Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

At the age of eight, Damian was finally deemed ready to embark on the next stage of his training. He had dueled his mother that day; for the first time he had knocked her to the ground, the blade of his training sword pressed against her neck. It had only been for a second— a second where Damian had been cocky enough to believe that he had won— before she turned the tables on him.

“You are improving,” she told him afterwards. “Though you still have much to learn.”

He had nearly won, but Damian stifled that frustration and instead grumbled out a “Thank you.”

His mother studied him. He shifted uneasily under her gaze, waiting for her to judge him.

“I believe you are ready for the next stage of your training,” she said at last.

In an instant, the frustration vanished and excitement took its place. “The Year of Blood,” he said in a breath.

“Yes.”

Until that moment, his training had taken place in a series of near identical League bases, under the tutelage of the masters and experts his mother had brought in. It had been familiar, straightforward and boring. But now? Now the whole world would be his training ground. He would finally go out and put all of his skill to the test.

His mother brought him to his grandfather’s seat of power. Drums beat and the thick scent of smoke filled the air as she presented Damian to Ra’s al Guhl— to the Demon’s head. He knelt before his grandfather’s throne.

“My daughter says you are ready,” said his grandfather, looking down.

“I am,” Damian said.

“Then go forth and do not fail.”

“I will not. I promise.”

Damian was given a sword, a group of men who would follow his orders, and a mission. His mother met him in the base’s transit yard the morning he was to depart.

“You will rule the world one day, my son,” she told him. “And before you do that, you must know it, you must face it, and you must conquer it. Can you do that?”

Damian, standing tall in the new armor he’d been given, the sword that was a present from his grandfather strapped to his back, answered: “I can.”

His mother leaned down and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Make me proud, my son.”

Damian had left that day, head held high. He went out into the world and fought and hunted and killed at his grandfather’s will. One day, the world would belong to him, and this was his first chance to conquer it. Enemies fell before his blade; treasures were claimed for the League.

He was eight long months into it when his mother came again.

“Mother!” Damian ran up as soon as he saw her. “Why are you here?” He had missed her, though he would never let it show.

She smiled at him, but there was something else about it, something Damian couldn’t place. “I have a task for you.”

“A mission?” His orders came by messenger, as did his commendations and reprovals.

“A special task.” She still had that smile. Damian didn’t like it, he decided. He wished she would stop. “Come, let us have tea.”

He followed her to a small room in a rarely used corner of the base. It had only one entrance and no windows, a low table sitting in the center.

 They sat and Damian watched as her hands danced in a familiar ritual of cups, hot water, and tea leaves. It wasn’t until the tea was ready, steam wafting up, that she spoke again.

“Do you remember what I told you of your father?”

“Yes.” Stories of his father were rare, each one a precious thing to be stored away and remembered. “He is a great man: a formidable warrior with a cunning mind.”

His mother nodded. “He is dead.”

A new piece of information to tuck away, but this one poison rather than a jewel. For a moment Damian said nothing. When he spoke, his voice was stupidly small. “But you said, when I was ready I would go to learn under him. You promised.”

“That was my intent. His death was recent. He was killed.”

Damian had never stopped to entertain the thought that his father was a man able to be killed. His mother’s stories had always painted him as undefeatable, above such petty things as death. “By whose hand?”

“That, I have not yet been able to discern. That is your mission, my son.” The look she fixed him with impressed him with its importance, though he needed no such convincing. “Find who killed him. Avenge your father’s death.”

“I’ll do it,” Damian vowed.

For the first time, his mother told him about his father in earnest. “His name is Bruce Wayne,” she said. “And he acts as a warrior, known as the Batman.” He had only a single city he kept to, though Damian wasn’t sure why he would settle for that when it was clear he could have so much more. He didn’t know how he felt about this man, who he had lost before ever knowing. Who he had idolized and now would never meet.

He would go out to avenge his father’s death. By avenging him he would honor him, by honoring him, surpass him, and by surpassing him, perhaps he could know him better. Yes, Damian resolved, that is what he would do.

His mother left him a file on Batman, his enemies, and his associates. Damian opened it and began to read.

—

His quest began in Gotham. It was his father’s city; it had been his father’s home. There was no other place Damian could begin.

