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“It seemed only fitting, huh?” Jason drops down behind Batman and smirks when the man turns to grimace at him. “Crime Alley, the place that birthed the both of us and set us upon this path. Feels like a perfect place to end things too.”
It’s been a long road to get here, all his planning coming to fruition. The years of training, the months of recon, the blood on his hands, it’s all been for these next few minutes.
“Where is he?” Batman growls, baring his teeth in a display that sends thugs running.
Jason barely restrains himself from scoffing. Of course all he cares about is the Clown, not the miracle that is his son returned to him from the grave. His anger rises up, the burning starting to spread through his veins.
“Inside this building. Don’t bother trying to ditch me to go and find him.” He smirks, pulling out a detonator. “I’ve wired the whole building. I can blow it up at any time.”
“I’m not going to let you kill him.”
The Bat’s expression could be carved from stone with how little it’s shifted since Jason revealed himself. His anger bubbles up more, wrapping around his throat and starting to burn through the ever-present chill that’s set into his bones.
(How
dare
he stand there, giving him that expression, the same expression that he gives every other criminal and upstart gangster? That he gives those scumbags he calls “Rogues” whenever they break out of their vacation home because they decided they wanted some time in the sun? Doesn’t he see that he’s trying to do good? That he’s trying to right a wrong? How could he look at him like he’s
not his son
a stranger? Like he’s just another scumbag who got too ambitious and rocked the boat too much?)
He pulls on the pit a bit more, letting its icy apathy spread through him and snuff out the anger (the hate,
the grief, the betrayal, the love
) so he can think. He takes a breath and squares up.
“You can
try
to stop me.”
Before they can move, an explosion rocks the city. They both stumble and whip around to see just what blew up right in the middle of their stand-off. Jason can’t help but take a step back. Across the water, a huge green mushroom cloud has replaced the city that’s supposed to be there, rotting away.
“That’s Bludhaven,” Jason says, awed. He can’t quite believe what he’s seeing. His next thought is-
“Dick…?” Bruce mumbles, the name falling out probably unwittingly.
Jason can feel something other than his normal mix of rage and cold rationality rising. He tries to shove it down, pulling the pit up again to try and smother the new feeling. The ice is everywhere now, and he knows without having to check that his eyes are probably glowing through his lenses and his skin corpse-cold to the touch.
“My god, is Nightwing there?” he sneers, spitting out the words before something else can come out instead. “Imagine that. One son returns from the grave just in time for another to enter it.”
Bruce is still shock-still, that grimace long gone and exchanged for some other kind of twisted expression Jason can’t puzzle out. His eyes have yet to leave the green-smoking crater that used to be Gotham’s sister city.
“Kinda ironic, isn’t it? Here we are having this confrontation and now you have to run off to the site of an explosion to dig through the rubble for the body of your first soldier.” A different type of cold feeling starts to settle in his gut and he finds himself grimacing. “You know, Bruce. If he was there, there’s no way he survived.”
The other man clenches his fists, his whole body rigid with tension. Jason can’t help but scoff.
“You’re too late,
again
.”
Batman lets out a howl and lunges forwards, reaching towards the edge of the roof and running away from Jason.
“No!” Jason shouts, pressing one of the buttons on his detonator and setting off one of the charges. It’s enough to stop the Bat from running and the man whips around to glare at him. “You’re not leaving! Not now! Not this time!”
He’s got that strange expression on his face again. Now, Jason can identify it as grief - as terror - and that cold feeling in his gut turns to sharp-edged hurt before he smothers it in the freezing burn of the pit.
“Jason, please. I-”
“What? You ‘have to be sure’?” He spits the words out, each barb aimed to cut and hurt and make the other man
bleed
. “I don’t think even the original boy wonder would be able to pull off that kind of trick. If he’s there, he’s
dead
, Bruce. There may not even
be
a body to find.”
The man lowers his arm, his hand hanging open and loose at his side even as it shakes. Something like resigned despair has settled over his face.
“I know I failed you, Jason.” He takes a shaky breath, “I know I wasn’t there for you when you needed me to be. And I might be failing you again now, but I’ve failed Dick so many times too. If there’s any chance that he’s alive, I need to be there. Please, Jason. Don’t let me fail him like I failed you.”
And Jason-
He can’t-
The pit is faltering, sliding away and getting drowned out by the emotions all jostling for his attention. Because, for the first time since he’s been back in Gotham, he feels like he’s talking to the man he once called his father and not the Bat. He remembers those early days in the Manor when all he’d known of Dick Grayson were shouting arguments with Bruce and a cold shoulder. Later on, towards the end, Dick had confided in him that Robin had been a name gifted to him by his mother, and that by Bruce just giving it away to a stranger, it had felt like having one of the last pieces he had of those years stolen from him, like having the door to his childhood closed behind him.
