Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Bruce sat down heavily at his desk, the solid thud of the front door of the manor reverberating through his mind, as he swirled some very expensive alcohol in a crystal tumbler. He couldn't believe he'd just asked—ordered—Alfred to leave, but then, he couldn't believe that Alfred, steady, dependable Alfred, had kept insisting on those wild tales, either. At first, Bruce had thought Dick and Alfred were just playing a silly joke, but after they had adamantly continued with it, far past the point of humor...

Initially, when Dick had shown him those strange bat shaped knives, Bruce had thought they were just some funny metal Halloween decorations. It wasn't until Dick threw one and it sank several inches into the wall that he'd realized they were actually dangerously sharp. Bruce had been terrified that his son would cut his fingers off, but of course Dick, who'd grown up around circus knife throwers, hadn't been the least bit bothered about casually handling them. After that, every day had been filled with the shock of strange equipment and more risky stunts. Bruce knew that Dick sometimes went through periods of sharp wistfulness where he fiercely missed the circus, so he'd tried to be a good audience, but the crazy stories Dick told about how Bruce himself dressed up as a bat and jumped across rooftops were just too much for him to play along with, especially when Dick tried to get him to actually try it himself.

Dick and Alfred had even cut a door sized hole in the wall of Bruce's study and tried to force him into it! Just cutting a huge opening in an wall—that had to be structurally unsafe, but they apparently had no sense of restraint when it came to this prank. He'd asked them a little desperately to stop. It just wasn't funny, if it had ever been, and it was getting increasingly dangerous. Neither Alfred nor Dick had listened to him, though. They had in fact doubled down and insisted that every insane thing they'd told him was absolutely true.

Was there something wrong with Bruce? Had he done something to cause two people he thought of as family to wage a senseless gas lighting campaign against him? Even if that were true, why try to convince him of the blatantly ridiculous lie that he was a master detective and crime fighter who dressed up as a bat, of all things?

Dick had stormed out when Bruce had refused to play along. Alfred had stuck around longer, but only to continue trying to convince him, again and again. Finally, Bruce could not tolerate the farce any longer and had told him to either renounce the ridiculous Batman story or leave before Bruce entirely lost his temper. Alfred had replied that he could never renounce Batman and had swiftly departed after packing his things. With Alfred gone, though, Wayne Manor was far too quiet. Tim hadn't spoken to him in nearly a month, despite Bruce's best attempts to contact him on his “vacation” abroad with his friends. That meant he was entirely alone with his own thoughts, which was never a good state to be in. He kept feeling like there was something more he should be doing, and yet, there was nothing he needed to do.

How had he used to fill all his time? A little bit of charity work, a little business, some rare moments with his family... Was that why Dick and Alfred had been making up wild tales? Had they been trying to tell him that he spent so little time with them that they didn't know him at all? That he might as well make up a fantastic secret, if he was going to fruitlessly continue trying to justify how absent he'd been in their lives? Maybe they were right. Maybe Bruce deserved everything they'd done. Tim obviously didn't want to talk to him, either.

When he'd been young, Bruce could remember vowing that he wouldn't let the sort of crime that had stolen his parents from him continue unchecked, that he would bring justice to Gotham, make the world better. Instead, what had he done? Flirted with socialites and grabbed another champagne glass every time a waiter walked by? Another two glasses? Made plans and then failed to show up for no discernible reason? Said vaguely nice things at GCPD fundraising events and expected that donating a little money to them and to a free clinic in Crime Alley would solve all of Gotham's problems?

He'd gone to Washington D.C. after the earthquake and completely failed to convince the federal government to help Gotham. Lex Luthor was a snake, yet he'd managed to do more for the city than Bruce could. Leslie had left her clinic behind, and his family clearly hated him. Tim wouldn't even reply to his texts or emails or answer any of his calls. Dick and Alfred claimed he was fine, just “unavailable”, but what teenager was that “unavailable” on vacation unless he wanted to be?

As for his last son—poor Jason. Poor dearly missed Jason, dead long before his time. Why hadn't Bruce stayed around to keep an eye on him in a foreign, famine ravaged country? Of course he could understand giving Jason and Sheila a little privacy to reconnect, but if he'd just stayed around the warehouse, he might have seen the fire, might have gotten Jason out in time. Instead, he'd just abandoned his child to what turned out to be his death, because he'd randomly decided to go sightseeing in Danakil Desert.

He was a failure. A complete and utter failure—as a son and as a father. Unable to stand being alone with his thoughts any longer, Bruce slammed the rest of his drink back and stood up, steadying himself with a hand on his desk as he suddenly felt dizzy. Strange—he could remember grabbing glass after glass of alcohol at basically every social occasion he attended, and it had never affected him much, even if he needed to drive right afterward. Maybe he should have a glass of water before he headed for his car, though. A drive with the window down would help him clear his head.

Not even getting into his newest, flashiest car could lift Bruce's mood, unfortunately. Somehow, even the bright color bothered him, although he couldn't understand why. It wasn't like he'd ever wanted a black car before. He started driving aimlessly, humming a wordless song to himself, only stopping when he realized the song was a dirge. At that point, he decided that maybe pulling over and actually physically moving around would do more to get him out of the depressing state of mind he was in.

He'd gone a block before it really sunk in how dark the street was. Too many streetlights were out, and the pavement was cracked and uneven. Without even thinking, he'd driven to Crime Alley, right by the old theater. Since he was there, though, he might as well pay his respects at the last place he'd ever seen his parents alive.

He stopped in the same spot he'd stood all those years ago, just staring into the darkness of the alley. “You'd be ashamed of me, wouldn't you? Your deaths meant something. They should have meant something, but what have I done about it? A few philanthropic pursuits?” Bruce shook his head, disgusted. None of what he'd done was enough to honor the worth of his parents' lost lives.

“You taught me to be a good person, but I've spent my life drinking and chasing women that I never made time for once we were together. I took in three amazingly talented boys, and I've failed all of them. I'm so sorry, Mother, Father. I swear to you, I'll change. From now on, I swear to you, I'll do better.”

But of course, he could only hope to do better for Dick and Tim. Poor Jason would never get to see him turn his life around. Struck with a suddenly restless urge, Bruce turned and headed down the street again, not toward his car, but toward the apartment building where Jason had once lived with Catherine Todd. The place was in even worse repair than it must have been back when Jason had lived there. The earthquake had hit Gotham hard, and the poor areas often were the slowest to rebuild. There was a condemned notice on the front door, and Bruce stared up at one dark, shattered window, feeling an intense grief well up inside his heart.

“I'm sorry, Jay. I failed you as a father, and I'll never forgive myself for that. You were,” Bruce began, but he had to pause to take a wet breath and try to blink the tears out of his eyes, “you were the brightest thing in my life. I used to look forward to seeing your smile more than anything. If only I'd been there for you more often. All I can do now is regret all the time I wasted, when I could have been spending it with you.”

Bruce shook his head. “If only I'd stayed close in Ethiopia, maybe I'd have gotten the chance to make everything up to you. Thinking 'if only' doesn't fix anything, though. All I can do is promise that I've realized how very wrong I was, how misguided my priorities were. I know it's too late to fix anything between us, but I promise you, I'll do my best to treasure and honor the far too brief time we had together. I'll learn from it, so I never make those mistakes again.”

Wiping his eyes on one shirt sleeve, Bruce turned around to head back toward his car. A shifting shadow inside the apartment where Jason had once lived made Bruce pause and squint into the darkness, but in the end he couldn't make anything out. Perhaps it was just his mind playing tricks on him, or perhaps some other young boy had decided to take advantage of a condemned building for a dry place to sleep. Starting tomorrow, Bruce was going to dedicate his full attention to helping the street kids in Gotham. It wouldn't help Jason, but he might be able to help other boys experiencing similar circumstances find a safe, comfortable place to stay.

He was so distracted thinking about his future plans that Bruce didn't see the two men ahead of him until they melted out of the shadows, less than ten feet in front of him. They were both tall and sloppily dressed, but it was less their clothes and more the malicious grins they were wearing that bothered Bruce. With quick, menacing movements, the one closest to him pulled a knife.

Suddenly, with a thrill of panic, Bruce remembered exactly why this was called Crime Alley. His heart rate kicked up, and his breath came faster, even as he tried to push the fear back down. Why had he thought it would be safe for him to walk here at night?

“Alright, time to hand over your money, nice and easy,” the first man said, tilting his knife so that it glinted in the far off streetlight.

“Yeah, we want a full donation—everything you got!” the second added circling around to box Bruce in.

It belatedly occurred to him, with a spike of terror, that he hadn't remembered to grab his wallet before he went out. “I don't have any money with me, but I have keys. My car is just...” He glanced briefly toward it, only to realize he still hadn't walked far enough for it to be back in sight. “It's only several blocks that way. It's a very nice car,” Bruce insisted, holding out his jiggling keys in offering. “New this year,” he said, his voice quivering just slightly with fear as he remembered what had happened to his parents when they were robbed not far from here.

“I don't see no fancy car!”

“Yes, well, there's a slight incline between us and the car, but once you get up that little hill—”

“I don't wanna go on no stinkin' hiking trip! I want your cash!” the mugger with the knife said, taking a threatening step closer.

“As I just explained, I don't have any money on me, as I forgot my wallet at home—”

“Liar! Rich guys like you always got something—watches or credit cards! But you don't wanna hand it over? Fine. We'll beat it out of ya!”

In the next moment, both of them lunged at him. Bruce tried to back away from both of them at once, but ended up tripping over the uneven sidewalk. The impact of concrete against his falling body hurt, but nowhere near as much as the blows that were suddenly raining down on his head and back. A kick caught him in the ribs, and Bruce let out a high sound of pain, even as he curled up to protect the most vulnerable parts of his body. A punch to his head, far too close to his eye, made him briefly see an explosion of light, and Bruce raised his arms to protect his face, only to realize that gave the thugs a perfect opportunity to kick him in the stomach, hard. He wheezed, deeply terrified for a moment as he found himself temporarily unable to draw another breath. Was he going to die here, only a few blocks from where his own parents had been murdered?

“Hey, assholes! Here's a donation for ya!” There was a dull, wet sound of impact and then one of the men cried out in pain. That was soon followed by the sound of something small and metal clattering to the ground.

“What do you—” The other man was cut off by a loud crack of what might be breaking bone. It was followed by another dull, meaty thunk and a scream.

Bruce looked up to see a third man in faded jeans and a red hoodie, casually twirling a bloody tire iron. “Since I'm feeling so charitable, who wants some more?” he asked, some blood dripping off of his improvised weapon as he raised it in preparation for another swing. In reply, the two thugs immediately fled, wincing and cursing in pain as they went. Bruce stared after them for a moment, stunned at the sudden reversal.

“Thank y—”

“What the hell was that?” his savior shouted, rounding on him. “Why didn't you fight them?”

“I—there were two of them. One had a knife.”

“So? What does that matter?” the man asked, taking a step closer as Bruce very cautiously got to his feet. Bruce squinted past the pounding in his head to try to see his rescuer better. He could just make out a youthful face in the shadow of the hoodie. The man, possibly actually an older teen, didn't even look old enough to drink at a bar, but there was something so familiar about his features...

“I can't just—”

“Whoa,” the boy said, stepping back. “Is that alcohol on your breath? Did you get wasted?” He shook his head. “No, what am I saying, of course not. Someone probably drugged you.”

“I'm not drugged,” Bruce told him. So, maybe he'd had a bit to drink. He should have the tolerance for it built up, right?

The boy snorted. “Oh, is this some disguise measure? You found a way to make your breath reek without actually getting drunk? But if you have your full faculties, then why didn't you fight?” Bruce was sure he didn't know the boy's voice, and yet something about it tugged at his heart.

“I just...I wasn't prepared.”

“You? Not prepared? Is the world ending?” Suddenly, the shadowed features and the familiar yet unfamiliar voice dragged up a memory: a grinning young boy, teasing Bruce about double checking his briefcase before heading out.

“Jason,” he whispered, anguished. This boy looked and sounded so much like Jason.

“...Yeah? Jason, what?” the boy said, his face expectant and his voice demanding. “Jason, I have a perfectly good explanation for all of this? Jason, I've suddenly developed a terrible habit of saying people's names as if I'm going to give an answer—before just trailing off. If so, I suggest you kick that habit now, Bruce, because my patience is wearing thin,” the boy growled. The way his features folded into a scowl, the way he crossed his arms and tightened his jaw, even the way he held that tire iron—Bruce knew this boy. His head said it was impossible, but his heart knew this boy.

With a trembling hand, Bruce reached up and tugged the hood down. In response to having his face fully revealed, the boy sunk immediately into a defensive stance, but fighting was the last thing on Bruce's mind. That was Jason's face. Older, more angry, but definitely his face.

“Jason, is that really you?” Bruce asked, wild hope surging through him and briefly drowning out the various sharp aches of his body. He was aware that there were people who could impersonate others, but Bruce knew his son so well, surely a stranger couldn't have fooled him?

“What the hell is wrong with you? Of course it's me! You just came to talk to me, remember? I don't even know how you figured out I was taking a stroll down memory lane tonight, but you gave your little tearful speech outside my old place not five minutes ago.” Suddenly, Bruce remembered the shadow he had seen in the window. He hadn't been sure whether he'd actually seen someone or whether his mind had just been playing tricks on him. Now, the truth was clear. He went to Jason's old place to feel a sense of connection with his lost son, longing for the sort of reconciliation and closure that he could never get, and suddenly, magically, his dead child appeared in front of him? Of course not.

“Oh. I'm hallucinating, aren't I?” Bruce asked sadly, reaching up to gingerly feel the swollen lump that was forming beside his eye. The pounding in his head was only getting more painful. Had he passed out from the attack? Was this the sort of strange vision people had as they lay dying?

“I knew it! Why didn't you just admit you were drugged in the first place? It couldn't have been those two bottom feeders who attacked you. What is it? Some sort of stealth drug that kicked in as soon as your heart rate spiked?”

“No. Just...just a man who has made so many terrible mistakes that he can't accept the cruel reality of them.”

The illusion or dying dream that looked like Jason sighed. “What am I doing, talking to someone who's actively hallucinating? No wonder you're not tracking the conversation. Who knows what you're hearing instead?” The hallucination scowled. “It's not my job to babysit you, you know. So, you finally came to apologize. So what? You shed a few tears, and you think that makes up for all the ways you've failed me?”

“No. No, Jay. There's nothing I could do to make up for that,” Bruce replied. He knew that if he wasn't unconscious, he must look crazy, talking to thin air, but seeing something that looked like Jason demanding his attention, he just wasn't able to ignore it.

“Damn straight. There's nothing. So you can't expect me to just forgive you,” the maybe near death experience said, but in a voice that sounded hurt and unsure, rather than cold and certain. Bruce wished he could gather his son up and hold him in his arms one more time.

“I would never expect something I so clearly don't deserve.”

“Right,” the hallucination confirmed without any sign of conviction, as if it didn't believe what it was saying. “You said it yourself: it's too late to fix anything between us. Even, even if we wanted... I mean, not that I do, but even if I did...”

“I know. I am so, so sorry, Jay.”

“Yeah. Yeah. There's no salvaging this,” the hallucination said dejectedly, before turning to walk away. A dangerously powerful piece of Bruce's heart wanted to chase after what looked like his son, even though he knew Jason wasn't truly there. He closed his eyes against his throbbing headache for just a moment, and when he opened them again, Jason was gone, as if he'd never been there—because he hadn't been, of course.

Bruce stood there shakily for a few minutes just breathing and cataloging the aches in his body so he didn't have to think about the ache in his heart. He'd certainly be well bruised tomorrow, and his head was killing him. Thankfully, he didn't seem to have been stabbed. He didn't think anything was actually broken, either. He discovered the keys he'd held out lying on the ground, and he reached down carefully to pick them up. Had the thugs just left, then, when they realized that Bruce truly didn't have any money?

It was a slow and painful walk back to his car, and Bruce was wearily looking forward to driving home, until he noticed the cinder blocks the car was propped up on—three tires were gone. He looked around, but the street was deserted. A moment later, the sound of cursing from a back alley reached his ears, though.

“Damn it,” Jason said as he came into view, somehow holding two tires and a tire iron in his arms, while kicking the third tire along in front of him. “I know how this looks, but this wasn't me. It's just, I realized maybe I should stop you from driving since you're hallucinating, so I doubled back to your fancy car which you stupidly left unattended in Crime Alley. Big surprise: I'm not the only tire thief who ever lived here. I had to give out a little more charity tonight to get your tires back, so you're welcome,” Jason said, making good use of his tire iron to put the tires back on with practiced ease, before pulling the cinder blocks that had been used to prop up the car out of the way.

Of course, the tires had probably been there all along, and Bruce had just hallucinated that they were gone. It was very disturbing that the hallucination was this persistent, though. Was it the result of some magnificently bad combination of painful memories, alcohol, and traumatic cranial assault? Even that didn't seem like enough to justify something this realistic.

“Okay, now give me the keys.”

“Jason...”

“I don't forgive you,” he said with a scowl. “One apology does not make up for anything, especially when you've done absolutely nothing to back it up. But I'm also not going to let you drive while hallucinating. You might feel certain you were on your side of the road, even while you accelerated into a head on collision with some hapless driver. You don't deserve to get off that easy. You have to stay alive, because you owe me a lot more apologies, Bruce. So many.”

“Of course, Jay.” Bruce finally settled on holding out the keys in his cupped hand. It wasn't like a hallucination could actually take them, right? Except it certainly felt like Jason had just plucked them out of his hand.

“Hop in,” Jason said, getting into the driver's seat. Bemused, Bruce got into the passenger seat, fairly sure he'd end up going nowhere. But if not Jason, who had unlocked the car for him? His sense of proprioception matched up to the turning and acceleration of the car, as did the sound of the engine, and the detailed scenery they were passing by all looked real. This didn't feel like a dream or a vision at all. Bruce stared longingly at the boy in the driver's seat. He had Jason's eyebrows, his curly hair, and his intent, focused frown, but he also had the strong jaw and the wide shoulders which a younger Jason had only shown hints of.

This was what Bruce's boy would have looked like, if only he'd had the chance to grow up, and Bruce had to blink to keep the tears from blinding him to this beautiful lie. This couldn't possibly be real, could it? He was going to wake up, and Jason would be gone. The manor would be cold and dark, and he would be alone.

“Why are none of the kitchen lights on?” Jason asked as he used the automated gate opener, which every one of Bruce's cars had, to get through the manor gates.

“Alfred's not home.”

“Great. So I guess it's my job to get you into the house, then,” Jason said with a downward twist of his lips, before using the car's garage door opener to get them inside. He hadn't had to look. He'd known right where the custom openers were installed on the underside of the dash. He'd known the gate button was on the left and the garage door button was on the right. The real Jason would have known, of course, because that's where they were always installed on Bruce's cars, but that wasn't the sort of knowledge some random person who was trying to take advantage of a hallucinating Bruce Wayne would possess. The boy had immediately noticed how unusual it was that the kitchen lights were off, too. Bruce almost expected the dream to end when they got out of the car, but it kept going.

He could faintly detect the smell of oil in the garage. He could hear the way two sets of footsteps echoed in the enclosed space. Every moment that passed made him more and more convinced that this was real, and a part of Bruce's heart soared a little higher, despite his lingering doubts. Logically, it was impossible. He knew it was impossible, but could Jason actually be here, alive?

“Hmm. Dick's car is here. Engine's still warm,” Jason said, with his hand on the hood to test the temperature. “Maybe I should make myself scarce before—”

“Bruce! You're finally home,” Dick said, bursting into the garage though the door that led into the house. “Alfred told me how you basically kicked him out—” Dick paused, mid-sentence. “What happened to your face?”

Two things occurred in quick succession: Jason took a step back from Dick's car, and Dick's gaze snapped toward him. His eyes narrowed venomously. “Jason. What did you do to him?”

“It wasn't—” Jason never got to finish his denial, because Dick was on him in an instant, lashing out with a high kick that would have caught Jason in the head if he hadn't ducked.

“Sto—” Again, Jason was cut off as Dick struck at him. Jason tried to avoid the downward punch and it glanced off his shoulder rather than coming down on his neck. He seemed to give up on talking at that point and instead tried to sweep Dick's feet out from under him. Dick jumped over the sweep and lashed out with another kick that Jason didn't completely avoid. The next moment, he tackled Dick, and then to Bruce's horror, his two sons were rolling on the concrete of the garage, growling and attempting to hit each other. After a flurry of activity Bruce could barely make out, somehow, they both got to their feet again, but they were still fighting close and dirty. He could see Dick's pained flinch when Jason got an elbow into his stomach, and a dribble of blood was flowing from the corner of Jason's mouth, although Bruce hadn't even seen that hit.

“...Stop,” he whispered, hoarse. Whatever was going on here, he didn't think it was a hallucination. If this was Jason, if this was truly Jason... “Stop this, now!” he boomed, but his two sons were past hearing. It looked like Dick was trying to wrench Jason's arm out of its socket, and desperate, Bruce threw himself at Dick's back to try to get him to let go. The next instant, his already sore body exploded in fresh pain as he landed hard on the concrete, scraping more skin and flipping over once before his momentum was expended. He wasn't even sure how he'd ended up on the ground.

“What are you doing, Dick?!” Jason exclaimed, sounding outraged. “Why did you throw him?”

“I—someone came at me from behind, and I didn't know... If it was him, I thought he'd just evade the throw! Or at least land right!”

“He's drugged and hallucinating! What do you expect!”

“You drugged him, too?” Dick roared.

“It wasn't me!” Jason retorted, just as loudly.

Bruce forced his sore lungs to cooperate and give him air, before Dick got past listening again. “It wasn't him, Dick,” he insisted. “He didn't hurt me.” He painfully levered himself back up to his knees so at least he could see what was going on. Dick and Jason were standing only a few feet from each other, breathing heavily. Both of their postures were tense and aggressive, as if they might start attacking each other again at any moment.

“Really?” Dick asked skeptically, angling his head slightly back toward Bruce but keeping his wary eyes on Jason. “Then where did you get those scrapes and bruises?”

“You mean the ones that aren't from you?” Jason asked snidely.

“I was in Crime Alley,” Bruce explained before they could start arguing again. “Two men tried to rob me at knife point, and when they realized that I didn't even have my wallet on me, they got violent.”

“And?” Dick asked, as if there should be something more to it than that.

“And nothing, Dick,” Jason replied. “They attacked him, and he didn't fight back,” he continued in a nearly incredulous voice, as if that were some sort of shock. Maybe his childhood in Crime Alley had given him different sensibilities. “He was letting them kick the shit out of him until I chased them off with my tire iron. He's lucky he didn't get shanked. When I asked him why he didn't fight, he started spewing some garbage about how there were two of them, and he wasn't prepared. Obviously, he's been drugged.”

“I have not been drugged,” Bruce disagreed, getting very gingerly to his feet. Dick looked skeptically from him to Jason (could it really be Jason?), as if unsure who to believe.

“His breath smells like a still,” Jason asserted, although Bruce didn't think he'd had that much more than normal. “He told me he wasn't drugged before, but then, not two minutes later, he said, 'Oh. I'm hallucinating, aren't I?', so that pretty much cinches it.”

Dick stepped closer to Bruce. “Is that true?”

“I...Dick, how can you be concerned about me when Jason is right in front of us?”

Dick looked briefly back over his shoulder with a scowl. “If he can manage not to stab me in the back for one minute, then I think I can afford to deal with him later. I need to figure out what's going on with you, Bruce. You have some weird sort of amnesia, and now you're hallucinating?

“Wouldn't anyone who suddenly sees his dead son think he's hallucinating?” Bruce retorted. Both Jason and Dick frowned at him in confusion.

“This has to be part of the weird amnesia thing,” Dick murmured, almost to himself, and Bruce scowled at him, angry over more than just the long scrape Dick had given to him.

“What amnesia thing?” Jason demanded.

Dick sighed, before turning to face Jason. They were both slowly relaxing out of their fighting stances, and Bruce hoped that now that Dick was being confronted by someone other than Bruce, he was going to finally come clean about the tasteless prank he'd been pulling with Alfred's help. “It's been going on for almost a month. Bruce hasn't lost all his memories. He knows what date it is, and who Bruce Wayne's friends are, but he doesn't remember anything about being Batman. Apparently, not even how to fight, if tonight's any indication.”

“Because I'm not Batman!” Bruce growled, furious that Dick was continuing this lie even under the present circumstances. “I know you're angry with me, but how can you think now is the time to persist with these wild lies when my dead son and your dead brother is miraculously in front of us, alive?! How could you recognize Jason—and then attack him anyway? You may claim there's something wrong with me, but perhaps I should ask what is wrong with you!”

“Oh, looks like the golden boy's not so golden right now, huh?” Jason taunted with a smug little smile. He still hadn't wiped the blood off his face.

“Shut up, Jay,” Dick told him with a fierce scowl. Bruce thought one of his cheeks might be just starting to swell. “I need to get to the bottom of this.”

“No. I don't think I will shut up,” Jason replied defiantly, stomping closer to Bruce. “Something doesn't add up. Bruce, if you didn't know I was alive, then why would you come talk to me?”

Bruce shook his head. “I didn't know you'd be there. I just—sometimes I go to Crime Alley, to where my parents were killed.” He took a deep breath, trying to force the painful words out. He'd promised that he would do better, and now that he had a miraculous second chance standing in front of him, that meant actually talking to his family, even when the topic pained him immensely. “When I visit their graves, I only remember that they're dead, but by the old theater, I remember when they were last alive. Ethiopia is a long plane flight away, so I thought I could do the same thing at your old apartment building.”

Jason frowned. “Then you've been thinking I was dead for a month?”

“I've been thinking you were dead for five years!” Bruce exploded. Nothing made sense anymore, and the only thing holding him together was the hope that the miracle in front of him was real. Dick wasn't acting like this was his little brother returned, but he obviously recognized Jason. It wasn't only Bruce and his own desperate longing to see his lost son.

“Wait a minute,” Jason said, rounding on Dick. “You've known he was amnesiac for a month, and you never told him anything about me?”

Dick shifted uncomfortably. “We were focused on other areas. It didn't really seem important—” Bruce wasn't even aware that Jason was going to punch Dick, until he saw his eldest taking a step back from the force of the blow. Dick gingerly probed at his newly bleeding lip with one finger, his stance tense and ready for movement again.

“You didn't think it was important if he knew whether I was alive or dead?!” Jason roared, looking like he wanted to start fighting again. While Bruce was frankly enraged himself that Dick had apparently known and hadn't told him (how could Jason's life not have been the very most important thing?), he didn't want to see his sons start fighting again. Perhaps unwisely, he stepped between them, hoping he'd actually be able to control his two eldest. Until that very night, he hadn't realized how slow and old he'd gotten, but when they wanted to, his sons seemed to move like lightening. Maybe there wasn't anything he could do to reliably stop them, but he couldn't just stand by doing nothing while his children geared up to hurt each other.

“...Okay, when you put it that way, I deserved that,” Dick admitted quietly, and the admission seemed to calm Jason down a little. “It wasn't intentional or malicious, though, Jason. It just seemed like his amnesia was entirely centered on his identity as Batman,” Dick said, making Bruce clench his jaw in anger. Would he not let that lie finally drop? “It didn't occur to me how important it might be to check on every other fact that he should know. In retrospect, that was obviously a huge oversight.”

“...Bruce Wayne never spent any late nights meeting dangerous people in Crime Alley last year,” Jason replied, face stony.

A look of dawning realization passed across Dick's face. “Shit. You're right. Bruce Wayne never met Red Hood,” Dick muttered. Bruce vaguely remembered a crime lord by that name being in the news about a year ago, but he wasn't sure what that had to do with anything. “He might only know things that Bruce Wayne is supposed to know, and as far as Bruce Wayne knows, you're dead,” Dick said, which made absolutely no sense as an explanation, because of course Bruce was Bruce Wayne. It was basic logic that he only knew what he himself knew.

“But...but Jason's not dead,” Bruce said, wanting to be confident about that, but his voice trembled with fear. Dick was still clinging to his other wild lies, but surely he wouldn't lie about this? It occurred to Bruce with an awful pang that Dick could teach an impostor how to act like Jason. But would he? As angry as Dick was at Bruce, he couldn't believe a man as good as his son would do something that unspeakably cruel. “Is he?” Bruce turned his full attention to the curly haired boy in front of him.

“Obviously, I'm not dead. You want to run another DNA test? I'll give you a sample. Fingerprints, whatever you need.”

“You've already run all the tests—multiple times, just so you know,” Dick said. “Whether you remember the results or not, this is definitely Jason Todd.”

If joy were a physical thing, Bruce felt like someone had injected it directly into his heart. Finally, unambiguous external confirmation, and he could at last let himself truly believe. “My son—Jay, lad, you're really here. And so grown up! I never thought I'd see you get so tall!” Bruce exclaimed, giving in to his instincts and pulling Jason into his arms. He could feel himself starting to cry again, but they were the happiest tears he'd ever shed. His lost son was solid and healthy and whole. “You're home.”

Jason was tense as a piano's wires in his arms. “I am not home! I was just dropping you off because clearly something is wrong with you. I'm not going to stay.”

Bruce's arms tightened on pure, terrified instinct. “Jay, no. Please don't leave.” He'd just gotten Jason back after five long, horrible years. He couldn't even imagine letting him go just them. “I know, I know I failed you as a father, but I love you so much. Give me another chance, please! I'll do right by you this time, I promise you!”

“Yeah? You gonna kill the Joker for me, then?” Jason asked, somehow breaking out of his hold. There was something hard and ugly in his expression. Was this about Barbara Gordon? Bruce knew Jason had been very upset when he'd found out Joker had paralyzed her from the waist down, but he hadn't realized it would still go this deep, five years later.

“Jason, he can't!” Dick hissed at him.

“He won't! There's a difference!”

“By your own account, he got beat up by two Crime Alley lowlifes!” Dick retorted. “He couldn't evade my throw or even land correctly! He can't!”

Jason's eyes suddenly went wide. “Damn it. He actually can't. If the Joker got a hold of him like this, he'd murder Bruce.”

“Exactly. So don't give him any crazy ideas, Jay. He can't even defend himself right now!” Bruce wasn't exactly happy to be described as some sort of decrepit old man, but the fact of the matter was, his body was still aching from the beating he'd taken earlier. Although, even at his best, there was no way he could take on a violent, mass murdering maniac like the Joker.

“Jay, I'm sorry. I didn't realize that what happened to Barbara would still be hitting you this hard. But I'm going to be a better father from now on. I'll pay attention, spend so much more time with you.”

“What happened to Barbara...?” Jason looked confused for a moment. Then his eyes narrowed. “Of course I'm still upset. She's still crippled, isn't she? But you know, the Joker has done much more than that. He's killed a lot of people.” The look on his face was angry but calculating. “You think I died in a warehouse fire, right?”

“But you didn't actually die?” There had to be some explanation for why Jason was standing in front of him, alive.

Jason laughed darkly. “Oh, no. I died. Was buried. Dug myself out. All that.” Bruce shuddered. Just thinking about his boy trapped in a coffin under six feet of earth, alone and frightened, was nauseating. “No, what you probably don't know is that the Joker set the bomb that blew up the warehouse I was in. He beat me nearly to death with a crowbar first, though, left me to crawl on broken limbs to untie my bio mom. We made it all the way to the door—but it was locked. Before we could get out—the whole place exploded. The Joker murdered me.”

Bruce stared at his son in horror. “No...oh, no, Jay—” The threat of death couldn't have stopped him from wrapping his arms around his son just then. “Oh, my poor boy,” he whispered, trying to rock him, even though Jason was nearly as tall as Bruce now and stood like granite in his arms. But Jay had been so much smaller when he'd died, and the Joker was so depraved. The thought of his child suffering at that monster's cruel hands... “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I should have been there.” Why hadn't he? As a father, how could he have failed so completely?

“Bruce, I don't blame you for that,” Jason said, because he'd always defied expectations. “I blame you for what you did afterward,” he continued accusingly. Suddenly, he broke out of Bruce's embrace again, and when he spoke next, his voice was all venom. “I blame you for letting that psychotic sack of shit—”

“Jason, he can't!” Dick cut in.

“He can't now. So I guess you get a pass on that Bruce, temporarily.” The angry twist of his scowl said that Jason wasn't happy with that pronouncement, perhaps because he knew deep down that Bruce would never be a match for the Joker. In that moment, though, if he'd thought he could actually take down that monster, Bruce would have been sorely tempted to march straight out and do so. The agony his poor son must have gone through at the clown's twisted whims...

“Jay, lad, I understand that you're hurting. I don't know how you came back, but I can see it was your body that was healed, not your heart. But I'm here for you now. Whatever I can do to help you get better—”

“I'm not some charity case for you to fix!” Jason snarled, and how could Bruce have forgotten that, how proud and defensive Jason had been when Bruce first took him in? It had taken months to truly gain his trust. Perhaps that was shattered now, but where there was life, there was hope. If Bruce had to painstakingly rebuild their relationship piece by piece, he'd do it gladly. He had the patience and will to defeat the trial of Jason's doubt a thousand times over, if that offered even the chance of having his son back in his life. This time, he'd even have a head start, thanks to his hard earned knowledge of how to get past Jason's emotional defenses.

“I don't think you're a charity case, Jay. I think you're my son. Just having you in my life brightens it. I only want to see you as happy as you've made me,” Bruce told him sincerely.

Jason still regarded him suspiciously, but he didn't look as angry. “Yeah, somehow, I don't think you'll keep saying that once you get your memory back.”

Bruce still couldn't believe Dick's crazed stories that he was some sort of bat cosplay crime fighter—he couldn't even handle two muggers!—but he was beginning to believe that he might have some sort of amnesia. There were some parts of his life that just seemed so disjoint, as if he remembered a selection of public highlights, but the interstitial tissue was gone. Then, of course, there was the issue of Jason.

Dick hadn't been at all surprised to see him alive, and that was a very large secret to have kept. Jason, also, seemed to believe that Bruce had known he was alive, and he'd actually punched Dick when he'd realized that Dick hadn't told Bruce. Bruce couldn't imagine Dick voluntarily colluding on a plan that involved getting punched in the face, so it made sense to accept that there were some things Bruce had forgotten. Probably, Dick had thought it would be hilarious to take advantage of Bruce's amnesia to get him to believe ridiculous things about crime fighting bats. Bruce didn't find it funny at all, but considering his wide and varied failures as a father, he probably had only himself to blame for his son's treatment.

“Jay, I don't know what exactly I've forgotten, but the fact that you're alive—that will always make me happy.”

“Don't be so sure,” Dick muttered darkly, causing Jason to give him an angry scowl in return.

“Dick! I can't believe what I'm hearing from you,” Bruce said, staring at his eldest in horrified shock. “It's one thing to make up ridiculous lies about me, but to do that about Jason's very life... Jay, please don't listen to him. Having you here in front of me is the greatest miracle I could ever ask for,” he assured his second son. Jason settled slightly when Bruce put his hands on his solid shoulders, but Dick made a pained sound.

“Bruce, I know when you look at him, you think you've got your son back, that you can finally fix every mistake you ever made with Jay. I look at him, and I want to believe that I've got a second chance with my first little brother.” For a moment, the grief Bruce knew had to be there was plainly written on Dick's face. “I want to,” he continued, his expression suddenly going cold and grim, “but I don't have that. Your son is dead, and what came back in his place may be Jason Todd, but he's not the boy you knew and loved. I know how much that hurts to accept, but he's not our family anymore. He doesn't want to be. He came back wrong—”

Bruce caught the flash of pain on Jason's face an instant before he was ripping away from Bruce's hands to charge at Dick. Bruce tried to grab at him again, but he was too slow. Even when he tried to rush between them, Dick just flipped around him, as if Bruce were merely a statue or a pillar in the way, as he went after Jason just as ferociously as earlier. Frantic, Bruce kept moving to try to intercede, but blows sailed around him, his sons sidestepping his efforts as if Bruce were moving at glacial speed.

“No! Stop!” Again, neither son listened to him, and Bruce was worried for both of them, though more so for Jason. Jason shouldn't have re-started the fight, but after the vicious way Dick had attacked him physically for simply driving Bruce home and then verbally because coming back home breathing somehow wasn't good enough, Bruce could deeply sympathize with Jason's fraying temper. Dick's utter failure to tell Bruce the crucially important fact that Jason had come back to life certainly couldn't have helped. Had Jay thought that Bruce was deliberately ignoring him for an entire month? His son was so obviously hurting—he'd apparently been murdered by a monster and Dick hadn't looked the slightest bit surprised when Jay had spoken of that or when he'd talked about digging himself out of his own grave. Given the circumstances, Dick should have managed some compassion, instead of provoking and continuing this completely unnecessary violence.

“Dick! Jay!” His children only continued to hit each other mercilessly, moving so quickly it was hard to make out every move, but Bruce could hear grunts of pain, see drops of blood left behind on the concrete floor. The fight left a noticeable dent in the door of Bruce's bright red Ferrari as they fought past it, and how hard must they be going at each other to leave that sort of casual evidence of force behind?

Dick threw Jason—threw him, although he was nearly as big as Bruce!—and Bruce saw him flip around midair to land hard, crouched on the concrete of the garage. He happened to have landed only a couple of feet from Bruce, and for just a moment, Bruce caught sight of Jason's snarling face, blood dripping from his nose and all over his teeth... The last time Bruce had seen him bleeding so badly, he'd been dead.

“ENOUGH!” Bruce roared, seizing the moment to physically throw himself over Jason like a human shield. Jason was crouched with his back to the green Lamborghini, so it would be difficult for Dick to get to Jason without physically throwing Bruce out of the way. Jason himself made an unhappy, frustrated sound, but he didn't actually attempt to throw Bruce off. Dick, on the other hand, took several menacing steps toward them.

“Stop! Dick, you are the older brother!” Bruce shouted over his shoulder, shocked at Dick's aggression. “Act like it and stop this right now!” He was sure Dick would never have acted this way with Tim.

“Bruce, you don't understand. You're only thinking this way because you've forgotten everything you knew as Batman—”

Bruce felt his sorely tested temper snap. “I said ENOUGH! Enough of your games, enough of your lies! How dare you use that ridiculous story as an excuse for attacking your own brother, who has come back to us from death itself! You can apologize to Jay and promise never to bring that lie up again, or you can get the hell out!”

“I am trying to help you!” Dick shouted back, sounding supremely frustrated. His clenched fists were trembling. “Don't you think I'd like to believe in the fairy tale resurrection story, too, if I could?” he continued, his face some odd mixture between anger and grief. “You're not the only one who knows how to drown in his own guilt, Bruce, but we can't let our logic be overruled by our emotions. If you only remembered being Batman, then you'd know that being exposed to the waters of the Lazarus Pit twists people, and—and we don't have any way of curing that madness,” Dick said, his face crumpling. The Lazarus Pit—was that what had brought Jason back?

“I am not crazy!” Jason roared, standing up despite the fact that Bruce's full body weight was still draped over him. He'd been so small once. It was amazing and a little terrifying how strong he'd gotten.

“Don't listen to him, Jay,” Bruce urged him, holding onto his younger son tightly. Between the two young men in front of him, it was obvious which one was acting crazy right then, still insisting on that ridiculous “bat man” lie. “He's wrong. We both know that he's wrong, Jay.”

“Hear that, Dick? I'm in the right,” Jason taunted angrily, but at least his bulging muscles relaxed slightly. Was his physical conditioning part of some coping mechanism he'd acquired after what had happened to him? Had Jay started working out enough to put on so much more muscle in order to feel a little safer again, after he'd been so violently murdered? If he was fearful for his safety, then a vicious fight with his own brother was the last thing he needed.

Dick took another aggressive step forward, and Bruce reluctantly let go of Jay to round on his oldest son. “If you're not going to apologize, then get out, Dick.”

His eldest son made an inarticulate sound of frustration, deep in the back of his throat. “Why do you never listen to anyone?”

“Why are you not listening to me? Take one step closer to your brother, and I will call the police.”

Instead of being cowed by the threat, Dick chuckled bitterly. “You? You'll call the police?”

“It's not funny, Dick!”

“No, you're right. None of this is funny,” Dick said grimly. “You know what, Bruce? You think Jay's so wonderful? You're welcome to him. You know how to reach me when you realize the truth.” Dick narrowed his eyes at Jason. “You won't get away with hurting him.”

“You're the only one here who attacked him tonight,” Jason growled back.

With one last furious glare at the both of them, Dick got into his car, slammed the door, and floored it out of the garage. Jason watched warily until the garage door closed again and blocked Dick's car from sight. Bruce felt his stomach churning with anxiety. He'd thrown both Alfred and Dick out of the manor in one day, despite promising himself that he was going to do better by his family. Then he looked at the blood still streaming from Jason's nose, the way one of his eyes was bloodshot from burst capillaries, hinting that a black eye was close in Jason's future, and his righteous anger returned. Much as it pained him to have thrown Dick out, clearly it was necessary to keep his younger son safe. He'd already failed him once. He was never going to fail to protect Jason ever again.

Chapter Text

Bruce watched Jason as his son leaned against the middle window in his room, idly tracing the lines of the carved window frame. It was dark out, but a small tinge of rosy color around the horizon hinted at an approaching dawn. Jay turned around to face him, and suddenly, he was just a young boy again, with thin shoulders and a mischievous smile and a cape he was growing into.

“Hey, you're up late...or maybe early. Did you come to watch the sunrise, Bruce?” Jay asked, dark hair curling over his unlined forehead.

“If I can watch it with you.”

“Sure,” Jason said, and Bruce smiled happily back at him. Something felt off as he tried to cross the room to Robin's side, though. With every step he took, the rosy gold of sunrise got brighter, but Jason himself seemed to fade more and more into shadow.

“Is there anything you'd like to do today, Jay?”

“You wanna do something together?” his son asked, and he looked excited. For some reason, though, Jason's voice came out whisper quiet. Still, his boy was here, and that was all Bruce cared about. He took one more step forward, and something crunched under his foot. He looked down, and there was a piece of the window frame. It had broken off... Bruce remembered that. The Gotham earthquake had broken several of the window frames in the manor, including the middle window in Jay's room. Alfred had gotten a new frame, but the carvings hadn't been quite the same.

Suddenly worried that his boy might have gotten hurt in the earthquake, Bruce looked back up. “Are you alright, Jay?”

Jason's lips moved like normal, but Bruce couldn't hear a sound. The sun was almost up now, and with more light, Bruce could see that there were actually spiderwebs all over the room, cracks and broken plaster from the earthquake, and a thick sprinkling of dust in the air. Jason himself was so hard to see, though, fading in the light like the shadow of his curtains, as if he were as insubstantial as the shadows themselves.

“What did you say, Jay, lad? I'm sorry, I just couldn't hear you.”

Jason reached out toward him, and Bruce started to reach back. Just then, though, the sun came up over the horizon and filled the room with sudden light. All of the shadows disappeared—and Jason along with them. Bruce's reaching hand clutched around empty air, and he swiped the curtain aside, looked under the broken bed, checked behind the dusty desk and the cold chair and the empty wardrobe, but the room was bright and broken and his smiling son wasn't there.

Bruce woke with a gasp, one part of his mind telling him his child was dead, another part assuring him that had been a dream, another part telling him that seeing Jason alive would always be just a dream. Heart pounding, Bruce stumbled out of bed. Halfway down the hallway, he realized how poorly Jay would react to Bruce bursting into his room in the middle of the night—if Jason was in his room, if he wasn't dead, after all.

Bruce crept as silently as he could the rest of the way toward Jason's door, trying to stop his breathing from sounding so loud, trying to calm his racing heart. He'd promised himself when he'd finally gone to sleep again a couple of hours ago that he wouldn't keep disturbing Jason. He'd already done it once, when he'd woken, covered in sweat, from a nightmare of Jason bleeding horrifically, pleading for Bruce to save him, all while the Joker laughed at them both. Jason had thankfully still been awake when Bruce had gone to his room after that, but Jay had to have gone to sleep by this point. Bruce didn't want to wake him, but just one little peek, just to be sure Jay was still breathing—that couldn't hurt, right? He would be so, so quiet that Jason would never even notice.

He paused with his hand on the doorknob of the bedroom he'd closed up all those years ago, creating a solemn, timeless shrine to the past that he was too cowardly to look at, except on the very darkest of nights. But this bedroom had an occupant once more, if only temporarily, and Bruce opened the door slowly and carefully, so as not to disturb him. He let out a quiet sigh of relief when he saw there was no lingering damage from the earthquake—of course there wasn't. Alfred had fixed everything up a long time ago.

Taking a cautious step forward, Bruce peered into the dark, and his heart gave a painful little jolt as the room at first looked empty. Eventually, though, a lump at the far side of the bed resolved itself into a human shape, illuminated only by the small amount of moonlight creeping in through a sliver of a gap between the curtains. Jason. His boy. His lost boy who'd grown so tall, who'd been alive long enough to get tall.

For a long few minutes, Bruce stood unmoving, just watching Jason breathe. Eventually, though, he had to lift his hand to wipe the tears out of his eyes, so that he could keep staring. Jason was breathing. His mind threw Dick's dark warnings at him, but his heart rebelled. His son was breathing. That would always be the right thing. Always.

Still, the doubts lingered, weighted at every step by guilt. Was Bruce just ignoring warning signs because he was so eager to have Jason back, because he wanted for his son to be okay so badly? Jason had been...angry when they'd spoken that night. He'd been bitter and distrustful at every turn, but he'd been murdered and then he'd dug out of his own coffin. Wouldn't it be more suspicious if a child who'd been through something so awful had been calm and happy afterward? Worse, was Bruce betraying Jason's trust by thinking that there might something wrong with him, after all? Did Jason even have any trust left for him to betray?

While Bruce was trying to sort out his opposing impulses, Jason started moving in his sleep, just little twitches at first, his hands curling slightly. Then his breathing sped up, and suddenly his hands were clawing at the air. Was he having a nightmare? A seizure? Something worse? On desperate instinct, Bruce rushed to his side. At the first gentle touch to Jason's shoulder, he jerked away, breathing hard.

“Jay, it's alright. You're alright,” Bruce reassured him, hoping it was true.

“Wha—? Bruce?” Jason asked, sounding confused but not pained.

“Yes. I'm...I'm here, Jay, lad,” Bruce whispered. He was there finally, as he hadn't been when Jason had needed him most. He knelt by the side of the bed. “Did you have a nightmare?”

Jason groaned, swiping a hand down his face. In the dim light, it was hard to make out his exact expression, but he didn't look happy. “Coffin dream, again,” he muttered, and Bruce felt every drop of blood drain out of his face. “This is why I should have just slept at my own place.”

Bruce winced. He'd basically begged for Jason to stay at the Manor that night, for his own peace of mind. It hadn't occurred to him that this might have become an unfamiliar place for Jason, that he might not sleep well here. “You wouldn't have had a nightmare if you'd gone home?” he asked guiltily.

Jason snorted. “I wouldn't have had someone to wake me up from the nightmare and fuss over me.” Bruce...did not like the sound of that.

“Jay, no, you shouldn't be alone for this.”

“Why not?” His face was in shadow, but the squaring of his shoulders was belligerent. “I've been dealing with this on my own the whole time,” he said defiantly.

The thought twisted Bruce's heart. “I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for that, Jay. I'm sorry you were ever alone,” he said, his voice cracking. “I'm sorry I didn't stay at your side in Ethiopia, when you really needed me.”

That drew another groan out of him. “It's too early to go through this again,” Jason whined, but at least that meant that Bruce had tried to apologize to him before. From some of the things Jason had said, Bruce had to truly wonder what strange thoughts had been going through his own head prior to the amnesia, that he'd failed so spectacularly to make his feelings clear to his miracle child. “Look, I'm not angry at you for what happened in Ethiopia, okay Bruce? I forgave you for not saving me a long time ago.”

“Why?” The word was out of his mouth before Bruce could think to censor himself.

“Why what?”

“Why would you forgive me? I was supposed to protect you, Jay, and I failed in the worst way possible,” he said, his voice hoarse with grief and guilt. “How can you just dismiss that so easily?” Especially when you're angry about everything else, Bruce didn't add aloud.

“I...wasn't even mad, before I died,” Jason answered slowly. “I knew—I saw the bomb ticking down, and the door was locked, and I knew,” he said, and Bruce's heart nearly burst from the pain of imagining his son, injured and trapped, knowing he'd be dead in just a few seconds. Jay must have been so frightened... “But I got used to taking care of myself when I was a lot younger than that, used to making my own decisions and living with the consequences. That was the first time I died of them, but...I knew you were at least trying to look after me. That was good enough.”

“So you forgive me for not saving you, because you didn't expect me to save you in the first place,” Bruce said, self-recrimination thick in his voice. Naturally, Jason couldn't be mad at him for betraying his trust, if Bruce hadn't ever actually been trusted to look after his son in the first place. Bruce had thought he'd understood how much he'd failed as a father, but at that moment, he realized he hadn't even scratched the surface of how abject his failure had been. How could Jason not have expected his own father to protect him?

“I expected you to try, Bruce, and I'm sure you did. I don't hate myself for failing to save Sheila, either, because I know I tried my best, with the choices and information I had at the time,” Jason said, surprising Bruce. He'd hardly thought about Sheila, with so much of his focus on Jason. Of course Jason would be concerned with his own mother, though. Of course he'd tried to save her. That was just like his boy, to think of helping someone else when he was in danger himself. “It didn't work out, but that's not my fault.”

“Of course not, Jay,” Bruce said, cautiously reaching out one hand to lay gently over Jason's. How had he forgotten, even for a moment, that Jason would be grieving the loss of his mother, as well? “You were just a boy. It was never your responsibility to save your mother.”

“No,” he said, something dark passing over his expression, “but I was there, so I did my best. Sometimes that's not enough. Bruce, sometimes shit just happens. If you're not the one who caused it, that's not on you. But once you see a pattern, once you know it's going to keep happening, if you ignore that, then that's on you. Before I died, you used to at least try. But after...”

Bruce nodded quietly, accepting the rebuke. He deserved much worse. Before that night, he didn't remember ever interacting with Jason after his death, but it was obvious that he had, from everything that Dick and Jason had said. It was also obvious, from Dick's almost incredulous frustration, that Bruce had never stood up for Jason before, despite the fact that his boy clearly needed him so much.

He'd spent years regretting not being there for Jason like he should have been, agonizing over everything he should have done differently, and yet when he'd had a miraculous second chance dropped in his lap, Bruce had gone right back to failing Jay all over again. Why hadn't Bruce been helping him? How could he have just let Jason deal with his own murder, and his mother's murder, and his macabre resurrection, all on his own? Perhaps he was the monster.

Jay still dreamed about waking up trapped in his own coffin. The thought filled Bruce with horror. Jason had been standing a couple floors up inside a dark, condemned building, all alone, thinking about the past, before the mugging. How could that possibly be safe? Jay had leaped in against two violent criminals in order to save Bruce, even though Bruce had clearly left Jason alone to deal with his own troubles. Jay both needed and deserved the love and support of his family. Why hadn't Bruce been giving him that?

Well, for the past month, it had been because both Dick and Alfred had taken every chance they could to talk about this ridiculous “bat man” story and no time at all to tell him that his murdered son was actually alive. Jason had confirmed that Alfred had known he was alive as well, and Bruce was quietly furious. He'd been trying to convince himself he didn't regret sending Alfred away almost since the moment he'd done it, but after that revelation, he really hadn't regretted it.

“I'm sorry I haven't been there for you, Jay. I promise that will change from now on.”

Jason made a frustrated sound, pulling his wrist away. “You're still not listening. What the hell does 'being there for me' do, when all that means is you stand around and look sad when bad shit keeps happening?” Jason demanded, and the words sliced into Bruce like a serrated knife. “I know you can't do anything directly right now—the Joker would tear you apart—but how many times has he broken out of Arkham, Bruce? How many times has he been put back in, just to pull another homicidal stunt? You're rich and famous, and that gives you financial and political clout. What have you done to proactively stop the Joker lately?” Jason demanded, his fists clenched and his voice angry. “What new laws have you championed? What Arkham reforms have you publicly backed and funded? What sort of police training have you advocated for?”

Bruce was silent, too ashamed to give any of the feeble answers that came to mind. The truth was, he'd been thinking guiltily along the exact same lines earlier that day. He wasn't doing enough. He wasn't doing anywhere near enough, and Jason was paying for it. Bruce thought of how much muscle Jay had put on again, how he might feel scared for his own safety, although of course he wouldn't admit to it. Why shouldn't he be scared, though? The Joker was always breaking out of Arkham. He was always trying to kill people. Jason had already been killed once. It was entirely sensible that he'd be worried about it happening again, when absolutely nothing had changed to stop it.

“Jay...I promise, I will do more to stop the Joker from ever killing again. I'll do more about the other problems Gotham is facing, too. I know child homelessness is still an issue, a problem that's only gotten worse since the earthquake. I'm not going to let the same struggles you went through keep afflicting Gotham's children again and again, and I won't stand back while Dick or Alfred or anyone else maligns you, either.”

Jason was silent for a long moment. “You're gonna change your mind about that last part, as soon as you get your memory back.”

“I won't,” Bruce promised. He didn't know what brand of superstition had caused Dick to turn on Jason, but Bruce wasn't going to allow paranoia to rule him, especially not when Jason had no one else. The thought of how alone his poor child had been was heartbreaking, especially because it didn't have to be that way. Jason should have been welcomed home by his whole family.

Dick and Alfred had already proven themselves untrustworthy when it came to Jason, though. Tim, on the other hand, had always been so compassionate. Maybe things would be different with him. Bruce would have to try to contact him again in the morning, like he had every morning for the past few weeks. Jay had admitted that he barely even knew his younger brother, which wasn't surprising, considering that Bruce hadn't adopted Tim until long after Jason had died, but Bruce was hoping that once they got to know each other, they'd be the sort of brothers Dick and Jason should have been.

Bruce could vividly remember the sharp, wistful pain of every moment he'd spent watching Tim doing something Jason would have enjoyed and thinking to himself how they would have gotten along so well, if only they'd had a chance to get to know each other. That had felt like a devastating thought once, but now it was filled with hope. Granted, Jason hadn't seemed very enthusiastic about meeting Tim, but that was likely because of his bad experience with Dick. Surely Tim and Jason would hit it off, if Tim just came home.

Chapter Text

Tim collapsed in bed with deep sigh of relief. The Titans had gone from one crisis to another, struggling to cover for the amnesiac JLA members while investigating what could have caused their sudden loss of memory in the first place. He was hungry and he had a dehydration headache, but he was so beyond exhausted that all he wanted to do just then was sleep.

Unfortunately, his phone started beeping an incredibly annoying reminder at him. One month check-in? Tim squinted at it for a moment before memory dawned. He had a self imposed limit of one month without checking in with his civilian identity. He'd instituted the rule because his civilian friends and acquaintances tended to get suspicious if he just dropped completely off the face of the earth, even if he had made excuses beforehand. Had it really been an entire month?

Grimacing, Tim finally admitted to himself that it had been. He really should check his civilian voicemail and messages, maybe post something online about getting mononucleosis or malaria or something else nasty on his trip abroad. Just a few more minutes, and he could go straight to sleep.

Tim jolted awake at the sound of a dull thud. For a long moment he blinked slowly at the phone on the floor. His civilian phone? Oh, he needed to do his civilian check-in, which he'd apparently been right in the middle of when he'd just closed his eyes for a little bit. Groaning, Tim reached down to scoop up the phone he'd dropped when he'd started to doze sitting up. He was so tired that just lifting up the phone again felt like a Herculean task.

There were more than one hundred unread messages. How could there be that many messages? Tim didn't even have that many friends, and they knew he wasn't that communicative. Who could have left so many? Apparently, Bruce could, but if Bruce needed to get a hold of him, he always called on the secure channel...

A sudden jolt of adrenaline went through Tim, as he scrambled to try to speed read through the texts and emails Bruce had sent. Apparently, he'd left voice messages, too, on Tim's civilian line, probably because he didn't remember that Tim had a secure line he checked much more frequently. Why hadn't it occurred to Tim that Bruce's amnesia might include that?

His eyes burned from too many hours awake, and he knew why, of course. He'd been so chronically tired and busy trying to cover for so many incapacitated JLA members with his team that he hadn't had even a minute to sit down and think about anything that wasn't the next most immediate crisis. Bruce hardly ever used Tim's civilian line and only for non-urgent things, so Tim just hadn't thought he needed to check it when he was in the middle of dealing with a parade of supervillains. He wasn't even caught up on the messages on his secure line, so how could he even think of handling the civilian side, too?

Still, he hadn't meant to ignore Bruce for an entire month. Tim frowned as he got further through the messages. Bruce's texts were...odd. Tim was used to the questions about where he was. Inquiries about how he was doing were generally slanted more toward whether he had any injuries, but Tim could see the similarity to normal in those. What he didn't recognize were the funny anecdotes Bruce emailed him, the suggestions that Bruce could fly out to him and they could meet up for dinner any place Tim wanted, and the flat out pleading for Tim to come home or at least call. Bruce didn't remember he was Batman, though, so why did he need to see Tim so badly? It wasn't like he'd need help on a case.

Still, Tim had better call him. He glanced wearily at the clock. 4:06 AM. Well, Tim had better call him when the sun was actually up. In the mean time, he'd just get a little nap in while waiting for a respectable hour to roll around. This seemed like an incredibly good plan to Tim's overtired brain, right up until he jolted awake at noon with a dry mouth and an impending sense of doom. Was there something he was supposed to be doing?

Tim blinked fuzzily as the clock ticked over to 12:01 PM, before jolting fully awake. Fingers working on pure muscle memory, he placed a call to Wayne Manor. It rang seven times before someone picked up. Alfred would have picked up sooner, so this must be Bruce.

“Bruce, I'm sorry I haven't called—”

“I'm not sorry you haven't,” a male voice sneered.

Tim blinked. “You're not Bruce.”

“Wow, what an incredible feat of deduction. Did you notice that I'm not Alfred, either?”

Finally, Tim placed the voice. “Jason?!”

“Well, I guess you're not completely hopeless.”

Anger surged through him. “What have you done to Bruce and Alfred?”

“Seriously? You're taking a little too much after Dick there, copy cat. I haven't seen Alfred at all, but Bruce is fine.”

“According to what definition of 'fine'?”

“I can tell you that he's absolutely thrilled to have his 'good' son home. In case it's not obvious, that would be me,” Jason gloated. “He already kicked Dick out of the Manor, and apparently, you've been ignoring him for an entire month, so it wasn't a hard competition to win.”

“You're lying,” Tim immediately retorted. Dick would have told him if Bruce had kicked him out, wouldn't he?

“You're delusionally optimistic. Most people tend to get a little upset if they send you innumerable text messages and emails, not to mention leaving a dozen voice mails, all without receiving a single reply for a month.”

“How would you know about that?” Tim demanded, already thinking about the many ways Jason could have hacked into his civilian accounts. They were civilian, of course they didn't have extensive security precautions at every point in the communication chain.

“Because Bruce complained about it to me, obviously. Since he seemed really cut up about it, I did the sympathetic thing and told him how I was sure you'd talk to him someday, after you handled all your higher priorities.”

What else had Jason told Bruce, while his persistent amnesia made him all too vulnerable to someone looking to misinform and manipulate him? Tim seethed just thinking about it. “You won't get away with this.”

“What? Being the 'good' son? Who's going to take that from me? You?” Jason scoffed. “I'm pretty sure you'd have to actually show up to do that. I can guarantee you won't like the result if you do, though,” Jason said, sounding so smug Tim wanted to knock his teeth in. An instant later, the line went dead.

Tim glared hard at his phone, as if it were at fault for the fact that Jason had hung up on him. Well, first things first: fact checking, since he certainly wouldn't take Jason's word on anything. Logging into his secure account, he saw that Dick had actually left him a message that he hadn't read last night: “Plan to have A convince Bruce about Batman went up in flames. B invited Jason to move back in after he saved him from a mugging in Crime Alley. Call me.” Was the failure of Plan A why Jason hadn't seen Alfred? What sort of a mugging had it been that Bruce had needed help? Ominous.

Dick didn't pick up when Tim tried to call him, though. He checked Nightwing's mission status and with a sinking feeling, saw him listed as being on a mission in Metropolis with several of the older generation of Titans. Apparently, one of Superman's usual villains was stirring up trouble while the Man of Steel himself was absolutely convinced he was nothing more than a mild mannered reporter. Taking care of that likely wouldn't be an easy task.

Okay, so the rest of the younger Titans were just as exhausted as Tim himself, probably more, because they for some reason had trouble falling asleep in those Trojan firearms crates the team had tricked their latest villain into smuggling inside his lair. Tim wasn't going to bring his friends into danger when they wouldn't be at their sharpest. Jason had already proved he knew how to take the Titans out, anyway, when he'd attacked Tim in the Tower. Tim, at least, was used to getting by on very little sleep, and if he went alone, Jason would surely underestimate him, given how their last encounter ended. Tim had just the plan to take advantage of that.

He was almost excited for the rematch when he arrived. Maybe Tim was a little nervous, too, but this time he'd have the advantage of surprise. He could choose a moment when Jason was vulnerable. It would be so satisfying to give him a taste of his own medicine, and then Tim would explain the truth to Bruce. Maybe this would finally be the impetus for him to see Jason for what he truly was. Tim had no illusions that Bruce would let go of his constant guilt, but maybe he'd at least realize how self-defeating it was to keep searching for ways to save someone who didn't want to be saved.

It was easy to slip into Wayne Manor quietly. Tim was very familiar with all of its defenses, and Batman obviously hadn't remembered enough to make any updates in the last month. The hardest part was actually finding Jason. He wasn't in his mausoleum of an old room or anywhere in the family wing. The kitchen was empty, as were all of the various living and entertainment rooms. No one was in the garden or the attic, and Tim was almost ready to give up and check Bruce's study, where an emotionally compromised Bruce most likely was and where Tim was hoping Jason wasn't, when he finally spotted Jason in the library.

He was dressed in worn sweat pants and a faded t-shirt that might have belonged to Bruce, and if he had any weapons on him at all, they were small and well hidden. It was the first time Tim had seen Jason out of armor since before the Joker had killed him, and he couldn't help but think that the infamous Red Hood looked oddly harmless as he carefully flipped through the pages of an old book, a small smile on his face. For just a moment, Tim wondered if this was how Jason had used to spend his afternoons, just sitting in the big armchair by the library windows, avidly reading. He couldn't help feeling an echo of old longing for what might have been, if only he had gotten to know Jason before his death. What would it have been like, if Tim had become Robin under the proud mentoring of two older former Robins?

With a wistful pang, he shook that unhelpful thought away. This wasn't Jason, Bruce's son and the second Robin Tim had once looked up to. This was the Red Hood, a crime lord and a villain with a spiteful vendetta against their family. He'd no doubt come specifically to take advantage of Bruce's amnesia—and was that a black eye Jason was sporting? Had he already started fighting with Bruce?

It was long past time for Tim to pay the Red Hood back for everything he'd done to their family, all the pain and betrayal he'd put them through. Tim could feel his heart rate spiking higher and higher the closer he crept. It almost seemed like he might be able to sneak right up on his prey, but Jason flipped sideways out of the armchair at the last possible moment, leaving Tim's bo to swing through thin air as the book Jason had been reading thumped on the floor.

“Oh, finally decided to drag yourself home, Replacement?” Jason asked, straightening to face him with narrowed eyes. “But I bet you still haven't talked to Daddy Dearest, have you?”

“I'm going to settle things with you first!” Tim told him, stepping forward with one end of his bo raised high, but then he swept the other end out low, trying to catch the side of Jason's knee and reduce his maneuverability. Unfortunately, Jason saw the move coming and sidestepped. Instead of immediately retaliating as Tim had expected, though, he turned and ran for the exit of the library. Disappointed that he'd missed his chance for an easy win, Tim rushed after him.

He took a few more swings which just barely missed as Jason dodged into another room. It had two doors, though, and Jason was able to slip out the second and reach the stairs. Tim was passingly familiar with sliding down the railings in this house as well, and he nearly caught his adversary on the dismount. However, Jason ducked away and bolted again. What was he doing? Trying to get to a weapons cache? Tim wouldn't give him the time to grab anything.

By the time Jason had led him to the other side of the Manor, dodging all the way, Tim was beginning to get a little impatient. He'd expected Jason to charge right in, to try to use his superior bulk to overwhelm Tim at a close distance. Everything Tim and Bruce and Dick had documented about him indicated that Red Hood should be eagerly aggressive. Instead, he just yielded ground and ran, and Tim was never quite able to land a hit on him. He was growing uncomfortably aware of how much of a difference it made to be just a little bit slower on his swings and recoveries, owing to the additional weight of this particular bo staff. He hadn't thought it would be a problem, because he'd expected Jason to come charging after him. Why the sudden change in behavior? Had he figured out Tim's trap, somehow?

All Tim could do now was try to catch Jason, and his boots pounded hard against Alfred's well varnished floors as he struggled to keep up with Red Hood's longer strides. He was feeling a little worried about his chances by the time Jason led him straight to the family living room and turned toward the side door. Tim expected him to dodge again, but this time he must have misjudged Tim strike a little, because he finally succeeded in landing a glancing blow against Jason's arm. A glancing blow was all he needed, though. Electricity from his specially modified bo staff, modeled after Dick's escrima, soon had Jason collapsing to the ground. Tim raised his staff to strike again, and that was when he realized that he'd fallen into Jason's trap: the family living room was right next to Bruce's study.

“No!” The horrified yell froze Tim in place, and Jason gave him a triumphant grin from the carpet he was still mostly collapsed on.

“Bruce, you said I'd be safe here!” Jason shouted, sounding upset, but his grin, turned toward Tim and away from Bruce, only got sharper. No wonder Jason had uncharacteristically retreated. He'd been leading Tim straight to Bruce.

“Get away from my son!” Bruce roared, charging toward them with pure rage on his face, and Tim, who was viscerally aware of exactly how dangerous Batman's corded muscles could be, retreated several hasty steps, his heart twisting. If Jason was his son, then what about Tim?

“W-wait, Bruce, this isn't what it looks like!” Tim said, holding his hands out in supplication.

Bruce froze, staring at him with a penetrating gaze for a long moment. “...Tim?” he finally asked, starting to minutely untense his muscles.

“Yes. It's me, Tim,” he hastened to confirm. Was that why Bruce had looked at him with such rage? He hadn't recognize Tim at all? Tim wanted to believe that now that he did, Bruce saw him as just as much his son as Jason was, but a frizzing fear in his stomach just wouldn't settle. Had Bruce truly thought he was a complete stranger? Alfred had reported that he'd told Bruce he was Batman many, many times, and of course, he'd also told him that Dick was Nightwing and that Tim was Robin. Bruce apparently really hadn't believed him, though, because he still looked absolutely shocked when Tim quickly dug the tube of solvent out of his belt and peeled off his domino.

“You said if I gave Tim a chance, we'd get along,” Jason whined—whined!—at Bruce, as if the fact that they didn't get along was Tim's fault. Oh, that scheming, manipulative liar!

“Jay, lad, I'm so sorry,” Bruce said, carefully helping Jason back up. He shot Tim a betrayed look. “How could you, Tim? Did Dick put you up to this? Did he convince you to dress up in this, this ridiculous costume,” Bruce said, flailing his whole arm at Tim's Robin suit, “and attack your own brother?”

“Bruce, that's not what happened.”

“I heard two sets of footsteps sprinting through the house,” he said, and Tim winced. Yes, the first place Jason had led them was the room right above Bruce's desk, “and then I came in here to see you swinging that taser staff—”

“Technically, it's an electrified bo.”

Bruce's eyes narrowed in a way that told Tim he had reached the very limit of his patience. “You hit Jason. You electrocuted him, even though he was clearly unarmed and running away from you. Do you dispute any of that?”

Tim shifted uncomfortably under his gaze, feeling as if he was being judged wanting in some sort of sacred court, rather than the family living room. “Well, no, but there are extenuating circumstances. I can see Jason's already injured you—”

“What?” Bruce interrupted. “You mean this?” he asked, gesturing at his swollen cheek and black eye. There was also a half visible scrape disappearing under the hem of his shirt sleeve. “I was mugged last night, Tim,” Bruce insisted, and Tim did remember reading that in Dick's message. “Jason would never hurt me.”

The last statement was so absurd that for a moment, Tim just stared at him in complete shock, before remembering that he could and should object. “Of course he would hurt you! Bruce, Jason is practically a supervillain.”

“I am not,” Jason objected, having the gall to actually look and sound offended.

Tim narrowed his eyes at him. “You're the Red Hood, and you're manipulating Bruce right now.”

Jason glared back at him. “After Dick and I got into a fight last night, I got the whole 'you shouldn't fight with your brother, so if you think a disagreement might get violent, let me mediate' speech. Well, when you showed up swinging, what other option did I really have? I wasn't going to sit around unresisting while you beat me bloody.” Jason crossed his arms in a way that was probably designed to show off how much muscle he had. Tim hated how effective it was. “I also figured I could save the fighting back for at least twenty four hours after the last lecture on it.”

“You made the right decision, Jay,” Bruce said soothingly, before turning an angry scowl on Tim. “That's much more than I can say for you, Tim. I was shocked when Dick attacked Jason unprovoked last night, but for you to do the exact same thing...” Bruce shook his head, an incredibly disappointed look on his face.

Tim tried hard to keep down the burn of shame, even though he knew he hadn't done anything wrong. “It was not unprovoked! He's attacked us in the past!”

Bruce's eyes narrowed. “Does this have anything to do with the theory that he came back wrong?”

“He did come back wrong!” Tim knew, with the merciless clarity of hindsight, that his words were exactly the wrong thing to say, the very second after he said them.

“Get out,” Bruce told him, colder than he'd ever been when speaking to Tim.

“Bruce—”

“Get out. Go stay with Dick, if you're just going to insist on repeating his lies.”

“They're not lies!”

Bruce shook his head, eyes still cold as ice. “You know, I couldn't figure out why Dick and Alfred were spinning such ridiculous stories. What was there to gain? But I can't help but notice that you've cast everyone in this family as a hero, except for Jason, whom you've cast as a villain. Has this whole horrible deception just been a way to keep me away from him? Did the three of you cause my amnesia, to make me forget he was even alive?”

“What?” Tim squawked, startled. “No, that wasn't us, and you aren't the only one affected. We've been investigating—”

“Have you?”Bruce cut in, his voice laced with suspicion. “Or have you just been trying to take advantage of the situation?”

“Bruce, no, that's what Jason is doing—”

“For a month, an entire month,” Bruce hissed, “you haven't communicated with me at all, although I've been trying to so hard to get in contact with you. During that time, no one told me Jason was even alive. The day after he comes home, though, you suddenly decide to show up? Specifically to attack him without even speaking to me? Yet you're claiming this situation has nothing to do with your obvious hostility toward him?”

Tim fidgeted nervously. Suddenly, any grip he held his bo in only made him worry he looked more guilty. “When you only have a subset of the relevant facts, I admit it does sound suspicious, but I've been busy as Robin, trying to cover for amnesiac heroes—”

“Enough. I've had well more than enough of these lies, Tim,” Bruce shouted, fists clenched. He was obviously struggling for calm. Tim was uncomfortably reminded of how Jack Drake had looked when he'd been drinking, except Bruce Wayne was a lot more dangerous. “You can apologize to your brother, spend time getting to know Jason like family members should, and never speak another word of this grotesque fiction—or you can side with Dick. The two of you can spend your time trading stories of your awful fantasy and stay far away from Jason, who is going to be staying with me. Which is it going to be?”

Tim felt his eyes burning. He was painfully reminded of having to choose living with his biological father over being Robin because he had to keep their identities a secret, and that was the only way Jack Drake would agree. He wasn't sure that Bruce had ever really forgiven him for that. He wasn't sure Bruce would forgive him for this, either.

Tim couldn't afford to stay at the Manor making nice with the viper Bruce thought was his son, because Robin had so much work to do. His team was counting on him to be there for the next mission. He was worried for Bruce, of course, but he actually did look in good health, despite some scrapes and bruises, which Tim now assumed were from the mugging Dick had mentioned. Tim only had time to worry about people in immediate danger at the moment, and if he had a little time to spare, it was better spent investigating how to get Bruce's memories back, rather than indulging his distorted version of reality.

“I choose Dick. I choose Nightwing and Robin,” he said, trying to keep his chin up and his voice steady. He wasn't sure he succeeded at the later. Bruce looked at him as if Tim had just ripped his heart straight out of his chest.

“I see,” Bruce said, his voice trembling. He turned halfway away from Tim, as if he could no longer bear to look at him. “Then this is goodbye, Tim.” He took a wet breath, as if he were holding back a sob. “You can show yourself out. If, if you get tired of staying with Dick or your friends, you can stay at any of my other properties, the penthouse, the Metropolis condo...you can always call me for help or groceries or anything else you need, but I can't have you at the Manor if you're going to attack Jason. If you won't change your mind on this, I can't—” He shook his head. Bruce's eyes were welling with liquid, and he looked seconds away from crying. Tim wanted to, as well. He wouldn't give Jason the satisfaction of seeing it, though.

When he cut his eyes over toward the killer that had engineered this whole mess, though, he didn't look happy. Jason had curled a protective arm around Bruce, almost leaning into him. His eyebrows were pinched in and his mouth was set in a hard line, the corners tugging down, even though Bruce wasn't paying any attention to his expression. When Jason noticed Tim was staring at him, though, his expression morphed into a heated glare. Tim wasn't eager to see what other poison tricks he had up his sleeve, so he backed up a few more steps and warily turned around to leave.

“Goodbye, Bruce,” he said over his shoulder. “I promise I'll pick up as soon as I can, if you ever need me.” With Jason living in the Manor, that was only a matter of time.

Chapter Text

“Then, he had the nerve to claim he wasn't manipulating Bruce with that whole helpless display. His excuse was that since Bruce told him not to fight with me, he apparently couldn't do it! Can you believe that?”

Barbara sighed. “The only part I have a hard time believing is that both of you made exactly the same mistake,” she said tiredly, squinting at the screen where she had Robin and Nightwing on a secure video conference call.

“Well, I didn't know how things had gone with Dick back then!” Tim objected.

“Because you didn't bother gathering the necessary information before going on your self-imposed mission.”

“I tried calling, but Dick was tied up with that hostage crisis in Metropolis. It would have delayed me another three hours if I'd waited for him to get back to me.”

“In this case, wouldn't waiting those hours have been worth it?” Barbara asked, letting her tired, burning eyes close for just a little bit.

Tim hunched his shoulders. “...Okay, yes, but I didn't know that what Dick had to say would make such a difference. Besides, Bruce could have been in immediate danger!”

“I wouldn't have left for Metropolis if he had been,” Dick pointed out.

“I thought you might have had to prioritize,” Tim argued. “Bruce might not have been in immediate danger when you left, but that didn't guarantee he was still okay half a day later.”

“So you just sneaked in and attacked Jason when he was reading in the library?” Barbara said. As a former librarian, she disapproved of that on principle.

“Well, I wasn't going to announce myself and give Jason a chance to get a gun to shoot me with!”

“Of course not, Tim. You're a vigilante, not some fantasy knight who fights honor duel. I know Bruce trained you both to strike when you have an advantage, not to allow your generally honorless adversaries to prepare themselves and pick up dangerous weapons to kill you with.”

Tim and Dick both nodded.

“But I'm sure Batman also taught you one more thing: when it is acceptable for you to use that sort of tactic. He's always stressed the importance of detective skills, of knowing and being able to prove a suspect's guilt before going after him.”

“But Jason is guilty,” Dick said.

“Does Bruce know that? Did either of you have the evidence to prove it to him?”

They were both suspiciously silent, meaning that her point had hit home.

“You could have waited and observed and tried to figure out what Jason was up to, before going after him.”

“But Batman also trained me to neutralize threats before innocent civilians are placed in the line of fire,” Tim objected, “and okay, I know Bruce isn't exactly a civilian, but right now, he doesn't remember being Batman. To find out what Jason had planned for Bruce, I would have had to let them interact. Jason had some obvious bruises, and I thought he'd been fighting with Bruce already.”

“If Bruce remembered who he was, I'm sure he would have told you that he can take a few bruises, Tim.”

“I know, but it's Jason.”

Barbara understood, of course, what Tim meant. Jason could do an enormous amount of emotional damage without putting Bruce's life at risk. However, charging into a complex emotional situation without all the facts wasn't necessarily the best way to prevent that. “I understand that you were worried, but there's a reason Batman has always tried to collect evidence and figure out villainous plots before charging in. By striking first, you may have played right into Jason's plans, because what you did makes you look like the bad guys.”

“I was just trying to protect Bruce!” Tim objected.

“I know,” Barbara said, rubbing tiredly at her dry, burning eyes. She desperately needed a few hours of sleep. “We all know that Jason had less than noble intentions when he went running to Bruce, but the hard fact of the matter is, Tim, it was Jason who did the objectively right, from the civilian perspective.”

Tim gave her a betrayed look.

“Tim, go ahead and take a survey of random civilians. Most of them will agree that you shouldn't just attack someone reading peacefully in a library. All of them, if you survey librarians,” Barbara added wryly. “Jason surely avoided the fight for the wrong reasons, but in our society, we don't punish people for making objectively correct choices, no matter the logic behind those choices.”

Tim grumbled something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like “maybe we should.”

Barbara sighed. “Some proportion of charity donations come from rich people just trying to look good, but the money still helps a good cause, so giving to charity is still viewed positively, even though some people just have egotistical intentions. When sadists avoid torturing others to stay out of jail themselves, we don't decide to throw them in jail anyway for abstaining for the wrong reasons—because if they go to jail either way, their incentive to not do awful things disappears. The whole system of social checks and balances encourages good behavior by rewarding it—not punishing it. If your argument is that Jason is in the wrong for doing the objectively right thing, then your argument is fundamentally flawed.”

Both Tim and Dick looked very unhappy with what she was saying, but if they had any valid objections to make, she would have heard them by now. “On the other hand, I know the two of you had the best of intentions, but your actions directly caused avoidable violence. That reminds me,” Barbara said, creating an email to Nightwing and Robin and attaching a file full of evidence, before sending it. “Dick, I ran a complete background check on the guy whose prints were on that dropped knife that you found, when you went back to Crime Alley to check Jason's story.”

“His name's Derek Hunterdon, and he's been in and out of jail for a string of petty thefts and minor drug charges. I was able to catch him and his partner in crime on a CCTV camera three nights before the incident with Bruce. They were mugging another person in the area at knifepoint. There weren't any cameras in place right where Bruce was mugged, but I did find Derek and his partner on camera entering the vicinity at the right time and then making a quick limping retreat. I think it's pretty clear at this point that Bruce was mugged, that Jason did help him, and that instead of getting the facts, you attacked him, as thanks for his rare good behavior.”

Dick winced and had the good grace to at least appear remorseful. “I know I made the wrong call there. I just saw Bruce with those fresh injuries and Jason standing right there, and I assumed. I didn't spend time gathering evidence because I really did think Bruce was in immediate danger.”

“Which was a fair assumption given recent history,” Barbara acknowledged, “but when Jason has struck at us in the past, he's always been eager to take responsibility, to provoke a fight. When he started objecting, you really should have given your assumption a second thought.”

Dick scrubbed a hand down his tired face. “I know. I know.”

“I'm afraid I have more bad news for both of you.”

“What?”

“From what you've both told me, it was your fear for Bruce—and maybe a touch of resentment—that lead to some poor choices on your parts. Meanwhile, Jason has obviously leveraged Bruce's trust and affection for him to his full advantage. If emotions are now a battleground we have to engage with Jason on, and we obviously need an actual plan to win the fight considering past results, then to make that plan we have to talk about emotions.” Barbara was treated to two nearly identical shocked and sour expressions.

“Oh.”

“Yes. Oh. I know you're both going to hate it, but if you're not aware of your own emotional weaknesses, how will you know what vulnerable spots you have to cover?”

“Okay. Yes, I get it,” Dick groaned, looking like he needed about three days of solid sleep. Barbara knew he wasn't going to get it, though. The best she could do was ensure that he didn't dig himself any deeper into the hole he was in.

“I've got a couple of questions I believe it's important to think on carefully. Why did you not contact Bruce for a month, Tim?”

“I was too busy,” Tim replied immediately.

“Hmm.” Oracle was not at all convinced. “We've all been busy, Tim, but I still made time to send my dad a few basic 'I'm not dead' texts every couple of weeks. That doesn't even take a minute, so here's what I think,” Barbara said, trying to be sympathetic, when all she wanted was a few hours of quality time with her bed. Still, she knew she knew she'd regret it later if she was too blunt here and hurt Tim's feelings. “If you normally thought about your relationship with Bruce regularly, it would have occurred to you naturally to contact him. You wouldn't have had to specifically set aside time to think about when you last talked to him. But I understand exactly where you picked up your poor communication habits. It seems that Bruce is unwittingly reaping the rewards of his own poor choices.”

“I also think that a big part of why you didn't contact him for a month is that you didn't want to think about how he's forgotten such a huge part of your life together. Maybe you were worried about how well you'd relate to each other without Batman and Robin. Bruce practically spends his whole life repressing emotionally painful things and pretending he can live for the cowl, so I know where you learned that habit, too. But Bruce doesn't know that right now. He doesn't believe you're out there saving lives. He thinks you were just too busy chatting with friends and playing video games to contact him for a month. That comes off as callous, although I know that wasn't your intent.”

“Dick said Bruce did admit he has some amnesia, although he's still insisting he's not Batman. In my opinion, that's a huge step forward. If you stopped talking about the facts, which Bruce is still disputing, and started focusing on the feelings, maybe telling him how upsetting it is for you that he's forgotten so much of your time together, I think he'd react much more compassionately.”

While Tim chewed on that, Barbara switched her focus to the third member of their sleep deprived conference. “From what you said, Dick, Jason being alive was what finally got through to Bruce that he's forgotten things, which is yet another reason why you should have had a conversation with Bruce about Jason sooner. Why didn't you at least mention he was alive, Dick?”

“It's just that Jason's life is so important to Bruce. Somehow, it didn't occur to me that Bruce could possibly forget about that.”

“Yes, the thought does seem ludicrous, but Bruce forgot about being Batman, which is a central feature of his very identity. Given that, it seems like anything could be fair game. Of course you couldn't double check every little thing Bruce did and didn't remember, but Jason's very life? That's not some minor detail. You could have at least made the most cursory check of what Bruce remembered about Jason or just about his life overall. So here's what I think, Dick: you didn't because you don't let yourself think about Jason unless you have to. It's painful, so you repress it, and you try your best to forget.”

Barbara frowned. “Having an eidetic memory, I don't have luxury of forgetting what Jason was like. He was a good kid, a kid who didn't deserve to be forgotten, and as long as that's the line you're selling Bruce, he's never going to accept it.”

“But Jason came back...changed, and not in a good way,” Tim objected.

“He did, and it's much simpler to just think of him as a totally different person, right? People like Clayface or Jane Doe might wear familiar faces, but they're just criminals you have no emotional connection to. You've learned to make that disconnect. But Jason is wearing his own face. He is actually Jason Todd, so telling Bruce that's not his son isn't going to fly.”

Barbara tried her best to keep her voice gentle, as she knew Jason was a sore point for the both of them. “Telling yourself this Jason is a different person is an emotional coping mechanism to distance yourself from a painful truth, but if you want to convince Bruce, you need to face up to reality, in all its unfortunate complexity. Bruce may not be seeing everything clearly, but neither are you two. You have to look at the totality of who Jason is and work from there, if you want to be successful.”

“The totality of who Jason is?!” Tim asked, incredulous. “He's a cold hearted killer.”

“Wrong,” Barbara told him, with less tact than she would have used if she'd had at least a couple hours of sleep in the past twenty four, “because a cold hearted killer wouldn't have stopped a mugging and then driven the victim home. Jason is more than that, Tim, and you know it.”

“He killed a kidnapper while wearing a Nightwing suit in New York City,” Dick said, frowning, “but he did save the kid.”

“Yes, exactly,” Barbara said, grateful that someone was getting it. “It's easier to see things in black and white—killer or savior, Robin or Red Hood—but that doesn't mean the easy way is right. If you tell Bruce that Jason is 'just a killer', of course he's going to disbelieve and disregard your warnings, because Jason obviously isn't 'just' a killer. To get through to Bruce, you first have to be honest with yourselves about who Jason was, who he is now, and what he still means to you and to Bruce.”

She could practically see the blood draining from their faces. “I can't,” Dick whispered. “I can't, Barbara,” he said, giving her an almost pleading look. “I'm already at my limit trying to cover for everyone with amnesia. I haven't had a full night's sleep in a month. I haven't even had a second of shut eye in two days. To handle this on top of everything else?” He shook his head.

“You don't know what it was like for me, staring at Jay's headstone, knowing that he took up the mantle I started and then died in it, when I wasn't even on Earth. I know intellectually that his death wasn't my fault, but emotionally... I keep thinking, if I hadn't given him my old suit, hadn't given him my blessing to throw himself into danger, would he have kept being Robin? Or if I'd spent more time actually teaching him some of my tricks, would he have been better prepared to face the Joker? Or if I'd just been on Earth—I'd told him that he could call me, that I'd listen. If I had only been there to answer, would it have made a difference?” He shook his head again. “If I have to think about that when I'm dealing with Jason, about the kid he was, about the ways I failed him—I can't. Jason won't get a chance to exploit my weaknesses because I'll fall apart first.”

Barbara felt a warm surge a protectiveness for him. At times, Dick could be as hardheaded and closed off as Bruce, but she loved him best when he was at his most open and vulnerable. “Dick...I know how good you are at taking everything onto your shoulders, so thank you for being honest. Truly. I know what sort of example Bruce set, but it actually is okay to admit you have limits. That goes for you too, Tim.”

Tim looked like he'd swallowed effluent straight from one of Gotham's sewer pipes. “You want honest? Okay,” he said, bitterness clear in his tone. “Bruce wants me to stay home and play nice with Jason, but even if I didn't have a million things to do as Robin...I couldn't do that.” Tim's shoulders were so tense, it seemed like his spine might crack if he shifted wrong. “I...looked up to Jason. When he was Robin, I mean,” Tim rushed to clarify, “and when I became Robin, I used to wonder...if he'd be proud of me.”

Tim's shoulders curled in and his expression twisted into a pained grimace. “I respected him, spent years wishing that I could have gotten to know the person Bruce missed so much, but when he came back, Jason hated me for no good reason! Worse, he attacked Bruce, even though Bruce would have given anything to have him back!”

“Not anything,” Barbara whispered softly.

Tim scowled. “No, Bruce wouldn't kill for him, and that's all he cared about?! It didn't matter to him how loved he was, how missed he was, he only cared about the Joker?”

Barbara frowned. She didn't think Jason only cared about the Joker, or why involve Bruce at all? More problematically, though, Tim's completely disgusted tone seemed to imply that Jason should have felt the exact opposite: cared only about his family and not about the Joker at all. He was still thinking in black and white. “Jason was violently murdered as a child, alongside his biological mother, and came back to find out that his murderer was still regularly terrorizing Gotham. Should he not have cared about that?”

Tim made a frustrated sound. “Not compared to everything else!”

Barbara frowned harder. Her own feelings about the Joker were very complicated but also entirely and fiercely negative. She could never just ignore it when he broke out and started wrecking more lives with his sadistic games. “Tim, as someone whose life was permanently altered by what the Joker did, I think you're trivializing what happened to Jason a little too much.”

Tim flinched, looking stricken. “I didn't mean it like that,” he told her apologetically.

“No, you didn't mean to dismiss my suffering, but you meant to dismiss Jason's, because you don't want to have to sympathize with someone who has hurt you so much. Even if you did, it wouldn't be safe to let your emotional guard down around Jason. Not to mention that it's also much easier for you to remember that I was hurt, as you can see that I'm in a wheelchair. With Bruce, you personally witnessed the worst of his grief. But Jason was killed before you even knew him, and he looked physically fine by the time that you met. The problem, Tim, is that Bruce will ask you to sympathize with Jason, and if you act like Jason's suffering is immaterial, then that will reinforce the impression that you're being callous, even though I know you're naturally a very compassionate person.”

“So, what am I supposed to do?” Tim asked, a sour, frustrated expression flashing across his face. “Apologize to Jason when he's hurt me more than I've ever hurt him? Sit around the dinner table and act like he's my brother, like we're actually the family everyone but Jason wants to be, while he makes a mockery of the whole thing?”

“If Jason did that, Bruce would call him out on it,” Barbara pointed out.

Tim shook his head, his mouth clenched tight and his forehead creased in between his pinched eyebrows. “Jason wouldn't even have to say anything. He'd just sit there, smiling smugly, knowing that I'm just a replacement.”

“Hey, whoa, where is this coming from?” Dick interjected. “Tim, you were never a replacement.”

“Jason came home, and Bruce kicked me out,” Tim said, his voice so inflectionless that it had to be deliberate. “Are you saying those two things are unrelated?”

“Not completely unrelated, but Tim, you must know that Bruce wants both of you around,” Barbara assured him.

Tim shook his head, looking like he'd swallowed bitter poison. “Not as much me as he wants Jason.” Barbara felt her stomach sink. Tim was obviously taking this setback much harder and more personally than she'd realized.

“I know he may seem focused on Jason right now—Bruce thought he was dead for years and in his eyes, he just got Jason back—but that doesn't mean he loves you any less,” Dick assured.

“You told me he left you all those messages, Tim. It certainly sounds like he was missing you a lot this month,” Barbara added gently.

“That was before he knew Jason was alive, though! What does Bruce need me for, now that he has the son he wants—or at least thinks he does?” Tim's shoulders curled inward again, and he looked visibly disheartened. “He's going to be so disappointed, when he realizes what Jason is actually like now. Maybe Bruce will want me back home then, but I'll never be his first choice.”

Barbara winced. She knew not everyone could be good at everything, but sometimes, it made her so angry that Bruce spent so much time honing his martial arts skills and so little time actually talking to his kids. How much had he completely failed to say, that Tim could think anything like this, even on a bad day?

“Tim, no. This is all my fault,” Dick said, looking like he was gearing up to take the weight of the world onto his shoulders. “I handled things poorly, and because of that, Bruce now thinks that we're conspiring together, that I've somehow turned you against him.”

“It's not all your fault, Dick,” Barbara objected. “You didn't cause Bruce's amnesia, and Alfred didn't succeed in convincing him, either.” She sighed. She really had no time to spare, but it was obvious that Tim and Dick were too emotionally close to the problem to handle it objectively. Remembering the pained look on Tim's face when he'd called himself a “replacement”, she didn't want him anywhere near Jason right then. “I've been putting off visiting my dad because the current JLA amnesia issues have at least tripled my normal workload, but I'll make time to go to Gotham. While I'm there, I'll drop by Wayne Manor.”

“Alone?” Dick asked worriedly.

“If Jason's pretending to be the 'good son', then he can't just randomly attack anyone. I'll go for a civilized visit and not act violently, make threats, or tell 'lies'. Then we'll see what Jason tries to get rid of me. Since Bruce doesn't believe I was ever Batgirl or Oracle, it's going to be hard for Jay to claim he's frightened of the librarian in the wheelchair,” she pointed out wryly.

“Oh, you'll beat him at his own 'playing innocent' game,” Dick said, sounding like he was warming to the idea.

“Exactly.” Plan in place, they quickly said their goodbyes in a vain attempt to catch some sleep before the next crisis.

Chapter Text

Despite her best efforts, it wasn't until three days after her conversation with Dick and Tim that Barbara was actually able to tear herself away from her work as Oracle. Even then, she only succeeded because she knew that if she didn't take some time off soon, she wouldn't be any good to anyone. Burnt out and mistake prone was never a good look for a vigilante, even one who did most of her work behind a screen.

She was running mostly on caffeine and desperation when her dad picked her up at the airport in the evening, but at least seeing his sincere smile gave her trip a silver lining. Barbara sent a text to Bruce to let him know she was hoping to visit him the next day and would like to know when he'd be available, and then she enjoyed a late dinner with her dad. Afterwards, they spent a couple of hours sitting on his beat up couch, just catching up. He was a good listener and always happy to hear from her. It soothed her stress levels like few other things could.

In the morning, after an actual night of sleep, they had a leisurely breakfast before the endless work of a GCPD commissioner finally pulled her dad away. By then, Bruce had texted back that he was eager to see her any time and had taken the day off. After sending him a quick reply with her ETA, Barbara got in the SUV with hand controls which Bruce had bought for her to get around Gotham and headed straight to Wayne Manor.

The front gate and garage door both opened for her, which was a good sign. Barbara had been a little worried that Jason might have intercepted her text and sent a fake reply or tried to sabotage her visit before she even arrived, but it seemed that either he didn't know about her impending arrival or he wasn't willing to go quite that far to stop her. Bruce greeted her with a smile as she wheeled into the house from the garage.

“Barbara! It's good to see you. It's been too long,” he said, ushering her toward the most accessible of his living rooms.

It had been quite a while since they'd seen each other in person outside of masks. “Hello, Bruce. I'm glad you were able to take the day off. My dad sadly couldn't get out of work.”

Bruce frowned. “Yes, it seems like crime in Gotham has gotten worse lately,” he said, sitting down just a little stiffly on one of his couches, some healing bruises still on his face. Crime had gotten worse lately specifically because Batman was missing and Robin and Nightwing were too overworked to fully make up for it. Barbara knew better than to mention that, though, so she steered the conversation toward a safer topic.

“I'm sure handling the running of a multinational company isn't easy, either.” Barbara gave him a sympathetic smile. “I hope you're not going to have to kill yourself tomorrow to make up for taking today off. While I'm glad to see more of you, I could have come in the evening, after you were done for the day.”

“Lucius practically runs the company for me. Some days, I wonder if I'm even necessary at all,” Bruce said lightly, in the way he might have explained his responsibilities, or lack thereof, to a reporter, but his expression was much more unhappy than anything he would have normally shown to the press. Wayne Industries had been deliberately set up to run without him, of course, because Batman was frequently unavailable. Barbara wasn't going to say that, either.

“It's a good thing you have so many reliable people,” she said instead. “My dad is always complaining about how hard it is to get dependable employees.”

“Yes, that's true. I'm very grateful to Lucius. It's my own fault I haven't been more involved. I have been trying to do better, but right now, I also have other priorities. I...” Bruce trailed off, clearly hesitant to voice whatever he was thinking. Barbara gave him her best patient but attentive look. “How much do you know about...Jason?” he asked her, voice so quiet he was almost whispering. He looked uncharacteristically nervous.

“Dick and Tim told me that they saw Jason here a few days ago,” she answered in her best neutral tone. Surveillance had told her he hadn't left except once, when Bruce had driven him out in a car and Jason had followed the car back to the Manor on his motorcycle. He'd gotten a duffel bag out of Bruce's trunk before going back into the Manor, which Barbara hoped had contained some of Jason's clothes and toiletries and not weapons or severed heads.

Bruce's tense shoulders relaxed slightly at her placid delivery. “Yes. So, everyone really does know he's back, then? We just kept it quiet from the media, somehow?” Bruce leaned toward her and spoke very quietly again, “I couldn't find anything online about Jason after...after we lost him.”

“Everyone in our personal circle knows,” Barbara told him. “I'm sorry I didn't tell you myself, Bruce. I'd just assumed that was something Dick or Alfred would have covered.” In hindsight, that had been a bad assumption, as everyone in this family was both a master at repressing painful thoughts and aiding and abetting others in doing so.

“No, that's not your fault, Barbara,” Bruce assured her. “In your place, I would have made the same assumption.”

“Still, I'm sorry you had to spend a month thinking he was dead, and Alfred sends his apologies for the 'grievous oversight'.” Alfred had indeed sounded legitimately upset about it when Barbara had spoken to him on the phone earlier. Unlike Dick and Tim, she had done her best to gather all the relevant information she could before coming to Wayne Manor. “Dick told me you didn't find out Jason was alive until he stepped in to save you from a mugging?”

“Yes, I was very lucky he was there.” Bruce smiled with a far off look in his eyes. “I am very lucky that he's been willing to spend any time with me at all. I—it still feels like a dream, Barbara, having this second chance with him.” His voice was full of awe, and Barbara knew instantly that she wouldn't be convincing Bruce to kick Jason out that day. With a sinking sensation in her gut, she realized that the best she could likely hope for would be to keep the lines of communication open between them, to prevent Jason from isolating Bruce completely. She could only hope Jason hadn't done too much damage already.

“How have things been going between you two? I know coming back has been...difficult for Jason,” she said, trying her best to sound sympathetic.

Bruce sighed. “I'm glad you can acknowledge that things have been hard for him, Barbara. It's like Tim and Dick can't see that at all. Dick knew Jay was murdered, and he still condemned him for coming back 'wrong'. But how could Jason not be changed by what he's been through? How could he not be angry that he was murdered as a child?” Bruce asked, his voice strained. He looked like he was holding back tears, and Barbara reached out to put a gentle hand on his knee. Her own father had looked much like that as the doctors explained to them that the damage from the Joker's bullet would be permanent—that she'd never walk again.

“I'm so sorry that happened to him, Bruce,” Barbara said, because she was. She wouldn't wish the Joker on anyone, much less a brave and selfless kid whom she had once considered a friend. “Believe me, I know all about being angry over an injustice the Joker inflicted.”

Bruce looked pained for a moment as his eyes flickered down to her wheelchair, though Barbara pretended she hadn't noticed. “Yes. I'm glad you can understand, although at the same time, I wish you couldn't. Maybe I'm asking too much of Dick and Tim. Maybe it just seems too unnatural to them that the dead can return. Jason told me that although it took something called the 'Lazarus Pit' to fully restore him, no one knows why he woke up in his grave originally.” Bruce shivered. “Of course it worries me that we don't have an explanation for that, but that doesn't necessarily mean the cause was evil.”

Barbara nodded. “You probably don't remember this, but you consulted with at least two people familiar with magic and the occult, after we found out Jason's grave was empty. Both of them ruled out overt demonic intervention in this case.”

Bruce blinked at her. “I...it's hard to believe that was ever a concern. Jason may be angry, but he's still Jason. Dick seemed convinced that being exposed to the Lazarus Pit drives people mad, but Jason told me that for some people, that madness wears off quickly.”

“For some people, yes,” Barbara said neutrally, and Bruce shot her a suspicious look. “I'm not going to tell you I'm sure he's free of its effects now, without even so much as talking to him, Bruce, but I'm also not going to claim he's still being twisted by it, without any evidence. I get the feeling that Dick jumped to a few conclusions that he really shouldn't have.” Of course, she had plenty of evidence that the Lazarus Pit had affected Jason in the past, including his violent attack against Batman, all the people he'd killed as Red Hood, and the injuries he'd given Tim at Titans Tower. Still, it was theoretically possible that he'd gotten better than he had been. Barbara would try her best to evaluate him with clear eyes, if she had the chance. “I've never actually gotten the chance to meet Jason myself since he's been back, though.”

“Would you like to?” Bruce asked. Barbara considered for a moment before nodding.

“I think he'd like to see you, too.” Bruce shifted nervously. “I have some concerns, though. I told Jay that he didn't need to keep weapons on him because he was safe here and also that he and Tim would get along, if they just spent some time together. When Tim came home, though, he immediately attacked Jason, just like Dick did. So I'm sure you can understand why I worry...”

Barbara gave him a wry smile and swept her hands out innocently to indicate her wheelchair. “Exactly what do you think I could do to Jason from this chair?” The true answer was: a great deal more than Bruce currently imagined. Her chair was designed with dozens of traps and concealed weapons, and her aim with sharp objects was still exemplary. Bruce Wayne obviously didn't know that, though, because he smiled sheepishly at her.

“You won't tell him he came back 'wrong' or anything like that?” he checked warily.

“Of course not, Bruce.” She wasn't about to repeat Dick's mistakes.

Finally Bruce nodded and turned toward the doorway. “You can come in now, Jay!”

Barbara startled. She wasn't surprised that Jason had been eavesdropping, but she was surprised that Bruce had been aware of it. He might have forgotten being Batman, but she reminded herself that he wasn't actually the airhead playboy the media was convinced he was.

In response to Bruce's call, Jason shuffled slowly into the room, giving her the sort of wary look she'd expect from someone who knew how dangerous she could be. When his eyes landed on her wheelchair, though, he winced, just slightly, an unfortunately common reaction for someone who'd known her before her injury. Jason had never had the chance to get used to her new reality before he'd died.

Barbara hadn't had the chance to get used to seeing him out of his coffin, though. Jason had grown so much, and for a moment, she felt an echo of Bruce's awe. In another minute, she'd have to push that vulnerability away, in order to deal with the threat in front of her. Mindful that she'd scolded Dick and Tim for suppressing the very feelings which would show Bruce they weren't completely callous, though, Barbara decided, for just a little while, to let herself appreciate the miracle of having a friend returned from the dead. She'd seen this boy buried, and yet now she had the chance to marvel at how his curls had stayed exactly the same, though he'd finally had the chance to grow into the jaw that had just started squaring out before the Joker had gotten to him.

“Hello, Jay. It's good to see you,” she said, blinking back suddenly threatening tears, as she realized how sincerely she meant that, how fiercely glad she was that the Joker hadn't completely succeeded in destroying one of Gotham's brightest lights.

