Author's Note:
This took so long to write! I'm going to be honest, I struggled a lot with this because how do you twist the most infamous of DC's many plot lines into something new and different yet still keep the characterisation similar enough that it's recognisable and keeps the emotion that it's famous for? I rewrote this 3 times. For me, that's almost unheard of: I get an idea, I write it and I stick with it, but not this time.
There are parts of this that I'm not particularly proud of or happy with and if I had more time or motivation I'd edit it more but I wanted to get this up before I'm swamped under assignments again and have no time for anything. I hope you enjoy it anyway and if you cry, I've done my job (but please don't cry too much).
As always, research notes and slang translations are in the end notes so check that out if you're interested. Scream at me in your reviews or on tumblr at storm-leviosa-fanfics
A Parting of the Ways
Jason hated the snow. It was pretty sometimes, sure, but roofs were slippery in winter and the cold seeped into his bones. Before Batman, before Bruce and Selina and high society, winter meant shivering under a scrap of blanket with Dick and Timmy and hoping the cold and the damp didn't kill them off this year. Even Christmas was miserable. Where was a group of street kids meant to get presents and roast goose from? New Years Eve was better: the crowds perfect for pick-pocketing and the vendors were normally in good enough spirits to feed them if they smiled. But now Jason was Magpie and it was February. Parties were long behind them and there was nothing but the end of winter to look forward to. Now there were criminals to catch. There was a woman down there to rescue and Bruce was so slow; time to take care of the problem himself. Leaping down from the rooftop behind the prospective mugger in that way that made his cape flutter just so, he swept the man legs out from under him and gave him a sharp punch to the jaw. The woman gasped in fright as they grappled and pushed herself back against the wall. Dickie bird was there, finally, and he left the criminal to him, helping the woman to her feet and escorting her to the street corner. The gaslights were on there and it was a much safer path to take. "It's not safe for a young woman like yourself to walk the back alleys alone," he told her, "I could walk you home if you'd like." She shook her head and removed her hand from his arm. "I'll be alright, really, he took me by surprise, is all." He turned, ensuring his cape flared dramatically, and winked. "Be careful, ma'am, and have a safe journey home."
He and Dick made it to the rooftops with little trouble. The city from above was … different, beautiful in its own way, and it was from this angle that Jason truly loved Gotham. The feeling of the wind rushing past him with Dick and Bruce at his side had no equal. "Where'd B go? He don't normally leave us like this." Dick peered over towards the roof of the police precinct before he answered. "Got called away by the bat signal, dunno why." Nothing appeared to be happening on the streets; the night had been quiet so far. "D'you ever wonder if we're actually making a difference? We put away the same lot day in and day out and we do a bang up job, sure but they're out again in a month doing the same stuff they always have. And then you've got the Hatter and Firefly and the like and they kill people, Robin, they'll always kill people and we just let them go half the time. It never ends."
"So, what're you gonna do about it? Kill them?" Dick scoffed but he was listening and there was sympathy on his face. There was a flash of a cape on the roof opposite and they stood.
"Let's go find B."
Batman wasn't happy. To most people, Batman was an emotionless rock of a man: silent, brooding and irrepressibly violent. To Robin and Magpie, he was like any other person just one that took a bit more effort to read than most. Now his jaw was set in anger and his brow furrowed with concern (Dickie liked to try to smooth the wrinkles in the cowl's leather when he pulled that face because Dickie was a maniac with no common sense). He was facing Crime Alley which he only did when something momentously bad had happened. Crime Alley was a constant reminder that it could always be worse (Jason tried not to be offended by this but sometimes it was hard going). When Batman was like this he wasn't going to talk until they were back in the safety of the cave. Without a word, he swung down to the street below and, without a word, Robin and Magpie followed. This was the way of things. It was frustrating and it was ridiculous but it was useless to complain when it was Batman (otherwise known as the stubbornest man alive). The Batmobile was still parked in the shadows where they had left it and Batman barely waited for the two boys to settle themselves before speeding off towards home.
