands between his. The primal part of Jason’s brain that only knew how to avoid punishment was stronger than it had been in a long time, so he kept his eyes down, tensed his shoulders, and waited.

“Watching you push yourself into a relapse just to prove something you don’t even need to prove isn’t going to do anything but break my heart, Jason.” 

And god, Jason wished Roy would’ve just hit him instead. It would’ve hurt less.

He had to bite down on the gasp that tried to escape him as he felt those words like a crowbar slamming into his chest, shattering his ribs even worse than they already were, driving all the air out of his lungs. He tried to suck it back in, but the pain was too much. “What—” he started, but the breath wasn’t there and it was so weak it was almost inaudible and he had to breathe, he knew how to breathe, he just had to fucking breathe. Throat tight and chest aching, more from the anguish of hearing that desperate note in Roy’s voice than the pain of his injuries, Jason forced himself to meet Roy’s eyes and tried again. “What would you have done if it’d been me? If I was the one Deathstroke had hurt, and it was Oliver Queen’s fault I spent weeks terrified of going back to my rock bottom and staying there for good? What would you do?” 

The cold, disapproving steel left Roy’s eyes then, his red eyebrows knitting together as he pushed himself a bit closer and gave Jason one of those long, searching looks like he was seeing past all Jason’s walls and right into his soul. “Whatever you needed me to do, Jaybird.” 

Jason’s gut reaction was you’re a better person than I am, then, but looking at Roy now, he couldn’t manage it. Not with that devastatingly vulnerable concern and care in his friend’s eyes. He couldn’t. Instead, he gave Roy’s hand a weak squeeze and managed a stiff nod. “So what do you need me to do?” 

“I need you to choose a path that doesn’t end with you dead or turning back into the old Red. I can’t lock you up again, Jay, and I can’t bury you, either. Please. Don’t make me do it.”

Don’t let them bury me. I can’t dig out again. I can’t do all of this again. Don’t let them put me underground don’t let them do it pleasepleaseplease

Jason swallowed hard, slamming down the panic and wishing he could just say yes, that he could give Roy what he wanted, what he needed, after everything Roy had lost and suffered because of Jason. But he just… he couldn’t. “They need to find out what happens when they fuck with somebody I care about,” he said, just barely keeping a lid on the rage and the tremor out of his voice. “Bruce never taught Joker that lesson. I’m not going to make the same mistake with you.”

“Loving someone doesn’t have to mean getting even, sweetheart," Roy said gently, smoothing his thumb over the back of Jason's hand. "Sometimes loving someone just means holding onto what matters and letting go of what doesn’t. And they don't matter, Jay. We do." 

Jason didn’t care that it was Bruce Wayne chasing him. God, he’d told himself that so many times that the words didn’t really sound like words anymore, just a chain of half-lies he strung together because it was easier than falling apart without them. Maybe it was true. Maybe it wasn’t. But ever since Roy had said that, watching you push yourself into a relapse isn’t going to do anything but break my heart, Jason had been having an especially hard time pretending this didn’t matter. Like it was just another mission. It wasn’t. It very clearly wasn’t.

Still, he really wished Roy would stop bringing it up, because this had been a whole hell of a lot less confusing before Roy started forcing him to face all the things he was hoping to repress for the rest of his life. It was a week after Jason’s injury and Roy had Jason’s head in his lap, his bow-calloused fingers rubbing soothing circles into Jason’s scalp, and that was when the bastard just had to ruin the rare peaceful moment with Bruce fucking Wayne. 

“What would Bruce need to do for you to forgive him?”

Jason’s broken bones were mostly fused by now but they still hurt like a motherfucker and that was a whole other can of worms because ever since the Pit his injuries never took that long to heal, so when Roy asked that, he felt like he’d been shot in the chest and the shattered bits of his sternum had made their way into his lungs. Where the fuck had that come from? 

“What?” He blurted out the moment he caught his breath, resisting the urge to bolt from his comfortable but far too exposed position on the couch. He took a minute to breathe and steady his voice. “What are you, my fucking therapist, Ginger?”

“Honestly, sweetheart? You definitely need one and I’m definitely not qualified seeing as I probably need one too, but that’s a conversation for a different time. It’s adorable that you think I can’t tell when you’re dodging a question. What would he have to do?” 

“Why would you even ask me that?”

Roy’s eyes searched Jason’s for a moment, and then he gave in. “I’m asking because I think the only way you’ll come out of this thing in one piece physically and emotionally is if you talk to Bruce and choose forgiveness. I’m trying to judge how impossible that outcome is.” 

“Well, I’m definitely not forgiving fucking Deathstroke.”

“And I’m not asking about Deathstroke, I’m asking about Bruce. What would he have to do?” 

Jason considered it for a few short moments that he could’ve sworn took years, his heart sinking deeper and deeper with every breath he took. “Nothing he’d be willing to do,” he admitted eventually, voice too small to be his own. God, why did he sound like Robin? Broken and scared and missing his dad mentor? Jason wasn’t Robin, he hadn’t been for years.

“What does that mean?” Roy asked gently.

“It means Bruce has put me through a lot of shit,” and he should be angry but he wasn’t, he was just small, he was just afraid, and he had to resist the urge to curl up into a ball and hide from this whole thing. “And the only way I could possibly see myself moving past it is if he offed Joker after the stupid kill Superman mission was finished and he didn’t hate me for everything I’ve done since my resurrection. Neither of those things happened or are going to happen, let alone both of them, so can we drop this now?”

“I dunno, Jay. I don’t think anyone’s actually heard from Joker since Superman’s death. And I’ve never met the freak, but doesn’t that seem kind of weird to you? Joker’s a pretty massive attention whore, you’d think he’d be singing from the rooftops about how he helped save the world.” 

Jason cringed at the thought. “You expect me to believe that just because Joker’s been a bit quiet for a year, that means he’s finally dead? Bruce probably just got him a new identity or somethin’, since they’re buddies now.” 

“Okay, now you’re just being petty. There’s no way you genuinely believe that Bruce and Joker are friends. You want me to tell you again how he reacted when I mentioned you?” 

“No,” Jason said quickly, because that was still the thing that stuck in his mind every time he tried to write Bruce off for good and he certainly didn’t need the reminder any fresher than it already was. “I’m just sayin’. The worst explanation is usually the right one, and the worst explanation is that B didn’t kill the Joker because they’re on good terms now, even though he tortured and murdered me when I was a fucking child.” And he was finding the anger now, but Jason still felt fragile, like the wrong words here might break him.

Roy nodded solemnly. “Looking past how shockingly pessimistic that is even by your standards, what about Red? You really think it’s so impossible Bruce might be okay with you being a killer? He’s been one for years, and he told me he wants to see you.”

“He told you he wants to see Red Hood.” 

“Either way, he knows what you’ve done and his first instinct wasn’t to look for a fight, that’s a better sign than you’re giving it credit for. I think he’d be pleasantly surprised to find out you and Red Hood are the same person.” 

“I think he’d be fucking mortified. All I’d do is wreck the dead kid’s memory. Robin was good, he was innocent, and I’m not. Seeing me like this, breaking every rule he ever taught me, he’d be so betrayed and pissed off that I don’t even know what he would do to me.” 

“Bruce isn’t innocent either. And let’s think about this logically, Jay. Your death, the apocalypse, and the past seven years have made you into who you are, right? Bruce went through all those things, too. He didn’t die, but he had to live with knowing his son died because of him. It wouldn’t make sense that all those things drastically altered who you are but didn’t change him at all. Maybe the new him could accept the new you.”

“And what if I don’t want to?” Jason asked shakily. “What if I don’t want to forgive him? He fucked me up, Roy. Nothing has ever fucked me up like he did. Maybe I don’t want to get over it. Maybe I don’t want to give him another chance. Maybe I just want him gone. Maybe I just want him dead.” 

Roy carded his fingers through Jason’s hair, and that warm-safe-familiar-Roy feeling was enough to turn the raging typhoon of his mind into more of a thunderstorm. “That would be perfectly valid. But I don’t think it’s true. I don't think you hate him.”

“Even if I was willing to forgive all the shit he did to me, what about you? He let Deathstroke weaponize your fucking trauma against you. Bruce is supposed to protect innocent people, but he let that happen. Fuck him, Roy.” 

Roy grimaced and nodded. “Yeah. That sucked. But it also happened really fast. After I put an arrow in Slade’s shoulder, Bruce looked pissed. At him. And I know what Slade looks like when he’s getting ready for a fight. He was about to let me have it, and he probably would’ve won, too, he had a massive psychological advantage, but Bruce dragged him off. That counts for something, I think. Jaybird, it’s okay if there’s a part of you that wants your dad back.”

Jason bristled. “He’s not my fucking dad.”

"Are you sure?" 

“How many times are we going to rehash this bullshit conversation, Roy?” 

“Are you sure?”

“This is so stupid—”

“Just answer the question, Jaybird, are you absolutely, positively, 100% sure that Bruce Wayne is not your dad?” 

Jason made a move to get up, to put some distance between himself and this conversation, uncomfortable with the vulnerability and the honesty and the anything-to-do-with-Bruce, but Roy’s free hand pushed down on his chest and held him there. Roy’s eyes were alive and alight and unyielding and all the solid, strong things Roy had always been when Jason couldn’t hold himself up on his own. And ever since Deathstroke, Jason had been trying not to need this, but oh god, he needed it.

A dam broke inside him.

“N-No,” he stammered out, wishing he was strong enough to break the hold Roy’s eyes had on him. The image started to blur and fuck, those were tears. Crying over Bruce fucking Wayne. “I’m not—I’m not sure.” 

"Do you want to see him?" 

"Yes," Jason whispered, tears spilling over and trailing slowly down his cheeks. "I wanna remember what his hugs feel like, and I also wanna cave in his face with my fists, and I also want to never, ever think about him again."

Roy did that wonderful soothing thing with his fingers in Jason's hair again. "Okay, well, all three of those are probably options, though all of them simultaneously could get a bit messy."

"I know I always said I'd kill him, but I don't know if I can. I don't—" Jason's breath hitched and he tried to ignore the cold embarrassment dripping down his spine, "I don't know if I want to. I want him to go away, and I also want to go back to how things used to be before I chased Joker into Arkham, when the Manor was my home and Bruce and Dick and Alfred were my family. Things weren't perfect, but it was something I'd never had before, and I liked it. I miss it." 

"So, what's stopping you?" 

Jason sighed. “Things will never be like that again no matter what I do. The last time I thought of Bruce as my dad, he wasn’t the guy who killed Superman and I wasn’t the freak who died and came back to life. We aren’t the people we used to be. I can never go back.” 

“Don’t, then.” Jason looked up at Roy, puzzled, and Roy gave him a small smile in return. “Don’t go back. Go forward. Make something new.” 

It sounded so easy when Roy said it like that. It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t possible.

“Maybe he is different,” Jason sighed, glancing across the room to his Kevlar vest and the red bat painted on it. “But not different enough to love Red like he loved Robin.”

Okay, so Jason had… mixed feelings about the fact that it was Bruce Wayne chasing him. There was too much evidence now, too much doubt, too many complications for Jason to convince himself otherwise. Hell, there was enough doubt that he wasn’t even sure he wanted to kill Bruce after he finished killing Deathstroke. But, whatever. Jason had a lot of practice sorting through (read: repressing) difficult emotions. So, there was some baggage he’d been ignoring. So, maybe he did care about Bruce a little. So yeah, okay, fine, Roy had a stupid fucking valid point, he did kind of want to know if there was a way forward for him and Bruce. Kind of. Maybe.

“You’ve been at this for over a month, Jay,” Roy said, taking in Jason and his ever-growing pile of notes and plans, which was now spread out all across the coffee table, the couch beside him, and the floor. “How many more weaknesses are you expecting to find?” 

Jason scowled at his Batman chart. The only weakness he’d added since he first started planning was personal ties to Jason Todd. And really, that was only a weakness if Jason was willing to reveal his identity or taunt Bruce with details about his own death, which was a massive, gigantic if. “For your information, Ginger, I just found a couple of new ones today. Watch this.” He pulled up a video clip for Roy. God bless the dark web. This was the first one he’d found that didn’t look like it’d been shot with a flip phone camera from 1999. 

Slade was fighting a handful of grunts and mopping the floor with them, which wasn’t surprising. Aside from the one he’d found with Batman (which had ended in an annoying draw as they always did), Slade won every fight that had ever been caught on film. Mercenaries don’t get famous by losing. On screen, Slade successfully dodged attacks from three different men in a single fluid movement, then stabbed the first one straight through the heart, used the same sword to slit the second one’s throat, and then pivoted and threw a punch so hard it knocked the third one out cold. Roy let out a low whistle. “Damn, there’s no way he had time to aim that and it wasn’t even his dominant hand.”

“Pick your jaw up off the floor, Ginger, the point here was not to show you how impressive he is.” 

“What exactly was the point, then?”

“This is the first video I’ve found that’s high enough definition for me to read body language and facial expressions. He telegraphs his punches with his off-shoulder and his eyes tell you where his sword will go. Watch.” Jason replayed the clip.

Roy nodded with a noncommittal noise. “Sure, but you’re gonna need a lot more than a few micro-tells to beat Deathstroke.”

“And I have more than a few micro-tells. He’s never seen Red fight, and I’ve been studying him for weeks. I have a wider range of skills than he does, the All-Blades are better than any weapon he can get his hands on, and I want it more. Way more. 30 years in the same industry and being better than everyone he fights except Bruce have made him complacent and reliant on the same bag of tricks to get by. I can beat him.”

“I know you can. I’ve fought both of you enough times to know it could go either way. When you are in control and in the zone with a good plan to back you up, nobody can touch you, including him.”

“I’m feeling a but coming.”

“But, have you actually like, thought about this at all?” 

Jason tapped the space bar to stop the video and turned on the couch to give Roy an incredulous look. “I’ve been watching film and taking notes for thirty-six days, what about that suggests to you that I’m not thinking?” 

“Not the fighting Deathstroke part. You’ve been obsessing and hyper-fixating on that to an unhealthy degree for a very long time, I’m sure you’re more than ready. But you’re starting to consider sparing Bruce’s life, aren’t you?” Jason rolled his eyes. “Aren’t you?” 

“Maybe,” he grunted.

“So are you aware that if you kill Deathstroke, you’re probably giving up your shot at having a relationship with Bruce again?”

Jason recoiled at the thought. Having a relationship with Bruce again was a pipe dream, one he wasn’t even sure he wanted—hell, part of him still wanted badly to put a sword through his former mentor’s heart—but the idea of cutting himself off from that possibility altogether didn’t sit right. He shouldn’t have to choose between getting revenge on Deathstroke or the vague prayer of building a bridge with Bruce. Those things weren’t supposed to be mutually exclusive. “If Deathstroke wanted to live, he should’ve kept his fucking mouth shut.”

“Okay, but he and Bruce have aligned interests, at the very least, and it’s more likely that they’re friends now. If you just,” Roy drew a line over his own throat with his finger, “his buddy, it’s gonna make things sticky. It’s one thing for him to have seen the work you did as Red, it’s something else for you to do it to someone he knows and gives a shit about and to do it right in front of him.” 

“Seriously? You, of all people, are taking the show the unrepentant monster some mercy angle? Have you forgotten what that cabrón did to you?” 

“No,” Roy said, surprisingly calm. “And I never will. But, what’s that thing you used to say in your sleep all the time? The thing Ducra drilled into your brain? Uh, retaliation is misery or somethin’ like that?”

“No healing to be had through vengeance,” Jason recited around a sigh. “Only more pain.” 

“Right. I’m thinking that probably applies here, Jaybird. I’m sure killing Slade would feel good in the moment, but what does it really fix? I’m okay. Him dying isn’t going to make me any more or less okay than I am now. All you’re doing is breaking all the rules you set for yourself and potentially pushing your incredibly tenuous maybe-relationship with Bruce past the point of no return. It might be worth it to give them a chance to explain.” 

“A chance to explain?” Jason repeated incredulously. “There’s no explanation good enough, Roy. Not for what they did to you, not for Joker, not for any of it. Are you really asking me to confront the guy who forgot about me the second I died in his arms and the guy who verbally assaulted my friend and just… chat with them? Nicely? Are you crazy?” 

“There’s a distinct chance that Bruce was being honest and they really do just want to talk. If they’ve been doing all this work for all these months just to have a conversation with Red, they probably have something pretty important to say. And if you do this on your terms instead of theirs, maybe it doesn’t have to end in a fight.”

“It always ends in a fight. That’s who we are, all three of us. That’s all we know how to do.” 

“Jason, you’re in control this time. This can go however you want it to. After seven years of unresolved anger and betrayal over Bruce leaving Joker alive, don’t you think you owe it to yourself to try and find closure? Hurting people has never healed you, Jay, you know it hasn’t.”

“You tried to kill Slade that day. You told me yourself. Why are you suddenly so against it now?”

“I was scared and I was hurting and the easiest way to make it stop was to kill the thing causing it. But I’ve had a lot of time to think about it and Slade… he’s not like the rest of them.”

“The rest of who?” 

“The people who hurt you. Joker, Talia, Ra’s. You would sleep better at night knowing they were dead because there’s always a chance they’ll hurt you again and that fear will never fully go away. I get that. I would kill all three of them for you if I thought I wouldn’t die in the process. But Slade is different.”

“How, exactly? You’re convinced that Deathstroke, infamously ruthless, unfeeling bastard who is definitely not remotely sorry for the fucked up shit he did to you, is never going to do it again?” 

Roy shrugged. “Yeah, more or less. I was never afraid of him. I was afraid of myself, of what I might do if I stayed in that headspace too long. I have my shit under control now, and I’m not worried he’s going to come after me again. He’s got no reason to, especially not after you confront him.” 

“Ginger, who cares if he does it again? He already did it once, that’s more than enough. The guy has made a fucking career out of killing people for money. The world doesn’t need someone like that. Red’s whole purpose is to stop power-crazed monsters from running roughshod over innocent people’s lives, and that’s what he did to you. I have to stop him.” 

“You know he’s not as bad as them. Serial rapists, human traffickers, pedophiles, they’re monsters. Slade is just a bastard who cares a lot about doing his job well. At least he’s got like, a very loose moral code. He’s not out there getting kids addicted to drugs or keeping little girls caged in his office. You’re just taking this very, very personally, so you’re trying to justify killing him when we both know it goes against everything Red stands for. And if that’s what you need to do, then fine, but don’t act like it’s part of your goodwill mission. It’s not. It’s revenge.” 

“So, what? You want me to do nothing?”

“No. I think you should talk to him.”

“Talk to world-famous, notoriously merciless mercenary Slade Wilson? Are you fucking kidding me? The only language he speaks is pain, Roy, we both know that first-hand.” 

“Disagree. If that were true, he would’ve beaten the answers out of me. I gave him a free shot, told him you’d get him back for it if he did, but he didn’t touch me. Just tried to talk it out of me.”

“He was trying to fucking break you,” Jason hissed. “It doesn’t matter how he did it, that’s a fucking act of violence.”

“But it was a verbal one. He knows how to use his words, which means you could, in theory, talk to him.”

The blood rushed a little louder in Jason’s ears. “When I see his stupid orange and black armor, Roy, I’m not gonna wanna talk.” 

“Because you’re going to lose it?” Jason clenched his teeth to keep himself from turning this into an argument and forced himself to absorb the words. “Taking control away from the Pit almost destroyed you and our friendship and now you’ve been clean for months. You want to give all of that up, plus any possible relationship with your dad, just to kill some jerk who doesn’t deserve your time?” 

“Of course I don’t, but I have to do something.” 

“This plan is about as good as it can be and you’re running out of things to stall with. You’ve spent years trying to reclaim your life, you finally have a legacy you can wear with pride, and now, you have a chance to patch up a wound that’s been open for seven years. You also have the chance to tear it open beyond repair. You can’t do both. So what’s it gonna be, Jay? Healing or vengeance?”

Fine. So Jason might care that it was Bruce Wayne chasing him. So maybe Bruce was in his dreams every night. Maybe he wanted to kill Bruce’s stupid merc buddy right in front of him and then slice Bruce’s throat open with the magic swords he only had because Bruce hadn’t saved him in time, and maybe he also wanted to hug his dad. So, sue him. Life was complicated. And Jason’s life was really, really fucking complicated.

The dreams were more often good than they were bad, Jason’s stupid, broken mind torturing him with what it might be like if both he and Bruce could forgive each other and he could have a real family again. Somehow, the I’m proud of you for surviving and I never stopped missing you hurt so much worse than the look how far you’ve fallen, Robin, and the you’re not my son, not after what you’ve done.

One afternoon, Jason woke up with Bruce’s voice still ringing in his ears, over and over again, it wasn’t your fault, Jaylad, this was never your fault, and it hurt so fucking much that he cried silently into Roy’s chest for the better part of an hour. Not a panic attack. Just fucking crying.

Roy didn’t ask what happened. Jason figured he probably didn’t have to.

Eventually, Roy sat Jason up and got him to drink some water. Jason’s nerves were shot, his filter was gone, and the silence just made Bruce’s voice even louder, so he started talking. “There was a time I had a bad nightmare in the Manor about, uh, about my dad—my bad dad, my birth dad—and some other nasty stuff. I guess I must’ve screamed pretty loud, cause B showed up in my room to shake me out of it.”

Roy’s eyebrows furrowed in confusion as he nodded, eyes still warm and inviting, and even if they hadn’t been, Jason didn’t know how to stop, so he kept going.

“I tried not to be weak around him because I knew he was always mentally comparing me to Dick and I could never measure up and I didn’t want to make it even worse. But uh, that was before my life had gone completely down the shitter so it was one of the worst nightmares I’d ever had. I just remember looking up at him and realizing he was my dad, he was my actual dad, not Willis, just Bruce. For the first time in my life, it felt like everything I’d gone through before I met him was worth it, because it led me to where I was supposed to be, and this was my family, my real family. And I remember hugging him and actually believing he loved me and just knowing I’d do anything for him. I remember falling asleep in his arms and thinking you’re the only person who’s ever cared enough about me that I gave up waiting for the day that you wouldn’t anymore. I…. I died a couple of months later.”

Jason scrubbed the tears off his face as Roy ran a soothing hand up and down his back. Eventually, Roy said, "He loved you that much and you really still think he couldn't love you now?"

And Jason didn't know how to answer that, so he just kept rambling instead. “Sometimes I miss him so much it feels like I’m on fire,” he whispered, pulling his knees up to his chest and locking his arms around them. “And I guess I always just thought the pain was how much I fucking hated him, but it’s not. I never hated him, not all the way, not really. I loved him. And I wanted him to love me. But if he doesn’t anymore, if he hates me…” Jason choked down a sob. “I don’t want him to hate me. I wish I didn’t care what he thought of me but I do. And, fuck... I’d rather just not know. I’d rather believe there’s a chance he still loves his dead kid than find out for sure that me coming back to life isn’t enough, because I came back wrong, so he wishes I hadn’t come back at all. Not that. I can’t take that, Roy, I can’t, I can’t do it.”

Roy just took a deep breath and guided Jason back down to the bed, letting Jason cling to him like a drowning man to a lifesaver. It must’ve hurt, how tight Jason was squeezing him, must have been hard to breathe, but Roy’s voice didn’t falter, just as soothing as it always was. "It's okay to be afraid. There's nothing wrong with it. This would be a big risk. But most of the good things in life are."

Jason shuddered against him and shook his head firmly. "It's too big of a risk."

"Yeah. I bet you said that about me, too."

Jason did care that it was Bruce Wayne chasing him. He did. The truth was that he always had, and he was fucking tired of running from it. And yeah, he had absolutely no idea what he was going to do when he saw Bruce or Slade. It seemed just as likely he’d fight them, kill them, run away the moment he laid eyes on them, or confess his identity and all his sins to Bruce and beg for forgiveness like a fucking coward. It was a total fucking crapshoot. Jason was pretty sure he’d never felt less certain about anything.

The only thing he knew for sure was that he did care that it was Bruce, he wasn’t okay with the idea of slaughtering him and Slade without a second thought anymore, and he was fucking tired of waiting. 

So, a few days after that dream, in the middle of the night with I bet you said that about me too echoing on repeat in his mind, Jason decided he was sick of being the victim of his own fucking indecision. He carefully slipped out of bed without waking Roy, went through the familiar routine of lighting incense and cutting down on sensory input, and meditated for the first time since before the Deathstroke Incident. About an hour in, he summoned the All-Blades, partially because he was worried he wouldn’t be able to and partially because the familiar weight of them in his hands was the most comforting thing he’d ever known outside of Roy’s embrace.

As they materialized with the light swishing noise they always did and Jason’s fingers made contact with the soft leather grip, he felt their gentle power overwhelm the anxiety swirling in his stomach. It had always been comforting for Jason to have weapons in his hands, but with the All-Blades, it wasn’t just the security of knowing he could defend himself from threats. It was the confidence that came with knowing the Blades had still deemed him worthy and capable of using them for good.

Jason wasn’t sure if he deserved that faith, seeing as killing two men out of cold-blooded vengeance was very much still on the table, but he was grateful nonetheless. 

His reflection blinked back at him in the red steel of the Blades, mouth drawn up into that permanent smile, and Jason forced himself not to look away. “The scars are just a part of who you are,” he muttered to himself, watching as the faint luminescence in his eyes burned a little brighter at the sentiment, almost like the Pit was voicing its protest. Still, it wasn’t strong enough to be painful, and it faded away after a moment. Even as he knew it was a lost cause, Jason still found himself asking his mirror image for an answer he hadn’t been able to find for over a month.

“Are they evil?”  

Predictably, his reflection had no response for him.

“Red kills evil men,” he said softly, not sure who he was talking to. Spoken words had always been more powerful for him, though, and truthfully, it needed to be said. “No, it’s me, I kill evil men. That’s who I am. Roy’s right. I can’t give it up now.” Jason closed his eyes and tried to find the composure he needed to make this decision.

“I know you can’t tell me what to do, All-Mother. And even if you were here, you’d tell me this is my decision and you can’t make it for me, I know you would. But I don’t know if they’re evil. Bruce or Slade. I don’t know, I just don’t.” Jason stayed there just feeling the weight of that for a long time, sensing the energy in the room, pulling deep breaths in, and visualizing the oxygen filling every gap and crevice in his body. He imagined roots coming up from the ground and wrapping around his legs, keeping his base solid.

Concentrate on what matters most, and let the rest of it go.

Ducra had helped him summon the Blades because they would guide him when she couldn’t anymore. “I don’t know if they’re evil,” he repeated, the dawning realization feeling like a sustaining flame in his gut. “But the Blades do.”

And Jason knew with a soul-deep sureness that it was the answer Ducra would’ve wanted. He could almost hear her gravelly old voice murmur well done, man-child in his ear.

There. One problem down, way too fucking many to go. 

This was still going to be one of the hardest things he’d ever done. So, Jason stayed there, closed his eyes, and started mentally cataloging everything he’d learned about Slade and Bruce, assembling the knowledge into an actionable strategy. 

In the gaps between, when the things he’d spent half a lifetime trying not to feel bubbled up too strong to contain, he took breaks and tried to find some peace with them. Jason had dedicated a lot of time to the arduous process of facing the things that hurt him worst, just like Ducra had wanted him to years ago. Come to peace with them, to a certain degree. It didn’t make the pain go away, but it dulled it most of the time. Made things feel less impossible. He didn’t feel like he was in a cage anymore. Through a frankly ridiculous amount of meditation, he’d revisited, confronted, and accepted Joker, his own death, his resurrection, and even the majority of the two years of brainwashing, gaslighting, and torture the League had put him through. But he’d never let himself do the same with the one that started them all.

His oldest hurts had held him prisoner for far too long.