His father had been devoted to the city, his mother had said. Personally, he didn’t see the appeal. It was dark and grimy, perpetually grey. The air was thick and gritty, tasting of exhaust, ash, and rot on his tongue. It was a far cry from the pristine beauty of the League bases he called home.

Damian surveyed it all from the peak of one of his father’s buildings and found that once again, he didn’t understand the man who’d sired him. Why devote his life to this corpse of a city, when he could do so much more? Why fight for something so obviously broken when it would be simpler to wipe the place off the map and start again fresh? The files his mother had given him stated that his father never killed. Why would he handicap himself in such a way? How could he ever expect to change anything?

Across the skyline flew black followed by a flash of color. There was another Batman in Gotham. His mother had warned him of the possibility, of his father’s proteges ( Not his sons , she’d said, you are the only one who can claim that. You are the only one who will avenge him. ). Curious, he followed them, watching at a distance as they fought. The man in black was skilled, but clearly holding back. Damian tracked his every move, and watched as time after time, he could’ve ended the fight. He never did. His father had been better, he had to have been.

Batman was nearly hit in the back of the head with a baseball bat; only a quick move from Robin prevented the blow from landing. Yes, his father had to have been a better warrior than that.

(His father had still died.)

Damian left, moving his surveillance to Batman’s enemies instead. They were a strange group— a mix of maniacs and common criminals. Even if they posed a threat (which almost none of them did seem to do; truly, he didn’t know why his father wasted his time on such people), none of them seemed to be aware that Batman had died in the first place. It would’ve been easy for Damian to destroy them, regardless of whether they had played a role in his father’s death or not, but the Year of Blood was a test of obedience and efficiency as much as it was skill, so he let them be.

There was another name he’d been given.

“Jason Todd,” his mother had said, the cups sitting long empty between them. “He was your father’s second protege. He once set out to kill him.”

“And you let him?” Damian had asked.

She’d given an elegant shrug. “I did try to dissuade him. If he’d succeeded though, would your father really have been worthy of being my beloved?”

Would Damian have been sent to avenge an unworthy man? He did not want to question his mother, but he wondered, had they loved each other? His father and mother?

—

Night began to settle over Gotham like a shroud. Damian watched and waited as the sun slowly sank. The League worked in the dark, in the hours where the line between man and monster blurred. The city was filled with common criminals and beasts, scavengers and carrion eaters who fought their petty battles under the grungy street lamps and smothered light of the moon. Damian was superior to them all, a hunter ready to track his prey.

In the austere quarters of one of the League’s Gotham safehouses, he carefully put on his armor, strapped his sword to his back, and prepared to go out. He would be on his own. This was a matter of blood, of honor, of his father. This was the way of the League. His grandfather’s men would remain behind, waiting to report either his success or failure. Through the open window, the last strains of sunlight were fading. It was time.

If this Jason Todd truly was his father’s killer, one of them would die tonight.

It was easier than Damian expected to find the man in his father’s armor alone. Easier still to get him to admit the truth.

“Yeah, I killed him,” he said, casually, as if it were nothing. As if it weren’t Damian’s father.

One of them would die this night. In that moment, Damian refused the possibility that it would be him. “Then you must die,” he said, and drew his sword.

His father’s killer didn’t even have the courtesy to look afraid. “Go on then,” he said. “Do it.”

Damian moved, aiming for the weak spot in the armor his mother’s files said would be there. In the split second before the blade made contact, there was a flash of color— Robin, the least of his father’s proteges, appeared, parrying the blow with the staff in his hand.

“Hey, B.” Robin said. He was glaring at Damian through the blank eyes of his mask. “Saw you could use a hand.”

Damian rebounded a couple of steps and returned the glare. “Out of my way!” He charged again, trying to dodge around him.

Again, Robin intercepted him. “How about no?” he said. Behind him, Jason wasn’t moving, his ambivalence a taunt.

Damian refused to let himself be stopped. He launched into a flurry of attacks. He had been training since birth; he would not be bested. “You will not stand between me and my vengeance!”

Robin somehow managed to block each and every one. If only he would just misstep. All it would take was a single chance and Damian could do what needed to be done. “Look, kid,” Robin was saying. “I don’t know what beef you have with Batman—”

“I am here to avenge my father,” Damian said, pausing for a moment. “Are you really too blind to see that his murderer has taken his place?”