"Harvey Dent has disappeared." It had taken over an hour for them to get Bruce to talk but finally, with the aid of Alfred's hot cocoa, he had begun to open up. "They think he left the hospital a week ago and now two men have been killed by a man matching his description. The Commissioner told me tonight." Jason had only met him once, at a gala, and had thought him stuck-up and pretentious. Selina hadn't much liked him either. Bruce had been friends with him since their boyhood: rich, uptight boys who grew together into rich, uptight young men. It had been Harvey who had, unknowingly, fueled Bruce's pursuit of justice above all else. But even the Batman had been unable to stop the revenge of the guilty. It had been the Maronis that had organised and orchestrated the attack but, while they were now in Blackgate, Dent had been disfigured beyond recognition. To think of him now as a psychopathic killer? It was difficult for anyone to comprehend, let alone someone who's life was so intricately entwined with his. "The witness said he decided their fates using a coin: heads they live, tails they die, perfectly balanced, fair. Sounds like Harvey to me." Tim was flicking through the file, brow furrowed in concentration.
"What about the other witness? The report said two died and two got away but there's only one witness testimony here." Bruce grabbed at the file and wow was he wrapped up in this case. Jason didn't think he'd ever seen Bruce this wound up before. Sensing they were no longer wanted, he stood and dragged his brothers away with him. Maybe they could get cracking on another case while the boss was distracted.
When Jason was small and he still lived with his mother and father, there was a little girl who lived next door. Their father's were friends and sometimes they played soccer in the street with an ancient rubber ball. Her name was Elsie and her clothes were even more patched than Jason's, her hair more ragged, her hands dirtier. Their street had no standards. So when the man came and offered to take Elsie away - and pay money to boot - everyone was surprised her mother turned it down. Mary Johnson had a husband in prison and no prospects. She had no way to support herself and a growing child. Elsie and Jason became closer and closer as her mother spent more and more time away (and Jason was old enough now to know exactly what she was doing) and Elsie spent more time running wild. The second time the man came back, he left with Elsie in tow. Jason never saw her again. In Gotham, it wasn't hard to guess what had happened to her. She was his first friend until, five years later, he teamed up with Dickie and Tim on the streets. He'd been lucky. Many children were not. It wasn't by any skill of his that he had been saved from Elsie's fate. Magpie gave him a chance to save the children that circumstance had stolen their innocence from, to stop the endless cycle of death, destruction and crime. But they couldn't solve this case. Missing children, stolen children, grieving parents and dead ends. All their investigations had amounted to nothing. Even Timmy had uncovered nothing and he was the closest they had to Bruce's detective skills. They couldn't give up. If they did, even more children would disappear and no one would know what had happened, there would be even more Elsies.
Jason didn't understand why Dickie got to patrol with Barbara while he was stuck with Bruce. He'd bet his brand new copy of Jane Eyre that they were having a great time, racing across the city, stopping crimes together. Meanwhile, Bruce had that furrow between his brows that meant he was bothered by something and he was brooding in silence from atop a gargoyle again. It was enough to drive anyone batty. In every sense of the word. He was bothered by the trafficking case, Jason knew, and Dent, but this was crazy. Bruce needed to get a grip. A movement from the corner of his eye stole his attention: a bruiser dragging a blindfolded kid along. He spared one backwards glance at Bruce, who was still lost in thought, and slipped away in pursuit.
Despite the darker colours of his suit, Jason wasn't anywhere near as subtle and sneaking as his brothers. He'd hit a growth spurt a few months previously and was still growing used to his new size. Sometimes he lost his balance and had to scramble on the roofs rather than roll with Dickie's gymnast grace. So what? He wasn't going to be all flamboyant and bendy like Dick? At least he could punch hard and kick harder. Besides, he was stealthy enough to hide from criminals. This tomtug had no idea he was being followed. He could hear the little boy's fear as he pleaded with the thug who had him. "Please, mister, I ain't done nothin'. I ain't got nothin'. Let me go, mister, please." It was another Crime Alley kid, one who probably wouldn't be missed, or at least not enough to hit the papers. He wanted to grab the kid, to kick that monster in the balls and hook it till he found a safe place to stash the kid so he'd be safer, but B had taught him the value of waiting for all the evidence. Chances were, this was that kidnapping ring they'd been hunting for the past week and a half. If he followed them to their base, he could rescue all the kids and stop their kidnappers. And so he followed. He kept his distance and made as little noise as possible. Finally they reached the warehouse district (why was it always the warehouse district? Did criminals just like warehouses?) and he had to be more careful, stick closer, stay quieter. And there, right on the waterfront. That was where they were going. He watched through binoculars as they got let in, made note of identifying features: a scar through the right eyebrow of the door man, mole on the left hand of the kidnapper. The door shut behind them. It was time for Magpie to find the back entrance.
