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Chapter Text

The moment Jason’s eyes catch upon the splatter of acid on his left shoe he spares a brief, startled moment to wonder if he’s been drugged. The neon green glow looks like it was pulled straight out of his nightmares and his first immediate thought is that Scarecrow’s toxin was put in the vents again. Then his self-preservation kicks in and in a flurry of movement, Jason rips his foot out of his boot with a shriek. No, Oracle he did not scream it was a shout at best and a yelp at worst. Yes, everything is fine.

His foot emerges unscathed, albeit scraped from the secure fastening of the boot. Dark teal eyes glance around, scanning for a source. He half expects maniacal laughter to start echoing in his ears, but there’s no sign of the Rogues. The acid lay evenly over his shoe, which means it dropped down from directly above him, but there was nothing except Gotham’s ever-present smog overhead.

Then where…?

He looks back down at the shoe, double-checking his initial assessment and noting the clean, untouched boot laying sadly alone on the rooftop. The acid is gone. Jason blinks incredulously at the beady black dots looking up at him from the shoe still attached to his foot.

“What the fuck?” He asks it.

The acidic goop blinks back. Its eyes move around, rotating and drawing closer together before moving apart again. Jason doesn’t know why he thinks of the black beads as eyes – nothing should have eyes that move any way it pleases. Hell, he’s not even sure when he started referring to it as an ‘it’ instead of as the goopy acid that he had mistaken it for.

For some reason, it makes as much sense as one would look at a cat and know that it was a ‘cat’.

…It’s kind of cute.

Jason, against every single part of him that is Bat and League, puts his shoe back on and scoops the goop up.

He wonders if it will eat dog food.

---

An hour and many rooftops later, he knows the answer. The goop does not eat dog food. He offers it one of the bananas on his counter and the poor fruit is rejected all the same. It doesn’t eat Jason’s dinner either, the rude little bastard.  

Jason watches it lose interest in the raw chicken he was going to use for tomorrow’s meal and wonders if it eats anything at all.

Then again, he knew a cat from his old building in the alley that would go out and find her own food before wandering back home. The family was nice, but like everyone else, they struggled to afford to feed the whole family.

Except Jason can afford to feed the goop and it doesn’t sit well with him that the goop won’t eat – even if it is a potentially sentient blob of acid that may or may not be from the Lazarus pit. It was more interested in cuddling into his chest than it was in the assortment of pet food that he had scrounged up for it.

He leans back into his bed with a huff, morbidly wondering if it would eat his heart while he slept.

Here lies Jason Todd: Murdered by a Green Monster and His Own Stupidity. Again.

Alfred would disapprove of the ‘again’ part, but Bruce would tack it on, if not physically then verbally when he trains the next batch of children he adds to his hoard. Of this, Jason had no doubts.

“As long as you don’t pull out a crowbar, we’re good.” He tells the neon green splotch in his lap.

Jason swears the thing is looking at him disapprovingly even without a face. What can he say? He has that effect on people.

The Goop nuzzles his stomach and rumbles. Jason pats what he thinks is its head and picks up his book. His casework won’t make any progress until tomorrow. He may as well take the extra hour for himself.

The Goop rumbles some more.

…

He’s drowning. He’s always drowning. In wood, in mud, in air, in green, in blood. His lungs burn, he scrambles to go up, claws at the velvet and elm, thrashes in wet soil and burning liquid, and he keeps getting pulled down, down, down no matter how much he struggles to survive.

“Where are you going, little bird? Uncle J is just getting this party started!”

“You remain unavenged.”

Green chains pull him down and he continues to thrash desperately against it. It steals him away from the surface, back into the drowning – always drowning – and the blissful peace he knew only in the deepest parts of his mind.  

…

He wakes up to a slight press against his hair and breathes. Soft blanket bunches beneath his clenched fist – not velvet, not silk, not the coffin. Breathing exercises come to him out of continuous practice and he focuses on the smell of mint and thyme from the window by his bedside.

When he’s ready, he reaches an arm up to swat at whatever has made its home by his head only for his hand to meet a cool wisp of air.

Oh right, the Goop. Jason angles his head up, noting that his heart remains un-eaten, and comes face to face with a bowling ball-sized blob of green.

He double-checks that none of his organs or limbs were eaten before sitting up.

“You got bigger.” He informs it. He gets the feeling the Goop already knows.

Jason frowns, he sort of liked it better when the Goop was stress-ball-sized. Easily punt-able in dire circumstances and perfectly sized for traveling on top of his head.

He sighs. Oh well, breakfast calls.

2 p.m. crepes coming right up.

Two green stumps latch onto his shirt before he can go further than the edge of the bed. The Goop partly floats - partly pulls itself up to curl around his neck. Jason ponders this new development, refers back to his still-intact limbs, and lets it go. Sure, the little guy can have stumpy arms and fly. Why not? There’s a murderous crocodile working as his best friend’s sponsor in the sewers. The Goop is allowed to have nubby little arms.

Jason watches the Goop spurn his offer of tiny crepe and lets himself focus on the rumbling noise it’s making.

His phone pings.

The program he ran last night has turned up some results.

Jason swipes his thumb through the images and texts. Two deep-teal eyes narrow. Why is he getting results from a secret sub-section of the US government? Jason is going to be mad if he’s ended up with an escaped science experiment. He’s stolen worse from more ruthless people obviously, it’s just that Jason prefers to be the one to put himself on people’s shit lists rather than have it signed there for him by someone else. The Goop nuzzles his neck.

“There’s nothing useful here. It’s all redacted.” Jason grumbles at his green scarf. “Do they know what they’re being paid for?”

The Goop doesn’t answer.

Jason saves the files to his cloud and puts his phone away. He has better things to do than parse through a government entity that has decided white tuxedos are great body armor.

The weight on his shoulders slides off onto the table. Goop watches him curiously as Jason takes his leather jacket off the rack by the door and leaves. The afternoon air of Gotham greets him with a cold nip at his nose. Jason pulls the collar of his jacket up higher and continues on.

His first stop is the hardware store, then to the bodega down the street. Another hundred dollars later, he's walking up the steps of one of the worse-off apartment buildings in the alley. He’d done his best to replace the piping and electricity – both older than World War Two – but the majority of the rooms still had mysterious stains, smells, and creaky floors. Not that it mattered to the residents of Crime Alley. Peeling wallpaper didn’t tend to be a deterrent to those who were just happy to be able to afford a roof over their head, let alone to Gothamites, who all boiled their water whether it came out a rusty red color or not. (Another point on Jason’s Why-You-Should-Let-Me-Kill-The-Joker list that Bruce will never so much as glance at.)

"You're early, Jay!" Micah, the most adorable kid in the building, stands at a whopping 45 inches tall in the doorway to apartment 206 and scrutinizes Jason like he does his vegetables.

"I got a ride in the Batmobile." He offers as an explanation, crouching down as he does.

Micah frowns at him, skeptical but too starstruck by the slickest ride in the world to ignore it, "You did?"

"No, he didn't!" An older girl, Micah’s sister Makayla, appears over Micah’s shoulder to scold Jason with a disapproving stare. She must be doing her best impression of Abuela despite being 9, because Jason feels slightly guilty about lying to a 6-year-old.

But only slightly.

"Did too!" Jason sticks his tongue out at them, "It has a TV in it."

The kids’ eyes widen, "Really?"

Jason nods seriously, catching movement from the hallway to the kitchen, "With Disney plus."

"Jay quit messing with them." A teenager, the eldest of the three siblings living in the apartment, grins.

"I’m serious, Darius. He has Hulu, Amazon, all the big stuff!" Jason tells them truthfully. The 17-year-old just ushers them all inside the apartment with a snort.

The small family was one of many that needed a home that wouldn’t ask too many questions. Not everyone had the required papers needed for an apartment and Jason figured Gotham was already corrupt as shit, he might as well make it work for the little guys too.

Hence, the building full of immigrants and teens.

Darius, like the rest of Jason’s not-quite-adult tenants, had been unwilling to trust the system to keep his family together and safe. Smart kid. But he might have bitten off more than he could chew by overhauling the entire kitchen all at once.

"Thanks for coming, Man. I need all the help I can get." Darius leads them all into the gutted kitchen with a wince.

Jason whistles, "Looks like it lost a fight with Killer Croc."

"It's so bad." Makayla agrees.

"It's ugly!" Micah happily adds.

Darius sighs.

"What time are the others coming?" Jason asks, depositing his shopping bags on the floor.

"Not for another hour, at least. I know Carla is still asleep and the others just got off work."

Jason takes his jacket off and rolls up his sleeves. "I'll get started on the sink, the more people we have to paint, the better.”

"I'll work on installing the dishwasher while you do. Will the M&Ms be helping?" Darius turns to his siblings with a teasing smile.

The kids eagerly announce their delight at getting to touch the tools in the newly bought toolbox that Jason pulls from one of the bags. With that, the little family gets to work with the building’s backup handyman (Karl was recovering from Scarecrow’s most recent gas attack).

The afternoon trickles away, with the children eventually getting bored of handing off tools and deciding instead to run off and entertain themselves while neighbors and friends arrive to help.

He gets more out of these get-togethers than watching the news. No one gossips quite like the working Gothamites do in the (relative) safety of their own homes.

“Did you hear one a’ Penguin’s warehouses got totally ransacked last night? Hasn’t made the news yet cuz no one took nothin’ but it looked like a tornado blew through, Jay, you shoulda seen it. Debbie showed me pictures and I swear I spotted one of the boxes shaking! Here, look!”

“I heard Mask was throwing a fit about it.”

“Ha! I bet one of his packages was thrown around.”

“Forget that! I saw Robin last night chasing a green dog! I betcha it got jokerized. What I would give to have normal rabid dogs again…”

“One of my usuals wouldn’t shut up about ghosts last night. He paid me three hundred, so I didn’t just bail on him, but I sure as hell wanted to. You think the dog is a ghost?”

“Ay, could you imagine? Ghosts in Gotham?”

“I’ll take Ivy’s dumb pollen over ghosts any day.”

“Could Batman even punch ghosts?”

“I bet he could.”

“You think Batman is a wizard, I don’t trust your opinion on this.”

“Hood could punch a ghost!” Makayla interjects, bringing the four-way debate to a halt. Jason looks down from the ladder, careful of the forest green paint still on the brush.

Darius, Carla, Eddie, and Sofia ponder it for a moment.

“Shoot one, maybe.” Eddie concedes. Jason isn’t sure, he’s never tried.

“Probably not.” Darius shakes his head. Yeah, Jason will give him that. It’s unlikely a fist would hit a ghost if they were real.

“Eh.” Carla shrugs. Pick a side, Carla, you coward.

“I think he could.” Sofia adds, “You heard that rumor that he’s the dead robin that came back crazy?”

Damn, that might be his own fault for that one. It did freak out the guys he was trying to intimidate though so he regrets nothing.

“Like a wraith?” Makayla’s eyes gleam. A little too enthusiastic about that thought, Makayla. Jason’s pretty sure he’s not a wraith. 100% flesh and bone as far as he knows.

An image of Goop flashes in his mind and he dismisses it quickly. Yeah, no.

“What do you think Jason? You work for him, you gotta know if he could punch a ghost or not.” Darius points his sister’s attention toward the unsuspecting handyman.

“I don’t think he’s ever tried to punch a ghost before if that’s what you’re asking.” Jason answers, “Ghosts aren’t real, anyway. Gotham would be the most haunted place on earth if they were.”

Makayla scowls at him, but they all drop it and continue to gossip about the latest drama in their social circles. Nothing of real interest aside from Black Mask’s package and Penguin’s warehouse.

One partially completed kitchen renovation (and many hours) later, Jason is seeing himself out with a wave to the group, “I’ll be back in a couple of days to help finish up.”

“Thanks again, Jay!” Darius calls. His siblings shout their own goodbyes after him with demands that Jason brings brownies next time.

Jason chuckles as he shuts the door. The residents of crime alley don’t accept help easily – nothing is without a price, especially in Gotham – and that is as much for their own benefit as it is for their friends. Sofia had gotten caught hanging new towels in the bathroom and it had taken an hour for her to convince Darius to accept them.

During his first few days at the manor, Alfred had silenced Jason’s protests at new clothes with less than two sentences and not a word about the money. Sofia and Jason did not have the same skill. He wants to be at least three blocks away before Darius discovers the groceries that were snuck into his new cupboards (and at least another five before the toolbox is discovered under the sink).

A blur of bright green hurtles at Jason’s face when he gets back to his safehouse, and he nearly punches it on instinct. “Goop!” He scowls, “Don’t do that.”