“What are you—” Robin finally faltered, his stance weakening as he took in Damian’s words. Perhaps he really was that blind. Damian darted around him, ready to complete his mission at last—

There was a sharp burst of pain in the back of his head, and then everything went black.

—

Nightwing swung down and retrieved the escrima he’d thrown. “Good thing, I finally caught up with you guys, huh?”

Neither Jason or Tim said anything. Tough crowd. Dick looked down at the unconscious assassin at his feet. He was younger than he expected, just a kid. “Is it just me, or does he look familiar?” he asked, nudging at the boy with his foot.

“He’s B’s kid with Talia,” Jason said, sounding unfazed by the fact that said kid had just been trying to kill him. Though that did tend to be an occupational hazard in their line of work.

Bruce’s kid with Talia. That was… Dick looked back down. He could see it now that it was pointed out to him: in the line of the boy’s nose, the curve of his jaw. He didn’t know why he was surprised, with the way the two of them had spent so long orbiting each other , drifting together and apart. Of course it had to be now that he showed up, with Bruce dead and without the chance of ever meeting him. Not that Bruce was ever the best when it came to emotional things, but he would’ve wanted to know. The kid looked to be League trained. Yes, Bruce definitely would’ve wanted to know.

“Jason,” Tim said.

“Names,” Dick said reflexively, looking up to see Tim staring at Jason like he was a puzzle to be solved.

“What he said…” He was watching Jason, expecting something.

“Go on,” Jason said. “Ask.”

“He said that you killed his father. Implied that you killed Batman. Why?”

Dick could only watch as Jason shrugged. “That’d be because I did,” he said. “What are you going to do about it?”

—

They went back to the Batcave. It wasn’t the sort of conversation you had on a rooftop. Jason didn’t fight them as they loaded him and the kid (Bruce’s son ) into the Batmobile. Dick almost wished he had. It would’ve been simpler that way. It would’ve made sense. But instead, all he had were Jason’s words echoing through his head as they made the drive back. I killed him.

Bruce was dead because Jason had killed him. Outside, buildings blurred by, transforming into trees as they drew farther from Gotham. Jason had killed Bruce. It made a sick sort of sense; it made no sense at all. Dick was the one who had trusted him, who had believed him when he’d said that he’d really wanted to be Batman. When he’d said that it wasn’t just another one of his games. He was the one who’d convinced Tim to give him a chance. Jason had killed Bruce. It had been him all this time.

Silence stretched out unbearably. The drive to the cave had never felt this long before. Dick couldn’t bear the thought of breaking it. Bruce’s kid woke up during the drive. He didn’t say anything either, just glowered at them from the back seat.

They arrived at last and filed out. Jason was Batman. The shadows gathered around him in his cape and cowl and he looked like he belonged. Dick couldn’t stand it.

“Take it off,” he said.

Jason did, pulling the cowl off his head. He was no longer his father’s ghost, only Jason, Dick’s brother. It didn’t make things any easier.

“You really killed him,” Dick said.

“Yes.” Jason said, same as on the rooftop.

“Why?”

“Does it matter?” Jason was smiling, half cruel, half something else Dick couldn’t place. “I still slit his throat myself.”

“He was your father!” 

“That didn’t stop him, did it?” His smile was becoming manic. “He knew where I was. He came to me , waiting in that alley. He came to me to spill his blood on that pavement.”

“Bastard!” Shouted Bruce’s kid. Dick was vaguely aware of Tim holding him back, the boy struggling in his grip. “Coward. Unhand me! Let me at him!”

“Not happening,” Tim grunted.

“Let him,” Jason said. “This is a family matter after all.”

“Shut up,” Dick said.

“Weak!” yelled Bruce’s son again. “My mother was right to send me. You’re all too weak to do what needs to be done!”

“Bruce was weak!” Jason shouted. “He was weak and I killed him. Are you going to let it stand?” Dick didn’t know who he was addressing anymore. “Are you going to let his death go unavenged?”

“Shut up!” Dick said.

Jason kept yelling. “I had to avenge myself! Every time, I had to avenge myself! Are you going to do that to him? Is he going to dig his way out of his grave to find that his murderer still lives? Are you going to make him do that?”