There was no time for coming to peace with it, not yet, maybe not ever, but he was able to think about what it would be like for the new Jason to meet the new Bruce. Most of the scenarios were bad, many of them fatal, and all of them unpleasant, but Jason knew himself. He was about to go into battle against a man who was more machine than human and his father. His mind couldn’t be buried in a grave of repression when he did it, not if he wanted to survive. 

So, Jason stayed there until the sense of readiness had sunk so deep into his bones that it almost made him forget about the constant chill. By the time he felt ready to exit the meditation, he could feel the sun streaming through the windows and onto his face. He could also tell without looking that Roy was in front of him, just like he had been the first time Jason had done this. Back when it was nothing more than a last-ditch effort to hold onto what was left of his sanity. The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. 

This time, the frantic energy was gone. This time, Jason released his focus on the Blades and allowed them to disappear, then opened his eyes slowly, focused them on Roy, and said, “I’m going after them.”

Roy frowned and leaned back a bit. “Hi, good morning, I’m sorry, what?”

“I’m going after them. Bruce and Slade. I’m going to let them find me, and I'm going to fight them. Today.”

Roy laughed nervously. “Ah, haha, that’s a good one. Happy early Christmas, Bruce! Your dead son is a murderous zombie!”

For a moment, Jason smiled fondly. He’d told Roy he didn’t want to celebrate Christmas—too many memories, most of them good ones spoiled by time and tragedy, the worst kind—and Roy had been understanding about it because of course he was. 

Roy (the bastard) also got Jason a gift anyway, because of course he did. A full two weeks before Christmas, too, so Jason didn’t have time to suspect it. Copies of a dozen of the classic books he used to read in the Manor and a pack of colored pens, since Jason had once told him he used to write in the margins of all those books and Alfred didn’t even have the heart to scold him for it because it made Jason so happy to have things that were just his.  

Literally. He’d only mentioned that to Roy one time. 

Jason was definitely solely angry at Roy for violating the no Christmas boundary, and not at all grateful for how thoughtful the gift was.

The amusement was quickly bleeding out of the green in Roy’s eyes as he waited for the punchline that wouldn’t come. “Holy fucking shit, you’re serious?”  

“I’m in the best place I can be. I’ve been meditating for hours, and I know what I have to do. The last thing I need is a trap. Deathstroke relies heavily on his environment and always brings the fight to a place where he has the advantage. If I set the trap, I can take that advantage away. I’ve learned everything I can about both of their combat styles. I believe I can beat and kill both of them if I need to. I am definitely going to beat the shit out of Slade no matter what. That’s the compromise I’ve decided on because the idea of just talking it out with that hijo de puta makes me want to gouge my eyes out with scissors.” Jason sighed and swallowed hard. “I also believe there may be a chance I can make peace with letting them live. Maybe. This is the best things will get. It’s time for me to choose. Healing or vengeance. Today’s the day.”

It didn’t take long for resolve to replace the abject shock on Roy’s face, like he’d been expecting this the whole time. He squeezed Jason’s knee, a devastatingly reassuring gesture for how small it was. “Okay, Jaybird. You can do this, I know you can. Do you want me there with you?” 

Jason gave him a sad smile. “Nah, Ginger. This is something I need to do by myself.” 

Roy returned the bittersweet look with one of his own. “Yeah, Jaybird, I know that. But do you want me there with you?” Jason opened his mouth to say that’s not how going in alone works, but Roy was already getting up, retrieving something from the chest they kept Red and Arsenal's gear in, and returning to Jason. He held a small earpiece out for him. “You don’t have to keep it on, but I… I worry about you, y’know?” Jason could hear the sadness and fear in it, the unspoken I want to be able to hear your voice one more time if you die today. It was a testament to how much Roy trusted and understood him that he was allowing him to do this on his own when he knew that was a possibility. “Maybe I can talk you through it if you start to panic. And if you get in over your head, ping me. I’ll be there.”

Jason took the comm link and carefully situated it in his ear with one hand, then squeezed Roy’s hand with the other. “Of course. Thanks.” 

“You said you need to set a trap, right?”

“Yeah, that’s the only part I haven’t totally figured out yet.” 

Roy gave Jason one of his trademark mischievous smiles. “I may have an idea.” 

Chapter Text

It was a bitterly cold evening in December, and Bruce was frustrated. 

Actually, Bruce had been looking at frustrated in the rearview mirror for about a month. He didn’t have a word for what he was feeling now. He’d thought that finding the partner would be the end of this. Everything had fallen into place just right, they were finally going to be done with this, and then, there was nothing. Not a single sighting of Red Hood or Arsenal. Nobody had seen civilians matching Jason or Roy’s descriptions, either. Hood wasn’t just lying dormant like he had been in the summer. It was like he had disappeared off the face of the Earth.

The longer the dry spell stretched on, the more time Bruce had to invent worse and worse explanations for it in his mind. Maybe Harper had relapsed and Jason had to take care of him, maybe he had overdosed and died and Jason was too consumed with grief and pain to be Red Hood anymore, maybe finding out that Bruce was the one chasing him had shattered Jason’s already fragile mind into unsalvageable pieces and he had taken his own life and Jason’s death would be because of Bruce’s mistakes again.

Maybe Jason was just so afraid of angry at Bruce that he wanted nothing to do with him. That was the most likely explanation, really. And part of Bruce wanted badly to respect that, to let go of this mission altogether if that was what his son needed. 

If he were a stronger man, maybe he would’ve done it. 

But Bruce wasn’t a stronger man. He was a father who missed his son, and he couldn’t give up now. If Jason just wanted to fight, if he wanted to scream at Bruce or beat him senseless and then disappear never to be seen again, that was fine. Anything was better than Bruce’s final memories of Jason being weak, rattling breaths and glassy blue eyes, a frail body and a bloody smile.

The only bright side to the seemingly endless information drought was that Bruce had plenty of time to get used to the fact that the man who’d killed hundreds of people, tortured many of them, and evidently regretted none, was his son. It was real now in a way it hadn’t been in the past. Jason was surely expecting Bruce to react badly, and if he gave Jason even the slightest indication that he thought killing was an unforgivable sin, not only would he be giving up any chance of having a relationship with his son, but he would also likely send Jason into a spiral of shame and self-hatred he might never escape.

And really, when it came to Red Hood, what used to be overwhelming horror with a mild undercurrent of disgust mostly amounted to admiration now. Eastern Asia’s vigilante protector was good at what he did. Maybe the best that Bruce had ever seen. He had the skills, he had the knowledge, and he used them for good. That was rare these days. His son was still doing good in a world that had done nothing but punish him for it. Bruce was proud. And that was what he needed to show Jason.

It had been a long time since Bruce had felt fear, real fear, cold and visceral and paralyzing, but this did it. He’d been blessed with a miracle and he was terrified of ruining it. And there were so, so many ways to ruin this.

“Any new ideas?” He asked Slade in what had become their daily ritual.

“Any chance you’re willing to rethink your position on Harper?” Slade replied as he sometimes did, though the usual response was any chance you can go back in time and un-teach your kid how to disappear into thin fucking air?

“No.”

“Then you’ve got your answer, Wayne. Jason is in the wind and Speedy is still the only thing we have. If you’re really so insistent on letting your sanctimonious conditional morality bullshit stand between you and your son, then I got nothing for you.” 

“Roy probably saved Jason’s life. To our knowledge, he’s the only person Jason’s ever really had who didn’t want to hurt him. He protected my son after I failed to. He’s given me a gift I can never repay, and I will not reward him for that by allowing you to torment him again.”

“Yes, yes, I’m a monster, what I did to him was horrible, blah, blah, blah. How dare I, a world-famous mercenary widely regarded as a supervillain, use a slightly underhanded tactic to help me fulfill a contract, the thing I stake my entire professional claim on. Anytime you want to get off your soapbox now, Bruce, that would be peachy.” 

“You can’t honestly tell me you think it was accepta—”

“Shh!” Slade hissed, ears pricking up, a sharp, focused edge in his eye. Bruce watched in silence as Slade darted across the room and dug through one of their bags like a man possessed. He came back up with a tablet that was emitting a quiet beeping noise, then glanced from the screen up to Bruce with a grin. “Jackpot.” He turned it around for Bruce to see. “Tracker 5 is hot. And you said I was an asshole for planting bugs on Harper’s stuff.”

“It was still incredibly unethical, but that’s beside the point. Which one is that? The drill press?”

“Nope. The combat gear that was hidden underneath the tarp.” Slade’s grin widened as the blinking red dot slowly inched away from the place it’d been sitting idle for the past month and a half. They’d investigated the location, but it was just a sealed storage locker. Useless to them. Bruce had thought the trackers were a lost cause. “It felt like a mask, maybe, or a weapon. What situation has you moving your gear but not your blowtorch or your drill press besides vigilante work?”

Bruce shrugged one shoulder. “It’s not the only explanation.” 

“Stop trying to manage your expectations. This is the payoff we’ve been after for eleven goddamn months. You’re going to see your son. Now suit up and get your head straight. We’ll wait for the bug to settle, give the kid a chance to get comfortable, and then we’ll give chase.” 

Bruce went through the motions of putting on his gear and packing his utility belt with numb fingers and a buzzing mind. The thoughts weren’t even racing, just a heavy shroud of static that Bruce struggled to make any sense of. Every second lasted hours. He lost time waiting there for Slade to get back, transfixed by the blinking red dot, the closest thing to his living, breathing son he’d seen since Jason’s heart had stopped in the wreckage of his cell in Arkham. 

He barely even heard the clicking of Slade’s armor as he reentered the room. Full gear was a good choice. They knew what Jason was capable of, and Slade, if not both of them, was probably in for the fight of his life. Bruce could feel Slade’s eye on him, assessing, almost certainly not liking what he saw. “I know you’ve been playing fast and loose with your identity since the apocalypse, but are you seriously not going to wear your fucking suit?” 

Bruce glanced down at himself briefly, the light armored shirt and cargo pants he’d chosen instead of the Batsuit and the utility belt cinched around his waist, then returned his eyes to the screen. The movement had slowed, like maybe Jason was on foot now. “No, I’m not,” he replied distractedly. “Jason needed Bruce Wayne when he was dying, but all I could bring myself to be was Batman. He probably associates the cowl with anger and betrayal now; the suit won’t do him any favors. I want to see him as myself,” Bruce sighed, “and pray he doesn’t hate me for it.”

“Yeah, Bruce, the point of armor isn’t to do your opponent favors, it’s to keep your dumb ass alive. Red Hood is one of the most dangerous people on the planet; you go in there like that, he could kill you in seconds.” 

“Jason isn’t my opponent. He’s my son. If I want him to trust me, I have to trust him, too. I have to trust that he isn’t the monster Talia made him out to be. I have to trust that he’ll give me a chance to explain myself. And if I’m wrong, well… I won’t really have to worry about it anymore, will I?” 

“God, how have you lived this long? You have the worst survival instincts of anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Only when it comes to my children,” Bruce muttered, more to himself than Slade.

“So you’re telling me you aren’t going to defend yourself against the mass-murdering madman who was skinning and castrating motherfuckers just six short months ago? Smashing. Fantastic news. Like this whole thing wasn’t impossible enough.”

That caught Bruce’s attention. He rested the tablet on his lap and gave Slade a hard look. “You cannot kill my son.” 

Slade just blinked at him for a moment, like he was waiting for the punchline. “You think I wasted the last year of my life hunting down your kid just so I could fucking kill him?” 

“No. I think you made a very dangerous enemy out of Jason when you attacked Roy, and as you said, six months ago he was torturing people and killing dozens in a single burst of horrifying violence. All of that is coming at you now. I will do my best to talk him down and I will have your back, but I know how you react to threats to your life. I know how quickly your switch flips from neutralization to termination. I need you to promise me you won’t do that with him.”

“They call me Deathstroke the Terminator,” Slade deadpanned. “It’s kind of my thing.”

“Not today. It can’t be. None of this means anything if Jason doesn’t survive it. He came back without my help, he made a new life for himself without my help, and I’m not going to show up in that life for the first time in over half a decade just to take away what little peace and safety he’s been able to find.”

“And if he tries to kill me?” Bruce’s knee-jerk reaction to that was if you didn’t want Jason to kill you, you shouldn’t have verbally brutalized his best friend. Worried the horrible thought might come spilling out of his mouth if he tried to speak, he stayed silent. “You’re asking me to let your kid kill me rather than defend myself from him?” 

Bruce held off a cringe. That—that was the worst outcome he could imagine. Stunted and dysfunctional as their relationship was, Slade was pretty much the closest thing Bruce had to a friend, and Bruce didn’t want to see him die at anyone’s hands, let alone Jason’s. Could his and Jason’s relationship even recover from that? As hard as Bruce had worked to understand what Jason was going through and as far as he’d come in understanding the occasional necessity of lethal force, that was different. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to look at Jason and not see the person who murdered someone he cared for in cold blood.

No matter how reprehensible Slade’s actions were— and they were, god, they were, Roy’s shattered face was still in Bruce’s nightmares and the fear that Harper was dead or worse because of what they’d done (what Bruce had let Slade do) never fully left his mind—answering them with more violence wouldn’t cancel them out. But there was no guarantee that Jason understood that. There was actually a wealth of evidence that suggested he would believe the exact opposite, that revenge was the only way to settle the score.

You have seen what I do to those who wrong others. You do not want to see what I do to those who wrong me.

Bruce didn’t want Jason to kill Slade. He didn’t want anyone to kill anyone. Just once, just one time in this life that had been plagued with blood and tragedy for as long as he could remember, let it end in peace. Let it end in healing. No more pain.

“I would never ask that of anyone,” was what Bruce said instead. “I won’t fault you for hurting him if you have no other choice. But it has to be a last resort. And,” Bruce’s voice dropped into a register that was calm and threatening at the same time, “if you do to Jason what you did to Roy, if you use the information I’ve shared with you to hurt him, I will kill you myself.” 

Slade had so much ammunition to use against Jason. Ammunition Bruce had given him. Ammunition that could save Slade’s life if it came down to it, ammunition that would destroy Jason and any chance of Bruce having a relationship with him. All Bruce could do now was trust Slade not to use it.

Slade scoffed, but there was a bit of sobriety in his eye that told Bruce he was taking the threat seriously. “Yeah. I won’t. Kid’s been through enough.”

So has Roy, but that didn’t stop you. Bruce kept it out of his mouth. The situation was tense enough without him adding to it. He turned his attention back to the tracker, which had now slowed down even farther, crawling across the screen a few centimeters at a time. The twisting in his gut was just as much foreboding trepidation as it was excitement.

He looked up to Slade again and saw the same vague edge of worry in the mercenary’s eye. “It’s probably a trap,” Bruce said. “Hood’s been an organized killer for months now, the closest thing to a Robin or a Batman he’s ever been. He’s a planner. This lines up with his MO. And between me and the League, Jason’s one of the finest strategists alive. If he’s found the tracker in his gear, he’ll be ready for us. We’re walking into a minefield.” 

Slade shrugged noncommittally. “Yeah. That’s what I’m counting on.”

Bruce frowned. “Sorry, what?” 

“I told you I’d un-fuck this,” Slade said around a long-suffering sigh, even as Bruce knew there was some part of him that understood what he’d done to Roy was wrong, that it was too far, that it was unjustifiable. “Step one of that is keeping the kid in his comfort zone. If he sets the trap, that means he won’t be caught off guard. He’ll be in control. Hood’s got a hair-trigger temper and the skills to match, and the chance this ends without death or bloodshed is slim, but letting him trap us is our best bet.”

“Makes sense, unless the trap is set to kill you instantly, which it easily could be.” 

“Yeah, well,” Slade muttered, “now that he kills like a person instead of a rabid animal, I’m guessing he’ll want to do some talking first. That’s how people tend to be after you hurt somebody they care about.” A small twitch went through Slade’s face. “They want you to know what you did.” 

“Speaking from experience?” Bruce asked grimly.

“You know I am.” 

“You make a fair point, but we can’t forget that Jason knows it’s me, now. There’s no way Roy didn’t tell him. Considering I’m familiar with his fighting style and a fair amount of his triggers, I’m more of a threat to him than most. That added stress has the potential to push him over the edge. He might show up as the old Red Hood. And the old Red Hood would take you out without a second thought, then kill me slowly.”

“Dying is always a possibility,” Slade replied, flippant, unbothered by his potential impending demise. “This is hardly the first time I bet my life on a contract. At least this time, I have someone watching my back and I’m doing it for something I give a shit about. Rather die trying to reunite a dad with his kid than doing a hit for whatever evil fucker pays best.”

Was that—was that Slade Wilson caring about other people? Was that trust in someone besides himself?

Bruce didn’t reply, knowing that if he acknowledged the exceptionally rare moment of not-quite-vulnerability, Slade would just say something coarse and bitter to offset it and withdraw for the foreseeable future. Instead, he tossed the keys to Slade and headed for the door, feeling the weight of Slade’s trust stack on top of everything else he was already struggling to carry. 

Bruce let Slade drive, intending on using the travel time to clear his head. They were heading into a true battle—because this couldn’t be anything else, not after what they’d done to Roy—for the first time in nearly a year, a battle against Bruce’s child, and he needed to be right with himself while he did it if he didn’t want to lose Jason forever. The tracker was a good fifty miles from them. He should’ve had more than enough time. 

But of course, he wasn’t that lucky.

The moment Slade shifted the transport into drive and pulled out onto the road, Bruce’s mind was sent flying past months of searching and failing and searching some more, screeching to a halt on the last time he’d sat in a transport before a life-changing fight with this same tight knot of tension sitting heavy in his gut. He could see it in his mind’s eye, the look of grim acceptance on his teammates’ faces as they’d sat in the back of that APC, knowing their deaths could be just hours away.

No. Bruce didn’t want to be here. It had been months since those memories had the power to tear him to shreds and he couldn’t afford to let that feeling back in now. Helplessly, he braced himself, waiting for the memories to darken and warp into scathing accusations like they always did. You led us into a slaughter. You used us for your own ends and threw us away when we outlived our usefulness. What makes you think you deserve a happy ending when we’ll never go home again? When I’ll never see my best friend again? Why do you get to win when the rest of us lost everything? 

But they didn’t. They stayed intact, preserved like amber in the same bittersweet fusion of dread and relief they’d all felt that day.

If I’m gonna die today, I’m glad it’s like this. Victor had been so young. Too fucking young. 

I think I’ll be okay if this is the last thing I do. God, it’d already been a year and Bruce didn’t even know where Barry was, had no idea what the last year had done to him, had no idea if he’d even survived it.

It has been one of the greatest honors of my life to fight alongside you. And once he let Mera’s voice in, it wouldn’t leave.

Who have you ever loved?

There is always a choice, Bruce Wayne.

He needs his father.

It is time to let the past die before you die with it.

And then there had been no more words, just the unflinching determination in her eyes as she faced down her demise, as she accepted her death at Superman’s hands without a single shred of fear, then her red hair igniting flames around her as her body sank beneath the ocean waves. Bruce would never be able to pay back a fraction of what he owed to her, to all of them, but she’d tasked him with finding Jason. With doing this the right way. It’s what all of them would’ve wanted, Barry and Victor too, had they known.

Bruce wished Mera could be here to see how it ended. She deserved that much. But missing her was a sweeter ache than it used to be. Not a knife twisting in his guts, just a gentle tug on the strings of his heart. It would never heal, just like so many other wounds, but that was okay. He didn’t want to forget them. Slade, Victor, Barry, and Mera had been his family when he thought he’d never have one again, and maybe they weren’t wrong for putting their lives in his hands knowing it could be the last thing they ever did.

Bruce could do this. He was ready.

By the time Bruce pulled himself from the reverie, the tracker had gone entirely static, meaning Hood had almost certainly found it on his gear, removed it, and placed it somewhere not on his person to maintain the element of surprise. Definitely a trap, then. 

In a perfect world, Bruce would’ve gone in without weapons. A show of good faith, even if there was no chance Jason would trust it. But Jason was one of the most dangerous men on the planet and he thought they were his enemies. Going in unarmed would be akin to signing his own death warrant. He did his best only to take the things that had the lowest possibility of triggering Jason, though that wasn’t an easy task considering Joker had tortured him in horrifyingly creative ways and the League wasn’t exactly known for showing mercy. Still, he remembered Joker’s bloodstained crowbar and the swords that the League’s assassins favored, so he stayed away from blunt weapons and blades. Left his guns behind, too. The idea of shooting Jason made him physically ill. All he went in with was his utility belt and a prayer to a god he knew had long since abandoned him that there would be no need for any of the things within it.

Slade was lightly armed—by his standards, at least—with his trademark dual swords and a couple of knives strapped to easily accessible points on his body. Despite knowing it would put him at a clear disadvantage, Bruce had asked Slade not to bring firearms and he had acquiesced without a fight, much to Bruce’s surprise. Bruce had never seen him like this before. Happily walking into a trap. Surrendering his only ranged weapons without so much as a token struggle. Bruce might almost call it contrition if he didn’t know better. Like he was trying to repent for what he did to Roy by making things easier on Jason. 

“You ready?” Slade asked as he eased the transport to a stop fifty feet away from a seemingly abandoned warehouse. 

Rather than look at him, Bruce compulsively checked the compartments of his utility belt for the seventh time, trying to ease the roiling sea of emotion within him. “Ready to see my son again? Yes. Absolutely. Ready for him to despise me for everything he went through because I failed to protect him?” Bruce closed his eyes, took a deep, grounding breath, and opened them again. “No. I’m not. And I probably never will be. But he still deserves a chance to find closure. Even if it means I won’t.” 

Slade let out a low whistle. “You’re a pretty good dad, y’know,” he muttered under his breath, the words muddled together like he was hoping Bruce wouldn’t be able to make them out. 

A small part of Bruce was warmed by it, wanted to thank Slade for the small kernel of kindness before the shit storm they were about to endure, but the rest of him couldn’t stomach the thought of pretending Slade was right. “I wasn’t,” he said instead. “Not really, not when either of my sons needed me to be. It’s too late for me to make it up to Dick, and it’s probably too late for Jason, too, but I owe it to him to try. He died because of me. He dug out of his grave, endured two years with the League, and went through god-knows-what-else because of me, too. This is the least I can do.”

“Most motherfuckers wouldn’t slog through a year of bullshit knowing there’s a good chance their kid’s still gonna hate them forever regardless of all the work they did,” Slade replied with a shrug. “Think you coulda done a lot less.”

Bruce frowned. “You don’t need to pretend to care about my well-being anymore. We’re almost certainly about to see Jason. This is all a technicality at this point; your contract is essentially fulfilled.”

Slade made a dismissive noise and kicked his door open. “Yeah. I know.”

Bruce and Slade approached the building together on foot, snow crunching beneath their boots, sticking to the shadows more out of habit than out of any misguided belief they could catch Hood by surprise. They got to the door without triggering any booby traps or audible alarms. At least it seemed like Hood wanted to see their faces before he killed them both in cold blood. One single thing they had going for them.

The door was unlocked. Almost like Jason wanted them to know it was a setup, to see if Bruce cared enough about seeing him to stumble blindly and willingly into a trap in order to do it. It hurt more than Bruce would readily admit that Jason didn’t know how important he was, that he didn’t know Bruce would walk through hell itself just to see his face one more time. But, Bruce supposed, he had plenty of evidence that suggested otherwise. 

When the knob turned easily in Slade’s hand, he stared at it for a long moment, steel blue eye a bit wider than usual, like he expected it to blow up in his hand. After a few tense seconds, he nodded and pushed the door open. Bruce made to walk through it, but Slade hauled him back by the collar. “Get the fuck back here,” he growled. “None of your self-sacrificing bullshit today. If that trap is set to kill me, then it’s gonna kill me.” He led the way in without another word.

Bruce could feel Jason the second he entered. The place was just one big room, crates and boxes strewn across the floor, poorly lit high ceilings that would distort any noise, and exposed rafters big enough to hide in. The clear advantage went to the person who knew the layout. Slade and Bruce were accustomed to using their environment to their advantage, and Jason had taken a vital cornerstone of their combat strategy away. It was exactly the kind of place Bruce would’ve chosen for this fight if he were Jason.

And Bruce could feel Jason’s strategic mind in the warehouse, yes, but not his physical presence. Bruce knew his own tricks, the vantage points he taught Jason to choose, the angles he taught Jason to take, but as he outlined those tactics in his mind, he still couldn’t locate Jason anywhere in the room. That must’ve been the League’s training keeping Jason hidden, then. Ra’s and his followers were the only people who’d ever been able to genuinely sneak up on Batman. 

There was just one thing that provided any indication they weren’t totally alone: the tracker. A little black speck emitting a high, barely audible ringing noise. It had been placed atop a crate with a note beside it. 

Looks like you forgot something. 

It was different handwriting than the first note. Cleaner, more distinctive. Bruce almost could’ve sworn it was the same neat scrawl that had filled the margins of Jason’s old books in the Manor, but he didn’t let himself fall into that rabbit hole now. It was going to take every ounce of his focus to ensure he, Slade, and Jason all came out of this alive. He scanned his surroundings again, receiving nothing but a growing pit in his stomach that screamed wrong, wrong, wrong. 

“Red Hood?” Bruce called out into the empty room. His voice bounced off the bare walls and echoed back at him, warping into something hardly recognizable by the time it returned to his ears. Bruce fought down a shiver as he held his hands up in a gesture he hoped was nonthreatening and rotated in a slow circle. “We didn’t come for a fight. We just want to...” Bruce trailed off as the hairs on the back of his neck raised, finally picking up that vague sense of being watched. He was just about to turn and search for the source when he heard it. 

A small clink.

A light hissing noise.

The smoke bomb burst before Bruce could make sense of the input, engulfing him and Slade in a thick cloud of red fog. Instinctually, Bruce’s hand snapped up to his temple to activate his detective vision, but by the time he remembered that he’d forgone the cowl, something heavy and metal was already clamping down around his right wrist. There was a half-second pause where Bruce’s arm started to drop with the weight of it, and then he was being yanked back with enough force that it almost pulled his arm from its socket. Bruce tried to dig his heels in and resist, but it was far too strong and in a matter of seconds, he was thrown against the wall behind him, dominant arm pinned above his head. He tried to dislodge it but could tell immediately there was no use. He had no leverage at this angle and there was no give between the cuff and the wall. Magnets.

Still struggling, more out of habit than any belief he could get free, Bruce glanced back to the cloud of crimson smoke. It was starting to dissipate now, enough that he could see Slade’s blurry silhouette with naked eyes, and there was still no attack. Just Slade looking around trying to find the source of the disturbance.

A detached thought ran through the back of Bruce’s mind. They never look up. Left, right, down, around, but never up. That was something Batman and Robin used to take advantage of often in Gotham. 

They never look up.

Shit. 

“Wilson!” Bruce shouted, but it was too late. A red and black blur dropped into the cloud, and the sounds of a fight ignited the moment it hit the ground. Dull thuds of blows against armor, grunts of pain and exertion he recognized as Slade’s and other noises that sounded a little too twisted to be human. All witnesses had agreed that Hood was using a voice modulator. Bruce couldn’t even feel the spark of hope amidst a frothing flood of panic-fear-anxiety because he was supposed to be in this fight. He was supposed to be able to get between two of the most lethal people on the planet before they could kill each other. 

From here, there wasn’t a damn thing he could do but watch and pray that they’d both find the self-control they’d never exactly been known for in the past.

After what Bruce knew couldn’t have been more than a few seconds but felt like hours, Slade stumbled out of the cloud, clearly off-balance, and Bruce’s breath caught in his chest as Hood too emerged from the red haze with swift, bloody vengeance. 

