When Jason had his first life-and-death situation, he'd been six years old and he still had his mother doing fuck-all at him getting beat up his drunk father. The fight was blurry to his memory, he remembered it involved a knife somewhere. That explains the jagged scar on his shoulder, and the cut on his eyebrow. While he fought his dad, his mother had been cowering in the corner, high on drugs.

He loved his mother, he really did even if she's not his real one - adults are really gullible, they just loved to talk about you when they thought you're asleep - and he understands her why she's doing what she's doing, he knows she can't help it. He tried to convince her to stop for months-years before she OD'ed, and she did. A year later after he almost died at his father's hands and a few months after the police found his father dead on the streets, hundreds of puncture wounds found on his body, by a small knife they said.

Jason thought his father would be in jail instead of dead, maybe guilty because of child abuse - what was he hoping anyway? It's fucking Gotham - or because of his job being a meathead for Two-Face, a fucking psychopath, Jason heard from the rumour mill. Beat up a random kid to death with a baseball bat in front of a crowd, and dumped the kid into their mother's hands. He wondered if his dad got the idea from his boss, or the opposite.

With his mother gone and his father dead, guess what fucking happened to seven year old him? You guessed it, a shithole orphanage. And because it's a shithole he ran away after two months in that shitty place, it's better on the streets than that. At least, he met Batman after two years on the streets. Jason was pissed at him at that time, because the fucker did put him back in the orphanage after he helped him with a small drug bust - maybe Batman was angry at him for stealing the money, but he's a kid on the streets of course he's going for the money - but he got his revenge anyway, by with stealing his tires, what fucking idiot parked their car completely unattended. The alarms he set was pretty good but not good enough to stop Jason from disabling it, he knew working at a garage for a few months would be worth it. The event ended with cryptic words of "You're a good kid, but you could do better and more with someone to guide you." And Jason getting off the hook with nothing. He'd at least hoped he get the tires to sell for food, what an asshole.

Jason completely forgot about that night two days later in favour of focusing on surviving in this shithole of a city, he pushed the memory to the back of his head, he figured he wasn't that special because hundreds of kids met Batman every night.

Maybe he was, because why would fucking Bruce Wayne himself suddenly adopted him? At first, Jason never suspected Batman was involved, not until he found the Cave three months living in the manor. Bruce, still in costume was there to witness him in his glorious Superman pajamas standing there, laughing his ass off because the face on Bruce was priceless.

An argument, a hug and some cookies later, Jason convinced Bruce to train him and five months later Blue Jay was born.

Being a vigilante, he expected several life-and-death situations while in costume. But him being an idiot, never expected it to come while being the ward to fucking Bruce Wayne and has been for four years. He should have expected it and Bruce should have at least tell the press he's been into defense lessons if he knew kidnapping attempts are spiking.

And if they did, Jason wouldn't be here, in civvies, defending himself with a silver tray against an owl-themed assassin with fucking tiny knives, aiming at his vitals.

He's sure their fight went so far from the ballroom to the empty hallway, that's good. He could-"Shit!" The assassin tripped him and pushed him inside a room, they blocked the only exit with a chair as Jason recovered from his fall. Silver tray still held defensively in front of his chest, kind of pathetic if you ask him.

The assassin let their arms down, "Please, I won't-"

Jason took that as an opening, he threw the silver tray at the assassin's head. It didn't affect shit, the assassin caught the flying projectile with ease and then dropped it to the floor.

"Please, stop-"

Jason sprinted and tackled the assassin, he grunted when he felt a jab to his stomach as they both fell onto the floor. He immediately pinned the - surprisingly short - assassin to the floor and ripped off his mask,

"You're a kid." He blurted out. The assassin glared at him - blue eyes, back hair and creepily looked almost like Bruce - and roughly threw him off.

He scrambled towards the door but the other boy grabbed him and threw him to the other side of the room, his growl was cut short by a knife at his throat.

"Please, calm down. I mean no harm to you, Jason Todd-Wayne."

Jason really couldn't help but snapped at the assailant, "Yeah right, you have a knife at my throat, you caliin' that 'no harm'? Does attacking me earlier called 'I came in peace'?"

"I'm sorry, but with my partner in sight, I had to."

"Partner, what-Oh, shit, Bruce! I have to-"

The assassin pressed the tip further, drawing blood. "No, don't. Wayne will be fine, Batman arrived sometime during our fight, it will be not long before he find us here."

Jason swallowed, B's coming, that's good. "Okay, if you and your partner wants to kill us, why aren't you trying to kill me then?"

The knife retreated and dropped on his lap, he stared at his supposed murder weapon with both eyebrows raised. "What-"

"I want you to kill me."

"Wait, what?" He stood and angrily shoved the knife back at the other boy's chest. "I'm not going to kill you."

"Please," He pleaded and aimed the knife at his heart, tears pricked the edges of his blue eyes. "I've had enough, it hurts so much, please, kill me-" The boy kept on rambling about how real the Court of Owls is, about how cruel they treated people like him, about how many kids died to be a Talon, about how they wanted to kill Jason to get on Bruce and Jason could only watch him with wide eyes, "-I don't want to be like them, I don't want to kill anyone, anymore."

"What, but-"

"Please, Don't let them make me-"

Everything happened so fast.

The door exploded and the other assassin burst out, he grabbed to knife and aimed it at Jason's chest. It grazed his chest instead when a batarang knocked it off course, he then suddenly felt someone pushed him to the side as he heard the sound of clenching and warm liquid sprayed on his face. Both assassin crashed through the window and for a moment, Jason saw the boy's bright - despite everything they did to him - blue eyes met his green ones. The other boy smiled at him despite the blood on his lips, and his mouth moved,

"Thank you."

.

Bruce met the boy dozens of times before, glimpses of him saving kids from abusive adults by killing them, but never face to face. He stopped seeing him a month after Jason was adopted, he dissappeared.

Back then, Jason never wondered who killed his father.

Now, he knows.

.

"Are you mad?"

"Not at you."

"Did you knew him?"

Bruce didn't bother to glance at him and continued to type away on the computer, a file of a missing child - Richard Grayson - displayed on the screen. "Yes."

.

.

.

.

Shit, the Demon Brat and Replacement haven't been kidding. White skin, blue veins ran up from the neck towards the eyes - those bright eyes are finally gone - are unmistakeably the characteristics of Talons he's been killing through the night. But it's him, Richard Grayson.

"Sebastian Hady, the Court of Owls has sentenced you to die."

Hastily, Red Hood reached his knife and clashed with Richard Grayson.