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Stands, blood drips drips drops.
Moves, falls to dirt—no dirt no dirtbadcan’tbreathe help please help no more please hurts can’t breathebadbadbadbad—
Stands, blood drips drops dripping.
Agony, electric bright, pulses.
Move. Forward. Move. Forward forward forwardforwardforward.
Help please helpnohelpnohelp no save no help.
Where?
Needs—needs. Something. Needs something helpnohelpnohelp—
***
White. White white whitewhitewhitewhitewhitewhite—
***
Sounds. So many sounds why stop stopstopstop—
STOP.
White. Sounds. NononoNONONONO!
***
Moves. Forward.
Help? Helphelphelphelp please helphelp nononononoNO.
Hand. Soft. Help? Please help no more please no more—
Pulls. Help? No help no help badbadbad—
***
GREEN. AGONY BURNS PLEASE HELP HELP HELP CAN’T BREATHE BURNS HELPHELPHELP NONONONOOO—
***
He bursts out of the green with ice in his chest and a need. It burns him, freezes him, makes him crave for the sweet seduction of death. He wants, he wants. More, everything. No more. Never again. Never.
Strength. He has his own. Power, strength, need, agony. His it’s his—it’s all his and he knows. He has to kill—nonononoYES. Burn them, make them regret, tear them down. They need to know they already know why don’t they know whywhywhywhy—
***
She smiles at him. Smiles? Why? Noise—he doesn’t understand her lips are moving why—poison drips from words he has no hope of understanding.
She offers him her hand, smile stretching wider widerwider nobadwhy—
He takes it and she leads him to the abyss.
**
He blinks. Where—why?
Alone. Alone, he’s alone. Good. He needs—
***
He doesn’t remember. Who—why? He died—why? What is—
She smiles—smiles smiles always smiling he’s always smiling—as she tries to kick him. Green flares and the only thing he can see is death. She welcomes his scream as he grabs her neck.
So fragile.
***
A man. He smiles, but it’s not like hers. Cruelty and malice seep from him. He’s coming closer, closer whywhywhy—
***
He blinked as a sharp pain brought him back. He grimaced as he glanced at his hand, having clutched the blade too tight. Rivulets of blood trailed down his wrist and he watched them idly. Just a little more and he could—
No. He shook his head and launched himself to the nearest roof, and stared at the busy world below. He still didn’t feel…quite right. He wasn’t sure if he ever would again, with the constant thrum in the back of his head urging him to violence.
Then, he wasn’t sure that hadn’t always been the case.
Jason. His name was Jason. He didn’t feel any real connection to it, but he accepted the moniker at Talia’s hopeful look. He owed her too much to ignore her goodwill (was it? Did he?), so he wore it like an ill-fitting helmet. It couldn’t protect him from the past he barely remembered or the rage that burned him from the inside out.
It was just a name. The boy who’d used it before was dead, so he’d taken it. The world was cruel and nobody noticed another life snuffed out.
He didn’t bother with his hand—the bleeding had slowed, and it would be fully healed in about an hour, anyway. He didn’t need the help. He’d learned that the hard way, from every bruise, every cut, every slice that had him hit the ground too hard in one of the seemingly endless number of training rooms.
If he became stronger, it was because he survived. If he died, it was because he was too weak. It was a simple system that made sense. And so few things in Jason’s made sense these days. There were a few solid truths.
He despised clowns with every bit of malice he contained. Talia told him it was the Joker’s fault, and that had sent him into such a deep rage that even Ra’s had been impressed by the chaos he’d wrought.
He resented the Batman. Why? He wasn’t sure (helppleasehelpnomorepleasehelp—), but the man’s name made him twitch, which made Ra’s laugh. And taunt him with it periodically.
He shouldn’t be alive. He’d been dead, once, and Talia had found him a couple of years later, wandering like a zombie. She’d thrown him in the Pit for Bruce, her old lover, to entice him back. But Jason wore a dead boy’s face and used a dead boy’s name and Talia’s original plans had been averted.
That brought him to the Pit. According to Ra’s, it shouldn’t have worked the way it did. Jason had been dead, and brought to life, and thrown in the Pit. With Ra’s it made him stronger, sharper, more. Whatever he had to sacrifice, he apparently didn’t mind, and so it kept giving. With Talia, it made her smarter, greedier, more ambitious. With every swim she lost a little bit of her kindness, chiseled away like an ice sculpture.
Jason, though? He didn’t have anything to give. He’d been little more than a shell when he’d been lowered into its (overwhelming pain, it burns, lightning through his veins) depths. And it had filled him. It hadn’t just made him stronger, it made him grow. It hadn’t just made him smarter, it made his mind open, everything was so much easier now. It hadn’t just made him ambitious, it made him hunger for moremoremore like a starving man, there was never enough—
It didn’t just make him more. It rebuilt him. Jason 2.0 was a very different beast from his predecessor. His senses were better, his reactions were better, his intuition was better. He was more aware of his surroundings and remembered everything.
