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I. Sisyphus
Jason’s mouth is dry and his blood just starting to clot when he shoots the Joker in the head.
The Joker’s neck whips back, and before it can right itself, Jason shoots the Joker in the head again.
Before the body hits the floor, there are four more bullet holes littering his chest. Jason stands on shaking legs. The building around them is collapsing theatrically, its old bones sent crumbling in the explosion. He sees it in slow motion, the debris like feathers, falling, a crossbeam swinging merrily to the floor. There’s dust in his eyelashes, and every other blink, he opens his eyes to a dark Gotham night, snow falling and soaking him in his threadbare hoodie to the bone.
Jason’s ribs are broken. His body is painted over in rectangles of black and bruise. There’s blood coming from somewhere on his face, smearing his cheekbone and his wrists. He’s got a gun in his hand and dust in his eyes he can’t get out.
Jason blinks and he’s in an alley, holding a tire iron, sizing up his prey. He blinks and he’s holding a crowbar in a warehouse, a screaming boy and a woman huffing slow on a cigarette. He blinks and the building is still falling around him and the Joker is still missing half his skull.
He walks to the body, the Joker’s legs straight and unmoving, and raises his gun to shoot again. All that comes out is a soft click.
Jason tosses the gun aside, pulls out a second, and unloads another magazine into the Joker’s chest. He tosses that gun aside and pulls out a third. Shot, after shot, after shot, after shot. What's left of the Joker’s face trembles gruesomely with each impact, but he’s not smiling anymore.
He’s never going to again.
That's the thought that stills Jason’s hand, still perched on the trigger of a gun long since out of bullets. He can never hurt anyone ever again. He can never hurt Jason ever again.
His head is clearer than it’s been in years.
The beam overhead lets out a crack. Jason stays where he’s standing and looks up to it as it floats down. He blinks and it’s snow. He blinks and it’s metal. He blinks and the shadow growing over him belongs to a long, dark cloak instead, to a man beckoning him closer, calling his name, begging him to live.
It lands. Jason buckles, and he will come back or he won’t. He doesn’t care. Jason just takes it in, before it all goes black: the ash in snow drifts around him, and the cold, clean feel of the blood on his hands.
He comes back.
Jason claws his way out of the rubble, skin still closing, bruises still shrinking, bones still snapping themselves back into place, and he’s the lightest he’s ever been. Catharsis, Aristotle said, comes in the wake of tragedy. He’s inclined to agree.
Wreckage and twisted steel and dust trying to settle. Jason looks around the explosion site and he sees a wasteland. He looks ahead, and he sees the rest of his life.
And he smiles, dust and blood smudged across his face, caved-in cheekbone popping back up.
Somewhere the Joker's body is still cooling on the ground, and far in the distance, a siren sings. Jason brushes the dirt from his clothes, slots his arm back into its socket, and goes home.
Back in his apartment, it hasn’t set in yet. His helmet is off already, stashed underneath his jacket to hide it from the doorman when he went in through the lobby. Jason slips off his shoes. Washes his face in the kitchen sink. He looks at his hands and sees them rimmed in red light from the neon sign shining through his window. He looks in the mirror and sees his face rimmed in blue. It turns the scar on his temple cornflower, and the scar across his lips ultramarine.
Jason looks in the mirror and smiles like two continents cracking apart. Between his bloody, chapped lips, flows the sea.
It’s not the first time he’s died.
Scratch that. That’s obvious. Jason’s first death is written into him, etched across his body, carved into his bones. Jason’s first death is as true and real and eternal as the sun.
It’s more like— It’s not the first time he’s come back. Or the second. The third. Honestly Jason has lost track, has stopped counting. Has stopped relying on death, has stopped relying on life. Jason’s one and only constant: Jason. The only thing that hasn’t failed him yet.
This is a fact of his life: Jason gets himself killed; Jason comes back; Jason stitches up his wounds on the floor by the window in his apartment.
