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It’d been two days since Jason called that stupid phone number clinging to the edges of his memory, and he was growing sick of the tracksuit wearing maniac. The kid constantly staring at him with unblinking yellow eyes didn’t really help.
“What is your fucking problem?”Jason growled, the bomb he was trying to assemble a complicated puzzle covering the scruffy coffee table he’d found on a street corner a few weeks ago.
His entire apartment – if he could call this hovel an apartment – was decked out in stolen or found furniture, the mattress the only piece he’d paid actual money for. The roof was leaky, the sink was permanently clogged, and the fridge made a constant howling like something out of a low budget horror film. Thankfully, Jason could no longer smell the mold and mildew growing along the badly insulated window frames, noseblindness his savior in disguise.
The kid scowled when Jason addressed him. “I’ve never seen someone build a bomb. Sorry for trying to learn something new, I guess. Old fart.” His sarcasm carried the heavy-handedness of a scorned teenager.
Worn green parka, ill-fitting sweater, and pants with folded up cuffs, the kid carried all the markers of poverty with him. Crouched on the arm of the pink couch (stuffing ripped out underneath), there was a certain Gargoyle-like quality to him. If it weren’t for the slight tilt to the shape of his eyes and the accent coloring his words, Jason wouldn’t be surprised if they had grown up in the same neighborhood or around the same street corner.
Yukine fit surprisingly well into the run-down mundanity of Gotham.
For a dead kid.
Who apparently worked with a (homeless) god.
“Where is your shitty master anyway?” Jason changed the subject. He didn’t wanna explain to some kid how to build a bomb. Good kids weren’t supposed to know how C4 reacted with electricity and how to engineer quicksilver triggers that were nearly impossible to disarm. It was bad enough that he knew all that.
(Jason had stopped being a good kid the moment the Joker’s crowbar first connected with his wrist)
(according to Batman, Jason stopped being a good partner when he failed to save one singular life)
(he would make them pay)
(all of them)
“Yato’s trying to figure out how we can help you.” Yukine’s scowl deepened. “Duh.”
Jason had first seen the number on the day of his death. Swimming in and out of awareness, bloody cheek resting on the hot concrete of the warehouse, waiting for the countdown to hit zero, his eyes had come to rest on the sprawled graffiti covering the old metal.
“Delivery God Yato at your service!”
Back then, he’d never even had a chance to think about it, too out of it to wonder why he only noticed the writing when he was already dying. And then the bomb had exploded, what was left of him swallowed up by the crescendo of noise and pain.
Some numbers on rusting corrugated iron hadn’t really mattered after that.
But two days ago, knee deep in Gotham’s sewers, hunting down all the new access codes to the Cave, the number had come back to him like an epiphany. If coming back from the dead had taught him anything, it was that nothing happened without a reason. Jason’s reason for coming back was to enact his revenge on Batman and the Joker. And his reason for remembering that strange phone number? Well, certainly, it was to help him achieve his goal.
He was prepared for some weirdness. Still, he didn’t expect the god he’d summoned to be wearing a shabby tracksuit – or for his companion to be a moody dead teen.
“I sure hope he’s trying to help me,” muttered Jason as he shook his hand to get rid of some of the glue. “After he refused my wish to just help me kill Batman outright.”
Jason wanted to do the deed himself – at night, he fantasized about the look in Bruce’s eyes when Jason pulled off the helmet only to reveal himself as Batman’s greatest failure, moments before piercing his heart with a bullet.
But it would be nice to have some help, especially from an otherworldly creature contractually bound to fulfill his wish.
Only it turned out…
“Yato doesn’t kill humans,” reminded Yukine. “Not anymore.”
“Yeah, yeah, because suddenly the immortal god has to fucking develop some conscience or something, and—”
“I am the reason he doesn’t kill anymore.” Fiddling with the strings of his parka, Yukine avoided looking at Jason.
