Archive of Our Own

“Oh my God, that was incredible!” A mystery blonde squatted next to him, brushing the hair off his forehead as he groaned in the gutter. He was bruised all over and felt like he’d been used as a punching bag, and it was not made better by the blonde angling herself closer and closer to him.

“Thanks,” he grunted. He spat a tooth onto the pavement and hoped it hadn’t been one of the important ones. The blonde was still inching closer.

“Can I get a selfie with you?” She sounded totally vapid, completely airheaded, but he squinted up at her, nonetheless. She looked familiar in a way he couldn’t quite place. Like someone he’d met in another lifetime, or someone he’d met in a dream.

“Sure,” he said, propping himself up on his elbows. She put her phone in front of them, grinning from ear to ear at it, and snapped a photo. There was a streak of blood through the white in his hair. He hoped he hadn’t split his skull open.

“Thanks,” she typed something rapidly on her phone, her thumbs hitting the screen at a speed he almost found himself impressed by.

“You’re welcome,” he groaned and tried to roll onto his side, get a little bit more upright. She got to her feet and reached down and pulled him up one-handed, her Gotham U sweater hiding surprisingly dense muscle tone. “Thank you. Uh, you are…?”

“Steph,” she grinned up at him. The tone of her voice had shifted. It was no longer vapid and empty, but instead almost calculating.

Steph.

Jason realised in that moment why she seemed so familiar.

“Shit,” he swore, looking around. He couldn’t feel Bruce’s eyes on him, but it was Gotham by day, crowded to the brim with tourists and citizens alike. Gotham was New Jersey’s biggest attraction outside the shore, for reasons locals had never understood. It was where Jason had decided to hide out while the League were still looking for him.

He hadn’t planned on going home.

He realised Steph was walking away, and he rushed after her, wiping the blood from his nose. He grabbed her by the shoulder and she easily slipped him off, turning to look at him with an arched eyebrow.

“Can I help you, Jason Todd?”

“You need to hide me,” Jason hissed, looking around furtively. “It’s not safe for me here.”

“Go back to your safehouse,” Steph rolled her eyes and kept walking.

“No, no, no,” Jason tried to grab at her again. She shoved him away, again. “Bruce can find me there. I cannot be found by Bruce, and I cannot be found by the people who are after me. They’re very bad people.”

“You’re a very bad person,” she replied. “I won’t pretend I don’t understand what you’ve done, but c’mon, Jason, seriously? You can do so much better and you’re wasting your talents like this. What you did back there, for that woman, that got the shit kicked out of you and ended with you in a gutter? That was the right thing to do. But Bruce is warning me that if I see you, I have to find evidence that it’s you and then run the other way. So that’s what I’m doing, Jason. I’m running.”

She kept walking. There was no speed in her gait; he caught up to her easily.

“Steph-”

“Jason, just shut up and keep following me.”

Jason didn’t know this girl. Or maybe he did, once, but his time in the League had left his memory hazy and unreliable at best. He knew she worked with Bruce. Bruce and the others – their names and faces escaped him, like grains of sand slipping through his fingers. Jason ducked his head low to avoid the security cameras and followed Steph into an alleyway.

She started climbing up a fire escape, gesturing for him to follow. He looked around uncertainly. It could be dangerous. It could be a trap. But she also could have killed him when he hit the ground earlier, and she didn’t. So he followed her up the metal grated stairs and to a window on the third floor.

She slid it open and clambered inside. He struggled to wedge his body in under the gap, so she opened it wider, and with a bit of manoeuvring they managed to get him inside. Jason stumbled over to the couch and collapsed on it, leaning into the plush, pillowy fabric and closing his eyes. He was startled when something cold and hard landed in his lap, and he opened his eyes, looking down.

It was a bag of peas.

“For your face,” Steph said by way of explanation, closing the freezer door and coming to sit on an armchair across from him. She had a pen and notebook in hand, and was studying his face, deep in thought. Jason looked from side to side, considering escape routes, but instead settled further back into the couch.

It was soft, and it smelled like home.

“I like your couch,” he mumbled. It vaguely occurred to him he was probably getting blood on it, and he shifted, but angling his head the other way hurt.

“Thanks,” Steph said. The next sentence came out a little sad. “You were the one who got it up here.”

Jason didn’t remember that. He didn’t remember anything – or he did, but they were in shattered pieces, his psyche split across his mind. He opened his eyes to find her studying him, chewing on the end of the pen.

“Here,” she said, holding the notebook out to him. “Sign your name.”

He reached forward and scribbled his name down on the pad, handing it and the pen back at her. She squinted at the swirling script, before leaning back, satisfied. He wasn’t sure what she was trying to prove. His identity, he supposed. He thought of what she’d said.

I have to find evidence it’s you and then run the other way.

She wasn’t running.

“Did you send that photo to Bruce?” He found himself asking. Her gaze flickered up to him, and she frowned, tucking a silky blonde strand behind one ear.

“No,” she replied. Her frown deepened, and she glanced towards the heater in the corner of the room. “It didn’t seem fair to set the dogs on you when you’re in this state.”

He pulled the bag of peas off his nose and felt at it gingerly. It twinged under his gentle touch, and he flinched, lifting the peas back to it. She got to her feet and came over, tugging them away.

“It’s broken,” she said. “I can set it, but it’s going to hurt.”

“Sure,” he sat up straighter and let her close her fingers around it. He was about to say something when she yanked it to the left, then back to the right, and gave it a sort of wiggle until there was a click.

Jason leaned back, hissing between his teeth. He reached up and probed at it, then looked up at her, frowning.

“You could’ve warned me,” he said.

“I did.”

“How do you know how to do that, anyway?”

Steph frowned, crossing her arms and tilting her head. “You really don’t remember me, do you?”

He considered lying, but she seemed like the sort of person who’d pick it up quickly.

“No,” he confessed. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” She dropped back into the armchair and looked out the window, pensive. “When I was a teenager, I died. The doctor who brought me back took me to Africa. I was her intern for about a year.”

“You died?” Jason couldn’t help it, he was horrified. He stared at her, wide-eyed, as she stared back.

“Holy shit. You really don’t remember.”

She was staring at him in seeming disbelief for a moment before her face softened, and she looked out the window, chewing on her bottom lip. She tucked another strand behind her ear and fidgeted.

He stared back, trying to discern her meaning from her movements. It wasn’t becoming any clearer. His scalp prickled.

“Maybe it’s better you don’t remember,” she said when he didn’t say anything.

“What don’t I remember?” Jason asked, his voice even. He wiped at the sticky, almost-dry blood on his upper lip and considered her. She looked uncomfortable. Like she wanted to crawl out of her skin.

“I’m – I’m not really the one who should tell you.”

“Steph,” he said, calm. “What don’t I remember?”

She faltered, then deflated. Slowly, quietly, she gave him:

“You died.”

“I what?”

“You died,” she repeated. “Then you came back.”

The prickling in his scalp got worse, and Jason felt the air constrict in his lungs. He swallowed the bile rising in his throat and dug his fingernails into his palms, his hands clenched into tight fists. He had seen – he had seen the League bring people back. He’d never suffered the misfortune himself, or so he thought.

His body was littered with scars he couldn’t explain, his mind scantly filled with memories of life before the League. He remembered an apartment in Gotham, a woman with kind eyes and track marks scattered up her forearms, a car and a tire iron and a man with a piercing gaze who he only remembered as Bruce.

That was all.

There had to be more.

“Can you tell me about it?” He asked, swallowing again for good measure, but Steph shook her head, her gaze on him and unflinching.

“It’s not my place,” she said calmly. “Can I get you a drink?”

“No,” he said automatically, then regretted it instantly. “Do you have water?”

She got to her feet and grabbed him a bottled water from the fridge, passing it over and standing over him with a watchful eye as he uncapped it and took a sip. She looked like she wanted to say something, but she just took her seat in the armchair, resting her chin against her hand.

“Where’s…,” Jason searched for the name, but drew a blank. He was thinking of a girl his age, with dark hair and a measured gaze that could calculate any movement. He remembered she and Steph were close. She was a dancer. She spoke in sign language, sometimes. “Where’s-”

He remembered the sign for her name but couldn’t extrapolate what it was.

Jason shaped his fingers into an approximation of the letter C and bounced them on his palm. Steph watched his hands, then a slow smile spread across her face.

“Cass,” she said. “You remember Cass?”

“Cass,” he said slowly. It sounded right. He nodded, poking absentmindedly at his broken nose. It throbbed under his touch. “Where is Cass?”

“Somewhere in the Himalayas, looking for you,” Steph said with a careful smile. “Damian is with her.”

“Damian?” Jason thought about the name for a moment, turning it over in his head. Tan skin. Green eyes. Justified anger. Little brother.

He paused, considering that last thought for a moment.

“Damian… is my brother,” he said slowly.

“Yes,” Steph replied. “You have four brothers.”

“And Bruce is our father,” Jason felt it come to him with increasing clarity. He had almost grasped onto it when something in his mind slammed shut like a steel trap, the memory vanishing. He cursed and turned his head away so Steph wouldn’t see the tears that welled in his eyes.

