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The second time Jason died, much like the first, involved bleeding out in a warehouse in the aftermath of a bomb. It was familiar. He might have laughed if he had any breath to spare. He didn't though, and instead he lay there under the rubble as his body grew colder and colder despite the stifling summer heat. Eventually Death came and planted a gentle kiss on his forehead. He took her extended hand and followed her to a door.
"It's time," Death said. "This is where we part."
And Jason, Jason didn't remember much about the first time he'd done this whole song and dance, but he remembered what might have been peace there at the end of it. He remembered Death and her gentle smile, the smooth flesh of her hand in his. So he nodded at her and walked through the door.
Jason had died disappointed the first time, betrayed and alone. He'd died resigned the second, no longer able to hold onto his rage in the face of the cold choice his father had made.
He woke up angry.
He hadn't expected to wake, not really. He'd meant what he'd said in the warehouse: one of them would die that day, be it him or the Joker. Either way it would be the end. That being said, Jason wasn't surprised to wake up either, surrounded by the familiar, suffocating darkness, with the taste of dirt on his tongue.
It was easier to dig his way out of the rubble than it had been his grave.
The rage came back in earnest a day later when he looked in the mirror and saw that his throat had knit itself back together, leaving behind a silvery scar. All he had asked for was justice. To be avenged. That his death be given it's due. And had Batman done that? No. He'd decided that Jason was worth more as a ghost than a son.
Jason left Gotham. There was no reason to stay.
He wandered, hitching rides on planes, trains, and boats. He didn't know where he was going, just that he had to get away from Gotham, from civilization. He came to a stop outside a little square shack in the middle of nowhere and realized that he had a destination after all.
Jason knocked.
"Come in," came a voice from inside.
He opened the door to find a single dusty room with cobwebs hanging from the walls, rats hiding in the corners, and in the center of the room, an old wooden table with three women sitting around it. Its surface was covered in a tangled mess of yarn, empty cups, and stray scraps of paper.
"Who are you?" asked the first woman — the youngest — her hair bleached platinum blond, her dress a stylish, little black thing that looked out of place in the dilapidated surroundings.
"A ghost," Jason replied.
"And what brings you here, Mr Ghost?" The second woman asked. She was middle-aged, a little dumpty, and had a warm sort of smile that reminded him of the woman who had been his mother — not Catherine, but Sheila.
Jason gave the only answer he could. "Vengeance," he said.
The third woman, a withered old crone, smiled with a grin like an open grave. "Well dearie," she said. "Come in, take a seat. Tell us who shed blood."
Jason found himself bustled into the room and seated on a wooden chair with uneven legs. One of the women shoved a chipped mug of tea into his hands.
The question came again. "Who?" asked one of the women, or possibly all of them. Jason wasn't sure which.
"The Joker," he said.
The second woman tutted her tongue. "I'm afraid we can't do that. Blood debts only, dear, that's our game."
"Blood debts? He killed me. Isn't that blood enough?" Jason snapped.
The first woman shook her head. "How soon they forget."
"It's pitiful, isn't it?" said the third.
"Kin killing kin," said the second, taking a sip from her own teacup. "That's what we deal in."
"A daughter kills her mother," said the first.
"A father his son," said the third, tapping wrinkled fingers against the table. "So who is it? We can see the mark on you. You wouldn't have come to us otherwise."
A question that should perhaps have occurred to Jason earlier came to mind. "And just who are you?"
"You call upon us without even knowing our name?" the first asked, dark eyes glinting dangerously.
"Humanity grows more foolish by the century," the third muttered.
"They call us many names," the second said.
"Most of them not very nice," the third woman muttered under her breath.
"The Erinyes."
"The Gracious ones."
"The Eumenides."
"The Furies."
The third grinned her terrible toothless grin. "But you can call us the Kindly Ones."
"So,'' said the second. "Now that you know that, Who's blood debt are we being called to collect?"