The acid blob rumbles, unapologetic. Its two nubby arms cling to his chest until Jason takes pity on it and sits down. Now sprawled across his lap, Goop rumbles happily. Jason sighs and taps his com.

“Red, are you online?” He calls

The response is immediate, “What’s up, Hood?”

“I got intel that Mask has a package. Can you trace it?”

Tim hums, “It will cost you.”

Ugh. Brothers. “Spit it out.”

“Agent A has cut me off, I need you to bring Starbucks.”

“You want me to try and sneak past Agent A? That’s a tough one, Red.” Jason scowls. If he gets caught, it will be more than just Tim’s ass on the line and Jason has polished enough silverware for one lifetime thank you.

“You have the highest chance of success,” Tim says as if it explains everything.

“No, Black Bat has the highest chance of success.”

Tim pauses.

“As the only willing participant, you have the highest chance of success.”

“She gave you the Look, didn’t she?” Jason interprets.

“Like I killed her puppy while it was under my care, yes,” Tim admits.

Jason weighs his options. Finding one package would take a while on his own and in the worst-case scenario, someone had infiltrated Penguin’s warehouse with the intention of targeting Mask’s package. He doesn’t have time to waste.

“Damn. Fine.” He grunts. “Meet up in my old room in 40.”

Tim chokes on something just before Jason turns his com off.

“Sorry.” Jason apologizes to Goop, moving it to the side so he can stand, “Duty calls.”

…

“I need more info,” Tim says after four chugs of the biggest, blackest coffee Jason could buy. “I’ve got a program running through all the packages shipped to Gotham but with no dates, buyer, or content identification we can’t know which one is his.”

Neither one of them moves to sit down to have this conversation. Jason stands still by the window and Tim has hardly moved a muscle in any direction. The old room had been a great idea, no one ever entered it. Except, now the two former robins are trapped in place, fearful of disturbing a ghost of the past.

“If it was important, Mask would have ordered it himself with a fake id.” Jason states.

“One we don’t know of,” Tim adds. The rogues have long since grown wise to the Bats’ technological prowess. They rarely use the same fake ids more than once.

Jason rolls his eyes, sick of beating around the bush. Tim had a plan already; he was just trying to be courteous after Steph had ripped him a new one last week for barging into her case and rewriting all her plans. Jason didn’t have the same hang-up for this case. He knew his plans were just as successful as Tim’s, but it took him longer than the rest of the Bats to come up with one (crowbars to the head will do that) and he hated wasting time, “Just hand me whatever thing you already made and tell me what I’m supposed to do, smart ass.”

Tim hands over a flash drive, looking relieved, “Break into his main office and plug this in, I’ll do the rest.”

Jason stares at him. Tim had said it so simply. As if Jason could just walk into Black Masks’ office with a hello and stick a hard drive into his computer. Maybe he and Mask could have tea afterward?

Tim takes another chug of his coffee.

“Sounds just dandy,” Jason grumbles, climbing back out the window.

Tim doesn’t say anything about staying safe, Jason would just take it as an insult. Instead, he says, “If you run into Mask, punch him for Steph and I.”

“Steph and Me.” Jason corrects. Then he’s gone.

…

It takes him all night to come up with an infiltration route and then the rest of the night responding to a call from Darius about a guy causing trouble for the girls.

“Thanks, Hood.” Taylor pats his arm. The coordinator had been in the game longer than anyone else. It had been an easy decision to let her take charge of the women and the girls were far safer working out of a building than street walking.

“Any time. Was he a usual?” He asks, glancing back at the whimpering lump in the alley.

Taylor narrows her eyes in thought, “No, he wanted information on one of our usuals. Carla wouldn’t give it up. She kept talking about ghosts instead.”

No goddam way, “Is she willing to talk with me?”

“I’ll ask.” Taylor moves towards the doors, “Oh, and I’ve decided to hire some bouncers for the next few days.”

Jason shakes his head, “I’ll give you the money for it. Your income bailed out some of my dealers, it’s only fair theirs goes towards keeping you safe.”

Hood’s crime ring consisted of three major businesses: drugs, forgery, and sex. He took a cut from each of them, mostly the dealers, and very little of it actually made it to his bank account. Normally the drug income funded itself and then some, but the cops had raided his second-biggest lab and snatched up his workers three months ago. The forgery and sex income had to be put towards bailing them out. No one had to take a pay cut, but the snacks and drinks he stocked his buildings with took a hit. It was time for that to be paid back.

Taylor gives him a rare smile. “The girls will be happy it won’t have to come out of their paychecks.”

“You were going to split the bill?” Jason asks, surprised that Taylor wasn’t trying to pay for it herself.

“They’re good girls, wouldn’t let me try to pay it on my own.”

Jason’s chest puffs with pride.

While the numbers run in his head and potential employees are tucked away or dismissed, Carla comes out.

“Hood.” She stops a foot away and doesn’t come closer. He doesn’t try and bridge the distance. “You gave Jason the money for Darius’ groceries, didn’t you?”

“Jason does what he wants.” He denies. Carla steps closer and offers him a cig. He declines, offering his lighter to her instead.

“One of my usuals came in the other night raving about ghosts. I know Taylor thinks I was trying to protect the clientele, but I told the truth.” She turns to him, looking for something in his body language. “He was going on about how he was going to die, and it wasn’t his fault. He blamed it on ghosts.”

“Penguin’s warehouse?” He asks. The debate about the ghostly culprit rang in his ears.

She nods.

“Did he say what was going to get him killed?”

“No.” Carla shakes her head and waves a hand at the quieting sack of shit in the alley, “He was going on about a package though.”

She finishes her cig. As she snuffs it out with her shoe, almost fondly, she says, “Only in Gotham.”

Yeah. Only in Gotham.

When he gets back to his safehouse, Jason picks Goop up, “Are you a criminal?”

Goop does not respond. It rumbles, delighted at being picked up.

Suspicious.

He falls asleep with Goop on his chest.

…

He fights against it. Hunger ravages his insides – freezing cold digs its teeth into his flesh. He fights all of it. He claws his way out from under them just that little bit more to keep going. He struggled and raged. He ran and hid. He screamed and snarled. Still, it breathed down his neck.

It stops briefly. Warmth. Safety. And suddenly something more than just that little bit to fight for.

But in the end, it was the same. He gritted his teeth and struggled with everything he had until the red zero glared at him. He never stopped fighting when he had nothing to lose.

’m sorry…Dad…

Acceptance.

Peace.

Drowning and drowning and drowning and drowning and-

…

Fourteen hours before he infiltrates Black Masks’ office, he wakes from a nightmare and knows that he won’t be falling back asleep any time soon. He picks up his book and starts to read.

Thirteen hours before he infiltrates Black Masks’ office, he starts to read it aloud. The deafening silence of the safehouse is far too similar to the silence of the coffin.

Twelve hours before he infiltrates Black Masks’ office, Goop rumbles and Jason gets the feeling that the ball of acid enjoys being read to.

Eleven hours before he infiltrates Black Masks’ office, he notices Goop has swelled up to the size of a pillow. Goop weighs the same despite his larger size.

Ten hours before he infiltrates Black Masks’ office, Goop is given a slice of coffee cake. Goop does not eat the coffee cake. Jason messages his lieutenants.

Nine hours before he infiltrates Black Masks’ office, Tim messages him that the program is complete and once the id has been secured it will only take five minutes to find the package.

Eight hours before he infiltrates Black Masks’ office, he checks his gear. His grapple gun needs a new line and two of his knives need to be sharpened.

Seven hours before he infiltrates Black Masks’ office, all of his guns have been cleaned and checked for imperfections.

Six hours before he infiltrates Black Masks’ office, his helmet is done running diagnostics and he discovers that Oracle remotely updated his software.

Five hours before he infiltrates Black Masks’ office, he stops testing the new features (the new stereo feature is going to be amazing, he can’t wait).

Four hours before he infiltrates Black Masks’ office, he decides not to wear his red hood armor and instead pulls out the pale armor of the all-caste. He refuses to wear the league version, despite the extra stealth components of the armor. T would be insufferable.

Three hours before he infiltrates Black Masks’ office, he messages T for a trade.

Two hours before he infiltrates Black Masks’ office, he sends T pictures of Damian at the zoo in exchange for lamb stew recipes.

One hour before he infiltrates Black Masks’ office, C4 is spotted in four buildings belonging to Black Mask. Goop watches him leave with a single knife.

Chapter Text

Black Mask is a crime lord, and unfortunately, he’s a very good one. He knows who his enemies are, he knows what to expect from them, and he plans for it accordingly. The only time his entire empire had crumbled around him was when he didn’t.

Jason had taken him down once by being an unknown enemy, fast and overwhelming. Mask hadn’t stood a chance. Now, however, the element of surprise was gone. Mask knew who he was, what his motives were, and how he operated. For the most part.

Red Hood was explosive, swift, and vicious. He didn’t tolerate outsiders in his neighborhood, and he wasn’t shy about pulling the trigger on people he deemed necessary. If Red Hood was doing something, then it wasn’t on the down low, everyone and their mother would know. He was loud and in your face.

Red Hood was the exact opposite of an assassin. Why kill quietly if you can make a point by throwing their decapitated head at their bosses?

Jason had this plan stewing in his head for a while, saving it as a trump card for an important occasion. With Mask overrun with a sudden influx of panicked calls from his lieutenants about the C4 planted around their buildings, sneaking into his office was a cakewalk. Everyone was expecting a loud confrontation between Hood and Mask, not a quiet theft.

Jason knows he's a big guy - bigger than his brothers and bigger than B (though sadly not taller than the latter). He had never expected to be so large or bulky after the doctors told Bruce that he would be smaller than average for the rest of his life. The pit had fixed that, and he isn’t complaining. It's extremely satisfying to know that he can bench more than Bruce. It's less satisfying to be a larger target. When compared to his brothers, Jason was a much easier target to shoot at.

So, he adapted to it. He had donned armor that was thicker and heavier, forgoing speed for durability. When he first came back to Gotham it was guns blazing, years of planning burning the criminals of Gotham in his wake and sending Batman reeling from it all. He was center stage, loud, and impossible to ignore.

Now his plans required speed and silence. The muted colors of the All-Caste’s League uniform were perfect. It didn't have the chest plate or traditional stone adornments that the monks wore around the Acres of All and on Caste missions. The gray robes he wears now are simple, flexible, and light. Jason’s Red Hood armor made no illusions of his size, but the robes are carefully designed to make him appear smaller, softer, and less noticeable. Made entirely for stealth and minimal fighting, it was all that he had left of Ducra and the All-Caste.

His steps are silent in Mask's headquarters. He had to be quick, darting into blind spots and fluidly moving from hallway to hallway as his mole described, until arriving at the office door. The guards remained ignorant as he hacked the keypad and picked the lock behind it.

His target may as well be a sitting duck with its position directly across from the door on Mask’s desk. Jason shuts the door quietly behind him. Tim’s drive has to go in a USB port and Jason finds one in the CPU under the desk.

Jason takes a seat in the man’s office chair and kicks his legs up on the desk with no care for the documents that he crumples with his heels. “Good to go red bird.”

Tim confirms the drive is plugged in and starts hacking the computer for the information they needed. All Jason has to do now is wait for his younger brother to finish.

The office was different from the one Jason had first seen him in. Clearly, Mask had learned his lesson about floor-to-ceiling windows after Red Hood had gleefully fired a rocket at him from across the street. His new office had two windows, three exits, and was just as pretentious as the last one despite the true nature of the room. The white Ikea furniture and pristine floor screamed, ‘I don’t need to get myself dirty, I have people to do that for me.’

Fucker.

“Hood,” A voice growls in his ear.

“Bitch.” He grins back.

“Explain.” Ah, of course Oracle would pick up on Mask’s frantic movements. There weren’t many people with the ability and desire to plant that much C4. Most of them were in Arkham.

“Relax. I’m not detonating any of it.” He pauses. “Yet.”

“Hood.” Batman warns as if he can reach through the com and grab Jason by the scruff of his neck like a bad dog.

Tim is very quiet in his other ear.

“Mask will retaliate.” The big man says, pretending that he actually cares more about the potential consequences for Jason than the dead bastards that work for Mask.

“I don’t give a shit,” Jason growls back.

“Hood.” Batman stresses at the same time the door opens and Jason hisses, “Shit!”

The guard shoots right as Jason ducks under the desk. The bullets ricochet off the metal – well, lookie here, Mask had learned more from the rocket than Jason thought.

“Hood, report!” Batman barks in one ear.

“I need 3 more minutes!” Tim yells in the other.

“You get what you get, baby bird.” Jason snaps back.