Hood didn’t allow for an inch of space between himself and his enemy, keeping Slade on his heels as he delivered blow after punishing blow, a few of them powerful enough to crack Slade’s armor. God, it should hurt Hood to hit that hard, but he didn’t even seem fazed, too laser-focused on the score he was here to settle. Bruce couldn’t help but feel like another one of the awestruck civilians they’d spoken to, enamored with the unstoppable force of nature before him and unable to peel his eyes away for even a moment. Hood looked every bit the living legend the stories had fashioned him as; a hulking mass of muscle and rage, armed to the teeth and choosing to use his fists instead. A distant part of Bruce was actually grateful he wasn’t in Slade’s shoes right now. Even without the added complication that this was Bruce’s son, he wasn’t sure how he’d fight the Red Hood, especially with no way to prepare beforehand. The vigilante was more machine than man.

Jason had always been small for his age. He’d put on some weight after Bruce had adopted him and trained him as Robin, sure, but after three weeks of starvation and muscle atrophy in Arkham Asylum, Jason had died almost as skinny as he had been when Bruce first met him. But Hood was big, almost as big as Bruce himself, easily six feet tall and 200 pounds of what looked like pure muscle. The starving orphan Bruce picked up on Crime Alley shouldn’t have been able to grow that big at all. 

Not for the first time, Bruce wondered just what exactly the Lazarus Pit had done to his son. 

Despite all evidence to the contrary, Bruce still knew. That was Jason. That was Jason moving so fast Bruce could barely make sense of it, that was Jason treating hand-to-hand combat more like a native language than a diligently practiced skill, that was Jason weaving around one of the world’s best fighters like it was as easy as breathing and sending him reeling with a few well-placed strikes. Slade couldn’t even get him cornered or pinned down, couldn’t even get enough separation to draw his swords, which neutered two of the strategies he usually employed in fights like these. But Jason shouldn’t be able to keep up with Slade at all, he wasn’t meta, just a normal human boy man. Wasn’t he?

Jason fought like he was born to do it. He moved with a fluid grace that the League probably beat into him, evading Slade’s blows and picking his spots in an onslaught that was somehow thoughtful and ferocious at the same time. Bruce had never seen anyone fight like this, impossibly smooth and unmistakably deadly, like he’d cherry-picked Batman’s strategic mind and eye for weaknesses, the League’s levelheaded ruthlessness and unmatched stealth, and the Joker’s brutality and nonexistent mercy, then combined it with a slew of styles and skills Bruce couldn’t even place the origin of. 

Hood pivoted to throw his weight into a knee strike that caught Slade right in the gut, air leaving him in a rush so sudden and harsh Bruce could hear it from ten feet away. The shift in position had Jason facing Bruce head-on for the first time, and Bruce could have sworn that time stopped.

Nearly all of his face was covered. A black domino with glowing red eyes came to meet a hard plastic mask, bloody scarlet, that covered the bottom half of his face and twisted every sound he made into something threatening and inhuman. Noticing the placement of the mask, Bruce couldn’t help but remember the gashes in Jason’s face. What if Jason couldn’t look at his own face without seeing the Joker staring back at him? Without hearing the clown’s shrill, grating laugh in his head? What if his son couldn’t stomach his own reflection because of Bruce? 

Maybe the Pit had healed them. Maybe the mask was just to obscure his identity. Maybe that was wishful thinking. 

The hood of a red jacket was pulled over his head, just like the one that had become his namesake months ago, leaving only a fringe of black, curly hair with a shock of white visible beneath it. A black leather coat was layered on top of it and Bruce could tell in the way it shifted over Hood’s body as he moved that there must’ve been even more weapons concealed inside it. Beneath the two jackets, there was a black Kevlar vest with a red symbol painted on it. It was different than Bruce’s, the wings more angular and the middle separated into an arrow shape, but there was no mistaking it.

A blood-red bat. 

Even though the last report of Hood wearing the symbol was nearly four months old, even though he had to know he was going to see Bruce today, Jason still chose the bat. It was more likely that he was wearing it out of spite rather than any lingering fondness for Bruce or happy memories of his time as Robin, but the reckless hope that took flight in Bruce’s chest had no interest in reason.

He had one more second to overthink it, and then reality came back, loud and harsh and sudden, just in time for him to see Hood land an uppercut that hit right underneath the seam of Slade’s helmet. Bruce could hear his teeth click together, could tell in the quiet hiss that they’d probably clamped down right on his tongue. It disoriented him enough that the next few blows he threw were so slow and clumsy they almost looked drunk, and Jason twisted around them effortlessly, like he knew Slade’s moves before he even made them, like he had been preparing for this one fight his entire life. 

It was clear, though, that the longer Jason was in close contact with the man who hurt his friend, the harder it was for him to maintain that easy grace, that unflinching control. Jason had always struggled to keep his feelings out of his work as Robin and this could very well be the most emotional fight of his life. That was Slade’s best shot at coming out of this in one piece, weaponizing Jason’s emotions against him and forcing him to make a mistake, and it was a strategy dead in the center of his comfort zone. Bruce knew it. Slade did too. 

As the refined style slowly started to bleed into crude violence, there were even a few times where Hood slipped up, the rage making his blows too forceful, revealing a slight tell, a small twitch right before he threw a punch or kick, and Slade capitalized almost instantly. Those strikes would have broken bone if they landed, but with the tell, Slade could dodge them, Jason would overshoot him and be left off-balance, and he’d have no choice but to fall back and play defense until he could get a foothold in the fight again.

The fight was becoming more even, now, with Jason’s torrential emotions beginning to handicap him. Jason was younger and quicker, with a clear strategy in place and a strong motivation to win, but Slade had a wealth of experience fighting emotionally motivated opponents and stayed calm and collected under pressure better than anyone Bruce had ever seen. Deathstroke was willing to take the pain and lie in wait for the right opening to retaliate, but Hood couldn’t seem to help himself. He was like a man possessed, taking every available shot even if it hurt him in the long run.

Thud. Hood had done it again, twisted his hips viciously for a roundhouse kick that Slade caught in midair, then used Jason’s own momentum to throw him off his feet. Jason went down with a small bitten-off yelp, and Bruce winced in sympathy. The Slade that Bruce knew would go in for the kill now, close in and make it hurt while he still had the chance to, but he must’ve been too fatigued for it. He just maintained his defensive stance, breathing hard enough that Bruce could see the heaving of his chest as Jason scrambled back up to his feet frantically.

For a moment, he almost looked afraid, but then his spine straightened, a slight but sudden shift that set warning bells off in Bruce’s mind. That was anger. Feeling panic rise within him, Bruce tried once again to pull his arm free, to pry the cuff off with his free hand, but there was no give to it, no seams to break or weaknesses to exploit. Probably Harper’s work. All he received was a sharp ache in his wrist for his efforts, still helpless to do anything but watch.

It was like that brief loss of control had flipped a switch in Hood. Like he’d forcibly pushed all emotion to the side and came back with pure strategy, cold and calculating. He let Slade come to him, even allowed a few punches to hit their targets, and then, once Slade got a little too comfortable, Hood snatched him by the wrist and yanked him into an elbow strike. The force of it was enough to knock his helmet askew, and with one more well-aimed palm thrust, Jason knocked it off his head completely. Immediately, Slade put his fists up in front of his face to compensate. There was blood already trickling from his nose and it was even more crooked than usual, a bruise darkening his cheekbone and his good eye starting to swell a bit. The image only seemed to spur Jason on. A flurry of blows came in quick succession; Slade blocked the first four, but the fifth found its mark against the side of his head.

It was placed perfectly. Slade went down like a ton of bricks. 

A panic rocked Bruce’s body that was so sharp and fierce he almost shouted Jason’s name just to try to put a stop to all of this before it was too late, but Jason didn’t go in for the kill. Even though the punch seemed to have knocked Slade out cold for a good few seconds, even though his opponent was defenseless, flat on his back, and it would’ve been the perfect opportunity to kill him, Jason just waited for Slade to groggily blink his eye open again, the rise and fall of Jason’s shoulders the only indication that the fight had taken anything out of him at all. 

And then, Jason spoke for the first time. 

“Get up,” he ordered in a cold voice Bruce wouldn’t have been able to recognize even without the voice modulator. “Unlike you, Wilson, I have no interest in kicking people when they’re down. Get the fuck up. I’m not finished with you.” 

For a moment, Slade just laid there, breathing ragged as he blinked through the blood that was seeping out of a cut above his good eye. He wiped it away with a few clumsy movements, clearly trying to buy some time for the fog to clear from his brain. Hood would mop the floor with him in this state. Once the haze seemed to lift a bit, he propped himself up on his elbows, spit some blood out to the side, and grinned at Hood through bloodstained teeth. “Oh, that’s a hard line. You plan that one out? Practice in the mirror?” 

It only took three sentences for all of the emotion to bleed back into Hood’s voice, body gone tense like a drawn bow, all of the earlier finesse gone as he let out an animalistic growl through his teeth. “I said get up.” 

“Not that I don’t love a good ass-kicking or anything,” Slade groused between labored breaths, voice rough, “but I’ve gotten a bit impatient in my old age.”  He still wasn’t making any attempt to get up. Again, strange. Normally Slade would sacrifice almost anything in a fight to ensure he never ended up on his back, now he was staying there on purpose. “I get it. You’re pissed off and you got somethin’ to prove. Could we just skip to the ending where you decide whether or not you want me dead? I’ve had enough of this bravado crap to last me a lifetime.” 

There were so many worse routes Slade could have chosen, so many things with a sharper edge than this bit of condescension. He could regain control if he twisted his words the right way. They had a massive body of evidence that spoke to Jason’s mental instability and a veritable goldmine of triggering subjects to choose from. Deathstroke had an all but guaranteed opportunity to turn the tide in a losing battle and he wasn’t taking it. 

There was one tense moment where Slade just watched Hood as he took a long, slow breath like he was trying to rein himself in, and then Hood made his move.

In a single smooth motion, Hood lunged forward, seized Slade by the front of his armor, hauled all that dead weight up, and slammed him against a wall adjacent to the one Bruce was still stuck to. The back of Slade’s head smacked against the metal hard enough that Bruce could hear the crack from eight feet away. Jason wasted no time, pressing a large forearm into Slade’s throat and pinning him to the wall behind him. Slade’s head lolled forward for a moment, a dazed look in his eye, and then he found his smirk again. He glanced from Bruce back to Jason with just the faintest bit of amusement curling his lip. “The ‘choke the fucker out against the wall’ bit is a little played out, don’t you think, Red Hood?” 

“Oh, is that what they’re calling me now?” Jason asked, voice deceptively light. “That one’s got a good ring to it. The locals have always been creative.” He tilted his head to the side in a mockery of innocent curiosity, then raised his free hand and took a deep breath. A strange, shimmering veil of light danced over his gloved hand for a moment, and then there was a light swooshing noise and a sword appeared out of thin air, gleaming and sharp, the red-tinged steel giving off a faint halo of light.

So that wasn’t a myth, then. Jason really did have magic swords.

He rested it carefully between the plates of Slade’s chest armor, just above his heart. One good push would have him bleeding out in moments, and Bruce could see how bad Jason wanted it in the rigid way he held himself, like it took every ounce of his strength to keep the blade right where it was. Hood lowered his voice to a threatening growl that raised goosebumps on Bruce’s skin. “But I was always partial to Vengeance. You know how I earned that name, Wilson?” Slade just stared back at the glowing red eyes in response, breaths shallow and raspy but face completely impassive. “I took revenge against a bunch of vicious sadists who got their rocks off by hurting innocent women and girls I’d never met in my life. I beat them all to death with a bo staff, and I made it slow. Which really begs the question, what should I do with the vicious sadist who got his rocks off by hurting an innocent person I actually care about?” 

Bruce watched as Slade’s fists clenched and unclenched at his sides, like allowing himself to remain in this position took just as much control as it was taking Jason not to kill him. “See you’re not much for a fair fight.” It was a weak taunt, almost like Slade had only said it to keep worse things out of his mouth. “Didn’t think traps and smoke and mirrors and shit was your style, but s’pose the end of the world’s been full of disappointments.” 

Hood chuckled, a low, sinister sound. “Sorry, were you hoping I’d be fucking stupid and prideful enough to take you both on by myself, or just naive enough to believe you wouldn’t hurt Arsenal again if I brought him here with me? You threw the first punch, Wilson. You ambushed him while he was basically defenseless at his fucking civilian job and you didn't give a fuck about a fair fight then, why should I care now? At least I did you the basic fucking courtesy of knowing you were going into a fight, he was fixing a fucking car.”

“And yet he still shot me through the shoulder, that just screams defense—” The sentence ended abruptly with a short, choked noise as Hood increased the pressure, but the blade didn’t sink any farther into its target.

“Do you know that there’s exactly one person alive I’d burn the whole fucking world down for? And out of, what’s left now? Three billion people on the fucking planet, you just had to choose him? It’s bad enough that you hurt people for a living, but you don’t get to hurt my person, Wilson. What was the fucking point, huh? Were you trying to get my attention? Hurt him to hurt me, was that your big plan?” 

When it became clear Hood expected an actual response, Slade jerked his head to each side, the most motion he could get with Jason’s arm in the way. “Nope,” he said, voice still calm even as it came out in a harsh, painful-sounding rasp. “Not interested in hurting you unless you try to kill me,” he added, giving the glowing sword situated against his heart a meaningful look.

“Oh, we’ll get to that,” Hood replied softly, and god, he sounded so dangerous. Jason had never sounded like that. “But first, I wanna know why you did it.”

Slade twitched his head in Bruce’s direction. “My contractor wanted to meet with you. Your on-again, off-again partner was our only connection. I don’t break contracts.” 

Jason didn’t even spare Bruce a glance. “If he wanted a civil conversation with me, he should’ve thought of that before he let you off your leash and stood by while you attacked my friend.”

Slade let out a noise that was probably supposed to be a sigh but was a bit too strangled and sharp to be characterized as such. “Speedy can take it,” he said, sounding more tired of rehashing the same fight he’d had with Bruce a dozen times than nervous about the threat to his life. “Wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t think he could.” 

Hood let out something between a laugh and a snarl. “That’s fucking rich. Your pain tolerance is probably pretty high, being a mercenary and all, huh? So you could probably take it if I broke all your bones one at a time. Meta healing factor would probably keep you alive, too. Would that make it okay?” 

“Depends on what purpose you’re serving. If you did it because you wanted information like I did, I’d say sure, go ahead, it's all in a day's work for people like us. But if you’re just doing it for revenge, well,” Slade’s eye went sharp, “that’s where we’re different.” 

“You’re scum that kills for money.”

“I’m thinkin’ the guy who castrated and skinned a man alive probably shouldn’t throw stones. Don’t know that I’ve ever fucked anyone up as bad as you did that poor son of a bitch.”

“He was a fucking rapist. Arsenal is innocent. That’s where we’re different."

"Speedy's about as innocent as I am."

"Arsenal," Jason corrected, hissing the name out through what sounded like clenched teeth, "is the only reason both you and your contractor aren’t fucking dead already. Because he’s way better than either of you deserve and even after all the shit you put him through, he still tried to convince me that you were worth more than my blade through your heart. Told me I should hear you out, made a full fucking case for both your lives. But I’m just dying for you to prove him wrong.”

That information settled strangely in Bruce, and he could tell in Slade’s tense body language that it didn’t quite sit right with him either. Roy should’ve been furious with both of them. Should’ve been encouraging Jason to kill them or offering to do it himself. The fact that he didn’t, the fact that he advocated for mercy and understanding, only made the ever-present guilt coalesce into an iceberg in his gut. 

“That’s nice,” Slade said. “Stupid, but nice. Which is par for the course for Harper.”

It was the wrong thing to say. Before the words had even fully made it out of Slade’s mouth, Hood was releasing the chokehold, letting Slade double over to catch his breath for a split second, then bringing his knee right up into Slade’s face. Blood gushed from his nose again, very obviously broken now, and before Slade’s head could even rock back with the force of it, Jason had already pulled back and sank his knee into Slade’s ribs, forcing all the air out of him.

“Keep his name out of your mouth,” Jason snarled as he drove his knee in again. It must’ve broken something because Slade pulled a sharp, wheezing breath in through his teeth, a sound Bruce recognized well as his ‘pretending not to be in excruciating pain’ noise. 

“Hood!” Bruce blurted out, voice strained with panic as he watched Hood gear up for another blow and saw Slade curl in on himself protectively, clearly telegraphing an injury. The only thing in his mind was that he couldn’t watch either of them die and he couldn’t stand by and let his son do this and he’d told himself he’d let them deal with this part without his interference but he couldn’t, he couldn’t let this happen, he couldn’t. 

The young man paused his assault at the sound of Bruce’s voice, leg freezing halfway to its target, and the blade in his hand flickered a few times. Hood had to turn his focus back to it for it to regain its physical form, had to take his eyes off Slade for a split second to do it, and Deathstroke took the opening. Really, the bigger surprise was that it took this long. 

He struck Jason’s right arm just below the wrist and Jason reflexively opened his hand in response. Instead of falling out of his grip, the sword vanished into thin air, clearly surprising him and leaving him unarmed and unguarded. Slade yanked Jason forward by his now empty hand, rotated them both, and pushed him face-first into the wall, twisting his right arm behind his back and immobilizing it. 

The whole thing was fairly gentle by Deathstroke’s standards, but Jason’s reaction told Bruce something was wrong. It wasn't much, an almost indistinguishable noise, the very beginning of a Spanish curse word cut off by Jason sinking his teeth into his lip. Bruce remembered it well. For as long as he’d known Jason, his son had always been terrified of admitting he was in pain. Part of Bruce’s heart warmed at the small remaining bits of proof that his Jason was still in there. 

A much bigger part of it broke down into dust, because he never, ever wanted to be the reason Jason made that sound.

The angle of Jason’s shoulder was more than a little unnatural, noticeable even beneath three layers of clothing, but a move like that shouldn’t have been anywhere near forceful enough to dislocate the joint, especially not as feather-light as Slade had done it. Jason had more than proved his toughness and pain tolerance throughout the fight, why would this be different?

Slade didn’t seem to notice Jason’s reaction as he leveraged his new position, pushing Jason’s arm higher up his back and leaning his weight into it. The hold wasn’t meant to cause any excessive pain, only enough to exert control, but Bruce knew well enough that once a shoulder was dislocated, every little motion was agony. Still, Jason just made another small bitten-off sound, even quieter this time, breathing just a shade too harsh to be natural as he struggled against Slade’s grip on him. 

“Stop fighting. I don’t want to hurt you.” Slade’s voice was a strange cross between hard authority and a weak imitation of comfort, far too gravelly and rough from the chokehold to sound anything other than threatening, as much as he might’ve tried. It only made Jason struggle even harder, clearly hurting himself worse in the process, every move making his body heave a bit harder, his breathing a bit more jagged. Telling Jason not to fight was never a good idea. “Now, how's about we talk this out? Cause right now, my alternative is the nine, ten, eleven different ways I can incapacitate you from here. Trust me, you’re not going to like any of them.” 

“Talk it out?” Hood hissed between panting breaths, forehead pressed to the wall as he almost gasped for air. He was clearly in peak physical condition, the exertion shouldn’t have him breathing anywhere near that hard, which only left worse explanations behind. “Yeah? You gonna call me junkie scum, too?" Slade just maintained the hold, not rising to the bait. “Arsenal’s too good a man to kill you for what you did, Slade, but I’m not a good man, and I won’t fucking hesitate.” 

Slade shifted his grip a bit and the wounded, shuddering noise Jason let out was louder, like it’d been torn from him against his will. That time, Slade noticed. “You’re talented, kid, and you’ve got heart. I’ll give you that. But I’ve been fighting longer than you’ve been alive and I’m yet to see anyone with a dislocated shoulder kill the person who’s got them trapped, helpless, and cornered.” 

“Amazing,” Hood said, voice still obviously pained, “that someone can be so cocky and so fucking wrong at the same time.”

That was all the warning he gave before his free hand twitched to his belt, retrieved a small cylinder, and pressed the button on top of it, all before Slade could react. At first, there was nothing, just a light struggle as Hood tried to slip away and Slade maintained his grip. The cloud wasn’t even opaque enough to obscure his vision, it certainly wasn’t enough to get him to slip up. But then, Slade started coughing. It was just a small noise at first, but Slade seemed to notice a problem and attempted to hold his breath. “Too late,” he thought he heard Hood hiss, and within a few seconds, the coughing was loud and harsh. Slade’s stance wavered slightly as he sucked the breaths in, fast and desperate.

Jason just waited with the most patience and self-control he’d shown all night as the smoke permeated Slade’s lungs. Slade was just barely keeping his feet now, half leaning against Jason like he needed the support, and that was when Jason dropped his hips, allowed Slade to push his injured arm even further up his back, letting out a small, choked noise at the feeling. He stayed there for a moment, letting Slade believe he had the advantage, and then used the trapped arm to yank Slade face-first into the wall, dazing him bad enough that Jason escaped easily. 

Slade just stayed slumped there, coughing and wheezing, looking painfully human while Jason moved far enough to the left that he was out of Slade’s reach and then slammed his own shoulder into the wall to reset it. He did it like it was nothing, barely even making a sound, and Bruce shuddered to think how many times he would need to field-set a dislocated shoulder to have that kind of bland reaction to such intense pain, then returned to his victim. 

“I’m not helpless, motherfucker,” he growled from just behind Slade. “And I never will be again.” 

He snatched Slade by the shoulder and flipped him around so his back was to the wall again, returning his forearm to the mercenary’s throat and resting it there lightly. It was a threat and a taunt; Slade was already struggling for air without Hood’s help.

“What the…” Slade rasped out, sounding almost nervous. 

“Arsenal made it special for you,” Hood answered, a smile in his voice. “Nothing permanent. Just brings you down to my level for a little bit.” 

Slade seemed to take a minute to absorb that as his coughing started to die down, face unnaturally pale, the pupil of his eye shrunk down to a pinprick. For the first time, probably ever, the thought crossed Bruce’s mind that Slade could lose here. Slade could die here. “So, you got a game plan here, kiddo?” He asked, speaking slowly and conversationally between tight, almost panicked sounding breaths, stalling for time to recover. “Was there somethin’ you did want from me? Cause you do an awful lot of talking for somebody who claims he doesn’t want to talk.” Jason seemed to be telling the truth. By the end of the sentence, Slade’s words sounded less choked and his breathing a bit more even. 

“What I want,” Hood growled as his forearm pressed so hard into Slade’s windpipe that his toes were barely touching the ground and he actually started clawing at Hood’s arm to gain some separation, “is for you to hurt like we did. I want you to know how scared he felt, how much pain he was in when he was crying so hard he fucking puked because some asshole came up outta nowhere, dredged up all the worst shit that’s ever happened to him, and dragged him through it all over again. I want him,” Jason jerked a thumb towards Bruce, “to know what it felt like for me to hold my best friend, a successfully recovered former addict who’s been clean for years, while he begged me not to let him relapse again. I want him to stand by and watch you hurt and not be able to do anything about it, just like he did when you hurt Arsenal, just like I had to do when I came home and found him broken, when I found out you broke him. I want you both to understand how bad it fucked me up knowing that he went through all that shit to protect me. 

“But the thing is, I can’t. I’m really, really good at hurting people, Wilson, but I can’t make you hurt the way we did, because you don’t feel emotions like decent people do. But I’m thinking if I just take this blade,” the magical sword materialized in Hood’s hand again and he rested the tip against Slade’s abdomen, not too far from where Deathstroke had stabbed Speedy years ago, “and I sink it into your guts and fucking twist it until it scrapes against your ribs, maybe that’ll come close.”

“Did he?” Slade choked out, still looking too pale as he ignored the colorful threat.

“What?” Hood snarled, accusatory. 

“Did. Harper. Relapse.” 

The pressure on Slade’s throat faltered just enough for him to drag a single full breath in before Jason seemed to bring himself back to the present and press into it again. “Why do you give a shit?” He asked, a barely noticeable tremor in his voice.

Slade pressed his lips together, face gone stone-cold sober. “Because, kid, I never actually wanted to fuck your buddy up. Not like that. Not bad enough for it to stick.” 

Jason’s posture went rigid. “What the fuck did you think was gonna happen? That he’d fucking shake it off?” Slade just stared back, waiting for the answer to his question. “No,” Jason said through what sounded like grit teeth. “Anyone else would have, anyone else could have fucking died, but he’s the toughest son of a bitch I ever met and he’s still clean, absolutely no fucking thanks to you.” 

A bit of the tension trickled out of Slade’s body, some of the color returning to his face. “Good.” 

“Good? What the fuck is wrong with you?” And there was a desperate edge to the question that the modulator couldn’t fully obscure. “You take such obvious pleasure in ripping someone’s mind apart and then you turn around and pretend to care about whether or not you destroyed their whole fucking life?” 

Slade shrugged jerkily. “Didn’t take pleasure in it. I’m not a sadist. I’m just practical.” 

“You hurt him,” Jason countered, and there was hurt in his voice, too, like Jason had felt every bit of Roy’s pain as his own. Bruce knew the feeling. “You hurt him and he didn’t deserve it.” Slade nodded as much as he could with Hood’s arm in the way. 

“Mhm. You’re right. He didn’t.” 

Tactically speaking, it was a very, very smart move. The admission rocked Hood to his core, so much so that he forgot about choking Slade altogether and the sword glitched out almost completely for a few seconds before reforming. He was far easier to manipulate in such a state. It was a smart move, except it wasn’t a tactical one, it couldn’t be, because Slade wasn’t capitalizing. He didn’t push Hood off or try to switch their positions again. All he did was slip a hand between Hood’s forearm and his own throat to make sure Hood couldn’t choke him to unconsciousness from this angle anymore. “But it was nothing personal,” he added after a painfully long silence where Jason stayed locked in the same position, still too shaken to move a muscle. “I had a job to do. I’m sure you’re not unfamiliar with the concept of doing things you regret later for the sake of accomplishing something you thought was worth it. Just business. That’s it.”

“And now you’re gonna fucking empathize with me? How stupid do you think I am? You expect me to fucking believe you’d say you regret that shit you did for any reason besides saving your ass?” And there was a rasp to his voice that was menacing and vulnerable at the same time. If Bruce could hear that little falter, Slade could hear it too. “Tell me, Wilson, If I stab you through the heart and then tell you it’s just business, will that stop you from dying at my feet?”

Slade didn’t bother answering the question, just held his free hand up in what might almost be an act of surrender and held eye contact as much as he could with someone whose eyes weren’t visible. “I don’t particularly care about saving my ass. For what it’s worth,” Slade let out a short grunt as Hood pushed harder into the chokehold like he wanted to shut Slade up altogether but couldn’t quite manage it as Slade pushed through the pain anyway, “and ‘m sure it’s not worth much, ‘m sorry. For what ‘appened. For what I did to him. Harper’s a good man. Shouldn’ta gotten caught in the crosshairs.” 

Bruce had heard Slade say ‘sorry’ like he meant it exactly two times. Once to Barry after Victor’s death. Victor was a good kid. Sorry he’s gone. And once to Bruce after the truth came out about Jason’s time with the League. He’s not capable of the shit Red Hood has done, okay? He just isn’t. I’m sorry. Both of them had been out of something Bruce would loosely characterize as sympathy. Neither of them had been because Slade actually thought he was in the wrong. But this? This was.

Bruce could tell by the tension in his son’s body that he didn’t believe Slade’s apology, but Bruce could feel the truth of it in his bones.

“You’re not sorry,” Hood snapped, voice thick with contempt as he situated his blade between the plates of Slade’s armor again. “Not yet. But you will be.” 

It all happened so fast Bruce didn’t have time to think. Hood made a sudden move forward, Slade flinched away in something almost like fear, the blade disappeared from Hood’s hand into thin air, and before he could stop himself, Bruce shouted.