Jason took a drink from the mug in his hands. The liquid was bitter and tasted of salt on his lips. It burned on the way down. "My mother," he said. "She sold me out. Handed me over to my death."
The kindly ones shook their heads.
"But did she do the deed with her own hands?" asked the oldest woman. "Was it she who shed your blood?"
The youngest took up a knotted mess of yarn into her hands. "Besides, she's dead. There's nothing more we could do to touch her."
"So tell us," said the woman in the middle. "Who?"
Jason could hear a skittering sound coming from the edges of the room. It grew louder and louder until the sound turned into the ringing in his ears after an explosion. The line on his throat burned and with it the rage that had never quite dimmed since the first time he had crawled out of his grave to find himself unavenged.
"Batman," he spat. "Batman killed me. He was my father and he slit my throat himself.”
And the three women grinned. Their teeth looked sharp as swords, their nails like daggers. Gone was the tangled mess of string and yarn in the center of the table and in its place they held whips of scorpions in their hands.
"Yes," they said, in one, terrible voice. "That we can avenge."
They offered the whip to him, black and skittering, and Jason took it.
—
It started with a series of freak accidents. Waynetech buildings in Russia, France, and Brazil falling prey to fires, freak storms, and, in one memorable instance, a semi driving through the front entry. On the surface there was nothing connecting them, nothing to indicate that it was anything other than a string of bad luck.
Bruce knew in his line of work, things were never as simple as a string of bad luck. Still, his investigations yielded nothing as buildings in San Francisco, Topeka, and New York joined the list. Buildings in Gotham were targeted, and still he had no idea who or what was behind it, no idea how to stop it.
The Jason Todd Memorial Medical Research Center was the last building to be targeted, destroyed by a bomb. Batman helped the rescue workers dig through the rumble and wondered what would be next. This was a message for him, that much was clear. He just couldn't manage to read it. He was on edge, waiting for the next move.
Instead, nothing happened for nearly two weeks. Bruce stared at police reports and surveillance footage until it all began to blur together and Alfred started dropping strong hints that he should be getting some sleep.
Then Batgirl was attacked. She was found unconscious on a Gotham rooftop, beaten and bloody. Oracle was unable to find any footage of the attack and when Cassandra woke, she gave a jumbled mess of an account. It might've been three women who attacked, she said. Or maybe just a single man. They used their hands, a whip, nothing at all, just standing there. She remembered that something about the way they had moved had been wrong.
A week later, Robin was attacked. He was found in the same state, still no witnesses, no video evidence. Tim had little to add to Cassandra's testimony. Whoever it had been had spoken to him, he said. He didn't remember the words, but he did remember the way it echoed unnaturally, and seemed to stick in his bones. He remembered the sensation of something skittering over his body as he fell into unconsciousness.
Dick came down from New York to help with the investigation. Nightwing was attacked a few days later. Bruce was still no closer to unraveling the mystery. That was when he finally decided to ask for help.
John Constantine swore when he caught sight of Nightwing's body lying in the Batcave's medical bay, his chest rising and falling shallowly, injured and unconscious but still alive.
"What in bloody hell did you get caught up in?"
"That's why I called you," Bruce said.
"He stinks of power. I can tell you that much. Powerful magic."
He looked closer at Nightwing's body; poked and prodded, muttered things under his breath and made strange gestures with his hands. Bruce watched it all, not letting any of the swirling mess that was the whole situation show on his face. Constantine straightened up and left the medical bay.
He lit a cigarette. "I got good news and bad news," he said, letting out a plume of smoke.
“Hnn,” Bruce grunted.
"Bad news, your kid ran into the Furies. Good news, they obviously weren't after him or else he'd be dead." Another drag on the cigarette, a look at Bruce that came uncomfortably close to seeing. "My guess, he was just a message. I pity the poor bloke that those ladies have got in their sights."
