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Jason watches out of the corner of his eye as the girl shivers on the floor, body curling in on itself. Her wrists and ankles are trussed up in ropes and she breathes like it’s painful. She can’t be more than thirteen, and the other people in this room are staring at her like a hunk of meat.
Anywhere else, and he’d be shooting already. The human traffickers, mowed down. The warehouse, a bloodbath. And the girl, saved, with Jason’s leather jacket hung over her shoulders.
The danger to the girl isn’t immediate, Jason tells himself. She won’t be carted off and sold until the end of this meeting, and by then, Jason will have everything he needs to take down the whole international trafficking ring. No one will lay a finger on her until then.
But Jason is fooling himself. Every second the girl sits trembling on the floor is a danger, is another moment of torture for her. And Jason could cut it short.
Jason could cut it short, and in the process, condemn all the other children who are about to be shipped out of the country. Interrupt this meeting before Roy can get a lock on the ‘shipment’ and the traffickers go to ground, holed up with their victims where the Outlaws can’t find them. And that’s not to mention all the information he’s gaining about the traffickers’ schedules and ‘clients’. So he waits. Tries to thread the needle. Save everyone, at the cost of half an hour more of fear for the girl trapped on the floor.
Every second Jason spends watching the girl brings him closer to snapping. He can’t take much more of this before he blows this mission, just to get her out of here. So, he looks away from her and tries to focus on the man who’s speaking.
Maybe if he hadn’t averted his eyes, he would’ve noticed the girl’s plan before it was too late.
Instead, it all happens in a blur of motion, too fast to react. One moment, the girl is huddled on the ground, and the next she’s slamming her body into one of the traffickers. He falls, and then she’s standing over him, holding his gun in her trembling, unbound hands. “If you move,” she says, voice wavering, “I’ll shoot.”
She holds a gun like someone who’s never held one before. The safety is on, and Jason doesn’t think she even realizes it.
Every instinct Jason has screams at him to lunge forward and push the girl behind him. But to her, he looks just like one of the traffickers. If he moves toward her, she’ll panic. So instead, Jason draws his gun, planning to engage in some more effective hostage taking and keep the girl from what’s sure to be a losing fight.
He never gets the chance.
Before Jason can shoot or get the girl to safety, he hears the bangs of three gunshots. And then the girl is lying face-down on the ground, brown hair fanned out around her, blood soaking through her blue tank top.
“Jason.” Jason closes his eyes and rolls over, turning his back to Tim’s voice. “Jason, can I turn on the light?” Jason doesn’t respond. His cast itches. His right arm aches. Alfred had offered pain medication. Jason had refused, and then spent the past week saying pretty much nothing else. “If you don’t respond, I’m turning it on.”
“Don’t,” Jason mumbles. He awkwardly maneuvers his blanket to cover his cast, and then draws it over his face.
Despite Jason’s very clear go away signals, Tim’s footsteps pad over. “Roy and Kory found them,” Tim says. There’s a soft thud. Jason thinks he’s placing a chair by his bed, because then Tim’s voice sounds a little bit lower in height. “The kids are safe.”
Not all of them, Jason thinks. Eyes closed, it’s easy to picture that girl’s body, the blood pouring out of the three bullet holes in her chest. If only Jason had acted sooner, had gotten her out of there. But no, he had to have both, save the girl and last through the meeting. And instead, he had done neither.
After the girl was shot—murdered—Jason had opened fire. Somehow, he’d taken down most of the traffickers before one of them got him with a lucky hit to his arm. Or, not that lucky, really, given how little of Jason’s focus had been on defense. After the broken arm, the fight had turned against Jason, and he had expected to lose.And then Red Robin and Nightwing, attracted by the sound of gunfire suspiciously close to the area Jason had stated he’d be investigating, had come crashing in.
Roy had tracked the traffickers part of the way, which narrowed down their plans, but he hadn’t had enough time to fully find out where they were taking the girls—or stop them from slipping right through the Outlaws’ fingers. Neither of Jason’s objectives had been achieved. A girl was dead, and the others had spent a week longer in captivity.
Jason had tried to thread the needle, missed, and stabbed the operation straight in the eye.
“Look,” Tim says. “You know we can’t save everyone.”
Jason knows. He’s been on both ends of that statement—the one who failed and the one who was failed. But that’s what abandoning the no-kill code was supposed to prevent. Those pointless, avoidable deaths. Because this girl’s death was, ultimately, avoidable. “I could’ve,” Jason says quietly, voice hoarse from disuse over the past week. He’s barely left his room. Not even his room. A guest room at the Manor, made up for him when Roy and Kory stated that they would catch the rest of the traffickers without him. Jason had genuinely thought that the Bats were actually about to arrest him for the warehouse bloodbath, and in that moment, he couldn’t really bring himself to care. Instead, they’d put him on bedrest, which had also suited him just fine. “I could’ve saved her.”