It was too much. Too much noise. Too many people yelling. Too much that Dick just couldn’t take in.

“Shut up!” Dick punched Jason in the face.

He stumbled back a step and laughed, blood on his teeth. “That’s it, Dickie,” he said. “Like that.”

Dick hit him again. Jason kept laughing. He wouldn’t stop, just kept laughing, laughing, laughing—

“Stop!” Tim was pulling him away. Jason was on the floor, his laughter turning into wheezing.

“He killed him,” Dick said vacantly. The past was slipping into the present. Jason had killed Bruce.

“Dick.” Tim was upset too. Dick could see that now. “Don’t do something you’ll regret,” he said.

Dick blinked. Jason was still wearing the bat on his chest. Jason had killed Bruce and he’d been wearing his costume the whole time. It was too much. “The holding cells,” he said at last.

Jason didn’t fight as they stripped off his armor and locked him in one of the cave’s holding cells, still giving the occasional wheeze. (Why wasn’t he fighting?)

“What about the kid?” Tim asked.

Dick looked over to where the boy was slumped, unmoving on the ground.

“Fast acting sedative,” Tim said by way of explanation.

Dick nodded. The boy was Bruce’s son. He was also trained by assassins, on a mission to kill Jason. “We put him in one of the others, I guess. Until we figure out something better.” A temporary measure, until the world stopped changing quite so quickly.

Tim nodded. They worked in silence.

—

“You can say it,” Dick said. It was nearly dawn. They should’ve gone to bed, but neither of them particularly wanted to sleep. Instead they lay together on a couch in one of the manor’s many sitting rooms, the curtains drawn. It was starting to get dusty around the edges, another reminder that Alfred was gone.

“Say what?” came Tim’s half-muffled reply.

“I told you so.”

There was an exhale that was almost a laugh. “I told you so,” he said. “I didn’t think he’d killed him though. I should’ve seen it.”

“We both missed it.” They were detectives. They shouldn’t have had their father’s murderer under their noses without noticing it. There had to be some sort of sign they’d missed.

“He knew about the alley,” Tim said. His fingers were tapping absentmindedly against the side of the couch.

“That’s where they met.”

“And I could see him slitting Bruce’s throat, but the whip…” he trailed off.

The pictures were still seared into his brain: the bloody mess that had been Bruce’s body. “He was angry,” Dick said, but it felt weak. He remembered the Red Hood’s murders, but all of those had been business-like, means to an end. Every move he’d made had been calculated. Even the bag of heads, that had been brutal, but efficient in its own way. This had been personal. It had to be. What sort of calculation would lead to the sort of brutality that had been there at that scene? And besides that: “Why would he lie?”

That’s what it boiled down to. For all the questions surrounding the matter, Jason had confessed. Why would he do that if hadn’t committed the crime?

Against his side, Tim hummed. “Bruce had a son.”

The boy down in the cave, who had aimed to kill without hesitation. “He couldn’t have known. He was raised by the league. Bruce— he would’ve done something.”

“We don’t even know his name.”

“No.” Dick wondered, if Bruce had known, what would he have named a son? Thomas after his father? Something else?”

“What do we do?”

“With the kid?”

Tim shrugged. “Him, Jason, any of it. It’s not like we can just turn him over to the police for killing Batman.”

Not without revealing that Batman was actually dead. “There’s other crimes he’s wanted for.” Crimes that Dick had been willing to ignore when he’d thought that Jason was serious about changing. That he was serious about the Batman mantle instead of just being a mockery of it. When he thought he was serious about being brothers. Jason was still his brother, down there in the cave’s holding cell. “And the Justice League. We should try and help the kid though, Bruce would’ve wanted it.”

“Do you think he’ll even want our help?”

That was the question. Probably not, but, Dick sighed, “We at least have to try.”

—

Damian woke to find himself imprisoned. He was in a cell, spartan in design with few furnishings other than the bare cot he was lying on. Through the clear glass that made up the fourth wall of the cell, he could see a cave, his father’s cave. He remembered being brought here. The humiliation of being stopped from fulfilling his task not once, but twice. Both times he had been subdued far too easily.

If his mother had been there to see it, she would’ve been ashamed. He’d allowed himself to be distracted from his surroundings—had only paid attention to his target—and now he was paying for it.

