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Five more blocks.
Five more blocks to his stashed car, the seventh one he'd hidden for this particular day. It was close to the much less hidden car #5, a decoy for Oracle, and the very well hidden car #6, a secondary decoy for when Oracle inevitably deduced car #5 was a decoy.
The other four were spread out much better throughout the city, but he'd prefer not to have to reorganize his route for the night. He'd already closed off the loose ends, and scrubbed down his last safehouse. He was packing light too: He had his Red Hood suit stashed in his duffel bag, and the only weapons he brought were whatever he could carry on him. He didn't bring any phones, money, or food. He'd have plenty of that where he was going.
Four more blocks.
The older kids he used to help keep watch on all the street kids knew that the Red Hood was going away for a while. It grated him to be another adult figure to abandon them, but he was short on options. He'd bought an old warehouse and renovated it into a safe house of sorts: It was for the street kids, but the working girls were in charge of running the place: Keeping a log of who came and went. Managing the food allowance. Trying to funnel the willing kids to orphanages or foster homes that were "Hood approved". Originally it was their payment for his "protection." Now it was going to be how they paid "rent" for all the safehouses he was about to leave in their possession. No one was going to freeze on the streets over the winter while he was gone.
Three more blocks.
Figuring out how to keep them all safe while he was gone was a bit tricky. He couldn't necessarily rely on the Bats to do it. God forbid they actually help the downtrodden in Crime Alley instead of saving the skyscrapers in downtown for the billionth time. No, instead he had to make sure enough muscle stayed on the Red Hood's payroll to keep trouble at bay for the time being. And that they'd been working for him long enough to know how to properly treat the working girls and kids, as well as the consequences of crossing him.
Still, he'd have to make sure to check in on them. It was only going to be a matter of time before people noticed his absence, and some absolute fucking dickhead like Black Mask tries some shit and I have to come back just to shove a missile up his ass.
Two more blocks.
He was halfway to the next block when he heard the whoosh of a cape and the sound of boots hitting the dirty pavement. Jason Todd – sometimes Jason Peters, sometimes Todd Jason, lately Jason Head, but always The Red Hood – came to a standstill, every muscle in his body tensed for a confrontation.
"Jason," growled the voice behind him, and well, Jason certainly couldn't ignore that "just fucked throat cancer" voice now could he?
"Bruce," he answered, turning around and taking in the sight before him: The Dark Knight, standing in all his woven titanium fiber, kevlar dipped regalia, cowl lens narrowed into the tiniest of slits. Most Gothamites wound run at the sight, but Jason just gave a cold smile.
The cover of darkness hid the disgust in his eyes, but Bruce could see enough to know that Jason was scanning the rooftops, looking for some signs of an aerial assault. He could see how his body was angled to give him maximum responsiveness to counter an attack from multiple angles. How his right finger twitched slightly, fighting an instinctual desire to reach for the heavy caliber pistol Bruce knew was strapped to his hip.
He wish he could chalk it all up to the paranoia of constant crime fighting. Of evading months of attempts on his life from desperate mob bosses or enraged Rogues. But Bruce knew better than that. He knew the damning truth.
My own son doesn't feel safe around me. It wasn't the first, second, or even third time he'd come to this realization, but it still left his mind scrambling for something, anything to say to tell Jason that he was safe, always safe, with me. And just like before, no words came. Just like before, Jason was the first to break the protracted silence.
"So, what gave it away old man?" Jason asked. His voice was cold, but it lacked the overflowing tenor of hostility that Jason usually reserved for him. Bruce hoped that was a good sign.
"Gave what away?" he asked.
Jason scoffed. "Don't play dumb. You're here, so you figured it out. So humor me. What gave it away? Was it the lack of crippled rapists? The extra dealers selling to kids? Was your 'I haven't felt the righteous urge to lecture Jason about how we need to arrest pedophiles gently' sensor just ringing too loudly?"