Talia had told him that the original Jason had been quite average, especially in comparison.
Whatever the Pit had done to him, it was unique. Ra’s and Talia had tried to repeat the experiments—and nothing. No others had the Pit take to them as it had Jason. It made him worthwhile in their eyes, an investment well worth it.
Talia had whispered to him once, that the Pit’s reaction to him was what had saved her from her father’s wrath. Jason wasn’t sure if he believed it, but he’d wrapped himself closer to her all the same.
After the ice the Pit had left behind, any form of warmth was welcome.
He shook his head again, and stared back down. He was supposed to meet with Talia’s Bruce. She’d arranged things exactly, and prepared him for what to say. The problem was that she’d trusted Jason to sit still and do as she said.
Jason wasn’t sure, but he thought previous Jason would be proud of him for how much he didn’t plan to do that. He was in Gotham. The city with the Joker (who was still alive, even even though Jason had supposedly been Robin, what the fuck?) and the Bat. The Bat, who had never avenged boy Jason. Who let the Joker wander to this day.
Jason hated clowns.
So he’d put together a plan of his own without informing Talia. He was grateful-ish to her and her father, sure, but he wasn’t stupid. He could see the sharpness of their gazes, their too wide smiles, their twitching fingers, the way they were always watching. Talia had wanted him to believe she was doing this as a favor to her ex, but honestly? If that was all she wanted she could have returned him to her ex before or shortly after the Pit. Instead, she’d trained him, forced him to be more, and smiled to herself (a sharp thing, brighter than any poisonous bug) whenever she thought he wasn’t looking.
He didn’t see a need to be any part of whatever they were plotting.
He took out his machete and tested the edge. He’d been born in Gotham, apparently. Born and raised in a place so rancid it was more often referred to as Crime Alley than its actual name. In a place of violence and sex and drugs, of murder and beatings and grime.
He sheathed the machete and carefully tested the draw on his guns. He straightened his helmet (thoughtfully provided by Talia) and his leather jacket (thoughtfully provided by whatever high-end store he’d relieved it from). He eyed the red of the bat slashed against his chest (armor provided by Talia, again. If he didn’t already know she wanted something, that would have given it away).
He should be able to draw the Bat’s and the Joker’s attention in one go.
By stealing the Joker’s name and the Bat’s signal, he’d start a war. He’d be against the two most dangerous elements in all of Gotham, a city living in the shadow of criminals who were all but allowed to do as they pleased.
Apparently the Bat was against killing, so he was no real help.
It was really too bad that he’d have to deal with Jason, who had no such compunctions (he frowned a bit, not that anybody could see it—why did he know that word, but not how to tie his own shoelaces when he’d woken up? Weird).
He had work to do. Talia was going to be pissed when he went off script, but Ra’s would (probably) be amused enough to curtail her.
He started forward. He had been planning this for a couple of weeks, now. He knew their habits more than he knew his own, he knew their schedules, their plans. He knew their underlings’ schedules, what they liked to eat and when.
He was ready.
He waited. Three minutes. Two minutes. One. Now.
He swooped down and shot them all. Six men, six bullets, four kills, and two grazing shots. He dodged the first man’s fist and slit his throat, and the second man was clearly the one Jason—Red Hood—should have watched out for, because he actually managed to get a shot off. It missed, but his efforts were appreciated. And in vain, because Red Hood had at least three more guns stashed away. He pulled one of them and shot the man point blank. He dropped and Red Hood turned back to his objective.
He grabbed the back of the fleeing leader and shoved him to the ground, dropping a heavy boot on his chest.
“Please—” he tried. Red Hood unsheathed his machete and raised it slowly, savoring the man’s fear, his pleading. Funny how much the tune changed when they were forced into the same position of their victims. Red Hood ignored what he was saying and slashed down.
One down. Seven to go. He checked his watch. Forty-seven minutes left to his self-imposed time limit. He grinned as he stuffed the head into the duffle he’d stashed.
He was off to a great start. He’d even left a couple of the boss’s men run earlier. They’d spread tales of a man with a bat on his chest, who murdered their leader.
Batman, check.
He headed to his next stop (which was fairly close—he could see the building from here), a jaunty skip to his step. This time, he’d wait in the man’s office. The first needed to be public. All of those after? However he could take them.
Forty-three minutes.
He took the second boss by surprise, having startled him by spinning around in his obnoxiously high-backed supervillain chair as he entered after a meeting. What a tryhard.
Forty-two minutes.