Jason looked at her intently, and the surprise that flashed across his face must have been for her expression and tone of voice, as her words had all been predictable social niceties. “Hey, Barbara,” he said, sinking into the couch on Bruce's far side. Jay managed a hesitant little hint of a smile. He didn't look like a deranged killer, sitting there in the living room in a forest green shirt and worn jeans. He looked like a lost boy that had finally had a chance to grow up, and Bruce lit up further, just from having Jason near.

“You see, Jay? Not everyone is against you.”

“Yeah, you say that,” Jason told Bruce skeptically.

“I'm not going to let Dick or Tim or anyone else make my mind up for me,” Barbara assured him.

Jason frowned at her for a moment, before nodding and giving her a small but sharp grin. “Of course. You want something done right, you gotta do it yourself.”

She found herself smiling in response without meaning to. “Exactly.” Jason had lost his old life, but apparently not his old banter. It was good to know there was something left of the boy she'd known in the man she didn't. “So have you moved back into the Manor now?”

“Yes,” Bruce answered.

“No,” Jason said at the same time, and then he turned to Bruce and scowled. “I'm not moving back in,” he insisted, before turning back toward Barbara. “It's just that Dick didn't even tell Bruce I was alive, so I figured I should go through the basic facts with him, make sure Bruce hasn't forgotten anything else really important. It turns out there's a lot he doesn't remember, though, so it's been taking a while,” Jason admitted, with a wry twist of his lips.

“I hope you'll stay even after that, Jay. You know how much I want you here,” Bruce said, his voice almost pleading.

“I know how much you think you want me here,” Jason said, crossing his arms, “but there's a lot of yourself that you don't remember.”

Barbara frowned. What sort of “basic facts” had Jason been pouring into Bruce's amnesiac brain? “Can you give me an example of something he forgot?”

Jason grinned. “Oh, we were going through some photos from an old gala held at the Manor, and Bruce saw Selina Kyle wearing a very expensive wristwatch that Jordan Tendleby was wearing in an earlier photo, a watch which he'd reported lost that night but which was never found. So, Bruce, budding detective that he is,” Jason said, shooting Barbara a sly look, “was getting ready to call her up and confront her when I explained to him that he'd known she'd taken the watch, that he'd known for years and hadn't reported it, because the 'victim' deserved so much worse. Apparently, he'd forgotten all about how Tendleby was busted by the police not a week later, after Batman, Robin, and Catwoman cracked his human trafficking ring wide open.”

Bruce frowned, but at least he didn't start immediately objecting that Batman didn't exist. Maybe he had an easier time accepting that Batman was real, as long as no one insisted that Bruce himself was Batman. “Selina still shouldn't have stolen his watch,” was what Bruce finally settled on saying.

Jason shrugged. “I'd prefer it if she'd broken his face instead, but Alfred probably would have had something to say about how that was 'improper behavior' for 'polite society'.”

Bruce looked sad for a moment at the mention of Alfred. “He always was such a stickler about that, when I got a little too 'rambunctious' as a kid. I guess he must have been relieved when I grew out of throwing punches to solve injustices.” Jason and Barbara caught each other's eyes, and she could see the way Jason's lips twitched as he tried to hold in his mirth, knowing Batman still frequently drove Alfred to despair on that very point. “I still can't believe that Selina would stoop to stealing, though.” Jason's face spasmed with a suppressed laugh which he turned into a cough.

“Yeah,” Jason said, clearing his throat. “What a shock that she turned out to be such a cat burglar, huh?”

Bruce frowned. “Wait, has she stolen more than once?”

Jason couldn't quite hold in a few chuckles. “Bruce, when you get your memory back, you are going to realize why I find so many of the things you've said recently hilarious.” Bruce gave Barbara a questioning look, but she was busy trying not to laugh herself.

“He's right on that count.”

Bruce shook his head, looking caught halfway between exasperated and indulgent. “Well, at least the two of you are happy. I hope we'll all be able to laugh together about it soon.”

Jason's face suddenly darkened, as all the mirthful energy seemed to drain out of him. “We won't.”

“There are a lot of very talented people investigating what happened to his memories,” Barbara objected. “We'll figure this out—”

“That's not that part I was doubting. But when he remembers everything, Barbara, do you really think he's going to want to sit around laughing with me?” Jason asked, his voice pained.

“Want? Yes. Will?” She sighed. “He'll probably just shut down under the weight of his own guilt again.”

“I'm not that bad,” Bruce objected.

She arched an eyebrow at him, disbelieving. “Tell me that again when you remember everything.”

Bruce shot her a frustrated look. “When I remember everything again, the first thing I'm going to do is tell Jason how happy I am that he's alive. That won't change.”

“No, that won't,” Barbara replied, and Jason gave her a startled look, as if he were surprised that she would agree with that. Barbara considered hard before finally deciding to give Bruce the full answer to the question she'd deflected at the start of their conversation. She definitely didn't want him to know, but considering the “budding detective” comment Jason had made earlier and Bruce's own statement that he'd already been looking around online, she had to assume that Bruce would eventually figure out the truth himself. Better to tell him while she was on hand to do damage control.

“Even as you're happy that Jason's alive, it will destroy you that Jay doesn't actually have his life back. Bruce,” she told him gently, “we didn't get Jason's death certificate revoked and somehow manage to keep it quiet from the media. Aside from your immediate family, myself, Selina, and a few other friends, no one in Gotham knows Jason is alive. He doesn't have a legal identity anymore.”

“What?!” Bruce shouted, half standing from the couch in shock and outrage. “You mean...his teachers and classmates still think he's dead?! What about...he can't get a legal driver's license,” Bruce realized. “Jason can't finish high school or apply to college. He can't so much as check out a library book.”

Barbara sighed. “Which is why, among other reasons,” which Barbara knew included the injuries Jason had inflicted on Tim in Titans Tower and the duffel bag full of heads Red Hood had collected, “you won't be happy to look at Jason with your memories back, because knowing how much of his life is still gone will drown you in more guilt than any amount of happiness can overcome.”

“Is this true?” Bruce demanded, turning toward Jason.

“Well, you probably know more about your own guilt complexes than I do,” Jason replied with a shrug, turning his head away and dodging the real question.

Bruce shook his head. “You're still legally dead, Jay?”

Jason sighed, before crossing his arms and turning his head back to face him. “Of course I am. People die all the time, Bruce, but they don't just come back to life. There would be questions, most of which I don't even know the answer to. That wouldn't stop most people from hounding us, though, thinking that you brought me back deliberately and were just keeping the method a secret. It would be a mess.”

“Let them hound us, then,” Bruce said defiantly. “You deserve to have your life back!”

Barbara pursed her lips, unhappy with Bruce's reaction but not surprised. “Bruce, Jason doesn't mean normal media hounding or even extreme media hounding. Sure, when the story first breaks, most people won't believe it, so it will mainly be reporters investigating, but with a major public figure insisting it's true, someone is going to start digging into it—literally. They'll find the coffin in Jason's grave empty, age progression photos will match up, and eventually, enough evidence will mount up that key people will start to believe Jason was resurrected. That's when you'll be in real danger.”

“People, powerful people, will be willing to torture and kill to get their hands on information about how to bring someone back to life, maybe about how to come back themselves if they're ever killed.” Batman might have been able to elaborately fabricate convincing “evidence” that Jason had never died in the first place, or at least handle the sort of dangerous attention that a known resurrection would bring, but Bruce Wayne? He'd stand no chance. “Even those who don't want the power for themselves will still recognize how it could gain them untold money and influence to control who lives and who stays dead.”

“Right, which is why we can't go to the Gotham coroner and ask him to rescind a document that is never supposed to expire,” Jason agreed easily, surprising Barbara. She had been a little worried that Jay would try to make this argument even harder on her. It would be child's play to paint her as cruel and callous if he pleaded for Bruce to give him his back his life, while she had to argue for leaving him legally dead.

“But it's your life, Jay,” Bruce objected.

“And I'll live it how I want,” Jason retorted. “I don't need that sort of attention for the rest of forever. Except for driving and having a few places to crash, I mostly don't do anything that requires an ID, anyway, and it's not that hard to get a fake ID in Gotham. It doesn't even need to be a good one, if I don't use it long term.”

“You can't go to school, then,” Bruce said, sounding gutted. “You used to love school.”

Jason shifted uncomfortably. “That's in the past.” For just a moment, though, a flicker of real distress crossed his face.

“It doesn't have to be,” Barbara told him quickly. She suspected he wouldn't be too receptive, but she couldn't help seizing the opportunity to steer Jason toward anything that wasn't murder. While Bruce was weak to manipulations from Jason, Barbara was starting to suspect that Jason wasn't that hardened against manipulations himself. “I could work on an ID for you. It would take a little while, but I could make it something airtight that would withstand even extreme media scrutiny.”

Jason looked surprised again, as if it hadn't occurred to him that she might make such an offer. “I...it's fine. I've got an ID I can use if I need something more permanent. It has no connection to anyone who's anyone, so there wouldn't be much scrutiny if I decided to use it full time.”

“But then what would happen if people found out you'd moved back into the Manor?” Bruce asked.

Jason scowled. “It's a good thing I'm not moving back in, then, because by the time the gossip columns got wind of it, I'd either be a gold digger leveraging a resemblance to your dead kid or your new, barely legal sexual experiment.”

Bruce recoiled, making a disgusted face. “I...I would never...”

“We know, Bruce,” Barbara assured him.

“But Jason's right about what people would whisper, because the rest of Gotham doesn't,” Bruce retorted grimly. He looked sincerely upset. “Many people would honestly think that I'd use my fame and money to lure some naive nineteen year old into an exploitative sexual relationship. How far have I gone wrong that most of Gotham would easily believe something so sordid of me?”

Jason and Barbara exchanged a troubled glance, because the low view Gotham had of Bruce Wayne wasn't a mistake. Bruce had deliberately set out to convince people that he was a shallow, philandering airhead, a decision which made sense in order to keep his identity as Batman secret. However, if he was sure he wasn't Batman, then what possible justification could there be?

Barbara decided to dodge the question. “As long as they don't endanger you, the opinions of the public don't matter. The people close to you know you're a good person. Isn't that what counts?”

“You say that, Barbara, but Dick and Tim and Alfred have all been lying to me recently, when they even speak to me at all. If they think I'm so good, then why would they do that?”

Barbara frowned. There really was no easy way to explain, so long as Bruce refused to believe he was Batman. In the absence of a good excuse, she could only plead ignorance. “I don't know, Bruce, but that doesn't mean they've stopped caring about you.”

He looked very sad for a moment. “I've wanted to call them, ask them all to come back home, but I can't trust them to listen to me, if I tell them not to attack or antagonize Jason.” Bruce shook his head, looking like someone had just slipped a knife into his side. “I threatened to call the police on Dick when it seemed like he'd keep fighting with Jason, but now I know why Dick laughed when I suggested it. How could I explain what was going on, if Jason doesn't even have a legal identity?”

“Give me some time, Bruce. You know I'm great with computers, and I'm familiar with all of the Gotham record systems. Like I said, I can put together a safe ID for Jason to use and specifically fabricate the history to explain why Jason might suddenly be hanging around the Manor.”

Jason opened his mouth to object, but Barbara raised her hand toward him, silently asking for patience. “I know you don't plan to stay long, Jay, but as you've said, Bruce has forgotten a lot. It might take a while for you to go through everything with him, and it never hurts to have a cover story ready, if someone notices you hanging around here. Bruce, if you're willing to publicly claim Jay as an illegitimate child from an old fling, that would be the most solid reason to explain your connection, while also giving the media just enough dirt to be satisfied with the story. People would assume you adopted Jason Todd originally because he resembled you illegitimate son, so it should be possible to explain away any resemblance people see. Obviously, it might not make them think well of you, but...”

“Having Jason home is much more important than my reputation,” Bruce agreed. “How long do you think this would take?”

Barbara frowned. “Unfortunately, I'm going to be extremely busy for the foreseeable future, and to really make an ID airtight with all the accompanying documents, so that it can stand up to intense scrutiny for potentially an entire lifetime, isn't quick or easy. It might take a couple of months, but this is worth doing right. I can have the initial documents ready within a couple weeks, though, if you want to start practicing the cover story, maybe start to introduce Jay to a handful of people who aren't investigative reporters.”

Bruce's face went blank, which it sometimes did when he didn't want anyone to know what he was thinking, but he nodded. “Thank you, Barbara. We appreciate all your help.”

“What if I don't wanna be your bastard, huh?” Jason demanded, hands clenched.

Bruce winced. “Jay, lad, I'm sure Barbara can adjust the backstory to suit you, but I hope you know that I am proud to be your father, under any circumstances.”

Jason scowled and looked away then, crossing his arms even tighter around his chest. “Fine. Whatever,” he said, sounding uncomfortable. “I guess it's just a backup plan, anyway.”

“I really want you to be able to go to school,” Bruce told him. “I remember how you were so excited at the thought of going to college, even when you were just starting as a freshman in high school.”

Jason darted a nervous look toward Barbara. “Bruce,” he complained softly, like any normal teen embarrassed by his parent. Barbara kept her smile to herself.

“As I remember, you came by the Gotham library frequently, too, when you weren't reading older books from Bruce's collection. Did you ever finish Moby Dick?” Barbara asked, grateful for the eidetic memory which allowed her to recall what Jason had been reading, the last time they'd spoken before he died.

Jason shifted a little nervously. “Oh, yeah. I actually just finished that yesterday.”

“Yesterday?” Barbara echoed, surprised.

“Yeah. There have been a few meetings that Bruce actually went to work for and some reports he went through at home, so we aren't going through his swiss cheese memories 24/7. I've been reading to pass the time. I was actually trying to get back into the book when Tim showed up,” Jason said, his eyes narrowing angrily. Barbara, of course, knew how that had gone.

“Striking out at you like that was a bad move,” Barbara offered, because it had been. She understood why Tim had done it—he obviously had deep seated fears and resentments that Jason had callously and aggressively exacerbated—but she knew Tim was generally capable of making much more strategic decisions when he wasn't riding the hard edge of exhaustion.

Jason looked at her suspiciously. “Really?” he asked flatly. “You'd side with me?”

“Jason, I'll side with the facts. From what I know, you weren't an immediate threat to anyone, and Tim escalated directly to violence before even fully investigating the situation. Doing something like that is never a good move, no matter who's doing it.”

“But you still think he's in the right,” Jason retorted, eyes narrowed. “You just think he should have investigated more, before attacking me.”

“That is not what I said,” she objected, trying to keep her voice calm and even. “Violence is generally not the best option,” Barbara continued, watching Jason's face grow even more skeptical. “It should be reserved for extreme cases, such as when my dad needs to subdue a criminal who presents an immediate danger to the public. Police officers, and those in similar professions,” she said, meaning vigilantes, “due to the nature of their work, tend to encounter more of those extreme cases than an average person, and therefore have to resort to violence more often than the average person. That doesn't mean that violence is normally a very good solution to most of life's problems or that police officers, and others like them, shouldn't choose nonviolent solutions when available.”

Jason snorted. “So you think the Replacement and I should have made nice.”

Bruce made a wounded sound. “Jason, Tim was never a replacement for you. No one could be. He's a unique person in his own right, just as you are.”

“Yeah, sure,” Jason said, not sounding convinced. “Not like you called us both by the same name or anything.” Bruce frowned, obviously not understanding why Jason had said the last bit so bitterly, when from Bruce's standpoint, it was honestly and obviously true. Bruce, though, didn't know that Jason and Tim had both been called “Robin”.

Barbara herself had complicated feelings about the passing of a title. Although her open wounds had healed enough that she had been able to feel pride as she watched Cassandra grow into Batgirl, she still didn't like to think of the painful shock of the first time she'd seen someone else out in her costume, after she had been crippled. When Helena Bertinelli had put on her suit without permission or warning, it had felt like a vital piece of Barbara's identity had been ripped away from her, along with her legs. She didn't like to remember, but she could never forget.

For the first time, it occurred to her that maybe Jason couldn't forget either. His life had been stolen from him too, and he would never get all the pieces back. Unlike Dick, he hadn't taken on a new identity before someone else became Robin—the title had effectively been pried from his cold, dead hands. Even though Tim hadn't meant him any disrespect, Barbara knew how hard that could be to understand, when someone else showed up wearing your very identity, without so much as a by your leave.

How depressingly ironic that, at the same time Jason felt like Tim had replaced him as Robin, Tim felt like Jason had taken his spot as Bruce's son. They were both jealous and resentful of each other, unable to see things from the other's point of view. This was the sort of convoluted emotional mess that only seemed to happen in Gotham.

Barbara wasn't going to be able to untangle that knot of ugly emotions while Bruce was sitting there believing Jason had never been Robin, though, so she tried to steer the conversation toward safer territory. “So if you finished Moby Dick, what did you think of the book, Jason?”

He grimaced. “It made me glad we don't need to burn whale oil anymore, that's for sure, but I liked that there was more diversity in the characters than you normally see in books from that period.”

Barbara nodded, a little surprised at what Jason had chosen to comment on first. Considering how his fights with Bruce and the Joker had gone, she'd thought Ahab's quest for revenge would speak to him. “What did you think of Captain Ahab?”

Jason frowned lightly as he seemed to consider her question. “I thought he was a compelling character, if not necessarily likable,” he replied after a brief pause. “The way he stood day and night on deck toward the end, one hundred percent committed to his self-imposed mission, kind of reminded me of someone we both know,” Jason said, his eyes flickering slyly toward Bruce. Barbara couldn't entirely disagree, although again, she'd thought Jason might see more of himself in the book.

“Do you think the author did a good job portraying Ahab's commitment to his hunt?” Maybe the vengeance quest just hadn't rung true for someone who knew what the real thing felt like from the inside.

“Yeah, you can feel the gravity of his obsession, the way it just draws him in until he can't escape it,” Jason replied. “The part where he has the gam with Captain Boomer, and he can't even listen to what the guy has to say—that really illustrated how far gone he was. Not that I thought Captain Boomer saw everything perfectly clearly, either, but he was a lot closer to seeing the objective reality of the book. I mean, Ahab was a whaler, and Moby Dick was a whale. Seems to me that if the whale ate his leg, he probably had it coming, from the whale's point of view.”

That wasn't the sort of answer she'd been expecting at all. Barbara asked a few more questions about the book, only to be surprised again at Jason's thoughtful, frequently non-violent insights, how he seemed to appreciate characters who acted on loyalty and compassion as much or more than those driven by vengeance and rage. Thanks to her eidetic memory, she knew she wasn't just suffering from an overoptimistic imagination—Jason really did sound like the kid they'd lost, if perhaps an octave deeper.

“If we're going to resume book club discussions, I'll ask Alfred to...” Bruce's face fell as he trailed off.

“I think you can probably manage to boil tea water yourself, Bruce,” Jason told him with a small, teasing smile.

“Right. I'll get us some tea and snacks,” Bruce said, standing up. He looked uncertainly back at Jay when he got to the doorway, though. “If it's okay for me to go...”

Jason scoffed at him. “You're not seriously thinking you need to protect me from the wheelchair bound librarian, are you? Barbara's not going to attack me, Bruce.”

“No. Of course not,” Bruce said, sheepishly shaking his head. “I'll be back as soon as the water's boiled.”

Jason waited until he was out of earshot, before he turned back toward her and asked seriously, “Are you going to attack me?”

“No.” Before actually meeting Jason, she'd definitely been prepared for the possibility, but now, after getting to know him a little again, she found that the thought horrified her. However he had changed, there was still enough left of the boy she'd known to be recognizable as her friend, a friend Barbara had lost and mourned and dearly wanted back. She couldn't even imagine how much it must have hurt Bruce, to have to fight his own child. “Besides the fact that I don't want to fight you, I believe I've already explained that violence is generally not a very good answer to life's problems.”

“Yeah, that doesn't exactly sound like something Batgirl would say, though.”

“But I'm not Batgirl anymore, am I?” she retorted. Jason winced, his eyes sliding guiltily down to her wheelchair again, before flickering back up to meet her gaze. Barbara sighed. She hadn't actually been trying to make him feel guilty. It was almost a little nostalgic, how Jason still thought of her as the hero she'd been before he'd died. “Look, even when I was Batgirl, I still didn't believe that punching people was going to solve all the world's problems, or I wouldn't have bothered going to college. Obviously, I acknowledge that sometimes, very dangerous people get so far past reason and present such an immediate danger that there is no way to prevent tragedy, other than quickly and forcefully stopping them. However, that hardly describes every difficult circumstance people have to deal with.”

“I can tell you right now that not a single one of the people I have ever punched has been willing to have an intellectual conversation with me about the differences between various characters' conceptions of fate in Moby Dick or the origins and limits of a meritocracy within a fictional whaling ship. If you're willing and able to understand and discuss with me the complex issues presented in a more than two hundred thousand word book, Jason, then I think you can handle a five minute conversation to hash out our own issues.”

Jason eyed her warily, but he did eventually nod.

“Good. Now, Dick and Tim seemed to be under the impression that you are manipulating Bruce for your own nefarious purposes and have deliberately turned him against them. Is that true or not?” she asked as neutrally as possible. Barbara, herself, was really beginning to doubt it. If Jason wanted Bruce on his side against the rest of the family, then he should not have hinted so strongly that their relationship would seriously deteriorate as soon as Bruce regained his memories.

“Tim tried to ambush me in the library, while I was reading Bruce's first edition copy of Moby Dick—which I had to hastily drop, by the way, when he swung his bo at me,” Jason answered, sounding more upset about potential damage to the book than to himself. “Then, Tim chased me around the Manor, constantly taking swings at me, when it was obvious I was just retreating. That was something he chose to do without any coercion from me. If he didn't want to get in trouble with Bruce for doing exactly that, then he could have chosen to do literally anything else. As for Dick, he attacked me in the garage while Bruce was shouting for us to stop. I did try to tell him that I wasn't the one who'd injured Bruce that night, but Dick came at me so hard I didn't get more than a few words out.”

“So, they may want to blame their issues with Bruce on me,” Jason said angrily, “but I didn't spring some long plotted, well hidden trap on them. Bruce didn't suddenly become stupid, either. He only told them off because they ticked him off themselves, not because I've got such a silver tongue. They could apologize at any time, and he'd joyfully take them back. But they won't, because they'd rather attack me. They hate me so much, they'd rather fight with Bruce than just hold their punches till he's not looking.” Jason sounded...almost hurt. It was nearly the same tone Tim had used when he was complaining that Jason hated him, the painful outpouring of a boy who took it to heart when someone who should be his brother attacked him.

“The Replacement even had the nerve to accuse me of hurting Bruce, but just the night before Robin showed up, I got to hear the whole hour long saga of how Tim wasn't talking to Bruce, and how it was so much like when Dick decided not to talk to him, when he went off to college, and how much Bruce missed Tim, and how many messages he left, and how he worried about where he went wrong. Then, when Tim finally showed up, did he go to talk to Bruce? No. He attacked me, when I was just sitting in the library, trying to actually finish a book that I hadn't touched since—since I used to live here,” Jason said, his voice going a little tight on the last words. Barbara knew what he wasn't saying: since he'd died.

“So where does Tim get off accusing me of hurting Bruce, when he's the one that went no contact even though Bruce left him a million messages!” Jason sounded honestly distressed. Because he was jealous that Bruce tried so hard to contact Tim? Or because he was upset for Bruce, like Tim had been upset when Jason hurt Bruce? “Dick accused me of it too, but he's the one who gave Bruce that ugly concrete skid mark you can see peeking out of his sleeve! I'm the one who saved Bruce from those muggers, so what gives them the right to point the finger at me, when I haven't done a single thing to hurt Bruce since he lost his memory!”

Barbara took a deep breath. “You're right, Jason. They let past incidents cloud their judgement so much, they didn't see the present situation for what it was. They weren't fair to you,” she said, because it was true. She'd heard a lot of supposition, but she hadn't seen one shred of evidence that Jason had actually tried to hurt Bruce since he'd forgotten he was Batman, despite the many opportunities he'd had. He had, in fact, gone out of his way to save Bruce from a mugging.

“Exactly. How would I even manipulate this situation anyway, when I have no clue what's really going on? It's not normal amnesia. I mean, obviously it can't be, if a good part of the JLA is affected, but there's something going on besides the fact that Bruce has forgotten that he's Batman.”

“Oh?” Barbara asked. “What have you noticed?” It was always good to gather more evidence. They knew, so far, that the JLA members who'd been affected had all been called in for the same mission immediately beforehand, but as none of the JLA members had remembered enough to file a mission report, none of the amnesia investigators had any idea what that mission had even been about. They also hadn't been able to find any physical or magical evidence of mental tampering, despite many tests and diagnostic spells, so any further clues as to what was going on could be very helpful.

“Bruce is just as sharp as ever. He picked up on that watch Selina lifted just by looking through some old photos, so he can still pull conclusions together from clues, but it's like every piece of evidence pointing toward him being Batman is completely pre-discredited in his mind. Related things are harder to get him to accept, but not impossible. We had a breakthrough late yesterday evening, when he finally admitted, after copious presentations of evidence, that at least one person in Gotham has dressed up in a bat costume and been called Batman by others. Now, he still refuses to admit that Batman is an actual vigilante, but he at least admits that Batman exists, even if only as a guy in a Halloween costume who is occasionally seen around crime scenes in Gotham, along with some kid dressed in bright colors. He's pretty sure the Robin suit Tim wore was just a Halloween costume, too, and that Tim couldn't possibly have worn it before that one time.”

“What do you think is going on?” Barbara asked.

Jason frowned. “You've probably already checked for magic, right? So, best guess? A telepath. A really powerful telepath, or several of them, because Bruce has some mental defenses and a number of other people were affected, too. Bruce won't believe he's Batman because he can't. It's like his mind just won't go there anymore, even if his general intelligence is fine. Even his muscle memory is gone, and that's a really thorough mental block. Most telepaths can only hit episodic memory, not something implicit like procedural memory.” Barbara had suspected those affected by this amnesia were being mentally steered away from rediscovering the knowledge of their identities, but she hadn't realized that even implicit memory was being effected. “What sort of telepath would have the power to do that?” Jason asked her, sounding honestly concerned.

Barbara had cautioned Dick and Tim for having such a shallow, black and white view of Jason, but it wasn't until that moment that Barbara truly understood she wasn't trying to negotiate with an enemy. Jason didn't want to fight her any more than she wanted to fight him. While he had used the natural advantages Bruce's lack of memory had offered him when Nightwing and then Robin had each forced him into a confrontation he hadn't asked for, Jay wasn't spending his days gloating over Batman's memory loss and scheming about how to use it. He was distressed about it and trying to figure it out himself. As the solution wasn't obvious, this last question was their lost Robin turning to big sister Batgirl to help him solve a hard case.

“Batman was working on a mission with the JLA, right before all the members involved in that mission lost their memory. Zatanna was able to detect some lingering dimensional fluctuations at the Watchtower, but considering all the crazy things the JLA is involved in, we don't even know at this point if it's related.”

“Dimensional. So it could be a telepath from another dimension.”

Barbara nodded. “At this point, we can't be sure, but it's certainly one avenue we're investigating.”

Bruce came rushing back in with the tea then, looking far more relieved than necessary when he saw them both peaceably talking. Had he been worried because of what Tim and Dick had done, or was Bruce concerned about Jason's temperament? Had he shown worrying signs that she wasn't privy to? It could have been both, or even neither, considering Bruce's frequently inscrutable thought process.

She probed a little bit, but Bruce didn't really give much away with his answers. He had some interesting thoughts on Moby Dick, though, and then they went on to discuss The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The War of the Worlds. To her surprise, Barbara found herself happily staying for lunch, and only leaving before dinner because she planned to meet up with her father again. Spending several hours talking with Bruce about something that wasn't life threatening was a rare treat, and spending that long talking to a friend who'd once been dead was even rarer and more precious. Barbara found herself hoping that she'd get the chance again soon.

Chapter Text

“Bruce thinks Titans Tower is a boarding school?”

“I know it sounds crazy, but his internet searches all seemed to imply that,” Barbara told Tim. At least this time she wasn't so tired she needed to squint at the screen. “He went through all the hoops to 'retrieve his password' when I got a fake web portal set up for parents of 'current students'.”

“What? Why would you do that?” Tim asked.

“Because Bruce is worried about you, Tim,” Barbara assured him gently.

“He didn't sound that worried when he told me to get out of the Manor,” Tim replied, sounding halfway between bitter and doubtful.

“I'm not claiming he handled the situation in the best way, but he was in a difficult position.” Because of that, Barbara was willing to cut Bruce some slack—this time. “From his perspective, one of his kids attacked another of his kids with a dangerous weapon, seemingly unprovoked. Bruce probably felt he needed to protect Jason by keeping you away from him, but at the same time, he still wants to protect you, Tim. As soon as he got that password, he logged in to check your grades and emailed an 'administrator' to make sure that you're doing okay. I gave you all A's, by the way,” Barbara told Tim with a grin.

“Thanks, I guess... He really thinks it's a boarding school?”

“Yes. Which is good, because now that you're back from your 'vacation abroad', you need to be staying somewhere. Bruce checked on your boarding school's holidays and semester end dates too, so I made sure to specify on the website that students could choose to remain on campus for those. You shouldn't have anything to worry about on that front until summer break, but I certainly hope we'll have solved this amnesia issue by then.”

“Yeah, I don't know how much more of this I can take. Cassie told me Diana just felt off to her, too, when they were talking, and Superman is totally different as 'mild mannered' Clark Kent.”

Barbara nodded. “I heard a few other odd things from Bruce when I visited, as well. I think it's because he's piecing the story of his life together, while taking the things he said and did to cover for his secret identity at face value. For instance, if Bruce doesn't remember getting a scar from fighting Bane, but he does remember making an excuse to someone about how he got the scar from a skiing accident, well, then he thinks he's bad at skiing.”

“Oh, I think I understand what happened now,” Tim said, his face lighting up the way it always did when he figured out a mystery. “Bruce and I met up in San Francisco once. I'd changed into civilian clothes, and he was out as Bruce Wayne. We were getting some last minute tailored suits for the Kindness Coast-to-Coast charity event at the Moscone Center the next day.”

Barbara nodded. “I remember that Bruce missed the first day of that event because of a serial killer here in Gotham, but he wanted to at least make the big dinner on the last night.”

Tim nodded. “Right, so, emergency suits. The tailor was really chatty. He asked all about my day, and of course I wasn't going to tell him I'd been unwinding with the Teen Titans after stopping a bioweapon from being unleashed on the city, before most people even woke up that morning. I think I gave the tailor a very edited version of my morning, where the Titans were my 'school friends' and the Tower was our 'boarding school'.”

Barbara nodded. “And Bruce remembers that, and nothing about the actual Titans, so he thinks 'The Tower' is an actual boarding school.”

“That is so weird. I'll have to tell Bart. He'll think it's hilarious.”

Barbara grinned a little. “Yes, some of the conclusions Bruce draws are unintentionally funny. In this case, though, I think it's really working out in our favor. As long as Bruce can get updates from your fake school, he can reassure himself that you're okay, without flying out to San Francisco to check on you in person. I suspect you're probably too busy for a visit right now.”

“Yes,” Tim said, sounding exhausted. “In between all the crises the Titans have been handling, I've been trying to compile everything we know about the JLA amnesia issue, but that doesn't leave me much time for anything else. I have made some progress lately, though. According to what I've pieced together, there was some sort of disturbance in a town called Fortuna, which is twenty miles north of Metropolis. That was a few hours prior to the beginning of the JLA mass amnesia incident,” Robin reported.

“Hundreds of residents of Fortuna shared in several different mass hallucinations—seeing giant jelly mountains, multicolored cotton balls raining from the sky, and a stampede of one inch tall, long tailed bunny-dog hybrids. Several residents also claimed to have seen Superman and Wonder Woman around town that evening asking about the bunny-dog stampede. Now, the residents could also have been hallucinating Superman and Wonder Woman, but Zatanna was able to detect the same dimensional disturbance around Fortuna as she did at the Watchtower, so at this point, I'm going to assume the mass hallucinations were actually what the JLA was investigating. Maybe they found the source of it and took that source back to the Watchtower...and then whatever caused the mass hallucinations in Fortuna also affected their minds.”

“That's a good theory,” Oracle told him. “Has anyone been able to identify anything that might have come from another dimension?”

Tim shook his head. “Not yet. But if any of the affected JLA members had been carrying or wearing an object from a foreign dimension when we did the initial scans on them, then we would have noticed, because we specifically checked for the possibility that they had traveled across dimensions recently. That means, if such an object exists, it's likely still in the Watchtower. Zatanna wasn't able to find anything with a wide area spell, though. She said a small enough item might only show up if she targeted the spell on a smaller area, but before she got a chance to sweep the entire Watchtower, another alert came in. Apparently, a rogue magic cult has started making trouble again, and based on her past experience, Zatanna didn't seem that optimistic about being able to handle it quickly, especially when she won't be getting help from the JLA.”

“That's unfortunate, but hardly surprising,” Barbara said, feeling glad that she at least hadn't had to deal with any magical mayhem. “We're all stretched thin these days. Those dimensional scanners we have only work at close range, though, and they take time.” Dick had complained at length about how hard it had been to get Bruce to stand still for it, as he hadn't admitted that anything was wrong with him at first and hadn't even believed the scanner was really doing anything but producing strange noises and lights. “It would take a very long time to scan the entire Watchtower that way, but creating a thorough inventory of everything in the entire place to try to find out what might not belong isn't going to be quick, either.”

Robin grimaced. “Yes, we've already found more than three dozen artifacts and devices that aren't recognizable or labeled. When he gets his memory back, Batman is going to have a field day making more rules about what exactly has to be entered into the formal inventory system.”

“I'm sure the rest of the JLA will just love that,” Barbara said dryly. “As for me, I've been doing my best to clean up the Watchtower surveillance videos that Cyborg sent me, after he finally got the backup servers repaired. It's not just whatever enormous energy surge damaged the electronics in the first place that's a problem, though. The dimensional distortion also affected the recorded files themselves, so the files were suspect even before the servers were damaged. The distortion in the file from the time immediately before the energy surge is so strong and so random that there's no good way to compensate. I think it might make more sense to just give up on the image portion for now and focus on cleaning up the audio. It will likely do us more good to know most of what they were saying three days from now, rather than seeing what they were doing three weeks from now, which is likely how long it would take to get the video into a useful state.”

“Agreed. I'd rather have something sooner than three weeks. I noticed that you updated the list of amnesia symptoms, too, and Cassie was able verify that Wonder Woman is actually lacking her muscle memory as well.” Tim frowned. “I should have thought to add that myself after Nightwing told us about the mugging and how Bruce didn't land right when he threw him. I had just assumed that it was the shock of not expecting to be in a violent situation that kept him from reacting appropriately, though.”

“I had assumed the same. It was Jason who pointed out that Bruce had lost some of his procedural memory, actually.”

“Jason?” Tim echoed incredulously. “I know what you said earlier, Babs, but...I still can't believe you actually had a real conversation with him. Well, a conversation that didn't involve shouting or threats.”

Barbara knew Jay had done a lot of awful things when he first came back to Gotham, but the memory of him appealing to big sister Batgirl for her help made her feel rather defensive of him, all the same. She hoped that Jay and Tim could find some way to work their issues out that didn't involve any more fighting. “I know it wasn't what we expected, Tim, but sometimes that's a good thing. If we—”

“Sorry I'm late. Trouble in Bludhaven,” Dick said, finally joining the video chat. “What did I miss?”

“Robin found clues that the mass hallucinations in the town of Fortuna and the amnesia many JLA members are suffering from now may be related. As for myself, I'm going to prioritize getting audio of the Watchtower recordings cleaned up to a usable state, because fixing up the video images themselves would take too long.”

“Okay. How did your trip to Wayne Manor go?” Dick asked, looking unreasonably anxious.

Barbara resisted rolling her eyes, but only because she knew Dick was sincerely concerned for her. “I was just explaining to Tim that Jason was actually quite pleasant to talk to. If I hadn't been to his funeral myself, I certainly wouldn't have guessed that he was in a Lazarus Pit from his behavior.”

“Really?” Nightwing asked, with the same incredulous tone Robin had used.

Given Jason's prior actions, Barbara understood his skepticism, but she was getting tired of repeating herself. “Yes, really. Dick, I think you're letting your own fears hide the facts from you. Jason isn't actually a manipulative mastermind or some ravening boogeyman. He's nineteen. He's still a kid. Rather than worrying about how Jason might influence Bruce, we should be grateful that Bruce still has a lot of ability to influence Jason.”

“Batman was desperate to get Red Hood to stop killing, but that certainly didn't do any good before this,” Nightwing pointed out.

Barbara had more than a few unflattering thoughts about Batman and his skill and experience in speaking with his own children, but she swallowed most of them back. “Batman generally has entirely the wrong tone for influencing someone in a fragile mental state. When he's upset, everything he says comes out as a growl, and every time Batman has dealt with Red Hood, he was upset.”

“Okay, fair, but we know the Lazarus Pit makes people crazed and violent. What's to stop Jason from going on another killing spree?”

“People who have been in the Lazarus Pit are often prone to dangerous rage and violence, yes. However, its most universal side effect is to make whoever is exposed mentally unbalanced. I think we've been focusing too much on the violent part, and not nearly enough on the unstable part of the equation,” Barbara replied. “Before the Lazarus Pit and all the trauma the Joker put him through, Jason might have been developing a pretty solid sense of self for a boy his age, but like any teenager, he was still figuring himself out. He wasn't even fifteen yet when he died,” Barbara pointed out.

“Being Robin used to be a huge part of who he was, but when Jay came back, he couldn't be Robin anymore, because someone else was already in his shoes. That, along with extreme trauma the Joker put him through, and the effects of the Lazarus Pit, may well have thoroughly shaken his sense of identity, along with leaving him emotionally unbalanced. Lost. Prone to lashing out. Influenceable. We know that he was with the League of Assassins during one of the lowest and most vulnerable points in his life. What sort of things do you think living in Ra's al Ghul's murder cult influenced him toward? Because I'm pretty sure the answer is right there in the name.”

“Assassination,” Dick replied with a deep frown. “You think they would have influenced Jay to believe that killing was the best way of solving problems, because that's what they believe.”

“They wouldn't have even had to do it deliberately,” Tim mused. “Just being immersed in a culture where everyone thought that killing was justified would have strongly affected someone who was mentally and emotionally unmoored.”

“Yes, exactly, although I suspect they did make specific efforts to influence Jason. The League of Assassins doesn't see people as valuable ends in their own right. It sees them as a means to achieve the League's ends, and their ends often involve many, many deaths. If Jason wouldn't kill, he wouldn't have been as useful to them," Barbara said, feeling disgusted by the League's philosophy in general and what they'd taught Jason in specific. "But Jay's not living with the League anymore. He's living with Bruce. The fact that he violently fought Batman not long ago, and yet sat comfortably drinking tea beside Bruce when I visited yesterday, is proof that his aggression isn't a stable, indelible feature of his innermost personality, but rather a manifestation of the Lazarus Pit's destabilizing effect and the League of Assassins' bad influence, along with an enormous serving of trauma on top.”

“You really think Bruce can counteract that?”

“Oh, I know he can influence Jason, alright. I've been spying on Jason's internet usage, and he's already looking up study material for the GED test, like Bruce and I suggested,” Barbara told them smugly. At first, it had seemed like such a long shot. Jason had been prickly and defensive, telling them that he didn't need school anymore. Bruce had given him such sad eyes, though, and Barbara had gently encouraged Jason to pursue his education further. He had been surprisingly easy to flatter, especially as she hadn't needed to say anything that wasn't completely true.

Jason was smart, and he was a quick learner, and it really would be a shame to let a sharp mind like that go to waste. After a half hour of conversation interspersed with careful coaxing, he'd been telling them he'd think about it. Another two hours, and he'd been giving her an email address where she could send links for some study material. Considering what a long shadow Red Hood had cast over their family, it had been painfully easy to turn Jason toward at least one non-violent pursuit.

It had, honestly, left Barbara feeling a little angry at Batman. If getting results was this easy, had he really been trying at all? But of course, Bruce had amnesia and thus was in no position to defend his prior actions. Barbara knew he wouldn't intentionally have decided on a course of action that would encourage, rather than discourage, Jason's more violent impulses, but Bruce had always been just a little more prone to violence himself than Barbara felt was entirely wise.

“Maybe if we can persuade Jason onto a kinder, gentler path, his mental health might improve enough that he wouldn't even need us herding him toward the good side anymore.”

“You think we can manipulate him away from murder?” Dick asked. “Babs, I would love it if that were true, but we never get that lucky. Even when it looks like someone might be getting better, it never lasts for long. Just look at what happened last time we believed in Harvey Dent—we just ended up with Two-Face again.”

“Jason isn't the same person as Two-Face. His trauma and challenges are completely different, and his future can be, too. Dick, sometimes it's not about luck or fighting pitched battles and shedding blood, sweat, and tears for a victory. Sometimes, all winning requires is a little patience and compassion—which granted, might be rarer than xenothium right now,” Barbara said, thinking of how covering for so many amnesiac heroes had strained everyone to the limit, “but at least no one has to risk life and limb to have a friendly conversation. Just think for a minute. Who does Jason have in his life? Except for the likes of Talia al Ghul, he's been alone for five years.” The thought hurt, that Jason had spent most of his second life surrounded by enemies, when he had friends and family who had wanted him back so badly.

“Some good company has to be a big draw for him, at this point,” Barbara continued. “Plus, if he's spending a lot of time talking with us, then he's also spending a lot of time listening to us. I'm not saying Jason's going to suddenly forgive the Joker, because frankly, none of us do. But if the Joker is the only one whose life is in danger from Jay—you know, I think I could manage to live with that,” Barbara said. If she had a few thoughts about exactly how little the clown's life was worth protecting or how many times over she'd trade that murderer's life away if it meant getting her friend back, well, that was her own business.

Chapter Text

“You can't just open a group home and expect street kids to show up. They're on the street because they don't trust group homes, or Social Services, or basically anything or anyone, for that matter.”

“But if being homeless is so hard—”

Jason gave Bruce a sharp look, which was completely wasted because he was driving and had his eyes firmly on the road, so Jason verbally interrupted him instead. “If you didn't like your pot of gruel, would you trade it in for some manure to eat, instead?”

“No, but I'm certainly not offering anyone manure!”

Jason sighed. Sometimes Bruce could be so blind to his own privilege, and he had actually gotten a little worse since he'd forgotten all the truly awful things Batman had seen happen to Gotham's most disadvantaged. “But you're assuming that these kids are used to choosing between an assortment of options, at least some of which are good, and you just need to give them enough information to know that this is the best option. But in their experience, there generally aren't any good options. To get them to really accept what you're offering, you first have to convince them that there are good options available to them in the first place, and I'm telling you, that's a tough sell. If that were the sort of life they had been living, with good options around them for the choosing, then they almost certainly wouldn't have ended up on the streets.”

“That's why, if you tell them there's a group home that's brand new and safe with good, competent people there to help them at any time, they'll either be immediately sure you're lying or they'll be certain it's run by a fanatical cult, or it's front for a kiddie porn ring, or maybe it's a mafia recruitment center.” That was certainly what Jason would have assumed, if some rich stranger had found him in his squat to give him a too good to be true story. “For them, when it comes to anything that looks good at first glance, there's always been a nasty catch, and if they don't see the catch in your offer at first, they'll assume that just means they haven't looked hard enough yet.”

Even though Jason had believed that Batman had taken him in to become Robin, that he could earn his place at Wayne Manor by doing well in his training, he had still spent months walking on eggshells, waiting for the demands to get more difficult, for Alfred to get colder, for Bruce to get rougher. It hadn't been until the ink was actually dry on the adoption papers that Jason had truly believed that what Bruce had offered at the start had actually been a legitimate offer, not a euphemistic portrayal of a vastly more difficult life. At least, he had used to believe, and those few, too brief years had been the very best of his life.

Bruce made a frustrated sound. “How can I prove to them it would actually be good?”

Jason thought of how skeptical he'd been himself, when he'd first started living at Wayne Manor. He didn't think there was anything that Bruce could possibly have said to earn his trust at the start. It had taken months of acting according to his promises to finally win Jason over. “You, personally, probably can't,” he told Bruce, not liking the unhappy expression that answer brought out. Dishonesty wasn't going to help anything in the long term, though. “You're an adult from the richest neighborhood around, Bruce—practically an alien to them.”

When Jason had found out that Batman was actually Bruce Wayne, he'd been shocked straight down to the core and had started second guessing everything he knew about Batman. When eventually he'd accepted the truth, the knowledge that a rich guy who lived in a manor up on a hill might actually care about a homeless kid from Crime Alley had been mind blowing—in the best way. Not just because Jason had been desperate for a family to belong to, but because deep down, he'd still wanted to believe that the world was fundamentally a good place, even if his own personal luck had taken several tragic turns for the worse. The fact that the rich “prince” of Gotham was actually a good man had proved, in a way few things could, that society was not entirely run by the selfish and corrupt, that you could find good people everywhere, if you looked for them.

Bruce Wayne the superhero had restored the battered faith which living alone, scrounging and stealing for food in Crime Alley, had very nearly destroyed. A lot of the homeless didn't even have enough faith left to resuscitate, though. Jason, at least, had still been raging against the cold cynicism which had started to creep into his heart. When he'd learned that Ma Gunn was going to rob the one museum that was good about letting people in, even if they didn't have money, he'd been so furious that he'd sneaked out of her school immediately.

One of Jason's last good memories of his mom had been their visit to Gotham Art Museum. He'd been a little afraid as they'd walked in the entrance, because they had tried to visit the Gotham Museum of Transportation earlier, where Jason had learned that although the signs had said (in tiny print) that the entrance fee was an optional donation, if you tried to actually go in without paying, they'd let you know how very unwelcome you were. At the Gotham Art Museum, though, the nice lady at the entrance had just waved them through. No one had stared or whispered behind their backs because Jason's sneakers had a hole or two or because Catherine Todd's dress had been a little threadbare and loose on her thinning frame. They'd spent most of the day looking around at the paintings and jewelry and posing with the sculptures, just like any other family. Jason had come home with a warm glow in his chest.

Perhaps because of that, he'd been the only one in the whole class to feel outraged when Ma Gunn had unveiled her plan to steal the “Smile of Death” necklace from the museum for the Joker. (Funny, how even that long ago, the clown had already been messing up Jason's life.) Back then, though, Jason had still been childish enough to believe that maybe he could beat back the world's unfairness, if he just fought hard enough. The rest of the class had already given up on the world or restoring any sense of fairness to it, only concerning themselves with their own fortunes. If they could make some money, they hadn't cared anymore how much they'd screw over everyone else getting it, how they'd stop any other poor kids from being welcomed into the museum to marvel over the fancy jewelry with their mothers.

Not every street kid got that cynical immediately, though. “I might be able to win over a couple of the short timers, kids who've been on the street long enough that the other street kids are aware of them, but not long enough that it has really become a way of life for them,” Jason offered. He'd been in their torn, duct taped shoes, after all, so he'd at least know how to talk to them. Or he could give them the duct tape, if they hadn't figured it out yet. “As long as they have the freedom to go back and visit their old neighborhoods, they could make the pitch to the rest of the kids, once they're actually living at the group home and know for sure what it's like.” There would likely always be a few hardened cynics who would never believe that there was anything good left for them in the world, but if the Wayne Foundation could get nine out of ten kids off the street, it would be worth a lot.

Jason frowned. “You'd also need to buy good locks, install a panic button in each room, and hire 24/7 security guards. Maybe put up a little security shack nearby so the guards won't be right in the kid's faces, but they'll be able to get there immediately if they're needed.”

“You think someone would come after the children?” Bruce asked worriedly.

“Well, that too. Some of them are definitely already involved with gangs or drugs or other criminal activities. More than that, though, the kids living on the streets aren't generally the picture of mental health. A lot of them are angry because they know they got dealt a crap hand in life. Some of them are looking for an excuse, any excuse, to lash out. Some of them are just used to stealing anything they can get their hands on to survive—which is dangerous when their neighbors have lived through the sort of destitution that makes a person willing to fight tooth and nail over a pair of sneakers. It'll take a while for old anger to cool and desperate habits to die, no matter how good the current accommodations are.” When Jason had first moved into Wayne Manor, he hadn't been able to keep himself from noticing where the most valuable items were kept. Not that he'd ever actually planned to steal from Bruce after the man had brought him home, but back when opportunistic theft had been the only thing keeping Jason fed, figuring out where his next meal money might come from had quickly become a necessary habit.

“You'll need a lot of lawyers, too,” Jason added.

“For certification for the group home, or did you mean—”

“For the kids. Like I said, some of them will already have had trouble with the law. Worse, once they have a legal address, Social Services will want to swoop in and mess everything up again.” He couldn't help the way his lip curled in disgust.

“Jason, I'm sure Social Services won't be trying to mess things up.”

Jason scoffed. “Doesn't really matter what they intend, if that's what they accomplish. The reason I didn't let Social Services come collect me when I was a kid is that I don't trust Social Services. I still don't.” The disagreement was so familiar that it was almost nostalgic. When Batman had first taken Jason in, Bruce had been the one to insist on involving Social Services, because apparently Batman could go out and commit assault, breaking and entering, and unsanctioned surveillance all night long, but Bruce couldn't let a kid stay in his home illegally.

Jason had initially been terrified that the social workers would take him away from the first home he'd had in years that didn't smell like mold and leak as soon as the rain started. There had certainly been concerned whispers about how Jason had a “challenging” history, and perhaps some other arrangement would be better for both of them. Wouldn't Bruce like a nice boy who was more familiar with his own neighborhood? And surely, Jason could find a more appropriate match, closer to where he'd grown up. One social worker who'd flirted constantly and obnoxiously with Bruce had even taken the man aside (while Jason had pretended not to eavesdrop) and pointed out that Jason kept eyeing all the valuables. That had made the shame burn in Jason's gut hotter than anything, even though he'd never meant anything by it—but Bruce had held firm.

As with most social battles where there was a huge imbalance in funds, the richer side prevailed, and despite their skeptical eyes and pinched faces, the social workers had let Jason stay, because they knew Bruce's lawyers were way better paid than whoever worked for their side. If Bruce hadn't been so rich and famous, though, Jason didn't want to think about where the social workers would have stuck him. Probably a crumbling halfway house between the streets and juvenile detention, with drug dealing neighbors and plenty of gang infighting to spice up his social life.

“I know you have a dim view of Social Services, Jay, but what, exactly, do you think the social workers would do?” Bruce asked, as if he thought the ones who did something bad were the exception, rather than the rule. To be fair, though, most people were smart enough to present only their best faces to one of the most powerful men in Gotham. Having once been one of the least powerful children in the city, though, Jason knew exactly how ugly many of Gotham's faces could get.

“Judging by the experiences of my neighbors from Crime Alley? They would send a girl back to her addict parents to be pimped out again for drug money, or remove a boy from his loving, if broke, ex-con dad to give him to his violently abusive narcissist of a mom, or even push the kid with a learning disability into a foster home that 'specializes' in that kind of child—at least if you think disabled kids should be chained like dogs. I hear there were plenty of indictments to go around after one of them died in those chains, as the foster parents had been operating with that same level of 'sensible care' for well over a decade,” Jason finished sarcastically.

Bruce had an extremely pained expression on his face as he carefully maneuvered around a car, which had apparently decided to double park in a way that completely blocked their lane. Jason didn't think his expression was due to the traffic violation, though. “I do remember that last tragic scandal. But Jason, it was major news exactly because it was extremely and unusually horrific. Everything you've mentioned was an exceedingly bad outcome, certainly very far from the norm.”

“And you think bad cases are evenly distributed, right? So, if things go seriously wrong in one percent of the cases Social Services handles in Gotham, then about one in a hundred goes wrong in every borough in Gotham, from the richest to the poorest?”

Bruce grimaced. “I'm guessing the answer is no.”

“I knew you weren't as dumb as you look,” Jason replied with a tight smile. He'd actually been looking into this before he'd—well, before Ethiopia. “The experienced social workers, the competent ones, get decently paying jobs in the nicer boroughs. The least experienced, least competent ones end up working in the poorest boroughs, and the least competent of those are told to handle the overflow cases, the ones other social workers can't or won't get to.”

“At least in the poorer boroughs, the Social Services employee evaluation system works on a quota. How many cases did you handle this month? How many children were placed into homes? The easy cases are the ones where there are well off family members ready and willing to take in the child. Those are generally quick to close with an obviously suitable placement. That sort of happy solution tends to be available more frequently in the richer boroughs.” Jason had known there was no waiting safety net like that in his future, when his mom had died, so he'd dried his tears and gathered his meager belongings before Social Services had been able to take the last two things he'd left of any value: his freedom and his dignity. “But what about the kids from the bad neighborhoods that only have an estranged druggie uncle and a grandma with dementia living on Social Security in a run down one bedroom apartment? What about the ones where both parents swear up and down the other is abusive? Or the ones were the kid herself is pregnant or just getting out of juvie?”

“Just as most foster homes don't want the pregnant twelve year olds or the budding criminals, few social workers want the thankless, complex cases where all the family members are combative, live in high crime areas, and hate Social Services already, because of what Social Services did when those relatives were growing up. The really tough cases get foisted off on the social workers who don't know what they're doing and wouldn't care, even if they did. Upper management just knows that there's not enough budget and they need social workers to get kids out of the system whenever they can. Since there's no followup, when those placements turn out badly, no one in charge even notices there's a problem, unless, of course, some kid ends up dead,” Jason ranted angrily. That had happened all too frequently where he'd lived, to the point where Jason had taken living on the streets over going with the social workers. “So that bad outcome rate that gets reported? That's not only unevenly distributed, but also based on not seeing ninety percent of what goes wrong in the poor neighborhoods.”

“Oh, but I didn't even mention my own wonderful childhood experiences, did I?” he continued with false brightness. “Yes, I had a great time at Ma Gunn's School. Along with a classroom full of my peers, many of whom were placed there by Social Services, because they couldn't find placements anywhere else, I learned how to shoot guns, pick locks, steal from museums...”

Bruce sighed heavily. “Alright. You've made your point, Jason. Social Services may not always come to the best decisions on where to place children from disadvantaged neighborhoods. I'll make sure there are funds set aside for lawyers to advocate for any children who need it.”

“Make sure it's a big budget. A lot of the street kids end up on the street because their parents are abusive. Or if not their parents, then an endless series of their guardians' trash love interests. You can't let Social Services send them back to the places they ran away from, or they definitely will not agree to live anywhere Social Services can find them, ever again.”

“I won't let that happen, Jay.”

He sounded so sincere and earnest, and Jason wanted to believe him, the way he used to. Bruce had gotten Jason's most hated social worker, the one who'd pointed out that Jason had eyed Bruce's valuables, removed from his case entirely and placed under review. It had been one of the first times in Jason's entire life where someone who was supposed to help him had actually been held accountable for not doing so. It wasn't only Bruce Wayne who had supported him, either. There had been dozens of times where Robin had found himself in a tight spot, only to have Batman bail him out, too. Jason had once been so used to relying on Bruce that he had even stopped questioning it.

Jason had his determination and his pride, but it was lonely and exhausting to have to face everything the world threw at him all alone. He wanted to believe in someone again so much now, to just let his guard down and trust that there was someone who had his back. Jason had once rebuilt his faith in the world by watching Batman actually go out each night and change the world for the better. Then, Jason had been murdered, and what had his supposed dad done? Nothing.

The Joker was plotting his next escape even now, and not a damn thing had changed. It was the same painful, bitter story Jason had grown up with, and how could he forgive Bruce for letting that cruel heartbreak be the real truth of the world? Now, Bruce was asking Jason to believe yet again, but how many times had the city claimed it was going to clean up Social Services, allocate more funds, and fix the flawed policies? Probably about as often as Batman vowed to stop the Joker. It never worked for long.

“You say that, but this isn't a new problem, Bruce. It's been like this longer than I've been alive. Plenty of people have claimed they'll solve it. No one ever actually has. What makes this time different?”

“I can't fix all of Social Services,” Bruce admitted heavily. “It's too large and complex to fix all at once. As you pointed out earlier, I also can't produce qualified foster parents from thin air. I certainly intend to fund recruitment initiatives and provide training and support services for anyone that's willing to take on the responsibility, though. Additionally, I can advocate for Social Services reforms—a quota system sounds like a horribly effective way to encourage social workers not to spend any more time on complex cases than they do on easy ones, when complex cases would obviously require more attention. If I can set up a couple of group homes for previously homeless children who are close to aging out of the system, get a few more qualified foster parents ready to take younger children in, and fix some of the worst Social Services policies, then that will make a real difference to the children who are most at risk. It won't fix everything, but it will improve things. Maybe, after those improvements are made, they can be learned from and built on, until the system is working for most kids.”

Bruce made the final turn to their destination, and his face immediately went sour again. Jason, on the other hand, grinned widely as he looked up at the Batburger sign. His choice of lunch venue might have been eighty percent based on his desire to see Bruce's reaction to it, although he was generally a fan of cheeseburgers. “The drive through is around the back,” Jason said, a little gleefully. “Do you know what you want yet, or are you just going to be lame and double my order?” he asked, as their car slowly pulled into line.

Bruce turned very unhappy eyes on him, as they waited for the car ahead of them to finish giving their order. “I still can't believe someone actually created a restaurant themed after that ridiculous bat hoax!”

“You can think of the guy caught on video as a nut in an elaborate Halloween costume, if you want, Bruce.” Jason grinned. Bruce was going to be appalled at himself when he got his memory back. “I certainly agree that Batman has some crazy ideas,” like, for instance, refusing to kill the Joker, “but a lot of people in Gotham think he's the real deal, so why wouldn't they name a burger joint after him?”

“This has to be the most—”

“Ah, looks like it's our turn to order!” Jason interrupted. Grudgingly, Bruce pulled up to the intercom and lowered his window.

“Welcome to Batburger. Can I take your order?” a squeaky teenage voice asked over the intercom.

Jason had to make a rolling motion with his hand to urge Bruce to actually answer. He finally did so, with a put upon sigh. “Yes...I would like two Batburger Deluxe,” he said, his voice dripping with skepticism, “one order of Robin Nuggets, one order of Nite-Wings, a Spite and a Choke, no ice.”

“Would you like to Jokerize your fries?”

“...What?” Bruce asked. His voice had taken on an odd pitch.

“It's, you know, special seasoning. But red, white, and green. So, uh, do you want your fries Jokerized?”

To Jason's shock, Bruce was starting to look genuinely upset. Granted, Jason himself wasn't particularly happy when anyone mentioned the Joker, but this was Gotham. It was impossible to get away from references to him. Jason would have thought Bruce was used to it by now, too, but the way every muscle in his body had tensed wasn't a good sign. He was clenching the steering wheel hard enough to turn his knuckles bone white.

“Uh, sir?”

“The Joker...is a death dealing maniac. He'd murder everyone if he could. He killed—he killed—and you're asking if I want to Jokerize my fries?” Bruce demanded. By this point, he was shouting, and Jason was looking at him in mild alarm.

“Well, yeah...? I mean, I'm supposed to ask everyone that,” a timid voice replied.

Before Bruce could make this even more weird, Jason leaned over him and raised his voice enough to be heard by the intercom, “No on the Jokerized fries, but give us some extra Red Hot Sauce for the nuggets.”

“Um, right. Your order will be ready soon,” the teen on the other end said, probably hoping to get rid of them as soon as possible, so he could move on to some better behaved customers.

Jason shot Bruce a look that was half suspicion and half concern as he pulled them up behind the car in front of them to wait for their food. “What was that about? You don't normally get that upset when people mention the Joker.”

“Before you told me in the garage, I didn't know that the Joker murdered you!”

Jason opened his mouth and then closed it. Batman had always known it was the Joker, but Bruce Wayne didn't remember that, which meant he'd only relearned that fact recently. “Are you actually upset at him, then?” Jason asked, wondering if maybe there had been a brief window of time, just after he'd died, where Bruce had honestly considered avenging him, before deciding that Jason wasn't worth it. The thought was bittersweet.

Bruce gave him a stricken look. “Am I upset? Jason, you told me he beat you and then exploded you! How could I not be upset about that?” Bruce looked like he was caught in some strange valley between rage and tears.

“It's just...you never seemed to let it get to you before,” Jason said, more than a little confused by Bruce's sudden outpouring of emotion. “I mean, back when you had your memories.” Bruce had told him that he wanted to see the Joker dead, back during their three way confrontation, but even the graphic details he'd given had all been delivered in the same low growl which he'd used to demand that Red Hood stop killing or that some low level goon drop a gun.

Jason had heard that exact same tone from Batman a million times before, back when he was Robin, and with the Joker standing in front of both of them, grinning as if Batman had just told the most hilarious joke, Jason certainly hadn't felt convinced that Bruce had ever had the conviction to actually get rid of the Joker for good, any more than he had the conviction to make all guns in Gotham suddenly disappear. Sure, he'd probably be happy if it happened, but it was hardly more than an idle fantasy for him, not something he'd carefully considered the logistics of and truly planned to bring about.

At the present moment, though, Bruce seemed determined to actually have real emotions, and he stared at Jason, horror on his face, before shaking his head. “It makes me sick, just thinking about what the Joker did to you, how he hurt you. I'm sure I've never hated anyone as much as I hate him, not even my parents' killer.”

Jason just stared at him for a long moment. “That can't be true. You...Bruce, maybe you just don't remember right now, but you're still not over losing your parents, all these years later. Every year, on the anniversary of their deaths, you have all these little rituals you have to go through to get yourself through the day, but when you think no one is watching, you always look so sad.” Jason remembered watching him and hurting for him, with the same hollow ache that he normally reserved for thinking of Catherine's warm hugs and Willis's rare proud smiles. “When I was murdered...well, you sure got over that quick,” Jason said bitterly. What was it that had made him so much less loveable, so painfully easy to forget?

Bruce was opening his mouth to reply when they both belatedly noticed that the car which had been in front of the pickup window had pulled away. A teen in a knock off Batman costume was leaning out of the window with a bag of food ready to hand to them. It was a good thing Batburger had a new payment kiosk installed, so that Bruce didn't have to do more than wave his phone at it to pay, because from the too neutral look Bruce gave the unlucky employee, Jason didn't think he had any patience left for Batburger. Bruce immediately handed the food to Jason, stuck the two drinks in the holders in the center console, and quickly pulled into a spot in the farthest corner of the parking lot, the muscles of his face twitching harshly as he tried to keep a “safe for public consumption” expression on, at least until they were out of sight of prying eyes.

When the car was safely stopped, Bruce looked at Jason, and the illusion of calm dropped. There was suddenly so much raw pain on his face that Jason was almost tempted to check him over for toxin tipped darts. He knew of a couple of poisons that could put someone into intense agony within a few seconds of entering the blood stream, and surely this couldn't be how Bruce honestly felt on his own. “Jay, I never got over your death. Even now that I have you sitting right here in front of me—thinking about what happened to you still haunts me.” Bruce wasn't just saying the words. He was using them as vehicles to convey actual emotion. His voice shook, and his words came out strained and halting, as if he were fighting back tears.

Jason could only stare at him in shock. “But you replaced me,” he replied, in such a small, unsteady voice that he wanted to stop speaking immediately, if only to avoid showing so much weakness. Bruce had lanced such a deep, festering wound, though, that Jason just couldn't hold the despair in anymore. “It was less than a year before you replaced me,” he said, and he couldn't keep the vulnerable agony of that truth out of his voice.

If Jason had pulled the discreet gun he had hidden at the small of his back and shot Bruce straight in the chest with every round, he wasn't sure he could have gotten the man to look as pained as he did in that very moment. “Jay, lad, no. No,” Bruce gasped out. “After I lost you, I...I didn't want to have another boy living at the Manor, because every time I looked at Tim, it reminded me of your absence all over again. But Tim's mother was newly dead and his father was in a coma, and he needed support, even if I was reluctant to give it. Over the years, as I slowly grew to know him better, I did come to see Tim as an addition to our family. An addition—never a substitute.”

Jason's stomach churned as that phrase sunk into his ears: “our family”, as if Jason had still belonged to Bruce's family all along, as if his place at his side had been based on being Bruce's adopted son, who could welcome a brother and lose nothing, rather than Batman's soldier, who had become redundant as soon as a new Robin took the suit. That wasn't actually true, though. Jason had never really gotten the details, but he knew from a few comments Alfred had made that after Dick had stopped being Robin, he and Bruce hadn't so much as spoken for months.

Eventually, Nightwing had started working with Batman again, but Dick had never again treated the Manor like his home. There had been no happy Christmases where he had shown up for some family bonding. Dick had always spent his birthdays and holidays with the Titans. Jason had only been invited to join him after he'd done a few missions with Dick's team. The obvious implication had been that the Titans were Nightwing's family and Batman wasn't anymore, because only Robin got to be his family, and there was only one Robin. “You don't remember everything, though, Bruce. Maybe you just don't remember the part where you decided Tim was better than me.”

“He is not better than you,” Bruce replied hotly, and in that brief, shining moment, Jason loved him as fiercely as he had before he died. Sadly, that didn't mean he believed Bruce.

“...I've seen pictures of him with you,” Jason said slowly. Of course, he couldn't tell him about pictures of Batman and Robin, but there were a few public news photos he'd found, too. “There were a few from charity galas, of Tim wearing fancy suits and schmoozing with the rich people you and he grew up with, people I never fit in with. When you adopted me, the newspapers all decided I was your new charity case, but with Tim, they spent entire articles speculating about how you might have finally found a proper heir to take over your company.” It had hurt like an unexpected blow from Killer Croc to read those articles and know that even after years at Bruce's side, learning proper grammar and manners from Alfred so carefully, Jason had never been accepted by Bruce's social circle as well as the Bristol boy had been, simply for showing up. “I guess it's no wonder, when Tim always looked so comfortable wearing those fancy suits that I could never stand,” Jason added bitterly.

“Looking comfortable in suits is not a virtue,” Bruce said, and Jason barely hid a snort, because Bruce had always acted ten times prouder of himself when he was in the bat suit, as if putting it on truly were a virtue unto itself. So many of Bruce's statements recently had been laced with such unintended hypocrisy that Jason had been surprised a few times into showing what, to Bruce, had seemed to be inappropriate humor. Thankfully, this time Bruce didn't appear to have caught on, because he continued speaking without pause. “Frankly, I'd rather Tim never dressed up again, if it would keep him from wearing any more Halloween costumes. Obviously, putting on a mask allowed him to sink too deeply into a fantasy role he never should have contemplated in the first place. I still have trouble accepting that he would attack you like that, even after witnessing it with my own eyes.”

Jason chuckled bitterly. “Yeah, you seem to have a lot of trouble believing things, lately.” What would Bruce think if he knew that Jason had attacked Tim in his own “Halloween costume”? Even Jason wasn't so proud of his actions in Titans Tower, anymore. The half-formed thought that he and Tim could have been brothers if only Bruce had been Bruce Wayne instead of Batman just intensified the guilt. It was obvious Tim would rather take a pound of flesh from him than an apology, though.

Not that Jason had actually gotten around to apologizing. Maybe if their phone conversation had gone a little better, he would have tried. However, Jason had been woken from a nightmare of his own murder by Tim's phone call, and then he'd been forced to stumble out of his comfortable bed to answer the Manor's main phone line himself, because Bruce had been at (civilian) work and Alfred had been kicked out by Bruce. Jason had started the conversation tense, with the Joker's laughter still ringing in his ears, and that always made him a little more snarky than usual. Then, the first thing Tim had done, once he'd realized he was talking to Jason, was accuse him of hurting Bruce and Alfred. The insulting but baseless assumption had snapped Jason straight from snarky to pissed off, and all thoughts of apologizing had fled from his mind.

He couldn't even understand why Tim had leaped immediately to such an offensive conclusion, especially when Jason had never once done anything to hurt Alfred. Red Hood and Batman had tangled before, but Bruce had shared his work calendar with their whole "family", so Tim should have known he wasn't home because he was at a lunch meeting. Even if Bruce hadn't had another obvious engagement, though, why assume Jason would look for a fight when Bruce wouldn't even remember what they were fighting about? Contrary to what the other Robins seemed to expect, these past several days with Bruce had actually been...good.

Sure, they still argued about things, but with the subject of lethal punishment temporarily out of the conversation, none of their fights had been that serious. The way Bruce was acting toward him...Jason had dreamed of this, the good kind of dreams that he didn't like to acknowledge, because they were more painful than dreams of his coffin or the crowbar. For those nightmares, when Jason told himself “that will never happen again”, it was reassuring. For the dreams of Bruce treating him like a real son and showering him in love and pride—with those dreams, when Jason told himself “that will never happen again”, it was agony.

There was no escaping the truth, though. Jason knew that once Bruce's amnesia was cured, he'd be right back to his old cold, condemning self again. Jason also knew that had to happen, because Batman had dangerous enemies, like Ra's al Ghul, who knew his civilian identity. If this amnesia continued, then eventually one of them would decide to strike at him while Bruce didn't remember how to defend himself. The sooner he got his memories back, the safer he would be. Since this amnesia issue wasn't going to be solved immediately, though, why shouldn't Jason enjoy the relative peace between them, while it lasted?

After he'd been forgotten and replaced so quickly, it was a balm to his soul to have Bruce treating Jason like he mattered again. Maybe it was petty, especially considering that Bruce didn't fully understand the situation, but it felt so vindicating to be the “good” son, for once. It had always been a little grating when Jason was repeatedly compared to the ever perfect first Robin, but the third Robin was even more annoying in his own way. Jason had certainly never received multiple phone calls and texts from Bruce every single day. Bruce Wayne was a busy man. His time and attention were precious. Where did the Replacement get off just ignoring him for an entire month? Jason would have been thrilled to get that much attention, to mean that much to his erstwhile father, and Tim was so full of himself that he couldn't even be bothered to reply?

It was infuriating that the things that meant so much to Jason had been ripped away from him and given to a boy who didn't even seem to care about them. So, Jason thought that it was understandable that he'd been a little less than friendly to the rival who'd had the audacity to accuse Jason of hurting Bruce when Tim was the one that had gone no contact for weeks. If the amount of verbal worrying Bruce had done in front of Jason was any indication, Bruce had been deeply upset by Tim's silence.

Still, maybe it hadn't been the best idea to tell Tim he wouldn't like it if he showed up. Robins were natural rebels, after all. At the time, though, Jason hadn't really thought Tim would escalate from verbal sparring directly to a physical fight, especially after how the last one between them had gone.

Jason...wasn't willing to engage in another fight like that. He was annoyed with Tim, yes, but he didn't entirely trust himself not to go a little too far in a real fight, either. He'd only gone to Titans Tower originally to get a measure of his Replacement, to point out the flaws in Batman's sanctimonious philosophy and leave the kid with a few bruises and a lot to think about. Instead, Jason had beaten the kid unconscious and written his own name in blood on the wall, in some desperate if misguided effort to leave some mark on a world all too quick to forget his very existence. He'd just been so angry when he'd realized that the Titans had memorials for the likes of Kole and Terra, but not for him, even though Jason had been a Titan, too.

He hated the feeling of being forgotten by the people who'd been important to him. He knew he shouldn't have come down on Tim quite that hard, though. Tim might have taken the suit, but what Gotham kid wouldn't have jumped at the chance to be Robin? Tim hadn't even known Jason beforehand, so as maddening as it was that he thought he was better than Jason, it wasn't an actual betrayal. Tim hadn't owed him anything. He'd just been the only one in front of Jason when he'd been furious enough to communicate solely with his fists, so he'd gotten the full measure of Jason's anger. Jason had told himself, after the Tower, that he wouldn't do that to the kid again.

The problem was, Jason found it nearly impossible not to fight back if someone started attacking him first. His survival instincts were just too ingrained, and they had only grown fiercer since that one time he'd failed to actually survive. Tim's decision to come at him hard had therefore put Jason in a bind, because while he hadn't wanted to beat Tim up again, he'd also known that he wouldn't be able to just stand there and let Tim beat him up without retaliation, either. He still felt a little guilty for throwing Bruce into the mix, but it had worked earlier to get Dick off his back, so it had seemed like a good idea at the time. Except, instead of doing a repeat of his ignorant but self-righteous fuming, Bruce had looked absolutely heartbroken when he'd thrown Tim out, which hadn't been what Jason had been aiming for, either. He knew it was only temporary, though.

“When you get your memory back, I'm gonna miss this whole thing where you take my side, for once,” Jason confessed to Bruce.

“Jay, no. You are not a monster or an enemy. I am so sorry Dick and Tim have drawn battle lines, but I know the battle isn't real. I'm sure they'll come around.”

“I'm sure they won't. You're the one who's going to change his mind.”

“Never.”

Jason really, really wished he could believe that, but he knew how it would go instead. He knew he'd made mistakes. The rest of them had too, of course, Bruce included, but Batman only ever allowed judgement to flow in one direction. That one direction was always away from him. He had double standards about others, too. When Dick did something dangerous, he was being brave, but when Jason did the exact same thing, he was being reckless. The Replacement had ghosted Bruce for a month, and no doubt he wouldn't get more than a slap on the wrist, when Jason would have been grounded for at least a few weeks for that.

Now, Jason had broken the cardinal rule. Never mind that the sort of scum Red Hood had put down had been destroying innocent lives and dodging conviction for years before he'd finally done something about it. No doubt Batman would tell him he'd been too extreme...and maybe, in a few cases, he had been. When Jason had first come back to Gotham, there had been times when his sheer rage at the unfairness of the world, at all the broken promises for justice he'd been given, had driven him to be more violent in his retribution than he'd first intended. There wasn't anything that could make him believe the Joker should be allowed to live, though. After everything that monster had done, after he'd escaped his leash again and again, how could any sane person think he should be given the chance to destroy even more lives? But Jason knew that Batman would never budge on this point, at least not for his sake.

If Jason told Bruce about their worst disagreement just then, though, Bruce wouldn't think it was anything other than a nonsensical story. Of course neither of them actually had the skills to kill the Joker (according to him). It was easier, therefore, for Jason to just keep quiet, drown his Robin Nuggets in Red Hot Sauce, and start on his lunch. At least Batburger had gotten the little frowning caricature of his red helmet mostly right on the sauce packet. These days, Jason had to take his little victories wherever he could get them, because he knew the good times never lasted long.

He couldn't help sneaking a few assessing glances at Bruce, though, when he finally stopped giving Jason sad eyes long enough to start on his own lunch. He had a few more frown lines than Jason remembered, but his face was still familiar and beloved. Despite how frequently he tried to tell himself he didn't care, Jason knew it was going to hurt so much when Bruce finally got his memories back and stopped caring about him again.

Chapter Text

“Come on, Jay, we don't even have to stay that long. Just for an hour?”

Jason looked up at the enormous stone building Bruce was trying to talk him into and refused to leave the safety of the car. “Bruce, I'm legally dead. I really shouldn't go into a law office with you.”

“But Jay, you know more about what sort of legal support formerly homeless kids will need. Can't you just come in for a little while to explain some details?” he asked. Of course Jason wanted to help those kids, which was why he hadn't objected too loudly when Bruce had said he wanted to see his lawyers on the way home from Batburger. Jason had foolishly thought Bruce would just let him wait in the car, though.

“Please?” Bruce said.

Jason sighed. He had brought his best ID to Batburger, just in case they were in a car accident or something and the cops asked for some ID. Normally, it wouldn't matter, but since the media liked to report if Bruce Wayne so much as wore an unusually colored suit, the identity of whoever was in the car with Bruce if he had an accident would likely face some scrutiny. While Jason had taken several forged documents to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get this ID, he had also taken and passed the driving test legitimately. The driver's license he'd obtained was legally issued—except for the fact that Jason had impersonated Jake Turpin in order to get it.

Jake was a former neighbor and classmate of Jason's who had almost certainly died, along with the rest of his family, in the Quake. His entire apartment building had come down, along with many of the buildings close to it. (Crime Alley had never been known for its great building standards.) There was no way to prove Jake Turpin was among the dead, though, without exhuming tens of thousands of bodies in the mass grave in Governor's Square and actually putting in the effort to identify them.

If anyone was going to perform that long, extremely expensive, and incredibly arduous task, they would have started by now. However, most of the remaining unidentified bodies were of poor people whose only relatives had died in the Quake along with them. The small number of survivors who actually cared enough to want all those identifications made didn't have enough money or clout to make that actually happen, and the Wayne Foundation was always more focused on helping the living, rather than the dead. A tasteful memorial had been built for the unidentified, and most of Gotham just wanted to forget and move on. In all likelihood, almost none of the bodies still in the mass grave at this point would ever be looked at again, which left Jason free to steal the identity of one of them.

He'd chosen carefully. Jason had actually been mistaken for Jake once or twice when they were kids, because they lived only a few blocks from each other, were only a couple months apart in age, and looked vaguely similar. The other reason for selecting Jake had been the traits he didn't have. Jake had never been talkative or outgoing. Consequently, he'd had very few close friends, all of whom had lived in the same building as him. He'd also had no father (at least, none that would admit to fathering him) and no siblings. His mother had been so severely disabled by a progressive neurological disorder that by the time Jake had started school, she'd rarely, if ever, left her apartment or invited anyone over. That meant that everyone who'd been really close to Jake was almost surely dead as well.

Jason had done his best to confirm that, of course, and there had been no credit cards used, no disability checks cashed, or any sort of legal or financial activity after the Quake to indicate anyone close to Jake might have survived. Additionally, Jason himself knew enough about Jake's life and their shared neighborhood to fool some casual acquaintance of Jake's who wouldn't have seen him in years. He was confident enough in the ID that he could afford to walk into a fancy law firm, as long as they weren't going to talk to anyone who might personally recognize him.

He heaved a sigh. “Who exactly are we going to meet?”

“Robards and Hoffman have been handling the groundwork for the group homes,” Bruce said.

Jason didn't recognize either name. Bruce had a lot of lawyers, though, so it wasn't really a surprise. “Fine. But only an hour. You know I can't stand lawyers.”

“Great! Thank you so much, Jay!” he said, as Jason reluctantly got out of the car and followed Bruce up the front steps. He seemed weirdly happy about such a small thing. On the other hand, just seeing Bruce happy at all was weird in itself. Before his recent amnesia, Jason wasn't sure he'd seen Bruce smile at all since he'd come back from Ethiopia.

“Right this way,” Bruce said, ushering Jason past the front desk and into a back hallway. The lady at the desk looked at Jason suspiciously, but apparently arriving with Bruce Wayne was enough to get him through without questioning.

“Here, they should be expecting us,” Bruce said, giving a heavy wooden door a perfunctory knock before barging right in. Jason frowned as Bruce dragged him into the room by the wrist. Why would anyone be expecting them? Hadn't this been an impromptu stop? But the conference room was filled with people that Jason vaguely recognized as Bruce's lawyers.

“Everyone, thank you for coming to this emergency meeting. Now, let me explain what I need you all to start working on, full time, immediately. This is my son Jason, and I—”

“Bruce!” Jason hissed, furious that he'd allowed himself to be tricked into such a meeting. “Excuse us, we need to have a private discussion right now,” he said with a tight and insincere smile, before pulling Bruce back out of the conference room and shutting the door loudly on the lawyers. “What the hell was that?!” he snapped, before realizing that he really needed to keep his voice down. The door was quality wood, but even that wouldn't stop his voice from carrying if he shouted at the top of his lungs. “What are you trying to do? Get them to revoke my death certificate?”

“Yes,” Bruce said, with the sort of unbridled arrogance that confirmed he was actually proud of the stupid thing he was trying to do.

“You can't just tell people I'm alive again!” Jason hissed back, struggling to keep his volume down.

“What I can't do is allow my son to remain legally dead.”

“We agreed it was for the best.”

“No, you and Barbara agreed, but she said it could be months before she'd be able to produce a new ID that could withstand full media scrutiny. Months, when you've already had your life...interrupted for so long, when you've already had so much taken from you. You shouldn't have to lose your own name, as well,” Bruce said, with that pinched look he always got on his face when he talked around Jason's death. “I don't know what was wrong with me before I lost my memory, but I'm not going to let you live in limbo any longer or wait months for a chance to become a fabricated stranger.”

“Do you not understand how much danger this could place us in?” Jason replied in a furious whisper.

“I'll hire bodyguards if I have to, but I'm not going to let you stay dead to the world for a day longer. You deserve to have your life back, fully.”

Jason scowled at him, feeling suddenly and unpleasantly reminded of how uncompromising and heavy handed Bruce could be. He'd hoped that was all Batman, but it turned out Bruce Wayne was just as bad at unilaterally making decisions that deeply affected other people. Jason considered arguing that bodyguards would be ineffective against the dangers they could face, but he saw the stubborn tilt to Bruce's chin and realized that he would not be swayed by anything Jason said, not when he didn't even remember the ugly parts of the world which only Batman tangled with.

Bruce probably did remember all the times he'd publicly challenged Gotham's most corrupt and come out on top, though. What he'd forgotten was how Batman had suffered and bled to give Bruce Wayne some of those victories. Bruce discredited the danger right now, because how much could some loon in a bat costume really have done, after all? (So much. Batman had done so much for Gotham, but Bruce didn't know it anymore.) He likely honesty believed that the cops and some private security could handle anything the world could throw at them, which was a very dangerous assumption that Jason didn't know how to counteract.

Jason thought through his options with rising desperation. If the lawyers had never actually seen Jason, then he would have been free to simply disappear. No one would have believed Bruce that his dead son had come back without any proof. Some of the lawyers had been working for Bruce back when he'd adopted Jason, though, and they'd gotten a look at him. Bruce had tricked Jason into the conference room so that they would get a look at him, probably exactly so that Jason couldn't just disappear into the night with no consequences. Jason could imagine finding his face plastered over every billboard in Gotham, accompanied by sensational media headlines: “Bruce Wayne's Dead Son, Returned?!”

No, at this point, he really had to do damage control. “You're not letting go of this, are you?” he asked, already knowing it was futile. Bruce Wayne might not be Batman right now, but he was still the man who had become Batman. He could out stubborn literal gods.

“Your life is something that should never have been taken away from you,” Bruce said, and Jason was glad that they could at least agree on that much. “I couldn't stop the Joker, but I can give this piece of your life back to you,” he said earnestly.

It was always hardest to hate Bruce when he had legitimately good intentions behind his infuriating decisions. That didn't stop Jason from wanting to curse Bruce out for the next hour, but the lawyers would likely only wait so long before they got up and started looking for answers. “If it's my life, then let me decide how I want to live it,” Jason tried arguing again, because he never had been any good at backing down, even when he knew he couldn't win.

“Being dead is not what anyone wants, Jay,” Bruce said, with a voice more gentle than anything such a stubborn man had a right to produce. “You don't need to be a martyr about this. I know you're worried, but I can hire security—”

Jason growled in frustration. “You don't have the first clue what sort of security you'd need.”

“Then I'll hire someone to tell me. But Jason, I'm your father. I know I failed you in the worst way, but I will make sure you get your own name back, no matter what,” Bruce said, with that steely determination that made him such a dangerous man, despite having no special powers whatsoever.

Jason thought frantically. No matter what else happened, he couldn't afford to have his real name linked to his real face—at least, not if he was still associated with someone as famous and newsworthy as Bruce Wayne. “You sure you still want us to be legally related...?” Jason asked, hoping with every bit of logic he had that Bruce would say no, and wishing with all his heart that he would say the opposite.

“Yes,” Bruce replied, emphatic. Well, at least that answer hurt less for the moment. It would end up hurting more eventually, though, if Jason couldn't find a good way around Bruce's determination to put them both in very dangerous cross hairs.

Jason scrutinized him. “Does my name have to be Jason Todd? Because something else could still be my name.” His first name was common. There were probably thousands of Jasons in Gotham alone. It was pairing that name with Todd and then linking Jason Todd to Bruce Wayne that would cause the real problems.

Bruce obviously hadn't expected that angle. “What do you mean?”

“If I—you said...I mean, it was years ago now...” Jason hesitated, suddenly wary. Bruce had been so nice lately, so welcoming, but this might still be demanding too much. Bruce had asked Jason if he wanted to take his last name only once, just before the adoption had been finalized.

At the time, Jason had still been battling his own disbelief that Bruce was really going to go through with the adoption at all. Before Jason's death, Dick had only ever been Bruce's ward, a legal relationship which had technically dissolved once Dick turned eighteen. The laws had changed between when Dick had been Robin and when Jason had been, though, and Bruce had explained to Jason that he couldn't simply have a ward anymore, that if they wanted to ensure Jason's placement with the greatest permanency and the least amount of social workers, adoption was the best way to do that. He'd sounded almost hesitant when he'd brought up their legal options, though, and Jason had wondered if Bruce had been starting to get cold feet about creating a permanent tie with a kid he'd basically picked up off the street.

Jason had certainly worried that Bruce would come to regret it and thereafter make Jason's life miserable, but the thought of having a real home with a stable roof, three warm meals a day, and no social workers to mess it up had been too much to turn down. Bruce had seemed happy when Jason had agreed, and when Bruce's petition to adopt had finally gone through, Jason had gained some badly needed assurance that he wasn't just going to be kicked out on a whim, even if he wasn't as good a Robin as Dick Grayson had been. That's what it had all been about, hadn't it? Jason had known that Batman was actually looking for a Robin, rather than a son. He had certainly never asked Jason to call him “Dad” or anything. The adoption was just a formality to keep everything legal. Still, they had been family, of a sort. Robin was Batman's family, after all.

Bruce...obviously had drawn some strange conclusions, now that he didn't remember what exactly their relationship was based on. He had adopted Dick when he'd had no legal reason to do so, though, Jason remembered with a pang. After Jason had died, and after Batman had trained up yet another Robin, he'd decided, suddenly, that he wanted Dick to legally be his child, even though Dick had been an adult for years by then. Jason recalled Talia's sympathetic expression as she'd shown him a copy of the paperwork, the same sympathetic expression she'd worn as she handed over pictures of the new Robin. Jason hadn't wanted her sympathy.

He'd wanted to rage. Why had Dick agreed to be Bruce's son only after it was too late for him (as far as Dick knew, at least) to be Jason's real, legal brother? But unlike with the replacement, Jason had been able to see that his anger at Dick might not have been a fair reaction, even from the start. Dick had been friendly with Jason after he'd begun working with the Titans, after all. Not that they'd spent much time together, but when they had, Jason had gotten the same big brother treatment from Dick that all the younger Titans had gotten, which was why it had been such a punch in the gut that there had been no memorial for Jason at Titans Tower.

Dick had moved on from the Titans by the time Jason had confronted Tim in the Tower, though, so Jason wasn't one hundred percent sure that was actually Dick's fault. The younger kids had been running the Tower by then. As for the timing of his adoption, Dick had turned eighteen and become Nightwing well before Jason had ever met Batman, so there clearly had been plenty of opportunities for Dick to become Bruce's legal son before Jason was even a consideration, if that had been what they'd both wanted back then. Had Bruce only changed his mind later? Had he actually decided at some point that he wanted his Robins to be his children for real, even after they left the nest?

That possibility sunk into Jason's heart like a barbed blade—painful going in, but even more painful to try to pull out again. There had been no pressing reason behind Dick's adoption, as far as Jason had been able to discern. Bruce had adopted the replacement too, recently, even though they probably could have just gotten another actor to replace the fake “uncle” who no one had seen since Chemo destroyed mid-town Bludhaven. Like thousands of others, “Eddie Drake” was still listed as missing, as his death had never been confirmed, so they could easily have pulled off the same trick as Jason had with Jake Turpin. But they hadn't. Bruce had adopted Tim, and maybe that had been by preference, rather than simply convenience.

Would Bruce still want Jason to be his son if he had his memories? Well, not if he recalled the fights or the severed heads, certainly, Jason thought with a painful twist of his heart. If it hadn't been for that, though, had there been a time when Bruce had actually wanted to go full on domestic, play catch with something other than batarangs and take Jason to baseballs games for something other than a cover story? The thought dug into his mind with bitter longing.

When things with Batman had been at their best, Jason had been convinced Bruce cared about him as more than a replaceable soldier. He had been nearly sure, at some points, that the words on the adoption papers were the truth. There had been other times, though, when he and Bruce would get into arguments about Robin's “recklessness” or Batman's ineffectual methods. After each of those fights, Jason had spent many restless nights plagued by doubt about where exactly he stood with Batman.

Because of that, even during their happiest moments, Jason had never quite dared to go to Bruce and tell him that he wanted to take on the Wayne name. Bruce certainly hadn't pushed for it, either. When Jason had said 'no' to taking the Wayne name the one time he'd been asked, Bruce had just nodded and said that Dick had also been very fond of his original last name. He had never even mentioned it again.

There had been times when Jason had wondered if maybe saying “no” initially had been a mistake, though, and not only before his untimely death. If he had chosen to be a Wayne all those years ago, what would that have meant? Nothing, possibly. But maybe Jason would have been Bruce's son for real, not just as a cover for why Bruce had a definitely-not-Robin living with him. If he'd been Jason Wayne, would he have called Bruce “Dad”? Would the Joker be dead? ...Would Jason have had a true forever family, which wouldn't have forgotten about him the moment he was out of their sight? Because currently, while Bruce didn't remember that he'd only taken Jason in to be Robin, he certainly seemed like he thought they were still family.

Was that option, offered only once, years ago, still open? Jason didn't know if he could bear the answer to that question. It had felt so good, so enticingly nostalgic, to just slip back into the hallways and rhythms of his lost childhood. He didn't want to ask for too much and end up losing it all. But if Bruce convinced the world Jason had been resurrected, everything would be ruined, anyway, and taking the Wayne name was one of the few compromises that might satisfy Bruce and avoid disaster. “You offered to let me be a Wayne once, remember?” Jason asked as neutrally as possible, carefully gauging Bruce's reaction.

“Oh,” Bruce said, and his eyes went wide in shock, before softening. “Jay, of course. If you want to take my last name, I would be honored.”

He would be honored? Jason couldn't help feeling a surge of disbelief. Luckily, he had a dependable go-to strategy for when he was off balance and confused: get angry. “Good, because it is going to take a lot of fast talking to get us out of the pile of crap you just walked us into,” Jason hissed, letting himself feel furious again that Bruce was taking the danger so lightly. “I know what you want, and it is too big a risk, no matter how much security you hire. But there is a way that I can be Jason Wayne and legally alive and your son, a way that doesn't involve having some of the most powerful—and most evil—people in the world hunting for your secrets. It may make you unpleasantly popular in the gossip columns, though. Can you live with that?”

“Yes. Jay, I just want you to have your life back—”

“Well then, get ready to lie, because I need you to back up everything I'm about to tell all your lawyer buddies,” Jason said, and then before Bruce had a chance to object, Jason threw open the door. It was time to earn an academy award.

“Hello, everyone. Sorry about that,” Jason said, waiting for Bruce to step inside before firmly closing the door behind him. “I think Bruce was just so excited earlier, he got a little ahead of himself and skipped a few very important steps of explanation. My name is Jake Turpin, and—” Bruce stepped forward, as if he might object, and Jason subtly elbowed him in the stomach. “And you won't be calling me that for long, if Bruce will just give me half a second to explain,” he growled out. “You see, we want your help legally changing my name to Jason Wayne. Also, Bruce will be performing another adult adoption. I think some of you may have been involved when he adopted Dick Grayson. This time, he will be adopting me.”

Several of the lawyers looked shocked. The rest exchanged troubled looks. “I'm sure you all have a lot of questions. Maybe some of you have even noticed that I look a bit familiar. I'm going to explain why that is, but first, I would like to remind you that you are all paid very well for you discretion and that none of what I tell you in this meeting—save for information which is necessary to fill out legal documents—should ever leave this room. Is that clear?”

Of course the press would find out eventually. In fact, Jason needed them to find out, but in a controlled way, where he carefully fed them his cover story, which they then helpfully distributed, thereby diffusing suspicion. He badly needed some lead time to fake up some supporting evidence, though, before they started digging. This performance would hopefully buy him that time, because it would take time for the adoption to go through and it would take time to change his name to Jason Wayne and it would take time for someone to put together the fact that Jason Wayne looked a lot like Jason Todd. He just needed the lawyers to keep things quiet for a little while, so the reporters didn't start digging too early.

Apparently, because they were lawyers, a simple verbal agreement to be discreet wasn't good enough. Instead, the lawyers made use of the printer in the conference room, and Bruce and Jason were forced to sign their names several times on a few documents that, as far as Jason understood, said that the law firm would represent both of them, and that they did not expect to for there to be any conflicts of interest between them (if only), and that if a conflict did arise, a certain specific set of procedures would be followed. After Jason scribbled his (stolen) name on the last line, he slammed the pen down and shoved the papers away with maybe a little too much eagerness. “Okay, there, are you finally happy?” he demanded. Less than fifteen minutes in the room, and he'd already signed a name that wasn't his half a dozen times.

“You are now protected by the same privacy agreements as all the rest of our clients, Mr. Turpin. You may proceed,” said an exceedingly snooty older man who looked like he'd detected an unpleasant odor in the room, coincidentally emanating from where Jason was sitting. Jason wanted to punch him in the face, just on principle.

“Great. As I said, my name is Jake Turpin. Turpin is my mother's last name. My father's name on my birth certificate is blank, and very few people know who he actually was. As you are now all going to take my secrets to your graves,” Jason said, feeling halfway inclined to put them in their graves just out of sheer annoyance, “I will give you my father's actual name: Willis Todd.” He saw a couple of the lawyers jolt in recognition. At least now he knew those ones were paying attention, even if they were still looking at him like he might be half rabid.

“For those of you who haven't realized it already, Willis Todd was also the father of Jason Todd, Bruce Wayne's deceased adopted son and my half brother. My mother never made my father's name public because Willis was involved with Sheila Haywood at the time I was conceived, and after Sheila left Gotham, Willis immediately started seeing a woman he later ended up marrying. It would have caused an uncomfortable confrontation if Catherine had been aware that he had a habit of cheating.” Jason felt a little bad accusing Willis Todd of infidelity, but he was long dead and there was really no one left who cared about his reputation, save Jason himself. Jason liked to think the old man would be pleased to help pull one over on an entire room full of very expensive lawyers, though.

“However, I was told who my father was, and back when I started school, I realized there was a boy with the last name of Todd in my class. It turned out that Jason Todd lived only a few blocks from me on Crime Alley. Perhaps a few of you who knew Jason have already noticed: I have a very strong resemblance to him. A family resemblance.” Jason saw a few nods, a few expressions of sudden understanding. Luckily, “Jake Turpin” was a few years older than the Jason they had seen, so he didn't look exactly like the boy they remembered. “I befriended Jason only a few days after I found out he existed. After I told him who my father was in confidence, we only grew closer, and we kept in contact after Bruce adopted Jason. Bruce even offered to adopt me as well,” Jason said, nudging Bruce slightly until he nodded his head in confirmation, “but I wanted to stay with my mom.”

Jason lowered his head and spoke somberly. “Then, my brother Jason tragically died in Ethiopia. I was devastated. Bruce and I would talk sometimes and trade stories of Jay, to try to keep the good memories alive. Then, the Quake happened. Many of the buildings in my neighborhood collapsed, including my own. I only survived because I had happened to be heading to the store at the time. My mom wasn't so lucky,” he said, shaking his head and looking down, as if he found the grief crushing. “I lost the last of my blood relatives that day, as Willis Todd had died years before Jason.”

“After that...I didn't cope well. All of my friends were dead. I refused to leave Gotham when the evacuation was ordered. I felt tied to my destroyed neighborhood, like I had to stay there and remember everyone, because no one else was around to do it. I lost contact with Bruce. He even thought I might have died. Eventually, though, I realized that squatting in my old neighborhood wasn't a healthy way of dealing with my grief. When I finally contacted Bruce again, he was overjoyed to hear from me.”

“Yes,” Bruce said, putting a warm hand on his shoulder. “You can't imagine how much.” He sounded so sincere, even the lawyers seemed to buy it.

Jason gave him a small smile, careful to still keep his expression mostly subdued. “Before he died, Jay had let me know how thrilled he'd be if I did let Bruce adopt me, so that we could officially have the same father,” Jason said, feeling a little weird to be talking about himself in the third person. He tried his best to ensure his tone of voice matched the story he was feeding the lawyers, though. “When I eventually started pulling out of my depression after the Quake, I realized that staying with my mom wasn't a reason to turn down Bruce anymore. More than that, I realized that while I'd lost a parent, Bruce had lost a son. I thought that maybe we could be good for each other. I also know that Jason was planning to change his name to Jason Wayne, just before he died. Jason won't get to do that, but maybe I can. Maybe I can live for both of us. I know it sounds a bit unconventional, but I want to change my name to honor my brother.”

The stuffiest lawyer was still looking at Jason doubtfully. “Is this truly what you want as well, Mr. Wayne?”

“Yes,” Bruce said with the sort of absolute conviction that didn't allow argument, “this boy is my son. I want you to make the legalities reflect that truth, and I want you to help him change his name. I know my departed Jason would completely approve of this.”

The lawyers still looked skeptical, but Bruce was paying them an awful lot of money to do what he wanted and not question him, so in the end, they started drawing up the proper paperwork. Apparently, they also needed Jason to read several incredibly long, boring legal documents and sign his (fake) name dozens of times. When he finally gave his last signature, Jason was eagerly awaiting his escape, only for Bruce to point out that they did still need to actually talk about what sort of legal support formerly homeless kids would need.

By the time that discussion was finished, Jason had been putting up with Bruce's lawyers for almost four hours straight. In retaliation, he made Bruce take them back to Batburger for dinner. As he drowned his Robin Nuggets in even more Red Hot Sauce, Jason vowed that he was never going to be tricked into that torture chamber ever again.

Chapter Text

“Before you start yelling at me, Babs, I know it was a stupid story. I know. But Bruce tricked me into going to his lawyers,” Jason said, shooting Bruce's still serene face a venomous look, “by claiming they'd need some details about what sort of legal support formerly homeless kids might need.”

“The lawyers did need more details,” Bruce pointed out, “but also, you are a formerly homeless kid who needed legal help too, Jay. So when I said the lawyers would need more information to help formerly homeless kids—”

“You knew I wasn't thinking about myself when you said that!” Jason interrupted. “Besides, when I asked you who we'd be meeting, you only mentioned Robards and Hoffman. You didn't tell me you'd called a whole conference with at least a couple lawyers who handled my own adoption paperwork.”

“I said Robards and Hoffman were handling the legal groundwork for the group homes. I never claimed there wouldn't be others present as well.”

Jason couldn't help his wordless growl of frustration. “You knew what I was asking, and you lied by omission.” He turned back to his laptop, where he had a video call with Barbara up on the screen, partly because he needed to vent and partly because he now really needed her help. “Then, as soon as Bruce pulled me into the room, which had way more people than I was expecting, he introduced me as his son Jason.” Jason shook his head. “I didn't have the option of just disappearing at that point. A couple of the lawyers were a little too familiar with my face. I had to give some sort of explanation, other than being Bruce's son back from the dead.”

“You did a good job, Jay, especially given the restrictive circumstances,” Barbara said. He really shouldn't care about getting a few simple words of validation. It made the tight bundle of nerves inside his chest uncoil, anyway. “As for you,” Barbara said, turning her head slightly to glare at Bruce, “that was very reckless.”

“It needed to be done, Barbara.”

“It needed to be done carefully and deliberately,” she retorted, surprising Jason. Even though Barbara had offered to make him an ID, he had still halfway expected that she'd kick up a fuss, now that Bruce was actually about to unwittingly induct the Red Hood into his family. So far, though, it was only the method she'd objected to.

“But it wasn't getting done, was it?” Bruce countered. “Jason has obviously been back for a while now, and yet, before I acted, no progress had been made in getting him an actual legal identity again. I don't understand why everyone was dragging their feet, but I'm not about to allow Jay to spend another couple months legally dead when he doesn't have to be.”

Barbara scowled at him. “It's useless to argue about this now. When you get your memories back, you'll understand why Jason and I are so concerned, but I don't have the time to try to squeeze some sense past your thick skull at this point.” She looked back toward Jason. “I'll help you get all the little details set up for your backstory, okay? Since Jake Turpin was a real person already, it shouldn't be that hard.” The sound of typing and clicking on her end of the call lasted for several seconds. “Jake did actually resemble you a bit, though there are not many pictures of him. What my initial search turned up are all low quality.”

“Not many good cameras in Crime Alley,” he agreed. His neighborhood hadn't been known for its good record keeping in general, which could only be a boon here.

“Right. That's convenient, because the low quality leaves some doubt about the exact details of his face. I'll run an algorithm to compare all his childhood pictures to all of yours and find the closest matches, maybe make a few fake photos of the two of you together that play up the resemblance. I'll be sure to make him look a little taller, though.”

Jason frowned. “We were actually about the same height.”

“Yes, but Jason, you've grown eight inches since your mid-teens. That's statistically unlikely.”

“Oh,” Jason said, a little startled to realize that she was right. “Yeah, I grew like crazy after I got out of the Lazarus Pit,” he continued, remembering how he'd suddenly found himself with more reach during his combat training, even as he'd been forced to buy a new wardrobe every month or so. At the time, Jason had been so focused on his revenge that he hadn't even noticed how unusual it was. Now, he wondered how that fact had possibly escaped him. “I guess it was kinda late for me to shoot up so many inches. I just thought I was making up for lost time, but maybe being in the Lazarus Pit had something to do with it?” he suggested hesitantly.