“Jason, no!”

Jason couldn’t breathe.

He’d already been having a hard time of it between talking to Slade, trying to hold his torrential emotions at bay long enough to do this the right way, the tidal waves of adrenaline he didn’t have much of a tolerance for anymore, and his fucked up shoulder, but now the air was stolen from his lungs.

What happens if you see him and you freeze up?

Bruce couldn’t know.

What happens if he finds out it’s you you and that sends you into a panic attack?

Bruce couldn’t know. 

What happens if you do kill him and then you regret it?

Jason had been so fucking careful, careful like he’d never, ever been in his whole fucking life. No clues, no tells, no nothing. Even the world’s greatest detective shouldn’t have been able to deduce a single fucking thing from his performance. This was supposed to wait until after Jason had decided Deathstroke’s fate. This was supposed to happen on Jason’s terms, when Jason was ready, Roy had said this could go however Jason wanted it to and Jason believed him. Bruce. Couldn’t. Know. 

Have you thought about any of this, Jay?

He’d done everything right, set it all up perfectly so that he wouldn’t even have to look at Bruce until after he was finished with Slade, and all of it was falling apart now. Because Jason didn’t did care that it was Bruce Wayne chasing him, this wasn’t going to be just another fight, he actually gave a shit about doing it the right way, and he wasn’t ready. He couldn’t do this. Not yet. He was supposed to have more time.

Jason would’ve liked to say he was angry. Furious at Bruce for wrecking the culmination of months worth of planning with two fucking words, indignant that Bruce would dare to come back into Jason’s life for the first time in seven years and destroy what few things he’d claimed as his own, but he wasn’t. He could taste blood in his mouth from the fight with Slade and that brought Joker’s laugh screeching up into the recesses of his mind and he was fucking scared. He felt exposed and vulnerable and he was so, so fucking scared.

Still, the powerful wave of fear and the fresh spike of adrenaline were enough for him to center himself around. He let out a breath that was meant to sound steady but definitely didn’t and forced the words out as evenly as he could. “Who the fuck is Jason?”

There was a flash of something too close to pity in Deathstroke’s half-swollen eye, slowly migrating across his bruised, bloody face, and Jason couldn’t even take pleasure in the wreckage because it was proof. They knew. How the fuck did they know?! “C’mon kid,” he said quietly, raspy voice completely devoid of the usual cruelty or spite. “We know it’s you, alright?” 

Deathstroke wasn’t attacking him.

It took Jason far too long to realize it.

The Blade in his hand had disappeared because somehow, impossibly, it judged Deathstroke as not evil despite the copious proof that he enjoyed causing pain and the veritable ocean of blood on his hands—like you aren’t even worse than him, like your hands will ever be clean, like you never took pleasure in their screams and pleas for mercy— which left him with no weapon and a half-assed off-center chokehold on one of the world’s deadliest people. Slade could kill Jason from here in at least fourteen different ways, Jason had done his homework, he knew that he could, it wouldn’t even be difficult for him, but he wasn’t doing it. Wasn’t even trying. Just stood there, let Jason constrict his airway, and waited.

“Why aren’t you fighting?” He hissed under his breath, equal parts disturbed and frustrated. Jason had studied for months. He knew Deathstroke’s every move like the back of his hand and never at any point in a single battle had he given up the fight of his own free will. “Why wouldn’t you—”

“Cause we don’t wanna hurt you, Robin,” Slade interjected almost softly.

Jason felt like he’d been punched, all the air leaving him in a sudden, painful rush, and his body was already releasing the hold and retreating before his mind could catch up. Slade bent over himself with one arm pressed to his ribs, dragging in ragged, harsh breaths, but Jason barely heard it over the thunderous, deafening pounding of his own heart. Deathstroke was injured and Batman was technically incapacitated, but that had never stopped either of them and now Jason was compromised on top of it all. They knew his fucking identity. The one thing he had to protect himself with, his only trump card, and they already knew. 

Just barely avoiding tripping over his own feet, Jason turned to face Bruce, keeping Slade in his periphery. There was no point ignoring him any longer. 

There was a long moment where Jason had to clench his fists and hold his breath to avoid providing any physical reaction as took in the sight of Bruce in the flesh for the first time in nearly seven years. He wasn’t wearing the Batsuit, which was almost certainly a trick, but if he had done it to throw Jason off balance by forcing him to look at his face, well. It was working.

He looked tired. There were gray streaks in his hair and bags under his eyes that had never been there before. He was every bit as big as Jason remembered him, maybe even bigger, but the way he held himself was different. Jason hadn’t thought the magnet cuff would keep Bruce restrained permanently. Sure, it was Roy’s design and it was conceptually flawless but Bruce had this awful habit of managing to find flaws in everyone everything, no matter how foolproof. But he didn’t. He fidgeted with the restraint, but it was aimless, like he didn’t even realize he was doing it, like his body couldn’t stand to just accept that it was held down. He wasn’t actually trying to get out. He hung there like he thought he deserved it, somewhere between reserved and defeated. It wasn’t Bruce. This wasn’t Bruce. Not the Bruce Jason knew. The guy showed up looking like he’d spent the last seven years being beaten to shit by his own mind!  

Jason had given them time to prepare. He hadn’t bothered to hide the fact that this was a trap. And yet Bruce had shown up with almost no weapons, almost no gear, and absolutely no aggression in his posture. Face open, hard angles gone shockingly soft, eyes almost worried when they should’ve been hard and disappointed and angry. He looked vulnerable. It was wrong.

Jason grit his teeth. “Arsenal told me Deathstroke’s partner was Batman,” he said, forcibly neutral. “Didn’t really get it at the time. Far as I knew, Batman’s only bone to pick with me would be this,” Jason gestured to the altered Bat symbol on his chest. “But that’s it, huh? here hasn’t been a Boy Wonder in over six years. Arsenal told me you got the last one killed. You wasted all this time chasing me cause you thought I was your dead bird? God, that's fucking depressing. I'd almost feel bad for you if you hadn't spent the past six months making my life a living hell." 

Bruce stopped his fidgeting altogether, whole body gone still as he stared at Jason with something deep and painful in his weary eyes. Jason hated how much that look hurt.

He was just barely keeping his shit together, and when I said your name, he fucking broke!  Jesus fuck, why the fuck did he still care? 

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you." 

"You didn't scare me," Jason lied. "You pissed me off. Here we are. You did it. You found me. You spent months scouring China for an answer, here it is: I'm not your sidekick or your partner or your fucking whatever, Batman. Sorry to disappoint.”

That’s what I’m good at, though, isn’t it?

“Jason, please.” 

The flinch happened before Jason could stop it, an obvious, full-body thing, and he cursed himself inside his head. It was the same. Just like he’d been stupidly hoping for. Bruce still said Jason’s name the same way he had years ago back when Jason wasn’t too broken to let people in. Still held Jason’s name in his mouth like something precious, something worth protecting, and god, Jason just wanted to fucking break at the sound of it. 

“Shut the hell up,” he said shakily. It should’ve been a command. It wasn’t. Jason was too fucking scared for it to be a command. God, he wished Roy was here. “I don’t give a fuck about anything you have to say. I came here to end the hijo de puta who almost sent my friend into a relapse. That’s. It." The Spanish came out without any conscious thought, the same way it always did when Jason got his blood up about something, and he had to resist the urge to cringe. Like Bruce needed any more tells that suggested his stupid theory was actually right.

There was a loaded pause that shattered like glass when Slade finally broke it. “You only came here to kill me?” He repeated carefully. “Okay. So why didn’t you?” 

Jason gave him a furtive glance before returning his eyes to Bruce. Bruce may have been restrained while Slade was free, but Bruce didn’t need his fists to deliver a killing blow, and Jason would rather get the shit beat out of him. He was used to that, at least. “I was about to. The Blades had other ideas. They don’t think you’re evil. First time they’ve ever been wrong.” The last part was a smooth lie, totally undetectable. The Blades had never been wrong because they couldn’t be wrong, it wasn’t possible. Magic that powerful was flawless because it had to be. But the idea of admitting out loud that the man who’d nearly destroyed Roy’s life was anything more than an irredeemable monster was more than Jason could stomach. 

“Alright, well, looking past the fact that I counted at least a dozen openings you had to kill me before your magic trick went wrong, six of which were painfully, blatantly obvious, you also have plenty of weapons that won’t vanish at integral points of a fight. You had me dead to rights and you took your shot with a weapon you knew might vanish. Seems like a pretty massive strategic flaw for someone trained by Batman and the League of Assassins. Almost like you wanted to fail.”

Jason’s back went ramrod straight in a way he knew wouldn’t get past either of them. Slade wasn’t supposed to know that. Nobody but Talia, Ra’s, and Roy knew. That information was safe. It was one of the only things that people weren’t supposed to be able to hurt him with anymore. “League of Assassins?” Jason repeated slowly, rolling the words across his tongue like they were foreign to him. “Should I know what that is?” 

“Jesus, this again? Did you learn your deny, deny, deny routine from Speedy?” Jason stiffened even further at the mention of Roy, body pulled so tight his muscles ached, and Slade must’ve noticed, because when he spoke again, his voice came out just a fraction of a percent gentler. “I was there, Jason. With the League. I was there when they dragged you in covered in mud, bones all broken and face sliced up. I was there when they dunked you in the Pit and you came out screaming and raging with your brain fried and your body fixed. And I was there when you spent the next four months alone in a padded room, smashing your head against a wall and calling for your dad. I probably remember more about that time than you do.”

And yeah, Jason knew that was the most logical explanation for why Slade would know he spent time with the League, but it was also by far the worst one, and Jason simultaneously wanted to kill Slade for being the reason Talia’s cold, cruel voice was rising in the back of his mind, this, or back to the room for another week, waladi, and throw another smoke bomb so he could disappear before they could weaponize this against him. He’d made peace with the horrible void of empty loneliness and terror those awful months had left carved into his mind, he’d worked hard for that peace, and nobody should be able to take it from him. 

He could feel the phantom cracks of bo staffs and whips against his back. The splitting pain in his head during those rare moments in the void when he was lucid enough to remember he was in agony. The hours he spent curled up and shivering, just trying to get used to the chill of death that would never leave his body again. The constant ache of needing someone to rescue him again and knowing that, just like last time, no one ever would. They couldn’t know, not this too on top of his identity, if Slade knew that meant that Bruce knew too and—

“You were there,” Jason repeated, surprised at the steady calm in his own voice. There was no use denying it. So many other more pressing, more dangerous things needed his attention. He swallowed hard and took a deep breath, turning to face Slade. “Wonderful. Nothing screams I’m not a sadist, I’m just practical like standing by and watching a half-comatose teenager get the piss beat out of him every single day. I don’t remember you, means you must’ve only been there for the really fun part. Did you get a kick out of watching them rip the last bits of me out of me so they could rebuild me as a nameless, faceless killing machine?  You ever join in? Do I have some scars I should be thanking you for?” Something twitched in Slade’s bruised face, something affronted, offended, and Jason let out a sharp, bitter laugh at the thought. “It’s not like I’d remember it if you did. They beat all the fucking thoughts out of my head. But you already know that, don’t you?”

“I never touched you,” Slade said, sounding almost disturbed. 

“Yeah? So how long did you stick around and watch them fuck me up, then?” Jason snapped back viciously, voice dripping with contempt to hide how naked it made him feel, knowing that his opponent had seen him like that. Weak, vulnerable, broken, and at Talia al Ghul's mercy. “Is that what gets you off? 

“No, for fuck’s—” Slade started, obviously frustrated, but he cut himself off before he could pick up any real steam. “I know you think I’m a scumbag, and there’s definitely a case to be made for that, but even I think what they did to you was fucked up. I don’t have a lot of lines, but torturing children is one of them. I stayed long enough to try to talk them out of it, but I’m sure you’re familiar with how Ra’s al Ghul reacts to the word no. So, I left. I never even figured out what they were doing. Just saw them drag you out at the end of the day all beat to shit.”

“Oh, my heart melts, pendejo,” Jason deadpanned, even though it did warm just a bit at the thought that there had been one singular person in the League that hadn’t taken pleasure in his torment, even if Slade’s objections had ultimately been ignored. “I’m not going back to prison,” he said as he turned his attention back to Bruce. He couldn’t put off confronting his maybe-dad any longer. Damage control was all that counted now. Roy could lock him up, he could live through that, but these two? Never. “I’ll die before I let you lock me up like they did.”

Bruce balked visibly, but it had to be a lie, an act. “What?” 

“I said I’ll fucking die before I let you lock me up, old man.” 

“Why would you think that I—”

“I know how long you two have been on my tail. You’ve seen enough of my victims to know exactly what the fuck I am, and I know what you do to people like me. You checked Superman off your list; I’m next. But I’m telling you right now, you can try all you want to put me in a cell, but I’ll make you kill me before I ever go back to that shit.”

“Jason—”

“You wanna tell me I’m fucking wrong? Why the fuck are you here if not to put me behind bars or back in my grave where I belong?” 

Bruce flinched so hard Jason could see it, pain echoing raw in his eyes, and that wasn’t right, either. He didn’t show emotion like that, hardly ever as Bruce Wayne, certainly not as Batman. What the fuck? “No. Neither. I missed you, Jay, that’s why I’m here.” 

Jason had to take a long couple of moments just to breathe through such an obvious lie. There had already been too many surprises tonight, too many holes in what was supposed to be a flawless plan, and he couldn’t let things slip any farther. There was a reason he’d waited two months to do this. He didn’t want to fly into a rage and kill them both without thinking, he didn’t want to convince himself this couldn’t end in anything but blood. Jason was in control. Not the Pit, not the childish, broken Robin inside of him that desperately wanted to forgive Bruce and have a father again, Jason.

The slight weight of the cloth hood felt like it was choking the life out of him, so he pushed it off his head in a single harsh motion and snapped, “No, you didn’t.” 

Bruce looked like he’d been slapped, and Jason somehow felt vindicated and guilty at the same time. As Bruce just blinked at him, like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing, vindication won out. Bruce had no right to act like the victim here. “Is that really what you think?” Bruce asked quietly, an unmistakable edge of hurt in his voice.

No guilt. So what if Bruce was in pain? Jason had been in nonstop pain for the past six fucking years and Bruce didn‘t give a shit. Let him hurt. Jason didn’t care about Bruce’s fucking feelings.

“Sorry, were you hoping I’d fall for that?” Jason asked with a scoff. “I’m not the stupid little shit who chased Joker into Arkham anymore, Bruce. I’m not that fucking gullible, and I never will be again. I know you didn’t miss me. You know how I know? Because nothing fucking changed!” And it was like he couldn’t stop now that he’d started. He’d opened the floodgates, let a fraction of the hurt out, and now it just kept on flowing. “Seven fucking years and nothing changed! Joker killed me, Bruce! I was barely even in fucking high school and I died with his smile on my fucking face! Four years you acted like you were my fucking dad, but he took me away from you and he tore me apart in the process and you didn’t do anything about it! You kept on going, he kept on living, and nothing changed!”

“Everything changed. Everything.” The only time Jason could remember Bruce sounding like that, shattered and heartbroken and afraid, was the day he died in Bruce’s arms. Bruce was a good actor, but Jason was almost certain he wasn’t this good. “Nothing was ever the same after we lost you. Alfred wasn’t the same, Dick wasn’t the same, I wasn’t the same, even Gotham wasn’t the same. The whole city mourned your loss even though they didn't really know what happened, and we never came back from losing you, not really. Dick gave up being Nightwing for good. I almost did the same with Batman. The only reason I kept going, Jay, the only reason things stayed the same, was because I thought it was what you would’ve wanted. You were the people’s hero, their Robin, the one who understood them in ways we never could. Gotham was more yours than it ever was mine or Dick’s. I kept protecting her people for you. To honor you. Because I cared about you and I wanted to keep your memory alive.”

Jason’s blood chilled at the words, but he didn’t let them sink in. He couldn’t. “Then why the fuck did you let him go?” He forced out, feeling like his throat was closing up. “All that shit he put me through and you just let him go, B, how the fuck could you do that to me?” It sounded far too much like a plea, more emotional than Jason should allow himself to be, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. He’d spent way too many years torturing himself over this, wondering why he wasn’t good enough, why Joker’s life was worth more than his, why he didn’t mean as much to Bruce as Bruce had meant to him, and he was sick of being the only one who had to hurt because of it. Bruce should hurt too.

“I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not!” Jason said around an incredulous laugh. “Cause if you were sorry, then I wouldn’t have seen his fucking face next to yours on the news. Do you have any idea what that did to me, seeing him on my fucking TV screen with everyone and their fucking mother saying he redeemed himself, that the fucking Joker was our knight in shining armor who came through when we needed him the most? The fucking hijo de puta who tortured me, stole the only fucking family I ever had away from me, and murdered me is immortalized as one of the saviors of the world and I got to hear for weeks that I’m in his debt, that he saved me from Superman. Because. Of. You.”

“Jason—” Bruce started, looking more and more shattered with every bit of vitriol Jason hurled his way. Jason didn’t let the words breathe. If he did, Bruce might actually manipulate him into believing this bullshit apology and six years of carefully crafted defenses would come crumbling down around him and that was when Bruce would go in for the kill.

“The first time I saw it, I threw a knife through my TV. The second time, I puked my guts out. Even after all these years away from you, you still kept on fucking me up. And now I finally got a little bit of normal for myself and somebody I give a shit about, and you had to come halfway across the world to wreck that too, huh? You fuck with my friend and you make me look you in the fucking face, and I’m supposed to—what? Forgive you? Act like the worst years of my life just didn’t happen? Pretend I haven’t spent half my time since I came back terrified that fucking clown was going to find out I was back and take me again and make sure it sticks this time?” 

Too much, too much, too much but Jason didn’t even want to take it back. It was cathartic, tearing this shit out of his soul and laying it out on Bruce’s instead. Even if it left him feeling hollowed out and gutted. Even if all this Joker talk made the laugh in the back of his mind even louder, like a blade shaving away bits of his sanity.

Joker was just a part of who he was. The mantra wasn’t working like it was supposed to. Maybe because Jason couldn’t actually force himself to believe it anymore.

“He won’t touch you again, Jay.” 

Jason let out a mean, derisive snort. “Oh, gotcha. You want me to just take you at your word there? Did you ask him nicely not to, since you’re buddies now? Hey clown, remember my Robin, who you lovingly treated to three weeks of torture? Turns out the universe fucked up and let his sorry ass come back to life, but I’d consider it a personal favor if you left him alone this time. He’s fucked up enough without your help. You’ll have to forgive me Bruce, but I don’t fucking trust you anymore.”

Jason’s blood was starting to heat up again, eyes burning, muscles tensing, and he was just about to take a threatening step forward when Bruce said, “I killed him.” 

Even though it was an obvious lie, it stopped Jason dead in his tracks, anyway. What a pathetic fucking pipe dream, that Bruce would kill the Joker for a screw-up like him. Why the fuck did Jason want it so bad?

“Excuse me?” He asked, voice choked.

“Jason, the Joker is dead,” Bruce said, not a single fucking tell in his posture, not a hint of deception in his words. Jason’s intuition was nearly flawless and he’d learned what Bruce’s lies felt like a long time ago and this didn’t feel wrong, but it couldn’t be right, it couldn’t be right. “He has been for nearly a year. I killed him the same day as Superman. He’s gone. It’s over.” 

The sudden spike of rage, confusion, and fear had Jason raising his hands without even thinking, taking a deep breath, and searching within himself for the All-Blades. He flexed his hands to prepare for their arrival out of habit, and that was when his mind ran into a wall so rigid and sudden that he had to choke back a gasp at the feeling of it. The Blades hadn’t blocked him that hard since before he left the Chamber of All.

Jason muttered an angry string of Spanish curses under his breath. “Oh, que te den, you stupid fucking swords,” Jason muttered angrily under his breath. "Bullshit motherfuckers, only work on fucking evil, never thought that’d be a fucking problem. This bastard lies right to my face about killing my murderer and doesn’t even do me the basic fucking courtesy of giving me a tell so I don’t have to waste my energy believing it, and you really think he’s still a good fuckin’ person, huh?

Good or evil or anything in between, you kill with respect for the lives you take, or you do not kill at all. 

At that moment, all Jason wanted to do was throw that lesson out the window and taste Bruce’s blood, but something held him back. It felt like Ducra. It felt like Roy. It felt like old memories of Batman from years ago. He wasn’t here to throw away years of progress. He wasn’t here to sacrifice the decent life he’d made for himself or the happiness he’d earned. He was here to follow the Blades’ guidance. He was here to do the right thing.

“Jason,” Bruce said, drawing out the word like a plea.

Despite the memories of wisdom and reason slowly soaking through his brain, the hot little spark of rage that flitted through Jason’s mind at the sound of Bruce’s voice took over. Jason felt distant and almost trapped as his body moved on autopilot, closing the distance between himself and Bruce, slipping a knife out of its sheath at his waist and holding it to Bruce’s throat, pressing just deep enough to draw a bead of blood.

The second the red started to trickle down Bruce’s neck, flashing lights and ear-piercing sirens went off within Jason’s mind. They tasted like Ducra’s disappointment, pressed down on his lungs like Roy’s panic any time Jason came home with a few too many broken bones, danger, danger, danger.

This knife didn’t care if Bruce was evil or not, this knife wouldn’t disappear before Jason could make the biggest fuck-up decision of his life, and if he went in for the kill here, he would get it. There was a real risk of breaking something that couldn’t be fixed. He knew every bit of that was true, but the Pit threatened to override it and sink that blade right into Bruce’s jugular all the same. It took every last shred of Jason’s will to keep himself balanced on the precipice the Pit wanted to shove him over.

“Bullshit,” he hissed, voice shaking fiercely, feeling a burning in his eyes that could’ve been the Pit and could’ve been tears and he didn’t even fucking know anymore, he didn’t know anything except this had to be a lie. This had to be a lie. “That would be all over the news and I haven’t heard a fucking thing about Joker in ages. The people who lie to me don’t live very long, Bruce.” 

Bruce didn’t even try to defend himself, even though he had one hand free and Jason was already shaken up badly enough that Bruce could probably take him down with ease even pinned to the wall as he was. His hand stayed at his side as he stared Jason dead in the eye. “We burned his body. Didn’t let it slip to the news outlets. We were worried it, combined with Superman’s death, would cause a power vacuum amongst the remaining villains and low-level criminals. But he is dead. The Joker is dead. He will never find you. He will never, ever hurt you again.”

“You’re making this up.” Jason could hear the desperate, wounded plea in his own voice and knew the modulator wouldn’t be able to hide it. “Cause that’s what you do, right? You come here and you get a read on me until you figure out what you’d need to say to get me to let my guard down, you say it, and then you take me down. I’ve been around this block way too many fucking times, Bruce. Not that it isn’t touching that you rehearsed this lie special for me, but you should save it for someone dumb enough to believe it.” Jason pressed the blade more insistently into Bruce’s throat, drawing a thin line of red now, and watched as Bruce’s steel-blue eyes went a bit wider. 

Jason had a split second to be pleased, believing the reaction was for him, and then he felt the presence behind him. Slade just barely dodged the knife that came slashing at his face as Jason whirled around to face the new threat and lashed out wildly at his attacker. Still, Slade didn’t look like he wanted to attack. He had his hands held up, a good few inches away from any of his weapons, but there was something unreadable in his eye, something Jason didn’t trust. 

“Wilson,” Bruce said from behind Jason, a warning note in his voice. “Remember our agreement. He is not threatening your life. Do not touch him.” Jason felt a strange spike of heat run down his spine at that and did his best to ignore it as Slade cast a glance at Bruce over Jason’s shoulder.

“He’s threatening your life, and I don’t break contracts,” he replied evenly, locking gazes with Jason again.

“Your contract was to help me find my child. We found him. Your obligation to me is fulfilled. You don’t even need to be here anymore.”

“I’m Deathstroke, I don’t fuck off on a technicality and my contractors don’t die on my watch,” he muttered, sounding more annoyed than angry. His hands twitched towards his belt and Jason lunged forward before he could grab a weapon, but again, Slade jumped out of the way before Jason’s knife could hit anything satisfying. Jason was starting to get the sinking feeling low and cold in his gut that Slade might’ve been holding back in their fight. “Relax, relax, kid, I’m just looking for some fuckin’ pictures.”

“What?” Jason hissed.

“Just—” Slade made a vague gesture with the hand that wasn’t digging through a pouch on his belt. “Just stay put for like, five seconds, Jesus. I’m not gonna shoot you in the face or anything. I was asked not to bring my guns, and even if I did have them, it would breach the terms of my contract pretty irreparably.” 

Jason glanced back at Bruce. “You really contracted a fucking supervillain just to track me down?” 

Bruce winced. “It’s a long story.” 

“Okay, c’mere, kid.” Jason turned his attention back to Slade, refusing to come any closer. “Oh, for fuck’s—did you not hear him say I’m on contract not to kill you? They’re just pictures, they’re harmless, and trust me, you’re gonna want to see them. Now come over here.”  

Slade turned his back to Jason, a surprisingly trusting gesture aimed at someone who was trying to beat him to a bloody pulp not that long ago. Jason took a few steps closer, just enough to see what was in Slade’s hands from over his shoulder. It was a small stack of wallet cut photographs. When Jason caught sight of greasy green hair in the first shot, he stumbled backward, recoiling with his whole body. Vomit rushed up in the back of his throat and he had to close his eyes and swallow it down before it could choke him or get all over the inside of his mask. Slade glanced back at him, frowning slightly. “It’s okay. He can’t hurt you anymore.” 

“Don’t need your fucking pity, cabrón,” Jason muttered as he took another half step forward.

Slade held the stack up for him to see. The first one looked like it was taken from a security camera. Joker was in the middle of an empty room, looking exactly like he did in all of Jason’s flashbacks, pale and freakish and so fucking pleased with himself. He was reclined in a chair with a two-way radio in his hand, smile stretched too wide across his too-white face. Jason could feel the scars on his face twinge at the sight of it, but he just took a breath and tried not to let Deathstroke see him crack. “Look. Here he is in his stupid little Superman-proof bunker on the day we killed Big Blue. You know why he looks so happy? He’s describing Lois Lane’s death.” Slade said it with so much open, unbridled disdain that it was almost comforting. Jason had been starting to think he and Roy were the only two people left in the world who still hated Joker. 

Slade shifted to the next picture. Bruce was in a chair in front of Joker now, in the full Batsuit minus the cowl. From the angle of the camera, Jason could only see the back of Bruce’s head, but he could still see the tension, the anger in his posture. Joker’s hands were tied behind his back now, his feet cuffed to the legs of the chair, and there was a gun on the table between the two of them. The air felt a little too thin, a little too hard to breathe. This wasn’t impossible to fake, but it looked real. God, he wanted it to be real. “Here’s Batman gettin’ in nice and close to tell this motherfucker his greatest accomplishment doesn’t mean jack shit because Jason Todd rose from the dead.” 

Now Jason wasn’t breathing at all. His chest started to tighten up painfully, but he barely even felt it as Slade flipped to the next picture, Bruce standing in front of Joker, the gun now in his hand and pressed to Joker’s pale forehead. “I love this one. Look at his ugly little green eyes, you can see how pissed and scared he is. He knows he’s gonna die. He knows you’re alive and there isn't shit he can do about it. It’s so damn good, I think I’m gonna have it framed.” 

Slade flipped them again, and Jason gasped audibly. It was a close-up of Joker with a single gunshot wound straight through the center of his forehead. Deep red, almost black blood pained his bleached face, poisonous green eyes gone dull and glassy, mouth slack, never to make that shrill, awful laugh that haunted Jason night and day ever again. That was Joker. Joker was dead. “Yup, so there he is, sick, twisted brain hangin’ out the back of his head. I still think he deserved a lot worse, but I was outvoted.”

