Chapter Two
My eyes are tightly shut but I can still see him, I feel his presence in the left corner of my room. He's angry. He's sad. But most of all, he's disappointed in me. When was he never disappointed in me? He's probably thinking 'Why Jason?', 'What are you doing?', 'Why are you doing it?', thinking hard. He's angry, he's going to grab me out of my bed by collar, oh wait, no, he knows that wouldn't work on me, he's thinking about how he can show his sincerity to me, how he care…
Wrong.
He grabs me by my collar, he's not wearing his costume. He lifts me out of bed and pushes me to against the wall with his right arm against pushing against my trachea. I do not resist. I want to know why he is here, and if he believes he has the upper-hand, he'll tell me.
'Why did you do it Jason?!' yells Dick.
I'm glad it was him and not the Bat.
'Dick,' I say sighing, 'I know you haven't come by to have a little chit-chat.'
'This is serious, Jason. You've killed someone.'
I've killed before, I know I promised to stop killing but when it needs be it has to be done. So why is he taking this 'kill' so seriously? I'm pretty sure I didn't leave any corpses behind at the Penguin's HQ.
'I don't recall killing anyone?' I reply.
I stared into Dick's eyes, I saw the anger in his eyes die out, making way for his look of dread.
He pulls his right arm away and takes a step back. That hold hurt me throat but I won't let him have the satisfaction of knowing.
'Jase.' he starts, this is where the big brother card comes into play, pretending he cares for me, he only cares because we're forced to. 'You've killed someone,' he continues, 'he was only a kid an –'
Oh fuck fuck fuck fuck. I knew who he was talking about. But how did he die? All I did was knock him out. It couldn't have been that kid.
'd you killed him, Jase.'
The dread in his eyes turned to complete and total disappointment.
'Dick, I used rubber bullets,' I think I'm trying more to reassure myself more than reassuring Dick at this moment, 'I definitely didn't kill anyone… yet. But if you continue to break into my apartment and crush my trachea, I will kill you.' I look straight into his eyes as I finish my sentence. And I meant it. And he knew I meant it, he takes another small step back and relaxes his muscles and tone.
'Jase, before you left the Penguin's HQ you left explosives, right?'
'Yep.'
'That explosive killed one of his henchmen. He was very young, he didn't look a day over 17.'
'But I secured the room and grapple hooked out of there with the only other person in that area, the Penguin, under my left ar –' as I finish my sentence I realise what I did not previously see, whilst grappling out the kid must have entered the office, or at least its proximity range, and got hit.
'Yes but,' he then proceeds to recite to me what I've already just realised, 'he got hit by the blast and lied on the floor for 2 hours. He didn't die from the blast, he died from a piece of concrete falling onto his torso as a result of that blast, crushing his ribs and puncturing his lungs. He died in severe pain, drowning on his own blood.'
I drop his gaze and look down, I know what I've done. This shouldn't have happened. For once, I agree with Dick, I too, am disappointed in myself.
'I didn't, know he was there!' I shout to drown out his piercing words.
'Look Jase, I'm not going to bring you in. He was a henchman for the Penguin and I will take your word that you didn't know the kid was there.' But I'll need you to stop being the Red Hood for a while.'
I was about to laugh out loud if we weren't discussing the death of a kid.
'Who do you think you are? You're not him, and I'm not Robin and you're definitely not my brother.'
'Jason, that's an order. Lay off the hood and we won't have any problems.'
Dick climbs out of my window and grapples across the street.
What the fuck?