Bruce stared in silence for a few moments, cataloguing Jason's words and consciously choosing not to engage any of the several points he made. Jason was laying bait, egging him on to start a conversation to know where. "Oracle told me."
"Fucking Babs. I didn't tell her a damn thing, but I'm not surprised she figured out I was leaving town. I'm more shocked that Replacement didn't guess first and come tattling to you about it."
Bruce bristled at the mention of Jason's nickname for Tim. "Don't call him that."
"'Don't call him that'," Jason repeated in a mocking tone.
"He is not a Replacement." Bruce said. "For you, or anyone else." It bothered him that no matter how hard he tried, Jason never seemed to believe him on that front.
"You're right, he's more of an upgrade. Or at least, he was until you replaced him with your bio-son." Jason paused, and a thoughtful look crossed his face. "Wait, wouldn't that make Damian Replacement 2.0?"
Bruce clenched his jaw, again forcing himself to think carefully before speaking. He always felt like he was walking on eggshells around Jason, especially if anything related to his death came up. Unfortunately, Tim's ascension to the role of Robin was squarely in the middle of that category. "None of my children are replacements for each other."
"Ohoho, I'm not even going to touch that can of worms," Jason exclaimed, tossing his hands up theatrically. "But please, let's skip the pleasantries and get to the part where you try and absolutely fail to convince me to stay in this shitshow of a city."
"I'm not sure I need to convince you," Bruce said, but from Jason's immediate facial expression, he knew he somehow miscalculated with his word choice there.
"You're not sure you need to – oh for fuck's sake you arrogant bastard. Really?" Jason snarled.
"I find it highly improbable that you'll actually leave Gotham." Bruce explained. Talking with Jason was difficult because Jason was always so emotional. But Bruce used logic. Batman used logic. And logic told him that Jason was planning something bigger. "Whatever plan this is, or whatever larger endgame you're getting at, either let me know or I'll have to assume you're planning something hostile to us or the rules we abide by."
Either wrong again, or very right Bruce deduced, as Jason's scowl turned even uglier.
"Every second you say some more of that bullshit is a second I get closer and closer to planning something hostile to 'you or the rules you abide by'. I mean really, you think I went through all the trouble of getting ready to leave on my own as part of some elaborate fucking hoax?" Jason asked, his voice rising with each syllable.
Deescalate Bruce thought.
"What else do you expect me to assume? That you're just up and leaving for no discernible reason? That you would do that without informing anyone in the family?"
"Yes to the first, and for the second, hell yes considering I'm not a part of said family."
Again, Bruce refused to take the bait. Jason's role in the family was another sore spot, one he promised himself he would address. Tomorrow. We'll talk about it tomorrow. "You can't leave Gotham. You love this city. You love the helpless. As much as we disagree on your methods, you've given everything to defend the overlooked: The orphans, The working girls, the domestic violence victims."
"Exactly Bruce," Jason answered, and Bruce resisted the urge to scold him for using personal names in the field. "I gave everything, and then some. And it still wasn't enough. How many nights did I spend beating up the worst filth in these streets? How many mornings did I spend washing blood off my hands? How many crying little kids have I had to take to an orphanage? And then how many orphanage workers have I had to preemptively beat straight?"
"Too many, Jason. And I'm sorry you felt that you had to do it alone, but-" He was interrupted by Jason's sudden laughter. It was quiet at first, but it quickly grew in volume and frequency. It wasn't the loud cackle that plagued his dreams, good and bad, since Jason died, nor the deeper, meaner laugh that was synonymous with the Red Hood. It was something sadder.
Broken.
"Felt that I had to do it alone?" The laughs stopped, gone as quick as they came. "I didn't feel anything. I knew. That I couldn't trust you. Or Dickface. Sometimes I could trust Babs and Timmers and you know what, Steph and Cass were always cool. And Alfred" he whistled, "Bless his heart. But he never knew how to say no to you."
You're wrong son. They love you. We love you.
