Summary: "He died so you could live! Doesn't that mean anything to you?" "It means everything." "Then why are you doing this?" "There are only so many roads you can take in life, Dickie; this is mine." That one night sent two brothers down different roads, struggling with the lines that blur right and wrong.

A/N: So this is an Under the Red Hood AU fic. I loved the movie, but I just kinda came up with this and had to write it down. Right now, the theme song is Unknown Soldier by Breaking Benjamin. Hope you like it. Let me know what you think.

Chapter One: Here's to the Fallen

Jason

Pain. That was on the forefront of Jason's mind. Not death, not escape, not even anger. Just pain. Jason could take a beating, take a punch and hardly stop long enough to care. He'd been kicked while he was down, gotten a broken nose and some busted ribs. He'd been stabbed on the streets a time or two – nothing life-threatening, but painful just the same – and walked away alright. He'd even been grazed by bullets on more than one occasion, but got back up to keep fighting. He could take it.

But being bludgeoned with a crow bar by a madman was something else entirely. The first few hits were bearable. But they kept coming. Hit after hit, wave after wave of fresh pain somewhere else on his body. The back of his head, the side of it, his jaw, his chest, his abdomen, his sides, his back. All had was pain. But he could take it. He had to.

There was lots of blood. Even breathing was painful. The son of a bitch was teasing him, playin with him. It was all a sick game. He asked something, and Jason tried to tell him something he could go do with his damned crow bar, but the words were trapped in his throat, only a faint whisper managing to pass his lips. Then his face was right there, rancid breath filling Jason's flaming lungs as he said something about one being collapsed.

Jason spat in his face, the saliva thick with blood. "Now, that was rude!" the Joker exclaimed, slamming Jason's face onto the floor before standing up to wipe the blood away with a handkerchief. "At least the first Boy Blunder has some manners! I should teach you a lesson so you can better follow in his footsteps." Beat. "Nah, I'm just going to keep beating you with this crow bar." And he did.

He supposed he could blame the Joker for his situation, but as easy as it would have been, he knew it was his own fault. He had been impulsive, taking off on his own into unknown danger despite Bruce's warning to be careful, to stake on his toes. He got cocky. And he got captured.

Jason wasn't the praying type. He didn't quite believe in God or Heaven. That night, though, he found himself screaming in his head for help to come, praying to ever god he could think of that he wouldn't die like that, bound on the floor and freezing, painted in his own blood.

Finally, it ended. Just like that. The Joker was babbling on, but Jason paid him no mind. He focused on breathing, in out in out in out, and laid motionless. It wasn't because he couldn't (though that was a distinct possibility as he hadn't tried), but he wanted that loon to think he was broken, beaten. Fallen.

Jason was never really one to give much thought to death, which was odd considering his line of work. He wasn't Superman. He didn't wear bullet-proof clothing. Any thug on the street could take him out in one shot, but that very real possibility never bothered him. But, there he was, right on death's doorstep. He thought about all the people like him who had lost their lives to men like the Joker. Hundred of thousands of them, human beings with lives and families and hopes and dreams. People who dared to stand or who found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time, or who simply got caught in the crossfire. He wondered what they thought, what they felt as they lived their last moments, drew in their last breaths, each and every one of them fallen. Like Jason.

"But, hey! Tell the big man I said, 'hello.'" The warehouse door slammed shut and Jason was alone at last. He let his eyes peel open. The door was right there, no more than a hundred feet away. That was his goal. The door. He could make it that far. The Joker wouldn't win.

Jason rolled over onto his back. Every movement brought new spikes of pain coursing through various places, but he gritted his teeth and pushed through it. Slipping his cuffed hands in front of him was easy enough; it was something Bruce insisted he learn to do in any situation. Then came the hard part: standing up. It took almost as much strength as he could muster to push himself up. His legs ached and felt like noodles. He couldn't find his balance. But he was up.

He took a step... and fell flat on his face. That was a set back, but he wasn't going to lay there and die. Jason lifted his head, eying the door. That was his goal. That was his mission, his purpose. Make it to the door. It's all that mattered in that moment. There was fire in his eyes as he used his elbows to drag himself across the freezing floor toward it. Streaks of blood painted his path.

Slowly, painfully, he made it. He made it. He reached the door. He reached for the handle, raising himself on his knees. His hand closed around it. It was almost painfully cold to the touch, but that didn't matter. He pulled it down... but it didn't budge.

No... It had to open! It had to! But it didn't. It was locked. The _ took his only hope, dangled it in front of his face like a chunk of meat in front of a hungry dog, and yanked it away, laughing as he did. That was so like him. Jason crumbled back to the floor, turning to lean against the wall. He would just have to wait for help to come. He lived that long, right? As far as he could tell, his wounds weren't so bad that he would bleed to death immediately – the bleeding seemed to have stopped altogether on some of the gashes – and he could breath, painful as it was. He had no doubt that Bruce would be there before too long, that he was already on his way. All Jason had to do was wait.

That's when he saw it. It was partially obscured in the shadows, beeping softly enough that Jason could hardly hear it over his own ragged breathing. It was a bomb. The timer read twenty seconds. Jason couldn't even think to be scared, just annoyed. Of course the Joker would leave a bomb and no way out. Of course. Jason was no longer waiting for help, waiting for Bruce. He was waiting for death.