And Jason had understood, to a point. He was in the midst of his own arguments with Bruce at the time and learning how Bruce hadn’t even asked Dick about passing on the name before offering it to Jason had felt a bit like vindication. He wasn’t the only person who Bruce had fundamentally misunderstood. He knows that, by now, Dick and Bruce had made up to a certain point. Dick would show up in Gotham when he was off from his day job to spend time at the Manor and patrol. Hell, he’d even stepped up for Drake, training him and acting like the big brother he never had the chance to be for Jason.
That knowledge used to add fuel to that boiling rage in him, seeing the pretender receiving everything Jason had fought so hard for. But now, looking at the crater of the city Dick had chosen to protect and knowing that there was a good chance that he’d been there, that he had died much like Jason himself had died - burning and choking
and praying for his dad to save him -
a different feeling was rising up in its place.
“Just go, Bruce.”
The words are out before Jason even registers he’s made a decision. That new feeling coils in his gut, rising up his throat and tangling with everything else he’s been suppressing with the pit for years on end.
“What?” Bruce is looking at him, a spark of something lighting up that stone-like visage.
Jason swallows. Reevaluates. “I’ll give you a choice. It’s a bit different from the one I was gonna give you originally.” He squares his shoulders, his fists clench and the detonator he’s still holding creaks a bit in his grasp. “You should leave, you want to leave and check on Dick. But, you have to know that I’ll kill Joker if you do.”
At the reminder of what they were doing before Bludhaven exploded, the other man stiffens. His expression closes off as he puts Bruce Wayne away in favor of the Bat.
“So, there’s your choice. You can leave, go try and find Dick, see if he’s alive, and let me finally put that fucking Clown in the ground. Or, you can stay and we can pick up where we left off.”
He doesn’t know why he’s doing this. He had everything planned out, everything was going to work. He was going to get the Bat there with the Joker in that room and ask his question. Batman was going to answer as he normally does, preaching from his moral high horse. Then, he’d present his options and either Bruce would choose Jason (
his son, his son’s safety, oh god please dad makemefeelsafeagain
) and let him shoot the Clown, or he’d pick the Joker and…
And…
Well, at least Jason wouldn’t be alive anymore to worry about Bruce’s hate-boner for the bastard and what it means for the average lifespan of his sidekicks.
“Jason, you know I can’t-”
“Can’t what? Can’t let me kill him? Bruce, that’s your
son
over there. I know I was a bad kid and you just put up with my shit and never really loved me like…” He swallows, suddenly feeling everything crashing down on him at once, “like I thought you did, but you’re seriously considering leaving him over there on his own? Choosing the Joker over him?”
Bruce’s face is stricken, something like horror is there underneath the sheer devastation but Jason can’t let himself look too hard.
“I-I can’t, I made a
vow
and I-”
“And you what, Bruce? Before I stopped you, you were going to just run off for Blud and leave me here. We both know the choice you want to make.” Jason takes a stuttering breath of his own and curses the wetness he can feel gathering in his eyes. “
Please
, Bruce. Just this once, pick being a father over being the Bat. Let me put him down.”
They stand there for a moment, the sounds of a typical Gotham night rising up from the streets. Jason can feel Bruce’s eyes on him, cataloging every bit of emotion that’s showing through his waning self-control. He feels the gaze on his shaking hands, his tense shoulders, his clenched jaw. He hates how familiar it is, this examination, how it reminds him of days long gone and a time before he was too far gone. He tries to blink away the wetness in his eyes, not wanting to deal with the mess that is crying in a domino.
“Will this make you happy?” Bruce suddenly asks, jarring Jason out of his thoughts.
“What?” he chokes out.
“Killing him, ending things. Will this make you happy? Will it fix things?”
Jason shakes his head. “I don’t- what do you think this is about?”
“Revenge. Vengeance. Killing him in front of me because I couldn’t save you from him.”
“Bruce, that’s not-” He cuts himself off, bringing his hands up to press against his eyes. They burn beneath his domino and water drips down to pool at the bottom of the lenses. “I forgave you for not saving me a long time ago.”
He swallows again, the lump in his throat growing big enough to choke him. Bruce just stares at him, uncomprehending.