“You?” Jason placed the C4 on the scratched up wood. “Why? Did he kill you by accident, and now he’s on a guilt trip or—?”
“Gods cannot do wrong.” The way he said it made Jason think it was some sort of mantra or an often repeated phrase that had slowly turned into a truth. “And so they need human spirits to guide them.”
“And you just… what? Decided that you are such a fucking ray of sunshine that your god can no longer muder anyone? Even if it’s justified?”
Like Bruce would have been justified in killing the Joker.
Grinding his teeth together, Jason had to resist the urge to fiddle with the explosive some more. Just thinking about the fact that the Joker was still living, his life unharmed – safe and sound behind the gates of Arkham Asylum – made rage cloud his vision. His fingers tingled with it.
Yukine blinked at him, blonde hair in disarray as he tilted his head slightly. “Yato wants to be a God of Fortune. You can’t be a God of Fortune if you go around killing people.”
“Well, I’d say it would be pretty fortunate if a god fulfilled a wish to kill a rapist. Or some guy dealing heroin to kids. Or a serial killer targeting young women on their way home from work.”
Jason had to swallow to keep his voice even. The apartment was dimming around them, the sun slowly dipping below the horizon. Not that there was a lot of sunshine here – it was Gotham after all. Gray clouds had hidden the sky the entire day. Evening announced itself by a steady loss of diffused light.
“Murder is wrong.” Jaw squared, it was stubbornness more than conviction that spurned Yukine on. “If Yato used me to kill someone, I would sting him, and— and I promised I would never do that again.”
“Used you?” Standing up, Jason ignored the pop of his joints as he made his way to the small kitchenette bordering the living room/bedroom. Pulling out a gallon of water (bottled), he put on a kettle. “Want some tea?”
Yukine didn’t answer immediately. His fingers pulled on the frayed edges of his sweater strings, the youth on his face horrifyingly evident. This was a kid, living (and serving) some homeless guy declaring himself a god. Jason felt the anger nibbling on the edges of his self-control – the moment Yato stopped being useful for him, it would be over for the guy.
Maybe this could be a two flies with one stone kind of situation.
Yato helped him take revenge on the Joker (on Batman), and Jason freed Yukine of the control of his shockingly neglectful master.
“A tea would be nice.” Yukine followed him into the kitchen. “Should I help?”
“It’s okay.” Dropping tea bags into two mugs (Jason banished the memory of Alfred sharing his favorite tea brand with him), Jason poured the boiling hot water into the cups. “But you said ‘used you’ – what do you mean?”
Neither Yato nor Yukine had really explained themself or what their deal was after suddenly manifesting in Jason’s safehouse two days ago. Yato was the god, Yukine his “shinki” (whatever the fuck that is supposed to mean). 48 hours later and Jason had come to understand that Yukine was a dead spirit meant to “guide” Yato while Yato had taken to scouring Gotham on his own once he’d realized that this plane of existence wasn’t nearly as Ayakashi (whatever the fuck that was) infested as their own.
Only the promise – bound by an actual vow from Yato – that the two of them would help kept Jason from taking drastic measures.
(Yato was nothing like Batman, and yet it wasn’t hard to see a certain similarity between Yato and Yukine and Batman and Robin)
(and if Batman could betray and abandon Robin, then what was to say that Yato couldn’t do the same to Yukine?)
(hadn’t already done the same to the kid?)
“Oh.” Yukine took the tea from Jason, the relief of something warm heating up his palms visible in the small smile slowly growing bigger. “You are so close to the Far Shore; it is easy to forget that you don’t belong there.”
“The Far Shore?”
“The realm of the dead. You reek of it."
Yukine didn’t say it maliciously – he just stated it as a fact.
Still, Jason recoiled, the hot tea sloshing over the rim of his mug. It stung, callused skin turning a bright pink immediately. “Fuck.”