The gunfire stops and Jason doesn’t waste a second while the guard reloads. He hurls the chair across the room towards the other man. Following the chair, Jason jumps over the desk, swiftly crossing the length of the room. He slams the door shut and deadbolts it. Masks’ contingencies were about to save the very man they were designed to keep out. He’s going to be so pissed when he realizes it.

The sound of gunfire starts again. The door holds.

He slides over the top of the desk and nearly snags the drive, “Done?”

“Not yet.” Tim answers.

Jason’s fingers hover over the drive. The sound of rushing footsteps from more guards gathering outside the door makes it hard not to just grab it and bolt, Tim and his timer be damned.

Shouting. Muffled yelling. Silence.

Not good.

“Red,” Jason warns.

“Not yet.” Tim sounds stressed, “Two minutes.”

The building shakes and Jason is lucky he was already crouching.

The main door that Mask’s guards were trying to breach was an expensive, elegant oak door. At least, it was dressed up like one. If it was then Jason would have been more concerned about the wooden splinters from the blast. The reality is that the two-inch thick steel blast door with oak-colored makeup is launched off its hinges, straight at the desk. It catches on the edge and flips, horribly denting the desk, and lodging into the wall behind it like the world’s most overly complicated guillotine.

It would have been a brutal death.

“Was that before or after I die again?” Jason shouts over the fresh hail of bullets. He really hopes Mask didn’t skimp on bullet-proof desk quality.

Batman makes a strange sound over the com.

“I got it!” Tim announces, one minute and ten seconds after Jason had been ambushed. He rips the drive out of the unit and bolts down the escape hatch underneath. The escape tunnels lead all the way down to Gotham Harbor, but he’s not dumb enough to think Mask won’t have people already waiting for him there. It’s a good thing Mask was too paranoid to have just one exit tunnel.

He hums while prying open one of the side exits with his knife.

“Are you out yet?” Tim asks, breaking the radio silence.

“No,” He replies, “I died again and am now forever stuck haunting Black Mask’s BDSM dungeon.”

Tim makes a disgusted noise that has Jason snickering. Batman sighs.

If this is all it takes to hear B’s trademarked Tired Dad Sigh, he can’t wait for the moment Oracle and Mask realize that every single one of the C4s is fake.

…

“Hood.” Oracle’s voice has Jason suppressing a startled jump. On his kitchen table, still open from where Jason had been playing testing the new upgrades, Jason’s new speaker system in the helmet has been remotely activated. The helmet repeats, “Hood.”

He carefully brings his feet down, halfway through his post-mission stretches, and rolls off his mat with some reluctance. Goop hovers in the air just above where his feet used to be. The sentient acid was sad that its new perch had left it up in the air. Jason wonders about getting it a cat tree. He had held the pose for over a minute once Goop landed on the underside of his feet, but loathe as he was to disturb the blob, he couldn’t hold the pose forever.

Jason pushes the latches on his helmet in a memorized pattern, “Here.”

“We’ve got an update for you.” Oracle explains and oh great, the royal ‘we’ that makes this is a family case now. Who’s next, Black Bat? “The package number you gave Red Robin is registered as empty.”

Jason snorts. Typical.

“We tracked it to one of Penguin’s warehouses…”

Jason is silent. He’s got a pretty good idea of where this is going.

“…and someone decided to make a mess of the place without actually taking anything.”

Hang on, did O not know about the warehouse? O worked hard but apparently; Crime Alley’s rumor mill worked harder in some cases.

“It gets weirder, Hood. The cameras in the building lost signal and the ones that were still working have unusable footage. Spoiler found some eyewitnesses who saw a couple of POIs.”

Damn it, this really was starting to be a family case.

“One entered before the incident. Two left the scene, but not together. They are most likely Metas.”

Fuck’s sake.

Oracle hesitates for a moment, “Batman is taking charge of the case.”

“The fuck? Why?” Jason hisses. Doesn’t Batman have better things to do than barge into Jason’s business? This is his case! Jason was the one who got intel on Black Masks’ mystery package. Jason was the one who nearly got shot – and decapitated via steel door, he might add – breaking into Masks’ server to get the dumb tracking id. And now suddenly, the Bat wants in, ready to shove Jason aside and take over? Fuck no!

A wispy, cold weight lands on his head and some of the anger recedes.

He’s still pissed.

Oracle continues, “The Metas. We don’t know what they want and the only thing we do know is that they are both very powerful.”

“And?” Jason shouts.

“And Batman needs you to keep an eye out for them.” Oracle never faltered under Jason’s rage. She tries to reason, “This isn’t personal Hood, this case is bigger than just one of us.”

Insulting, thanks, Babs.

“The hell do you think I brought Red in for?” He snarls.

“Jay,” She stresses, “The list of abilities these guys are suspected to have is superman level. We need the rest of the family.”

Jason was fine with the rest of the family. Good. Great. Tim had gone from his most hated brother to his favorite. Steph was fine, and Jason had no problem with her, but the rest of the family could fuck off. Cass and Babs tolerated him on a good day, Damian thought he was too good for everyone except Dick and Bruce, and the latter two were so up their own asses that Jason gagged from the sheer amount of self-righteousness they radiated every time he saw them. They didn’t want to deal with him, he didn’t want to deal with them.

Assholes.

And now they were taking over his case.

Jason throws his helmet at the wall at the exact right angle to break the coms. Oracle’s protesting shout cuts off as it shatters. He’s seeing Green. He’s furious. Fuck. God damn it. He wants to break something else. He wants something to punch. He wants-

Goop rumbles from atop his head, snuggling into his hair.

Jason storms over to his pantry and starts the process of making homemade bread.

…

Drowning and drowning and drowning and drowning and-

…

“You got bigger.” Jason pokes Goop with a bandaged hand the next morning, sea-green eyes narrowing with suspicion. His limbs are still all accounted for and he even checked his hair this time.  

Goop has the audacity to roll its beady little eyes around its goopy body to focus back on the west wall of Jason’s apartment. The big blob of green has grown exponentially overnight. Forget being used as a pillow, Goop would make an excellent Damian-sized bean bag.

Eventually, Jason lets it go and reluctantly gives in to the memories of last night. The bread hadn’t been enough. Even after he had pounded the poor dough to oblivion, his rage only grew worse. He hit too hard, and blood got into what remained.

The anger had not faded, he kept hitting, the blood kept coming, and he couldn’t stop.

It was weird, hitting dough instead of faces. The idea to make bread instead of dead (ha) had come from nowhere. It was unusual for him to direct his anger anywhere other than another human.

He couldn’t say he regretted it. The last time he had gone out in a fit of anger, he had nearly shot someone who hadn’t deserved it and got himself captured for a week before breaking out. It always ended badly, but he didn’t know what else to do with the anger. The pit demanded an outlet and Talia was no longer around to point him like an attack dog.

He has to admit, split knuckles were better than the messes he usually ended up in. He feels better than he normally does after coming back from the Green too.

No migraine, no injuries other than the ones he gave himself…yeah, he’ll take it.

The burner phone on his bedside table buzzes and Jason glances at the incoming message.

O: Don’t make me regret this.

O sent two images.

A sketch of their POIs. A scoff leaves his lips.

He’s supposed to be helping the Bats look for two people who can only be described as their inevitable younger brother and a janitor.

J: Put an ad out for a missing Wayne kid, we’ll have him in the hour

Oracle leaves him on read for five minutes. She’s probably staring at his text and wondering if he’s been possessed.

Rude.

Understandable since it normally took days for him to calm down enough to joke with them, but still rude.

O: Good to know we all had the same thought

Jason snorts and doesn’t feel the need to respond. He’s got a helmet he needs to repair.

…

He comes back after patrol that night with no sight of the kid or the janitor. His mood sours even further when he doesn’t see Goop.

He calls for it to no avail. Goop usually waited for him by the door, today it isn’t anywhere in the house. Jason even checks under the bed.

Disappointment wells in his chest. This, he reminds himself, is why you don’t give animals a name no matter how goopy looking they are. He wonders if the Goop would have stayed if he was someone else. The answer he comes up with is the same as always.

He slumps into his couch. Fucking typical.

The next couple of minutes that he spends sulking is interrupted by an update from Oracle.

O: Wayne POI found.  

O: Calling off the search for the other. It’s been handled.

O sent a video

Jason can’t help the startled laugh that erupts when it shows Nightwing trying his best to corral the janitor. The self-proclaimed box ghost throws shipping box after shipping box at the vigilante with Dick getting nailed in the face at least twice. The video stops after two minutes of Dick trying all kinds of de-escalation techniques only to be rewarded with a box to the face each time.

It makes Jason feel way better.

O: I am entrusting you with this power

J: No ur not, u have backups

O: Proof?

J: thanks

O: Don’t thank me yet, this case just keeps getting weirder. We need you to check out some guys who raided the warehouse earlier tonight.

O sent one image

Jason’s eyes widen. The guys with the white tuxes.

Fuck.

Does he say something? Doing so will reveal Goop’s existence and that is not a lecture Jason wants to hear. Does he stay quiet?

Jason scrambles to reopen his files on them. ‘Ectoplasmic entities’ had been a strange phrase and only furthered his initial impression of a government-sanctioned cult, but if they’re looking into the warehouse then…

Holy shit. His acidic blob pet thing really is an escaped experiment, and more importantly, they might be looking for it.

Wait a damn minute, did they already take Goop?

Jason grabs his guns.

O: We found them. N and B are tailing. Go check out the warehouse.

O: We need evidence.

Jason, who already knows evidence won’t do shit against a corrupt government entity and who has lost his emotional support blob, almost tells her where she can put her evidence.

J: Where?

Oracle gives him the address of the warehouse.

J: No

J: Where r they heading?

O: That’s not your job right now.

Jason snarls and puts his helmet on.

Oracle immediately filters through, “Go to the warehouse now, Hood.”

In the back of his mind, Jason notes that Oracle almost sounds like she’s panicking. The more dominant part of his mind, the one that is pissed over Goop’s potential kidnapping hisses at him to track the men in white down himself.

“Hood, don’t!” Oracle yells.

He opens the door right as a white van pulls up outside and a man in a white tux fires a bazooka at him from the street below.

Light floods his vision and it’s only a lifetime of fighting that allows him to instinctively dodge the instant he saw the barrel pointed at him. The light grazes his arm as it passes through the open door. The ensuing explosion is almost familiar.

‘No wonder Black Mask got a blast door for his office.’ He thinks, as his kitchen ceiling collapses to rubble.

Ears ringing, he throws himself out the door and takes off across the rooftops. Another beam of light misses him by an inch. How the fuck are they following him at street level?

Oracle is shouting in his ear. Directing the bats after the van and working with Tim to try and scramble whatever they’re using to track him. Jason leaps onto a fire escape, pulling himself up as another beam flies under him, right where his legs used to be. The wall crumbles but holds, thankfully, with a decent-sized chunk taken out of it. Not a normal bazooka then, he notes. Less power, more flare. Still hurts like a bitch though if the way his arm is screaming at him says anything.

Metal crunches and tires squeal down below. Jason chances a glance back. The Batmobile has the van tethered via the Bat-harpoon. No vehicle comes close to the Batmobile in terms of power. When Batman decides to hit the brakes, no amount of pedal pushing by the van will get it to budge. Jason watches as one of the men exits the vehicle with a posture that screams righteous indignation.

Nightwing slams his cycle into the van moments before the guy with the bazooka fires at Jason again. Jason ducks even as the shot goes wide. He’d rather not invite more fire upon himself, fuck you very much.

The entitled ass of the white tux group begins shouting angrily at someone. Jason doesn’t know which of the original duo he’s decided to take his chances with but if he chose Nightwing, the guy was in for it. Jason swears on his second life that Dick has the nastiest temper in the family.

Jason takes the breather to check his shoulder. He’s expecting burns at the least, but his jacket looks completely intact. Jason frowns and takes his jacket off. It hurts like hell with no evidence that it should. When Jason finally catches sight of the skin it’s not even a little pink. It’s acidic green.

His arm looks like a partially broken glowstick and there’s a hysterical thought that if he snaps his spine maybe his whole body will glow too.

Something scuffs on the side of the building and Jason quickly pulls his sleeves down and puts his jacket back on. Dick’s face pops up from the edge, “Hood! Are you okay?”

“Peachy keen,” Jason grumbles, making the split-second decision to pretend his arm isn’t glowing and agonizingly painful.

“B has the guys wrapped up. It should be safe now.” His older brother explains. Dick hovers obnoxiously, scanning Jason for injuries. There’s a tension in his frame that Jason only rarely sees. Nightwing is mad and Jason’s not sure what for.

“They called you all the way here for this whole ghost business?” He deflects. Nightwing nods, still distracted by trying to find Jason’s aches and pains, his eyes linger on the wrapped knuckles.

