Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Okay. So. Listen. Gotham isn’t alive per se.

…Gotham also isn’t not alive.

(It’s complicated.)

But in a world like this one – with super men and magicians and cosmic entities and reality warpers – when you have as much ambient magic that Gotham does – festering, pooling, overwhelming. Nowhere to go. No one to use it.

Well.

It languishes, seeps into the foundation, seeks physical objects to siphon a single droplet from a deep, abyssal ocean, burrows into the bones and nerves and beating hearts of those (un)fortunate to catch its attention –

When you have as much ambient magic that Gotham does –

The line between alive and not alive gets a little more than blurred.

—

Tim lets them laugh, let’s Steph boundless capacity for banter ease some of the tension. He glances over at Cass and sees in her expression that she’s noticed it too – for all that Jason smiles and snarks back, his hands are shaking, he grimaces in pain with every move. He keeps blinking away tears they pretend they don’t see.

Injuries aside, there’s something more to this. Tim knows. Jason just told them. And it’s stupid to think that in the last hour or so, he’d get any better. It’s in the way he folds his arms tight across his chest, putting pressure on the claw marks there. the line of pain pinched around his eyes. Jason digging his nails into his sleeves, the sweatshirt being the only barrier that keeps him from drawing blood.

 – and he thinks of the bandages around his arms and the blood shoved under his nails.

He’d hoped that telling them would put a stop to it, but what does he know about magic except for his own wishful thinking? He closes his eyes, suddenly exhausted, and cuts in with, “The cloaking spell thing, it’s still hurting you.”

Not a question. A statement of fact. A confirmation.

And Jason doesn’t look at him – and admission all in itself – his nails burrowing, teeth flashing to bite his lip. His fangs – because that’s what they are no matter how often Bruce calls them elongated canines; he just doesn’t want to admit Jason has fangs. Some things are just too weird even for Batman – reopen the split in his lip, blood beading up until it oozes down his chin.

“No,” he outright lies.

Steph frowns. “Jason…”

He sneers back, something gleaming beyond the tears he refuses to let fall – and Tim thinks of sunlight through sweet tea and vintage whiskey.

“It’s fine,” he snaps – and it falls flat, sounding exhausted. They’re collectively slammed with the question of how much sleep has Jason been getting? Not enough, obviously. “We don’t have time to worry about it.”

“There’s always time,” Duke says. Jason bares his teeth at him, nose scrunching, but doesn’t get up, and Duke levels him with an unimpressed glare. “If you wanna be stubborn about it then fine. But this isn’t over.” And there’s a glow in his eyes to match Jason’s – golden where Jason’s is copper. The back of Tim’s neck prickles as he remembers – he never really forgot – that Duke’s meta-abilities are unusual and more than what they seem. “Do you have a plan?”

Jason slumps like his strings have been cut. Cass swings her arms over his shoulders, slouching in a way that’s uncharacteristic of her but makes Jason automatically, and almost absently, reach up and hold onto her to keep her from slipping to the ground.

And subsequently makes him stop pressing on his injuries. The tension around his eyes stays, though, the self-inflicted pain is only a drop in the bucket. Cass catches Tim’s attention and shakes her head slightly, fingers fluttering just outside of Jason’s sight.

S-t-i-l-l c-o-l-d. F-r-e-e-z-i-n-g, she finger spells to avoid giving it away. Still cold. Freezing. Tim frowns, slides a hand over the panel that controls the thermostat. The heater ticks up a notch and wafts hot air over them. Steph glances up briefly and doesn’t say anything.

“The plan is to figure out where his final circle is going to be and stop him,” Jason says slowly. He presses his lips together. Tim hands him a napkin he takes without looking, wiping his chin. His eyes flicker across the map, following Duke’s lines from point a to b, all the way to m – thirteen points. Twelve like a clock, literally, then one in the middle. “That’s smack dab in the middle of the reservoir.”

“The labyrinth,” Tim says. Jason nods. “Great. Just what we needed.”

“I’m sorry, the what?” Duke asks, brows furrowed. The gold in his eyes has faded even if Jason still shimmers copper. “We have a labyrinth?”

“We don’t,” Steph says, and she looks absolutely disgusted by the direction this is going. “The Court of Owls, on the other hand, did. Do we really have to?”

Duke pinches the bridge of his nose. “The Court of Owls? They’re real? No, of course they’re freaking real. Why wouldn’t they be!” Everyone stares at him. “Hey, don’t look at me like that. Some of us are new to this whole vigilante business. I’m still in Jason’s era of casefiles!”

Jason groans and mutters, “Fantastic.”

Tim gives him a sympathetic look that’s ignored. He’d studied – practically memorized, really – the reports from Jason’s time and they’re not pretty. It’s a lot of cases dealing with organized crime and the emergence of some of the darker Rogues.

“I can send you files about them to your tablet. Later,” Babs says before fixing Jason with a stern yet concerned look. “We need to focus. Jason, why is he doing this.”

Jason drags a fingertip over the desk surface, nail scratching out a pattern. His lips part like he’s about to speak, but then they close again. Tim watches the motion. It’s not random. Most definitely a specific pattern that he traces over and over again, something lost and unfocused in his gaze. Steph ducks down, that frown still there, and waves a hand in front of Jason’s face – he flinches, hand going flat in a little smack!

“Magic,” Jason says.

“We’ve established that,” Tim replies.

He shakes his head, drags a hand down his face, winces when he pulls at the marks on his face. “No. That’s why he’s doing this. He wants Gotham’s magic. For his own.” He lifts his head, eyes dead serious. “That’s a lot of fucking magic.”

“How much?” Babs asks.

“Enough to cause problems even for the Sorcerer Supreme.”

Steph makes a face. “And that’s?”

“Currently it’s Zatanna Zatara,” Jason says with a smirk. Steph immediately brightens. “Yeah, thought you might like that. She’s been Sorcerer Supreme for about…five years now? After Kent stopped being Doctor Fate, Khalid picked up the mantle. I know magic isn’t really our wheelhouse for the actual scope of this to mean anything, but there’s a reason the title is Sorcerer Supreme. Gotham has enough magic in it that, when used by the right person – or wrong, really – it could probably cause someone to rise beyond Sorcerer Supreme.”

Duke quirks an eyebrow. “But how? No one here uses magic. We don’t have magic.”

Jason snaps his fingers and points at him. “Correct and also really, very, horribly wrong. Magic is everywhere. There’s, like, maybe two places on this planet where magic is null and lemme tell you, Gotham is not fucking null. So, incorrect. We have magic.

“And here’s the correct bit: no one uses it. Magic has to be used. It’s gotta flow. Doesn’t have to be a person or person adjacent – that cursed shit we’ve dealt with over the years? That’s Gotham’s magic trying to find an outlet. That’s the only reason we’re not suffering from some weird magical plague bullshit.”

Weird magical plague, Cass mouths to herself then makes a face. Considering the other weird plagues they’ve had to deal with, Tim can’t help but agree. Vehemently.

