Chapter Text
Bam! Bam!
Blink of an eye.
Hardly a breath.
Pure rage.
Immediate regret.
The body hit the ground with a thud.
Final.
Ugly.
Wrong.
That thought haunted Jason as he stood there, gun still warm in his hand, heart pounding out the drum solo to In The Air Tonight against his ribcage as the light slowly faded from the man’s eyes.
Green eyes.
Not green like Tyler’s or Kit’s but close enough to sucker-punch him in the gut and twist in the blade for good measure.
Jason’s grip on the gun slackened. The weight of it, once familiar, comforting, seemed almost obscene now.
He holstered it.
As if he put the damn thing away he could undo the last five seconds.
He stared into those eyes — vacant, glassy, fixed — and all he could see was the kid he almost made an orphan.
Only, he shot Andy over two years ago.
So, who had he shot just now?
Because there was no way he just put a bullet into a ghost.
Jason crouched beside the still warm body, fingers brushing the guy’s jacket in search of something tucked into the seams that would explain what happened.
That justified the shot.
Nothing.
Just blood-soaked denim and pockets full of nothing but lint.
Jason exhaled through his teeth, jaw clenched so tight it ached.
He could already hear the old man’s voice: quiet, disappointed, surgical in its precision.
“You had a choice.”
Yeah, he did.
He made the wrong one.
Again.
He swore to himself, to Tyler, to Kit he’d try.
Be better.
Do better.
Find other ways to deal with the filth choking this city.
Promises didn’t mean jack when he found himself knee-deep in blood and failure.
Same damn story.
Different night.
Jason sunk to his knees besides the dead body as lightning carved the sky open. Rain hammered down upon him like judgment, cold and merciless.
He didn’t flinch.
Let it drown him.
He deserved worse.
A hand with quick, clever fingers came down on his shoulder.
Warm, familiar.
Breaking through the torment.
Offering salvation.
Promising redemption.
A way back from the darkness.
He burned that bridge, though.
Torched it.
Watched it collapse in one lifeless heap at his feet when he pulled the trigger and killed whoever the shadow before him was.
“I tried, Kit.” The words were shredded by the icy shards lodged in his throat. “I swear to you, I fucking tried.”
Her voice cut through the storm, soft and sure.
Like it always was.
Speaking words which shattered the cloud wrapping him in uncertainty, guilt, and regret.
“Little wing,” she said, and it was enough to make the shadow creatures laughing and jeering at him to button their pie holes for five damn seconds. “I want you to come with me now.”
He didn’t move.
Not at first.
The alley clung to him — wet cobblestone and concrete, the stench of gunpowder and blood mixed with stagnant water, rotting garbage, and other things he didn’t want to think about.
She tugged on his arm, insistent, and he allowed her to pull him to his feet.
A helluva thing given he outweighed her by a good sixty pounds and towered over her by seven inches.
“I tried,” he rasped, voice shredded and low, like it hurt to say it. She reached for his mask, and he didn’t stop her — couldn’t. The rain soaked through everything, but it wasn’t the water dragging him down. It was the weight of every wrong choice, bad decision, and body that didn’t get back up. “I tried, Kit.”
“I know you did.” Her hand cupped his cheek. Settled and soothed him as only she could. “Now come with me.”
His boots scraped the pavement as he let her guide him from the alley. His jacket hung off him like penance, heavy and slick with a guilt the rain couldn’t wash away. It crawled under his skin, settled in his bones, chilled him to the depth of his fractured soul.
“I swear I tried,” he said again, like maybe if he said it enough, it’d mean something. Like maybe it’d make him less of a monster. “I didn’t mean to shoot him.”
Whoever he was.
Because there was absolutely no way it was Tyler’s father, Andy.
“I know you didn’t, little wing.” Kit led him over to her car, opened the passenger door, and gently nudged him towards the opening. “Get in now,” she told him. “You can stay with me and the kids tonight.”
“No, I have to—”
“You’re coming home with me, Jaybee.”
Soft, but firm.
As if she still believed he was worth saving.
Jason didn’t argue with her.
He was simply too tired.
Then he heard it.
Wings.
The kind that didn’t belong to angels.
The old man found them.
Of course he had.
Why wouldn’t he?
World’s Greatest Detective, after all.
That he waited until Jason was frayed at the seams to come at him with his silent judgment and moral superiority wasn’t a shock.
That’s when the condemnation hurt the most.
And maybe — just maybe — he wanted it to.
He deserved it, after all.
He broke his promise.
Killed instead of subdued.
Jason didn’t turn around.
Didn’t move.
Hardly breathed.
“Go,” he told Kit. “You don’t need to hear him rattle off the list of what makes me unforgivable.”
Again, he added as the wings moved — judgment in motion.
Not divine.
Just sharp.
Just black.
Just him.
And Jason?
He didn’t argue.