Distantly, Jason thought, it wouldn’t have mattered if you did, he doesn’t mind pain, he thinks it’s fucking funny, but it was lost in a sea of Joker is dead Joker is dead Joker is dead JOKER IS— 

“And we got one more here.” The last photo was a pile of ash and bits of charred bone on a beach and two torn halves of a Joker playing card thrown carelessly on top of it. When Jason squinted and looked closer, he also caught the gleam of a hunk of warped, half-melted metal.

"I-Is that...?" Jason forced out of frozen lungs. 

"The knife he used to cut your face up? Yup. We burnt it right along with him. Bruce gave a fantastic eulogy about what a bastard he was, you’ll have to have him reenact it for you sometime. Wish I had that on film. But, I do have the video of Bruce killing him, if you’re not convinced. Or if you ever wanna watch it some other time. Just wasn’t sure you’d be up for hearin’ the laugh.” 

Jason didn’t even have the presence of mind to flinch at the idea. He just stood there, whole body gone numb, shaking fiercely and unable to tear his eyes away from the photos. Slade turned around slowly, like he was trying to avoid spooking Jason, and held the pictures out for him to take, almost like a peace offering. Jason just barely got his trembling hands to cooperate long enough to take them and stash them in a jacket pocket. 

Slade gave him a nod and returned his hands to his side, posture loose and unthreatening as he looked Jason up and down with an unreadable look on his face. “Right, so I’m guessing that’s a lot for you, but if you still wanna fight me, I’ll give you one more shot.” Jason’s brows furrowed as he tried very hard to compartmentalize the Joker shit away for long enough to give Slade an appraising look. His gaze lingered meaningfully on the ribs he knew were very broken, the purple smudging the skin of Slade’s throat, his shattered nose, and the rest of his bloody, bruised face. The mercenary shrugged, wincing slightly at the movement. “I meant what I said, all of it, but sometimes sorry isn’t good enough. So, if you need to fight, I get it. Let’s fight.” 

Jason tried to consider the offer, breathing a little too hard as his mind spun farther and farther out of control, and all of this was technically good information, why did he feel like he was about to pass out? “No,” he choked out, fairly certain it was the truth. “That’s not—no.” And then, Jason let the Pit in just a little, let it still the shaking of his body, bring the rage simmering just beneath his skin, and put the dangerous growl back in his voice. “But if you ever, and I mean ever, come anywhere near Roy Harper again, if you give me any reason at all to believe you might hurt him, I won’t waste my time letting the All-Blades judge your guilt. I will make all the shit I did to that rapist in Golmud look like child’s play. You haven’t seen me at my worst yet, Slade, and trust me, you don’t want to.” 

Slade nodded, nothing mocking or patronizing in his expression, like he was actually taking the threat seriously. “Sounds about right. I’ll leave you to it, then,” he said gruffly, turning on his heel and heading for the door. “You’re a good fighter, kid, and you’re tough as shit. I’m hoping we won’t have to do this again anytime soon.” 

When the door closed behind Slade, the sound was so loud that Jason could’ve sworn he felt it echoing in his soul just beneath the thunderous pounding of his heart. He pushed the Pit away and released the weak, trembling hold he had on his objectivity.

“You killed him,” he said, voice so hoarse it was barely audible, unsure if it was Lazarus or tears stinging his eyes and unable to find the strength to turn around and face Bruce just yet. “Jesus Christ, you fucking killed him.”

Joker was dead. Joker was dead. Joker was dead.

No more clown. No more obsessing over how he’d react if he found out Jason was alive. 

No more clown. No more Roy and Jason both swearing that Joker would never get his hands on him again, no more pretending either of them could guarantee that.

No more clown. No more pressing, overwhelming terror and dread and certainty that it was only a matter of time before everything he built here came crashing down around him, before he ended up trapped in Arkham Asylum again, chained down under Joker’s cruel hands, without even the sweet embrace of death to look forward to now that he knew it might not even be a permanent thing.

No more clown. Jason was free. 

Nothing he’d be willing to do. He’d been so sure there was no chance Bruce would care enough, no chance Jason would ever be free of Joker unless he ended the fucker himself, but Bruce had actually fucking done it. He’d killed the Joker. 

Jason wanted to cry. He wanted to hug Bruce. He still kind of wanted to fucking kill him. Because, as he started to come down from the high and think about this logically, Jason knew he was kidding himself thinking Bruce might’ve actually done this for him. There had to be another reason. Otherwise, Bruce would’ve picked up the gun seven years ago. 

Forcing himself back to cold, harsh reality, Jason slowly turned to face Bruce, feeling the pictures like a hundred-pound weight in his jacket. He took a deep breath and shoved the hope down as far as it would go. “So what’d he do, then?” Bruce just frowned in confusion. “Why did you do it?” Jason repeated, annunciating slowly. “Who did he hurt this time? Who did he kill? What did he do, Bruce?” 

Bruce’s eyes warmed with something that was just a little off from pity and a few degrees short of guilt, something Jason couldn’t ever remember seeing on his face and didn’t understand now. “He hurt my child.” There was so much pain in his voice that Jason couldn’t even pretend not to hear it. “Seven years ago, he took my son away from me, and every second since then he touted it like it was his crowning achievement. My only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner. That I didn’t do it before he ever got the chance to hurt you. That I didn’t do it the second I finished burying you.” 

“Why?” Jason breathed out shakily, still unable to believe it. “Why did you team up with him at all? Why did it take so fucking long?” 

“I wish I had a reason good enough, Jay, but there isn’t one. I clung to the rule even harder after I lost you. I thought it was the only thing left keeping me sane. Then Darkseid came and Lois was murdered and Superman turned on us, and there was no way to fight back without taking lives. Even with the whole League willing to kill to stop him, he cut down our best metas like they were nothing. The only shot I had was to take him down psychologically.” 

“And no one does that better than Joker,” Jason muttered, cringing at the thought.

Bruce cringed too. “Yes. I knew I was betraying you, but—” 

“But you didn’t know I was back, and even if you had, the whole world full of living people still matters more than one person’s feelings, dead or alive.” Bruce looked like he wanted to argue, but Jason waved him off. “That part I get. I still fucking hate that you did it, but I get it.” 

“I hated it too,” Bruce said quietly, voice cracking, eyes going deep and sad and haunted.

It occurred to Jason for the very first time then that Bruce probably hadn’t wanted to do it. That teaming up with the Joker was probably a living hell for him. That the clown, sadistic as he always had been, probably took every available opportunity to make Bruce regret bringing him onto the team. How had Jason never thought of that before?

“Did he practice on you?” Jason asked, just above a rough whisper, not even sure he wanted the answer. Bruce frowned in response to the vague question, so Jason forced himself to grit the actual words out. “Joker was there to get in Superman’s head, but I’m sure that wasn’t good enough for him. No way the six of you spent every second trying to kill the god, which means he probably got bored of having no one to torture. Did he fuck with you instead?” The bile crept up in the back of Jason’s throat again, bitter and burning as he tried in vain not to think about all the shit Joker could’ve told Bruce about how weak Jason had been, how Joker had expected Robin to be tougher than that, how Jason had given up his identity and his pride and any hope of being saved all within the span of three measly weeks. “Did he talk about it? About me?”

That haunted, hollow look in Bruce’s eyes intensified, looking more than ever like he’d seen way, way too much. The color drained out of his face and Jason could see the way the years had weighed on him, his wrinkles so much deeper than Jason remembered. Bruce was solid, unmoving, that was what he’d always been, but the deep, gut-wrenching pain that Jason’s question seemed to spark made him look fragile. Almost broken. “He never stopped talking about you. Eight months and he never stopped.”

“And you killed him for it,” Jason finished, drawing the words out slowly, like maybe they’d make more sense if he could taste each individual syllable. It didn’t work. They sounded every bit as unbelievable as they had the first time.

“And I killed him for it.” 

Jason swallowed hard, nodded, and thought back to that conversation with Roy.

Have you thought about letting go of this revenge shit and going to see him? Just as Jason Todd?

He wouldn’t even recognize me anymore. 

He wouldn’t even recognize me— 

He wouldn’t even— 

He wouldn’t Would he?

Would he?

Jason reached for his domino mask. 

Bruce’s breath froze in his chest as Jason’s gloved hands slowly made their way up to the black mask that hid his eyes from view. There was a barely noticeable tremor in his fingers as he disengaged the domino from the half-mask that covered the rest of his face, and then it was gone and Bruce was looking into his son’s eyes for the first time in seven years.

Jason’s eyes were blue. Bruce was entirely sure of that. He’d been followed around by Jason’s ghost for long enough to know his son had died with clouded-over blue eyes. They were a soft, lively azure, like the sky, and then the life had left them and they were dull, glassy blue-gray. Jason’s eyes were blue. Or at least, they had been.

Now they were green. Unnaturally green, neon green, poison green, like the Joker’s. 

That thing is not your son anymore. He bears an uncanny resemblance to his killer, in fact.

Tell me, beloved, is the Joker more man or beast? And if Joker is a beast, then surely, someone who kills as ruthlessly and senselessly as he does must be one too.

No. 

No, they weren’t green like Joker’s, because this was Jason. This was his Jason, and his Jason could never be anything like the Joker. No matter what Talia or anyone else said, Jason had a heart. Jason had a soul. Even if everything else about him had changed, even if he’d committed disturbing acts that Bruce could hardly stomach, the things at Jason’s core were what made him who he was. 

Underneath everything, all the pain and trauma and death, Jason was good, and Joker wasn’t.

Jason’s eyes were green, not like the Joker’s, but like the Lazarus Pit that had saved his life. They gave off a faint luminescence that got stronger he locked gazes with Bruce, almost as bright as Superman’s eyes had been when he was firing up his laser vision. It shouldn’t have been possible, shouldn’t have been human, but it didn’t matter that they were jarringly, radically different. The eyes Bruce remembered clearest were cold and dead, and this Jason was alive. His eyes were green and alight with a dangerous fire and Bruce’s son was alive. 

Jason let out a bitter laugh that came out low and clear. “You like ‘em?” And it was just Jason’s voice now, a little muffled by the plastic but uninhibited by the modulator, and it sounded so different. Of course it was, Jason had been a child when he died and he was all grown up now, and it hit Bruce like a truck in a way it never quite had before that he’d missed over half a decade of Jason’s life. He’d left Bruce’s life a boy and come back a man, and Bruce had missed it all. 

His voice was deeper, with a gravelly rasp in it much like Bruce’s own, but he still sounded young. The Gotham accent hadn’t faded. Even after all this time. “Nice little souvenir from the torture pit your ex dropped me in. They look just like Joker’s, don’t they?” The spiteful anger from before was back now, the slight softness and understanding in did he practice on you now long gone. Bruce was still so off-balance that he couldn’t manage a reply, couldn’t sort the words out quick enough to tell Jason no, of course not, you aren’t the Joker, you never will be. 

The shell-shocked silence just seemed to spur Jason on as his hands drifted down to the mask that covered the rest of his face. “I’ve still got his smile, too.” Bruce should stop Jason, tell him he didn’t have to do this, not if he wasn’t ready, but truthfully, Bruce was selfish. He’d spent years upon years haunted by images of Jason’s face, of him tearing the gashes open wider with every word he spoke, blood staining his teeth and cascading down his chin, and the part of him that needed those memories to be replaced was stronger than the part of him that wanted to allow Jason this single private agony to keep to himself.

The tremor in Jason’s hands was more pronounced as he reached behind his head for the straps that held the mask in place, pulled it from his face, and let it fall to the floor.

Bruce let out a breath that tasted almost like relief. 

Because he had thought it would feel like drowning in the air to see Jason’s face, the same way it had when he first found Jason in that abandoned wing of Arkham. When Jason had collapsed into him and Bruce had felt the broken bones shift under his skin, when he’d lifted Jason’s too-light, too-thin body up into his arms and watched his son try to find the words to tell him he was too late, that Jason was going to die. Seeing him again now, Bruce thought it would be that same overwhelming flood of fear and helplessness, but it wasn’t.

All that time Bruce had spent with Jason’s ghost, he’d watched his son suffer through agonizing pain and injuries that would never have the chance to heal, a sad caricature of the powerful spitfire he’d been in life. Bruce had felt sick every time he saw Jason’s face, the dead eyes, the dislocated jaw, the missing teeth, the horrible, gruesome, bloody smile.

But now, the gashes were healed. There were scars, thick, silvery ridges that split his tan, freckled cheeks and drew his face up into a permanent grin, but they were healed. They were healed because Jason was alive, he’d had a chance to recover, and he’d moved on from that horrible night. Irrefutable proof stood right in front of him that the poor, small, shattered child who had haunted Bruce for years really had been put to rest for good, because Jason wasn’t him anymore. He’d grown from that. Healed from it. And here he was now. 

Alive. 

This was the Jason that could live on in his mind now. No matter what happened, if Jason killed him, if Jason spit in his face and said he never wanted to see Bruce again, that was fine. Jason wasn’t a gaping, festering wound in Bruce’s subconscious. He wasn’t proof of the depths of Joker’s cruelty or a broken boy who had died in Bruce’s arms. He wasn’t collateral damage. He was a grown man, fierce, bright, and resilient. So much more than what the Joker had done to him. He deserved to be remembered this way.

There were a lot of things Bruce should say. It’s not your fault, or there’s nothing wrong with having scars, or it doesn’t matter how you look, you’ll always be so much more than what he did to you, but all he could manage after half a lifetime of staring was, “Why?”

It was weak. It wasn’t good enough. And by the way Jason’s back stiffened slightly, he knew it was the wrong thing to say.

“Because I wanted to see how much of it would be pity and how much of it would be disgust.” Jason smiled in a way that didn’t reach his eyes. There was venom in it, the scars at the edges of his mouth twisting it into something almost inhuman. “And, because when you tell me I need to be locked up for my own good, I want you to have to look me in my fucking face while you do it.” Bruce cringed at the very idea, knowing it must be Jason’s worst trigger and horrified that his son thought he’d ever put him through that on purpose. 

Jason let out another humorless bark of laughter at Bruce’s reaction, and a second later, the magnetic cuff released and fell to the floor. Bruce’s arm stayed above his head for a moment, stiff from being held up for too long, and then he forced the aching joints to cooperate and it fell back to his side. “Go ahead,” Jason said with a noncommittal shrug. “Give it your best shot. You killed Joker, you avenged me, fucking whatever, that doesn’t change what I am. I’m all that’s left of that motherfucker now. I screwed up trying to kill him, I screwed up coming back to life, and I screwed up being some kind of bargain-bin Batman out East. I know you think I’m just a fuck up, that all I ever do is make shit worse, so come and try to put me out of my fucking misery.” 

Bruce felt like he was in their hideout again in the fallout of that first conversation with Mera, trying to mask his madness from the rest of the team and hearing Jason’s weak, cracking voice from the corner, so convinced he wasn’t good enough, that Bruce only ever saw him for what he’d failed to do. I know I screwed it up and all, but at least I tried. 

“You didn’t screw anything up, Jay,” Bruce said firmly, the words feeling alien in his mouth as he spoke them to his real son instead of the ghost that had haunted him for all those years. “You were a good kid. You still are.”

“No, I’m fucking not!” Jason shouted, sounding every bit as dangerous as he had with the voice modulator still on. “I’m not good, I’m not your fucking kid, and you don’t know shit about me! You don’t know what the fuck I went through to get here, all the shit I had to fight just to stay alive, and you don’t know what it turned me into! I’m not him, I’m not Robin, and I never will be again!”

Bruce held one hand up in a placating gesture, the other one still too numb from being restrained for him to move it. “You’re right. I don’t know you, but I want to, Jay. And yes, I don’t know what you went through, not really. Slade knew a few things, and I talked to Talia, but…”

Jason cringed with his whole body at the name, and Bruce trailed off with a worried frown. It only took a moment for Jason to notice the reaction and he let out an angry, guttural noise through his teeth, straightening back to his full height. “You talked to Talia? Talia al Ghul?” 

“Yes,” Bruce said, surprised the mention of her was pulling such a visceral reaction out of Jason. “In the beginning, she was the only lead I had on you.” 

“I—” Jason cut himself off quickly, then restarted. “Nanda Parbat was burned to the ground. How’d you even track her down?”

“It took time. But I had time. Ever since Joker and Superman’s deaths, finding you has been my only priority.”

“And what did she say?” Bruce clenched his jaw and Jason’s eyes glowed that unnatural, toxic green. God, how could that be human? Didn’t it hurt? “What the fuck did she say about me, Bruce?” Jason repeated in a dangerous growl.

Bruce took a deep breath. “That you were a monster,” he admitted quietly, watching as Jason kept his face observably neutral, a practiced calm, too perfect to be real. “Violent and out of control, a danger to yourself and everyone around you. She said I should give up on this whole thing because seeing you like this would do nothing but hurt me.” 

Jason let out a harsh bark of laughter, and Bruce could hear the pain at the edges of it. “You know she’s the one who did that to me, right? She and her psycho father and the rest of that fucking cult you never got rid of despite having a thousand fucking chances. She gaslit me into believing everyone outside of Nanda Parbat wanted to kill me, she brainwashed me until I forgot my own fucking name, and she had them beat me when I resisted or failed, which was pretty much always. She made me into a weapon, and when I finally turned out to be the freakish death machine she wanted me to be, she plotted to kill me for it.” 

He hadn’t known all of that. Oh, if Bruce got out of this alive, he was going to kill Talia al Ghul.

“I knew she hurt you, but not like that.”

Jason still looked angry, viciously, violently angry, but there was a flash of something else in the burning ferocity of his green eyes. He pressed his lips together, a strangely mundane contrast to the permanent smile carved into his face. “When did you talk to her?” 

“Nearly a year ago, now.” 

“That’s a lot of fucking effort just to throw my ass in jail.”

“Jason, I would never—” Bruce started, wishing there was a way to prove it was the truth, but Jason cut him off.

“How fucking stupid do you think I am, B? You’d never lock someone like me up? The whole fucking Rogues Gallery and 20 fucking years of Batman wrecking everyone’s shit begs to differ! Yeah, I don’t have a stupid fucking gimmick like they did, but I have way more fucking bodies on my name! How different am I from Scarecrow or Two-Face or Penguin? How different am I from Superman?” 

“He was a monster and a sadist, Jason, you’re not—” 

“I’m not those things? Really? Sure, it’s not like you went to a crime scene where I dismembered, skinned, and castrated a man, right? It’s not like you spent a year chasing stories about me where I killed dozens of people and fucking disappeared afterwards, right? The only reason he was a world-conquering dictator and I was just the world’s most violent ghost was that he was a god and I’m just,” Jason made a sharp gesture to himself, “whatever the fuck this is! Maybe I believe you did come out East just looking for your dead kid, but I’m guessing the summary of your conversation with Talia was either put him out of his misery or go back to pretending he’s dead because you don’t want to see what a fucking disaster he turned into. Maybe you’re above killing the freakshow that used to be your kid, and you don’t give up, especially not when you really fucking should, so you chose the happy medium and decided you’d blow the next year of your life trying to cross another name off your list. Am I getting warm yet, Bruce?”

Bruce remembered standing in Talia’s hideout and thinking in a blind moment of hysterical panic that maybe Jason was beyond help, but the second he let his mind go back there, Mera interrupted him. Whoever he is now, whatever he has done since his resurrection, you must make it known to him that he is still your son and you still love him. Bruce took a moment to let himself feel how heavy his shoulders were with the responsibility Mera had placed there. Do right by him. That was her dying wish. One she trusted him to fulfill. He had to make this right. He owed it to her. He owed it to Jason.

“No,” Bruce said as calmly as he could manage. “I have absolutely no desire to punish you for anything you’ve done since you came back. I don’t want to fight you, I don’t want to hurt you, and I won’t do anything to you, with you, or around you that you don’t consent to. After I spoke with Talia, I kept looking for the same reasons I started. Because I wanted to see my son again.”

And the something else in Jason’s eyes was stronger now, lurking behind the anger, something still blatantly distrustful but softer than the rest of it. “So Talia told you what I am and then you… you kept looking? You teamed up with an asshole supervillain and wasted a fucking year of your life chasing down rumors and ghost stories of a guy nobody really believes exists, a guy who knows how not to be found, just because you missed me?” 

“Did you think I wouldn’t?” Bruce asked softly, feeling gutted. 

“Did I think you wouldn’t—yes! Yes, B, of course I thought you wouldn’t, why would you? Talia literally described the worst, most violent period of my entire life in what I have to imagine was horrifying detail, you knew I was a killer, you knew I was a mass murderer, and you’re fucking Batman! You don’t kill, that’s your whole fucking thing, what possible reason would I have to believe you’d be hunting me like a fucking bloodhound for any reason other than to stop me before I could hurt anyone else?” 

Bruce’s mouth opened and closed helplessly a few times. Somehow, this was even worse than he’d been expecting. Jason really believed that Bruce’s love for him couldn’t survive this. That it couldn’t overpower the things Jason had done under unfathomable amounts of stress, the actions of a young man alone, angry, and in pain. Jason didn’t know that Bruce’s love for him was the only thing that had kept him going these past few years. Bruce hadn’t made sure Jason knew that. 

“You are my son, Jason,” he said when he finally found the words. “Even if you don’t think of me as your father anymore, even if you are different from the boy I loved and raised, you will always be my son. That is the whole reason I kept searching for you.” 

“Fine,” Jason snapped, sounding more tired than angry. “Okay, sure, you don’t want to lock me up, maybe I believe you. Then why the fuck are you here? What do you want from me?” 

And Jason really thought that, didn’t he? He really thought Bruce cared so little for him that he would find out Jason was miraculously back from the dead and do nothing about it. As a boy, Jason always had a hard time believing he mattered. To Bruce, to anyone. Bruce had been foolish to think lifetimes worth of pain would do anything but make that even worse.

“I’m here to tell you I love you, Jay. Every bit as much as I did when you were my Robin. Nothing I’ve learned about you in the past year has made me doubt that for a moment. I never stopped loving you and I always will, no matter what happens, where you go, or what you do. I don’t expect you to forgive me. But you still deserve to know that, and you deserve to know how sorry I am for everything you went through because of me.” Jason took a small, distrustful step backward, brows furrowed, lips slightly parted, and Bruce forced himself to keep going. “When we first started looking for you, I also planned on telling you that you could come home. To Gotham. With me. That you could have a family again if you wanted it. It wouldn’t be much, but you wouldn’t have to be alone.” 

“And then you realized what I was?” Jason asked, sounding distinctly hollow, like he was trying to force himself not to care. “That I’ve done too many fucked up things and I’m past fixing?” 

“No,” Bruce said firmly, immediately. “Absolutely not, Jason. Listen to me. Nothing about you is broken and I don’t want to fix you. What I realized is that you aren’t alone. You don’t need me to give you your family back. You made your own, here with Roy, far away from the places and people that hurt you the most. And if that’s all you want, that’s okay.” The words felt like acid coming up Bruce’s throat, but he’d taken so much away from Jason. This small shred of freedom, this single choice, was the least he could give back. “If you never want to see me again, I understand. If you want everything to go back to the way it was before we saw each other tonight, I will accept that. I don’t want to take you away from the life you worked hard to make for yourself, and I don’t want to add any more chaos to your recovery. You found someone who takes care of you and keeps you safe, someone who has never let you down the way I did. I am so, so happy for you, Jay, and I am so sorry for what I let happen to him.”

“Looking past the fact that you should be giving that apology to Roy and not me and it isn’t within a country mile of good enough because there’s nothing that can possibly justify what Slade did to him, you’d seriously just… leave me alone? All this bullshit you did to find me, and you’d just fuck off back to Gotham for good like none of it ever happened?”

Bruce carefully hid any reaction, not wanting to manipulate Jason into making a choice that wasn’t right for him. “I would do whatever you needed me to do, Jason. I’ve spent far too much time pursuing my own ends at the expense of your wellbeing. I won’t do it again. Of course, I will miss you. But you are alive. I got to see you be the man you were supposed to become before that chance was taken away from you. No matter what happens next, my last memory of you will never be you taking your final breaths in my arms. It’s enough. You’re alive. It’s more than enough.” 

“Y-You’d leave m-me alone,” Jason repeated, voice trembling fiercely, sounding for the first time every bit as young as he really was. 

“You have had enough choices taken away from you, son.”

“But you’re Batman, you don’t take no for a fucking answer, that’s how you lasted 20 years in that hellhole.” 

“I’m not,” Bruce corrected gently. “Not anymore, not really. I haven’t been for a long time. The real Batman died the same day as you. I kept going through the motions because that was what I’d always done and I thought the city still needed me, but things were never right. Finding you is the last thing I ever intend on using the cowl for. This new world left behind after Superman doesn’t need me, it doesn’t need the belligerence, the black and white logic. It needs people like you and Roy. You both have protected this region in meaningful and permanent ways that Batman never could have. I’ve followed you for a long time. I didn’t just see the ones you killed and the blood you spilled, Jay, I saw the people you helped and all the good you’ve done. Sometimes the violence was a lot, I admit that, but I watched you decide to change and do things deliberately, to spare lives that weren’t beyond redemption and kill only truly evil people. I saw all the good that came out of your work. You’re good at this, son. You’re really, really good at this. You’re not past saving, because you don’t need saving; you save others. You took all the horrible things that have been done to you, all the skills you were forced to learn, and you used them for good. Jason, I couldn’t be more proud of you. I have never been more proud of you.”

Jason visibly flinched both times Bruce said that word, proud, like it was a weapon being raised against him and not a simple word of praise Bruce should’ve said hundreds more times when Jason was Robin. “I never saved people. I killed people. Roy just made sure I killed the right people so good people had enough of an opening to save themselves. That's what I do. I kill people."

"I met a little boy in Golmud who would've begged to differ. Who told me if I ever found you, I should thank you for getting rid of the man who hurt his sister. I met girls who would've lived out the rest of their lives in cages in a drug lord's office if not for you. I met families who got their children back, I met—"

"Stop," Jason whispered with another cringe, tears shining in the unnatural green of his eyes. They looked soft and vulnerable now, and Bruce wondered how he ever could’ve looked at them and thought of Joker. “Stop trying to convince yourself I turned out a hero. I didn't. I didn't turn out good. B, I've killed thousands. I’ve lost count, there’s been so many. I don’t even know their names. I’m a killer, an unrepentant killer. We. Don’t. Kill.”  

“Yes, we do, son,” Bruce said, trying to make his voice soothing as his son recited the One Rule like it was pouring salt in an open wound. “You and I both do. I was wrong. I was wrong to believe there was no other way, I was wrong to think killing was what separated us from the bad guys. The world is gray, Jason, all the terrible things that have happened since I lost you have more than proven that to me. You are no more evil than I am. I don’t think I could do the things you’ve done, but I haven’t lived the life you lived. If I had started killing people I thought were truly evil in Gotham as Batman, I fear I never would have stopped, and I don’t know that I’m the right kind of person to be making judgments about the difference between bad and evil. But Jason,” he said the name softly, reverently, like a prayer, “my son, I think you are the right kind of person to be making those judgments.”

Jason shook his head miserably, eyes wide. “I’m a fucking monster,” he whispered. One blink of his bright green eyes and the tears were spilling over, carving quick trails down his cheeks and sliding over the thick ridges of scar tissue there. He drew in a sharp breath that sounded too close to a sob. “You should hate me.”

And Bruce couldn’t take this anymore. 

As slowly as he could, giving Jason enough time to pull away, he took a step forward to close the space between them, wrapped a hand around the back of Jason’s neck, and pulled him into a gentle hug, snaking his other arm around the small of his son’s back. Bruce expected him to pull away or freeze up the way he used to when he’d first come to the Manor and associated all physical contact with danger, but now, Jason melted. Year of pain and betrayal and anger left the hard lines of his muscles as he leaned into the embrace, rested his forehead against Bruce’s shoulder and let out a quiet, shuddering sigh. 