Jason’s looking pale, swallowing thickly. Tim hands him another orange juice and he takes it even as he rolls his eyes, pressing it to his cheek.

He gestures aimlessly. “Even before B’s stupid declaration, people didn’t use magic. It’s spent so long festering growing – feeding on lives and deaths and grief and exhaustion and exhilaration and joy, just everything and anything – it’s grown and grown. The amount of unused magic in Gotham is unprecedented and it’s made itself a target. Just no one’s been stupid enough to come into Bat territory to try.”

“Why don’t you use it?” Steph asks. Jason stares at her, looking…confused. “What? Is one person not enough to keep up with it?”

“I can’t use magic,” Jason says slowly. “Not like that.”

Duke cocks his head. “Uh, yeah you can.”

“Not like that,” Jason repeats firmly. “The itty-bitty, teeny-tiny amount of magic I can do is nothing compared to what needs to be done.” He presses the juice bottle to his neck with a sigh. They exchange looks over his head but don’t say anything. Tim adjusts his weight, putting more of it onto Jason. “I can do runes, sure, yeah, okay. I can…I can do some other stuff – but I can’t cast magic like Zatanna or Constantine. I can’t make arcane circles work. My clarity rune? That took massive amounts of concentration, for one thing. The other is that it only worked for you guys. You were close by and already looking for me and you’re my family. Anyone else and I would’ve been shit outta luck.

“We’re your family,” Steph coos.

Jason shoves a finger in her face. “Do not, East.” She just grins, waggling her eyebrows, so he palms her face and shoves her away with a barely concealed smile. She laughs and rolls with it. “Either way. I ain’t got no magic that’s gonna help us.”

“But you can stop his circle,” Duke says.

“Yeah, of course. That’s easy. Just gotta tweak the right spot that doesn’t blow us up. Easy as cake.”

Tim huffs. “You say that like making cake is easy.”

“Maybe not for you,” Cass says. Tim gasps, mock offended, hand over his heart, but he grins when Jason barks out a startled laugh. “Like bricks.”

“How soon?” Babs asks, cutting through the laughter. She grimaces, looking regretful – but it’s a question that has to be asked. “Do we have time?”

Jason glances at her on the second screen then goes back to staring at the screen. He picks up the stylus idly. Babs already marked the names of the kids Jason found where he found them, but he adds one more. The sixth one from tonight. Kelsie Bapple.

“Probably,” Jason murmurs. “This ritual. The circles, the deaths – the kids. It’s all charging up one big circle for him to absorb it all. If it doesn’t…burn him up from the inside out first…” He stares at the map, brows furrowed in deep thought. Tim waits for him to add more, but he doesn’t, trailing off.

“How likely?” Cass asks, chin hooked on her arm.

“…Pretty likely. I think. Just not as likely as…” He sighs, tapping the stylus. “He doesn’t have to wait until the full moon, but it’ll definitely help him control it if he can get close enough.”

“That’s two weeks away,” Steph says, eyes wide. “How close does he need to be?”

Jason shakes his head. “It won’t matter if these have been used.” He circles the remaining six locations – bypassing the one in the middle. “We don’t know how many kids he’s killed already. Some of the ones I found were weeks old. He’s been here for a long while, takin’ all the time in the world. Fucking smug bastard. He knew we were never gonna catch him in time. It’s only happenstance that I got dragged into this at all.”

Cass tightens her arms around his shoulders, and he squeezes the hand he has on her wrist.

“If there’s bodies here then we only have a day or two at most. If there aren’t then – we’d have to do a stake out or something because then he’s trackable.”

Tim nods slowly. Easy enough. “If we pull Dick in from – .”

“No,” Jason snaps out. Everyone freezes. Jason stares at Tim, wide-eyed and pale. “No. Don’t call Dick.”

He frowns. “He’s just as worried about you as we are. He’d want to…help.”

(And Tim’s ribs pulls tight around his lungs, for one brief moment he can’t breathe. Cass feels a noose around her neck, unforgiving and unrelenting until it’s not –

Pain sparks behind Steph’s eyes, knife sharp. Duke feels it thunder down his spine. Babs’s fingers spasm on her keyboard –)

Jason shudders, stylus dropping as he curls his other hand over Cass’s forearm – taking obvious steps to not hurt himself. “No,” he says quietly, and it comes off as a plea. “Just – you guys are enough. Please don’t – .”

Tim drops his arms in shock, lurching a little, when the first tear falls. Is this the spell? Is the idea of another person coming in, of asking them for help, making the spell hit harder? Causing this, causing this sudden step back? Cass’s hand makes it to Jason’s hair, detangling his curls, and she whispers something in his ear that makes him shake his head and take in a stuttering, wet breath.

“Okay, okay,” Steph says quietly. “We’re enough. One person stays here with you, the other three can check the locations. It shouldn’t take long.”

His brows furrow. “What – no. I’m coming with.”

“Jason…”

“I’m fine.”

Duke moves just before Jason jumps to his feet, already catching him even before his knees give out. Cass slips out from the chair as Duke helps control Jason’s fall into it. Jason’s eyes are squeezed shut as he breathes through his nose, fast and harsh but trying for slow and steady and failing, his face is two shades paler and sweat breaking out on his forehead. Duke waves his hand in the air before he pushes Jason forward, head between his knees, back trembling as he struggles to even out his breathing.

“You can’t even stand, dude,” Duke says, then scrambles to grab the trash can, shoving it over in time for Jason to retch into it. Nothing comes up but bile and orange juice – which has to burn – and he gags, making a pained whining sound they all pretend they don’t hear. “No offense, but you’re no help to anyone if you can’t stand.”

Jason snarls, defensive at how vulnerable he is, and it cuts off halfway for him to retch again. Tim sighs and drops a hand on the back of his neck, feels how Jason shivers at the touch. He’s burning hot, a disturbing counterpoint to how cold he probably is.

“When was the last time you slept? Ate?” Tim asks.

There’s a pause for Jason to retch and choke on it, heaving loudly in the silence. Nothing comes up still, which answers Tim’s question. Steph hands over a bottle of water and Tim holds onto it for now, waiting for Jason to catch his breath.

“Just for a couple hours,” Tim says when Jason sits up and blinks slowly at them. His eyes are rimmed red, eyelashes clumped together with unshed tears wanting so badly to fall. For a while he’d been looking better, animated as they talked, but now he looks death-warmed over, hand shaking so hard when he takes the water bottle from Tim, he spills some of it onto the collar of his hoodie. “Duke will stay behind, keep an eye on you. We’ll take a look at the locations.”

Duke meets his eyes and sighs, nodding in agreement. He’s the only one who will see Jason take a turn for the worse – or try to do something stupid – before it actually happens.

“Don’t need a babysitter,” Jason mumbles.

Tim grimaces. “It’s for us, not you,” he half-lies.

Jason squints at him in suspicion. Tim meets him head on, not even blinking.