“The Metas have a whole list of abilities. Intangibility, flight, invisibility, hand blasts, and some more I think we don’t know yet.” Nightwing lists. Finally, he looks straight at Jason with a puppy dog expression that has Jason rolling his eyes and taking off his helmet. It hurts like a bitch and a half to move his arm like it isn’t on fire to take off his helmet like he normally would. Nothing to see here, just two perfectly fine hands attached to two perfectly fine shoulders.

Nightwing catches the tremble of his hand anyway and stares a hole into his busted arm.

“I’m fine, dickhead. They just surprised me that’s all.”

There’s a yelp from the street. The two brothers look down and spot one of the men strung up, trying to curl around his stomach. Batman is snarling something in his face.

Did B just punch him?

“Damn, what’s got you guys all pissed?”

Nightwing’s face shutters and he slowly turns to look at Jason. No answer comes.

“Well? Spit it out, what is it?” Jason pries, not much can get both B and N worked up outside of family spats. “Are you two going at it again?”

Cold trickles down his spine, “Are the little birds okay?”

“They’re fine,” Nightwing says slowly, blinking at him with an incomprehensible look on his face – like Jason should understand what’s going on and doesn’t. Like Nightwing didn’t know more about the Metas than Jason did, despite this being Jason’s case. There’s something that they aren’t telling him.

“What did you do to make these guys so mad?” Nightwing continues before Jason can start demanding answers.

“The fuck? I didn’t even know these guys existed until recently.” Jason scowls, “Not everything I do is a roundabout way to inconvenience you. So sorry for ruining your plans tonight by getting shot at for no reason.”

“That’s not-”

“Oh, fuck off.” Jason turns to go. Goop isn’t here, he can feel it, and he doesn’t want to interrogate the men in front of B and N. It’s a fair trade, they keep their secrets and Jason will keep his. He’ll get the tuxes at the precinct.

“Jay, this isn’t about inconv-”

Jason screams as Nightwing wraps his fingers tightly around his injury. He couldn’t even brace for the pain; he hadn’t been expecting it. Nightwing instantly lets him go and Jason whirls around to face him, dropping his helmet in favor of protecting his wound. N is wide-eyed and nervous.

“You are hurt.”

Jason growls. Honest to God, growls. “None of your business.”

“Hood.” Behind him, Batman looms. Jason jumps away, keeping both of them in his line of sight.

“His shoulder, B.” Dick sells him out.

“You’re coming back to the cave.” Batman stalks closer and Jason snarls like a cornered animal.

“We don’t know how they were tracking him. He might lead them back to the cave.” Oracle interjects before Jason can curse him out. It breaks the camel’s back.

Rage. How dare-

Jason drops a flash grenade and a smoke bomb. Three shouts of his name go ignored. Batman and Nightwing are left behind with his helmet.

…

He ditches everything that could have a tracker on it at a different safehouse and then attaches the trackers that he does find to people that he bumps into on the street. Two go on a bus, one goes on an alley cat, and the last one is dropped in the sewer system. He avoids O’s cameras the entire time until finally crashing into Talia’s safe house.

He doesn’t care if they’re watching, he’s not on Bat business and he’s not planning to be on Bat business. “Talia.” He says to the empty living room, pulling up his sleeve and waving at his arm, “What the fuck is this?”

He doesn’t expect an answer, not right away, but it does surprise him when her burner phone rings in his pocket almost immediately.  

“Dickinson.” She greets stiffly.

“Sun Tzu.” He responds.

The hardness leaves her voice, “What happened?”

“I got shot by some fucking cult feds and now I’m glowing like the pit. What is this, Talia?”

“I do not know.” He almost believes that. Talia pays very close attention to the city that holds both her beloved and her son close to its chest.

“You know something.” He insists, “Look, I’ll send you more goods, I’m even willing to bargain for a day, just tell me what you know.”

Talia, after all her lectures on weaknesses, had a great big one named Damian. Jason finds it hard to believe she would pass up an opportunity for a day with her kid if Jason can manage the impossible and sneak him away from the Bat.

“No.” She says. Jason’s brows furrow, not quite understanding, “You do not need to buy this information from me. I owe it to you already.”

Jason sits down on one of the stools at the kitchen bar.

“The pit’s effects are temporary, my father’s lingering…traits are a result of multiple baths and a long period of time.” She explains, “You were different. I had hoped it would recede in the following days after using it on you, but I was forced to find you a trainer that could help you live with the madness when I realized that it was not – and potentially would never – wear off. I do not know why you are an exception to the usual, however, I do have reason to believe your revival has something to do with it.”

Jason thinks of a coffin and drowning. He hadn’t cared why he came back, no one seemed to know the reason anyway so why bother? He was back and he’d just have to deal with it whether he wanted to or not.

“You are unique, Jason. A miracle walking. A mystery unsolved.” Talia continues, “It will get you killed.”

Right, because the thing about mysteries is their tendency to bite you in the ass later.

“I regret that I cannot do more for you.” She speaks. Then she hangs up.

…

Jason crashes in a safe house on the outskirts of Gotham. He isn’t safe, not with the tuxedo people running around. Goop will have to wait until the Bats take their eyes off of the feds. He just has to wait for the government to give the order to release them and the Bats will mind themselves once they leave Gotham.

They should come straight to Jason after that. All he has to do is wait.

Jason flips through the news, watching a video from the earlier chase. Someone had pulled out their phone and recorded part of the whole fiasco. The news anchor isn’t sure what to make of the white van, but the general consensus seems to be a new gang. Thankfully, they didn’t get a video of the argument on the roof.

None of the Bats have attempted to get in touch as far as he knows. Jason is a security risk now, he got that much without them outright saying it. He ditched all his communicators and burner phones, only taking the burner that connects him to his informants before going to ground.

The men in white, self-declared ghost hunters with government funding, what did they want with Jason? Were they tracking Goop or did they come specifically for Jason?

Why was his arm glowing? He knew he didn’t come back right, but really? He’s not an ‘ectoplasmic entity’, not based on what he could read on the redacted files from the first night he found Goop. Clearly, however, he’s not fully human either.

He spares a thought for Bruce and Cass, wondering if their pit dips have landed them in similar circumstances. If that had been the case, wouldn’t the tuxedo freaks have gone after Batman instead? Unless they were going for the weakest of the three of them. Strategically, Cass would be last in that case, but still...

Jason has brought centuries-old crime families to heel, he’s killed at least eighty people, he’s fought things these guys couldn’t even sneeze at, and still, he’s the weakest link. He hated how the Bats simultaneously made him feel like he matters while at the same time beating it into his head that he could never be more than that scrappy worthless kid from crime alley.

Batman got to hide in the cave.

Cass got to hide in the cave.

Jason didn’t.

They were more important than Batman’s secret.

Jason wasn’t.

They got to sleep soundly at night.

Jason sleeps with one eye open.

He never really gets used to it. The bats pull him in with family movie night and Sunday dinner, then as soon as shit hits the fan Jason is back to having to look after himself.

The grass is green, the sky is blue, Jason matters less than you.

He falls asleep bitterly.

…

He swims up, choking on bitter water – on iron, on blood – he kicks and reaches and reaches and reaches until his fingers brush the line between water and air – earth and rain – death and life – cold and warmth. He doesn’t know what’s worse: that he almost made it or that he was able to get so close to begin with.

Chapter Text

Blue-green eyes flutter awake. The sun stretches warmly across his face, grounding him where the distinct lack of mint and thyme started to send him adrift. (He’ll have to apologize to Alfred about the plants, hopefully the butler will buy new ones for him next time they meet.) There’s a comforting weight on his chest, not suffocating or claustrophobic just…pleasant. His arm has settled into a dull throbbing too, as opposed to the stabbing aches of yesterday. Waking up like this is very rare.

He groans, moving to sit up despite the exhaustion rooted deep in his bones. He stops out of shock.

Goop rumbles at him.

The seven other Goops rumble at him too.

Jason lays back down.

…

So apparently, they come in different colors.

A red-eyed Goop has latched onto his bad shoulder and has taken up the habit of angrily patting him with a stubby arm whenever he tries to move it. On his chest, the source of the comforting weight when he woke up, three black-eyed Goops have made themselves at home. One of whom is the original Goop returned to its starting size, although he’s not sure how he instantly knows which one is Goop without any distinguishing features between the three of them. They all glow pit green, the only difference that can be found is in their eyes.

Two blue-eyed Goops float around with no real purpose that Jason can tell other than to just be there. The last two Goops have white eyes and Jason has an alarming desire to put them in his mouth and bite down.

A weight lifts from his shoulders despite the concern over the white-eyed Goops.

Goop is okay.

Goop came back.

“Where did you go?” He asks, far sadder than he wanted it to come out. He uses a finger to scratch the top of – what he thinks is – Goop’s head. The other Goops take notice and try to wiggle under his fingers too.

Jason smiles.

They really are cute.

Each finger is suddenly preoccupied with giving tiny scratches to the little blobs. He spends far more time than he should in bed snuggling with the Goops and giving them head rubs and scratches.

He wonders briefly at the odd change in size from his Goop. Goop was big when it left, then came back smaller with more Goops in tow.

Sternly pointing a finger at Goop, he says, “You better not do that again, I don’t know how to get you fixed and I don’t want to have to learn.”

Goop rumbles, amused.

Little shit.

Red-Eyes finally lets him sit up sometime later and his arm feels leagues better than the night before. He tries to make a late lunch but just like Goop, none of them accept his offer of food. His veggie stir-fry goes unloved in its pan.

The white-eyed Goops mysteriously vanish while he makes himself a banana smoothie. Curious but okay, whatever. The smoothie is unusually good, and the texture is slightly off. He has a vague idea of why, but for the sake of his sanity, he isn’t going to acknowledge the smoothie’s odd glow or that the white-eyed Goops ever existed.

Blue-Eyes 1 and 2 follow him around, clinging to his clothes as he moves. Their beady eyes roll from one window to the other. Almost as if they’re watching for something. It puts him at ease a little, though he does check the cameras twice as often as normal.

Goop and Black-Eyes 1 and 2 are content to watch him from the counter while Red-Eyes rides on his shoulder.

Jason spends the day more productively than he thought he would by upgrading his proximity alarms and setting up other traps around and inside the house. Maybe it won’t be such a bad day after all.

He lounges on the couch once the security of the safe house is satisfactory and the rest of his night is used to read to all of the Goops, basking in their reassuring presence. It’s nice.

The men in white never show.

Neither do the Bats.

…

His hand bursts from the ground – from the pit – from the darkness. He can feel the air – he’s touching the rain. He’s so close. His lungs burn and he thrashes just as hard, if not harder, than before. The chains pull him back down, but they feel weak.

He goes under once again, pulled viciously from salvation.

He knows better now.

Fingers reach up and then down grasping the dirt – the stone – the rubble – then he hauls himself up –!

…

A “we gottem boss” and three images from Darius sit waiting on his burner when he wakes up the next morning.

The news sheds some light on what he means by that. Crime alley had not appreciated the men in white. When the van came back around after the stunt they pulled two days ago, the anchor on the streets of crime alley struggled not to laugh as he reported the van was stripped of almost everything while the men were busy stomping around, barging into people’s houses. The image that has the anchor in near tears shows the white van covered in graffiti and stripped of its tires.

According to the more composed anchor at the studio, when the men had called the police for a pickup, GCPD had discovered drugs in the glove box and promptly arrested them once again. Only people who knew Jim Gordon could tell he was pleased to put them back in a cell. They must have raised hell at the precinct, Gordon wasn’t a vengeful man.

Looking back at his phone Jason was smug.

The working girls were photographed rolling the van’s tires away while chatting delightedly with one another. Carla was smoking with a tire iron against her shoulder with Taylor, just behind her, waving at the camera.

The dealers Hood had bailed out were the ones who left the bag of product in the car. The second picture Darius sent showed all of them proudly flipping off the van or giving a thumbs up to the camera while Jason’s drug lieutenant, Mitch, put the bag in the glove compartment with a stern look on his face.

The last photo was the best. Jason was surprised to see his forgery lieutenant involved since she so rarely left her home and had been paid so well for the fake C4s, but there she was. Hayley had passed out cans of paint and was giving the alley kids an impromptu lesson on tagging. The kids looked utterly delighted.

He felt bad about bailing on Darius’ kitchen and texted the teen that Jason got caught in the crossfire of the new white tux gang and was helping him with a case. Darius and his siblings had demanded photo evidence to know Jason was okay before they spread the word to the rest of the community. Jason sent back a photo of himself, bandaged arm and all, making brownies.

The kids just about rioted on the anti-hero, their concern for Jason now outweighed by jealousy over Hood getting the sweet treat and not them. They got a mocking text of ‘suckers’ back.

