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Jason has been learning from Poisons Master Nguyen for three weeks when he learns who she is.
She's telling him about a neurotoxin while watching him practice throwing knives (coated in a temporary paralytic, for extra incentive) without touching the blades. The section of wall he’s using as a target is full of holes from knives, blowdarts, and sai. She usually keeps it covered with a hanging rug; it’s clearly out of place in her upscale apartment in Hanoi. Jason’s pulling out an embedded knife and tossing it to Poisons Master Nguyen when he realizes one of the holes is from something different.
Jason wasn’t in the Teen Titans for very long, but Batman trained him and Nightwing had introduced him to every vigilante he could. That hole, that peculiar stain in the wood just below it, was made by an acid arrow - the kind used by Arsenal.
He reaches out, fingers hovering millimetres away from the stain.
“What’s this from?” How will she react to the question? How does she know Roy?
She laughs, and a knife hits the wall by his hand with a thunk. “Boyfriend and I had a little disagreement.”
Jason pulls the knife from the wall as he half-spins, using his momentum to hurl the knife back at her. She catches it easily, fingers locking around the handle a foot from her shoulder.
“You’re dating Arsenal?”
She tilts her head to the side, giving off an air of confusion. “Arsenal?”
“I know that mark.”
“Awfully perceptive. That the kind of thing you learn in the League of Assassins?”
Jason meets her gaze. “No,” he says, “it’s the kind of thing you learn in Gotham.”
Her lazy smile falters, just a little. “That’s enough of that,” she says abruptly. “You can handle a knife. Let’s go see how this morning’s recipe is coming.”
It’s not important, not really, but Jason wants answers. He’s still got another week and a half with Poisons Master Nguyen, and Talia’s been saying he needs to keep practicing making plans. Jason privately thinks of this as his “Manipulative bastard” training, which isn’t to say he minds - it’s fun, making sure he accounts for everything, manipulating everything around him with a smile.
As it turns out, though, he doesn’t need to bother this time.
“So.” Nguyen’s voice wakes him from a light sleep. “How does a Gotham kid learn about a Star City vigilante well enough to identify him from a single arrow impact?”
Jason’s immediately awake. Nguyen is standing in the doorway, sai in each hand, deceptively casual. The lights are on. There’s nothing within easy reach that would make a good weapon for someone uncreative.
Jason is creative.
He registers all of this before she’s finished speaking, and decides not to treat her as an immediate threat just yet.
“I don’t know,” he says, matching her light tone. “How does a Hanoi assassin get a Star City vigilante’s weapon in her wall?” He starts to sit up so his height disadvantage is less pronounced - amazing what sleeping on a pallet on an assassin’s floor does to one’s confidence - but at a sharp movement from her, he freezes.
“Lie back down,” she says, and Jason considers his options again. He can probably learn something from this conversation, and when push comes to shove he can be on his feet and throwing his blanket over her head in a matter of moments. He lies back down, but remains propped up on one elbow so their heads aren’t perpendicular. She allows this.
“How do you know what weapons Arsenal uses?” she asks again.
“I was trained,” Jason says cooly. “The same way you’re training me.”
“By whom?”
Jason says nothing.
“By whom?” The question is sharper.
“I don’t see why you need to know.”
“Because whoever trained you was thorough, which makes them a threat.”
“You're a threat. I'm a threat.”
She acknowledges this with a little tilt of her head. “What are your intentions? Are you just planning to kill while avoiding the heroes, or is it something else? Are you going after Star City? The Titans? The League?”
“Nobody you care about.”
“Let me decide that, and maybe I’ll let you walk out of here.”
All right. “The Joker.”
She doesn't soften, exactly, but her stance slips into something slightly less defensive. “And you need to know about Arsenal to do that?”
“I need to know about Batman, and about everyone he could bring in to help.”
Nguyen nods, just once, and steps out of the room, locking the door behind her.
It takes Jason an hour to get back to sleep.
This doesn’t tell him anything for sure. Nguyen said Arsenal is her boyfriend, or at least she said she's dating somebody who uses one of his signature weapons. Theft is a definite possibility, or reverse-engineering. But the conversation they had in the middle of the night suggests that she cares for somebody, and that that somebody might be Roy Harper.