“Oh, Jason,” she said gently. She came over and sat on the arm of the couch, a gentle hand at his shoulder. “What if I take you to some places around Gotham? We’ll see if we can jog your memory.”

“I don’t know if that would work,” Jason admitted. “I’ve been wandering Gotham for days and I don’t know anything.”

“Maybe you didn’t know where to look,” she said, giving his shoulder a squeeze.

Jason wondered, for a moment, if the woman in front of him could know him better than he knew himself. Based on the way she looked at him, it seemed likely. He hated the thought, that the League could just empty his mind of anything concrete, and someone in Gotham City, a place that was a lifetime away, could look at him and know his story.

He hadn’t even known his name when he’d woken up, until a woman had cupped his face and whispered, “Jason, run.”

He’d listened.

He’d gone back to the only place that he thought of as home.

Gotham.

“Maybe you could show me around,” he said quietly. “But, uh, I should get cleaned up first.”

“Bathroom’s that way,” she pointed. “I’ll get you a clean shirt. One without blood on it.”

“Thanks,” he replied. He headed in the direction she pointed, and found a small, squashy room with slate grey tile and a bright blue bathmat. There were mismatching hand towels on the railing and a wet shower cap sitting on the counter. Jason approached the mirror, which was cracked in one corner, and turned on the tap. It spat brown water at him at first, but after a moment it ran clear. He splashed a little water on his hands and scrubbed his face with it, getting rid of the trickle of blood from under his nose and in his hair. There were dark bruises forming beneath his eyes, and he pressed his finger to his eye socket, checking for breaks. Satisfied, he wiped his face on one of the hand towels a moment later and turned the tap off.

His gaze didn’t linger on his reflection. Since he’d made it back to Gotham, he’d studied his face in shop windows and public bathrooms, under neon lights and streetlamps. He didn’t always recognise what he saw; it seemed to warp under his gaze.

He wished he knew the man staring back at him.

“Got you a shirt,” Steph appeared in the doorway, holding up a grey t-shirt. “It’s an old one of Tim’s, so it might be a little small.”

Jason knew he was supposed to know who Tim was, but the face attached to the name escaped him. Wordlessly, he pulled off his shirt and tossed it over the bathtub, taking the t-shirt and pulling it over his head. Steph was right; it fit snug. He didn’t mind.

He was aware of her eyes on him and looked up, arching an eyebrow.

“Something I can help you with?”

“No,” Steph’s face flushed pink. “Let’s get going.”

They exited the apartment through the door rather than the fire escape this time, and Steph pulled it shut behind her, listening for the click of the lock. Satisfied, she led him down a few flights of stairs, her hands in the pockets of her Gotham U sweater and her boots thudding against the hardwood. Jason watched her from the corner of his eye, curious. He knew that he knew her, that her name was Steph and they’d been something like friends once, but when he went searching for specific memories they slipped away.

He supposed he should start to get to know the woman in front of him regardless.

“Gotham University, huh?” He asked, taking the steps two at a time. “What do you study?”

“I was studying social work,” she replied. She sounded a little sad when she said, “I had to drop out.”

“Oh,” Jason said. “Why?”

She glanced up at him, seemingly amused that the reason escaped him. “I work nights. Makes it hard to study.”

He considered that for a moment as they made it out onto the street. Eventually, he said, “I wanted to study literature at Gotham U, I think. My dad wanted me to go to NYU for it instead. We argued about it a lot. I always said, what’s the point of having a perfectly good university here in Gotham if he didn’t want me to go to it?”

“Your dad?” Steph asked, stopping short. She studied his face for a moment before she resumed walking at an easy pace. “Oh. Bruce.”

Jason tried to connect these statements in his mind, but his head swam. The steel trap snapped shut once more, and any dreams he’d ever had of studying literature at Gotham U disappeared with them.

“You know him,” Jason said. “You know Bruce, too. But you’re not one of his kids.”

“No,” Steph said firmly. “God willing, I never will be. I have a father. He’s a deadbeat, but he’s still mine.”

Jason didn’t push too hard against the thoughts that came with that statement. He’d had a deadbeat dad once, too, one that wasn’t Bruce. He didn’t know his name. He wondered if that was better.

Steph led him through the streets, traversing down city blocks and ignoring the changing landscape. Buildings went from rough brick to rougher brick coated in layers of graffiti, tags and symbols painted over each other as the street kids staked their claim for territory. Jason looked at them thoughtfully, but didn’t stop, keeping pace with the surprisingly athletic Steph.

They stopped in an alleyway that was littered with broken bottles. A pile of rusted barbed wire wrapped around an old oil drum. The graffiti was here, too, almost an inch thick on the crumbling walls. Jason traced his fingers over a little red J with a crown over it, and followed Steph further into the alley.

“Is anything familiar?” She asked, looking around. “Anything at all?”

Jason looked back at the J, frowning. “Familiar, but it’s not jogging anything. I just look at it and I know I’ve seen it before.”

Steph frowned, but nodded, wandering up and down the alleyway. Jason returned his attention to the graffiti, kicking a glass bottle out of the way to get close to those lower on the wall. He knew some of these tags. The arrow, that was Alicia’s, and the exaggerated G with wings was Garcia’s work.

Jason didn’t know how he knew those names, but he was suspecting the J with the crown was his.

“Find something?” Steph asked.

“Not really.” He felt an inkling of frustration bubble under the surface and clenched his fists, straightening. “Can we get out of here? This place makes my skin crawl.”

It was making his skin crawl in a way he couldn’t place. He got that prickle across his scalp and down his neck again and focused on taking deep, steadying breaths. It wasn’t Steph’s fault they were here, but he wished he could just ask her what this place meant to him. He knew she wouldn’t say – she’d been clear on that, saying she didn’t want to colour his perception of his past – but he just wished that there was some way for him to know, to really know, for certain and for sure.

“Sure,” Steph said. “Crime Alley’s a shithole, anyway. We’ll head to the next location.”

They made their way into the heart of the city, Steph pulling him onto a bus and dragging him up the back. They sat shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee, and with Steph pressed into his side Jason found his pounding heart beginning to settle. He still didn’t remember how he knew her, just that he did. Her familiarity was almost a comfort.

On the bus, Steph pulled her phone out of her pocket and unwound a set of earphones, offering one to Jason. He slipped it into his ear, and she slipped the other in hers, scrolling through her music until she tapped a song. As the opening bars played, recognition flittered in Jason’s mind.

“This is The Clash,” he said, trying to squash his excitement. “We danced around to this in your apartment once.”

Steph’s eyes lit up, and she nodded, grabbing his face. “What else?”

“This is your favourite song,” Jason said confidently. “Or it was when I knew you, anyway.”

“Yes!” Steph looked ecstatic. “You remembered something!”

Jason’s exaltation faded quickly, though. “It’s not fair,” he mumbled to himself, somewhat petulantly. “How can I remember your favourite song, but I don’t even know mine?”

Steph chewed at the edge of her thumbnail, then scrolled through her phone, bringing up another song. The heavy guitar and bass filled his ear, followed by angry, almost guttural lyrics.

It was familiar, but it didn’t spark anything.

“What is this?” He asked, looking at her.

“Short Fuse by Poison Idea,” she replied. “It’s your favourite song.”

It certainly sounded like it could be his favourite song. It had all the markings of something he would enjoy. But it felt disconnected from him, somehow, without a memory to tether it to.

He felt a flickering in his mind, the memory of a cigarette in his hand and a hard mattress beneath him, an apartment where the heat didn’t work, but when he probed further –

It vanished.

“You remembered something, just then,” Steph said, leaning closer to him, so their bowed heads were almost touching. “What was it?”

“Nothing,” Jason said, then he swallowed. It would do him no good to lie to the one person who wanted to help him. “It was, uh. I was smoking. I was in an apartment overlooking Crime Alley. There was a poster on the wall, for that band. Poison Idea. Someone came in to speak to me, and then, it just stops. There’s nothing after that. It’s like I don’t even exist.”

“Of course you exist,” Steph said soothingly, reaching up to rub his back. “Can you tell me anything else?”

“I was wearing a red shirt and a leather vest,” Jason said, but he hesitated. He wasn’t sure the vest was leather. “Or at least, that’s how I picture it.”

“Very fashionable,” Steph grinned, nudging him. “You did great. We’ll find more of your memories, Jason. I promise.”

The bus pulled up to the next stop and Steph yanked out the earphones, tucking her phone away in her pocket. She dragged him down the steps and onto the street, and they both stood on the curb and stared up at the building in front of them as the bus pulled away.

“Wow,” Jason said.

Steph glanced over at him, her mouth twitching into a smile.

“This must be the tallest building in Gotham,” he added. Steph looped their arms together and led him towards it, commenting, “It is.”

They walked beneath a sign that say WAYNE in letters that were surely taller than Jason himself, and stepped into the lobby, looking around at fake plants in ceramic pots and a whole little seating area with plush armchairs and a coffeemaker. Steph walked straight past the reception area and to the elevators, pulling out a little keycard that was attached to her keys and holding it against the keypad until the elevator doors slid open. Those working reception paid them no mind, although she was in a hoodie and Jason still had blood on his jeans with a busted-up face.