Dropping down from the skylight to a suspended platform, Magpie could see stack of wooden crates, each with a number stamped on the top. A gaggle of men hung around the door while the little boy was forced into a crate indistinguishable from the rest and added to the pile. There was no noise from the other crates which worried him somewhat but it didn't matter. He crept closer to where the men were talking among themselves, blissfully unaware of Magpie lurking above them. "Boat ships out tomorrow and we ain't got as many as last time. Do you think he'll still pay upfront or wait for the shipment after?" Jason wished he had some kind of sound recorder so he'd have a copy of this conversation. As it was, it was time for some action. Jason wasn't flamboyant or showy like Dickie, he didn't laugh or flip, he just dropped straight down with a snarl of rage and didn't pull his punches. To their credit, the men didn't seem all that startled or afraid to suddenly find a vigilante in their midst; they rolled with the punches, too. Maybe Dickie was right to make himself a moving target: he couldn't punch or kick hard so he'd make it fast instead, and a moving target was harder to hit. It was 6 on one and they weren't going down. He swept the leg from under one and he bounced right back up, punched one hard enough to break his nose and he kept right on coming, blood streaming over his mouth. One grabbed Jason's arm and he kicked him in the chest, felt the rib bend and crack under the force, but the man didn't even flinch. Jason was down, held by arms as thick as his thigh (and he was proud of his thighs), while the thugs discussed what to do with him. "We could add him to this shipment, make a pretty penny."
"You off your nut? You think he'd stay put?"
"Tie him up and dump him in the river. No one would think to find him."
"And have Bats on our tail? I don't think so."
"Well what do you suggest then?"
The man approached him and the arms around Jason lessened their grip. He had a rope in his hand and Jason wondered briefly if he was going to toss him after all but instead he was tied to a pole by the wall. They pulled a sack over his head and Jason only had time to complain inwardly about the smell of mouldy potatoes before the beat down started.
He didn't really remember much of it. Every hit seemed to blend into one until each second was an unending hour of pain. He wondered if Bruce would think to look for him: he hadn't left a note. That was his collar bone. Were his ribs bruised or actually broken? At least they hadn't aimed for his face yet. He didn't scream, couldn't scream, and he wasn't sure if that should worry him or not. Through the pain of his beating and the muffled grunts of the men, he thought he heard a low whistle, alternating long and short. That would be Dickie but he couldn't reply without giving him away unless… He rapped on the metal pole four times with his fist and heard Dickie whistle back an affirmative. Then Bruce was there, wreaking havoc on his captors, and Dickie was untying the knots around his arms and legs, catching him a he staggered. "The kids," he gasped out as Dickie tried to drag him away, "they're locked up in those crates by the wall." Jason was stubborn and no amount of cajoling from Dick was going to get him to leave without fulfilling the mission. They let the kids out and Batman dealt with the police when they came to apprehend the traffickers.