The reply, likely from Darius and not his siblings this time, was a reminder that they both better come back in one piece.

Similar messages came from his lieutenants throughout the day. Jason fucking loves his community. The alley would be okay while he lay low. Well, as low as one can with three soccer-ball-sized Goops and a bean-bag-sized Red-Eyes.

“How come you got so big?” Jason scratches its side. His shoulder felt better, now a muted pain until he moved it, and even his hands had lost their bandages but at this rate, he really hopes he’s not going to end up living in a ball pit made of blobs.

Blue-Eyes 1 and 2 were the only two who hadn’t grown much. They kept a steady watch out the windows and clung to any part of Jason they could grab. The other Goops flew around on their own, but the Blue-Eyes were more inclined to use Jason as a tugboat. Every now and then one would stop its watch and pull itself up to rest on Jason’s hair before going returning to its watch again. They reminded Jason of meerkats, keeping vigilant watch for danger.

They would pause occasionally. A certain rumble from the other Goops seemed to catch their attention and Jason had noticed, out of the corner of his eye, that they moved slower when he was reading aloud. All the blobs seemed to appreciate it and Jason didn’t mind that most of them would pile on top of him when he did. The weight was reassuring, and the rumbles grounded him.

He makes the mistake of falling asleep.

…

He’s out – he’s out – he’s breathing and…and…there’s a woman in all black.

Robin? Hey, that must have been pretty scary, huh? It’s alright now. It’s over. Will you hold my hand? That was scary for me too.

Yes.

I’m sorry.

Your father will be alright, Jason.

No, she’s going somewhere else. You’re a special case.

Not yet. I’ve got one question before we go, if that’s alright with you?

What color would you like your door to be?

…

The silence of the safehouse does not break. The Goops crowd around him, their nubby arms trying to give comfort as his chest spasms quietly with sobs and gasping breaths. The League – Joker – had beat the noise out of him. He nearly suffocates himself trying to keep quiet.

He died. He died.

Death had been so kind. Why is he back? What did he do wrong? Things would have been so much better if he had never come back – if he had never allowed himself to hope that Bruce really did care about him despite Talia’s evidence to the contrary.

He just wanted an answer. The question was so simple. The Joker’s life or Jason’s?

Batman cheated. Batman picked both – he didn’t get to pick both, not when allowing the Joker to live was just another death sentence for Jason. It wasn’t fair. Life wasn’t fucking fair.

Death was.

Death was fair.

He wants justice.

“We don’t kill,” Batman had said to Robin, “we can’t, or we lose everything we stand for.”

“Why then?” Jason’s heart bled, “Why did you let me believe that you loved me? That I was your son? That I mattered to you?”

If Batman cannot kill and if Bruce cannot put his children’s safety before Batman’s symbol, then why the lie? Why adopt a child he could never love with his whole heart? Why tell him he was loved when Gotham and her rogues had more of Bruce’s soul than Jason ever would?

And why…

Why is Jason always the exception?

Why put the rest of the family before Batman, but not Jason? Why harbor Cass in the cave but not Jason? Why do everything to bring Damian back from the dead but not Jason? Why give Tim the Wayne name in life but not Jason in death? Why forgive Dick for their fights but not Jason? Why forgive Steph for not being perfect but not Jason?

Why give him love and then rip it away? Why tell him that Willis was wrong, when he was right?

Jason was nothing. He was broken and unlovable and Jason doesn’t know how to fix it.

A single whine cries out into the house. Jason folds in on himself, curled into a ball on his side. On top of him, the Goops press against him and lay across his side. He’s hardly visible under the green masses, two pairs of blue eyes staring out into the night while the rest focus on soothing Jason.

A shock of white hair floats through the front door.

Blue eyes assess the King and then return to their watch.

“Whoa.” The King gapes. The Goops glare at him.

“Okay, okay.” The king soothes, “Let me take a look.”

Goop rolls off of Jason, revealing the mess of a…Danny isn’t sure what to call this guy. What had the blob ghosts called him? Ghostling?

Ghostling’s core is a mess, constricted and malformed by the sickly ectoplasm holding it to the young man’s physical form. It spews out corrupted ectoplasm like a volcano, entirely incapable of filtering the vile ectoplasm properly.

It’s disturbing to look at and Danny hasn’t ever seen anything like this before. He isn’t sure how Ghostling is alive like this. The guy must be miserable all the time.

A blob ghost rumbles.

This is a bad night for the Ghostling, worse than before. Ten large steps back from the small six steps forward the blob ghosts had been helping him take.

Danny fumbles on how to fix it.

“Jeez, alright, okay, what if I just…?”

The core needs space. Danny can’t help the physical form until after the core stops poisoning it. Gloved hands reach into Ghostling’s soul. He grabs a chunk of the nasty corruption, hopes this doesn’t hurt as much as he thinks it will, and rips it out. Ghostling chokes on a grunt and then appears to lose awareness of his surroundings.

Danny feels terrible that he’s going to have to pull out at least three more chunks. The feeder blobs must have eaten a lot already, but there’s still a ton left. Goop and their siblings devour the corruption ferociously, swelling in size as they do.

He pulls two large chunks of corruption out, beady eyes watching him closely as he does. Danny floats around the Ghostling, trying to determine where to pull next. The watcher blobs take a break to nuzzle the Ghostling’s face.

Despite the circumstances, it’s endearing to see more than one blob ghost develop a symbiotic relationship with a formed ghost (or whatever the Ghostling is). Danny hasn’t seen so many blob ghosts in one space outside of his parents’ lab.

It does something soft to his heart.

The king goes back to fulfilling the blobs’ requests. He clears out three more chunks before the Ghostling’s eyes close and four more smaller chunks before he’s satisfied that the core has a healthy amount of space.

The cleaner blob rumbles contentedly, its red eyes watching the core carefully for any new developments.

The blob ghosts will make sure the core isn’t confined again.

Danny attempts to make up for the pain he put Ghostling through by personally filtering as much of the corrupted ectoplasm as he can stand. He underestimates the task and is surprised at how little he managed to filter. It was still a lot more than the blob ghosts could do in a week, but it was far more draining than it should be.

“I’ll have to look into what did this.” He says aloud.

“Let me know if his condition gets worse.” The King tells the blobs. The responding rumble is reassuring.

“I’m going back to Batman if you need anything.” Absent-mindedly, he continues, “We still haven’t found Red Hood and he’s running himself to the ground looking for him. I wonder if we could track him by recoding the Boo-merang?”  

…

Talia gets a message later that evening from her beloved demanding answers for Jason’s revival and use of the pit to compare against the other previous pit users. He gets the same answers that Jason did. Except, one key sentence is used to describe Jason before and after the pit that she had never once used around Jason himself, for fear he would see himself as more flawed than he already did.

She described him as a boy running on instincts alone, with hardly any heart or mind to guide him. As if his spirit hadn’t come back like the rest of him until that dunk in the pit.

…

For the first time in a long time, he breathes.

A library, his library, smells like wood and new books. The aroma of Alfred’s cookies drifts in from the kitchen. He wasn’t aware the dead could eat, and most didn’t, but there were those who still wanted to cook and still wanted to enjoy food. A hiss sounds from the oven and Jason ignores it for the moment. Ghost cookies were a bit more dangerous than regular Alfred cookies, but not until they were done.

He misses his family, but he’s content here with his books and his food. He’ll wait for them to join him. Everyone dies in the end, it’s only a matter of time.

The chains come from nowhere and everywhere at once.

Chapter Text

Seafoam-green eyes sluggishly open to dried tear tracks and six massive Goops taking residence on top of him. Jason rubs his eyes with the palms of his hands. The Goops nuzzle closer. He unfolds one arm to run a hand over the closest one. He feels…weird. Something has changed with his soul, there is a hollowness that wasn’t there before – a strange new space around his soul that makes him think it shrunk – and he stiffly stretches it out like Ducra taught him.

His body moves with his soul (he’s out of practice, he should have done this more). A stab of pain from his chest pulls a hiss from his lips, but there’s no horrific screech of wrong-wrong-wrong from his instincts. Experience can’t tell him if the pain is a healing kind, like after a bullet is dug out of his flesh, but it’s definitely not the Your-Pet-Acids-Finally-Ate-Your-Heart kind of pain…he hopes.

“Leave me here to die.” He tells the Goops, and he should probably name the rest of them now that he thinks about it.

R – he’s calling Red-Eyes ‘R’ now – is not happy with that sentiment. None of them are, and he gets multiple angry little pats from their stumpy arms. Blue and Eyes stop their hovering to float down from the back of the couch and join in with one angry pat from each before going back to their watch. Goop, Beady, and B continue to lay on him.

Between the three of them, their new yoga-ball-size almost entirely covers him. R has taken station on the floor by the couch. It’s large enough now to lean over onto one of the couch cushions under Jason’s curled form and nuzzle his chest periodically. Goop burrows its way under his head, determined to wiggle into the previously unoccupied position of Pillow, all while Beady and B cover his side and legs.

He’s exhausted from such a rough night. Whatever that was, it sure as hell wasn’t sleep. Three rounds with Bane for six hours straight would have been kinder to his body.

It doesn’t take long for him to drift back into slumber.

…

Consciousness comes back in intervals.

He’s relaxing in his library nook – he’s cold and confused and covered in dirt, wandering around looking for Br-

A buzz from his phone. He reaches over, breathing through the pain in his chest, and grabs it. The tuxedo men were spotted back in Crime Alley, on foot (what a bunch of losers) and heading to the outskirts. He sends the informant 200 dollars.

Bright lights then pain, pain, pain – he floats around the kitchen and wonders if the ghosts in the Forever Fields have the spices he needs for –

Something wakes him up. Blue and Eyes are clutching tightly to his clothes, watching out the north wall. Is he delirious from the pain or can he see through them?

Well, they are ghosts, he supposes.

Across the street, the sniper decides Mask hadn’t paid them enough to kill a target that can phase through bullets.

He got a new book today from the vulpine village in the Hotlands. He can’t wait to – survive, survive, survive –

Something is rumbling around him. It eases some of the pain. He’s panting like he got beat into the ground again by a Shadow. Where is he? What is going on?

He won’t fight the woman. She’s important to someone who is important to him…what was their name– He wonders how many more places exist in the zone, he hopes there are a lot, he hopes that one day he can show Bru–

At one point he thinks he’s back in the zone. Then two red beads look down at him. The blob ghosts float around, turning his ceiling into seas of Green. They bring him random items from the kitchen. He eats the crackers and manages a few sips of water, but the kitchenware isn’t much help. The Goops are trying, though, and he manages a weak, “Thanks.”

A thud and flap of papers announce the presence of a book, the same one he was reading to the Goops earlier.

…He can read to them for a bit. Maybe it will soothe them as much as he hopes it will calm his mind. Beady lets him prop the book open on its body and each word comes out with a shaking breath. It helps.

He follows the woman. She is holding his wrist, then she’s gone. He’s pushed into – red just like he asked. Behind the door, everything he’s ever wanted is inside. Except, that’s when it hits him –

It occurs to Jason at some point between dream and reality what happened to him. His body weeps for his soul. His soul weeps for his body. Both mourn for what he gained, and both mourn for what he lost.

Where is he – where is he – he can’t breathe – he can’t see – it hurts – it’s wrong – he’s coming back to life – he’s dying – help – help – BRU –

He wakes with a cry for someone who hasn’t answered since Ethiopia. It hurts. It hurts.

…

He sulks pitifully for three hours before a voice in the back of his head, the one that sounds like Ducra, yells at him to get off his butt and do something about it.

…

The Bats are spotted fighting with the tuxedo men again. More specifically, the anchor on the street is giving live commentary as Batman gives their restrained forms a death glare. To the knowing eye, B’s cape moves just a bit too strangely for him to be alone under there. Jason would bet all his crime lord money that one of the birds is taking shelter. He resolves to lightly stab the tuxedo people if it turns out that they were harassing one of his siblings.

For now, Jason uses B’s unwitting distraction to start moving. Six days have passed since he came here. Either the tuxedo gang is more useless than their government’s other sectors or they aren’t looking for him. Jason has his blob ghosts, and he has his answers. There is no longer any reason to bait them, especially if they aren’t even looking for him.

His core has settled enough that he can get up without grunting through the pain. He snatches up his to-go bag and is on the road in less than a minute.

The redacted files don’t have a specific location, but that’s never stopped a Bat him before.

He follows the highway to New York City, heading straight to Battery Drive.

…

The headquarters for the GIW is unassuming even to the trained eye. Nothing is interesting about its architecture, none of the people who come in and out of the doors are memorable, and yet everything about it feels wrong to Jason.