“It was an impossible situation. You’d left and told me to stay put. I put my trust in that bitch and she handed me right to him. I knew as soon as I saw that bomb that I wasn’t making it out. I, I just…”
Jason turns around, not willing to look
his father
Bruce in the eye anymore. “One of my last thoughts was ‘at least I’m the last one. At least he’s not gonna be able to hurt anyone else ever again.’ And then I come back and I learn that
nothing changed
. Him and all the others still waltz in and out of Arkham like it’s a vacation resort and you’ve got more child soldiers lined up ready for the slaughter. Hell, you even lost another one and that still didn’t change anything.”
“Jason…”
He gives up the fight and pulls off the domino so he can wipe his eyes. He hates that he’s crying right now, that Bruce can still cut through all his walls like they don’t exist and bring this level of emotion out of him. He hates that he can’t get enough of a grip on the pit to freeze everything over.
“This was never about you not saving me, it’s about you not avenging me or the thousands of other victims he’s made over the years. It’s about putting him in the
fucking
ground so they can feel safe in knowing that he can never hurt them or anyone else ever again.”
His voice gets smaller towards the end as he admits a truth he’s barely admitted to himself since he’s had his mind back. He can tell the moment Bruce puts things together by his sharp inhale. Jason keeps his back turned; he doesn’t want to see the pity on the man’s face.
“Jaylad, I’m sorry.” Bruce steps closer, his boots audibly crunching on the loose pieces of stone and concrete that litter the rooftop. “I… you know Batman can never condone something like that. No matter how much I want to go down there and put him down myself, I can’t let it happen right in front of me when I have the chance to stop it.”
Jason scoffs, wiping his nose. Same old Bruce missing the goddamned point. “If you’re really about to-”
“You said something, earlier, about me picking being a father over being Batman.”
Jason stops. A hint of a new feeling blooms in his chest, something fragile and light.
“Yeah?”
“When you… I don’t know if I can ever really put away the Bat. I’m never going to be okay with what you’ve done, with the choices you’ve made since coming back. But Jason-”
Of course.
Jason knew that Bruce wouldn’t approve, knew deep down that he was too far gone, too tainted, too uncompromising and unwilling to bend the knee to the Bat’s rules to ever go home. That fragile feeling is choked out by something tangled and ugly and Jason makes to walk away. Bruce reaches out, catching his arm before he can get anywhere. Jason whirls around, snarling, and tries to pull free from his grip.
“Jason, I need you to know that I love you. I have never stopped loving you.”
Jason lets out an angry breath. “That’s not enough, Bruce.”
Silence again. Bruce lets go of his arm. He turns his face away.
Then, “I know, Jay.”
God damn him. Damn Bruce and his fucking impossible standards and uncompromising moral code and hypocrisy. Jason’s resolve returns and he’s able to start boxing everything away again. The pit comes easy to him now, and he lets it ice over all those messy emotions and leave clean, cold rationality and apathy. He wipes his eyes again, and hardens his expression.
“So what, that’s it? That’s your choice? Gonna stay here and pick the fucking Clown over your son?”
Batman watches him pack everything away and then does the same, Bruce disappearing into the cowl. He looks Jason in the eye and tilts his head.
“No, I’m going to go where I’ll be able to save the most lives tonight.” He taps his com and turns around. “Alfred?”
Wait…
Is Bruce seriously…?
“B, what are you doing?”
The man ignores him. “Yeah, I saw the explosion from where I am. I’m headed over now.” Bruce looks back over his shoulder at Jason and gives him a long look. “No, there’s no sign of Hood. I don’t think he’s showing, and Dick and his city take precedence.”
That fragile feeling is back, buoying up from within his ribcage.
“Yeah, I’ll be coordinating with the JL to save as many as we can once I get over there. Keep an eye out on cameras and keep me updated on anything major.” Bruce taps his com again and fully turns around. “I’m sorry I can’t give you what you need, Jason. But you know where to find me if anything comes up.”
And, with that, Batman turns back around and jumps, his grapple whirring as he disappears into the city.
Jason watches him leave wide eyes wide in disbelief. Did he really just…? Turning on a dime, he kicks at a stray beer can just to hit something. He listens to it rattle across the roof. He buries his face in his hands and screams. He tries to ignore the stinging in his eyes and the wetness on his cheeks.
Fucking
Batman
.
-_-_-_-
Hood pulls open the door to the closet and looks down at the Joker. The man hasn’t bothered to even try and slip his ropes. He’s just sitting there with that grin on his face, absolutely delighted at his current circumstances.
“Oh boy! Is it time for the grand reveal? Where’s the big ol’ bat, huh? I’m so ready for this family reunion!”
Hood sneers at him before reaching down and grabbing hold of his collar. He heaves him up and tosses him into the main room. The Clown laughs.