They just stayed there for a long moment, and then Jason’s powerful arms surged around Bruce’s middle and pulled him in so tight that it crushed the air out of his lungs. The force punched a grunt out of Bruce and Jason let up on the pressure a little in response, but Bruce just shook his head and pulled Jason closer, tears starting to prick at his eyes. He could feel Jason breathing against him, fast and tight, his rapid heartbeat pounding against Bruce’s chest.

Even after he’d found out Jason was alive, Bruce never thought he would actually have this again.

It was so different than hugging Jason used to be, back when he’d been so small that he all but disappeared in Batman’s cape and they only ever lasted a second or two because Jason was embarrassed to admit he wanted more. Now, Jason was almost as big and muscular as Bruce was, only an inch shorter, and he held on so much tighter. It was almost desperate, like he thought Bruce would disappear if he didn’t, or like he was bracing for all of this to go south and Bruce to hurt him like everyone else had. It was probably the second thing. 

“I could never hate you, no matter what you did,” Bruce said, gentle and fierce at the same time, needing Jason to know it was the truth. “And you are not a monster. It would have been so easy for you to be one, you had all the skills and the motivation, but you aren’t. You’re a hero. Everything you went through and you still turned out a hero, just like you always have been. I’m so, so proud to call you my son.” 

Jason made a harsh noise into Bruce’s shoulder as a shudder wracked his whole body. “I thought you’d want me dead,” he confessed, tears choking his voice. “They always want me dead.”

Bruce did his best not to let Jason feel the flinch that sent through him. The fact that Bruce had ever led Jason to believe he would be anything but thrilled to know his son was alive made him want to vomit. Jason thought Bruce cared more about his rule than his own child. Thought that being a killer meant he was worthless to Bruce. God, how long had Jason spent afraid Bruce would find him and punish him just for existing the way he had no choice but to be?

“You’re alive,” Bruce murmured, running his hand up into Jason’s curls in a way he hoped was soothing. “I never stopped mourning you, I never stopped missing you, and now, you’re alive. I get to see you and hold you again. My son, nothing could ever matter more. And the very last thing I would want is to lose you again.” 

“Thank you,” Jason rasped, trembling fiercely as he clutched Bruce tighter to him. It felt like he was just barely keeping himself upright as each sobbing breath seemed to shake him to his foundations. “Thank you for killing him, B. I’ve been so fucking scared for so long and I thought if I tried to go back and do it myself he would know it was me and he’d get me again and—and—” Jason cut himself off with a gasp, then tried again. “Th-thank you. I—I didn’t think I was worth that to you.” 

“You are worth everything to me, Jason. I would burn the whole damn world down to ashes if it meant no one would ever hurt you again.”

There was a long, crushing silence where Bruce worried that somehow, that had been the wrong thing to say, and then Jason’s knees gave out from under him and they both collapsed. Bruce recovered quickly, getting his arms underneath Jason’s to catch him, then bracing himself against the wall behind him and lowering them both the rest of the way to the floor. Jason didn’t even react, just let himself be manhandled halfway into Bruce’s lap, pressing himself into Bruce as hard as he could. It was almost like Jason was the child Bruce remembered again, in those rare moments where Jason’s trust for Bruce had overcome his survival instincts and he’d let himself get the comfort he needed.

“I’m sorry,” Jason whispered, voice wet as he muffled the words into Bruce’s chest. His fingers dug into the muscle of Bruce’s back hard enough to ache, but Bruce welcomed it all the same, smoothing a hand down Jason’s back and trying not to notice the places where Slade’s blood was staining his gloves and jacket. “I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry, B. I know I fucked up so bad, I didn’t know what else to do.”

Bruce carded his hand through Jason’s sweat-dampened hair and pulled him tighter to his chest. He opened his mouth to comfort Jason, but his son was already barreling ahead, voice raw and painful, sounding like he’d gargled broken glass. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want any of this, I didn’t want to be a killer, I just wanted to go home. But I didn’t—I didn’t have a choice, she didn’t give me a choice, and no matter how many times I begged them they wouldn’t let me stop fighting. And then it was just all I knew and the Pit needed the violence and by the time I got a hold of myself, I,” Jason shivered, “I already had so much blood on my hands that I fucking disgusted myself. I didn’t think you'd ever be able to forgive me, I didn’t think you’d even be able to look at me after all the shit I did, so I just stayed here and things kept getting worse and all I knew how to do was kill and hurt and hate because that’s what they taught me to do so I hated you but I hated me more and I didn’t want to be like this, B. I swear to god I fought every fucking day for as long as I could but I was weak and I couldn’t stop it and—”

“Jaylad,” Bruce said, cutting Jason off gently before he could spiral any further. “Honey, it’s okay. You are not weak and you have nothing to apologize for, it wasn’t your fault.” 

“But it wasn’t your fault either,” Jason protested weakly, voice rough. “The only reason I ever really blamed you was because I was a fucking mess and I needed someone to hate for it that wasn’t me. But all you ever did was try your fucking best and I’m pissed about all the shit you did this past year and I’m really pissed about Roy, but that… Joker killing me, that wasn’t on you, and it’s fucked up that you spent the past however many fucking years tearing yourself to shreds over it.”

“You were a child. It was not your fault.” 

Jason shook his head hard. “You told me not to go after him,” he said, voice a desperate protest like he wanted Bruce to be angry with him, like he thought that all he deserved was another fight and even more pain. “You told me so many fucking times not to fuck with the Joker, that he was too dangerous and he wouldn’t take it easy on me just because I was a kid and I never fucking listened to you. I was so fucking stupid, I turned off my tracker, I ditched my comms, it was my fault, I let him get me. Dying, digging out of my fucking grave, the League, all this killing and bullshit, none of it would’ve happened if I’d’ve just fucking listened to you for once in my stupid life.” 

“It was not your fault, Jason,” Bruce said, putting just a bit of the firm, commanding Batman edge into his voice. “Breathe. Listen to me. It was not your fault. Do you understand?” It was a risk, trying to give Jason an order after the last one had been I forbid you from going after the Joker by yourself. But Jason didn’t pull away or punch Bruce out. He didn’t even tense up. He just let out a soft noise that sounded distinctly relieved and followed the instructions, pulling in one breath after another until they weren’t so jagged and panicked anymore. With every one, he relaxed visibly, like a fraction of the enormous weight he seemed to constantly carry was being lifted from his shoulders. 

Years ago, this used to help Jason. Being given a simple, easy-to-follow command was one of the only things that grounded him when he got worked up. Back then, it had been because Jason trusted Bruce to take care of him, because he believed Bruce wouldn’t use the opportunity to hurt him or ask him to hurt anyone else. Bruce would’ve thought that trust couldn’t have survived until now, but he couldn’t think of many alternative explanations for the way that the same Jason that had shown up here furious and violent and absolutely unwilling to listen to anyone or anything now seemed grateful to be told what to do.

“Do you understand?” Bruce repeated once he recovered from the way the almost-trust had stomped him flat. Jason took another deep breath that sounded almost steady and nodded. “Good. Because it doesn’t matter what you did or didn’t do. No one deserves what you went through, and it wasn’t your fault. All you wanted to do was protect Gotham in ways I wasn’t willing to. You risked your life, you lost your life to save her people. You died a hero. Of course, I wish it had all gone differently. Of course, I wish I could have protected you from everything you’ve gone through these years we’ve been apart, of course, I wish that so much of your life hadn’t flown by without me even knowing you were alive, but that wasn’t your fault. You were a child. And yes,” Bruce added with a small, fond smile, “sometimes you were impulsive and rebellious, but you didn’t deserve to be killed for it. That was just a part of who you were, and I loved it every bit as much as I loved the parts of you that were brave and determined and kind. I was always proud of how much you were willing to sacrifice to protect others. I was always proud of what you were trying to do when you went after him. I was only ever angry with myself because I didn’t protect you.”

“But I let this happen,” Jason protested weakly between painful sounding gasps and little wounded noises. “You taught me to be a fighter but when it mattered the most, I rolled over and took it and begged for mercy. They broke me, they ruined me, Joker and the League both, and I never did anything about it except die the first time and run away the second. And what the fuck have I even done since, huh? The stain doesn’t wash out, it still hasn’t. I still let myself become everything they were trying to make me into. I’m a bad man, Bruce, I’m a monster. I try to do good things now, but that’ll never erase the rest of it and I don’t—it doesn’t—Roy, I get. We’re both fucked up, he likes me cause taking care of me makes him feel like he’s in control and gives him some motivation to keep himself alive and whatever but you aren’t any of that, you’re fine on your own, and I don’t understand why you would want anything to do with me. I’m not the kid you remember. I’m not good. I’m never going to be good.” 

“You do not have to be good,” Bruce said, running his hand through Jason’s hair and feeling the sobs that wracked his son’s body crash and break over his own heart. Jason made a strangled noise in protest, so Bruce kept talking before Jason could come up with another full defense for why he didn’t deserve to be accepted for who he was. “You don’t. I know that probably sounds strange coming from me, and I’m sorry you ever thought I would care more about my code than you. I think you are good. I’ve talked to so many people you’ve helped, seen all the lives you touched. You saved whole cities. Cared for them when everyone else had turned their backs. Maybe you never went back to those places to see that for yourself, but you always left them better off. Months, even years after you left, they still told your stories. You were their savior. But even if you weren’t, even if you were right about yourself and all you ever did was hurt others, I’d still be here looking for you, because you don’t have to be good to deserve my love, Jaylad.

“After I lost you, I wasn’t the man you remember, either. I wasn’t good, either. Maybe I’m still not. Maybe I never will be again. I wasn’t fighting for the same reasons I taught you to, the reasons I first put on the cowl for. I wasn’t out there to help people, I was only out there to take the grief and anger out on someone else rather than let it consume me. I didn’t care about anything. I lost you, and I didn’t see any real point in keeping myself safe from harm or doing things the right way. I wasn’t a hero anymore. I just… was. But that’s okay. It’s okay to just be. You don’t have to be good, honey. You’re alive. It’s a miracle to have you with me now; it would be a miracle no matter what kind of man you turned out to be. You didn’t come back wrong. All that matters is you came back. I watched you die in my arms and you came back. I couldn’t possibly put anything else above that, please tell me you understand.” 

“I shoulda been better, B,” Jason almost whimpered, sounding small and feeling small beneath Bruce’s hands even though the Lazarus Pit seemed to have turned him into a veritable force of nature. A fierce chill rocked Bruce’s body before the words even made it all the way out of Jason’s mouth. The specter of his son used to say those same words over and over again, a constant haunting reminder that Jason had spent his final moments believing he wasn’t good enough and Bruce would never have a chance to right that wrong. “I shoulda been smarter, shoulda fought harder, I died wishing I’d been better for you but I just came back even worse.”

“I’m sorry you still believe that,” Bruce said, voice as soft and kind as he could make it through the anguish of knowing the real Jason thought he was every bit as worthless as his ghost had. “I’m sorry you ever believed you weren’t good enough, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that you were wrong. You told me you should’ve been a better Robin, but you couldn't have been better. You were amazing. You were everything I hoped you would be and so much more. I was so proud to have you fighting by my side, and when I lost you, I felt your absence every day. I’m so proud of who you were, and I’m even prouder of who you are now. Thank you so much for fighting as hard as you did, thank you for surviving everything they put you through just to make it here today. Thank you for speaking to me. It’s a gift I can never repay, Jaylad, thank you so much.”

“Y-You don’t hate me,” Jason said shakily, like he still couldn’t believe it.

“You are my son, Jason. I could never hate you. I love you.” 

“And if I kept on killing like I have been?” Jason asked. Bruce could tell it was a test, meant to be accusatory and venomous like it had been before Jason collapsed in Bruce’s arms, but it didn’t even come close. Mostly it was tired and fearful and underneath layer upon layer of armor and defensiveness, there was hope. Hope that Bruce would prove him wrong, that Bruce was someone worth believing now. Even after all this time, somehow, Jason hadn’t fully given up on him. “If all this shit didn’t change what I did as Red, what then?” 

“I didn’t come here wanting to change you, honey. To be perfectly honest, I’d prefer you do keep going, whether you stay here, go back to America, or end up anywhere else. I’d feel much better hanging up the cowl if I knew I was leaving the safety of the people I used to protect in capable hands. Your hands. I trust you, probably more than anyone else, to do the right thing. You are their symbol of hope now. You are their belief in a better future. They deserve better than me. They deserve you.”

Jason let out a small laugh, high and tight and nervous, jagged at the edges, like it hurt just to make the sound. “God, I must be fucking dreaming. There’s no way this is actually real, the real Bruce would never—” 

“We’re different people than we used to be, Jay,” Bruce interjected before Jason could go off the rails again. “You and I both. Maybe the old me couldn’t have been okay with—what did you call yourself?” 

“I don’t mind Red Hood,” Jason muttered, gloved fingers coming back to rub at the red fabric of his jacket’s hood for a moment. “Most of the names they gave me are fuckin’ dramatic or corny, but that one’s decent. Roy and I just dubbed him Red, but that was, um,” Jason motioned to himself, the scraps of red that colored his uniform and the red mask lying forgotten a few feet away. “Red’s always been my color, y’know. For a while, it was the only thing I remembered about my old life. Not a ton of imagination went into that one.”

“Alright,” Bruce said with half a grin, pulling Jason a little closer. “Maybe the old me couldn’t have been okay with the way Red Hood does hero work, but I’m not him anymore. I lived through an apocalypse and the death of my son, I live with being at least partially responsible for both of those things for years. And after living through all of that, I found out that the boy I spent seven years mourning was alive. I can’t be the same after all of that. And who I am now cares more about your safety and wellbeing than any rule or code. I know that probably doesn’t make sense to you, but I promise it’s the truth.”

Jason’s trembling hands wrapped around Bruce’s midsection until they met behind his back, squeezing so tight it ached in his ribs, and it was the kindest pain Bruce had ever known. Jason pressed his face into Bruce’s chest and took a deep breath. “You’re real.” 

Bruce ran a thumb down the side of Jason’s face, not faltering at the feeling of thick scar tissue, but Jason tensed up at the touch like he thought he’d be punished just for having the scars, like they were his fault, something he should be ashamed of. Carefully, Bruce cupped Jason’s cheek and pressed a kiss to his forehead, wishing he could take that feeling away from Jason. The most he could do was promise, “We are both real, Jaylad.” 

There was a single moment that was both infinite and far too short where Jason peeled himself off of Bruce and made eye contact. The whites of his eyes were red, making the green look even brighter by contrast, his face tear-streaked, and he looked for all the world like he still trusted Bruce as much as he had years ago despite everything Bruce had done to prove he didn’t deserve it. Bruce held his gaze even as the tears welling up in his own eyes made the image blurry and the just-shy-of-painful tightness in his throat was starting to choke him. The very edge of Jason’s mouth quirked into something that vaguely resembled a grin, and then it was gone and his face was hidden in Bruce’s shirt again, like the simple, soft vulnerability of looking Bruce in the eye was more than he could handle.

Same old Jason.

Jason exhaled a shaky Spanish curse and shook his head. “God, I cannot believe Roy was right about you. Thanks for fucking nothing, B, I’m never going to live this down.”

Bruce gave a small huff of laughter, guilt still twisting up ugly and vicious in his gut at the mention of Roy, at the way the archer had advocated forgiveness even after the hell he’d endured at both Bruce and Slade’s hands. Bruce blinked back the tears and cleared his throat. “I’m glad you found someone like him.”

“Oh, no. He found me. He’d fucking hate it if I let you give me the credit for it. I actually, uh…” Jason trailed off with a scoff that was a little less humorless than it had been before. “I tried to kill him the first three times we met, so…” 

“I imagine that’s quite a story.”

He nodded with another trembling breath. “It is. To be clear, Bruce,” Jason added, voice going perfectly steady and hard, “absolutely none of this means I forgive what you let happen to him.” 

“I know,” Bruce replied immediately. “I don’t expect you to.”

“Good.” And then the tense moment was gone and Jason softened again. “But, I could still, um, I could tell it to you sometime? The story, I mean. Him and me. If, uh… if you want.” 

“I’d love that, Jay.” Bruce buried his nose in Jason’s damp hair and breathed deep, feeling almost peaceful for the first time in years, and noticed after a long moment that Jason smelled different now, too. Sword oil and leather and the faint metallic tang of blood. It used to be whatever Alfred was cooking that night mixed with the soap they kept in the Cave showers and hints of tobacco that Jason seemed to think Bruce couldn’t smell. “Did you stop smoking?” Bruce asked, a laughably mundane question in the face of the swirling chaos of everything else.

Jason chuckled ruefully. “Mm. Roy doesn’t like it. Says I didn’t miraculously rise from my grave just for lung cancer to put me right back in it. As if the vigilantism wouldn’t take me first.” 

“I didn’t like it either, but that never stopped you.”

“You weren’t supposed to know about it, old man. I was very secretive.”

“I’m a detective,” Bruce said flatly. “How come you never hid it from him?” 

“Cause all Roy can actually do is guilt trip me. He can’t stop me. He’s not my dad.” Jason tensed up the second the word left his mouth, like he hadn’t meant to say it out loud. Bruce just waited, frozen between hope and terror that he’d shatter this tender moment and the almost-admission that had come with it if he reacted the wrong way. Jason just seemed to work through it for a while, the tension slowly trickling out of him until he was pliant and relaxed in Bruce’s arms again. Bruce breathed a soft sigh of relief, then almost choked on it as Jason added, “You are.” 

“Sorry, what?” Bruce choked out, eyes getting mistier even as he was sure he had misheard it. 

Jason sniffled, then pulled back, separating himself from Bruce and wiping at his eyes. Bruce carefully hid his disappointment. This was too much. Jason was shutting down. That was okay. His son had already given him so much more than he had dared to hope for. But Jason didn’t get up or walk away, just put enough distance between them that he could sit back on his knees and fix those piercing green eyes on him. “You’re my dad,” he repeated quietly. “You always were. Still are.” 

Bruce was so taken aback that he physically recoiled an inch, the shock of the admission slamming into his chest like a sledgehammer. Jason couldn’t mean that. Not after everything. Not after Bruce had let Roy get hurt, not after Bruce was the reason he’d spent all these years thinking he was some unloveable, irredeemable villain, not after— “Yeah, things are a little fucked up,” Jason muttered dismissively, already looking uncomfortable with this show of emotion as he fidgeted absently with his hands and looked just a little to the left of Bruce’s head. It wasn’t half as intense as the breakdown had been, but Bruce could feel the gravity of it. This was different. Jason wasn’t doing this because the stress of the situation was tearing it out of him against his will. He was doing it on purpose. Because he wanted to be honest with Bruce. “Haven’t they always been, though? We’re never gonna be normal, doesn’t mean I don’t give a shit about you. Are you gonna make it into a whole thing, B? Cause I know how you get sometimes, fuckin’ sap.” 

Bruce had to smile at that familiar snippy edge to Jason’s voice, a wave of nostalgia and fondness and gratitude knocking him flat again just as he was starting to breathe again. Unable to help himself, Bruce pushed himself up to his knees and pulled Jason into another crushing hug, the tears overflowing and spilling down his cheeks and onto the leather of Jason’s coat. He tried to pull in a steady breath, but there was no use in it. It came out as the sob that it was.

“Thank you,” he whispered hoarsely, holding Jason as tightly as he had wanted to that night in Arkham but couldn’t because he was too afraid of breaking what was left of Jason’s frail body. He could do it now. Because Jason wasn’t broken. He wasn’t dying. He was whole and he was here, and it felt like everything that had been shattered in Bruce was stitching itself back together, clumsy and painful and wrong in places but healing. A seven-year wound was finally healing.

Who have you ever loved?

Jason. Jason and so many others who had all been ripped away from him, suddenly and cruelly. After years of trying to let go and learn how to live without all the ones he loved most, after letting people into his life and his heart just in time to lose them over and over again, after almost a decade of being so sure he didn’t know how to care for people anymore, it had all come back to Jason. And god, loving with his whole heart felt like a language he’d always known but had forgotten completely until just now and— “I love you so much, Jaylad.”

Jason shrugged noncommittally in Bruce’s arms, giving Bruce a small pat on the back. Bruce knew Jason needed this just as much as he did, but this same mulish, bullheaded response to sentiment had been a staple of Jason’s whole childhood and he hadn’t expected anything less.

“Mhm. Love you too, dad.” 

Chapter Text

The two of them stayed on the warehouse floor for almost an hour before Jason seemed to pull himself together enough to peel himself away from Bruce, push his back up against the wall, and pull his knees to his chest. “Are you alright?” Bruce asked quietly, noticing the way Jason was trembling faintly and doing his best to resist the urge to reach out and pull him in again.

Jason spared him a quick glance, then turned his eyes back to his hands, Slade’s blood now soaked into the leather. “I think so,” he whispered, voice ragged. “God, this is just… insane.” 

And, taking in the sight of his son before him, the same boy who had taken his last breaths in Bruce’s arms now living and breathing again, Bruce had to agree that yeah, that just about summed it up. 

“I, um,” Jason swallowed hard enough that Bruce could see the bob of his Adam’s apple. “I need some time, I think. Alone. Cause I’m pretty sure I’m gonna pass out if I hear you say you’re proud of me one more time, and I should, um… I should call Roy. Let him know he doesn’t need to save my sorry ass again before he worries himself into a fuckin’ hernia or some shit.”

Bruce’s mind caught on that word, again, and returned once more to the fact that Roy Harper had kept his son alive in a world that seemed to desperately want him dead and Bruce had rewarded him for it by almost sending him back to the darkest point of his whole life. He was… he was really going to have to apologize for that. If Roy would even be willing to see him.

“Of course,” Bruce agreed as quickly as he could, not wanting to give Jason any reason to believe he’d be kept here against his will. “Take all the time you need.”

Jason retrieved a small device from his pocket, glanced at it, then put it back. “Sensors say Slade’s out that way,” he motioned to a door opposite the one Bruce and Slade had come in through. “It’s a heated garage, so if you don’t wanna freeze your ass off, you can join him.”

“Thank you.” 

Jason grunted something that sounded like yeah, well, you did a lot of shit for me. Bruce smiled, took one more look at his son just in case Jason was using this as cover to sneak out and it was the last time Bruce would ever see him, then saw himself out.

Bruce found Slade sitting amidst a sea of post-battle carnage; wrecked armor, bloodstained gauze, bandage wrappers, and the contents of their hefty first aid kit spread out around him. He was in a black undershirt, the only part of his combat gear that Jason hadn’t managed to ruin irreparably, deep purple bruising drenching his throat and reaching up to his jaw and cheekbones, broken nose set but still swollen. He was stitching up a cut that went through his eyebrow with a concentrated scowl on his face, without a mirror, every movement stiff and jerky. Bruce had seen Slade injured before, but as he heard the too-shallow wheezing breaths rattling through Slade’s chest from half the room away, it hit him abruptly that it had never been like this. It was Deathstroke, after all. He’d made a career out of always being the best fighter in the room. But now, he looked human.  

It was strange to see him like that. Even stranger that Bruce’s own son had been the cause of it. And even as a vicious part of Bruce felt like Slade definitely probably deserved it, he still felt more than a little guilty. So, he sat down on a crate beside Slade and motioned for him to hand over the sutures. “I know you can do it,” Bruce said before he could protest. “But they’ll be faster and straighter if I do.” Slade let out a frustrated huff and acquiesced, keeping his eyes trained on his hands as Bruce began fixing the stitches in silence. The knowledge was heavy between them that Slade never bothered stitching up facial injuries because they always healed before they became a problem, but neither of them mentioned it. “You’re still here,” Bruce observed in a murmur as Slade winced through the fourth stitch, dangerously close to his good eye.

“Of course I’m still here,” Slade bit back, sounding vaguely offended that Bruce would ever question it.

“What happened to once we find Jason, I’m out?”

“That was six months ago. Now, this has been the longest contract of my whole career. Figured it’d be worth it to see how it panned out. Don’t exactly trust you two geniuses not to kill each other, either.”

“You’re not obligated to care whether or not I die anymore.”

“You’re not obligated to care whether or not my stitches get fucked up anymore, either, but here we are anyway.” Bruce suppressed a smile and tied off the last stitches in silence. “So, how did it pan out?” Slade asked once he was finished.

Bruce took a few seconds to think about his conversation with Jason and concluded quickly that Jason still thought of Slade as an enemy and wouldn’t want him to know the specifics. Not to mention, he was half sure he’d hallucinated the love you too, dad, so he settled for something vaguer. “It was… intense,” he said, eyeing the tear stains on his shirt. “Good, though. It still feels impossible that it could really be him, but it is.”

“Was he pissed?”

“Yes, but I was prepared for that. He still thinks the things he did while under unfathomable amounts of stress are the total sum of everything he is, though, and that was a bit harder to stomach."

“Oh wow,” Slade deadpanned, “a chronic self-imposed guilt complex? Who could he have learned that from?”

Bruce gave a small, rueful smile. “Yes, I know, like father, like son.”

“Is he gonna come back to Gotham?” 

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.”

“You didn’t ask?” Slade repeated incredulously. “All you’ve wanted for the past however long was to get your kid back, we finally tracked him down, and you didn’t even ask him to come home?”

“He is home. He doesn’t need me or Gotham for that. He’s worked hard to find happiness here, and he has a good life with Roy. I told him I would like him to come back, but I didn’t ask for an answer and he didn’t give me one. He’s overwhelmed. He’s spent the last six years thinking I would hate him if I found out what he’s done since he came back. Learning that wasn’t true has shaken him up pretty badly. Things are very complicated. But he let me hug him. And I don’t think he hates me. Or at least, not enough to never want to see me again.”

“Seems like a low bar.”

“Going into this, all he knew about me was that I teamed up with his killer and brought a supervillain into his only friend’s shop to weaponize his trauma against him. This was the closest thing to a win we were ever going to get.” 

“Fair enough.” Slade laughed mirthlessly as he eyed the thick bandage wrapped tight around his ribs. “Your kid’s a piece of work. Haven’t taken an ass-kicking like that in years.”

Bruce cringed in sympathy, hearing the hoarse, pained edge to Slade’s voice and thinking about how Jason had choked him out for minutes at a time. “I apologize for him.”

“Don’t,” Slade muttered, waving him off with a gauze-wrapped hand. “It’s my own damn fault. According to your kid, Harper’s shit is temporary, so it’ll probably wear off soon. I’ll heal. Always do.”

“Worse than you thought?” Bruce asked, not sure he even wanted the answer.

Slade snorted. “Considering I thought I’d be fighting a boy barely into his twenties who’d be so pissed off he’d be making exploitable mistakes and I ended up with a highly trained meta assassin with some actual self-control? Yeah. Significantly.”

Bruce balked at that. “Hold on, you think he’s meta?”

“Uh, yeah. You really couldn’t tell? Nobody moves that fast or fights with that much reckless disregard for their own safety without a little something extra in the gene pool. Explains a lot, actually. Him being able to cut down all those people by himself and needing Harper to get him out at the end. From what I remember, people with Pit madness tended to ride real high, then drop off the edge of a fucking cliff at the worst possible time.”

“But the Lazarus Pit’s side effects aren’t supposed to—”

“Dead kids aren’t supposed to rise from the grave, Bruce, but that didn’t stop him either.” 

That felt like something Bruce should talk to Jason about, not Slade, and his mind was spinning far too fast to even entertain the idea that his son might have superpowers on top of everything else, so he didn’t push any further. “Could you have beaten him?” He asked instead, because he couldn’t not ask. He couldn’t spend the rest of his life not knowing if Slade Wilson had willingly and purposely put his life in the balance just to avoid hurting Jason, who was a veritable stranger he had no reason to care about.