“Doesn’t work like that,” Tim says. “Look, Dick is getting worried about you. Can you please just come have dinner with us?”
The past week, Alfred has laid trays at Jason’s bedside for each meal and then stood there wordlessly until Jason ate something. And then, he’d leave. Normally, Alfred isn’t a fan of people eating in bed, but Jason had figured he was just grateful that someone was listening to a bedrest order, for once.
It’s strange. Jason has never been a good patient, never been able to just lie down and wait. Normally, he reacts to his failures by pushing even harder. But if he goes out right now, goes searching for that girl’s murderers, he’s going to kill someone. And that’ll spell the end of his relative freedom.
Besides, Alfred was right, when he told Jason that he was in no fit shape to go back into the field.
“If Dick is worried about me,” Jason says, “he can come to see me himself.”
A pause. “He has,” Tim replies. Jason can practically see him frowning. “Do you not remember? Are you feeling feverish?”
“I remember,” Jason says, so Tim will stop worrying. “I just want you to go away.”
“Everyone’s really worried about you,” Tim says. “Bruce, Dick…even Damian.”
“Bruce, huh?” Jason doesn’t believe that. He’s still not sure that Bruce isn’t just biding his time to take him to Arkham, after this latest incident. Or why Bruce hasn’t put him there already. Maybe he knows that Roy and Kory would just break Jason out.
“Yeah.”
The image of the girl’s body flashes behind his eyes again. “What was her name?” Jason asks.
“I don’t know,” Tim says. Jason turns onto his other side, looking at Tim’s face in the dim light. He’s still frowning. Tim can be a good liar when he wants to be, but right now he’s not trying very hard.
“Come on, you’re the kid with all the answers, right?”
“You don’t really want to know,” Tim claims. “It won’t help.”
“Tim. I’ll find it anyway.”
Tim sighs. “We’re not sure yet. There was a girl who would show up at one of the shelters in the Bowery, sometimes alone and sometimes with an aunt. She went by Rosa and matches the victim’s description. We haven’t been able to find anything else.”
Jason doesn’t believe that. Tim alone should be able to track down Rosa’s legal identity, and with Bruce and Barbara also available, it should be easy. “Have you even tried?” Jason asks.
“We handed the information over the relevant authorities,” Tim replies. “We’ve been busy coordinating with your team to find the other girls. But now they’re safe, and Roy and Kory are working on finding the rest of the criminals. So come down and eat with us.”
Jason rolls over, facing away from Tim once more, and doesn’t respond.
“It’s not your fault,” Dick says, for the billionth time. “You had no idea she could get out of those ropes. The only people to blame are those monsters who brought her there and shot her.”
Dick Grayson, Jason knows, is a hypocrite. If he were in Jason’s position, he’d probably be off in Blüdhaven self-destructing right now. Because Jason could have saved Rosa, and he chose to do nothing but wait. And now, she’s dead.
“You made a call, with the information available. I would’ve done the same.”
No, Dick wouldn’t have lasted a second pretending to be a child trafficker. He was too…human. They’d’ve been able to read hero from a mile away. But these traffickers were international, and Red Hood’s code wasn’t really known outside of Crime Alley, Gotham at best. And Jason, well, just like everyone could see Dick was a hero, everyone could see that Jason was a monster. Maybe it was the wrongness of the Pit and resurrection clinging to him or the fact that he was able to gun down fifteen men in fifteen seconds without a single qualm, but somehow, that monstrosity seemed to be visible to everyone—Bruce included.
“Sometimes, we make bad calls,” Dick continues. “Sometimes, people die. I’ve made so many mistakes, Jason, trust me. But you’ve gotta keep moving forward. That’s the only way to make things better.”
Doesn’t Dick understand that this is worse than a mistake, though? Jason didn’t fail at acting. He chose inaction.
Dick continues to recite various platitudes that wouldn’t seem out of place in a movie. Jason feigns sleep until he leaves.
Bruce visits him early in the morning. He probably thinks that Jason is asleep, given the hour, but Jason’s sleep schedule is beyond fucked at the moment, so he’s painfully aware of Bruce’s presence in the room.
But all Bruce does is stand there, like he’s watching over Jason. And about half an hour later, he slips out of the room and is gone.
Two weeks later, Alfred arrives for breakfast without a tray. “It is time to wake up, Master Jason,” he says.