"They're all here for you. I'm here. We're your family."
"No Bruce, they're your family," Jason spat back, his eyes starting to flare a dangerous green. "They're here for you. For your mission. When it comes down to it, I can't trust them to ever pick me over you. Which means I can't trust anyone for jack shit."
"Son-"
"Don't you ever call me your son again."
"It's the truth." Nothing can change that son.
"It stopped being the truth when you slit my throat to save the Joker's miserable life."
Bruce couldn't stop the full body flinch from those words, because that was the one thing that could change it. The most unforgivable of all his sins. To his dying day, Bruce would relive that night and wonder what he could have done differently. How things might have played out if he hadn't thrown the batarang. If his aim was different. If he'd foreseen the standoff before it happened. If he hadn't left his son bleeding out under a collapse building.
If talking with Jason was like crossing a rickety rope bridge across a gorge, then discussing that night wasn't like cutting the rope on one end. It was dropping a nuke on the gorge.
"I...That was a mistake I'll always regret Jason. And I don't know what I can ever say or do to make you believe that."
Jason scoffed in disbelief. "You know exactly what you could have done."
Could have done? Bruce wondered. Maybe there was hope that Jason would finally give up the fantasy of Batman killing The Joker.
"You were asking me to do something that was impossible," he countered, switching rapidly back into the low growl that announced the return of Batman, not Bruce, to the conversation. Batman and The Red Hood had gone through this conversation dozens of times now, so Bruce already knew what came next: The Red Hood would talk about doing justice where the system would fail. Batman would say that they never killed. Ever. And so on and so forth.
But instead of the start of their usual back and forth, Bruce was caught off guard when Jason kept his silence, instead closing his eyes and clenching & unclench his fists as he rotated his shoulders counter clockwise. He registered it as a League of Shadows grounding technique, and added it to his mental file of Things to Talk to Jason About When He Can Listen To Reason.
After a few moments of this, Jason spoke. His eyes were still closed, but his voice was once again back to the controlled, cool tone as before. Where at the beginning of their conversation the restrained hostility gave Bruce hope, now it was starting to concern him.
"Oscar Wilde once wrote 'We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.'" He opened his eyes to look back at Bruce, the earlier green now subdued to the normal aquamarine color. "So many people called me a devil, in one way or another, before." Before I died. "And then when I came back, between the fact that I wasn't still fucking dead and the number that the Lazaurus pit did on me, I wondered if it was true for a second. But you know Bruce, if I'm my own devil, I sure as shit didn't get the chance to make my own hell."
He closed his eyes again, and then reopened them, and this time Bruce felt his gaze going right through the cowl lens. "No, you made this hell for me. With what you did, and what you didn't do. And now I'm going to undo it, one piece of brimstone at a time. But I can't do that here. Not around you or the others. Not in this town, that might as well be hell on Earth. When I come back…if I come back, it'll be when I'm ready."
Bruce wanted to tell him how wrong he was for believing that his family wasn't there for him. How sorry he was for failing to save him from the Joker. Or the Lazarus Pit after. How proud he was for being so strong. How things would be so much better if he looked past killing and just did things the right way. He wanted to grab his son and hug him tightly and tell him how much he loved him until Jason believed it.
What he actually said was "Where will you go?"
"Far away from here." Far away from you. "I'm leaving now Bruce. Don't follow me, or I swear to every God & wannabe God the Justice League's ever encountered, I'll put a bullet through both of your legs."
Bruce the father wanted to follow him, consequences be damned. Batman, the pragmatist, didn't want to risk weeks of patrol when he could ask Oracle to track down his whereabouts if he needed them. So he said nothing when Jason turned around and walked forward. Did nothing but watch as his second son, his first real son, and his greatest failure as a father and a hero, faded into the shadows.
He'll come back. He always comes back.
It wasn't until later, when Nightwing landed on top of the Wayne Tower, the constipated look on his face that signaled he was about to convey some uniquely distasteful information, that he realized he might be wrong.