His place isn’t exactly nice. It’s run down and drafty. There’s a leak he’s fixed a dozen times that keeps on breaking. But on dark nights like these, in the technicolor of the Asian grocer across the street, Jason looks out, and it’s like the whole city is looking back in at him.
So Jason’s on the floor in his apartment. The building is gone, just brick and metal and ash. The Joker is dead, and Jason isn’t even still bleeding.
A car speeds down his street. The moon is clouded over in the sky.
It starts something like a cough, but by the time Jason catches on, he’s laughing, loud and bright and bone deep. Laughing so hard he can’t take in a breath. Laughing so hard that the way he’s sitting, the blood can’t even get to his legs; they go numb. Laughing so hard, from far away, it sounds like a sob.
It’s horrible. It’s ripping its way out of him. His fresh-healed ribs threaten to rebreak.
But it’s him laughing. Not anyone else. Never again.
It’s the only sound Jason wants to hear for the rest of his life.
The Batman is standing on the fire escape’s mesh floor, looking in at his second son.
Jason doesn’t know quite when he showed up. It’s sometime after his laughter petered off, and left him just Jason, sitting stagnant on the floor. It’s sometime between one blink and the next. Before: neon and street lamps, damp Gotham road. Now: the shape of a man in the darkness, a long cape, pinprick eyes in harsh, white lenses.
It doesn’t make sense.
The explosion was less than an hour ago if his kitchen clock is right. They should have found the Joker by now. They should be combing the wreckage for Jason’s body.
Jason watches Bruce pull the window up. Watches him lever himself into the room, and just stand there, still and menacing. Jason leans back against the wall and asks, “How’d you know I got out?”
Bruce looks at him. From this angle, Jason can just see the bottom of his face, inscrutable as ever, lit up in cherry blue. He says, “I didn’t.”
The sink Jason turned on earlier lets a single drop of water drip. Somewhere on the floor, one of Jason's neighbors starts an episode of Wheel of Fortune. Through the walls, they hear the muffled sounds of the spinning wheel clicks, canned applause.
“I didn’t know,” Bruce says, his jaw tight. “But if you had died—” He doesn’t finish his sentence. He doesn't look away, either.
After a moment, all he says is, “I couldn't have seen you like that again.”
Jason thinks coward, because calling Bruce anything else hurts too much.
“So,” Jason says, when the quiet grows. “Is it Arkham for me? Or Blackgate? Do I count as crazy now, or just delinquent?”
Bruce is silent, and his face is still. Another car passes, fast. The rusting metal of the fire escape shifts, noisily, and then settles. Drops of rain dot the sill, blown in through the open window. As he speaks, Jason sits up, hands pressing to the ground behind him, legs bent to plant his feet on the floor.
Jason, still in his uniform. Bruce, still in his cowl.
Bruce says, “You told me you had stopped killing. You made a promise to me, Jay.”
“Yeah," Jason says. His voice is rough. His fingernails are stained, rust-red. “Yeah. Yeah I did.”
They look at each other for a long moment. Jason’s green eyes and the blank face of the cowl. Jason’s bleeding lip and the cut on Bruce’s jaw. Father; son.
Jason swallows and his throat is the only movement in the whole room, maybe the whole world. He says, “He was recreating it.”
Bruce’s mouth flinches downward in question. “Recreating what?”
“The bomb, the warehouse,” Jason’s mouth is bone dry. “Same old crowbar.”
Bruce goes imperceptibly more still.
“He lured me in with a roomful of hostages,” Jason says. “Street kids. From my neighborhood. They’ve been disappearing for weeks. They didn’t have anyone else looking for them because no one else gives a shit.” He swallows. “And when I freed them? Turns out he was there for me.”
Jason shifts his shoulders. He feels the phantom rasp of broken bone and the dull thud of blunt metal. “Or maybe he was there for you. You just didn’t get the memo.”
The Batman says, “We received a message, but we were still running through protocols when the bomb ignited.”
Jason bobs his head again and again because this was what he expected. “It was just like before,” he says. “It was him or me. And I know, you’ve made it perfectly clear how you feel about that ultimatum, but you weren’t coming to save me.” In the static air, the word again hangs like the dead.