It was Batman who returned to the cave, not Bruce, and Jason knew that was worse. His ribs had been bandaged, his bruises iced and his arm put in a sling when Batman stormed in (and Jason knew why that was a phrase now because with that look on his face there was no other way to describe it). "Explain," he ground out and Jason babbled. He'd always tried not to be intimidated by the Bat, Dickie saw him as a father and Timmy was easily cowed but ultimately more comfortable here than he had been among the dippers, dollymops and bludgers of the streets, but when it came down to it he remembered his roots and remembered that he'd come from the same stock that the Bat hunted down every night. Jason babbled and he told Batman about the case and how he'd gone looking for the culprits because no one else was and he wouldn't stand for anymore kids disappearing when he could do something about it. He told him about the little kid, so like Jason when he was tiny, and how he'd followed them to the warehouses, how he'd tried to fight them off so he could free the kids they'd captured. Recounting how they'd spoken of selling them off like slaves when slavery was illegal, he spun the tale, told him how they just wouldn't stay down and how eventually they'd got him tied up. Batman's face did not change. There was not the slightest flicker of sympathy or anger and suddenly Jason was furious because this man was supposed to be his father and he didn't even care that he could have died! He just sat there in his chair, the desk between them seeming like an ocean, and let no emotion in. Jason was shouting. He knew it wouldn't help, knew it would make everything worse, but he couldn't help it. Maybe it would somehow penetrate his thick skull that he, Jason, mattered. When his words ran out and he stood panting with his hand braced against the desk, Batman stood and told Jason to take off the mask and go to bed. There would be no pat on the back tonight, no fond nicknames and careless teasing, just cold words and a harsh rebuke.
Bruce ignored Jason the next day and went out as Batman alone that night. Jason was sure that Dickie stayed to keep an eye on him and make sure he didn't follow. Bruce's lack of trust rankled him and he stayed angry at everyone, choosing to read in the library rather than go to his lessons and avoiding any room where people were. Even Barbara was not immune. When she tried to engage in conversation, he would retreat to a different room. Selina tried to coax him out of his mood but was largely unsuccessful, though she did succeed in getting him to the dining room for Sunday lunch and into his Sunday best for church once he'd cooled off a little. Like Bruce, however, Jason was very capable of holding a grudge and was stubborn enough to refuse to admit fault when he didn't feel it justified. In this situation, Jason would not back down. He had done the right thing. Would Bruce rather he let those kids get shipped off to who knows where? So he refused to apologise and Bruce refused to rescind Magpie's forced leave of absence. Jason just trained more, got better, learned to punch harder, move faster. It wasn't enough. Every night Batman came home in a worse mood than the night before and everyone knew why. Two Face, as he had been dubbed by the Gazette, was still on a rampage against Gotham and Batman seemed as incapable of stopping him as Jason was of pleasing Bruce. Dent had kidnapped two policemen, cut off their left hands and sent them back to the GCPD in the mail. He had dangled twin baby girls off the clock tower and Batman had swooped in to save them just moments before they fell to their deaths. He shot Dickie through the shoulder while he was taking on the gangs and when Batgirl came to his rescue, he beat her so badly she had to take three days off to recover. That was the final straw.
Magpie left after Batman and tried to avoid running into him on patrol. He knew that Batman was also hunting Two Face but B had had his chance to sort him out for good more times than he could count, he'd put him in Blackgate twice and he'd escaped both times. Magpie was going to finish this. He'd spoken to Dickie and Barbara and consulted Timmy for some final thoughts on where Two Face was hiding and had tracked him down to a pair of identical houses in Gotham Central, opposite Crime Alley. He saw the man as he was leaving. The fact that he'd had enough time to commission a suit with exactly one half white and one half black told Jason that despite his best efforts, Batman just wasn't doing enough to put this guy away. He was blinded by his old friendship, with the hope that he could rescue the man inside. Jason knew enough about the kind of people in this part of town to know that wasn't true. Two Face could hold a candle to the devil, he wasn't even a man anymore really. Only the monster was left.
He'd thought long and hard about how this was going to go down. Every scenario had been turned over and discarded and returned to and twisted into the ultimate plan. Two Face didn't deserve a quick end. A gun was therefore out of the question. If he dropped down and beat him, like his usual MO, he would probably fail. So, he needed something that worked from a distance but took a long time, something that would make him suffer. He'd mulled it over for a long time. Then he'd remembered the files on the League of Assassins. Bruce had trained with them before he was Batman and everything he had learned there was written down in a series of hefty files in the cave. It hadn't taken long to find what he wanted.