They stepped inside and Steph hit the button for the roof.

“The roof?” Jason said, raising an eyebrow. “Why are we going up there?”

“You’ll see,” Steph said, tossing back her blonde hair as though that gave her an air of mystery. Mostly, Jason thought somewhat affectionately, it made her look like a dork.

The rooftop of Wayne Tower wasn’t all that different to any other rooftop in Gotham. It was smooth concrete beneath his feet and had a ledge, the whole way round. It was, however, incredibly high up. So high Jason almost wondered if he could touch the sky. He put his hands straight up in the air, above his head, and waved them around a bit.

“You good?” Steph laughed. “C’mon, over here. I want you to see something.”

They walked over to the ledge and stopped just short of it, and Steph gestured out at the whole of Gotham, the whole expanse of streets and buildings and everything in between. Jason could see all the way out to the harbour from here, see the sunset light dancing off the waves. He breathed in deeply, almost choking on the Gotham smog, and turned to look at Steph, who was watching him hopefully.

“Nothing,” he said.

“Nothing?” Steph asked, chewing her lip.

“Nothing,” he confirmed.

She sighed and reached up to sling an arm across his shoulders. “It’s okay. I’m not out of ideas yet.”

Jason hoped not, because he was sure running out of ideas.

He was running out of places to hide, too. At any moment, the League – or Bruce – could hunt him down and end this, all of this, and he would die not knowing who he was. He didn’t want that to happen. And he remembered Steph, kind of, like she was the cousin of a friend he saw on quiet summers at the shore.

He hoped he’d remember her properly.

They were quiet on the elevator ride back down to the lobby. Steph was watching him closely, but not saying anything, which he supposed he should find disconcerting but truthfully, her gaze on him was almost comforting. It was nice to think that while he may not know himself, there was someone in the world that knew him.

He thought of dancing with her to The Clash in her apartment after he brought her couch upstairs, the glint in her eye, the musical sound of her laughter in his ears. It was such a small fragment, a sliver of memory without context, but when he thought of it, he felt something akin to safe.

“What are you thinking?”

The elevator doors slid open.

“Just trying to remember.”

She accepted that answer, slipping her hand into his and leading him back out onto the street. They stopped short outside Wayne Tower, suits of all sorts dodging them as they made their way through the business district, and Steph chewed at the edge of her thumbnail again, deep in thought.

“Are you hungry?”

“I don’t know,” Jason said. “I don’t seem to eat much.”

Steph frowned, and Jason got the sense that was the wrong thing to say. Whoever he was, he’d clearly been the kind of person who wouldn’t turn down a meal.

“I know a place that does great takeout,” Steph said. “It’s by my apartment. We can grab something and eat on the roof, like old times.”

Jason blinked, turning her words over in his head. Rooftops seemed to mean something to Steph – or perhaps they once meant something to him. He wished he knew, wished he remembered.

They got back on the bus heading east and squashed into a seat, Steph offering him an earphone again. The music this time wasn’t the rich and heavy rock music from earlier, but instead a piano concerto that was hauntingly familiar. Jason closed his eyes, letting the music swallow him whole. Slowly, an image formed in his mind, of Cass in a delicate cloud of tulle, gliding across a hardwood floor on the point of her toes, white ribbon laced at her ankles.

Cass was a dancer. He knew that.

He hummed quietly to himself, noticing Steph’s fingers dancing across the top of her thigh. Her fingers hit in time with each note, and he smiled, watching as she played the song with perfect and even rhythm.

“You play piano?” He asked.

“Once,” she said. “Not for a long time, though. You always said I should take it up again.”

“You should,” Jason said earnestly. Steph laughed, looking away, her gaze watching the cityscape go by.

“I like this version of you,” she said quietly. “You’re… freer. You don’t have the weight of everything on your shoulders anymore.”

“Like the weight of dying and coming back again?” His scalp prickled.

Steph pursed her lips and skipped to the next song in her playlist. She didn’t say anything, and Jason felt a pang, remembering her saying “When I was a teenager, I died.”

He hadn’t meant to touch on a sore subject.

Jason opened his mouth to apologise, but Steph got to her feet, holding onto the seat in front of her and swaying a little. She glanced down at him, her mouth curving upwards into a smile.

“C’mon, boy wonder,” she said. “This is our stop.”

Jason followed her down the steps and off the bus, thinking about what she’d said. Boy wonder. He wondered if that was a nickname, an inside joke, or something else. He didn’t recall ever hearing it before.

They stopped in at a squashy Chinese restaurant, its neon sign glowing in the dim twilight. Inside was bright lights and the rich smell of the deep fryer, the room dominated by a single table covered in plastic bags filled with steaming takeout containers and order slips. There was a stack of chairs in one corner, and a short woman with a phone shoved between her shoulder and ear, scribbling something on a notepad.

Steph was flicking through a menu absentmindedly, like she had already made up her mind on what she wanted. Jason closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, feeling a memory just out of reach. He’d been here before. He was sure of it.

“Ah! My favourite little lovebirds!” The woman hung up her phone and beamed at them, grabbing her notepad and flicking it open. “How are things at the new apartment? Still good?”

“Things are great, Ella,” Steph said, stepping closer to the counter. Jason trailed behind her, his brow furrowed. Lovebirds? Surely, she didn’t mean – he and Steph?

“Hi, Ella,” he said smoothly, his memories struggling through the bottleneck in his brain, trying to burst free. The smell of dumplings in hot oil hit his nose, and he breathed in slowly, feeling an inkling come towards him. “Wow, the food smells great. We’ll have to get some of those pork and chive dumplings like last time, hey babe?”

“Absolutely,” Steph said, taking his lead. “Can we get two boxes of the dumplings, please, Ella?”

“Anything for you,” Ella pinched Steph’s cheek, and Steph swatted her away, laughing. They pulled two chairs off the stack and sat down while Ella disappeared into the kitchen, shouting into her phone and still holding her trusty notepad.

“So, uh,” Steph asked, somewhat awkwardly. “Are you… remembering anything?”

“Not exactly,” Jason said. “I remember the food. I remember being here. I can’t contextualise it, though. I don’t – I don’t understand why she’s calling us lovebirds. I think it was a joke, but without knowing who you are…”

He trailed off, pursing his lips. Steph’s face was carefully blank, but he could see her blinking away tears, turning her head so he wouldn’t see. He felt his heart sink. He had said the wrong thing.

“Two boxes of dumplings for my favourite customers,” Ella sang out, and they got to their feet. Steph went to collect the food and pay while Jason returned their chairs to the stack, shoving his hands in his pockets after giving Ella a quick wave. They headed south, travelling a few blocks before they found themselves in front of Steph’s building. Using the fire escape once more, the metal creaking beneath their feet, they clambered their way up and onto the roof, collapsing in a heap on the gritty concrete and laughing breathlessly.

“Why’d I let you convince me to come up here,” Jason asked. “What’s so great about eating on rooftops?”

“It’s just… something we used to do,” Steph said, her answers carefully catalogued so as not to give anything way. Jason wished he knew, wished he could remember the secrets he was once privy to, but the League had ripped them out of his head and left nothing in their wake.

He found he missed Stephanie, though he knew nothing about her at all.

Steph cracked open the takeout containers, setting them between the two of them for easy access and easier sharing. Jason pinched a dumpling between his fingers, blowing on it furiously at the heat it emanated, and took a bite.

He remembered a leather jacket, cigarettes in the inside pocket, a girl in a hood and cape who was holding a box of dumplings out to him. He remembered her long blonde hair in the night air, the way she pulled her mask down so she could eat. He remembered the sound of her laughter when he burned his mouth on the first dumpling.

Like what he was doing right now.

“Ouch, ouch, too hot, too hot,” he hissed, chewing quickly and swallowing. Steph laughed, a light and pure sound, and he felt his stomach twist. He remembered something. He didn’t have enough context to explain what it was, however.

“You’ve got to let them cool down first, ya dummy,” she laughed, grabbing one and taking a bite. She immediately waved her hand in front of her face, the dumpling pinched between her teeth, before forcing it down with quick chewing and a sip of water.

“Who’s the dummy now?” Jason grinned. Steph reached out and punched him on the shoulder, and they shared an easy smile. For a moment, it was something like a comfort, and all fears and anxieties about Bruce and the League melted away. For a moment, it was just Jason and Stephanie on a rooftop eating dumplings, like they had a thousand times before.

They ate quietly, watching the sky above them darken to a brilliant indigo, stars dashed across the inky sky. Most of them were hardly visible at all through the light pollution, but Jason spied one familiar, and pointed up to it.

“Look,” he said. “That’s Saturn. The first star in the sky.”

“You’re making that up,” Steph leaned against her knee, looking sideways at him. She reached up and tucked a blonde strand behind her ear, the corners of her eyes crinkled with joy. “Don’t lie to me, Jason Todd.”