The neighbor’s TV cuts to commercial. An ambulance passes, no siren on, not saving any lives today.
“So,” Jason says. “I’ll ask again. Blackgate, or Arkham?”
Penitent, or insane.
Bruce says nothing.
Minutes pass quietly. Bruce's shadow falls long across Jason’s apartment floor. The brightness behind him grows: clouds are recoiling from the light of the moon.
And it’s nothing like the first time. Jason. Bruce. Father and son. It’s everything like the first time. Silence. Grief. The ink-black silhouette.
Jason says it because he knows Bruce will never find the words. “I'm sorry it had to happen like this.”
He’s talking about the Joker. He's talking about himself. He’s talking about the war in his father’s mind. Something cold bubbles up from somewhere deep inside Jason. Something furious. Something hungry. But since he woke up in the rubble, everything’s been a little far away. Even that anger is faint. A distant memory. A lifetime ago.
Now, Jason’s thinking clearly, and he’s thinking, Bruce is sorry, too.
A shadow like a black line falls across Bruce's face, shields his expression. And all Bruce says is, “It will never happen again.”
The Joker? The killing? Jason’s death? Bruce speaks again, and there’s a nameless emotion in the gravel of his voice. “Promise.”
Jason squints up at him. The night across his face, and the streetlamp glow.
The Joker, the murder, his death.
Jason says, “Promise.” And he means all three things.
Bruce holds out a hand, and after a second, Jason takes it, pulls himself to stand. Bruce grabs him by the shoulders, and Jason lets him. His head moves back and forth and Jason can tell he’s scanning for injuries.
“There’s soot on your jacket,” Bruce says finally, loosening his grip just the slightest. “You’re coming back to the cave for a medical exam.”
Jason knows there’s nothing to worry about. Not anymore. He’d already died that night. Wasn’t like he was going to do it again.
He nods anyway, and turns with Bruce to the window.
Bruce pauses, and Jason can feel the next sentence reach out like an olive branch. “Explosions make me nervous.”
Jason laughs, turns to look at him, and says, “Yeah, B, yeah. Me too.”
He slips on his helmet, and he follows the Bat into the night.
II. Páramo
In the cave, Jason feels their eyes tracking his every move. It’s fine; He understands. Jason killed a man tonight, and here he is, humming bachata and wiping the blood off his teeth.
He throws the towel in the sink when he’s done, spits the last bit of red out after it. His hair droops down into his eyes, and he brushes it back, still damp from his shower.
When they’d made it in—a short, silent drive in the Batmobile, Jason tapping rhythms into the seat—Alfred had come to look him over. Check his pupils and his pulse. Cut open his clothes over wounds long since healed, just silver scars. He’d wondered how it was possible that Jason was uninjured. Jason knew and just said, Lucky. After, Jason went to wash the rest of it off, water pooling red and black and brown and then, finally, running clear.
By the time he’s done and his teeth are clean and shining, it’s like none of it happened at all.
“Thanks for the free shit,” Jason says, taking another finger sandwich from a set-down tray. His voice echoes strangely against the cavern walls, and whatever conversations are going on around him stop. They’re all in tonight, called home after the explosion. Even Dick found his way in from Blüd. Tim and Damian are off to the side, shedding their own uniforms, now in tense silence. Cass is standing in half shadow. She’s looking at Jason like a walking crime scene, eyebrows drawn together, lips set in a hard line. She's looking between him and Bruce.
“And the water pressure,” he says, shouldering on his jacket again, ripped to shit and still dusty, over his new, clean clothes. “Still got that leak I was talking about, haven't taken a good shower in weeks.” It occurs to him halfway through that he’s never mentioned that to them before. That there’s so much they don’t know.
“Shall I prepare a room for you in the manor?” Alfred asks, appearing out of nowhere with his boots in hand, now cleaned and fresh and shining. Jason takes them, shucking them on, barely bothering to tie the laces. The way Alfred asks: a lost cause he can’t help hoping for.