A cursory examination of the cell revealed no obvious weaknesses. The constant darkness of the cave outside gave no clue as to how long he had been unconscious for. If he was gone for long enough, his grandfather’s men would come searching for him, to confirm his death if nothing else. That wouldn’t be for days though, and Damian had no intention of remaining here that long. After all, his father’s murderer still breathed. He wanted to act now, felt the compulsion to break free, but he knew that doing so would be foolish. Haste had led to his past failures. He would not fall into that trap again.

Damian did not particularly like waiting, but he could do it. It was a lesson the League had taught him. They had not grown to their current strength without knowing when to wait and when to act. It was necessary. That didn’t mean that time ticked by any faster in the unbearable boredom of his prison. He could feel weariness settling over him, but sleeping was a vulnerability he couldn’t allow.

At length, his father’s proteges came. They brought food that Damian was not foolish enough to eat, despite his growing hunger, and asked questions that he knew better than to answer. He watched carefully the way they opened the cell door to put in the food, and listened as they later spoke with his father’s murder, evidently kept nearby.

Then they left, and he waited some more. It felt like forever, but eventually he watched his father’s proteges come down again and leave, dressed in costume and heading out into the city.

Now he could finally act without being interrupted.

It wasn’t exactly easy to get out of the cell, but the fools hadn’t done nearly as thorough a job at searching him as they should have. They had taken the more obvious weapons, but they had left him with a number of more discrete hidden tools.  Figuring out how to use those tools to break through the (admittedly good) security of the cell took a little trial and error, but Damian accomplished it in the end. His sword was there, sitting out in the open and there, in the cell next to Damian’s was his father’s murderer, lounging against the wall.

He thought the man might be asleep, but he opened his eyes as Damian approached. “I was wondering if I’d see you again,” he said.

“I told you, you would die,” Damian said.

Jason huffed. “Well, guess you’d better do it then.”

Damian opened the cell door. Jason didn’t move, just watched as Damian leveled his sword for the second time. His armor was gone and his hands were cuffed together. There was no need this time for the same precision, but it would be below Damian to do it any less than perfectly.

“Any last words?” he asked.

“Just do it,” Jason said, and closed his eyes.

Damian struck.

There was a gasp as his sword pierced through the man’s heart. He collapsed, dead, as Damian pulled out the sword. He watched as the blood pooled at his feet.

He blinked, mechanically wiped the blood from his blade. The deed was done.

He left the cave, left his father’s domain. The Year of Blood was nearly at a close. His mother was waiting.

—

Dick was pretty sure that neither of them had really wanted to go out that night. Not with revelations weighing uneasily on them all, but Gotham never slept. They could’ve taken the night in, but instead, as the clock ticked later, they exchanged a look and a silent understanding.

It was nice, he had to admit, to focus on problems he did know how to solve. The type that could be taken care of with a little well-applied force from Nightwing and Robin.

“We need to decide what to do soon,” Tim said as they drove back to the cave. “We can’t put it off forever.”

“I know,” Dick said. “Tomorrow.” Not forever, but one more night.

Tim made one of the noises they’d both picked up from Bruce, but didn’t push any further.

There was something off about the cave when they entered. Something that Dick couldn’t quite put his finger on. It was an itch under his skin, a well-honed instinct.

“Careful,” he said.

Tim nodded.

They were both on alert, hands drifting towards their weapons, ready for combat at a moment’s notice. The cave was quiet other than the ever-present chittering of the bats. There was an alert active on the Batcomputer.

“Both of the holding cells have been opened.” Tim read it off.

Dick started toward that direction, still not letting down his guard.

“Pulling up the cave footage,” Tim said.

The first cell was empty except for the still untouched tray food they’d brought down earlier. The second though…

Dick froze. “Tim?” he called.

“—know how much good—” Tim was saying. “What?”

There was a lot of blood. Too much blood. “I think you can belay the footage.”

“What?” Then a second later. “Oh. The kid left.”

“I figured,” Dick said. He gingerly stepped through the pool of congealing blood to reach Jason’s body. He was dead. With the amount of blood loss and how long he’d been lying there, he had to be dead. That didn’t stop him from pulling off a glove and reaching for Jason’s wrist. It was clammy, cold and still. No pulse.