With the information he has, would Jason bet on her dating Roy? In a heartbeat. But he could still be wrong.
The rest of his time with Nguyen passes without incident and without information. While working with his next teacher, a hacking expert who manipulates bank account balances just to see who notices, Jason looks into Roy.
His online presence is spotty, but he’s there. He led the Teen Titans twice. He’s not with Donna anymore; Donna’s dead.
Most saliently, he’s got a daughter without an identifiable mother. A daughter with a distinct resemblance to Poison Maser Nguyen.
Jason walks away from his hacking apprenticeship with one more murder under his belt. He doesn’t see Arsenal or Nguyen again for nearly a year.
After his grand plan to force Batman to kill the Joker goes sideways, Jason fully intends to stick around. It was always a possibility that his father would walk away.
What Jason hadn’t considered was bleeding out from a Batarang to the throat.
Or an explosion that leveled the city of Bludhaven.
Or that Talia was watching.
Jason claws his way out of unconsciousness to find a bandage around his throat and her standing by his bedside. It’s a familiar sight. He’s been in a hospital bed like this before, with his sort-of-mother watching over him.
“You’re awake.”
“The fucking Joker’s alive and it’s his fault.”
Talia nods. “That’s true.”
“You’d have killed him for me.”
“I still could.”
Jason, for the first time, actually considers it. “Maybe. He’s probably dead now. How’s Bludhaven?”
“In surprisingly good shape, considering the explosion and the supervillain attacks- well, the explosion was a supervillain attack, I suppose, but you know what I mean."
“And Nightwing?”
“Alive. Fighting.”
Jason exhales. “I need to go back."
“Do you?”
“I lead every gang in Gotham. It hasn’t even been six months since their last war.”
“I’ve appointed somebody to take your place if you choose not to go back.”
There’s something she isn’t telling him, and he gives her an unimpressed look until she caves in.
“I think you could use a break.”
“I can’t stop.” Jason’s a shark, he has to keep swimming or he’ll sink and drown.
“I didn’t say stop. But I don’t think focusing on your father is healthy right now.”
Jason sighs. “What did you have in mind?”
Two weeks later, he’s standing in a small, moderately unseedy motel room, bag in hand. He has brown hair, brown eyes, identification that nobody will see, small structures to hold in his cheeks to change his facial shape. He has a false accent, a false history, a false name.
He is Claw, and he is a serial killer.
The guy at the front desk, Hollister, was friendly. Jason knows of him. He’s killed nearly two dozen people that the authorities know of. A nervous young man he bumped into on the stairs, with a name tag that read Alto, is responsible for eight kidnappings and deaths, all children. Jason hates him. There’s a very good reason the Red Hood had a rule about dealing to children.
Deep breaths.
It was a good idea to come here. This “cereal” convention (and what sick fucker thought up that name?) is where the lowest of the low live.
Jason isn’t naive. He’s spent the last year of his life living with assassins, learning to kill. But Jason kills to protect, he kills to make the cruelty stop. He’s smart about it. Even killing for money…there’s at least some kind of reason in it. But the people here? They kill because they like it. They kill because it’s fun, because they want power.
And they’re careful; of course they’re careful…but they never thought somebody like Jason would find them.
Jason unzips his bag. He tosses the clothes onto his bed, leaves the weapons alone, and pulls out the bag of toiletries.
For himself, he brought a toothbrush, toothpaste, and dental floss, deodorant and soap and shampoo.
For everyone else, he’s going to use what Nguyen taught him.
He slips the bottle labeled Tylenol into one pocket, the bottle labeled NyQuil in another, and walks out into the convention with the ghost of a smile.
The poison is slow-acting and dissolves easily in water. It doesn’t taste good, but alcohol disguises the flavour and doesn’t react with it.
Jason is methodical. He’s spent the afternoon hanging out at the bar and not being carded. He’ll see somebody, identify them, and slip a pill into their unattended drink. The day after the convention ends, they’ll be dead. It might be traceable, if somebody had the guest list, but by the time they trace it back to “Claw”, the identity will have been discarded.
The problem is, serial killers aren’t to be underestimated. Some of them use basically the same tactic; they know how to tell when somebody slips something into their drink.
Finally, Jason manages to get the third pill of the day into a beer.