Jason smiles, pats his shoulder as he walks past. Instead of saying no, he says, “Not tonight.”
He’s got an emergency bike stashed along the tunnel that the rest of them pretend they don’t know about. He rights it, climbs on, throws a wave behind him as he sets out. In the distance the bats squeal and shuffle overhead, and in front of him, the open road.
The next day Jason goes out in plainclothes. He needs groceries, to do some chores. There's something stifling about his apartment that morning, the way the city looms in. He needs fresh air.
Everybody is talking about it.
He sees it: splashy headlines on the newspaper stands. Hears it from civilians, officers on the street. Outside his complex, a couple of kids are acting it out. One of them raises a hand, two fingers and thumb pointed like a pistol. The other mimes the way a shot that close spews the brains out of the back of your skull.
Later, standing in the fading sun and the bright fluorescence of the laundromat, Jason sees the story on TV. The dryers drone on and on as they spin, and the anchors can’t hide the relief on their faces.
They don’t call him a hero, because murder is against the law. But even Jason can see they kind of want to.
That night, the Hood back on, Jason goes to the vigil. Along the way, when he’s seen, people salute.
When he gets there, he sees a candle lit, in ring formation, for every person the Joker ever killed. It goes on and on and on. Lights up the whole sky. There's a crowd, and people leaning out their windows, scattered music, and a few times, fireworks.
People are crying. Jason sees a woman and her husband, and in their hands, a picture of their son. People are cheering. The red shirts in the crowd aren’t lost on him. Neither are the bright, white streaks in people's hair.
It’s electric in the same way that it's wretched.
Loud, effusive howling: Gotham mourns.
The Batman is prowling on a rooftop like he always is. Jason finds him that night. From up high, Jason falls, lands, stalks towards him.
“Fuck you,” he says.
Through the comms, someone asks, “What’s happening?”
“ Fuck you,” Jason says, drawing close.
Bruce turns. He doesn’t step back, but he does put a hand on his belt. He seems confused but not surprised. Jason wonders, not for the first time, if he’s the only one who knows this isn’t like him. That his brand of violence has always been brutal only in its control.
He gets close and stabs a finger into Bruce’s chest and says, “Fuck you, old man.” He shoves, and Bruce’s lips press together. He lets himself be pushed back.
Far off, the people celebrate in light and dark. Jason flickers: just another candle. And the boogeyman is dead.
Jason is furious. His hood is off and his face is twisted. There's something boiling beneath his skin. He looks at Bruce. He looks at Bruce and he keeps looking and no matter how hard he looks, he still can’t understand.
He shoves Bruce again, but this time Jason is the one to step back. He spreads his arms to either side of him, and then lets them fall.
“What is this about, Jay?” Bruce says, as if trying to remind Jason that despite the masks and the past and the night all around him, Jason is still his son. He doesn’t understand that that’s exactly the problem.
Jason squints at him. His expression shifts, turns something deep and sad and complicated. Anger slides off his back like snow, because this is Bruce, and he’ll never change.
“It was so fucking easy,” Jason says finally. He turns away, like he’s talking to himself now instead of Bruce. “So easy,” comes out closer to a whisper. “It was the easiest thing in the world.”
Bruce closes his eyes, and when he opens them, there is only a blank space in the shape of his son.
On his way back, a woman waves him over and just says, Thank you. At home, Jason sleeps the best he has in a decade. He wakes up and he’s so angry because he’s never felt better. And he could have had this years ago. He could have had this his whole life.
III. Pegasus
Jason doesn’t go out the next night.
Or the one after. Or the one after.
He eats a lot of cereal, and when he runs out of milk, he makes himself a lot of eggs. He exhausts all the furniture within a few hours, takes to sitting in different configurations on the floor. There’s a stray cat that haunts his building. He and a few other tenants take turns feeding it. Jason opens the window one night to refill its bowl, and it hops into his living room. The rest of the night they spend staring at each other from opposite sides of the hardwood.
