His ribs were broken. No doubt about it. Every breath reminded him of that fact and if he were a weaker man, Batman would surely be hallucinating by now. Perhaps Alfred telling him to come home or his parents, praising him or chastising him. It wouldn't have made a difference either way. Phantoms had nothing to offer him.

But no. He wasn't hallucinating. His eyes were blurring, but that was more from the rain than from anything else. With a grunt of exertion, he swung himself up onto the rooftop. He couldn't remember the building it went to. Sometime during the night his internal geography had been jogged loose. He was lose in his own city. Even if he won, he'd have to call Alfred to pick him up. The thought made him giggly and Batman realized that his probably a symptom of something.

"You never give up, do you?" Red Hood asked as Batman rose to his feet, cape crackling around him in the howling wind. The rooftop brought them closer to the storm, letting it tear at them and chill them with all of its ferocity. Still no rain came. It rattled and threatened but remained crouching, like a predator waiting to pounce. "Except on me."

"You sound disappointed," Batman wheezed. He drew a Batarang and threw it, taking out one of Jason's snipers even as his pistol was cocked. The youth went down, fifteen years old if he was a day. His domino mask was affixed to his face by a string in the back; it went lop-sided from the blow.

"You took the words right out of my hood."

Batman wiped a thin trickle of blood off his mouth. Red Hood was disengaging the catches on his hood, tearing it loose of his collar and dropping it to the ground. It made a hollow sound when it hit. Three more of Red Hood's gangbangers followed them to the roof. Their varied sports jerseys were red and green; Batman couldn't place the team. The whole thing was a mockery, an ode to Jason's twisted sense of humor. With Batman as the butt of the joke. Always Batman.

"You remind me of the Joker," Batman said, trying to stop himself from woozily swaying from side to side.

Jason gritted his teeth in anger, instinctively raising a hand to his mask. "Finish him," he growled, and the gangbangers surged forward. Batman threw two Batarangs at once, tripping the first two up, then snapped the last one to the ground with a hard right. Not as hard as it should've been. The gangbanger bounced right back up and hammered Batman in his chest; another spurt of blood from his chest reminded Bruce of his injury there. The other two were getting up. Batman grabbed his combatant by the scruff of his neck and threw him into the recovering gangbangers. All three landed in a pile at Jason's feet.

"You'll have to do your own dirty work," Batman hissed out.

"Kill you? My mentor? I could never do that." Jason looked down at the gangbangers, spotting them with his toe when they didn't get up fast enough. "Boys, kill my mentor."

The gangbangers rushed Batman, sneakers squeaking and jackets complaining. The second in line was drawing a gun from his jacket, probably against Jason's orders. Batman shouldered past the first and throttled it away. When the gun went off, it hit the third man square in the gut. Jason shouted "No!" Batman hadn't known he cared. The third man wasn't used to taking shots. He went down as the second man dropped the gun to wrestle Batman to the ground. The first man began kicking Batman. Bruce heard more bones break apart, each one in turn, like a symphony.

When Jason pulled the men off him, Bruce felt like he had died. It wasn't that he hurt too much to move. It was that he just couldn't.

"Get Freddy," Jason said to his remaining men. "Get out of here. Go!" They picked up the wounded man and dragged him towards the door, stopping to wake the sniper on the way out. Once the door had closed. Jason looked down at Batman with a confused, errant look in his eyes. Bruce recognized it. It had been glazed onto the boy's face after he'd stepped out of the Batcave and into a new life. He hadn't known what to make of a world that didn't try to take advantage of him as a matter of course.

"What the fuck am I going to do with you?" Jason asked, trying to stay angry and failing. With a renewed growl, he kicked Bruce in the ribs. "Huh!?" Then he bent down and struggled with Batman's cowl, deftly outmaneuvering all the traps before wrenching it off. Under the mask, Bruce's face was a grisly disguise of bruises and cuts. Jason huffed, his shoulders bobbing up and down as he looked down at the man he'd once thought of as a father.

"I hate you," he said to Bruce's face, before he opened his cell-phone and dialed 911.

Thunder crackled in the distance, the sound oddly magnified inside the stairwell. Renee Montoya had her coat on over her body armor. The call could've gone to any uniform. Shots fired on the rooftop, men wearing gang colors, but then that call about Batman… down and injured. It could be a crank. God, please let it be a crank.

"Montoya, slow down!" Bullock wheezed behind her. His slouch hat was still dripping rain and he held his shotgun like he was about to fall down on it, but he still rumbled his way up each step. Renee paused on the landing next to the roof access, gun drawn, and noticed wet footprints heading down the stairs. Between the parallel tracks were prodigious drops of blood.

"Hurry up," Renee hissed. Outside on the curb, an ambulance was waiting for their word before they came up. If Batman really was hurt, then Bullock's tardiness could be the difference between life and…

"I'm here, I'm here…" Bullock took his place next to her. "Always thought the Bat could handle himself. This isn't going to do any favors for his rep."

"Shut it, Harv. On three."

Renee rested one hand on the doorknob, the other tightly clenched around her sidearm. Bullock nodded to her and she threw the door open. They piled out, Renee on the left, Harvey on the right.

"Police! Freeze!"

There was no one there. Even with no rain, the clouds remained dark and threatening. In the sun-starved darkness, it would've been hard to make out the man huddled under a black cape… if not for the pile of blood he was soaking in.

Renee was still processing it, still taking doubting baby steps forward, as Bullock raged into the radio for the EMTs to get their asses up to the roof. A shock of adrenaline hit Renee's system, like bang, and she took off at a run. She slid to her knees at Batman's side, finding the cut on his chest and pressing her hand against it to stem the bleeding. He looked pale and his face was swollen. If it had been anyone else, she never would've recognized him.

"Br… Mr. Wayne?"

Bruce Wayne coughed and said nothing.