The Goops did not follow him out of the safehouse and standing this close, he’s grateful that they didn’t.

The whole area snarls a promise of another highly unpleasant death. As if his first death was a walk in the park. Still, he gets the point the GIW are trying to make. According to the redacted files, their tech is nearly Batman-level when it comes to finding ghosts, it’s no wonder his core is nervous.

The good news is, he doesn’t have to try and get inside.

The technology inside the building is giving off huge, pulsing waves of information. It’s powerful, it’s fast, and it’s sloppy. It is child’s play to hack in, a three-year-old learning how to read code could do it. The fact that he can be two buildings away while he does it, without even an access point, speaks volumes to the sheer power and clear mismanagement of the tech they wield.

He moves quickly, breaking into the neighboring office building and setting up camp on top of a filing cabinet that lets him see the entire GIW HQ out of the window. The laptop he pulls out of his duffel bag is designed for two purposes – hacking and managing files. It is small, fast, and has a sticker that says, ‘hell is empty, and all the devils are here.’

(Talia had disapproved of the customization of it, but it’s really her fault for giving it to him before she threw him at the League’s coding instructor.)

Jason types in the run command and the computer begins a search and download process, working down a set list of priority tasks starting with keywords.

No one tells you this, because Hollywood doesn’t find it entertaining, but hacking is mostly a waiting game. The program will run as fast it can – even if it’s at a snail’s pace – but there’s jack shit you can do to speed it up after you start and as per usual, time is not on Jason’s side. Three years ago, he could have easily spent twenty hours letting his computer pull everything that the GIW has. Now, he can only suppress his soul for a little under two hours before his presence will show up on a screen somewhere. The beginning of a deprecating self-lecture stops with the wave of gratitude that he feels for being able to suppress his soul at all.

Ducra, you stubborn old ass, thank you for putting up with my stubborn dumb ass.

With time to kill, he glances away from the headquarters to the office desks that share his space. One of the desks has a small plant dubbed ‘Sir Francis II’ in black marker across the pot. There are two skulls on either side of the name.

Jason glances back at the GIW headquarters, checking for any sign of change, before looking back at Sir Francis.

The plant is gone.

He will deny it to his second dying breath, but he jumps a full foot in the air, frantically looking around for Poison Ivy. Beside him, a stress-ball-sized Goop meets his wide lake-blue eyes. In its tiny little body is the stupid fucking plant and Jason watches dumbfounded as it floats around inside the feeder blob.

“You motherfucker.” He hisses, deliberately ignoring the distant worry that seven more blobs will be waiting for him at the safe house, “I knew you could eat.”

Goop rumbles with mirth.

“What are you doing here? Go back.” Jason warns. He has no idea if the range on the ghost detection devices in the HQ has been upgraded, and he’s not keen to find out. Here he is suppressing his soul and being stealthy and his little shit of a blob ghost just waltzed right up to him.

He checks out the window. The building is quiet.

Jason mentally calculates how long it would take an Olympic runner to reach him and sighs. It might be time to bail.

His growing dread is ignored by Goop and when Jason turns back to it, he can only watch in horror as Goop swallows a cup full of paperclips.

“Goop, you spit that out right now!” He whispers the shout. Glancing back at the building, he spots a dark cape fluttering on the rooftop. The cape leaps off the roof to a neighboring building and disappears into the night.

A second later, two GIW agents burst onto the roof and begin scanning the rooftops for the uninvited bird.

Jason shuts his laptop with an angry scowl, snatches Goop up – when the fuck did it swallow a thumb drive? – and flees before they decide to check inside the buildings.

His younger self was a moron for wanting siblings.

…

Twenty minutes worth of data was nowhere close to what he wanted. He has one sister location and way too much extra data that was left defenseless via Bat Hacking (Trademarked). He has to re-evaluate how incompetent the GIW are if he’s been trailing in the wake of destruction that is Tim Drake or even Barbara Gordon’s hack job this whole time.

The notes on the GIW’s weapons are nice. The documents detailing their invisibility suits and ghost detection equipment is invaluable. The research notes, on the other hand, are useless to him. ‘Ectoplasmic entities’ call them ghosts, you insufferable assholes.

He deletes the ones labeled ‘behaviors’ and ‘habitats.’ Christ, it’s infuriating to have lived it (died it? Still dying it?) and read a bunch of impartial nonsense that treats them like animals. The alien members of the JL don’t have a ‘diet’ section in their government files. It’s also wildly wrong, ghosts don’t eat fear, and they sure as shit don’t eat the souls of the living.

Disgusting, his siblings would taste like every fuckin sundae under the sun and they’d all have toothpaste hiding in the middle of them – the obnoxious little shits. (Jason ignores the fact that he likes sundaes.)

He clicks through the remaining files. The GIW are loaded with weaponry and gadgets, and he marks a couple to send to Bruce before realizing the other bats already have the same files. He huffs and keeps clicking through, too bummed lazy to go back and unmark them.

Nothing.

Jason groans.

Sister location it is.

This is the Bats’ fault. If they hadn’t destroyed the GIW’s firewall, he wouldn’t have all this bullshit in his files. Still, Jason has to wonder what made the Bats leave the GIW servers in such a state, it left evidence of interference and B hated leaving traces. Unless it was deliberate.

Whatever. Not his problem.

He’s got a long way to drive if he’s going to get to Minnesota without any cameras spotting him.

…Right after he makes Beady spit out the hotel’s alarm clock.

He leaps into motion, shoving the laptop to the side, and flying off the shitty hotel bed to tackle his small-again blob ghost.

“This. Is not. Food.” Jason says, using a bastardized version of the Heimlich on the ghost. R hangs onto his shoulder for dear life, strangely unwilling to move despite the rough ride it’s on. Goop and B eye his phone and Jason gives them a death glare. They do not look away from the phone.

Jason swears they’re doing this just to mess with him. Thank fuck none of them were big enough anymore to try and swallow the tv and thank double fuck that no more than his original six blobs showed up in his hotel room. He didn’t spend a lot of time around blob ghosts in the Zone, but he’s never heard of one trying to swallow household objects or office supplies before.

Thankfully, Blue and Eyes pay no attention to the insanity.  

Damn, maybe they do eat fear.

Beady spits out the clock and sags in Jason’s arms. It looks far too sad about spitting out something so clearly not meant to be eaten. Jason shakes it around like he’s interrogating a rat, “I made you little shits eggs! Why are you eating circuitry and metal?! You’re supposed to eat ectoplasm!”

Wait.

Wait a damn minute.

Jason takes a long breath in. With a slow breath out, he allows his soul to relax from where it was still curled up, suppressing itself and hiding from the GIW sensors. Goop and B spit out his phone – he paid thirty dollars for that thing! – and join the other blobs in swarming him.

The yelp that leaves his throat is drowned out by the delighted rumbles of the Goops. Resigned to his fate for the next ten minutes, Jason lets his blob ghosts nuzzle and pat him.

And if he gives them apology scratches as well, that’s no one’s business but his own.

…

The drive to Minnesota is brutal, not because of the length of the drive, but because he fears one of his blob ghosts has gotten left behind whenever they shift their hold on his clothes.

They cling to his jacket and his bike, hitching along for the ride like they would in the Zone. But this isn’t the Zone and whenever the weight of the bike shifts even slightly, his mind conjures up the image of one of the blobs getting left in the dust with sad little eyes.

He shouts with frustration not even thirty minutes into the road trip. He can’t take this anymore.

Snatching them up, he zips Beady, B, and Blue into his duffel bag. Goop, R, and Eyes get stuffed into his zipped-up jacket. He mounts his bike with three little heads poking out of the top of his jacket, right under his chin. A glance behind him confirms that the other three have weaseled the zipper open on the duffel enough to look out.

The rest of the ride is much smoother. He only checks on the blobs every ten minutes instead of every two.

…

The Minnesota branch of the GIW is a glorified cabin in the woods. There are no guards patrolling the outside, no visible cameras or sensors, and a careful sweep of the area confirms that they aren’t using their pesky invisibility suits. From his perch in a nearby tree, he counts three cars in the dirt parking lot and the only lock is the card scanner on the door.

He stakes it out until dusk, long enough for a shift change to have occurred for any guards. No one enters or leaves until the sun fully sets and two boldly dressed adults walk out with a nervous teenager behind them.

“Cheer up Jazzie-pants! Your old man has access to every part of the lab, we’ll get you those pesky intern hours you need!” The large man is so loud, Jason half-suspects foul play.

The teenager says something in response that Jason doesn’t catch. The woman with the teal jumpsuit counters with something reassuring judging by the tone of her voice.

“Mom, I keep telling you I need – ugh, never mind.” The teenager deflates. She’s old enough to be around graduation age, so it’s very likely that she needs the internship hours for applications.

Jason winces for her. Yeah, getting an internship studying ghosts is not going to get her into any prestigious colleges. Not that he would know, he just figures very few places would consider studying ghosts as a credible job experience.

“Princess, with this card I can get you every hour you could need! Those college board people won’t know what hit them!” The man shouts. “Besides! This place has three whole government agents to help you out if the ghosts get wily!”

Jason watches as the large man waves his card around proudly.

This is a trap.

“Let’s call Danny when we get back to the hotel.” The lady says, “He seemed like he was having fun with that other family. Oh, I hope he has a good time, he could use some more friends…”

He watches the small family climb into a camper, the glint of the card shining all the way down from the man’s pocket to the dirt parking lot.

This is 100% a trap.

The man backs straight over the card with his front wheels and the camper tears off, back towards civilization. Out the rear window, the teenager looks back. She must see the card because her eyes go wide, but if he read her right, she won’t say anything – at least, not right away – in the hopes of getting out of her sham of an internship. Then her guilt might win out, she seems like the kind of kid to be her parent’s keeper.

Which means the card is fair game for the next few minutes.

What the entire shit and fuck?

Jason stares at the card.

Ah, what the hell? He’s already dead.

Jason carefully zips his blob ghosts further into his jacket. The lead lining should keep them hidden until he gets what he came for. Then with a reassuring pat over his chest where Goop should be, he casually walks out of the forest. He scoops up the card and makes his own copy with a hand-held signal cloner. In one smooth motion, he scans himself in while throwing the card back into the lot with a flick of his wrist.

On the other side of the front door is what appears to be an employee lounge. Three couches are arranged around a tv, facing away from a small kitchen with two coffee makers and a microwave. Jason notes the empty room and moves to the elevator in the back. The floors are helpfully labeled on the wall next to it.

He pries the elevator doors open with his bare hands and glances down. The top of the elevator stares back at him from two floors down, right between him and the floor he wants. Figures. Looks like he’s taking the long way.

The doors slide shut as he walks over to the stairs.

The emergency staircase is suspiciously barren of life and camera. He can see the logic in forgoing normal cameras, ghosts tend to fry them with all the ectoplasm they give off, but the lack of infrared is either an incredibly cocky decision or…

Jason takes a running leap down the first flight of stairs, his right hand reaching for the corner of the wall while his left braces for impact. He lands against the wall silently, fingers feeling swiftly around when they brush against something metallic. He slides to the floor without a sound.

Invisible cameras. Great.

But if they already know he’s here, then why hasn’t someone come to –

A door slams open somewhere below him. Pounding footsteps race up the stairs, two – no, three – sets of boots are rushing up to his floor. The noise echoes strangely and for a moment he thinks it’s Batman’s boots that he hears.

Jason hops over the stair rail and dives into the door for basement level 1. He looks up for a hiding spot, taking the whole room in at once and beside him is a large cabinet next to the door.

He hauls himself up to the top, squeezing himself into the space between the ceiling and the large cabinet. He twists so he doesn’t squish his blobs duffel bag.

The door is kicked open and three shadows run inside. They bulldoze straight past Jason and through a doorway to the right. Someone in another room shouts in surprise.

Jason throws himself out the door before it slams shut.

Just before it closes, he hears a very familiar voice shout, “WHERE IS HE?!”

With the three shadows behind him, hopefully preoccupied with whatever that was, Jason sprints down the stairs. He has zero interest in whatever his family is doing here. Whoever B is looking for, it must be bad. Bruce never shouts unless he’s under a lot of pressure.

Jason spares a thought for the poor bastard on Batman’s radar.

On the bright side, it explains the lack of guards.

On the downside, Batman.

Fuck, but it’s still not his problem.

He moves swiftly down to level four and scans himself through three different doors before he finally finds it.

Illuminating the lab with a bright green light, a portal to the Ghost Zone looms in front of him.

…

Goop and the other blob ghosts stick their heads out of hiding. Jason breathes shakily.

Here. It’s here. His soul promises. Peace.

Jason reaches out.

His phone would buzz in his pocket if it could.