It’s just that he thought he’d be happy. He thought it would be the best day of his life. It’s just that Jason has no idea what he’s feeling, and he doesn’t even know if he wants to find out.
When he does sleep, he doesn't bother getting under the sheets. He lays on his back and falls asleep on the covers.
“Jason?” There’s a knock on his door and a voice saying his name with a familiar accent, turning the J into a Y sort of sound.
Jason rolls himself out of the corner of his kitchen where he’d been standing against his cabinets, staring at the stove for half an hour. He opens the door and sees the woman who lives across the hall.
“Ms. Mejía,” Jason says, only a little surprised. She’s around sixty, grey hair tied up and behind her. He calls her her surname because she’s never given him anything else. From where he stands he towers over her. In her wrinkled hands are tupperware containers, and she’s looking at him like he’s made of glass: transparent, breakable.
He doesn’t know how, and she’s never said in so many words, but Jason’s almost certain she knows it’s him under the hood.
Mejía shoves the tupperware into Jason’s hands. She motions, and he leans down until his face is at her level. She takes it into her hands, very gently, tilting his head back and forth with her palms on his cheeks. “You look tired, Jason,” she says like a low ache.
“I am tired,” Jason replies. She lets him go. There’s something hard in her face, and Jason knows firsthand you don’t grow old as a Gothamite without something of an edge, without having seen enough to put it there.
“I know, nene. I know.” Jason closes his eyes and swallows.
“You’re going to want things to go back to how they were before. You want this to have fixed it,” she tells him. “But it didn’t. And they won’t. Nothing’s ever gonna be like it was before.”
“Why not?” Jason snaps, brow furling, eyes still shut, but it’s not her he’s angry at. Something’s flaring up in him with no direction. It’s the first thing he’s felt in days.
She just smiles in a sad sort of way, pats him on the cheek. “Life’s a bitch. And you can’t change the past, no matter what you do. Eat something,” she presses the tupperware closer to his body, “And give yourself time.”
She hobbles back to her door, and then Jason is alone again looking into a hallway he hasn’t left in a week. The walls feel strange but look exactly the way he remembers them. Maybe Jason is the one who is different.
He shuts the door, goes to the kitchen, and puts one of the containers in the microwave.
Eventually he runs out of food. He goes out for groceries and sees it: downtown Gotham, a mural of the city and the darkness and himself, in sharp, righteous red.
That night, the Red Hood is spotted again over the streets. There’s a brief news cycle on his return. Then a gang of rogues breaks out of Arkham, and the press moves on.
It’s Gotham. It’s business as usual.
IV. Horus
The Bats give him space until they don't. The next time Jason sees any of them, he’s on patrol. He’s got the helmet over his head and a gun in his hand, but he doesn’t really plan on using it. Crime has been lying low recently, in the wake of the Joker, of the breakout. Jason still goes out every night, but it’s like no one’s heart is in it.
Tonight he’s doing recon on a minor gang, mostly enforcement, lower-level drug deals. Mostly just a bunch of scared kids trying to be the monsters they fear in the dark.
Jason wipes the rain splatter off his lenses again. Shuffles in his crouch and rubs his hands together. Thinks about a beachfront vacation.
There’s the sound of rushing air to his left and Dick appears, Nightwing blue. “What’s our move?”
Jason glances at him longways. “Cool it,” he says, resting back on his heels and then, “Don’t you have some other city to protect?”
“Decided to stick around for a while,” Dick says. “Plan of attack?”
“We’re not attacking,” Jason says. “They’re not a threat.” He nods in the thug’s direction. There’s three of them now, slipping around the wet asphalt, trying to unload a shipment. Their leader, who can’t be older than twenty, splits off from the others to lean against the truck cabin and run his hands down his face.
Jason feels for him in a way he can’t name.
Dick is antsy. He’s shifting his weight around his feet, tapping code into the batons in his hands. If Jason didn’t know any better, he’d think Dick was the one who killed a man last week.