The porcelain hit the peeling plastic of the counter with a dull thud, more tea flooding the surface. Jason didn’t care. He turned the tab of the sink until the water came out clear. Judging by the state of his shower, it would be cold no matter what. Sticking his hand into the stream, Jason watched dispassionately as his skin slowly turned back to its normal color.
Eyes big, thin fingers still clutching his own mug, Yukine watched silently. Every muscle in his body tense, the quiet horror on his face reminded Jason of himself. This fear that had kept him frozen in one spot, stomach sour, the fervent delusion that maybe, just maybe, he could escape his father’s wrath by staying silent, not daring to move… Jason was just all too familiar with it.
The cruelty of Jason’s death was forgotten in the face of Yukine’s discomfort.
“I’m not gonna hit you,” Jason grunted. Sometimes he was still surprised by just how deep his voice was. In his mind, he sounded young, high-pitched and not yet haunted by the harrowing reality of his voice dropping. As it was, he had the pitch of a man. The build of one, too. He hunched his shoulders slightly, the fabric of his t-shirt straining. Eyes averted, he tried not to scare Yukine further.
“Uh, I know you’re not gonna hit me.” Even without being able to see his face, Jason knew Yukine had just rolled his eyes. Ah, he should have known – obviously Yukine was the kind of kid who hid his fear behind standoffish sarcasm and a lot of blunder. Jason had done much the same, after all. “Not that you could.”
Biting his lip, Jason struggled with himself. Maybe it couldn’t wait until Yato had helped him get rid of Batman; maybe Jason had to kill Yato before then. Later tonight, when the god crawled back in through the open window, only to fall asleep on Jason’s couch with a beer clutched in his hand.
Killing a god couldn’t be that hard, right?
“I totally could,” Jason played along. It was strange to manage someone else’s emotions, instead of his dealing with his own, but Yukine was only 14. Not to mention that spending time with Yukine was like constantly looking in a mirror. A Japanese-British mirror, if Yukine’s eye color was anything to go by.
“Hm, yeah, sure.” Yukine shrugged. Glancing at him from the corner of his eye, the fear seemed to have dissipated. Now his face was bathed in pure teenage exasperation. “That’s what they all say, old man.”
“I’m nineteen.”
(probably)
(Jason wasn’t entirely sure how the math worked if you died, got resurrected, had a TBI, got dipped in the Lazarus Pit, and then went on an extended murder gap year)
“And I am forever fourteen.” Yukine grinned. “As I said, old man.”
Turning off the tap, Jason reached for his drink. Only a faint pink sheen along the edge of his pointer finger remained of his shock. “You little shit.”
Silence came over the apartment. It was the awkward kind. The explosive laid disassembled on the coffee table, darkness seeping into the shadows of the drafty room. They had tea, and the only thing the beverage offered was something for their hands to fiddle with as they stood there and stared at each other.
In recognizing himself in Yukine, Jason had accidentally revealed something about himself.
He didn’t like it.
“You asked me what ‘used’ meant in that context.” Yukine changed the subject, the blush dusting his cheeks an obvious betrayal of his embarrassment. Eyes averted, he slunk back towards the couch. “Well, gods can’t just defend themselves. I mean, they do have powers, at least some of them do, but they— they don’t have weapons. That’s what we shinki are for.”
“I thought you said your job was to guide the gods.”
“Yeah, okay, that too, but—” Mug on the table next to the C4, Yukine stared at his own hands. “A god cannot draw a borderline between themselves and the creatures of the Far Shore. But shinki can. Without a shinki, a god can easily be killed by demons and the like.”
So Yato could be killed.
Without Yukine there to protect him, apparently quite easily so.
“Shouldn’t gods be all powerful?” Jason had been raised Catholic – his mom used to take him to the small church on the corner of 5th Street. They rarely had enough money to light one of the candles, but he could clearly recall the smell of incense and the bright tenor of the priest as he praised an All-mighty God.
(Jason was an atheist)
(by choice and not conviction)
“That’s just your Western understanding of gods.” Yukine rolled his eyes again. “Gods are incredibly powerful, but they are finite. They represent just a fragment of humanity, after all. Most of them were born out of a single wish. Why would one wish be able to solve all problems?”