“Ohhh Batsy?” Joker crows in between deranged chuckles. “Come on in! You’ve gotta get in on the family photos!”
“You’re a lucky man, you know that, right?” Hood asks, almost bored. After he’d let himself fall apart for a bit on the roof he’d been able to pack his shit back up just enough for him to pull on the pit again. Even with it freezing everything in place, he could still feel his fear and panic close to the surface with him being in close quarters with the Clown and no one else around.
Joker giggles. “Oh, maybe just a little. After all, I got Batsy as my good luck charm! He’s never been too late to scoop me out of whatever trouble I’ve gotten myself into this time!”
Jason lets the barb hit. He feels its sting fully and then lets it roll off his back. “Well, I can say for sure that your ‘good luck charm’ isn’t gonna be enough for you tonight.”
The Clown’s giggles move up into chuckle territory and Jason has to take a second to breathe through the rising memories.
“Oh, what have you done with him, Birdy? He’s gonna miss out on all the fun!”
Hood pulls one of his pistols from its holster and crouches down next to Joker. He cocks his head and looks at the man. His face is still a mess of bruises and split skin from where Hood went at him with a crowbar a few days earlier. He still hasn’t bothered trying to wiggle free of his bonds, content and secure in his confidence that Batman will pop out of the shadows at any moment to take him in and start the cycle over again.
The Clown freezes when the muzzle of Hood’s gun presses up against his forehead. Hood casually flips the safety off and cocks the hammer back.
“The Bat ain’t here, Clown.”
Joker blinks up at him. The shrunken smile widens again. “Oh really? You give him the runaround? Do you have a timer going for old-times sake to see if he’ll make it this time?”
“No, no timers, no games.” Hood lets a smirk grow on his face, satisfaction rising to eat at the
panicfearsavemedad
still coiling in his gut. “He left. You hear that really big boom earlier? Little accident over in Bludhaven meant he went running as soon as he realized the original Boy Wonder might be in over his head.”
Joker’s smile faded, disbelief taking over his face. And then,
fear
.
Hood bares his teeth in a mockery of the Clown’s grin. “That’s right. No more second chances for you. The Bat’s finally done with your games.”
There’s no hesitation this time. No memories rise from the depths of his head to make him freeze. Just the pull of the trigger and the impact of a bullet right between the fucker’s eyes.
Jason closes his eyes and lets out a long breath. He lowers his gun and stands up. Opening his eyes, he lets his gaze wander over the corpse. It’s face is still twisted in that expression of disbelief, it’s eyes wide with terror. And, most importantly, it’s not smiling. He puts two more shots into its heart, just to be safe, before flicking the safety back on and putting his gun away.
He feels a little removed from reality, like he could float away. The knowledge that the Joker, the man that
murdered
him will never take another breath settles in his head, in his heart. He lets go of the pit and the ice in him melts away. The burning of his emotions comes roaring back in and the sheer relief hits him over the head. He can hardly believe it.
The Joker is dead.
Batman… let him kill the Joker.
Batman chose Dick over the clown
(over Jason)
.
He, he can’t-
A laugh rises up from inside him and once he starts he can’t stop. Years of pain and fear and self-loathing are pouring out and he can barely do anything to stem the tide. He’s gasping for breath and tears are streaming down his face and everything is very quickly becoming blurry and out of focus. His clumsy attempts to ice everything over don’t get anywhere. This is the furthest the pit has been from him in years.
“He’s dead,” Jason says out loud, just because he can, because if he says it out loud it makes it more believable. “I killed him. The Joker is dead.”
He giggles some more, feeling hysterical. He’s free, the city’s free, no one else is going to get caught up in the Clown’s stupid bids for Batman’s attention. And it was
easy.
It’d been so easy, this time.
The self-loathing crashes down on him, now. He remembers standing there, lighter in hand, the scent of gasoline in his nose, and Joker at his feet (at his mercy). It should have been easy then, too. Two motions, light the lighter and drop it and he’d have one extra-crispy Clown. And yet…
He feels nauseous. What made this time different? Why now? Why couldn’t he step the fuck up earlier? He’s guilty of the same thing as Bruce, couldn’t do what needed to be done and now there’s innocent blood on his hands. The Clown had gone right back to Arkham after Jason had left him there and called the cops, but he’d broken out twice in the almost two years it’d been since then. The first time had been short, only for a day or so and just the deaths of the guards directly supervising him, but the second time,
God
the second time-
Jason keels over, putting his head between his knees and winding his fingers through his hair. He tries to keep his breathing even, fighting down the bile rising in the back of his throat.