“Got a problem?” He asks. “I know you didn’t come here to socialize.” There’s a jet in the air just past Nightwing’s head. It’s spitting white-dark exhaust into the night sky.
Dick’s tapping stops. He stills preternaturally. Smiles a little in that forced, painful looking way. “Just thought you could use a hand.”
“Cut the bullshit.”
“Alright, alright,” Dick says. He raises his hands in surrender. “We haven’t seen you around.”
“Busy,” Jason says. Dick’s eyes bore into the side of his face. The plane passes out of Jason’s view.
Finally, Dick asks, “How are you holding up? And be honest with me.”
“What the fuck are you even talking about?” Jason says. “I’m fine.” A piece of ice plinks down onto his optics, and he sputters a little as he wipes it away. “Better than fine. I’m great, really.” His tone is dry. It’s all he can do to keep from telling Dick to fuck off.
“I’m not B,” Dick says, all quiet. “I don’t blame you, for what you did. I know we don’t always see eye to eye, but,” he pauses, swallows, exhales. “Everything he took from you? Everything he’s taken from us? You didn’t do anything wrong.”
The rain is coming down harder now, sleet mixing into the downpour. Jason’s lenses switch to thermal vision to compensate. The world’s a variegation of bright reds and greens and deep, freezing blues. In his chest, Nightwing burns white-maroon, and each of his fingers reaches out golden yellow, liquid green. Jason’s own hands are blue-tipped. He closes his eyes and thinks about warmth, and the beach.
“What you did should have been done years ago.”
Jason opens his eyes. In the dark, they give off a faint glow. “Why wasn't it?”
“You know why,” Dick says. He taps his escrimas together again, matching the beat of the rain. “Look, I’m just here to make sure you’re okay.” He turns. “Are you?”
I’m tired, Jason thinks. I don’t feel like myself. I thought this would fix things but everything is just bad in different ways.
“Yeah,” he says. “Why wouldn’t I be.”
There’s a gunshot somewhere far off. It echoes into their alleyway and spooks the thugs below. There’s some shouting and scrambling to get into the van, and then they’re speeding off, only two crates unloaded. Jason doesn’t even have to make the effort to stop them. Here in Crime Alley? Before long, they’ll be eaten alive.
“Marks are gone,” Jason says, claps Dick on the shoulder and rises from his crouch. “Stakeout over. Great heart to heart—really. Now if you don’t mind, I’m getting back to patrol.” He doesn't wait for Dick to stand or say goodbye. Just steps, up the ledge and then off.
The rest of his shift passes. He gets a knife tip wedged in his shoulder. His blood’s so warm that, onto his blue-glazed jacket, it leaks out an infrared-white.
Jason doesn’t regret it. Not for a second. Since the explosion, Jason’s been closing his eyes to picture the sight, over and over again. Somedays, it's the only way he can sleep.
He just thought it would be over. That feeling when he shifts his shoulders and his body doesn't settle back onto his bones. That feeling like a snake halfway through skinning itself clean. The man is gone, but everything Jason hasn't felt for ten years is still squirming under the surface. And now it’s like the key keeps turning and turning and turning, but there's nothing left in the tank for it to catch.
That night Jason gets home from patrol. He fixes his shoulder, changes into sweats, opens the fire escape window for the stray cat pawing at the glass. He pats its head and sets out food and water.
After, he eats leftover takeout on his couch, the TV on as background noise and some cases pulled up on a laptop. He checks his schedule and finds nothing urgent until late May.
The cat is licking its paw in the window sill. City lights blink in the distance. The view is beautiful and Jason is sick to death of looking at it.
He sends out messages for his most pressing cases. Transfers files with his findings to the Bats. Changes his voicemail. Catches some much needed sleep.
In the morning, Jason grabs a bag and his bike and goes for a trip.
Vacation is nice.
He rides his bike along narrow, winding sections of cliffside road. Purple flowers, green grasses, hills and the California coast. Jason lays on the beach for hours, takes sips from a beer he doesn’t like the taste of, but thinks feels right in his hand. Within the first two days he has an outline of his sunglasses tanned onto his face: he spends the rest of the trip trying to even it out.