Then, finally, Jason sighs. “You,” he says. “Not Duke. Sorry, man.” Duke shrugs, not even bothering to hide his grin.

That’s…interesting. But not surprising. Tim nods. “Okay. Yeah, I’ll stay.”

—

Jason sinks into the too comfortable bed Tim has stashed upstairs. The room is barren, it barely looks like the guy spends time up here. The only ways to tell he bothers at all are the bookbag at the foot of the bed, wires and hardware spilling out, and the pile of clothes on the closet floor. There’s a little camera in the corner, pointed at an angle to catch the door and the single window. The light isn’t blinking but that doesn’t mean anything when it comes to Tim.

Everything hurts.

It hurts in a way Jason can’t even describe. It’s like – the crowbar and the smoke filling his lungs and the crush of building and the suffocating darkness of his own coffin and the burn of the Lazarus Pit as he came screaming out of it. Always screaming. Everything all at once. He squeezes his eyes shut, covers his face with his hands and – he presses down on the injuries there, feels them spark and sizzle on his nerves. He gasps out sharply, but clarity comes.

And fades just as quickly.

Jason drops his hands, head hanging. It feels weird, this help he’s getting. There aren’t any ants under his skin. Instead, he feels numb. Like there’s an inch of space between him and the world and growing bigger every second. The hurt is deep inside him, a hollow feeling that the pain is trying to fill, but it’s bottomless, taking Jason with it. Empty inside and out.

Where before he tried to claw the ants from under his skin, tried to choke back the feeling of pain and hurt when it came to thinking about asking for help. Now he folds his arms, hands curled around his forearms, and tightens his grip, trying to bring reality back to some semblance of normal.

And just like before, it works until it doesn’t. He gives it up as a bad job and flops back on the bed, staring at the ceiling. Tim’s Nest is pretty decent real estate. No water stains, no cracks. The floorboards don’t creak and are warm because of all the tech downstairs. Funny he spends his nights on a cot down there instead of on this too fucking squishy bed. Like sinking into a marshmallow. Untethering him even more until he feels like – until he feels like there’s nothing and he’s nothing and he can’t –

Jason sighs and sits back up, abs cramping, the world spinning. The shadows twist and curl in the corners, reaching out for his feet as he gathers up pillows and bedding before heading to the attached bath. No tub, but the shower takes up the whole wall. Works out better in the end. The last time he tried to shove himself into the bathtub he’d been five-four and fifty pounds lighter. Doesn’t want to think about how cramped it’d be now.

It hurts to curl up, but he does anyway, tucked up in that shower. It’s quieter here. Colder, but whatever. He shivers, closes his eyes. Sees dead kids plastered on the back of his lids. Opens them again even though they burn, his breaths getting shuddery.

All those dead kids. All his fault because he was too fucking slow. And he’s, what, trying to sleep while the rest of them are actually doing the work? Making headway that he was too stupid to make himself? Jason swears he would’ve caught the giant arcane circle encompassing the city if he just had time – but hasn’t he had time? Hasn’t he been working on this for weeks now and never fucking noticed?

Jason curls up tighter – feels every one of his injuries – and thinks too much about it. What he could’ve done differently. (Nothing.) What he could’ve done better. (Nothing.) What he could’ve done sooner. (Again, nothing.)

“Jason?”

He doesn’t answer. Hears footsteps when normally he shouldn’t. A shadow appears in the light, and he buries his face in the comforter that smells like dust and faintly of detergent. Tim sits on the floor next to him, the soft thump as he sets down something. There’s no smell, thankfully, his stomach churning, but he can feel the warmth from here. Jason peeks out to see a container of plain rice and a fork. He wrinkles his nose, glances up at Tim. Really, a fork?

Tim shrugs. “Figured it’d be easier.”

Jason pulls the comforter over his head, feeling childish but needing the extra darkness. Tim doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t leave. He can’t decide if he likes that or not – if it makes him feel better or worse.

“Did you call Dick?” he asks, voice muffled.

“You said not to.”

He did, didn’t he? Jason just didn’t expect them to actually follow his wishes. Then again. They brought him to the Nest instead of the Cave.

Jason tries to relax. His stomach is too tight to eat. He shivers again and grunts, bringing his knees up until he can wrap his arms around them, head ducked under the comforter until only some of his hair peeks out. Tim sighs and leaves – Jason makes a little noise in the back of his throat, pretends it’s quiet enough – but he comes back quickly.

Weight drapes over Jason. He lets out a soft sound, going the type of boneless that happens after a long day on your feet and you finally get to lay down. Tim huffs in amusement then, blissfully, another weighted blanket appears. Normally Jason hates too much weight on him. Makes him feel trapped. But this? This, right now, is fucking perfect.

If he were a cat, he would purr.

Jason falls asleep like that to the sounds of Tim typing on his tablet and whispering into his comm, and his legs thrown over Jason’s, a weighty reminder that he’s not alone.

—

mouth opened grotesquely in a silent scream. hands clawing, tearing, scrabbling for a grip. Whispers your fault it’s all your fault you killed us you were supposed to protect us how could you how could you HOW COULD YOU. choking, crying, blood in his mouth, heart beating out of his chest, bones cracking, shattering, water, blood dripping through his fingers. his fault it’s all his fault how could he how fucking could he. I’m sorry he sobs. it’s not enough. hands around his ankles, dragging down. hands around his wrists, pulling him up. tearing him apart. mouth opened grotesquely in a silent scream, ripping, tearing, ripping apart at the seams.

—

He wakes up screaming. Or close to screaming. It’s a terrible rasping thing that gives out halfway through. There’s hands around his wrists, pullingpullingpulling and he yanks back so hard his head cracks against the wall. The hands are gone, and he brings his own to his chest, curling in on himself, gasping horribly, tears on his cheeks.

“Jason,” a voice whispers, soft and, and – Jason freezes. “Jason.”

Cass is there when he looks up, her eyes wide and round, expression open. Her expression is always open. She likes to make herself as easy to read as she finds everyone else. Her hands are up, hovering like she wants to touch him again. He slumps over and she catches him easily. His eyes burn hot as he presses his face into the crook of her elbow.

“You’re okay,” she says.

A hand in his hair, detangling his curls, careful around the wounds. He shudders and she stops for a moment to climb into the small space with him, curling around him like a cat. It’s warmer in the bathroom than it was before, one of the weighted blankets is missing. Jason needs to ask what they found, how much longer they have, but Cass starts humming a song under her breath and he’s so tired.

“Sleep, little brother,” she murmurs.

He shakes his head.

“One more hour,” she says in compromise and, okay, yeah, he can do that.

He can do that.

—

This time there’s no nightmares. He wakes up and nothing hurts – much. Same old, same old, but nothing new. And that’s such a relief he almost starts crying from that alone before he clocks who’s in the bathroom with him. Duke gives him a grimacing smile, shadows under his eyes, lines crinkled around them. Jason groans, sitting up, pressing the heel of his palms to his own eyes until he sees stars.