Tim appeared in the doorway. He blanched slightly at the sight. “Then he’s—?”

“Dead,” Dick confirmed. He flipped the body over. There was more blood on the front—the t-shirt he’d been wearing was completely stained. It looked like he’d been stabbed through the heart. He’d seen the exit wound on his back, part of Dick noted. “Give me a hand with this?” he asked.

Tim still didn’t look comfortable but he nodded and grabbed Jason’s legs while Dick grabbed under his elbows. They maneuvered him over to one of the cots in the medbay.

“You can go,” Dick said once they’d set him down. “I can take care of the rest.”

“No,” Tim said. “I can help.”

They cut away his shirt and cleaned up most of the blood. Dick had never seen Jason’s body the first time he had died. He’d been in space and Bruce hadn’t taken any pictures, destroying whatever records existed in his grief. It wasn’t the same as now, but Dick still wondered. Bruce was dead because Jason had killed him and now Jason was dead as well, body all laid out and growing rapidly stiff.

“Do you think… next to Bruce?” Tim asked when they were done.

“I don’t know,” Dick said. Do you bury a son next to his father? Murderer and victim side by side? “We can’t do it tonight.”

Dick didn’t move. Tim shifted his weight from one foot to another, ready to leave but not wanting to be the first to go.

“Go,” Dick said. “Get some sleep. I’m going to stay here.”

“…Okay.”

Tim left. Dick pulled up a chair and sat; he began to wait.

The cave was never completely silent. There were always the bats flying about, machines humming and beeping, and water dripping, each drop ringing out in the open space. There was a stillness to it though, and Dick let himself sit in it. He had never quite stopped mourning Jason after the first time he’d died. Jason had murdered Bruce, but Dick still found himself slipping into the grief like an old sweater. His father was dead; his brother was dead. He mourned them both.

—

The first, gasping breath rang out impossibly loud in the stillness of the cave. It took Dick a second to snap out of his trance-like state of waiting and comprehend what it was. What it meant. On the cot in front him, Jason’s chest rose and fell.

And then he sat up with a groan and said: “Well that hurt like a bitch.”

Dick just stared. The wound on Jason’s chest was gone, closed up with only a scar. He was breathing in and out, rise and fall. “You’re alive,” he finally managed to say.

“Yeah,” Jason said. “I am.”

“How?”

He shrugged. “Hell if I know. It just happens. Call me Catman because I’ve got nine lives.” He laughed. It didn’t sound as manic as before, but it was still far from pretty. “Don’t know why I expected it to stick.”

“Jason…”

“Should’ve cremated me. Maybe that would’ve done the job.”

“Did you want it to stick?” Dick asked carefully.

“Death is simple,” Jason said, both an answer and not. “An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. A life for a life. Did you know I killed the Joker?”

“When you confronted Bruce?” Dick asked, trying to follow the change in subject.

Jason laughed again. “No, he didn’t die then. Afterwards. He was the last man I killed before becoming Batman. One last piece of justice.”

Justice. It nagged at Dick, the way he said the word. What he’d shouted at them last night, in the cave. Are you going to let that stand? he’d said.

“Why did you kill Bruce?” Dick asked. “And don’t say it doesn’t matter.”

“Because he killed me,” Jason said. “It was justice.”

“Just because he wasn’t able to stop the Joker doesn’t mean he—”

“No!” There was a flash of anger across his face that was gone as soon as it came. “Not Ethiopia. I told him, kill the Joker or kill me and stop me from doing it. You know what he did?”

“Bruce, he doesn’t—”

“He slit my throat,” Jason just kept talking. “So there was the answer to that question.”

“No,” Dick said. “He couldn’t have.” Batman didn’t kill. That was the center. They had gone through this before and Bruce didn’t kill. Batman never did. “I don’t believe you.”

“I have the scar to prove it.” Jason sounded almost apologetic. There was a thin pale line on his throat that Dick had somehow missed before. Now, it was all he could see.

It was a lie. It had to be. It could’ve been from anything. It was probably fake. Jason had spent the past weeks lying to them. About Bruce, about his role in Bruce’s death. Why would this be any different? And yet—

Jason shrugged. “Look, believe it or not. I don’t care. You’re the one who asked.”