Didn’t reach for the usual venom.
He just stood there, already condemned.
Ready to accept punishment for committing the ultimate sin.
“No.” Kit spoke quietly but with that steely determination learned from the shadow looming behind them. “Get in the car. I’ll deal with him.”
“Kit…”
His protest barely made it past his lips.
Hell, it wasn’t much of an argument really.
More of a plea really.
One she completely ignored.
As she always did.
“Get in the car, little wing.” Kit’s fingers found the back of his neck, grounding him. Warm. Steady. Jason hadn’t realized how tight everything in him was until she touched him — as if his whole spine was a wire about to snap. “We’ll go home soon as I talk with him. Okay?”
He didn’t argue with her.
Didn’t have the strength.
Just let himself fold into her passenger seat, the door thunking shut like a coffin lid behind him.
The scent of vanilla and jasmine immediately wrapped around him, comforted him, soothed him.
And for the first time since the night began, he let himself breathe.
…
Once Jason was safely tucked inside in her car, Raya turned. Batman hadn’t moved a muscle. He stood still as a statue, rain streaking down the cowl, cape coiling around him like tendrils of smoke.
The grim hero.
Watching; waiting.
“He doesn’t need your condemnation or criticism right now,” she said quietly. “He’s beating himself up enough as it is.”
“He shot someone.”
“No.” Velvet steel. “He shot a garbage can.”
“A garbage can?” The cowl concealed it, but she could tell his brow furrowed. “Why would he shoot a garbage can?”
“Because I think he believed it was that drug dealer he killed a few years ago.”
“Andy?”
“Yes.”
Batman’s gaze sharpened.
“Explain that.”
“I’m not sure I can…”
Not yet, anyway.
Which mattered not to Batman who commanded her to, “Try.”
A sharp retort leapt to her tongue, but Raya swallowed it back.
The Dark Knight might be who stood there, composed as ever, but beneath that calm facade was a father desperate to know his son hadn’t slipped back to his old ways.
“I believe he was under some sort of mind control.”
Batman didn’t move.
The air around him, however, did.
A shift in gravity.
Eyes narrowed.
Breath stilled.
“Who.”
Not a question.
A demand.
Only, Raya couldn’t answer him.
“I don’t know.” Her gaze flicked to the man slumped in her passenger seat. “Jason was there in that alley. Physically. But his mind… it was somewhere else. Like he was in a different place entirely.” Her voice tightened. Equal parts anger and fear. She met that electric gaze in the rain soaked glass. “He didn’t actually look at me until I touched his cheek with my hand.”
Batman’s gaze dropped — not faltering, but dissecting.
Every word, every pause, every tremor.
“Physical touch broke the hold.” His voice was low, deliberate. “It grounded him.”
“Like it does me when my anxiety spikes.”
He shifted, cape whispering across the toes of her sneakers. “That’s why you called him little wing. It’s his trigger word as rise is yours.”
Her, “Yes, well, Jason has multiple trigger words because he’s as hardheaded as you,” earned her a scowl and a soft Tt which almost made her smile.
“Start from the beginning,” he ordered. “Tell me everything you saw. Heard.”
“I can do better.” She tapped the corner of her right eye — tech glinting beneath the gesture. “I uploaded the footage to the server. You can watch it yourself when you get back to the Cave.” She held out Jason’s mask. “You can also take this. Check it for tampering.”
His fingers didn’t twitch, but his focus sharpened.
“You think someone altered his mask. Used it to control him.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I was at Jason’s apartment earlier to ask him for help on a case I’ve been working the last few days. Soon as he put his mask on…” she paused, frowned. “It was like he vanished. Not physically. But mentally. Like someone flipped a switch and Jason was no longer there in the room with me. He also kept mentioning Tyler and finding his father, Andy.”
“Mind control narrows the field of potential suspects but not enough.” His voice was low. Controlled. There was an edge there which promised hell for whoever was behind this assault on his son. “Psionics. Tech-based override. Chemical induction. Magical interference. All viable options.”
All of them carrying a chessboard of threats and potential suspects.
“So, we could be looking at anyone from Hatter, Riddler, Pyg, Brother Eye, Anarky to Strange.”
“Along with many others.” Batman took the mask from her, turning it in his gloved hands as if it might cough up the culprit. “Queen of Fables could trap Jason in a narrative loop. Circe. Klarion. Even Constantine has enemies who would use Jason as a vessel to do their bidding.”
“Why would any of them go after Jason, though?”
“Because he’s dangerous. Unpredictable.” Raya scoffed. His eyes narrowed. A silent warning his patience was wearing thin. Not that she cared. “In the hands of the wrong people, Jason is a weapon.” Batman’s jaw tightened. Another hint at how tight a control he was keeping over his volatile temper. “In the hands of the right ones… he’s leverage.”
She circled the car, deflecting. “I leave it to you to find them and make them pay.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Take care of Jason.”