“I’d never lie to you,” Jason said, and he found he meant it with more certainty than he’d mustered thus far since waking up in the League. The words escaped his mouth, and he knew it was his pre-League self saying them. “I’ll always tell you the truth, Stephanie.”

Steph gave him a wry smile and looked away, popping a dumpling in her mouth.

“Maybe so,” she said. “Maybe that’s just what you want to believe.”

He fell silent, resting his elbow against his knee and propping up his head. He was deep in thought, considering her words. Had he been an untrustworthy sort of person? That didn’t feel true to him, for what little he had to back it up in memory.

“Where have you been, Jason?” Steph asked softly, reaching out to brush the white streak back from his forehead. “I’ve been worried sick.”

“With the League of Assassins,” he answered as truthfully as he knew how.

“What were you doing there?”

“I,” he heisted. “I don’t know.”

Steph huffed a laugh, her hand falling. “I know. I just… had to ask.”

“What’s next on the agenda?” He found himself asking. “Where do we go after this?”

“We go home, and go to bed,” Steph said. “You still have a safehouse nearby, yeah?”

Jason bit the inside of his cheek and looked away, feeling a chill run down his spine. “I don’t know the passcodes anymore,” he admitted quietly. “I don’t… there are no numbers that are meaningful to me. I’ve got this key, in my pocket, yeah? I thought it would open a safehouse. But it doesn’t. I don’t know what it leads to.”

Steph gave him a noncommittal hum and grabbed another dumpling, pushing the container towards him. He obliged and ate another, chewing slowly, watching her as she looked out across the city.

“You can stay with me,” she said. “Cass won’t mind if you sleep in her bunk.”

Jason felt relief wash over him. “Thanks, Steph.”

“What are friends for?”

He wished he remembered her. He wished he remembered her kindness. He wished he remembered her friendship.

He was going to. He was going to find a way. Whatever the League had done to him, it couldn’t be permanent. The fact that he still had flickers of recognition had to indicate that much was true.

“Tomorrow we’ll go on a little road trip,” she said, her mouth twisting into a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “See if we can’t drum up some memories.”

The growing trepidation in Jason’s gut clenched cold and hard. He trusted that Stephanie wouldn’t do anything to put him in harm’s way, but despite the feeling that he knew her, that she was important, he couldn’t place her and didn’t know who she was.

Maybe they hadn’t even been friends, in the end.

They gathered up the takeout containers and headed back down the fire escape, Steph shimmying in through the small gap in the window. Once she was inside, she opened it all the way, so Jason could climb through. They’d left the peas on the couch, and they’d left a soft, wet patch beneath them. Steph wrinkled her nose and picked up the bag to toss in the trash.

Jason sat gingerly on the couch, taking a moment to look around. When he’d been in here earlier, he’d been so focused on marking potential escape routes in his mind he hadn’t really looked. And what he saw was pieces of Steph’s life, photographs and trinkets and little mementos. He got to his feet and made his way over to the corkboard by the door. It had a calendar stuck to it, with scribbled reminders on it like STEPH DR APPOINTMENT and CASS BALLET REHEARSAL. There was a post-it note detailing Steph’s class schedule, and a few photographs tacked beside them. Jason looked closer, then paused.

There was one of him and Steph, his arm thrown around her shoulder and her laughing, one hand resting on her stomach. She looked happy. He looked happy, too, though there was that same familiar haunting in his eyes he saw sometimes in his reflection.

“When was this?” He asked, pointing to it. Steph looked up, setting down the mug of tea she had in each hand and making her way over. She looked at the photo closely, then back at Jason. Her eyes betrayed her, the desolation in them clear as day.

“About a month before you disappeared,” she said quietly. She turned back to the table. “C’mon. I made tea.”

Jason’s gaze lingered on the photographs, spotting himself next to a boy who could only be one of his brothers. He didn’t see any photos of Bruce, though when he tried to bring up an image of Bruce’s face in his mind, it was hazy, indistinct, unclear. He could never bring the image into focus, though he’d tried.

He tore his eyes away and grabbed one of the mugs, a deep navy blue porcelain with a chip in the handle. Steph looked at him in surprise, picking up the other and taking a sip. Jason sat, cupping the mug with his hands, and arched an eyebrow.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Steph replied. She took another sip of her tea. Jason recognised the gesture as something she did when she didn’t want to say something.

“What is it, Steph?”

“It’s just,” Steph swallowed. “That’s your mug. You picked it up without even asking. You remembered.”

If Jason had remembered, it hadn’t been consciously. He settled back on the couch and sipped at his tea, avoiding the wet patch left by the frozen peas they’d abandoned there. He could feel Stephanie’s eyes on him, even when it seemed like she wasn’t paying attention. They drank their tea in relative silence, Jason still mulling over the events of the day, Stephanie studying him with deep consideration.

When their mugs were empty, Jason gathered them up without asking and took them to the sink, rinsing them out before squirting a little dish soap into them and giving them a thorough wash with the sponge by the tap. Steph disappeared into her room, and emerged moments later dressed in pyjama shorts and an oversized t-shirt. Jason supposed he’d be sleeping in his jeans.

“C’mon,” Steph said, leading him to her bedroom and flicking on the light. There was a set of bunk beds in the corner and the room had a distinctive lived-in feel, but there was little in the way of personal décor. Jason hazarded a guess that the top bunk was Stephanie’s, based on the well-worn copy of Dracula sitting on the pillow.

There was a set of sweatpants on the bottom bunk, and Jason picked them up, feeling the soft material in his rough, work-hardened hands. He said, “Are these for me?”

Steph nodded. “I found them in the closet in Barbara’s room. I think they might have been Dick’s.”

Jason knew he was supposed to know who these people were, but his mind remained blank as ever. When Steph headed for the bathroom to brush her teeth, he changed into the sweatpants and sat on the edge of the bunk, turning the names over in his mind and trying to draw a mental image. For Barbara, he saw fiery red hair and a fiery temper, a glare over glasses, the clacking of a keyboard.

For Dick… nothing.

He wished, viciously, wholeheartedly, that these names meant something to him. That there was something more to him than half-remembered friends and brothers without faces. He wished he knew who he was, why the League was after him, why Bruce was after him. But it didn’t come to him. There was nothing that came to him.

The only person he felt like he knew was Steph. He didn’t remember her yet, but more and more memories were falling into place, like pieces of a jigsaw that lived only in his mind. He knew that, once, Steph had been important to him. He didn’t know how to ask her what they were to each other. It seemed like a question for another time.

Steph returned and threw him an extra blanket for the bed before flicking off the light. She climbed up to the top bunk in the dark, with the well-practiced ease of someone who had done it a thousand times. Jason wondered if his muscle memory remained the same, too. What rooms could he navigate in the dark? What place was his home?

“Goodnight, Steph,” he said softly, rolling onto his side.

He could almost hear the smile in her voice as she said, “Goodnight, Jason.”

He slept fitfully. Tossed and turned, his mind swirling green, the echoes of long-forgotten laughter in his ears. In that liminal space between awake and asleep, he could hear himself hyperventilating, and when he finally tore himself back into consciousness, he bolted upright, one hand on his heaving chest.

He bit back tears and swallowed, hard, closing his eyes and scrubbing his hand across his face. He felt a hand brush his shoulder and swung without thinking, gasping when he realised it was Steph.

Steph, luckily, caught his fist and pushed back, kneeling on the mattress beside him. “Hey, hey, shh, it’s okay,” she murmured. “It was just a nightmare.”

“I almost hit you,” he choked out.

“You wouldn’t have hit me,” Steph said. She rubbed soothing circles on his back, easing him back down. She slid in under the covers and curled around him, one hand placed over his pounding heart.

Jason’s eyes drifted shut, comforted as he was by her presence. He relaxed into her touch, his breathing evening out. Softly, he asked, “Steph?”

“Yeah?”

“Did we do this before?”

“No,” Steph replied. “But I wanted to.”

Jason’s eyes drifted shut, and he felt Stephanie’s breathing even out as she fell asleep. He woke to sunlight streaming through the curtains and an empty space in his bed. He reached out, searching for her across the too-small mattress, but it was soon obvious that Stephanie wasn’t there.

“Steph?” He called out cautiously, throwing back the covers and sitting upright. The bedroom door was open, and he could hear the low mumble of voices from the television, the whine of the kettle as the water inside boiled. He got to his feet and wandered out to the kitchen, scratching at the stubble on his chin.

“Good morning,” Steph emerged from the bathroom with her damp hair twisted up in a bun, her bangs pushed back off her face. She pulled her towel tighter around her and jerked a thumb back towards the bedroom. “I’m going to get dressed. Feel free to make yourself a drink.”

Jason pulled out two mugs and set about making tea, the same way Stephanie had made it the day before. His hands seemed to move on autopilot, doling out three teaspoons of sugar into Stephanie’s cup and two into his own. He dug through the refrigerator while he left it to steep, looking for food to sate his ever-growing hunger, but Steph’s fridge was mostly condiments and a little lunch meat. Not really much in the way of food.