The third was plucked out of his “relaxation time,” in a back room, and Red Hood really hadn’t needed to see that. The girl he’d pulled the boss off of had blinked, pale and worn, but she waved at Red Hood, so there was that.
Thirty-four minutes (he’d made it a bit painful for the man, for what he’d been doing. That girl couldn’t have been more than sixteen, and even though it was normal, it felt—wrong, somehow. Even though Talia had…).
The next two were in a meeting. He killed half of the others in the room just because he could when he saw what they were meeting about. Kids shouldn’t…he didn’t know why, but it wasn’t right.
Twenty-three minutes. Three to go.
Number six was caught with his pants down, which was both unexpected and convenient. Red Hood had worried about this one the most, since he had a rich, normal father from the other side backing him. Now he didn’t need to worry about killing people who were just doing their jobs.
Twenty minutes.
This one would be a bit harder. Red Hood had to sneak into the man’s warehouse—easy, disable his bombs—done, and more importantly: charm his oddly intimidating secretary, who was the only one with key codes.
“…I’m here for a meeting,” Red Hood said unconvincingly. Unfortunately, Talia’s lessons had never explained how to charm somebody outside of a bedroom.
The man looked up at him with dead eyes that dragged up and down his costume—he’d never felt silly in the getup until that moment, but now he felt like he was wearing a particularly silly Halloween costume (that twinged at him, but he shoved the feeling down ruthlessly).
“Uh-huh,” the man deadpanned. His name badge said Ash. This man did not look like an Ash. “What kind of meeting?”
Red Hood sweated under his helmet, he really should have insulated it better. Under those dead fish-eyes, Red Hood found the perfect answer. “Look, I’m here to murder him, okay?”
That…was not what he’d planned to say.
Ash stared at him for a long moment, and Red Hood wanted to scream. His perfect plan was taken down by a fucking secretary, how would he ever live down the embarrassment, he—
Ash put a card on the counter. “I think I’ll have my lunch now,” he said conversationally and wandered off.
Red Hood picked up the card like it was a bomb. It…seemed normal. What the fuck.
Red Hood eyed Ash’s retreating form. He’d have to keep an eye out for that one. Once Red Hood finalized his takeover…well, he’d need a secretary, wouldn’t he? And if the secretary was that terror-inducing, few people would bother escalating to the boss.
He took care of Number 7 quickly, a bit worried that this was actually a trap. His anxiety was for naught, as he was able to walk out with his now-seeping duffle-bag with nothing more than a wave from Ash as he ate his sandwich.
Red Hood shivered and moved on.
Nine minutes.
He’d wasted too much time in the previous location, so he dispensed with his original plan and climbed in through a window. This one was…sleeping on a stack of pretty important-looking papers. Red Hood beheaded him in a smooth motion that was fast becoming muscle memory, and started to leave. He turned back, stuffed the papers into his jacket, and made his way to his last stop.
Three minutes.
Red Hood hung on a roof a few meters away, tucked in a niche that would be fairly hard to see even with his bright red helmet.
The Commissioner (a friend of the Bat) opened it (a fool, the man was a fool. Never open unknown packages) and actually shouted in surprise. What…an idiot, Red Hood was unimpressed by the company the Bat kept.
He started the trek back to the abandoned building he’d been staying in—soon, he’d have three to eight gangs under his rule, depending on how they reacted to his murder spree, but he suspected that at least two, four, five, and possibly seven and eight would join him. If the others wanted in…he’d have to confirm their proclivities first.
No children—
He froze at the entrance to his “main room” (as much as it could be called such).
There was a tiny kid with giant blue eyes staring back at him, eyes wide in alarm.
“What the fuck?” He wondered as he stared down. He shook his head—his free head, he’d taken his helmet off the second he’d shut the front entrance—fuck, this wasn’t good, fuck—
The kid stared at him.
He reached down—he wasn’t even sure why, to pick up the kid or something? And it chomped down hard on the skin between his gloves and his shirt.
Red Hood—Jason muffled a scream—the kid had aimed perfectly and he might have taken out the tendons in his wrist—holy fuck that hurt—and it would heal up soon, but that was only if he could shake the feral gremlin off of his arm first.
He managed after a few moments of swinging his arm around wildly—kid had the jaw strength of a jaguar.
“No!” The tiny gremlin (seriously, were kids supposed to be that small?) growled at him, bared teeth and all, from where he’d landed.
He opened his mouth, but the kid was off like a shot.
Jason blinked. Had that actually happened, or was he hallucinating again? He eyed his savaged wrist. He rubbed his free hand over his face. Well, that was something, but the kid was gone and—
Jason realized what he wasn’t feeling under his fingers.
The kid had seen his face.
Fuck.