“It’s been more than an hour,” he mutters. Glances up in time to see Duke’s grimace tighten in guilt. “Whatever. Did you find anything?”

“I’m under strict orders not to say anything until you eat something,” Duke tells him. He stands and helps Jason up. His knees wobble but hold. His mouth tastes like something died in it. His skin feels stiff.

And there are no ants under his skin still. There’s not – He squeezes Dukes arm and watches the kid – because he is a kid. A Gothamite through and through but a kid, nonetheless. He watches the kid hunch, shuddering like Jason had stabbed him instead of lightly pressing his finger pads between his tendons.

Hm.

Everyone’s gathered in the little kitchenette so that’s where they go. Jason hobbles like an old man into the offered seat – the most supported, cushioned seat – and tries not to groan too loudly when he sits. He pillows his head with his arms, hands flat on the countertop. No one says anything. There’s no extra noises except breathing and someone popping something in the microwave.

He hears it – soft and erratic. The slight hitch. The careful way Tim moves – because that’s Tim, he knows Tim, Tim doesn’t move that way. The way Cass actually makes sound where she’s perched on the counter. The way Duke can’t control his reactions the way the rest of them have lived and breathed for far too long.

Then someone sits next to him, a warm line at his side. “How ya feelin’, Alley?”

He cracks open an eye to see Steph watching him, head cocked to the side like an owl, hair falling in a curtain, face pale, pain around the pinch of her eyes. “Like shit,” he croaks out. “Will probably feel worse when you tell me what you found.”

The emotion that flickers in her eyes makes him close his, his chest tightening. She looks like he felt in the beginning. So does Duke. He bets if he looked at Tim and Cass, he would see the same.

In the time it takes for the microwave to ding – and for Tim to swear when he doesn’t catch it before it does – Jason nearly falls asleep again. Tim nudges his hand with the warm container. The rice Jason hadn’t touched earlier.

He sighs and sits up, finds Duke on his other side, tapping the countertop. The light reflections blink in time with it and Jason can’t help but watch, catching Hot Cross Buns on repeat before he moves to a nonsense rhythm. Jason gets halfway through the container, chewing slowly, before his stomach cramps and he takes a deep breath.

Honestly, he doesn’t have to ask. Just one look at them – and them not looking at him – and he knows the answer. The goddamn answer. He sighs, checks the time, and just – thinks, fork getting heavier in his hand as his thoughts whirl around at a nauseating pace. Right now, he has choices. And he doesn’t like any of them.

But –

The timeline just moved up.

Jason makes a decision.

His vision speckles black on the edges as he stands, taking care to steady himself with hands braced on the countertop, head hanging. Too much – it’s too much effort to lift it. There’s an ache down his spine, wrapped around his ankles and wrists, weighing heavy in his heart.

Tim can’t move right. Cass can’t move right. Duke. Steph. Babs.

People – kids – have died. People have lost their loved ones, their friends, their family, and they don’t even know. Jason was too slow. Now his family –

He can’t let this go on. He can’t let this continue down the path they want.

“I need some time. A – another nap,” he murmurs, and never mind he literally just woke up from a ten hour long one already. It wasn’t enough. Plagued by pain and nightmares. He doesn’t have to pretend to feel exhausted. It drips from his words, too reminiscent of blood. It weighs his shoulders. Buckles his knees. Everything’s heavy. “I – We have time.”

Cass almost sees right through him. Almost. So close. “Do we?” She hops off the counter and – and no one sees it except Jason because he’s looking for it. Her landing hitches. Cassandra Wayne’s landing fucking hitches. Just a tiny bit. “Jason, do we?”

He meets her eyes, his own half-lidded and fathomless. There’s nothing there but pain and resignation. “No,” he croaks out. “But we have to pretend there is. I can’t – I can’t go like this. You can’t go without me.” Steph makes a noise of protest, and he covers her hand with his own, wrapping around her fingers and squeezing gently. “You can’t go without me. This is, is magic beyond anything we’ve handled – I need – .”

“Yeah,” Tim says quietly, strained and wavering. Despite how well he covers it, Jason’s listening. “Okay. We’ll prep some gear.”

Jason presses his lips together, takes stock of how he feels, and comes up with, “Two hours.” Duke raises an eyebrow. “Just, gimmie two more hours. I’ll be ready then.”

—

An hour later, Duke checks in and finds – glittering, smoky gold remnants of Jason standing at the foot of the bed, arms crossed, head hanging. He sees the motions of his breathing. Sees him shake his head. Watches the light-smoke move to the window, disabling the alarm before climbing out.

Tim’s system should’ve caught it.

He goes over and finds a post-it stuck to the windowsill. A rune scratched out in pen. It smells like smoke and ink. When he picks it up, the lines of the rune fall away in a flutter of ashy paper, leaving a cut out of it, ragged against the clean edges of the post-it itself.

I can do runes, sure, yeah, okay – and he made it sound like a massive effort. Like the clarity rune was a one-off. And maybe it was. To reach through the interference and catch the attention of not only natural senses but technological ones? While injured? While not knowing how far they were? That type of massive feat was probably a one-off.  

Duke closes his eyes and breathes out slowly – and even that hurts. Asshole, he thinks. The post-it crinkles in his grip. He should’ve trusted his gut and came up earlier. Jason is a Bat and Bats are self-sacrificing idiots – (and Duke pretends he’s above it, but we all know that’s not true.)

Should’ve come up earlier – and in any other universe, maybe he would’ve. Maybe Cass would have been the one to creep up here after seeing through Jason’s lies. But all they saw the exhaustion and pain first. They all felt their own, weighing them down, tripping them up, beyond anything they’ve dealt with in a long, long while.

(And to think, this is pain spread out over seven people – because Lydia Adame counts, she knows, and the cobweb is still up, only frayed a little, she’s still stuck to it like a writhing fly just like the rest of them, helpless to the burn. If this is spread over seven people, imagine it contained to one, to two, for months.)

He stalks out of the room and into the main floor of the Nest, tossing the post-it note onto the desk. It flutters, weightless, before Steph snatches it just before it touches down. She sighs when she sees it, already dressed as Batgirl. Cass pulls on her last glove and takes the post-it from her, frowning.

“Disregard,” she says. “Overlook. Miss.”

She rips it in two and Tim’s alert system pings, letting them know the alarm has been disabled and the window opened. An hour ago.

“He knows more magic than he told us,” Barbara says slowly, consideringly.

Cass shrugs. “So he said, yes. He also said runes.” She gestures. “That is a rune.”

Tim shoves a chair against the desk. It bounces off, tips over to clatter to the ground. “Idiot,” he seethes, hands fisted at his sides. “He won’t survive,” he tells them like they don’t already know, like it’s not already a certainty. Like they don’t know Jason took one look at them, saw the way they shared the burden of knowing that translated into pain, and decided no more.

“Then let’s go get him,” Steph says.