Another sound ripped through the air, drowning out both the ticking of the bomb and his breathing. It was familiar and sent a swell of hope through his chest (who would have thought that such a thing could possibly be painful?). That was the sound of Bruce's motorcycle, and it was right outside, he could tell.

"Jason," he heard Bruce call, secret identities be damned. But with a collapsed lung, he could hardly call back. Instead, he lifted his hands over his head and started beating them against the wall with everything he had left in him. It was enough. The door burst open and the familiar looming shape of Batman stood over him.

Bruce picked him up gently. His face was a a hard mask. But he didn't know about the bomb. "Br... Bru-huh... Bru-gah!" Speaking was hard when your lungs didn't work.

"Shh. It's okay."

"No... Bah... bah-huhg... bahmmmm." Jason tilted his head toward it. Bruce understood. He looked over his shoulder at the thing. It only had five seconds left on it. Bruce didn't have time to think, he simply reacted. He sat Jason carefully on his feet and promptly shoved him out the door; running would have taken too long. Jason, of course, didn't have a chance of staying on his feet and went flying. He rolled down the embankment, every bump jarring.

By the time he reached the bottom, coming to a harsh stop against a barbed wire fence, he could hardly breathe anymore. Then he was deafened and blinded by the explosion. He just barely managed to put his hands over his face to protect it.

~OoO~

Jason must have blacked out after that, because when he woke up, he was was an in a soft bed. He still hurt like hell, but he was at least comfortable. He would have guessed he was in a hospital, but it didn't have the anticeptic-y smell he associated with one. In face, he could smell... what was that? Fire? Yeah, he could hear it too, crackling away in a fire place.

He really wanted to drift back into sleep, hope that when he woke up again, things would make more sense and he didn't hurt so much, but he could feel someone else was in the room with him – instinct honed over years didn't just turn off, even when you got beaten within and inch of your life. So Jason forced his eyes to open. The room slowly swam into focus. It wasn't anywhere he knew. It was large and lavishly decorated. Not even the rooms in Wayne manor looked like that. It was old money.

There was a woman sitting by his bed, quietly reading a thick book with a title in a language Jason either didn't know or couldn't decipher through what was undoubtedly a massive concussion. It took him a moment to recognize her. Talia al Ghul, a woman Jason had only met fleetingly through Bruce. Some old flame of his or something.

"Wha's up?" he asked groggily. His voice sounded like a meet processor, and didn't feel too much better.

"You're awake," she said in her smooth voice, pointing out the obvious. "How do you feel?"

"Peachy." Her gaze didn't waiver, she just waited for the real answer. "Like shit, but I'll manage." He decided against saying 'I'll live' because he honestly didn't know that. "Where am I?"

"You're safe. That is all you need to know." If he felt any better, he would have rolled his eyes at that lovely response, but he just didn't have the energy.

"Where's Bruce?" For a second, he held his breath. Did he really just say that? Then he remembered that Talia already knew his secret. And he realized he wasn't wearing his mask anymore, not that it would do much good as torn up as he was sure it had been.

Talia didn't answer, she looked down. Her face was unreadable (or maybe it wasn't, but Jason couldn't tell either way). "Talia, where is Bruce?" He forced himself up into a sitting position, ignoring the stabbing pain in his chest.

"I don't know. We haven't seen him in a week." Jason tried to understand that statement. A week? How long was he out? As if reading his mind, Talia said, "We found you in a very bad condition. We've kept you sedated since bringing you back here so you wouldn't impede your healing process and you wouldn't be in pain. Now that we are sure you aren't going to die and the internal bleeding has stopped, we decided it was time to let you wake." Well, that was one question answered.

"What do you mean you haven't seen him? Did he say why?" She wouldn't look him in the eyes. It didn't do much to reassure him. "Well?"

"Jason, Bruce is missing. We haven't seen him at all. When we found you, with Bruce nowhere to be seen, my father ordered the wreckage to be searched. All we found of him..." Her voice trailed off.

"Was what?" Jason demanded. She sighed and pulled something off the table. It was piece of singed black cloth. "What is-" It fell into a familiar shape. Bruce's cowl. "No... no, I don't- No."

"Jason... we'll keep looking, but... I'm afraid-"

"Shut up. He's not dead."

"Jason-"

"He's not. Just you wait; he'll show up." But even as he said the words, he couldn't force himself to believe them. "Just... just leave me alone." She looked like she wanted to protest, but she didn't. She just stood and walked for the door.

"Get some rest; your body is still recovering and rest will make you heal sooner." And then she was gone and Jason was alone. The reality of that statement crashed over him like a tidal wave. He was alone in a mansion (or so he presumed, based on what he knew about Ra's al Ghul) with people that could decide to kill him just as easily as they decided to help him. He was alone in a country that spoke a language he didn't. He was alone and in pain and in no condition to fight back if more hell broke loose.

And, if Bruce was in any condition to function properly, he would have contacted them or something. He knew Ra's was there, he would be the first person Bruce would ask. That could mean one of two things: Bruce was unconscious or incapacitated somewhere Ra's and his men hadn't yet checked or found (which after a week, wouldn't be a very good thing); or he was, as Talia suggested, dead.

But, after everything, how could Bruce be dead? He'd survived so much crap, many would believe he was invincible. He was the freaking Batman, for God's sake! But he was also a human. Nothing more than a man who had honed his body into a weapon. Not invincible, not invulnerable. Just a man who fell, just like Jason.

Batman had fallen, and it was all Jason's fault.