From that point of view, it made almost sense.
Jason shrugged. “I guess, I was raised to think that there is one bearded guy up in the sky who knows everything. And who punishes those who fuck up. Of course, that’s bullshit. Once you die, there’s no divine power who cares what you did while you were still alive.”
“Is that…” Fraying the edge of his sweater even further, Yukine forced himself to ask the question. “Is that why you kill people?”
“There are some real monsters out there.” Jason could feel the corners of his lips etch up. “You know that, right?”
“I guess…”
“And someone has to take care of the monsters. Especially when those in power won’t.” Images of the Joker, Bane, the Penguin, Black Mask, and many more came to mind. Jason forcefully pushed Batman’s face back down into the murky waters of his subconscious. “Nobody cares what happens to the nobodies. The street kids and the whores. The lost boys who just wanted to do good. If I have to be the one who kills the monsters, then so be it.”
If I have to be the one who shows Batman the errors of his ways, then I can finally die happy.
Jason kept that last part firmly to himself.
“I think…” Yukine swallowed, the bop of his Adam’s apple nervous and juvenile. “I think Yato tried to justify it like that as well. Back when… when he still killed humans.”
It was obvious that Yukine didn’t understand Jason’s reasoning. He was surprised by the heat of anger that pulled from the depths of his soul. Yukine should understand. After all, he was in servitude to a “god” who used him, who demanded moral purity from Yukine while doing who knows what all by himself out in the city. Yukine, who clearly had been abused. Yukine, who wore ill-fitting clothes the way Jason used to. Yukine, who was occasionally homeless, who had no agency over his own (un-)life, who—
“If you could take revenge on the people who hurt you, wouldn’t you?” The bite to his voice carried enough weight to echo through the apartment.
Yukine filched back, the amber of his eyes darkening. “That’s not—”
“You do, don’t you?” Catching a glimpse of weakness, Jason pushed forward. “And that anger, don’t you think other kids feel it as well? This feeling of hopelessness, of– of being abandoned by everyone in the world? These kids, they know nobody is ever going to get revenge for them. They know it’s useless to wait for justice to be served. Don’t they deserve someone in their corner as well?”
Fists clenched, Yukine shook with tension. Lips pressed into a thin line, unruly hair hanging into a permanently youthful face, Jason bathed in the anger shining out of his eyes. There it was. An emotion Jason could relate to.
Until Yukine opened his mouth. “I tried.”
“What?”
“I tried taking revenge, okay? It didn’t work.”
“What do you mean—?” Taking a step towards Yukine, Jason was uncomfortably aware of his own size – of the anger boiling steadily in his gut.
“You’re right, I am one of those kids. Just like you, yeah? My dad beat the shit out of me. He killed me. Okay? That’s my big secret. I remember my death, and it was my dad, and he locked me in a freezer until I was nothing more than rotting flesh and decaying bones.” For a moment, Yukine’s face shifted. Jason couldn’t be sure, but he thought he saw a dozen bulging eyes form along the edge of Yukine’s jaw down the nape of neck. He blinked, and Yukine’s skin was free of blemishes once more. “But I remembered. And I went to look for him. I couldn’t find him. There was no— there was no dad I could kill. No one I could give my pain to and be justified. Instead, I just ruined a lot of people’s lives. I hurt Yato. I betrayed my god just to— just because— because—”
Anger turned to tears. They dripped down Yukine’s cheeks in big drops, his bony shoulders squared for attack. There was nothing soft about the boy now. Like a rabid dog, he was ready to bite. If anything, the tears only fueled him.
Jason knew the feeling of overwhelming anger turned to sorrow all too well.
Even if he could not understand the words spilling from Yukine’s lips.