Barbara nodded. “Humans tend to grow a certain amount during puberty, based on genes, nutrition, and other health factors. They don't generally grow extra to make up for prior nutritional deficiencies which stunted their growth before entering puberty, though. Even if you were on the later side for starting puberty, Jay, to grow that much when you were already so far into your teens sounds very unusual. On the other hand, Lazarus Pits can heal almost any injury. Perhaps that even includes childhood malnutrition, but of course we can't give that out as an explanation to the public. So, I'll adjust some photos and Jake's health records to make him seem a bit taller than he was. That will help convince people that you must be Jake, not Jason Todd, because logically 'Jason' would have ended up much shorter than you.”

It was a good idea, but Jason found himself a little troubled by the other implications of what she'd said. Of course he wasn't going to turn out to be the same person he would have been, if the Joker hadn't murdered him. Jason was not merely resigned to that truth. On some level, he believed that it was right that he'd been changed, because his death should matter, it should affect something, even if that was only himself. (There really didn't seem to be that many other people who had been lastingly affected, but at the very least, Jason had learned something from all he'd been through.)

However, Jason didn't really like the thought that the Lazarus Pit had also changed him significantly. If he hadn't noticed that growing more than half a foot in a few months was unusual, what else hadn't he noticed? What else might the Pit have done to him that he hadn't questioned? Because Jason knew that the Lazarus Pits had a habit of driving people crazy. He'd known that before he'd died. He'd been so sure that he'd been okay after the first few weeks, though, when the half heard voices and restless buzzing under his skin had gone away. If he was still being affected, he would know, wouldn't he?

Jason remembered, with a sudden icy lurch of his stomach, Dick's accusation that he had come back “wrong”. But Dick only thought that because he ascribed to Batman's hypocritical morality, where it was completely evil to kill someone, no matter how dangerous that person was, but completely fine to keep returning that dangerous person to a prison from which another homicidal escape was almost inevitable. Jason's disagreement with that absurdity didn't mean there was anything “wrong” with him.

Sure, he occasionally had these awful flares of temper now that pushed him to be much more violent than he'd ever been before he'd died....but that was just because the whole “being brutally murdered” experience had made it a little more difficult to deal with even more adversity, right? Anyone could have trouble adjusting to life again after being murdered by the Joker...well, except that everyone else who'd ever been killed by him had stayed dead, so Jason didn't exactly have any other example to compare himself to. He actually didn't have any real way to know what was due to being murdered and what was due to being in the Lazarus Pit, as before he'd been in the Pit, he'd been so severely brain damaged that he couldn't really form any meaningful thoughts or react in ways that required more than simple instinct. But if there was no way to separate out the two influences, then...

Jason did not want to think about that. Luckily, Bruce had put him into enough hot water that he had a ready made distraction, and Jason forced himself to focus on that. “While you're doing the photo manipulation, Barbara, do you think you could make a fake age progression from one of Jake's pictures to something close to my current face? Our story is that Jake stayed in Gotham after the Quake, so Bruce wasn't sure what happened to him. Bruce might have had an age progression done, to give to a private investigator or something, in order to try to find me. If we can strategically release something like that on internet at the right time, it might settle some questions about my identity, before they gain traction.”

Barbara nodded. “That shouldn't be too hard. I'll get you an electronic financial history set up, too. Bruce, it will show that you sent 'Jake Turpin' money in the past, so be sure that you look over the list of transactions I'm going to send you. You don't want to be surprised if someone digs up the information and asks you about it.”

Bruce nodded solemnly.

“I'll send copies of everything I already have for Jake Turpin, Babs,” Jason told her.

“Good. As far as physical proof goes, it's really only the post-Quake records you'll need, as we can claim most older items were destroyed in the Quake itself. Luckily, no one was keeping any records while Gotham was No Man's Land, so you won't need that much history. I'll try to take care of that this week.”

“Right. Thanks, Babs,” Jason said, relieved that she'd decided to help. When the time came that she was forced to choose between him and Dick, Jason knew she'd still choose Dick without question. However, he remembered the way she'd almost teared up, when she'd first seen him. No one else had reacted like that to Jason's return. Even if she'd never like him as much as she liked Dick, Barbara must still care about him at least a little bit. Considering that most people had just completely forgotten Jason as soon as it was convenient, even that small amount of affection was worth a lot to him. “I appreciate what you're doing.”

“I'm glad someone does,” Babs said, shooting Bruce another disgruntled look, which he ignored. “But let's not spend all our time trying to fix Bruce's mistakes. How are you doing with your studies, Jay?”

The question caught Jason off guard. “It's not really important. I know you have some actual work you have to do, and we just gave you more.” Speculation about what Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman were up to had been rampant in the news lately, with reporters thoughtlessly citing how long it had been since the three were last seen. Unfortunately, pointing out that the core of the JLA had been MIA for more than a month was only making supervillains bolder, and it was only likely to get worse when people noticed that several other League members hadn't been seen lately, either.

“I do have a lot of work,” Barbara confessed, “but I'm not so busy that I can't spend ten minutes catching up with a friend.” Jason noticed that she looked at him, not Bruce, when she said that. She must actually be pretty pissed at Bruce, then.

“It's going...okay,” he told her. He'd been more than a little worried, when he'd first started looking over all the things he should have learned already. It had brought back unpleasant memories of when he'd first come to live with Bruce and suddenly found himself attending one of Gotham's best schools. The one bright spot had been that Jason's reading speed and comprehension had actually been above grade level, thanks to the fact that he'd spent a lot of time as a kid curled up with adventure books, trying to find some temporary escape from a home with his sometimes drunk and frequently angry father and his increasingly drugged out mom. He'd only been more desperate for a distraction after she'd died.

His grasp of mathematical concepts had been atrocious, though, and the less said about pre-teen Jason's knowledge of geography, the better. He'd been very eager for any extra credit he could get that first semester, as he'd had so many holes in his educational foundation which he'd struggled to make up for. It had turned out that even before he'd been forced to drop out, the quality of teaching in the Crime Alley school he'd attended hadn't exactly been great.

However, he'd had one advantage that the other students didn't in his new school: he'd desperately wanted to succeed. The rest of them had looked at school as a chore, someplace their parents had forced them to go. They'd all been born rich. Even if they had never worked a day in their lives, they could just have lived on their inheritance. They didn't need to do well. Jason had still been anxious when he'd started out, though. The memory of being on the streets on his own, unable to go to school or earn any honest money, had weighted heavily on him, and he'd been afraid for months that Bruce was going to change his mind and kick him out. To Jason, school had been a privilege, a way to hopefully help prove his worth to his new family, and an insurance against a life of poverty. Where the other kids had slacked off, he'd paid strict attention and struggled through the lessons, even when he'd felt like he was trying to master step ten when he'd only learned up to step two.

As time had gone on, though, Jason had started to fill in the holes in his knowledge and put concepts together. The same skills he'd used to calculate the throwing angle he'd need to bounce a batarang off of a wall and hit a target could be used in his trigonometry class. When Commissioner Gordon said he needed a judge to issue a search warrant before he could act, that was what the social studies teacher meant when he said that different branches of government, like the executive and the judicial, had checks and balances. It was much easier to remember which states were where in the country when Jason got to actually look down at them as Batman flew them around in the Batplane. Even grammar was easy when he just thought about how Alfred would say something.

Gradually, Jason had gone from being generally the worst student in class when he'd started to being generally the best by his last year as Robin. He'd been so proud of himself. Then, of course, the Joker had put an end to all of that. Now, he was stuck in the same educational hole he'd once worked so hard to get out of, and he found he hated being there. Why did he have to struggle through this all over again?

“You don't look too pleased,” Barbara said gently.

“Am I supposed to be happy about doing schoolwork?” Jason replied bitterly.

“But you never used to have a problem with it, Jay,” Bruce said. “What is it that's bothering you now?”

He actually had been generally content doing homework, but that was more for the sense of accomplishment he got for finishing it correctly, rather than any intrinsic love for doing homework in and of itself. Jason had found it quite satisfying when he'd finally caught up enough to show up all the snooty rich kids who'd started with so many advantages over him and yet still couldn't do as well. “I'm already years behind. What's the point?”

“Jason, you're still a teenager,” Barbara told him in her patient voice, the one she used when she was actually really tired and stressed but didn't want to take it out on the innocent person in front of her. Jason wanted to point out that nineteen was almost twenty, but he knew that if he didn't sit quietly and listen, he'd soon get her impatient voice. As he had exactly one friend, he couldn't really afford to tick her off. “If you study full time right now, it won't be that long until you can pass the GED test and start sending out college applications. If that happens soon, I can get you a list of schools that accept fairly late applications for the Spring semester. Granted, that will restrict your choices, but you could always start at Gotham U and transfer somewhere else, if you don't like it there.”

“You so sure Gotham U is gonna want me?”

“You're smart and a very quick learner, Jay. They'd be stupid not to.” Barbara's lips quirked up into a wry smile. “Besides that, enrollment there has never fully recovered there since the Quake, despite the brand new buildings the Wayne Foundation paid for. They have the space to admit even late applicants, and quite frankly, since you're changing your last name to 'Wayne', they'd let you in even if you were a drooling monkey,” Barbara asserted, surprising a snort out of him and an unhappy sound out of Bruce. “You wouldn't be starting that much later than your former classmates. There are plenty of well off kids who decided to take a gap year to travel the world between high school and college—it's just that your 'gap year' was a little more...intense than most.”

Jason gave her a crooked grin. “Yeah, that's one way of putting it.” He didn't like the thought that he'd be allowed in purely because Bruce was his adoptive father, but he knew Barbara was right about how admission would go, even if Bruce made no attempt to apply any pressure. Just the mere fact that he was donating millions to the school would be impossible for them to ignore. While Jason normally hated the way money determined so much about people's place in society, he was nervous enough about the possibility of college that it almost felt nice to know he had a safety net, for once, nepotistic as it was.

“You know if there's a subject you need some help in, you can always come to me, right? Or even Bruce, if it's something simple,” Barbara said, giving Bruce a teasing smile. Gotham's "prince" gave her a disgruntled look in return.

“I don't wanna waste your time.”

“Jay, it wouldn't be a waste,” Barbara told him gently.

“I...thanks, Babs.” Jason had actually already spent a lot of time looking over some sample GED questions Barbara had sent him. Whenever he hit a question he was clueless on, he couldn't help the rush of shame. So many people had looked down on him as gutter trash who would never even graduate high school, and he hated how they'd been proven right so far.

When he thought back on how many questions he'd been able to answer correctly, though, rather than all the ones he'd gotten wrong, Jason was a little surprised to realize that there actually were areas he was pretty confident in. He'd already read many of the books on the recommended list before he'd died, meaning he'd been just ahead enough before not to be terribly behind now. He had also incidentally picked up some world history just by traveling around to different countries and learning from the teachers Talia had hired.

He'd even picked up a fair bit of chemistry when he'd been learning about how to create various poisons or neutralize toxins that might be used against him. High school physics had nothing on trying to correct for the Coriolis force, like Jason had to do when his sniping teacher was having him practice very long distance shots. All in all, although there were once more huge gaps in his age appropriate knowledge, he had actually learned a fair amount of applicable material. He wasn't as badly off as he could have been, and Jason knew he could catch up, if he put his mind to it. He'd done it once before.

He'd boasted to Tim that he was the “good son”, but Jason knew he wasn't. Bruce just didn't remember that right now, and Jason was not looking forward to the day when he did again. In the meantime, though, Jason had realized that the replacement might be graduating from high school soon, himself. Tim would get a diploma, and Jason might still just be a high school dropout. Even Dick, who'd never really been terribly interested in school, had managed a bit of college before quitting. The thought did not sit well with Jason.

“What if I did want to take the GED test? What do you think is the best practice test to take?” He told himself that the happy and proud expressions that question brought onto Bruce's and Barbara's faces had nothing to do with his decision, but he suspected that he was lying to himself.

He heard the sound of a click from Barbara's side of the call. “I just sent you links to a few more resources, and a free online test that I think will help you prepare.” She'd done it too quickly to have just looked it up right then, even for her. Barbara must have had everything prepared beforehand. Jason was maybe a little touched that she'd thought about him even when he wasn't right in front of her face. Despite being busy, she hadn't just forgotten he existed.

“By the way, Jay, how far are you in Breakfast of Champions?”

“Oh, I just finished it this morning.” He wondered if maybe Oracle was spying on him and already knew that, but if she was taking the time to spy, at least she was thinking of him.

“Did you like it?”

He nodded. “Actually, I've liked everything I've read by Vonnegut. He has this way of dealing with heavy subjects without going all solemn and depressing.”

“'And so on.'”

“'So it goes.'” Jason grinned. “Yeah. It's good. He puts some deep thoughts into his stories, but he doesn't shove your face into them until you suffocate. There's always some sort of humor, even if it's dark.”

“I've always liked Vonnegut, as well,” Bruce said. “I'm generally fond of satires, but God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater seemed especially personally relevant to me.” Then somehow their emergency legal identity crisis meeting turned into book club. Bruce had apparently read most of Vonnegut's novels, and as they discussed them over the next several minutes, Jason decided that he might read The Sirens of Titan next.

“I recall that you liked The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Jay, so if you like metafiction, you might like Timequake too,” Barbara pointed out.

“Okay. I'll check it out,” Jason replied.

“Oh, excuse me just a minute,” Barbara said, rolling briefly out of the video frame. “It looks like my tea is ready. I hope you don't mind that I'm indulging without you.”

“That's no problem. Actually, maybe I should make some tea, as well,” Bruce said, looking at Jason to gauge his interest.

Jason nodded at him, pretty sure that had been the reason Barbara had made tea to begin with—to encourage Bruce to give them a few minutes alone. As soon as he left the room, Barbara dropped into the no nonsense expression Jason remembered her wearing in the field. It was refreshingly familiar.

“I'm working on cleaning up audio recordings from the Watchtower, from right before this amnesia incident started. The JLA investigated a mass hallucination earlier that same day, and it may be that they were exposed to an artifact from another dimension. We're currently working to confirm or rule out that possibility. Have you noticed anything else about Bruce's amnesia on your end?”

“He doesn't seem to have lost any more than we've already noticed, but the implications may be worse than we originally thought,” Jason told her. “Bruce is a stubborn ass, but he's not just being a stubborn ass about this whole legal resurrection thing. He really doesn't remember how deadly the world is. Batman has bailed Bruce Wayne out of so many tight spots, but now he doesn't even remember that there were any tight spots at all. That means he's going to want to keep up his normal behavior, which is actually really dangerous without his normal skills to protect himself.” Jason frowned. “It's one thing if its just a couple muggers, but what if someone who knows he's Batman comes after him? What's the plan?”

“You already know about the panic buttons,” Barbara replied, and Jason nodded. They'd been installed all around the manor since before he'd moved in as a kid. “The alert will go to me now. If Ra's al Ghul shows up at the manor...I hope that Red Hood will be able to hold him off long enough for me to send reinforcements.”

“...You'd trust me, with that?” Jason asked, more than a little surprised she'd put Bruce's life in his hands. The possibility of an attack was far from an idle concern, after all. Someone had already gone after the similarly amnesiac Green Arrow. The news had just reported that morning that Oliver Queen was now in “stable condition”, which was a significant improvement. He'd apparently been critically injured on the same day Bruce had been mugged.

“You've had years of experience watching Bruce's back,” Barbara pointed out. “Can you keep an eye on him again for me, Jay?”

Jason realized with a jolt that she was basically asking him to move back into the manor full time, until Bruce got his memory back. Jason's self preservation screamed warnings about how dangerous it would be to let himself resume his old life here, to become once more attached to and reliant on a family that would not be there for him when Bruce's memory returned. The rest of his mind blared different warnings: Green Arrow still in the hospital, Bruce collapsed on the ground as two muggers kicked him, the Joker promising he'd see Batman again... If Jason abandoned him, and one of his old enemies showed up, what chance did a civilian Bruce Wayne stand? The choice was clear. “I...yeah, I can keep an eye on him, for you.”

“Thank you.”

He nodded, committed now, though he could not help the sinking feeling in his stomach when he thought of what would happen when all of this was over. The legal identity, the GED, maybe even college... Jason would be putting so much work into a life he couldn't keep. Worse, the closer he and Bruce got now, the more the inevitable resumption of hostilities would hurt them both.

...At least Bruce would be alive to continue their dispute, though. Jason might not be Robin anymore, but he wasn't about to let some sadistic criminal get the jump on Batman.

Chapter Text

Dick blinked blearily at his phone, which was currently vibrating itself in a random, jerking dance off of his slightly sloped coffee table. (He really had been meaning to find something to put under that one short leg.) While the rest of him slowly dragged itself toward coherence, Dick's hand snapped out on pure instinct and caught his phone, just as it tipped over the edge. His fingers moved on autopilot to swipe the alarm into silence. It took his brain another few seconds to register that it was time for a video call with Babs.

Yawning, Dick dug his laptop out from under the mostly empty containers of his last takeout meal. He stretched as it booted up, and then logged in with his typed password, fingerprint, and spoken pass phrase. The triple layer security was mildly annoying, but at least Babs had stopped expecting him to use secure tokens. It seemed like no matter what Dick did, they were always getting fried, crushed, exploded, or, on one memorable occasion, corroded by the fetid waters of the Gotham sewer. Oracle had been working on a tougher version, but all of her tech projects had been put on hold as they dealt with the mass JLA amnesia incident.

“Hey, Babs,” Dick mumbled sleepily, after he logged into the call. A quick glance at the time told him he was actually three minutes late. The vibrating phone must not have woken him immediately.

She gave him an amused smile. “You know your hair looks like it lost a fight with a glitter parade, right?”

“Dangers of fighting a guy who both uses glue as an offensive weapon and prefers to commit his offenses in toy stores,” Dick replied sheepishly. He could have made another attempt to brush his hair, but there really was no saving his dignity at this point.

“I'll look forward to the report,” Barbara said with a teasing grin. They both knew Dick was far too busy to type up everything that he'd dealt with over the past week, though he hoped he'd get at least a little lull to catch up on sleep before the next crisis broke.

“Any luck with the audio?” Barbara had gotten most of it cleaned up more than a week ago...or so she'd thought. However, when they'd gotten to the really interesting part, which was after the JLA members had returned to the Watchtower following their trip to Fortuna, there had been huge gaps of silence between lines that sounded like they belonged in the middle of conversations. Unfortunately, what little they had wasn't enough to figure out what had caused the amnesia. The most they could glean was that the JLA had built something incredibly complex.

“I've got good news and bad news about the JLA recordings,” Babs told him.

“Give me the good news first, then. I could use some,” he replied, scratching idly at his hair. He'd used glue dissolver and taken two thorough showers already, but it was still a bit sticky.

“Okay. The good news is that I have finally succeeded in fully cleaning the audio up—the bad news is that it didn't help any. Dick, we weren't missing the interesting conversations because the audio was messed up. We were missing them them because most of the conversations were held telepathically. You remember that large, wrinkly purple 'bean bag' we saw Superman carrying around, in the brief video clip I was able to put together? That was actually a being from another dimension, where most creatures have no vocal cords at all and rely entirely on mental communication.”

Dick groaned. “You're sure?” he asked, thoughtlessly running a hand through his hair for a moment before getting it stuck in a lingering glue snarl.

“Yes. Zatanna was able to call in a favor to confirm the ID this morning, based on the limited video samples I gave her. It is apparently a member of a very old and very powerful race called the 'Wunfulch'.”

“Well, I guess we solved the bean bag mystery, at least,” Dick said, trying to somehow get his hand unstuck without making it plainly obvious to Barbara that it had gotten stuck in the first place. From the way her lips twitched, he'd probably failed. “On the other hand, I'm not so thrilled that we may need to go on a perilous quest to challenge a powerful telepathic race in their own home dimension so we can get some stolen memories back,” he said, little alarm bells going off in his head, “all while earth's heaviest hitters don't even remember how to throw a punch.”

Barbara frowned. “Zatanna said the Wunfulch have a reputation for being very reclusive. Their home dimension is known, but not the location of their home within it. It didn't sound like we'd be able to just march up to their front door and challenge them.”

“No, of course, that would be too simple,” Dick said miserably, sacrificing a few more hairs in order to get his hand free. He'd been eager for this amnesia incident to be over as soon as it began, so of course it turned out to be a problem that didn't have a quick solution. “Then, we'll have to hunt the Wunfulch down on their own turf when they may be able to sense our approaching minds from half a world away.”

Barbara frowned harder. “Yes. It doesn't sound like it's going to be easy. I'm going to keep working on cleaning up the video. Maybe we can get some more clues from it. I still feel like we're missing something, though, Dick. In the video samples of the JLA members I was able to restore, they seemed to be sharing hallucinations, all looking suddenly at a blank wall or just stopping abruptly in the middle of a hallway and turning their heads to follow something that doesn't exist, but they didn't forget each other. They didn't appear to forget anything: not how the teleporters work, or the layout of the Watchtower, or how to use the comm system to call Batman and some other members in to help build...whatever they were building.”

“Right, and whatever they built was reduced to melted scrap about two hours before the amnesia started, which is a long delay if it was the machine itself which caused the amnesia.”

Barbara nodded. “Tim and Cyborg investigated the machine a little more, and they think the it was a dimensional teleporter, just based on the known items that were in the Watchtower that aren't there anymore. Also, the dimensional distortions were strongest just after it was assembled. I still haven't been able to recover any intelligible audio or video from the time between when the machine was completed and when it was so much melted metal on the floor,” Barbara said, sounding truly frustrated, “but I think we can safely assume that the JLA did use the machine they built. At least, they were congratulating each other afterward, as if they had succeeded at something.”

“Don't kill yourself trying to recover recordings from that time, Babs,” Dick told her gently, knowing she'd been overworking herself, too. “If a dimensional teleporter had a meltdown, it might not be possible to get anything usable out of those recordings.”

Barbara sighed. “I know. I just can't help thinking that's the piece of the story we really need, though. Oh,” she said, visibly perking up, “I didn't get a chance to send out an update yet, but just ten minutes ago, I was able to get another video clip restored, from about an hour before the amnesia started. There was a second Wunfulch in the Watchtower, Dick. This one was bigger, maybe the size of a small horse, and it didn't stay long. Maybe five minutes total. The JLA members all looked at it, probably having a silent telepathic conversation, and then it just...folded into itself and disappeared. No one seemed to hallucinate after that, if the later clips are anything to go by.”

“You said this was an hour before the amnesia started?”

“Yes. Well, an hour before we confirmed it to start. Everyone who was at the Watchtower that night has amnesia, so it wasn't until the first of them came in contact with others that anyone else had an opportunity to notice anything wrong. But as I mentioned last time, I do have audio from the Watchtower where Bruce is calling Clark 'Superman', right up until thirty minutes beforehand. They all must have taken a little time to return home and take off their costumes, as well, and Bruce could only do that at human speed. Presumably, he must have had his memory intact to remove the suit without triggering any of the protection measures.”

“So, that's still a significant delay between when the second Wunfulch showed up and disappeared and when the amnesia started. Maybe it took it that long to prepare, though? Causing such thorough amnesia in a number of very diverse people must have been hard to do.”

Barbara frowned. “Maybe. I still feel like there are too many unknowns.”

Dick nodded. That was what his gut was telling him, too: they were missing something important. “Presuming we don't have another emergency, I'll have some time tonight before the Gotham arms sale I need to stop. I'll go back through all the audio and video clips you've produced so far. Maybe something will jump out at me, now that we know the 'bean bag' is actually sentient and telepathic.”

“Thanks,” Barbara told him with a tired smile. “I won't be able to look at anything this evening, anyway, so I'll be glad to leave the investigation to you for tonight.”

“Oh? Are the Bird of Prey running another op?” He'd thought they were taking at least a short break while Dinah recovered from the injury she'd gotten protecting Oliver.

“No. I'm going out to Con Amore.”

Dick felt his shoulders relax a little. At least they weren't so badly off that they were sending their injured out into the field. “Con Amore...that's the little Italian place your dad loves?”

“Yes, except I'll be going with your dad.”

“Why would Bruce be going there?” Dick asked, surprised. Bruce generally favored much more expensive restaurants, and if Barbara had picked the place, she'd have chosen the new Turkish restaurant she liked.

“Because Jason wanted to try it, and going out for dinner seemed like a good way to celebrate.”

It was only then that Dick's still fuzzy brain fully caught up with the conversation. Barbara had told him she was going to fly back to Gotham when “Jake Turpin's” adoption became official, so if she was going to dinner in Gotham to celebrate something... “Wait, the adoption went through already?”

“Just this morning. I guess you didn't read my text yet.”

“Wow,” Dick said, not sure how he should feel. Jason had already been his brother, of course, except that the “Jason” who had come back to Gotham hadn't really been his brother at all. The Jay Dick knew might have had a few minor flares of teenage temper, back when he'd been Robin, but Dick's little brother would never have collected a duffel bag full of heads or beaten an innocent kid unconscious in Titans Tower. Barbara seemed to think that whatever the Pit had done to Jay could actually wear off, though, that all of Jason had indeed come back, just with some extra Lazarus Pit induced rage on top.

Dick himself feared that only parts of Jay had back. Maybe the reason Jason could now kill so brutally, without showing any remorse, was because he was missing essential pieces of what had once made Jason actually Jason, vital pieces that some people might call a “heart” or a “soul”, pieces that had never truly been returned from death. Of course, Dick wanted to believe Barbara's take on this instead. He'd mistakenly thought, however, that he'd have a lot more time to sort his hopes and fears out before Jason joined the family publicly again. “It felt like it took a lot longer for my own adoption order to come through,” he told her, feeling like he'd botched a landing and was now flailing to regain his balance.

“It did take longer. It was about seven weeks for you, which is still faster than average for an adult adoption. With Jason, it's barely been two weeks. I suspect the short timeline is because Bruce was really pressuring his lawyers to get this done quickly. He did not like the fact that Jason was legally dead,” Barbara said, which was probably an understatement. Dick was pretty sure that Bruce loathed the fact that although Jason was breathing, Bruce still didn't have his lost child back. A piece of paper couldn't make Jason the son Bruce had lost, though, no matter how official it looked.

Was Bruce just doing this as a (probably futile) attempt to change Jason back into the person he wanted? Or could there really be enough left of the kid they lost to nurture back into life? Jason could still be taking advantage of Bruce's amnesia and playing a long con, but Barbara wasn't an easy person to fool, even when she had some of the same emotional biases as Dick. He just wasn't sure what to believe anymore. It would be so good to have Jay back again, though, really back, as a member of their family, instead of their rogues gallery. Could Dick have that, though? It was uncomfortable to have his own cautious head and his hopeful heart so completely at odds.

“Do you think Jason had anything to do with how fast the petition to adopt went through?”

Barbara shook her head. “No, he and I were scrambling to get his story, electronic records, and paperwork straight. Jay wanted more time. Bruce was the impatient one. In a video call about a week ago, Bruce even told me that he warned his lawyers that he would switch to a different law firm, if they couldn't get this done in a timely manner. He was just basing his idea of 'timely' on his own idea of how long paperwork should take, though, rather than a well researched timeline of how long it typically actually takes for something to legally happen in the real world. It was a bit of a shock to realize how much Bruce truly doesn't understand anymore,” Barbara said, shaking her head. “Batman would have known why powerful people shouldn't make demands without thoroughly researching how reasonable those demands are first.”

Dick grimaced. “I guess right now, Bruce doesn't remember all the coercion and corruption scandals he uncovered as Batman.”

“Right. It doesn't seem to have occurred to him that threatening to pull millions of dollars of business away from his law firm might incline his lawyers to do something morally questionable. The judge who signed off on the adoption petition is actually the brother of one of Bruce's lawyers, so I think it's pretty obvious that inside connections were exploited,” Barbara told him. “I hardly have time to care about some petty nepotism, though. I just barely got the last of Jake Turpin's edited electronic backstory in place yesterday. The lawyers have kept it pretty quiet so far, thank goodness, so I don't think anyone has been looking before today, but with the court order issued, this has all now become a matter of public record. That means, given Bruce's fame, it's only a matter of time before reporters get wind of it and start digging into the details on Bruce Wayne's 'new' son.”

“As soon as they look, they'll find out about the name change, too,” Barbara said, sounding weary and resigned. Dick knew that was going to be the hardest part to explain. “Hopefully, it takes the media at least another week to start wondering why 'Jason Wayne' looks so much like 'Jason Todd', because Jay and I still have a little more work to do for the half brother angle. If I were you, Dick, I'd try to avoid being recognized in public for a while, at least in your civilian identity, so you don't get bombarded with questions you don't want to answer.”

He nodded. While Dick loved Clark and Lois, there were some truly unscrupulous members of the press who would hound innocent people with intrusive personal questions for nothing more than a byline. Unfortunately, being Bruce Wayne's son meant that he'd had to deal with that a few times. “I guess only Nightwing is going to enjoy any nightlife for the next couple of months, then.”

Barbara nodded. “You could come out with us tonight, though, you know,” she added gently. “I don't think there's been enough time yet for the news to spread, so we shouldn't be getting any media hounds at the restaurant, especially given that it's a small place with mostly older clientele, who are less likely to post celebrity sightings to social media.”

“There will probably be someone who posts something, though, if we can't keep everything civil. Aren't you worried my presence might stir up some...violent feelings?”

“Well, you would probably need to apologize for your Batman 'lies' to keep the peace,” Barbara admitted. Dick scowled. He'd been worried more about Jason, but now that she'd pointed it out, he realized that Bruce was probably still angry at him, as well. Barbara quickly continued, “I know you weren't lying, Dick, but sometimes it's better to just let Bruce have his way, until he realizes his mistakes on his own. If you're looking for an apology from Jason, I can't guarantee you'll get that, either, but it certainly couldn't hurt to model some good behavior by apologizing yourself for attacking Jay, after he rescued Bruce from the mugging. I think Jay and Bruce would both actually like to have you around for this, even if they're too proud and stubborn to tell you that.”

Dick wasn't sure he could believe that. “Jason might like to tease me about my glitter glue hair,” he conceded. Suddenly darkly curious about how bad it was, Dick put his phone in selfie mode. He grimaced at what he saw. Sleeping on it had actually only made his hair look worse.

Barbara wasn't quite quick enough to stifle her chuckle. “Well, yes, he definitely would tease you about that, Dick. To be fair, it is quite a temptation.”

“And then, knowing my luck right now, some paparazzi would get a picture of it...”

Barbara typed something quickly and frowned. “Okay, maybe don't come out with us, actually. The internet is unfortunately aware that Nightwing has sparkle hair,” she said, dashing Dick's hopes that the incident had flown under the radar, “and we don't want Dick Grayson tied back to Nightwing. You could still join us back at the manor after dinner, though.”

“I've got to bust a swap of illegal guns for illegal drugs at the docks tonight, but...give Jay my apologies, okay? I...I still don't know if...” He shook his head. “It's not that I don't want my brother back, Babs.”

Her expression softened. “Of course, Dick. I get it. I watched my dad go through the roller coaster of hope and despair with Harvey Dent, so I know what you're afraid of,” she said sadly, her gaze drifting away for a moment. Dick remembered, from back when he'd still been Robin, how unhappy the Commissioner had looked whenever Dick was injured by one of the rogues, but Barbara's father had always taken it especially hard when Two-Face had been the one who did it. “My dad went to visit a lot, the first few years,” Babs confided in him. “He wanted his friend, the hard working DA, back. But there came a point where Dad stopped visiting, because he knew he'd only get Two-Face, instead.” Barbara looked him right in the eyes as she told him, “If you just take the time to talk to Jason, though, Dick, you'll find the kid you knew, not the monster you're afraid of.”

“You...you really think Jay can be cured?” Dick asked hesitantly. It sounded too good to be true, that after all his guilty failures and woeful regrets, delivered with solemn apologies to a heavy tombstone, Dick could just get back the brother they had buried.

Barbara frowned. “The affects of the Lazarus Pit probably aren't all gone. Maybe they won't ever be. However, especially if Jay has our support, I believe he'll be able to control whatever the Pit did to him, rather than letting it control him. Two-Face...fundamentally, he didn't want to let go of his coin, Dick. The strain of his own conflicting impulses was more than he could bear, and the coin gave him relief, absolved him of responsibility for resolving his own mental issues.”

“Jay isn't just blindly giving in to anger and shooting anything that offends him, though. He wants to do good, Dick, even if that requires him to do things he can barely stand—like talking to lawyers.” Dick couldn't help but share Barbara's brief smile. They both knew how much Jay had always hated lawyers, because he would complain for days every time Bruce had dragged him to see one. “In between working with me to get Jake Turpin's history fleshed out, Jay has been helping Bruce with his plans to get homeless kids off the street. He's typed up group home safety guidelines, figured out practical meal plans, and documented failures in the current system to hopefully prevent them from being repeated. All that administrative work is tedious and boring and involves absolutely zero violence, but Jay is doing it anyway, because he's determined to make things better.”

“Of course, the Lazarus Pit and too much time spent with the League of Assassins may have left Jay a little confused about what exactly is the right way to help in certain situations, but that's the sort of thing we can talk through with him. Hopefully, we can get Jason to see the serious problems with some of the more extreme methods he's used. Of course, that means actually listening to his real grievances, as well, because Jay isn't the sort to just let other people tell him what to do. He'll expect us to hear his side, too, and put real thought into the problems he feels aren't being properly addressed by the current system. Especially since the Quake, homelessness is a huge problem in Gotham. Dangerous drugs in Gotham schools have been a problem for a long time. I may not agree with Jason's methods, but I believe that even when he first showed up in Gotham, he had legitimate reasons driving his unnaturally violent rage. We just need to guide him toward ways of addressing those problems without upping his body count.”

Dick nodded. He was worried Jason might not like any of their solutions, though. There were, sadly, no quick and easy fixes for homelessness or drugs, or there wouldn't still be unwashed men sleeping in subway stations and kids regularly getting high after class. What if Jay insisted the only way to fix the problem was to start shooting every drug dealer and corrupt politician, because all the other ways were too hard and took too long? But on the other hand, what if he didn't insist? What if, all along, Jason had only needed some social support and gentle guidance?

Dick had just assumed, after Bruce had failed to bring the Red Hood home, that everything possible had already been attempted. Of course Bruce would have tried everything, right? He had been desperate to save Jason, after all. Now, it occurred to Dick that desperate people didn't always make the best moves, no matter how intelligent and resourceful they normally were. Had Bruce really not tried the soft approach?

The thought made Dick a little furious. Could they have had Jason back all along, and Bruce had just never thought to ask him to put the gun down nicely? But it wasn't really fair to just blame Bruce for that oversight, if there truly had been one. Dick hadn't tried asking nicely either, because generally the people who picked up guns were well past the point of calm conversation. Dick had been given a few opportunities to talk to Jay when he didn't actually have a weapon drawn, though. Dick hadn't taken them, because it hadn't occurred to him they might be actual opportunities.

He'd always been too caught up in dire thoughts in those moments to consider possibilities, rather than dangers. When he'd shown up at Wayne Manor looking for Bruce, Dick had already been full of anxiety. They had very, very nearly lost Oliver Queen that day, to some former associate of his father who had known Green Arrow's true identity and had chosen to strike with a few of his own associates when he saw signs of weakness. Dick had barely had a chance to wash the worst of Oliver's blood off of his suit when he'd gotten Alfred's text that Bruce had asked him to leave the manor.

Dick had hurried to Gotham, fear shivering down his spine. Oliver had been in the hospital in critical condition at that point, and only there, rather than the morgue, because Dinah had been close by enough to help him immediately after the first strike, before the followup could kill him outright. If Nightwing hadn't coincidentally been in town following up on a different case, he wouldn't have made it to Oliver before he'd bled out. As it was, Black Canary had already been injured by the time Nightwing had gotten there, having taken a hit for Oliver earlier. Without backup, she wouldn't have won that fight, or at least not in time. Even with the attackers defeated, it had still been a tense few minutes as they waited for the paramedics to arrive. Despite Nightwing's best efforts to apply pressure to Oliver's wounds, the pool of blood on the carpet had just kept getting bigger and bigger...

The thought of Bruce alone in the manor, helpless to defend himself if some former enemy decided to show up, had driven Dick to go see him right away, before he'd even had a chance to scrub Ollie's blood out from underneath his fingernails. Bruce hadn't been in his study, though, or the library, or the kitchen, or his bedroom. With each empty room Dick had checked, he had grown more frantic, his thoughts going down dark paths. What if someone had already gotten to Bruce? What if Dick never saw his father again?

When he'd finally found Bruce in the garage, it had been such a huge relief—until he'd seen Jason. Then, all Dick could think of was how, if Dinah had been just a few seconds slower, Oliver would already have been dead. Dick's hands had still itched with his blood. He'd seen the swelling on Bruce's face, and he'd been terrified of what Jason might do, if Dick didn't stop him immediately.

He'd made the wrong call. Looking back on it, he'd obviously made the wrong call. At that moment, though, all Dick had been able to think was that he didn't want to watch his dad die. How much of that fear had been based on the threat that Jason had actually personally posed, though? How much had been Dick's worst imagination running wild with a million awful things he'd seen as Nightwing for fuel? He'd just been trying to keep his dad safe—but instead, he'd hurt his brother. At least, if what Barbara had said was true.

Dick still had his doubts. He'd seen how violent Jason could be now, how callously he'd killed. It had seemed impossible to find the bright eyed kid he'd known in that cold eyed killer, but Barbara had said he was still there. Luckily, Dick had been specifically trained to handle uncertainty. The first step was always thorough investigation, so he thanked Babs for the update and then looked up the address of Con Amore as soon as he ended the call. He set his phone alarm to wake him up in time to get there before dinner, grabbed a couple more hours of sleep, and then found a nice low roof with a good vantage point to look down on the restaurant. Thankfully, Con Amore had big windows, and Nightwing had excellent binoculars.

Dick might not have Cassandra's prodigious skills, but he had started life as a performer and learned to read a crowd before he'd learned to read a page. As Robin, he'd sharpened his skills and learned how to spot the accomplices hidden in a gathering and how to soothe the victims, after the criminals were handled. As Nightwing, he'd learned to read his team, learned how to encourage and support them, and how to diffuse conflicts before they really got started. As a police officer, he'd gotten more experiences still, even in those terrible domestic incidents, where Dick had showed up to find a battered wife or a battered husband and been forced to listen to the victims lie, sometimes even to themselves, to protect the perpetrators.

Therefore, Nightwing was feeling fairly confident in his abilities as he settled into a comfortable position, where he'd be out of easy view. He got out his binoculars, looked toward Con Amore, and read the room. His eyes went to Bruce first. Happy said his smile, and proud said his expanded chest. His eyes said warmth and his shoulders said relief. Dick knew from many years of close association that this was how Bruce looked when he was relaxed by a victory after a stressful incident. Barbara read much the same way. Neither had the tense shoulders or the pinched eyes of people who were lying to themselves out of a desperate desire to believe the person they were with wasn't a danger to them.

Jason was...it was hard to look at Jason. Covered in a full hood or in blood, it was easy to think of him as a stranger. However, seeing him sitting bare faced in a restaurant with Bruce and Barbara, it was impossible not to see the kid they had lost, impossible not to see one of Dick's own deepest regrets staring back at him. He knew he had to look, though. Good or bad, he had to find the truth.

Jason's frequent shifting said nervous. His ducked head said embarrassed. His small smile said cautiously happy. As dinner went on, his slowly falling shoulders said comfortable. The way he lit up when Bruce put a proud hand on his shoulder—that said miracle, and suddenly, the evidence tilted the scales inside Dick's mind. Hope won.

Barbara had been right. Dick didn't see the Red Hood, the Joker's origin story, at all. He watched until the waiter brought dessert, and what Dick saw was his lost little brother, back from the dead. Suddenly, he couldn't help but wish that he were there at their little table, hearing Jason tease him about his glitter hair, because their lost Robin had finally come home.

If it had been a little earlier, Dick would have gone back to the manor to meet them, even if it did mean having to apologize for his Batman “lies”. Seeing Jason so friendly reminded Dick of how much he'd missed the younger Robin who had once been so eager to spend time with him, and he couldn't help feeling impatient to speak to Jay again, even if the thought of what the Lazarus Pit had left behind in Jason's head still made Dick nervous. If Nightwing didn't get to the docks, though, then no one would be around to stop the deal. If those illegal guns made their way onto Gotham's streets, then they would all suffer for it.

Knowing he only had a little time before the deal was supposed to happen, Nightwing employed every bit of stealth he possessed to sneak to Bruce's civilian car, without being spotted by anyone on the street or inside the restaurant. He then quietly used a neat little gadget Babs had given him to trick the fancy electronic locks on Bruce's car into opening, so that he could leave a note for Jay, tucked into the passenger seat. After that, Nightwing had to head to the docks, because he'd been trained for this situation, too: when priorities conflicted, the mission had to come first.

Of course, because Dick was eager to wrap things up quickly, the criminals he was after decided to add to their rap sheet, this time with a crime against punctuality. That was one of the most mundanely vexing things about illegal deals: the fact that large amounts of drugs, money and dangerous goods would be changing hands did not magically make the criminals immune to Gotham traffic. Nightwing had been fine since he hadn't had to cross a bridge to get to the Aparo Docks, but apparently there had been a seven car pileup on the bridge just in front of the buyers, along with a chemical spill, so they were late, forcing Nightwing to wait for them, instead of spending time with people he actually wanted to see.

Since he'd spent so much time spying at Con Amore instead of going through the audio and video clips like he'd told Babs he would do, Nightwing at least had something to look through while he was waiting. Maybe it was because he'd just spent some time carefully reading body language. Maybe it was because he'd realized how wrong he'd been about Jason, and how easy it was to label someone an enemy, simply because of bad initial impressions. Whatever the reason, when Dick watched the video clips that night, they told him a different story than the one he'd believed at that start.

Superman was holding the Wunfulch, which was more effective than any chains would be...but if they'd wanted to secure it, why not use Wonder Woman's lasso? Why was Superman's body language so protective, as if he were cradling the Wunfulch, rather than restraining it? Additionally, Dick knew Batman was always tense and ready to react in the presence of someone who openly meant harm, and a being that was deliberately causing him to hallucinate surely meant harm...but that wasn't what his body language had said. Dick brought up a clip of a few of the JLA members building the machine to double check his impressions, while he waited for the drugs and money to arrive.

He noticed, again, how Superman, Green Lantern, and Batman all followed the movement of several invisible (hallucinated) things around the room with their heads. However, Batman continued connecting wires in the machine he was working on. From earlier conversations, that seemed to be why Batman had been called in, because he had great mental focus (and possibly also because he'd been exposed to fear gas so many times that he had experience trying to work through hallucinations). Batman knew the alien bean bag was there and frequently looked at it. His sloped shoulders and slow, soft movements implied reassurances, rather than threats, though. His body language was what Bruce used for dealing with terrified victims and very small children.

Now that Dick was thinking of it, the first Wunfulch was a lot smaller than the second. It could be that their species just had huge natural variations in size—or it could be that the little one was actually a child. That lead directly into a possible explanation for another mystery. There were some things Martian Manhunter had done, which Miss Martian wouldn't even attempt yet, because they could go badly wrong if someone without the proper skill tried to do them. If Wunfulch were very powerful, then they might have the power to affect other people's minds, even when they were very young, too young, perhaps, to fully understand the impact of their actions, in a world were most people were not telepathic and had no mental shields of their own.

Dick thought back over the mass hallucinations in Fortuna: giant jelly mountains sprouting from nowhere, multicolored cotton balls raining from the sky, and a stampede of one inch tall, long tailed bunny-dog hybrids. Maybe the home dimension of the Wunfulch had tumbleweeds that looked like multicolored cotton balls and other very unusual flora and fauna, and the kid had simply been recalling his favorite parts of home to soothe himself, after somehow ending up in a foreign dimension. Maybe none of those things existed outside of the fanciful imaginings of a small child, and he'd just been trying to tell what passed for “cool” stories. Maybe what the Wunfulch was thinking of unintentionally looked real, because it was beamed directly into other people's heads too strongly, due to the innately powerful telepathic abilities of the Wunfulch species.

If it had just been an innocent little kid that needed some help getting home... No wonder no one on the Watchtower had appeared tense. The hallucinations weren't an attack like Scarecrow would make, but just the unintentional result of a hapless kid with more power than control ending up on a foreign world. Then Dick watched the clip of the possible “parent” Wunfulch. There was no verbal communication, but Nightwing could see the wide but relaxed shoulders and the proud smiles. Superman gave an embarrassed shake of his head, still wearing a smile. It was what he did when someone he helped was being a little too grateful, for what Clark considered to be a small good deed. Wonder Woman looked the same. They were being thanked. After the larger Wunfulch left, no one looked tense or worried.

Then what had caused the amnesia? If the parent was grateful to them, then... Suddenly, several strands of thought combined into a moment of epiphany, and Dick quickly brought up an audio clip from just before the amnesia started, to make sure he was remembering the conversation right. Of course, that was the moment the late buyers decided to arrive.

Criminals: never there you when you wanted them, and always around the minute you didn't.

Thankfully, the lookouts were all tired of keeping watch by this time, and the buyers were rushing to get out the drugs they were supposed to swap for the guns, because they knew they were very late. Even the sellers were less cautious, eager to get the deal done after all the extra waiting around. Their inattention served Nightwing very well, and it only took a couple of smoke bombs and escrima sticks to take them all down and secure the illegal goods. He put in a quick call to the G.C.P.D., and then retreated to a rooftop to keep watch until the cops arrived. He should hopefully have just enough time to replay the clip and call Oracle.

The particular audio clip he wanted to listen to again had always seemed so incongruous, before. Batman and Superman had been chatting as casually as Batman ever did. Neither of them had sounded tense, and if there had been some ongoing crisis, Clark would never have tried to convince Batman to go home and get some sleep. They had obviously thought they'd wrapped up their current issue, but then only about half an hour later, Bruce hadn't even recognized his JLA communicator at home. Now, Dick thought he might know why.

“Thank you for your help, Batman,” Superman said in the audio clip Oracle had restored. “I don't think we'd have managed without you. The rest of us can handle it from here, though.”

“I'll be the judge of that.”

“I appreciate your dedication. I really do, but I think I can take care of a melted machine,” Superman pointed out wryly. “The others can handle the damaged servers, and I happen to know that you came here directly from that murder case in Gotham, so at minimum, you've been up for thirty hours straight.”

“I can handle it.”

Superman sighed, fond and long suffering. “I know you can, but should you have to when the rest of us can wrap things up? Every once in a while, maybe you should try sleeping in, having a leisurely meal, and generally enjoying the little things that make life worthwhile, instead of always pushing yourself to the very limit.”

“How can I sleep my life away when there's important work to be done?”

“I know this is a radical concept, but have you tried trusting other people to help you handle it?” Superman asked, voice teasing. “You're so invested in the fight for justice that you've basically become your mask, but you're still actually a man underneath that cowl, Bruce, even if I need to use my X-Ray vision to confirm that, every once in a while. I wish you'd spend a little time forgetting the fight and remembering who you are out of costume. Sometimes you need to take a break to just be a person. I wish we all would spend more time doing that.”

Batman only grunted in response, dismissive, but Dick wasn't going to dismiss the evidence in front of him. “Clark, I think you got your wish.” Excited to finally have a break in the case, Dick called Oracle, hoping she'd be available immediately so he could share his new insight.

It took her a minute to answer. “I told Bruce I needed to use the bathroom, so you'll have to make this quick, Dick,” Barbara told him. She was probably still at the manor, then.

“I really think I cracked the case, Babs. I went back over everyone's body language, and I think we read things wrong before. Maybe the smaller Wunfulch was just a little kid with poor control of his telepathic powers, so he was inadvertently broadcasting and causing hallucinations. The JLA built the machine to help the kid get home, and the second, larger Wunfulch was a parent or guardian, who came later to thank them for returning the kid. That Wunfulch probably offered some sort of reward, which the JLA turned down, because they wouldn't think they needed to be rewarded for just getting a kid home. The adult Wunfulch must still have been looking to repay the JLA, though, and then Superman made a wish, so the Wunfulch granted it.”

“A wish?”

“We thought it was just a throwaway conversation, Babs, because Superman is always trying to get Bruce to rest, if he's been overworking himself. Which he often is. But this time, Superman wished they'd all take a break, forget being heroes and just be people.”

“Oh. Oh. Dick, I think you're right,” Babs said, suddenly sounding as excited as Dick felt. “Superman encouraging Batman to rest is just such a normal conversation that I didn't focus on it at all. Instead, I was looking for villains, because this amnesia is causing so much trouble, I assumed that an enemy must have done it to hurt them. I didn't occur to me that it might actually be something the JLA asked for.”

“Yeah, it's easy to let your initial assumptions just guide what you're thinking, right? To look for enemies, when there aren't any there.” He thought of Jason, so happy in that restaurant to be part of a family Dick had thought he'd turned his back on.

“That's one of the perils of snap judgment,” Babs agreed. “Now that we mostly understand what's going on, I feel much better about our chances of getting this amnesia fixed. It may not be that easy establishing contact with the Wunfulch—in fact, that may be pretty difficult—but if this is meant to be a thanks given by granting Superman's inadvertent 'wish', then it will likely be enough to have one of the JLA members that's being 'helped' explain that there are issues and that this amnesia needs to end.”

“Yes, though getting one of the amnesiacs to do that likely won't be easy either, because they probably won't believe that they were part of a superhero group that encountered a wish granting, amnesia causing alien,” Dick said, thinking of how stubbornly Bruce could dig his heels in, when other people tried to convince him to do something he disagreed with. “At least we finally understand what's going on, though.”

“Yes, this is huge, Dick. I'll make sure to send out an update after I say goodnight to Bruce, if you don't get to it first.”

“Thanks, Babs.” A couple of police cars were just arriving, so he needed to get back down to street level. “I have to talk to the cops and give them some evidence I gathered on the gun smuggling operation, but hopefully I'll have some time after that.”

“Here's hoping they take you seriously, Mr. Sparkles,” Babs said, her voice lightly teasing.

Dick groaned. He'd almost managed to forget what a mess his hair was. “I'll try to catch up with you again tomorrow. Maybe around noon?”

“I should be available. Have a good night, Dick.”

“Night,” he said, ending the call and hurrying down to meet the cops. One of them did snicker at him a bit, but at least they accepted the files he handed over. Sadly, the shampoo Dick picked up on the way home was not any more up to the task than his last bottle. However, he still went to sleep happy. For the first time since it had sunk in that most of the JLA had amnesia, Dick felt certain he'd be getting the father he knew back. If he were lucky, he'd be getting a little brother, too. That hope was enough to bring him nothing but happy dreams, even if they were also full of sparkling glue.

Chapter Text

Jason folded the little piece of paper up and put it back in his pocket. He didn't know why he kept reading it. He didn't know why he kept it at all. There were exactly eight words written on the paper, which he'd memorized practically as soon as he'd read them. It wasn't like he needed to re-read anything to know what Dick had written.

Welcome (back) to the family.

Your brother,

Dick

Jason could have believed that Dick thought of him as a brother, once, back when he'd been getting the same training, friendly advice, and general offers of support that all the younger Titans had been. Dick had even taken him on a couple trips and taught him how to ski. At least from the perspective of someone who'd grown up as an only child, it had certainly felt like they were doing the sort of things real brothers did. There had been no memorial for Jason at Titans Tower, though, and Dick certainly hadn't seemed very happy to see him again when they'd met, so what did Jason really understand about family, anyway?

Apparently nothing—either that, or his so-called family members were as two faced as Two-Face himself. Jason and Dick had gotten into a nasty fight only a few weeks ago, and now suddenly his erstwhile brother had decided they were cool again, without so much as exchanging a single word with him? To be fair, Bruce had done basically the same thing. Batman had given Jason a serious injury with a batarang, trying to save the Joker, of all people, and then, the next time Jason saw him, Bruce was desperate to apologize, take him home, and readopt him. At least his amnesia was some sort of explanation. There didn't seem to be any reason behind Dick's suddenly shifted opinion of him.

Barbara had promised that they could talk more today, though, while Bruce was with his lawyers amending his will. (Jason had blatantly refused to be there, even if he was being written into said will.) As legal documents always took a ridiculously long time to alter, they should have plenty of time to talk freely, without having to maneuver the conversation around the Bat in the room. When Jason got a perimeter notification that an approved guest had driven through the gate, he hurried to meet Barbara in the garage, eager to talk to someone who at least made sense.

“Hey, Babs,” he called, as the SUV's door opened. He stopped dead when he saw the specialized wheelchair lift slowly lowering her chair down to the ground, though.

“Hi, Jay,” she called back. She couldn't rush over to him, though. The lift hadn't reached the ground yet. Jason found the sight quietly devastating.

He'd known, of course, that Barbara would be arriving in a wheelchair, that she drove a hand controlled vehicle now. It was different actually seeing it for himself, though. When they were all just sitting around talking or having a meal, the fact that Barbara couldn't stand up anymore wasn't so noticeable. In that moment, though, Jason couldn't help feeling a burst of white hot rage, that the Joker had taken the once easy way Babs had used to spring out of her car. The last time Jason had met her in the garage, she'd laughed at his eagerness but gamely followed him as he took the steps down to the Cave two at a time. (She wouldn't be doing that again.)

Jason hadn't thought about it in years, but suddenly the memory was so sharp in his mind: he could recall the hushed rustling of the bats, the slightly musty smell of the training mats, and the excited energy thrumming under his skin because Batgirl was going to teach him the really cool move she had used to sweep Nightwing off his feet in their last sparring session. Barbara hadn't exactly been Jason's biggest fan back when he'd first started out as Robin, but she'd grown fonder of him as time went on. She had grinned through most of the lesson as she'd taught him that new move, encouraging him to use it on Dick as frequently as possible, and it had marked a turning point in their relationship, where he'd started to think of Barbara as an actual friend, rather than an occasional comrade in arms.

Babs wouldn't be teaching him any more sweeps, though, Jason thought with silent pain, at least not through personal demonstration. Barbara could still teach him plenty of other things, of course, because she'd always been amazingly skilled in so many areas, but Jason couldn't help the pang he felt at the thought that they'd never get to spar again, that he wouldn't ever be able to measure his improved fighting skills against her own powerful grace. Back when he'd still been Robin, Jason had badly wanted to get good enough that he could beat her in a spar, even just once. How could he not feel bitter about all the opportunities the Joker had taken from them?

“Your face just went dark on me, Jay,” Barbara said, rolling over to him. “What are you thinking about?”

He shook his head. “Don't worry about it.” He wanted to vent to her about the Joker, because she was one of the few people alive who might truly understand. On the other hand, because she'd understand a little too well, Jason wasn't sure he wanted to stir up her own unpleasant memories. Because of the Joker, Jason had lost his family, his sense of purpose, and his place in the world, and he was now a high school dropout pretending to be his own half-brother (who wasn't really his brother at all but was actually dead). At least he could still walk, though. What right did he have to complain, when Babs had to wake up to that chair every morning?

“You're my friend. Of course I'm going to worry,” Barbara told him, as he lead her to the living room they'd used last time she visited. Now that he was looking, Jason realized that the furniture had been rearranged to make the room more accessible for someone in a wheelchair.

“It's just...I don't think you'll like the topic. I made some tea, though, if you want,” he said, gesturing vaguely toward the tea and biscuits that he'd laid out. He hadn't quite been able to find the same kind Alfred served. Since Bruce wasn't doing the shopping and Alfred wasn't around, Jason had been left to his own devices as far as stocking the pantry went, and he'd never really been a connoisseur of fine British fare.

“Well, if I have tea, I think I can probably brave a difficult topic or two,” Barbara said, looking up at him. Feeling suddenly uncomfortable to be standing over her when she could only sit, Jason quickly found a seat on the couch.

“I...it's about the Joker,” Jason admitted, picking up his own tea cup and turning it around in his hands, just for something to do.

Barbara hummed. “That is going to be unpleasant, but Jay, sometimes the unpleasant things are still worth doing.”

“Fair, but I don't necessarily need to have that conversation with you.”

“So you'll have it with Bruce?”

Jason sighed. “You know I can't right now. He's just...missing so much context,” he said, itching restlessly at the scar that the batarang had left, where his shoulder met his throat. “I can't agree with the way he's handled the Joker, but right now, he doesn't even remember what he's done.”

“Are you going to talk to Dick, then?”

Jason gave her a dark look. “We are not even on speaking terms.”

“Yet, he left you that note.”

“Yeah, a grand total of eight words. I'm not even sure he meant them.”

“He did,” Barbara assured him.

“How do you know?”

“Because he admitted I was right about you, and although Dick is a semi-capable liar, I know all his tells.”

“If you know him so well, then maybe you can tell me why he changed his mind so suddenly.” Jason had been thinking back over all their interactions, but he just couldn't figure it out.

“It's because he saw that you're not just a bloodthirsty killer.”

“And that wasn't obvious before?” Jason demanded, offended.

“Not as obvious as you might hope, Jay,” she said gently, which was a sure sign he wasn't going to like what she had to say next, because she was hardly ever gentle unless she thought she had to be careful about how she broke the truth to someone. “I know you're not happy with the way Nightwing has handled serious repeat offenders, but did you ever try sitting down and just talking to him about it? Or did you only try to demonstrate the 'better' path by killing criminals right in front of him?” Because Jason had learned the laws about self-incrimination long ago, he remained silent. “From what Dick told me at the time, you were killing in a copy of the Nightwing suit, which you must have known would be inflammatory.”

“Dick would probably have just ignored me, if I wasn't wearing his suit,” he grudgingly admitted. Jason had just been so tired of not mattering to anyone. He hadn't wanted to give Dick the option of ignoring him.

“You can't really believe that,” Barbara said, looking honestly surprised at his response.

“Why not? I died, and the Titans had a memorial for everyone but me.”

That answer only made Barbara look more surprised. “Wait, is that why you were so angry in Titans Tower?”

Jason looked away. He didn't really want to know what it would feel like to have her staring back at him judgementally. “I know I shouldn't have gone after the Drake kid so hard, okay? I know.”

“You realize that Tim is legally your brother now, since the adoption went through,” Barbara pointed out.

“I...” Jason really wasn't sure how he was supposed to feel about that, except uncomfortable. “Legally, he's Jake Turpin's brother. But Jake Turpin's not me.”

“He had better be you,” Barbara declared. “I just spent a couple weeks making sure of that.”

“And I appreciate it, really,” Jason rushed to assure her. It had taken him the past two weeks to dig out enough of Jake's old apartment building to retrieve a few surviving trinkets from his place. He'd gone at night to be discreet, but unfortunately, as Bruce had a habit of checking on him, Jason hadn't been able to leave the manor until the small hours of the morning, when Bruce was most deeply asleep. Jason had also made all of the physical forgeries, but Babs had handled everything digital. “Since you took care of all the electronic records and accounts, I had enough time to finish digging through everything usable at Jake's old place. The photo album was basically a total loss, but some of the pictures I found in the old tin were still usable. I finished getting them scanned about an hour ago. I also found another few photos in my room that we can use.”

Jason had been more than a little surprised to find his childhood room had actually remained exactly as he'd left it, barring some minor repairs that were probably needed due to the Quake. Before he'd come back to the manor, he'd half expected that Bruce would have given the room to Drake. The new Robin had taken Jason's place in every other way, after all. However, all his childhood possessions had been just where he'd left them. Even the box of old water damaged stuff Jason had gotten from Mrs. Walker had been untouched. “I think we have enough samples now to make some convincing pictures that look like they were taken of Jake and I together at Jake's apartment in Crime Alley.”

“Excellent. Once we get that done, I think we'll be set,” Barbara said with a small smile.

“Yes,” Jason agreed with relief, before his mood darkened again. “There's another issue, though. About 4 AM this morning, I finally tracked down the guy who was watching me go through the rubble of Jake's building. He wasn't a reporter.”

“Private Investigator?”

Jason grimaced. “Worse. League of Assassins agent. I also found a couple more buddies of his hiding out around Gotham. They must have only been sent to collect information, because they cleared out as soon as they realized they'd been spotted. They're definitely growing bolder, though. Normally, the League only collects information in Gotham through third party informants. I don't know how long it will be until the direct spying progresses to something more serious.”

“That is concerning,” Barbara admitted with a frown. “I'll let the others know. Although, you could just talk to Nightwing directly, you know.”

Jason frowned. If Dick could suddenly change his mind and decide they were brothers again, what would stop him from suddenly changing his mind back again? “The last time we spoke, he said I came back 'wrong'.”

“He said that, did he?” Barbara's expression went hard for a moment. “Well, Dick is going to start your next conversation by apologizing,” she assured him, with a firm tone that told him she'd make sure her words were true.

“Even if he says he's sorry, that doesn't mean he'll stop thinking it.” The thought made Jason feel unfairly miserable. Why did he have to care what Batman's number one boot licker thought?

“Jay, no,” Barbara objected, shaking her head. “Now that Dick's seen the truth, he's not ever going to believe that again.”

“How can you be sure?” Jason didn't feel certain of anything, where Dick was concerned.

“Because you could never do the things he's really afraid of, and now Dick knows that, too.”

“What exactly is he really afraid of?” There had been a few times where Jason's temper had burned so hot, even he himself was uncomfortable thinking about what he'd done, and he wondered, with a tiny shiver of fear, if he could really count on himself not to do something awful in the future.

“Knowledge is a powerful tool, and sometimes a very cruel one. If you were willing to weaponize your own death, Jay, and every bit of sensitive personal information you are privy to—which covers very nearly everything that is important to this family—you could break Dick psychologically, and he knows it. Worse, you chose to call yourself the Red Hood and to paint the streets to match your helmet. You never told us why you chose that name, Jay. Maybe you just did it as a dig at Bruce, maybe you explained it all to him, but Batman didn't tell us either. He just shut down whenever we asked about you, so Dick and I had to draw our own conclusions.”

Suddenly, Jason felt a little nauseous. He'd been so furious at Bruce for replacing him, for forgetting him, he'd wanted a surefire way to draw his attention, a name he couldn't ignore. The Red Hood had offered that, and a pointed reminder of the monster Batman kept stupidly allowing to live, all in one. Jason hadn't thought about what it would be like for Barbara to hear that someone was racking up a body count while going by the Joker's old alias, though. If it was anything like what Jason felt when he heard about yet another of the Joker's murderous escapes, then he probably owed her an apology.

“In the absence of any real explanation, Dick only had fears to go on, instead of evidence,” Barbara told him solemnly. “He was scared your dip in the Lazarus Pit might have sent you so far off the deep end, that you might become the next Joker—except that Nightwing wouldn't even be able to fight you properly, because he'd always be held back by that memory of who you used to be.

Jason recoiled. “I'm not like that.”

“I know. Believe me, that was obvious from the first time we spoke, after you got back.”

“Then why would Dick think so? We talked, too!”

Barbara sighed and looked at him very sadly. “He told me that in New York, you killed a kidnapper right in front of a little girl. He said the police found her staring in shock at the dead man, with blood still splattered over her face. Is that true?”

A hot wash of shame spread through him. “That was—I was angry. That piece of scum held the knife I used to kill him to that little girl's throat first, Babs.” The sight had made his blood boil. Caroline had been wearing a little pink hat with a heart on it and trembling from head to toe. It was obvious that she'd been just an innocent kid with no idea how many monsters there were in the world, before that night. “She was crying, and her kidnapper held the knife so close it drew blood, and I just—I was protecting her,” Jason insisted.

“But was that the best way to protect her, Jay?”

He knew it wasn't. Caught in the heat of the moment, faced with a violent thug who'd hurt an innocent child right in front of him, Jason had just been so full of rage that he couldn't think past the need to end the threat, once and for all, before another young life could be destroyed. It was only later, when the anger had cooled, that Jason had remembered how Caroline's face had only looked more terrified, with drops of arterial spray splattered across her skin. “If someone had killed the Joker like that for me, then I would have been happy,” Jason told Barbara sullenly.

“Jay, I know you've been trying to do the right thing, as you understand it,” Barbara said slowly, “because if you just wanted to go on a killing spree, your body count would certainly not be solely composed of very dangerous criminals. There is a reason courts exist, though, and it's not just to make justice slow.”

“But there are times the courts don't come to the right verdict, Babs,” he objected. Obviously, it had been a bad idea to kill in front of a child, but that didn't mean that lethal punishment wasn't occasionally a necessary evil. “Sometimes a simple bullet is better.”

“When exactly is that?” Barbara asked, giving him a skeptical look.

“When it's the Joker,” Jason hissed, certain of that much. Rage still coiled hot inside him at the mere thought of that affront to all human decency. The sight of Barbara's wheelchair only made the anger burn hotter. “Unless you're going to tell me you think his sentence is just?”

Barbara's forehead creased up. “...I...might personally be a little too biased, to decide what sentence the Joker deserves,” she told him, looking like she'd swallowed something bitter.

“Because you've experienced his depravity first hand? But why should only the people completely divorced from a crime get a say in the punishment? Don't the courts normally allow the victims to testify, because the people who did the actual suffering deserve to have a voice, too?”

“Yes, that is the normal practice, for exactly that reason.”

“Yet they never let you testify in court.”

“No,” Barbara replied, looking troubled, “because the Joker's been declared unfit to stand trial.”

“So the court actually isn't doing a good job bringing the Joker to justice, is it?” Jason pressed. “In fact, it's not doing any job, at all. It's just Batman and his tired old catch and release tactics, against that psychopath's endless need for creative blood sports. Where, exactly, do we get our say, Babs? Because Bruce and Dick and Tim, they may think they know what the Joker's like. I thought so, too, but I didn't really understand until he had me, completely helpless...” Jason remembered the way the crowbar had glinted in the light, and how that awful smile had stretched and stretched and stretched as the Joker had swung it down. “He's a sadist, down at his core. He loved seeing me in pain, he laughed harder about it than I've ever heard him laugh about anything,” Jason said, choking the words out.

“...He laughed after he shot me, too,” Barbara whispered, her voice quiet and her gaze suddenly far away. “I was there on the floor, bleeding, and my shattered spine was line of agony. You're right: he laughed harder then than I've ever heard from him at any other time.”

“He's not a man whose sickness makes him monstrous,” Jason told her, encouraged by the fact that she'd responded in kind, rather than shutting him down. “He's a monster who is only more terrible because he is supposed to be a man, because his flashy sickness and idiosyncrasies disguise what he truly is deep down until it's too late.” Jason remembered that awful, gleeful, gloating laughter as he'd choked on his own blood.

“Where some of the other Arkham inmates have an actual heart, however small and twisted, underneath a massive illness, the Joker's got this huge hole that can only be filled with the joy of destruction. He doesn't dress up as a clown and murder people because he's sick. He murders people because he thinks it's fun, and he does it looking like a clown because his sense of humor is sick. Barbara, if he were actually as crazy as he pretended, it would be much easier to catch him. He's not unaware that what he does is wrong, according to the eyes of the world. He knows it, and he loves it. He revels in it.”

Barbara looked pained, probably remembering ugly details from her own ordeal. “Jason, I don't blame you for wanting the Joker dead. Everyone I know with an drop of sense wants the Joker dead. If he escaped and came after you again...I wouldn't even blame you for killing him. That would be hypocritical, after the Joker goaded Dick into it, and all I did was tell him not to feel guilty.”

“He did what?” Jason demanded.

“Before you came back to Gotham, the Joker escaped from the Slab by turning his fellow prisoners into an army of Jokerized lackeys. I'm sure you heard about it?”

“Oh, I heard,” Jason replied darkly. He'd heard, and he'd counted with bitter anger the innocent lives that had been needlessly lost that time.

“Before that break out, a doctor falsely convinced the Joker that he was dying of a brain tumor. Instead of regretting or repenting, of course that sick joke decided he wanted to drag the rest of us down with him. At one point, we even thought that Tim had been killed, and the Joker taunted Dick with that. He even threw your name in, Jay, and Dick—he just lost it. He hit the Joker again and again until he stopped breathing.”

Jason shook head slowly. “No. That can't be.” He'd read between the lines of the police report on Tarantula and Blockbuster and realized that Nightwing must have experienced a brief moment of clarity, where his belief in Batman's ridiculous morals wavered, but Jason had never heard anything about Dick killing the Joker.

“I can show you the case report down in the Cave, right now,” Barbara offered confidently.

“But the Joker is still alive.”

“He was revived,” Babs admitted, and now she sounded much more hesitant.

“By who? I thought even Harley was fed up with him by that point. Any Gotham paramedics would have been too terrified to get close in time.”

“Jay, I'll answer your question, but I want you to try your best to stay calm.”

“Why would you need me to—oh. It was him, wasn't it?” Jason realized with a sudden jolt. “The only one who never hesitates—it was Batman,” Jason growled with suddenly overflowing loathing. “That sadistic clown murdered me—murdered Bruce's supposed son, and Batman brought him back to life?”

“Jason, Bruce didn't do it for the Joker. He did it for Dick, because he didn't want his other son to think of himself as the sort of person who kills in a rage.”

“Better to kill in a rage, than to let that sick sack of sewage live to wreck more innocent lives!”

“What about Dick?” Barbara insisted. “The guilt of losing control so badly really hit him hard, afterward. He felt ashamed that he'd let the Joker goad him into becoming a killer, that he'd let the Joker win.”

Jason couldn't help himself. He laughed, and there was nothing joyful about it. “Win? Babs, literally, who cares what the Joker thinks? His whole value system is so completely skewed that it has no bearing on any reasonable system of morality at all. If he actually wanted you to breathe for some reason, would you stop, just to resist him?” Jason shook his head violently. “After everything he's done to prove his opinions are complete trash, why would anyone choose to measure their victory or defeat based on what the Joker wants?”

That vicious, hissing tirade seemed to bring Barbara up short. “You know, I don't think anyone else has ever said that to me. I just grew up hearing Batman say that we couldn't stoop down to the level of criminals, that we couldn't let the Joker win his games.”

“Babs, we are losing just by letting the Joker define the game at all. His opinion should be entirely and completely irrelevant. The moment we even consider it while making our decisions, that is when we let the Joker win, because when we do that, we let him influence our thinking. If the Joker thinks Lucky Charms are the only acceptable breakfast cereal, who cares? Eat them if, and only if, you want to. He thinks killing is great? What does that matter? We should kill if, and only if, it makes sense to do so, given all worthwhile evidence, which includes exactly nothing the Joker has ever said or felt or done.”

Barbara nodded slowly. “It's always been Batman versus the Joker, the 'just' way versus the path of murderous chaos, but you're right. Letting the Joker have any sway at all is a mistake. I promise I'll think on it, Jason. That doesn't mean I'll agree that the worthwhile evidence points toward killing as the right solution, but you're right that we shouldn't discount something just because it would make the Joker happy. As much as it galls me to think of that clown laughing, it truly is dangerous to avoid doing something just because it might tickle the Joker's fancy. That gives his opinions too much power.”

“Exactly. I think the thing that scares him most actually is being irrelevant, so even if your only goal is to make him unhappy, then you should still ignore what he thinks. In fact—” Jason broke off his sentence partway in, when his phone started making a chiming alarm. “Oh, sorry, I set this alarm before I knew you'd be coming over today. Let me turn it off.”

“What's the alarm for?”

“Nothing,” Jason replied, silencing it quickly.

“Yet it was important enough to set an alarm?” Barbara asked with a raised eyebrow.

“It's not time sensitive or anything.” Jason paused, nervously, but Barbara continued looking at him, clearly expectant. “The website said the results of the test should be available after a few hours, so I set a reminder to check,” he reluctantly admitted.

“Wait, you took the GED already?”

“Not the whole thing. I just took the Language Arts section this morning.” Jason only wished he'd been ready to take the other subjects, but between scrambling to get his “Jake Turpin” cover story straight and helping Bruce set up a place for homeless kids, he hadn't had that much time to study. Luckily, he'd already understood most of the material, as far as Language Arts was concerned, so he hadn't needed much prep. He would have preferred to wait a little longer, just to feel a little more confident in his essay writing skills, but with the adoption now trickling into public awareness, it was only going to be a matter of time before the media started digging into his backstory.

Jake Turpin had no schooling post Quake, and Jason knew from his first adoption that few people thought well of a kid that dropped out of school. Only a week after the paperwork was signed the first time, there had been a trashy celebrity news blog that had attracted a lot of attention by asking the scandalous question of whether Bruce Wayne's new son could even read. One post about Jason's supposed mental challenges had gotten pretty popular—although that rumor had died down quickly, once Jason started doing better than the silver spoon scions in school.

Not being a student anymore, he didn't have that option for dispelling the rumors, and Jason wasn't inclined to quietly endure the nasty whispers and patronizing looks again. Sadly, knocking out rich people's perfectly white teeth was also widely frowned upon, and Jason didn't really want a reputation for being a feral thug, either. If he could just pass the GED, though, that might at least keep the nastiest rumors from gaining traction.

“Well, how did you do?” Barbara asked.

Jason reluctantly logged into the website to check his results, only because he knew that Barbara could just hack in and get them herself if she really wanted to. He felt a small, contained moment of panic when he saw his results were actually available, but he relaxed again when he saw that he'd passed. “Actually, it looks like I did pretty well.”

Barbara grinned and held her hand out. “Let me see!” Jason rolled his eyes but handed over the phone. “Oh, this is great, Jay!” she exclaimed. “Bruce will be so excited when he hears! I'm surprised he even went to see his lawyers, while you were waiting for results.”

“I didn't exactly tell him I took the test.” Jason had, in fact, deliberately encouraged Bruce to meet with Lucius Fox that morning, on the pretext that he should give Lucius a heads up before he amended his will to grant Jason a large number of his company shares, if he should die. Then, with Bruce safely out of the house, Jason had slipped out to take the test.

“Why keep this from him?” Barbara asked, frowning slightly.

“What if I didn't pass?”

“Then you'd study more and pass the next time,” she answered easily, handing back his phone. “Bruce wouldn't have held it against you, even if you did have to try a couple of times.”

“Maybe he wouldn't hold it against me, but...it's nice, being the good kid, for once.” Jason frowned. “Well, at least he thinks I'm the good kid. Obviously, he's going to change his mind as soon as he gets his memory back.”

“Actually, Jay, neither Dick nor Tim has ever been that committed to school. If you pass the other three sections and send in a college application, you can still be the good kid, as far as education is concerned.”

Her words cheered him up a little bit, even if Jason still had his doubts. “I'm further off from being able to pass the other sections, though,” he admitted unhappily. “I haven't even been going out at night, besides to dig up Jake's things and run the League of Assassins out of Gotham, because I wanted to spend at least a couple hours a day studying. Even the dumb crooks are starting to notice that Batman is MIA, though, and Nightwing and Robin have been splitting their time between Gotham and other cities, so they're not here all the time.”

“Things are hectic right now, yes, but if you put off your studies until things are quiet, you'll be retiring before you get your GED,” Barbara warned him. “Sometimes, you just have to dedicate the time to do something important, even if the circumstances don't make it convenient. Besides, I'll sleep better at night—what little of it I get—if I know someone is here to keep Bruce out of trouble. Oliver Queen is still in the hospital, you know.”

“Yeah, I heard about that. I'll keep my eyes open, but you know the League of Assassins probably has new, more discreet spies making their way to Gotham even now. The only long term solution is to get Bruce's memories back. You said you'd made some progress, though, last night?”

“Yes. Sorry, Bruce was sticking to you so closely it was hard to really say anything. Essentially, we think we've figured out who caused the amnesia. It seems like it wasn't an enemy at all, just a grateful parent from another dimension, granting a wish for the JLA members who'd helped her kid get home.”

“A wish? So, what, the JLA helped some genie's kid?”

“Not a genie, exactly, but a member of a very powerful telepathic race called the Wunfulch. Superman was telling Batman he should get more rest and enjoy the little things in life. Nothing special there, but this time Superman wished that all the JLA members would spend more time forgetting the fight and remembering who they are out of costume.”

“You mean this whole thing is just some alien's idea of gratitude?” Jason asked, incredulous.

“To be fair, for all that he's in more danger, Bruce does legitimately seem much happier than normal.”

“Yeah, he...he actually did look really happy last night,” Jason agreed, remembering how easy it had been to smile back at Bruce at dinner, “but that's not going to last for long, is it? I mean, now that you know who did it...”

“Unfortunately, it's going to be a while until we can access the home dimension of the Wunfulch. It turns out that their dimension is particularly hard to reach from our side. Perhaps deliberately, as they don't generally seem to like visitors. Tim has been cataloging all the equipment we have on hand, but most of the components we need were already melted and fried getting the child Wunfulch home. We'll have to build the most complex parts of the machine from scratch, and that's going to take time, especially as we don't even have blueprints for some of them. Everyone is also busy covering for the amnesiac JLA members, too, so optimistically, it's still going to be weeks, at least, possibly even months if things go poorly.”

Jason shouldn't feel relieved that he was stuck playing babysitter a little longer. Batman had revived the Joker. Jason should hate him for that, and he was certainly very, very angry. Bruce had been so warm last night, though. His whole face had lit up whenever he'd looked at Jason, and he'd seemed so proud to introduce Jason to the talkative waiter as his “son”. It was so much easier to forgive that generous and caring man who tried earnestly (if unskillfully) to make him breakfast every morning, who woke him from nightmares at night, and who really listened to what Jason had to say, even if he didn't always understand or agree.

As much as Jason had tried to keep his emotional distance, Bruce's amnesiac behavior made it all too easy for him to fall into some of the old patterns of his childhood. Furthermore, as the society and celebrity focused portions of every Gotham news agency had a proven track record of giving any adoption by Bruce Wayne top billing, even when Batman got his memory back, it wouldn't be so easy anymore for Jason to just disappear. If this amnesia lasted for a few more weeks, a lot of people would get the chance to photograph Bruce happily associating with Jason in public, and that would make it socially and politically costly for him to publicly disown Jason in the near future, not to mention all the legal trouble he'd have to go through to amend his will again. Besides that, a nasty family breakup would inevitably draw even more media scrutiny to a man who already valued his privacy a little too much. Considering the benefits and costs, Batman might actually prefer to leave Jason's public cover as it was, even when his memory returned.

Jason found the thought of having to deal with his erstwhile family semi-permanently a little anxiety inducing, though. Sure, he would be happy if he could at least stay mostly friendly with Barbara, but Jason Wayne also had two brothers, didn't he? Legally, at least. Jason didn't even know how to begin to deal with Tim, and thinking about Dick was just as confusing. Almost unconsciously, Jason reached into his pocket again and felt the corners of the folded note. He really needed to figure out where he stood with the golden boy. “You really think I should try talking to Dick?” he asked Barbara.

“Yes. In fact, there's no time like the present,” she replied, leaning over to pull a laptop from the underside of her chair. Jason hadn't even known she had one with her.

“Wait, right now?”

“If you talk to Dick soon, you'll get to enjoy a limited time special,” Barbara assured him.

“What special?”

She grinned. “You'll have to see him to find out, but I think you'll find it very amusing.”

She didn't look at all worried, but Jason found himself getting more than little nervous as she placed he video call and tilted the screen so that he could see. He felt like he could have used a week of mental prep for this. Then, the call connected, and Jason caught sight of Dick's face on screen. All of his worries disappeared as he burst out laughing.

“What?” Dick put his hands over his hair, as if he could somehow hide the rainbow sparkles in the completely random mixture of spikes, curls, and cow licks. His hair was tame only in one spot, where Dick had possibly pressed it flat by sleeping on it. “Babs, you didn't warn me there would be an audience!” he whined.

“It's just your brother, Dick, not an audience.”

Dick looked at Jason, aggrieved, as he continued to laugh. “You don't need to sound that amused.”

“You literally look like a unicorn threw up all over you,” Jason got out between chuckles.

Dick sighed and finally let his hands drop. “It's washing out...slowly.”

“Dick, don't you have something to apologize for? For something 'wrong' you said?” Barbara asked with an a sudden edge.

Dick winced. “I'm sorry.” His eyes moved from Barbara's face to Jason's. “I really am sorry. I never should have said that about you.”

“Whatever,” Jason said, looking away from his earnest expression uncomfortably. “I guess I should just be glad you even noticed I existed.”

“Jay, I've always noticed,” Dick replied, sounding oddly hurt.

Part of Jason wanted to call him a liar, because there had been no memorial for him at Titans Tower. Another part, though, wanted to ask about the Joker, and his curiosity proved stronger. “Okay. Maybe I got you wrong, then. Is it true that you actually beat the Joker basically to death?”

Dick shot Barbara a betrayed look. “You told him about that?”

“Dick, I know it's a difficult subject, but you can't keep avoiding this conversation. You may disagree with a lot of the things Red Hood has done, but much as it may worry you, you do have things in common with him, too. If you can just discuss those things, I think you can establish a basis of understanding, which is a a good foundation for reestablishing a functional relationship. On the other hand,” she added in a sarcastic tone, “if you'd like to spend the rest of your life tiptoeing around an emotional minefield, then by all means, talk around the clown in the room and never explain any of your motivations, so you can avoid diffusing entirely avoidable misunderstandings.”

Dick huffed in response. “Fine.” He looked back toward Jason then, and his expression turned deeply unhappy. “Look, at the time, I thought Tim was dead and the Joker—he had that awful grin on. You know the one.” Jason did. He saw in frequently in his nightmares. “He talked about my losing a second little brother, as if it were some sort of joke,” Dick said, his voice thick with some novel combination of outrage and grief and disgust, “and then, even after I hit him right in the face, he just kept grinning, and he said, he said he'd hit you harder, Jay, and I—I just lost it, okay?”

“...It's better than okay.” So Dick had actually beaten the Joker down, before Batman snatched him from the jaws of death. Suddenly, Jason felt like he had more in common with his older brother than he'd ever thought.

Dick sighed. “No, I don't think you actually understand, Jay. Even though he was revived later, I still killed in a rage. That's nothing to be proud of.”

“Maybe not according to Batman, but I'm saying well done,” Jason told him, actually feeling immensely pleased. It probably had been 90% Tim's supposed death which had motivated Dick, but it still made Jason feel better that it apparently had been a mention of his own murder which had pushed Dick over the edge.

His brother made a small, frustrated sound. “No, it was not well done. Killing is never good, but it's particularly bad to just completely lose control and take a life.”

“I never said killing was good, but it's not like you dropped a baby off the side of a building. You killed the Joker. I know Bruce probably filled your head with endless slippery slope horror stories, but let me take a guess here, Dick. Despite what happened with the Joker, you haven't beaten anyone else to death. Have you?”

“No!” Dick answered, sounding distressed.

“You feeling any urges to knock the dentures out of harmless grandmas or smother children in their cribs?”

“Of course not!”

“So it turns out the slope's not that slippery, after all,” Jason pointed out wryly. “You can be selective about killing, and obviously, you should be. I don't actually think it's a good idea to kill every two bit thug in Gotham, but there are certain cases, special cases, that require a more permanent solution, because the system we have isn't working. One of those special cases is the Joker.”

“And what about the people you killed in New York, dressed as Nightwing?” Dick fired back. “What about the kid you left splattered in blood?”

“...Caroline.”

“What?”

“Her name was Caroline,” Jason replied, and the angry fire inside him guttered at the memory of her terrified face. “Look, I get that I should've have been a little more selective there, about how and where I killed her kidnapper...” Barbara arched an eyebrow at him and rolled her fingers in a way that prompted Jason to grudgingly continue, “...And about what I was wearing when I did it.”

“Are you actually apologizing for impersonating me?” Dick asked, sounding halfway between surprised and suspicious.

“I don't see why you're so upset, when I just gave you a killer reputation,” Jason replied flippantly, but Barbara was starting to glare at him, so he hastily added, “but yeah, I apologize for using your suit to do things I knew you wouldn't approve of.” He'd been angry at Dick for forgetting about him, and yet he'd also longed for his once-brother to realize that Jason's methods were necessary and work with him, instead of against him. He could admit to himself, though, that his conflicting impulses had ended up being a little self-sabotaging. He might have gotten a lot further in convincing Dick to work with him, if he hadn't also been angry enough to throw out taunting lines and pick fights whenever they met.

Dick sighed. “I obviously wish you hadn't, but I'll accept your apology, Jay, if you promise never to do it again.”

“I won't kill any more people dressed as Nightwing,” Jason replied. Dick's eyes narrowed in response. Paired with his wild, sparkly hair, the expression made him look a little like an angry pixie, but Jason didn't really want Barbara glaring at him anymore, so he wisely didn't point it out.

“I notice you didn't say anything about not killing dressed as anyone but me.”

“I won't dress as Barbara, either,” Jason replied with a grin.

Dick made a frustrated sound, but before he could reply, Barbara herself broke into the conversation. “Look, I understand that you're not willing to accept a total ban on killing, Jay, but will you consider it if I ask you to be much more selective? There are a lot of problems in the current system, but many of them can be solved with less extreme methods than homicide.”

“Maybe some of them,” Jason admitted. “But not the Joker.”

“Jason, I understand why you're angry, but we shouldn't be killing anyone,” Dick insisted.

“Tell me, Dick, before he got amnesia, did Bruce stop making plans for if the Joker broke out? Did you stop making plans?” Jason gave him a bitter grin. “Don't bother answering. That was a rhetorical question. Of course you didn't, because you fully expect that he'll get out again. You don't believe Arkham will hold him—and neither do I. The difference is, I'm not resigned to sacrificing all the innocent people the Joker's going to kill the next time he gets out, and all the times after that.”

“I'm not resigned either!” Dick insisted, mulish and angry and sparkling.

“But you know what's going to happen!” Jason snarled back. “You might as well put all that innocent blood on—”

“Hey, let's keep the shouting to a minimum, okay? At least while I'm the one in the middle of you two,” Barbara told them, and Jason felt mildly guilty for practically shouting in her ear. “Jay, I agree that the Joker is the poster child for what's wrong with the current system, but killing him may not be the only solution. Have you really thought through every single other alternative? And Dick, what if the Joker does break out? What if he went after Jay again? Would you not want him to use whatever force was necessary to defend himself?”

Dick went pale. “I...you don't really think the Joker would....” He looked at Jason, and it was easy to read the fear on his face. It was a bit insulting, actually. Did Dick not think Jason could take the Joker? It was only because his own biological mother had tricked him and handed him over on a silver platter that he'd ended up dead in that warehouse. Jason was a lot stronger now, though, and a lot less trusting.

“I think there's nothing I would put past the Joker,” Barbara told Dick grimly, and Jason admitted to himself that the thought was just a little worrying. Jason was the sort of person who faced his fears head on, though, and beat them into submission.

“I...if it was self-defense...” Dick said, his voice thin. He looked like he might be feeling ill.

“Well, it's something to think about,” Barbara said. “In fact, why don't you both do that, carefully consider each other's perspectives. You'll probably never agree on everything, but you don't have to, in order to reach some reasonable understanding.”

“I...yeah, okay. I'll think about it,” Dick promised.

Not wanting to look unreasonable in front of Barbara, Jason nodded.

“Good. Then why don't we say goodbye before tempers run short, and we'll have another chat when everyone's had a chance to think things through more.”

“Yeah, sounds good, Babs,” Dick replied, subdued. “I'll talk to you both more later...maybe when my hair is a little more presentable.”

Barbara gave him a small smile. “Goodbye, Dick.”

“Bye,” Jason replied curtly, feeling frustrated that Dick was still clinging so tightly to Bruce's antiquated morality. However, that didn't stop him from turning to Barbara eagerly, the moment she closed the connection. “Please tell me you got a screen grab of his hair.”

Her smile got wider. “I did. I might even give it to you, if you actually think up some alternative solutions that don't involve killing criminals.”

Jason scowled. “That's extortion!”

“Do you want the picture or not?” Barbara replied, and he grudgingly resigned himself to doing a little thinking over the next couple of days. That didn't, of course, mean that he'd have any faith in anything less than the most permanent solution.

Chapter Text

Bruce heard Jason before he saw him. His son and Barbara would video chat fairly often, so normally hearing Jason conversing with someone else was not cause for alarm. However, Jason had raised his voice, and his tone was much more belligerent than Bruce was used to, so Bruce hurried into the library, heading for Jason's favorite chair. The face on the laptop screen wasn't Barbara's, though. Bruce was shocked to realize that the person Jason was arguing with was actually Dick. Bruce hadn't even known they were still in contact, and he stood frozen in shock as the conversation continued.

“It's not some degenerative disease!” Jason insisted. “Putting down Blockbuster couldn't have made her sick!”

Bruce frowned. Blockbuster? Were they arguing about someone's interest in indie movies?

“But she wasn't like that before. If I had just stopped her...”

“Then she wouldn't have what, Dick? You still have never actually explained what she did wrong, afterwards.”

“She... She was just...way too forward, Jay, at a time when it was clearly inappropriate. She wanted for us to get married, but we'd only ever... I mean, she just kept pressing me, even though I didn't even want...”

“Whoa, you never explained that she was sexually harassing you,” Jason said, and Bruce froze. Someone was harassing Dick? No one had ever explained that to Bruce, either...that he remembered, at least. If he walked a little closer, would they explain? Or would the conversation shut down when they noticed him? If Jason and Dick were actually working out their issues, Bruce didn't want to interrupt them.

“I...didn't say she was harassing me,” Dick replied weakly, which was an enormous red flag.

“Sure sounded like that. Are you claiming that she didn't? Not ever?” Jason pressed. Dick looked away and didn't answer. “Okay,” Jason said, anger rumbling in his voice, “now I get why you're so sure she 'went wrong'. But Dick, killing Blockbuster for you obviously didn't give her the right to get into your pants. The fact that she acted like that isn't because she killed someone.” Wait, Dick had a stalker that had actually killed someone? That was horrifying. “It's because she had an inflated sense of self-entitlement and a complete and callous disregard for your boundaries.”

“And when you showed up in New York in my suit and called me 'partner', claimed you were doing my job for me, but in a way that you knew I would never do it, I suppose that wasn't a complete disregard for my boundaries?” Dick demanded. Was he referring to yet another incident Bruce didn't remember?

Jason jolted. “I wasn't trying to get into your pants!”

“But don't you see the other parallels?” Dick demanded.

“I wasn't—” Jason cut his sentence off with a frustrated sound and a shake of his head. “I was angry, because I knew we weren't partners, that we weren't the brothers we should have been, so I wanted to provoke a clear answer from you: either an apology and a promise that we could be, or a final disavowal, a confirmation that we would never be anything to each other.”

“Jason, if you wanted a clear answer about where you stood with me,” Dick growled out, sounding nearly as frustrated as Jason, “then why didn't you just ask me for one, instead of leaving a trail of destruction dressed as me?”

“Because you acted like my brother before I died, and then you turned around and forgot I even existed, so how could I trust whatever you said in a no-stakes conversation? You'd probably just say whatever was convenient at the time, so I wanted to force you into a situation where your words would have consequences, where working alongside me would require some actual commitment on your part.”

“I never forgot about you,” Dick retorted, voice serious. “No one in this family ever forgot about you, and you have still never explained to me why you would ever even believe that.” He shook his head. “Did Talia tell you that we forgot?”

“She didn't have to. She said I remained unavenged, and she showed me pictures of the Joker from one of his recent escapes—”

“She showed you pictures of your murderer on the loose?” Bruce interrupted, unable to keep silent anymore. It would be no wonder if that had prompted Jason to feel unsafe. Who wouldn't be worried, knowing their own killer had escaped from custody? What had Talia been thinking? And telling Jay that he remained unavenged...exactly what had Bruce's ex-girlfriend expected him to do?

Jason sighed. “There's a lot of context you're missing, Bruce.”

“Then explain it to me, Jay. I just want to understand.” Instead of answering, Jason looked at Dick a little helplessly, and that prompted Bruce to take a few steps nearer and look more closely at the screen himself. “Did you do something new with your hair, Dick?” he asked, distracted by the extremely odd hairstyle Dick had adopted. Was glitter in fashion again now? Bruce hadn't known that, or maybe he just didn't remember knowing.

He supposed that someone with a circus background might naturally gravitate toward the more showy hairstyles, but he thought the chaotic mix of spikes and sparkles was a little over the top. Still, he had missed Dick a great deal, and if he and Jason were trying to patch things up, maybe Bruce and Dick could make peace, as well. Bruce knew he should try to be supportive, if Dick's nostalgia for his childhood led him to adopt a more “wild” hairstyle. He scrambled for something to say that was both complimentary and true. “It looks...interesting.” That was...well, at least it wasn't openly an insult.

Dick just looked at him tiredly. “It should wash out in a few days.”

“Oh, well, that's...probably for the best,” Bruce conceded, feeling relieved.

Jason started snickering, and Dick shot him an annoyed glare. “Aren't you done laughing about this yet?”

“Maybe in a few days,” Jason replied with a sassy grin, which Bruce remembered fondly from when Jay was much younger.

Dick groaned. “I'll tell Barbara we'll talk in another week, then, when you can look at me without chuckling.”

“A bold assumption. You think without the sparkles I'll take you seriously?” Jason asked. He sounded teasing, and Dick rolled his eyes.

“Well, hopefully you won't start and end the conversation by laughing, at least. I do actually have to go now, though,” Dick said, sounding regretful. “Although I would have preferred nicer subject matter, it was good just to be able to talk to you again, Jay,” Dick added, with a soft and hesitant smile. Then he shifted his gaze toward Bruce. “It was nice seeing you too, Bruce.”

With Dick's eyes on him, Bruce suddenly felt like he'd been cornered without a plan. Why had he never thought to prepare a few words, in case he spoke to Dick again? How did he weigh in a conversational instant his lingering anger over Dick's prior actions against how deeply Bruce missed his son? What about Dick's own happiness and safety? What if Dick needed help with that stalker, only he hadn't told Bruce because they were fighting? If Jason was willing to let Dick's transgressions go, surely Bruce shouldn't be the one holding a grudge.

He knew he should say something warm to let Dick know he'd been missed, or maybe something funny to help sooth things over. “I...you too, Dick. It was...good seeing you,” he eventually said, stiltedly. It wasn't the most inspired reply, but it got a small smile from his eldest.

“I'll talk to you both later,” Dick said, and his voice was warm enough that despite their recent disagreements, Bruce felt immediately more hopeful that they would all find some way to reconcile.

“Bye,” Jason said with a sly grin. As soon as Dick ended the call, Jason immediately started bringing up a set of pictures on his laptop, scrolling through them rapidly. “Here, I think this one is the best,” he said, stopping on a screen capture that looked to be from the just ended video chat. Dick had on an offended scowl, but a sparkling strand of hair had dipped down over one eye, catching the light. It did make it very hard to take him seriously.

“Perhaps I should be glad I've forgotten what passes for fashionable these days,” Bruce said, shaking his head. “I didn't want to hurt Dick's feelings, but that hairstyle is atrocious.”

Jason burst out laughing. “Oh, it was even worse when I saw it three days ago. Barbara's the only one with pictures of that, though. I was going to try to talk her into sharing today, as she was actually supposed to moderate this video call, but she got called away at the last minute because Helena Bertinelli needed help with something.” Jason paused. “Dick and I sort of promised we'd stay calm, so maybe don't mention to her that we raised our voices?”

Bruce gave his son a reassuring smile. He had been a little worried himself when he'd heard Jason yelling, but his sons had seemed to be honestly trying to have a constructive conversation, rather than just screaming at each other. “I think you were doing well, Jay, even if the conversation got a little heated. It sounded like you and Dick were actually covering some important points.” It was probably the sort of conversation Bruce should have tried to moderate himself, rather than leaving Barbara to take the initiative. He'd just been so afraid that Dick would say something callous that would really set Jason off, though. Perhaps he should have had more faith in his sons. They were both such good people.

“There is something you mentioned that concerns me, though, Jason. That stalker of Dick's. You said she killed someone?” Bruce knew that Dick had been a police officer, that he knew how to take care of himself, but still, a jilted woman that unhinged could be dangerous.

“You mean Catalina Flores?”

“That's her name? Is she still pursuing Dick?”

“Oh, no, she won't be coming after him again.”

Bruce breathed a sigh of relief. “She's in prison, then?”

Jason's expression shifted into a scowl. “If she were just in prison, I'd still worry about her showing up again. The worst ones always seem to break out. But she was actually killed, along with a lot of other people, when Chemo exploded in Bludhaven.” Jason looked at him assessingly. “You do remember Chemo, right?”

“Of course. It was all over the news, and it was a WayneTech scientist who came up with a serum to treat the radiation exposure. I was involved in ensuring enough was produced to distribute to everyone in Bludhaven.” It was one of the very few things Bruce had done in the last few years that he could be truly proud of.

“Huh. I think I missed that serum distribution somehow,” Jason said, scratching at the scar at the base of his throat again. It seemed to be a nervous habit for him, although Jason had refused to tell Bruce where he'd gotten the scar. “It makes sense, though, because I don't remember hearing about all the hospitals in the area being overrun with patients suffering from Acute Radiation Syndrome.”

“Yes. Thankfully, we were able to get it distributed in time to avoid that.” It was proof that Bruce could make a difference if he tried. He just didn't know why he hadn't been trying very often. That was going to change, starting with his project to help homeless children in Gotham. “By the way, I got an update on the group home this morning. It was a good suggestion you made to look into a place we can retrofit, rather than waiting for new construction to be finished from the ground up. The contractor estimated the building we identified could be ready within three weeks.”

“Great,” Jason said, his expression brightening, “and you said the legal paperwork is going well, so now all we need are the kids. I'll go visit Crime Alley again today, keep building up a rapport with any street kids I can find.”

“Jay—”

“If you're going to offer to come with me again, the answer is no. You do remember what happened just yesterday, right?”

Bruce winced. He had tried to carefully enter the conversation Jason had been having with a teen sheltering under an overpass, but the kid had run off before Bruce had come within a dozen feet. Jason's unimpressed glare had made Bruce feel like a bumbling incompetent. “I'll stay well back this time, Jay, I promise. But at least let me drive you out there?”

Jason sighed. “You have to stop asking the locals so many questions, too. You are going to spook someone.”

Bruce didn't see how just asking a few simple questions about child welfare could spook people, but Jay was the expert on Crime Alley, so Bruce nodded. He'd try to keep his questions briefer.

“Fine, then, but if I'm trying to talk to someone, you need to be a silent and distant observer. Got it?”

“Of course, Jay. Are you ready to leave now?”

“Might as well get out there before it starts raining again,” Jason grumbled. They'd barely gotten back to the car before a torrential downpour had started yesterday.

“The weather report said it's supposed to be sunny today.”

“Sunny in Gotham. Right,” Jason said skeptically. When they did start driving, Bruce could see it was far more overcast than sunny, but at least it wasn't actively raining. As long as the weather held out, Jason would probably be able to make contact with a few more kids today, and it made Bruce hopeful that they might have the group home up and running in a couple of months. That was good, because Bruce's other efforts had turned up only dead ends.

Even if Bruce could keep Talia and thoughtless people like her far away from his son, there was no way he would be able to stop the news coverage the next time the Joker escaped. How was his son supposed to feel safe, if his killer kept getting out? The obvious solution was to stop the Joker from escaping, but historically, the obvious solution hadn't actually worked.

He had escaped from Arkham repeatedly, despite being in the maximum security wing. He had escaped from Slabside Penitentiary, despite state of the art security measures there. The issue of where to send the Joker next had actually been debated throughout the chambers of city hall, but in the end, he kept going back to Arkham, because there was no better place to put him that satisfied all legal requirements.

It was clear that significant reforms were necessary. Unfortunately, the legal system was a blunt instrument and difficult to refine. In order to treat everyone equally, there was an implicit assumption that “one size fits all”. If someone was not competent to stand trial, then obviously that someone needed psychiatric treatment. If someone was receiving treatment, then there were rules and procedures in place to protect that mentally ill person, and Bruce didn't want to scrap those, when more than 99% of the time, they were reasonable and necessary. Then, there was the less than 1% of the time where the “mentally ill patient” was someone like the Joker, someone who wanted to get worse, not better.

The justice system's saving grace was that even those people normally remained safely contained. People too incompetent to stand trial just generally weren't capable of orchestrating complex master plans or escaping maximum security confinement, because in order to plan out a coherent sequence of events in the real world, you first had to have a firm grasp on reality. So, almost always, people who were deeply mentally ill were not able to circumvent several layers of security at once. Almost always, because the Joker enjoyed breaking every rule.

Unfortunately, from a legal standpoint, if the Joker was too sick to stand trial, then he needed treatment. If he needed treatment, then they couldn't just throw him into an oubliette with an automated feeder. He needed to be seen by doctors and given medication and carefully monitored for adverse affects. He required full time care and access to basic amenities and a treatment plan. But every bit of human contact he had was another opportunity for him to recruit another Harley Quinn, and every liberty given to the Joker had was just another step on his path to insane carnage. In the past, he'd even managed to influence an Arkham neighbor he'd supposedly had “no contact” with to kidnap a little girl, as soon as that neighbor was released.