…

‘Boss? You good?’

‘The boys and I are rarin to go, just say when n where.’

‘Hood you’re worrying my girls. Get your ass over here for book club.’

‘RH, the kids want to tag the police station, y or n?’

‘Boss?’

‘Hood call me when u get this. No trouble, just need 2 send u the quality check 4 the goods.’

‘Darius got spooked the other day. He said something wasn’t right. You better come back in one piece. Call him.’

‘If your dumb ass shows up dead cuz of those dudes, I’ll strangle the b myself.’

‘Boss is J okay?’

‘Are u and J hurtin for anything?’

‘Send J over next time he’s free, I got just the thing for his shoulder’

‘When’s J coming back?’

‘You guys are coming back right?’

…

Nothing really matters once you die. You can’t go back and change things. You can’t take anything but memories with you.

Jason didn’t have any regrets the first time.

He would have done everything all over again, the exact same way.

Going back for that fourth tire. Batman. Bruce. Robin.

The best years of his life and he was helping people, he was changing things, he was loved, he was happy.

And even if…even if the end was painful and – and cruel…even if he jumped the gun trying to help his mom, doing what batman taught him even while he disobeyed his father’s pleads orders, he didn’t regret it.

He died a hero. He died trying to save someone. He was okay with that. He would be remembered as someone who did the right thing all the way up until the end. He died with dignity, with pride, his soul still burning with love, and knowing he made a difference.

That was…that was…

A lie.

He died a failure, not a hero.

He died a soldier, not a son.

He died unimportant, inconsequential.

His death changed nothing; he didn’t matter.

This second death will be the same, but this time he’ll be a proper ghost. One full of regrets and painful memories. His soul is a liar. He’ll never get his peace, not after coming back to life.

…

“Jason!”

His name echoes around the room, but Jason can’t bring himself to pull back his outstretched arm. It’s right there. Maybe it will give him back some of the peace? Just a sliver?

Dark armored arms wrap around his middle and haul him away from the portal. The person spins them, so the portal is blocked from Jason’s view by their large, black form.

Batman isn’t Death, but Jason wishes he was. She was much kinder.

“Look at me.” Fingers grasp at his face, “Look at me, Jason!”

His legs won’t hold him. He’s so tired. It’s been three long, sleepless days of hunting down the portal and there’s no Lazarus Water sustaining those kinds of habits anymore. His core aches. His body is still feverish. Bruce catches him and gently guides them both to the floor.

“You’re okay.” Bruce soothes, wiping away tears with his thumbs. Was he crying?

“Your eyes, Jason.” His father sounds broken up about it and Jason is too tired to deal with this right now. His eyes have been fucked since he crawled out of the pit, how is B just now realizing this?

“They’re blue again.”

…What?

Jason tries to pull back, wants to see for himself, but Bruce’s grip is a vice, and he looks terrified that Jason is going to fall apart in his hands.

“If I let go, are you going to try and jump through?”

Jason shakes his head. There’s no peace for him in the Zone. He was deluding himself. The blob ghosts hiding in his jacket rumble comfortingly. His duffel bag, fallen beside him, starts shaking a little. The three in the bag are determined to help him as well. It doesn’t soothe the ache like before, but it does make it easier to bear.

“B, you got incoming!” Nightwing warns from the other room and Jason abruptly recognizes the sound of gunfire and fighting. Batman jumps to his feet, crouching defensively in front of Jason.

Jason stumbles to his feet beside him. Two scientists appear in the doorway, more goddam bazookas in their hands. Batman throws a bat-a-rang, but fighting rookies is sometimes more dangerous than the professionals. On instinct, the shorter of the two fires by mistake. Right at Bruce Batman. Bruce!

Jason’s mind flashes to his glowing green arm and perfectly intact clothing. Batman is braced for the hit, but Jason knows better. He plants his feet and shoves his father as hard as he can. Bruce is pushed to safety while a force like a freight train rams into Jason’s shoulder and sends him flying backward.

Right before he’s consumed by neon green, he hears a scream from seven years ago. The heart-wrenching cry of a father discovering his child’s cold, broken body.

…

‘Ha!’ Says the scrappy kid, ‘I knew you cared!’

‘Of course, Jay, lad. I always will.’

Chapter Text

Jason whirls through the portal, rolling with the force of the blast. The vast, never-ending sea of Green swallows him whole, flooding his vision until all at once the color changes to a soft brown. He crashes shoulder-first against something hard and it punches the breath out of him.

Beneath his fingers is a gray-tiled floor, familiar and smooth beneath his fingertips. He lifts his head from the ground with a strangled wheeze, struggling to make sense of the world around him.

He looks up.

Rows upon rows of shelves stretch before him, each one filled with thousands of books from every corner of the world and every time period that ever was. He knows without looking that reading nooks are tucked into the spaces between them and if his eyes were to travel further up, past the tables and the bookcases, a massive chandelier will be hanging from the ceiling. It is a simple thing despite its grand size with ornately carved wood and rings of candles to illuminate the atrium in the center of the building. The multitude of wall lamps and smaller chandeliers are littered throughout, lighting the great expanse where the atrium chandelier does not. It is an impressive amalgamation of the lavish Manor library, the underfunded Crime Alley library, and the futuristic Bristol library.

It is delighted by his return.

The Library. His Library.

Is that a new floor he sees?

Jason pushes off the ground, overeager, and nearly crashes back down. He’s forced to bite his tongue to hold in the noise of pain as it jostles his shoulder. An inspection of the limb reveals that – aw, shit – the red and black of the Robin uniform has been melted away. A massive burn as large as his hand covers his left clavicle and stretches out all the way to his arm.

Struck with a sudden fear, the discomfort and pain are shoved aside in favor of tucking his chin in and looking down at the lumps under his suit. "You okay?"

Three tiny heads poke out from the collar, responding with wiggles of agreement as R pushes its way out to latch onto his shoulder with its nubby arms. The other two stay tucked under his uniform as one rumbling lump over his core. R takes in the abundance of ectoplasm around them and drapes itself over his shoulder.

Jason watches as the skin and suit mend in front of his eyes. He rolls his shoulder experimentally. The lack of pain is welcome, but a new concern takes its place. He hopes the other three ghosts are okay.

When R slides off his shoulder and back into his clothes, Jason lets his cape slide around his shoulders to cover them. He used to take comfort in the Robin cape back when he was small enough to wrap himself up and drown in it. That comfort is lost now with the fabric that was burned away, the charred edges of the cape, and the bloody smears staining the outfit are…let’s just say he really doesn’t like them.

Jason takes in his current apparel with a grimace. Exactly like the first time – too much like the first time.

Every new ghost arrived as an echo of their living selves, the last shape their soul took before leaving the living world. It’s the easiest form to maintain without an abundance of ectoplasm and for Jason, it's this one: the one that suffocated on smoke and choked on blood under the wreckage of a warehouse after being beaten within an inch of his life via crowbar.

Fortunately, the immediate onslaught of ectoplasm has been bolstering his since he was sent hurtling through the portal. He should have enough to mold his form into something more pleasant.

Jason grabs the edges of his cape with broken fingers and pulls. The cape wraps itself into his favorite red hoodie and the uniform beneath changes into a comfortable Wonder Woman shirt and a pair of jeans. Ghostly bones realign, his ribs snap away from his lungs, and his left foot twists back around to its proper placement.

Finally, he starts to look as good as he feels.

Because holy shit he feels really fucking good right now – nothing hurts, his mind is quiet, and he feels like he just took a warm shower after months of dirt and grime have built up on his skin. A weight he hadn’t noticed before has been lifted off his shoulders. He feels utterly fantastic and Jason laughs because he hasn't felt this good in so long. He's - it's - peace, safety, home.

Bruce.

Jason turns a beaming smile behind him.

The front doors of the library are shut.

He's the only one here.

What is he doing?

Bruce isn’t there. Of course, he isn’t. He’s on the other side of the portal and…now that Jason’s mind is clearer than it has been for years, he can see the man without the tinted green light. The thoughts pushed down by the green come back all at once.

It can’t have been a lie. All those moments where Bruce held him, every smile Jason delighted in pulling from him, the promises he made. They were real. He wasn’t replaced or forgotten. He knew B needed Robin, someone to keep him from succumbing fully to the Bat. He knew, in the safety of this very library, that there would likely be more Robins after him, and he had been ecstatic by the possibility of welcoming them to the Zone – trading stories and teaching them the ropes.

But it still hurts. He never imagined –

Six months until another, better Robin stepped in.

Joker’s continued reign of terror.

His body missing from its grave for years without being noticed.

‘A Good Soldier’ etched into metal.

Jason never blamed Bruce for anything leading up to his death. After? Fuck. He doesn’t know anymore. And wasn’t that ironic? Becoming a restless spirit only after being brought back to life?

What a shitty joke. This place could never give him his peace back and he knew fully well why that was. He would have been better off looking for a brainwashing machine.

He’s a fucking coward.

…

The first time he came here, newly dead and awed by the new world he was left to, he had found the multi-book ‘For Dummies’ version of how to be a ghost in a matter of hours.

It said that each Door was unique to the Ghost it belonged to.

It said that without the King around, powerful Ghosts are free to take reign over the space around their Door. The overwhelming amount of Core-produced ectoplasm was more prone to leak out and change the area around it to reflect the soul of its inhabitant.

It said that any other Ghosts who happened to have their doors in that same space found themselves under a new overlord – one with a different set of rules than the King. From what Jason gathered, it was mostly for the better. Pariah Dark seemed like an asshole in the history books.

The older and stronger the Ghost, the more space their domain occupied and the more Ghosts they had under their rule. The problem was that Jason was not an old Ghost, but he was, for some reason, ridiculously strong.

With no obsessions or regrets tying him to the realm, it was purely based on the strength of his soul that he became a Ghost at all. You can imagine his surprise when he showed up to the zone, beaten and bloody uniform and all, to find his Door smack dab in the middle of its own island. There were no other ghost Doors in the area, thank Death. So, in a library big enough to rival the Library of Alexandria, Jason found himself happily without any inhabitants to rule and all the books he could ever want.

Buried deep within the Library was his Door.

Jason’s Door is the same style and design as his bedroom door in the manor. Simple but elegant and a shade of carmine red that matched his favorite hoodie. He didn’t have to read the chapter dedicated to Door formation to immediately realize that behind every Door was the ghost’s idea of paradise. Inside Jason’s personal library was a carbon copy of the one Bruce had gifted him.

Bruce had redesigned three entire rooms just for Jason. Walls had been knocked down, new furniture brought in, a fireplace built, and millions of dollars worth of books placed lovingly on every shelf. All for Jason.

He loved that room more than anything in the world.

The kitchen next to his personal library had been somewhat of a surprise. Jason enjoyed cooking, the security of cooking his own meals came from a vulnerability that he never quite managed to shake off from his childhood, but he loved cooking with Alfred. Memories of gentle guidance and amused smiles blessed the space. His Door had a much smaller kitchen next to the library, one that didn’t feel as empty as the one in the Manor – as if all the extra space that went unused was hacked off and Jason was left with only the important parts.

Around the space were pictures and knick-knacks that belonged to each Wayne family member. He had adored it. He was more than happy to spend his afterlife existing in these two spaces, venturing out into the larger library on occasion, and waiting for his family to join him. Bruce, Alfred, and Dick had made such an impact on his life that his very soul reflected their love for him.

Standing in front of his Door now, even before he opens it, he knows that it hasn’t changed at all.

This was still his paradise: a fireplace, endless books, a stocked kitchen…and enough room for his family to join him. Jason enters and falls back against his Door. He doesn’t know when he’ll get back up again.

He can’t bring himself to care.

…

Jason Todd is not a fucking coward. He crawled out of his own grave, he held Death’s hand as she walked him away from his own corpse, he didn’t hide away – he fought and spit and hissed and raged at the world that killed him.

He just needs a moment - a minute - just one goddam second behind his Door. Safe and warm and not drowning. But eventually, with thoughts of the Alley and a family of bats, he convinces himself to get up and leave.

There are questions he still has, like why his core looks so deformed, and he has a whole library available to help him find the answers.

It’s easy to leave his Door to venture into the main Library. It’s harder not to look back at it.

Focus, Jason.

Right. He needs a book on Cores and whatever he can find on zombies. His body crawled out of its own grave and he wants to know why his Ghost wasn’t along for the journey.

Jason enters the atrium and floats up to the top floor. He passes a few wandering ghosts who wave at him shyly as he passes by. Jason nods back. It soothes him to know the Library was still open even without his Core around to maintain it. As he continues to float upward, he finds himself passing by the new floor on his way up. He takes a moment to glance around. Computer desks occupy most of the space. Against the walls, small shelves of Kindles and tablets are sectioned and charging. He happily notes that the new floor is an e-library.