—

The center of the labyrinth is more cistern-like than it should be – a holdover from when it was an actual cistern and there wasn’t an entire reservoir of water above head. Rows of columns, archways made beautiful (and creepy) by old carvings of owl faces and stories of Old Gotham. The proper Old Gotham, as some of the Court might say. The middle is a circular platform raised two feet from the rest of the floor underneath it is a deep pool of water tinged disturbingly green. Luckily, it’s not glowing. But it is rippling as water is redirected from the surface to the sub-cistern beneath.

His footsteps are silent as he creeps through the shadows. The only light source is above the platform in the middle, illuminating the circle already there. It makes the darkness deeper and sharper. It welcomes Jason wholeheartedly and he’s never been happier to not be afraid of the dark as he lets it take him. Cass is like pure shadow, but right now Jason is shadows, feeling a coolness on his skin like silk. He follows the darkness to the very edge, lingering – and then he steps into the light to inspect the arcane circle.

It's complicated. Incredibly so. If it weren’t for the circumstances, he’d be impressed. It’s not just a larger version of the ones used across the city. No. It’s more.

He crouches down to touch a cluster of runes, thinking carefully. His clothes slide painfully on his already aggravated wounds. He’s not wearing his armor. But the comm in his ear beeps once, clicking on. It’s not like anything they say will change his mind. It’s not like they don’t already know where he’s going, where he is.

“Jason, you idiot,” Babs voice comes through, thick and heavy. He closes his eyes. “What was the point of asking for help if you were just going to ditch us the second we offered it? We knew the risks – .”

“You didn’t,” he cuts in. Stony silence responds back. He sighs. “I knew the risks and I shouldn’t of put you guys through that. Coming here now, compromised like that, is just gonna get them killed. I should’ve known better.”

Babs makes a frustrated noise. “You – You’re such a Bat,” she snaps.

“Takes one to know one.”

“Unbelievable. You can’t take it back. Sit tight, they’re on their way.”

There is a sound – footsteps coming from the opposite direction. The easier path while Jason had taken something slightly more complicated to make it a surprise.

Jason pulls his hand back, slips it into his pocket, and steps into the shadows, lets them take him, and he sighs again, heavier and contrite, regretful and pained. All he’d been thinking about was how alone he was, how much he missed his family, when he called Tim, when he told them everything. And that loneliness, that pain, that isolation, blinded him to the stupidity that was bringing them into the fold.

And that – it’d been an oversight to forget, in the moment, of how unequipped they are for true magic. They’re baseline human, they don’t have a team with an alien or an extra dimensional sorceress or a magic resistant superhuman. This isn’t a Titans team up or the Justice League, or anything useful.

And he’s not so far gone he can’t admit that…he’s in over his head as well.

But he’s not going to take anyone down with him – except for this bastard. He hopes they can forgive him for bringing them into this mess, for causing them so much pain.

“No can do,” he says – then, over the swears erupting over the line, he takes the comm out completely, crunching it under his heel.

(If he survives this – and that’s a big if – Babs is gonna kill him for that.)

—

“I’m going to kill him.”

Barbara rages almost uncharacteristically over the comm line as they race their way through Gotham for the second time in twenty-four hours. This is when she normally mutes herself, gets her rage out in private before she comes back calm and professional.

Not this time.

There’s an underlying fear in her voice that none of them comment on – they don’t need to. It’s there for them as well, but they can’t ignore that it’s more for her.

This is Barbara. This is Jason.

And this is the situation: a moment of desperation, a promise to stay put a demand to stay put and wait for backup, and then going off on his own anyway.

She hadn’t been there in Ethiopia. Dick hadn’t been there. None of them had been there except Jason and Bruce and – they don’t know what happened. Jason won’t talk about it. Bruce won’t talk about it. Any security footage was corrupted or deleted or nonexistent altogether.

So, to Barbara, this is too similar. Too painfully similar. And in that scenario – Jason died.

And in this one…he’s likely to die again if they’re not fast enough.

(In that one and this one – a moment of desperation, a promise to stay put a demand to stay put and wait for back up, and then going off on his own anyway because he wanted to protect, to save his family – and maybe this time he’ll succeed.

And maybe, this time, he’ll still die for it.)

—

The footsteps get louder. Out of the mouth of the tunnel, comes a rather…ordinary looking man. He’s just as greasy as Jason expected. Rat-faced, but surprisingly sturdy, shoulders back, spine straight, a guy who isn’t scared to walk with his head up and his chin jutted out. He’s not powerful yet, and it seems the yet is keeping him going, giving him that false sort of confidence that can get you far.

Jason breathes out, keeps his eyes on him, takes long, loping quiet strides in the shadows until he’s following along on the edge of darkness. He doesn’t blink. Barely breathes. He reaches into his soul and the All-Blades are there, screaming for retribution for the mess this guy left them in last time – he can feel the cold still, deep in the marrow of his bones, but the Blades burn gloriously hot as they settle into his palms.

The guy doesn’t even get the chance to gasp before Jason plunges both blades into his back, shoving the guy onto his toes. Jason leans in and laughs in his ear before pulling back viciously. The Blades scream and claw at the cage that is his control, demanding more – and he tells them no as the guy stumbles forward, blood waterfalling down his back, as he turns towards Jason, a spark of pale green flaring in the guy’s eyes before –

“Did you really think it was going to be that easy?” he mocks with the same reverberations of a simulacrum.

Jason shrugs, twirling one blade nonchalantly. “Nope,” he says, popping the ‘p’ obnoxiously. “But it was really fucking satisfying.”

The simulacrum laughs loudly –

Then collapses into a heap of green and black. Jason steps back as it undulates grotesquely – organically – and then. A claw appears, nails scoring the stonework, exposing the soft white underneath the years of grim since the Court was defeated. Another. And – the simulacrum from last night pulls itself out, looming and big, and –

It’s still laughing.

“You lost once,” it says – he says, the magician. It moves fluidly as it steps closer, knuckles dragging across the ground. It moves nothing like it did before in that warehouse. Jason raises his blades, chin raised definitely. There’s an itch across his senses, but he doesn’t look. “And now you’re back. Not even half a day later. You want to lose that again that badly? Do you want me to crush your head in my palm this time – splatter your brain across the ground for your dear friends to find?”

It swipes out – fast and snake-like. Jason curves around the claws, heart in his throat but they – nick him anyway, catching fabric and tearing through his hoodie, hooking on the gauze on his side, the tip of the nail sliding, ripping, tearing – he chokes on a scream, yanks his right blade up, carving through the wrist in front of him – it –

Comes off in a splatter of pale green. It speckles his face and burns, eats away through his hoodie. Jason stumbles back, already panting, hands trembling around the blades, feeling the flames flicker and rage and yearn –

The hand drops to the ground. Disappears in a puff of smoke and then – the empty wrist of the simulacrum grows a new hand, claws and all.