Obviously, the normal methods just didn't work when the “patient” was the Joker, but rules and laws had to be impartial and equally applied. They couldn't be written to call out a single individual for different treatment. Therefore, to change the treatment for one person, the rules needed to be rewritten to change the treatment for every person, perhaps with new evaluation criteria for “dangerousness”, very clearly delineated circumstances under which psychiatric treatment which required human interaction could be ceased, and more stringent isolation guidelines for anyone who had made multiple successful escape attempts and also was guilty of multiple homicides... It would be a lot of work and take a long time to change that many things.

There would have to be time for lawyers to do fact finding and write drafts, a drive to gather political support to make so many changes, and a public comment period, because all of those changes would affect a lot more people than just the Joker. There would likely be objections from innocent people who might inadvertently be hurt by any proposed changes, and maybe there would need to be updates to the drafts to help safeguard the mentally ill from being neglected or mistreated. Even if all the updates eventually received enough support to become official, it would take time to roll those changes out.

There would likely also be legal objections from people who would be impacted by the changes, maybe injunctions would be issued until the legality of certain reforms could be considered. There were ethical issues involved in isolating or choosing not to treat someone, even if that person was extremely dangerous and had no desire for treatment. Was it a human rights violation to limit contact and not to provide treatment under those circumstances? That question might take a long time to answer in court, especially if there were several appeals.

The whole reform process might last a decade or more, between the start and when the new rules passed all legal hurdles and were fully adopted. Also, the effort would likely experience a few false starts before truly gaining traction, and perhaps some potential reforms would be struck down legally. It wasn't fair to ask Jason to wait that long for the Gotham criminal justice system to be overhauled enough to properly contain people like the Joker. If his earlier comment about the “worst ones” always getting out was any indication, Jason was unlikely to believe in a promise of something that far off, and frankly, it was unreasonable that he should have to wait until fifteen plus years after his murder to feel safe again.

Surely, if Bruce just investigated a little more, though, he would find be some way to ensure the Joker remained safely locked up that wouldn't take a decade to implement. In the mean time, the group home was making real progress, so Bruce focused on that, on something he knew how to achieve.

“Hey, pull over here,” Jason said, breaking Bruce from his thoughts. “I think this is pretty close to where we saw that pair of kids yesterday, the ones that disappeared when it started raining.” Bruce obligingly pulled the old car over. Jason had driven the rusted thing to the manor just a couple days ago, specifically so they could “fit in” while cruising through Crime Alley, looking for children in need of a home. It was easily the ugliest car Bruce had ever driven, but it looked right at home on Crime Alley.

“We should split up, cover more ground,” Jason said as he hopped out. “Remember, if you see the kids, don't approach them. Call me, back off, and I'll do the talking. If these kids bolt, we probably won't get another shot at talking to them for a long time.”

“Alright, Jason. I'll be careful not to scare anyone.” Bruce spent the next couple of hours looking unsuccessfully. He also engaged some locals in conversation, but he still hadn't been able to get an address for Christine, a teen who had apparently been squatting in a nearby condemned apartment, at least until a couple of months ago. Someone had told Bruce yesterday that she'd found a new place and moved out. He wanted to help her if her “new place” turned out to be another abandoned apartment, but Bruce was hoping that she'd actually found a nice home. Maybe, if she had, she'd be willing to help Jason talk to the other homeless kids about how good opportunities were actually available. Maybe she'd have some insights, too, about how to make a new home feel safe for someone who'd recently spent time alone on these cold streets.

Bruce caught sight of Jason again as he walked past an old apartment building with a pair of graffiti tags by the front steps. He was about to approach, when Jason made an odd flicking motion with his hand behind his back. It was like he was trying to brush something away? It was only then that Bruce caught sight of two kids who were mostly hidden behind the apartment building's dumpster. Jason probably didn't want him to get close, then, so Bruce backed off a couple of steps, until he could no longer see Jason or the kids. If Bruce strained, though, he could just about make out some of the conversation.

It sounded like Jason was making a joke about how the apartment building dumpster smelled almost as bad as the breath of the “cart lady”. Jason had previously explained to Bruce that the woman was known for pushing her pilfered shopping cart up and down outside the local strip mall in the early afternoon, accosting everyone she saw with dire warnings about how the aliens were coming and how they needed to find Jesus immediately. Bruce wasn't sure, but he thought the kids might have laughed. That was how Jason seemed to get them talking—inside jokes that proved he knew the neighborhood, proved he was one of them. Even though Bruce was presently dressed down as far as he was able, he apparently didn't walk or talk like a local, and the skittish street kids could spot that a mile away.

Jason was silent for a long moment, which probably meant one of the kids was talking. Bruce was too far away to hear, and he idly looked around the neighborhood, hoping to find someone who looked willing to talk to him. All he really saw were suspicious, unfriendly faces and dozens of building code violations. There was a grey car rolling slowly along the street, and Bruce would have ignored it entirely, except that just as it was about to pass him, its rear tire blew out so loudly that it was like a gun had gone off.

Bruce turned his head at the loud noise, and that's when he saw the actual gun sticking out of the car's back seat window. It was pointed directly at him. Adrenaline prickled over his skin, but it was too late to dodge or scream or do anything but think of his parents and a different gun and this same street. Then the car swerved slightly as the rim of its blown tire caught briefly in a pothole, and a patch of sidewalk a foot away from Bruce shattered instead of his body. A few pieces of debris hit him in the leg. Then the car was driving past him, and Bruce had the frantically relieved thought that it was over.

It wasn't over. There was a man in the street with a gun—that was Jason with a gun, and he was pointing it down the street at the retreating car with a look of such rage on his face that all conscious thought vanished from Bruce's mind.

“NO!” someone screamed, and for just a few seconds, Jason stopped looking at the car and looked to him, because Bruce was the one who was screaming. “Jason, don't!” Then Jason was looking away from him again, back toward the road, and he raised his gun a little, adjusting his aim. But those few seconds of distraction had been enough, and the car made a sharp turn around a corner and sped out of sight, the rim of its blown tire screeching along the road.

Jason lowered his arm and stalked over toward him, with a look of such cold, deadly anger on his face that Bruce involuntarily took a step back. “I should have known even amnesia wouldn't keep you out of my way,” he growled. “They were trying to kill you—you do know that, right?”

“I know,” Bruce answered shakily. He could never forget what a gun had done to his parents, how they'd died in front of him. He knew he needed to keep his eyes on Jason's face to figure out what he was thinking and feeling, but he couldn't peel his eyes off the gun Jason still had in his hand. “Jason—”

“You let them get away, so what's going to stop them from killing someone else next time?”

“The police. We'll call the police,” Bruce said, belatedly fumbling for his phone. His hands were shaking so much he could barely unlock it.

“The police?” Jason said, sounding incredulous. “If the police could actually stop this bullshit, do you think someone would have tried to kill you on the sidewalk in the middle of the day? You're just letting them get away so that next time they try to kill someone, they succeed!”

“No,” Bruce said, “this is attempted murder. The police will investigate and find the culprit.”

“If we were in Bristol, they might find the culprit. This is Crime Alley, though, Bruce, and all the rules are different here. Just like the social workers fail at a higher rate here, so do the murder investigations. That's why we need to handle things here more permanently, because that's the only way the criminals can actually be stopped.”

Bruce stared, horrified, as Jason held a gun in his hand and argued that he should have been allowed to kill the gunman because it was the “only way”. Dick's accusation that Jason had left a trail of “destruction” in New York leaped to the front of his mind, but that destruction had surely been of property, not of lives. Surely. Still, how could a nineteen year old advocate so forcefully for murder? Did he have no qualms at all about killing? “Jason, you can't honestly want to kill people?” Bruce asked, more than a little desperately.

“It's not a matter of wanting. It's a matter of necessity. You can't honestly believe they'll stop on their own.”

“No, but I believe Jim Gordon won't rest until this case is solved.”

Jason shook his head. “You just don't see it, do you? Well, look around, Bruce,” he snapped angrily. “That old guy that was smoking weed on the steps for the past ten minutes, one block over. Where is he now?”

“I—” Bruce turned around, but he didn't see him anywhere.

“The couple that was walking down the street—are they hanging around to give their witness statement?”

Bruce looked, but there was no one on the entire street, either way, for blocks and blocks, even though there had been several people around just a minute ago. He didn't need to look to be sure the kids Jason had been talking to were long gone, as were the ones that had been drawing on the sidewalk in chalk two blocks down. Every door was closed, and he could swear there were far more blinds drawn and curtains pulled than there had been when he'd first come down the street.

“Let me explain how this will go,” Jason said. He just reached behind his back and then the gun was gone—because he must have had a holster at his back, under his jacket. He'd been carrying that gun all along, and Bruce had never known. “You'll call the police. You'll give your statement. It won't be enough to positively identify anybody because the car windows were tinted and the gunman in the car had a ski mask on,” Jason said, his tone matter of fact, though Bruce hadn't even noticed that much detail, nothing at all besides the gun.

“Then, the detectives will come knocking. No one will be home if they can help it, because most of them are doing drugs, or selling drugs, or turning tricks, or making fake IDs, or something else at least a little illegal to make ends meet. Even if they're not, they've got a kid that's in a gang, or a girlfriend that's a waitress at the Iceberg Lounge, or a dad that just got out of prison—or a friend that got hassled and maybe even roughed up by some cops, because of an untreated mental health issue that made it hard to follow police directions. Maybe they even had the joy of personally meeting one of the corrupt cops who likes to beat people up for the crime of being black and poor.”

“For the people of this neighborhood, the police are the enemy,” Jason said, and Bruce didn't want to believe it was true. Sadly, that didn't necessarily mean Jason was wrong. “So even if they are home, they'll pretend that they're not when the cops come knocking. Even if they do open their doors, it will only be to claim that they saw nothing, heard nothing, and know nothing. Even if they don't want any more shootings, they know if they squeal to the cops, they may be the next ones shot. Why make enemies to help more enemies? You can tell the police that I shot out that tire with an unlicensed gun, if you like, Bruce. But I guarantee, I'll be ten miles away before you do that, and Jason Wayne will never be heard from again.”

Bruce startled in sudden, fresh terror and reached out to grab Jason's wrist. “Jay, no, don't leave.” Then the rest of what Jason had said caught up to him. The tire that blew out with the sound of a gunshot—of course it hadn't just conveniently happened in the precise moment necessary to save his life. “I'm not going to turn you in,” Bruce said, shakily. “I—you saved my life,” he whispered, suddenly thinking of that terrifying gun in a new way. He still hated the thought of Jason carrying a gun, of him shooting with it. Ten minutes ago, he would have said there was absolutely no reason for Jay to ever do so, and yet, it was that very gun which had just saved him. Jason had just saved him.

For all that he was acting so callously toward human life now, he must have been keeping a very close eye on Bruce, even when he was talking to the homeless kids, must have reacted instantly to the threat, in order to shoot out that tire in time. The car had been moving slowly, but even ten miles an hour was about fifteen feet per second. Jason was stranding in the gap between one apartment building and the next. It was a paved area wide enough for dumpsters and garbage trucks, but the time between when Jason could possible have seen the gun pointing out of the car and when the back of the car would have moved far enough that the apartment building blocked sight of it, from Jason's point of view, couldn't have been more than mere seconds. He'd probably taken out the rear tire because, even if he'd drawn his gun as fast as humanly possible, the rear tire would have been the only viable target still visible at the time.

Then, Jason had left the cover of the apartment building and run out into the street, where he himself could be shot at. To get there as quickly as he had, he must have started sprinting instantly as well, when he couldn't have known if he was going to come around the corner of the apartment building to face a gun himself. Jason could easily have kept himself safe, but he chose not to. Just like the night of the mugging, he'd put himself in harm's way because Bruce was unarmed and in danger.

Jason was talking like he might just take off for good at any moment, but his actions implied that he was trying very hard to keep Bruce safe. Suddenly, instead of being caught in horror at the violence his son had very nearly unleashed, Bruce thought of Jason's tragic past: his father, killed by Two-Face, his mother, dead of a overdose, his biological mother, killed alongside him by the Joker. Jason had lost a father and two mothers already, and he'd very nearly been orphaned for a second time today. All Jason was showing him was anger, but that couldn't be all he was feeling, or why had he tried so hard to protect Bruce?

He had to be terrified. After Bruce had lost his parents, he'd been half afraid, every time Alfred went out shopping, that something would happen to him and he wouldn't come back. How must Jason, having already lost three parents, feel after seeing the only one he had left very nearly gunned down just after they reconnected? Of course he was upset, of course he was lashing out. The Joker had crippled Barbara, the police commissioner's own daughter. Then he'd escaped and killed Jason himself while Jim Gordon was still police commissioner. Then the Joker had escaped again and killed Sarah Essen Gordon, Jim Gordon's wife and the commissioner of the GCPD at the time she'd died. Of course Jason didn't believe the GCPD could stop criminals. His own murderer just kept destroying lives again and again, and Park Row, the street he'd grown up on, was nicknamed “Crime Alley” for obvious reasons.

Bruce's heart went out to him, and he noticed that for all his anger, Jason still let himself be pulled into a tight hug. “I know you're scared, Jay.”

“I'm not,” he objected. His voice was hard, angry and defensive, but he hugged Bruce back just as tightly, even so.

“Please, just let me call the police,” Bruce urged gently. “Let's work with them. I want these criminals to be stopped too, but not with a gun.”

“Because you'd rather risk the innocent lives they're looking to end, than actually make the monsters bear the consequences of their own actions?” Jason demanded, pushing out of his arms.

“Jay, I'd rather my son didn't bear the consequences of other people's misdeeds. I don't want you to put blood on your hands. I know you're upset—you've been through so much already,” he said, aching for his boy. Why must he face even more trauma? “I know you want to find a way to make the pain stop, but this isn't the answer.”

“Because it will cost the lives of a couple scumbags?”

“Because it will cost your life—the good life you could have, where you go to school and make friends and don't have to worry about the weight of taking lives, don't have to harden your heart to the point where killing becomes a possibility.”

“You're too late for that, Bruce,” Jason replied grimly.

The words struck as painfully as a knife to the heart, and Bruce felt a mix of terror and heartbreak for his child. Was this why the Dick and Tim had turned on Jay? How far down this road had he already gone? But Jason had only gotten out his gun to protect Bruce. His son couldn't be that cold, yet. “All the more reason why I can't let you go any further. Jason, you've always been incredibly empathetic, always tried to help others, even when you had so little. Don't kill off the kindest parts of yourself pursuing a quick solution that will cost you more than you should ever have to pay for justice. It's not worth it. Even if I die—better that I die, than you lose the most important parts of yourself.”

Jason shook his head, something dark in his expression. “When are you going to realize that the kid you knew is already gone?”

“But you're not, Jay. You're right here in front of me, looking out for me, even though I'm the one who's supposed to look out for you,” Bruce said, and then he couldn't help himself. He pulled his son into his arms again. Jason was stiff in his embrace at first, before finally relaxing with a sigh.

“Things are going to look different when you finally get your memories back,” Jay said, his voice muffled against Bruce's shoulder.

“There's nothing that could make you look any less my son,” Bruce told him, voice strong with his certainty. He might not be able to trust his own memories, but the impossible joy of having his lost child in his arms again was one thing he could not doubt.

Chapter Text

The first clue Jim had that something was wrong was the tabloids. Normally, he ignored those as much as possible, but even he couldn't ignore it when the gossipers holding them were so thick he could hardly make it to the counter of his favorite coffee shop that morning. It turned out that speculation about Bruce Wayne was single handedly powering the Gotham rumor mill again, but it was not over the billionaire's usual quirks.

No, Bruce had apparently decided to perform another adult adoption. That wasn't all that shocking, in itself. He'd actually adopted Dick Grayson when Dick was in his twenties, after all, though he'd been Bruce's son in all but name since he'd been a kid. That adoption had been more a legal formality than an actual change in Bruce's family structure, and a long overdue one at that. No, this adoption was apparently of a nineteen year old who, as far as anyone knew, Bruce had no prior contact with. The teen had also petitioned for a name change from Jake Turpin to Jason Wayne, at least according to Gotham's seedier news sources. The most disturbing part? He bore an uncanny resemblance to the late Jason Todd, if the tabloids were to be believed.

The gossips were currently split into two main groups, as far as Jim could tell. The first thought that Jake was a gold digging snake, taking advantage of a father's grief to worm his way into money. The second thought Bruce was taking advantage of a Crime Alley boy who had lost his mother to the Quake (and had been presumed dead himself in the wake of the disaster). They were certain that Bruce had coerced the poor orphaned kid into acting as a replacement son, even going so far as to force him to take on his lost son's name, probably with the inducement of more money than the kid would ever otherwise see and an offer of family, which would naturally seem very appealing to a lonely boy who had literally no one else.

A subset of that group thought the blank spot on the boy's original birth certificate shouldn't be blank at all, that his father was actually Bruce Wayne, and Bruce had simply refused to acknowledge him unless he agreed to play replacement for Jason. An even crazier subset of people claimed that the name “Willis Todd” belonged in the blank spot. They thought Bruce, in the throes of grief, had kidnapped Jason's half brother Jake Turpin and had been keeping him in a secret basement since the Quake, only having released him now that he'd agreed to “become” Jason. Either way, Bruce looked bad: so lost in grief even five years on that a teenager could blatantly manipulate him, or so crazed by his loss that he'd decided to mold a vulnerable kid into a substitute for his dead son.

The news had rattled Jim, not because he cared what the tabloids said, but because after years of working in Gotham, Jim had learned that when things were wrong in Wayne's world, the rest of the city had a dangerous habit of following. To make matters worse, Batman, along with a significant portion of the Justice League, hadn't been sighted in close to two months. Therefore, when Jim learned that Bruce Wayne had been the target of a drive by shooting while out in Crime Alley with “Jason”, he was on high alert.

Could Jake Turpin be attempting to off Bruce in the hopes of inheriting a huge sum? Jim already had too much other work to lead a major investigation at that moment, but he still encouraged Harvey Bullock and Renee Montoya to bring the pair up to his office after collecting their official statements. Maybe Bruce and “Jason” would reveal more to him in the privacy of his office, if they were speaking off the record.

It sounded like Bruce and his newly adopted son were in the middle of an argument when Detective Montoya finally brought them to his door, as Jim heard both their voices drifting down the corridor long before her knock. “Come in,” Jim answered.

“I told you not to ask so many questions,” a voice said from just outside the threshold, as Montoya waved them in.

“I didn't ask about anything sensitive,” Bruce objected over his shoulder as he came in the door. “Why shouldn't I be able to ask simple questions in broad daylight?”

“Because you were in Crime Alley!” retorted the boy who followed him in. When Jim first saw him, it was like taking a punch to the gut. He'd known the tabloids had claimed there was an “uncanny resemblance”, but he'd chalked that up to so much gossip. Bruce had a habit of adopting kids that took after him: athletic, dark haired, light eyed boys, so it was hardly surprising when they bore some vague resemblance to each other.

Jim had known Jason Todd, though. The kid had stayed close by Bruce Wayne's side at parties, charity galas, and political events. Jim had even seen him a couple times at the library, when he'd gone to pick up Barbara. He had been to Jason's funeral. He wasn't going to just mistake a random kid with similar hair and eye color for Jason Todd, but if he hadn't known for certain that Jason was dead, Jim would have sworn the boy in front of him was Bruce's lost son.

Immediately, his mind jumped to dangerous impersonators like Clayface and Jane Doe, who could easily fool the eyes. Thankfully, none of the usual suspects were currently on the loose in Gotham. It was hard to imagine that such a strong resemblance could really be a coincidence, though, so Jim could understand why some tabloids were certain that Bruce had deliberately sought out a lookalike.

“Please, have a seat,” Jim managed to choke out, as Detective Montoya stepped back and closed the door, leaving Jim alone with his two guests. Bruce sat down with his usual dignified air, despite being dressed in worn, casual clothes, but Jake Turpin—Jason Wayne—slouched casually in his chair, in a way that was achingly familiar. Robin had used to sit around Jim's office like that—the second one.

Forcing himself to ignore those distracting thoughts, Jim tried to get back on track. He was the police commissioner, and he had an important case to work, a case that unfortunately involved a celebrity. When the news media found out that Bruce Wayne had nearly been gunned down only a few blocks from where his parents were murdered, the amount of outside scrutiny this investigation fell under would be enormous.

“I realize that you've just had a very exhaustive interview, and I don't want to make you repeat yourselves. Instead, I'd like to go over what the next steps in the investigation may look like, and I'll answer any questions you might have. If there's anything you'd like to say off the record, I assure you my ears are open, and of course, if you have any ongoing security concerns, I can assign a protective police detail,” Jim said, not missing the brief flash of amusement on Jason's face when he offered them protection. Was that because Jason Wayne himself was responsible for the attempted hit? Or because the two people in front of him were more capable of protecting themselves than any of Jim's police officers?

“I don't think we'll need anything like that, Commissioner,” Jason said.

Bruce nodded. “I'll be much more careful when going into Crime Alley in the future.” He shook his head, a lost expression on his face. “I just never realized that things had gotten so bad,” he continued, sounding shocked and horrified.

“I promise you, the GCPD will do everything possible to catch whoever is responsible.”

“Yeah, sure,” the boy said, looking away with his arms crossed. He sounded just as skeptical as any typical resident of Crime Alley. His accent wasn't as strong as Jim was expecting, but then he might have left Gotham entirely when the government had ordered everyone out after the Quake. Jake Turpin could have started to shed his Crime Alley accent to fit in better wherever he'd gone, and he'd possibly only recently returned. Jason Todd's accent had also been much less noticeable at the end, after he'd spent years living in Bristol. Dear God, this boy's voice even sounded quite similar, though it was deeper, of course, as would be expected for someone on the cusp of adulthood, rather than in the throes of puberty.

“I've put my best people on the case,” Jim assured him.

The boy uncrossed his arms, sat up a little straighter, and looked him right in the eye. “It's not your intentions I'm doubting, Commissioner. It's just that I already know what's going to happen. You're going to find out the plates on the car were stolen or just stripped off some vehicle that was totaled in the Quake. You won't be able to get any info on who could have taken them. Your detectives will canvass the area for witnesses and leads, and residents will slam their doors in their faces. You'll check the rifling pattern on the bullets they left embedded in the sidewalk, and if the pattern is in any database at all, the gun will also have been stolen or scavenged during the Quake. Sound about right?”

Jim grimaced. That did sound unfortunately close to what he was expecting. “You're so certain it's a professional job? It could be a gang incident—some have violent initiation rituals that can involve hurting innocent bystanders.”

“Of course it was professional. You think some punk kids would have the skills to get a bullet within five feet of a target, shooting from a moving car? I'm almost certain it was was Osvaldo Vincencio's guys, trying to keep Bruce from sniffing around.”

“Sniffing around?” Bruce asked, sounding confused, while Jim leaned forward eagerly. Was he really going to get answers so easily? Or was Jason just trying to deflect suspicion away from his own involvement?

Jason made a frustrated sound. “Vincencio's a pimp, Bruce, with a reputation for recruiting a few years short of legal. He's got a lot of customers of the well connected criminal persuasion, and a brother pretty high up in the drug distribution food chain. You started asking too many questions about what happened to a homeless girl who disappeared from her usual haunts—”

Bruce gave Jason a horrified look. “I thought the girl who wasn't on the streets anymore was a success story, so I wanted to see if her circumstances could be duplicated. I didn't think she'd been taken into a prostitution ring!”

“Success story? Wow,” Jason said, with a dark chuckle, and then he shook his head with an expression of bemused incredulity. “You really don't know anything about Crime Alley.”

“And this Vincencio's just allowed to get away with it?” Bruce asked, sounding outraged.

“I wouldn't say he's allowed...but who's going to testify against him?” Jason scowled. “This is the whole problem with the justice system. Most people know Vincencio a complete slime ball, but he talks a good line. His girls are convinced he's taking care of them, that he loves them—and they've got nowhere else to go. The johns sure as hell aren't going to admit they've been boning underage girls, and if some poor schmuck takes too much of an interest, well, let's just say you were really lucky that the shooter's back tire blew out at just the right moment, or those bullets might have ended up in your chest instead of the sidewalk. Now, when it hits the news that it was actually Bruce Wayne his guy was shooting at, of course Vincencio will lay low for a couple of months, like he did when Red Hood was in town. Maybe he'll move shop to Burnley or the Bowery, but in half a year, things will be running as smoothly for him as they ever did.”

“Not if we get him for attempted murder,” Jim objected.

Jason gave him an incredulous look. “I've already explained why that's not going to happen. What we've got is all circumstantial. Most people don't recognize Bruce from a distance in that get up,” Jason said, gesturing at his worn clothes, “so I know this wasn't someone specifically targeting Bruce Wayne, but I can't prove that. I also know that the only agitating thing Bruce has done in Crime Alley lately is asking about that girl, but I can't prove that, either. Similarly, I know Vincencio is the only one who has reason to get nervous about those questions coming from some random guy, and thus he's the only one with a motive for a drive by shooting, but where's the proof?”

Jason shook his head. “I've got no hard evidence that Vincencio is prostituting those girls, and even if you got your hands on a couple, the girls will just claim he's been helping them, that he's committed no crimes and never touched them. Vincencio will claim he didn't report them to social services because he didn't even know the girls were minors, that they lied about their ages, and they'll back him up. No knowledge of criminal activity means no motive to silence anyone, and Vincencio's lawyer will argue the attempted shooting was a bloody gang initiation or a random act of violence. The jury won't convict with that much doubt about the facts, and Vincencio will walk.”

“There must be some way,” Bruce said.

“Sure, someone could shoot Vincencio point blank in the head,” Jason retorted.

Bruce scowled. “I meant besides assassination.”

Jason sighed, crossing his arms. “Well, you're a pretty big deal in Gotham, and Nightwing's been sighted around here a lot lately. If he hears someone almost shot Bruce Wayne, he might decide to help justice along,” Jason admitted grudgingly. He said nothing of Batman, and Jim wondered why. It set his teeth on edge.

“You really expect me to believe we'll get help from an urban legend?” Bruce questioned, as if somehow Nightwing's very existence was in doubt.

Jason swiped his hand down his face. “We've been through this. A lot of what people say about Batman, Robin, and Nightwing is straight up fabricated or wrong, but they do actually exist. You've worked with Batman and Robin for years, Commissioner,” Jason said, suddenly turning to him for backup. “Tell him.”

“I've worked with Batman for over a decade, and Robin has been around for most of that time. They have been a tremendous help on more cases than I can count. Nightwing as well.”

Bruce looked at him skeptically, and in that moment, Jim was certain something was very, very wrong. “Are you sure about that, Commissioner? It's just that this whole 'bat man' story seems so fantastical. It's just much more likely it's all smoke and mirrors, someone dressed up in such a ridiculous costume that he distracts people from the fact that he only seems helpful, without actually contributing.”

“I'm very sure, Mr. Wayne. It's been hard these past couple of months, when he hasn't shown up at all.”

“If he just disappears all the time, then maybe—”

“He's real,” Jason insisted, cutting Bruce off. “Many things about him are made up or exaggerated, but we went through years of articles and news reports from several different sources, Bruce. We watched so many blurry clips—but there were a few that even you admitted were pretty clear, right? Like that one with Robin's quadruple somersault? Or the one of Batman coming out of Louis E. Grieve High School? There are just too many witnesses, too many salvaged batarangs, too much hard evidence—it's not all fake. The Commissioner isn't lying to us.”

Bruce eyed Jim critically for a moment, and he did his best not to fidget under that piercing gaze. “No...I don't think you would lie like that, Commissioner,” Bruce admitted at last.

“So you see, Batman and Robin are real, just like Nightwing,” Jason insisted. “He might go after Vincencio.”

Bruce scowled. “I don't like it—why should we need to depend on some complete unknown to take care of things? The actual police should be able to handle this!”

“Agreed,” Jim said, although he was worried about how much headway an unassisted police investigation would actually be able to make. Jason wasn't entirely wrong in his cynicism, but he hadn't said anything about Vincencio in his original interview, so obviously he was more comfortable speaking to Jim off the record. Maybe he still had a little more information he was holding back? “Isn't there anything more that you can tell me? If you could pick Vincencio's man out of a lineup...”

Bruce shook his head. “It all happened so fast. I barely even realized I was in danger before the car was driving off. I know you said earlier you didn't see his face, Jay, but...”

“Oh, I could pick Vincencio's guy out, but it wouldn't help.”

“Why not?”

“Because I've only actually seen him on the street, Bruce. Even if I claimed to have 'recognized' him inside the car, that wouldn't fly with a jury, not now that the ski mask and tinted windows are part of our witness statement.”

“But you could tell the Commissioner who he is.”

Jason scowled. “I don't think you understand the consequences if I actually did hand over some way to nail Vincencio. Like I said, he has well connected criminal clients who'll be afraid their underage fetishes could come out if he went down, not to mention that brother of his. The police might even cut a deal with Vincencio to fry bigger, more dangerous fish, and the bigger, more dangerous fish know that. If they think they're at risk of being of being landed in jail as sex offenders because of a case for which you are the star witness, then you could be in as much danger as Vincencio or more.”

“Better than letting him continue grooming girls for underage prostitution!”

“You say that, Bruce, but I almost saw you get shot today!” Jason half shouted, and his voice shook just a little bit at the end. Jim caught a very brief flash of fear across his face, before Jason wiped his expression clean. Over the course of many investigations as a detective, Jim had learned when to trust his instincts, and now he felt the little creeping worry in his gut that “Jason” might have planned the hit himself, and was simply playing a blame game, melt away. Jim would put his full focus on Vincencio for this case.

“But I wasn't shot, Jay, and I can't live like a coward any longer!” Bruce replied. “After my parents' death, I made a vow that I would bring justice to this city! How can I turn my back now, just because of a little danger?”

Jason shot Bruce a look that was both resigned and wry. “Yeah, you've always been more likely to rush toward danger, haven't you?” The timbre of Jason's voice was fond, even though he still looked worried. “Fine, you know I want to see that scumbag really get his due, but I guess getting him busted is at least a consolation prize. This is going to put you in some very lethal cross hairs, though, Bruce, so if I'm going to do this, I want you to actually listen to my warnings from now on.”

“Of course, Jay.”

Jason looked at him skeptically before turning back to Jim. “The guy you're looking for is Rafael Ortiz. He technically works for Vincencio's brother, but as Vincencio doesn't have a full time assassin on payroll, he almost certainly borrowed Ortiz to pull the trigger. As for the driver, that was probably one of the Molina brothers, Tadeo or Leo,” Jason said, and Jim scrambled to jot the names down.

“Your detectives already have a description of the car. Vincencio won't know it was Bruce Wayne that he tried to knock off yet, so although the plates will be switched, he might not have ditched the car entirely. If he decided to sell it off for a little cash instead of putting it in the bay, the sale might not happen till later tonight or tomorrow, which gives you a window of time to find it. There's a little parking lot in the back of The Blind Dingo bar where cash car sales happen pretty frequently. Also, that little alley between Madison and Cartwright, over by the Streetcorner Salon. If it's not there, I'd check warehouse three on Pulliver Drive. Maybe you'll get lucky. Even if the plates don't match, if you can find a car with the right make and model with tinted windows and damage to the tire rim in the back, you probably have grounds to search it.”

“Right. That's very helpful,” Jim said, quickly jotting down the three locations that had been mentioned.

“If you do find the car, I've heard Vincencio figures himself a real 'romantic',” Jason said sarcastically, “likes to make out with his girls in the back seat. Might still be some DNA. As for the plates, they're almost certainly in the water by now. If they threw them out on the Robert Kane Memorial Bridge or the Sprang, you'll never find them. But there is a little inlet that drains into Roger's Yacht Basin. It's the closest piece of water to where the shooting happened. If they got lazy and threw them out there...” Jason shrugged. “By high tide they'll be gone, but that's still a few hours away. How good are your detectives at magnet fishing?”

Jim stood up immediately, knowing he had no time the waste if he wanted to give his people the best chance possible to get their hands on some hard evidence, before it disappeared from their reach. “Thank you. I'll send out everyone available right away.”

“Sure, no problem, Commissioner,” Jason said, and even though Jim knew he had to hurry, he couldn't help the way that line made him stumble and hesitate. This boy, who was supposed to be a stranger, just sounded so much like the second Robin.

Suddenly, Jim recalled the bookmark he'd seen Barbara with a few days ago. It had read “World's Best Librarian” in bright letters. Jason Todd had given it to her on National Librarian Day, the year before he'd died. It was just a simple thing, made of stiff cardboard, but Barbara had used it all the time while Jason had been alive and then guarded it like gold when he hadn't been, anymore. She'd even put it in her safe deposit box, so Jim had been surprised to see his daughter using it again. When he'd asked, Barbara had simply told him that, “I think Jay would really like to be remembered.”

At the time, Jim had simply accepted her words at face value, but what if her changed behavior was due to something other than a desire to honor a dead boy's memory? What if Jason actually was alive and sitting right in front of him? The young man in front of him looked so much like the boy they'd lost, but he couldn't be the same person, could he? People didn't just come back from the dead. Jim's gut was telling him that this was the same kid he'd known, though, and he opened his mouth to start probing, before his present urgent circumstances came back to him.

He had a very important case to work, and he really needed to focus on it, before the criminals had a chance to cover their tracks. He couldn't let a slippery killer like Ortiz get away again, even if Jim had a very compelling personal mystery on his hands. After he was off work, though...well, Jim would hopefully have a chance to chat with Barbara sometime soon. She'd mentioned that she'd started having an informal “book club” with Bruce Wayne again. Surely she would know the truth.

Chapter Text

Jason accepted the video call as soon as he saw that it was Barbara trying to contact him. “Hey Babs.”

“Hi Jay,” she smiled briefly at him, but it didn't cover the worry in her expression. It was normal for Barbara to have a number of concerns on her mind, but she rarely let them show.

“Everything go okay with Huntress?” he asked her, thinking of how easily someone could be hurt in their line of work, especially on a solo mission.

“Yes, I'm sorry I had to duck out and leave you and Dick alone on the call earlier. Thankfully, I was able to help Helena get out of a tight spot and then arrange evac for her,” Barbara replied with relief. “Then, as soon as that mess was sorted out, I checked my personal phone, and I saw a text from my dad. He said he might miss our scheduled video chat tonight, because of work. When I took a look at GCPD records, I saw that eight officers were assigned to investigate a murder attempt against Bruce Wayne. Whoever gathered the initial evidence hasn't entered it into the system yet, though. Jason, what happened?” Babs asked, looking worried again.

“I'm pretty sure Rafael Ortiz tried to shoot Bruce, on Osvaldo Vincencio's orders,” he told her. During Jason's explosive introduction to Gotham's criminal underworld as Red Hood, he'd been busy dealing with Black Mask and other very powerful and visible drug dealers. He just hadn't found the time to hunt down criminals who went to ground. Now, Jason was really regretting that oversight.

“I'm surprised that you're home now, then,” Barbara told him.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, if you'd killed someone, even in self-defense, you would have needed to call a lawyer in, and the police questioning would have lasted much longer. There's no way you'd be home now if that were the case.”

Jason scowled. “Oh, I wanted to kill Ortiz, but then Bruce distracted me, just as I was lining up my shot.”

Barbara nodded. “I'm sure you have a different opinion, but I'm glad you didn't.”

“Why would you want those scumbags walking around free to do it again?” Jason demanded, feeling furious just thinking about what Ortiz had tried to do.

“That's not what I want.” Barbara gave him a surprisingly soft look, considering how serious their present disagreement was. “Jason, killing can end a threat quickly and permanently—that's true, but it's certainly not always the best way to do it. Violently executing a criminal in front of victims can actually further traumatize them. Oritz is a bit infamous for his drive by shootings, so I'm going to assume this all happened very quickly. Given that you may only have had a window of a few seconds to act, did you really have time to fully think through how Bruce would feel, if you shot someone dead in front of him?” she asked.

The answer, of course, was no. Jason had barely had time to react, much less go through messy emotional considerations. Now, though, he recalled how wide and scared Bruce's eyes had been as they argued, and he realized that Bruce must have been remembering seeing his parents shot dead in front of him, all those years ago. Jason obviously hadn't been considering that at the time.

When it was clear he wasn't going to argue over her mostly rhetorical question, Barbara continued, “Even criminals sometimes have families that truly love them, that will miss them and be traumatized themselves, if their loved one comes to a sudden and violent end. Worse, if you keep killing like you did when you first came to Gotham, eventually you're going to make a mistake.”

“I thought you were saying every type of killing is a 'mistake',” Jason retorted sourly.

“I'm not going to pretend that every type of killing has exactly the same moral implications,” Barbara replied. “I know you're trying to stop very bad, very dangerous people, Jay. I'm just telling you that shooting first and asking questions later is an inherently risky strategy. Maybe, very rarely, it's still less risky than the alternatives, but if you have a safer option, shouldn't you try to choose it?”

“And letting criminals continue to wreck more lives is safer? For who?” Jason demanded, outraged. As Barbara had pointed out, Ortiz was already a bit infamous for his drive by shootings.

“There is a middle ground between letting them go and shooting them dead immediately,” Barbara replied. “At the very least, career criminals often have valuable information about several different illicit activities, information that may be lost if they're not questioned. More than that, though, I'm worried that one day, if you keep killing as much as you were when you first came to Gotham, you'll blow up a child molester's bedroom with him in it, only to find out he had an innocent kid chained up in his bedroom closet. Or you'll be on the trail of a financially motivated killer, and you'll take out a guy threatening to kill people if they don't pay up. But because this is Gotham and some criminals insist on being twice as twisted as they have to be, it'll come out later that the guy you killed was coerced into doing the threatening by the real criminal, who was holding the guy's kid hostage. Or maybe you'll see a man violently beating his pregnant wife, and by the time you find out he was fear gassed by Scarecrow and thought he was fighting off a demon, he'll be stone cold dead from your bullets.”

“Jason,” she said, speaking gently, “I know how much you want to do that right thing, and I don't want you to ever have to live with a mistake like that. But there are a million different ways a quick execution can go wrong,” Barbara continued, her face filled with concern. If she'd sounded just a little bit angry or condemning, maybe he would have been inclined to snarl back, but the thought of lashing out at someone who was honestly worried for him felt a little too petty. “That's why we have courts and lawyers and all the things that make getting to a verdict take longer—but make it much more likely that the verdict is right.”

Jason frowned, not sure which he wanted to do more: point out the flaws in the official justice system or object to Barbaras mostly unfounded fears that he was going to accidentally off someone innocent. Jason was actually very careful to sweep for bystanders and set up perimeter alarms before setting off bombs. There was no way he'd forget to check a closet for a missing kid. He also liked to think he'd recognize the fear and stress of an innocent man coerced into being some criminal's mouthpiece. If he saw a man beating his pregnant wife right in front of him and raising his fist for another hit, though—what if she was begging? What if she was curled up, desperate to shield her unborn child? The thing was, Jason could see himself shooting first and asking questions later in that case, because the thought of that fist landing on such an undeserving target would just make him so angry...

“There were monsters I put down who needed to be stopped...but there were times I maybe should have thought through possible unintended consequences a little more deeply,” he admitted grudgingly. “Do you really think letting Ortiz go was the right thing to do today, though?”

“It's not like you let him go permanently, Jay. Even if you weren't with the GCPD long enough to deliver a self-defense statement, I assume you answered at least a few questions. Please tell me you actually told them something useful.”

Jason sighed. “Bruce wanted to get those guys bagged legally. I gave them enough to track him down, I think, if they move quickly.”

“Good,” Barbara said. “You know, I might just send you a screen grab or two of Dick's sparkle hair, after all,” she said with a grin.

Jason brightened as his phone vibrated, and he pulled it out to see that she'd actually sent him several pictures. Dick looked comical, wearing various serious expressions while his hair was all wild sparkles. Maybe Jason would share the pictures with Bruce. Thinking of Bruce just brought the gravity of the present situation back to him, though. “Babs, we're not challenging them as Batman and Red Hood. We're doing it as Bruce Wayne and son. When Ortiz realizes he's going to be in the hot seat, he'll come after us.”

“And if Bruce was currently Batman and needed to hide his nighttime activities, that would be a problem. But he doesn't need to hide what he doesn't even remember. You can afford to have a police presence at the manor. Even if you don't, as long as you're there, Jason, I know Bruce will be safe.”

“It was pretty close today, though, when they took a shot at him,” Jason admitted, still feeling an echo of the restless, jittery fear the drive by shooting had evoked.

“But the police are investigating a murder attempt, not a murder.”

“I shot out the car's tire, and the bullets missed,” Jason told her. There had been a moment before he'd sprinted past the corner of the apartment building, though, where he couldn't see Bruce, couldn't know whether any shots had hit him or not, an awful moment where Bruce might have been dead, for all Jason knew.

“Which is why I'm very glad you're looking after Bruce, Jay. If you can convince him to stay in the manor while the heat is on, though, I think it will make your job a lot easier. If Ortiz is stupid enough to try for either of you there, it should be easy to catch him. In fact, considering how slippery Ortiz is, that might be the best way to actually get him into police custody—nonlethally.”

Jason scowled. “That's better than he deserves.” Ortiz had actually grown up around Crime Alley. He had to know how hard it was for the people living there, and yet he chose to make it even harder. Bruce, in stark contrast, had always been rich. He could have spent his whole life throwing parties in Bristol, drinking champagne, and sleeping with every gold digger high society had to offer, never sparing a single thought for people less fortunate than himself. Instead, he'd gone to Crime Alley because he wanted to help homeless kids, and for that act of selfless compassion, Ortiz and Vincencio had decided to kill him.

That sort of self-centered cruelty incensed Jason. When he'd been at his lowest point as a kid, he'd wondered why there seemed to be so few good people in the world. Now, Jason understood much better what was going on. As Robin, he'd seen the strung up corpse of roving reporter Ted Rogers, who'd remained in Gotham to keep reporting on Deacon Blackfire, even as 4 million people fled. Sergeant Deleon, who had volunteered to try to infiltrate Blackfire's group for the police, had been strung up right across from Ted. Jim Gordon had been shot himself, when he'd tried to give a press conference on the unrest in Gotham which Deacon Blackfire had caused. Even Two-Face had started out as a District Attorney who had actually been cleaning things up, before a criminal had melted half his face with acid in the court room. Jason had been murdered for being Robin. Babs wouldn't be jumping across any more rooftops because she'd dared to answer the door of her police commissioner father, and Bruce had very nearly been killed today because he didn't want homeless kids to have to keep sleeping out in the cold.

The problem wasn't that the there weren't enough people who cared about others. There were good people everywhere: in police headquarters and in the media, squatting in condemned apartments and sleeping in manors in Bristol. There were so many people who honestly tried their best to make the world a better place—and the worst people destroyed them for it. How were things ever supposed to get any better, if the people who tried their hardest to improve things just became the next set of victims? The cycle had to be stopped, and obviously, the current way the criminal justice system worked wasn't doing the job, as this was hardly Ortiz's first murder attempt. It was simply the only one which had left reliable witnesses.

“I'm not going to argue about what Ortiz deserves, Jay, but maybe you can give my dad a win for once?” Barbara asked, interrupting Jason's furious train of thought. “It would mean a lot to him, to finally bag the Vincencio brothers' enforcer, and it might help with the Catch-22 the Gotham police are in.”

“Help how?” Jason asked skeptically.

“You know as well as I do that people living in the bad parts of Gotham don't really trust the police to actually stop crime,” she said, and Jason nodded, because that was obvious to anyone who had lived on Crime Alley. “Even though I know how hard my dad works, I don't blame people for not believing in a system that has failed them in the past. Why should they be willing to stick their necks out and report a criminal, if the police can't actually succeed in putting that person away? But the police are hamstrung in putting anyone away, if none of the locals will actually give them information.”

“If the GCPD can just succeed in a major case like this, without any involvement from any capes—at least that the public knows of—then that might help people believe in the police a little more. If they have more faith, maybe they'll be willing to give more information themselves, trusting that the criminals won't be left out on the streets to seek personal retribution against anyone who informs on them.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Jason allowed. Although a few corrupt cops working in Crime Alley had given Jason a very negative initial view of the GCPD, his general impression of the police had improved tremendously once he'd gotten a chance to work alongside talented and dedicated officers as Robin. Now, he knew there actually were a lot of good people in the GCPD. Jason highly doubted solving this one case would fix the deep suspicion with which the police were viewed by most of Crime Alley, but things were never going to change if the GCPD didn't start improving public perception somehow. Because Bruce Wayne was involved, most of Gotham would be watching closely in the coming weeks, so maybe it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to give Barbara's father a little help in his mostly thankless crusade.

Jason supposed that if the police actually did do a thorough job, they might be able to catch some of the smaller fish that would no doubt scatter, if someone took out the big players in a spray of blood. That was a minor upside at best, though. The thing that actually made Jason hesitate to get out his gun again wasn't what Barbara had said about hitting the wrong target or any hopes about improving police effectiveness. It was the memory of Caroline's blood splattered face and Bruce's terrified eyes.

Jason had known Caroline was scared, and yet, in the heat of the moment, it still hadn't dawned on him that slitting someone's throat in front of her might cause some serious further trauma. Much later, when his anger had finally cooled and Jason had thought back on her terrified face, he'd sworn to himself that he would be more careful, that he would spend just as much of his focus on the victims as he did on the perpetrators, that he wouldn't make an already awful day worse for the innocent people he was trying to save.

The worrying thing was, Jason had known that Bruce's parents had been shot dead in front of him, that he'd still been haunted by it, even years later. He had known—and yet, when he'd been aiming at that car, he hadn't thought about it at all. It wasn't until Bruce was literally screaming at him to stop that it had even occurred to Jason that Bruce would be watching Jason shoot the scumbag who shot at him. Even then, the facts hadn't clicked together in his head. He'd seen Bruce fumble with his phone, seen his hands shake, seen the way his eyes kept tracking the gun—still, no moment of realization.

Someone else had needed to point out to him—again—that killing a criminal in front of his would be victim could actually also be traumatic for that victim. It was only then that Jason had realized how upset Bruce had been and connected it with his own actions. Of course Bruce had also been shaken up because he'd nearly been shot, but when he'd asked—no, more like begged Jason to tell him that he didn't really want to kill anyone, there had been a different sort of fear in his expression, Jason belatedly recalled. Jason had frightened him, at a time when he had been trying his best to protect Bruce, and he hadn't even noticed.

If he hadn't done something very similar with Caroline, maybe Jason could have brushed it off. Batman had been shot at plenty of times, so Bruce didn't really need coddling, did he? But Jason should still have been aware of what effect his own actions were having. He'd told himself that he would be more aware. But he'd been so caught up in his own anger again that he'd forgotten everything else. That—that was frightening. That had Jason breaking into a cold sweat, because if he could get so lost in his anger that he didn't even notice the innocent people he was hurting right in front of him, what else could he do?

Would Jason kill some poor fear gassed wretch, if the victim happened to punch the wrong person in front of him? Child sex offenders loved nothing better than getting access to a lot of kids, which meant that they disproportionately attempted to find jobs working with children. Would Jason explode the brains of one in front of a room full of kindergartners, if he found out about an act of child abuse in the wrong moment? How many combined years of therapy would the class need to get over that? Was Jason even capable of judging what the right thing to do was, when that all consuming rage came over him?

...And if he wasn't, should he be killing when he got that angry? Possibly not. Probably he just shouldn't let himself get that angry in the first place, because it obviously negatively affected his decision making ability. Jason didn't really know how not to get that angry anymore, though, partly because he wasn't sure why his temper had suddenly gotten so blazing hot. He'd tried telling himself that it was because of the injustice of his own murder and what Batman had done afterward, but Jason had experienced a great deal of injustice in his life. He'd certainly had no shortage of disagreements with Batman, either.

A lethal injustice and life-or-death disagreement were obviously worse than anything that had come before, though. Surely, they must explain some of his change in temperament. Some of it. ...But all of it? Should his temper have worsened to this extent, where he went straight from calm to literally unable to focus on anything besides the current target of his frothing anger in the span of less than a second?

As Robin, even when Jason had been really angry, an anger which had taken time to build, he hadn't been blind to the welfare of victims or innocent bystanders, and his anger had cooled more quickly, too. He hadn't ever experienced an instant escalation into all encompassing rage that lingered so long even after the target was out of range—not until he'd come out of the Lazarus Pit. The implications of that were deeply disquieting.

Had the Pit done something to him? Changed him somehow? Besides the height and the ability to form complete sentences and make complex plans and...well, when Jason thought about it, it had obviously changed him a lot. He'd just thought it had given him back what he should have had all along, not added something extra, something he didn't want.

Who even knew how the Pit rewired a severely damaged brain, anyway? Was there some master template that it followed when repairing people? But how could there be a master template when every person's brain was unique? Surely, whatever the Pit did had to allow for individual variations. Did it somehow restore the brain to what it had been in the past? Jason still had hazy memories of his time wandering around Gotham brain damaged, though, so it hadn't just restored his brain to exactly what it had been before he'd died, or those memories would have been wiped away. How could Jason know whether the Pit had wired his brain back together correctly or not, if he didn't even really understand what it had done? If it had made his temper run unnaturally hotter, could Jason reliably control it anymore?

“Look, I'll leave things to the police this time, okay?” he told Barbara, admitting to himself that there were probably a few things he should figure out before charging back out onto the streets, guns blazing. “In the future, if I have the luxury of choosing other options without making innocent people pay the price for the delay, I'll make sure I've considered all the angles before I do anything permanent. But that doesn't mean I won't think a bullet is the best solution in some cases.” The fact that the Joker remained the prime example of one of those cases went without saying.

“Thank you, Jay. I'm sure my dad really appreciates any support you can give him.”

Jason certainly hadn't missed how eager the Commissioner had been to get any information he could. Jason had never held anything about a crime back from him when he'd been Robin, and it had felt a little uncomfortable to deny him, at least until Bruce had piled on and convinced Jason to spill. “Babs, about your dad... He wanted to speak to Bruce and I personally, off the record, which is when I gave him most of the info. He looked at me kind of funny, though, especially the more we spoke.” Jason hesitated, feeling a little foolish about what he was about to say. He knew he wasn't really that memorable, and Bruce's lawyers had easily accepted that Jason wasn't actually Jason Todd. “It...it was almost like he recognized me.”

“He spoke to you personally?”

“Yeah,” Jason confirmed.

“Then of course he recognized you,” Barbara replied, as if that were obvious.

“You really think so?” he asked, even though it was just a little pathetic to need your friends to tell you that their parents still remembered you from when you'd been a kid. Jason wasn't really that desperate to hear that he actually was memorable, was he?

“Jay, my dad wasn't some distant acquaintance. He knew you, and I'm afraid I may have inadvertently given him a clue, too. You remember that bookmark you gave me? World's Best Librarian?” It took him a moment to recall, but Jason nodded. He remembered feeling just a little bit happier every time he'd seen her using it. “I kept it in my safety deposit box, after you died. But when we started our little book club discussions again, I got it out. My dad saw it, and he definitely got a little misty eyed. If he recognized a bookmark after half a decade, how could you think he wouldn't recognize you?”

“Well, I did grow eight inches,” Jason said, because that sounded much less pathetic than whining about his family forgetting him.

“And if you didn't interact with my dad directly, maybe he could chalk your 'resemblance' to Jason Todd off as a quirk of genetics. But after he actually spoke with you, heard your voice and read your familiar body language? He's a detective, and your cover story is only really good enough to fool people who didn't know you for years. I always knew we'd have to give him some sort of explanation eventually. I'd just hoped that we could hold off until Bruce got his memory back, so he'd be able to help make the decision on whether we should have a Robin returned conversation or a Jason Todd conversation or both.”

“Yeah, saying Jason Todd and Robin II came back in the same conversation would basically give away Bruce's identity, too,” Jason acknowledged. “But does your dad actually not know who we are already? Because when he met me as Jason Todd, which was after I met him as Robin, he seemed kinda...I don't know. More familiar than he'd usually be, with someone he'd supposedly just met.”

“Oh, I'm pretty sure my dad put the clues about Batman and Bruce Wayne together over the years. When I finally told him that I'm Oracle, he admitted that he knew I'd been Batgirl. He also knows, of course, that I spent time with you and Dick as civilians. But there's a difference between suspecting and actually being told for sure. Being told might change my father's relationship with Batman, which is a decision I really hoped Bruce could be involved in.”

“Could you just tell your dad that I am exactly who I look like I am, and leave it at that?”

“I think he would accept that from me,” Barbara said, frowning lightly. “The rest of the world isn't likely to be so understanding, though, and a recent murder attempt on Bruce is unfortunately going to put you under even more scrutiny. You really need to get him to make that social media post right away.”

Jason sighed. “Maybe I should just log into Bruce's account and make that post for him. I've tried to explain to him that it's the last part of the cover story we need to get out there, but he's been dragging his feet. It's like he's lost all his taste for lying, now that he's not Batman.”

Barbara smiled wryly. “I have to admit, his honesty is actually refreshing, except for when it comes to things like this. Bruce probably still doesn't recognize how important it is to stop a resurrection story before it takes on a life of its own. You really need to get him fully on board with the cover story somehow, though. He's going to have to support what we've already put out there, if the media ever corners him.”

“Okay. I'll try one more time. Maybe he'll take the risks more seriously now that he personally knows there are people out there who will just shoot at him in broad daylight.”

“I hope so, although it was nice to see how relaxed Bruce was, when he didn't understand how dangerous the world is.”

“Yeah,” Jason agreed. It had been nice to see him so oddly trusting, when he was usually so paranoid. Would he start doubting Jason, now that he knew the world wasn't all sunshine and roses? “This amnesia made him innocent in a way maybe only Alfred remembers him being.”

“Oh, that reminds me, I should text you Alfred's cell phone number,” Babs said, reaching for something off screen, presumably her phone. “Alfred heard that you and Dick were talking, and he said he'd love to hear from you, too. He also wanted me to convey his deepest apologies that he didn't think to tell Bruce you were alive.”

Alfred was such a meticulous person. Jason rather doubted that it had been a simple oversight, rather than an intentional slight. While part of him missed how kind Alfred could be, the rest of him remembered how, just before Jason had had left for Ethiopia, Alfred and Bruce had agreed that Jason should be benched, because Bruce could grieve his parents and refuse to talk about it and yet still go out as Batman, but Jason couldn't do the same and go out as Robin. That hypocrisy still rankled.

Out of everyone, Alfred was also the most loyal to Batman, and that definitely wasn't the person who had welcomed Jason into his life again. Alfred probably did have lots to say to him, though, maybe about his inadequate job protecting Bruce in Crime Alley or maybe about the dismal quality of the groceries that Jason was stocking the manor with. No doubt Bruce needed to maintain optimal nutrition for when he remembered how to be Batman again, and Jason should be hand picking organic produce from the upscale farmer's market that Alfred always favored. It was only open twice a month, though, and Jason was used to just buying whatever was available at the closest supermarket when it was convenient for him to go shopping.

His phone vibrated in his pocket, and he pulled it out to see that Barbara had actually texted him two numbers. “Why would you give me a number for Drake?”

Barbara sighed. “I know neither one of you likes to think about it, but you are actually brothers now. Eventually, you're going to have to find some way to peacefully coexist.”

Jason wanted to object that they didn't have to do anything, but realistically, with the extra media attention which would come from Bruce Wayne's attempted murder, it was going to be nearly impossible for Jason Wayne to completely disappear from the face of the planet. Sooner or later, he and Tim were going to be forced to interact in public. “How's that supposed to work when he wants to smash my teeth in?”

“Jason, Tim is probably thinking the exact same thing about you. Have you ever actually tried apologizing for attacking him?” Barbara asked, one eyebrow raised. “I feel like that could be a good start to repairing your admittedly contentious relationship.”

“He didn't exactly give me much time to talk,” Jason groused.

“Thus, the cell phone number. You don't actually have to make a call, and I'm not sure Tim would pick up, anyway, as he's been working almost non-stop to build the machine that will allow us to reach the Wunfulch. You could certainly start the conversation with an apology text, though.”

“What, I just shoot him a quick 'I'm sorry' and all is forgiven?” Jason asked sarcastically.

“Only in my dreams,” Barbara replied, so softly Jason almost couldn't make the words out. “In reality, I expect a lot of drama, some angry brooding, and an unfortunate number of misunderstandings before your issues are resolved. I'll blame that on Bruce's bad influence,” she continued, with a small, teasing grin. “But you have to start somewhere, Jay, and it's important that you make your good intentions clear to Tim.”

“And he'll believe me?” Jason asked, more than a little skeptical. Both Dick and Tim had been convinced that Jason was up to no good when they'd first found him with an amnesiac Bruce. Dick, at least, had known Jason before his death. They had once actually had a warm relationship, which they could theoretically repair. However, even though Jason and Tim were supposedly “brothers”, they hardly knew each other at all.

“Tim's a smart kid and a trained detective. He'll look at the evidence, and the evidence shows you've been looking out for Bruce.” Barbara's words made Jason feel a little guilty. He'd been trying to look out for Bruce, but how good a job had he really done? No doubt the Bristol brat wouldn't think it had been good enough. “Jay, I see that look on your face, but don't get discouraged before you even start. You are Tim are both good people who know what it's like to lose family. Neither of you should have to lose out on having a brother on top of everything else, just because you got off to a bad start.”

Jason knew Barbara meant well, but it was like she was twisting a knife in his heart. He'd always wanted a family, sure, and the bigger the better. (Jason had never really liked the thought of being alone.) However, wanting something didn't mean that you could actually have it. How long had Jason spent wanting Willis to quit drinking or Catherine to stop getting high? The only thing that had stopped them was death, so Jason had never gotten the parents he wanted at all. Considering that his bio mom had actually gotten Jason killed and his adoptive father had quickly replaced him, it was hard to believe that family matters would suddenly start going his way now. “What about when Bruce gets his memory back? You know we're just going to go right back to fighting again.”

“I don't think Bruce could ever go back to the way things were, not now that he'd seen you reading in the library, and grumbling over dealing with his lawyers, and trying to talk homeless kids off the street. Jason, fighting you was so hard on him that Bruce couldn't even talk to anyone about it. Not Tim or Dick or Alfred—no one. His mission reports on Red Hood are the barest of basic fact. The truth is, fighting you must have been incredibly painful for him, because he wanted to save you so much and he felt he failed. Maybe part of him has been trapped in that moment where he failed to save his son for years. Now, he's finally seen what saving you would look like, and that's going to mean the world to him.”

“Saving me? I'm not some helpless little kid, Babs,” Jason retorted, offended. “I never was, and I'm not spending my nights waiting for the Dark Knight to swing in and rescue me. I've spent more of my life looking after myself than I've ever spent being looked after by anyone else,” Jason declared proudly, because the only other option was to descend into rage and bitterness over his string of failed parents.

“I know that,” Barbara acknowledged sadly, “although that's certainly not the way it should have been. Clearly, Bruce is not going to just accept that his teenage son is responsible for handling the world all on his own.”

“Because he doesn't trust me to make good choices. He thinks I need to be saved from myself, when he's the one I can't trust to look out for my best interests,” Jason hissed. If Bruce really cared for him, the Joker would be dead, and Jason wouldn't have that nasty scar from the batarang Batman himself had thrown, in order to save that sick joke masquerading as a man.

Barbara shook her head. “It's not just about you, Jay. Bruce struggled with giving up control when Dick was growing up and becoming more independent, too,” Barbara said, surprising Jason. As a kid, he'd always thought of Nightwing as an impossibly cool Titan who had the respect of all the other heroes. It was hard to imagine a natural leader like that having to fight to get Bruce to acknowledge and trust his decisions making. There had been a few times where Batman had given Nightwing what had seemed like a simple instructions, though, and Dick had just bristled like an offended porcupine. A prior drawn out battle for autonomy might explain those responses.

“You're saying Dick was leading the Titans, and Bruce was still giving him that 'Batman knows best' crap?”

Barbara smiled. “Oh, you can't imagine how many times Dick called me to rant about that 'sanctimonious, controlling attitude' or Bruce's 'complete inability to listen'. There was a long period where they didn't even speak at all, and some of that comes down to the fact that Dick was becoming a man, but Bruce was still seeing a child. I think it may be even worse with you, Jay, because when Bruce looks at you, he can't help thinking about your death. He knows it happened, but I don't think he ever got to the point emotionally where he accepted that it happened and learned how to move on. When you came back, I think it just took him right back to that moment he couldn't get past, that moment where he was desperate to swoop in and save you. Just like anyone else, Batman wants a do-over on his greatest regret.”

Jason didn't think his death could possibly be Bruce's biggest regret, but it was flattering that Barbara would think his life was that important. “Unless Bruce is willing and able to mess with time, he can't change what happened,” Jason pointed out bitterly.

“No, he can't,” Babs agreed sadly. “But when you somehow, impossibly returned, how could he not look for a second chance?”

“A second chance at what? Living in a past that died five years ago?” Jason shook his head, frustrated. “I need Bruce to change the future, to change the broken rules that let the Joker escape and kill again and again and again. You can't tell me that doesn't bother you,” he said, feeling certain that Barbara must have some strong feelings on that matter, after what the Joker had done to her.

“Of course it bothers me,” she replied, something raw in her tone.

Jason nodded. “I'm not saying it's your responsibility to deal with the Joker. You gotta make your peace however you can.” Certainly, after losing the use of her legs, Jason didn't begrudge Barbara whatever she needed to do to get on with her life. “But I can't have peace as long as the Joker is breathing, Babs. I know Batman isn't going to budge on this—but neither am I,” Jason declared, although the thought of losing his family again was agony. What was one person's agony, though, compared to the countless families that would be ripped apart, if the Joker was allowed to continue pursuing his blood soaked humor? This endless cycle of escape and senseless homicide had to stop.

“Jason, I know what you think Batman should do, but you can't just make someone else kill for you, especially a man like Bruce of such completely uncompromising convictions. At the same time, I don't blame you for sticking to your own convictions, because I know you're just trying to do what you think is right. I do worry for you, though. Continuing your fight with Batman over the morality of killing will only draw the Joker's attention to you even more.”

“I know how to take care of myself,” Jason assured her. Unlike Batman, he wouldn't hesitate to defend himself with lethal force.

“Jason, I watched Bruce bury you,” Barbara said, her voice strained. She looked almost like she was holding back tears, and it was a shock, like it had been a shock seeing Bruce get so upset in the car in the Batburger parking lot. “The Joker has already taken so much,” she continued, and Jason couldn't help thinking of how the original Batgirl wasn't going to demonstrate any cool kicks or flips again. Did the thought pain her, too? “How can I not worry? I don't want to bury a friend again.”

She seemed so sincere, and yet her moral philosophy didn't seem to match up with the feelings she was expressing. “Then why support a no-kill policy?” Jason demanded. “You must see the contraction between what you say you want and what you're actually advocating for.”

Barbara sighed. “I'm looking for a better solution, Jay.”

“And has the fact that you haven't found one yet, after all this time, taught you nothing about how hard—or even impossible—it is to find a better one? This isn't a theoretical issue where we can contemplate possibilities forever at no cost. You're fantastic at math, and I've been brushing up for the GED, so I'll lay it out.”

“Roll a die once, and there's a five in six chance that you don't roll a six,” Jason said. “But roll it four times, and the chance of not rolling a six any of those times is less than fifty percent. Roll it a hundred times, and that percentage gets damn close to zero. Law of large numbers, Babs: roll that die enough times, and eventually, you are going to roll a six, because that's how rolling a die works. Leave the Joker in Arkham long enough, and eventually he's going to escape and put someone six feet under, because that's how the Joker works. You know that. Every day we keep him locked up, we roll the die, and someday, someone else will die for it. So why do we keep rolling? At what point have we sacrificed enough lives looking for a perfect solution? When do we get to choose the best solution open to us right now?”

Barbara looked conflicted. “Jay, if the Joker escapes and comes after you again... If your life is clearly and immediately in danger...” She hesitated, seeming to weigh her words very carefully. “If a smiling corpse is all that stands between you and a happy life, I will help you hide the body myself, okay? I don't think killing is a good solution, but allowing the Joker to take shot after shot at your life until he finally succeeds can't be the best way, either. I, for one, refuse to bury you a second time because of that clown,” Barbara said, and there was something darkly furious in her voice. “If Bruce is truly going to be so self-sabotaging and unreasonable about this, to such a degree that good people like you are endangered again and again because he won't change his strategy at all, then he doesn't deserve my support in this.”

“And I do?” Jason asked, shocked that she'd make such an offer, no matter how welcome it was. He'd known that she was annoyed with Bruce, but to actually support Jason over Batman himself...

“Jay, you've always deserved my support. I'm just sorry I wasn't always there to give it to you,” she said sadly. “If I had only known you were alive sooner...”

The possibility was bittersweet. What if Jason had been able to get over his rage and betrayal long enough to decide Bruce wasn't worth his time? If he'd gone to Oracle, would she have taken him in with open arms? He could have joined the Birds of Prey, maybe, and helped people out that way. He would have missed Bruce and Dick and Alfred, of course, but it wasn't like he could go back to the way things used to be, anyway. Sticking with Barbara would have meant that Jason couldn't have violently cleaned up Gotham's meanest streets as Red Hood, but he would have had a good friend, at least. Would he have been happier, that way?

“I wish you had known, too,” Jason admitted quietly. The the cold fact of the matter, though, was that he couldn't just selectively forget his past—not when it came to what Batman had done or what the Joker had done, either. Jason couldn't forget, and he had never been one to run away from his problems, which meant that, eventually, another confrontation with Batman was going to come and likewise with the Joker. Jason and Bruce understood each other a little better now, and Barbara seemed like she might be willing to step in, as well. Would that make a difference at all? Or would Batman and the Red Hood just come to the same angry, fractured stalemate in the end?

Chapter Text

Tim woke up with the familiar tight, irritated feeling in his face that he only got from sleeping on top of the uneven surface of his keyboard. He really needed to stop doing that. He jogged his mouse slightly as he sat up, and Bruce's latest social media post appeared on the screen in front of him. Despite being less than 24 hours old, the post still had almost a hundred thousand views. Tim must have fallen asleep reading it, after seeing Bruce's text had prompted him to look into what had been going on in Gotham.

“By now,” it read, “most of Gotham has heard that I was nearly the victim of a drive by shooting earlier today. I want to thank everyone for their concern and well wishes. It means a great deal to know your thoughts are with me, and I want to assure everyone that I am unharmed.” Thankfully, Babs had confirmed for Tim that there should be no immediate followup attempts, so Tim had felt safe enough continuing his current efforts. “Anyone with any information about this crime or any crime in Gotham, should contact the GCPD immediately.” Tim already knew the link and phone number which followed by heart.

“Several people have also inquired about the other witness to this serious crime. I can confirm that my newly adopted son was with me, and that he is also unharmed. There has been some confusion over his identity and why he wanted to change his name to 'Jason Wayne', so I want to take this opportunity to clarify a few things.”

“My first adopted son, Jason Peter Todd, had an unacknowledged half brother on his father's side. Jake Turpin met Jason in school, and they became close. When I took Jason in, I offered to adopt his half-brother as well, but Jake was happy living simply with his mother. After Jason's death, Jake was a great comfort to me, as we grieved together. Sadly, I lost contact with him during the Quake.”

“After some time had passed with no word, I had a professional age progression done, before hiring a private investigator to find Jake. Although that effort was unsuccessful, as you can see from this video,” the post read, prompting Tim to open the video in a new tab, “Jake grew up looking exactly as expected. I recognized him immediately when he finally made contact with me again.”

The video was almost certainly done by Oracle. It started with a a grainy picture of a boy who was presumably Jake Turpin and progressed seamlessly into a digital version of Jason's older face. The smoothness of that transition was probably down to both Oracle's skills and a careful selection of source material. Jake's photo had actually resembled a younger Jason, which was important for making this sort of thing look believable. At the very end, the video switched to a still picture of present day Jason and Bruce sitting on a couch in the manor, smiling at the camera. Tim was a little shocked to see it, and he wondered if that picture had also been manipulated somehow. He didn't know if he'd ever seen either of them looking quite so happy in real life.

“Just before my son Jason Todd died,” the post continued, “he told me he wanted to formally change his name to 'Jason Wayne'. I happily agreed.” Tim paused. Normally, he had a pretty good sense of when Bruce could be lying, but he actually had no idea if Jason had wanted to change his name before he'd died. The possibility tugged at his heart. Had the Joker stolen that from them, too? “Little did we know that this would turn out to be Jason's last wish. When I reconnected with Jake, he told me he wanted to accept my offer of adoption and fulfill an old wish of Jason's, that they would officially have the same father. When I asked Jake if he wanted to take the Wayne name and mentioned what his brother had wanted, Jake decided to go a step further. He told me that he would like to honor Jason's last wish by becoming 'Jason Wayne' himself, and that he would do his best to live for the both of them. I agreed that this was a marvelous way of honoring Jason. I think my dear departed boy would be so happy if he could see the two of us now, and the thought brings us both great comfort, especially in these trying times.”

“I have full faith and confidence that Commissioner Gordon and the rest of the GCPD will soon add to this comfort, by catching all the criminals responsible for my terrible scare earlier today. I hope everyone will give them their complete cooperation as the investigation progresses, so that justice can be delivered as swiftly as possible.”

The post closed with what was almost certainly a digitally created composite picture of Jake Turpin and Jason Todd, smiling side by side in a run down apartment. Jason looked so young and innocent, but Tim noticed that he didn't quite look as happy as he had in that picture with Bruce. Had Barbara manipulated that photo? Tim could imagine that Bruce would be that happy, if he truly believed he was getting his son back. Tim still had a great many doubts about Jason, but he had to admit at this point that Bruce didn't seem to be in immediate danger from him. If only he could say the same about Batman's other adversaries.

Nightwing had sighted a pair of spies from the League of Assassin setting up in Bludhaven just a couple nights ago, and before Tim had dropped everything to work on the dimension crossing machine, he'd tracked a number of suspicious recent financial transactions back to the Penguin. Crime rates in Gotham had been creeping up, despite the best efforts of the remaining active superhero community. Bruce might have dodged the current set of bullets, but there was no guarantee he'd dodge the next set, if he didn't remember how to be Batman soon. On top of that, the longer Bruce spent getting invested in this fantasy of a peaceful domestic life, the harder it would be for Batman to recover if the bullets coming at him were fired from Jason's guns.

Feeling a renewed burst of determination, Tim opened up the results of the simulation which should have finished while he was sleeping. He couldn't help groaning, though, when he saw that the tweaks he'd made to the design still hadn't been enough. At operational temperature, the simulation showed that the thermal expansion of the core module would be so large that the whole inner casing would likely crack. Unless they could find a new source of ultra-dense material to allow them to increase the size of the outer casing, all of the inner workings of the machine were space constrained by the current case size, which meant that Tim needed to find a way to fix the heat distribution issue which didn't require adding a bulky cooling system.

“Maybe if I improved the thermal conduction here,” Tim muttered to himself. He'd like to ask Cyborg for advice, but Victor was busy trying to get the inner circuitry of the core module itself working, so Tim hated to interrupt him. “There must a good thermal paste we could use...”

The sound of his phone ringing interrupted Tim as he was comparing a few alternatives. Frowning, he checked to see who was calling, and then he frowned harder. When Barbara had asked if it was okay for her to give Jason his number, Tim had given his permission mostly because he didn't personally want to crush Barbara's hopes that he and Jason could “make up” one day. Tim had figured he'd let Jason disappoint her by never actually calling. It looked like that plan had backfired. For a few rings, Tim thought about just not answering, but then the question of what Jason had wanted to say to him would probably keep intruding on his thoughts for weeks.

With a grimace, Tim reluctantly answered the phone and started recording the call. If Jason tried to go running to Bruce or Babs with an inaccurate story later, Tim wanted recorded proof of what had actually been said. “Jason, why are you calling me?” he asked, aiming for a neutral tone but possibly ending up sounding closer to suspicious.

“It's not like I want to be,” Jason replied, sounding disgruntled. “It's about Bruce.”

“What about him?” Tim asked, suddenly worried. Had something happened? Was Jason threatening that something would happen?

“You can't just go radio silent on him right now. You need to call him.”

“I replied to his text just last night,” Tim objected.

“First, you replied early in the morning, so he didn't even see it before he went to sleep.” Suspicious, Tim checked his messages, but yes, unless Jason had hacked past several newly added protections, Tim had indeed sent the text at 3:04 AM. He hadn't realized it had been that late (or rather early). Bruce had sent his original message at 5:23 PM, so Tim had maybe been a little slow replying. He had been busy reviewing the results of the prior simulation around then, though, and he'd had his phone on silent. He'd turned the volume back up after realizing that Bruce had tried to call him five times yesterday, though, and as punishment, he now had to listen to Jason. “Second,” Jason continued, “Bruce showed me your response to his text that someone tried to shoot him. 'Glad you're okay.' What emotional depth,” Jason said sarcastically. “Did it ever occur to you that you can't just give a casual one liner when your dad almost gets murdered?”

“He said in his text that he wasn't hurt! What do you expect me to do?”

“If it had been Jack Drake who almost took a couple of bullets, wouldn't you have at least called him?”

Tim frowned. “Of course I would have called, but he was a civilian who... Oh, I guess Bruce thinks he's a civilian right now,” Tim said, belatedly realizing what probably would have been obvious, if he didn't keep repeatedly working on the machine until he collapsed from sheer exhaustion, only to jolt awake a few hours later and keep right on working. He really had to stop doing that. Maybe also thinking a little more carefully before replying to texts after 3 AM wouldn't hurt.

“Yeah, no kidding,” Jason scoffed. “You need to call Bruce and at least pretend to care, so he pulls out of his pathetically sad brooding.”

Tim bristled. “I don't need to pretend to care about him! I just didn't take the time to call because I've been busy getting the machine to get to the Wunfulch dimension built, so he can get his memory back!”

“Are you close?” Jason asked, voice suddenly intent.

Tim scowled. He thought about refusing to answer, but Jason could just get an update from Oracle, so it would only be a petty delay. “To power this, Cyborg estimated that we are going to need 20% more xenothium than we currently have, and that's not exactly going to be easy to track down, even for the other Titans. I still haven't been able to recreate some of the energy dispersion components, and we won't be able to test the pressure regulator until we can actually fully power the system. Also, it turns out that the substitutions Cyborg and I made for the cooling system are going to allow the core temperature to climb faster, which could cause the inner casing to expand past the spatial allowances, which is going to put pressure on the—well, to summarize, no, we're not close,” Tim replied bitterly. “It's not for lack of trying, though!”

“Trying doesn't help Bruce right now. You need to find a few spare minutes to give him a quick call and tell him something sappy. Maybe apologize about Moby Dick, too.”

“What? Why would I apologize if Dick's moping?”

“Not moping Dick Grayson. Moby Dick, the first edition book you made me drop in the library!”

“You want me to apologize to Bruce...about a book?” Tim said, feeling like the conversation had taken a turn for the surreal.

“Not just any book. A first edition!”

“Jason, Bruce can buy a hundred first editions, if he wants.”

“That's not the point! The point is that you shouldn't swing a bo for no reason at someone who's just minding his own business in a library with a first edition in his hands!”

“Oh, I shouldn't have attacked you for no reason in a place where you were just enjoying some down time? Well, what about when you attacked me, in the Tower, for no reason, when I was just enjoying some down time?” Tim demanded, chafing under the implied double standard.

“I admit that wasn't exactly my best move,” Jason said, sounding like he was cringing through every word. “There was a bunch of stuff I was angry about, but I shouldn't have taken it all out on you. I'm...sorry, okay?” Tim wondered if Barbara had actually bullied Jason into giving an apology. Tim hadn't really believed her when she'd said that Jason could be influenced onto a better path, but the evidence was beginning to mount up. Jason had even taken (and passed) the Language Arts section of the GED, which must have involved a non-trivial level of scholastic focus.

The possibility that Jason might be getting better didn't mean that Tim wasn't still angry at him, though. On the other hand, if it had been the destabilizing influence of the Lazarus Pit which had made Jason so violent all along, and all it took was a little good influence to counteract that, then was it really okay for Tim to stay mad? How much control, exactly, had Jason had over his own behavior? Presumably less when he'd been fresh out of the Pit, if the body counts were anything to go by, but how much had he had when he'd attacked Tim at the Tower? How much did he have now?

“If you want me to trust you, then it's going to take more than just a couple words of apology, Jason. I need to know that you won't do anything like that again.”

“What exactly would it take for you to 'know'?” Jason asked, sounding wary.

“Put your guns away for good, and stop killing,” Tim said, because if Jason was easy to influence, he might as well go for broke.

“No way,” Jason replied. Well, it had been worth a shot. “You might have your head so far up Batman's ass that you can't see what's going on in the real world, but the catch and return method is not working.”

Tim wrinkled his nose at Jason's crudeness. “We catch hundreds of criminals a year. Only a tiny percentage ever come back to cause us trouble!”

“And if you built hundreds of bridges a year, and only a tiny percentage collapsed and killed everyone on them, would that 'tiny percentage' still be okay?”

“No, because that's a matter of constructions standards and inanimate materials versus human lives. But criminals have actual lives themselves. You have to weigh their potential for causing harm against the suffering you yourself cause if you harm them. You can't kill hundreds of people because one or two might be a problem.”

“I'm not advocating for killing petty crooks and fraudsters! You and I both know that there are just a few enthusiastic killers who are much, much more dangerous than the rest. What about Firefly, who's been a problem since before I was Robin? How many died when he burned down the big top at Haley's Circus? Twenty? Over a hundred seriously injured, and you know burns take a long time to heal and leave nasty scars. He also got out a couple times not long before then, didn't he? It doesn't seem like the government can keep him secured—”

“That was only because of the Quake!” Tim objected.

“Right. Only because of the Quake. But sometimes it's only because Bane broke him out, or only because he was in Blackgate because Arkham needed repairs, or only because of this special event or another. If it keeps happening, then the escapes aren't only one off occurrences, are they? They show a repeatable pattern. How many did Firefly kill when he got out during the Quake, exactly?”

Tim was silent.

“Either it's a grossly high number or you don't even know.” Tim didn't actually know. The property damage alone when Firefly had ignited Rixley Chemical Plant had been immense. Tim, Dick, and Babs had felt the shock wave from the explosion clearly in the Clocktower, because Lynns had ignited a gasoline spill and hit a natural gas line, too. How many people sheltering in already unstable structures damaged by the Quake had found the rooves over their heads caving in because of that explosion? At the very least, four EPA workers, who had been trying to assess the toxic spill at the Rixley Chemical Plant, had been killed. The fire had put those same toxic chemicals into the air, causing who knew what health effects. Saying all of that, though, certainly wasn't going to help Tim's case.

“Difficulty with one single criminal does not prove our general approach is wrong,” Tim argued instead.

“Oh, Firefly is the only one, then? So, are you gonna tell me how you would have stopped Captain Nazi from killing anyone else ever again, without using lethal force yourself? I'd like to point out that he came to Gotham specifically to kill me, and the evidence suggests that he was not going to be stopped by mere maiming. After all, he went right back to his old homicidal crusade, even after being blinded, thanks to some fancy cybernetic eyes. Exactly how many genocides does one mass murderer have to advocate for across how many decades, Tim, before you stop feeling the urge to defend him?” Jason asked, and Tim grimaced. He didn't actually feel any desire to defend a literal Nazi, although Tim realized that defending Batman's no-kill rule required him to defend every life, even the most rotten of them. “What about the Joker?” Jason continued. “Do you have any idea what his body count is?”

Tim winced. “Too high,” he whispered.

“Yeah, the Joker's body count is way too damn high,” Jason growled out.

Tim could see where Jason's line of argument was going, because multiple killers who kept upping their body counts even after being supposedly “stopped” on numerous occasions was a pattern, not an anomaly. They weren't even the only ones, and Jason wasn't pointing out anything that Tim himself hadn't considered, when he was at his most bitter and frustrated. If Batman had been a little more forceful in the past, would there still be quite as many threats hanging over his head right now, when he was unable to defend himself? Would Jason be what he was now, if Batman had put the Joker down years ago?

While Tim might think most of Jason's anger was misdirected or undeserved, the clown was a different matter. Tim had seen Jason's autopsy report on the Batcomputer, had read it out of some foolish thought that it would help him understand Batman's grief. All it had done was make him nauseous and kept him from sleeping well for several weeks.

How was Tim supposed to justify the Joker's continued life to someone who'd lost his own because of it? Jason's injuries had been numerous and horrific—a fractured skull, a shattered sternum, and a collapsed lung, along with dozens of other broken bones, and flash burns from the explosion on top of it all. Jason's body had been destroyed, from head to toe. Yet, against all odds, he had somehow come back. Tim would be so grateful for that, if only Jason hadn't returned with a vicious grudge against his own grieving family.

“If you're truly so incensed about violent people who keep hurting others, then have you tried taking a hard look at your own actions?” Tim demanded, changing tactics. Maybe he should have had enough burning conviction to tell Jason that killing was wrong in all circumstances, but there were times when even Tim had doubts, doubts that Jason would likely pick up on and use against him. Therefore, Tim was going to leave the fight over the Joker to Batman, if he could, because the thought of defending that monster to someone he'd brutally murdered turned Tim's stomach, almost as much as Jason's autopsy report had. No matter how much Jason had been hurt himself, though, that didn't give him the right to take his pain out on innocent people. “What sort of guarantee do I have that you won't hurt me again, personally?”

“Look...going in, I didn't mean for the fight at the Tower to ever get that serious. I know I went too far, especially at the end,” Jason said, sounding honestly guilty. Tim hadn't expected that he'd be getting anything more than the brief apology Jason had already delivered earlier, so that was a positive surprise. “Things are different now, though,” Jason insisted. “I've realized a couple things, and well, I know Bruce adopted you. Technically, I guess he's adopted us both since then,” he continued, as if that changed things.

...Did it change things? For a moment, old nostalgic wishes filled Tim's mind, before his rational side took over again. It didn't make sense to think of Jason as his brother after everything that had happened. They were legally family now, though, and Jason had actually avoided hitting Tim during their last confrontation. At the time, Tim had attributed it to Jason's evil plan to turn Bruce against the rest of the family. However, it was possible that Tim had gotten a manipulative but non-violent response because Jason had been starting to think of himself as part of the family again. Perhaps, he would rather tell on a sibling than hit one.

Tim realized that he actually had no idea where he stood with Jason now, which could be a real problem since Jason Wayne had become a legal identity. “Adoption is a legal event, but it means different things to different people. What, exactly, do you think it should mean for us?” Tim asked.

“I...haven't exactly figured that out yet,” Jason replied, which was a frustrating non-answer, but probably at least honest. Change had a tendency to come hand in hand with uncertainty.

“That's fair,” Tim admitted, because after all, he didn't know exactly how he felt about Jason, either. “If I ever have to appear in public with 'Jason Wayne', though, we'll need to figure something out.”

“We can probably skip out on or postpone major public social occasions for a while, by claiming that Bruce was shaken up by the shooting,” Jason replied. “Hopefully, we can stall long enough for his amnesia to be cured, because obviously, a lot of things are going to change when Bruce has his memory back,” Jason pointed out, although he didn't sound thrilled about what was coming.

“Stalling is the best option,” Tim agreed. “Obviously, we don't want to lock ourselves into plans that involve Bruce, if he might not want to follow those plans when the time comes.”

“Yeah, and right now, no one knows exactly how Batman is going to react to what he's done without his memories, so I can't tell you what this supposed family is going to look like in the future. The only thing I can say for sure is that I'm going to control my temper better from now on.”

“Can you?” Tim asked with no small amount of worry, even though he knew this line of questioning might actual trigger Jason's temper to explode in his face. Still, sometimes a good detective had to ask the hard questions, in order to gather the relevant facts. “You've been in the Lazarus Pit,” Tim said bluntly, despite feeling bad for pointing it out. The League of Assassins controlled the Pits, and it obviously hadn't been Jason's choice to go into one. He was the one who had to deal with the consequences, though. “Can you control your temper anymore?”

“...Maybe I can't help feeling angry, but now that I know my temper is a problem, I can take a step back instead of acting while I'm that angry.”

That was a more reasonable and self aware answer than Tim had been expecting, and he considered how to respond for a few moments. “When you actually take that step back, then I'll believe you.”

“What?”

“It's one thing to say that you'll take a step back, Jason. Maybe you even sincerely believe that you can. But you've given me good reason to be cautious,” Tim said, as calmly as he would state any fact, “so I'm not ready to accept assurances on blind faith. When you prove that you can actually take a step back, even when you're angry, then I'll know that you can and will follow through on what you say. I don't think I can trust you before then,” Tim said, apologetic but firm.

If Jason had actually reached the point where he was capable of thinking over his actions and feeling guilty about them, then Tim did feel sorry for him. It had to be unpleasant to wake up one day and realize that something had been messing with your head and you'd done all sorts of violent things you regretted. Jason still sounded pretty far from regretting all, or even most, of what he'd done, but on the other hand, Tim probably wasn't the first person Jason would confide in, if he did have a lot of regrets on his mind. He did at least seem to feel guilty about attacking Tim himself.

Unfortunately, Jason still sounded like he felt capital punishment was the best answer to certain persistent criminal problems. Of course, it was hard to say how much of that was the Lazarus Pit and how much was a direct consequence of being brutally murdered by a psychopath who had killed many people before Jason and also many after, despite the best efforts made to stop the Joker within the current system. Dick had once beaten the Joker until he stopped breathing, and he hadn't been in a Lazarus Pit at all. Maybe, if Tim had been through what Jason had, he would believe the Joker needed to be stopped by any means available, too.

Jason had turned his anger on more than just the worst of the worst, though, and that was the fact which made deciding how to deal with the second Robin so difficult. Their whole family had suffered through his assaults, even though they'd done nothing to provoke it. Jason hadn't verbally ripped Tim's head off when he had suggested that the Pit was affecting him, however, so presumably, even Jason himself had to agree that he was still suffering from its influence. That gave an explanation for his poor choices, but at the same time, it also meant he might make more poor choices in the future.

Jason had been a hero once, though. More than that, he'd been Tim's hero. Even only knowing him second hand, from old training videos and witty mission reports, from the Cave's memorial and the suit he'd left empty, Tim had developed a powerful, wistful longing. He'd wished so many times over the years that he could speak to his predecessor, to vent or to ask for advice or simply to seek his approval of the job Tim was doing. It was an alluring fantasy to think that all of that could happen now. Even better than that, though, was the tantalizing possibility that they could be family. There had been lonely times during his childhood where Tim would have given nearly anything to have the second Robin as a brother.

Tim knew family didn't always work like he wanted it to, though, and he had to think about the less desirable outcomes, too, especially because he wasn't sure anyone else was. Barbara had been advocating for Jason for weeks now, but she didn't seem to be planning out what to do if Jason had a Lazarus induced relapse. The last time Tim and Dick had spoken, Dick had talked about how frustrating it was trying to get Jason to listen to him, but he'd had a soft smile on his face when he'd said he'd keep trying. To Tim's keen ears, he'd already sounded halfway charmed, just by the possibility that things might work out. If that was how Dick felt, then an amnesiac Bruce had surely left all doubt behind long ago.

Therefore, Tim had to be the one to keep a level head. Thankfully, he was good at that. After Jason had left Tim unconscious in Titan's Tower, he had locked all his naive childhood dreams involving Jason into the smallest mental space possible—Tim just had to keep them locked up tight until he could be more sure of what the future held. Losing Jason once had nearly destroyed Bruce, after all. Tim had to keep himself safe so he could be there to back up Batman if he ended up needing help after losing Jason a second time—this time to the Lazarus Pit.

“I'm not some rabid dog,” Jason hissed. “I control my temper, not the other way around.”

“I hope so, Jason. I really do,” Tim said. If Jason was actually getting better...but no, Tim couldn't open that box now. Someone had to be the sensible one. “But I'm not going to believe you without proof,” Tim insisted, holding firm.

“Fine,” Jason bit out. “Think whatever you want about me, but at least call Bruce. You're so uncommunicative, he thinks you hate him.”

“It can't be that bad,” Tim objected, feeling certain Jason was exaggerating. Still, it wouldn't hurt to give Bruce a call. “I'll try to talk to him later today, though, okay?”

“Oh, you'll try to do it later?” Jason said sarcastically. “I've been in your boots, Tim. In fact, they were mine before they were ever yours, so I know exactly what it's like when most of the JLA is out of action. You'll try, but then you'll get distracted by higher priority issues. By the time those emergencies are handled, it will be 3 AM and too early to call, so you'll wait for tomorrow, only to have the same cycle repeat again.”

Tim drew in a breath to object but then stalled, because Jason had been in his boots. He did know what it was like, and Tim couldn't really deny the possibility that things would play out exactly as he'd said. “You don't know any urgent issues will come up.”

“And you don't know they won't. Call him now, Tim, as soon as I hang up.”

“You can't—” Tim never got to finish his objection, because Jason had just hung up on him for the second time. “Jerk always has to have the last word,” Tim muttered, staring at his phone in annoyance. Jason would probably never let it go if Tim did get distracted by higher priorities, though, so with a frustrated sigh, Tim placed the call.

Bruce answered on the first ring. “Tim?!” His voice was so breathlessly eager that Tim almost didn't recognize it.

“Hey, Bruce. How are you?” he asked inanely. Tim had been sure he'd have a little more time to think up what to say, as Bruce generally always took a few rings to pick up.

“I...I'm much better, now that I've heard from you, Tim,” Bruce replied, sounding oddly emotional.

“Um, sure. I just called to check up on you, since, you know, you had a stressful day yesterday.”

“I'm alright. It was...upsetting to have have someone point a gun at me, of course, but Commissioner Gordon assured me that he will have his best people on the case. I'm sorry if you found out from the news. I tried to call you, but...”

“No, it's fine. I didn't even know anything had happened until I saw your text.” Tim fiddled nervously with a pen he'd left on the table in front of him. “Sorry I didn't check my phone until pretty late. I was...uh...playing a game with some friends,” Tim excused. Obviously, he couldn't tell Bruce what he was actually doing, or he'd have to have an argument about whether Titans Tower was a boarding school or a superhero headquarters with an advanced lab and whether or not the Wunfulch actually existed.

“I'm...glad you're having so much fun with your friends, Tim. Be careful to get enough sleep, though. I've seen that you have excellent grades, but you don't want a lack of sleep to affect your health or your studies,” he said earnestly.

Tim had to pull the phone quickly away from his face so Bruce wouldn't hear the laughter he'd startled out of Tim. Batman...chiding him about getting enough sleep. Tim was also far more used to hearing that the mission was much more important than school. Amnesiac Bruce didn't know that, though. When Tim had his urge to laugh at the absurdity of the situation under control, he brought the phone back toward his face.

“Um, yeah. I...uh, sleep late on the weekends and grab naps to make up for it. I'm having no trouble in class.” That last part was true only because Tim wasn't going to class at all. There was no way he could have handled classes plus his current self-imposed workload.

“Good. I'm glad to hear that, Tim. Are you happy at the Tower? Do you have everything you need?”

“I'm fine. I don't need anything,” Tim said, grateful that Bruce was focusing on school, rather than Jason.

“Alright. Let me know if you think of anything I can do for you.”

“Sure, I'll let you know,” Tim replied, not intending to at all.

“Good. Are your friends also doing well?”

“Yes, they're all fine,” Tim replied. The Titans were, in fact, incredibly busy trying to stop supervillains and source some xenothium, but they hadn't suffered much worse than minor injuries, frustration, and a chronic lack of sleep.

“So, did you have a fun game?”

“Oh, yeah. It was fun,” Tim replied, frowning a little. Bruce generally wasn't much for small talk.

“That's great. Were you playing with...what was his name...uh...”

Tim frowned harder. “Bruce, you don't actually know the names of any of my friends, do you?”

“I...it must be this amnesia I have. I'm sure I'd remember, otherwise.”

“...Sure,” Tim said skeptically. The Titans Batman would know because of mission reports and their occasional involvement with other superhero teams. Tim's actual school friends, like Sebastian Ives, Bernard Dowd, and Zoanne Wilkins, had never really registered on Bruce's radar. Darla Aquista had only been important because her father was a mafia boss and because she'd been targeted and killed during the gang war. Out of some bitter curiosity, Tim asked, “I know it's been years since Jason went to school, but do you remember any of his classmates?”

“There was that transfer student, Rena, that he was always talking about...”

“What about Jason's hobbies? Do you remember any of them? Just, you know, so I can understand the extent of your amnesia.”

“Hmm. Jay actually enjoys reading a lot. Dick was never that interested in the more sedate Wayne family traditions, but Jay was always especially excited whenever I got a new first edition.” No wonder Jason had been so bent out of shape about dropping Moby Dick, then. Tim felt a little guilty about it, not because of the book itself, but because it sounded like reading first editions might be a sort of family tradition that Jason and Bruce had shared. Tim, though, had never even heard about that tradition. “Jason also likes baseball,” Bruce continued. “He enjoys watching car races, too. He likes fast cars, in general, really. He used to help me to do oil changes and rotate tires and other basic maintenance for my sports cars.” No doubt the Batmobile as well, but Bruce wouldn't remember that right now.

“Do you know any of my hobbies, Bruce?” Tim asked, afraid of the answer but determined to follow the investigation he'd started through to the end.

“Of course I do! You...ah, well...you have good grades, so...you must like to study, right?”

Tim sighed. It was hard not to feel disappointed. “If you had to guess, what sort of games do you think I play with my friends? Video games? Tabletop? Card games? Chess? Any ideas, Bruce?”

“I...I don't remember right now, what games you like to play, Tim,” Bruce admitted, sounding flustered. “But I'm sure once I get my memory back, I'll know!”

“Right. You'll know a lot more about me, then,” Tim replied dejectedly. Batman would know a lot more about Robin. How much would Bruce Wayne ever really know about Tim Drake, though? Probably next to nothing. But Bruce still knew plenty about Jason Todd. Jason had been the son he'd wanted, after all, the boy he'd welcomed into his family from the start.

Bruce had been a great mentor to Tim, sure, but he had always known that there was a line Batman didn't want to cross, the line between being a mentor and being a father, the line between having a soldier and having a son. Even now, after the adoption, Bruce still knew next to nothing about Tim's civilian pursuits. It was painful to admit it to himself, but speaking to a man who was only Bruce Wayne felt like having an awkward conversation with a distant acquaintance, not someone who had known Tim for years.

Bruce Wayne had never actually known Tim at all, had he? Batman had known Robin, but there was a part of Bruce that wasn't Batman and a part of Tim that wasn't Robin, and those two pieces had never fit together, not the way that Jason and Bruce had fit. That was the real reason Tim had avoided calling Bruce, the suspicion that he hadn't wanted to have confirmed: his own father was a veritable stranger to him.

“Look, I'm sorry to cut this conversation short, but I've got some studying to do,” Tim said, trying to keep his voice even. He wasn't sure he succeeded. “We'll...we'll talk more later, okay?” Tim at least managed to mostly blink back the burning sting starting up in his eyes.

“Tim, I really am sorry I don't remember,” Bruce said, and he sounded sincerely distressed.

“Yes, of course,” Tim said, but what he thought was, there was nothing to forget. “Goodbye, Bruce.”

“Wait, Tim—” But Tim had already pressed the button to end the call.

“...I guess I'm the jerk that hung up this time. Sorry, Bruce,” Tim whispered to the empty lab. The sooner Tim got back to building the dimension crossing machine, though, the sooner this whole issue would be resolved. Once Bruce got his memory back, he'd realize he didn't need to awkwardly try to be the sort of parent he'd never actually been to Tim. That was for the best, right? They shouldn't pretend to be something they weren't.

For the rest of the day, Tim threw himself back into simulations and engineering work, keeping his mind busy enough with technical problems that he didn't have to think about anything else. He did end up having to help the rest of the Titans out when a secret cache of xenothium turned out to be in the possession of an extremely dangerous criminal, though, and then Babs had called him because she was trying to cross reference some usually large new revenue streams flowing into Gotham with the financial transactions Tim had traced back to the Penguin. Then Tim had called to give Cyborg a brief update on his progress, and Victor had warned him that the core module might have slightly higher instantaneous power requirements than they'd initially calculated. Tim had been in the middle of re-working his simulations when he'd decided to rest his eyes for just a moment...

Late the next morning, Tim woke up with keyboard marks on his face and dry, crusty eyes. “I really have to stop doing that,” he muttered, sitting up with a groan.

“Indeed you do, Master Tim.”

Tim jolted halfway out of his chair, before realizing that it was only Alfred standing behind him, with a tray full of food. “Morning, Alfie,” Tim greeted, rubbing at his face.

“I think you'll find that it is, in fact, very nearly afternoon,” Alfred declared primly, as he put an omelet, a glass of orange juice, and some spinach down in front of Tim. The computer's clock declared it was 11:56 AM, and Tim's stomach grumbled loudly, reminding him that he'd had no breakfast, even though it was nearly lunch time.

“Thanks. I think I may have missed dinner last night, somehow.”

“Yes, somehow,” Alfred agreed dryly, in the silently judgemental fashion of a man who had reminded Tim to eat meals far more frequently than Tim had actually eaten them.

“I'll try to do better,” Tim said, feeling a little ashamed. Alfred was used to this sort of behavior from Batman, but that was no excuse for Tim to do the same thing. “Oh, I didn't get a chance to mention it yesterday, but I spoke to Jason.”

“You did?” Alfred said, suddenly sounding twice as alert. “May I ask how it went?”

“Actually, it went better than I was expecting,” Tim said, although truthfully, his expectations hadn't been hard to exceed. “I've still got my doubts about him, but I don't think he's actively a danger to the family at this moment. I spoke to Bruce, too, and he seemed really eager to talk.” Tim was still feeling a little guilty about hanging up on him, although he didn't think their conversation would have gotten any better if he'd stayed on the line. They would probably only have gotten more disappointed in each other. “If Jason's not looking to start a fight, I think Bruce would probably be really happy to have you back at the manor, Alfred.”

“I'm sure he struggles without me, but I have a very important responsibility here at Titans Tower that I cannot possibly abandon.”

“You do? What is it?” Tim didn't think Alfred had taken on any missions.

“You, my dear boy.”

Tim blinked at him, surprised. “But I'm fine here, and don't you want to go see Bruce and Jason?”

“While I would dearly like to see Master Jason again, I suspect he is still quite cross with me for not mentioning he was alive to Master Bruce. In any case, I asked Miss Gordon to give him my number, so we can speak if he is amenable, and I can wait until this machine is finished to see the current occupants of Wayne Manor in person. In the mean time, I will have to trust that they will be able to look after one another, while I look after you.”

“Alfred, I'm okay, really,” Tim replied, touched by Alfred's concern for him. “You don't have to stay here just for me,” Tim assured him.

“While you are quite a resourceful young man,” Alfred said kindly, “and capable of managing on your own, the clear fact of the matter is that you should not have to.” Alfred put a warm hand on his shoulder, and this time, Tim failed to blink back all his tears.

“Thanks, Alfred.” Suddenly, Tim's problems didn't feel so insurmountable anymore, with someone else in his corner. He was going to get this machine built somehow, and things would be, if not fixed, then at least back to normal. Normal was something Tim could handle. It was only the hope for impossible things which he knew he could not live with.

Chapter Text

“So there I am laying on the hospital bed, and Bruce says, 'I thought I told you to quit the P.D.'”

“Seriously?” Jason replied, equally horrified and amazed at Bruce's gall.

“Yeah! If I acted like I had the right to tell him to quit his day job, he'd never put up with it. But he gets to say that to me?” Dick said, sounding supremely frustrated. Sadly, though, he'd found some way to wash the glitter mostly out of his hair, so Jason wouldn't be getting any more hilarious angry pixie screen captures from this video call. That fact was probably part of the reason Dick had been willing to talk to him again so soon. “And the thing is, I didn't even get shot because I was a cop,” Dick complained. “I got shot because Deathstroke knew who I was and didn't want me interfering with a job he had in Bludhaven, so Bruce's whole premise was wrong.”

“Of course. The facts are the most important thing in the world, right up until they get in the way of a judgement he wants to pass. Then, they're just optional footnotes he gets to ignore,” Jason said bitterly. At least he and Dick had found something they could agree on, though. Since neither of them had mentioned the raised voices from their last call, Barbara had declared them fit to converse without supervision, which made Jason feel inordinately nervous about messing this up. So far, he and Dick had managed to have a civil conversation, though.

“Believe me, Jay, you are far from the only one who gets fed up with Batman's attitude sometimes.”

“...You called him Batman,” Jason said, starting to put some facts together in his head. He didn't like the picture they were forming.

“Huh?”

“You were in the hospital as Dick Grayson, so he must have been visiting you as Bruce Wayne, but you called him Batman, not Bruce.”

“Well, yeah, because it was just such a Batman thing to say. I mean, he wasn't wearing the cowl, but he had the growly undertone. You know, the one he uses on criminals and misbehaving Robins?”

“I know,” Jason said. He remembered that tone all too well, both because he had a history of disobedience as Robin and because it had been just about the only thing Red Hood had heard from Batman. “So Bruce was giving you the stern Batman judgement, even when he was supposed to be visiting you in the hospital as your father?”

“You'd think he could at least have said something sympathetic, but no. Just Batman judgement.”

Jason frowned. “I have to check whether Bruce remembers that. I know there are a few times that he was out as Bruce Wayne that he doesn't remember, but only when he basically spent the whole time using Batman skills to secretly investigate something. But I just found out yesterday that he has some weird holes in his memory that I wasn't expecting.”

“What sort of holes?” Dick asked, looking concerned.