“No thanks,” Jason says groggily.
Alfred throws open the window blinds. The light hits Jason like a speeding train. He covers his eyes, feeling like his brain will split apart. “Up, my boy. You have work to do.”
Jason’s been mostly avoiding the others by ignoring them. Ignoring Alfred, though, is practically taboo. “I’m on bed rest,” he argues.
“As of now, Master Jason, you are on couch rest. You’ll be doing case work from the living room, where I shall endeavor to keep your siblings…mostly…at bay.”
Casework. Why would Alfred be giving him casework? “I’m going to stay in bed,” Jason says, burying his head in his pillow. “I’m resting.”
“Nonsense,” Alfred says. “You have rested enough, and both you and I know that it will do you no additional good.”
“I failed, Alfred,” Jason says. He’s confessed it enough times over the past few weeks.
“Be that as it may,” Alfred says, “there is work to be done.” And then Alfred the blanket off of him, exposing Jason to the cold air—and Alfred’s stern face. So really, Jason doesn’t have much of a choice.
Jason stumbles after Alfred, out the door of the guest room and into the Wayne Manor hallway. His body aches. The broken arm wasn’t the only injury he sustained in that fight. But Alfred leads him all the way downstairs to a couch that is sat in front of a crackling fireplace, wraps a blanket around his shoulders, and hands him a laptop. “To my knowledge,” Alfred says, “you have no concussion.” This is, miraculously, true. “You expressed interest in finding Miss Rosa’s family. Perhaps you would like to do so first. If not, there are several drug cases on which Master Bruce could use another pair of eyes.”
“What happened to no cowl talk in the Manor?” Jason asks, trying to wrap his head around how quickly he ended up here, outside that room, with a laptop in his hands.
“Just this once,” Alfred says, “I am making an exception.” He sits down next to Jason and retrieves a book from the coffee table. “If there is anything you would wish to discuss, Master Jason, you may. But in the meantime, I will be reading.” With that, he flips to the exact right page and begins reading.
Jason stares down at the laptop. He can’t bring himself to open it. “I could have saved her,” Jason says.
Alfred closes the book on his lap. “Perhaps,” he replies. “Perhaps not. If you had opened fire, you would have shielded Miss Rosa, but a stray bullet may still have made its way to her. And then, you would be right here, flagellating yourself for your ‘recklessness.’ There are no guarantees in the field.”
“That could have happened even if I waited until the end of the meeting!” Jason argued. “I did nothing, and she was murdered.”
“And if you did something, and she was murdered because of that, would it have been any better?”
“Yes!” Jason insists, throwing his unbroken arm in the air. “I said I was never going to stand by again, and I did, and look what happened! A kid is dead, Alfred!”
Alfred sighs. “Before serving the Wayne family, I served in the Queen’s Army. I had to make tough calls there, when to wait and when to move. Sometimes, I made the wrong call, in either direction. And though they may have felt different, the consequences were the same. Death.” He reaches out and places a hand on Jason’s shoulder. Jason looks away. “There is no intrinsic value in action or inaction, Master Jason. Only the weighing of your duties. You had duties to Miss Rosa, and duties to the other victims. You devised a plan to do right by all of them. Your plan failed. A child died. Next time you are in such a situation, because it will happen again, my boy, you will consider additional factors, like the actions the victims may take to save themselves. And, god willing, your plan will succeed.”
The words settle over Jason. They’re not what he wants to hear. They don’t condemn him. They don’t even absolve him. Your plan failed. A child died. But—
That’s not unique to that night two weeks ago. Jason’s plans have failed before, and people have died. As Robin, he saw Batman’s plans fail too. And Jason is sure that some nights, Bruce stayed up long past when he went to bed, beating himself up for what happened. But then Alfred would talk some sense into him, or they’d get a breakthrough in the case, or Jason would drag him to the theater club’s performance.
And then, Jason had died.
Jason remembered what he said to Bruce, standing in that abandoned building, the Joker’s laughter widening the cavern between them. “Bruce, I forgive you for not saving me. But why…why on god’s Earth…is he still alive?”
Rosa is dead. Jason failed her. But the case isn’t over yet. Rosa may have an aunt to notify. Roy and Kory are still tracking down the remainder of the trafficking ring. When they get to prison, Jason will make certain everyone knows exactly what they did. And if any of those monsters are going to slip through the law’s fingers to hurt more people, to kill more children… Well, it seems that even after he shot those traffickers, Jason has at least one more chance before he’s officially declared an enemy of the Bats. He’d prefer not to, but if necessary, he can always make use of it.
Jason stares at the laptop for a second longer. And then, he gets to work.