Fuck – Jason didn’t think this was going to be easy but….fuck. Twelve hours. Twelve hours was enough time for this bastard to – to –

“I was going to use another child,” it says casually. Jason lunges – it smacks him out of the air. All the oxygen leaves his lungs in one fell swoop as he goes skittering across the floor. It shakes its frog-like head, makes a tsk’ing sound. “Now this is just pathetic. Jason Todd, Heir to the All-Caste. The big, bad Red Hood. The Dark Prince of Gotham.”

That one catches his attention. Jason lifts his head, wheezing, vision blurring, climbs laboriously to his feet. “How did – ?”

“You think I didn’t research you?” it asks. The itch across his senses gets more insistent. Look. Look. He doesn’t look. “You think I didn’t look into the only other true magician in this city?” It wraps a large hand around his left blade and yanks. Jason lets it go before his shoulder goes with it. It throws the copper blade into the shadows, but it disappears in a flash of fire before it hits the ground – Jason feels it settle back in his soul and he holds it there. “Not very powerful. Not even close to powerful. But – the most powerful magic user in Gotham right now. After me, of course. And ripe for the taking.”

Jason bares his teeth in the mockery of a smile. “Oh yeah?” There’s sweat sliding down his spine. He’s running out of time. “Not much you can do, hiding behind your little puppet, is there?”

A beat of trembling silence then –

“I will use you!” it roars – the whole cistern shakes with the force of it, dust raining from the ceiling. “I will bleed you dry and crack your ribs open and your beating heart with grant me the power I deserve!”

He spits out a glob of saliva and blood, wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “You’re pathetic,” he sneers. “Hiding behind spells and children. You are nothing. And you’ll continue to be nothing. That magic is going to consume you inside-out and there won’t be a thing you can do about it. And I’m going to enjoy watching you burn, you pathetic bastard.”

When the attack comes – it doesn’t come from the rage-trembling simulacrum in front of him. The itch burns. It screams at him. Look. Look. And Jason whirls around with a stagger, deflecting a fireball aim right for the back of his head. It splatters into globs of burning liquid, scattering at his feet.

From the shadows comes the rat-bastard, eyes blazing, veins burnings dark as magic surges through him. Jason smirks, his teeth stained red, his own eyes bright and wild.

“You’re so easy to taunt,” Jason says.

“Shut up.” Another fireball – bigger, but no less easy to deflect. “Shut up. Shut up! Shut. Up! You don’t know what you’re messing with!”

Jason takes a careful step backwards and lets the bastard advance on him. “You got that turned around. You look at Gotham and all you see is power – but that’s not – .” He ducks a crackling ball of lightning, feels it reach for him, hot fire snapping across the back of his neck before it explodes harmlessly on the other side of the cistern.

“What, were you about to tell me about all the beautiful and meaningful people who live in this city,” the rat-bastard mocks. “And how, after living their entire lives with all this ambient magic, if I take it all at once, I might doom them to a slow and painful death? Are you going to appeal to my good side, Todd?”

He sucks in a broken breath. “We both know you don’t have one. There’d be no point.”

Rat-bastard sneers. “Then do you want to know why?”

“Not really.” Jason grins, and it’s all savage mockery. “I know why. You know why. Ain’t gonna waste my breath with it.”

His heel makes ripples in the little pool under the center platform, his calf knocking the edge of the platform itself. He glances down then back, a tiny flicker of his eyes. Rat-bastard smiles wide, wider than natural, teeth counting back further than they should.

“You fool,” the rat-bastard says, soft and whispery, floating like smoke from a house on fire.

He lurches, shoves burning hands against Jason’s chest and – Jason falls, a scream between his teeth, hoodie smoldering. His back hits the ground with a sharp noise, his vision going black for a blink, then flickering back like a bad connection. Rat-bastard straddles his chest, hovering over him, burninghotcoldburning hands wrapped around Jason’s wrists. The man is still smiling, eyes glittering and oh-so-wrong, unnatural depths, pupils too big and growing wider, pale green kisses the edges like a stellar corona, feathering out until it’s blinding.

“Fool,” he says again. Jason turns his head as saliva drips like drool from a wolf’s jowls and lands on his cheek, his nose wrinkling in response. “You could have had back up. You could’ve won. But your arrogance has led to your downfall.” His grip tightens and Jason fights back instinctively – trying to wrench his wrists from his hands, gritting his teeth, forcing his screams down and trapped in the wild beating of his heart as his skin sizzles and burns and rots on the edges. “You walked right into my circle.”

Jason goes limp. Defeated. Resigned. A little voice in his head saying you could’ve put up a better fight, and it almost sounds like Bruce – like those times when he was Robin and he was worried about trying too hard, was worried that showing what he could do would basically equal showing off and – everyone’s attention had already been on him. For the wrong reasons. For the right reasons. For all the reasons he didn’t want because he just wanted to be.

Be home. Be Jason. Be Bruce Wayne’s son. Eventually – Be Robin.

You could’ve put up a better fight, Bruce used to say. Could’ve gotten a better grade, Jaylad. You’re smart. Could’ve handled that better, Robin. You could’ve put up a better fight, you have the skills, the strength, the know-how.

And he never told Bruce this before but –

Sometimes it’s worth being underestimated.

Jason grins. Eyes still closed, he whispers, “Did I?”

“What?”

The back of his hands are pressed along the inner circle. His heels tap between it and the outer one. Fresh blood trickles from his front to pool on the ground, tracing the lines of paint.

His smile widens and he opens his eyes, chin jutted out stubbornly as he stares up at the rat-bastard. “I said…Did. I? Did I walk right into your circle?”

“…What?”

Jason leverages his leg – knee going in and up, catching the rat-bastard right between the legs. He gasps sharply, his grip already loosening. Jason moves quickly, yanking his arms around and wrapping them around the guy’s neck, flipping them around until their positions are reversed – Jason’s considerable weight making him wheeze around the sudden pressure on his chest. The bastard’s hands scrabble at Jason’s arms, nails scoring his skin, ripping through bandages. The spell he hand on his hands stutters for half a second before it burns back up, welts and burns following every attempt to dislodge Jason.

Attempt. It doesn’t work.

Jason slams his hand around the bastard’s throat and his next wheeze is soundless, his hands still, wrapped around Jason’s forearms. His eyes wide and rolling wildly, lips pulled back in a snarl.

“The problem is,” Jason breathes out. “You look at Gotham and all you see is power. And you think it’s so easy to take.” He applies a bit more pressure, relishing in the almost-scared choke. There’s too much anger in his expression, too much hunger for it to really be satisfying. Jason leans in close. “And then you fuck up. You gather all of Gotham’s magic – which, you added to, by the way, with your little attention redirection spell and your senses spell. You let them linger, let them mix with the ambient magic, let them grow with it. Then you kept it from naturally influencing objects to bleed off the pressure. You gathered all of that into twelve little spots.

“Spots too small for all that magic. You made a fucking powder keg out of my goddamn city! And you think ONE conduit is going to be ENOUGH?”

And then he grins – bright and unnerving, all sharp teeth and glittering eyes. Rat-bastard gulps audibly. Jason’s nails dig into the side of his neck to draw blood, enough that it drips down into a puddle, mixing with Jason’s onto the circle underneath them.