(their similarities frightened him)
“And Yato? What did he do? Did he kill him for you?” Call it singleminded focus, but Jason didn’t like the suffocating feeling in his chest or the way he couldn’t think through the gruesome honesty Yukine was coating the living room in.
Somehow, this too, was Batman’s fault.
“No,” Yukine spit, snot trailing down his nose alongside tears. “No, but he buried my body. He found what was left of me and laid me to rest so that my remains could be close to my sister. And then he cried for me. No one had ever cried for me before. And that—”
“He’s a homeless good-for-nothing who calls himself a god.”
He’s a billionaire playboy who hides behind a dozen masks.
“Yeah.” Rubbing his eyes with the edge of his parka, Yukine dried his face. He left irritated skin behind. “But he’s my homeless, good for nothing god.”
Jason narrowed his eyes. He didn’t actually know what to say against that.
“But he didn’t avenge you.”
“I didn’t need him to.” Arms crossed, his eyes rimmed in red. “I just needed him to… to not be my dad.”
And Bruce had been nothing like Willis.
Jason shook his head to dispel the thought.
His fists itched for violence, for the comforting weight of a gun or the bruising force of bone against his knuckles, but there was no one to hit here. He wouldn’t hurt the kid, not when Yukine was still busy wiping his nose with his jacket sleeve.
Turning away, he sat down on the chair close to the coffee table. The wood creaked under his weight, the pure size of his body just a constant reminder of how much had changed.
His fingers shook when he reached for the glue gun and the various cables scattered across the table. He would finish this bomb. He would hunt down Batman, and he would force him to confront the Joker and he would– he would force Bruce to make a choice. Stubbornness kept his mouth closed. He was aware of the weight of Yukine’s gaze, their breathing the only sound filling the space.
For an uncomfortably long moment, Jason worked in peace. His tea was cooling on the counter. Yukine’s mug was empty by now.
“You know…” Yukine started, words small and careful. “You should be happy you got a second chance.”
“I died just as you did.”
“Yeah.” Yukine pushed the screwdriver closer to Jason’s hand. Jason didn’t thank him. “But I stayed dead.”
“You breathe, you drink tea, you go on cross-reality adventures. I don’t think that is—”
“I’m dead.” There was power in his voice. “I will forever be a 14 year old kid. I can’t go to school, I can’t grow old. I won’t ever marry or have kids or change. I exist, yes, and I never crossed into the Far Shore like you did, but I am not alive.”
“Cry me a river.” Jason’s heart ached where it beat against his ribcage.
“I won’t. I’m done crying.”
“Hah.”
“I just think… you should try to be a little bit grateful, maybe. That you’re not a kid anymore. That you’re— that you’re older now.”
“It doesn’t really feel like it.”
And it didn’t. This wasn’t the body Jason died in–this was the body of a stranger. Taller, broader, stronger. No more signs of malnutrition etched into his skin, no more scars of the cigarettes his father preferred, no more aching muscles after the endless training sessions Batman forced him through.
“But would it be better if it was still the body you died in?” Tilting his head, there was something alien to Yukine’s face – no extra eyes, this time, but still. He looked more like a dead thing like that.
This had been the exact age Yukine’s body had been when he died.
Jason forced his fingers to unclench, the screwdriver clanking against the wooden table loudly. Point made.
“I guess.” Swallowing down the mess of emotions in his chest, Jason tried for a casual shrug. “But if Yato ever hurts you—”
“If you try to hurt Yato, I will show you what it means to be hafuri.”
“What the fuck does hafuri mean? Now you’re just making up words.”
Yukine smiled, slowly and with the edge of teenage superiority. “I’ll tell you another time.”
Jason would build this bomb.
And he would plant it underneath the Batmobile.
He would get his revenge.
But… he glanced at Yukine, cradling his mug, over the explosive slowly taking shape in front of him, and thought to himself that, if nothing else, he at least hoped that Batman, no– Bruce had cried over his dead body.
In that, they could agree: it was important to be grieved.
The anger in Jason’s chest calmed a little.