“Does it look like I could have beaten him?” Slade asked, motioning to his battered body. 

“That’s not an answer.” 

“It doesn’t matter if I could have, I didn’t.” 

“Also not an answer.”

“I think you’re overestimating my abilities. Or maybe you’re underestimating your kid. Heartwarming as it is that you seem to think I let him hand me my own ass, I’m just not that nice a guy. He’s got a lot of talent, seems to have figured out how to control and weaponize his anger, and clearly did his homework. Same guy who used to slaughter dozens of shitbirds by himself, remember? We always knew he was dangerous enough to do something like this.” 

Bruce frowned, knowing the ugly twinge of guilt in his gut couldn’t be completely unfounded. “I know what it looks like when you shoot to kill, Wilson,” he protested more insistently. “That wasn’t it. You were pulling your punches.” 

“Relentless motherfuckers, every last one of you…” Slade groused under his breath. He scrubbed a hand over the small uninjured part of his face with a frustrated groan. “So what exactly would you like to hear me say, Bruce? That I didn’t break your kid’s leg when I had the chance because I didn’t want to hear him scream again? You got me. I held back. A little bit. Because if I made it through that fight alive, I didn’t want to live with my name at the bottom of a list that features Joker, Ra’s, and Talia al Ghul. But, and listen close here, if I hadn’t held back, he still would’ve won. He was the better man today, I could tell that from fairly early on in the fight, and there was no point in fucking him up when it was never going to change the result. And yeah, I could have won that fight if I was okay with using information I really had no right to know against a kid thirty years younger than me who’s already spent half his life being put through the wringer by people like me. But I’m not. So I didn’t.” 

“How is that different from what you did to Roy?” Bruce braced for a callous, tactless reaction like Jason matters and Harper doesn’t or Harper brought it on himself, Jason didn’t, but all he got was a shrug.

“It’s not.” Slade set his jaw, dropped his eyes from Bruce’s face down to the first aid kit, and started packing it up. “But doing that to Jason would have involved throwing every rule I’ve ever made for myself out the window and pretending to be an objective third party when that isn’t really possible anymore given how much time we’ve spent keeping each other alive and how much I know you love that kid. Even before I fucked his buddy up, it was never even on the table to go against everything I believe in to save my own ass. There. End of story.” 

The image flashed behind Bruce’s eyes, Slade pinned up against the wall by the neck, forcing a genuine apology out with the last bit of breath in his lungs. It wasn’t enough to erase the memory of the way Roy had slowly crumbled beneath Slade’s verbal assault. Wasn’t enough for Bruce to forget the pain audible in Jason’s voice even through the modulator as he talked about what he’d seen his friend go through. But it was still something Slade had probably never given to anyone else before. 

“You apologized,” Bruce said quietly. 

Slade scoffed, but it sounded a bit more forced and a bit less derisive than usual. “Yeah, and?”

“I’ve known you for over ten years and I have never heard you apologize. Not like that.” 

“And I’ve been alive for over fifty years and I’ve never seen a dead human kid show up a few years later twice as big and in perfect health. It’s a day for firsts.”

“Did you mean it?”

Slade picked his head up sharply and glared daggers right through Bruce. “Do I fucking strike you as someone who would bullshit an apology to save my own ass?”

“I suppose not,” Bruce muttered, even though the answer a few years ago would have been a definitive yes. “But this is the first I’ve heard of you even approaching the idea that what you did to Roy Harper was wrong.” 

“Yeah, cause there’s no fucking use apologizing to you. We still found your kid, he didn’t beat the shit out of you, nothing in your life got fucked up because of what I did. But…” Slade trailed off and looked down again, running a thumb across his bandaged ribs. “Doing any permanent damage to Harper or Jason wasn’t part of the plan. Tactical miscalculation, my fault, and I am sorry for that. I forget how fragile humans are sometimes.” 

Leave it to Slade Wilson to reduce an altercation so devastating that it seemed to have emotionally eviscerated both Roy and Jason for weeks on end to something as simple and clinical as a miscalculation. “I really don’t think you can—”

“Have you not had enough feelings talk already today?” Slade snapped. “Cause you can go back in there and have another heart-to-heart with Zomboy if you need someone to bear their soul to you. The level of contrition I feel for a mistake that didn’t even directly impact you is none of your fucking business.” 

And Bruce figured that was probably fair, so he changed the topic. “The pictures were a good idea. Can’t believe I didn’t think of that myself.”

“Yeah, well, you were a little busy and Bats aren’t exactly in the habit of taking people at their word. It was kind of a no-brainer.” Slade made a slightly uncomfortable face, then lowered his voice like he was trying not to be overheard even though Jason was a whole room away. “Do you still see him?”

Bruce’s blood ran cold. He just barely managed to hold off the flinch. Really, he should’ve been expecting this from the moment Slade mentioned having the video, but there had been too many other things vying for his attention at the time and unlike the rest of it, Slade probably knows about Jason’s ghost wasn’t an immediate threat. He took a deep breath and tried to loosen the panic in his constricting chest. Logically, if Slade wanted to tell Jason or otherwise weaponize that information against Bruce, he would’ve done it already. 

“No,” Bruce confessed after a long silence. “Not since we burned Joker.”

“Good.” Slade gave him a curt, emotionless nod. “I have the only copy of the film and I deleted that part. So, if you don’t want him to know, he never has to.”

Bruce didn’t even bother trying to hide the way his whole body deflated with a bone-deep sense of relief. “Okay.” And then, because Slade cared more about his work than Bruce’s gratitude, he said, “You did impressive work on this mission. I don’t think it would’ve been a success without you.”   

Slade snorted, though it was a bit less derisive than usual. “Oh, it definitely wouldn’t have been a success without me,” he sniped back with a smirk. “Dunno what the fuck you expected from me, Wayne. I’ve told you a hundred times that I’m a fuckin’ professional and I always get the job done.”

Bruce rolled his eyes. “You could just accept the compliment, you know.”

“Yes, fine, okay, you’re welcome, fucking whatever.” Slade extended his hand. “Are we square?” 

Bruce reached out and shook it firmly. “We are,” he said, feeling a bit more of that colossal, ever-present weight lift from his shoulders. He glanced back at the door that hopefully still held Jason beyond it, then back to his watch. He should probably give Jason more time. At least attempt to prove he was willing to respect his son’s space now. “What will you do now?” 

Slade scoffed. “To be perfectly honest, I thought this was the part where you were going to try to tell me I belong in Blackgate.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Bruce dismissed immediately, a little alarmed that Slade thought he’d even consider it after everything they’d been through together, everything Slade had done for Bruce.

Slade just looked amused. “Is it?”

“What is it with everyone thinking I want to throw them in prison?”

“Y’know, you say that as if you didn’t preach thou shalt not kill for twenty years or make a literal career out of believing there was no such thing as moral gray area.”

“I’m not going to arrest you,” Bruce said around an exasperated groan. “You aren’t a threat to innocent lives and besides, even when I was at my physical peak, our fights still always ended in a draw. I don’t have the energy for it anymore. You’re a free man. Where will you go?” 

“Hm…” Slade looked contemplative, but there was a quiet fire in his eye that told Bruce he’d had the answer to that question for a while. “I’ve had my eye on something the past couple years. Now might be the time.”

“A new contract?” Bruce asked, passively intrigued. “For who?”

Slade’s grin turned sharp. “Not a contract. Personal business.”

“Oh god, do I even want to know?” 

“Do you want to be implicated?” Slade scoffed at the silence that answered him. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. You keep your plausible deniability and I’ll keep doing god’s work: killing motherfuckers who deserve it.”

“Try not to die.”

“I’m not one of your kids, Wayne, I’m Deathstroke the fucking Terminator. I’ll be just fine.”

Bruce thought about mentioning the fact that one of his children had just beaten Deathstroke the Terminator very convincingly in single combat, but decided against it. “I know.”

“How bout you? This is the first time in almost five years you’re not tied to a mission of life-altering importance. Where are you headed?”

Bruce glanced at the door again. “It depends what he wants. I always thought I’d end up back in Gotham if I lived through killing Superman, but now… they don’t need Batman anymore. They learned to survive without him. Bruce Wayne doesn’t really have any attachments, so I suppose it doesn’t matter too much where he goes. Jason never explicitly said he didn’t want to come back to Gotham, but if he decides to remain here and doesn’t want me completely out of his life, I might just stick around.”

With a low whistle, Slade leaned back, looking equal parts surprised and amused. “Batman leaving Gotham and hanging up the cape and cowl to mingle with the common folk in some city that doesn’t even belong to him. Never thought I’d see the day.”

“It’d be strange, for sure. But finally having a normal life… it might be nice.” Slade gave a rare genuine chuckle at that, a low, gruff thing that rose from deep in his chest and ended in a wheezing cough thanks to his broken ribs. Bruce froze for half a second, trying to recall the last time he’d heard Slade laugh in a way that wasn’t cruel or sarcastic, and came up with nothing. He couldn’t help but laugh too, the sound bubbling up his throat effortlessly, and he was surprised by how much lighter it made him feel. “We’ve been looking for a dead boy for the past year and just successfully found him alive, things will never be normal again,” Bruce added dryly before Slade could. 

The grin Slade gave him didn’t feel backhanded or nasty, either. “It’d never last, but nothing does. It could still be alright to give it a shot.”

“You know what they say.” It was the same mantra everyone in the Justice League told themselves and each other, over and over again, even before Superman turned. “You can’t get out of the life.” 

Slade shrugged. “Yeah, I know. But you could, probably. If you wanted to. This shit,” he motioned to the carnage around them, “it’s always gonna be what I do until the day I slow down enough that it kills me. It’s what I want to do, it’s what I’m good at. But you… the reasons you fought, they died before Superman did. You can’t protect people from the things they’re up against now, not really.” Slade glanced down at his hands. “You might never be normal, but you don’t have to keep gettin’ chewed up and spit out again either, Bruce. You don’t have to do this part anymore. You could just be done.”

Bruce just sat and felt the gravity of that. He talked about leaving Batman behind, sure, but that nagging voice in the back of his mind had never really gone away. It sounded like Arthur, it sounded like J’onn, it sounded like Mera and Victor and Jason. You can’t get out of the life. You live in the suit, you die in the suit. It happened to us. It’ll happen to you, too. But Slade didn’t bullshit. If he was saying this, it was because he believed it was true. “Yeah,” he said quietly after a while. “I could, couldn’t I?” 

Slade nodded, face turned serious as he looked up again and locked eyes with Bruce. “Y’know the anniversary is coming up. Two weeks or so.”

Bruce raised an eyebrow. “I’m surprised you care.”

“I don’t,” Slade dismissed, though it was a fairly obvious lie that he didn’t even seem to be trying to hide. “People die every day and I went into that fight thinking all five of us were gonna kick it. Both of ‘em knew what they were getting into. But I’m thinkin’ the kid’s gonna feel different.”

“Barry?”

“No, Victor,” Slade snapped without any real venom. “You know how dead kids tend to get worked up around the anniversary of their deaths? Yes, of course I’m talking about Barry. You said you’d talk to him when you were done. Jason is in the next room over and he doesn’t hate you, which means the mission is over. So, if you go back to America, you should see him. Mend that bridge before I have to help you chase that kid all over God’s creation, too. He’s probably gonna be a wreck when that day comes around. Don’t want him doing anything too stupid.”

An ugly tendril of guilt slowly started to sprout in Bruce’s gut and he swallowed hard at the feeling. “I can’t believe it’s been a year already. I don’t even know where he is, if he’s safe, if he’s alive.”

“Nah, he is,” Slade said with a dismissive wave. “He’s still in Central City and he’s fine. Unless he did something really stupid in the past week and a half, that is.”

“Do you… do you talk to him?” Bruce asked, bewildered.

“Well, you weren’t about to do it, you were busy with one of your other kids. After that shit show in Los Mochis, I thought he might kill himself if he didn’t know he still had people who didn’t want him to, so yeah. I text him every month or so.”

“Oh,” Bruce forced out dumbly after a while, still shell-shocked. “What do you talk about?”

“I say are you alive? He says yes, then I say good. Sometimes I tack on you okay to keep things spicy. He almost always says no, but I have gotten an I guess the past two times. Then he sends like, a fuckin’ thumbs up emoji or something and says cool, talk to you next month, and that’s pretty much the end of it.”

Bruce just blinked a few times, still very caught off guard by Slade Wilson showing genuine, unprompted concern for another human being. “Huh.”

“He needs more, I think. More than I can really give him. And he shouldn’t be alone on the 4th. I know you got a lot of shit going on with Jason, so I’ll go if you can’t, but I think I still scare him, and you’re better at that feelings shit than me, anyway. It should probably be you. You did a good enough job with Jason, feels like you could probably handle him, too.”

Bruce shrugged off the almost-compliment. Sure, things had gone just about as well as they could, but that was more Jason’s good heart and willingness to forgive than anything Bruce had done right. Bruce could spend the rest of his life repenting and it would still never offset all the pain he’d already put his son through. Slade’s eye sharpened into something just shy of a glare, like he could hear Bruce’s internal monologue and was taking offense to it.

“God, I am not going to miss this part,” he groused, squaring his body to face Bruce and staring him down. “Listen close and listen good, cause this is the last time I’m doing this. You did a good job with him. That was an insane situation. You’ve been torturing yourself over all this Joker shit for the past however long and the first thing your kid does when you see him is go yeah, all of that was your fault, plus it was even worse than you think it was, wanna hear all about how bad it fucked me up? He went in there wanting to hate you and kill me, but all three of us are still alive and he’s considering coming home with you. You did a good job with him. I’m right. Say thank you and move on.” 

Bruce felt something heavy loosen in his chest, something that had been there for so long that he couldn’t remember a time without it. Like rusted gears bound together by time and neglect in a machine that’d just started working again. He let out a breath he might’ve spent his whole life holding.

“Thank you, Slade.”

By the time Jason found the courage to turn his comm link on and tell Roy the truth, the adrenaline had faded, leaving needle-sharp pains lancing through his body and concentrating vengefully in his hands, and Bruce was already making his way back into the room. World’s shittiest timing. You haven’t changed a bit. The thought wasn’t as bitter this time around. It was nice, almost. Letting his memories of Bruce come back without feeling them slice him open and leave him bleeding. 

He held a finger up for Bruce—and fuck, when did his fingers start hurting that much, it felt like bolts of lightning in his bones, fuck— then moved into the far corner of the warehouse. It was as far away from prying ears as he could get without having to look Slade in his ugly, one-eyed, genuine apology-giving face again. Jason tapped the comm link in his ear once and Roy’s voice patched through almost immediately.

“Please tell me you’re not dead or dying.” Usually, Roy was perfectly steady and calm over comms, largely because Jason couldn’t be and one of them had to, but this time, Jason could hear urgency and a very well-hidden bit of fear. Still, it was a lot less panicked than he’d been expecting, and he let out a long, trembling sigh of relief at the familiar sound of Roy’s voice. One blessed, predictable constant in a day where not a single fucking thing had gone according to plan.

“No, Arse, I’m not dead or dying.”

“Good.” That was all it took for Roy to build the gentle authority back up in his voice, probably thinking Jason needed it desperately like he so often did. “How many bodies and how many injuries, Red?” It was the same question he usually led with, and Jason almost laughed aloud at the thought that this day had been in any way comparable to a normal patrol. 

“Zero and, um,” Jason glanced at his hands, felt the pain pulsing through them in time with his heartbeat and growing stronger by the second, and skated over the rest of the question. “Look, I’m loving the faith you clearly don’t have in me, but I think you know this isn’t a normal check-in. Gimme a second to explain.”

“Sure,” Roy muttered, background noise suggesting he was gearing up. “You can explain. Once I get on the road.” Jason resisted the urge to slap a hand to his forehead, knowing it would only make the pain worse.

“There will be no getting on the road, sit down.” 

Roy laughed humorlessly. “Haha, that’s a good one, absolutely not. Don’t gimme that ‘I can handle it, Arsenal, I’m Big Bad Red and I do everything by myself, now watch me break four bones while I fight six untrained goons’ bullshit and don’t make me ask again. How many injuries? How long can you wait for exfil and how many laws do I have to break to get to you in time?” 

“I’m okay,” Jason insisted firmly. “Slow the fuck down and listen to me, I am okay. I am not hurt, I am not in any danger, and the last thing I need is your little red head popping up down here and making things all complicated, hear me?” 

“Red,” and he wasn’t even trying to hide the panic anymore, “are you compromised? Do they have you locked up, did they take you in? Just give me a signal and I will get you out, I don’t care if it’s dangerous, you know I will.”

“For fuck’s sake, Roy,” Jason groaned, a mix between amusement and exasperation. Roy’s next breath was a little louder, a little sharper, and Jason knew he had his attention now. Usually, Jason was a massive stickler about never dropping their secret identities in the field. “Yeah, Roy, I called you to give you a fucking update because I give a shit about you, not to ask for your help. Now, I’m gonna need you to get your head out of your ass, cause it’s not a hat.”

“Rude,” Roy pouted, clearly trying to take the intensity out of his voice. It was a losing battle. Jason was intimately familiar with what Roy’s fear sounded like.

“You wanna try treating me like your partner instead of a damsel in distress for two seconds?” When nothing but silence answered him, Jason took a deep breath and rushed the truth out before he could talk himself out of it. “You were right. You were right about everything, okay? They really did just want to talk, they didn’t want to hurt me, Deathstroke had chances to kill me and didn’t take them, Bruce wasted a whole fucking year of his life just so he could tell me he missed me, and this whole fucking situation is totally batshit fucking insane and would take me two weeks to explain over comms. Could you just take my word for it this one time when I tell you I’m alright? I’m not hurt, I don’t need exfil, Bruce is like… cool now? I guess? If I’m not dreaming all this up, I promise I will give you every last detail later, but right now, I just, um… I need some time.”

“You need some time… with your dad?” Roy asked carefully. 

Jason hesitated for a moment because his knee-jerk response was Bruce is not my dad and that was just a bald-faced lie at this point. A light flush crept into his cheeks at the thought of admitting the thing he’d vehemently denied for months on end, but Roy deserved as much of the truth as he could stand to tear out of himself. “Mm. With my dad.”

“And you aren’t hurt? At all? You don’t want me to head out there just in case things go bad?”

“I’m not hurt. And B… he’s not something you need to protect me from.” 

Apparently, that was what flipped the switch for Roy. “Woah, holy shit,” he breathed, a reverent note in his voice, panic replaced with awe. “Holy fucking shit, Jay, you’re not fucking with me. You’re serious.”

“Serious as the grave I dug out of, yup.”

Roy laughed, a bubbly, happy little noise that settled safe and comforting in Jason’s heart. “Oh my god. Oh my god! It’s an almost-Christmas miracle, Jaybird! Your dad doesn’t hate you! That’s fucking amazing, congratulations!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jason muttered, rubbing at the back of his neck. “You were right, cariño, now que te den.” Heat rushed to Jason's face the second the word made it out of his mouth, and he prayed Roy hadn't heard it, but of course, he'd never be that lucky.

"Cariño?" Roy repeated, a confused frown in his voice. "Did I unlock a new Spanish insult, or am I just out of practice with them now?" 

And Jason was very much not in the mood to admit that he'd just accidentally called Roy darling over comms instead of any one of the many insults he could have chosen, so he forced a laugh. "You've just got a shit memory, Old Man Harper. Now go ahead, you were right. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts and get all your shit talk out now, since it may never happen again."

“Nah, I’m not even gonna gloat, that’s how happy I am for you. Go ahead and take all the time you need. You can use me as an excuse if it gets to be too overwhelming, just tell him I burned the house down or something, that’s plausible. I’ll be here whenever you’re ready.”

“Mhm. Thanks, Ginger. For tellin’ me to give him a chance and for… y’know, all of the—everything. One more thing. If I, um,” Jason lowered his voice to try and escape Bruce’s all-hearing fucking ears. “If I do end up going back to Gotham, would you, uh… would you wanna come with me?” Jason tried to stop it there, it was already too much vulnerability and left him feeling almost naked, but more words were coming out before he could stop them. “B says I can come home. I’m actually considering it. But it’s not home if you aren’t there.” 

“Jay,” Roy said gently. Jason braced himself for Roy to let him down easy. It would be okay. He could survive without Roy. Probably. “I’d literally follow you into hell if you asked nicely, sweetheart. Yes. Of course, I would.” 

Jason let out a massive, gasping sigh of relief, feeling the heavy chains around his heart loosen just a bit. “Oh. Okay. Yeah, good, thanks. Um, I’ll uh… talk to you soon, then?” 

“Talk to you soon.” Roy hummed, a warm, contented sound. It put Jason’s feet solidly back on the ground. “Love you, Jaybird.”

Jason felt the heat of a flush spread from his face down his neck as he turned away from Bruce and whispered, “Yeah, I love you too, pendejo.” 

Jason focused on the pain in his hands instead of the embarrassment scalding his cheeks as he walked back over to Bruce and slid down the wall next to him. The pain was hot and steady and angry now, the pulses slowly ratcheting up from aching to agony as Jason started to run out of things to distract himself from it. Roy would tell him to take his gloves off and assess the damage before it started healing wrong. Jason, however, could remember every excruciating detail of the day Joker had crushed all the bones in his right hand. It’d swelled to twice its size, the skin had turned an ugly mottled purple, and within a few hours, he hadn’t even been able to recognize it as his own hand anymore. He couldn’t risk sending himself back there. Bruce would surely notice, and even if he was less dangerous than Jason had been expecting, no one was totally safe. Except maybe Roy.

So instead, Jason gingerly folded his hands in his lap and glanced to his right, forcing himself to confront this ridiculously bizarre situation yet again. And by the look in Bruce’s eye, he could tell that even if the no-killing rule had been relaxed and B was forgiving in a way he never used to be, the eavesdropping wasn’t as easily turned off. 

“Oh que te den,” he groaned, resisting the urge to bury his head in his (probably broken) hands as the embarrassment came back yet again.

“What?” Bruce asked innocently, an annoyingly happy smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. 

“What?” Jason parroted in an obnoxiously low parody of Bruce’s voice. “I know you were listening to my call and now you’re smiling at me like a fucking idiot, B, knock that shit off.”

“Can’t I be happy to see my son?” 

“You could be, except I know what that look means, because it’s the same one you gave Dick when he started dating Kori. So, let me stop you right there and say that Roy and I are not a thing. He’s just a friend.” That felt way, way too weak to encompass everything Roy was, though. Everything he’d done for Jason, how many times he’d saved Jason’s life, how he’d basically taught him how to be a human again. So, Jason lamely amended the statement. “A… good friend.” 

“I wasn’t going to ask,” Bruce argued, still a hint of playfulness in his tone. “But since you mentioned your brother—”

“Fuck, what’s the news there? That Dickie-bird dipped out on your Saving Zombie Robin mission once he found out his little brother’s a psycho killer?” 

“No.” Most of the light left Bruce’s eyes, and Jason cringed inwardly. Bruce had way more of a problem with Jason’s self-loathing than he would’ve expected. The whole time Jason had known him, Bruce had been wallowing in varying degrees of self-blame and general moodiness; Jason just figured misery wouldn’t object to the company. “Dick’s at home with Kori. He was never here. He doesn’t know anything about what we learned while searching for you. But, he did ask me to give you his number if we found you.” 

Jason’s blood chilled. He’d hate me. He’d lock me in Arkham without a second thought. I loved him, and now, he’d hate me. “No,” he forced out, wishing he could will that weak little tremor out of his voice. “I can’t, I can’t, I—I’m sorry B, but I really, really can’t.” 

Jason tensed his body, bracing for the argument, to have to defend his choice to Bruce and find some justification that didn’t involve letting any more of those self-loathing truths out of his mouth. He waited so many long, aching seconds for the hammer to fall, but all Bruce gave him was a small, sad smile and a nod.

“Okay,” Bruce said gently, seemingly content to let it go. Jason felt like he’d been slapped. He’d just disobeyed what essentially amounted to an order, and Bruce was just… okay with that? Orders weren’t optional. Willis, Bruce, Joker, Ra’s, Talia, Ducra, and every other person who’d put themselves in charge of Jason’s life all had one thing in common: they expected their commands to be followed. There were punishments for falling short. Some of them broke bone, some of them just amounted to a devastating disappointed look that made Jason feel two inches tall, but all of them hurt. At the same time that Jason felt like a missing part of his heart had just been gently nudged back into place, he also kind of wanted to scream. This was so fucking backwards. 

“...okay?” Jason repeated reproachfully. 

Bruce’s eyes were so impossibly warm and kind as he nodded. Jason still kind of felt like he’d died again and gone to some weird purgatory where he’d be forever doomed to endure kindness he didn’t deserve and never be fully able to believe it wasn’t a lie. But he’d talked to Roy. And Bruce had held him for so long and promised this wasn’t a lie. And Jason wanted it to be real so badly, he wanted a Bruce that could understand where he was coming from instead of demanding unconditional obedience, it was just so hard to believe it was something he could actually have.

“Okay.” Bruce paused, almost like he could tell the single word had shaken Jason to his foundations, and then he followed up. “Would you be willing to tell me why?” 

That was an invitation. Not one of those traps Talia used to set where she made it seem like Jason had a single shred of agency over his own life and then punished him for believing the lie. It wasn’t loaded, it was just a question. From Bruce. Some twisted-up combination of old Robin instincts that had never quite died out and Jason’s own relief at being given an actual choice sent the words spilling out of his mouth before he thought twice about them.

“I’m everything he hates,” Jason admitted quietly, letting his eyes slip down to his aching hands. “Thought I was everything you hate too, B. Guess I was wrong about that, but I’m not wrong about this. Don’t you remember the way he used to freak out when I got a little too much blood on my hands on patrol? Yeah. That’s a fucking joke compared to some of the shit I’ve done since the League got me, and you know it. I don’t…” Jason trailed off, drawing in a deep, shuddering breath and focusing on the pain splintering his bones instead of the emotion tightening his throat. “I don’t want him to know what I am, okay?”  

“Jason, you’re his brother,” Bruce insisted, firm but not harsh, and god, Jason wished so badly that he could believe it. “Nothing matters more than that, son.” 

“Yeah, I was his brother. I don’t know what the fuck I am now, but I’m definitely not the fuckin’ little wing that Dick remembers. Everything Dick loved about me is gone. But he doesn’t have to know that, not if I stay out of his life. Let him keep his happy ending. He was the only one of us who ever actually deserved it.” 

Jason glanced up just in time to catch the polite devastation in Bruce’s eyes. “Do you think we were better off without you, Jay?” 

Ah, fuck. Jason had told himself that he would try not to show Bruce how fucked up he really was, but that was one fight he’d never been able to win regardless of how much it mattered. Not with Talia, not with Ducra, not with Roy, and not now.

“I get that you’re happy I’m back, dad,” he said quietly, fidgeting with his hands, little sparks of pain shooting up to his elbows. “But your life was fucking shit before you found that out. You were on a team with the fucking Joker, hundreds of miles away from the only place you ever thought of as home, fighting a guy who used to be your best friend to try and stop him from taking over the world. Nothing I turned out to be could’ve made anything any worse than it already was. But none of that shit happened to Dick. He’s got Kori, he’s got a home, he’s alive, he’s safe, and I’m sure I haven’t been anything more than a sore spot for him in years. I’m not gonna be the one who takes that away from him. What he has is good, and I am not.”

“You think Dick would rather go on believing you’re dead than find out you’ve changed?” 

“Yeah,” Jason breathed, voice cracking. “I do.”