“We have cereal,” Steph said apologetically as she stepped out of the bedroom, dressed casually in leggings and a loose t-shirt. “I haven’t been to the store in a while.”

“Doesn’t Barbara normally get delivery?” Jason asked, closing the fridge door with a thrust of his hips. He looked up to find Steph staring at him, a smile forming on her face. “What?”

“Do you remember Barbara?”

“I remember she lives here. You mentioned her last night. And I remember that she gets the groceries delivered.”

“She moved out,” Steph explained, accepting the mug Jason handed her and taking a sip. Her eyes closed and she swallowed with an appreciative smile. “I’m in charge of groceries now.”

They made their way to the couch, sitting side by side and watching the news from the corner of their eyes. Jason drank his tea quietly, trying and failing to bring up a mental image of Barbara. He wished this was easier. He wished he knew what the League had done to him.

He wished he knew who to ask how to fix this, but right now it seemed like it was just Steph alone trying to help him.

Steph was typing something on her phone one-handed, bringing her mug to her mouth with her other hand. Jason’s mouth twitched into a smile, endeared by the gesture. Steph’s kindness had been a welcome distraction from the fear and anxiety of running from a threat he couldn’t remember. She had said last night she hoped to drum up more of his memories today. He hoped they would see success.

“Where are we going first?” He asked, setting his empty mug onto the coffee table. Steph swallowed the last dregs of her tea and tucked her phone away, pushing her bangs off her face again.

“I think we’ll start with your safehouse,” she said. “If that doesn’t bring up anything, we’ll try a little harder.”

Jason nodded. It made sense she’d take him home to try and get his memory working again. He presumed his safehouse would be exactly that – a place he felt safe.

They made their way downstairs, where Steph got them on a bus and squeezed into a seat near the front, Jason squashing in beside her. On a street that seemed only passingly familiar, they got off, and walked up a set of metal grated stairs to a door set into the side of a building.

“Okay,” Steph said. “Get us in.”

Jason stared at her blankly, then looked to the door.

There was a keypad set into the doorframe and a lock just below the knob. The door was well-worn, the paint chipped in places, and Jason’s fingers brushed the lock cautiously.

His fingers closed over the key in his pocket, and he pulled it out, trying it in the lock. It didn’t fit. He cursed under his breath and tried again, because surely, surely if he bothered to carry this key across Europe and all through the mountains of Asia, this key had to open his home.

It didn’t.

“Let me try,” Steph said. She kneeled in front of the keypad and punched in a combination Jason didn’t recognise. The blinking light on the side of it flashed green, and there was a click. She opened the door and stepped inside.

Jason looked around as the lights flickered on. There was a wall of firearms and blades, taller than Jason was and dominating most of the safehouse. He swallowed, his hands shaking. Who was he? How did he get mixed up with the League?

There was a kitchenette, a fridge with a few polaroids stuck to it, and in the far corner a bed and some personal effects. Jason wandered to the fridge while Steph sat down on the bed. He looked over the polaroids, considering them, but it was just more people he didn’t recognise. A red-haired man in red, a woman with bright green eyes and a brighter smile, a strip of photos of him and Steph and Cass squashed into a photobooth somewhere. He pulled it off the fridge and made his way over to Steph, pointing to it.

“Where was this?”

There was fairy floss in his hand and Steph’s hair. Cass had a neon glow stick encircling her neck. It was achingly familiar and like looking at someone else’s life at the same time.

“Amusement Mile,” Steph said. “We went for the reopening.”

In Jason’s mind, Amusement Mile was a dark place with derelict rides, a place his mother warned him away from as a child. He shook his head to clear out the ghostly sound of laughter only he could hear, and sighed, his gaze meeting Steph’s.

“I want to go there,” he said. “I want to see it.”

Steph looked unsure, but she nodded, getting to her feet. “Nothing else here brings anything back? The polaroids, the knives, just – anything?”

Jason shook his head vehemently. “Nothing. I don’t know those people, Stephanie. I know you; I know Cass. I want to focus on the things I do remember.”

Her frown deepened, but she nodded, taking him by the hand and leading him back downstairs. The safehouse door closed with a resolute thud, the locking mechanism clicking into place behind them. Jason wondered if he would ever find his way back here, if his memory would ever be his own again, or if rather instead he would have to forge forward as a new man.

He still didn’t know why the League, or Bruce, were after him.

He thought of all those weapons inside and felt a pit in his stomach. He knew that being entangled with a group called the League of Assassins meant there was a fair chance he was once himself. He hoped otherwise, though. He really hoped.

“Steph,” he said softly as they wandered down the street, Steph tapping out something on her phone, possibly in search of the nearest bus stop. “I don’t know who I am.”

“You’re Jason Todd,” Steph said firmly, sliding her phone into her pocket and heading north.

“I know my name,” Jason said, frowning. “But I don’t know myself. Am I a good man, a bad man? Do I do bad things? Is that why I live in a house full of weapons?”

Steph hesitated, then said, “I’m not really sure if I’m the one who should have this conversation with you.”

“So, I do bad things,” Jason murmured. Steph stopped in her tracks and reached out to grab his hand, stopping him too.

“Jason,” she said carefully. “I’m not the right person to ask because in my eyes, no, you’re not a bad person. Different people will say different things. What matters is what you think of yourself, and right now you don’t have enough data to make that decision. That’s why we’re working together to find your memories.”

Jason managed an approximation of a smile. “Thanks, Steph.”

“Any time,” she squeezed his hand and released it, forging ahead. Jason found himself missing the contact.

The bus they got onto was blessedly air conditioned, and Jason sunk into a seat near the back, pushing the white streak off his forehead long enough to wipe the sweat from his skin. The bus was empty enough that Steph got her own seat, in front of him, and she immediately sat so her back was pressed against the window, her knees drawn to her chest. Jason leaned against it and propped his chin up on his hand, watching her.

“What do you think happened?” He asked eventually. Steph’s eyes flickered upwards, and she pulled out her earphone, looking at him.

“What do you mean?”

“What do you think happened to me? Why can’t I remember anything?”

Her brow furrowed as she thought for a moment, and then she said softly, “I don’t know.”

“You’ve got a theory, though, right?”

She nodded, her lips pressed together in a thin, hard line. Lowering her voice, she said, “I don’t think it’s something to talk about here. I’ll tell you later.”

Jason didn’t quite believe her, but he let her off the hook, gazing out the opposite window with a sigh. He could feel Steph’s eyes on him still. He wondered what had been done to him, who had stripped his mind down bare and left him with nothing but his name and the memory that Gotham was home.

He wished he knew.

Slowly, he dangled one of his hands down the front of Steph’s seat until it grazed her hand. Without looking up from her phone, she reached up and grabbed it, tangling their fingers together and giving his hand a squeeze. Jason smiled and ducked his head. The gesture was a comfort.

They got off at the next stop, somewhere near the harbour. Jason could smell the not-quite sweet odour of light decay. It seemed to cling to the air, never quite disappearing no matter how far they walked. Jason could see the water, a stormy grey despite the sun shining above. They stopped at the entrance to Amusement Mile, gazing down the boardwalk at the rides and attractions that had been luring young Gothamites in since the earliest days of Gotham City.

“It’s closed,” Jason said.

“We can still get in,” Steph said, slipping below the little gate at the ticket booth. “C’mon, no one’s going to stop us.”

Jason followed her, and the two of them wandered down the strip with curious eyes. The back of Jason’s neck was prickling again, and he couldn’t pinpoint why, but something about Amusement Mile made him feel unsafe.

“My mom used to take me here,” he said eventually, kicking a pebble off to one side. “When she had money she wasn’t blowing on drugs.”

“You remember your mom?” Steph sounded surprised. Jason looked down to find her looking up at him earnestly.

“Kind of,” he said. “I remember the drugs. I remember her and my dad fighting.”

Steph bumped shoulders with him, her hands in the pockets of her leggings. Jason wasn’t sure what she meant by the gesture, but he appreciated it nonetheless. Quietly, he said, “Your parents were the same, right?”

“Yeah, but I don’t want to talk about that,” she shot him a sunny smile, and his heart ached for her. Anyone who would let her survive in that environment was a fool. “So, Amusement Mile. Anything?”

Jason stopped, tugging down his t-shirt and considering the rides around them. There wasn’t much, truth be told, in either the location or his memory. He could almost remember being here with Steph and Cass, getting a cotton candy the size of his head, piling into the photobooth and laughing. But it slipped out of his grasp as quickly as it had come.

He sighed and wished for some clarity.

“Didn’t you say we were going on a road trip today?”

Steph blinked. “You still want to?”

“Yeah,” Jason shrugged, turning and heading back for the street. “Something’s got to jog my memory eventually, right?”

Steph caught him on the shoulder and said, “Wait.”

Jason turned wordlessly to face her. She was chewing on her bottom lip so hard he was scared blood was going to burst forth from beneath her incisor.

She said, “Do you remember my other name? Do you remember yours?”

He stared at her blankly. Other name?

“No,” he said. “Am I supposed to?”

“I can’t take you where I was going to take you,” Steph said. “It’s not fair on everyone else.”