Batman stepped forward, shadow stretching across the pavement. “You shouldn’t be alone with him. Not right now.”
“I won’t be.” Her fingers curled around the door handle. “Kai and Rose will be there.”
“If it’s not the mask that caused his slip, and whoever takes control of his mind again, do you think you can pull him back?”
“I’ve pulled him back before.” Her gaze met his, unflinching. “I will do it again.”
Because I’ve never given up on him. She slid behind the wheel, engine sparking to life with a soft purr. Not now. Not ever.
…
Batman watched her taillights fade into the darkness.
He didn’t move.
Didn’t breathe.
Just listened to the engine fade, to the city settling, to the quiet which always came before the wrong kind of storm blew in.
Raya was brave.
Stubborn.
Reckless, though, when it came to Jason.
And that terrified him.
Not because she couldn’t handle herself — she could.
He trained her well.
He trained them all well.
Love made people blind to the truth, though.
Jason was dangerous when not under mind control.
“I’ve pulled him back before,” she said.
Yes, but what if next time, he didn’t want to come back?
That was what he feared most.
The edge of his cape caught the wind, snapped around him.
Almost like a warning.
He had seen too many good people hurt trying to save someone who didn’t want saving.
Jason wasn’t lost, though.
Not yet.
He was circling the riptide, however, and Raya was the only thing keeping him from drowning.
He’d follow.
Watch from the shadows.
From the places she wouldn’t look.
Because if Jason slipped again, she wouldn’t be the one who paid the price.
A whisper of motion behind him.
No footsteps.
Just presence.
He had been aware of Nightwing’s approach but was impressed nonetheless by his stealth.
“She didn’t flinch,” Nightwing said as he dropped down beside him. “You gave her the full Bat-glare and she still told you to basically shove it, she’s doing what she wants no matter what.”
Batman didn’t respond.
He saw no need.
Not that that stopped his former protégé.
The chattiest of his flock.
“She’s spent enough time around you and Jason to build up immunity to your snarls and scowls.”
“She’s walking into a potentially dangerous situation.”
“She’s walking into it because she believes in him. That’s not weakness, B. That’s not her being blind. That’s her utilizing her strengths where she thinks they’re most needed.”
Logic.
The single greatest weapon he gave his children.
Batman’s jaw tightened, however. As logic also said, “Belief doesn’t stop bullets.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Nightwing agreed, serious now. “But Raya believing in him is what pulled Jason back after his return. She’s never given up on him. She never will.”
Silence stretched before them.
Gotham breathed out a breath — low, restless, waiting.
“She trusts you will figure out who is doing this and stop them,” Nightwing added quietly. “Trust her to take care of Jason.”
Batman wanted to.
He really did.
He just couldn’t shake the feeling that if he wasn’t there, something bad could happen.
To her or Jason.
“I’m going to go and keep watch.” He reached for his grapnel gun. “Make sure nothing happens.”
“Robin is already there.”
Batman half-turned, cape shifting with the wind. “Robin is at Raya’s apartment?”
“He chose to go.”
That… surprised Batman.
His youngest once threatened to kill Jason Todd on sight — and tried several times until Jason finally put him in his place.
Damian routinely attacked Tim simply because he deemed him as inferior.
“He volunteered to keep an eye on Jason?” A pause. “Willingly?”
“He said until we figure out what’s going on that one of us should be there to back her up. And since it was obvious she was trusting you with figuring out what’s going on, he decided it should be him to back her up.”
Batman stared down the alley, eyes narrowed into thin, speculative slits.
He couldn’t deny how much Damian changed in the year since he came to live with him.
Not softened — never that — but settled.
A scalpel now instead of the poisoned dagger he once was.
Largely because of the influence of his oldest children and grandchildren on him.
“He hates Jason.”
And Tim, he added silently, heart twisting.
“He used to.” Lightning streaked the sky, illuminated the piles of garbage and discarded furniture stacked up in the alley. “I don’t think he knows how to feel about Jason now. Part of him respects who Jason is but the other still views him as the failed Robin.”
Batman didn’t respond. The wind tugged at his cape again, like it wanted him to move, to act.
He remained perfectly still.
Damian watching over Jason.
The boy who once called him a liability guarding the one who died in his arms.
Maybe that was the point.
“He’ll keep them safe,” Nightwing said, voice low.
Batman nodded once, almost imperceptibly. “We have work to do.”
“I’ll meet you back at the cave.”
Batman watched Nightwing stroll to the spot where Jason abandoned his bike before pursuing the figure he believed himself chasing into the alley.
He tapped a button on his gauntlet, summoning the Batwing with the same casualness most people reserved for ordering takeout.
Behind him, the bike revved to life and tore off into the night.
He didn’t even flinch.
He just exhaled through his nose, as only a man who raised a flock of chaos in kevlar could.