And yet Jason had just come back to life in front of him, and for once, it didn’t sound like he was playing one of his games.

“He killed you,” Dick said.

“I got better,” Jason said, like it wasn’t death he was talking about.

“Why…. Why become Batman then? If he did that to you?”

Jason shrugged. “I was dead. He was dead. Who better to wear one dead man’s costume than another?”

“You’re not dead though,” Dick said.

“On a technicality,”

“You’re still breathing.”

“After a certain point, does it really matter all that much?”

“Yes,” Dick said.

“Keep on telling yourself that,” Jason said. “I know what I am.” And he didn’t say anything else.

—

Tim did a double take when he came down later that day. Dick watched as he blearily entered the kitchen, nodded at him, nodded at Jason, and then started to dig through the fridge. A couple seconds later, he pulled his head back out and turned to stare.

“Wait,” he said. “Jason.”

“Morning,” Jason said.

It was just past noon, but same difference when you were practically nocturnal.

Tim blinked, rubbing at his eyes. “Why are you… you were dead.”

He shrugged. “It didn’t stick.”

“Why? Why are you even up here anyway?” Surprise was quickly turning into anger.

“Hell if I know,” Jason said.

“I’m keeping an eye on him,” Dick said.

“He killed Bruce!”

“Bruce killed me first,” Jason said and Tim’s eyes snapped back to him.

“If this is about—”

“He’s not talking about Ethiopia,” Dick said, before they could rehash the whole matter.

“Then you believe him?” Tim asked.

“Yes,” Dick said.

Tim nodded and Dick could see the gears turning in his brain. He turned back to Jason. “Then, the furies…?”

Jason nodded. “That was me. I called them. They answered.”

Dick had almost forgotten about that possibility in the chaos of everything else. But Jason… that would have been a blood debt. The fact sat uneasy.

“You attacked us,” Tim said.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Justice.”

“Really?” Tim asked. “You’re going to call it that? Did you attack those buildings too? Do you know how many people died in the crossfire of you and your petty little grudge?”

“It was a message.” Jason said. “He had to know it was me. He had to know why.”

“And you couldn’t have done that any other way?” Tim demanded. “You didn’t really want justice—”

“Don’t tell me what I want—”

“—you wanted him dead!” Tim yelled. “Bruce kills you and you come back. You kill Bruce and he says dead. How many people have you killed? Why do you get to keep coming back? Why not Steph, or Kon, or Bart, or my Dad? Why not someone who deserves it?” He slammed his fist against the counter before storming out.

Dick stood up. “I’m just going to…” he began inching towards the door.

“Go,” Jason said. “I won’t run off.”

—

Dick caught up with Tim outside, standing in front of Bruce’s grave. The weather was miserable, all grey drizzle and cold. Tim didn’t seem bothered by the fact that he was getting all wet.

“Why Jason?” Tim asked as Dick drew near. “Of all the people B could’ve broken his code for, why did it have to be him?”

It wasn’t the sort of question that was supposed to be answered but Dick said “I don’t know,” anyway.

Tim sighed. “I’m sorry. This is probably harder for you than it is for me.”

“I don’t want to believe that he did it,” Dick admitted.

“Then why do you?” Tim asked, turning to look at him. “He could just be trying to mess with us.”

“There was the scar, on his throat and I just…” Dick had watched Jason as the Red Hood, as he shouted and killed and carved his bloody path through Gotham. That hadn’t been the man he was talking to in the quiet darkness of the cave. His brother who had been dead, talking about his father who had kept secrets all his life. “I’d just seen him come back from the dead. I don’t think he was lying, after that. You?”

Tim shrugged. “You believed him.” And Dick had always been the one who’d believed the most in Bruce went unsaid. “And well, what attacked us, it wasn’t human. With the furies, it made sense.”

That had been Jason too. Cold rain trickled down the back of Dick’s neck and under his shirt. He suppressed a shudder at the memory. “A blood debt.” A father killing a son. A son killing a father.

Tim nodded. “Do you think he’ll ever stop?”

A duffel bag full of heads. Bruce dead in Crime Alley. Clayface in the graveyard. The Joker dead somewhere out there. But also: Death is simple . The angle of the attack; the single killing wound. You should’ve cremated me, he’d said. “I don’t know.”