“Good thing we have two then,” Jason whispers.

The circle begins to glow.

—

There is a…buzzing in her bones. Cassandra frowns, drags her tongue across her front teeth – her whole mouth tastes…metallic. Like a battery.

Like a storm.

The hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Stephanie trips over nothing. Tim visibly recoils. Duke shudders, knees wobbling.

“What is he doing?” Steph hisses. She uses Tim to steady herself then keeps stalking forward through the tunnel, heavy and low like a predator, Tim getting dragged along as he takes a moment to tap at his gauntlet for the map they’re following. “He’s supposed to be the super serious long-con strategic one! What the fuck is – ?”

“Less talking and more running,” Duke interrupts – he is running, something frantic in his pace. Steph’s teeth click and she’s back to running too, following Tim’s muttered directions of left, left, right, left towards Jason’s last known location. The screen fizzles and the tracker is no longer sending a signal, but there’s only so many places to be when you say middle of the reservoir.

“We will make it,” Cass says firmly – low enough it almost seems like it’s only for herself, but Tim glances back at her, elbow still caught in Steph’s grip, and his eyes are narrowed, unsure and terrified but trying so hard to hold onto hope, to disbelieve his own words (he wont survive).

We have to make it, she thinks just in time for pale green lightning to crack! above them, bouncing off the walls of the small tunnel, thunder booming so loud there’s various shouts of pain as they have to cover their ears. Cass ducks down, hands pressed tightly to her ears, her bones vibrating so hard she swears they’re the reason she’s shaking.

When she opens her eyes, everything is illuminated green. The lightning hovers, frozen mid-air, crackling ominously, in the dark as if it’s…waiting.

Waiting so patiently.

“Hurry,” Barbara whispers.

They don’t need to be told twice. Didn’t even need to be told once, to be honest.

It bounces in the air. Hurry. Hurry. Hurry.

And a faint –

 you’re too late.

—

The rat-bastard throws his head back in his scream – eyes and mouth and veins glowing and smoldering that pale green. Gotham green. The green of the streetlights when they illuminate the clouds hanging over the city. Jason’s own blood feels like it’s boiling. He can taste it in the back of his throat, can feel the heaviness of it on his lips as it steadily leaks from his nose.

He doesn’t let up. He’s burning from the inside out. Magic lashes out in the air, claws its way from underground and surges up like waves. – and he’s the poor lifeboat caught up in it.

Better him than – than –

“Jason!”

Fuck.

His head snaps up.

And through the haze of wild magic only he and rat-bastard and maybe Cass can see, he spots his goddamn family spilling into the cistern. Jason grits his teeth, cheek caught been his molars, blood pooling on his tongue until he opens his mouth, and it spills over his lips.

“Get the fuck away!” he shouts – and his voice collapses in on itself halfway through. He blinks away frustrated tears as they just step closer, clustered together like they’re walking through a storm. Even if they can’t see the magic, they can feel it, ducked down like there’s wind, arms up like they’re ready for debris to come crashing through. “Please,” he breathes out, horrified. “Get outta here.”

And they don’t hear him. They’re too early. He was supposed to have more time.

Jason had a plan! A shitty one! But a plan! And then there were just too many risks. Too many variables. Their pain. Their inexperience. The timetable of everything. So, he threw it out and built up a new one. One that only risked him. One that would –

They’re not supposed to be here.

He glances down at rat-bastard, feels the give of the tendons in one hand and the way his neck sinks inward under his grip of the other – and swallows thickly. Seconds. He has mere seconds. The rat-bastard is more magic than not right now, and Jason is next in line.

Hand in his pocket, withdrawing the thick chalk he’d stashed there. It’s stained with his blood. Broken in half. But he reaches over and puts it to the circle anyway and – Green flares so brightly it hurts. Jason can’t close his eyes, blinking away sunspots as he once again, for the second time tonight, adds to the runes.

Always have a plan for any foreseeable contingencies.

There’d been a chance. A slight one. But a chance, he would’ve lived through his second plan. This third one though – he can’t.  He can’t watch them die. He knows –

He knows they’ll survive him. It’s awful to say but…they’ve had practice. He’s not Dick or Tim or Damian or Cass, were their loss would mean devastation. He’s not Steph or Duke in that he’s needed for Gotham. Not – Not anymore. Jason doesn’t want to die, but also –

“Jason!” Tim shouts. “Stop!”

He laughs bitterly. Too fucking late and also, no fucking way. If he stops now, then everything goes up in smoke. Him. Them. Gotham. There’s only one way to see this through now. All other options disappeared once they entered the picture and he put chalk to the ground.

Jason finishes the last rune – two extra lines on an already existing one. He throws the chalk away and it lands in the water with a little plop sound that’s lost among everything else. They’re close enough he can see the color of their eyes, masks off, barely dressed in their suits. Capes are missing, joint protection missing. Just the bare basics and Tim’s gauntlet – which is a bare basic at this point.

He can see their eyes – wide and terrified. Mouths moving. His name. Stop. His name again, just over and over, getting louder and louder even though he can’t hear them. Can’t hear anything over the sound of his own heart, over the whine of magic growing in intensity. Jason looks away first.

No one can have this magic. It’s Gotham’s.

No one else has to die for this.

Except one more.

I’m sorry – he thinks and can’t bear to say it out loud. Sorry for dragging them into this. Sorry for not being able to figure it out on his own. Sorry they have to witness this. It’s not going to be pretty.

He gives them one last rueful smile.

And then his whole world goes white.

—

Jason screams – and it crackles into a whining keen that makes the hair on the back of their necks stand on end.

Tim lurches for his brother just as Jason’s back arches with the force of his pain, limbs contorting as his veins smolder and burn – pale green. Once he could say it was a soft color. A softer green than the Pit. Gentler than fear toxin. The same pale green he said dappled like leaves, the green he saw in Jason’s eyes when he found him in that warehouse.

There’s nothing soft about it anymore. Nothing gentle. Jason’s hands come up in claws, nails pressing into his own face, dragging downdowndown as lightning, as magic surges through him. Like a tornado, getting faster and faster, pulling the lightning branches from the ceiling like a sponge soaking up water and all Jason can do –

All he can do is fall. Collapsing sideways, seizing as a current moves through him.

“Jason!” Steph shouts, throwing herself forward – and she hits an invisible wall. It ripples out, her impact echoing in that same stupid, shitty green. “Jason!”

Duke hovers, fists clenched at his sides. Cass stares wide-eyed, never blinking. Tim presses his palms on the barrier, and he has to close his eyes, he can’t watch – then. Now. All he hears is Jason. All he smells is ozone. It’s heavy in the air, the taste of, of petrichor, of heavy clouds, of rusted iron – and then salt on his lips.

He’s crying.

Cracks appear under their feet. Popping like bones. Water and dust trickle from the ceiling as the whole room groans and shifts under the pressure emanating from Jason, from the magic consuming, devouring –

destroying him.