“Not having any fucking memories isn’t fair on me!”

Steph jerked backwards like he’d slapped her, and he immediately felt guilt leech in. He opened his mouth to say sorry, but he realised she was laughing. She reached up and took his face in her hands, her eyes bright with exhilaration.

“That was the first time you’ve sounded like yourself since I found you,” she said. “You’re still you, Jason. Memories or no memories.”

They made their way back to Steph’s apartment, where she produced food from the scantly-stocked refrigerator and offered Jason a plate. Jason poked at the hotdogs on week-old Wonderbread and grinned. Just like how he made them as a kid.

“I’ve got ketchup, mustard, pickles, horseradish, uhh…” Steph dug through the fridge, glass jars clinking. “Ooh, relish!”

They added to their hotdogs and sat on the couch, eating silently. Silence with Stephanie never felt uncomfortable. Rather, it felt like it was supposed to be that way – just the two of them existing together, with nothing to distract them.

Jason found he liked it.

When they’d finished, the plates landed in the sink with a clatter, to be dealt with later. Steph grabbed a black jacket from the back of her door and threw it on, looking him up and down in his jeans and Tim’s t-shirt. She nodded, swiping a pair of sunglasses from the third drawer in the kitchen. She grabbed a set of keys off the table by the front door and led the way down to the parking garage beneath the building.

“Where are we off to?” Jason asked.

“Somewhere I didn’t want to take you,” Steph replied. “But maybe a shock to the system will do you some good.”

He couldn’t see her eyes behind the sunglasses, but he assumed they were bright. A little trepidation set in as they started driving toward Bristol, his palms sweating. Jason wasn’t sure what about leaving Gotham City made him anxious – he didn’t have a clue where he was going.

Still, the anxiety persisted, and he shifted uncomfortably in the passenger seat.

“You good?” Steph asked, flicking down the visor.

“Yeah, I’m good,” Jason said firmly.

They pulled off the road and onto a gravel driveway not long after. When they approached a set of wrought iron gates, Steph simply stopped the car for a moment and waited, ignoring the speaker box set into the side of the gates. Her patience proved worth it, because the gates swung open, seemingly without external force. Jason looked back at them as they drove through, marvelling at the ease with which Stephanie navigated the many offshoots from the driveway. Jason didn’t know where they were, but it was so big, it may as well have had its own zip code.

From a distance, Jason could see a sprawling mansion. Not the kind you see on trashy reality shows, no, this was something older. It stood there resolute and foreboding, and the barest flicker of recognition formed in the back of his mind.

“We’re almost there,” Steph said, breaking his chain of thought. They’d plunged deep into a wooded area, and Steph’s little Yaris was struggling down the more rugged path. She pulled off to one side, and killed the engine, looking out her window with a sigh.

Jason followed her gaze and felt the breath hitch in his throat. There was row after row of graves, headstones of all different shapes and sizes. In the centre of the cemetery there was a marble angel looking languidly over the graves.

“Why did you bring me here?” Jason asked, though he already knew the answer.

“Come on,” Steph said. She wasn’t looking at him, but she laced their fingers together, leading him down the worn dirt path that traversed through the graveyard. They made it to the very last grave in the very last row and stopped.

HERE LIES JASON PETER TODD, it read. Carved in the stone beneath it, DEARLY MISSED.

Jason reached forward to feel the stone beneath his fingers, the moss soft beneath his touch. He was overwhelmed by a whirlwind of emotion in his mind. The haunting sound of laughter rang in his ears, and he dropped to his knees, his hands curling into shaking fists. He remembered the feeling of dirt in his mouth, his fists breaking through the wood of his coffin, the way the splinters slid into the skin of his knuckles and had smarted for weeks afterwards. He remembered wandering the streets of Gotham with nothing to his name, not even his voice, and he swallowed, slamming a fist into the dirt.

The sting in his knuckles made the laughter in his ears die down a little, so he did it again and again, pounding his fists into the dirt over and over. The pain shot through his wrists and up his forearms, the skin broken and stinging. He stopped and laid a hand flat against the soil, his body wracked with sobs, and he dug his hands into the dirt, trying to dig into it. It was his grave and he belonged there. It was his grave and he belonged there.

It was his grave. He belonged there.

With a strangled cry, he pulled back a fist and drove it into the base of the headstone, hard enough he felt something in his hand crack. He kept going, until he felt hands close around his shoulders, pulling him away.

“No,” he sobbed, reaching for it with bloody hands. “No! It’s mine!”

“Jason,” Steph said, kneeling beside him. His face was wet. “It’s okay. I’m here. It’s okay.”

“He left me here,” Jason sobbed, though he wasn’t sure who he was. “I was scared. I was alone.”

“You survived,” Steph’s arm curled around his waist, pulling him into her chest. He buried his face into the crook of her neck, swallowing his sobs. He didn’t need to react like this. He wasn’t the sort of person who reacted like this.

Stephanie was right.

He’d survived.

His cries died down and he sagged against her, letting her rub soothing circles into his back. She murmured something into his hair he didn’t quite catch, but he closed his eyes, letting her hold him. The vulnerability was new. But perhaps it was what he needed to do.

Softly, Jason whispered, “He deserved to die for what he did to me.”

He knew, on some distant level, that he was talking about two different men. But the mean thing that lived inside his mind wondered if he really meant that at all.

Steph’s hand stilled, then slowly fell away. She pulled back and looked him in the eye, blonde wisps wild around her face. “Jason,” she said. “You killed him. Or at least, you thought you did. That’s why Bruce drove you out of Gotham.”

“He deserved it,” Jason spat, his hands clenched into tight fists. He could feel his fingernails digging into his palms and relished in the sensation for a moment. “You know that, Steph. He deserved it.”

“That’s not my place to decide,” Steph said quietly. She closed her eyes, her hand coming out to close over Jason’s arm. “Why? Why did you do it? We were so close to-”

She cut herself off, her voice choking up.

“Nobody cared anymore,” Jason closed his eyes, exhaling slowly. His face was still damp from tears. “I died, so what? I was alive again. He got away with it because I came back.”

His voice was shaking.

“You don’t know what he put me through.”

“I know better than most,” Steph hissed, and Jason thought back to her saying she’d died. She’d said it so casually then, but he could tell now the quiver in her voice hid a world of pain.

“No body, no crime,” Jason murmured. “I crawled my way out of this grave. Sometimes I think you all wish I’d just crawl my way back in.”

Steph was quiet for a moment, and Jason listened to the distant sound of crickets in the thicket, the trees around them swaying softly in the wind. Eventually, she said, “What do you remember?”

“Laughter,” Jason blinked back tears as the sound filled his head again. “Pain. Waking up in the ground with dirt in my mouth.”

“Do you remember me?” Steph said, her voice almost pleading. “Do you remember Bruce? Dick? Tim?”

He cut her off before she started listing more names. “No. But I know you’re my friend.”

She offered him a wavering smile and said, “For what it’s worth, I’d never wish you’d crawl back into your grave.”

“Are you sure? I’m getting the impression I’m kind of a terrible person,” Jason managed a half-smile back.

“Not terrible,” Steph looked away. “Just confused.”

Jason got to his feet, dusting the grave dirt off his knees. He held a hand out to Steph and pulled her up, brushing her off where the dirt and grass had gotten onto her clothes. She looped her arm through his and led him back to the car, the two of them silent.

Once they were inside and buckled in, Jason asked quietly, “This place belongs to Bruce, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” Steph said. “He’s not here. I checked before I brought you. I wouldn’t put you in danger, Jason.”

Jason wondered what she meant by that. He knew that he had done terrible things, although he couldn’t remember what all of them were. He knew that Bruce opposed him, in one way or another. He knew that Bruce wanted to know if he was back in Gotham.

He didn’t know why. He was tempted to ask Stephanie if she knew, but her gaze had gone distant and unfocused as they watched the low fog rolling in off the lake on the other side of the estate.

“Let’s get going,” she murmured, turning the key in the ignition. The engine came to life not with a roar but instead a low hum, and she backed out slowly, leaving tire tracks in the grass. They made their way slowly down the driveway, Jason turning in his seat to watch as the grand house became smaller and smaller still behind them.

He was silent on the drive back to Gotham, his teeth worrying the skin of his inner cheek. He kept going to say something, then biting down, unwilling to let the words escape. He had so many questions. He wanted to ask, but that thought brought up more questions on its own.

Like, would Stephanie tell him the truth?

Could he even trust her?

He decided the answers to those questions were no and yes respectively. He wondered idly, could he trust someone who wouldn’t be truthful with him? But he honestly believed that Steph didn’t hold malice towards him, nor was she going to let harm come to him. He had seen the photographs in her house, seen an approximation of his own face smiling back at him through the images. Whoever he was, he’d meant something to her, once.

Maybe if he got his memories back… he’d mean something to her again.

It was an idle hope, but the one that kept him going right now. The skin on the back of his neck prickled uncomfortably, and he lifted a hand to hold against it, closing his eyes. The feeling in his skin was like a shifting pain under the surface. The feeling under his hand was just cool and clammy.