The rain was picking up. Tim leaned against Dick, his hair leaving a wet spot on his shirt. “He can’t be Batman. I won’t work with him.”

Dick sighed. “I know.”

—

Jason was still in the kitchen when Dick and Tim made it back inside and changed into dry clothes. He’d kept his word. He looked from some paperback thriller he’d picked up from somewhere when they entered. “Hey,” he said.

Tim marched up and sat down across from him. Dick pulled up a chair next to him.

“We need to settle this,” Tim said. “I don’t care why you killed Bruce, you still did it. You can’t be Batman again.”

“Fine,” Jason said.

“You’re not going to argue?”

He shrugged. “Why should I? Do you want me to? Do you think I didn’t know what would happen when the truth came out?”

“Then why bother?”

Jason leaned forward, elbows on the kitchen table. “Don’t tell me you’ve never looked at him, at the cowl and known you could do better by Gotham.”

That was a different answer than he’d given earlier, Dick noted.

Tim looked Jason dead in the eye. “Never,” he said.

Jason huffed, and went back to leaning back in his chair. “Then the cowl goes back to Dickie-bird then?”

Tim glanced at Dick.

Dick swallowed. He had made the choice once before. It shouldn’t be hard to make it again. “Yes,” he said. Nothing had changed really except the word tasted of blood and not just death in his mouth.

“Fair enough,” Jason said. “And what about me?”

“You still killed Batman,” Tim said.

“And we all know you can’t charge me for it.” Batman was still alive. Bruce was about to vanish into the Bermuda triangle.

“And all other crimes you committed?””

“That man died,” Jason said, like it was a joke.

“I don’t think that works as a legal defense,” Tim said.

“The Red Hood’s still wanted by the GCPD,” Dick said before the conversation could devolve further. “And the Justice League has jurisdiction to try certain crimes relating to its members. There are options.”

“And you could kill me again,” Jason said with a shrug. “See if it sticks this time.”

Dick sighed. “What do you even want?”

“Hell if I know,” Dick waited. Jason sighed. “I had a goal,” he said. “ And now it’s done. Didn’t think any farther than that.” He leaned back father in the chair, the front two legs lifting off the ground. “It might be nice to stop,” he said, almost as an afterthought.

“Stop what?”

Jason shrugged. “Everything. We fight every day of our lives. Haven’t you ever wanted to just walk away?”

“No,” Dick said, because there was no way he could answer with anything else.

“Good for you.” He couldn’t tell if Jason believed him.

“Plenty of time to stop in a prison cell,” Tim said dryly.

The laugh that startled out of Jason was surprisingly genuine. “So you’re going to arrest me then?”

“What else would we do?” Tim asked.

“Got me there. So which one will it be?”

Tim looked to Dick.

“The Justice League,” Dick decided. That was the most he could offer. A Justice League Tribunal had more leeway than state courts did.

“Then that’s that then?”

“That’s that.” Justice, as best he could give.

—

The cave felt somehow emptier with Jason sent up to the holding facilities on the watchtower. It was strange, the way he’d managed to fill the space in such a short amount of time.

Dick had paperwork he needed to do. Reports to fill and questions to answer for the league. Preparations for the upcoming trial. When he sat down at the Batcomputer, he didn’t pull any of that up.

“What are you looking at?” Tim asked when he wandered down a while later. He leaned on the batchair, looking over Dick’s shoulder. Dick let Tim read for himself. “The league,” he said. “You’re looking for Bruce’s son.”

“Damian.”

“Huh?”

“Jason told me that was his name. Damian.”

Tim nodded. “Damian Wayne,” he said, trying it out. “It won’t be easy.”

“When has that ever stopped us?”

Tim snorted and leaned closer. “You got that right,” he said. Dick reached up and ruffled his hair. “You’ll be a good Batman,” Tim said.

Dick made one of the vague noises they’d both picked up from Bruce. “I’ve got a pretty great Robin too.”

“Mmm, yeah.”

Dick just sat there for a moment, with Tim closer before he closed the open file and stood up. It was getting late. “Dinner before patrol?" he asked.

Tim smiled, “Yeah, you’ve got to cook though.”

Dick rolled his eyes. “I’ll teach you someday, Boy Blunder.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Tim said and they went upstairs.