There’d been almost thirty victims that time. Some twisted game show idea with people trapped in a mirror maze slowly filling with a more lethal variant of Joker Toxin that left four dead, over twenty permanently institutionalized and five with lingering effects.
Jason knew all their names, had written them down over and over again after he’d heard about the incident until they were burned into his mind forever. It had been the least he could do for them, for allowing them to be killed for his cowardice. (He hopes they rest easier now that Joker’s gone for good. He doesn’t deserve their forgiveness, but he hopes they understand why he did things the way he did.
He will never be able to forgive himself.
)
It takes a couple of minutes before the nausea fades enough that he can sit up without his stomach rebelling. He forces his hands to unclench from his hair and instead runs his fingers through it, trying to bring order to the tangled curls. He stands up. Everything feels wobbly and unstable still, but he’s drained now, not overwhelmed like earlier. The pit rises to his call when he pulls on it this time.
Jason finds himself reaching for his pocket, pulling out a com unit that he’d purposely taken out before he’d approached Batman on the roof. He pops it in his ear and switches it on. The line opens with a click and a burst of static and hums in silence. He takes a second to cough and swallow before he speaks, hoping his voice doesn’t give his emotional state away.
“Hood here, anyone copy?”
Silence, then-
“Holy shit ass, Boss!”
“Ey, Boss isn’t dead!”
“What happened to ‘Don’t worry, I’ll keep the com on just in case’, huh, Hood?”
The chatter is overlapping and would be overwhelming if he weren’t used to it by now.
“Hey, cut the chatter!” That’s Morgan, no nonsense as always. “Sit-rep, Boss-man?”
Jason huffs out a quiet laugh before responding. “Joker’s dead.”
Dead silence on coms.
“Excuse me, mind repeating that, Boss?” Sully asks, voice wavering just a bit.
Hood grunts. “Confronted Batman as planned, but he ran off when Bludhaven blew up. Left me with the Clown and I took care of him.”
“Why’d he run?” Dee wonders, already trying to piece this into her understanding of how Batman operates. “It’s not like he cares about Blud more than whatever the fucking situation-ship he’s got going on with Joker.”
Hood huffs out a breath. “We’re both pretty sure Nightwing was there when the city went up. I told him that he can fuck off to go sifting through the rubble and let me kill the Clown or stay and fight about it and he just left.”
There’s quiet again, his people digesting the news. They’re smart, and Jason knows that they know there’s more to the story, just like they know there’s something deeper to his issues he has with the Bat, with Mask
(with Joker)
than the simple antagonistic relationship he tries to portray. But, he also knows that, so long as he keeps their pay coming and works with them to defang crime as much as he can, they’ll keep their thoughts and theories amongst themselves.
“It’s about damn time,” says Brick, laughing. “Good riddance, rest in pieces, fucker.”
Cheers go up across the line.
“What’s next, Boss?” Morgan asks, already moving forwards.
Hood hums, turning back around to examine the corpse still tied to the chair.
“I’m thinking we make a statement. Drop off a present for the cops and then put up a display for everyone else.” He reaches down and picks up his discarded gun. “Sully, how close did you end up getting?”
The guy eeps out a small noise. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Boss.”
“Please, I’m well aware that they put you up to keeping track of me tonight to make sure I got out of here with all my limbs intact.” There’s a smattering of laughter while Sully just moans. “In any case, I’d appreciate your help up here with the body. Just be careful with the charges.”
“Can do. I’ll be over in a few.”
Hood switches gears. “Brick, bring a few guys with you over to the safehouse a couple blocks out from GCPD HQ. The two of us will meet you there with the remains and we’ll figure out what we want to do for our ‘statement’ then.”
“Sir, yes sir!”
“Dee, you still got eyes on my pal Roman?”
A hum, then, “Sure do. He had some guys come free him from the Bat-trap and they’ve made their way to a safehouse in Old town.”
“Fetch him for me, if you don’t mind. Bring him to The Pound and lock everything down.”
“You sure, sir? The Bat won’t be happy you’ve taken a mile.”
Jason bares his teeth in what could technically be called a smile. He walks over to the body and crouches down next to it.
“Well, if he didn’t want this to happen, he shouldn’t have left me unsupervised.”
There’s more laughter over the line. It’s lighter, somehow, than it has been in recent weeks. They’ve all been putting in long hours to stay ahead of Sionis and the Facers and the other small fry gangs trying to take chunks out of them while Hood had his attention divided. No more. Joker was dead, Mask would be joining him in hell soon enough, and he can finally devote his full focus to fixing the city his way.
“Time to show Gotham we mean business.”