“Are you okay?” Stephanie asked, flicking on the indicator and merging into the next lane over. Gotham traffic midmorning could be Hell. Jason remembered that much.

“I don’t know,” he confessed. “I don’t remember dying, but I remember coming back. I remember – I remember being hurt so badly. I remember screaming for him to save me and nobody coming, nobody caring-”

“They cared,” Steph said in an even, agreeable tone, as though they were discussing the weather. He realised such a subject must bring up a world of pain for her, too. “They just weren’t in a position to save you.”

Jason was quiet for a moment, still gnawing on the inside of his cheek. There was the taste of copper in his mouth, and he swallowed hard.

“Did they try to save you?”

“No,” Steph pursed her lips, pulling to a stop at a red light. She turned her head to fix him with a fierce gaze, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “They didn’t. But I came to terms with that.”

“I’m sorry,” he said softly.

“You know, they compare me to you.”

Jason looked over at her, his brow furrowing. “What?”

“It’s all I’ve ever heard.” She tapped the accelerator and steered into the next lane over. “They’re always saying you’re just like Jason. You’re reckless, you’re headstrong, you’re vengeful-”

“Is that what they think of me?”

“It’s what they thought.” Steph huffed, exhaling slowly through her nose.

Jason fell silent, watching the buildings and cars pass by, the graffiti sprawling up buildings like a climbing vine. The inside of his cheek felt raw now, so much that his tooth had worried a hole in it. The taste of rust was strong in his mouth.

Steph eventually broke the silence. “I used to wish we could trade places.”

Jason’s gaze darted from the landscape outside to her face. There was the threat of tears in her eyes, and she swallowed, hard.

“What do you mean?”

“I used to wish… God, it’s stupid. Don’t worry.”

“Steph,” he reached out and pressed a hand to her thigh, as gentle as he could muster. “Tell me.”

“I used to wish I was the dead one everyone remembered fondly, and you were the fuck up getting fired,” Steph blurted out. She instantly looked as though she regretted it.

“You weren’t a fuck up,” Jason said firmly.

“You weren’t there.”

Jason supposed he couldn’t argue with her there. Even if he had been there, it wasn’t like he remembered it, not clearly. He had a feeling he had been around, but he wasn’t certain he’d seen what Steph referred to. He felt confident, though, that he was right. Steph was capable and clear-headed and approached everything with a thin veneer of calm. He was sure that she had been better than they’d made her feel.

There were tears flowing freely down Steph’s face now, and she pulled over, scrubbing at her face with her hands. She swallowed, her lip trembling, and glanced over at Jason with glassy eyes.

“I’m sorry for making this about me. It’s still a sore spot.”

“I know,” Jason said. He took one of her hands in his own and rubbed his thumb across her knuckles. They were scarred, warped in places, as though they had been broken time and time again. He offered her, “I don’t mind. If one of us can get a little healing from this, I hope it’s you.”

She gave him a shaky smile and said, “Thanks, Jason.”

They sat there for a few minutes, their hands intertwined, Jason’s thumb dancing back and forth across Stephanie’s scarred knuckles. His own knuckles had a scar from where they’d split during his League training. He remembered that, almost. Remembered the way it had stung. The woman with the red lipstick had poured alcohol over it and torn the splinters out, and he’d cussed her out for how much it had hurt.

She’d told him, “Either wield your pain as a weapon, or don’t reveal it at all.”

Jason ran his fingers over the teeth of the key in his pocket. He practically had every dip and groove memorised by now. He glanced over to Stephanie, and wondered if she knew the woman with the red lipstick. He took a steadying breath and forged forward.

“Do you know of a woman… tall, ambiguous features, vivid red lipstick and with one of the most hot and cold personalities you’ll ever encounter? One moment she’s kind… the next she’s cruel… there’s no telling which you’ll get.”

He watched Steph’s face as he said it, feeling his heart pound in his chest and his palms become clammy with sweat. Steph’s expression warped from confused to understanding in mere moments, and he knew that she knew the woman, but based on the way she’d returned her attention to the car she wasn’t going to tell him.

“Steph,” he caught her arm before it could reach the gearstick and stared at her with pleading eyes. “Please. I know I spent the better part of my missing year with her. I know I was with the League of Assassins in Nanda Parbat. But I don’t – I don’t know…”

“Talia al Ghul,” Steph said quietly. She let out a humourless chuckle. “It stands to reason she’d be the one to do this to you.”

Jason leaned back, mumbling the name to himself. He felt the car start moving beneath him, but it wasn’t a sensation that registered, so caught up he was in his thoughts. Talia al Ghul, daughter of the demon, had taken him back and tried to craft him into another of her perfect weapons.

The edges of his vision began to turn green. With a sharp inhale, Jason clenched his fists, forcing himself to breathe evenly.

“Jason?” Steph’s voice was distant as the laughter rang and rang in his ears. His hands were shaking, and he swallowed, trying to return to himself. “Jason, it’s okay, I’m here. Nothing can hurt you.”

He was aware of a shaky laugh escaping his mouth, because of course things could hurt him. There was no safety, there was not even an illusion of it. Jason Todd had lived his entire life in danger, and would live his remaining days the same way.

There was no escape.

The green in his vision got brighter.

“She killed me,” he choked out, then forced a fist against his mouth, as though he could force the words back in. “She cared… for me… and then she killed me and threw me into the – the-”

“Oh, Jason,” Steph parked the car in front of her building and turned to him. “It’s okay. I’m sorry you went through that. I’m here, and I won’t let anyone hurt you. If you want, I’ll get Cass back on the next flight.”

Jason swallowed again, aware of the taste of blood on his tongue. He didn’t believe he would be safe with Steph or Cass, but at least they could offer him enough protection he could pretend he was secure. He nodded, and Steph led him upstairs, the two of them stepping into her apartment. Almost instantly, the anxiety vanished. Jason lowered his hands, relieved to see they weren’t shaking, and took a seat on the couch. He sank into it, closing his eyes and taking deep breaths. He may not be safe anywhere, but at least with Steph, someone was watching his back.

Steph appeared a moment later with a steaming mug of tea which she pressed into Jason’s hands. He took a grateful sip, sagging against the couch.

“You calmed down,” Steph said quietly, taking a seat in the armchair. “When we got here. You calmed down. Why?’

Jason swallowed and set the mug on the coffee table, leaving a little ring underneath it. He couldn’t quite meet her eye as he said, “I feel safe when I’m with you.”

Steph offered him a bright smile and leaned forward to take one of his hands in hers, giving it a squeeze. “Jason, I’m not going to let anything happen to you again. I don’t really care what you’ve done. I don’t think… You’re not the monster everyone wants you to be.”

She held on tight, and he looked up at her, feeling overwhelmed. When she saw him looking at her, she continued.

“You’re my friend, Jason Todd. I love you just as you are.”

Impulsively, Jason leaned forward to close the gap between them, desperate to feel her soft lips against his. She put a hand on her chest and pushed him back gently, shaking her head.

“No. Not now. You don’t even know who I am.”

“But I’d like to,” Jason said, desperation colouring his tone. “I would like to know who you are, Steph. I think you were important to me.”

Jason’s fingers closed around the key in his pocket. It had been in his pocket all through Nanda Parbat and the months in Europe. He’d hung onto it, though he’d never known what lock it fit.

He had a feeling he knew now, though.

“Lock me out,” he said to Stephanie, getting to his feet and opening her front door. “I want to try something.”

“Don’t break my door,” she warned, but she obliged. He heard the click as the lock slid into place.

Jason inserted the key slowly, waiting with bated breath for it to stall, but it fit. It slid into place just perfectly. He exhaled gently and turned the key gradually, waiting for it to stick, but there was another click as the door unlocked. He turned the knob, and the door swung open.

“My apartment?” Steph stared at him, her mouth slightly agape. “You kept the key to my apartment?”

“I…” Jason hesitated, pulling the key from the lock and stepping inside. “I guess I did.”

“Why?” Steph’s mouth closed, her mouth pressing into a thin line as she considered him. He almost got the bewildering sense that she was angry with him, and he couldn’t figure out why.

“I don’t know,” Jason looked down, fidgeting with the key in his hands. “I guess… I kept telling myself, all through those months in Nanda Parbat and Europe, that if the key was important enough for me to bring it to the League, then… it must be the key to my home.”

Steph could only stare.

His voice cracked a little as he said, “I guess I was kind of right.”

“I miss you so much,” Steph whispered, closing her eyes, a hand on her chest. “I miss you so fucking much and you go and say shit like that. God, Jason!”

She stormed away to the bathroom, slamming the door shut behind her. Jason hesitated outside, one hand poised to knock, but instead he thrust the key back into his pocket and sat down on the couch. From the bathroom, he could hear the muffled sounds of Steph crying, and then the indistinct sound of her voice. Jason glanced to the armrest and saw she’d taken her phone with her. Her voice rose in intensity, but never became more legible.

He wondered if she was on the phone with Bruce, or perhaps with Cassandra. She’d told him Cass and Damian were wandering the Himalayas looking for him. He closed his eyes and tried to picture their faces. The best he could come up with was an image of one of the photographs that was by Steph’s door.