“Mostly about Tim, who finally called Bruce yesterday afternoon, after I told him to stop delaying,” Jason said, still frustrated that Tim hadn't managed to make a simple call without prompting. Even Dick had managed to call on the day of the actual shooting, though it had been relatively late.

“Wait, you actually spoke to Tim? How did that go?” Dick asked anxiously.

Jason rolled his eyes. “You don't have to sound so worried. It was just a quick conversation, and I apologized to him, even,” Jason said, although he neglected to mention the fact that he'd hung up on Tim for the second time. Jason hadn't raised his voice, though, and that had to count for something, right?

“Really? That's great! I'm so glad you two are talking,” Dick said, and he sounded way too happy over a conversation marked by serious disagreements.

“Don't read too much into it,” Jason cautioned him. “Tim didn't exactly sound happy to be talking to me.”

“I understand that it's going to take time to work things out,” Dick said, sounding slightly more solemn. “But Tim used to really look up to you, Jay, so I think that if you can just show him who you really are now, he will give you another chance.”

“He used to look up to me?” Jason echoed skeptically.

“Yes, of course. You were his predecessor as Robin. He told me, a couple times, back before we knew you were alive, that he hoped you were proud of him.”

If Dick had sucker punched Jason in the stomach, it might have hurt less. “But after I came back, all he did was look down on me!” Jason objected. Surely what Dick was saying couldn't be true.

“Jay, you didn't even talk to him until after you'd already started fighting Batman, which obviously tainted his opinion of you. The thing is, Tim only really knew you from records of you as Robin. I knew you out of the suit, and so I know that your issues with Bruce are more than just Robin's issues with Batman. Tim didn't have that context, though. To him, his hero and predecessor, Robin the Second, came back from the dead and attacked his partner Batman. He feels like you betrayed the mantle he's spent years trying to uphold.”

“It's not like I just rolled over in my grave one day and decided to make Batman's life miserable. He's the one who betrayed me first!”

“That's not how Tim sees it. That's not how I see it, either, but I understand that Bruce isn't some perfect paragon of virtue. He's definitely made mistakes, so I don't blame you if you're mad at him.”

“He's made a whole damn lot of mistakes!” Jason growled. Then, he thought of how Bruce kept trying to apologize every time Jason's murder came up in conversation, and the rage went out of him. “Despite what Tim thinks, I don't revel in making Bruce miserable, and it feels wrong to go after him now, when he doesn't even know what he's done. I've even been trying to keep him from doing that pathetic silent brooding thing, although it hasn't been going that well recently.”

“Why's that?”

Jason sighed. “He's claiming that he forgot Tim's hobbies and his friends and what games he likes to play,” he admitted. “I can understand forgetting the Titans, but Tim's school friends should have nothing to do with Batman. As for games, I did talk Bruce into playing batarang catch a few times down in the Batcave, but mostly he insisted that downstairs was for work. Did that change?”

“No, he's basically always been like that.”

“Then why would he forget playing games with Tim, if there were no capes or caves involved?”

Dick looked very unhappy all of a sudden. “I...don't think Bruce plays as many games now as he used to.”

“Sure, Tim's older now than I was when I died,” Jason agreed, surprised to see Dick flinch a little bit. His death had been a hard, cold fact for years, so Jason hadn't thought Dick would still be visibly affected, just because he brought it up in conversation. Jason wasn't interested in dwelling on his own death, though. “I guess Bruce has aged, too, and I get that people generally play less as they get older. However, Bruce should still remember playing chess or cards or something when Tim was younger,” Jason reasoned.

Bruce had been more likely to take Jason out to the library or the zoo or a museum for fun, but when he thought back, Jason remembered several times where he'd been sick or the weather had been too miserable to go out. Bruce had taught him to play chess and backgammon and how to count cards in poker. That hadn't been necessary to keep up a facade of an adoptive father, because no one else had been there to see. These days, the more Jason thought about the good times they'd had together, the more sure he became that Bruce had cared about him outside of their partnership as Batman and Robin. But if Bruce had cared for Jason, the young thief he'd picked up off the streets, then surely he must also have cared about Tim, the rich society child who fit so easily into his civilian life. It was therefore concerning that he didn't remember playing any games with Tim.

“Jason, what I'm trying to say is that Bruce...he didn't play as much, after we lost you,” Dick told him quietly. “Not even when Tim was younger. Maybe especially then, because that was too soon after...” Dick shook his head. “By the time Bruce started to get a little better, his dynamic with Tim had already been set. Not that Bruce was ever a fun loving party guy, but he was definitely more solemn and serious after you died.”

“More serious? I didn't think that was physically possible.”

That got a chuckle out of Dick. “I know it's hard to believe he could be worse, but believe me, Bruce is capable of the impossible if he really puts his mind to it. The first couple of years after I moved into the manor, I used to have to work so hard to even get him to crack a smile. If anything, you actually saw him at his best, Jay. I still remember how surprised I was, the first time I saw the two of you together. He really loosened up quickly around you.”

“Me?” Jason said, surprised. No one had ever told him anything like that before.

“Yeah. Not that Bruce didn't have his moments back when I was a kid, but it took a long while for me to wear his walls down enough for him to be even a little playful. Then, you came in, and it was like you didn't have to work at all to get him to do something fun,” Dick said, and he sounded almost resentful.

“Wait...were you actually jealous or something?” Jason asked, feeling a bit foolish even as he put the question out there. The golden boy, jealous of him? That couldn't be right. But Dick actually looked a bit guilty.

“I know that wasn't fair to you. I've always wanted Bruce to loosen up more, and I should have just been grateful, no matter why he was actually doing it. But back then, he and I weren't talking much, so it was easy to misunderstand his motivations. It wasn't until Tim came along that I realized what had happened.”

Jason frowned. “Realized what?”

“To understand that, you probably need to know a little more about the issues Bruce and I were having when you were younger,” Dick said, sounding a bit reluctant to continue, but then he squared his shoulders and seemed to find his resolve. “Obviously, I didn't want to dump my baggage on you back then, especially considering how young you were, but the truth is, my relationship with Bruce was at a serious low point when Bruce took you in. I'd been his ward, but legally, we weren't anything to each other once I turned eighteen. I wasn't sure where I stood with him after that, whether we were father and son or crime fighting allies or nothing at all. So, I didn't know whether I was your brother or your coworker or just a stranger to you,” Dick said tentatively, looking nervously at Jason, as if he might lose his temper over that.

When Jason just listened calmly, as Barbara had urged him to, Dick continued, “Eventually, Bruce and I worked through some of our issues, and I started to get comfortable thinking of him as my dad, even if we didn't have a legal piece of paper saying so. But that didn't mean I suddenly knew how to be a good big brother, especially when I'd grown up as an only child. I know I mostly treated you like I did the other younger Titans, because that was the sort of relationship I understood how to have,” Dick continued quietly, as if his words weren't rocking the foundations Jason had thought their relationship was built on.

Dick frowned slightly. “The Titans were a self-declared family, but there were a lot of differences between us and a typical family. To the younger Titans, I was something between a mentor and a friend, a hybrid family member and leader. I did generally think of several of the older Titans, like Donna and Wally, as my best friends and siblings, but on the other hand, Kory was also a Titan, and I never thought of her as a sibling, because we were dating. Maybe some of the other Titans saw her as a sister, though, so it was...well, it was messy. Family can be hard to figure out. I did what I thought was best, but I know that I made mistakes, that I wasn't the best brother I could have been,” Dick said, with a lot more guilt than Jason felt was warranted. If Wonder Woman tied her Lasso of Truth around everyone in the world, Jason didn't think there would be a single person who could say he'd been a perfect brother.

“When Tim came along, I realized that I couldn't change the past, but I could avoid repeating it,” Dick said, some confidence returning to his voice. “I like to think I was a better brother to him—not because you weren't important, Jay,” Dick stressed, wide eyed and earnest, “but because I got to start my relationship with Tim with all the hard won wisdom I gained with you.”

“Oh,” Jason whispered. It seemed so obvious when Dick put it like that, but somehow Jason had just expected that the great Dick Grayson had started out knowing everything, that if he'd failed at doing something, it was because he didn't want to do it, not because he didn't know how. But Jason hadn't suddenly known how to be a good little brother, just because he'd been adopted into a family with an older sibling. The fact that Bruce and Dick's relationship hadn't been clearly defined had only made Jason more confused about what he and Dick should be to each other. It was oddly comforting to realize that they had both been fumbling around, trying to navigate the complexities of a familial relationship neither of them had had a clear understanding of.

“It's amazing what a little perspective will do for your understanding, right?” Dick asked wryly. “The thing is, when Bruce first took me in, he didn't suddenly know how to be a father, either. Even Batman can't be good at that sort of thing without practice. I admit I also didn't always make things easy for him. I lost my parents so quickly and violently, at first I...I just wanted to hold on tight to every scrap of them that I could, even if that meant pushing away a potential adoptive father in favor of a dead one. Eventually, I worked through my grief enough to realize that accepting a new family didn't mean forgetting my old one, but you know how hard it is to have a conversation about family with Bruce.”

Jason grimaced. “I would rather volunteer to go back to school for a second round of sex ed. It would be less awkward.”

“Yeah, Bruce's awkward silences are the worst,” Dick agreed. “But even if I never actually managed to have a clear conversation with him, realizing that Bruce started out more playful with you because he learned his lesson with me, helped clear up some lingering bad feelings. Eventually, we got comfortable enough with our unofficial relationship that Bruce decided to formally adopt me, and I accepted.”

“But if Bruce learned his lesson, shouldn't he have been more playful with Tim?”

“...He should have been, Jay, if he wanted to be a father. But after you...after you died, I think the thought of being a father was just too painful for him. I won't pretend to understand everything Bruce was going through, but I can tell you that when I was leading the Titans, it would gut me every time one of them got seriously hurt following a plan that I made. When we actually lost people—devastated doesn't even begin to describe it. That's why I swore I wasn't going to lead a team I thought of as a family, anymore, because I just couldn't bear the guilt of losing anyone else because of my mistakes.”

Jason had never seen Dick looking so miserable before. All this time, he had seemed like this perfect hero in Jason's head, but Jason was starting to realize that Dick had just been a flawed human all along, with his own pains and ignorance and insecurities. Dick apparently saw himself as Jason's brother, though, and Jason hated the thought of staying silent while he watched a family member drown in his own guilt.

“Dick, you gotta stop blaming yourself like this. If you were doing your best, and I'm sure you were, then it's not on you if some super powered psycho got in a lucky shot.”

“As a leader, I was responsible.”

“What, the Titans were a dictatorship? You forced your teammates to follow your orders?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then they made their own choices to follow what seemed like the best plan at the time. Dick, when a monster goes on a rampage and targets innocent people, and heroes choose to throw themselves in the middle, there's always a chance that someone will get hurt. If you make a really great plan, that chance gets smaller, but it is never zero. If you jump into enough dangerous situations, it's almost inevitable that eventually, even if your plans are as good as they can be under the circumstances, someone will end up hurt or even dead. That's not your fault or your failing. That's the fault of the monster who was trying to wreck innocent lives in the first place.”

“You really think that? You?” Dick asked, sounding doubtful.

“Why wouldn't I?”

“But...don't you blame Batman for your own death?” he asked hesitantly.

“No,” Jason denied, because it had never been his own death he blamed Batman for. It had been the Joker's constant escape from it which had infuriated him. Batman had been arrogant, letting the Joker live so many times, but then, Jason had been arrogant, too. After Barbara's chair and Jason's funeral, though, shouldn't Batman have known better that to keep following the same failed playbook? “Is that what he told you?” Jason asked darkly. “He said I was just angry because I died?”

Dick shook his head. “Bruce never actually told me anything. But from the bare details in the mission reports, it seemed like you were really angry at him.”

“I was,” he said, before opening his mouth again to correct himself. “I mean, I am. But I'm not angry about that. If he hadn't left on the one man copter to stop the Joker's special delivery, then dozens, maybe even hundreds of Ethiopian refugees might have died with gaping smiles on their faces. Batman told me to stay put while he stopped that Joker gas shipment, so that I'd be safe, and I'm sure he tried to get back as quickly as he could. But I didn't think he'd be back in time to save Shiela, and when I saw what I thought was a perfect opportunity, I...” He'd been such a fool. He'd risked his life and lost it, all because he'd wanted to help a woman who'd been all too quick to betray him.

Jason thought that maybe Dick would give him a lecture on recklessness, but he only looked at Jason with sad eyes. “You don't have to explain,” Dick said softly. “I wish you'd stayed safe, Jay, but if I'd thought I had any chance of saving my own mother? I'd have leaped at the first opportunity, too, danger or no danger.”

“But of course you would have done better, right?” Jason said bitterly. “Saved the damsel and the day.”

“Maybe so,” Dick said, and Jason felt his anger rising. “But maybe not. Jay, the Joker is unpredictable. Sometimes we actually do foil his plans easily, but sometimes it's just the opposite. If I had been in Barbara's place the day the Joker crippled her, would I have fared any better than her? I'm not conceited enough to think so. Probably, I would have opened the door like any normal person expecting a friend and been immediately shot, just like her.”

Jason had spent so long dreading what Dick would have to say about Jason's foolish choices that he didn't know how to respond when the expected condemnation didn't come. “She tricked me into it,” his lips whispered, even though he hadn't consciously decided to say anything.

“What was that?” Dick asked, a confused frown on his face.

“Sheila Haywood,” Jason said, just a little louder. “She tricked me into that warehouse.” That ached like the bone splintering strike of a crowbar, even now. The woman who should have been his mother had turned on him. “She said the Joker was long gone, but there was something she had to show me. I thought he'd left some sort of message behind, maybe a taunt for Batman about some other homicidal scheme he'd cooked up. The Joker had somehow gotten his hands on one nuclear warhead just before he went to Ethiopia. What proof was there that he didn't have a second? I had to investigate, in case he left some sort of clue, Dick,” Jason said, suddenly desperate to explain, to make Dick see that it hadn't been all Jason's fault. “If I'd ignored something like that, it might have cost an incredible number of lives.”

Dick nodded. “Taunting Batman is one of the Joker's favorite pastimes, and he does sometimes give important information away, doing that.”

“But then when I got inside the warehouse...when I got in...” Jason could remember the fine sand that had clung to his damp skin, and the oppressive heat that had gotten him sweating in the first place. He remembered the smell of cigarette smoke in the air, and the shocking silver gleam of a gun in the light. Staring at someone who should have been family, Jason had experienced the almost surreal feeling of the world suddenly rearranging itself under his feet, even though nothing had changed at all. Nothing had changed. Jason had always been an unwanted child. It was just that suddenly, he'd known it, for certain. “The Joker hadn't left,” he spit out with a voice that was half pain and half fury. “Sheila pointed a gun at me, and she handed me over to him to buy a reprieve he never granted.”

“Oh, god,” Dick said, and this time, he was the one who sounded like his voice was deserting him. “Jay, I had no idea. She...how could she do that to you?”

“She never really wanted a kid, I guess, but she did want to get out of trouble for all the embezzling she was doing. I wonder if it was any easier giving me up the second time?”

“That's...that's horrible. I—I'm so sorry,” Dick said, leaning forward as if he could somehow reach through the screen.

“It was stupid of me to trust her in the first place. I mean, she'd had so many years to contact me, if she'd wanted to. But when I found her, she told me this sob story about how she hadn't wanted to put me through a fight for custody, and I just ate it up.” Jason had wanted too much to believe that someone had always wanted him, and he'd paid the ultimate price for it.

“No, it's not stupid, Jay. You can't live your life believing that your own family will turn on you.”

Jason could, in fact, live that way. The thing was, he didn't want to. “She tried to get me out, after I untied her, tried to help me to the door,” he added quietly. Had she regretted her decision for more than just the danger it had put her in? Had she decided that she wanted to get to know Jason, after all? There had been no time to ask, back then. Now, he would never know. “But the door was locked, and then the bomb...”

By the time Jason pulled himself out of his own memories, Dick had one hand over his mouth and sounded worryingly close to hyperventilating. “Dick?” Jason croaked and cleared his throat before continuing. “You okay?”

“Am I okay?” Dick let out a hoarse chuckle that didn't sound anything like amusement. “Yeah, I, sorry, it was just...it was a lot to take in.” Dick had seen a lot of people in danger as Nightwing. He'd seen a lot of people killed. The only reason Jason could think of that would make this story hit him so hard was if Dick actually cared a lot about Jason. Maybe he'd always cared a lot. “If only I hadn't been off world with the Titans when the Joker escaped,” Dick said, his voice thick with guilt. “After what happened to Barbara, maybe I should have known—”

“Dick, seriously, you just pointed out that the Joker is unpredictable. You couldn't have known when he'd get out again, just like you couldn't have known which of the high risk missions the Titans went on would end up in tragedy.”

“But were my plans really as good as they could be? If I'd done things differently...”

Jason shook his head. “Then maybe someone else would have gotten hurt in some other way. Dick, no plan is actually perfect, not unless you're all knowing and have infinite power to make consummate use of that knowledge. In the real world, you always have to make guesses and trade offs. Villains do their best to force us into situations where most or even all of our options are incredibly risky, because they want to see us fail. The only way to stop that is to stop letting villains set up their sick games in the first place. Once you're playing, the odds are always stacked against you.”

“You make it sound so bleak...”

Jason sighed. “Dick, I don't wanna be a downer, but it is bleak. People, good people, are dying, and they've been dying all along, because the sadistic psychopaths of the world will take every opportunity—and every life—that they can. What I don't get is why you're sitting here blaming yourself for the atrocities that they commit. Don't you see? The Joker is responsible for his own actions, just like Bane, and Firefly, and everyone else. When monsters do monstrous things, that's on them.”

“And what about when I do monstrous things? I lost my cool and beat a man until he stopped breathing.”

Jason shook his head. “Do you really think killing the Joker is something to feel guilty over?” he demanded, incredulous. “Dick, all you did was take the one option you had to get off his demented merry-go-round. You know as well as I do: the only way to end his sick games is to end him.”

“If killing were actually the answer, then why does the thought of blood on my hands make me feel so awful?” Dick asked, looking ill. “How can you ask me to accept doing that?”

Even a few months ago, Jason wouldn't have had a second thought about making such a demand. Back when Red Hood had introduced himself to Gotham by taking the heads of eight drug lieutenants in two hours, all he had felt was the euphoric satisfaction of a plan well executed. It was only recently that thinking back on the brutal physicality of eight short order decapitations had become nauseating, rather than exhilarating. The horrible wet scraping sounds Jason had heard as he'd applied pressure to get the spinal columns fully severed would probably stay with him forever.

Jason still didn't think he'd done the wrong thing from an intellectual standpoint. That step of the plan had worked out well, and all of those drug lord lieutenants had been complete scumbags who had been all too happy selling drugs to schoolchildren. They'd also driven the sale of far too many child sized coffins, due to the inevitable overdose deaths, because they didn't mind lacing their drugs with fentanyl to up the potency and reduce the cost. Many of them had been dipping their fingers into other criminal endeavors, as well, including gun smuggling, prostitution rings (conveniently staffed by young addicts they'd gotten hooked in the first place), and even human trafficking. Thinking of everyone they'd hurt still made Jason furious. There had come a time, though, where just holding the blade he'd used to sever their necks had made Jason want to go hug the closest toilet bowl.

Jason had eventually decided to dispose of the weapon he'd used that night, despite its exquisite sharpness, as he just didn't think he'd ever be able to handle it in combat again without hesitating just a little bit. It had been that troubling thought which had led him to start questioning the path he was on. That was why he'd been in his old apartment building, taking a mental walk down memory lane, the night Bruce had been mugged.

Jason wasn't a fan of the ill feeling that so much killing brought him, but maybe it had been dangerous that he hadn't been able to feel it for a while. Had that been another side effect of the Lazarus Pit, that strange mental state which had allowed Jason to enjoy the justice of finally removing several persistent blights from society, without feeling the normal distaste for taking a human life?

“Maybe I shouldn't have asked that of you, Dick.” It had been easy to think that Dick was just being stubborn, back when Jason hadn't been experiencing the full fallout of his own actions. Now that the bloody memories were starting to trouble him, though, he finally understood what a heavy burden he'd been asking Nightwing to take on. Knowing that Dick wasn't as invincible as he'd once seemed, Jason felt a lot more hesitant about pushing such a weight onto his shoulders.

“Still, you do a lot of hard things, already,” Jason pointed out. “Haven't you ever jumped from high enough that you knew the landing would hurt, because you had to get out of the blast range of an explosion? Or maybe you blocked a heavy blow you wouldn't be able to dodge, even though the block itself left bruises? Or maybe you curled around a civilian or a teammate to shield them from something that even your suit wasn't tough enough to absorb without damage?”

“Haven't we both?” Dick replied.

“And did it hurt, doing that?”

“You already know the answer to that.”

“But you did it anyway, Dick, because sometimes the best option you have is still painful. That doesn't mean it's not the right thing to do.”

“But killing, Jason? That isn't a bruise or a sprained ankle. It's human life we're talking about.”

“Which is exactly why killing has to be on the table, because there are human lives on the other side of the equation, too. If you don't have the guts for it, then fine. I've realized it's a losing proposition to try to force you into doing something you're clearly not mentally prepared for. But don't ask me to stand by and watch as some other family buries their kid. Don't ask me to send a mass murderer back to Arkham when I know he's only going to escape and kill someone else again.”

“Jay, obviously we can't let the Joker kill anyone else, but we can stop him safely if we work together.”

“So we're going to drop all our other responsibilities to assign shifts to cover him? If Robin asks you for backup on a case, are you going to check your calendar and turn him down if your shift for watching the Joker is coming up?”

Dick shook his head. “No, obviously shifts aren't practical, as we all have to deal with high priority emergencies. However, Oracle has a lot of automatic alerts to keep tabs on the Joker, and if he gets out, then those of us who are available can all work together to bring him back in without any loss of life.”

Dick's relentless optimism could be so frustrating at times. “Since we're not dropping everything else for this, what if we are all actually unavailable, Dick? Bruce is out of the game currently, and Robin goes on missions with the Titans, who are working out of San Francisco. You've been covering for amnesiac heroes in Keystone City, Star City, and Metropolis. Right now, I'm the only one who is in Gotham full time.”

Dick suddenly looked horrified. “You are not going to face the Joker on your own, Jay. If he gets out, you have to wait for backup,” he insisted.

It felt good to know that Dick worried about him, but at the same time, Jason found it mildly infuriating that his brother still didn't think Jason could handle the Joker. He'd gotten in some good hits during their fight in the garage, hadn't he? Dick should know he could take care of himself.

“If I wait until we can get the whole gang together to take the Joker on at once, how many will die in the interim? I only ended up taking him on alone before because my bio mom was in the crossfire, so I couldn't wait without potentially sacrificing her life.” Sadly, she'd been all too willing to sacrifice Jason's. That didn't mean he'd done the wrong thing given what he'd known, though. He'd been trying to save her life, and at the time, he'd made the best plan he could to keep everyone safe.

If Jason had known how duplicitous she was, of course he would have knocked her out and made a run for it, but plans were always made with imperfect information. What if the thing she'd wanted to show him in the warehouse actually had been a second nuclear warhead? If Jason had knocked his mother out and run in that situation, they might have both been killed by a nuclear detonation which he'd failed to stop.

“Who else's mother will you sacrifice, Dick, so that I can wait for backup before taking the Joker on? Who else will be orphaned if we won't use the only lasting solution we have?”

“I don't want to sacrifice anyone,” Dick said, and he sounded almost pleading. Even if Jason stopped speaking the hard truth of the matter, though, the facts would remain the same.

“I know you don't, Dick,” he replied sadly. “But I don't either,” he continued, his voice growing harder, “so if the Joker gets out, and I'm the only one around, I'm not going to wait until he kills more innocent people before going after him. And if I don't get to kill him next time? Then we'll just get a do-over the time after that, because you know he isn't going to stay locked up,” Jason growled. “Not so long as he's alive.”

“Jay, I can't—I can't lose you to the Joker again,” Dick said, shaking his head as if he could deny the very thought of it.

“And I can't stand back and let him murder innocent people again. Knowing what it's like to die at his cruel whims, how can I ignore it when he sets his eyes on more victims? How can you ask me to stand back while the Joker does the same horrific thing to someone else?”

“...I guess I can't.” Dick chuckled wetly. “But you know, I think I'd be okay with being a hypocrite, if you could just stay safe.”

“And what about you? Don't you think I want you safe?” When he'd seen Chemo explode over Bludhaven, Jason had told himself he didn't care, because he'd spent months planning and orchestrating, just to get his confrontation with Batman and the Joker. Maybe his dip in the Lazarus Pit had been affecting him then, too, because he hadn't been willing to let anything interrupt him. He'd convinced himself that either Dick was in Bludhaven and dead already or far away and safe. Now, he wondered how he'd ever managed to be so callous in his assumptions. If Dick had been alive but injured, Jason could have been signing off on his death certificate. He couldn't imagine making the same decision now. This was his brother, after all.

“I...hope you want me safe,” Dick said, as if Jason wasn't desperately attached to the idea of having a family again, much as that same wish had cost him in the past.

“Of course I do, Dick. So how do you think I feel, knowing that you'll let your most dangerous enemies live, again and again, so that every time they get out, they can take another shot at you?” This was what he should have said to Tim in the Tower, instead of allowing his anger and his resentment to twist his actions into incoherent violence. What Jason had actually wanted all along, after all, was for the other Robins to protect themselves, instead of giving the bad guys chance after chance to kill them.

“Jay, if I beat them once, I can beat them again.”

“I've beaten the Joker before. Does that stop you from worrying?”

“You know, it's kind of awful when you turn my own worries back on me,” Dick said wryly. “I liked it better when you still acted like I was invincible.”

“Too late, Dick. After the sparkles, I don't think I'm ever going to take your seriously again.”

Dick groaned. “Why does it always come back to the sparkles?”

Just then, Jason's phone buzzed. “Sorry. Let me take a look at this perimeter alert.” Jason glanced down at his phone and frowned. “Looks like someone's at the front gate.”

“Are you expecting company?”

“Besides the reporters that have been trying to weasel their way into an interview? Unfortunately, yes. It looks like the security company Bruce hired sent a van over,” Jason said, after checking the front gate camera. Bruce had apparently just buzzed them through, although pre-amnesia he would at least have asked a few probing questions first. Dick had an amused grin on when Jason looked back at his computer screen. “Don't laugh, Dick. I'm going to have to put up with these incompetents.”

“Can't you talk Bruce out of it?”

“Unfortunately, amnesiac Bruce is just way more honest than Batman is. I had to lay the 'we live in a dangerous world' line down pretty hard, to get him to finally post the last part of my cover story. Of course, as soon as I did that, he got it into his head that he needed to hire private security to 'protect' me.”

“Well, I'm glad to know professionals will be around to look after my precious little brother,” Dick said with a teasing grin.

“Asshole,” Jason replied, without any real heat. “I'd better go meet them with Bruce. That way I can make sure he doesn't tell them to glue themselves to my side or something.”

“Alright, we'll talk more later. Bye, Jay, and good luck with them!”

“Bye,” Jason said, closing the chat and then turning his laptop off. He tucked it underneath the false panel in his dresser and took a few deep breaths to try to calm his thoughts. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to quell his annoyance with the manor's current guests.

After the first time Jason had had a video chat with Dick, Barbara had given him a whole spiel about not staying logged into the secure account on the laptop she'd handed over to him. Jason would have to be especially careful about that sort of thing, now that there would be strangers in the manor. He did one final sweep of his room to make sure he hadn't left any weapons or other incriminating items out, and by the time he got to the foyer, Bruce was already there.

“I'm sorry if this interrupted your chat with Dick,” Bruce told him as he came down the stairs.

“Nah, it's fine. I can call him back later, if I want.” It was almost a shock to realize that Dick would actually pick up, if Jason called him.

“Did everything go okay?” Bruce asked, sounding anxious.

“You don't have to worry so much. Even if Dick started yelling, I could just hang up.”

“I know. It would make me very happy if that didn't end up happening, though.”

“It went fine,” Jason told him. “We still disagree about some things, but Dick at least heard me out. I realized that maybe I can be a little more understanding, too, about where his lines are,” Jason admitted gruffly.

“That's good, Jay. That's really good. To be honest, when I saw you two fighting in the garage, I was afraid you would never be able to make up.”

Jason shrugged. “I guess it looked bad, but you know neither of us was using lethal force, right? I mean, not that Dick would, anyway, but he was only using disabling strikes, not anything that could have crippled me.” Jason's injuries had all healed well, and he could only assume the same was true for Dick, because Nightwing was active and Oracle wasn't making any attempt to bench him. From Bruce's unhappy expression, though, Jason got the feeling that he didn't find Jason's words as reassuring as he'd hoped. Luckily, the security team rang the bell at that moment, effectively ending the conversation.

“Hello,” Bruce greeted as he opened the door for the five men outside. “Please, come in. I'm Bruce Wayne, and this is my son Jason,” he said, with that proud look he'd always gotten when he introduced Jason to someone new. It felt good to hear that tone from him again, even if Jason knew time was running out for this trip down nostalgia lane.

Jason let Bruce do most of the talking, while he sent Oracle the names of their new security team and some snapshots he'd taken surreptitiously on his secure phone. He'd have to be very careful not to put the phone down anywhere someone else could snatch it up. Bruce's conversation with the security team seemed normal, from what little Jason knew about civilian security, although he cringed every time the men asked anything about the manor's security system. Luckily, Bruce only knew about the much less advanced and less extensive civilian setup, so he wasn't giving too much away.

“That sounds good, Mr. Wayne. I'll have a couple of my guys walk the perimeter now,” Tamas, the eldest and nominal leader, told them.

“Wait a minute,” Jason said, jumping back into the conversation. “Why do you need to walk the perimeter?”

“Better to keep an eye on the fence and make sure no one climbs it, right?” Laszlo, the youngest guy in the group, said.

If anyone did try to climb it, they would get a very nasty shock. The entire perimeter was covered by an advanced sensor system and covert defenses, and the fence could be electrified at a moment's notice. Most of that wouldn't pass for a normal civilian security system, though, especially the automated responses, and because everything was integrated, it would be hard to show off one part without revealing the others. “The grounds are huge,” Jason argued instead. “Even if all of you were walking the perimeter constantly, there would still be plenty of gaps for someone to slip through and get to Bruce and I here in the manor.”

“Not to worry. There will always be a couple guys who never leave the manor,” Laszlo assured them with an oily smile. He was maybe only a year or two older than Jason, but despite his youth, he was actually the largest man in the group. He was also easily the most condescending.

“I think it's good to have a patrol, Jay,” Bruce said, because he had no idea what he was talking about. “That way I don't have to worry so much if you go for a walk outside.” Oracle had made sure that the advanced security system recognized Jason, so he would actually be quite well protected out on the grounds. If this new security team left the manor or the main driveway, however, then the security system would trigger against them—unless, of course, Jason put them through a full scan and added each of their biometrics to the system. The scanners didn't exactly look like civilian make, though. Bruce would no doubt have questions about them, as well, and Jason was hesitant to add anyone to the system before Oracle finished a basic background check.

“We'll have a team of five here, 24/7,” said Tamas. “Two guys in the manor, two guys on patrol, and one floater who'll go wherever necessary. There will be three shifts a day, eight hours a shift. Laszlo here came in early to work a double shift, so that he'll know everything he needs to when he stays for the night shift and can tell the rest of his team.”

“So four more guys are coming tonight.”

“Right. First shift change is at midnight. Farkas here will come in with the morning crew at 8 AM, to explain everything to them,” Tamas said, gesturing toward the quietest member of their crew. “Then, Ervin and Adojan, who you haven't met yet, will join us for the next shift at 4 PM, instead of Farkas and Laszlo.”

That meant Jason would need to add fifteen people to the security system in total, which was less than ideal. Because Bruce just had to select the one security company that didn't seem to have many digital records available, it was hard to vet the whole company beforehand, and Jason found himself hesitating. Did he really want to show over a dozen people their suspiciously high tech bio scanners and essentially give them the keys to the kingdom? The advanced security would raise suspicions, and there was just something about them that Jason didn't trust.

“Let me know if your crews will need anything,” Jason said politely, trying not to let his misgivings show. It was ironic, but thanks to the extra security Bruce had hired, the manor would actually be less secure, because Jason would have to turn the perimeter security off temporarily, so that it didn't trigger against their own new security patrol.

“We'll bring everything we need,” Tamas assured him. “Why don't we start with a tour of the place?”

Bruce apparently felt that meant he should show them the entire manor. Barbara's initial background check on the five men had come back mostly clean, so Jason tried not to feel too nervous about having so many strangers poking around the place. He finally put his foot down when Bruce started to show them the family wing, though. “All the rooms off this hallway are private family bedrooms,” Jason insisted. “As these rooms are on the second floor and the only access is through this hallway, there is no need for anyone to patrol these rooms themselves. Simply keep any intruders from coming down this hallway, and we'll have no problems.”

“But shouldn't we know whose room is whose, just in case?” Laszlo asked.

“The hallway isn't that long. Call out from the end of it here, and I assure you that both Bruce and I will hear you, if we're in our rooms.” Bruce looked at Jason a little strangely for his reticence, and Jason did wonder if maybe he was being a little too paranoid. He was starting to sound uncomfortably like Batman. Still, there was that hint of unease at the back of his mind that just wouldn't go away.

Bruce had only decided that he was going to hire a security team two days ago. He hadn't even spoken to them until yesterday, but somehow they had fifteen “professionals” immediately ready to start? When Bruce had said they'd be coming today, Jason had assumed that there would only be a couple of people, at least to begin with. What sort of security company had fifteen people available to start working a new, full time assignment on short notice, especially in Gotham, where private security was always in demand?

Jason hoped Bruce hadn't paid them extra to abandon other jobs they'd been currently working. If they had accepted such a proposition, it didn't say much for their integrity, and if they truly had had fifteen people free, what was wrong with the security they provided, that even with Gotham so dangerous, no one would hire them? Jason had watched them carefully during the tour, trying to figure out what was up with this security company, but he didn't see them do anything obviously concerning, other than asking more questions than Jason would like.

Finally, Bruce finished showing them the manor, and Jason reluctantly pulled up a a publicly available satellite view of Bristol. He zoomed in on the manor grounds and pointed out where their property line was. “There's a fence around everything, so it should be pretty obvious when you get out there.”

“Good,” Tamas said. “Laszlo and Izsak, why don't you do an initial patrol? Call me if there are any issues.”

Jason watched the two leave suspiciously. For some reason, he felt immediately less tense as soon as Laszlo left. Maybe it was just his smug personality which rubbed Jason the wrong way, but what if there was something real driving this unease? Jason was well aware that ignoring survival instincts could have deadly consequences. Determined to investigate, he emailed Babs to ask her to take a closer look at Laszlo Varga, while Jason himself started searching through the Batcomputer records on his secure phone, looking for any potential criminal links. There was just something so familiar about Laszlo, even though Jason was sure they hadn't ever met before. Maybe he and Oracle could dig up some answers, preferably before Jason went to sleep.

Chapter Text

Jason checked his secure phone again, but Oracle hadn't dug up anything on Laszlo except a couple of drunk and disorderly incidents. Jason knew, though, that if they hadn't found anything wrong, it might just be because they weren't digging hard enough.

"Are you expecting Dick to call back?" Bruce asked. “I'm sorry your talk was interrupted earlier today, but it is getting late, so he's probably already asleep.”

"Hmm?" Jason murmured, distracted, before looking up from his phone. Of course Nightwing wasn't asleep, as it wasn't even midnight yet. Bruce wouldn't know that, though. "Actually, I'm expecting a text from Barbara."

"She's probably asleep now, too, but it would be nice to set up another book club meeting."

"Yeah, it would," Jason replied, surprised at how much he agreed with Bruce. Maybe when this security issue was sorted out, they could do that again. “I haven't been reading novels as much since I passed the Language Arts section of the GED, though.”

“You...you passed it?” Bruce asked, his eyebrows rising in clear surprise. “When was this?”

Jason knew he shouldn't have waited quite so long to tell Bruce, but he wasn't eager to have the obvious follow on conversation. Once Bruce knew Jason had passed one section, it would only be natural to ask about the other three, after all. Jason just didn't think he was ready to take them yet, though. In his place, Bruce probably would have been finished by now. Was he going to think that Jason was taking too long? “I took the test in the morning, the day you got your will amended,” Jason admitted reluctantly, knowing he couldn't avoid this conversation forever, regardless of his own wishes.

“But that was nearly a week ago!” Bruce sounded a little hurt, and Jason felt a bit more guilty. He still didn't feel ready for another collage talk, though, especially when that might not be in the cards once Bruce got his memory back. Jason's whole plan not to get too attached to things that might be ripped away from him later wasn't going nearly as well as he had hoped.

“It really isn't a big deal, Bruce.”

“Of course it's a big deal. I'm so proud of you,” Bruce said, his expression lighting up.

“It was just one section of the GED, and the easiest one for me,” Jason replied, uncomfortable with Bruce's open praise, especially when he'd mostly been expecting questions about why he wasn't done yet.

"You always did like books,” Bruce said with a warm smile, blissfully unaware of Jason's worries. “Dick never took to reading for pleasure, no matter how much I encouraged him, and Tim... Actually, I don't remember. I wonder if Tim reads books in his spare time," Bruce mused, a melancholy expression on his face.

Jason sighed. He hadn't predicted this, but maybe he should have. The conversation could only go downhill if Bruce kept dwelling on everything he didn't know about Tim, though. "Bruce, it won't help anyone if you start brooding again. You'll get your memory back soon enough, and then you'll know everything about Tim that you did before." From what Dick had said, there might be a lot Bruce had simply never known in the first place, but Bruce himself was convinced that he must have lost a lot. Jason was cautiously assuming that there had to be at least some personal things about Tim that Bruce had forgotten, because Tim was supposed to be a good son, wasn't he? He was the heir to the Wayne empire, and all that. It made no sense that Bruce would know less about Tim than he would about Jason.

"Maybe I should be working harder to find a cure myself, instead of leaving this amnesia issue up to everyone else,” Bruce replied.

Jason frowned. “I don't think you know enough right now to really figure out what happened, although I admit, I am kind of surprised you haven't been trying.” Bruce could be pretty stubborn like that, always wanting to do everything himself, even if other people were better suited for the task at hand.

“I've been distracted with getting the group home set up and with your adoption. We've spent far too long apart, Jay, so of course I'm going to heavily prioritize spending time with you. I confess, I'm also a little concerned about what will happen between us when I get my memory back. Not because I'll stop wanting you around, Jay,” Bruce quickly assured. “It's because I'm afraid you will stop wanting to be around me.”

“...I really don't think that's true anymore, Bruce.” Jason had lived without a family for most of the past five years, and it was only his burning anger which had kept him from being dragged down by the despair of being so alone. He was not eager to go back to living like that, not now that that he'd realized that, however poorly Bruce had handled things with the Joker, he did sincerely care about Jason. Even the thought of the inevitable falling out with Dick was painful. Jason just couldn't see how he and Nightwing would maintain a friendly relationship if Red Hood and Batman were actively fighting, though. Even Barbara would probably need to get more distant, to stop herself from being pulled into the middle of their confrontations.

“It would be easier to believe you'll want to stay around, Jay, if you felt more comfortable talking to me now,” Bruce pointed out. “You keep dodging the question whenever I ask you why we weren't on speaking terms, before I lost my memory. In fact, there are a lot of topics you avoid. Are you ever going to explain how you got that scar on your throat?”

“This?” Jason asked, scratching at it. Batman had done that to Jason himself, and it always seemed to start itching whenever Bruce brought it up. There was no way Bruce would believe that he was responsible for the injury right now, though. “You'll know when you get your memory back,” Jason told him. “Without remembering the context, it won't make sense to you right now, anyway.”

“Will you finally move in officially, then, at least? I must have told you a dozen times that it's fine for you to bring all your things here. You don't need to keep living out of a duffel bag, Jason.”

“I still don't think moving all my stuff in is a good idea, Bruce. Things are going to change too much, once you get your memory back.”

“It's not just me who will change, is it?” Bruce said, and he sounded worried. “I can tell that you're still angry about things I can't remember. When I do remember, will you be able to forgive me, Jay?”

“...I don't know if I can,” Jason replied, feeling honestly wretched about it. He wanted to come home and live happily ever after, but he couldn't just blithely discard his personal integrity, any more than Batman could. “When you had your memory, you kept insisting that I do things your way. You never compromised at all, even when your way brought me nothing but pain,” Jason said, slowly tracing the scar again with one finger. “You never even seemed sorry for that, because you were so sure you were right.” It was one thing to accept Bruce's decisions when he was both incapable of stopping the Joker and incapable of stopping Jason from killing him. It was different when Bruce was stubbornly unwilling to act against Gotham's greatest evil, when he would go so far as to scar Jason, in order to save the monster who had murdered him.

“Sometimes I just can't understand the things I did when I had my memories,” Bruce confessed with a lost look in his eyes. “I know I don't have the context, but it's like I was a completely different person.”

“In some ways, you were.” Jason couldn't explain about Batman, because Bruce would never believe him, but maybe there was something he could say. "I think your amnesia itself is related to a... particular mental state you were in, while you were making the memories you lost."

"Mental state?"

Jason frowned, trying to think of a way to word it that Bruce wouldn't immediately disbelieve. "Bruce, do you remember that time Dick got shot while he was working as a cop in Bludhaven?"

"Of course I remember."

"Do you remember what you said to him when you visited him in the hospital?"

"I..." Bruce went silent for a moment, frowning. "I...must have told him how worried I was? Maybe wished him a speedy recovery?"

Jason chuckled at the absurd disconnect between Bruce's prediction and actual fact. "Not according to Dick, you didn't, and I don't think he was lying."

Bruce frowned harder. "I remember getting the call, and how concerned I was. I remember thinking that I needed to go see him immediately. After that I...I just don't remember anything."

"Yeah, you know some mental techniques to... temporarily suppress your emotions and help you focus." Jason had learned a little bit about that as Robin, and more with one of the tutors Talia had gotten him. Batman had mastered the skills Jason only had a passing acquaintance with, though.

"Suppress my emotions? You think I somehow suppressed my memories as well?" Bruce asked, alarmed.

"Not you. But the fact that you used these techniques so much left a possibility open for an outside force to selectively suppress a large part of your life. I think you were using these techniques when you were talking to Dick in the hospital, and that's why you don't remember it now."

Bruce nodded slowly. "Hearing that my son had been shot... Even if it wasn't life threatening, I couldn't help thinking about how I lost my parents. It makes sense that I would want to suppress those feelings, so I could focus on driving safely to Bludhaven." Bruce frowned again. "But you think I kept suppressing my feelings even after I arrived? Maybe I didn't want to get upset in front of Dick, when he must already have been upset."

"Yeah, maybe." Jason thought it was more likely that Bruce just hadn't wanted to deal with his feelings at all. From the odd holes in his memory, maybe Bruce did that a lot. The thought worried Jason. He finally felt like he was getting his dad back, and he didn't want Batman to lock this more warm and open Bruce away. But he would do that, wouldn't he? To deal with the dangerous Red Hood, Batman would do that. After Bruce recovered from this amnesia, would Jason ever actually get to see his dad again, or would he be forced to deal only with Batman instead?

Jason's phone vibrated as a message from Oracle came in, and he read it quickly, only to be disappointed. She hadn't found anything on Laszlo. She was just giving him an update on the progress Robin and Cyborg were making on the machine to reach the Wunfulch dimension. The Titans had apparently been successful in their search for more xenothium, and Robin had made some progress on the thermal issues. Now it was looking more like several weeks instead of several months to get the machine up and running. Jason felt his stomach sinking.

He had a sudden, violent urge to sabotage the machine Tim was working on somehow, to keep anyone from ever contacting the Wunfulch. But even if Jason could somehow stop the entire active superhero community, could he also stop the entire active villain community? He remembered, again, the terror he'd felt before he'd dashed past the corner of the apartment building, when he hadn't known whether Bruce was already dead or not. When it came down to it, Jason would rather know that his dad was alive, hidden somewhere under Batman's cowl, rather than buried six feet down in a claustrophobic box.

Unfortunately, that meant that Jason would have to give his father up, even though he'd barely gotten him back. The thought hurt even more now than the last time he'd had it, but there was nothing Jason could do, other than make the most of what little time they had left. Bruce had spoken of having regrets after Jason had died, but Jason realized he'd have regrets as well, if he didn't use the time he had left to get answers to the questions that had been haunting him for years.

“Bruce, can I ask you something serious?”

“Of course, Jay.”

“It's sort of a personal question, though,” Jason warned.

Bruce frowned. “I know that I haven't always been very good at opening up where my feelings are concerned, and I know that you deserve better than that. I promise you, Jay, I will do better.”

Jason nodded. Bruce could still get a bit stiff and stilted sometimes, with long, awkward pauses where he seemed to struggle for the right words, but since the amnesia, he hadn't shut down any conversations Jason had started. Jason just needed to work up the courage to actually start.

He took a deep, steadying breath and reminded himself that he was just going to have a conversation. It wasn't like he'd be in any real danger, so there was no need for his heart to speed up or his palms to start sweating so much. Ironically, the thing that reassured Jason most wasn't the fact that he'd taken on much greater physical threats and come out on top. It was the fact that, according to the test he'd just passed, he was now officially competent when it came to putting together English sentences. According to objective measurement, Jason could do this.

“Did you actually want me to take the Wayne name?” Jason asked, and his voice only came out a little bit unsteady.

“Yes,” Bruce replied, without a trace of hesitation.

“Even back when I was a kid?”

Bruce smiled softly. “Jay, you're still a kid.”

“I'm nineteen! I am not a kid anymore,” Jason grumbled, doing his best not to lose his temper over that unfair characterization. He'd been looking after himself for half a decade already!

Bruce just smiled a little deeper in response. “You'll always be my kid.”

That forced Jason to forget his smoldering anger and turn his head away, suddenly feeling too embarrassed to meet Bruce's eyes. The old man definitely wouldn't be talking like this if he still had his memories. “Do you actually remember thinking that way all along, or are you just assuming, even though you don't really remember how you felt?”

“I remember,” Bruce replied firmly.

Jason narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “What exactly do you remember?”

“I remember how proud I was whenever I got to introduce you as my son. How much brighter the mornings felt when I'd see you at the breakfast table cheerfully drowning your pancakes in syrup and gulping down a second glass of orange juice. How good it was to have your picture on my desk at work, to remind myself that at the end of the day, I'd be going home to my family. I know I didn't always say the words I should have back then, Jay, and I regret that. I just...I was so afraid of making a misstep that sometimes I wouldn't even take a step at all.”

Bruce sighed. “I unfortunately got into that bad habit before I even met you. I didn't want for Dick to forget the Graysons', but I would have liked...” Bruce shook his head. “It was just so difficult, any time I wanted to step into a place Dick's biological parents had once occupied. That's why I was so worried when I first showed you the adoption paperwork. I can't replace the father you lost, any more than Alfred can replace the one I did. But we can still be a family. I just...didn't know how to say that, properly. When you accepted the adoption so easily, though, I wondered if you might feel willing to take my last name. But you said 'no', and I didn't want to press. I know your birth father mattered to you, Jay, and I would never want to pressure you into giving up something of his that you might want to keep.”

Jason shook his head. “He's gone, Bruce. Holding onto a name for his sake isn't going to help him any, and clinging to the past isn't going to help me. If I get to choose, I'd rather have a name that reflects who I am now.”

“But you didn't want my name when you were younger. What made you change your mind?”

Jason sighed, not really wanting the give the actual answer. Bruce was clearly doing his best to be honest, though, even when the words were hard for him, and Jason felt like he owed him some honesty in kind. “When I was younger, I hated it when all those fancy society people would whisper that I wasn't an actual Wayne behind your back. But you had only offered the name to me once, and you never said why you were offering. You didn't ever tell me that was what you wanted, and I worried that maybe you only did it out of a feeling of obligation. When you never brought it up again, I assumed that was the case.”

Bruce looked sincerely shocked. “Jay, that's not true at all. Even though it was a rushed decision, I was so happy when you took a name that marked you as part of my family. Of course we'd still be family, even without that, but I was the only Wayne for such a long time.” A sad look passed across his face. “It does get a little lonely.”

Jason thought of all the nights he'd spent restlessly pacing his room as a kid, going over every small interaction he'd ever had with Bruce, trying to figure out what his place in the manor really was. “You couldn't have said that to me before this?” he snapped, suddenly angry. How much time had Jason spent agonizing over this, wondering whether he had a field commander or a father, because Bruce had been holding back such a simple statement?

“I should have said it, Jay. I can't change the past, but I can promise you that I won't make the same mistakes again. I didn't even realize that you still had so many doubts about my intentions back then, or I would have said something much sooner.”

Jason shook his head, wrestling his anger under control. He knew it wasn't entirely Bruce's fault. “Maybe I should have just asked you what you wanted, but—” Jason broke off in the middle of his sentence to pull out his phone. A perimeter alert had just gone off at the front gate. An unmarked van had arrived, and Jason used his phone to listen with silent suspicion as the midnight security crew introduced themselves over the intercom. Jason was just about to ask them some probing questions when Bruce remotely opened the gate for them.

Jason scowled at him. “Bruce, you didn't even get one of the guys that are on site already to confirm that these are the really the right people!”

“Laszlo said they'd show up in a van just before midnight, and here they are in a van just before midnight. It's obvious who they are.”

Jason gritted his teeth. “We could have double checked.”

Bruce sighed. “I hope you'll grow to trust our security team more as time goes on, Jay. It would be much simpler to just give a few of them privileges to let people through the gates, rather than staying up to midnight every night to let them in and then getting up at 8 AM for the next shift change.”

“You didn't have to stay up with me. I could have let them in myself.”

“But would you? I was a little worried you'd leave them at the gate for an hour long interrogation before finally allowing them through the gate.”

“I wouldn't have taken an hour to vet them,” Jason insisted. Surely thirty minutes would have been sufficient. Maybe a few remote scans of the van wouldn't have hurt, either.

"You really don't need to be so tense, Jay. These people are here to protect us."

"Yeah, sure," Jason responded, unconvinced. "But don't you think that it's a little suspicious that they had so many people available at such short notice?"

"I called a lot of security companies yesterday, and it's true that most of them didn't have much availability in the immediate term. But one of the people I spoke to said he had a friend in another company that had just wrapped up a big job. He said he'd have that friend call me, and that's when I first spoke to Laszlo."

"Laszlo called you?" That only made Jason feel more concerned.

"Yes. He told me his company had the people available to start right away, which is why I went with them. I didn't want to wait when it comes to your safety."

Jason clenched his jaw to keep from giving Bruce a sharp retort. Right now, he wouldn't believe that Jason had been both Robin and the Red Hood. Bruce thought he had a family of civilians, unable to defend themselves, and from that perspective, he was doing the right thing by hiring security. Jason thought he'd definitely gone with the wrong company, but he had no way to prove that just then. Insisting too hard that there was something wrong without any evidence would just make Jason sound paranoid, so he needed to dig up something concrete before he asked Bruce to throw them out.

“Fine. For now we'll just have to agree to disagree about the security team,” Jason said sourly.

“I know it's hard for you to put your trust in new people, Jay, but these are professionals. If you give them a chance, I think they can help you feel much safer here.”

“Right. Well, now that you've let them in the gate, I guess we can get some sleep.”

“Yes. We'll have to be up to let the morning crew in—unless you've changed your mind about granting Laszlo permission to open the gate.”

“No way,” Jason said, determined to hold the line on that front.

Bruce sighed. “Alright, we won't do that tonight. But after a few days of staying up late and still getting up by eight, I think you may change your mind.”

“Doubtful.” In fact, Jason likely wouldn't be going to sleep at all, not until he understood what their so-called security team was up to. He still went through the motions of getting ready for bed, though, because he wasn't about to tell Bruce his plans. That was why he had a mouth full of toothpaste when he heard Laszlo call from down the hall.

“Hello? Bruce, are you still up?”

Jason took a moment to push down his anger that Bruce's new employee thought they were already on a first name basis. Then, he spit out his toothpaste and put on enough clothing to conceal a couple of knives and a small caliber gun, which he then hid on his person. He also unlocked his secure phone and stuck a low profile comm unit into his ear before heading out into the hallway. By that time, Bruce was already in the middle of a conversation with Laszlo.

“So you can show us now?” Laszlo asked.

“Of course. Just let me put on some shoes, and I'll show you the smoothest path to get back up,” Bruce replied.

“What's going on?” Jason asked, trying not to sound too blatantly suspicious.

“Apparently, one of our security team startled a raccoon while out on patrol. Unfortunately, the raccoon startled him in return, and he ended up falling down that little gully by the west gate. He twisted his ankle as he was sliding down, so I'm going to go out there and show them the best way to get back up the slope, so the poor man doesn't further injure himself,” Bruce said.

“Great, lets get going,” Laszlo said, already trying to herd Bruce down the hallway with a hand on his back.

“Wait a minute,” Jason said, jogging to catch up. He wanted to tell Bruce to just let the guy find his way up on his own, mostly because Jason was ninety percent sure this was a trap. Sure, there were raccoons on the grounds, but they didn't tend to hang out by the west gate, mostly because it flooded there too often. Even raccoons didn't like walking in the mud. Bruce seemed to already be halfway convinced that Jason was being unreasonably suspicious about their security team, though, so he was unlikely to leave what he thought was an injured man to find his way back on his own. Jason had to appease Bruce's conscience, and that meant that if he didn't want Bruce leaving the manor, there was only one viable option left. “I will go. Don't you remember that your night vision is terrible, Bruce?”

“It's that bad?” Bruce said, frowning. Of course it wasn't bad. His night vision was actually better than average, but Jason was betting only Batman actually knew that for sure.

“You didn't see those two muggers until they were right in front of your face, did you?” That was mostly due to Bruce's distraction and inebriation, as well as the fact that his eyes probably hadn't completely adjusted to the darkness, after he'd stood in a streetlight while giving his little speech outside Jason's old apartment. The fact that he'd been so vulnerable against two unskilled thugs made Jason certain that he couldn't let Laszlo lure Bruce off, though, even if that meant lying to him. “I could make those two crooks out from blocks away, so it's obvious that you just don't see well at night.”

“Oh. I hadn't realized that you could see so much better than I do. I guess I forgot exactly how my night vision measures up,” Bruce said, still frowning.

“Right, but the last thing we need is two injuries, all because you can't see where you're stepping, so I'll go out there and help. Why don't you see if you can find something in Alfred's medicine cabinet to help with a sprained ankle?”

“That's a good idea. I'll go do that right now,” Bruce agreed.

Jason didn't like the idea of splitting up, but Laszlo's deeply furious expression made him feel like he'd made the right choice in not allowing Bruce to come out and spring the trap with him. “Let's hurry, Laszlo. We don't want to leave your poor injured guy out there for too long,” Jason said with fake sympathy.

“Right,” Laszlo gritted out in reply, before wrestling a smile onto his face with obvious difficulty. “Thanks for volunteering.” He started texting furiously on his phone as they headed for the door, rather than continuing the conversation. That was fine with Jason, as he was busy furiously texting Oracle to get eyes on Bruce. Rather than text him back, she replied to the discreet comm unit in his ear.

“I can launch a couple of drones from the Batcave, but because the entrance between Wayne Manor and the Cave can't be opened remotely, they'll have to go the long way around, out through the cave system, up from the old well, and back to the house. It'll be a few minutes before I can get them in position.”

Jason tapped his acknowledgment into the phone, not wanting to tip Laszlo off that someone was listening in to everything they might say. As soon as they stepped outside, Jason closed his right eye and let Laszlo lead with his flashlight. Laszlo seemed to get more and more tense as he led them across the grounds toward the gully by the west gate. He checked his phone at least every thirty seconds, sending the beam of the phone flashlight swinging wildly across the ground as he did so.

“So you got a pretty sweet deal right now, right?” Laszlo said, as they got closer to the gully. “Nice house, huge yard, all that.”

“Yes,” Jason replied simply, not wanting to get distracted by a complicated conversation and miss something else out there in the night. If the security team was following protocol, then there should be two other men out here, and somehow, Jason doubted they were waiting innocently for help in the gully. He was pretty sure he'd hear them if they tried to rush him, though, so he still kept his right eye closed and made sure Laszlo was on his left.

“You got all that now, but if Bruce gets tired of you, that's it, you're out on the street again, on your own,” Laszlo continued. Jason was already afraid of that, although not for any reasons Laszlo would understand. Jason wasn't about to admit anything out loud, though.

“If you've got something to say to me, then just say it,” Jason replied bluntly. “I've got no patience for veiled insinuations.”

Laszlo appeared slightly taken aback by that. “You actually grew a spine, huh? You used to be such a momma's boy,” he muttered.

Jason immediately realized that Laszlo had just given him a big clue, if he could only figure it out. The two of them had just met today, and Laszlo had never seen Jason interact with his mother or even heard him talk about her. Therefore, he wasn't making that comment due to what he'd seen of Jason Wayne. He had to be saying Jake Turpin was a momma's boy, and he had been.

Suddenly, Jason realized where he'd seen Laszlo before. He'd been checking all the Batcomputer records for someone he would have known about as Robin or Red Hood, but now it was clear that it had actually been Jake Turpin's school yearbook where he'd seen Laszlo's photo. Jason had studied every part of that book which was still legible, so that he could convincingly play Jake. There had been a couple of pictures of a younger Laszlo in there, as the yearbook had included group shots of the various athletic teams. Since the teams themselves were made up of a few different grades of kids, even some kids one or two years above Jake had been included.

In the first picture, Laszlo had been standing alongside Jake with the rest of the baseball team. The names at the bottom of the page had been too water damaged to read, and Laszlo had looked much less dangerous at twelve, with big ears and a bad haircut. Now that Jason was looking for the resemblance, though, he was sure this was the same guy. The real problem was the second picture, though, the one with Laszlo and Enrique, who had been in Jake's grade and whom Jason was aware of for more than just his position on a school baseball team.

“There's nothing wrong with loving your mother,” Jason replied neutrally, still keeping his right eye closed. He frantically tapped at his phone: “Las working with Ortiz.” Jason felt a sudden, nervous urge to turn back toward the manor. He didn't like the thought of Bruce being alone right now. If Jason went back, though, he'd be leading Laszlo right back to Bruce, as well.

“Yeah, that's the guy I remember,” Laszlo replied. “Momma's little angel. I should have known that you'd be so eager to go out in the middle of the night to save your daddy the walk. You were always doing chores for your momma, too. That why Bruce adopted you? To be his errand boy? Or are you doing him some other...service?” Laszlo said, his voice mockingly suggestive.

“Say that to me again, and you'll find out that I learned how to throw a punch, too,” Jason said, only willing to tolerate this charade of civility so far.

Rather than replying, Laszlo gritted his teeth, typed something into his phone, and walked a little faster.

“Jay, why do you think this guy is working with Ortiz?” Oracle asked in his ear.

It was a little difficult to type and walk quickly over uneven ground at night, especially with only one eye open, but Jason managed. “Las and Enrique Pescadero in Turpin's yearbook in pic with caption, 'Best Friends and Best Scorers.'”

“So?” Oracle replied.

“So, Enrique is Ortiz's half brother,” Jason typed.

“What? But I've been through all his records. Rafael Ortiz has no siblings.”

“Officially? No. But there's a reason people believed Jake Turpin might be Willis's,” Jason typed in reply.

“You're saying Rafael Ortiz's father cheated with Enrique Pescadero's mother. Oh, there is an arrest record. Juan Pescadero and Alvero Ortiz got into a nasty bar fight the year Enrique was born. I see Juan filed for divorce the next year.”

“Childhood best friend of Ortiz's brother shows up just after failed hit. Coincidence?” Jason typed. They were almost at the gully, and Jason paid close attention to all his senses, although he still kept his right eye closed.

“No, I don't think that's a coincidence, Jay. I'm going to call the G.C.P.D. and the Gotham County police. Hopefully someone has a car close by.” Jason scowled. “I don't have a camera on you, but I can just imagine the face you're making,” Barbara said, sounding a little bit amused. “But remember you are a civilian right now, Jay. You may be able to excuse some things with a 'rough Crime Alley upbringing', but you should let the cops take most of the credit here, if you can. Besides, you can't be in two places at once. You need someone else back at the manor.” Jason couldn't disagree with that.

“Right. Looks like we're here,” Laszlo said, shining his light down into the gully. “Why don't you lead the way?”

There was no way Jason was giving Laszlo his back, especially when the man would be standing above him. Jason was about to “politely” suggest that Laszlo go first when he caught a whiff of cigarette smoke. Given the way that the wind was blowing, the air currents couldn't have come up from the gully. Someone had to have been smoking recently on higher ground.

“We need to walk a little bit further,” Jason told Laszlo. “I said I'd show you the smoothest route up from the gully, and that's also the smoothest route down.”

Laszlo shifted his weight nervously. “Shouldn't we hurry down, though? We can take our time when we get to my guy.”

“Didn't your mother ever teach you to be careful, Laszlo? We should take the safe way down so that there aren't any more...accidents.” Jason heard the man mutter angrily under his breath, but Laszlo apparently opted not to make his move yet, because he followed Jason quietly after that, phone light jittering across the ground as he tapped quickly at his phone. Jason himself was following his nose. He was beginning to think that whatever idiot Laszlo was working with was actually still smoking, because he could smell it so strongly.

As they got closer, Laszlo seemed to get a clue, because he started hanging back, lowering his phone until the light only fell a couple feet in front of him. “Hey, I don't think we should go so far this way. We're getting too far from my guy.” Jason wondered if it was deliberate, that he only spoke of one man, when there should be two out here. Were there two and Laszlo just knew that mentioning only one injured guy made him sound more helpless and in need of rescue? Or had Laszlo sent the second back to the manor already? With the high tech perimeter security turned off, Jason couldn't know for sure.

It was time to finally figure out what was going on, though, so Jason ignored Laszlo's stalling tactic and turned his own phone flashlight on as he continued walking. When he saw just a flicker of an ember in the darkness half a minute later, he quickly shone the beam directly at the burning cigarette. Two startled men were illuminated in the light. If they'd hoped to ambush Jason from above, it should be obvious to everyone now that their amateur plan was no longer going to work. “What were you saying about going too far, Laszlo? Because it looks like your two guys are right here,” Jason said. Both men seemed to be standing fine. Neither was favoring one leg over the other.

“Luis, I told you to stay out of sight!” Laszlo snapped, and then he seemed to realize he'd just confirmed his own duplicity. Jason moved his phone so that the light just touched Laszlo's feet, leaving his face mostly in shadow. His grimace was still clear.

“Alright,” Laszlo gritted out through clenched teeth. “I guess the game's over, so listen up, because I'm only going to make this offer once. Bruce Wayne is rich. If he gets tired of playing charity games and disowns you, then you'll end up with nothing. But if he dies tonight, you'll inherit millions. You'll be set for life, with no daddy telling you how to spend your cash. And all you need to do is call Bruce out here, and then look away. You give the cops exactly the story we tell you, and you come out of this one of the richest guys in Gotham. You can have everything you've ever dreamed of, right?”

“Everything I ever dreamed of, huh?” Jason had dreamed that his mother would give up the drugs that took her away from him a little further every day, but instead they'd taken her away forever. He'd dreamed that his first dad would clean his act up and be there for their family, but instead Jason hadn't even had a body come home to him. He'd dreamed that he himself would clean up Crime Alley so well as Robin that people wouldn't need to call it Crime Alley anymore, yet he'd lost his name, while the Alley hadn't changed at all. Jason had even dreamed, as he'd struggled to move with shattered bones, that he'd make it out of that warehouse in Ethiopia and home to his family, before he'd realized that the door was locked. There were a lot of dreams Jason would never get to have.

“Yeah, you can have everything!” Laszlo promised enthusiastically, as if life were truly so easy. Maybe he meant to sound encouraging, but he only made Jason furious.

“What if I dream of having a family again?” Jason snarled. “What then?”

“You can hire an entire family, for that amount of cash!”

“I could. They'd say just what I paid them to say. Do what I wanted them to do.”

“Yeah, exactly!” Laszlo exclaimed, obviously not catching the dark undertone in Jason's voice.

“But not a single moment of it would be real,” Jason continued, sick at the thought of it. Maybe his own family was fractured, perhaps past saving, but at least their feelings were sincere.

Laszlo's expression twisted into contemptuous fury. “I just knew you'd be stupid like this!” he growled. “This is my chance to get an in with Rafael, and I'm not going to let you ruin it,” Laszlo snarled, just before he charged.

Jason badly wanted to shoot him. The cops would be here soon, though, and Jason Wayne didn't have a gun license, so he'd have to do things the old fashioned way. Just as Laszlo came within arm's length, Jason sidestepped his headlong charge and then kicked out hard at Laszlo's side, just as the man stumbled to a stop. With his balance already thrown off by his failure to connect with his target, Laszlo lost his footing in the slick grass and fell. Jason gave Laszlo a little extra “nudge” with his foot while he was down and grinned with gleeful satisfaction when Laszlo failed to arrest his momentum in time and started sliding down the slope. His grin only grew deeper when Laszlo disappeared over the edge of the gully with a pitiful yelp. From the way he was howling and cursing on the way down, it seemed like someone might need help getting out of the gully tonight, after all.

Just then, Oracle spoke into Jason's ear. “Jay, the drones have finally reached the manor, and from what I can see through the windows, the two men inside seem to be going through the rooms methodically, searching for something.” They were probably searching for Bruce.

“Damn it!” Jason suddenly had no more time to waste on these fools. He needed to get back to the manor, but the smoker and his accomplice had both reacted to Laszlo's fall by pulling out guns. Jason Wayne would be in legal trouble if he responded in kind.

Fortunately, he secure phone had an ultra-bright setting for the flashlight. With his right eye tightly closed and his head turned away, Jason flipped the flashlight up to ultra-bright and shined it directly into the morons' faces. Since both of them were looking right at him, they got an eyeful. While they were still exclaiming over the painful brightness of the sudden midnight sun, Jason flipped the light off completely, closed his left eye, and opened his right. By relying on an eye that hadn't been exposed to light for several minutes, Jason was able to make out his opponents easily, while they were effectively blind.

Cigarette guy had dropped his gun on the ground and his cig onto his boot in his rush to cover his aching eyes, so Jason went for his partner first. A simple wrist lock and the second gun was on the ground. Then, with a judo throw that even a white belt could manage, Jason put Laszlo's slightly more competent accomplice into the gully after him. By this point, the smoker was frantically shaking his leg to get the cigarette out of his boot.

Jason put himself between the smoker and the gully and clapped once, loudly. “Hey, stupid, way to burn yourself!” he shouted. “Do you get hazard pay if all the wounds are self-inflicted?” Because he really was a moron, the smoker reacted to Jason's taunt with a cry of rage and a blind charge. Jason gracefully sidestepped and watched him run himself into the gully. He hoped he landed on top of Laszlo.

“And that's three down. Some security 'professionals',” Jason muttered, as he scooped up both guns. Then, he turned and started sprinting back toward the manor. The three might be able to follow him eventually, but the sides of the gully were steep and very slick when damp, as they were now. With any luck, the fall would have given the three enough injuries that climbing would be difficult. Maybe the cops would even have arrived by the time they got themselves out.

Even if they did recover quickly and Laszlo had a gun he'd managed to hold onto, as long as Jason didn't turn on his flashlight, it would be next to impossible for someone whose eyes were adjusted to a phone light to make Jason out in the distance, and he certainly didn't intend to give them the chance to close in on him again. His most recent training runs might have been made during the day, when Bruce would join him, but Jason was very experienced at running by moonlight. He also knew the manor grounds well.

Jason had told Bruce several times that this wasn't his home anymore, but it still felt like it sometimes. Jason might lose this place to his own convictions if he and Batman couldn't come to an accord, but like hell would he let some strangers come in and take his place away from him. He couldn't believe Laszlo's sheer callous gall in suggesting that Jason let them kill his dad, just so that he could get rich quick, as if there were any amount of money that could make up for becoming an orphan. Bruce Wayne himself had inherited a mind boggling fortune overnight, but Jason was certain he had never once thought to celebrate the death of this parents.

“Jay, Detective Harvey Bullock of the G.C.P.D. just crossed over into Bristol,” Barbara told him when he was about halfway to the manor, his heart pounding with anger as much as exertion. “He's been told you have 'urgent' information about the Gotham City attempted murder case he's actively working, and my dad warned him that the manor might be compromised. If Detective Bullock gets to Wayne Manor and suddenly needs to defend himself, well, I don't think the Gotham County Sheriff is going to give him flak about jurisdiction. I'll let Detective Bullock through the gates when he arrives, but you'll still beat him to the manor by a few minutes, so you'll be on your own for a little while. The Gotham County Sheriff also has people on the way, but they'll arrive at least five minutes behind Detective Bullock.”

“The good news is, Bruce apparently doesn't remember where Alfred's comprehensive medicine cabinet is. Probably only Batman knows, so he's in that disused room on the second floor, just above the back patio, that Alfred uses for storage. If you go in the back door by the herb garden, then you might have a chance to intercept the two men in the manor on the back staircase, before they get to Bruce.”

“Sounds...like a plan,” Jason got out between breaths. He'd kept up his training, even if he wasn't going out at night, but the fastest route between the gully and the manor was still a long distance to cover at top speed. Jason didn't dare slow down, though, because Bruce was essentially helpless in the manor alone.

“If you leave the back door open when you go in, then I can fly the drones inside,” Barbara told him.

“Will do,” Jason panted, leaping over a small ditch without slowing his pace. He was in sight of the back door when Oracle spoke again.

“Jay, it looks like the men inside have gotten impatient. They've been glaring at their phones and muttering, I think because Laszlo stopped texting them. They've only poked their heads into the last couple of rooms and looked around briefly, instead of doing a thorough search, which means they'll get to the back staircase sooner than I expected. You need to hurry.”

Jason wasn't sure how she thought he could go any faster, when he was already running full speed, but he didn't waste his breath telling her that. Instead, he practically crashed into the back door because he didn't slow down enough to completely stop in time. As soon as he'd wrenched it open, a drone swooped just under the door frame and above Jason's head. He left the door standing open so that the second drone, the one that was probably still outside the windows by the back staircase, could make it through later.

There was no time for a stealthy approach, and Jason was breathing too hard to keep quiet anyway, so he just ran full tilt to intercept the rest of the "security" team. Jason heard them before he saw them, their two voices cursing angrily. When he'd nearly reached the staircase, he saw that the drone was dive bombing the men like an angry blue jay.

“What the hell!” one of them shouted, as he ducked out of the way. “Who's flying that thing?!” The next thing out of his mouth was a startled squawk, as Jason saw his opportunity to reach through the balusters of the staircase and grab hold of an ankle while the man was off balance. Jason yanked the limb he'd captured out from under the man and twisted, bringing him down. The physics of the man's falling body placed his full weight on his trapped leg, as the rest of his body rushed toward the bottom of the stairs and tried to pull his lagging leg along. However, his foot was caught between two balusters and twisted unnaturally by Jason hold. His ankle could have borne the weight of his body, of course, but not at that awkward angle and not with the acceleration from the fall to increase the sudden instantaneous force it was exposed to. Jason knew it when the ankle broke because he could feel the cracking jolt in his hands and hear the man's scream.

The man's partner in crime cursed loudly, as Jason immediately twisted, ducked, and held his breath. With his back to the wall below the staircase, Jason took one wide silent step to the side, straining not to breathe again. Thankfully, the last member of the security crew wasn't any more cautious than the rest, and his response to not being able to see Jason was to lean over the staircase, arm with the gun hanging over the railing and pointed down at where Jason had been before he'd taken the step. At that point, it was child's play to grab the arm and pull the guy over the railing of the staircase. Jason kept hold of the man's arm as he fell, effectively dislocating it at the shoulder. While the man was howling in pain on the floor, Jason scooped up his dropped gun, yanked the electrical cord of the closest lamp out of the wall, and used his smaller knife to slice the cord off at the base of the lamp. He then swiftly tied the man up with the cord, keeping a careful ear out to make sure that the other man was still down, whimpering in pain. The League of Assassins specifically trained people to endure that sort of pain and keep going, but it didn't seem like these guys had much experience continuing a fight after taking a serious injury.

As Jason checked the tied man for any further weapons, he made the happy discovery that he actually had some rope on him. Jason then went over and forced the broken ankle of the other man back through the balustrade. After that, he seemed to be in too much pain to put up any resistance, so Jason confiscated his gun and a smaller knife, and tied him up with his buddy's own rope. Jason was surveying his handiwork and just beginning to think about checking his phone, which had started silently vibrating in his pocket, when he heard a gunshot. His heart jolted.

“Barbara?” he asked, anxiously trying to figure out where the sound had come from. Inside, definitely, but he wasn't sure if it was from upstairs or downstairs.

The drone which had been hovering a few feet over his head suddenly took off toward the middle of the manor. “I sent the second drone upstairs to keep an eye on Bruce,” Barbara told him, her voice tense. “I saw something on the main staircase, but before I could get a closer look—” If the shot was fired on the staircase, no wonder Jason couldn't tell whether the sound came from upstairs or downstairs.

If someone was on the main staircase, though—Jason immediately started running again. He'd gone to the back staircase because he wanted to intercept their “security”, but it wasn't the closest staircase to the room Bruce was in. The main staircase was. “Bruce, barricade the door!” he shouted at the top of his lungs as he ran up the back stairs, cursing the corner he had to turn at the top, which forced him to slow down slightly. The vibrating phone was probably Bruce trying to call him, but Jason had now confiscated four guns. He hadn't had enough extra pockets for each, so he'd been forced to shove one of them into the same pocket as his phone. It was a tight fit, and even Jason didn't think he could wriggle the phone free without slowing down a bit.

“It's Ortiz!” Oracle practically shouted in his ear. “He must have been hiding out in the midnight crew's van!”

Another gunshot rang out, and Jason nearly had a heart attack before Oracle assured him, “Ortiz just clipped the drone I sent to investigate. I'll see if I can get it back in the air.”

Breathless, Jason felt a surge of relief when he finally got within knife throwing distance of the storage room. The door was closed, but then to his absolute horror, Bruce opened it. “Jay, are you here?”

Jason wanted to curse. He wanted to scream. He wanted to knock Bruce out and tie him up and leave him somewhere no one evil could ever find him. What he wanted most of all just then, though, was not to see Ortiz coming down the hallway from the other side, his gun already pointed at Bruce's head. Jason wanted a lot of things in life. He rarely ever got them.

“NO!” he shouted, still sprinting, his hand moving to draw his own gun, but he wouldn't be in time.

Ortiz's gun fired, and then he and Jason both flinched, as metal and plastic bits which had once been a drone shattered in midair. Barbara had indeed gotten it up again and flown it sacrificially into the sight line Ortiz had been aiming down.

Jason did not waste his chance. He plowed full tilt into Bruce and dragged him back into the storage room, closing the door behind them. Then, he pressed Bruce tightly into the corner between the wall with the door in it and a wall with tall shelves. Unfortunately, all the shelving was actually built into the walls, so there was nothing heavy to block the door with. When Bruce tried to say something, Jason shoved a hand over his mouth until he got the message and quit trying to talk. Then, Jason tried very hard to stop himself from breathing too loudly.

“I just let Detective Harvey Bullock through the gate,” Oracle informed him over the comm unit. “Another couple officers from Gotham County are about five minutes behind him. Your so called security must have left the front door open for Ortiz, so the cops should be able to get in, but I know that doesn't help you right now. I'm trying to get the first drone Ortiz shot in the air again, but it's supposed to have four propellers. It's only got two functional.”

That was not good news. Jason considered his options. Other than the door, the only exit from the storage room was the window. Jason could free climb down from a second story window, but a quick scan of the shelves didn't reveal any more convenient rope. Civilian only Bruce wouldn't know how to climb down safely without equipment. Jason could make a rope out of their clothing, but that would likely take time he didn't have.

If escape wasn't an option, Jason could just quickly open the door and hope to take Ortiz by surprise, as Ortiz didn't know he could shoot. If Jason went immediately for a kill shot, he thought he had a pretty decent chance of seeing Ortiz dead that way. The hitman was no rank amateur, though. There was some risk Jason would be shot himself, and he wasn't wearing any armor. Also, even if Jason did use one of the guns he'd confiscated, so that the cops wouldn't find out about his own unlicensed weapon, Bruce wasn't likely to forgive Jason for shooting someone dead. Jason couldn't help remembering how Bruce had screamed the last time Jason had taken aim at Ortiz. Maybe Jason could live with that, though, as long as Bruce was alive to hate him.

Jason could, of course, aim to wound, rather than kill, but if he didn't take Ortiz out instantly, there was a chance he'd take a successful retaliatory shot at Bruce or Jason. Unlike Laszlo and the rest of the flunkies, Jason suspected that Ortiz had enough grit and experience to work through some pain, and Jason wasn't willing to take half measures when Bruce's life was on the line. He needed to act decisively.

Jason tried to silently indicate that Bruce should stay put by pressing hard on his shoulders and then stepping back, but Bruce grabbed on to Jason's elbow as he tried to turn back toward the door. Jason scowled, but Bruce kept his hold and reached out to touch Jason's temple with his other hand. When he pulled his fingers back, Jason saw that they were smeared in blood. For a moment, he was worried that Bruce had been hurt somehow, but then Jason reached up and felt his own temple. He was definitely bleeding. Some debris from the drone Ortiz had shot must have cut Jason as it shattered outward. He hadn't even noticed. He'd just have to make sure that he didn't let the blood obscure his vision when the time came to act.

While Bruce delayed him, Ortiz's footsteps had come to a stop just short of the door. Jason tensed, hoping he could break away from Bruce quickly enough to react properly, but instead of trying the door, Ortiz unexpected started speaking. “Laszlo claimed he could handle everything, but I knew I needed to come myself. Listen to me, Jake. I don't know how Laszlo could mess up a pitch this easy, but here it is: Wayne lives, he's rich. He dies, you're rich. Simple, isn't it?”

The words infuriated Jason, but he forced himself to take a deep breath and turn on the comm relay feature of his secure phone before he said anything in reply. Then he turned the volume on his phone all the way up and took the discreet comm unit out of his ear. He whispered quietly into the comm, and his phone said loudly, “Only a psychopath could think family is simple. Family is hard and messy and irreplaceable.”

Bruce made a small, confused sound as he looked from the comm unit to the phone, but this time, when Jason pressed back on his shoulders with the heels of his occupied hands and stepped away, Bruce allowed Jason to go.

“But he's not really your family, is he? He's not blood,” Ortiz said, as if that mattered. Sheila had been blood, but she'd never been as much of a mother to Jason as Catherine had been, despite her many flaws. “Wayne's just some rich guy looking for some good publicity from a sham adoption.”

“You don't know the first thing about Bruce,” Jason hissed quietly and furiously into the comm, and his phone practically shouted the words. Jason used the time he was speaking to cross the room, letting his feet land loudly.

“How about this, then,” Ortiz said. “You stand by him, you both die.

“How about I stand by him, so we both live,” Jason said, so softly, as he placed the phone down on a shelf at head height near the opposite corner of the room from Bruce. Then, Jason started retreating away from the phone, steps as soundless as Catwoman's on a heist, even though he just wanted to charge out of the door and beat Ortiz's face in.

Jason had been been so annoyed with Laszlo, but that scumbag hadn't been more than a bumbling bottom feeder who'd been trying to use a lucky break and a tangential social connection to attach himself to someone tremendously more “successful”. Unlike the incompetents Jason had dealt with earlier that evening, word on the street was that Ortiz was talented. He had discipline and drive and vision. There were so very many worthwhile things he could have chosen to do with his life, but instead he'd chosen to take other people's lives away.

“You really willing to bet your life that you can take me on?” Ortiz said. “I'm offering you an alliance, Jake, and I'm a powerful man in Crime Alley. I could show you how to turn the money you stand to inherit into real power.”

“Hard no,” Jason whispered into the comm unit, and the phone spoke loudly from the other side of the room. Jason's heart jolted with a spike of adrenaline when Bruce opened his mouth, but Jason was able to put his free hand over his mouth in time. Then, he pulled his hand away, pointed to the comm unit, squeezed his thumb and index fingers together as if indicating something very small, and them pointed to Bruce's throat.

Bruce nodded, and Jason reluctantly held the comm up to his lips, hoping he truly understood that he had to be quiet so that Ortiz would not hear the real source of his voice. “Jay, don't put yourself in danger for me. My life isn't worth it,” Bruce whispered, and the phone relayed his voice loudly from the opposite corner of the room.

“You see? Even Wayne knows I'm offering you a good deal,” Ortiz said. His voice sounded just a little closer, though, and Jason tensed. Ortiz had probably just been waiting to hear Bruce talk, so that he knew where they both were. The next instant, Ortiz flung open the door and started shooting at the corner of the room where Bruce and Jason weren't. Jason had chosen to hide on the side of the room closer to the door knob, rather than the door hinges, so that the door would open away from him. With nothing to obstruct him, Jason went straight for Ortiz.

Rafael Ortiz had a dangerous reputation as a fighter in Crime Alley, but Jason had trained under the best on several continents. Even if he hadn't, he was coming at Ortiz from the side and partly behind, when all of his focus was somewhere else. Even a good fighter could quickly find himself in trouble if he was taken by surprise, and Jason did not forget his stealth training as he struck.

Ortiz made one soft sound of surprise as Jason looped an arm around his throat from behind. He started to turn, but Jason moved with him in order to keep himself behind Ortiz. The hitman also began to raise his arms, but Jason had started moving before him. He got his other arm up first, clasping the fingers of both hands together for good leverage to complete the blood choke. At that point, Jason knew he'd won.

The hitman thrashed wildly. He might have tried to cold clock Jason with the gun, but the angle was bad and he was swinging blindly over his head. He did manage to scratch the arm Jason had around his neck, but his struggles grew rapidly weaker. Less than ten seconds later, the gun dropped from his suddenly limp hands, as the lack of blood reaching his brain forced Ortiz into unconsciousness.

Bruce hastily kicked the gun away, looking pale. He only got more pale as Jason kept holding the choke, though. “He'll regain consciousness just as quickly if I let go,” Jason snapped at him. It would take minutes to kill Ortiz this way, so it wasn't a real issue—yet. “Get a rope or something to tie him up with,” Jason growled at Bruce, who looked frantically around the shelves before realizing, like Jason already had, that there was nothing in the room that was suitable.

Bruce ran out of the door, presumably to search the rest of the house. He had looked flustered enough that maybe he wouldn't find a rope in time, though. Jason could always release the choke and secure Ortiz in another hold while he waited, as he was an experienced grappler and Ortiz would certainly be disoriented when blood flow was first restored. On the other hand, though, maybe Jason could just keep holding on until they didn't need a rope anymore.

This man had tried to kill Jason's dad. Twice. Jason remembered the terror of rounding the corner of the apartment building while Bruce stood frozen on the sidewalk, the way Jason's heart had seized when he'd seen Bruce open the door and step out into Ortiz's line of fire just minutes ago. Jason knew Bruce wasn't Ortiz's first target, either. The hitman had already killed other people's fathers and mothers. All it would take was just a few more minutes of Jason doing exactly what he was doing right now, and Ortiz would never be able to hurt anyone else, ever again. It would feel so good to take this scum off the streets permanently.

That thought made Jason pause. It would feel good—right now. Would it still feel good three months from now? Three days? Three hours? It had been only a few minutes since Jason had even found out Ortiz was in the manor. He hadn't had a chance to think through all the consequences yet, even though he'd told Barbara he would do that, before making any permanent choices.

The cops would be here shortly. There would be media personalities hounding them for interviews and an official police investigation. What would happen if Harvey Bullock arrived and Ortiz was dead? What would that do to Bruce? How would he handle questions from the detectives? What sort of scrutiny would it bring to the manor, even after Batman regained his memories? Did Jason Wayne really want to be famous for killing someone, when there might be more people out there who had known that Jake Turpin was an incredibly timid kid? What if this inconsistency made people start asking difficult questions about Jason's identity?

Rationally, there were a lot of reasons to hold back, but Jason's anger surged stubbornly. Weren't there reasons on the other side of the equation, too? Even if the police investigation and the following trial went well, how much trust did Jason really have in Gotham's prisons? Would they actually hold Ortiz? The worst monsters always seemed to come back to haunt the streets of Gotham, and Ortiz had a clear history of killing innocent people to enrich and empower himself. He now had a history of going after Bruce personally, too. Would it really be so bad for Jason to ignore what he'd told Barbara and kill quickly just this once? Ortiz should be stopped permanently, and Jason dearly wanted to be the one to do it—which was probably exactly why he shouldn't.

If he killed every time he wanted to, which might be every time someone did something evil or cruel enough to infuriate him, could Jason really say he was controlling his anger? If he killed without fully thinking through the consequences, could he truly claim he was making the best choices? If Batman didn't trust Jason ever again because of the blood on his hands, maybe Jason could live with that. Could Jason live with it if he couldn't trust himself?

Just then, Bruce came rushing back into the storage room with a long extension cord, which they sometimes used out on the patio. “I know it's not a rope, but will it do?” he said, holding it out toward Jason. It wasn't the best offering, but Jason had made do with worse.

The thing was, it had only been a couple of minutes. If Jason let go now, Ortiz would certainly survive. Jason should let go, though. He knew he should let go. He told himself to let go, but the memory of Ortiz's gun aimed at Bruce's head was burned into Jason's mind. His arms just didn't want to cooperate.

“Jay?” Bruce asked, sounding deeply distressed. “Please, isn't this good enough?” he practically begged.

Jason had stopped Ortiz for today. It should be enough for now. It had to be enough. Why wouldn't his hands unclench? The terror that maybe he wasn't really in control of himself was actually the thing that jolted his stiff muscles into motion. Ortiz fell to the floor, and all the tension seemed to go out of Bruce as Jason took the extension cord.

“Thank you,” Bruce croaked.

Jason didn't respond immediately. Instead, he made sure that Ortiz was very securely bound, and then Jason stepped out of the room with Bruce and shut the door on the hitman for good measure. Ortiz might look groggy, but there was no way Jason would let him overhear this, so he walked halfway over to the back stairs as well.

Only when he was sure they wouldn't be overheard did Jason speak. “If you're thanking me for letting Ortiz go, Bruce, I didn't do it for you.” Bruce flinched at his harsh tone, but it would be Batman who inherited these memories, and Jason didn't want him to take this as a sign that Jason was open to taking his orders. “I did it for me,” he continued, “so that I know that when I kill, it's not my anger or my trauma or my dip in the Lazarus Pit that's doing it.” Jason shook his head. “I know you're not going to listen when you get your memories back, so listen to me now, Bruce. Barbara told me that violence is very rarely the best solution. Maybe that's true of killing, too. But 'rarely' isn't the same thing as 'never'. Maybe I should have done a better job in the past of considering all the angles, but if I do consider them, and I truly believe that killing is the best solution in a specific case—I'm not going to let you stop me.”

Bruce shook his head, but he didn't look angry. If anything, he just looked even sadder in response to Jason's words. “I wasn't thanking you for letting Ortiz go, Jay. I was thanking you for saving my life. As a father, it's my job to protect you. It's my job, but instead I let you die,” Bruce said, his voice cracking on the last word, and to Jason's shock, he looked like he was actually on the verge of tears. “That night—my parents, in the alley—they stood in front of me, but you put your life in danger, again, shoving me behind you. So, thank you, Jason. But also, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry that I keep putting you in danger, and I'm sorry that I've failed you so deeply as a father that you don't even expect thanks when you throw yourself into danger for my sake.” Bruce was openly crying by this point, and Jason stared at him in abject horror.

“Bruce, no, you didn't fail me. I—you don't have to apologize. I had it handled. I—”

Bruce reached out to touch Jason's injured temple again, and Jason wasn't exactly sure how it turned into a hug. Somehow, though, they ended up squeezing each other tightly. The smell of Bruce's subtle cologne was startlingly familiar, even though Jason had once been so certain that he'd forgotten it, and the hug itself was surprisingly warm and comforting, especially after Jason had spent a disquieting portion of the night afraid that Bruce might die.

Suddenly, Jason felt a lot more sympathy for Batman's habit of trying to communicate without words. Jason wasn't even sure what he was supposed to say. How could he possibly explain to Bruce that he had the proper training and experience to handle exactly this sort of situation, when Bruce didn't even believe that Batman and Robin were legitimate crime fighters?

Hugging, though, hugging was easy. They stayed, arms locked around each other, leaned into each other's shoulders, for what was probably several minutes, before the sound of heavy footsteps in the foyer jolted Jason back into reality. “That must be Detective Bullock. Come on, Bruce,” he said, gently breaking away. “We better tell him what happened with Ortiz.”

Bruce nodded and seemed to pull himself together, but Jason had a bad feeling that he wasn't going to let this incident go so easily.

Chapter Text

“Did you get a chance to read over the Gotham County police report yet, Tim?” Barbara asked, prompting Tim to look up from his laptop and the update Cyborg had just emailed him. It seemed to be just a standard progress report on the dimension crossing machine, so Tim could afford to read it more thoroughly later, when he wasn't on a video call with Barbara, Dick, and Jason.

“Yes, I read it,” Tim confirmed, giving his main monitor, where all four of their faces were up in split screen, his full attention.

“Good,” Barbara said. “I don't know the officers from Gotham County as well as you do, so I'd just like confirmation that you didn't see any signs that they're suspicious of Jason's story.”

“No, I didn't see anything concerning. Sheriff Steven Smith isn't stupid, but he's...straightforward. If he's got what looks like a clear answer, he's not going to dig deeper, and his deputies will follow his lead. Laszlo's mistaken attack really did us a favor, there.”

Laszlo Varga had apparently been limping out of the gully when Sheriff Smith and one of his deputies had gone out on the grounds searching for him, and in the darkness, Laszlo had mistaken the sheriff for Jason and opened fire. He'd even been shouting about how he'd bury Jake next to Bruce, since he was such a daddy's boy, which had given the sheriff enough confirmation of Jason's story that he wasn't likely to harbor any suspicions. “It doesn't even seem like he's concerned about the details of how exactly the second man got into the gully. You said you actually threw him, Jason?” Tim asked.

“Yeah,” Jason confirmed. “He was a little too far from the edge to just shove.”

“Well, at least your story explains the relevant facts the sheriff has access to.” The man Jason had thrown, Imre Racz, had told the cops that Jake had "accidentally" shone his phone flashlight into Racz's eyes, as well as those of his patrol partner, and then his patrol partner, Luis Lopez, had stumbled into him and knocked him down into the gully. Racz had mentioned that the flashlight was really bright, but any flashlight could look bright to someone standing around in the dark, so Tim didn't think that in itself would raise any red flags as about what sort of phone Jason had been using.

Racz's account of the night had actually made everything sound like an unlucky mishap and didn't include any guns or even give a valid reason for why Laszlo might have been firing at someone in the dark. Luis himself had refused to talk, but when the sheriff, after getting Jason's initial statement, had taunted him about running straight into the gully, he'd snarled that Jason had “tricked” him. He'd shut up fast after that, but it was enough to give some further confirmation of Jason's version of events.

On Tim's monitor, Jason rolled his eyes. “Yeah, what a genius cover up Racz came up with. I doubt that story even worked for as long as it took the cops to discover the prints on the triggers of the guns I confiscated. Considering that Racz was temporarily blind and in pain, though, he might actually believe that it was his buddy standing right beside him that knocked him over, rather than the guy that he knew was a few feet away—the last time he saw anything, at least. These guys definitely didn't seem like they were professional enough to keep track of everything that was going on while they were hurt or surprised, which is why I figured I could get away with telling the cops that I just shoved Racz and he dropped his gun and fell down the gully. It wasn't like I used an advanced throw or like wrist locks are that hard to perform, but it takes zero skill to shove someone.”

Tim nodded. “I don't think anyone will question your story as far as the gully goes. Racz was obviously lying about their guns and Laszlo's motives, which casts a lot of doubt on his version of events. Considering that Racz and Lopez got knocked around a bit on the way down the gully and couldn't even see anything before that, I agree that they might not even be sure of what the truth is, themselves. They also probably won't tell anyone the truth on the record, even if they did know, and if they start claiming you were some sort of master combatant to their friends, everyone will just think they're trying to save face after being shoved down a gully—or literally running right into it, in the case of Luis Lopez.”

Tim frowned. “I was actually more nervous about the fact that you only hid the first drone that was shot after sending Detective Bullock up to the storage room to check on Ortiz.” Jason had apparently told the police that the nearly obliterated second drone was actually the only drone which had been flying that night. He'd also described it as a normal civilian model, which was hard to contradict when the thing was in too many pieces to easily identify. “That, and the phone switch you pulled while the detective was taking Ortiz downstairs and explaining to the sheriff's deputies that he had a warrant for him. From his police report, it doesn't seem like Detective Bullock noticed that you disturbed any crime scenes, but he could have.”

“I don't think that was likely. The first drone went down at a difficult spot for Bullock to see, just at the side of the main staircase, and I put on my scared civilian face to get him upstairs to check on Ortiz straight away,” Jason assured Tim. “It was also just a little before 1 AM at that point. I know that doesn't sound late to us, especially considering that it's 8:30 AM and here we are having a video conference after being up all night, but Detective Bullock was definitely sporting some heavy bags under his eyes when I saw him. He was probably working all day and yet still up late enough to respond immediately when the commissioner tried to find someone to get to the manor pronto.”

“Judging by the warrant applications he's been making lately,” Barbara interjected, “Detective Bullock's probably been working long days and maybe even pulling all nighters, chasing leads on Ortiz and Vincencio.”

Jason nodded. “Makes sense. This is an important case for the GCPD, and Vincencio and Ortiz aren't stupid. The detectives had to know they were in a race to gather evidence before it disappeared forever. Sleep deprivation and excellent attention to non-obvious, seemingly unimportant details don't tend to go hand in hand, though, and when I dangled the threat and possibility of Ortiz in front of him, of course Detective Bullock was too distracted to examine what was at the side of the staircase. He was too focused on what was at the top of it. He barely even spared a minute to check on the guys by the back staircase, because he was too focused on Ortiz.”

Tim nodded grudgingly. “I guess Detective Bullock also isn't known for digging into side explorations when he's got obvious answers in front of him.”

“Right, and since Ortiz couldn't have made it upstairs to Bruce so quickly if he'd stopped to inspect the first drone he shot down, even he probably can't be certain that the first and second drones he shot at aren't one in the same. Barbara did get the second one he shot at flying after he shot it once, after all, so that's proof that one of his bullets wouldn't necessarily keep a drone down, and he never saw them both at the same time.”

“I was also flying them quickly, which makes detailed observations difficult,” Barbara added. “Ortiz has remained completely silent, anyway, so there isn't actually anyone to contradict Bruce and Jason about how many drones there were. The two men who were on the back staircase only ever saw one, even if they did decide to talk.”

“Okay. It sounds like we probably don't have to worry about anyone looking deeper into the drones, then,” Tim acknowledged.

Considering the amount of damage being shot nearly point blank had done to the drone Jason hadn't hidden, Tim didn't think the police would question the state of the memory card, which Jason had apparently ensured was beyond recovery while Detective Bullock was distracted with Ortiz. Tim also did not anticipate that the cops would make a painstaking attempt to piece together enough of the drone to actually figure out that it was a much more sophisticated model than Jason had claimed. Why waste time reconstructing something when you already thought you knew what it was?

Jason had apparently also moved a few fragments of casing, some wiring, and a small microphone from the shattered drone into the storage room, while Detective Bullock hauled Ortiz downstairs. That meant the police wouldn't even have all the fragments of the drone to work with, if they did try assembling it. The two Gotham County deputies who had shown up a few minutes after Bullock had dutifully recorded that those shattered pieces in the storage room were from a bluetooth headset which had been crushed during Jason's “struggle” with Ortiz, which meant they wouldn't be looking for the low profile comm unit Jason had actually used.

Jason could, of course, have edited his story to not include the phone he'd used to fool Ortiz at all. With Bruce and Jason backing up each other's accounts and Ortiz remaining silent, the police would probably have believed them. However, a careful outside observer might question why Ortiz, who had displayed some undeniable skill in the past, had failed so spectacularly to aim at his targets, and Ortiz himself would know for certain that they were lying, if an explanation for the voice coming from the far side of the room wasn't given. Some incompetent thugs who fell down a gully and didn't know the first thing about what had actually happened couldn't cast much suspicion on their family, but a dangerous observer who was already suspicious might listen to someone like Ortiz. It was better, therefore, not to lie too much.

“I still think switching out the phone at that point was a little risky, though.”

“Worse than letting the cops get their hands on the secure phone?” Jason replied.

“I think we all understand the obvious issues with that,” Barbara chimed in. “The secure phone can—and did—stop bullets. Tired cops distracted by dangerous criminals late at night do tend to miss things, but if that phone ended up in evidence, forensics would be assigned to examine it and actually try to access the memory. Even though we could make sure it was switched to the civilian partition, I don't think I'd like someone taking that close a look at it.”

“I considered letting them take it and then swapping a different phone for it in the evidence room early this morning,” Jason said. That was, in fact, what Tim probably would have done in his place. “If I couldn't get my hands on a civilian phone that was an exact visual match, though, it's possible that the switch would raise even more suspicions. I also try not to break into police stations, if I can avoid it,” Jason said.

“Always a good policy,” Dick said with a tired smile. He looked like he was just barely fighting off sleep, but Tim knew he'd actually spent most of the night fighting supervillains, so he didn't blame Dick for not contributing much on the call.

“Luckily, one of the first things Bruce did after realizing I wasn't actually dead was get me a brand new civilian phone under his phone plan,” Jason said, “so if anyone does ask, I can just claim I had two phones on me because some of my old friends didn't have my new number yet. Thankfully, the burner phone I brought to the manor with me doesn't have anything incriminating on it, and it's not that uncommon for a civilian to pair a bluetooth headset with a phone, either. With two phones, any mildly tech savvy person could figure out how to set the old phone on vibrate, then call the it from the new phone, and then put the old one on speakerphone and crank the volume up.”

Of course, Tim knew that if Jason had actually been speaking into a small civilian bluetooth headset, it wouldn't have picked up a bare whisper of a voice. However, held close to the mouth, a good bluetooth headset would have registered speech at a decently reduced volume. The door to the storage room was thick, and Ortiz had fired a few shots without earplugs just before he'd burst in, so it wasn't outside the realm of possibility that he could have failed to hear speech at a lower volume, especially when having the call on speakerphone at the highest volume across the room might have drowned the original voice out.

“I assume you faked the call records already, Babs?” Tim asked.

“Yes, when the cops get the records, they'll see a call from the new phone to the burner at exactly the right time. Also, they'll notice an earlier call from Jason to me where he shared his 'concerns' about his old baseball teammate, Laszlo. I actually finished taking care of that right before Detective Bullock called me. As I'm sure you can tell from the reports, neither the GCPD nor the Gotham County Sheriff spoke to me for very long, and they didn't question my story, even though most civilians wouldn't pilot a drone remotely indoors. After I said I was only copying what Bruce Wayne himself does all the time at the manor, they seemed to write it off as the sort of thing rich people with huge houses just do.”

Tim nodded. “I don't think that part of the story is too concerning, especially as you claimed you were aiming to ram Ortiz with the drone. It takes a lot less skill to accidentally get in the way of a bullet, rather than deliberately. You and Dick have a public romantic history, too, so it seems reasonable that he might have asked you to help the new addition to the family pass the GED.”

Barbara nodded. “I actually used to help people find study materials for the GED pretty frequently, back when I worked at the Gotham City Public Library. The fact that Jason just recently passed one section of the GED supports our story there, too. If Jason and I were already in contact, it only makes sense that he'd call me if he was halfway suspicious of Laszlo. After all, my dad is the police commissioner, so calling me is a low stakes middle ground between ignoring an uncertain suspicion and calling it in as an official concern to the police.”

“Yes, that sounds believable,” Tim agreed. “So other than shoving people, pulling them down the stairs, and some minor tech savvy, the only real skills Jason is on record as using are knot tying and the blood choke, and the only weapon he used was a knife to cut the lamp cord.”

Jason nodded. “It was a small, good quality knife, but not so good that it would raise suspicions. I had no issues handing it over, and the fact that I didn't use a knife to stab anyone, even though I had one on me, only supports the claim that I'm not used to being in fights. No one has questioned me about why I'm good with knots, but Jake Turpin was in the boy scouts briefly. I figure I'll use that as an excuse if I have to. The blood choke is a bit more concerning,” Jason admitted, frowning slightly in the square besides Barbara's on Tim's screen. “Jake played baseball, not wrestling.”

“I'll happily take the credit for teaching my new little brother how to defend himself,” Dick said warmly, although his eyes never got above half mast. “That's something I learned as a police officer, and it makes sense that I'd be worried about your safety, after the murder attempt in Crime Alley.”

Jason nodded. “Good. I think that covers everything, then. Unless any more police reports have been filed recently? Bruce has been having some awful nightmares, and he keeps coming to check my room, so I've spent most of the past couple hours pretending to be asleep.”