A message. Batgirl, Robin, Nightwing. The Jason Todd Memorial Medical Research Center. The Furies. Bruce tucked it all away, his brain already starting to pull the pieces together. "The Furies," he said. "What can you tell me about them?"
"They're old, powerful. Deal in blood debts when someone calls on them to collect."
"Blood debts?"
"Fratricide, Patricide, Filicide. You know fun stuff," Constantine shrugged. "Got caught up with a bloke once, the sort of higher power who can shape reality like that," he made a snapping gesture with his free hand. "Dunno how he got in their sights, but they went after him and he died, or at least as close to death as his kind gets."
He reached the end of his cigarette. Constantine ground the butt under his heel. "A word of advice. Stay out of their way."
"I see," Bruce said, and he did.
Constantine left. Bruce remained, alone in the dark of the cave and let his mind work, weaving all the pieces together.
When Dick woke, Bruce was standing in front of Jason's case, staring at the tattered yellow cape.
"B?" came a groggy voice and Bruce was at his side. Dick blinked. "What 'appened?"
"You were attacked," Bruce said. He almost reached for Dick's hand, but stilled his own at the last moment. "What do you remember?"
Dick closed his eyes and was silent for so long Bruce that thought he might have fallen back asleep, but at last he said "They just stood there. I think... I think I remember falling. They just— they just stood there."
—
Bruce picked his time carefully: the only people in their particular wing of the watchtower were him and Diana.
"Bruce." She smiled when she saw him. "It is good to see you."
Bruce grunted. "The furies," he said. "Do you know about them?"
"The Eumenides? Yes."
"How do you stop them?"
"You don't," Diana said. "Once they begin their hunt, nothing will stop them from bringing it to an end. There are powers even the gods are subject to. The Eumenides are one of them."
"I see," Bruce said and he knew what had to be done.
"Why do you ask?" Diana asked, reaching out towards him. "Are—"
Bruce cut her off. "Speak of this to no one," he said and left.
He began to act as soon as he returned to the cave. He drove his children from Gotham. Nightwing back to New York as soon as his injuries had begun to heal, Batgirl to Oracle's new roost in Metropolis, Robin to San Francisco and the Titans. Alfred was the only one who remained, silently making his displeasure clear. Bruce allowed it.
He had made preparations before and now he made sure they were all still in order. And once that was complete, he went to Park Row, to Crime Alley, to the place where it had all begun and began to wait.
Jason came to him at last, holding in his hands a gun, a crowbar, a black whip that writhed as if it were alive. There were three shadows stretching out behind him. His neck glistened with red.
"Jason," Bruce said.
Jason opened his mouth and when he spoke, it was with a chorus of voices and not his own.
"We are not Jason," the voices said. "We are more than Jason and we have come to settle a debt."
For a moment, Bruce saw his son's corpse on the ground, three women clad as warriors with bloody hands and feet standing over it. He blinked and it was only Jason and him and the dark city sprawling out around them.
"What debt?" Bruce asked even though he already knew. Ethiopia. A son dead because he had failed, a funeral shroud hanging in the cave under a coffin of glass.
Jason laughed and it was Jason's laugh, a once bright thing made broken and wrong. When he answered though, it was still the chorus of voices that used his mouth.
"The blood of a son," they said through the mouth of a corpse. And then they struck.
—
The Kindly Ones left Jason and they took with them the burning rage that had been driving him. He felt cold and empty; he felt as if he were dying a third time. Batman's blood stained his hands, Bruce's blood was pooling in the cracks of the alley pavement. All Jason could do was watch as Death walked up. She crouched down by his father, taking his bloody hand in hers and leading him away.
And then Jason was alone with only the dead for company. He felt hollow; he had thought he would've felt something more. The city was as quiet as it ever was: the distant strains of a radio, the yowling of cats, gunshots ringing out in the distance. Sooner or later there would be the sound of sirens ringing through the night.
Jason sat down by the corpse and began to wait.