Steph emerged from the bathroom half an hour later, her eyes puffy and red. She’d evidently splashed some cool water onto her face, because her bangs were plastered back off her forehead, the damp hair clinging to the dry with a bit of static.

Jason said, “I’m sorry,” at the same time Steph said, “I shouldn’t have stormed out like that.”

He knew an apology when he heard one, and he nodded, looking down at his hands. He had calluses on his palms, one on his trigger finger, that he couldn’t name. Didn’t know where they’d come from, what his weapon of choice was, but he knew in his heart it had never been his words.

“I’m not trying to make this painful for you,” he whispered, rubbing the back of his neck. “I want my memories back as much as you do. I look at you and I see a beautiful, wonderful, exceedingly kind woman, and I think to myself how easy it is to find you amazing. But I know that whoever you were to me… you were important, Steph. I know that. You were important.”

“I like to think that’s true,” Steph offered him a rueful smile. It didn’t quite reach her eyes.

Jason got to his feet and outstretched his arms. Cautiously, Steph fell into them, allowing him to pull her to his chest and hold her there.

Quietly she said, “Your heart sounds the same.”

“Hm?” Jason asked.

“After I died,” Steph murmured into his chest, “Cass said my heart sounded different. Maybe it’s different with the Pit. I don’t know.”

Jason swallowed the bile rising up the back of his throat and nodded, holding Steph tighter. She said, “I did some Googling while I was in the bathroom. I think I know what’s wrong with your memories.”

“Yeah?”

“You have dissociative amnesia,” Steph leaned back and reached up to cup his cheek in her hand. “It’s a kind of amnesia people experience after surviving trauma. I think… whatever Talia did to you… your brain hit the reset button, so to speak.”

It seemed as likely as any of the other explanations Jason had been running through his mind.

“How do we fix it?”

“I don’t know,” Steph sounded close to tears again, and she blinked a few away, running her hand back through her hair. “I guess… I could call Harley, see what she thinks…”

“Quinn?” Jason’s brow furrowed. “The villain?”

“She’s a doctor,” Steph said. Under her breath, she mumbled, “And she never lets me forget it.”

Jason supposed accepting help off a villain was no stranger than being on the run from the League of Assassins. Steph buried her head in the crook of his neck, and he held her tight, breathing in her warm scent. She smelled sweet like honey and lavender, with an undercurrent not unlike a burning spark. It was so familiar to him that it was almost a comfort. He ached to have his memories back, or at least his memories of her. Fuck the rest of them, he just wanted Stephanie.

“Are you hungry?” Steph looked up at him. He shook his head, and she swallowed, nodding. “Me either.”

“How about,” Jason said, his voice gentle, “We head to bed. Get an early night and get back on the memory trail tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Steph nodded again. “That’s – that’s not a bad idea.”

She took his hand and led him into the bedroom. He stripped out of his jeans and pulled on the sweatpants, watching as she climbed to the top bunk. After taking a moment to build the courage, he said, “What if you sleep with me? On the bottom bunk?”

She looked back at him, surprised. “Are you scared you’ll have nightmares again?”

He nodded, because it was easier to say that than explain the truth. It was certainly a part of it, but truthfully, he just wanted to be closer to her, to feel the comfort of her arms around him, to smell honey and lavender and know he was home.

Because he was.

He was home.

Steph jumped off the top bunk and gestured for him to get into bed, her pillow clutched to her chest. She slid in behind him, the two of them squeezing on the twin size mattress in a tangle of limbs. Steph snuggled into his back, her arm wrapping comfortably around his middle, and Jason got the sense this wasn’t the first time they’d ended up in bed together.

He fell into a fitful sleep, waking frequently. Every time his eyes snapped open, he felt Steph shift beside him, her hand coming up to rub soothing circles against his back. He always managed to drift off not long after, knowing that with her there he was safe. Safe from the League. Safe from Bruce. He didn’t know how to explain it, but he knew Stephanie would protect him.

When morning came, he woke face-to-face with Stephanie, only to find her sparkling blue eyes wide open and full of life. She reached up and booped his nose, saying a sunny, “Good morning, Jason.”

He flinched, not just because his nose was still broken and it still hurt, but because she’d surprised him.

“Good morning, Steph,” he grunted in reply, wiping the sleep from his eyes. “What’s got you in such a good mood this morning?”

“I thought we could go get coffee,” she replied, smiling at him. “I know a place. Best coffee in Gotham.”

Coffee sounded good.

“Can I shower?” Jason asked. “I don’t have a change of clothes-”

“I’ll take care of it,” Steph promised.

In the shower, he took his time to wash the grime of Gotham from his skin, the last of the dried blood from his neck and chest. He washed his hair, knowing it would only take a few minutes to dry. It was longer than he liked to have it, but not so long it annoyed him, not yet anyway.

He found a clean t-shirt and his jeans folded at the end of the bunk, with a pair of underwear so new it still had the creases from being folded. He huffed a laugh and got dressed, rubbing his towel through his hair. Satisfied, he stepped outside to find Steph in a sundress, her hands shoved deep into the pockets.

“Ready for coffee?” She asked.

“Lead the way,” he grinned.

The pavement was cracked under their feet as they made their way through downtown, Steph occasionally waving to the store vendors that lined the streets. She seemed to know everyone. It endeared her to him just that little bit more.

Gotham wasn’t quite as populous as New York City, nor did it have a coffeeshop on every corner. Still, there were a few hidden gems amongst her streets. Jason weaved his way through the people on the street, following Steph, their hands clasped tightly together. He didn’t know where they were going, but the route was familiar. He hoped that meant his memories would return someday.

Steph glanced back at him, tossing her blonde tresses over her shoulder, and shot him a bright grin.

Idly, he thought he’d follow this girl into Hell itself.

“We’re almost there,” she said. They turned another corner and found themselves in front of a dimly lit, crowded, cramped coffeeshop. Jason balked, thinking he’d rather die again than go inside something so crowded, when Steph let go of his hand and grinned at him again, saying, “Wait for me here.”

“You don’t know what I want,” Jason joked, and she poked out her tongue and replied, “I know what you want better than you do.”

Jason was glad for the ease between them today. Things had been tense after their visit to the graveyard, after the key, after he’d almost kissed her. He didn’t regret it. He’d do it again. Steph had an undeniable beauty about her, and she knew him better than he knew himself. Sure, that might have been the amnesia, but Jason got the sense it held true even when he was certain of his identity.

He looked out over the streets, taking in a deep breath. They were near the river. He could smell the damp in the air, the smell of moss and petrichor. If he listened closely, he could hear the light babble of the water over the rocks. A cool breeze caressed his face, and he closed his eyes, feeling his fists relax. He hadn’t even realised they were clenched to begin with.

He understood why he’d come running back to Gotham. Gotham was home, for all he’d spent his childhood years wishing for escape. He didn’t remember what it all meant, but he knew every inch of this city was important to him, from the old brickwork in the buildings to the tags that adorned them, from the river that flowed through it and the old asylum that sat on top of the hill. Gotham was where Jason belonged, and he hoped he belonged here with Steph.

“Jason!”

Jason turned to see Steph walking towards him, her blonde waves fanned out over her shoulders, a bright smile on her face and a coffee in each hand. He felt his heart stutter in his chest as he watched her approach, thinking of a purple cape and black body armour, a girl with a bat on her chest.

“Stephanie,” he said, a little breathless. She handed him his coffee, taking a sip of her own, and her gaze flickered up to his face.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I remember,” he said earnestly, leaning in close. “I remember you.”

“What?”

Jason closed the gap between them, pressing his lips to hers. She leaned into the kiss, letting her lips part slightly as Jason deepened the kiss. She tasted of coffee and bubblegum and all his hopes and dreams, and he was going to do this forever if she let him, just kiss her and kiss her until the world ended.

He broke the kiss and stroked her face, grinning. “Stephanie Brown, I remember you.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” Steph looked up at him, wide-eyed, almost hopeful.

“Because your name is Stephanie Agnes Brown, you’re a Leo, like me, your favourite food is mashed potato but you tell everyone it’s waffles, and your favourite colour isn’t purple, it’s eggplant. You are the greatest woman I know and one of my best friends and I fucking love you, Steph, I love you so much and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that before I left.”

Steph’s eyes were brimming with tears. She threw her arms around his neck, almost spilling her coffee, and kissed him again. Jason curled a hand around her waist as they swayed a little, turning his head to lean into Steph’s touch. After a few moments, they broke apart, and he leaned even closer. His lips brushed her earlobe as he whispered, “And your other name is Spoiler.”

She grinned up at him, clutching his face one-handed and touching their foreheads together. Jason closed his eyes, relishing her gentle touch, the kindness that emanated from the core of her being.

“Okay,” she murmured, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Okay. I have one more question for you. Do you know who you are?”

Jason’s mouth quirked into a smile.

“I’m the Red Hood,” he uttered with such conviction the hair on her arms stood on end. “And we’re going to fuck up the League of Assassins.”