It makes sense, he supposes, since technology had advanced so far while he was gone that his Library would adapt now that he had experience with the new ways to read and find information. The older blocky computers that he had used as a kid didn’t have much use for him while he was dead.

Would he even need to go to the Ghost book floor?

Jason flies over to one of the computers and starts investigating. He very quickly discovers that no, he does not need to go to the top floor. All of his books (or, at least the ones he searches for) have been digitalized. If he wanted, he could read in the chair or take a tablet and read elsewhere.

Jason holds in a giggle snicker. His library is so cool.

Jason writes down the books that he finds on the computer and heads off to the top floor anyway. Screens give him a headache if he spends more than a couple hours on them and he prefers having a physical copy in his hands over a tablet.

The top floor, as its name implies, holds all the books created in or related to the Zone. The books themselves can be a bit…unique. Some of them are made of literal ice, others will take a bite at you if you aren’t careful, and there are very few ‘normal’ books on the whole floor.

The one about Cores is thankfully one of the normal ones. As he moves to the books he found related to his zombie problem, however, he finds an obstacle. A very ghost-shaped, purple-clad, clock-for-a-chest, red-eyed obstacle.

“I always seem to find you in the wrong place at the right time.” The ghost says. Jason only met the guy once, and he’s not very thrilled to see him again.

“What are you here for, Clockwork?” Jason moves around the other ghost to pass. Clockwork follows.

“What else would I be here for?” He can hear the guy smirk, the vague bastard. They float around three different bookshelves before Jason responds.

“Take whatever book you’re looking for and go, I’m busy.” He grumbles.

“It’s not a book for me, it’s for you,” Clockwork says with a hum.

Jason keeps walking, he doesn’t bother turning around to ask for said book, “Oh really?”

“You want to know about your resurrection.”

That makes Jason pause. Clockwork pauses with him.

“You haven’t done something yet and it amused me, so I will give you some insight as both a favor and at the request of my counterpart.”

What.

What did that even-?

Jason hates this guy. He starts walking again and Clockwork keeps half a step behind.

“As you know, Time and I keep track of the different streams and only intervene if there is a threat of flooding.”

No, the fuck Jason did not know that. He doesn’t particularly care either.

“This happens when different streams cross. It all the time, but a while ago the streams crossed, and the result created a river from one while the other ceased to exist.” Clockwork continues.

Seemed complicated and not Jason’s problem.

“This too happens often, however, the wrong stream became a river.”

The book next to the one Jason reaches for nearly bites his hand off. He curses at it and smacks it lightly on the spine. It settles down and Jason pulls free a green book on the relationship between Earth and the Zone.

“We could not fix it without a catalyst, but we never imagined one would happen so soon.”

Jason skims the chapter titles, ensuring he has what he wants. Then, he closes the book and moves on to find the last book he wrote down.

“We were unprepared for it. We took steps to ensure the wait for one would be comfortable but in doing so, your soul was not ready to return.”

“What?” Jason whips his head around to look back at the other ghost. “What does that mean?”

“Your soul was not prepared to return with your body. And so, it did not.” Clockwork very unhelpfully elaborates.

“Prepared?” Jason parrots. In hindsight, Jason would have been more than happy to stay in the Zone without going through all the bullshit that was his second life. Unfortunately, he knows that at the time, if someone had asked him if he wanted to go back, his younger self would have jumped at the chance. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“It is not a matter of want Jason, it’s a matter of ability.”

Again, with the vague sentences. Jason scowls, “If you’re just here to make me mad, you’re doing a great job of it.”

Clockwork just smiles, “Your right hook is something to behold. I cannot wait to see it again.”

“You’ll see it really soon if you don’t leave me be.”

“Until next time, Red Hood.” Clockwork bids his goodbye.

What an ass.

Jason grabs his last book and floats to the ground floor.

…

As much as he would like to stay in the Library to do his research, Jason has an Alley to get back to.

The Library opens her doors for him. He knows as well as she does that he’ll be back, and that particular consolation is the only thing making it possible for him to walk away in the first place.

the swirl of Green from the portal waits for him on the other side. The portal is still open and one foot in front of the other, he steps through.

It’s a bit of a relief to be taller than five feet again and huh. He’s back in his older form. That leaves some room for experimentation in the future, but for now, Jason is just thankful his body didn’t vaporize on its way through the portal or something.

The lab is messier than he remembers it, the scientists are gone but the room looks trashed. Someone threw a fit over something or someone and Jason isn’t sure which one it is. Darius’ kitchen looked worse so hell, maybe someone just had a fucked-up idea of redecorating.

Jason’s duffel bag is untouched. Upon his gentle nudge, the three ghosts left behind throw themselves out of it to welcome Jason and the other blob ghosts back.

“Missed you too,” Jason murmurs, confirming that his Goops are all untouched.

With that reassurance, Jason turns to where a crowd of Bats are shouting in front of a wall computer to his left. They’re yelling over each other, directions to go left or right contradicting and confusing the poor sucker on the other side.

Which is ridiculous, no one in the family would put up with that for more than a minute (Steph had the record but only because she thrived off chaos). Jason’s pleased to see they’re all well enough to stand around and shove each other out of the way to shout their opinions. There are no visible wounds that he can see, and everyone is accounted for that Jason knows, that’s good enough for him.

Dick demands the person turn around before being swiftly cut off by Tim insisting there was nothing there. Damian, perched atop the two, chastises them both with a hiss to ‘cease their blabbering’.

Jason snorts. He could help them out with whatever it is they’re looking for in the Zone now that he’s done with his self-given mission, but he’s exhausted, and a nap sounds phenomenal right about now. Jason puts his ghost blobs back into the duffel along with his books and slings it over his shoulder.

Quietly, he steps out, passing a line of unconscious and tied scientists. The two from earlier took some nasty hits judging by the bruising on their faces. Serves them right, the blast hurt like a motherfucker.

His journey up the stairs is far less eventful than his initial descent and he walks out undisturbed for all of three seconds. As he passes the first couch in the employee lounge, the family from before comes barging in.

“GHOSTS!” The large man shouts and points another goddam motherfucking shitass bazooka at him. Jason is already drawing his gun from his waist when the teal-dressed woman stops both men from acting with a demand to, “Wait!”

Jason, acting on instinct, stops mid-draw as the man’s finger rockets away from the trigger. He stares the family down with a glare, daring them to shoot him for the third time this week. The woman holds up her watch.

‘All Clear. Not this room, silly! The ghosts are twenty meters below you!’ A robotic voice chirps.

“Whoops! Sorry about that! Got a little trigger-happy there, thought you were a ghost!”

Jason, still with his hand on the gun, slowly re-holsters it with a displeased drawl of his Alley accent, “Happens more often than I’d like.”

The two pay him no further mind, dashing past him excitedly and throwing themselves down the stairs. The red-headed teenager from earlier runs into the room in the wake of her parents’ dust.

“I am so sorry about that.” She says, before double-taking at the sight of him.

“What?” He demands. He’s really not in the mood for this.

“Nothing! Nothing, just – we thought you were – never mind!” She shouts, racing past him. And because Jason is feeling like an asshole, he uncurls his soul just enough for her watch to go off.

‘Ghost detect- All clear!‘ It cuts off.

The teen whirls around but Jason is already gone.

…

RH: Of course I’m coming back

‘I knew that’

RH: Wrapping up a couple things, ETA end of the week

‘Standing By’

RH: Urgent updates?

‘None but you should know Penguin’s goons were sniffing around.’

‘It was taken care of’

RH: I’ll call for a full brief

…

Most of his Hood business is wrapped up over the phone during his search for the Batplane, there are still things he has to take care of in person, but it’s not urgent enough to warrant an immediate visit. By the time he walks his bike and duffel into the hangar, Jason is free to bundle his Goops up into his arms and pass out on the floor.

…

“JASON?!”

The throw is on reflex, an ingrained response from his body to the slightest indication of a threat. He only recognizes Dick’s voice after he’s done it, so it’s fortunate that his hand wasn’t wrapped around the knife he keeps hidden up his sleeve. This does not console Jason.

Beady’s goopy body flies through the air and would have landed smack on Dick’s face if the monster hadn’t dodged. The poor ghost sails out of the plane, so confused and distraught over the loss of its warm nest that the apology is out of Jason’s mouth before Beady even lands on the cold, hard ground.

“I am so sorry!” He leaps up to console his ghost.

“Aww, I’m okay Little-” Dick beams, assuming Jason is coming close to check on him.

“Not you.” Jason interrupts, running past him and out of the plane, holding his hands out for Beady to fly back over. Further apologies are muttered into its body, and he gently rubs his thumb across it, soothing his blob into a forgiving rumble as Jason walks the ghost back over to the blob pile that he had been curled around only seconds ago.

Dick looks from the blob to Jason to the pile of blobs and then back to Jason, “You’re not…bleeding out…?”

“No?” Jason gives Dick a raised eyebrow. “Am I supposed to be?”

Batman comes hurtling in from the trees, a dark shadow flying across the clearing and over to the hangar door.

“Where have you been?” Batman is suddenly in Jason’s space, looming over him with a wild look on his face. What the fuck?

Jason holds Beady away from the Bat protectively when he says, “Here.”

“How did you get out of the portal?” Batman demands, moving closer until they’re almost nose-to-nose and the older man begins to start moving Jason’s clothes away from his shoulder.

“Walked out. The fuck do you think?” Jason scowls, reluctantly letting the Bat scrutinize the skin. Tim, Steph, Cass, and Damian burst into the clearing next.

Damian tutts, “How could you have possibly managed that? We were all there.”

“You guys were busy with the computer. I was tired. I came here to sleep.” Jason rolls his eyes.

“We have protocols for-” Batman starts.

“What protocols?” Jason cuts him off, “I don’t have protocols for portals!”

“It’s right here in section- wait.” Tim taps on his wrist computer. Then he taps it again and slowly looks up with a pinched face, “This is the Robin handbook. And the other book is for League members. He’s right, we don’t actually have protocols for those of us who were…forcibly removed from the role.”

Jason gives Tim a ‘Thank you’ gesture.

Batman does not like that, “The protocols are for all Robins, past and present.”

The former Robins in the area shout in despair. Damian’s smirk is downright sadistic.

“NO.”

“FUCK YOU, MY CAFFEINE CUTOFF ISN’T 9 PM.”

“I DATE WHO I WANT!!”

“Want cookies after…midnight…”

Jason holds out his hand, “I expect my allowance to be paid in full for the past five years within the next 24 hours.”

Batman narrows his eyes at Jason. He reaches down to his belt and withdraws a wad of bills, dropping them into Jason’s open palm.

“Whoa, wait! Me too! I want my Robin allowance too!” Steph yells.

Duke’s voice broadcasts from Tim’s wrist, “WAIT WAIT WAIT TIMEOUT I WANT A SIGNAL ALLOWANCE!!”

Batman winces and covers his right ear with his hand, indicating that Oracle wants an allowance too.

With Batman suddenly accosted by his brood, Jason flips through the bills, counting as he goes. This will more than pay for snacks and water bottles for all his employees. If he’s smart about it, it could fund a whole year’s worth of food and beverages, maybe even birthday parties.

The pile of Goops wiggles.

Jason could buy that cat tree he was thinking about.

“Jason.” Batman grunts. Oh, right.

…well, he did get paid for it.

“I fell in the portal, landed, patched myself up, and walked back out. No injuries, no pursuers, no fights. I was tired when I got back out and you guys were busy around the computer, so I found the Batplane that I knew you took to get here and took a nap.”

“Your eyes?”

Jason shrugs, “Well they should still be blue. I assume the Pit finally left my system by the time I got to the portal. My eyes were the only physical symptom of that, so they changed back once it left.”

“The hair isn’t…?”

“No, it’s stress induced.” Jason clarifies, “No idea why. I wasn’t stressed at any point in my whole entire first and second life.”

“And the glowing green balls?” Batman grunts.

“Emotional support.”

The family eyes the Goops wearily, trying to figure out if Jason just has bad taste or if something else is going on.

Jason, sensing an opportunity, crooks a finger at Damian. The kid perks up at being singled out and approaches. Jason brings a closed fist out to Damian, and it speaks volumes about how far Damian has come that he willingly opens his palms out to whatever Jason is handing him.

“It eats fear.” Jason opens his fist and Beady gently drops into Damian’s hand. It pats curiously at the Robin and the kid looks like Christmas came early. Damian’s eyes go wide with awe, and it takes him a whole ten seconds to wipe the look off his face.

“Hood.” He says somberly, “It will starve in my care.”

Jason laughs.