“Then you probably haven't heard, but the police finished rounding up most of the security company before the planned 8 AM shift change. A couple of them appear to have skipped town, but there was one report just filed about the initial interrogation of Tamas Horvath,” Barbara told them. Tim could see her eyes moving quickly back and forth on screen, so she was probably skimming the report for any useful details. “Horvath said Laszlo Varga accepted the Wayne Manor security job without consulting him, even though they didn't have enough people available to work it. When Lazslo told him how much it would pay, though, and said he'd get the extra muscle to cover all of the night shift and some of the morning shift, Horvath accepted his good fortune and his new employees without asking any questions—or so he claims.”

“Do you think he knew?” Tim asked her.

“I've obviously been doing a lot of digging into his security company over the past few hours. I still haven't found any damning digital records, but only because there really are almost no digital records at all. I suspect that's deliberate, as his clients probably aren't generally entirely legitimate. Some of them were just regular companies with warehouses in bad parts of town, but from the emails I was able to get access to a couple of hours ago, it looks like Horvath was well known for not asking too many questions about what his company would be guarding. By cross referencing places his company provided security with past police reports, I've found that his people did a lot of work guarding counterfeit luxury goods and merchandise that 'fell off' trucks, as well as some short stints probably guarding drugs. He's never been involved with murder before, though, at least from what I've found.”

“So his company did real security work, but for criminal clients,” Tim summarized.

Barbara nodded. “Of the night crew, only Laszlo worked for Tamas Horvath before this job. I'm sure Horvath knew something was fishy when Laszlo brought him all these new workers on such short notice, but his whole business model revolved around not asking questions. He may have thought Bruce Wayne was up to something shady that he only discussed with Laszlo, or maybe he just thought the night crew was going to make off with some expensive items from Wayne Manor that wouldn't be immediately missed. From the transcript, he seemed really caught off guard when police questions started covering guns and the intent to kill. As far as I've discovered, nothing actually links Tamas Horvath to Rafael Ortiz, so he may honestly just be a petty criminal who got pulled unwittingly by his greed into a more serious criminal's plot.”

Jason nodded. “I wouldn't say he seemed trustworthy, but I didn't get a bad feeling from Tamas the same way I did from Laszlo. He might actually not be guilty in this case.”

“That could be a good thing for this police investigation. Horvath won't want to be tried for an attempted murder he wasn't involved with, so he might be willing to cooperate in order to spare himself some serious legal trouble. Even if he wasn't involved with the murder plot, he still operates out of Crime Alley, so he probably has some useful information, maybe something to link Ortiz to Vincencio,” Barbara said, sounding optimistic. Tim knew she wanted her dad to succeed, even though the police often faced long odds when it came to gathering enough evidence to convict criminals like Vincencio. Despite his frequent disappointments, Tim himself was also hoping the GCPD could come through in this case. They should at least have a very solid case against Ortiz by now, so if they could just prove that Ortiz was acting as Vincencio's hitman, they should be able to convict Vincencio, as well.

“My biggest concern is actually whether Bruce is going to stick to the story,” Barbara confessed. “It seems like the police have been too busy questioning the criminals so far to worry about cross checking the witnesses, but they may do that eventually.”

Tim winced. “I guess Bruce still doesn't believe we have any secret identities to hide.”

“I actually think we're okay, in this case,” Jason said. “I pointed out to Bruce that because he was a target, this is going to end up leading to a very widely covered trial. Most of what we tell the police will therefore also make its way out to the general public, which naturally includes all of Gotham's criminal element. The more criminals know about our security and our ability to defend ourselves, the easier it will be for them to strike at us again. Bruce was pretty shaken up by this latest attack,” Jason said, his voice worried, and his eyebrows tilting up and in, “so I think he's actually fully behind keeping a few secrets. If anything, he's maybe a little too concerned about having to face another security threat.”

“I'm sorry to hear he's getting more paranoid, but in this case, it might actually be necessary, since people really are out to get him,” Barbara replied unhappily.

Despite the seriousness of their conversation, none of them were exactly surprised when Dick let out a jaw cracking yawn at that moment. “Sorry,” Dick said, sheepishly. “Long night.” He rubbed at his eyes vigorously but didn't manage to make himself look any more awake. “Did we cover everything?” he asked, a little plaintively.

“I think that's everything we need to go over for now,” Barbara told him sympathetically. They were all well acquainted with sleep deprivation by this point. “I'll keep an eye on the police investigation and dig a little more into Laszlo and company myself, but you should probably try to get some sleep before the next crisis hits.”

“Right. Good night, everyone. Or good morning.”

“Call Bruce when you get the chance!” Jason reminded him. He'd told Dick and Tim that at the beginning of the call, as well. Of all the things Jason could pick to be insistent about, Tim hadn't thought this would be the one, but he was beginning to realize that his impression of what Jason was actually like had been more than a little skewed.

“I'll set a reminder for when I wake up,” Dick assured him, “but I can barely keep my eyes open at this point.” He started to say something else, but instead interrupted himself with another huge yawn.

“Yeah, you probably want to be able to stay awake for that conversation,” Jason admitted.

“True. I'll talk to you all later,” Dick said, before signing out.

“You look mostly awake, Tim,” Jason said, seamlessly turning his attention to his secondary target. “You should probably call Bruce now.”

Tim glanced at the time on his computer. “It's 8:42 AM,” he said, wondering about whether Bruce would actually even be awake. “Wasn't Bruce up for most of the night, going through things with the police? And you said he had nightmares, too.”

“Which is why you should call him. He's got some serious issues now about how he's not doing enough to 'protect' his family. Let him at least know that you're doing okay, so he can calm down a little bit. He'll sleep better if he's got one less thing to worry about,” Jason said, with a lot more concern in his voice than Tim had been expecting. While Tim still had a lot of worries about what would happen when Bruce got his memory back, he couldn't deny that Jason had protected Bruce three times now: from a mugging, a shooting at Crime Alley, and a home invasion. He probably was honestly trying to look out for Bruce's welfare.

“Alright, fine. I'll call Bruce as soon as I've read Cyborg's status report,” Tim agreed. “Goodbye, everyone,” he said, before signing out of the call himself. Rather than checking his email immediately, though, Tim took a few minutes to just think.

As much as he liked to nitpick and optimize, he could admit that Jason had actually done a good job subduing the invaders without displaying too much skill, which could be a difficult restriction. He also hadn't killed or even fired a gun, despite the barely leashed anger Tim had heard in his voice when Jason had described his confrontation with Ortiz. Tim himself was angry that Ortiz had gone after Bruce, all to protect some slimeball prostituting underage girls, and he hadn't even witnessed anything first hand, so he could only guess that Jason was much more furious. He had played things smart, though, and Tim could appreciate that.

The conference call to cover what had really happened and get their story straight had actually felt a lot more like a Titans after action meeting than Tim had been expecting. Everyone had been focused on the task at hand and honestly trying to talk through any issues. Jason hadn't necessarily agreed with everything Tim had said, but he'd heard him out and responded with reasonable arguments when he disagreed, rather than trying to shout Tim down with ad hominem attacks. It had, in short, gone surprisingly well, and Tim was starting to feel a lot more optimistic about working alongside Jason in the future. Maybe there actually could be a future where they did more than just work together.

While Dick considered Jason to be a brother, Tim wasn't sure whether he himself ever actually would or not. He was finding that he honestly wanted to try to improve their relationship, though. For so many years, Jason's absence had been a signature feature of living life beside Batman, a silent but unforgettable empty space which Tim had tried his best to fill. He'd been in the unhappy position of having to suffer the inherent loss of not having Jason there, without ever experiencing the benefit of having been close to him to begin with. Tim wanted that benefit, though. It was obvious that Jason had been so loved, and Tim had always felt a little cheated that he'd never gotten the chance to truly know the person everyone else missed so badly.

When Jason had returned, though, his actions had seemed designed to spit in the face of everything he'd stood for as Robin. Tim had been devastated for Bruce and disgusted in his own right. He was beginning to see, however, that things weren't nearly as bad as they had seemed at first. Jason might have chosen the worst, most violent ways to achieve his goals, but apparently his goals still involved actually helping people, Bruce included.

Of course, Jason clearly wasn't going to accept the status quo from before he died, and Tim could even understand why. Maybe, though, as Dick and Barbara hoped, Jason could be reasoned with. Perhaps they could even find some acceptable middle ground, some way of stopping the worst repeat offenders more reliably that didn't involve taking lives. Surely they could come up with something a little more effective than just throwing the Joker into Arkham again and again and again.

Tim had said he was going to call Bruce before taking a nap himself, though, so he would have to come up with those plans a little later. While he was currently better off than Dick, Tim knew he only had a couple more hours of coherence left in him, at best, before he crashed. Thankfully, Cyborg's status report was fairly short. He'd probably sent it out just before crashing, himself.

There were still a few pernicious issues with power regulation, and they would need to make more adjustments to resist gravitational forces, which they hadn't accounted for originally. Overall, though, progress on the machine was actually going well, considering the true complexity of what they were doing. It only felt like it was taking forever because Tim was so impatient to be finished. In several weeks, they would probably be able to reach the Wunfulch dimension.

Tim typed up a brief reply thanking Cyborg for the update and giving him the results of the simulation Tim himself had run on the effects different vibration frequencies might have on their machine. He'd found that they might need to secure the core module more tightly, but it shouldn't be that big a hurdle to overcome. When he sent the reply, Tim noticed that he'd already received another new email, this time from Lois Lane.

He was feeling a little anxious about what she had to say as he started to read it, but a few seconds later, Tim let out a relieved sigh. She'd finally gotten Clark to agree to help them. Clark still didn't believe that he was Superman, of course, but of the amnesiac heroes, he probably had the most tractable civilian identity. Also, he was still functionally invulnerable, even if he was convinced that the knife which had crumpled against his skin had been a fake.

The heroes who still had their memories had all agreed that they should bring at least one of the amnesiac heroes with them to the Wunfulch dimension, both so that they weren't mistaken for invading strangers and so that they could have someone the Wunfulch was familiar with ask the reclusive alien to stop granting the “wish”. Despite the number of amnesiacs, though, there weren't a lot of good choices. Because they only had enough xenothium for one round trip, once they went, they really had to stay until they got the amnesia reversed, however long that took. They all hoped that their entrance to the dimension itself would attract the correct Wunfulch's attention, but if it didn't, a search of a foreign dimension could take a while.

Bruce was way too stubborn and unpredictable to take, even if he wasn't a key witness in an active attempted murder investigation, which meant that a sudden disappearance on his part could cause the cops to panic. Oliver was out of the hospital but not yet fully recovered. Even though no one thought it was likely they'd have to fight, it was still possible that the Wunfulch could be “insulted” that they wanted to prematurely end such a generous “gift”, and Black Canary had vetoed the idea of taking Green Arrow to another dimension at least until he was completely healed. Diana was way too headstrong to even pretend to go along with something she thought was all a tasteless display of make-believe.

As they'd whittled down the list of amnesiac candidates, Clark Kent was one of the last names remaining, so it was a huge relief to know that Lois had somehow secured his cooperation. Clark was also the best candidate, in Tim's opinion, since he was the one who had actually made the wish in the first place. Tim suspected that there had probably been some combination of bullying, lies, or manipulation involved on Lois's part, in order to get Clark to agree to go on a “special trip”, but at this point, Tim was so tired of trying to build this machine while handling the JLA's workload on top of the Titans', that he was willing to take whatever success he could get. Of course, the success he most wanted to get at that moment was ten uninterrupted hours of sleep, but he'd said he would call Bruce, so Tim picked up his cell phone instead. Bruce answered on the second ring.

“Good morning, Bruce,” Tim said, trying not to let any trepidation into in his voice. Surely this conversation couldn't go as badly as the last one. “I hope I didn't wake you.”

“No, I wasn't really asleep, and I wouldn't mind it if you had woken me. You know I'm always happy to hear from you, Tim,” Bruce said, with way more emotion than Tim felt was warranted. He sounded just as eager to talk as he had last time, despite how poorly their prior conversation had gone.

“Yes, I, um, just wanted to check in with you.”

“I wish I had good news to give you.” Bruce sighed deeply. “Tim, something awful happened last night,” he said, his voice heavy.

“Oh, I already know about that,” Tim said, wanting to spare Bruce yet another retelling of what must have been a very stressful night. He'd already had to explain things to both the GCPD and the Gotham County Sheriff, after all.

“You know?” Bruce echoed, sounding surprised. “Has there been something in the news already?”

“Well, I'm not sure about the news, but I just finished a call with Jason. He told me everything.”

“Jason told you everything?” Bruce repeated, sounding almost incredulous.

Tim supposed that was fair. Jason had told him at least mostly because maintaining a secret identity and giving prompt and accurate field reports had been drilled into him from a young age, not because he personally had any deep desire to share his troubles with Tim. Still, they were supposed to be brothers, and Tim found it irrationally distressing that their supposed father didn't think they would even be able to talk.

“Barbara gave him my number,” Tim told Bruce. “I gave her permission to give Jason my number,” he then clarified, so Bruce didn't get the wrong idea.

“While I'm very happy to hear that you and Jason are talking, Tim, I admit I'm also surprised. You seemed so dead set against Jason the last time you saw him.”

Tim winced, remembering exactly what a disaster that had been. Plans made while severely sleep deprived were often not the best of plans, and Tim had misunderstood his adversary so badly that he hadn't seen the obvious trap coming at all. From Bruce' point of view, he must have looked like a moron or a jerk—or maybe even both. “Look, I know I shouldn't have rushed to judgement about Jason before, but there were extenuating circumstances you don't know about,” Tim told Bruce, wanting to defend himself, even though he couldn't explain everything to someone who had forgotten so much of who he was. “Even Jason has admitted that he was in the wrong, at least concerning how he...introduced himself to me. I wasn't just starting trouble with him out of nowhere!” Tim insisted, suddenly wanting Bruce to see things from his point of view very badly. Maybe Tim had made a mistake, but he'd been honestly trying to do the right thing.

“Tim, it was wrong of you to attack Jason like that, no matter what your history was,” Bruce said, making Tim cringe. Bruce might have forgotten how to be Batman, but he certainly hadn't forgotten how to pass judgement. “You're not the only one at fault here, though. I'm sorry that your first meeting with Jason went so poorly that you thought fighting with him was a logical follow up. I'm afraid I just don't remember why I wasn't there to supervise your introduction, or why I did such a poor job, if I was,” Bruce said, his voice a odd mixture of guilt and confusion. He might have used the same tone of voice if he were trying to explain to Alfred why he'd just dropped some priceless vase to shatter on the floor, especially if he didn't even know the reason himself. Tim couldn't help feeling bad for him. Their lives must make so little sense with such huge parts forgotten.

“My issues with Jason aren't your fault, Bruce. You hadn't even adopted me back when we first met, so it wasn't your responsibility to supervise how we got along. Besides, you had a lot of other things on your plate.”

“Did I?” Bruce asked. His voice was full of doubt. “Things that were more important than introducing you to Jason?”

“Yes,” Tim answered confidently.

“And what were those things?” At that point, Tim stopped feeling quite so confident, because it had been Batman who had been busy, not Bruce Wayne.

“I'm sure you were, ah, working on projects.” Except that Bruce hadn't been to work much while he was busy dealing with the Red Hood. “For the Wayne Foundation, probably,” Tim added, hoping Bruce would drop this line of questioning.

“That's something that I should have been doing, but I just don't see much evidence of that, either.”

“But you're working on that group home now, right?” Tim said, scrambling for a line of conversation that wouldn't require him to lie quite so much.

“Yes, to help homeless kids, particularly those whose adoption prospects are very poor. Of course, I'm also looking into ways to encourage people to adopt and programs to help anyone who is interested get licensed to take in foster children, but currently in Gotham, there are a lot more kids in need of parents than there are prospective parents ready to take them in.”

That had certainly been Tim's experience. His parents were always busy, and he had always wanted more time and attention than the adults in his life were really ready to give. “It's a tough problem, Bruce, but Babs told me you hope to have a new group home open in a few weeks.” It was a worthy goal, and Tim thought even Batman wouldn't object to spending time on that, when he got his memory back.

“Yes, assuming we can get all the necessary legal approvals. Although, legal hoops aren't the only issue. I admit, I was rather naive at the start. If Jason hadn't shown up to correct some of my assumptions, I don't know how much good I'd actually be doing right now.”

“You decided to help homeless kids before you realized that Jason was alive again?” Tim asked, wanting clarification on that specific point.

“Yes,” Bruce confirmed, and Tim felt a last little bastion of doubt dissolve. He had worried, when he'd first heard about the attempted drive by shooting, that Jason might be playing a long con. He could have deliberately encouraged Bruce to look into Gotham's homeless children, knowing that it would put Bruce in conflict with the dangerous people who made money by exploiting them. Jason could then play the hero by rushing in to save Bruce from a danger he'd encouraged him into in the first place. However, if Bruce had come up with the idea to help those kids before he'd even known Jason was alive, then it could hardly be Jason's fault if Bruce started asking questions about homeless children. In fact, if Jason hadn't been around, Bruce might well have gotten killed doing that.

“So Jason really helped you out?”

“Yes. What I didn't appreciate before all of this is how many interrelated failures of various social systems typically happen before kids end up out on the street.” Bruce sounded weary, like the repeated failures of society were weighing him down. “Of course, I realized that homeless kids haven't been going to school. That's why I hired a teacher who can run study sessions at the group home as soon as it opens, to help the kids get back on track educationally. I thought that would be sufficient, but then Jason pointed out to me that at least some of the kids will have learning difficulties due to fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, ADHD, and the like. After I hired another teacher who specializes in teaching kids with learning disabilities, Jason pointed out that most of the kids who ended up homeless were probably never actually taken to a doctor to be diagnosed in the first place, so they wouldn't know they should be assigned to the second teacher, if I didn't also get a doctor to do evaluations...” Bruce sighed. “I've got a lot to learn about helping people.”

“Still, you're doing a lot, Bruce.”

“But am I doing enough? Am I even doing enough for my own family?”

“Of course you are,” Tim assured him. It was unpleasant hearing Bruce doubting himself so much, all because he didn't remember what he'd actually been doing with his life.

“You said that Jason told you what happened last night, but if he'd really told you everything, Tim, you wouldn't still be saying that,” Bruce said, self-reproach thick in his voice.

“Bruce, nothing that happened last night was your fault.”

“It's not about who's at fault. Keeping my children safe is my responsibility, but all I seem to do is expose Jason to more danger,” Bruce said miserably. Tim had heard him hurting less after taking several brutal blows from Killer Croc, and he felt a small jolt of adrenaline waking him up a little more and urging him to take notice. It was never a good thing when Bruce sounded like that. No wonder Jason had been so insistent that Tim call. “When he was explaining what happened last night, did Jason tell you that he needed to save me?” Bruce asked, his voice strained with shame.

“Bruce, you know Jason spent a good portion of his childhood living on Crime Alley. That's why he's more than capable of handling some Crime Alley thugs,” Tim said, hoping Jason's former neighborhood sounded like a sufficient excuse for his skills. “It's better that you let him handle things, as your own childhood in Bristol wouldn't have prepared you for that sort of fight at all. Obviously, Ortiz was a more serious problem, but Jason tricked him into targeting the wrong part of the room. The two of you were nowhere close to being shot, and you know Jason doesn't blame you for any of it, anyway.”

“But Ortiz would never have gotten into the manor if it wasn't for me. Jason was suspicious of the security team the whole time, but I kept telling him to be more trusting.”

“Bruce, Jason told me he didn't have any proof of his suspicions at first. For all you knew, he was just being paranoid.”

“I should still have taken his concerns more seriously. I already failed to keep him safe in Ethiopia,” Bruce said, and he sounded as agonized as he might have if the Joker had sprayed his entire body with acid. Tim remembered that tone far too well from his first days training to be Robin. Batman had gotten better at hiding his grief and guilt over time, but Tim had always suspected that they had never truly left him. He was unhappy to be proved right.

“But you haven't failed, Bruce, not in the final way you're thinking. Jason is alive, right now. I know you've lost years together, but you've got a second chance,” he said, hoping that the two of them would indeed work things out. Five years was a long time to be separated from a family member, and Tim was beginning to realize that even Jason himself must have suffered for that. If only he had just come home—but none of the speedsters were likely to help Tim rewrite the timeline to get Jason out of the League of Assassins' clutches earlier. They had to make do with the opportunities they had right in front of them.

“I want to believe that, Tim, but Jason seems so convinced that everything will change, once I get my memory back...”

Tim struggled to find an answer that wouldn't make Bruce any more anxious. He knew Jason had very strong feelings about stopping the Joker, and Batman had equally strong feelings about never using lethal force. How were they going to resolve that disagreement? When Tim restored Bruce's memory, would it take Jason away from him, at the same time? That couldn't be right, not when they finally seemed to be getting along. Tim had seen how much it hurt Bruce to lose Jason the first time. Surely, he shouldn't have to go through losing Jason again, even if it was a moral separation, rather than a mortal one.

“I...I think there are some serious issues you two need to work through, once you remember everything. There must be a way, though.” Maybe finding that way would fall to Tim. There were things that weren't lethal that could still be more permanent or secure than an Arkham cell, things Batman would never do because he wasn't the type to compromise his morals or his ideals. Batman's morals weren't exactly the same as Robin's, though.

“Yes, there must be a way,” Bruce echoed. It was, unfortunately, perhaps not a way Batman would find acceptable. Tim had always been willing to do a lot, though, to save Batman from the pit of despair he'd been in after Jason's death. Throwing the Joker in some privately designed, more escape proof prison would likely violate due process and all sorts of rights for the mentally ill, but could it really be worse than letting the Joker escape Arkham and kill again and again? That couldn't be the right thing to do, either.

Tim heard Bruce take a deep, steadying breath. “Thank you for your encouragement, Tim. I'm sorry I've just laid so many of my troubles at your feet. I do want to hear about your life, as well. How are things going for you at school?”

“I haven't had any problems at school at all,” Tim told him, which was only true because Tim hadn't gone to school at all.

“And do you feel safe there, Tim? Do you know who to go to if you ever felt like there might be trouble?”

Bruce had taught him to rely on himself if there was danger, but Robin knew that Batman would back him up, if he really needed it. “I'm safe, Bruce. You don't need to worry about me.”

“I could hire you a bodyguard—”

“No!” Tim shouted, too alarmed at the prospect to even let Bruce finish the thought.

Bruce sighed heavily. “Of course you don't trust me to choose someone. How can I blame you, after what happened with the security company I hired?”

“That's not it,” Tim said, scrambling for something reassuring to say. “I just don't need a bodyguard constantly following me around, making everything in my life awkward.” Secret identities and bodyguards did not go well together.

Bruce's voice held a faint shadow of amusement as he replied, “I guess the teenage years are tough enough as it is.”

“Yes, so no bodyguards, please. I'm not even in Gotham, anyway, so I'm a long way from trouble,” Tim insisted, which was a blatant lie, because there was trouble outside of Gotham, too, and the Titans frequently found themselves in it. Bruce wouldn't know that right now, though.

“Did you want to go to a boarding school so far from Gotham because you don't feel safe here?” Bruce asked, because he could never just be easily reassured.

“No, I don't worry about safety when I'm in Gotham.” It was a dangerous city, but it was Tim's dangerous city.

“Is it because you had issues with Jason, then?” Bruce asked, and he sounded so guilty about it that Tim desperately searched for something positive to say.

“It's not because of Jason. In fact, things between us aren't even that bad, anymore. Jason apologized, and I...” Actually, Tim hadn't accepted his apology. The only response he'd given Jason was that he would believe him when Jason proved that he could control his temper. Jason had done that, though, hadn't he?

Ortiz had certainly done more than enough to provoke him, and Jason had confiscated four guns, in addition to whatever weapons he'd already had on him, prior to his confrontation with Ortiz. He could easily have shot the hitman dead and pleaded self defense. Under the circumstances, the police wouldn't even have faulted him for it. Jason hadn't done that, though. He'd made the smart play, even though his anger would have told him to act otherwise.

“You know what? I'm going to call Jason right after I get done talking to you and let him know I forgive him for that introduction, okay? Then we can at least try to work through our issues.”

“I'm so glad to hear that,” Bruce said, and his voice sounded ten times lighter. “I'm proud of you, Tim, for being willing to move past a very difficult start,” Bruce continued, making Tim feel flushed with happiness and embarrassment at the same time. “If you ever think I could help in any way, please let me know.”

“Thanks. I'll keep that in mind, but I think if I want to learn to get along with Jason, then I really need to deal with him myself.” Tim hesitated briefly, before asking, “You really think we can work things out?” He hoped he could work things out with Jason, but Tim had enough doubts that he could use some encouragement himself.

“I've always known that you'd get along well, if you two just gave each other a chance. You and Jason are both such kind and brave and loyal people.”

A little voice in Tim's head whispered: But you don't know me at all, right now. Sometimes, Tim wished that his brain would just stop throwing out inconvenient facts, when all he wanted was to have a little optimism, well founded or not. “Yeah, ah, thanks, Bruce. I guess maybe I should try calling Jason now to see if we can clear the air a little. It was good talking to you, though, and I'm glad you weren't hurt last night.”

“I am thankful for that, as well. It was frightening, but at least Jason and I are okay. When you and Jason do start to feel comfortable with each other, then perhaps you can find a weekend where you can come home to the manor, Tim.”

“Sure, I expect that will be possible in a month or two,” Tim replied, planning to delay his return until Bruce had his memories back, so that Tim would be able to talk to him again without lying so much.

“I look forward to having you and Jason both home.”

“Me too,” Tim said, although he had a lot more anxiety about the possibility than he was willing to admit aloud. “Goodbye, Bruce.”

“Goodbye, Tim.”

Tim hung up and immediately wanted to collapse on his bed and sleep until his eyes stopped itching with tiredness. He only gave himself a moment to steel himself before calling Jason, though. He didn't expect the next conversation to go well, but putting it off wouldn't make things any better. At this point, even if Jason decided to quietly disappear as soon as Bruce's amnesia did, the exit wounds he'd leave behind would be crippling for Batman. Tim needed to stop that from happening, and the first step toward influencing someone was actually talking to him in the first place.

“Hello,” Jason answered just after the fourth ring, and his suspicious tone of voice had Tim immediately scowling. Tim himself had been suspicious, though, the last time Jason had called him. Maybe that was just a natural response, considering where their relationship was right now. That didn't mean it couldn't get better, though.

“I believe you,” Tim told him.

“...About what?” Jason asked, still sounding suspicious.

“You apologized to me, and I said that when you proved you could control your temper, I would believe you. Well, you turned Ortiz over to the cops with barely a scratch, and that's enough proof for me. So, I forgive you for the Tower, because you're not just saying you'll do better, you've actually shown you're willing and able to follow through.”

Tim was still worried about the effect of the Lazarus Pit, of course. However, there had once been a time when Tim had gone over Jason's file on the Batcomputer almost obsessively. Jason had lost the only mother he'd known at an age where the toughest challenge Tim had faced was how to win the boss fights in his favorite video game. Jason hadn't even gotten to bury his biological father—the police had never found the body. He'd survived living homeless and alone on Crime Alley and then gone on to fight Gotham's toughest criminals alongside Batman. When Tim had first become Robin, he'd looked up to his predecessor because Jason had overcome so many challenges when he was still so young. Surely, if Jason was really trying, he could overcome the Lazarus Pit, as well.

“...Did Bruce tell you we need to make up or something?” Jason said, and he sounded like he'd progressed from suspicion straight to incredulousness.

“He didn't, although he seemed really happy when I said I'd try to work things out with you.”

Jason sighed. “He would, but that's because he doesn't actually understand what's going on. Look, I know I wasn't fair to you in the Tower, Tim, and I'll be happy if we can put that behind us. That's not the only issue we have, though, is it? You didn't attack me in the manor just because of what I did in Titans Tower, and I didn't hand Ortiz over to the cops because I suddenly decided that lethal force is never necessary. I still think that it's the best solution, sometimes. I merely realized that killing Ortiz last night would have caused some serious issues, even if it solved others, so it didn't make sense to kill him at that moment.”

“So all I need to do to stop you from killing is convince you that it doesn't make sense at that moment. Duly noted.” Tim could learn to be very persuasive, if he needed to be.

Jason made a frustrated sound. “You think that will be so easy to do? I refuse to keep doing the same ineffective thing and expecting a different outcome, and I will take whatever action is actually necessary to protect innocent lives, even if that means I have to take guilty ones. I won't be doing it out of some rabid inability to control myself, though. I'll be doing it because I intend to make Gotham a better place.”

Tim frowned. “When I thought you were just killing out of spite, Jason, I couldn't see any way we could find common ground. But if you truly want to make Gotham a better place, I understand why you're frustrated. I've been frustrated, too, and I didn't even die defending a no-kill policy.” How many criminals had Tim locked away as Robin, only to see them escape and kill again? Would Black Mask ever have gotten his hands on Spoiler, if someone in Gotham had taken a tougher approach to repeat offenders before this? If Tim had taken more extreme action sooner, perhaps she'd still be alive today. “There has to be some sort of middle ground, though, between killing criminals and continuing the status quo.”

“What? Like paralyzing the Joker from the neck down? You know that Batman would never allow that. He literally put a batarang in my neck to protect him!”

Tim jolted, and not just from the sudden anger in Jason's voice. Batman had done what? There had to be some extenuating circumstances that Jason was leaving out, but Tim wasn't sure that he wanted to start that conversation when Batman wasn't around to defend himself. “Batman isn't big on compromising, but he doesn't run the whole world, Jason. The Joker does occasionally leave Gotham, as you well know, and so there will be...opportunities for extraordinary rendition, without Batman immediately present.”

If Tim could get some buy-in from his team, the Titans could take the Joker down and then just not return him to Arkham. Tim would need to identify or build a suitable prison to drop him off at beforehand, of course, and a prison that could reliably hold the Joker would obviously be more restrictive than any place which put a focus on rehabilitation and prisoners' rights could be. Batman would obviously never approve, and the thought of defying him in such a serious way was a little bit frightening.

“You're telling me you'd go over Batman's pointy ears?” Jason asked, sounding shocked.

“If I have to,” Tim said firmly. Batman had taught Robin not to let fear stop him from doing the right thing, after all, and there was something right about what Jason was saying. If the Joker's life had to be protected, then surely his innocent potential victims deserved that same unyielding protection, as well. It was obvious that the current system wasn't protecting the innocent, though. Therefore, Tim needed to find some better balance between conflicting rights. Batman would be incensed, no doubt, if Tim found a balance which fell outside of his strict moral code, but Tim would take an angry Batman over a despairing one, any day. Tim could at least hope that Bruce might not take things quite as poorly as he normally would, if stopping the Joker more reliably also headed off the violent confrontation Batman and Red Hood were heading toward.

“Well, aren't you a little rebel,” Jason said, and his voice had finally lost that suspicious undertone. “That plan might look good on paper, Tim, but you gotta know, the moment Batman found that prison, he would break the Joker out of it and haul him back to Arkham. Better to sacrifice dozens of innocent lives in Gotham than to sully the perfect purity of Batman's moral code, after all,” Jason said sarcastically.

“Then I just won't let him find out where the prison is.” If Tim said he had it handled, the other Titans would probably let him take the Joker and drop him off someplace in secret.

“Keeping secrets from Batman is a lot easier said than done.”

“Good thing I know all of his investigative methods so that I can stay one step ahead of him, then,” Tim retorted.

“You know, you're actually a lot cooler than I thought,” Jason said approvingly. It was probably the only clear compliment that his predecessor had ever given him, and Tim found himself grinning just a little. Maybe things would work out between him and Jason. “I don't think you'll be able to keep the Joker from Batman forever, Tim, but if he's locked up someplace no one can find him, then I obviously can't kill him, either, so that's one way to stop me from using lethal force.”

“Right. There are options, Jason, and killing isn't the only one Batman has taken off the table. If you're going to defy him anyway, there are actually a lot of potential solutions to consider.”

“I can consider them. That doesn't mean I'll agree with your solutions, though,” Jason warned him. “No prison is truly escape proof, at least not where the Joker is concerned. Some of Gotham's recurring problems could probably be stopped that way, though,” Jason admitted.

“We've always been constrained by what Batman has approved of, so don't be so quick to dismiss the possibilities,” Tim said. He could actually think of a lot of different options. “The Joker's mental illness is beyond the ability of any treatment on Earth to cure, but perhaps there's some alien technology that might help. Of course, it would be unethical to run a human trial when there wouldn't be any safety data for humans, but surely that would still be a smaller violation of the Joker's rights than outright killing him.”

“Even if you 'cured' his psychotic streak, that doesn't mean the Joker would become a safe person, Tim,” Jason said with a warning tone. “He'd probably still be a violent sadist, because hurting other people amuses him. But if he were declared sane, then maybe someone would finally make him stand trial and give him the death penalty,” Jason said, sounding like he was warming up to the idea.

Tim grimaced. “That's not exactly what I meant, but I guess then at least it wouldn't be you killing him.”

“Hey, if I raided Bruce's bank account, do you think I'd find enough money to hire Deathstroke to kill the Joker?” Jason asked.

“I know I said you should consider other possibilities, but maybe not that one,” Tim said with trepidation. In his experience, there was no situation which could not be made more dangerous through Deathstroke's involvement.

Jason chuckled. “Yeah, there might be a few issues with that,” he said with amusement.

Tim narrowed his eyes at the quick capitulation. “Wait, were you teasing me?”

“Maybe a little bit. There are a lot of other options, Tim, but there are also a lot of good reasons why we've never taken any of them. If there were some truly good solution, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now.”

“I thought you believed that killing was a good solution?”

“It's a final one, and sometimes a necessary one, but that doesn't make it clean or good, exactly. It is quick and messy, though.”

Tim grimaced. “I think we can do better than that. I'll consider every possibility I can come up with—at least, as soon as I finish the machine to get Bruce's memory back.”

“Babs said you were making good progress.”

“Yes, we actually are a lot farther along than we were even a week ago. It's just that the amount we need to do is a lot more than I want it to be or knew it was at the start. It seems like as soon as we've got one problem solved, we get a little further in our testing and discover another issue. We just had to make too many modifications because we don't have the right parts or even the full original design. Also, although the machine the JLA built was powerful enough to transport a bean bag sized creature one way before melting, we need our version to transport at least a couple full size people for a round trip, so we needed to make even more modifications to achieve that. At this rate, I hope to have the machine done in about five to six weeks.”

“That's...soon.”

“Soon? A significant portion of the JLA will have been amnesiac for three months by then,” Tim said, more than impatient for this amnesia to be over.

“I know. I just meant...”

“Oh,” Tim said, suddenly realizing why Jason might not be looking forward to the end of the amnesia. “You're probably going to start fighting with Batman again as soon as he gets his memory back, aren't you?”

“It's not like I want to fight him.”

Even a week ago, Tim would have discarded that statement out of hand. The Red Hood was the one who'd challenged Batman, after all, and Jason had clearly been angry with him. It had been easy to assume that their fight had only been because of that anger, but Tim was beginning to realize that Jason truly felt he had a compelling moral imperative to act in a way that Batman felt he had a compelling moral imperative to oppose. That would bring them into conflict whether either of them wanted to fight or not.

That thought made his heart ache. Bruce had missed Jason so much, and Jason must still care about him, as well, or why would he try so hard to protect him? Tim didn't want to see them locked into a battle neither of them wanted to fight, and it only made him more determined to find a viable third option.

“If you truly don't want to fight, then there has to be a way to resolve this without Red Hood tangling with Batman again. I can tell you now, Jason, that even though Batman can't compromise his morals, he would do almost anything else to avoid that fight.”

“Maybe. Maybe not,” Jason said doubtfully. “But it sounds like we have a month before we need to deal with that issue. Today, I'm actually more worried about how upset Bruce seems right now. I assume you talked to him before calling me?”

“Yes. Bruce was...definitely not good.”

“I know he does the silent brooding thing pretty often, but he must have checked my room at least a dozen times this morning. Last night...I've never heard him sound that guilty and miserable.”

“I have,” Tim confessed.

“What? When?” Jason asked, sounding surprised.

It was Tim's turn to be incredulous. “Jason, he was like that for months after you died.”

“Months? There's no way.”

If they'd been speaking face to face, Tim would have been strongly tempted to run some blood work to make sure there weren't any hallucinogens in Jason's system. It should be obvious that Bruce would be devastated by the murder of his son—but somehow, Jason truly didn't seem to know. He'd mentioned that Batman had thrown a batarang at him in order to save the Joker, but he'd doubted it when Tim had said Batman would want to avoid fighting him.

Had the League of Assassins been so persuasive that Jason truly didn't understand how much he meant to his family? Had the Lazarus Pit twisted him so much that he couldn't feel their love anymore? Or had Batman failed to communicate so spectacularly that all Jason had taken away from their fight was that Batman cared about his morals to the exclusion of all else? Perhaps it had been a toxic combination of several different factors, but Jason's view of where he stood with Bruce was so far from reality, Tim didn't even know where to begin correcting it.

“Jason, Bruce was being so reckless out in the field that it's frankly a wonder he even survived the first few months after your death. Ask Alfred if you don't believe me.” Tim paused. “You are talking to Alfred, right? Babs said she gave you his number.” Alfred hadn't actually mentioned that he'd spoken to Jason, but maybe that was just because Tim was so engrossed in his work that he hadn't really invited conversation.

“...I texted him,” Jason replied.

Tim found himself getting a little suspicious due to how reluctant Jason sounded suddenly. “What did you text him?”

“I asked him how to get blood out of antique rugs, okay? When Ortiz shot that drone, a bit of shrapnel skimmed my temple, and I ended up bleeding a bit on the rug in that hallway at the top of the back staircase,” Jason admitted, sounding a little embarrassed. “I know how to get blood out of clothes and carpet and upholstery, of course,” Jason said defensively. “That rug is old, though, and Bruce told me once that his mom loved it, so I just wanted to be extra careful. Anyway, I followed Alfred's directions and got the blood out without damaging it, so it's fine.”

Tim found himself reluctantly touched that Jason had gone through so much trouble for a rug. “Jason, thank you for looking after Bruce. He told me that he came up with the idea to help the homeless kids of Gotham before he even realized you were alive. If you hadn't been with him when he started looking into the situation of the homeless kids around Crime Alley, though...” Tim shuddered. Oliver Queen had very nearly been killed, and Bruce had been just as vulnerable. “Bruce would probably be dead right now, if not for you.”

“I don't need thanks for that,” Jason hissed fiercely. “I would never let some scumbag kill Bruce, just because he's trying to help innocent kids.”

“I believe you.”

It was a moment before Jason replied. “Well, just as long as you're clear on that,” he said finally, his tone uncertain, as if he didn't know what to do now that Tim wasn't calling his motives into question.

“I'm clear. Are you also clear on where I stand?”

“Yeah, I got it.”

“Good. Alfred tells me that clear communication is step one of about a thousand steps to building a functional relationship. It's a start, though, right?” Tim said, hating how he sounded so nervous suddenly. His heart shouldn't be pounding this much unless his life was on the line. “I...hope we can take those other nine hundred and ninety-nine steps, someday.”

“Yeah, I...I hope so, too,” Jason said, and it was some minor consolation that he sounded almost as nervous and awkward as Tim felt.

“Well, I have to get back to working on the machine now, so, um, I'll talk to you later?”

“Sure, we'll talk. Goodbye, Tim.”

“Goodbye,” Tim said and hung up quickly, before he could say anything to mess up what had actually been a fairly successful détente. Tim had often wondered, staring at the memorial case, what it would have been like to truly know Jason. Maybe now he would finally have a chance to find out.

Chapter Text

Bruce tried to force himself to eat, if only because Jason would start to worry if Bruce skipped dinner after barely picking at his lunch. He just wasn't feeling very hungry, though, and he couldn't help the way his eyes kept going back to the cut on Jason's temple. After the police had taken their pictures for evidence, his stubborn son had refused professional medical attention and instead gotten a large bottle of disinfectant, a huge tube of antibiotic ointment, and a pair of butterfly bandages from somewhere. It would have helped if Bruce himself had actually remembered the location of their obviously well stocked medicine cabinet last night—or perhaps not. If he hadn't been in the upstairs storage room, would Ortiz have found him faster? It was a sobering thought.

Bruce could admit that Jason's injury didn't look quite as bad now that all the blood had been cleaned up, but he couldn't help the way his stomach grew nauseous every time he saw that reminder of how close Jason had come to being killed again. He knew it would be better if he just stopped staring at the injury, not only for the sake of his dinner, but also because Jason was starting to fidget under Bruce's scrutiny. It was hard to keep his eyes away, though. When felt Bruce phone vibrate in his pocket, he was almost relieved for the distraction. He pulled his phone out to discover that Alfred had replied to his earlier text.

“I can offer no excuse for failing to tell you that Master Jason is alive, other than a poor habit of avoiding conversation topics which pain you.”

Bruce frowned, caught between two conflicting impulses. He badly needed Alfred's calm and steady support right now, but at the same time, he found his anger hard to let go of. When Alfred had sent him a cautious message inquiring after Bruce's health that morning, Bruce had very nearly begged him to come home right then. However, as much as he missed Alfred, Bruce had always found it difficult to forgive betrayals, and it had certainly felt like a personal betrayal that Alfred had known Bruce had amnesia and had spent all his time insisting on that ridiculous “you are bat man” story, while not even mentioning that Bruce's once dead son was alive. Unlike Dick, who might have assumed Alfred had spoken to Bruce about Jason when he wasn't around, Alfred would have known no one else had informed him.

Alfred had apologized for his silence on that matter, of course, and Bruce believed he was truly sorry. That didn't erase the pain of thinking his son was dead for an entire month. Every morning, Bruce had passed the door to Jason's silent room with a painful sense of longing, and every night, he had passed that same door with self-condemnation heavy in his heart. Worse than that, though, Jason had been somewhere in Gotham, alone. From what little Jason had said, it seemed like he had been without family or friends for the past five years. It was bad enough for Alfred to let Bruce suffer, but to let Jason suffer, when Bruce would have gone to him immediately, had he only known it was possible?

It was hard to accept Alfred's apology or his excuse for that. Had Bruce really reacted so poorly in the past that Alfred literally never even thought of speaking about Jason to him? Surely Bruce couldn't have been that bad. It was very frustrating that he couldn't actually recall any instances where they had spoken of Jason, though. Was it remotely possible that Bruce truly had been so insufferable, either with rage or with grief, that even Alfred had been discouraged from ever repeating the experience? Had Bruce unwittingly brought this situation on himself?

Sometimes, Bruce looked back on his life, and he just couldn't understand his own choices. Of course, context mattered, and he was missing a lot of it. There had to be some things which shouldn't change no matter what the context was, though. Bruce loved his son. He would always want the best for Jason. That was an absolute truth. Why, then, had he left Jason so alone for so long? Had Bruce allowed himself to be crippled by his guilt to such a shameful extent that his poor murdered son had been forced to deal with all his nightmares by himself? Had Alfred avoided speaking of Jason because he thought Bruce was too fragile and needed to be protected from his own feelings?

If so, Alfred was not the only one in the family who seemed to believe Bruce needed to be protected.

Bruce couldn't help but remember how Jason had placed himself between Bruce and the door Ortiz was lurking behind. Bruce hadn't realized at the time, because he'd thought Jay was a hallucination when they first met after the amnesia, but if Jason had been in his old apartment building when the mugging started, he must have moved very quickly to intervene as soon as he had. The two muggers had outnumbered him and had a knife, but Jason hadn't hesitated. In the case of the drive by shooting, Jason had only had mere seconds to act, and yet he'd still shot out that tire in time. Now, Jason had protected Bruce from the very security he'd hired to protect Jason.

Bruce remembered how Jason had refused to tell Laszlo which bedroom was which in the family wing. If Laszlo had been able to knock softly on Bruce's door, rather than calling down the whole hallway, would Jason still have heard him, or would Bruce have naively have been lured out to the woods on his own, where he surely would have fallen prey to an ambush? Even outside of the times when Bruce had been in danger, Jason had been thinking ahead in order to protect him. What, though, had Bruce done to protect Jason?

He couldn't even help Jay deal with most of the things that were currently bothering him, because Jason wouldn't speak of them. Bruce had assumed at first that all the topics Jason avoided were things he felt too angry to discuss, but now he was beginning to realize that at least some of Jason's silence was about sparing Bruce. His son had always been so quick to look out for others, ahead of himself. It made Bruce's heart swell with love—but also fear—for his son. Hadn't Jason already been through enough?

“My night vision's not actually bad, is it?” Bruce asked, wondering if Jason would admit even that much.

Jason grimaced. “You trusted Laszlo enough to walk right into his ambush. I couldn't let you do that, so I kinda fibbed a bit to keep you inside. Sorry.”

“Don't be sorry, Jay. You saved my life at least twice last night. If I had only taken your suspicions seriously at the start, you wouldn't have needed to lie or put yourself in such danger to keep me out of trouble.” Jason probably agreed but didn't want to rub it in, because he didn't say anything in response to that. Bruce went back to pushing his food around his plate for a couple more minutes. He was just starting to feel mildly hungry, after all, when Jason broke the silence.

“Do you not like chicken pad thai? I could make something else, if you want.”

Bruce paused a moment as the implication of that made its way through his brain. “You made this, Jay?”

Jason looked a little embarrassed. “It always tasted fine to me, but I admit that I don't usually cook for anyone else.”

“It tastes fine,” Bruce assured, suddenly much more interested in eating, now that he knew his son had gone to the trouble of cooking for him. When Bruce actually tasted the food, rather than pushing it morosely around his plate, it was surprisingly good. “I didn't even know you could make pad thai,” he admitted, as soon as his mouth wasn't full anymore. Jason had sometimes helped Alfred out in the kitchen, especially at the beginning when he'd been a bit insecure about food, but Alfred didn't generally make pad thai.

Jason shrugged. “The trickiest part about it is finding the tamarind sauce at the store. Other than that, there's nothing hard about making it.”

“This isn't one of Alfred's favored dishes, though, at least not that I remember. What made you want to learn this recipe?”

“Oh, I, uh, developed a taste for it, when I was abroad.”

Bruce frowned. After he had overheard Jason's talk with Dick, where Jay had said that Talia had shown him pictures of the Joker after his latest escape, Bruce had become quite curious about how Jason had come in contact with Talia. Of course, the shooting in Crime Alley had distracted Bruce for a while, but he had asked Jason about it the day before yesterday. Jason had grudgingly admitted to Bruce that he'd spent some time overseas with Talia, but he had refused to give any details, possibly because Bruce had started out by asking about her “unavenged” comment. Bruce had been able to tell, by the way Jason's hands and shoulders had clenched so tightly, that the question had deeply upset Jason, but prodding him when he was that troubled generally only lead to angry stonewalling. Therefore, Bruce was waiting for a time when Jason was in a particularly good mood to bring up Talia again.

“Actually, this pad thai is delicious,” Bruce said, glad for one more assurance that Jason had at least been doing something healthy and normal with his second life, like learning to cook new dishes. “It's been too long since I've had pad thai. Maybe we should start ordering from Thai Lotus more often.”

Jason frowned. “You really want to buzz delivery people in right now?”

Bruce paused, determined to take Jason's concerns seriously this time. “You think that could be dangerous?”

“The cops are hopefully gathering evidence on Vincencio as we speak, but he's not in custody yet. While Ortiz was his go to hit man, there's no reason he couldn't hire a second one. A couple of Tamas Horvath's people are still unaccounted for, too. They might just have skipped town because his business always had shady clients, so they'd have good reason to be worried when the cops came for their coworkers. We don't know for a fact that they weren't in on Laszlo's plans, though.”

Bruce frowned. “Jim didn't give me that level of detail about Tamas Horvath's people.”

“The Commissioner isn't going to say anything until he has the evidence to back it up, but I grew up around Crime Alley, so I can infer some things from past experience.”

Bruce nodded. Jason's help with the homeless kids had been invaluable, but it worried him that the police seemed to know so little about crime and criminals in Gotham's most notorious neighborhood, even though a former resident had so much casual knowledge. The GCPD's obvious difficulty in gathering information did not bode well for their ability to actually stop crime. It wasn't the police who had thwarted Ortiz in Bristol last night, either. Jason had been forced to save himself—and Bruce as well.

Bruce remembered standing in the storage room, mind blank with terror, as he looked at the blood on Jason's face. The bullet Ortiz had fired had been intercepted by the drone Barbara was piloting, but it could easily have buried itself in Bruce's body—or in Jason's. What if Jay had been just a little slower, getting them into the cover of the storage room? What if he'd been a little less clever, overlooking a potential ruse with the phone? What if he had hesitated just a few seconds before striking, and Ortiz had turned around before Jason got him in a choke hold? Bruce couldn't help but remember Jason's fight with Dick. He'd been so fast, but he'd still gotten hurt last night. Bruce could not suppress the horrifying worry: what if Jay came up against someone stronger than those thugs from last night? Someone who, unlike Ortiz, he couldn't get the jump on? Could Bruce really count on the police to protect his son?

“Hey, you okay?” Jason asked, breaking Bruce out of the downward spiral of his thoughts.

“I'm fine,” Bruce said, although he couldn't help the way his eyes strayed to Jason's bandaged temple again.

His son rolled his eyes. “It's just a scratch, Bruce. You don't have to worry so much.” Bruce knew Jason might have said the same thing if he'd had to go to the hospital for thirty stitches, though. Jay hadn't seemed concerned about the bruises Dick had left him with or the shock he'd received from Tim, either, and while Bruce was glad that his children had one less reason to hold grudges against each other, Jason's casual acceptance of physical attacks bothered him deeply. Most people Bruce knew would be surprised and disturbed if their physical safety was credibly threatened, but Jason didn't bat an eye. The obvious conclusion was that Jason had never expected to be physically safe in the first place, not even at home. To Jason, that truth might be familiar, but to Bruce, it was heartbreaking.

Would it do any good to tell Jason again that he was safe here, though? He had no reason to believe Bruce, and there might be terrible consequences if he actually did. Bruce, certainly, had been of very little help last night, frozen in shock and fear as he was, even though he should have been the one taking care of Jason. His poor son could only have been mentally prepared to defend himself at a moment's notice if he'd been expecting for someone to try to kill him all along. That was a terrible way to live, but if Jason were more trusting, it could be a terrible way for him to die.

Jason had already been died once, though. He shouldn't have to fight for his his own life again and again. He should be safe. He obviously wasn't, though, and that truth was more than Bruce knew how to bear. However, working himself into a panic at the dinner table obviously wasn't going to help anything. Jason had gone to all the trouble of cooking, so Bruce made sure to at least finish the portion that was on his plate, feeling supremely lucky that he had a chance to have dinner with his son at all.

“You want any more?” Jason asked, looking mildly concerned.

“Not right now, Jay. I'm afraid this latest scare hasn't helped my appetite, but I promise I'll try to have a big breakfast tomorrow.”

“Okay, I'll hold you to that,” Jason said, as he got up to put the food away. Since Alfred wasn't around, Bruce stuck their dishes in the dishwasher himself.

“Are you ready to try out flying a drone now?” Jason asked, once everything was put away.

“Sure.” Bruce had promised Jason last night that he would support whatever testimony Barbara had given to the police, and he knew that might involve stating on the stand that he did indeed regularly fly a drone indoors. In case there were any questions on cross examination, Bruce really should know how to actually do so.

“Good. Meet me by the foot of the front staircase,” Jason told him.

A few minutes later, Jason came down the stairs himself and set a drone down in front of Bruce. “This area has high ceilings and a lot of open space, so I think it's the best spot to try flying a drone indoors,” Jason explained. “Now, I know this model isn't as maneuverable as what Barbara was flying last night, but I think if you're careful, you should be able to circle it around in the room a few times, hopefully without crashing into anything.”

Bruce frowned silently down at the controller Jason held out to him. There was a cell phone wedged on top of the controller, showing the camera feed from the drone—that much he could figure out.

“You're not getting cold feet, are you?” Jason asked. “Look, I know you hate lying to the police, but Babs was only flying that drone last night because I asked her to get eyes on you. She only made sure we had advanced tech here—my phone, my ear piece, and the drones—because she was worried about us. It's not fair to get her in trouble now, for just helping out when we were in a tight spot.”

“You misunderstand. I'm grateful to Barbara for all the help she's given us.” Jason had explained previously that Barbara was working as a technology consultant and had lent Jason, out of personal concern, very advanced samples that she was supposed to be evaluating. Obviously, Bruce understood that she could be fired for doing that and even get into legal trouble for breaking non-disclosure agreements and damaging company assets. It seemed like an extreme action on Barbara's part to have put herself at such personal risk, but would a less maneuverable drone have been able to get in front of Ortiz in time? Would a normal bluetooth earpiece have allowed them to speak quietly enough that Ortiz wouldn't have noticed the echo? Barbara's concern had probably been fully warranted, and Bruce did want to make sure that she stayed out of trouble. He and Jason could easily have died last night, if things had gone just a bit differently. Bruce certainly wasn't going to stab Barbara in the back, after she'd tried her best to protect them.

“I just don't know what the controls do, so it's hard for me to practice.”

“Oh, right. You wouldn't remember how to pilot one,” Jason said, before explaining the controls to him. Jason even demonstrated how to pilot the drone in a slow and careful circle around the room. It didn't look that hard, and Bruce remembered having a remote control car when he was a kid. It could even be a little fun to try this out, and Bruce felt a lot more confident when Jason handed the controller back.

“Watch the chandelier!” Jason shouted, only a few seconds after Bruce had gotten the drone off the ground. Bruce hurriedly steered it away from the chandelier, only to watch it lurch drunkenly toward the far wall. It was only Jason's hasty intervention that prevented a collision, as he reached out and pressed Bruce's thumb into a safer position. “Don't oversteer. Small adjustments are key in an enclosed space.”

“Right, I'll be more careful,” Bruce said, trying to get used to the controls.

“Watch your height, Bruce! The staircase!” Jason had to lay one hand over the controls again, and the drone just barely avoided a collision with the staircase railing. “Maybe I should have started you off outside,” Jason muttered.

“No, I can do this,” Bruce insisted, wanting to do something right. He might be a bit clumsy when it came to sports and terrible when it came to hiring security teams, but he'd always been good at driving. This was just driving in three dimensions. He gave Jason a few more scares, but Bruce did eventually reach the point where he could pilot the drone around the foyer in careful circles without aid. He'd never really cared much about architecture, but he was suddenly very grateful for all the open space he had in the foyer.

“Okay, I think that's enough for today,” Jason declared with relief. “You remember what I told you about landing it?” They both winced a little as Bruce brought the drone down very close to the bottom step of the staircase. It half landed on the final step and slid down the rest of the way to the floor.

Bruce rushed over, but it didn't appear to be damaged. “Should I start it up again, just to make sure it's okay?”

“Nah, it didn't look like it fell that fast or that far. Just watch your location next time you land it. It can be hard to judge what something high up is really directly on top of, unless you're looking straight up at it. When you land a drone, you want to make sure there's a lot of clearance all around, just in case.”

Bruce nodded. “It's not that much harder than driving a car.” Something occurred to him then. “Jay, who actually taught you how to drive?” Bruce should have been the one to do it, but he just couldn't remember anything about that at all.

“You wouldn't believe me if I told you.” Jason grinned suddenly. “The car I learned to drive on is jet black and faster than anything else on the streets. It has incredible handling, and it's so sleek it just slices through the air. That car is a work of art.”

Bruce frowned. “Someone let you learn to drive using a very fast, very expensive car?” That didn't sound like the smartest idea.

Jason laughed. “My teacher was a bit of a risk taker like that. His car had great safety features, though. I...had a lot of issues with that guy over the years, but sometimes I think I wasn't completely fair to him. He did have his good points, too,” Jason admitted quietly.

“Who was this?” Bruce asked, even though Jason had dodged the question before. Sometimes, Jason said things that just made him so curious.

Jason shook his head. “Someone you've forgotten, and it will all seem so impossible now that you don't remember it. But don't worry. You'll remember soon enough.”

Realizing he wouldn't be getting any more out of Jason on that front, Bruce tried a different line of inquiry. “Who taught you how to fly, then?” he asked, picking up the drone.

“Fly drones? Or fly vehicles?”

Bruce scrutinized Jason. “You can't actually fly planes or helicopters, can you?”

Jason grinned harder. “How much do you wanna bet I can't?”

“Nothing, I think. You never want to bet unless you're sure you can win.” Jason had actually made a lot of bets with Bruce in the early days, all of which Bruce had lost. Eventually, he'd figured out that the street kid who'd grown up in one of the most poverty stricken parts of town was a bit insecure about money (obviously), and Bruce had made a point of giving Jason a generous allowance. The betting had mostly stopped, after that, but every once in a while, Jason would see an opportunity for easy money that he just couldn't resist. Maybe Bruce should set up a bank account for him again. “Where would you have learned to fly, though?”

“Oh, Talia found a guy to teach me.”

Bruce had liked Talia for her intelligence, her energy, and her fiercely independent nature. He'd never exactly thought of her as very maternal, though, so Bruce found it perplexing that Jason had apparently ended up in his ex-girlfriend's care at some point. Jason seemed like he was in a good mood at the moment, though, and he'd even brought Talia up again himself, so maybe this was Bruce's chance to get a little more information. “When was it that you spent time with Talia, exactly?”

“Oh, that was a while ago.”

“Before or after your introduction to Tim?”

“I met Tim afterwards. Why?”

“I'm just trying to understand the timeline of events, Jay. It's very confusing to have forgotten so much.”

“Yeah, it really stinks to be a stranger to your own life,” Jason said sympathetically, and Bruce thought Jason might know the feeling a little too well himself. “If you're worried that Talia poisoned me against Tim, well, she didn't exactly,” Jason continued. Bruce hadn't actually been worried about that before, but now he certainly was. “I admit, the way she first told me about Tim gave me some really negative false impressions, and coming at him spitting accusations didn't exactly help us get along.” Jason shook his head. “When Tim spit accusations right back at me, I guess I just assumed he'd disliked me all along. It was a shock when Dick said he'd looked up to me, once. Now that we're talking...I've realized that Tim's not actually as bad as I thought.”

“What exactly did Talia tell you about Tim?” Bruce asked, trying to keep the rising anger out of his voice.

“Just, you know, that he'd replaced me. She showed me some photos of you two together, too.”

Bruce felt his anger boil over, especially when he recalled the other thing Talia had told Jason. “She showed you pictures of your murderer after he escaped and said you were 'unavenged', and then she showed you pictures of your brother and said you'd been 'replaced'?”

Jason frowned at him. “When you say it like that, it does sound kind of awful. But Tim wasn't actually my brother at the time. You hadn't adopted him yet. It was just that you were spending time with him, doing the sorts of things you used to only do with me.”

“I am going to call Talia right now and let her have a piece of my mind,” Bruce hissed. One of Jason's hands clamped onto his Bruce's arm tight as a vice, before he had even managed to get his phone out.

“Do not call Talia until you have your memories back, Bruce. She considers you an enemy right now, and without your memories, you're incredibly vulnerable. She will rip you apart.”

“She's angry? And you think I'm not?” Their breakup had been bad, yes, but Bruce was hardly the only one at fault for that. Talia had always seemed to place loyalty to her father over any considerations for them as a couple.

“Bruce, you have no idea how dangerous Talia is. Do not call her and start a fight, or I swear I will tranquilize you and haul your unconscious body to a safe house at least ten thousand miles away, and I don't even know if that will be enough to keep her off our backs.”

Bruce watched Jason's face for telltale signs that he was joking. He didn't see any. “Talia is really that dangerous?” Thinking back, Bruce could remember a few disquieting details about her, especially the way her humor had been so dark and bloody thirsty. She hadn't really been serious about those extreme things she'd said, had she?

“Yes, she is really dangerous,” Jason insisted. “She makes Ortiz look like an incompetent small fry. Her dad's even worse.” Jason shook his head. “Some people are saying he's dead now. Even Dick wants to believe that, but Barbara and I don't. We've seen some of his people around Gotham recently, and while that could be Talia's doing, the MO makes me think of Ra's. He's like a cockroach infestation. Just when you think you've got it all stomped out, a new head scuttles out of the darkness.” Bruce frowned. The few things he actually remembered about Ra's all pointed toward cold pride and ruthless utilitarianism. “You're just not equipped to deal with that right now, Bruce, so do not start a fight with Talia or anyone in her family.”

“Alright, Jay,” Bruce agreed reluctantly. “I won't call her, but I certainly am not going to forgive her for her cruel and reckless behavior. It must have hurt you so much to be told lies like that.”

“Lies?” Jason shook his head. “Bruce, it didn't hurt because she was lying. It hurt because she was telling the truth.”

Bruce winced. “The Joker did escape, that much is true. What she told you about Tim was not the truth, though. You and he are both my sons and both irreplaceable.”

“It's nice that you think that way, now. I admit, there were times I misjudged you. You care a lot more than I thought,” Jason acknowledged with a strained smile. “When you actually get your memories back, though, you're only going to want Tim by your side.”

“There is no way that could be true.”

“I'd bet you otherwise, but then I'd feel bad for basically stealing money from an amnesiac,” Jason said sadly. “Look, you're not going to understand what I'm talking about until you get your memory back, so there's no use going around and around with this argument. I've gotta get back to studying, too. I wanna try to take the science portion of the GED in a couple of weeks and maybe the last two sections a few weeks after that. There are still some topics that I really need to concentrate on, though, if I want to actually pass.”

“Of course, Jay. Don't let me get in the way of your studies. If there is anything I can help with, anything at all...”

Jason's expression got a little warmer. “I'll let you know if there is, but the material Barbara pointed me toward is pretty good. I haven't gotten stuck on anything. It's just that there's a lot to cover.”

Bruce nodded. Even with all the gaps in his education, Jason had always done very well in school. “I'll let you get back to your studies, then.” Bruce himself went back to studying Gotham's criminal justice system and everything he could find on home security. No matter how he looked at it, though, there didn't seem to be any sure, quick fixes, nothing that would guarantee that the Joker would remain safely locked up for the next ten years, and no security system that would be certain to keep the clown out.

The day after Bruce had gotten Jason's final judgment of adoption (how odd it had been to get something “final” for the second time), he had sent an email to his lawyers about what could legally be done to cut down on the number of circumstances where the Joker would be allowed to leave his cell or interact with other people. If those could be reduced, so could his avenues for escape. Bruce had made it clear that he was willing to personally campaign to get certain laws amended, if the reforms would hold up against legal scrutiny.

Unfortunately, the response Bruce had received to his initial propositions had been disheartening. He had hoped that if the Joker was very happy being as sick as he was, then that could be a used as a basis for withdrawing treatment, without being considered a human rights violation. However, Bruce's lawyers had been clear that, even if the Joker were laughing up a storm, “amusement” and “best interest” had very different legal meanings. The fact that the Joker was “happy” as he was did not mean it was in his “best interest” to remain as he was. Reforming the legal code to say that it was in the “best interest” of psychiatric patients to remain happily insane was probably a non-starter, from a political point of view, as well as an ethical one.

Furthermore, for the same reasons that the Joker was incompetent to stand trial, he was also incompetent to make his own medical decisions and refuse treatment. Bruce's lawyers had suggested that the best option might be to try to change the standard for what “incompetent” meant. Setting the standard low enough that the Joker could get over it, though, would likely mean that some very ill people would be thrown into the courts when they weren't even mentally prepared to give their lawyers enough clear information to formulate a proper defense. Many people could also be allowed to refuse treatment they were too ill to know they needed. Bruce, of course, didn't want to be the cause of either of those two side effects.

All of his proposed reforms seemed to have the same issues, though. Either they would be considered violations of basic human rights or they would cause unintended consequences which would hurt very ill people. Bruce had continued searching for alternatives to keep the Joker locked up tight without hurting anyone else, but every time he thought he found something, his lawyers would point out why legally it wouldn't work out like he hoped. Bruce wasn't having any better luck finding a solution that evening, either, so he was eager for another distraction when his phone started buzzing for the second time that night.

“Hello, Barbara,” Bruce said, answering the call as soon as he saw who it was from.

“Hi, Bruce. I know you had a pretty rough night last night, so I wanted to call to check in. I hope you're feeling a little better tonight.”

“Yes. I'm feeling better.” Better than absolute misery still wasn't very good, though, but Barbara was a loyal friend who'd already done a lot. Bruce didn't want to dump all his troubles on her. “I want you to know that I'll pay for the destroyed drone and any other tech samples that might have been damaged.”

“You don't need to worry about that, Bruce. Experimental drones are crashed all the time, so there's a budget to cover replacements. Besides, Jason said the second drone is repairable.”

“Do you want us to send it back to you now?”

“No, Jay said he could fix it himself, and I think it's better if you keep it there.”

Bruce frowned. “Are you worried about what Vincencio might do?” he asked, figuring that if Jason had been concerned that Vincencio might hire another hitman, Barbara might be worried about the same thing.

“My dad actually had time to call me tonight, which generally isn't the case if a major attempted murder investigation isn't going well, so I suspect Vincencio will be in police custody soon. People tend to stop following orders or fulfilling contracts once the guy who signs the checks is in jail, so I don't expect Vincencio or anyone in his employ to be a concern for much longer. Even Vincencio's drug dealing brother has been trying to cut ties since Ortiz was arrested.”

“Do you want the drone back after Vincencio is in custody, then?” Barbara hesitated, and Bruce grew suspicious. “You're worried about more than just Vincencio, aren't you?” Barbara had given Jason the special phone, the one which he'd told Bruce had a super bright LED, before the attempted hit in Crime Alley. Bruce had noticed that because he'd just recently gotten a brand new phone for Jason himself, so he'd been confused about why Jay had needed yet another new phone. Jason had dodged Bruce's question at the time, but now, it made a terrible sort of sense. Barbara had given Jason the phone because she was worried. Vincencio and Ortiz hadn't even been in the picture at that point, though, so who had she been worried about?

“Look, Bruce, you've had a really rough time recently, and I don't want to worry you unnecessarily.”

“Would it be unnecessary?” Barbara Gordon was not the sort to be paranoid and jump at shadows. She'd taken an enormous risk by giving them experimental tech and helping Jason solidify his Jake Turpin identity. She must have had a very good reason for doing that.

“Bruce, I know you're probably always going to worry about Jason, but he's actually very capable of looking after himself.”

“Since he is so capable, why are you still scared for him?” Bruce pressed. “What is so dangerous that has you so worried?” Bruce was terrified that he already knew the answer.

“You don't need to worry about this now, especially while you don't have all the memories that would give you proper context,” she assured him.

“I know you want to protect me, Barbara, but will you protect me at the cost of endangering Jason?” Bruce asked, frustrated that so many people refused to explain things to him. “If you keep silent about threats to Jay's safety, then I'll be too ignorant about those threats to actually prepare or help if something does happen. Surely you know I don't want peace of mind now, at the cost of Jason being hurt later.”

Barbara sighed. “I admit, there is a specific threat that I'm especially worried about, but it's one you're already concerned about, too.”

“The Joker,” Bruce said with venom.

“Yes, the Joker. However, it may not do much good to talk about him, Bruce, as there's nothing you can do to stop him, at least not right now.”

“Surely there must be something,” Bruce said, feeling desperate. True, he hadn't thought of anything himself yet, but with two heads, they should be able to come up with some ideas.

“Well...if the Joker does get out, it would be better if Jason stays in. I don't know that Jason will agree to that, though. The best you might be able to hope for is to delay him.”

“Delay?” Jason didn't want delivery people coming in right after their security team had turned on them, but surely he'd agree to have food and groceries delivered, rather than venturing out of the manor, if the Joker were free.

Barbara sounded very concerned, though, as she said, “If the Joker gets out, tell Jason that you're scared or that you need him close, tackle him, if he'll let you. Dick will head for Gotham the moment he hears the Joker is out again, but he'll have a better chance of catching up if Jay doesn't have that much of a head start.”

“Wait, you think Jay would go looking if the Joker got free?” Bruce asked, deeply alarmed by the mere possibility.

“Jay is so brave, Bruce,” Barbara said, sounding halfway between proud and miserable. “He has been through so much, but he'd never let that stop him from protecting the innocent. If he thought he had a chance to save someone...”

“Why would he think that? He'd be much more likely to be killed again himself,” Bruce said, horrified.

“Dick and I have pointed out the dangers, but even if we did get Jason completely convinced to stay in, the Joker has a way of provoking people when he feels he's being ignored. If he decides he wants to play a game and one of his preferred players won't play, well, he tends to exact a blood price for that refusal. There's plenty of innocent blood in Gotham, blood Jason would hate to see spilled.”

“You're saying the Joker might specifically lure Jason out.”

Barbara sighed again. “The Joker's preferred playmate is Batman, but you might have noticed that Batman hasn't been seen in close to two months, according to the news.” Bruce scowled. It was such a waste of time for the news to report on something as frivolous as the disappearance of some costumed actor, when there were so many real problems in Gotham that needed to be brought to public attention. “The Joker would obviously want to draw Batman out, but if he couldn't do that, then...I think Jason would be his second choice.”

“What? Why?” Bruce demanded, suddenly terrified for his son.

“Jason caught the Joker's attention in the past. Unfortunately, the Joker only has two methods of interacting with others: completely dismissive and actively homicidal. His dealings with Jason have the dubious honor of falling into the second category.”

“But the Joker doesn't even know Jason is alive—right?” Surely he wouldn't. Jason had been publicly dead for years. Even Bruce hadn't known he was alive for a month.

“I...don't know,” Barbara said, sounding troubled. Bruce noticed what she wasn't saying, though. She wasn't saying, “There's no way.” “The Joker's mind works in very strange ways, so it's hard to say exactly what he is or is not aware of. He knows for sure that Jason came back to life—”

“He knows?!” So few people in Gotham knew, and yet the Joker, of all people, was one of them? Had he known Jason was alive while Bruce himself thought his son was dead? “Why didn't you warn me about this before now?”

“Firstly, because I didn't want to worry you, and secondly, because I'm not sure if the Joker knows Jason is alive anymore. There was an...incident, about a year ago, when the Red Hood was active. A whole building blew up, and from what little information I've been able to get out of Jason, he was in that building very close to the time that it exploded. The Joker may think Jason died again.” Bruce felt his breath freeze in his lungs. Had his son almost been killed again? “None of the people who were actually there that night have given me extensive details, though, and Jason got so upset the one time I asked about it that I hate to press him further. There's no explaining what goes through the Joker's head, anyway, so I really can't be sure what he knows or thinks he knows.”

Suddenly, Bruce had a terrible realization. Jason's name and face had been all over the news, thanks to Ortiz's two recent murder attempts. If the Joker got out and heard about “Jason Wayne”, would he be fooled by the Jake Turpin cover story? Was he even sane enough to pay attention to the fact that there was a cover story? Bruce was the one who had insisted that Jason had to keep his name, and at the time that he'd been trying to get Jason a legal identity again, he'd been so utterly baffled as to why Jason and Barbara had gone so far as to steal another boy's identity, rather than agreeing to simply get Jason's death certificate revoked, especially because Barbara was the police commissioner's own daughter.

Bruce was sure that Jim Gordon would have instilled a deep respect for the law in Barbara, and yet she'd aided and abetted Jason's blatant identity theft plan without question. Even before that, when Bruce had asked why they wanted to avoid legally resurrecting Jason Todd, Barbara had claimed that a resurrection story would put Bruce in danger from some nebulous unnamed villains, and Jason had agreed. Maybe they had just been avoiding saying a name, though, in order to protect Bruce from the stark terror he was feeling now. Maybe the name they'd been avoiding saying was the clown's, and maybe Jason was the primary one in danger, rather than Bruce. The thought was horrifying. Had Bruce unwittingly put his son in extreme danger? Was that why Jason had expected someone to come to kill him, even in his own home?

“You say you don't know, but you think the Joker will target Jason again,” Bruce whispered, a chill dripping down the vertebrae of his spine, one by one, until his entire body felt numb. “That's why you've been so worried for him.”

“I admit that's certainly a major factor,” Barbara admitted unhappily. “We don't know when the Joker will escape next, though. He has utterly bizarre priorities, too, so he might not target Jason right away, even if he suspects he is still alive. If he does, you should just focus on ways to stall Jay until Dick can make it to Gotham,” Barbara said, as if Bruce was supposed to find that reassuring. Yes, Dick had been a talented police officer. However, the Joker had killed many police officers before, including an entire SWAT team. The possibility that the Joker might kill two of his sons was not something Bruce found reassuring at all. “We'll figure out more detailed plans when you get your memories back, alright, Bruce?”

“Right. When I get them back,” he replied woodenly, as if he would sit idly by while his sons were in such clear danger. If Barbara didn't think Bruce was competent to act until he had his memories back, though, then he just wouldn't tell her about his intentions. “Thank you for being honest with me, Barbara. I've got a lot to think about right now. Perhaps we can talk more later.”

“Sure. Have a good night, Bruce, and try not to worry too much. I promise you that Dick and I are going to do our very best to keep Jay safe.”

“Of course you are, and I'm grateful for that. Good night, Barbara.”

“Goodnight.”

Bruce swiped to end the call, and then he nearly dropped his phone, his hands were shaking so badly. It took him almost fifteen minutes to calm down enough that he could look for news reports of exploded buildings during the time Red Hood had been active in Gotham. There had actually been a number of explosions, but there was one that Bruce zeroed in on, one that had happened while the Joker was out of Arkham and on the same night that Chemo had hit Bludhaven. A timeline came together in Bruce's head, even as it ripped his heart apart.

Jason had a scar on his throat. He hadn't had it when Bruce had buried him. He'd had so many scars, but not that one. That one had to have happened later. Jason would scratch at his scar whenever he mentioned Chemo. The scar on his throat appeared to be from something sharp, not toxic radiation, though. Jason had claimed he'd missed the whole Chemo aftermath “somehow”. Perhaps, because he'd been injured by the Joker and then left to die again in another exploding building, the same night Chemo had hit Bludhaven.

Prior to this, Bruce had not been able to understand why he would have let his son go overseas into the care of an ex-girlfriend he barely spoke to. If Bruce was being completely honest with himself, he had always enjoyed the quiet thrum of danger that seemed to linger just beneath Talia's skin, but it was exactly that quality which made her unsuitable as a chaperone for a traumatized child. If Bruce had been afraid that Jason might be hunted by the Joker, though, then perhaps he'd found Talia's dangerous undercurrent alluring for a different reason. Perhaps he'd hoped Talia could keep Jason safe. At the very least, she lived far away and few people would suspect Bruce might try to hide one of his sons with her.

Staying with Talia obviously had had negative consequences for Jason, though, not least of which was the serious rift between Jason and Tim which had been opened thanks to her hurtful words. Bruce cross referenced the Joker's many escapes and found that he had indeed killed again between the time Chemo hit Bludhaven and when Bruce had adopted Tim, so Talia would have had an opportunity to show Jason fresh pictures of the escaped Joker. Maybe she had even felt justified in her actions, because she'd been giving Jason extra reasons not to return to Gotham. Bruce, of course, could not condone her hurtful approach, but at least it made a disturbing sort of sense.

The pressing question he faced now was how long it was likely to be before the Joker escaped again. By the time Bruce had looked up all the publicly available information on the Joker and pieced together a list of all of his escapes (it had been particularly hard to figure out what had happened following the Quake), his eyes were practically burning. Bruce looked at his computer clock only to realize that it was already almost 2 AM. How had it gotten so late? Why had the Joker been allowed to escape so often that it took literal hours to put together a timeline of his escapes from custody?

Dividing the Joker's number of escapes by the time he'd been criminally active did not make Bruce feel any better. While the Joker's escape frequency was as unpredictable as he was, featuring long gaps but also quick escapes that happened one after another, the average made it clear that Bruce could not expect Arkham to hold the Joker for long. When he thought of Jason, curled up quietly in bed, peacefully asleep, the possibility of a monster coming for his son squeezed Bruce's heart into a painful rhythm.

Going sleepless two nights in a row wasn't going to help the situation any, though, and Bruce had promised he'd eat a big breakfast in the morning. He knew he should at least try to get some sleep, so he brushed his teeth and went through his usual nightly routine. He found himself shifting restlessly in bed, though, the Joker's awful laughter chasing through his head. The various Gotham media channels had recorded far too many clips of that for any sane person to endure.

The clock read 2:43 AM, then 3:08, then 4:02, and then Bruce finally stopped checking it. Time rolled on, though, and at some point the laughter mixed unpleasantly into dreams. Jason was standing in front of Bruce, wearing a green shirt. There was a yellow cape over his thin shoulders, and thin red stripes appeared on Jason's shirt. Then there were red stripes on his cape, too, and the red stripes on Jason's shirt were getting thicker. It wasn't until Bruce noticed red stripes on Jason's face, though, that he realized it wasn't just a change of fashion. The red was blood, and Jason was covered in it, from temple to toe. Bruce tried to run to his son, but by the time he reached him, Jason was on the ground, gasping for breath. His limbs were broken red lines, and the laughter that had always been there in the background just got louder and louder and louder.

Bruce woke with a strangled cry, the image of his son's bloody, broken body in his mind. He breathed hard, his mind shuddering under the cruel laughter which echoed from the dream. Half the time, Bruce woke up with all the terror of a nightmare but none of the memories to go with it. On those occasions, he could sometimes convince himself to just try to go back to sleep. When he actually remembered seeing Jason's broken body, though, Bruce had to check on him.

Jittery with fear, he stumbled out of bed and tried to keep quiet as he moved toward Jason's room. The clock said it was 7:04 AM, and Jay was typically a late riser. Bruce would just make sure he was safe in bed and then return to his own. He had to pause a minute in the hallway, though, to try to get his harsh breathing under control before opening Jason's door. He didn't want to wake his son, after all.

When his breathing had somewhat calmed, Bruce gently pushed the door open and peered in. He couldn't make out Jason immediately, but Jason didn't always sleep in the exact same position. Sometimes, it took a while to spot him in the darkness. For a moment, Bruce though Jason might actually be sitting in the chair in front of his desk, before he realized that he was only seeing the outline of Jason's leather jacket, hung over the back of the chair. Jason certainly wore a lot of brown leather and blue denim, so Bruce didn't know why his brain kept putting Jason in yellow and green. The red was obvious, of course, because Jason was frequently bleeding in his nightmares. Even the blood red helmet that made an occasional appearance made sense, since Jay now owned a motorcycle. Bruce had never seen Jason wear a cape, though.

He frowned a little harder into the darkness. The sheets of Jason's bed were rumpled, but it didn't look like there was any way a full sized body could be hidden among the folds. Bruce looked around the room with increasing urgency, before finally stepping inside. Jason wasn't behind the dresser or on the floor on the far side of the bed. He wasn't underneath the desk. He wasn't in the room at all, and this was starting to feel like a bad dream come true. Bruce quickly checked the bathroom, and then in a spark of inspiration, he rushed to the kitchen. Maybe Jason had decided to start cooking early to make a big breakfast.

The kitchen was dark and empty, though, and now Bruce was feeling truly frantic. “Jay?” he called, as he rushed down the hallway, looking for lights, straining for sounds, trying to find any clue as to where his son was. “Jay, are you here?!” he shouted.

“Bruce?”

Bruce stopped dead at the sound of a voice, trying to figure out where it had come from. Finally, he saw a small amount of light spilling out from the entrance to the main living room, and he rushed in. Jason was sitting on the couch in the dark. The TV, tuned to a news station, was the only source of light in the room.

“Were you looking for me?” Jason asked, and he looked whole and unharmed, except for that cut on his temple. “I just got up early to check the news.” Bruce studied his son's injury carefully, but Jason didn't look like he was bleeding at all. Finally, he breathed a huge sigh of relief and allowed himself to relax.

Getting up early to watch the news was unusual for Jason, but it wasn't an outrageous thing to do. Bruce chided himself for getting so worked up over nothing. It wasn't until he actually sat down on the couch next to Jason and looked at the news himself, though, that Bruce realized why Jason might have been so eager to watch it. The chyron read, “Crime Alley Crook Caught”, and there was blurry video footage playing in the top left corner of the TV screen. It showed a couple of officers placing someone into a police cruiser in the murky early morning light. The newscaster looked awake and excited as she explained the details of the story.

“Is that—”

“Yeah, it's Vincencio. The police just arrested him,” Jason confirmed.

Bruce thought Jay should be happy or at least relieved at that news. Instead, he was glaring at the screen, obviously angry. His hands weren't clenched and his shoulders were only a little tense, though, so Bruce risked asking gently, “Jay, what are you thinking about?”

Jay shook his head, finally looking away from the TV. “Don't worry about it, Bruce.”

“How can I not worry? You're quiet and angry, and that's a bad combination.”

Jason flinched and looked at him with wounded eyes. “I wouldn't hurt you.”

“Of course not. I wasn't suggesting that, Jay,” Bruce soothed. The thought hadn't even crossed his mind, because he knew Jason wouldn't hurt him. On the contrary, Jay had been trying so very hard to protect Bruce. “I just meant that it's bad for you to bottle things up like this.”

“It's not something you'll be able to understand right now,” Jason said. “I guess the time is coming when you will, though. Tim thinks that you may get your memories back in a month or two.”

“That's good news,” Bruce said, although he didn't think there was any real way Tim could know when Bruce's amnesia would wear off. Jason had presented his theory that Bruce had lost memories he'd formed while in a particular mental state just a couple of nights ago, and while it sounded plausible, Jason had presented no actual evidence as to how Bruce's memory loss had actually occurred, likely because he didn't have any. Bruce didn't want to dash either of his sons' hopes, but what they had mostly amounted to guesswork and wishful thinking. Bruce had discreetly seen several neurologists already, in secret so as to not worry Jason, but none of them had found anything wrong with his brain. Without identifying a concrete cause, it was impossible to say when his memories would actually return. “I don't want you to wait months to say anything, though, Jay,” Bruce told him. That was especially true because he didn't feel any certainty his memory would actually return in the next couple of months. “Surely you can just fill in what I don't remember.”

Jason shook his head. “I know this whole thing with Ortiz shook you up a bit. Maybe you should just wait until you get your memory back. Then we can talk about it,” Jason said, but he didn't sound too certain about the idea.

Bruce was more than a little worried that they wouldn't actually get to have that talk at all. “Jay, I can see you're upset, and that worries me more than whatever truths you can lay on me. Let me help you, son,” Bruce said, leaning a little to the side to put his hand on Jason's shoulder.

Jay shook his head again, his expression conflicted. It made the butterfly bandages on his temple pull oddly against his skin. “Bruce, you really don't want to know what I'm thinking.”

“Am I going to want to know more than I do now, when I finally get my memories back?” If he got them back. Jason had his theory about mental states, and Tim apparently had a lot of optimism. Bruce knew there was no guarantee, though, that he'd ever make a full recovery.

“No,” Jason admitted. “If anything, you'll want to hear it less when you have all your memories.”

“So tell me now. Please, Jay.”

Jason sighed. “You want me to be happy that the GCPD arrested Vincencio, right? But why should I be glad that a hardened criminal is going someplace with a history of far too many prisoner escapes? Vincencio and Ortiz plotted to kill you, Bruce. No one who knows what monsters they are would be sad if they were gone, and the world would be a safer place for everyone else if they didn't have the chance to get out again.”

“Jason, I know you're upset.” Obviously, the Joker's frequent escapes had made Jason question Gotham City's criminal detention system as a whole, which was only reasonable. “I'm upset too. When I saw that Ortiz had a gun in his hand, I was so worried I was about to watch you die in front of me.” No doubt the terror of that encounter would be haunting Bruce for a long time to come. “Of course I don't want Vincencio or Ortiz or anyone anyone working with them to get out of jail ever again. I won't even claim I'd be terribly upset if a judge and jury decided that Ortiz should get the death penalty, but I understand that that's not a sentence that should ever be given out lightly, and certainly not just because I personally am angry and frightened. We live in a civilized society, and we can't dismiss the value of human life so easily. It's worth far more than a cursory condemnation.”

“Right. That's your experience, isn't it? Our society is civilized,” Jason replied with a sneer. “Your parents died decades ago, and yet Gotham never forgets. There's always some retrospective article running in the newspapers on the anniversary of their deaths. Other people are still careful when they bring them up in conversation with you. Their deaths are sacred—but your experience is a glaring exception, Bruce. You think anyone publishes a tribute to my parents on the dates of their deaths?” Jason asked, shaking his head. “It's been less than ten years, but does anyone besides me even think of them at all?”

Bruce winced, guiltily. “I'm sorry, Jay. I should have been more sensitive to your loss.”

“Yeah, my loss,” Jason said bitterly. “But no one else really lost anything because they died, did they? Because my parents, Bruce, were unimportant people with tons of issues that made them hard to like. They were born poor and died poor, with nothing really to show for it. The world doesn't remember them because they weren't worth remembering.”

Bruce's heart ached for his son, for the unfairness of the way society chose to honor its dead. “That is not true. Rich or poor—it doesn't matter. Human life is always precious, regardless of a person's financial net worth.” Jason's parents were important because they were his parents.

Jason's expression softened. “You know, I always loved that about you. How you think everyone is worth something.” His voice took on a distant, wistful tone. “We'd be at one of those fancy galas, and everyone else in the ballroom would be looking down their noses and whispering behind my back, and yet you would still be so proud when you introduced me as your son, as if it didn't matter that you picked me up out of the gutter.” Bruce winced again. He'd tried so hard to make Gotham's elite see how special Jason was, but he knew he had never been very successful at it, despite his earnest effort.

“But Bruce, the worth of all lives is not equal. It's not uneven in the way those rich assholes saw it, but in the impact those lives have on the rest of the world. Maybe we are all born with the same blank slate, but after that, Bruce? People decide what to do with their lives, and there's a whole range of options.”

“Some people enact meaningful reforms and put in enormous effort to improve their communities. They touch so many lives and improve most of them. Some people decide to be hermits and cut themselves off, touching no one but hurting no one. Some people, however,” Jason said darkly, “some people decide that if they can make the world a worse place, they will. They steal not because they need to, but because they can. They hurt others because that's their favorite game to play. Those people—those people are not worth the scum on the bottom of an innocent little kid's shoe,” Jason growled, his voice dripping with vitriol.

“Jason,” Bruce began, but Jason cut him off.

“A child trafficker is not equal to the nurse who volunteers at a soup kitchen. A serial rapist is not worth the life guard who donates time and money to the crisis hotline every month.” Jason's expression pulled into a snarl. “A child killer is not worth the innocent children whom he murders,” he hissed, fury on his face and in his tone.

“Of course not, Jay,” Bruce whispered, because he'd happily trade the Joker's life a thousand times over for his son, and he wouldn't ever doubt the worth of that bargain. “But don't you see how precious your life is? I don't want you to spend it on anger and vengeance, not because the people you want gone don't deserve punishment, but because I don't want you to throw yourself into any more danger.” Jason narrowed his eyes, and Bruce could just imagine that he was thinking he could take on Gotham's underworld and come out on top. He certainly had handled Laszlo and Ortiz, but what about the Joker? Was Jason foolish enough to think he could take on his own murderer? “Even if you could somehow avoid injury, Jay, and that is incredibly unlikely, you deserve a better life than one spent wading through the blood of the worst this earth has to offer.” Bruce sympathized with Jason's desire for justice, but he didn't want Jason within a mile of the Joker ever again.

Jason chuckled bitterly. “My life is that precious, huh?” He looked Bruce straight in the eye, a painfully ironic smile on his face. “Tell me, what did the news say about me, the last time the anniversary of my death came up?”

Bruce strained his mind, but he couldn't come up with anything. “You know my memory has some holes in it—”

“Then let me reassure you: you didn't forget anything. There was nothing to remember. I died just five years ago, and very few people even remember I existed. Bruce Wayne took in Tim Drake, and Gotham turned on. If it hadn't been for this whole scandal about the famous Bruce Wayne adopting Jake Turpin, half-brother of that other street kid who died, do you think anyone besides me would even care anymore, what happened to Jason Todd?”

Bruce couldn't hold back a small noise of distress at that. “I care. Barbara cares. Dick, and Alfred.”

“Alfred has known I've been back for a year now, and the only thing he's communicated to me is how to get blood out of antique rugs.”

Bruce shook his head, unable to believe that. “That can't be. Alfred missed you terribly—”

“If he missed anything, it was the innocent kid I was before I was murdered by a psychopathic clown. You're so busy having moral panics over how killing changes a person. Did you spare any effort to think about how actually being killed feels? How that could have changed me? How much harder it would be to ignore murderers and let them keep getting away with it, now that I personally, viscerally know how it feels to be murdered?!”

“I...” The truth was, Bruce hadn't thought of it. He hadn't thought about it because he could not bear to even imagine what Jason must have gone through. The thought of his child in such agony—but Jason probably couldn't help thinking of it. He had to remember it. “Oh, Jay...” Jason's biological mother had been killed by the Joker, too. Bruce had been quick to forget that before, but surely it still mattered to Jason.

“I can't let this go,” Jason insisted. The anger in his voice caught Bruce's attention, but it was the pain which caught at his heart. Bruce looked at his son's face, set into hard and miserable lines, and thought of how he'd felt, watching his parents die. There were some things which left an impact that was impossible to erase, and Bruce had the solemn feeling this was one of them.

“I'm not asking you to let killers get away with it, Jay. We can work with the police to bring them to justice.”

“Oh, Bruce, you really are so naive without your memories. Justice? Can you tell me how many times the Joker has escaped his cushy mental hospital and killed more? Do you remember that?”

Due to his amnesia, Bruce didn't remember firsthand, but he'd just looked that information up a few hours ago. The amount of times the Joker had escaped custody was staggering and infuriating and heartbreaking. Bruce felt another wave of paralyzing terror wash over him. He had just painfully discovered that the manor's security couldn't protect them, that the police couldn't protect them, that private security couldn't be trusted to protect them. Bruce's efforts to find a legal solution had so far also come to nothing. When the Joker got out again, who was going to stop him from going after Bruce's son again?

“The Joker was in Arkham before he killed me, and after?” Jason leaned forward to hiss the words right into Bruce's face. “After, when Batman caught him, he handed the Joker to the police, who took him right back to the exact same mental ward. I think they even put him back in the same room,” Jason said, and there was agony in his voice as much as there was anger. “A room which the Joker later broke out of. Again. And he killed. Again,” Jason snarled. If Bruce's suppositions were right, the Joker had nearly killed Jason again, too, but Jay was upset enough as it was, without Bruce bringing that up.

“The Joker's in custody now, but he's certainly plotting, just waiting for his next chance to break out and kill more. Again. So why don't you explain to me how much justice I really got by letting the police handle it, Bruce. Why don't you tell me how sacred my life could possibly be, when I died, and not a damn thing changed. The Joker is still ready, willing, and—likely very soon—able to kill more. Nothing in his circumstances was altered for the worse in any way because he viciously, brutally, and gleefully killed me, although now he has the entertaining memory of murdering me to keep him from getting bored, so I guess from the Joker's perspective, his circumstances actually improved. That is the justice I got.”

Jason was looking at Bruce in righteous fury by this point, but Bruce could only stare back in cold horror, as he tried to breathe in a way that would stop the slick tingling in his mouth from progressing to vomit. This wasn't a case of Jason misinterpreting the facts. The facts were painfully obvious.

The Joker had been seen by the very best psychologists the city had to offer and had been deemed untreatable, not that they were allowed to stop treating him. The Joker was so pleased by his homicidal activity that he certainly wasn't going to just stop killing of his own free will. He'd broken out of Arkham a sickening number of times already, regardless of the security upgrades or the staffing changes which had been made over the years.

The Joker got to sit in his room, gloatingly considering his future homicidal plans, and all his potential victims got to live out their possibly all too short lives in terror. Was that why Jason had spent so many years isolated from his family? Was that why Bruce had allowed Jason to remain legally dead for so long? Not because Jason was too angry about what the Joker had done to forgive Bruce, but because Jason was right. There was no justice, and being close to friends and family or using his real name put Jason at risk of being killed by the Joker yet again.

“The system is broken,” Bruce whispered, coming to the inescapable conclusion. With regards to regular killers, the police could handle it some of the time, maybe even most of the time, disregarding Crime Alley, but when it came to the Joker...

“Oh, you're finally figuring that out, huh?” Jason said bitterly. “I guess I shouldn't be too hard on you. You've had a natural handicap all your life, living in Bristol, where crime is low and the cops aren't afraid to show their faces. You've even got a famous name that makes people pay attention when you speak up about an issue and a dozen lawyers on retainer to make sure you get the full benefit of every law on the books—not to mention your wrought iron gates and top of the line security system to keep the undesirables out. But yeah, Bruce, for the rest of us? The system is really goddamn broken.”

Suddenly, all Bruce could think of was how small and cold Jason's broken body had been, when Bruce had gathered his son's remains up that final time to bring home to bury. Jason's once energetic body had lain so agonizingly still, until Bruce had lifted him and his shattered bones had slid underneath his brutalized skin. The Joker had done that. That monster had murdered Bruce's child, and absolutely nothing had been done to stop it from happening again. The system was broken, and his child was still in mortal danger.

One thought formed clear as crystal in Bruce's mind: I will never let the Joker hurt my son again. Regardless of the price he might have to pay personally, Bruce was going to stop the Joker, once and for all.

Chapter Text

Bruce startled awake from another nightmare, the Joker's awful laughter rattling around in his head like a pile of shaken bones. Bruce tried telling himself that he was far too old to still be so scared of bad dreams, but that proved exactly as futile as it had been every other time he'd tried to get his heart to stop hammering by shaming it into submission. Sighing, Bruce reached out to turn his bedside lamp on, but that just revealed how badly his hands were still shaking. He couldn't remember everything which had happened in the nightmare, but he remembered the Joker promising to kill more—except that wasn't just a nightmare, was it? It was a memory.

Bruce had been researching the Joker again before going to sleep, which had probably, in hindsight, been a terrible idea. He really hadn't needed to top up on nightmare fuel right before bed, and everything the Joker had ever said to the press had a particularly high octane content. Rather than apologizing for his crimes, he was inclined to apologize for not killing enough, and the Joker thought nothing of casually swearing to take more lives next time he got out. There never seemed to be any question in the Joker's own mind that there would be a next time—why should there be, when he'd proven again and again that Arkham could not hold him?

Bruce was determined not to allow his homicidal rampage to continue, but the best he could do for that moment was creep down the hallway and check to make sure that Jason was still safe. Bruce pushed his son's door open quietly, and he was relieved to see a dark, person sized lump curled up on the bed. Bruce spent a long few minutes peering into the darkness, until he thought he could almost make out the small shifting of shadows caused by Jason's breathing.

Eventually, Bruce convinced himself to go back to bed, but he only really managed to toss and turn for a few more hours, before the sunlight creeping through his curtains got him up for the day. Despite how intense their early morning conversation had gotten, Jason had still made a huge breakfast for the two of them the prior day. Bruce had said he would cook their next breakfast, and he was determined to do better than some toasted bagels and oatmeal. As he walked into the kitchen, though, he couldn't even remember where the frying pans were. He wasn't sure whether that was because of his amnesia or because Bruce rarely did any real cooking himself. Aside from toast and microwaved oatmeal, the only thing he knew how to make in the kitchen was coffee.

Still, he could use his phone to look up recipes. He figured he could make omelets and sausages and french toast before Jason got up. An hour later, Bruce was exasperated at how inaccurate those online recipes had turned out to be. Ten minutes of prep time? It had taken Bruce that long to just hunt down all the ingredients for french toast in his kitchen! He'd ended up using a steak knife to dice the bell peppers for the omelet because he wasn't actually sure where the proper knives for the job were even kept. He hadn't found any sausages in the refrigerator, and so by the time Jason stumbled into the kitchen, Bruce had only managed to produce two very lumpy omelets (he probably should have cut those pepper pieces up smaller) and a stack of french toast that only looked respectable until you realized that half of the slices were burnt on at least one side. Why had the recipe not mentioned that the second side would cook so much more quickly than the first?

“Oh. You actually made food already?” Jason said.

“Yes,” Bruce replied, although he wished what he'd cooked had turned out a little closer to what Jason had produced yesterday.

“Cool. I wasn't sure you'd know where to find everything, since you got up before me.”

Bruce grimaced. “I didn't actually know. I'm still not sure where the knives for cutting vegetables are, and I couldn't find any sausages in the refrigerator.”

“That's because the sausages are in the freezer,” Jason told him, opening up the freezer briefly to point them out. Then, Jason opened up a drawer next to the sink and reached into it to slide a tray forward. Bruce saw several of the sort of knives he probably should have used to slice up the peppers and mushrooms.

“I didn't realized that tray was there,” Bruce admitted, feeling a little embarrassed that he had to be shown around his own kitchen. Still, it made him happy to see how comfortably familiar Jason was with everything.

“Because the top layer was pushed all the way back, you wouldn't have noticed this was a double layer utensil tray, unless you pulled the drawer out all the way. Now that you know it's there, I'm sure you won't have any problems finding the right knives,” Jason said, demonstrating the mechanism by sliding the top tray back and forth once more, before closing the drawer. “Alfred loves how space efficient it is,” Jason added, something wistful in his voice.

“Do you think I was too harsh, sending him away?” Bruce asked, second guessing himself yet again.

Jason shrugged. “That's your call. If you're worried that he's sitting around in some dingy Gotham hotel feeling miserable, though, you don't need to be. Babs told me Alfred's at the Tower, helping Tim out.”

Babs hadn't told Bruce that, but then, he hadn't broached the subject with her, either. She might have thought Bruce didn't want to talk about Alfred because he was still displeased with Alfred's failure to tell him about Jason. Bruce still found the knowledge that Alfred was with Tim relieving, though. “I'm glad Tim has someone with him in San Francisco.” Bruce might not be quite ready to forgive Alfred, but he was sure that Alfred would do his best to look after Tim at the Tower, just as he had looked after Tim at Brentwood Academy.

“You know Tim has lots of friends at the Tower, don't you?” Jason said, as he grabbed a plate with one of the omelets and forked some french toast onto it, as well.

“I know, but I feel better that he's with family,” Bruce said, putting a slice of french toast on his own plate while Jason poured himself a glass of orange juice. “Alfred better not be trying to draw Tim into that ridiculous 'bat man' story, though.”

Jason snorted. “Yeah, Batman's pretty ridiculous, huh?” Bruce wasn't sure why there was suddenly such mischief in Jason's eyes, but he nodded in agreement. For some reason, that only made Jason grin harder. Bruce couldn't see why anyone would find that awful “bat man” story so funny, but Bruce realized that it might not sting so much for Jason, who'd only heard about the lies Dick and Alfred had told second hand.

Thankfully, Jason didn't seem to be put off by the lumpiness of his omelet or the burnt side of the french toast. He'd never been a picky eater—perhaps his early life had taught him that he couldn't afford to be a picky eater. In any case, Jason finished off his breakfast quickly and even had a second glass of orange juice.

“Did you not like what I cooked yesterday?” Jason asked, when Bruce had finished his own breakfast and was slowly sipping his coffee.

“I liked it fine, Jay. You're actually a much better cook than I am.” If Jason's omelets had been placed side by side with Alfred's, Bruce wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.

“But you didn't eat a lot,” Jason pointed out. “I guess that I didn't really help your appetite by dumping my issues on you first thing in the morning, though,” he admitted sheepishly.

“I asked you, Jay, and it was clearly something that has been bothering you for a long time now. I'm glad you were finally able to tell me.”

“Even though you hated hearing it?”

Bruce smiled wryly. “Even then. It was something I needed to hear.”

“You won't remember, but I actually tried to tell you all of that before this,” Jason said, sounding subdued. “I'm not sure how coherent I was, though. We were both too angry, maybe. You're a much better listener now, without your memories.”

“Jay, I'm not going to stop listening to you if I get my memories back,” Bruce assured him, for what certainly wasn't the first time.

Jason frowned. “When you get your memories back, you're suddenly going to have a lot of other priorities to think about, considering all the stuff you've forgotten. What makes you so sure you'll have time for me?”

“Because you're my son,” Bruce told him, even though it should be obvious. Bruce had learned over the past month, though, that the things he thought were obvious weren't always so to Jason.

Jason's expression softened. “It's that simple for you right now, isn't it? I wish life wasn't going to get so complicated, once your memory comes back.” Of course Bruce himself would be happy to finally understand more about his own life, but he wasn't that eager for any added complications in his relationship with Jason, either. He felt like he was finally getting his son to open up to him. “Oh! Before I forget, I wanted to warn you that you might see a higher water or electrical bill than you might be expecting, since the group home is supposed to be empty now.”

Bruce narrowed his eyes. “Supposed to be empty?”

“I know the contractors are still busy putting up the guard shack, and the lawyers are waiting for the last of the paperwork to be approved,” Jason said. “The individual rooms themselves are fine, though, fully furnished and everything. With the utilities already on, that makes it the perfect place to squat.”

“Jay, did someone move in there already?” Bruce asked, a little incredulous. The group home wasn't legally allowed to operate yet, and none of the staff would be there.

“I'm sure hoping so. The police arrested Vincencio, but not his girls. I'm sure they've seen him weasel out of a lot of charges before, so of course their first thought was to lay low until he's out again. Last night, I tracked down as many of them as I could.”

“You went to Crime Alley?” Bruce had been so busy researching the Joker, research which he obviously hadn't wanted Jason to see, that he'd just been relieved when he hadn't seen Jason after dinner. He'd assumed, apparently wrongly, that Jay was safely in his bedroom studying for the GED. If Bruce had known what his son was actually up to, he would have been a lot more worried.