Then it all

Stops.

Tim falls forward, the barrier disappearing. He catches himself in time, but Steph actually hits the ground on her knees. They stay like that, frozen in shock, for a long moment before Cass snaps out of it first, dashing towards the platform where Jason lays unmoving.

He scrambles to his feet. Tripping his way as he follows, all of his grace and skill leaving him in one fell swoop as no repeats in sickening circles in his head. No. No. Nonono. No. This – Jason can’t – Bruce would never forgive – Dick would never forgive – It hurts to breathe, his ribs tightening around his lungs like a steel trap. His eyes burn.

Cass scrambles up the platform, kneels next to Jason, her fingers pressed to his neck. Her eyes are closed, brows furrowed in concentration. Tim sucks in a breath and holds it, heart in his throat. Then her hand moves to Jason’s forehead, thumbing across his brows, shoulders slumping, hair falling in front of her face as she bows her head – and shakes it.

“No,” Steph whispers, hands over her mouth. “No. You’re – You’ve gotta be kidding. He can’t – .”

Duke drops next to Cass, legs pulled to his chest, face buried in his knees. There’s a soft sound. Not quite a sob, but close. Cass wraps her arm around him, leaning most of her weight onto him.

Tim doesn’t climb up after Steph. He stares blankly at Jason’s lax face. His veins still glow faintly green. and growing fainter. His arm is splayed out over the edge of the platform, hand drooping mid-air, fingers curled loosely only the unconscious can pull off.

The unconscious – and the dead.

He reaches out slowly, his own hand trembling, and wraps his fingers around Jason’s wrist. There is no heartbeat under his fingers. No rush of blood. No twitch of muscles and tendons. Just – the grotesque warmth of magic that is so different than a living body Tim wants to vomit.

His other hand comes up, wraps around Jason’s limp fingers. And he just – holds on. Shoulders shaking. Cheeks wet with tears. His chest jerking with every sob that he doesn’t bother trying to hold back. His knees wobble but he doesn’t let himself fall. If he falls, he won’t be able to keep holding onto Jason.

How is he supposed to tell everyone? How is – Jason did this. To save them. Compromised, he’d called them. Because they’d shoved themselves onto his case. A case he was perfectly capable of solving himself and was well on his way to doing so. Shoved themselves onto his case and got caught up in the web of pain that smothered their reflexes and their senses and their minds. Compromised.

But then – what if it still ended up like this? Jason solving the case, the bad guy dead, Gotham saved, and –

And Jason is still dead. He disappears down here in the labyrinth and not a single soul knows about it, and he dies for it. In every option. Down every path.

“This is the exact opposite of letting us help you,” Tim whispers wetly. He tugs on Jason’s hand and his body ragdolls at the force. Shit. “Fuck. Jason. You – .” He presses his forehead to his knuckles, Jason’s growing cold fingers brushing his cheeks. “I hate you so much right now.”

—

Pale green fireflies flicker under Jason’s skin.

Like little, tiny heartbeats.

The heartbeats of a city full of millions.

And they only get brighter. Stronger.

—

O h !

H e l l o

a g a i n .

Third time’s the charm, my dear. I owe you a fourth if you ever you need it.

—

It’s like a bad dream. All fuzzy around the edges, his chest constricting, a weird acidic feeling building in the back of his throat. His mouth tastes like blood. His muscles twitch and spasm. His limbs don’t want to listen to him.

Jason cracks his eyes open, and, between his eyelashes, he sees – the top of Tim’s head. He’s bowed over Jason’s hand, fingers tight around his wrist. His blood is slow to move. His lungs are sluggish to expand. He doesn’t shift when he looks over, seeing Cass and Steph out of the corner of his eye. A little further he meets Duke’s startled gaze, eyes wide and shimmering gold.

He smiles at the kid. Duke smiles tentatively back, obviously struggling to connect what he’s seeing to the echoes flickering around him, past and present and future colliding in dizzying explosions.

Jason feels magic spark under his skin – so much different than ants. He feels storm clouds billowing in his chest, escaping with every slow, imperceptible exhale. Petrichor in the grit of his eyes and under his nails. Rusted iron in his joints, creaking with every –

His fingers twitch, in Tim’s grasp. Tim doesn’t react at first. Jason frowns and moves his fingers a little more noticeably. That’s enough to exhaust him, but he forces his eyes to stay open to watch Tim jerk like he’s been electrocuted, head snapping up, first to Cass and Steph, then meeting Jason’s eyes dead on.

“…Jason?” Tim breathes.

“What the fuck!” Stephanie shouts. Jason grunts when she throws herself at him, her hands patting his cheeks before she grabs his face, turning it every which way. He makes a pained sound, and she lets go immediately, looking contrite. “What the hell, Jason?” she whispers, a thin veneer of calm.

His smile is a grimacing thing. Hyperaware of Tim still staring at him. “Sorry,” he whispers back, but while her whispering was emotional, he literally can’t talk louder than a breath. “I just wanted – I didn’t want – you guys – to get hurt.” He twitches, the closest thing to jumping, when Duke’s forehead meets his knee and he just…leaves it there, hands a death grip on Jason’s pants, shoulders trembling. Cass snakes a hand under Steph’s arm and presses her thumb to the pulse point on his wrist. “I’m – sorry,” he says again, heartfelt.

Tim yanks on his hand and he groans at the motion. His body reluctantly goes with it, but he instinctively pulls back even if it’s weak.

“Why?” Jason asks him despairingly.

Fresh tears spill down Tim’s cheeks. “I’m telling Dick,” Tim rasps out. “And Bruce.” Jason groans again, this time a beleaguered sibling rather than in pain. His grip tightens around Jason’s wrist. “Stop – Stop fucking dying.”

Jason twists his hand until he’s holding onto Tim instead of the other way around. “I didn’t mean to,” Jason mutters. But he squeezes the shaking hand in his hold – weakly but getting stronger every second. “I’m not interested in a repeat. Promise.”

“You are in so much trouble,” Cass says solemnly. “Little brother.”

He smiles hard enough it hurts. But the good kind of hurt. "Yeah, saw that comin'." Then yelps when Tim yanks him again, this time using his arm as leverage to pull himself close enough to throw his arm over Jason's chest, face pressed against his bloody hoodie, and he just – tries not to cry. Jason sighs and brings his arm up to wrap around Tim. "I just wanted to protect you," he says quietly. "It wouldn't of been fair if you guys got hurt or, or killed because of me."

"Technically, it would've been because of the bad guy," Duke says thickly. He looks up and he's no longer crying, his eyes a little puffy and rimmed pink. "You don't get to decide that for us," he informs Jason. "That's something Batman would do."

Jason recoils, nose wrinkling. "Ugh."

Steph does the most disgusting snort giggle at his expression – and it goes again. And again. Until she's laughing semi-hysterically. Jason grins and huffs out his own laugh. 

Yeah. They're gonna be okay.