Two Face was attempting to rob the bank on 22nd Street when Jason confronted him. A confrontation wasn't part of the plan but there was anger pumping in his veins and now he knew what being Batman felt like: constantly hunting down vengeance, justice for the oppressed. He secured his line and swung in from the roof opposite, heedless of the screams of the respectable people wandering the streets. It was Two Face and two henchmen: nothing too hard for him. He didn't care about the henchmen anyway. Two Face seemed surprised to see him but that just made Jason's plan even easier. He started the fight, punched and kicked with all his strength. For Dickie, for Barbara, for Timmy who wasn't out on the streets yet but was still in danger, for Bruce who shouldn't suffer any more than he already did. And Two Face wasn't fighting back that hard; he kept moving back, wasn't throwing punches and Jason noticed from the corner of his eye that the henchmen had all run off. Two Face was smiling. Something was wrong here, something definitely wasn't right. He was beating Two Face halfway to hell and back and he was smiling. He looked briefly around him but saw nothing out of the ordinary. His heart was pounding too hard to hear anything but he could rely on his eyes, surely? He'd backed Two Face into the wall, put his knife to his throat, and Two Face was still grinning, still laughing. "Go ahead," he chuckled, "do it. We both know neither of us are getting out alive." He sucked in a breath and heard a subtle, steady 'tick, tick, tick.'
No one knew where Jason was. No one realised he was missing until Bruce returned from his patrol. He wasn't in the house, he wasn't anywhere on the grounds, he wasn't in the cave. Bruce suited up and left again, fuming about irresponsible children who couldn't follow instructions. Barbara started to follow but was stopped in her tracks by Bruce's scowl of fury. The roar of an engine cut the air of the cave as Batman left for the second time. The Bat-signal hadn't been lit yet which was promising but that didn't mean that nothing was happening. He sped down the cobbled streets, searching for the trouble that had always followed Jason like a plague. It wasn't long before he found it. A crowd of that size outside the bank normally meant that everyone got paid at the same time by accident, that the stock market was crashing or that something bad was happening inside. It didn't take much to guess which it was. For once, there was a policeman trying to control the crowds and Batman asked him what the problem was. The man was a stuttering mess when faced with the Batman but managed to gasp out that Two Face was inside fighting with Magpie. Through the windows, he could just make out the dark shadow of Jason, battling Two Face backwards up to the wall, saw him put a knife to Dent's throat. He saw the pause, saw Dent speak and Jason look around wildly. Their eyes connected through the glass. He saw something in Jason's face harden under the mask, saw his resolve and knew what he was going to do. He stepped forward and saw Jason shake his head, heard his sudden cry. "You gotta hook it, B, he's gonna blow us sky high." His heart stopped. The people who had watched so eagerly before were now running in a panic. He was rooted to the spot, watching in horror as his son waited patiently for the end. And Bruce could do nothing but watch.
Death always has consequences. The media had a field day with Jason's 'disappearance' and the sudden attention destroyed already fracturing relationships. Bruce had locked himself away leaving Dickie, as the eldest, to deal with the reporters. Performing was in Dick's blood; he stuck to the lie. Grief is a strange thing, however, and where Bruce retreated to the cave and buried himself in the mission; where Timmy focused on some secret project of his own; where Selina took to the streets in protest of any injustice she could see, Dick couldn't distract himself. Rather than bury his emotions behind the cold walls of his mind, he channeled it into the fight. His fight wasn't just with Gotham's villains either. He spent hours in a screaming rage, begging Bruce to think about his actions, to show some kind of remorse for the awful situation he'd placed them in, to grieve. Bruce remained stoic, gave away no hint of emotion. It only riled Dickie up more. Where the house was once filled with laughter and joyous chatter, it was now overrun with silence and punctuated by anger. Dick left.