“Relax, Bruce,” Jason said, as if that were so easy to do. “I'm a Crime Alley local. I know how not to stand out, and I really needed to talk to those girls. Most of them insisted, at least at first, that the cops won't be able to get anything to stick, but when I pointed out that Ortiz was arrested at Wayne Manor and that attempted murder has a long minimum sentence, a few of them realized that Vincencio wasn't going to be able to sweep things under the rug. Not this time, not with such a celebrity target.” Bruce frowned at the suggestion that a non-celebrity target might have allowed leeway for Vincencio to escape punishment, but he didn't challenge Jason's statement. “Once word gets out about Vincencio being out of the game, some other pimp will definitely try to swoop in and snatch up Vincencio's girls. The smarter ones let me give them key cards for rooms at the group home. Since it's not open, not many people know about it yet, and with the food I stocked there, utilities covered, and high quality deadbolts, they can feel safe there. If the girls get used to it, well, I think we've got a pretty good chance of convincing at least a couple of them to just stay there officially once it opens.”

It was definitely illegal to effectively start operating the group home before it was licensed, but Bruce noticed that Jason didn't seem at all concerned about that. “You believe this is truly the best thing for those poor girls?”

“Yes.”

“And you don't think this could endanger the license for the group home?”

Jason snorted. “In that neighborhood, who would report it? Even if someone did, you think the cops working that beat actually investigate reports of squatting, when they can't even keep up with much more serious crimes? You weren't going to tell the staff to show up until the place was licensed, anyway, so by that time it would be legal for the girls to stay there. It's not like the girls are going to admit what actually happened, and no one is going to be surprised if it turns out social services was a little late handling the paperwork for them. They're always a little late. After my mom died, they didn't start looking for me for almost two weeks.”

“That's very concerning.” Leaving a child who'd just lost his mother alone for almost two weeks was a dangerous failure.

“That's reality,” Jason countered. “If you wait to work within the system, by the time social services might try to find those girls, some other pimp will already have snatched them up.”

Bruce frowned but nodded. It still made him a little nervous to aid and abet a clear violation of the law, but if he had to weigh the law against the welfare of vulnerable girls who'd already suffered the worst of societies depredations, Bruce found that he'd much rather help the people who truly needed it when they needed it, rather than obey a law that wasn't going to help them until far too late. The thought of young teens being snatched up into the hands of yet another exploitative pimp was simply too much for his conscience to bear, regardless of legalities.

After breakfast, Jason did a little studying, while Bruce went back to his Joker research, although he told Jay he was looking through some Wayne Industries project proposals. He probably should have been doing that, but Bruce hadn't been able to concentrate on anything work related since Ortiz had come. He made sure to head to the home gym when Jason told him he was going to use it, though. When Jay had first moved back into the manor, Bruce had been surprised to learn he even had a home gym. He apparently had forgotten it completely. Jason hadn't, though, and Bruce had been very unhappy to learn that his son thought nothing of lifting extremely heavy weights without a spotter.

Thankfully, Jay had eventually agreed to tell Bruce before he used the lifting equipment, on the condition that Bruce would allow Jason to be a spotter for him. Bruce had agreed, even though he hadn't thought he'd do any actual lifting himself, initially. Jason had pointed out, though, that if Bruce couldn't lift the weights himself, then he might not be able to help Jason if he got into trouble. They had gotten into a habit of switching off lifting and spotting after every set, after that. Bruce had been quite pleasantly surprised to find out that he could actually lift quite a lot, although of course he had started out lifting lighter weights, as he hadn't remembered what he could handle.

“You wanna start first or should I?” Jason asked, when they got to the gym.

“You can go first, as long as I get to pick the music.” Bruce loved his son dearly, but Jason's taste in music was as bad as Dick's taste in hairstyles.

“Still not a fan of death metal, huh?”

Bruce grimaced. “It's just a bunch of shouting, Jay. There's no actual melody.”

“Fine, we can spare your ear drums for today, old man,” Jason replied with a grin, as he headed for the weight bench. Bruce seized the opportunity to start a playlist of actual music, rather than the discordant cacophony Jason preferred to blast out of the speakers in the room.

Since Bruce could actually hear himself think, he couldn't keep his mind from assessing the present situation while they worked out. He had been cautiously advancing to heavier and heavier weights over the past several weeks, and by this time, Bruce was almost caught up to what Jason was lifting. He was able to keep up with Jason when they went for a run on the grounds, too, although Bruce had often found himself more tired toward the end than Jason, especially at first. Jay had attributed that to “slacking off for a month”, which was probably a fair assessment. Bruce had gotten barely any exercise at all after he'd gotten amnesia, because he'd forgotten absolutely everything about his normal exercise routine.

Alfred had driven him to work and back, and Bruce had taken the elevator to get to his office, rather than the stairs. The night of the mugging had been the first time Bruce had so much as gone for a walk in a month, so it was probably a good thing he had Jay here encouraging him to exercise now. It still bothered Bruce that Jay might be so committed to staying in shape because he was worried about his physical safety, but now that feeling was offset by the relief that Jay could actually take care of himself in most situations.

Still, Jason had never been a helpless waif, even as a kid. His gym teachers had all spoken glowingly about Jason's energy, hand eye coordination, and excellent cardiovascular fitness. None of that had saved him from the Joker. The scrappiness he'd inherited from living on Crime Alley hadn't saved him from the Joker, either. The Joker had killed athletes and police officers and Gotham mobsters, and despite those wild rumors about “bat man”, there were no reliable stories of the Joker ever being beaten in a one on one fight.

Jason was incredibly fit, but it wasn't enough to keep him safe. If Bruce also knew how to fight, though, would that make a difference? Or what if he hired a trustworthy security company? He decided to gently probe Jason as they finished up their work out.

“Jay, how would you feel about hiring another security company, if you were the one choosing one?”

“Absolutely not,” Jason said immediately.

“I know we just had a really bad experience, but—”

“It's not that. Or, not only that,” Jason explained, before finishing his last rep. “Think about it this way, Bruce. If you put a person in a position where he has to choose between his money or his life, almost every individual will give up his money to save his life. When you hire security, you might think you're paying people to put their lives on the line, but realistically, there's no amount of money you can pay to make strangers actually willing to die for you. The real idea of security is that they have such overwhelming numbers or skill or equipment versus the challenges that might come up against them that their own lives wouldn't generally be at risk. Often, security wins simply by looking tough enough that no one wants to test them, so there is no actual fighting at all.”

Jason picked up his water bottle and took a sip of water before continuing. “Occasionally, if the attackers are really stupid, they box the security team in, so they can't get away. In that case, the security members aren't choosing to lay down their lives for their employers, so much as they are trapped and therefore fighting to survive themselves. However, if the attackers are smart or strong enough, they will either bypass the security team altogether or simply intimidate them out of the way—or maybe even infiltrate them, as we just saw with Laszlo. The larger the security team, the higher the chance that at least one of them is an infiltrator.”

“Isn't there any way to get a more reliable team?” Bruce asked.

“There are occasional exceptions,” Jason admitted. “I hope that the Secret Service hires enough actual patriots that their recruits are generally willing to lay their lives down for their country. But that's the thing—it would be for their country, for something greater than themselves that they truly believe in, not for some random rich guy who happened to have a lot of cash. Similarly, if someone really wants to protect and serve, I'd hope they'd go to a police academy, not a private security firm. If you hired a bodyguard and you treated him like family for years, Bruce, yeah, that person might be willing to die to protect family. But then, if a bodyguard who was like family died, you'd be losing family, not just an employee, which defeats the whole purpose of hiring a body guard to protect your family in the first place.”

Jason shook his head. “My basic issue with hiring security is that really smart, talented people are rare, and people who'd die for strangers for money are even rarer. Thinking that you'll find someone with all those rare traits available to hire immediately is ridiculously optimistic. Maybe if you scoured the globe, you'd eventually get lucky, but there are other people who have already been searching for a loyal bodyguard for years, who probably would hire that rare person before you even heard about him. So, in general, you can't quickly hire greatly talented people who will lay down their lives for you.”

“On the other hand, you can hire fools who will leave a gaping hole in the perimeter for a threat to slip in or idiots who'll die so early in a fight that they wouldn't even get a chance to recognize the danger they were in. Good fighters, on the other hand, know how to judge what could be deadly accurately, which is how they've lived long enough to become good fighters. You can try to hire them, but they will back out if they see the job will obviously get them killed. You can lie, of course, to get them to take the job, but then they won't know enough to protect you well, and if they do find out what they're up against, why should they continue working for someone who tricked them into taking the job in the first place?”

“Frankly, a regular civilian security team just isn't going to handle very dangerous threats, and I don't need fools to die for me, especially if I'm just going to end up dealing with the threat myself, anyway,” Jason said, matter of fact. Bruce himself was still wrestling with the morality of hiring someone to die for him. Even if he could do that, should he? He obviously hadn't thought this through fully. “I get that a good security team could intimidate uncommitted threats into choosing another target or stop minor threats entirely. Those aren't the threats I'm worried about, though.” They weren't the threats Bruce was worried about, either.

“If we're just talking about minor thugs, I've got no issues taking them on myself,” Jason said, which was alarming, even though Jason had already proven how easily he could win such fights. “If we're talking about serious threats which are specifically targeting us, like Ortiz was, I don't believe you could find a security team immediately available that would be talented enough to stop a threat like that without taking serious casualties, and once a team takes serious casualties, they'd be more worried about protecting themselves than us. So, again, if I'm going to have to face the threat on my own in the end, I'd rather do it without unreliable bystanders in the mix, especially because I'd have to care about those bystanders lives, meaning my enemy could menace them to distract me.”

Bruce frowned. “Alright. I understand that you have concerns about bringing in privately hired security, but since I'm going to be here no matter what, how hard would it be for me to learn how to fight?” Not that Bruce thought he'd become some kung fu legend overnight, but he was smart and in good shape and deeply committed to protecting Jason.

“That depends on what sort of fight you need to learn how to win. If you're talking about helping me fight common thugs, it's not that hard at all.”

The Joker, unfortunately, was hardly a common thug, or Bruce wouldn't need to worry about him so much. “What about someone like Ortiz? Could I learn to take someone like him on?” Bruce knew Ortiz wasn't as dangerous as the Joker, but he didn't particularly want to bring the Joker up directly in front of Jason.

His son frowned. “If you want to help me take on someone like Ortiz, you're already doing the training best suited for such a threat, which is running, preferably in a direction that puts you behind me,” Jason said, his voice flat and expression solemn. “Look, I don't wanna hurt your pride, Bruce, but I am dead serious here. Even if I spent two months training you non-stop, you'd still be nothing but a liability to me in a fight against a talented and experienced opponent. Now, if you recover from your amnesia and you suddenly remember you are a martial arts master, we can revisit the topic, but for the moment, I need you to stay out of dangerous fights.”

Bruce sighed. Obviously, he wasn't going to wake up one day and suddenly remember that he'd been studying martial arts for years. “Is there really nothing I could do to help you in a difficult fight?”

Jason made a frustrated sound. “I know it seems intuitive that four fists are greater than two. But are those extra two fists in the place you need them when you need them, or are they just getting in the way or worse, enabling a hostage situation? You may have seen me take Ortiz out with just one move, but I needed a lot of skills to put myself in a position to make that one move at exactly the right time. First, I had to keep calm and react quickly. I know that doesn't sound hard at all, but some people will lose their cool, just because they're bleeding a little,” Jason said. Bruce certainly had lost any semblance of rationality, once he'd seen Jason bleeding. “In that moment when I was pushing us into the storage room, I could have headed for any corner. A lot of people would want to go to the back of the room, because that's farther from the danger, but Ortiz had a gun and he was good enough to shoot down drones in flight. A few feet of extra distance wouldn't have presented any challenge to him, and only the corner of the room that was closest to the doorknob allowed me to come at Ortiz from the side and unobstructed by the door.”

“You were thinking about that, even back when we were ducking into the storage room?” Bruce asked, surprised.

“I wasn't consciously thinking through a checklist of steps, but I knew generally that escape might not be possible, so I needed to put myself in a position where I could attack. You have to be familiar enough with fighting that you can choose the best position instinctively, because you may not have a chance to consciously consider your every move. It takes a lot of time to develop those instincts, though. Obviously, you have to be adaptable, too. If there had been a convenient rope in the storage room, I might have tried to get you out the window while using the phone trick to cover the sound of our movements and make Ortiz think we were still in the room. Since that wasn't possible, it's a good thing that I was ready to make an attack. I'm not sure if you noticed, but I was also quiet when I moved on Ortiz.”

Bruce hadn't noticed. He'd been too overwhelmed with shock and fear that Ortiz was shooting into the room to really notice anything else during those moments. He could understand why stealth had been important then, though.

“It's not that hard to learn how to do a blood choke. I could teach you that pretty quickly,” Jason asserted. “The issue is getting yourself into a position where you can catch someone in a blood choke, without, let's say, getting shot on the approach. I beat Ortiz because I was able to surprise him, but it took a lot of skill to get that couple of seconds of surprise.”

“So, someone who can surprise his opponent, who is unpredictable, can win fights reliably.”

“Well, a fighter still needs to be able to perform some finishing move, but yeah. In general, I'd rather fight someone with twice as many muscles and weapons as me, whose every move I can predict, rather than fight someone half as strong as me with worse weaponry, who I can't predict that well. That's because I'm more likely to get hurt in the second case. Talented fighters know a lot of different moves and are often proficient with several different types of weapons. They will choose to attack from distances where you have difficulty countering, come at you from unexpected angles, feint to get you off balance, and generally keep you guessing about what's coming next, so you can't anticipate them and come up with a perfect counter. Of course talented fighters also generally have a lot of physical strength, but all the strength in the world won't help someone who can't land a hit.”

“The unpredictable fighters land hits more.”

“Exactly,” Jason said. It made perfect sense. It also perfectly explained why the Joker was so good at killing people. Barbara had said that he was unpredictable, and everything Bruce had learned in his research only made him more certain that she was right.

“How do you beat an unpredictable fighter, then?”

“With or without taking a lot of hits to win the fight?”

“Definitely without.” Bruce didn't want Jason dying himself to defeat the Joker.

Jason snorted. “That's easier said than done. Maybe force that fighter into special circumstances where he becomes predictable. Or become so overwhelmingly fast in terms of reaction time that it's like you can predict him, because you can react so quickly. Or bring a tremendous numerical advantage of experienced combatants to the fight, so that he has no chance to counter your entire team. In my experience, you generally can't do those sorts of things very often, though. It's frequently impossible to find something that will make an unpredictable person suddenly predictable, or to increase your reaction time past a certain point, or to get half a dozen highly skilled fighters to shadow you at all times, just in case you come across an unpredictable guy. So, if you don't want to get into a fight where you're likely to take a lot of hits, the best thing to do with an unpredictable fighter is not to get into the fight in the first place.”

“What if someone unpredictable is aiming for you, like Ortiz was, so you can't avoid the fight?”

“See, that's one of the problems with waiting for the cops. If you might not be able to counter a strike, then it's a dangerous idea to sit around just waiting for that strike to be launched, likely at the very moment most agreeable to your enemy. If it's possible, it's generally better to proactively go after an unpredictable threat and get to him before he's expecting it, in a circumstance that's favorable for you. In other words, strike unpredictably at the unpredictable.”

Bruce nodded and started his own final set of reps, while Jason finished his water. Bruce had been hoping to hear a more optimistic assessment, but what his son had said agreed with what Bruce had already been thinking himself. Hiring another security force wasn't the answer. The Joker had never been stopped by one before, after all, and he had encountered many. There was no way to make the Joker's nature more predictable, and that meant there was no foolproof plan that could be developed to stop him, at least not once he was out and had free reign to make the most chaotic of choices. The only circumstances favorable for a strike against the clown occurred when the Joker was forced into a predictable routine by Arkham Asylum. That meant killing him before he got out.

When Bruce finished lifting, Jason went to take a shower, while Bruce finished off his own water and thought carefully over everything they'd discussed. Then, he took a shower himself and had a quick lunch with his son. Afterward, Jason went back to studying for the GED, and Bruce went back to his office to start plotting. Plotting. It sounded ridiculous, like something a cartoon villain would do.

The evidence pointed him in one direction, while common sense rebelled against the very idea. The Joker was in a Arkham. Surely Bruce couldn't be thinking about attacking someone who was already safely locked up. But he wasn't safely locked up, was he? Everyone who knew the Joker's history would know that his incarceration was only temporary, and unfortunately, once the Joker got out, there was nothing that could stop him. Even the police were only ever belatedly successful, with many lives lost in the delay.

Only a few days ago, Bruce had hired security, and they'd turned on him. The Gotham County Sheriff and the GCPD had been called to the manor, but they'd failed to arrive in time to stop a potentially lethal threat. Jason had been forced to defend himself. Jason had already failed to defend himself against the Joker once, though. Bruce remembered several conversations where his son had made it clear how dissatisfied he was with a justice system that kept doing the same ineffective thing and achieving the same undesirable results. Why should Bruce be okay doing that himself, when it came to his son's continued life?

He knew it was very illegal to attack someone who was locked up in a mental institution. Of course it was illegal. It could never meet the legal definition of self-defense to go after the Joker there, because the law assumed that if someone was locked up, they weren't a danger anymore. That was the way the legal system worked: law was a blunt instrument that applied equally to everyone, even though people weren't actually all equal, because some very small portion of them were gleeful mass murderers who had escaped custody repeatedly to add to their body count.

Still, because he didn't like the conclusion he had drawn, Bruce spent several hours thinking in circles, trying to find a reasonable solution to an unreasonable problem. He couldn't fight the Joker himself, and he couldn't count on a security team to win that fight for him. Jason had already lost a fight with the Joker, and asking Dick to be the last line of defense was just trading one son's life for another. Various Arkham security upgrades over the years had done nothing to stop the clown from escaping, and the best psychologists had already exhausted all their skills and failed to change him. True criminal justice reform, done the right way, was at least a decade away, if it could even be sufficiently refined to keep the Joker from breaking out again without stripping basic human rights from the mentally ill.

The Joker was so unpredictable that once he was out, he might do anything. His sheer personal affinity for chaos made him almost impossible to counter or guard against. He had occasionally seemed to try to get the attention of “bat man” in the past, no doubt because the senselessness of a fake crime fighter in a bat costume appealed to him, but that costume party actor had decided to disappear for the past couple of months. Perhaps the Joker had actually killed him and just not admitted it yet. That rumor was making its way through the media now. With the strange bat cosplayer out of the picture, though, the Joker might decide to “play” with Jason instead, with innocent lives as the stakes in their “game”. Bruce knew his son, his brave and selfless son. Barbara was right: if Jason thought he could save innocent lives, he would go—straight into a trap. At that point, there would be no hope of saving him, not when the Joker could manipulate the battleground entirely to his own advantage.

Bruce could not let that happen, but the only way he could think of to stop it would be to strike preemptively, while Bruce could rely on the predictability of Arkham Asylum to give him a viable opportunity. A simple injury wouldn't be enough. The Joker had healed even from major injuries and come back even more dangerous. But what was there beyond major injury? Permanently paralyzing someone on purpose without killing them required far more medical knowledge than most people had, including Bruce, and it wasn't like that was the sort of thing you could just practice to be sure you had the technique down. Such a delicate operation would also require much more time and uninterrupted first hand access to the Joker than a simple assassination, and Arkham did actually have security. Even if Bruce could source an appropriate anesthetic or paralytic, successfully administer it to keep the Joker immobile during the operation, and actually pull off such an operation without any training, he doubted it would be possible for him to do so without discovery, unless various Arkham security systems were taken down. Even if he could do that, though, Bruce wouldn't, because he didn't want any other dangerous Arkham inmates to be able to escape.

That left only one solution: Bruce needed to break the law in the most serious way possible, to ensure that the Joker never could again. “Preemptive killing” was just a nicer way of saying “murder”, though. Bruce wasn't a murderer. He couldn't become one, could he?

Jason interrupted his spiraling thoughts by calling Bruce down to dinner. Since Vincencio had been denied bail that afternoon, Jason had decided that it was safe enough to order out, and Bruce walked into the dining room to discover the delicious smell of a couple of signature dishes from Thai Lotus. He couldn't actually manage to enjoy the meal, though. His eyes kept straying to the cut on Jason's temple. If that piece of shrapnel from the drone had hit Jason's eye instead, would they still have made it into the storage room? Jason had been quick and calm and clever, and it had still be so close. Ortiz wasn't even anywhere near as dangerous as the Joker, as far as body counts were concerned. Bruce forced himself to eat enough so as not to worry Jason, but he excused himself quickly and went up to his room feeling mildly nauseous.

The thought of killing someone terrified and sickened him—but perhaps not as much as other memories. Bruce thought of Jason, face covered in blood dripping from his temple, thought of his boy, dead in his arms, so small and still and helpless. He remembered the shame and agony of buying a child sized coffin, and the awful look on Alred's face as he picked out a funeral suit for his grandson. Bruce had already buried his child once. That was something he truly could not endure again, but the only way to keep Jason safe was to see the Joker dead.

So, if he was going to do this, first he needed to make a plan and gather resources, like a weapons or cash. No, Bruce realized. First, he needed some place to hide his plan and any resources that he gathered. He started searching his bedroom for a likely spot, even though it felt crazy. He second guessed himself every other minute, because he couldn't actually do this, could he? He didn't have the first clue how to commit a murder, or even how to get non-consecutive bills to pay someone to do it!

Eventually, Bruce took a close look at his dresser. He thought it might be possible to alter it to create a concealed space. First, he'd need to check the dimensions, so he got a tape measure and pulled the top drawer out. Bruce studied the outer dimensions of the drawer carefully, and then checked how deep the dresser was. It seemed like there should actually be some space, judging by the outer dimensions of the dresser, but when he measured how deep it was on the inside, it was a couple of inches less deep than he thought. It looked normal, but why would the back wall of the dresser be so thick?

Finally, Bruce took out all the drawers and reached in, feeling around the back of the dresser on the inside. He found nothing but seamless wood, until, by accident, he pressed the pad of his index finger to a metal bracket which reinforced the wooden beam that served as a divider between the left and right sides of the dresser. Suddenly, with a click, a hidden door opened in the back of the dresser. Bruce reached in to examine further and pulled out stacks of cash. Shocked, he examined several bills in one stack. They were non-consecutive.

Bruce felt a moment of mental vertigo, as his surreal fantasy of assassinating the Joker suddenly became something much closer to reality. Deep down, he had doubted that he could truly do anything, but hadn't he just found incontrovertible evidence that he'd already begun making progress? The cash was so well concealed, he wouldn't have found it, except that the way he looked for good hiding places had led him to come to the exact same conclusion twice.

Had he gotten any further in his plan? Bruce searched the rest of his room and found nothing until he picked up the tablet Dick had brought him to try to “prove” he was “bat man”. It opened to Bruce's thumbprint and then demanded a retina scan and voice match. Luckily, Bruce still remembered the pass phrase Dick had told him to say. When the tablet finally allowed him to log in, there was a shortcut sitting right in the middle of the screen. Double clicking it opened up a set of camera feeds. It took Bruce only a few minutes to realize that the feeds were from cameras inside Arkham Asylum. Bruce didn't remember setting this up, but it was surely what he needed. Had he actually been planning to kill the Joker months ago, and simply forgotten about it, as he had forgotten Jason?

Bruce had deeply questioned how he could ever have been so callous as to allow his murdered child to manage his violent trauma on his own. Ever since their conversation in the parking lot at Batburger, he'd also wondered how he could possibly have given Jason the impression that he was not upset about the Joker. Now, it was obvious that Bruce had been planning something all along. He probably just hadn't wanted to tell Jason, to avoid making him an accessory to murder.

One detail struck him, though. Dick had given him this tablet. His son couldn't have logged in himself, not with the biometric requirements, but he'd known the passphrase, so presumably, he'd at least witnessed Bruce logging into it in the past. What did he know? Had he seen something he shouldn't?

Dick had been a police officer. Bruce wouldn't have wanted to force him to choose between upholding the law and remaining loyal to his own family. If Dick had grown suspicions, what would Bruce have told him? The answer suddenly hit him in the face. Dick had given him the tablet as “proof” that he was “bat man”.

Had Bruce told Dick some ridiculous story about being a bat cosplayer, in order to explain away his preparations for an obviously illegal killing? If so, it was hard to believe that Dick would actually have believed him, but maybe Bruce had stuck to the ridiculous story anyway. Maybe Dick and Alfred had actually gotten quite annoyed with Bruce's increasingly preposterous “bat man” lies, and then, when Bruce had gotten amnesia, they'd thrown the same lies he'd given them right back into his face. That made so much more sense than assuming they'd concocted this preposterous story all on their own. Bruce couldn't just admit the truth and make either of them an accessory to murder, though, so he'd have to continue with the “bat man” story when he got his memory back. How incredibly humiliating that would be, but if that was what it took to keep Jay and Dick safe, then Bruce would endure the rightful condemnation from his family.

So far he knew he had money and a perfect source of information about what was going on in Arkham. How could Bruce actually get to the Joker, though? By studying the cameras, he learned that while Arkham security had never been enough to keep the Joker from getting out, it was still good enough to stop random people from walking in to the building with a weapon. Even employees had to put all of their items through the X-ray machine, and they had to walk through a metal detector. Even the night security guards did that. They then all picked up their weapons from personal weapon safes in the security wing. It didn't look like it would be easy to get to those.

Bruce didn't know what some of the applications and folders on the tablet were for, as some required additional passwords, but he did find a few useful folders he could open. One contained Arkham personnel files. Apparently, the security team was very carefully vetted, as well as the psychologists who dealt with the Joker. Not that it had stopped him from secretly turning Dr. Harleen Quinzel, but the vetting process seemed good enough to stop Bruce from getting a job that would give him direct access to the Joker with a flimsy fake ID. Barbara had said that an airtight ID might takes months to make, and she presumably understood the process much better than Bruce did. For all he knew, it could take him a year to make an ID that would get him through the strict Arkham vetting process for anyone with direct access to the Joker, and the clown might have broken out and killed Jason by then.

If Bruce couldn't get access directly, though, then what else went to the Joker? Food, water, and medicine. Food and water came from the Arkham cafeteria. If someone adulterated those, every inmate in Arkham would be affected, not just the Joker. The medicine, though...the medicine was an option. Bruce carefully checked medication schedules, another piece of information he'd found on the tablet. He felt a flash of guilt for violating the Joker's privacy, but then Bruce thought of what the Joker had done to destroy Bruce's son, how broken he'd left that small body, how swollen and bruised Jay's young face had been. Suddenly, he had no more respect for the Joker's privacy or anything at all about him. There was a note in the Joker's file about a medication that had to be special ordered just for him.

How could Bruce get access to that medication, though? Searching the tablet further, he found more Arkham employment records and employee training manuals. It became immediately obvious that Arkham had a retention problem, especially for the night shift. They obviously took who they could get to fill some of the least important roles and didn't do anywhere near as much vetting as they did for security and medical professionals. Some of those employees would be able to walk past the medicine cabinet, even if they shouldn't have access to it.

However, there was a training period where new staff members were watched closely. Even if Bruce could get hired, he would probably have to wait out that month long training period, if he wanted to try to get into the medicine cabinet. He'd need a very good disguise to remain incognito for a month, and even then, Jason would wonder about where Bruce was spending so much time and why he wouldn't answer his personal phone (which he obviously should not bring to Arkham or the police could ID Bruce from cell phone records). Bruce didn't think he could keep an Arkham job secret from his son without basically cutting ties with him, but even if he were willing to do something so inherently cruel, suddenly cutting ties would likely prompt the rest of the family to investigate what was going on, which was the last thing Bruce wanted.

No, he likely needed to hire someone to do this. Immediately, Ortiz popped into mind, and the thought made Bruce feel ill. How could he hire a hitman, like Vincencio had done? He couldn't conscience handing money over to a stone cold killer, so that he could buy more guns and bullets to kill yet more people. Bruce wanted one person to get hurt, and one alone. No, he needed to find a person who shared his mindset, who would only go after the Joker. It shouldn't be that hard to find someone who met that criteria. The Joker had destroyed so many lives, after all.

Bruce would start by investigating the current staff at Arkham. The high turnover and difficulty hiring night shift sanitation works meant that they got the lowest level of vetting. If one of them had a preexisting grudge against the Joker, maybe all Bruce would have to do was supply the means. A metal weapon would be hard to get in, but a poison could easily be disguised as prescription eye drops or as sauce for a bag lunch.

Where would he get poison, though? It would be risky to just go out and buy rat poison. The police could trace the sale. He could make his own, though. Bruce didn't remember a lot from his college years, but he certainly knew enough chemistry to be dangerous. He thought there might be some hellebores growing in the back garden, which might mean easy access to helleborin or hellebrin. When he thought a little more, he remembered a whole row of biennial foxgloves, which Bruce had never been allowed to play in as a child because they was poisonous.

It was past the season for foxgloves to flower, so those that were in their second year had flowered and died off already. However, their seeds were still poisonous. Also, the foxgloves that had just started from seed this year were still growing, awaiting for their chance to flower next year. Their stems and leaves were poisonous, too. Surely Bruce knew enough to extract some digoxin or digitoxin, and ingesting enough cardiac glycosides could certainly be fatal.

Under cover of darkness, Bruce stole out to the garden to retrieve some samples. Luckily, Jason paid no attention to plants unless they were edible, and Alfred wasn't around to notice what Bruce had done. When he got back inside, it took Bruce a while to find his old chemistry equipment. Actually, he didn't find it, exactly. Instead, he found much newer equipment in the attic that he didn't even recognize. Still, it wasn't that different that he couldn't figure out how to use it.

At first, he was a little concerned about how he was going to ensure Jason didn't catch him setting it up, but then he caught his son heading into the garage, where his motorcycle was stored. “Jay, where are you going? I hope it's not Crime Alley again.”

“Sorry to dash your hopes,” Jason said, with a sheepish smile. “There are still a couple of Vincencio's girls that I didn't find last night, and a couple who were on the fence and didn't take key cards. I want to make another attempt to convince them to go to the group home.”

“Alone? At night?” Bruce was not fond of that idea.

“At night is when they'll be out, and approaching them with a group is just likely to make them run away.”

Bruce sighed. He loved how kind and brave his son was, but he was beginning to understand how dangerous a combination that was, too. He knew it would be pointless to tell Jason to forsake those girls, though. His conscience wouldn't let him do that, not any more than Bruce's would let him stand idly by while his son's life was under threat. “I know you want to help, but be careful, okay?”

Jason's expression turned softer. “Of course. I promise I'll be back in a few hours.”

“I'll look forward to seeing you back home safe.”

Jason waved and took off after that, and Bruce went to do some chromatography. It took him some time to prepare the plant matter he had collected and choose the right eluant, but once everything was set up properly, all he had to do was sit back and wait for results. In the mean time, Bruce went back to scrutinizing Arkham's current night shift employees. One of the applications on the “bat man” tablet allowed Bruce to see social media posts that normally should have been private, which made him feel a little bit guilty, but all he was doing was searching for the terms “Joker” or “clown”. If he didn't find them, he moved on.

He did actually find someone who had made a lot of angry posts about the Joker in the past week, though. Hired only five weeks ago, Geoff Barnell was just past his month long initial oversight window. Perhaps that was why he now felt safe making angry posts that were visible to his friends. Apparently, the man's wife, Melanie, had been poisoned by the Joker during the time Gotham had been declared “No Man's Land”. Because her murder had never been officially recorded, as there had effectively been no government operating in Gotham at that time, no red flag had shown up when Geoff's records were checked prior to employment.

Geoff was obviously furious at the injustice he had suffered. He complained of starving during “No Man's Land”, only to find out that the Joker always received three balanced meals a day at Arkham. He missed his wife dearly, but the Joker showed no remorse for anything he'd done. The clown had not even been charged with a crime for her death, because when the GCPD had finally started officially operating again, they hadn't been willing to take a police report for anything which had happened during Gotham's lawless period. That wasn't just a matter of the police being lazy. Technically, since Gotham had been legally disavowed by the government during “No Man's Land”, no government institutions had any jurisdiction over what had happened in the city during that time.

Bruce could deeply sympathize with Geoff's anger. The reality of what the Joker had done was exceedingly unfair. It was clear that no justice would be delivered by the legal system for either of them, though. Why shouldn't they help each other out, then? Maybe Bruce had been searching for someone like Geoff before his amnesia struck, because he found that he had a fake social media account already set up on the tablet, which he could now use to contact the man.

It felt like his heart started to beat double time as he typed out a vague private message indicating that he too had lost family to the Joker, and that he felt not enough was being done by their legal system. He offered to buy Geoff a drink and to sit down and discuss their mutual issues, if the man wanted to vent his frustration. Bruce paused before he hit send, though. Could Bruce really do this? He was already mentally backing out, when he got a perimeter alert: Jason was home. How long would he keep coming home if Bruce wasn't willing to do anything to protect him, though? How long until the Joker escaped again and destroyed the son that Bruce was just beginning to regain? Swallowing heavily, Bruce hit the button to send his message.

Chapter Text

When Bruce got a notification on his tablet, he switched over from the Arkham camera feed to his fake social media account, glancing at the little red multi-pointed arrow icon in the bottom right corner of his screen as he did so. Apparently, that application, which ran on the background on the tablet, would disguise the IP address he was posting from. Bruce, to his embarrassment, hadn't even thought of that detail before he'd written to Geoff the first time. The little redirection app had been running faithfully in the background, though, keeping his real IP confidential. Bruce was glad he'd been so thorough in the past, as it gave him peace of mind to communicate freely with Geoff presently.

Bruce read the message he'd just received and felt both his excitement and his nervousness double. After messaging back and forth with him for three days, Geoff had finally agreed to meet in person. Thanks to the long rants the man had shared, Bruce was now certain that Geoff was very short on cash, very eager to talk, and very much not the brightest guy in Gotham. He wasn't a moron, exactly, but he accepted things at face value far too easily and did not seem to understand the complexity of the legal system at all.

Geoff was the only Arkham employee who was currently outwardly expressing rage toward the Joker, though, and a smarter and more cautious man might not have decided to communicate with Bruce at all. Bruce still had a lot of doubts about what he was planning to do, but this was just a first meeting. When he agreed to the place and time Geoff had suggested for that night, Bruce wasn't committing to do anything more than talk.

He was preparing to do a lot more, though. He hadn't found any other secret caches in his bedroom, but he'd discovered one in the bathroom cabinet. There, he'd found a driver's license which matched his fake social media account, a wig, a wig cap, and a box of surgical gloves, as well as several large bottles of liquid latex and a wide variety of stage makeup. It had been a long, long time since Alfred had tried to teach a young Bruce how to “get in character”. It was one of many dozens of potential hobbies Alfred had attempted to introduce Bruce to in the wake of his parents' murder, always hoping that the next esoteric skill might distract him from his grief a little. Bruce remembered only the very basics, but the internet helped him fill in the rest. With the picture on the fake ID as a goal, Bruce had been practicing his skills over the last three days, and he thought he could now pass for the man in the photograph.

Bruce had also taken the opportunity presented by Jason's trips to Crime Alley to go ride the Gotham subway in disguise. He had worn two layers of gloves, the inner ones a surgical pair, and wiped a handkerchief on high touch surfaces, like hand rails, as he went through the station and rode on several subway cars. His fellow riders probably thought Bruce had a bit of OCD when it came to cleaning things. Of course, that hadn't been his real goal. After a bit of research, he now knew enough to realize that he might never be able to completely remove all traces of his DNA from the poison or the cash, not when traces of DNA could be found in the very air itself. Technology was also getting more sensitive all the time, so what was out of reach today might not be out of reach tomorrow. However, what he could do was muddy everything with so many traces of DNA that no one would have any reason to pinpoint his in the jumble.

It wasn't as if Bruce planned to commit a string of crimes where his would be the sole common recurring DNA could be identified, after all. He just had one single goal, which he was working hard toward, even though thinking of his plan gave Bruce a sick, nauseous feeling. Anything was better than burying his child for a second time, though. That thought drove Bruce on.

Just that morning, he had finished preparing a fake bottle of prescription eye drops for “Barnell, Geoff”, which he'd cleaned carefully and filled with a mixture of cardiac glycosides. Bruce had then put on a second set of clean gloves and rubbed every inch of of the bottle with the handkerchief he'd wiped on the high traffic surfaces of the subway. He'd even dipped the handkerchief into the poison and swished it around a little, so that everything would be thoroughly contaminated. Then he'd sealed the eye drop bottle and twenty thousand in cash into an opaque, airtight bag he'd never handled without brand new surgical gloves on. After all that, he'd put that bag into another air tight bag. That way, if he ever did give the inner bag to Geoff, it wouldn't have any fibers from Bruce's clothing on it. Not that Bruce would give Geoff anything on their first meeting. He was just preparing for the future.

Bruce kept right on thinking that until an hour and a half before he was supposed to meet Geoff. He checked the Arkham security cameras one last time—and saw what could be an incredible break. Something or someone very heavy had smashed into the medicine cabinet. The doors, thick as they were, had been dented and bent out of shape, and there was a cluster of doctors and nurses standing around, seemingly trying to decided what to do. One of them kept pressing the doors tightly closed, trying to get them to lock, and then shaking his head when they popped open again.

The lock on the medicine cabinet had been a big concern for Bruce. It had a keypad which required a badge swipe and then a pin entry to open. While the security camera in that hallway did not offer a good angle to see the exact numbers each person input, Bruce could tell from the movement of their arms that they were probably putting in different numbers, meaning that the pins were personal, with a different one tied to each badge. To get access to the medicine cabinet, Geoff would normally have needed to swipe someone's badge and then input the pin tied to it. An opportunistic theft of a badge which had been carelessly dropped or left unattended therefore wouldn't have helped him, unless he also knew the personal pin that went along with the badge. However, spying enough to learn the pins of several other employees would have put Geoff under heavy suspicion.

With the broken medicine cabinet doors, though, there might now be a way around that issue. Just then, a woman came jogging onto the screen Bruce was avidly watching, and he saw that she had what looked like a chain and a padlock in hand. Bruce watched anxiously as the woman wound the chain around the handles of the doors of the cabinet and put the padlock on. The man who'd been testing the doors then smiled as he could no longer pull them open. Bruce wasn't smiling himself, but then he noticed the woman fiddling with the lock. There were tumblers—it was a combination lock. She pulled it open, and Bruce watched her mouth the code to her coworkers. He then watched them mouth the code back and observed the man who'd been testing the doors spin the tumblers and reopen the combination lock with the correct code. Bruce was certain he knew what it was now.

It made sense for the Arkham employees to use a combination lock, of course, as there were a lot of doctors and a lot of patients and a lot of medications to be administered. Sometimes patients needed emergency doses of medication, as well. If they'd only had one or two physical keys to get into the medicine cabinet, then it would have been hard to keep track of who had a key when someone else needed it, especially during shift changes or emergencies. A combination lock would allow the Arkham doctors to give that combination out to anyone who needed it—but it would also allow someone without a badge to get into the medicine cabinet just by knowing the right combination.

It felt like serendipity. The damaged cabinet doors would no doubt be replaced soon, but for right now, Geoff could get in. Bruce had the poison and some money already prepared. Geoff started his shift at 2 AM, which was a little over 5 hours away. They could pull this plan off this morning, if Geoff proved agreeable.

Bruce repeated the combination mentally to himself four dozen times, until he was sure he remembered it, and then he hurriedly applied his disguise, which included enough liquid latex to disguise his finger prints, grabbed his fake ID, and headed to the garage ten minutes behind Jason, who was going to Crime Alley again to try to find the last of Vincencio's former girls. Luckily, Jay's absence meant that he wouldn't notice the ugly secret vehicle Bruce was about to reveal. Of course, it wasn't actually that secret. It was simply sitting in the corner under a dust cover, like a lot of older cars Bruce didn't use very frequently.

Bruce had discovered the car just yesterday, when he'd been trying to decide which of his vehicles would be the most inconspicuous to use, if he wanted to drive out to meet Geoff. He'd park by a subway station and take the subway for the final leg of his trip, of course, but he still needed to get close enough to walk to the subway station. When Bruce had taken the dust cover off this “secret” car yesterday, it had immediately affronted his sensibilities with deep scratches, dents, and even spots of rust. Even if the car had been in mint condition, though, it was the sort of cheap, clunky, mass produced sedan that people bought out of necessity, rather than desire. When Bruce had checked the car insurance and registration inside the glove compartment, it hadn't been his own name on it—or at least, not his real one. The name had matched the fake social media account and the driver's license Bruce had found hidden in his bathroom cabinet, though.

The discovery had cheered him immensely. Clearly, Bruce had already been well prepared for this plan before he'd lost his memory, and the thought that he'd already come so far, even if he couldn't remember most of the journey, gave Bruce confidence as he got into the car. He might still feel like what he was doing was the sort of crazy scheme that played out solely in movies, but Bruce was sure that his past self would only have prepared so extensively if he was sure he could do this. For his son, Bruce would.

He soon encountered a problem as he drove toward the garage door. All of Bruce Wayne's cars had openers for the garage and the front gate installed under the dash, with the garage door button on the right and the gate button on the left. This obviously wasn't supposed to be Bruce Wayne's car, though, and Bruce couldn't feel any buttons underneath the dash as he slowly crept toward the garage door. He was wondering if he'd need to get out and open it manually when suddenly the door opened by itself, even though Bruce hadn't pressed anything. He frowned, confused at what had actually happened, but he was leaving slightly later than he had planned, so Bruce decided to figure it out later.

His next challenge was the front gate, but that, too, opened as he got close, even though Bruce hadn't pressed anything at all. Was this also something his past self had planned out? It was only as he was actually pulling through the gate that Bruce belated realized that a perimeter update would still go out due to that. He didn't generally have his phone set to notify him when someone pre-approved went through the gates, but Jason did. Bruce pulled over just a quarter mile down the road and spent a minute panicking about how he was going to explain this car to Jason, before he actually looked at the perimeter log and saw that no update had been made. It showed Jason leaving on his motorcycle, but nothing after that. As far as Bruce's security system was concerned, this car was a ghost.

His past self really had thought of everything. Bruce realized that he wasn't presently being as careful as he could be, though, and he turned around and returned his cell phone to the manor before setting out again. Just in case Geoff ever fell under suspicion, it was better if there were no way for Bruce Wayne to be tied back to him. Bruce was able to park, take the subway, and walk to the bar without too much of a problem, even though he hadn't brought a cell phone to help him navigate, because he'd planned his route out a little obsessively beforehand to avoid obvious security camera locations.

He could not help the grimace which appeared on his face, though, when he actually found himself standing in front of the bar Geoff had said was his favorite. The outside was drab and the facade was crumbling, and the inside looked like it hadn't been cleaned in about a decade. Still, when Bruce went in and carefully scanned the even more dubious looking patrons, he noticed a tired looking man with light brown hair, blue eyes, and glasses. He looked remarkably like Geoff's Arkham employee photo. Carefully adjusting the bag he had hidden under his trench coat, Bruce made his way to the bar and bought a bottle of Henessy Cognac with a few non-consecutive bills he'd brought along specifically for this. Then, he took the bottle and a pair of whiskey tumblers from the apathetic bartender and headed toward the table where Geoff was sitting.

“Hello, Geoff. I brought your favorite,” Bruce said, holding up the bottle as he got closer.

“Oh, hey, you must be Mike. Have a seat,” Geoff said, gesturing toward the mismatched chair opposite him. His grin grew wider as Bruce poured out drinks for both of them. Geoff started on his immediately. “Man, that's good,” he said, closing his eyes briefly. “I can't afford that stuff on Arkham wages, though,” he said, swirling his drink his in glass a little. “Can you believe this stuff's fifty dollars a bottle? I mean, it's good, but damn!”

Fifty dollars, of course, was nothing to Bruce Wayne. “Mike”, however, obviously wasn't a rich and famous guy. Fifty dollars should probably sound like a lot to Mike. “I know, but sometimes you've got to treat yourself, right?” Bruce replied.

“Amen to that!” Geoff said, taking another sip. “Sometimes it takes a lot, just to get through the night. You'd think the graveyard shift would be quiet, because everyone should be asleep, but no. The crazies all get up at night. You can hear them shouting and screaming—and laughing. You can always hear that goddamn clown laughing.”

Geoff took another swallow of cognac, and suddenly, his expression looked brittle, as if the smallest shock might shatter him. “That was the last thing my Melanie did, you know? She laughed, couldn't stop laughing, and then all of a sudden, she just died, with that horrible grin of her face.” Geoff pounded a fist on the table, with rage in his squinted eyes and bared teeth, but pain in the deep lines between his eyes and the spiderweb of furrows on his forehead. “And the police still won't do anything! Not anything!”

Although most of the other patrons looked like they were absorbed in their own drinks and misery, Geoff's loud outburst made Bruce nervous. He was trying to keep this meeting discreet. “Easy, Geoff,” he said gently. “You can't let them drag you down to their level.”

Geoff drew a few deep breaths, and his eyes stopped looking quite as wild. “Yeah, yeah, you're right, man. We're drinking the good stuff tonight!” he said, pouring more into his glass. “Don't want to bang the table too hard and spill it.”

“Right,” Bruce agreed tightly, although the state of the liquid on the rickety table had hardly been his primary concern. He still took a drink of his own cognac, though, just to be companionable. He couldn't entirely hide an expression of distaste, however, as the bottom of his glass stuck briefly to the table, before coming loose. Exactly how long had it been since anyone had cleaned the furniture?

Geoff didn't seem to be bothered by the generally low level of cleanliness, though, and he took another sip of his drink. “Was it like that for you? Did you lose someone to the laughing?” he asked more quietly.

“...No.” Half of Jason's chest had been destroyed, his ribs broken and one lung collapsed. He hadn't been able to breathe, let along laugh. “No, when the Joker took the most precious person in the world away from me, he was the only one laughing about it,” Bruce said quietly, but he couldn't quite keep the pain and rage out of his own voice.

“He always gets the last laugh,” Geoff said bitterly, and then he drank more. “We're not supposed to say anything to the inmates, even if they shout at us, but after my probation period was over, he started laughing so loudly while I was cleaning the hallway. All I could think about was how I was supposed to have a real life, not be a janitor cleaning up after him, and I just snapped. I shouted at him to stop, said he had no right to be so happy after what he did to Melanie. He asked which one she was again, and said he'd probably killed a few Melanies by then. While I was fuming, he said I should thank him, because the only thing that mattered about her was how hilarious her death was.”

Geoff's expression crumpled under his grief, and he hunched his shoulders like a turtle trying to pull its head back into its shell. “Mel was the love of my life. She was kind and practical and always willing to help people out, and that sick sack of shit only cared that she was dead,” Geoff hissed, his hands balling into fists. “They always keep the Joker's cell locked up tight. They never open it without the football player orderlies there, but if I could just get in there, if I could just get at him,” Geoff said, and the wild light was back in his eyes.

Bruce quickly glanced around at the rest of the bar's indifferent patrons. None of them were sitting close by or seemed to have eyes for anything more than their own drinks. The bartender himself was leaning against the wall at one side of the bar and looked like he was half asleep. Bruce wasn't likely to get a better lead in than this, so he shifted his chair a little closer to Geoff and whispered, “What if I knew a way that you could put a stop to the Joker for good?” He was holding very still and trying to keep outwardly calm, but suddenly his heart was beating in double time.

“Man, I just told you, I can't get to him,” Geoff said, taking another drink with a bitter expression.

“You can't, but they give the Joker medication every day. Twice a day in his food, in fact.” The Joker, due to his extreme inclination toward random acts of violence, got no shots or pills—he only had medication added to his food, which avoided the security risks of trying to force him to take anything he didn't need to survive twice a day. “If the medicine was tainted...”

Geoff sat up straighter, his eyes wide. Then he slumped down. “Oh, but they keep the medicine cabinet locked up tight, too,” he said, before consoling himself with another sip of cognac.

“It was damaged, just today. Right now, the only thing keeping it closed is a combination lock, and I know the combination.”

“What? Really? You mean I could just buy some rat poison...”

“I have something more potent than that,” Bruce said, “and it's safer if no one sees you buying poison.”

“Right,” Geoff agreed, taking another sip. “That's good thinking.”

“Security will let you bring in prescription eye drops, right?”

“Oh, like Jeff has?” Geoff said. Bruce had watched Jeff, the orderly who came in just as Geoff was usually leaving, bring a bottle of prescription eye drops through security every morning. That was what had given him the idea to disguise the poison in an eye drop bottle in the first place. “Yeah, I could get a bottle like that,” Goeff muttered.

“I could give you a bottle like that. The supposed pharmacist who compounded it is listed in small print on the label, but if you sound it out, it's actually the name of a medication, a medication only the Joker takes.”

Geoff's eyes went wide, and he leaned closer. “I just put the drops in the Joker's meds, and that sicko never laughs again?”

“Yes,” Bruce confirmed, his voice barely a whisper, although it didn't seem like anyone was paying any attention to them.

The expression on Geoff's face was suddenly transcendent. “I could do it. I could really do it! He'll never laugh about killing my Mel again!” Geoff said, not loudly, but much less discreetly than Bruce was comfortable with.

“Quiet,” he hissed, looking around nervously. “We need to keep this a secret.”

“Right, right, of course,” Geoff said, before drinking the last of the liquid in his cup and refilling it again. “To ending the Joker,” he whispered, raising his glass.

Bruce raised his own, and Geoff clumsily clinked them together before taking another drink. Bruce was starting to get a little worried about how much Geoff was having. He hadn't been filling his glass up to the top and neither had Bruce, to begin with, but Geoff had to have had at least four ounces by then. This cognac was 80 proof, so even a relatively small amount could hit hard.

Bruce himself made sure to only take tiny sips, as he probably didn't have as much tolerance for alcohol as he used to. He hadn't been drinking lately because when Jason was younger, he'd always gotten a pinched look on his face if he saw Bruce with alcohol at home. He'd never said anything about Willis Todd being a mean drunk, but Bruce had his suspicions. As the last thing he wanted to do was give Jason an excuse to disappear on him, Bruce had become a nearly complete teetotaler. If Bruce had three glasses of this cognac, he'd certainly be feeling it, even if the glasses weren't full.

“I can probably do it during my lunch break,” Geoff muttered.

“That's at 6 AM, right?”

Geoff nodded, before squinting just a little suspiciously at Bruce. “You sure know a lot about Arkham.”

Bruce fidgeted nervously. He probably should be more careful how much information he gave away, but if Geoff was going to act tomorrow morning, then they didn't have a lot of time left for Bruce to slowly drop hints. “I've been trying to find some way to get at the Joker for a long time now,” he admitted. Bruce might not remember it currently, but surely it had taken months, at least, to prepare the fake ID, acquire the ugly car, make the media profile, and get Arkham camera access. The cameras were something he had to discuss with Geoff. “Not every place in Arkham has cameras. The bathrooms, for instance, don't. However, the medicine cabinet is in view of a camera. You don't want to be seen adulterating the medication.”

“Oh, yeah, there are cameras.”

Bruce understood how hard it was to think of everything—he hadn't thought about the perimeter alarm, himself, as his mind had been focused on which was the closest subway station to the bar and which subway line he'd need to get on to reach that stop, and where the closest parking lot was to that initial subway station, and where security cameras were, and what to do about his fingerprints, and what to wear, and a hundred other details. Cameras, though—Bruce thought that should have been an obvious issue. Arkham had more than a dozen of them just in the hallways.

“But if I get the Joker next shift, I never have to go back to Arkham, again. I could just leave the state, so they can't question me.”

Bruce frowned, concerned by Geoff's lack of awareness of how the police worked. “It would make things more difficult, but there are legal ways for the police to pursue suspects who flee to another state.”

“But the Gotham cops won't do anything even though Melanie was murdered! Why would they come after me when everyone wishes the Joker was dead, anyway?”

“While I agree with the sentiment, the Gotham City Police have a duty to investigate any murders within their jurisdiction, no matter how disliked the victims might be. They won't do anything about Melanie because Gotham wasn't a legal entity at the time she was killed, so they don't have any legal jurisdiction.”

“That's such bullshit. She was killed, and no one is responsible?” Geoff snarled, and for a moment, Bruce could not help but think of Jason and his deeply felt rage at the Joker's unchecked homicidal tyranny. “Except we all know who the guilty party is. The cops just don't want to do anything!”

On the contrary, Bruce was rather sure that they did want to do something. He remembered how smug and happy Detective Bullock had been when he'd realized he'd be able to haul Ortiz in, how proud Sheriff Smith had looked when he'd led Laszlo back to the manor in handcuffs. He was sure the police wanted to catch criminals and stop they from hurting people ever again. It was just that, legally, their hands were tied when it came to the Joker. Even for the murders which didn't occur during No Man's Land, there was no legal recourse, so long as the Joker was considered unfit to stand trial.

“While I believe the G.C.P.D. is trying harder than you think, I agree that they've completely failed when it comes to stopping the Joker from killing again and again.” Bruce took another anxious look around the room, but literally no one there seemed to have the least concern about what they were up to. At least half of them looked stoned out of their minds. The bartender had started to drool. “That's why we need to to take action.”

“Right. I just put the drops in his meds, and ride off into the sunset,” Geoff said with a grin, taking another sip of cognac.

Bruce sighed. Geoff really wasn't that good at listening. “If you leave immediately after the Joker dies, Geoff, that would be suspicious, and if the police think foul play may be involved, they will eventually try to track you down.”

Geoff frowned. “But I don't want to keep working at Arkham. I really hate that place, and the hours stink, and I was never supposed to be a janitor, anyway. To tell the truth, I only took the awful job because I thought maybe I'd finally be able to get some justice for Melanie, but even after I got past the probation period, I had no luck getting at the Joker. He just sat in his cell and laughed at me, like being a widower is funny.”

“I'm sorry you've had to go through that, Geoff,” Bruce said sincerely.

“Yeah, me too,” Geoff said bitterly, finishing off his drink again and reaching out for the bottle.

Bruce sympathized, because that awful laughter was bad enough in his dreams. He could only imagine how much worse it was in person. Still, he reached out to stop Geoff from pouring himself more alcohol. “Careful. You want to be sharp for the start of your shift, not get turned around at the door for coming in drunk.”

Geoff waved him off. “My shift is hours away.”

Bruce wanted to snap at him about his cavalier attitude, but instead he forced himself to try to be gentle and persuasive instead. “Don't you want to save some of this bottle to celebrate your success, later?”

“You'll let me take the bottle?”

“Of course, if you promise not to drink any more right now.”

Geoff frowned, but then slowly nodded. “Okay, I'll save the rest for later, when the clown is finally gone,” he said, drawing the bottle close to his chest.

Bruce relaxed slightly when it looked like Geoff wouldn't drink any more. “Exactly. As for the cameras, I have a way to replace a single camera feed with a loop of the previous five minutes,” Bruce explained. There possibly was a way to make a camera feed loop for longer than that, but Bruce had yet to figure out all of the features of the tablet. Perhaps that capability was behind one of the extra password protections he didn't know how to get through. “There's a bathroom in the same hallway as the medicine cabinet. If you go in there around 6 AM, then wait five minutes and, let's say, an additional ten seconds buffer time, then I can loop the feed of the past five minutes, which would show no one in the hallway. That way, you'll have almost five minutes to leave the bathroom and do what you need to at the medicine cabinet, all without anyone knowing. After you're done, just go back into the bathroom, and come out when whatever is left of the five minutes is up. Actually, wait an extra fifteen seconds after the five minutes is up, just to be sure the timing is good. That way, it will look like you just spent ten minutes and a several more seconds in the bathroom and never touched the cabinet”

Geoff nodded. “Yeah, that's pretty smart.”

“Remember, go in at 6 AM, wait 5 minutes and a few seconds more, so I have time to start the camera feed loop, then come out, open the medicine cabinet, and put the drops in the Joker's medication. It should be in a bottle on the left side of the high shelf, right about at your eye level,” Bruce said, having noted where the nurses reached when they were retrieving the Joker's medication, morning and night. “Now, let me give you the combination to the medicine cabinet. You'll need to memorize it.”

“Ah, I'm not any good at remembering numbers,” Geoff said, “but I know a way to not leave any evidence.” He then got out a pen, uncapped it, and placed the writing tip of the pen against the skin on the back of his hand.

Bruce grimaced. “What if you wash your hands? Or what if one of your coworkers sees you walking around with the combination to the medicine cabinet written on your hand?”

“Oh, yeah, maybe I should write it down on a little piece of paper, instead. That way, I can swallow it after I use it,” Geoff say, pulling a small, crumpled receipt out of his pocket.

Bruce wasn't sure how hygienic that was, especially as Geoff then used the sticky table as a writing surface to record the number Bruce quietly gave him. However, it was better if Geoff swallowed the receipt later than if this entire plan failed after he lost the combination.

Then Geoff sat up straighter and appeared to think of something. “Damn. Where am I gonna move to when I quit?”

“Well, you're not going to quit immediately, because that would look suspicions,” Bruce reminded him.

“Sure, sure, but after a little while,” Geoff said. “When Melanie and I got trapped in Gotham, the power was out, and I couldn't charge my phone to even call work. When I stopped showing up without any warning, they fired me, and by the time the whole No Man's Land thing was over, I had a huge gap in my employment and a lot of past due bills. Mel was great with that sort of thing. She would have known how to talk my employer into giving me a second chance, and how to get my credit card company and my former landlord to cut me some slack. But she's not here to help me anymore. The Wayne Foundation helped me get a subsidized apartment near here, but if I leave Gotham, then they won't pay for anything.”

“Do you want to leave Gotham?” Bruce asked. That would be very convenient for him, if his accomplice would disappear after some suitable delay, so that there was no chance Geoff hung around to boast or brag or possibly let any details slip to anyone who might speak to the police.

“Of course I want to leave. I wasn't even supposed to be here to begin with. Mel and I just came after the Quake to get my mom out, but then we couldn't find her because she'd already left. We didn't get out ourselves before they blew the bridges, and then we couldn't leave,” Geoff said. Bruce sympathized, but at the same time, Geoff's lack of planning when it came to such a serious issue was more than a little alarming. “Now, I don't have the money to move anywhere else.”

“I have a solution for that, too,” Bruce said, surreptitiously opening his trench coat and opening the outer bag he kept inside, basically pouring the inner bag into Geoff's lap, under the table. Bruce's attempt at secrecy was immediately rendered moot, as Geoff just put the bag on top of the table and looked in.

“Wow,” he mouthed silently, rolling the eye drop bottle in one hand. His eyes were fixed on the cash, though.

“You have to be more discreet,” Bruce hissed. “What if someone sees?” It didn't seem like anyone was watching, but you never knew.

“Relax,” Geoff told him. “The reason why this is my favorite bar is because everyone minds their own business here. You can buy drugs here whenever you like, without anyone poking their nose into your business.”

Bruce was mildly disturbed to hear that. Did Geoff know that from first hand experience? “I hope you haven't had anything tonight.” Many drugs mixed very poorly with alcohol.

“I sometimes need a little extra something to make it through the night, you know what I mean?” Then Geoff shook his head. “God, I just can't take that laughter. Now that I have these, though,” he said, holding the supposed bottle of eye drops, “I think I can endure.”

Bruce gave him more instructions after that, about how to manage his shift so that he ended up near the right hallway at 6 AM, how to keep his DNA off of anything in the cabinet, and how to avoid drawing suspicion from his coworkers. Geoff claimed he understood it all. Bruce had some concerns, though. Geoff had to be feeling pretty buzzed by then. However, he sounded very confident that he could pull everything off, and some people did have a much higher tolerance for alcohol than others. Geoff might not be the brightest man, but the plan wasn't that complicated, either.

It was only as they were saying goodbye and agreeing not to contact each other, for security's sake, that Geoff suddenly frowned. “Hey, I just thought of something. How did you see my posts in the first place? I thought I set them to only be visible to friends.”

Bruce fidgeted, not sure he wanted to tell Geoff about everything the tablet allowed him to do. Instead, he pasted on a smile. “Why wouldn't I see them? I am your friend, aren't I, Geoff?”

“Oh. Right. Did we meet at that geocaching convention, back before the Quake? I've always been terrible with faces.”

Bruce kept his strained smile on. “That's alright. I'm sure you'll remember me now.” He'd remember Mike, at any rate.

“Right. We had a nice drink together and everything,” Geoff said, grinning and tucking the bottle of cognac underneath his jacket as he moved a little unsteadily toward the door. Luckily, he'd taken the bus and so wouldn't be driving himself. Bruce was still more than a little worried. Geoff just wasn't a good planner or critical thinker. What if he couldn't stick to the plan? This might be Bruce's best chance, though. He might not have such a clear shot at the Joker ever again. He had to take it.

The first thing Bruce did when he got home was take off the boots, wig, and clothing he'd worn. He tossed them in a plastic garbage bag, and then took the bag down to the laundry room, so that he could throw the clothes into the washing machine before hopping into the shower himself. That was only partly for security reasons. Geoff's favorite bar had been, frankly, more than a little disgusting, and then the sky had decided to gift Bruce with polluted rain on the way to the subway station and from the subway station to “Mike's” car. It felt very good to be clean again, but even a long hot shower could not help Bruce relax.

He put a pot of coffee on and then drank a cup black while he second guessed himself about everything he'd done that night. Then, he moved the clothes to the dryer when the washing cycle was done and forced himself to have a glass of water, because staying hydrated was important. He also brooded over the list of foreign neurologists he'd put together the day before. The best neurologists in the country hadn't found anything in Bruce's scans or blood work that might indicate a cause for his amnesia, but maybe there was someone outside the country who might notice something. He spent time sorting through the credentials of each doctor until the dryer was done, and then Bruce went and collected the clothes in a new garbage bag, grabbed the bag with the boots and wig he'd worn, and threw both bags into the closet of a disused guest room.

After that, he mainly he just paced around uselessly, his heart fluttering in his chest like a particularly excited moth. Three hours after he got home, Bruce decided to have another cup of coffee, which was why Jason found him sitting at the kitchen when he finally came home. He'd stripped off his socks and shoes at some point before reaching the kitchen, but the rest of Jason's clothes were dripping wet. His son merely grunted in response to Bruce's greeting and then collapsed, apparently exhausted, into one of the wooden chairs at the kitchen table. Alfred would have scolded him for that, but there was something raw about Jason's expression which made Bruce willing to sacrifice a chair.

“Did you have a rough night, Jay? Still no luck finding that last girl?”

He shook his head. “Nah, I found Christine. Not in the morgue, thankfully,” he said with relief. It was very disturbing to Bruce that the morgue had even been a consideration.

The girl's name did trigger his memory, though. “Isn't Christine the girl I was asking about, before Vincencio sent Ortiz after me?” It felt like it had been so long ago, now, when it had actually been less than ten days.

“Yeah, Christine's the one. I was getting pretty worried, actually,” Jason confessed, “because no one had seen her, but it turns out that she was just ghosting everyone. I finally found her in one of my old squats, and then I spent two hours crouched on a rusting fire escape in the pouring rain, talking to her through a crack in the window.” Jason sighed. “Ugh. Alfred would probably have kittens if he saw me sitting in this chair, soaking wet, huh?” Jason said, seemingly just noticing the broken house rule. All he did was strip off his soaking leather jacket and drop it on the floor with a heavy, wet plop, though. Then he crossed his arms on the table and put his head down on them.

“Jay?”

“'M okay. Just tired. Not like, physically, I just...” He sat up again and shook his head, scattering a few extra drops of water on the floor, and folded his arms across his chest. “The only reason I got any of those girls to listen to me is because I know what it's like, having no home and no family. I don't tend to spend a lot of time remembering that, though, because I was pretty miserable between when my mom died and when I met you.” Pain crept into his features, before Jason wiped his expression away with a hand down his face. “But to talk to those girls in a way that they'd actually listen to me, I had remember that time and all the wretched little details.”

“That must have been hard,” Bruce said gently, caught between the impulse to praise his son for his compassion and the urge to beg him to stop putting himself at risk to help other people. Bruce had always encouraged Jason's natural kindness, but somehow it had not occurred to him how much that kindness might cost Jason himself.

His son sighed and ran a hand through his wet hair, possibly in an attempt to get it to stop dripping in his face. “I told Christine about how the moldy smell always got so bad in that squat after a hard rain, and how she needed to watch her step, because the staircase would be slick in the morning. We shared our cockroach kill counts, and she told me a new story about the cart lady. I told her about the five of Vincencio's girls that are squatting at the group home right now, warm and dry, and in the end, she finally agreed to take the key card.” Jason smiled briefly. “I'm glad she has someplace to go now. It was what I wanted, but it made me think...”

Bruce leaned closer as his son trailed off. “Jay?” he prompted.

“It's just that I haven't had a home, a real home, in so long,” Jason said, and he sounded miserable. “I didn't think I wanted to stay here again, but maybe I was just telling myself that because I know I can't stay—”

“Of course you can stay, Jay,” Bruce said, reaching out to squeeze his son's shoulder. “I've been telling you that all along.”

Jason smiled sadly at him. “I know that's what you think now, but things are going to change a lot when you remember everything.” Bruce was so sick of hearing that, but he thought he understood what might have happened now. Staying at Wayne Manor as Bruce's son obviously put Jason under media scrutiny, and what the general public knew, the Joker might soon find out about. Of course Bruce would have hesitated to invite his son home if he knew the cost might be Jason's very life. Unfortunately, with all the recent media coverage due to Jason's adoption and Ortiz's two murder attempts, it was likely too late to stop the Joker from learning Jason was alive. However, Jason wouldn't need to run away from home and hide, as long as the Joker ended up dead.

“Jay, whether I have my memories or not, I promise I will do whatever it takes so that you can think of the manor as your home.”

“It would be nice to be home again,” Jason whispered wistfully, running his fingers over the varnished wood of the kitchen table.

“You are home, Jay. This will always be your home,” Bruce promised him, brimming with new conviction. In only a few hours, now, the Joker would be dealt with, once and for all, and then Jason would finally feel safe moving in again.

His son gave him a sad smile. “It's nice to hear you say that.” He obviously still didn't believe Bruce, though. With a tired sigh, Jason extracted himself from the seat where he'd been slumping and scooped up his wet jacket. “I think I better get out of these wet clothes while I still have the energy. Sorry about the water.”

“Don't worry about it, Jay. I'll clean it up.”

Jason smiled at him. “Careful. If you let me bend the rules like this, what's next? I might even come in the door with mud on my boots,” he teased.

“You know, I think I could probably survive that, as long as you were coming home.”

Jason opened his mouth, probably to object, but then he fell silent for a few long seconds. “...Do you really think you'll still feel that way, once you have all your memories?”

“Yes,” he answered, without sparing a second to think about something so obvious.

“Bruce, you've seen me with a gun. I've told you that I've killed, but some day you're going to actually remember that I did. Are you sure that won't change your mind?”

The thought of Jason killing was incredibly painful, especially if he'd done it with a gun. Yet, when Bruce had stopped Jason from shooting Ortiz in Crime Alley, the police had not, in fact, prevented any further threats to their lives. Jason himself had been forced to fight five men all armed with guns, before having to defend himself and Bruce against a man whose actual job was killing other people. If Ortiz had succeeded in shooting or killing Jason, would Bruce still have felt like it was such a good idea for Jason to have let Ortiz get away at first place?

It had been a lot easier to make that call back when he'd still had faith that the police could take care of everything. That was how society was supposed to work, after all. Jason had already been murdered once, though, and Barbara had hinted that he'd come very close to dying a second time in an explosion in Crime Alley last year. How much right or even desire did Bruce really have to ask Jason to abandon guns and lethal force, if that could very well cost Jason his life?

Bruce didn't even remember enough to know what sort of fraught circumstances Jay had been in when he'd chosen to use lethal force in the past, but he couldn't imagine his son had acted out of petty spite. “Jay, did you kill because you thought it was necessary to save yourself or someone else?”

Jason nodded quietly. “All the shit that goes on in Gotham—the names on the victims' obituaries are new, but the stories are the same. The things that were supposed to get better never did. Eventually, I realized that if I want things to be different, I have to be different. I have to go further.” He shook his head. “I know there are things I should have thought through more and done more discreetly. Believe me, Barbara and Dick and Tim have all been eager to point out the ways I've messed up, but I can't just stand back and do nothing, Bruce.”

“I wish you had never killed, but I understand that you were driven to extremes because you were trying to deal with enormous, intractable problems all alone.” The police should have been dealing with those problems, but clearly they weren't always successful. After his own parents had been killed, Bruce himself had fantasized about taking extreme action, although he'd been too young to do much of anything at the time. If he'd been a little older and a little more streetwise, would he have ended up losing faith in the justice system as Jason had, instead of coming to rely on Commissioner Gordon? “There are a lot of things I don't remember from the last several years, but I blame myself for letting you deal with such dangerous problems all alone.” How had he not realized how bad things still were in Crime Alley?

Bruce wanted to tell Jason to stay home safe and leave the tough problems to the adults, but he knew his son wasn't a little boy anymore. As incredible as it was to think it, next year, he'd be twenty. His son, who'd been buried in a child sized suit, would get to grow up. Part of growing up, though, was figuring out what your place in the world was going to be, and that meant that Bruce wasn't going to be able to keep Jason bundled safely away from the world forever. He had to allow his son to find his future. Bruce wanted Jason to figure that out at college, though, not in the midst of a bloody crusade in Crime Alley. Jason was still too young to have to think about life or death issues.

“The situation is more complex than you remember, Bruce,” Jason told him.

Bruce nodded in acknowledgment of that fact. He knew that ignoring the Joker was unlikely to keep him away. With the clown threatening Jason's second life, how could he focus properly on his long term future? Could he even be certain he'd have one? Once the the clown, the prime example of how the Gotham justice system was failing, was gone, though, maybe it would be a lot easier for Jason to believe that policing in Gotham could be improved to an acceptable level with some judicious reforms.

The group home also would be open in a couple of weeks, and Jason had been so successful talking to homeless kids even before it opened that Bruce was already thinking about potentially opening another one. Surely, if Jason could just see that things were getting better, that he could do good in non-violent ways, he wouldn't feel the need to resort to extreme measures.

“Justice is complex and difficult to achieve, and I know you're very frustrated right now with how slowly it's moving.” There were probably a lot of things Jason was upset about that he hadn't even mentioned to Bruce yet. “Some things are improving, though, aren't they? If Christine does go to the group home, then that will be six girls off the street.”

Jason frowned but nodded, still silently dripping water onto the floor. “Yeah. I talked a couple of other homeless kids into taking key cards last night, too, and I'm still working on convincing the girls who refused cards initially. Maybe now that they'll know most of their neighbors, they'll be more willing to move in themselves.”

“I'm glad to hear that you got another couple of kids into the group home, Jay,” Bruce said, although he was still a little worried about the fact that kids would be staying there before it legally opened. It was much better than having those same children sleeping under overpasses or squatting in moldy condemned buildings with cockroach infestations, though. “Sometimes, people do have better options than they realize, if they're willing to get past their distrust,” Bruce said, the parallels between Jason and other children who'd been homeless keen in his mind.

Jason grimaced. “I know what you're saying. You want me to trust you, to trust that you won't turn on me, even when you get your memories back. But I'm the one who's going to pay the most if you're wrong.”

“Jay, I know trust is hard for you, and there are good reasons for that. I can only support you as as far as you'll let me, though, because if you won't tell me about your problems, I'll probably never guess at all of them. I know there are still a lot of things you haven't been saying.” Jason's distress over being homeless even now was obviously very sharp, yet Bruce hadn't even realized that was a concern until that very night. How much else was he still missing? “Please, just give me a chance.”

“I...I'll think about it. I want to trust you, Bruce.” A small stream of moisture fell from Jason's jacket as he shifted it minutely in his arms, and he grimaced again. “For now, though, I think I'll settle for just getting into some dry clothes.”

“Of course. We can talk more later when you're not dripping on the floor.”

Jason nodded and headed off toward his bedroom, presumably for a hot shower and a change of clothes. Bruce did his best to get the water cleaned up, but after that, he found that his nervousness returned with a vengeance. What if he'd gotten the combination for the cabinet lock wrong? What if Geoff got into an accident on the way to work? Even though it was only half past midnight, one and a half hours before Geoff's shift was about to start, Bruce went back to his room to check the Arkham cameras on the tablet, just to have something to do besides brood. The combination lock was still on the medicine cabinet. The Joker was still in his room, and Arkham looked quiet.

Bruce then set about gathering supplies in his study, which should be far enough from Jason's bedroom that he shouldn't hear Bruce still up at 6 AM. He made sure he had his tablet, a charger for it, a thermos of coffee, snacks, a lighter, a pen, a few loose sheets of paper, and his cell phone. Bruce wrote some notes about Geoff's cleaning route and the approximate times he'd be at each location, how Bruce himself should get to the tablet menu option to start a five minute loop of a camera, and which camera number was the one that pointed at the medicine cabinet. Then, he wrote down the timeline of the plan: Geoff went into the bathroom by the medicine cabinet at 6 AM. Five minutes later, Bruce would start looping the camera. At five minutes and ten seconds, Geoff would come out of the bathroom, unlock the cabinet, poison the Joker's medicine, and then go back to the bathroom. He'd wait until 6:10 AM and twenty five seconds, then exit the bathroom and continue on his normal cleaning routine. At 8 AM, the Joker should receive his dose of tainted medication and die a few hours after. Bruce read his notes over and nodded to himself. He'd burn the paper as soon as the plan was executed.

He spent some time trying to release nervous energy by doing push ups and pacing around the study, but the restless jitters shivering beneath his skin just would not leave him. This was it. All his planning was going to come to fruition. The Joker would die, and finally, his son would be safe again to stay at home or go to college or do whatever he wanted. Bruce would not have to fear the Joker's terrible laughter anymore.

He was compulsively checking the Arkham cameras for perhaps the hundredth time when he caught sight of Geoff heading into the main security checkpoint. For half a second, Bruce was afraid that he'd lost track of the time, somehow, but no, it was still only 1:37 AM. Geoff wasn't supposed to arrive until 2 AM. He was 23 minutes early, when he was normally around five minutes late. Bruce didn't like the fact that he'd broken his normal routine, but he tried not to let himself get too upset over it. Perhaps Geoff had been worried about whether he'd make it to the medicine cabinet corridor at 6 AM. Bruce had previously observed that some nights it took slightly longer to clean some areas than others. Perhaps having a small amount of buffer time was a good thing.

The security guards didn't seem to care that Geoff had arrived slightly early. He went through all the usual security checks, and no one but Geoff seemed to care about his new prescription eye drops. When Geoff was finally through the checkpoint, though, Bruce heaved an enormous sigh of relief. They were past the first hurdle. Now they just needed to stick to the plan, and everything would go smoothly.

Only a few minutes later, Bruce's nervousness increased ten fold, because Geoff was not following his normal cleaning routine. He should have headed to clean the cafeteria first. Instead, he was pushing his cleaning cart directly toward a staff only area—he was heading for the medicine cabinet, Bruce realized a minute later. It wasn't even 2 AM yet, though. This was not the plan they had agreed to.

Bruce wanted to grab Geoff by the shoulders and shake some sense into him, or at least shout until he realized what an idiot he was being. If someone died without warning, it would be natural for the police to ask whether anyone had noticed anything unusual that night. It was a bad idea to do something that would stick out in these sorts of circumstances. However, there was nothing Bruce could do about it now, as he'd never gotten Geoff's phone number. Of course, it would have been foolish to call him, anyway, as the police could access phone records, so the best Bruce could do would be to post an angry message through social media. Geoff would be unlikely to see it in time to do any good, though, and even a message like that could prove to be incriminating. All Bruce's prior messages had spoken of vague discontent, but no actual intentions of doing anything. Attempting to communicate specifically about the plan at this point would likely do more harm than good.

Therefore, Bruce resigned himself to the fact that he'd have to adjust the plan on his end. It wasn't that a big deal. Instead of 6 AM, the plan would start at 2 AM, with all the later steps time adjusted from there. Bruce held that optimism until several seconds after Geoff ducked into the bathroom and Bruce started the five minute timer on his phone. Then, it was a very good thing Bruce was in his study, because the curse he let out as Geoff ducked back out of the bathroom after only ten seconds would probably have woken Jason, if they were only a few rooms away. What was Geoff doing? He hadn't been in the bathroom for anywhere near long enough. Now, if Bruce looped the camera feed from the last five minutes, Geoff's approach to the bathroom would be included in the loop. It would look like he'd entered the bathroom twice.

Still, maybe that was less directly incriminating than Geoff standing in front of medicine cabinet? Caught between conflicting choices, neither of them actually good, Bruce found it hard to find the part of the paper where he'd written down his notes on how to navigate to the submenu necessary to loop the camera. He was supposed to have had five minutes to prepare! In the end, he just found the option by memory after only one false start. He cursed again as his shaking hand made him click on the wrong option, though. When Bruce canceled the unwanted operation, the user interface took him out of the menu entirely, which meant he'd have to navigate to the option he wanted again from the start.

In the mean time, Bruce couldn't help but notice that the little digital clock in the bottom corner of the tablet showed it was only 1:59 AM. Bruce was furious. He wasn't supposed to be doing this until four hours from now! Then, he took a quick look at the Arkham cameras and felt the blood draining from face. In the few seconds he'd been fumbling with his notes and the menu, things had gone from bad to worse, and Geoff was already at the cabinet. Now, if Bruce looped the last five minutes of footage, that incriminating fact would be part of the loop, too.

Was it still better to loop the camera in this case, when the disappearing and reappearing Geoff on screen might actually draw more attention? Bruce stared at the screen, his heart pounding with adrenaline, unable to think clearly. It was too late to prevent Geoff's incrimination, but if Bruce didn't loop the cameras, then there was no proof of an accomplice being involved. That was perhaps the best he could do just then. Why hadn't Geoff just followed the plan? Bruce thought briefly of the bottle of cognac Geoff had taken home. Surely he hadn't kept drinking, had he?

Geoff looked steady enough on screen as he finished with the combination lock and put something in his mouth, presumably the paper with the combo on it. It was a minor concession to security which Geoff rendered mostly moot by then pulling the doors to the medicine cabinet open with his bare hands. Why wasn't he wearing gloves? He had a set of thick yellow rubber ones right in his cleaning cart! The camera angle was bad, but it looked like Geoff reached into his pocket for something at that point, which Bruce assumed was the poison eye drop bottle. He appeared to be squinting hard at the label—had he not checked the name of the medication he needed to poison, beforehand? Then, Geoff started peering into the cabinet.

Maybe he remembered that Bruce had told him the bottle would be on the left side of the top shelf, or maybe he just started looking there by happy coincidence, but Geoff was soon reaching up to that shelf and taking something down. Then, he started doing something Bruce couldn't see. He could only hope Geoff was at least poisoning the right bottle. Then, Geoff reached up to the top shelf, presumably putting the bottle back, and Bruce heaved a premature sigh of relief. It seemed like the most important part had gone well, although Geoff had certainly succeeded in putting himself in legal jeopardy. If anyone got suspicious and checked the Joker for poison...

Bruce frowned at the camera. What was Geoff doing now? He should be finished in the cabinet, but it looked like he was reaching into the middle shelf...and putting something in his pocket? The eye drops, maybe? But then Geoff did it seven more times, until all his pockets were bulging. What was going on? Only after his pockets were full did Geoff close up the cabinet. He'd had to double back to do it, because he'd walked a few feet away initially, before seeming to realize that he needed to close the doors and put the combination lock back on. Instead of resuming his normal routine afterward, though, he rushed right by his cleaning cart, leaving it sitting in the hallway by the medicine cabinet. That was incredibly suspicious. What was he thinking? Even if whichever Arkham employee was supposed to be watching the cameras had missed the medicine cabinet tampering somehow, the abandoned cleaning cart could encourage someone to take a look back through the camera logs.

Then, as if he were deliberately aiming to drive Bruce's heart rate through the roof, Geoff decided to leave Arkham immediately. It looked like he was claiming to the guards that he was feeling sick, because he held his stomach and mimed gagging. They let him through without trouble, but Geoff hadn't even concealed the bulges in his pockets. How could he be so careless? If they'd stopped to check what he was carrying, what would he have done?

Geoff had successfully made it out of Arkham and off camera by that point, though, so there was no more for Bruce to watch. He had no idea what Geoff was doing now. Hopefully, it wasn't calling the police to make a confession, as that was the only way this plan could go more wrong. Then, an awful thought occurred to Bruce. What if Geoff had poisoned the wrong bottle? What if someone innocent was going to die? Well, it would be an Arkham inmate, so maybe not innocent, but probably not deserving of death.

Bruce struggled with that possibility. Should he call the police and report a possible poisoning himself? Then the police would surely trace the call and come to question how Bruce would know anything about it. If Geoff had actually poisoned the right bottle, though, then Bruce would be incriminating himself and actually saving the Joker, which was just about the last thing he wanted to do. Could he trust Geoff to at least have gotten the bottle right? He had sincerely seemed to be motivated to stop the Joker from laughing, once and for all.

However, it was obvious now that stopping the Joker was not Geoff's only motivation. Bruce's “partner” in crime had clearly made off with some medication from the Arkham drug cabinet, probably either to sell it or to “self-medicate”. Bruce felt foolish that he hadn't seen this coming at all. Geoff had frequently complained of having no money, and he'd basically admitted to taking illegal drugs. Still, Bruce believed his anger and grief over what the Joker had done to his wife were real. Surely he would have been careful to target the right person, even if he hadn't taken the proper care against incriminating himself.

By the time 8 AM came, Bruce was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The Joker's morning dose was added to his food just like normal, but neither of them knew what was in it. By the time 9 AM rolled around, the Joker was in the middle of a gleeful laughing fit and apparently no worse for the wear. Bruce had to work very hard to remind himself that it would probably take a few more hours until the poison had a chance to reach his heart and disrupt its rhythm. Bruce, however, was falling apart minute by minute. Even his anger at Geoff was quickly being replaced by fear and self-recrimination. He should have known better than to trust someone who was obviously more interested in drinking than planning.

At 9:30 AM, Jason told him breakfast was ready, so Bruce went to the kitchen and pretended as hard as he could that everything was absolutely fine. Jason, luckily, looked half asleep that morning, and he went back to his room for a nap soon after they were done eating. Bruce suspected that he probably hadn't slept well after having so many unpleasant memories stirred up last night, and even in the midst of his own crisis, Bruce's heart ached for his son, who had lived far too much of his short life homeless.

By noon, no one in Arkham had died or had even started looking the least bit sick—at least, not physically sick. Bruce was beginning to the think that perhaps he was the one who had messed things up. He'd been so sure that he'd isolated the cardiac glycosides correctly. All the chemical analysis he'd done had seemed to confirm that. Bruce had precisely calculated what concentration of digoxin and digitoxin would be strong enough to kill in a single dose, even diluted in a full bottle of medication, and he'd checked his work multiple times. He'd never actually tested his poison on anything, though, because he'd only wanted to kill the Joker. He could, perhaps, have gotten a hamster at a pet store and poisoned its food. Pet hamsters died all the time, after all, and no one would have questioned it. The thought of doing that had been extremely distasteful, though, and it hadn't seemed necessary when the chemistry seemed sound.

Bruce had been assuming, though, that Geoff would put all the liquid in the eye drop bottle into the medication. There wasn't much in the bottle, after all, just a little over two milliliters. If Geoff had only put in one drop, which was about 0.05 milliliters, would that still have been enough? Bruce concluded that would only be true if the bottle of medication were mostly empty, in which case the drop would not be diluted much. If the bottle contained the full amount of medication, which was fifty milliliters per bottle, then adding one drop of poison likely wouldn't be enough to kill immediately, because the Joker's normal dose was only five milliliters, meaning that if the drop of poison mixed in fully, he'd only effectively get one tenth of a drop of poison in a five milliliter dose from a full bottle.

As the Joker's kidneys and liver would have some time to work clearing out the cardiac glycosides in between each dose, one drop probably wouldn't be fatal at all, although the Joker might start feeling sick after a while, as his body wouldn't be able to clear out the poison as quickly as it was replaced. A lower dose of poison would allow plenty of time for worrying symptoms to be noticed, diagnosed, and treated, though. At that point, it would likely become clear that someone had tried to kill the Joker. Would Geoff's carelessness get Bruce charged with attempted murder, too?

The thought was naturally very worrying, and Bruce only grew more nervous as four hours went by and still the Joker didn't show any signs of illness. When Jason called him out of his study for lunch, Bruce pretended his hardest again that everything was fine. Jason, who seemed to be in a pensive, introspective mood, thankfully didn't try to engage him in much conversation.

After lunch, it finally dawned on Bruce that instead of uselessly pacing around, he should start actually getting rid of incriminating evidence. Bruce then deleted Mike's social media profile and used the lighter he'd dug out earlier to burn the notes he'd written early that morning. He also dug through the bathroom trash and burned the remains of the liquid latex he'd used to disguise himself when he met Geoff. Next, he gathered up all the glassware, tubing and the like which he'd used when distilling the poison and went out on the grounds. There was a stream there that eventually went out to sea. Thanks to all the rain they'd been having lately, the stream was more like a river, water muddy and fast moving, and Bruce threw everything which could possibly be contaminated with cardiac glycosides into the middle of it.

The tablet he could not bear to get rid of, as it was the only thing which let him know what was going on at Arkham, but he started hiding it in the false back of the dresser when he was not using it. As for the the fake ID, freshly laundered clothing, boots, and wig which he'd worn to meet Geoff, Bruce kept those until the next day. He wanted to go in disguise when he sold the car to a junk yard. Somehow, Bruce made it through dinner without tipping Jason off to anything, although that likely had less to do with his own ability to keep calm under pressure and more to do with Jason's emotional distraction. His son told him that he was going to try to make sure that all of the rooms at the group home were filled before it opened, even though Bruce knew that would likely require Jason to spend hours discussing one of the most painful times of his life with perfect strangers.

Jason was exactly the sort of person who was too kind for his own good. What would happen to him if the Joker escaped again? If the clown wanted to “play”, Jason surely wouldn't have the heart to leave innocent people to suffer in his place. Bruce still needed to stop the Joker before he got out, but the murderous maniac wasn't showing the slightest signs of illness, even after dinner. That meant that whatever Geoff had done, it hadn't included putting enough poison in the Joker's medication to actually be useful. Just about the only good thing which happened that day was that everyone else in Arkham remained healthy, so Geoff hadn't just poured the poison into the wrong bottle, either.

That night, only Bruce's absolute exhaustion allowed him to fall asleep at all. He woke in the morning after a fitful sleep and immediately checked the Arkham cameras. There was still nothing unusual going on. When he searched for news related to Arkham Asylum, though, he found an expected but very unwanted headline: “Another Arkham Worker Missing—Vanished In the Night!” The article said nothing about a murder plot. What the news reported instead was that Geoff Barnell, a night shift janitor, had claimed to feel sick and then left in the middle of his shift. He had not returned to work the subsequent night, and he was not responding to calls. He was wanted for questioning by the police about an alleged drug theft which had happened during his last shift, and anyone with information about his whereabouts should call the G.C.P.D.

Bruce was painfully aware that if the police caught up to Geoff, he might confess the whole plot. Bruce thought he might nearly have had a heart attack, purely from the stress of reading that article. For a couple of minutes afterward, it felt like his heart was pounding in his chest so hard it might batter his ribs down. He kept expecting Commissioner Gordon to call him with questions or maybe Detective Bullock would show up at the front gate, demanding to be let in. Breakfast and lunch passed with no police contact whatsoever, though, and in between, Bruce carefully ensured there was not even a trace of foxglove left on his property.

Eventually, a more detailed news report came out with information about the exact time Geoff had last been seen and a picture of him from the Arkham employee database. There was nothing about him being caught, though, so when Jason was busy studying after lunch, Bruce got into his disguise and sneaked out in the ugly gray car. He sold it for a pitiful amount of cash at an old junkyard, and then he changed into a different set of clothes in a bus station bathroom (possibly risking his life with the unsanitary conditions) and removed his disguise. He disposed of his old clothes in various sewers close by the assorted bus stops and subway stations he visited on the way home, always walking with his head down so that it would be hard to get a good view of him in the few grimy cameras he couldn't completely avoid.

As there was no mass transit option which could get him all the way back to the manor, Bruce walked the final few miles on his own, not wanting any witnesses to the fact that Bruce Wayne had been out in the city at around the same time a suspicious car was sold. Bruce used the panel on the front gate to let himself in and then trudged up the driveway. He'd never really noticed how excessively long it was until just then. It was only when Jason met him at the door, a frown on his face, that Bruce realized how strange it must have looked to Jason.

“Hey, do you want spinach quiche for dinner?” his son asked.

“Jay, you hate spinach quiche,” Bruce said in confusion. “It's the one dinner Alfred ever made that could always get you to refuse seconds.” Unless food was outright rotting, Jason never refused the first helping.

“Right. I just had to check.”

It was Bruce's turn to frown. “I know I've forgotten a lot of things, but why would you ask me about spinach quiche right now?” Jason, Bruce assumed, would be more likely to be concerned about the perimeter logs.

“I was just making sure you were actually you, because I got a notification that Bruce Wayne just used the front gate panel, but I didn't get a notification that you left. Of course, I already checked the manor and didn't find you inside while you were walking up the driveway, but you never can be too sure.” Bruce frowned more deeply. He still wasn't clear on what was going on, but Jason at least stepped back to let him through the door.

“Were you checking the ghost protocol?” Jay asked as Bruce came in.

Ghost protocol? Was that what the car had triggered? “Ah, yes, the ghost protocol,” Bruce echoed, hoping desperately that Jason would take that as an answer and not ask too many questions.

“I guess it must have been pretty surprising, if you stumbled onto that without remembering it. You implemented it a long time ago for the sake of your...privacy.”

“Privacy?”

Jason grinned. “I think you just wanted to sneak out and meet up with Selina on rooftops, without letting me know about it.”

Bruce was only mostly sure his son was kidding, but as he didn't actually know how to trigger the ghost protocol without the car, he didn't want to prolong the conversation. Instead, he just gave Jay the silent frown he was probably expecting and let his son give him a cheeky grin in return, before Jason drifted back to his studies in the library. After that, Bruce didn't have much to do except wait, which made the next several days quiet but also very stress filled. He tried to distract himself with the final preparations for the group home, and Jason seemed happy to exercise with him even more often than they already had been. However, the moment any activity ended, Bruce went right back to worrying about what Geoff Barnell had done or might do.

The Joker, gleeful monster that he was, seemed to be in perfect health, and if he were going to develop symptoms, he should have done so by then. Even a full 50 milliliter bottle should have been used up after five days, since the dose was 5 milliliters in his food twice a day. There seemed to be a whole lot of nothing going on, though, which did have one silver lining. Despite Bruce's fears that the police would show up banging at his door in the small hours of the morning, only to drag him away in front of a stunned Jason, absolutely nothing happened. No one in Arkham got any sicker than normal, and no outraged media personalities descended on his front gate. Apparently, theft from the Arkham drug cabinet was something which happened fairly frequently, which was probably why there had been such good security on the drug cabinet in the first place. The police didn't even seem to put much priority on finding the thief, and the news forgot about the crime entirely after only a few days.

After a few hours shy of a week had gone by without any repercussions, Bruce finally started to relax a little bit, and he even tried his hand at making dinner. Not that he'd done such a great job, but with enough parmesan cheese and tomato sauce, anyone could make passable spaghetti and meatballs. Jason, luckily, seemed pleased to eat whatever was put in front of him, just like always. He looked even happier after checking his phone during dinner.

“Did Barbara say when she could come to visit?” Bruce asked. Yesterday, she'd said on a video chat with Jay that she wanted to visit Gotham in the next few weeks, but she'd still been considering the exact day.

“Oh, yes, she texted me just after lunch. She's coming in three weeks. She plans to fly in on Sunday evening.”

“It'll be good to see her again. If you heard from her this morning, though, then what good thing did you see on your phone just now?”

“Well, you can look if you want to,” Jason said, handing the phone over. He looked a little nervous.

It took Bruce a few seconds to understand what he was looking at. “You passed the science section of the GED? When did you even—wait, this morning, when you said you were going shopping...”

“I did go shopping,” Jason insisted, and Bruce remembered that he had indeed brought groceries home. “I just may have also gone to take a test, too,” he admitted, looking slightly uncomfortable now that Bruce was confronting him about his less than enthusiastic relationship with the truth.

“Jay, you didn't need to sneak around and hide this from me. In fact, if you'd told me, I would have been happy to drive you to the test, myself.”

“Yeah, but...”

“But?” Bruce prompted.

Jason squirmed uncomfortably and looked away. “What if I didn't pass? Then you'd have wasted all that time for nothing.”

“Jay, it wouldn't have been for nothing. Sometimes, you need to try something a few times and learn from your mistakes, before you can succeed. I know it has to be difficult to make up for years of missed classes. I'd be happy to keep driving you to GED tests, even if it took you a dozen times to pass.”

“You're saying you wouldn't be angry or disappointed if I failed a dozen times?” Jason said, and he sounded disbelieving.

“Not as long as you keep trying.” Bruce sighed. “Maybe I still haven't been saying things as clearly as I should. I want you to know I'm so proud of you, Jay,” Bruce said, which just made Jason hunch his shoulders and look more embarrassed. “I know you've been working so hard to catch up on everything you've missed, and I can see those efforts are paying off. I never meant to rush you to the finish, though, or make you think I'll be disappointed if you need a few practice runs before you succeed. You've come so far just to be taking these tests at all—of course I'm going to be happy to see you making an effort, even if it might take a few tries in order to be successful.”

Jason still looked a little dubious, but he eventually nodded. “I actually already registered to take the last two sections in the morning, three Sundays from now,” Jason admitted.

“Already?” Since it was Tuesday, that gave Jason less than three weeks to study for the final two sections.

“Of course I've been studying for Social Studies and Mathematics before now. It's not like I'm planning to learn all the material in nineteen days.”

“So you're saying the date you picked has nothing to do with the fact that Barbara is coming that Sunday evening? Jay, while I'm sure she'd love to celebrate with you if you pass, you don't need to rush just because of that.”

“It's not just that,” Jason said. “It's also because things are going to change at some point, and I'm not sure how easy it will be to continue this if I don't get it done in time.”

Was Jason worried that the Joker would get out? The thought worried Bruce, too. “Still, you shouldn't have to feel rushed about this. You should take all the time you need to study,” Bruce said, feeling a renewed determination to give Jason that time, even if it had to be bought with the Joker's blood.

“Bruce, I already signed up,” Jason said stubbornly.

“Then at least let me drive you to the test.”

“You don't have to.”

“No, but I want to,” Bruce assured him. “Will you let me?”

Jason considered him for a moment before giving him a small nod. “Fine, you wore me out. You can fight the Gotham traffic, instead.”

“Thank you, Jay.” Bruce grinned as a happy thought occurred to him. “Maybe after you pass, you'll start working on your application to Gotham University.”

“Hey, whoa, I never said I was going to college. At least not since, you know, I've been back.” Not since he'd died, Jason meant. Bruce understood now, though, why he had difficulty committing to his future. It must be very hard to think of the long term, with the threat of the Joker always hanging over his head. Bruce was going to do something about that soon, though, even if he'd just suffered a potentially disastrous setback. Then his son would be able to go to college, just as he'd always wanted.

“We can table the college discussion for now, but maybe you'll feel like revisiting it later,” Bruce said.

“Maybe,” Jason replied, which was the best Bruce succeeded in getting out of him before they both finished dinner and went their separate ways.

No doubt Jason was going back to his studies. Bruce, on the other hand, went back to his plotting, which was significantly more terrifying this time around, now that he knew how badly things could go wrong. Bruce would be smarter about it from now on, though. He had to bitterly admit to himself that he wasn't any better at hiring hit men than he was at hiring security, but that wouldn't be a problem if he could just get into Arkham himself. He'd dismissed the idea before because it would be hard to get a job at Arkham and maintain it throughout the probation period, especially without Jason figuring everything out. There was also the problem of getting credentials which could stand up to the vetting process. However, a new thought had come to him recently.

Bruce could dodge the probation period and vetting issues if he could just get good enough at disguises to impersonate someone who had been working at Arkham long enough to be trusted. Bruce had successfully become “Mike”, after all. Granted, his options at Arkham were limited. There weren't a lot of six foot plus employees working at the asylum, but there were a few. Bruce had also discovered that a program on the tablet could allow him access to the work email accounts of Arkham employees. He could send or delete emails or even create or delete accounts. With those facts, a plan had started to form in his head.

Bruce could make a new poison. He had actually found quite a number of promising chemicals out in the gardening shed he'd searched that morning. He also still had access to the Arkham cameras, so he could spend all the time he wanted watching any tall male employees on the Arkham cameras. He could learn the way they moved and hopefully, after enough watching, figure out what their personal pin codes were. The cameras were generally not placed right next to keypads, but by watching employees input their pins many times from many different angles, Bruce was sure he could eventually figure the numbers out.

Then, it was a matter of practicing his disguise skills and waiting for a large man with access to the medicine cabinet to go on vacation. People didn't need their work badges on vacation, so it made sense that a work badge would be left at home while the worker was away. Bruce could get the home addresses of all Arkham employees from their employee records. He could also check social media, even private posts, to make sure no one would be home. He had never broken into a home before, but it couldn't be that hard, could it? He could take his time and hopefully not even leave any noticeable traces. Maybe he'd get lucky and find a key hidden under a doormat.

Once he had the badge, Bruce could send an email from the vacationing employees work account, claiming that he'd gotten laryngitis and canceled his trip. A few days later, he could claim that he was feeling better and coming to work. If he came in during an earlier or later security shift than the employee normally did, then the security guards on that shift might not be that familiar with the man he should be. Maybe he could get away with wearing a face mask that would mostly conceal his face because he was “still coughing a bit”. Laryngitis also made most people quite hoarse, so if he sounded different and avoided saying much, that wouldn't be that big a surprise. Then, Bruce just needed to get to the medicine cabinet, deliver the poison, and get out without leaving anyone the wiser.

Of course, he was more than a little afraid that it wouldn't work out that smoothly, but there were very few things Bruce would not risk, in order to keep his son safe. Over the course of the next week, he was able to figure out several personal pin codes. Frustratingly, none of the people he could viably impersonate were taking a vacation soon, at least not as far as Bruce could see from their work emails or social media accounts. He would keep looking for an opportunity, though.

Unfortunately, the one person Bruce didn't want to take a vacation, the bureaucrat at Social Services who needed to do the final sign off on the group home, had decided to take off for two weeks without putting her signature on paper. Apparently, there was no one else with the authority to do so (a clear area where reform was necessary, as important work should not grind to a halt because there were no delegates). That meant that the opening of the group home had to be delayed by two weeks.

Bruce, who admittedly was already stressed, was infuriated by the setback. Jason actually took it better than him, as he'd been having some success convincing homeless children to move into the group home, even though it wasn't open. He seemed to think that the more time the kids spent there before it opened, the more likely some of them would be to just stay put once it did. Because Jason wasn't getting upset, Bruce told himself to relax about Social Services paperwork and focus on dealing with the Joker. Since the law had failed, it was up to him to protect his son, so that Jason could have the future he deserved.

Thankfully, Jason's studies seemed to be going very well, and Bruce felt such a swell of pride whenever he saw Jason reading in the library or taking a practice test in the living room. Jay had missed so much school growing up for a variety of awful reasons, and Bruce knew it would have been so easy for him to get bitter and discouraged. Instead, Jason was doing his best to put the painful past behind him. He was so bright and so dedicated, and Bruce just knew he'd grow up amazing, because he was already amazing.

Even as the test date grew closer, though, Jay still refused to commit to either college or moving back in permanently, stubbornly insisting that things would be different once Bruce remembered. However, Bruce had hope that he could get Jason to agree soon. He seemed a little more open to talking about college as he started consistently passing the practice tests and the possibility of earning his GED grew more concrete. Bruce started talking to him about logistics. The manor was close enough to commute to Gotham University, and it was certainly nicer than the dorms. Jason was now commonly responding with non-committal statements that, while not quite positive, were a lot more open than the hard no's of the past.

Finally, the night before the test arrived. For once, Bruce forgot to be anxious about his own plans, as he got swept up in Jason's nervous excitement. Jay grinned as he turned the laptop screen around to show Bruce the results of the practice test he'd just finished.

“That's great, Jay. You're going to do wonderfully tomorrow.”

“I sure hope so,” Jason said, setting his laptop down and standing up with a stretch. “I think I should try to get to sleep now, though, so I'll be well rested for tomorrow.”

“Of course. I should get some sleep myself, so I'm awake to drive you to the test,” Bruce said, standing up as well.

“I told you that you don't have to,” Jason said almost shyly. His body and his emotional walls had both grown taller, but sometimes the younger boy Bruce had lost showed through so clearly.

“Indulge me. This may be my last chance to drive you to school,” Bruce said. The Wayne Foundation coincidentally sponsored GED exams on weekends at Jason's old high school, which was where Jason had signed up to take the test. It felt almost like picking up where the Joker had cut everything short.

When Jason just smiled and nodded at his comment, Bruce marveled at how much things had improved between them since Jason had saved him from that mugging almost two months ago. His son had always been wary about accepting help, as if someone might twist the situation back around against him. He only embraced aid from people whom he wholeheartedly trusted. Since Bruce had gotten Jason back, he had tried his best to become one of those people again. It seemed he was finally succeeding.