And it doesn’t rain once.
Here, no one’s talking about the Joker. No one’s buildings explode. When he first sees the sun set over the Pacific, Jason cries and he cries and he cries. Catherine always loved the beach.
Jason thinks he needed this. Salt-crusted in the sand. He dips his head beneath the freezing water and thinks, this is living. He traces the y-scar on his chest, brighter with the new brown of his skin, and he remembers, I’m alive.
Jason is gone for three weeks. For the first time in years, his skin has a healthy glow. There are seven more stickers on his motorcycle helmet, almost all in colorful sunset hues. His key sticks in the lock of his apartment door, and he has to shoulder his way in.
He’s been on the road for a long time. The stillness of the room feels soothing, feels familiar. Jason takes a breath and smells old incense and his laundry detergent. Nothing’s even spoiled in the fridge.
He pads silent through the entry way and into the main room proper, leaving his shoes by the door. He clicks on a light and nearly jumps out of his skin.
Cass is sitting on his couch, the cat purring low on her lap, suit on but mask down at her shoulders.
“Jesus-fucking-Christ,” Jason swears, palm against his chest.
She tilts her head a little. “You’re home.”
“Yeah,” Jason says, trying to shake off the surprise. “Why the fuck are you here, too?”
“Been here since you left,” she says. “Take turns cat sitting.”
“It’s not even my cat,” Jason mumbles, but he’s glad they gave it food. The blackout curtains are drawn, so Jason goes to open the window. Let in some light.
Cass slips off the couch, cat still curled in her arms. She sets it down on the ledge and they watch together as it saunters off.
“You look good,” Cass says, a line between her brows like confusion. Jason imagines her taking him in. The tan of his skin, the relaxed set of his shoulders, the easy way he closes his eyes, takes a deep breath of Gotham air. He’s never looked like this as long as she’s known him. He knows, because he’s never felt this good as long as she’s known him. And he knows that Cass doesn't approve, and that she never will, but he hopes she can at least understand.
“You really came every day?” He asks.
Cass nods. “Orders from B.”
Jason’s nose scrunches up.
“And to see her,” Cass says, nodding to where the cat is perched, now a building away, looking down at the cars on the street. Cass hesitates a second and then puts a hand on his shoulder, a little warily, maybe, still a little reluctant. She gives it a squeeze anyway, and she gives him a flash of a smile. “Glad you’re back.” She sounds genuine.
Then he’s alone. In her black suit, Cass is lost in the night. To Jason’s ears, the passing cars sound a little like ocean waves. The city lights wash over him, and the Gotham skyline lights up in bold.
The Joker is dead. Jason’s still kicking.
And he’s home.
V. Home
The first time he sees Barbara, after, she gives him the name of her therapist. There are bags under her eyes. It’s been a tough few weeks for her, too. Jason thanks her and takes it, even though they know he won’t call.
The next time he sees Bruce, Bruce gives him a wide berth.
They expect him to be volatile. Still clawing himself back into the world. Still thrashing his way through. Really, Jason’s floating on his back in the water.
It’s lapping lightly at his neck, and the sun is so bright in the sky.
Crime has ramped back up. It never stays calm for long. Jason stops a few muggings. He talks to his men. He waves to the kids on the street.
He wouldn't say it's a weight off his shoulders. It's more like, clearing away the clouds.
The next time he’s in the cave, it’s for an injury that should have killed him. It did, but they don’t need to know that. Damian’s been sent to bed early. Bruce is pacing by the elevator. Tim bounces his leg in his chair.
Alfred is prodding the place on his chest where the metal punctured, and creasing his eyebrows at Jason’s smoothed-over skin.
Cass is somewhere in the rafters. Jason looks up to where he expects her to be, and smiles.
Alfred demands-more-than-asks that Jason stay the night at the manor.
Jason looks at his hands, and the scars there. He looks at Bruce, who’s stopped moving and is looking right back at him.
He says, Alright.