It was only four little words.
"The Joker is dead."
…
Jason sat in an absurdly luxurious chair, staring at the top of the cabin of Talia al Ghul's private jet of the month. The cream interior contrasted well with the mahogany finish that lined the entire cabin, and if he wasn't so tired he knew he'd appreciate the workmanship a lot more. As it was, he was just doing mental calculations for how many Crime Alley families could be fed, clothed, and housed for a year at the cost of just the gold trim that was ingrained into various parts of the cabin.
Anything was better thank thinking of the clusterfuck of emotions he felt about leaving Gotham.
He stretched his neck and took notice of Talia across the seat across him. She was going through one of her various log books, handling whatever latest fire was going on at Head Industries. Despite his strong suspicions that she hadn't slept in over 24 hours, she didn't have so much as a single hair out of place.
He wondered if she got any of the The Joker's blood on her clothes when she killed him. The idea of the clown dying without making a large mess just seemed unfathomable.
"I haven't said thank you yet. For...well for everything." For doing it, without making me ask. Making me beg, like I begged Bruce.
"There is nothing to thank me for," she answered, still rifling through her paperwork.
"T, that's a fucking lie if I ever heard one."
"Language," she scolded, and he actually blushed. Fucking hell, I'm not a schoolkid.
"What you did for me...I owe you T. Not just hiding me from Bruce. You killed...You killed that bastard."
At that, Talia actually put her paperwork down and looked at Jason with something inscrutable in her eyes. It wasn't soft, because Talia al Ghul was not soft in any way, but it wasn't a harsh look either. It did, however, make him feel like he had just said something utterly stupid.
"Look at me Jason, and listen carefully, because I will not repeat this again: You owe me no thanks. That despicable creature deserved to die years ago, and I apologize that I allowed him to live this long in pathetic deference to Bruce. If I hadn't been in a rush to meet you, I would have enjoyed prolonging his death."
Bruce. Not 'Beloved' Jason noted.
"It is a parent's duty to protect their children, no matter what. You are my son, Jason, whether you accept me as your mother or not. I will protect you, regardless of the cost."
He gave her a wry grin. "I've had a lot of parents, and believe me T, that hasn't been my experience."
"No, it hasn't. But that changes now."
...
Batman stood in the Gotham Coroner's office, flanked by a pensive looking Nightwing. On a slab in front of them lay the charred remains of The Joker. The Medical Examiner's report was succinct, and considerably thorough, giving Gotham's general track record.
Victim was gutted antemortem by a curved, sword-length blade. The victim was then beheaded in one swift motion, apparently by the same blade. Death was imminent. The body was lit on fire post-mortem. Time of death was roughly six hours ago.
Everything about it was like a punch to the gut. The imminent relief of knowing he'd never have to worry about...this animal...in stark contrast with the disappointment of knowing that in the end, all of his sacrifices were for naught. Jason's death, the guilt of what happened to Barbara, of what happened to every victim the Joker ever laid his barbaric eyes on. Everything that happened between him and Jason the moment the batarang left his hand. The high price he paid to never cross his line, all rendered null and void by one act.
"Do you think it was Jason?" Dick asked, voice pensive.
"No," he answered, and Bruce could practically see the tension draining out of his eldest son. "Jason would have made him suffer longer. Would have made sure I knew."
"I was thinking that swords aren't really his M.O, but that too. And look, when he hears the news, Jason's gonna be the first person back in town. He'll need to see it to believe it."
"No he won't." Not if she's the one who did it.
"No?" Dick asked, confused, and Bruce remembered that he never shared his suspicions about how deep Talia & Jason's relationship ran. More secrets. Always working an angle, aren't you old man? Jason's voice accused in his head.
"B, what are you not telling me?" Dick asked, the frustration starting to seep into his voice.
"He's gone Dick," Bruce said, the words feeling like ash on his tongue. "She gave him what I couldn't."
Peace.