“Good night, Jay,” he told him, when they'd walked far enough down the hallway in the family wing to reach Jason's room. Then, because Jason might finally accept his words at face value now, Bruce told him, “I'm so proud of you.”

Jason ducked his head and huffed, like he always did when he was a little embarrassed and didn't want to admit it. “It's just a written test. It's not like I'm going to do anything harder than answering questions,” Jason said, easily dismissing his accomplishments over the past couple of months.

“But you have done something very hard simply to get to this point.” Bruce paused, hoping he could find the right way to say what Jason needed to hear. “Because of what the Joker did, you lost opportunities that you can never have back, like the chance to study alongside your classmates over the past few years. But you faced that head on and worked hard to get back to where you should be, even though you've had to take a more difficult path. Jay, I am so proud of the determination and perseverance you've shown.”

Jason gazed at him for a long moment with searching eyes, and Bruce held his breath while his son decided whether to believe him or not. Bruce wasn't entirely sure he'd chosen the right words until suddenly, Jason surged forward and hugged him. In that moment, Bruce felt like he'd just won the greatest prize in the world. He immediately put his arms around Jay in return, reveling in the feel of a bright and living boy in his arms. Jason was tall enough to hook his chin over Bruce's shoulder now, and that was an amazing accomplishment in itself, considering how short he'd been when Bruce had lost him. Every inch of his boy was a miracle.

“Thanks,” Jason said a little wetly when he pulled back several seconds later, which was still too quickly in Bruce's opinion. Even if they'd stood there hugging the rest of the night, though, their parting would have felt too quick to Bruce. Jay did flash him a brief but sincere smile before turning back to his door, and that was some considerable consolation. Bruce reminded himself firmly that there would be more time for hugs later, and many more smiles, as well.

“Sleep well, Jay,” Bruce told him softly.

“You too,” Jason said, disappearing into his room with one last, fond look. It was the way Jay looked at people he loved.

Bruce felt as if his heart might burst from joy. There had been so many awful years where he'd thought he would never see Jason's smile or that fond look again. Even after Jay had returned to the manor, part of Bruce had feared that being murdered and then putting blood on his own hands might have changed Jason in a way that made it impossible for him to be that casually warm and happy again. Bruce had tried his best not to let himself think about that around Jason, though. His son didn't need to deal with Bruce's own fear and doubts, when he had so many things weighing on him already.

Bruce himself hadn't been able to avoid spending many long hours second guessing himself about what it meant to kill, though, both for Jason's sake and for his own. The mysterious Lazarus Pit worried him, as well. Dick certainly seemed to believe that Jason's anger was more than a result of his trauma, that the Lazarus Pit could twist people in ways resistant to normal healing. Bruce had even worried that perhaps Jason had serious lingering issues that Bruce's own hope and love had blinded him to.

Now, he at last realized that it didn't matter. Regardless of the source of his problems, Jay was ready, willing, and able to confront them, and Bruce was going to be right by his side, supporting him as he did it. There was no way his child could come back “wrong”, because having Jason back would always be right. Now matter what he'd done in the past, this was Bruce's son, recognizable in the small, hard earned smiles he gave out, in the little furrow between his brows when he read through the climax of a well written novel, and in his determination to catch up whenever he fell behind. Surely, if Bruce could just take care of the Joker, Jason would realize that he didn't need to put any more blood on his hands just to keep himself safe.

Though Jason had come home reluctantly, full of rage and suspicion, slowly, Bruce had watched him regain some of his innocent, everyday joys: pouring a second glass of orange juice at breakfast, lounging in his favorite chair in the library, and taking a walk around the Manor grounds when the sun was out. It wasn't just his scholastic endeavors Jay was getting back on track. He was gradually settling back into his home and his life, making plans with Barbara for a visit, joking with Dick on video calls, going out to try new restaurants, and watching movie trailers to see if there was anything interesting coming out soon. Seeing Jason earnestly happy again, even if it wasn't as frequently as Bruce would like, soothed some of the deep pain of losing him for years. Perhaps, one day, that wound would be no more than a faded scar: present, but no longer painful.

If Jason had been permanently changed in some ways by all he'd been through, so what? Wasn't that a blessing instead of a curse, that his child, once frozen in memory by death, had started growing up again? Bruce recalled how warm Jason had felt in his arms earlier, and there was no fear left in his heart. There was no room, as his love swelled to push it out. He had his lost son back, and he was so, so grateful.

For once in his life, Bruce Wayne went to bed content and fell asleep easily. He had a gentle dream of a smiling boy with a head full of curls, playing with his two brothers. It was so perfect a dream that it couldn't possibly last.

Chapter Text

Tim looked at the screen in front of him in something between awe and disbelief. “It's all green. Every readout is green.”

Sitting in the chair next to him at the Watchtower, Cyborg nodded. “Everything I was monitoring looks good.” He smiled, slowly, as if the truth was gradually dawning on him as well. “I think we did it. The test run was successful.”

They had sent the machine, with a small probe attached, to a well known dimension. It had returned safely after the preprogrammed five minute timer had expired, and probe and machine were both in perfect condition, unlike the first time they'd tried this, which had necessitated some careful tweaks over the past couple of days. From the readouts of the probe this time, it had indeed made it to the desired destination, and there was now no reason to believe it would not make it to the Wunfulch dimension just as well.

Tim's grin felt almost unfamiliar on his face, stretching some of the few muscles he hadn't been using excessively over past three months. “We can finally get them back.”

“Well, technically, they're all still here,” Cyborg pointed out.

“You know what I meant,” Tim replied. “They're not really themselves.”

“Yeah, no kidding. I still can't believe Batman thought Titans Tower was a boarding school.”

“That's because he's not Batman right now. He will be soon, though,” Tim said with a thrill of relief. “Let me email an update to Lois,” he added, quickly typing up the good news. “Maybe we can use this thing for real soon.”

Victor nodded. “It's hard to believe this is all almost over. I don't normally like to just sit around, but right now, I think I could spend a week just chilling on the couch.”

Tim thought longingly of his bed at Titan's Tower. “Why even get out of bed? I'm pretty sure I could just sleep for a week.” He blinked as a reply from Lois appeared in his inbox. “Wow, Lois responded quickly,” he said, surprised that she'd been awake to reply. He squinted at the computer clock: 3:08 AM. It wasn't that late for him, but Tim hadn't thought a reporter would still be up. “She...she's asking if we're ready to use the machine right now.”

“The machine is ready, but I haven't had a chance to get my weight down or retool the oxygen system yet,” Vic said. As they hadn't known who would be going initially, they'd designed the machine to move the weight of two human adults. However, if one of those adults was Superman, who was unusually tall and broad and slightly denser than a human, and the other was Cyborg, whose cybernetic parts frequently weighed more than their human equivalents, then the machine wasn't quite up to carrying them both. Of course, Cyborg was capable of making modifications. He could certainly drop a significant amount of weight by removing components which were only necessary for energy projection or fights.

He would need to add some weight in the form of spare oxygen tanks, though, as the Wunfulch's home planet had a thinner atmosphere than Earth. They had regrettably only learned that fact a couple of days ago, when Oa had finally responded to their request for information on the Wunfulch and had told them exactly where their home world was within their home dimension. Tim knew it would unfortunately take around a day if Cyborg wanted to make those weight and oxygen mods and then properly rebalance himself afterward, though, and suddenly, enduring the JLA's amnesia for even one more day felt unbearable.

“I could go,” Tim suggested. He was light enough that he could take several oxygen tanks and still remain well under the weight limit. “I'm already wearing my space suit,” he pointed out. It had been a precaution, just in case the machine malfunctioned during the initial test and caused enough spacial distortion to rip a hole in the Watchtower or transported all the air in the room to another dimension. “I've also been working right alongside you on this machine. If it does end up needing a tune up for the return trip, I'm perfectly capable of handling it.”

“That suit isn't exactly going to stand up to rough conditions, though,” Cyborg pointed out. As this was purely precautionary, Tim had gone for a thin, flexible suit which he could type and use touch screens in, rather than some hulking monstrosity intended to shield him from various potentially devastating hazards.

“But we're not expecting a fight, are we? The Green Lantern Corps' records indicate that the Wunfulch have been able to reach our dimension for at least a few hundred million years, and in all that time, they've never once been the subject of a peacekeeping action. That's a pretty good track record, as far as any civilization is concerned.” It would, of course, have been good to have had that confirmation earlier. Unfortunately, all of the Green Lanterns currently active on Earth had been called to the Watchtower before the start of the amnesia incident, presumably because they were widely traveled and therefore might have been able to identify an alien child's home world. Due to their amnesia, though, it had been difficult to contact Oa, and even after that, it had taken some effort to soothe tempers before asking for information to help cure their stricken members. Apparently, the Earth based Green Lanterns had failed to respond to a couple of serious intergalactic peace keeping emergencies while amnesiac, so by the time the Green Lantern Corps had been mollified enough to agree to share any information they had on the Wunfulch, the machine had practically been done.

“Since we know they're peaceful, this should be a purely diplomatic mission. I'm just going to politely thank the Wunfulch for the generous gift and then let them know further continuation of it isn't necessary, so there shouldn't be any danger involved,” Tim pointed out. “Besides, even if the suit was damaged, the atmosphere on the Wunfulch home world should still be breathable, according to Oa. It would just feel like I'd suddenly gone up to Mount Everest base camp, but I'd eventually acclimatize.”

“Yeah, but that's not the only potential issue. What if the thermal distribution fails and some critical part of the machine melts just getting you there? I'd have a better chance than you of doing a partial rebuild.”

“If something is that seriously wrong, then the fastest way to handle it would probably be for you to build a one way transport machine here to send the parts to me,” Tim argued. “Knowing what we do now, that should go much faster, and after all, there's no guarantee anyone trapped in the Wunfulch dimension would have access to enough spare parts to repair serious damage. Even for you, there's a limit to the amount of your own parts you can afford to cannibalize.”

“True, but there are some things I could handle that you can't. You have to admit, the risk of something going wrong is higher since we didn't actually do a test run to the Wunfulch home world.”

Tim frowned. They had both agreed to do their test runs to an easy to reach dimension, since they didn't have enough xenothium to fuel two round trip jumps to the Wunfulch home world. “We've run dozens of simulations. In principle, if the machine can make it to one dimension, it can make it to another, as long as there's enough fuel. You were perfectly willing to go to the Wunfulch home world with this level of testing. Why is it the risk low enough for you and not for me?” Tim asked.

Vic sighed. “You'd be going alone, Tim, and if anything happens to you, Dick is never gonna let me hear the end of it, let alone Batman.”

“I won't be going alone,” Tim insisted. “I'll be going with a Kryptonian to a place that has a yellow sun, at least according to Oa. Even if he doesn't remember anything, Clark Kent is still functionally invulnerable. As for Dick, he's told me before about how the older heroes, including Batman, didn't want to trust the original Titans to handle serious issues, even when you'd had years of experience. Well, I've been Robin for years, and I'm a Titan, too. Now that you've gotten a few years older, are you seriously going to be enough of a hypocrite to tell me that I'm not capable of doing anything?”

Cyborg groaned. “Okay, fine. You win, Robin. It's probably better to get this amnesia fixed as soon as we can, anyway, before anything else goes wrong.” Even besides all the supervillains they were dealing with (and Oa's obvious annoyance that their Earth based Lanterns were MIA because of something which had happened due to a JLA mission), the superhero community was definitely not happy that Oliver Queen had nearly been killed and that Bruce Wayne had required rescue from two assassination attempts. The sooner the amnesiac heroes could defend themselves, the better. “It'll be quickest if I go pick up Lois and Clark while you get together whatever supplies you need for your trip,” Vic said, standing up.

Tim nodded as Vic headed for the slideway, feeling like he'd just won a huge victory, rather than a minor argument. Ortiz's two assassination attempts had made him a little anxious, though, and Jason had just run another couple of League of Assassins agents out of Gotham last week. Despite Dick's desire to cling to optimism, Tim was now fairly convinced that Ra's al Ghul was indeed back again. Bruce Wayne was obviously not a match for the League of Assassins, but now Tim would have a chance to convince the Wunfulch to reverse this dangerous wish. Then, finally Bruce would be Batman again and capable of defending himself, and Gotham would feel like home.

Tim was still a little bit nervous about what would happen with Jason, of course, but Robin had been subtly feeling out the other Titans over the last several weeks. Surprisingly, a lot of them also had doubts about how Batman handled Gotham's worst criminals, and several of them had proactively assured him that if he felt the Joker needed to be handled differently, they would back Tim's play one hundred percent. Tim was pretty sure they were more concerned about his own safety than possible issues with Jason, which was obviously unnecessary, since Tim was fully capable of taking care of himself. In the end, though, as long as his friends would support tossing the Joker into a personalized high security prison and throwing away the key, their actual motivations didn't really matter.

Before he got started on his plans for the Joker, though, Robin first had to take care of the amnesia issue, so Tim got up to gather supplies for his inter-dimensional trip. For once, the fact that he was shorter and slimmer than most other heroes worked in his favor, as he could bring a fairly heavy pack without going over the weight limit. He swiftly retrieved several oxygen canisters, a case of rations, some bottled water, and some equipment which would hopefully render Wunfulch water potable to humans. Of course, he hoped he wouldn't be there long enough to need it, but it never hurt to be prepared. Next, he added a ruggedized tablet with a monitoring program for the machine and all the relevant schematics. After that, he selected a few small but key spare parts to add to the pile of things to bring. Tim also carefully wrapped the tele-beacon Miss Martian had prepared for him. It would hopefully broadcast the telepathic equivalent of “I come in peace and want to talk.”

By the time he had everything he thought he might need packed up in a sturdy backpack, Robin only had a couple of minutes left to practice his speech to the Wunfulch, before Cyborg returned with Lois and Clark. Lois looked just about as ecstatic as Tim felt, although Clark was frowning heavily as he came into the room with the machine. He only frowned harder when he caught sight of Tim.

“Now you've dragged a kid into this ridiculous hoax?” he asked.

“I wasn't dragged anywhere,” Tim told him, mildly offended.

Clark sighed. “Look, kid, I know that this whole 'dimension traveling' story probably seems like a really fun live action role play to you. It's so late it's early, though, and you look like you haven't had a good night's sleep in weeks,” Clark admonished, which was entirely accurate. Tim hadn't been able to sleep for long stretches when he was so close to success, though. “You should really be in bed right now.”

“I'll sleep when we're done,” Tim told him inflexibly.

“There, you see, Clark? The quicker you do this, the quicker this poor kid can get some sleep,” Lois said. Tim wasn't particularly happy to be talked about as if he were some sort of hapless bargaining chip, but he would have forgiven Lois for just about anything right then, as long as she could get Clark to cooperate.

Clark sighed even more deeply. “Fine. But when I get back from 'another dimension', you are going to drop this whole 'super man' thing and give me a full apology for all of this.”

“When you get back after delivering your lines, if you still think you're owed an apology, I will apologize. But if you agree that I was right, then you'll apologize to me,” Lois corrected him.

“There is no if. I admit that this setup is a lot more realistic than I thought it would be. The TV panels that make it look like we're in space are a nice touch, but it's the middle of the night. I'm just not interested in playing along with this game anymore, so can we please finally get this over with?”

“Yes,” Tim said, moving the drone they'd used for the test off of the transport platform and stepping up himself. “Just stand right here next to me, and Cyborg will start the machine.” Clark looked exasperated, but he did step onto the platform. That was all Tim really cared about.

“You got the tele-beacon, Robin?” Cyborg asked.

“Right here,” Tim said, patting his backpack. “I'm ready when you are.”

“Okay. Starting transfer in three...two...one...” Tim felt a sudden lurch and then a sense of free fall, as if he were in an elevator which had suddenly decided to descend twice as fast as it should. Then he was stumbling to regain his balance on an alien world.

“Holy...” Clark trailed off, his eyes wide in shock.

Tim turned a full circle. There was nothing but a waist high sea of purple grass, all around. The sky was a soft grey-blue, dotted with puffy violet clouds and three large moons. There was a light breeze blowing, and it made the grass ripple and sway, almost like waves on a real sea. Tim felt a little like he was standing in the middle of an ocean, with a wide, unbroken horizon stretching out wherever he looked.

“It's beautiful,” he whispered, all of a sudden feeling much more sympathetic to the Wunfulch's isolationist tendencies. It was very rare to find a home world of any advanced species with this much untouched land. Did the Wunfulch live underground? Was this a park? Tim hoped they weren't intruding on sacred ground. The best thing he could probably do was use the tele-beacon to at least convey his good intentions. Plan decided, Tim dug the tele-beacon out of his pack and quickly activated it. He also got out his tablet, to confirm that there were no issues with the machine. All the status readouts still looked green.

In the mean time, Clark had begun carefully investigating a blade of grass, except that it wasn't a blade at all. Once he bent it at more than a forty degree angle, it became clear that it was actually a stem with such closely overlapping leaves that it only appeared to be one solid piece. “What kind of grass is this? And where are we? Those moons. I...this isn't...”

“Earth? No, it's not,” Tim told him, hoping that Clark wasn't going to lose his cool. Lois had obviously tried to explain everything to him, but he just as obviously hadn't believed it before now.

Just then, Tim heard a small rustling sound, and he turned his head to see a tiny creature. It was only about an inch tall and looked very much like some sort of bunny-dog hybrid, although its head was sleeker than an earth creature's because it had no visible ears. Its tail, which was at least three times as long as the rest of its body, curled and uncurled slightly as it sniffed curiously at the machine. Tim quickly switched to the camera app on his tablet to snap a picture, telling himself that it might be helpful to have some record of the local fauna, if they ever had to return to the Wunfulch home world. It certainly wasn't because he thought Dick would be absolutely charmed by a picture of the little creature, although Tim was nearly certain he would be.

“What is that creature?” Clark whispered, having finally looked away from the “grass” long enough to catch sight of it.

“I'm not sure,” Tim whispered back. “It's pretty cute, though, isn't it?” The tiny creature put one cautious, miniature paw up on the machine, and it was just looking like it might be thinking about jumping up on it, when something like a deep gong went through Tim. The noise wasn't in his ears, though, and Tim turned back around just as something massive unfolded itself in front of them. It didn't look that large, appearing about the size of a well fed pony, absent any limbs, but its presence in Tim's head was immense.

Even though the ground was perfectly still, Tim felt for a moment as if he might lose his footing. The pull of the creature in front of him was just so intense, like he was standing in front of an ancient star that was going to drag him into its orbit purely from the gravity of its existence. The videos Babs had managed to mostly clean up had not done the Wunfulch justice. It's wrinkled purple skin was mildly iridescent, and what looked like subdermal electrical signals chased across its skin, mapping constellations of neurons and galaxies of thought. Tim could feel it pressing on him—no, on something close to him...

“Oh, sorry. Is this thing shouting at this range?” Tim said, hoping that if he just concentrated on the intent of his words as he said them, then the Wunfulch would understand him. He carefully turned the Martian beacon off. “Thank you for coming to talk to us,” he continued, feeling somehow at a loss for how to proceed, even though he'd felt so ready for this just five minutes ago. “I'm Robin, and this is Superman.” Clark frowned, and Tim hastily corrected, “Clark Kent. I...were you the individual who visited our dimension a while ago?” Tim asked, wishing that he knew how to reliably tell one immensely powerful alien being from another or even just how long three earth months was according to the Wunfulch calendar.

A force which was as deep as an ocean but as invisible as gravity washed over Tim. ~It was I.~

The words weren't spoken. They weren't even words, but more a sense of inescapable truth in his head. “Oh, good,” Robin whispered. He'd had a whole elegant speech planned, but the weight of that mind on his reduced Tim to simple sentences. “The wish you granted brought great changes to our world.” As he was speaking to a powerful telepath he didn't want to offend, Tim tried to force his thoughts in a positive direction. “Some of those changes were very good.” The last time Tim had spoken to Bruce, which had been just before the first test run of the machine, he'd sounded happier than Tim had ever heard him. Although it had deeply pained Tim that Bruce had been at his happiest when he didn't even remember who Robin was, he had consoled himself that Bruce had seemed particularly pleased by the possibility that Tim might soon come home to Wayne Manor to see Bruce and Jason. In a way, that would be a dream come true even for Tim himself. His predecessor had meant so much to him, back when Jason had still been nothing but a stranger. To actually have the chance to know Jason as a brother was an opportunity Tim was more than eager for, despite his lingering concerns.

“There are unfortunately many reasons why we cannot accept the way you very generously granted Clark's wish any longer, though,” Tim continued, trying to think diplomatically, which was a lot harder than simply speaking that way. All of a sudden, the atmosphere seemed to get much less dense. As Tim's space suit hadn't been breached, though, he soon realized that the pressure hadn't so much disappeared as shifted. “Clark, please tell the Wunfulch this can't continue.”

Tim knew Lois had coached Clark on what to say, but now that they were actually mentally in the focus of a very powerful telepath, Tim wondered how much good it would do. Clark might say the right things, but would he mean them? Instead of regurgitating his lines, though, Clark broke the script.

“I just don't understand,” Clark said, sounding like he was rapidly approaching an event horizon, past which further calm discussion would be impossible. “What is going on here? Where even is here?”

Tim felt an invisible eddy, a current in the ocean of power that was in front of him, and then Clark responded, “Yes, I want to know everything.” Suddenly, between one moment and the next, Clark Kent disappeared. A tall man still stood beside Tim, just as he had a moment before, but he stood straight now, instead of stooped, his shoulders squared with the strength of a yellow sun. Clark Kent's confused frown was replaced but Superman's expression of sudden comprehension.

“Oh. Oh, that's what... Wow,” he whispered, something like awe in his voice. He shook his head slowly, as if he could hardly believe the change in perspective he'd just experienced. “I understand what you did now. When I took time off before, I could choose not to use my super hearing, but there were always cries and screams, just beyond the edge of normal hearing, that I knew I was choosing to ignore. I could stop being Superman, but I could never really know what it was like to just spend an entire weekend on the couch, curled up with a book or some old movies on TV without feeling like I was forsaking my responsibilities,” Superman said. Suddenly, Tim felt a little guilty himself for not realizing before this moment that Bruce was not the only one who had derived some significant benefit to offset the cost of the amnesia. “All the years I've spent on Earth, and I've never truly known what it was like to be just Clark Kent, completely normal person with lazy, guilt free weekends—until you showed me,” Superman continued, and he sounded wistful. “Robin is right, though. As much as I am grateful for the months of true quiet you gave me, it's been too long already.”

Tim caught something like the second hand echo of shock, and his mind twisted itself into knots, trying to somehow reconcile the Wunfulch's mental surety that barely a flicker of time had gone by since the start of the “wish”, versus his own deep conviction that this amnesia incident had dragged on interminably. Even the Green Lantern Corps had possessed very little information on exactly how long Wunfulch lived, but from how ancient the Wunfulch's mental presence felt, Tim was beginning to suspect that this one had been alive since long before the first humans had walked the Earth. No wonder three Earth months had felt like nothing to it.

Superman didn't say anything to the Wunfulch verbally, but the enormous ocean of thought which had flowed out to surround them both swirled with his bemusement. Thankfully, the ancient being in front of them seemed to accept that they had a very different relative sense of time, and Tim felt the Wunfulch's acquiescence to Superman's point of view.

“You'll return the memories of the others, too?” Tim asked anxiously, suddenly scared that he'd need to bring each amnesiac hero to the Wunfulch individually.

Tim felt some small eddy of pressure as waves of inquiry flowed toward Superman. Then, there was a followup wave of acceptance, after Superman's intentions flowed back to the Wunfulch.

~It will be done.~ Again, the Wunfulch didn't say the words, but Tim suddenly knew them in his head and was sure that the rest of the JLA had their memories back.

Thank you, he thought, feeling a horrible tension leave him. Until that moment, he hadn't let himself admit how honestly terrified he'd been that his father would never truly remember him.

“I think Robin and I had better get home now, but it was nice to see you again,” Superman said. “You have a beautiful home world.”

He must have thought something else after that, because what Tim 'heard' from the Wunfulch next felt like a reply to something unspoken. ~Wigzig.~

“It really was very cute,” Superman said, and Tim realized that he was talking about the little creature which looked like a bunny-dog hybrid. Perhaps the species was called wigzig. “Come to think of it, your child seemed fond of them too.”

Tim had the sudden sense that the Wunfulch's child was at school. Superman must have gotten that mental message, too, because he said, “I wouldn't want to interrupt important lessons, but please let your child know that it was a pleasure meeting someone with such a sweet and whimsical imagination.”

A wave of proud warmth swept through Tim's mind, and he couldn't help smiling. It seemed that the Wunfulch wasn't so different from human parents, after all. Cyborg and Lois would be eagerly awaiting their return, though, so Tim pointed Superman toward the platform. “If you stand there, I can hit the preset return button, and we'll be transported back to the Watchtower.”

Superman nodded and stepped onto the platform again. Tim stepped up beside up, but before he pressed the button, he held up the tablet with a question in his mind.

~Yes.~

With the Wunfulch's permission, Tim snapped another picture, this one capturing the telepath in front of them, as well as the sea of grass, and the three moons in the violet cloud dotted sky. The convenient thing about telepathy was that Tim didn't actually have to come up with the exact words he wanted to say. He just had to focus on his gratitude and happiness that everything had turned out well, and his intention to leave with warm thoughts on his mind. Superman had probably been doing much the same thing, because Tim soon felt a broad wave of farewell wash over them.

Robin took just a moment to assure himself that no wigzig would be stowing away on the platform and then he pressed the button to go home. Less than a second later, he and Superman were back in the Watchtower, right where they had started from. Robin must somehow have gotten used to the pressure of the Wunfulch's mental presence, because now it felt almost a little strange to not have anything pressing against his mind. Tim was glad to have returned successfully, though, and Cyborg and Lois both looked very pleased themselves.

“Well?” Lois prompted.

Superman sighed. “You were right, and I was wrong. I apologize.”

Lois grinned wider. “It's good to have you back to yourself, because there are now so many things I need to tease you about.”

Superman groaned. “Right, that knife that crumpled against my skin wasn't a fake, was it?”

“Nope, but for a man who's invulnerable, you sure were nervous about a lot of things.”

“Well I didn't know that I was invulnerable, although suddenly it makes sense why I had so many dreams about flying.” Superman blinked. “Everyone else who was in the Watchtower when we sent the Wunfulch child home was affected too?”

“Right,” Vic confirmed.

Superman shook his head. “Batman is going to be so angry I made that wish.”

Tim took pity on him and pointed out, “I don't think he will be. Jason came home, after all, and I think Batman could forgive an awful lot, just for that.” Tim was still a little bit worried about how his own place in Bruce's life would be affected, if Jason stuck around, but he knew that worry wasn't entirely rational. Caring about Dick didn't stop Bruce from caring about Tim, after all, and the same concept should apply where Jason was concerned. Tim also suspected that Jason's current methods, even if he toned them down, wouldn't be a great match for Bruce's. Much like Nightwing, Red Hood would probably team up with Batman occasionally if things went well, but Tim would still be Robin, so he'd be Batman's primary partner in the field. There was no logical reason to worry.

“Wait, you mean Jason Todd?” Superman asked.

“It's Jason Wayne now, but yes.”

“Wow, that's wonderful news,” Superman said, sounding sincerely happy.

“The person you really have to worry about is Oliver Queen,” Lois pointed out.

“Oliver? But why would... Oh. Oh, he was in the hospital.”

“He might still be feeling sore about it, but—” Lois broke off as a sharp chiming sound started up.

Cyborg groaned. “Not another priority alert.”

Tim sighed. “Let me just get out of this space suit, and then I'll be ready—”

Superman cleared his throat. “Thank you both for being willing to cover for the JLA, but since I have my memories back now, I think I can handle this one. In fact, I should handle it. The JLA barely reformed before most of us got amnesia, so at this point, you two may have done more missions for the current incarnation of the JLA than I have. The pair of you certainly deserve a break, and you did say you'd rest after we got back, Robin."

Tim had said that, although that was mostly because he would have said practically anything to get Clark to cooperate with ending the amnesia. Now that they'd succeeded, though, Tim was starting to remember how utterly sleep deprived he was. He and Cyborg had pushed hard to finish the machine as soon as they had. Even three days ago, they'd estimated that they were still a week out from being done. However, although there had been minor problems, the initial test run had actually gone better than they'd been expecting, and once they'd realized they were so close to the finish line, they'd worked practically nonstop to get the machine completed. Now that the adrenaline rush was wearing off, though, Tim was starting to crash hard.

“Okay, yeah, I'll leave the emergency to you, Superman. I think sleep might actually be a really good idea for me, right now,” Tim said. “Good night, everyone. Or, good morning, I guess.” Tim wasn't exactly sure how he made it back to his bed after that. He might have been half asleep already as he navigated there. Somehow, he managed to wrestle his space suit, belt, and boots off, and then he collapsed, still mostly clothed, into bed. He had a brief flicker of thought about sending out a status email, but Superman would surely be able to take care of that too. Content with the knowledge that his dad actually remembered him again, Tim soon fell fast asleep.

Chapter Text

Bruce startled awake at 5:41 AM, his heart pounding. The nightmare of the Joker's laughter coming out of Red Hood's throat had been too much to sleep through. Batman's first impulse upon waking up was to check his JLA communicator, but it wasn't there at his bedside. It wasn't there because he'd thought it was part of a prank Dick was pulling, and Alfred had barely rescued it from being thrown away. Bruce had been so sure he couldn't be Batman, and yet, now, he was just as sure he was. He'd suddenly woken up a martial arts master, and now everything made such perfect, awful sense.

Of course Alfred would never have participated in pulling such a callous, persistent trick. An accomplished cat burglar like Selina had stolen far more than a watch. When Jason had been bitter about Bruce giving Tim the same name, it was because he'd called them both “Robin”. Dick hadn't put a hole in the wall of his office—Bruce had done that himself to make an entrance to the Batcave. Tim was so busy with his friends because his friends were the Titans, and they must have been covering for heroes who didn't remember who they were—like Batman.

Jason was the Red Hood. That was why Dick had attacked him when he'd seen Bruce injured with Jay standing next to him. His sons had been such good fighters because Bruce had taught them both how to fight—although at the time, he'd never thought they'd one day be fighting each other. Back when Jason had been Robin, Bruce had never imagined that he would one day become the Red Hood and kill eight drug lieutenants in a single blood soaked night. However, Bruce had also never imagined that the killer who called himself Red Hood would one day rescue him from a pair of muggers, just like Jason had done for dozens of hapless civilians back when he was Robin. Red Hood had fought Batman angrily on the streets and rooftops of Gotham, yet Jason had protected Bruce from Vincencio's hitman, even though Red Hood was a killer himself. Jason was going to take his GED test in just a few hours, but Red Hood had been driven mad by the Lazarus Pit.

The thoughts smashed together in Bruce's head and refused to make cohesive sense. Red Hood hated him, but before they'd gone to sleep that night, Jay had looked at him with an expression full of love. Those things couldn't both be true, could they? Bruce had told Jason that as soon as he got his memory back, he'd tell him how glad he was that Jay was alive, but as soon as he did that...

His thoughts circled ominously around Jason's argument with Dick in the garage. Dick had told Jason that Bruce Wayne couldn't kill the Joker, and Jason had accepted that temporarily. Bruce remembered with keen embarrassment his absolutely bumbling attempt to kill the Joker off while he'd forgotten most of his useful skills. Perhaps he could have eventually succeeded, but he'd surely been months away at best. Batman was obviously completely capable of killing the Joker immediately, though, and soon Jay would ask him to do it.

The memory of their last three way confrontation filled Bruce with dread. He could still feel the cold horror crawling across his skin, as he stood in a room with his once dead son, his son's murderer, and enough C4 to blow the entire building. He remembered the way his breath had caught in his throat as Jason had asked him to choose between his own child and the Joker, as if that were a choice, as if the answer wasn't obvious. (How had he failed his son so badly, that the answer wasn't obvious?) All he had been able to think of was Jason, how he was going to have to watch his son shoot to kill right in front of him, like his parents had been shot dead right before his eyes.

The thought had destroyed his last shred of rationality. He'd only known that he had to stop Jason from going down that blood soaked path, stop his once sweet child from feeding all the darkest impulses of his heart, stop him from becoming a monster. No wonder Jason hadn't listened to him. Dick had said he'd come back “wrong”, and Jason had lashed out. Batman had thought Red Hood might be halfway down the path to becoming someone that could never be saved, and so Batman had gotten nothing but rage and violence in response. Of course he had. When had Jason ever reacted positively toward people who thought the very worst of him?

Until he'd seen Jason calm and happy with his own eyes, Bruce hadn't believed it was even possible for his lost son to truly return. He'd heard too many twisted stories about what a bad resurrection could do to a person, and he was all too aware of the violent madness the Lazarus Pit could cause. Besides that, Batman had always been primed to fight monsters, not soothe traumatized children.

Forgetting had been a gift, because it had allowed him to remember that it had not been Batman, with all his many methods of fighting enemies, who had won Jason's trust. That had been done by Bruce Wayne, who had used no special skills but warmth and compassion. Those same methods had worked once again, because Jason was not a monster or even someone halfway down the road to becoming one. He was a teenager teetering on the edge of adulthood, hurt and lost and traumatized and in need of love and guidance, not violence and stern judgement.

There had been tears in Jason's eyes as he held the Joker at gunpoint, tears Batman had never been able to soothe. Bruce knew down to his marrow that he absolutely could not fail his vulnerable son again. He had to save Jason. That meant he could not be Batman. But he was Batman. He could just imagine Jason demanding that he kill the Joker and storming out after he said “no”, never to be seen again outside of crime scenes. The thought tore at his heart. The fact that he and Jason had been getting along so well lately only made that possibility more painful in contrast.

Bruce wanted their relationship to remain as it was now, but Jason was obviously at a crossroads in his life. If he choose to go down the path of blood soaked rage, his greatest accomplishments would be crimes and his only consistent companions would be corpses. On the other hand, he could choose to wholeheartedly commit to the path he'd been on before his cruel murder. He'd have friends and family at his side, and college and sincere happiness within reach.

Suddenly, getting Jason to take the last two sections of the GED exam felt like the most important mission of Bruce's life. He had been desperate to save Jason before, when he wasn't even sure it was possible to do so. Now, knowing for certain that Jay was capable of regaining the life he'd lost, the life which had been so callously and brutally stolen from him, that desperation only multiplied ten fold. His memory had changed so many things, but it had not changed this fact: Bruce had to save his son.

In only a few short hours, though, Jay would be getting up to either take the GED test or storm out of Bruce's life forever. That was barely enough time for Bruce to reconcile his amnesia induced perspective changes with his full set of memories. It was certainly not enough to come up with a reliable plan to convince Jason to continue pursuing higher education, rather than a higher body count. Bruce wasn't sure any amount of time would actually be long enough to make such a plan foolproof, and he could feel every muscle in his body tensing as the looming possibility of failure crept into his mind. Bruce could not afford to fail, though, not this time, not when his son's entire future rested on his ability to succeed.

Quickly, he retrieved his secure tablet from where he'd hidden it in his dresser. Immediately after logging in, he followed his old habit of checking to make sure that Dick and Tim were still listed as being on active status and therefore not injured or worse. Thankfully, Bruce had no problems anymore remembering the additional password necessary to access that information. Once he was reassured of Dick and Tim's safety, he sent a message out to everyone who might contact Batman to ban any communication with himself or Jason until further notice. That should buy him a little time.

Bruce remembered what he'd been acting like before he got his memory back. As long as no one called and gave the truth away, he was sure he could keep up the facade of continuing amnesia for a little while, just until Jason took the GED test and Bruce figured out what he needed to say or do to save his son from a lonely, homicidal life filled with rage and violence. Batman had already failed Jason spectacularly, but Bruce Wayne had his trust once more. He just needed to leverage that, somehow, before Jason realized that he had his memories and they had another explosive argument about the Joker.

Deep in thought, Bruce headed for the kitchen. If he were still without his memories and had been woken early by a nightmare, he would likely have come to the kitchen to start on breakfast, so that was what he did. As Bruce thought over the past several weeks, he realized that he actually remembered more of his nightmares than he used to. It seemed like the Wunfulch—and it must have been the Wunfulch, because Clark had explicitly wished for this sort of amnesia soon after the JLA had turned down a reward—had only prevented Bruce from remembering anything while he was conscious. He'd still dreamed of Robin and Batman and Red Hood. He just hadn't been able to remember those dreams.

Curiously, he'd been able to remember dreams where Jason was merely dressed in Robin colors or wearing a cape but otherwise normally attired. Perhaps because dreams frequently did not make sense, those hadn't been blatant enough hints to trigger memory suppression. That might suggest an avenue for potential countermeasures, if the JLA ever had to deal with a hostile Wunfulch. Bruce didn't think this incident had been anything other than a grateful parent who was overeager to thank them, but that didn't mean there couldn't be trouble in the future. Batman always needed to be prepared. Just then, he had to focus on Jason, though, rather than telepathic aliens.

By the time Jason came into the kitchen, still rubbing sleep out of his eyes, Bruce had almost gotten the extreme cognitive dissonance he'd woken up with under control. “Good morning, Jay. I've made omelets and sausages,” he said, trying to sound casual and ordinary and not as if he were desperately trying to impersonate himself.

“Good morning,” Jason said, accepting a plate with an omelet with a small, fond smile. Somehow, that smile caught Bruce off guard, even though Jason had been smiling like that more and more often lately. He searched his son's expression, but the rage Bruce kept expecting was nowhere in sight. Jason looked calm and perhaps still a little sleepy as he added a few sausages to his plate and then sat down to pour himself a glass of orange juice. Bruce heaved a silent sigh of relief as he got his own plate of food and sat down across from his son.

Luckily, Jay spent most of his focus on his breakfast, and Bruce got through their usual casual morning conversation without garnering any suspicious looks. It seemed like Jason had finally let his guard down enough that he wasn't constantly evaluating Bruce for signs of deception. Bruce was not looking forward to the time when he would lose that easy trust again, and he wanted very badly to use the mental techniques he's studied as Batman to lock down his wildly turbulent feelings and focus on the mission.

However, while Bruce had been suffering from amnesia, Jason had suggested that he had forgotten things he'd experienced when he was in a specific 'mental state'. He'd been right. Bruce had forgotten memories from when he used mental focusing and repression techniques he'd studied as Batman, probably because there was no reason a civilian would have learned those techniques. If he started doing that again, it could be a dead giveaway that he remembered being Batman, because he'd been so much more emotionally expressive when he'd only remembered being Bruce Wayne. Jason was sharp enough to pick up on Batman's studiously blank face, cowl or no cowl.

Therefore, Bruce did his best to remain calm via normal civilian means. It wasn't terribly effective to mentally tell himself that everything would work out fine, but at least Jason didn't seem to pick up on anything before it was time to leave for the test. Jason thankfully spent the car ride doing a last minute review of his notes. Bruce, in the mean time, split his focus between the road and surreptitiously studying Jason's scars.

The cut on Jay's temple had healed up well enough that it wasn't noticeable even up close, but that was not the case for the scar peaking out under the collar of Jason's shirt, the scar which Jay had scratched at whenever Chemo had come up in conversation. Jason had told Bruce that without context, explaining how he'd gotten it wouldn't make sense. He had been right about that, too. Bruce would never have believed that he could have given such a scar to his son himself. He had certainly never meant for his batarang to ever get so perilously close to Jason's carotid artery.

During the standoff, he could have thrown a batarang directly at the gun Jason was pointing at the Joker, of course. However, Red Hood and Batman had been facing each other and standing close enough together that Jason would have had almost no time to register a thrown batarang's trajectory before it struck the gun. If Red Hood had fired the gun just as the batarang struck it and tilted the gun back toward Jason himself, Jay might have been seriously injured. On the other hand, Batman had known that if he instead bounced the batarang off the pipe behind and above Jason, then its redirected momentum could knock the gun outward and down from Jason's body, toward Batman himself, not inward, toward Jason. Batman might run the risk of being shot if Jason pulled the trigger at just the wrong moment, but his son would be safe. At least, so he'd thought.

However, bouncing that batarang off the pipe had required perfect accuracy, which Batman was normally capable of. Normally. The events of that night had been too sharp and painful to repress like he usually did, though. He'd been off balance before he'd even seen Jason that night, because he'd arrived just in time to watch Black Mask kill a man dressed as Red Hood. For a moment, for one long, horrible moment, he'd thought Jason had been murdered again. It had been an impostor under the hood, though, and Batman had rushed off to Crime Alley, desperate to be in time.

Instead, he'd had to watch Chemo fall on Bludhaven and then fear that while he'd been worried about Jason, his distraction had condemned Dick to die. Jay hadn't even given him a minute to try to figure out what had happened to Nightwing. Instead, Batman had found himself in a room with the Joker and his awful laughter and a staggering amount of C4, when Jason had already died in an explosion due to the Joker once, when Dick might have been killed minutes before. Bruce had been so scared for his son, for both his sons. He'd been terrified that time was running out to save Jay from death or the madness of the Lazarus Pit. He'd been so desperate not to fail, but of course, that was exactly why he had failed.

Sometimes, Batman needed to lock down his feelings, so that he could focus properly on the mission, but the terror and grief he'd felt that night had been too great even for Batman to master. Truthfully, he'd struggled even before that night to think calmly and rationally where his dead child returned was concerned, and the thought that he might already have failed Dick that night, that he might be just about to fail Jason irrevocably, again, had driven him past the point of cold logic and calm assessments.

He'd thrown the batarang at the right angle to bounce off and hit Jason's gun—if the pipe had been firmly affixed. They had been in a building in Crime Alley, though. Workmanship there was often shoddy, and the building itself had been condemned, which basically guaranteed that nothing inside could be trusted to be stable. Bruce had known that, and yet, that night, he'd thrown the batarang as if the pipe wasn't going to move. When it did slide back, it had changed the angle the batarang bounced off in. Instead of hitting the gun, it had sliced into the vulnerable juncture where Jason's shoulder met his throat.

In that moment of pain, perhaps of betrayal, Jason had momentarily let the Joker go, and then Bruce's nightmares had played out before his eyes as the Joker set off the explosives. Batman's training had kicked in then as he dived out of the window automatically, but when he'd searched through the rubble later, Jason had been nowhere to be found. Of course he hadn't been. Had there been any way Batman could have failed him more spectacularly?

Bruce Wayne hadn't failed Jason yet, though. As long as Jason thought he was just Bruce Wayne, everything between them was fine. When it wasn't anymore...Jason had repeatedly put off discussions about college because big changes were coming, and he didn't know if it would be possible to continue with his education afterward. Bruce needed for it to be possible, though. When he pulled into the curving entrance lane to drop Jay off in front of the school, Bruce was feeling much more nervous than Jason was, even though his son was the one taking a test.

“Thanks for dropping me off,” Jay said as he got out of the car. He looked innocently excited, the same way he'd always looked when he was about to face a scholastic challenge he felt well prepared for.

“Good luck, Jay—not that you'll to need it. I'll see you when you get out.”

Jason nodded and headed for the school entrance with a bouncy energy in his steps that reminded Bruce strongly of Dick. Other cars pulled up around him, and Bruce felt a little stupid just idling there watching as Jay walked up the steps. There was no reason he had to stay any longer. Others were driving off as soon as their passengers were deposited, but for some reason, Bruce couldn't make himself stop watching as his son went back to school.

Jason turned his head as he reached the door, looking back. When he saw that Bruce was still there, he smiled and made a gesture halfway between a wave and a salute. Then, Bruce didn't feel as stupid about just sitting there watching, because Jason had been looking for him. If Bruce had driven off already, he wouldn't have gotten that last smile from his son, and although Jason never would have breathed a word about looking back for a car that wasn't there, Bruce was sure his son would have been a little disappointed. How often had Jason looked for him over the years, when Bruce wasn't there? How frequently had he failed his son without even knowing?

The thought troubled him. After Jason went inside the building, Bruce could have gone home. There was certainly enough time to leave and come back before Jay would finish, but even the thought of driving away felt too uncomfortable. In the end, Bruce pulled out of the entrance lane, but only so that he could drive around the back of the school and park in the far corner of the school parking lot. Then, he sat in the car thinking. There had to be something he could do, some way to convince Jason to take the right path.

He remembered the raw anger and pain on Jay's face, when he'd talked about how the Joker had suffered no change in his circumstances after killing him, how he might even be better off with the memory of Jason's murder. Bruce Wayne hadn't known, but Batman remembered how gloating the Joker's loathsome voice had gotten on the anniversary of Jason's murder. He had seemed happier, and of course Jason was angry about that. Getting angry was what let the Joker win, though.

Bruce just had to make Jason see that he shouldn't stoop to the Joker's level, that the best thing he could do right now was reclaim the life he deserved. However, he knew it wouldn't be possible for Jason to simply forget what the Joker had done. While he'd healed physically, it was obvious that Jason's emotional wounds had never truly scabbed over. At least, though, that meant that there was no hardened scar tissue to get through to reach the heart of the matter. Whatever Bruce said about the Joker would have an impact, but given Jason's volatile state of mind, that impact could easily turn explosive.

There had to be a correct way to address this situation, though. Sitting in the mostly deserted parking lot, Bruce thought of a dozen different starts to the conversation he needed to have with his son. In his imagination, though, each opening led to imagined responses that were even more filled with pain and vitriol than anything Jason had ever said in real life. When Bruce finished thinking through the dozenth failed hypothetical conversation, he realized he was actually sweating, even though he was just sitting still. His heart rate and breathing were both elevated by his body's stress response to situations that hadn't even happened yet. “Yet” was the key word, though. Time just kept ticking down, and Bruce's anxiousness only grew as the moment when Jason would emerge from the building approached.

He still had no idea what to say, just that it had to be perfect, so that he could get through to Jason and make him see that never killing again was the best thing for him. It was coming up with arguments for leaving the Joker alive that Bruce was struggling with. Jason did not seem like he'd have patience for a rehash of what Bruce had said in the past, and quite honestly, there were very few things Bruce could stomach saying in defense of the Joker, especially to the child that monster had murdered.

Out of desperation, Bruce started thinking about perhaps calling Alfred for advice, but then he glanced at his watch and realized that Jason would be finishing the second test in about half an hour. As he could finish early, Bruce pulled back around to the front entrance lane of the school, where he had picked up and dropped off his son many time before, when Jason had been younger. Jason might want to use the entire time available, but Bruce figured it was better to be early than to chance getting lost in dire thoughts and ending up late.

As he waited, Bruce tried to calm down the normal civilian way by reminding himself that he actually had made it through several tense conversations with Jason over the past couple of months without any violence or bloodshed at all. Success was possible. His heart rate had just started to come down when Jason came out. His steps were fast and full of energy, and he grinned and rushed over when he saw that Bruce was already waiting for him.

“You got out quickly,” Bruce said, as Jason got into the car.

“Yeah, even though I took some time to review my answers, I still finished a little while before time was up.”

“It sounds like you did very well, then,” Bruce said, trying his best to think positively about how their conversation would go, instead of imagining all of the possible failure cases.

“I think so,” Jason replied, with only a tiny hint of nervousness to mar his confident declaration. “There were a few questions I wasn't completely sure on, but I wasn't clueless on anything.”

“That's great, Jay. I'm so proud of you.” At least Bruce didn't have to overthink that statement. Memories or not, he was proud that his son was pursuing his high school diploma again.

“Thanks,” Jason said, ducking his head a little in embarrassment. He accepted the words without complaint, though, and that was a clear sign of how much their relationship had improved recently. There were a couple of other cars pulling up in front of the school at that point, though, so Bruce started his car to make room for others.

As he pulled away from the school, Bruce knew he should try to carefully start the serious conversation he needed to have with Jason, but he just wasn't ready yet. He still needed to work out a solid outline for exactly what to say, so it was better to put their conversation off for just a little longer. He'd only been driving for a couple of minutes before Jason objected. “Hey, this isn't the way home. We'd better not be heading for your lawyers,” Jay said, obvious displeasure in his voice.

Bruce chuckled a little as he glanced over and caught Jason's sour expression. He couldn't help feeling happy himself, though: Jason had just called the manor “home”. “No lawyers, I promise. We're going to the car dealership,” Bruce said, checking his side view mirror before signaling and shifting lanes to avoid a backup of cars trying to make a left turn. Gotham traffic was as bad as always. “I thought you might want to take a look around.” Bruce swallowed hard, wishing again that emotional suppression was a common civilian technique. “I promised you a car when you finished high school, didn't I?” he asked, not liking how wobbly his voice sounded.

“Oh,” Jason said softly, sounding surprised. “Yeah, you did promise. I didn't think you'd still remember that, though.”

Bruce managed a smile. “You reminded me about it at least a dozen times, Jay.” That had been before he'd died, of course.

Jason looked slightly embarrassed again when Bruce glanced at him briefly. “Yeah, well, good thing I did, right? Your memory hasn't been the best lately.”

“That's true, but I try my best to remember all my promises.” Bruce had broken a lot when Jason had died. Far, far too many. He wanted to make good on the ones he had a miraculous second chance to keep, though, and while getting Jason a fast car certainly wouldn't solve all their problems, it would probably at least make his son happy for a little while. Bruce wasn't quite ready to go back to being hated yet.

When they arrived, the car salesman rushed over to welcome them immediately. He looked positively thrilled to see them, but then, anyone selling expensive items was frequently happy to see Bruce Wayne walk in. The man was probably busy thinking of the large sale he was about to make as he introduced himself.

“I'm Bruce Wayne, and this is my son, Jason Wayne,” Bruce said, finishing the introductions, even though it was clear the salesman had already figured out who they were. Bruce didn't know how much longer he'd get to introduce Jason as his son, though, particularly with the Wayne name. He had to enjoy it while it lasted. “I'm thinking about buying my son a car, maybe something new this year.”

“New we can do. Anything else?”

“Something fast,” Jason said with a grin, although his face started to get a pinched look as he glanced around. All of the cars on display easily cost more than the average Crime Alley family made in a year.

“Of course. I'm sure we have just the right car for you,” the salesman exclaimed. Jason eyed him skeptically, but then, Jason had a natural distrust of salesmen who might cheat him. Bruce, having been rich all his life, didn't even particularly care if he was vastly overcharged. If anything, it helped Bruce Wayne's bumbling cover to overspend on nearly everything.

Because this was a high end car dealership, they got a tour of a showroom instead of a lot. Years ago, Bruce might have gotten excited himself by the prospect of buying one of these new cars. Now, it was really only Batmobile upgrades he looked forward to. It seemed like Jason could still be seduced by the allure of owning something he could drive during the day, though. He asked the salesman a few questions about each car before moving on to the next.

“Can I test drive this model?” Jason finally asked. Naturally, he'd zeroed in on the fastest car in the place.

“Of course! I would be happy to help you do that!” the salesman replied. They headed out to the lot where most of the cars were standard colors. There was one of the same model Jason was interested in that obviously had a custom paint job, though.

“Why is this one a different color than the rest?” Jason asked, pointing out the car. It was iridescent, with a two tone color scheme that made it look either blue or green depending on the angle of the light.

“Ah, that was a special order, but the buyer changed his mind and decided on a different model at the very last minute. This could be the perfect car for you, though!” the salesman assured.

Jason didn't look entirely convinced, but he seemed eager enough to test drive the car. The poor salesman got a bit of a fright, though, as Jason really pushed the car's acceleration and handling to their limits as he weaved through Gotham traffic. Bruce, who had taught Jason to drive the Batmobile through a custom obstacle course, was not concerned that his son might crash. Jay had always been a very quick study, especially where driving was concerned, and Red Hood had proven adept at handling vehicles in high stakes situations. It was still hard to reconcile that angry killer with the boy in front of him now, though. Jason looked so happy and carefree as he took the car for a test drive. Bruce would have paid any amount for something that could make Jason look like that again, like he'd never suffered and died for joining Batman's crusade.

“I like this one,” Jason said as he pulled back into the lot. “The acceleration is good, and the handling is very smooth.”

“Y-yes, it is,” the salesman said, stumbling out of the car

“We'll take it,” Bruce told him.

Jason looked surprised. “But we don't even know if I passed yet.” He pulled out his phone and tapped at it for a few seconds. “No results posted so far.”

“Jay, if you said you did well, then I don't need to wait for the official results. I trust your assessment. So, is this the car you want?”

Jason looked conflicted for just a moment before he nodded. “Yeah, this is the one I want. This isn't exactly a small purchase even for you, though, Bruce. What if you change your mind in a few days?” Jason asked, sounding worried. He was probably concerned about what would happen if Bruce regained his memory. Since Bruce knew he already had it, though, he was quite sure that would not make him change his mind.

“A promise will still be a promise in a few days, Jay, and I always intend to keep my promises.”

“Well, I guess since it's a promise...”

“So you'll be buying this car?” the salesman prompted eagerly.

“Yes,” Bruce confirmed. The salesman, thankfully, proved quite efficient at completing the sale, and Bruce had no problems adding the new car to his insurance through the company's website. Only a short while later, Jason was walking out the door with keys in his hand and a smile on his face.

“Oh, here, let me give you the spare key,” Jason said, casually tossing it to him. “I'll have to take this car for a real test drive later, when I'm not going to give the salesman a heart attack. I'm starting to get hungry right now, though. Did you eat lunch while I was taking the test?” he asked Bruce.

“No, I haven't eaten yet.”

“You wanna get a late lunch at Con Amore, then?”

They should really go home and have an important, if difficult, conversation. Jason looked so happy just then, though, repeatedly tossing his car key up in the air and catching it. Starting out on an empty stomach obviously wasn't going to make anything easier, so surely it couldn't hurt to just have a good meal first. Jason had seemed to really enjoy the food at Con Amore the last time they were there.

“Sure. I think I'd enjoy some Italian right now,” Bruce told him.

“Great. Race you there!” Jay said with a grin, before dashing off to his new car.

Bruce could have won, if he'd wanted to. He wasn't quite sure how much driving skill he would have been able to display while amnesiac, though, and in the end, he was happier just to see Jason grinning in victory in the Con Amore parking lot. Thankfully, as it was on the late side for lunch, they were able to get a table right away, even without a reservation.

The meal started out well. Jason chatted happily about the new car, in between devouring the pollo alla cacciatora he'd ordered. It was only when Jason was musing over whether to get some gelato for dessert that disaster struck, in the form of two gossiping patrons sitting at a nearby table. The pair had been there before Bruce and Jason had come in, but they weren't quite done with their meal yet, probably because they'd spent much more time talking than eating. Bruce hadn't caught what they'd said to upset Jason, but he definitely noticed when his son's entire body went tense. When Jason craned his head to look right at them, Bruce focused on their conversation as well.

“But how do you know?” the man asked.

“Because it just makes sense,” the woman replied. “They were probably all off on the same mission to space, or whatever it is they do. If Wonder Woman and Superman are back, though, then Batman has to be, as well.”

“Then why hasn't the news shown anything?”

“Probably because Batman only comes out at night, and it's not night yet,” the woman pointed out. She continued saying something else, but Bruce was no longer listening. Instead, he was staring at Jason, whose expression had locked down so completely that Bruce had no idea what he was feeling.

“You remember?” Jason asked, and his tone of voice was very low, just above a growl. He was staring directly into Bruce's eyes.

Bruce swallowed hard, but denial wouldn't do any good here. Jason already knew the truth. He was simply asking Bruce to admit it. “...Yes, I remember.”

“Since when?” Jason demanded, his eyes narrowed.

“I was asleep when my memory was restored, so I don't know the exact time, but I had it at 5:41 AM when I woke up.”

Jason's expression twisted into something ugly. “Why didn't you tell me?” he hissed.

Somehow, Bruce didn't think Jason would have much sympathy if he explained he'd needed a little extra time to figure out how to convince Jason not to kill the Joker. “You've been studying so hard, Jay. I...I didn't want to sabotage your progress with such a huge distraction right before you took the last two sections of the GED.” That was at least true, even if it wasn't the whole truth.

“What about after that?”

Bruce sighed. “I promised you I'd buy you a car, and I was afraid that once you knew...I wouldn't get the chance to keep my promise. I've broken too many promises to you already,” Bruce said, which was also true.

“That's why you didn't want to wait for the test results,” Jason said, his expression one of dawning realization.

Even if he hadn't had his memories, though, Bruce was pretty sure he'd have done the exact same thing. “Jay, I don't need to see the results to know you passed. You've done so well on all those practice tests.”

Jason shook his head. “As if you care about practice tests, or the GED, or anything like that. When are you gonna bring up the one issue you really believe matters,” Jason snarled.

Bruce winced, trying desperately to think of some way to put off the inevitable confrontation until Jason was less angry and Bruce was better prepared. “I care about those tests because I want you to have a future, Jay, with all the opportunities that you deserve.”

“Let me guess. You want me to have the future you choose for me, not the one I choose for myself,” Jason said bitterly.

“I just want you to do the right thing—” Jason's chair scraped harshly against the wooden floor as he stood up abruptly, and Bruce felt like he'd just snipped the wrong wire on a bomb he'd been attempting to defuse. Instead of being deactivated, the explosion was just about to go off right in his face.

“Jay, please,” he whispered urgently. The gossiping pair were staring at them now, along with most of the other people in the restaurant. Bruce knew Jason wasn't attached to his civilian identity and wouldn't care if he got a reputation for being cruel and violent. He might retire this ID permanently, just to stay away from Bruce, but maybe he wouldn't feel that way about everyone. “You can say anything you want to me, but don't do it in a restaurant where Barbara comes with her father. People have seen the three of us eating here together. Don't make her pay for my mistakes.”

“Fine,” Jason hissed furiously, before slamming his chair back into the table and storming out. Bruce dropped a hundred dollars on the table before rushing to follow him. Jason had headed straight for his new car—but Bruce still had the spare key. He used it to remotely unlock all the doors as he sprinted after Jason. He only barely succeeded in jumping into the car before Jason peeled out, though. Bruce could see that Jay was furious that he had gotten in at all, but Bruce had been scared that if he hadn't jumped in, Jay might have disappeared on him forever. He still might when Bruce refused to kill the Joker, but he had to try to salvage this.

“...For what it's worth, I am happy that you're alive,” Bruce said because that would always be true. “I'm sorry I didn't tell you that before I lost my memory. I've missed you so much, Jay. I—I took it for granted that you knew how badly I wanted you to come back home, because in my mind that was never in question. I shouldn't have let it go unsaid, though, no matter the reason. I'm sorry we ended up fighting so much. I just wanted to help you—”

“You want to help me?” Jason demanded, his expression incredulous, as he reached up to scratch at the scar on his throat. “You know what would really help me? If you would finally kill the Joker!” There it was, the heartbreak Bruce had been dreading coming right for him. Despite all his frantic attempts, there was nothing he could do to avoid it.

“Jay, I can't.”

Jason braked the car hard, and the brand new tires screeched in a way the Batmobile's never would have, at least not since Bruce had upgraded them to be bullet proof. As soon as car stopped, Jason snapped, “Get out.” When Bruce hesitated for a moment, Jason continued, “Get out of this car, or I will.”

Bruce knew without a doubt that Jay would walk away from the gift that he'd been so excited for just a short while ago, so he left the spare key and got out. The moment he closed the door, Jason peeled out again, eliciting a chorus of cursing and horns from his fellow Gotham drivers. Because Gotham was a city that was very hard to love, it immediately started to rain.

Chapter Text

Unhappy but not surprised, Barbara stared hard at one of her screens, where she could see a brand new sports car was screeching away from Bruce Wayne. Deep down, she'd been pretty sure Bruce was going to mess this up, which was half the reason why she'd been watching security cameras in Gotham. The other half of the reason was that she'd been feeling bitter and resentful because Bruce had basically ordered her (along with everyone else) not to make contact with Jason. As Jay's friend, Barbara felt she had a vested interest in what was going on in his life, and if she wasn't going to interact with him, at the very least she wouldn't remain entirely ignorant of what he was going through. After already receiving one miracle, though, part of her had hoped that maybe a second might follow. Their lost Robin had already come back from the dead. Why couldn't he also come back home?

The day had at least started out well. Along with the contact ban from Batman, Oracle had woken up to a message from Black Canary, stating that Ollie had his memory back, and that Dinah would need to wrap up her work with the Birds of Prey at some point, in order to rejoin him in the JLA. A quick check on the Wayne Manor security system had revealed nothing exploded or on fire, and what Barbara had taken from that was that the JLA was finally functional again and it was too early for Red Hood and Batman to start fighting, so she could sleep in for once. She'd promptly rolled over and done just that, although for slightly longer than she'd been planning, her body snatching eagerly at any opportunity to catch up on rest.

By the time she'd woken up and started feeling really nervous due to the prolonged silence, a quick check of the cameras in Gotham close to Jay's cell phone signal had revealed that he and Bruce had been at a car dealership, looking at cars. Barbara had been frankly surprised that Jay would accept a such a large gift from Bruce, at least now that Bruce was also Batman, but it had seemed like a really good sign, so Barbara had held off a little longer on contacting Jay, even though she frankly didn't think Bruce had the right to decide who could contact his nineteen year old son. Instead, she'd spoken to Tim, a conversation which had significantly increased her doubt in Bruce's ability to handle emotional matters. Maybe she should have taken that as a sign to call Jay immediately, despite Batman's communication ban, because Bruce had just sadly proved that it was more impossible for him to successfully communicate with his own son than it was to have that same son return from the dead.

Barbara exhaled slowly and tried to calm down. She mentally reminded herself that she knew the outcome, but unlike in Tim's case, she didn't know what had actually been said. It wasn't fair to lay the blame all on Bruce, when she didn't even know the full facts. Due to an enormous number of traumas, starting at an early age and culminating in the Lazarus Pit, Jay could be prickly and distrustful and prone to misunderstandings. She was sure that, given how angry he'd looked when he'd stormed out of Con Amore, he hadn't been completely reasonable during his conversation with Bruce, either.

Of course, Jay's decision to kick Bruce out of his new car had been an outcome which Barbara had easily seen coming. She'd tried to call Bruce as Jay had stormed out, despite the communication ban, but of course he hadn't picked up. Either he'd deliberately ignored her, or he'd been too focused on Jay to even notice. Whatever the reason, she hadn't been able to warn him to never to press Jay when he was already that upset.

Honestly, that should have been obvious to anyone who understood how mentally and emotionally destabilizing immersion in the Lazarus Pit could be. Instead of giving Jason extra time to calm down, though, Bruce had sprinted after his retreating son and leaped into the car before he could escape to cool off. That had clearly been a bad move from her perspective, but then, she'd had the benefit of watching with the calm, dispassionate eye of a bystander. Barbara had enough self-awareness to know that if she had been personally embroiled in a high stakes emotional conversation, then she wouldn't have found it quite so easy to remain cool and logical, either.

Ultimately, sitting here blaming others wasn't going to do any good. What she needed to do was damage control. Therefore, she picked up her phone and sent Jason a message: “I've had all my memories the whole time, and even if you're fighting with Bruce again, I'm still glad to have my friend back. Call me and tell me how how your test went?” On her monitor, Jason's sports car sped through a yellow light and showed no signs of stopping. Realizing that he likely wouldn't think to check his messages for a while, Barbara called Bruce instead. As the situation had already blown up in his face, she suspected that the ban on communication was now over. If he was no good at talking, the least he could do was listen to her vent.

“Barbara, how is he?” Bruce asked, as soon as the call connected.

“Funny how you only pick up when you want information from me,” she replied sarcastically, even though she knew getting angry wasn't going to do any good here. She'd always had a soft spot for the Robins, though, and she hated how frequently it was Bruce himself that wounded them. “For your information, your son was absolutely heartbroken when he read your message.”

“What? What message?”

“What you should be asking is: which son?” Barbara replied testily. “Tim at some point got the disturbing idea into his head that you only took him in because you lost Jason.” From what Tim had said, that wasn't a new concern. “Now that you have Jay back again, at least for a given definition of 'back', Tim's worried that you might not want him around anymore.”

“What? Why would Tim think that?” Bruce asked, sounding completely mystified.

“Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's because, after Tim worked so hard to get your memories back, the first thing you did was message him to stay away and not contact you or Jason. It sounded to Tim like you were basically disowning him, Bruce!”

“No! That's not what I meant at all!” Bruce objected, sounding honestly distressed, and Barbara allowed herself an internal sigh of relief. She hadn't thought he'd meant anything like that, but it was always good to have direct confirmation. “I just wanted people to hold off on contacting me or Jason temporarily,” Bruce explained. “I didn't want anything to...distract Jay, right before he took the last two sections of the GED.”

“I see,” Barbara said, suddenly realizing why Jason had accepted that car from Bruce so easily. “So you wanted to conceal information for Jason's benefit.” Barbara found herself highly skeptical. “Then, I'm sure you told him you had your memories back as soon as he got out of the test?” she asked, unable to stop herself from sounding mildly accusing.

“I was...going to get to it,” Bruce replied haltingly. “When the time was right.”

“Yes, of course. Because the best way to rebuild trust in a relationship, especially where that trust has been previously severely strained, is to conceal incredibly important information from the other person,” she said sarcastically. The worst thing was, this was hardly the first time Bruce had been guilty of such serious secret keeping, despite knowing that he'd raised his sons to sniff out secrets like starving bloodhounds sniffed out food. “Then, let me guess, Jason figured out that you had your memory back, before you told him. He started the conversation angry, because you weren't honest. Tell me, how did that conversation go, Bruce? Because currently Jay seems to be giving his car a speed test—heading directly away from Wayne Manor.”

“I...it could have gone better.”

Barbara sighed. She'd been so incredibly busy lately, and she really didn't want to handle another crisis right now. She knew Bruce didn't typically intend to rile his children up, but it was hard not to feel resentful when his poor choices meant that she might not get to see Jay at all. She was supposed to fly to Gotham in just a few hours, but now Jay might be too busy putting space between himself and Bruce to visit with her. That worried her particularly because Jason wouldn't have any emotional support network to speak of, if he cut himself off from Batman and all of his associates, which sadly included her. “When you said it 'could have gone better', does that mean that Jay is not speaking to you anymore, or that he's not speaking to anyone?”

“He...didn't seem angry with you. But he wanted me to kill the Joker, and of course, I can't,” Bruce said, with the sad and solemn confidence of someone who believed he'd just delivered an unassailable argument.

“You told Jay that exactly? That you can't?”

Bruce grunted, which was his way of agreeing without going through the trouble of forming actual words.

“Well then, you've graduated from lying by omission to outright lying,” Barbara said, before attempting to wrestle her temper back under control. She hadn't been there for the conversation, and so she shouldn't rush to judgement. It was hard not to when she felt so protective of both Jay and Tim, though. Poor Tim had looked so downtrodden in the video chat they'd had earlier, before she'd assured him that she'd gotten the exact same “ban on contact” message, that Bruce hadn't singled Tim out for some permanent dismissal. Bruce could just be so horribly tactless in his communication, as if it was okay to make the bluntest possible statements in emotionally charged situations without ever actually explaining himself, leaving his kids to draw the worst conclusions. “When you didn't actually have your memory, back then you couldn't kill the Joker, Bruce. Now, you can, you just choose not to, perhaps for very good reasons, but there is a difference between can't and won't. Jay knows that difference, so if you're going to refuse, then at least give him the courtesy of the actual reasons why that choice is unacceptable to you. If you just say you can't, it will only sound like you're lying to him again.”

“I...would still be refusing, though. You really think giving my reasons would make any difference?”

Sometimes, talking to Bruce made Barbara want to tear someone's hair out in frustration—mostly, his. “Yes, I think giving the reasons behind an incredibly important decision you're making does, in fact, make a difference.”

“But I have told Jason why I didn't kill the Joker before,” Bruce said. A soft thump cut off the subtle sounds of rain from his end of the line, and Barbara glanced up at her row of monitors to see that Bruce had gotten into his car in the Con Amore parking lot. She took some petty satisfaction from the fact that he'd gotten soaking wet on the walk back, though.

“When you told Jay, was this in a calm situation where he had time to fully absorb and explore your reasoning for not killing his murderer? Or was this so called 'explanation' given in the middle of a fight, with guns drawn and batarangs flying and the Joker laughing at everything?”

“I wasn't throwing any batarangs while I was talking,” Bruce replied weakly.

“Hmm. I notice you didn't say anything about the guns or the Joker, so I'm guessing the situation was a little more fraught that would be desirable for actually conveying important information.” Barbara huffed in frustration. She badly needed more sleep than just a morning nap could provide before she dealt with this, but she clearly wasn't going to get it. “Bruce, after I was paralyzed from the waist down, I didn't have just one talk with my father about the Joker and the use of lethal force. We discussed it many times. My dad shared his long held convictions with me, about how using lethal force should be the absolute last resort that any police officer ever turns to. He listened to my questions and my arguments and just let me rant for hours, when that was what I needed. When I was calm enough to listen, he even shared his honest doubts about his own choices with me, and he certainly had more than a few, thanks to the Joker.”

Barbara thought back on how patient her own father had been with her, when she'd had no patience left, how honest, even when the truth was painful for him to admit, how accepting, even when what she'd had to say was painful for him to hear. Even though she had always been very independent, her father's unfailing support when she'd needed it most had meant the world to her.

“Above all, my dad made sure that I knew that his convictions were born out of love. He tries his best to do the right thing, not out of some esoteric commitment to some arbitrarily chosen system of morality, but because he wants to be the sort of police officer that I can be proud of. He believes that, on balance, setting an example of restraint from bloodshed as Gotham's police commissioner is one of the most important, if hardest, ways he can improve on an imperfect system. He hopes to make the world a better place by personally setting the best example he possibly can.” It was in large part thanks to those difficult but heartfelt conversations that Barbara had moved past the massive initial rage and bitterness she'd felt following her injury. That had enabled her think of something besides revenge as she physically recovered.

“If my guess is right, you had exactly one conversation with Jay about your reasons since he came back, and it was under distracting circumstances more than a year ago. Do you truly think that's enough?” Barbara demanded incredulously. “Bruce, Jay was murdered—not quickly or gently, but brutally, with more than enough time to understand and dread his coming death. If you're lucky, it will only take you several dozen conversations to adequately explain your reasons for how you've dealt with his murderer. Importantly, you need to have those talks when Jason is not already angry at the start. If you'd just picked up your phone earlier, I could have warned you that chasing after Jason today, when he was obviously trying to get some space to calm down, was a bad idea. He's come so far, but Jay is still a teenager who was in the Lazarus Pit. You may sometimes need to give him extra time to get his head together, before trying to have a difficult conversation with him.”

“But if I'd let him get away, Barbara, I might never have gotten a chance to speak to him again.”

For a moment, Barbara just sat frozen in shock. “Bruce, what are you talking about? Jay is your son. He loves you,” she said, a little surprised that she needed to even say that. “He's not going to disappear forever, no matter how badly you messed up. Now, I can certainly see him withdrawing and brooding angrily for the next few months, but that's only because you've proven that you won't give him space when he needs it, so he's unlikely to chance another confrontation before he's gotten himself completely sorted out. If you'd just let him drive off to calm down, though, you probably could have had a much more productive talk in a few days, at most.”

“...You really think so?” Bruce asked, his voice lacking all its characteristic confidence.

“Of course. Bruce, tell me you're not sitting in a parking lot, soaking wet, brooding over how you've lost Jason forever.” He was suspiciously silent, and Barbara sighed, feeling a swell of sympathy for him, even if many of his wounds were at least partially self-inflicted. “You and Jay really do have too much in common, sometimes. You realize that he has just as much difficulty trusting that your affection is real and lasting?”

“I tried to tell him how important he is to me, that I just wanted to help him...”

“After you got your memory back?”

“Yes, after we left Con Amore.”

That obviously hadn't been the right time, as Jason had already been angry and distrustful by then, due to Bruce's serious lie by omission, but Barbara supposed she should be grateful that Bruce had managed to say anything on that topic at all. “And how did Jason respond to that?” Before he could answer, she clarified, “I need an exact answer Bruce, not just his words, but his body language and tone of voice.”

“I...I wasn't paying much attention to his body language, but he was scratching at the scar I gave him when he said that if I wanted to help him, I should kill the Joker. He sounded angry and bitter.”

“Wait, back up. You gave Jay a scar?” Bruce was quiet for another very long moment, and Barbara felt herself getting angry again. “Bruce, I am trying to help you, but I can't do that unless you're honest with me.”

“...The night Chemo fell on Bludhaven, Red Hood arranged a confrontation between me and him, in a room with the Joker and enough C4 to blow up the entire building,” Bruce said slowly and haltingly, as if he were dredging each heavy word laboriously up from a deep pit where he'd intended to bury them for the rest of time. “Jason held a gun to the Joker's head and told me...”

Barbara waited for several long seconds before gently prodding, “Told you what, Bruce?”

“He...he wanted me to choose: his life or the Joker's. He tossed me a gun and said that I could shoot to kill him, or he'd shoot to kill the Joker.”

Barbara could already see where this was going. “Obviously, you couldn't kill Jay. I'm guessing you didn't want to watch him kill, either.”

“I didn't want him to kill,” Bruce confirmed. “So...I stopped him.”

“Bruce, this scar we're talking about, is it the one at the base of Jay's throat that I've seen him scratching at before?” He'd done it at lot when they'd talked about the Joker, but Barbara had just assumed that it was a nervous habit and that talking about the Joker made Jay nervous, not that Jay had gotten it from Batman during a confrontation which actually involved the Joker. Now that she thought about it, though, it did seem like it could be a scar from a batarang.

“...Yes, that's the scar I gave him,” Bruce confirmed, sounding like the words had been dragged out of him. It was obvious why he'd be reluctant to admit that, and Barbara felt herself getting angry at him all over again.

“Bruce, that scar is uncomfortably close to Jason's carotid artery. If he'd moved even a small amount in the wrong direction before that batarang hit...”

“I know,” Bruce replied, and he sounded like he'd been swallowing caltrops.

“Why would you choose to strike him there, then?” Barbara asked, now more mystified than angry that Bruce had selected a strategy which he so obviously regretted. “Surely there must have been a better option.”

“There was. I wanted to hit his gun, but I...I miscalculated.” That was about as close as Batman ever got to admitting that he'd messed up royally, and he sounded miserable enough that Barbara decided pressing further wasn't going to help anyone.

“Okay. You miscalculated and hit Jason in a much more damaging way than you intended. Did you happen to hurt the Joker at all during that confrontation?”

“...No. After my batarang hit Jason, the Joker... He got free, and he set off the C4 in the room before I could act.”

Barbara sighed. No wonder Jay had refused to talk about that disastrous night. “So, Jay asked you to choose between him and the Joker, and in response, you attacked Jay but not the Joker, who actually got free because you hit Jay, which allowed the Joker to try to kill you all. Then, today, you said you just wanted to help Jay, but from his perspective, what you did helped the Joker, and hurt Jay. So, even though you claimed to have wanted to help him, from Jay's perspective, that didn't match Batman's past actions at all.”

“I was trying to help him!” Bruce insisted. Barbara didn't doubt his sincerity.

“I know that Bruce, but does Jay? You lied by omission about whether you had your memories back, and then when you said you wanted to help him, Jay may have seen it as just another lie, because it didn't match up with his experiences. Did you ever actually explain to Jay that it was a mistake that you hit him with the batarang instead of his gun, that you never meant to hurt him that badly?”

“I...Jay must know that already,” Bruce said, and he sounded almost pleading.

Barbara frowned. “Bruce, the Venn diagram of what you consider obvious and what Jay considers obvious may not have as much overlap as you seem to think. Jay may have actually asked you to kill the Joker during your argument earlier at least partly because he was calling you out on what he sees as a lie. You said you wanted to help him, but the last time Jason really wanted Batman to do something for him, you helped the Joker over him, at least from Jay's perspective. Next time he hits you with that request, try telling him that you're sorry that you hurt him before, that you meant to hit the gun and not him, and that even though you won't commit murder for whatever specific reasons you choose to enumerate, you would be happy to help Jay seek justice and happiness in his life in other ways.”

“But the only thing Jay wants is for me to kill the Joker.” Now she knew where Tim had gotten that black and white thinking from.

“Did Jay actually say that was the only thing he wanted?”

“...No,” Bruce grudgingly admitted.

“Then don't put words into his mouth.” Barbara sighed. “Bruce, Jay was angry and likely lashing out. The person he thought he could trust turned into a liar without his even knowing. In addition to calling you out for saying you want to help when you didn't actually help him before, Jay may have chosen his words at least partly to hurt you just as much as he was hurting at that moment. When he's relatively calm, Jay thankfully doesn't have the sort of one track mind you're afraid of. He's actually has made a lot of progress with Dick on the specific issue of killing the Joker.”

“He has?” Bruce asked, sounding surprised and suddenly more hopeful.

“Yes. They couldn't talk about it in front of you, obviously, because your amnesia would have made you reject the vigilante justice context of most of what they were discussing. They have actually spoken about this several times, though, and as far as I can tell, Jay's insistence that the Joker should be killed is a combination of two separate things. First, Jay is disgusted with the current justice system's track record for stopping certain repeat killers, the most notorious of which is the Joker, and he honestly believes that killing the perpetrators may be the only way to stop them from destroying more innocent lives. Second—and I think Talia al Ghul bears a large part of the blame for this—Jay also has the idea that if you truly love someone who is murdered, the obvious way to express that love is by killing that person's murderer. Now, the first part is the reason that Jay thinks someone should kill the Joker, but it is only the second part which makes him think that someone who loves him should be involved in doing it.”

“Fortunately, Jay has actually stopped asking Dick to kill, because he's realized that it would honestly be really damaging to his mental health. What you need to do is make it clear to Jay that you are not actually invincible, that it would be extremely damaging for you mentally and emotionally to take a life, and that you sincerely do love Jay, even if you haven't 'avenged' him—or whatever nonsense Talia filled his head with.”

“You think that could actually work?”

“Well, not if you insist on saying it exclusively when Jay is frothing mad already. But if you find a time where he's calm to explain it to him—perhaps more than once—yes, I think it will work. He wants to believe that you care about him, Bruce.” Even when he spoke about his own murder, Jay still didn't sound as sad and vulnerable as he did when he worried that he wouldn't have a family anymore, after Bruce got his memories back. “Jay's just scared and distrustful because he's been failed and betrayed by a lot of people, including parental figures, many times in the past. If you can just be consistently supportive, though, I think he'll come around. It took a couple of months, but he really started to trust you again when you still had amnesia, right?”

“Yes, he started accepting my words at face value again, and he dropped his guard around me,” Bruce said, something like wonder in his voice. “He—Barbara, does Jay still have the car?” Bruce asked a little urgently.

She checked her cameras again. “Yes, he's still driving it,” she confirmed, realizing what Bruce was getting at. “As much as Jay loves fast cars, he would have ditched that in a hot minute if he was truly finished with you.”

“Yes. Jay can't stand the feeling of being beholden to anyone outside of close friends and family.”

“You see, Bruce? This is fixable. Granted, getting Jay to accept that you won't kill the Joker is different from getting him to accept that no one should, but as long as you—”

Barbara paused, staring at the alert which had suddenly popped up on her primary screen. It had to be a coincidence. Maybe one of the new doctors had ordered additional blood work done, on the fruitless theory that adjusting the Joker's medication again could improve his disposition, or maybe someone had brought in bed bugs and Arkham was being fumigated for the second time this year. Barbara usually got these alerts every few months, and there was often some entirely mundane reason for why the Joker was out of his cell for more than an hour. There often was, but every once in a while, the Joker wasn't there because he was making an escape attempt.

Barbara found her heart suddenly pounding and her breath speeding up. She normally didn't let herself get this worked up by a routine alert, but talking about Jay's savage murder and the dark days after her own crippling had stirred up old worries and brought to mind new ones. What if Jason, as emotionally compromised as he was at the moment, was lured into another trap? Would he even listen if Barbara called and tried to warn him right now?

Her hands shook slightly as she switched between different Arkham camera feeds. The Joker wasn't in the cafeteria or at the exercise yard. No garish green hair at the nurse's station or by the X-ray or MRI machines. No horrible red grin in any of the psychologists' offices or any of the visiting rooms. The more places she searched without finding the Joker, the more frantic she got.

She wasn't even aware that she was muttering “no, no, no” under her breath, until Batman's voice broke her out of her mental spiral. “Oracle, report. What's going on?” He sounded worried, probably because she was panicking. She saw on one of her screens that he'd pulled out of the Con Amore parking lot and was headed back toward Wayne Manor and the Batcave.

“It's—you know I set up an alert, to tell me if the Joker has been out of his cell for more than an hour. Normally, that happens when some guard takes him straight from his exercise time to a blood draw or something like that, but I can generally find him on one of the other cameras.” If she couldn't, then she'd rewind the feed on his cell by a couple of hours and figure out where he'd gone from there, which she would already have been doing if she wasn't busy panicking. Think, she reminded herself. Think calmly. She rewound the footage.

“I'm headed home now. When I get to the Cave, I can get the suit and the Batmobile and head straight to Arkham,” Batman growled.

“I don't know if it's an issue yet. They could just be temporarily moving him through an area without cameras,” Barbara warned him, feeling a little embarrassed that she'd let herself get so worked up about what could turn out to be nothing. The Joker had apparently been napping peacefully in his cell two hours ago, little as he deserved it.

“Then I'll waste some gas,” Bruce replied. There were some times when Barbara couldn't stand Batman, because he was so silent when those closest to him needed words and so withdrawn when they needed comfort, but then there were other times when she felt like she could forgive him for all of those failings, because he was generally the first one out the door when someone in Gotham really needed a hero.

“Okay, I found something,” she said. “About one hundred and five minutes ago, the Joker's lunch was delivered to his cell. Normally he's up taunting whoever makes the delivery, but today he didn't get out of bed. About eighty five minutes ago, six security guards went into his cell very cautiously, probably to figure out why he's so still. It looks like he decided to play possum. They couldn't get him to wake up.” The Joker had to have planned something, and Barbara only hoped no one had already been widowed or orphaned today.

She fast forwarded through what looked like a tense argument between the security staff. “About seventy minutes ago, a doctor entered the cell. She was cautious, too,” Barbara said, at least grateful that everyone involved seemed to have taken the danger the Joker represented seriously. She frowned at the video as it played at five times normal speed. “The doctor apparently checked all the Joker's vitals—twice.” Barbara watched on just a little incredulously. “There she goes, using the stethoscope at third time.” What was going on?

“They're...they put the Joker on a stretcher.” Barbara started pulling up hallway video feeds from an hour ago, and then a feed from the nurse's station. “They did take him to one of the medical rooms, but he's not in there anymore, they took him to—” Barbara felt hot and cold chills running up and down her spine, and phantom pains from the feet she could no longer feel.

“Where? They took him where, Oracle?” Batman pressed, urgently.

“The morgue,” she whispered, wondering if this would be a day that put her worst nightmares to rest or only added to them. Was this just the beginning of another of the Joker's awful plans, or could that monster really, truly be gone? It was only now that Barbara noticed that the live feeds in Arkham showed employees grinning and slapping each other on the back. A pair in the break room were even toasting each other.

“It could be a trick,” Batman said.

“I know. I'm going to check his medical records. Maybe there's something in there.” Barbara bypassed Arkham's cyber security using a back door she'd installed long ago. “They ran blood work on site immediately,” she said, glad for the money Bruce had donated to make that possible. “Some preliminary results are in. Heart attack, the doctors think. It's a possible case of cardiac glycoside poisoning,” Barbara said, feeling cautious hope starting to kindle in her heart. Could it really be?

She heard the sudden screeching of a civilian car's tires over the phone. “Batman?”

“I...cardiac glycoside?”

“Yes, they think he was poisoned.” Barbara grinned. “If that's true, maybe don't work too hard trying to find the poisoner?” she suggested, feeling almost giddy.

“I think...it's too late,” Batman said, and she watched on one of her cameras as he pulled over to the side of the road.

“What do you mean? You already know who did it?” That was quick, even for Batman.

She heard him take a shaking breath and let it out slowly. “Barbara, you said that when I didn't have my memories, I couldn't kill the Joker, and you were right that I couldn't do it directly. But I still remembered enough chemistry to make a poison to give to someone else,” Batman admitted, pained.

Barbara mentally ran the words through her head again, just to be sure she was understanding him correctly. Batman couldn't be implying what she thought he was, could he? “But you're the staunchest proponent of the no-kill rule in the entire JLA.”

“Batman is a staunch proponent of that, yes. But I wasn't Batman for months, and I didn't remember all the reasons I have for not killing,” Bruce said, sounding like Black Mask had pulled his entrails out and was twisting them around in gruesome ways in front of him. “More than that, I was unable to even accept the possibility that I could be anything like a vigilante, so I didn't mentally have the option of taking up a mask to seek justice my own way. I just knew that Jay had been murdered once, and that Arkham never holds the Joker for long. I knew if he got out, that he'd kill more, maybe even kill Jay again, and there would have been nothing I could do to stop him once he got out, because I couldn't be Batman. So, I had to stop him from getting out.”

Barbara frowned as the timeline didn't make sense. “But you remember being Batman now, and the Joker didn't die until earlier today, when you already had your memory back.”

“That's because I colluded with a moron to kill the Joker, and then when he didn't die immediately, I stupidly made an assumption that Geoff Barnell had failed completely,” Bruce replied, his tone of voice implying that the words themselves physically pained him. “Because I thought the matter was over, I didn't bother to reconsider what might have happened when I got my memory back. The only thing I focused on today was Jay. Now, though, it's obvious what must have happened. I didn't remember it, back when I didn't recall I was Batman, but Arkham actually orders a dozen bottles of the Joker's medication at a time.”

Barbara thought back over what she knew. The Joker had gotten a specially formulated medication which came in fifty milliliter portions per bottle, and his normal dose had been five milliliters, twice a day. That meant each bottle would only have lasted five days, so obviously the Arkham staff would have bought a lot of bottles at once, to avoid having to place special orders once or twice a week. “They were keeping a sixty day supply,” Barbara muttered. “Without your memories, you wrongly assumed that they'd have gone through all the medication on hand quickly, but with a dozen bottles potentially in stock, it could be up to two months before someone started using the poisoned one.”

“Yes,” Bruce said, and she'd never heard him sound so lost. That, more than anything, was what made this feel real.

“Oh my god,” she whispered, her normally quick mind grinding to a halt for a moment, trying to reconcile that completely unexpected truth with everything else she knew about Batman. “Oh my god, you killed the Joker.” She wasn't sure how she should feel about the fact that it had been Bruce who'd done it. The only thing she really understood clearly was her sheer relief that the Joker was finally gone.

“You don't have to sound so happy about it!” Bruce said, sounding gutted himself. “I've killed a man.”

It was probably a little tactless to keep smiling, but for the first time in a long while, a smile didn't feel like it could be a tainted thing, anymore. Jay was finally fully safe from his killer. Barbara would never have to worry about opening a door only to find that terrible red smile on the other side. She wouldn't have to spend any more sleepless nights, after a successful Arkham escape, desperately afraid that her dad would die with mad laughter on his lips. Never again would the G.C.P.D. lose another SWAT team to one monster's idea of a sick joke. Oracle would never have to look at another homicide report and wonder if it was partly her fault, for not doing more to stop the Joker from killing again. How could she not feel happy about having all those terrible possibilities suddenly removed? Still, she understood that the situation was not so clear cut for Bruce.

“I'm sorry you have his death weighing on you now,” she told Bruce, because regardless of everything else, he was a friend. Still, Jay was her friend, too, as well as Dick and Tim and many other people the Joker had targeted in the past, many of whom would likely have been hurt again in the future, if the Joker had just gotten the chance. When she weighed the scales in her mind, could the added weight on Batman's shoulders really render this outcome “bad”, when so much terrible weight had been lifted from so many by the Joker's death? Gotham was finally free of its most notorious scourge, and Barbara could not help thinking that most people would be happier about that.

Perhaps Bruce guessed at her thoughts, because he insisted, “It's not right to be happy about a murder.”

“Are you saying that more to me or to yourself?” Barbara replied, because she was sure that Bruce's feelings about the Joker's death weren't entirely negative. “But you're right, Bruce, no one should be happy about another person's death. Right now, though, the security cameras in Arkham are showing the staff looking like they just collectively won the lotto. If so many people are so happy that the Joker is dead, but not about the deaths of his victims, then what does that actually imply? Could it be that the fault lies with the the person who has wronged so many people so horrifically and so continually and so deliberately that they can't help but feel joy when that awful threat is removed?”

“Barbara,” Bruce said warningly, because he always did insist on brooding, even when he didn't need to.

“Don't make it more complex than it is, Bruce. What it comes down to is a simple choice. Will you blame the innocent for having a natural human reaction to being hurt and terrorized? Or will you put the fault where it belongs, on a creature so utterly devoid of love and conscience that no one wanted him alive?”

Batman was silent.

“You've killed a monster, and I am not going to feel sorry that he's dead—but I do understand that this is hard for you.” Barbara paused, as another thought occurred to her. “Also, it makes you look like a bit of a hypocrite, but I think Jay will be willing to forgive that, under the circumstances.”

“Jason...” Bruce groaned. “How will I explain this to him...?”

“I find starting with the truth generally helps,” Barbara pointed out dryly.

“I...he's going to think I did the right thing, when I obviously made the wrong choice.”

Barbara frowned. “You made the wrong choice for Batman, but maybe you made the right choice for Bruce Wayne.”

“I'm not Two-Face,” Batman growled. “I can't have it both ways.”

“No, and maybe that's the problem. Because as Bruce Wayne or Batman, you could tell the system was broken, where the Joker was concerned. It wasn't delivering justice. The diagnosis of insanity is supposed to be a defense against prosecution for a defendant who didn't understand that what he was doing was wrong, at least at the time he committed a crime. The Joker may have had aberrant thoughts and desires, but he wouldn't have been able to escape so often if he didn't understand people and the security systems they make so well. The Joker knew how society was supposed to work, what the rules were, and he absolutely reveled in breaking them. He knew what he was doing was incredibly wrong, by society's legal standards, and yet he deliberately did it anyway. He shouldn't have been excused for that, but as long as he spent the majority of his day laughing maniacally, no psychologist was going to say he was competent to stand trial. He used his personal idiosyncrasies to game a system which was never equipped to securely hold him.”

“I know you can see that too, Bruce, but as long as you're Batman, you have to believe that you can always stop any opponent. Because that's how Batman works, right?”

Batman paused a moment before replying. “If I let myself give in to despair and think that there's no way to win, then I'll miss an opportunity,” he said in that familiar dark rumble of a voice which Barbara hadn't ever heard while Bruce had amnesia. “I have to always look for a way, and that starts with believing that there always is a way,” Batman told her, as she knew he would.

“And so you had to believe that you can always stop the Joker.”

“Of course.”

“But Bruce, I can't walk anymore,” she said, trying to keep her voice gentle as she pointed out a clear but painful truth, “and Jason was literally murdered, so although it may always have been theoretically possible that you could stop the Joker, assuming that you always would stop the Joker was a pretty arrogant leap. One I'm sure Batman made with ease,” she said with a wry twist of her lips, “but is it so bad that you were able to see things from Jay's point of view, for once? Because I assure you, after his murder, he didn't look at the Joker and think that Batman would always find a way to stop him. Jay looked at the Joker and thought that no matter how many times you temporarily delayed him, the Joker would always find a way to kill again. And you know what, Bruce? I don't blame Jay for thinking that, because that conclusion was directly based on his own fatal experience.”

Bruce made an uncomfortable sound, as if she'd stuck a small knife into his side. Sometimes, the truth could be a sharp weapon.

“As an unenhanced human, there have been a lot of times where you've won above your weight class, because you have an incredible level of mental toughness,” Barbara acknowledged, giving Batman the respect that he was due. “You don't ever allow yourself to be cowed or intimidated. You resist with all your might when someone tries to place limits on you. You believe, at all times, that you can succeed. Well, here's the really awful thing: the Joker had the exact same philosophy. That was the thing I always found most frightening about him: Batman's determination and drive, but the goals of a mass murderer.” The thought had used to scare her breathless, when she woke from nightmares of her own crippling, late at night. It had made her compulsively code up more and more alerts, before she could get back to sleep, and even then, she never slept as well as she used to. She'd had far too many dreams of that awful smile.

“The Joker tried to kill Robin many, many times, until he finally succeeded—because just like you, he always believed that there was a way for him to win. That is the monster you were playing against, and that is why I had a dozen different alerts set up for the Joker. I've known that you would always try to stop him, but Bruce, since I found myself in a hospital bed hearing that I would never walk again, I haven't believed that you would always succeed. Until now, of course. Now, I believe it.”

“You believe it because the Joker's dead.”

She smiled wryly. “Considering his successful record of prior escape attempts, that was the only way I was ever truly going to believe it,” Barbara admitted.

Bruce probably didn't like the sound of that, because he went completely silent for several seconds. She hadn't said it to hurt him, though. She'd said it because it was the simple truth.

“Bruce, I know you have good intentions. You believe so much in the moral code you live and are willing to die by, and that is impressive. But how much right do you have to ask everyone else to live and die by your code? How much right do you have to ask Jay to die by your code, when he's already died once?”

“I...you can't really think that killing is the right answer.”

“Bruce, I'm not convinced there is a right answer, sometimes,” Barbara told him, frustrated. “Some situations are just messy, with no options that anyone wants to live with.” She'd thought about what should be done with the Joker for so long, from so many different angles. She'd never come up with an answer that was truly satisfying, barring a random meteorite striking him dead on the spot.

“That doesn't give us the right to kill,” Bruce replied, the conviction in his voice so strong it almost sounded like anger.

“No, but when we act as vigilantes, it's not because we have legal rights to do so, either. We simply judge that it is better for us to act, without any right, than for no one to act, which will allow terrible things to happen. Why is it that we can justify taking some actions by that reasoning but not others?” Barbara asked, partly because she knew that Jason was someday going to ask Bruce that question, and partly because she still wrestled with exactly where to draw the line herself.

“Because killing is different. It's permanent in a way other things aren't. You know this, and the fact that you're playing devil's advocate here, Oracle, is proof that you personally are too biased about the Joker to regard the situation rationally.”

“Oh, I am biased about this—and you aren't?” she retorted, offended. “All those times we sent the Joker back to Arkham, Bruce, only for him to escape and kill yet more people, those weren't choices with permanent consequences? You have a code you're willing to die for—and sometimes I wonder if you think it would literally kill you to question it. Is your way truly the only way? Is anyone who questions you automatically wrong?” she asked, because even if Bruce were completely right about everything, which she very much doubted, it was still arrogant and patronizing of him to treat his personal moral code as unassailable law, when it was something he'd decided on himself with very little input from anybody else. At minimum, Bruce needed to be open to questions, or he and Jay were going to have a lot of difficulty working things out.

“I'm not having this argument with you right now, Oracle,” Batman growled angrily. “I have too many other pressing concerns.” When he hung up on her, Barbara couldn't say she was surprised. After a few deep breaths, she realized that she probably shouldn't have tried to have this conversation when he was already so off balance. Bruce was just as bad as Jay was, in that way. If she'd wanted him to be reasonable, she should have given him some time to calm down first.

Still, she wasn't sorry that she'd refuse to give Bruce the morally outraged condemnation he was obviously expecting. No doubt he was going to find a nice dark cave to brood in for a little while as he put his thoughts about the Joker's death together. That was probably a good thing, because Oracle now had a lot of work to do to save Bruce from himself.

Chapter Text

Jason glanced at the little amber light on the car dash, which was currently indicating that he was low on gas. At the moment, though, even finding a gas station felt like too much to handle, so Jason reluctantly pulled over into a deserted warehouse parking lot. He'd started out driving away from Bruce as fast as possible, which had then progressed to circling aimlessly around Gotham, as the anger started to fade enough for his fears and doubts to creep in. While he'd still been driving, at least Gotham's cutthroat drivers, poorly laid out roads, and ever present traffic had given Jason something else to focus on. Now, he had nothing to occupy him but his own thoughts, which swung back and forth between fury and fear.

Bruce had spent half a day lying to him, letting Jason think that he was still a harmless amnesiac civilian, when Batman was anything but. Looking back, Jason felt so stupid to have trusted him blindly enough to have given him the spare key to the car, which Bruce had then used to jump into it, as if he were staging a criminal pursuit in the Con Amore parking lot. All Jason had wanted to do was to get away to think. He felt a another surge of anger filling him.

He was supposed to have had more time to prepare for this, a couple more days at least, as of the last estimate he'd gotten from Tim. Granted, Tim had made it clear that he wanted to use the machine as soon as it was ready, and Jason had been too busy studying for the last two sections of the GED this weekend to pester him for updates. Still, it would have taken next to no effort on Robin's part to just send out a quick warning that the JLA members' memories had been restored, and Jason found himself getting angry at Tim. That anger was dwarfed, though, by his anger at Bruce—and at himself.

How had everything gone so wrong so quickly? Barbara and Dick had both been coaching him on how to have the difficult conversation they all knew was coming when Bruce got his memory back, and Jason had even made a list of “disagreements” (on paper, so that Oracle couldn't peek), which he and Bruce could hopefully use as discussion points. He'd written down not just his positions on various issues of contention, but exactly why he had taken those positions, and at Dick's insistence, he'd also written down what he thought Bruce's positions were and why Jason thought he had taken them. When Jason had admitted that the descriptions he'd made of Bruce's reasons had looked much sparser than the descriptions of his own (and had included some lines like “because Batman is an asshole”), Barbara had insisted that was proof Jason needed to work harder to understand all of Bruce's reasons before anything else.

While he was still pretty sure Batman was legitimately an asshole at least some of the time, Jason had to admit that Barbara was frequently right and that ignoring her advice tended not to work out very well. With that in mind, he'd made a plan for how to handle the inevitable return of the Bat. The day the machine was supposed to be done, Jason would make sure he got plenty of sleep so that he wasn't starting off tired, and he'd go for a short run in the morning so he wasn't restless, and then he'd take a hot shower and read one of his favorite books so he was relaxed and in a good mood. Then, when Bruce got his memory back, they'd go sit down in the library with a pot of chamomile tea, which Alfred had always sworn was soothing.

According to Jason's very sensible plan, he and Bruce would have a calm, respectful discussion until they clearly understood each other—and then they would probably realize that they still had serious and perhaps unresolvable disagreements. Jason had hoped they'd at least get through step one, though. Even Jason and Tim had managed to achieve a basic level of mutual understanding, so it hadn't seemed like such a lofty goal for Jason and Batman to simply have an initial conversation about where they each stood on important issues.

Of course, Batman just had to go and wreck everything. The only part of the plan Jason had actually followed, entirely by accident, was getting enough sleep. He had left the talking points he'd listed out at home because he hadn't thought he needed to bring his “disagreements” crib sheet to the GED test. He hadn't taken hours to mentally prepare and relax before he calmly spoke to Bruce.

Instead, Jason had found out suddenly, in public, that Batman had been playing him for a fool. He'd started the conversation feeling furious, something Barbara and Dick had both warned him would blow up in his face. How could Jason not be furious, though, when Bruce had been letting him ignorantly walk around for hours, his guard completely down, saying whatever honest but vulnerable thoughts popped into his head, only to learn that he'd been spilling all his soft and private feelings to the same man who'd chosen the Joker over him?

Of course Jason had been pissed! He'd at least realized that he was dangerously angry, though, when Bruce had pointed out that people had seen them eat with Barbara at Con Amore before and that there would be consequences for her if Jason continued their argument there. That was the point where it had abruptly dawned on Jason that there were an awful lot of civilian ears around listening to their private argument as it got louder, and his failure to account for that from the start had been proof that he was too angry to fully think through the consequences of what he was saying. After that, Jason had actually tried to leave to cool off before he said something he would later end up regretting, but of course Bruce had chased after him as zealously as he would have chased any criminal.

The first things he'd said when he'd gotten into the car had made Jason's heart twist, because he couldn't have actually meant them, could he? Batman lied so much, so why not lie about that, too? Then he'd said he only wanted to help Jason, but the last time Jason had seen Batman, he'd sliced a scar into Red Hood's throat and helped the Joker get free. There were only so many lies Jason was willing to tolerate, and that hadn't been one of them, so he'd been justified in kicking Bruce out of the car, hadn't he?

It was only when Jason looked over toward the passenger seat he'd kicked Bruce out of that he saw the spare key sitting there. Bruce had actually left it behind. What did that mean? It confused Jason almost as much as Bruce's little speech when he'd gotten into the car.

Why was Bruce trying so hard to give him such an expensive gift, when a year ago, Batman had treated Red Hood like an enemy? But Bruce had been so nice earlier that day. Jason hadn't even noticed the difference from when he'd been amnesiac. Was all of that an act? Truly? If it wasn't all an act, if Bruce had been sincerely trying... Had Jason had an actual chance to work things out with him, only to destroy it by letting his temper explode in Bruce's face? The thought was more painful than a crowbar to the ribs.

Feeling miserable again, as the balance of his emotions shifted from righteous anger to guilty fear that he'd been the one in the wrong, Jason finally decided to check his phone. He'd felt it vibrate soon after he'd driven away from Bruce, but he'd been putting off dealing with it. Now, though, he felt awful enough that he didn't think whatever this new annoyance was could possibly make things much worse.