Bruce didn’t look angry. He didn’t look like he wanted a fight. He just looked sad. “I won’t make you do it. But these years without you have been incredibly hard on him, too. Even though Dick has a family and a life away from all of this,” Bruce gestured to the warehouse Jason had turned into a bloodstained battlefield, “that doesn’t mean he doesn’t miss you. He didn’t believe me when I told him you were alive, and even then, he still wanted to talk to you. He still wanted to give you the option of having a relationship with him again. He wanted me to tell you that he loves you. So, if you decide not to speak to him, don’t let it be because you think you’d ruin his life. Not when your death left a hole in it that nothing else could ever fill.” 

“But I can’t fix that,” Jason said, voice cracking, some ugly, despondent thing in his throat that ached like longing and regrets he’d never had time to notice until now. “I can’t be a patch for whatever he lost when I died. I’m a fucking murderer. I don’t fix things, I break them, and that’s what I’d do to him, too.” 

“Then you don’t have to tell him that, honey,” Bruce reasoned, like it was simple, like it was the obvious solution. Like Jason being a League-trained assassin with possibly the highest body count of anyone left alive was inconsequential at best. “Not ever, and certainly not now. Not if you aren’t ready, not if you don’t want to.” 

Not if you don’t want to. Jason almost choked on the words as he tried to force them down his throat, instinctively scrutinizing Bruce’s face and body language for any tells. When he came up empty, Jason shifted his attention to himself, searching for gut feelings, but all he found was something bright, dangerously close to hope. Even if it would be a lie that could never last, he might be able to have a few minutes with Dick where they could both pretend the past seven years hadn’t put an insurmountable blockade of wrongs and hurts between them.

He could have that. Bruce was offering it to him. Bruce was taking the opportunity out of his pocket right now.

Bruce wasn’t lying, and it was right there. Fuck, it might even be easy.

“You’re different now,” Bruce said gently as he unlocked the phone and pulled up Dick’s contact. He let it rest in his hand, not forcing it on Jason, just leaving it there for him to take if he wanted to. “I understand that. I don’t want you to be the same as you were before. That doesn’t mean you don’t still have a place in his life.” The corner of Bruce’s mouth twitched up into a small, hopeful smile. Bruce wasn’t lying. “Will you try, son?” 

Bruce wasn’t lying.

“No bullshit, B?”

A spark of light danced in the steel blue of Bruce’s eyes that Jason didn’t recognize, that he was sure had never been there in his Robin days.

Bruce wasn’t lying.

“No bullshit, Jay.” 

The words slowly sank into Jason’s skin as he stared at the phone in Bruce’s hand, at the open door to hearing his brother’s voice again, at the sliver of a chance that he might really be able to piece what was left of his broken family back together. Bruce might be right. Maybe Dick did miss Jason enough to forgive all his sins the way Bruce had. Or maybe Dick wouldn’t need the whole truth, maybe just having Jason back would be enough.

Every survival instinct Jason had cultivated and nourished throughout his life lashed out against those thoughts with gnashing teeth and claws, telling him that that was the sort of naive bullshit that would and had already gotten him killed and worse. Jason took a deep breath and pushed it to the side. Maybe that part was wrong, for once. Maybe Bruce was right. 

And even as it was terrifying, even as it felt like leaping off another cliff and praying the fall wouldn’t break bone when he’d just barely survived the last one, it was just a phone call. Dick didn’t have a crowbar or a trigger word or an army of assassins, he just had words. Jason had been through worse.

Jason’s fingers twitched towards the phone, but he held himself back for another moment, wishing desperately that Roy was here. Roy would know what to do without having to ask. He would put his arm around Jason while he made the call. He’d card his long, gentle fingers through Jason’s hair when Dick started yelling. And when the whole thing inevitably crumbled in Jason’s trembling hands, Roy would take the phone away from him before he could dissociate all the way out of his body, hang up, hold him, and talk him down until the shakes eased and he could breathe again. Dick ain’t shit, fuck him. I love you no matter what, and I’m better than him anyway. 

Even if Bruce was willing to do any of that, even if he knew how much Jason craved it, it still wouldn’t be the same. Nothing had ever been like Roy was, nothing else could be. So, Jason did his best to pretend he didn’t need it, took a deep breath, and gingerly wrapped his aching fingers around Bruce’s phone. 

“Okay.”

A warm, grateful smile split Bruce’s face as he took a deep breath and rested his head back against the wall. “Thank you so much, Jaylad.” 

Jason tried to focus on the warmth the nickname sent through his chest to banish the numbness starting to set in, pushed himself to his feet, and left out the door he’d pointed out for Bruce earlier. The garage was empty now that Slade had fucked off somewhere, probably to antagonize some more innocent civilians, so Jason sank to the ground away from concerned eyes and prying ears and tried to quiet the thundering roar of his own heart. He pulled his knees up to his chest and rested his forehead on them, reading his brother’s name over and over again until the words looked foreign and the letters swam before his eyes. 

Time has never made you more willing to confront your demons, man-child. You are stalling. You are stalling. You are stalling.

“I know,” Jason hissed at the memory. “Yeah, I get it, All-Mother, thank you very much for your help.” 

It took four rings for Dick to pick up, and Jason felt about ready to pass out by the time he finally did. “This had better be really, really good, Bruce,” he hissed, low and dangerous. “Because it’s the middle of the fucking night and I think I was pretty clear when I told you I didn’t want to fucking hear from you again.” Dick was being quiet like he was trying not to wake someone up, but the threat in it was unmistakable. Even as there was a part of Jason that felt warm and calm at the sound of his brother’s voice, the rest of him knew how to recognize a threat and found a clear one in the harsh, growling edge to Nightwing’s voice. Jason shrunk back into the wall and curled in on himself, forcing his breathing to stay even enough that Dick wouldn’t be able to hear it. 

“Uh, I-I’m, um…” Jason stammered stupidly, just trying to get something out quick enough that Dick wouldn’t hang up, knowing he’d never have the guts to call back.

“Woah, hold on,” Dick said, most of the venom flooding out of his voice. It sounded more like a frown now, and Jason could almost see Dick twisting his mouth up one way and twisting his whole fucking body another way like a goddamn pretzel, the way he used to when he started thinking too hard. “Who is this?”

“Sorry,” was all Jason could grind past the iron bars of his teeth clamped tight around his fear. “I shouldn’t’ve—”

“Wait, wait.” Dick’s voice was gentle now. Not quite in the way that Jason remembered, but in a way that was still unmistakably Dick. It sounded softer than Dick had ever let himself be around Jason. Dick had never been fully able to turn off Nightwing mode, much in the same way that Bruce could never turn off Batman mode, but there was nothing of the black and blue vigilante in Dick’s voice now. He sounded older. But where B was obviously broken and aching and torn down by the years he’d spent without Jason, it sounded like the time had brought Dick peace. Jason shouldn't ruin that. He should just go. “Okay, you’re definitely not Bruce. I’m sorry for being an asshole. I’m Dick, though I’m guessing you already know that if you have Bruce’s phone and my number. What’s uh, what’s your name?” 

Never had such a harmless question felt more threatening. “I, um—I-I think this w-was a mistake,” and god, that fucking tremor was back and he hated how fucking weak he sounded. Jason had endured years of torture. Red Hood had killed thousands. A fucking phone call shouldn’t be able to draw his blood. “Um, ‘m sorry, I’m just gonna go.”

“Hey, c’mon,” Dick urged, nothing but warmth and kindness in the sound of him now, like the impossible ray of sunshine Jason remembered him as. Jason could hear him get up and the sound of a door squeaking open and easing shut. “Gimme a chance, alright? I don’t get to talk to new people a whole hell of a lot these days. Are you, um, the Flash? You sound about his age. I know Bruce was pretty close with him at one point.”

Wow. His own brother mistaking him for one of the most powerful people in the world, a total fucking stranger. If Jason ever managed to get back on speaking terms with Dick, he was never going to let him hear the end of that one. Your detective skills are getting a bit rusty in your old age, Dickie. He might’ve said it if he didn’t feel about two shallow breaths away from passing out right now. 

“No,” Jason said around a high, nervous laugh. “No, I, um… shit. I-I’m—” he took a deep breath and forced the words out like vomit. “It’s Jason. Jason, that’s—I’m Jason.”

“Jason,” Dick repeated, voice sounding a little tighter. “Mm. Nice name. That was my brother’s name, actually.” Jason was pretty sure Dick kept talking after that, but it sounded underwater, drowned out in a sea of painful, heart-rending shock because this was why Jason had never come home. He thought they forgot him the moment they put him in the ground, Dick and Bruce both. But even after seven years, the first thing Dick says to a fucking stranger is that was my brother’s name. 

“I know,” Jason choked out past the massive lump lodged in his throat.

“He was a good kid.” Jason could hear the years-old aching pain in it. “Did Bruce tell you about him?” 

“No, dumbass,” Jason said, voice fond and soft. Something released in his chest as he closed his eyes and pitched himself over the edge. “That’s me, Dickie. It’s me.” 

There was crushing silence, nothing but the drag of Jason’s breaths as they came up jagged and harsh through his chest. It felt like breathing in broken glass. He swore he could taste blood as the seconds turned to years and he waited and waited and waited. Eventually, Dick sucked in a harsh breath of his own, and it sounded almost as painful as Jason’s did. “Sorry,” he said with a forced sort of cheer, a small tremor hidden inside it. “What?” 

“It’s me. Jason. Jason Todd. Used to be Robin. Used to be your, uh, your brother? I know I’ve been… gone, for a while, but it kinda sounds like you still remember me.” 

“My brother is dead,” Dick almost snarled back, sounding more devastated than angry, nothing like the dangerous way he’d answered the phone. “So you’re either clueless or a fucking bastard, which is it?” 

“In general? You could argue that I’m both. In this particular situation, though, I’m neither. C’mon Dickie, you really don’t recognize your replacement?” 

“No,” Dick said, the tremor in his voice more pronounced now. “That’s not—that’s not possible, he’s—”

“Yeah, I was dead, now I’m not. B said you knew he was out here lookin’ for me.”

“He was bullshitting me. Dead people don’t just come back to life, especially not people who die like that, and he’s been kind of a nutcase ever since we lost Jason—okay, why the fuck are you doing this?” Dick asked abruptly, cutting himself off, voice gone cold and hard. “You want something from me, we can talk about it, but if you try to bring my brother into it, I’ll hunt you down and make you regret the day you ever spoke his name.” 

“Jesus,” Jason muttered, remembering very quickly how annoying the Bats’ habitual distrust was. Hello, pot? Roy’s voice snarked inside his mind. It’s the kettle calling. You’re black. “I know Bruce can be kind of an ass, but he wasn’t bullshitting and neither am I. He said you wanted to talk to me, but uh…” Jason rubbed at the back of his neck. “It kinda seems like he’s gone soft and I think he just said it to make me feel better, so I get it if you don’t, Dickie-bird.” The name tasted foreign, like rust and old memories and half-bitter nostalgia, but it didn’t quite feel wrong enough for Jason to regret it. “No hard feelings or anything.”

“Oh,” Jason thought he heard Dick say, and then, sudden and urgent, “Jason!” It was loud and unexpected enough that Jason cringed again, slamming his teeth down into his bottom lip to keep the hurt, whimpering noise trapped in his throat. “Wait, please don’t go, I don’t—I’m not ready to wake up yet.”

The nostalgia turned to acid in Jason’s mouth. “Wake up?”

“Yeah. I get it now, little wing,” Dick said, voice slipping into something dreamy and bittersweet. “It’s never been like this, so I guess I didn’t realize at first. Usually, you’re here with me and you’re still a kid and you’re scared and hurting and there’s nothing I can—it’s not—” Tears crept into Dick’s voice. “You don’t ever get the chance to grow up in any of them, little wing, and you sound like a man, now. That’s probably a good sign, right? Maybe I’m finally coming to peace with it all or something? I guess it doesn’t really matter, point is, I miss you all the time, my dreams don’t tend to be good, and this one is. Lemme have this for a little longer, please.”

“Shit,” Jason whispered, throat tightening. “No, Dickie, it’s not—I’m real, I swear.”

“Gosh, you almost sound like Bruce did back when I first met him,” Dick replied softly, clearly not interested in Jason’s reality check. “I think a lot about what my little brother would’ve been like all grown up, if you’d be bigger than me, if your voice would be lower than mine..” Dick gave a wet little chuckle. “If you were still here you’d call me a fuckin’ sap or somethin’, but I just wish I could’ve seen you grow up like you were supposed to, Jay. If we had to lose you, I just wish you wouldn’t have been so fucking young.”

Jason glanced down at himself, at the body so large he hadn’t even understood it as his own until well over a year after the Pit. He almost laughed, but everything was far too heavy and you don’t ever get a chance to grow up was wrapping around his lungs and squeezing the air out of them and all he could manage was a soft grunt. “Yeah, I bet I could kick your ass now, Dickie.” 

“I’d let you do it if I meant I got to see you again,” Dick told him, voice cracking, sounding fucking crushed flat like Nightwing never, ever sounded. “Sometimes I feel guilty, cause I got a family and a chance to be kinda happy and all the things that you should’ve had.”

“Jesus fuck, Dick, you don’t need to—” Jason started, feeling the emotion crawling up his throat, but Dick didn’t slow down.

“I would’ve taken your place in a heartbeat if it meant you could have a life like I have now. I wonder if you’d find someone to fall in love with, if you’d build a family of your own, if you’d be able to get out of the life, if you’d even want any of that. We still try to keep you alive as much as we can. Me and Kori both. We’ve been helping clean up what’s left of Crime Alley as civilians, looking out for the kids and the working girls like you used to, and we tell Mar’i stories about her Uncle Jay, but it’ll never be the same as having you here. I wish you’d had the chance to meet her, little wing.”

Uncle Jay? No, Dick couldn’t mean— “Who’s Mar’i?” Jason asked carefully.

“Hm? Oh, that’s my daughter. She’s almost three now. Didn’t mean to bring a kid into Superman’s world, but y’know. Happy accidents. She’s tough, though. Took it all in stride. She’s a lot like you, actually. A little spitfire. And a troublemaker. You would’ve loved her.” 

“You have a fucking daughter?!” Jason almost shouted, unable to help himself in his shock. “What? Why the fuck wouldn’t B tell me that?!”

“Uh, he doesn’t know?” 

“What? Dick, why—”

“That’s a long story, Jay,” Dick said, sounding tired. “Not a very nice one, either. Could you tell me about you, instead? What do you do in this alternate future where you don’t die a horrible death?”

Almost every true answer was drenched in blood and shame and tragedy, so Jason forced the only one that wasn’t out of his mouth before any of the rest of them could take its place. “Uh, I’m in China with Roy. He made me chili dogs on my birthday like Alfred used to.” 

“Mm. That’s nice. We do that too, Kori and Mar’i and I. Every year on August 16th, we eat them and we tell our favorite stories about you and... Roy, you mean like Roy Harper? Is he dead, too?” 

“He’s not,” Jason said with a rueful grin. “Gave it his best shot, but it didn’t quite stick.”

“Still on H?” 

Jason cringed. “No,” he replied, firmly, immediately. “No, not for a long time, he went straight.”

“That’s good. Glad you’re both safe in this one, that’s not usually how it is. Maybe I should check on him when I wake up, make sure you’re right about that.”

“You might have a hard time getting ahold of him, Dickie. There’s a reason nobody’s heard from him in this long. But he’s safe. I take care of him now. Or, uh…” Jason scoffed to himself, “mostly he takes care of me, cause somehow, I’m even more of a mess than he is, but y’know. Same idea. We’re both okay. I think.”

“Oh good,” Dick said with a choked, humorless laugh. “Glad all it took was dying in the suit we put you in for you to find someone who treats you better than we did.” 

Jason flinched at the horribly familiar note of self-loathing in Dick’s voice, how it felt like staring in a mirror of all his own shortcomings and how he’d never been able to forgive himself for any of them, not really, and maybe Dick never forgave himself, either. Maybe Dick had spent these past few years obsessing over his own failures just like Jason had. 

“You were good, Dickie-bird,” he said quietly, because he couldn’t free himself of that feeling, but maybe he could help Dick. “You were really good, you were the only brother I ever had, and I loved you. And I wanna tell you—I’ve wanted to tell you for years, actually, that I’m… I’m really fucking sorry, Dick. I’m sorry I made everything so hard on you and B. I’m sorry you actually fucking missed me this whole time that I’ve been out here hiding and thinking you didn’t give a shit. I didn’t mean—”

Jason cut himself off at the quiet but unmistakable sound of Dick’s breath hitching. “Jason, please,” he said, and Jason could hear the tears he was trying to hold back, how close he was to breaking. “Little wing, we were never angry with you. Me or Bruce. We would’ve done anything to get you back. Even if it was just for a few minutes. There’s just a lot of stuff I wish I woulda got a chance to say, y’know?” There was a harsh, choked noise that couldn’t be anything but a sob, and Jason could feel his own eyes sting at the sound of it. “How proud I am of you. How glad I am that you were my brother. How even when we fought and you were kind of a little shit, I loved you so fucking much and I wouldn’t trade that time for anything. I just, um…” Dick trailed off and Jason closed his eyes, feeling the tears slide down his cheeks as his brother’s voice washed over him. “I wish I would’ve known my last time seeing you was my last time seeing you, little wing. I would’ve done it differently. I worry that you didn’t know how much we loved you, that you died not understanding how important you were to us.” 

“I can prove it,” Jason blurted out, voice rough and ragged, unable to take this for one more second. “I’m not dead, Dick, and I can prove it to you. Find a piece of paper.”

There was nothing but background noise for a few long seconds, just long enough for Jason to start trying to talk himself out of this, and then Dick’s voice was back. “Yeah, Jay?” 

And he knew he couldn’t back out. He couldn’t do it. Not to Dick. Not to his brother who still talked about his death like a gaping, festering wound after almost a decade. He couldn’t. “I’m gonna give you a phone number and I want you to write it down. Tomorrow, go to my grave. Assuming Superman didn’t blow the Gotham cemetery to shit, you should be able to see that it’s empty. It has been for six years. Try to track down my body. You won’t be able to. Once you finally get your head wrapped around it, call that number, and you can talk to me like an adult man who knows his dead brother is a zombie and not some dream ghost his grief conjured up to fuck with him. Got it?” 

“Mhm,” Dick murmured, clearly humoring Jason as he copied down the digits Jason provided. “I will go. Even though this is all in my head, I promise I’ll go see you. I’m sorry it’s been so long, it’s just—it’s been harder, lately. I know that’s not an excuse, but… I love you, Jay. I always will.” Dick said that so easily, and it probably was, it probably was easy to love the dead kid’s ghost not knowing what he was now. 

There was a big part of Jason that felt the words like a brand on his skin, that wanted to confess the whole truth to Dick until he understood that he shouldn’t love Jason, he should stay as far away as he could, but the admission stuck in his throat. He wanted Dick to love him. He wanted to deserve that. And even if he didn’t, even if he never would, it was a nice thought. A warm thought. And Jason was so often freezing. 

So, he tried to get his mouth to move around the right words, I love you, too. Tried to force them out past that massive, painful lump lodged in his throat, but they stayed stuck behind it, right beside all the other things he’d never have the guts to say. Jason took a deep breath, scrubbed the tears off his face, and smiled, a bittersweet thing that pulled at the worn-out strings of his heart.

“Get some rest, Big Bird.” 

Jason spent the rest of the night with Bruce in the transport he’d arrived in, trying not to think about his conversation with Dick. Bruce didn’t press him for any details, just asked politely if Jason was okay and were his hands still hurting and can I help you with that, please? The fact that Bruce knew without Jason telling him wasn’t any real shock. The fact that Jason agreed almost immediately, however, was. Usually, Jason didn’t trust anyone but Roy to patch him up, but he found himself wanting to give Bruce chances to prove he deserved to be trusted. The whole thing turned out to be kind of nice, too. Letting Bruce take care of him felt like blowing a little bit of the dust off his old life. 

Minus the two-hour lecture about how reckless he’d been and the subsequent indefinite ban from patrol, of course.

After that, Bruce had graciously filled Jason’s request to recount every last gory detail of Joker’s death, once while Jason just sat there and forced the flashbacks down and tried to believe it was true, and then a second time as he flipped through Slade’s pictures and imagined it for himself, feeling little bits of bright, triumphant vindication where there used to be nothing but fear and pain. Eventually, they just ended up trading stories, some bloody and terrible and some fantastically mundane, slowly starting to build a bridge over the past seven years by trying to learn each other again. It was good. Some of it was awkward, a lot of it was painful, and Jason found himself shutting down and cutting a story off well before the ending more than once, but it was good. It touched something in his soul that nothing had since before Arkham. 

Jason didn’t actually make the decision to fall asleep. He wouldn’t, not around Bruce, not with the excellent potential for him to witness one of Jason’s screaming, psychotic nightmares where he woke up violent or otherwise inconsolable and stayed that way for hours. Jason would never do it on purpose, but he was fucking exhausted, and somehow, his subconscious brain just trusted Bruce enough not to fight it when sleep started to tug him under. Which was frankly fucking insane, because Jason hadn’t even willingly slept around Roy for the first three months of their partnership. 

Still, when he woke up to the sun streaming through the windshield, a rescue blanket draped over his body, and Bruce in the driver’s seat just watching him, Jason felt safe. Cared for. It wasn’t the same as being with Roy, nothing was, but that was okay. It wasn’t like Jason wanted Bruce to replace Roy. He just hadn’t really realized until now that there might be room in his heart for more than one person to make a home there and decide to stay.

“Fuckin’ creep,” Jason muttered, burrowing deeper under the blanket and wishing it could warm him up like Roy always did. “Did you just watch me sleep all night, old man?”

“Not all night,” Bruce said, a smile teasing at the corners of his lips. “You’ll have to forgive me, Jaylad, but I spent six years believing you were dead. It’s going to take me more than a few hours to get used to seeing you like this.”

“Glowing green and pissed off?”

“Alive.” And Bruce said the word so reverently like it wasn’t something Jason had spent years cursing and hating and wishing he could undo, like it couldn’t be anything other than a blessing that Jason was here, now. You will bring misery and suffering to everyone you care about. Even Ducra had known the world was better off without Jason, but Bruce seemed so sure that Jason actually believed it for a few seconds, that maybe it was a good thing that death hadn’t managed to keep him down for good. The thought was warm enough to banish the chill in his bones for a few blissful seconds.

“You’re about to get used to my fist in your face, dad,” he grumbled to cover up the softness, making no move to get up and knowing full well that he was about as threatening as a puppy right now, curled up under a giant, fluffy blanket with sleep still thick in his voice and heavy in his limbs. Not to mention, all his weapons were in the backseat, though Jason knew with an annoying amount of certainty that he wouldn’t be able to bring himself to hold a knife to Bruce’s throat again, anyway. 

“You shiver in your sleep,” Bruce observed quietly, concern drawing his eyebrows together. “Even with two jackets and a thermal blanket.”

“Layers and rescue blankets conserve heat. They don’t really work when there’s no heat to conserve. The Pit doesn’t give without taking; some things don’t work right anymore. It only lets my internal temp get high enough to keep me alive. So now, I just… I get cold.”

That was a gentle way to explain that black, empty time before Roy where he’d spent almost every night curled up in a ball, shaking and gasping and crying with cold green fire scalding his veins, the painful chill sinking deeper and deeper into his body until even his bones turned to razor-sharp shards of ice and nothing, nothing, nothing he did could make it go away.

“Does anything help?” Bruce asked, looking like he was trying very, very hard not to let his mind run away with this. He’d done this every time he received information that even slightly hinted at how much Jason had suffered in their time apart. He’d get this faraway look in his eyes, like he was trying to envision what it must’ve been like, and it made Jason’s skin crawl. He didn’t want Bruce to think about him like that, to imagine him broken and scared and in pain, One of the only blessings of the past few years was that Bruce wasn’t around to see the way they broke Jason down into dust. That was the way it was supposed to stay.

“Body heat,” Jason admitted quietly once he finally pulled himself away from his thoughts and directly into a nice, cold puddle of embarrassment. He could tell his face was starting to flush even though he couldn’t actually feel the warmth of it. “Roy, he… he holds me. That’s the only thing that makes it go away.”

Before Jason could add that yeah, maybe he trusted Bruce a little now but he definitely wasn’t ready to put himself in that vulnerable of a position with someone who was an enemy up until yesterday, Bruce was already responding, and he wasn’t pushing it. “Good. I’m glad you found someone who takes care of you.” 

“We’re not dating,” Jason said again, resisting the urge to cover his face with the blanket as he heard that same warm, gooey note in Bruce’s voice again. “Roy’s a doofus and I’m a fucking mess, we’d kill each other.” Roy is good, Jason thought but didn’t add. He deserves better than me, and if I let him that close, I’d ruin him just like I do with everything else. Jason tried to yank his mind away from that but it just landed on Dick instead, on his brother feeling guilty just for being happy and having a daughter that Bruce somehow didn’t know about. He looked up, locking eyes with Bruce to make sure he sent the message clearly. “And I’m never gonna be like Dick. I’m never gonna be normal and settle down with someone and have a perfect little civilian life. Sorry to burst your bubble, but that’s not me. It never was, and now, it can’t be.” 

He didn’t mention Mar’i. It still felt too insane to be true and if it was, Bruce would surely be devastated that Dick hadn’t told him.

“I just want you to be happy, Jay. And it seems like he makes you happy.” 

Jason just grunted in response, feeling around the pockets of his jacket for the burner phone he’d given Dick the number for last night. “Uh, did my phone go off at all?” He asked, desperate for a topic change.

“Not that I heard. Why?”

“Dick thought he was dreaming last night,” Jason said with a grimace. “Wouldn’t listen to me when I told him I was alive. I’m just hoping he’ll get his shit together at some point today.” 

Almost as if on cue, Jason’s phone buzzed against his ribcage. He jumped at the feeling, fingers suddenly clumsy and shaky as he scrambled to retrieve it. There was fear-worry-anxiety-hope surging in his blood, almost green at the edges, and Jason had to take a deep breath and push it down before he answered.

“Yeah?” 

“It’s you,” Dick said without preamble, voice trembling and raw like he’d been crying. “R-Right? It was real, it’s you, y-you’re alive, aren’t you? Jason, tell me it’s really you. I—I don’t—I don’t even care how or why, just please, please tell me it’s you.”  

It took a long time for Jason to get his mouth to start moving again, Dick’s breathing in his ear growing more and more jagged with every passing second. “Mm,” he forced out of his aching lungs, tight and frozen with something he couldn’t name. “It’s me, yeah, Jason. I know, I know how fucking crazy it is, Big Bird, but it’s me. I swear it’s me.” 

Dick sobbed openly, a wet, harsh thing that sounded like he’d been holding it in for years. “Oh my god,” he breathed, sounding shocked and relieved and devastatingly happy for it. Jason felt the tears prick at his eyes, the edge of green inside him receding gently, like a wave returning to the ocean. 

“Yeah, um, I think…” Jason trailed off, glancing over at Bruce. His father had something hopeful and fragile in his eyes, something he was giving to Jason and trusting him not to break it. Jason knew that feeling, the willing vulnerability, jumping off that cliff with nothing to break his fall but the belief that someone would catch him. 

“J-Jay?” Dick asked shakily, and Jason could hear it in his brother’s voice, too. The belief that, even if this was wrong in a way that could never be right, it didn’t have to hurt forever, either. Roy was his family. And so was Bruce. And so was Dick. It wasn’t perfect, but it was his. Something he could keep for himself, and he wanted that. He might even deserve to have it. Jason took a deep breath and reached out for Bruce’s hand, feeling the brush of rough, familiar callouses against his skin. He squeezed it hard, drinking in the feeling of warm, safe, family. 

“I think I’m coming home, Dickie.”