Batman had teamed up with Nightwing twice when he first noticed the shadow following him. How he hadn't noticed before was a mystery but his tail flitted from building to building like a ghost and took down enemies sneaking up behind him with brutal efficiency. He was reminded of Jason in his early days as Magpie, when he'd drop down out of nowhere and scare the criminals half to death before punching them in the jaw. There were differences of course, impossibilities (like the fact that Jason was dead, his mind supplied) but the similarities were there and that was enough. The shadow didn't reveal itself until Batman almost knocked the head clean off a pick-pocketing sneak thief. There was a hand on his arm, small and warm, and a voice in his ear. Not the rough, abrasiveness of Jason's Gotham tainted slang or even the light, loud cheeriness of Dickie's childhood speech, but the cool, smooth lilt of Timmy's upper class refinement. "You know he wouldn't want this." They went home that night safe. Bruce's death toll still numbered zero and Timmy took over the role of the light to Batman's darkness. Another thing Jason wouldn't have wanted but a lesser one than preying on his own people.
When Jason woke up, it was dark. He didn't know where he was, didn't know who he was really, and he was scared. There was no light in this waking nightmare and all he could smell was thick damp earth and slowly rotting wood. He could not see the tip of his nose. He tried to move his hand, just to move it to his face, just to make sure he was real, and pain exploded in his whole body. Fire rushed through his veins, down to the tips of his fingers and the ends of his toes, screaming in his head with unparalleled volume and intensity. He thought that maybe he would die of such pain. Surely it could not be possible to survive it? When it died down to a constant aching throb, he tried again. His arm his a solid wall above him. He hit it again, experimentally. It made a dull thumping noise and a sprinkling of dirt fell onto his face. He stretched his arms out to either side and they only moved a few inches before they too hit a wall. He strained against the lid of his confinement. It did not budge. More dirt fell on his face. He scrambled at it, searching for an edge, a crack, anything. There was only some wooden paneling. His nails tore and bled as he scratched at the wood. Had he been buried alive? Was he dead? Was this hell? Jason started to scream.
Deep in the desert, a boy trained with a sword. He had been practicing for hours and the midday sun was burning the back of his neck but he knew how to ignore discomfort. He was tired but ignored that too. His opponent was taller than him, a young adult: well built and tall. The boy was faster though and had been training in the art of the sword since he was old enough to lift one. His opponent was new to his training, recently brought into the fold and healed by Grandfather's generosity. The boy knew this because his eyes were still tinted a bright, toxic green and his fury was unmistakable. It was the first rule that the boy's tutor had told him: 'don't fight angry but if you must, channel it into something useful.' This man hadn't learnt from Nakayama Hakudō as he had, wasn't fighting with a blade of Damascus steel. The idea that he could win was laughable. The boy weaved and blocked a stroke (too fast, sloppy) then sprang forwards in an attack. The man stood no chance. "Up," said the boy, with his sword under his opponent's chin, "Grandfather will not be pleased if you have not learned to fight acceptably by sundown." The man stood, collected his sword, and began again.
Author's Note:
Nakayama Hakudō was a real life Japanese swordmaster (one of the last before it was converted to kendo, according to wikipedia) and has a list of accomplishments as long as my arm, figuratively speaking. He's also from roughly the right era, if a little later than ideal, and would absolutely have been good enough to train our little assassin child. Damascus steel is highly prized, really rare and the best metal for making swords. The method has also been lost so a sword of Damascus steel wouldn't just go to anybody (I wonder who the boy could be...) I did genuinely look up whether bombs had been invented despite knowing that gunpowder had been around for centuries and that dynamite was invented by the guy who founded the Nobel peace prize back in the Victorian era and found out that apparently in the early 20th century, bombings were very common, especially in New York. I also spent way too long looking up types of poison (yes the knife was poisoned but even I don't know if Jason was going to use it) so I guess I'm on the FBI watchlist now?
Now for the translations:
- A bruiser is a boxer, a street thug, someone who beats people up, you get the idea
- A tomtug is an idiot or a fool (thanks horrible histories)
- To hook it is to run away, very fast
- Dippers, dollymops and bludgers are thieves, prostitutes and violent criminals respectively
- To hold a candle to the Devil is to be completely and utterly evil
And that's that!
Next time we'll get a nicer story, maybe with a little of everyone's favourite murderous assassin and some more of Tim and Barbara probably. I have planned this out, I promise.
Let me know what you think by leaving a review to keep me going through the dark days of essay writing.