Being Robin gives me magic, he’d said once. And Dick found a library book about sleight of hand and took that literally. Bet he never thought Jason would use those lessons for murder.
Jason is glad that Dick’s all right. There was a moment when he almost forgot the whole plan to go and help, there was a moment when he thought his father would go with him…
Doesn’t matter right now. Right now, Jason is Claw, and he’s being entertained by the most terrible storyteller known to man.
Claw is making an excuse to go to the bathroom, sickened and glad the storyteller’s drinking poison.
Claw is getting up and turning around, only to accidentally make eye contact
With
Nguyen.
Claw is Jason, and Jason freezes.
Nguyen is sitting in a booth at the edge of the bar, dressed in casual torn jeans and a plain green t-shirt, sipping a drink and watching Jason like a hawk. A figure behind her leans out to grab a napkin from the middle of the table, and that’s Roy Harper.
Nguyen he could understand. He’s not stupid. He knows Cheshire’s reputation; this wouldn’t be too much of a stretch. But Arsenal?
And now Nguyen’s getting up with Roy right behind her, and they’re coming his way, and Jason turns and walks to the bathroom as fast as he can.
Roy follows him in, because of course he does. Jason tries to duck into a stall, but before he can get the door all the way closed Roy is hauling him out by the back of his collar and pulling him into a headlock.
“Not so fast,” he says. “We just want to talk to you.”
“We don’t shit where we eat,” says the guy washing his hands in the sink. His name tag reads Fun Land. “Remember that.” He looks at Roy meaningfully, adds, “or at least not in the bathroom,” and walks out.
Jason’s stomach drops. Translation: You can kill him. Just don’t get caught. The stakes just got even higher.
Jason ducks low, sweeping his foot behind him and flipping Roy over one shoulder. The headlock loosens, and Roy hits the tile floor with a loud thud and a curse.
Nguyen sweeps in through the door. Jason swings at her - the hell with this, he needs to abandon the mission and get out - but she ducks under his arm, producing a knife from nowhere. Beside her, Roy is getting up. Jason has overstayed his welcome.
The bathroom door opens again, and the host, Holliday, walks in. Roy takes advantage of the distraction to hook Jason’s foot and sweep him off his feet, immediately pinning him. Nguyen presses the knife against his throat, just next to the scar that's only mostly healed.
For a long moment, nobody speaks.
And then Holliday clears his throat. “Cheshire. March Hare. What is this?”
“We’re convincing him to join us tonight,” says Nguyen without skipping a beat.
“Don’t shi-”
“Look at him,” says Roy. “If he’s going to squeal, he’ll have to answer too many questions. It won’t be worth the risk.”
Holliday sighs and motions to the doorway. “Claw,” he says, “if you even think about going to anybody, I will hunt you down.”
Jason’s stomach twists as Roy hauls him upright. He’s seen the file on Holliday. If he survives the night, Holliday’s high on his list.
Jason’s a good fighter, but he’s no fool. Two against one is risky, especially when they’re trained as well as Cheshire and Arsenal. Jason can take them, but he can’t risk bringing in anybody on their side, and he has to use the element of surprise.
Which means he has to wait until they get where they’re going.
They walk upstairs in a row. Roy, with an arm too tight around Jason’s shoulders, and Nguyen, holding Jason’s hand in a position just right to stab him in the hand if she flexes her wrist the right way. And knowing her, he can’t mess up getting out of that grip because she’s sure to have poisoned the blade.
Jason’s best option is to wait until they’re alone and Nguyen lets go, find a weapon, and get the hell out of Dodge immediately after defeating them.
They’re heading to a motel room. Roy unlocks the door and they pull Jason in.
“Sit down,” invites Nguyen, producing another knife and aiming it at his throat. “We have a chair right there.”
Poison on the knife. No poison, and possibly less imminent danger, on the chair.
Jason obeys. Nguyen keeps her position while Roy produces rope and starts tying Jason to the chair.
Jason pays attention to the knots. Nothing he can’t untie in under thirty seconds.
“You came prepared,” he observes.
“I have some questions for you,” says Nguyen, ignoring him.
Jason, with a sense of deja vu, doesn’t respond.
“You’re that League of Assassins kid. The one who wanted a poisons teacher.”
“The who?”
“You said you wanted to kill the Joker.” Roy finishes tying the last knot and Nguyen lets her hand drop. No more imminent poison. “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t- I don’t know.” Claw, completely out of his depth, with only a few kills under his belt, none of whom fought back. Jason hopes his disguise will fool her. He starts wiggling his hands behind his back, starting to get at the first knot, but Roy puts a hand over his, stopping him.
“The thing is,” says Roy, “I’ve heard that somebody did try to kill the Joker recently. And my source has his suspicions.”
Dick.
“M- maybe it was the same guy? Who’s not me?”
“Contact lenses and hair dye,” Nguyen dismisses, and Jason's heart falls. “Simple disguise. I’m just disappointed in you, “Todd”.”
“And by the way,” says Roy, “You’re terrible at fake names.”
"What are you going to do to me?"
They exchange a look.
"Have you heard of us?" Roy asks. "Cheshire and March Hare?"
"No."
Roy smiles, almost casually. "We'll teach you soon enough. Tell us about yourself first."
Jason figures there are a few ways out of this. Most aren't subtle. Nearly all of them involve somebody finding out who he is.
So he might as well.
"Todd is my real name," he says, dropping the terrified act and looking Roy in the eyes. "Jason Todd."
Jason can see the words hit Roy like a sledgehammer to the chest. He actually staggers.
So the Titans heard what happened to him, or something like it.
"I was Robin," Jason continues. "The Joker killed me. I came back to life and the League of Assassins took me in." He nods to Nguyen. "I was trained by their best."
"And then you went back to Gotham," she breathes.
"And then I came back to Gotham and Batman wouldn't kill the Joker." Jason tilts his head, showing them his scar. "He tried to kill me instead. I don't know what to do with that, so I came here." He shrugs as well as his bonds allow and doesn’t think about whether that last was the truth. "If the Joker's still alive somewhere, at least these people won't be."
Roy and Nguyen exchange a look.
"We'll be back," says Roy to Jason, stepping out into the hallway. Nguyen takes the time to gag Jason with a motel towel - ew - before she follows.
"If you escape," she whispers as she ties the knot behind his head, "we will look for you. And we will find you. And you will die slowly. Blink if you understand."
Jason obeys, and thinks about that for a few minutes after the door clicks shut. On the one hand, they probably can't do it. It would be a single assassin and a former Teen Titan against Talia's connections. On the other hand, they'd probably recruit help and get Jason's identity public enough to wreck any hope of secrecy. He's just contemplating whether untying himself and staying in the chair would be breaking the spirit of the promise or just the letter when they enter again.
"We've decided to trust you for the weekend," says Roy, stepping behind Jason and starting on the knot holding the gag in place. "The enemy of my enemy and all that."
Jason raises an eyebrow as the gag loosens. "What are you doing here, anyway?"
"Building a reputation," says Roy. "Sometimes heroes die or disappear, and there's always someone paying attention. We're the excuses."
"Guess I was ineligible?"
Roy pauses halfway through a particularly tricky knot. "We, uh. This was Batman's idea, after you died."
"Of course it was." Jason pulls one hand free. "Of course Bats saw me die and thought, you know, what I need is an excuse."
"For what it's worth, it's because-"
"Don't say it's because he cared," Jason snaps. "If he actually cared about my life, he'd have done the fucking math and killed the Joker."
"Nightwing did," says Nguyen. "They say he beat him to death, but-"
"But Batman gave him mouth-to-mouth and brought him back, I know."
"Hm." She might actually be impressed. "You really have done your research."
"Know thine enemy. Know thine ally. Know both of thine terrible fathers."
"How have you been killing, anyway?" Roy asks, alert as he starts undoing the knots at Jason's ankles. "I don't see any weapons on you."
Jason indicates his pocket. "Nguyen's teaching, two pill bottles, and a lot of skill."
Nguyen names the poison, and Jason nods as the last of the ropes fall away. Roy stands up.
"Look," he says, "it's probably none of my business, but I think you should talk to Dick. He misses you. And you know that he was the one who killed-"
Jason doesn't quite know why he pulls away.
"You're right," he says, "it's none of your business."
It's not his job, Claw thinks as he hurries back to the bar, to avenge me.
But avenging all the victims of these murderers?
That's mine.