Notes: Don't expect the next one to come as quickly, I had very productive holidays - unfortunately finished now.
Hopefully, you won't have to wait two months again, though!
Chapter 4
Why "the Red Hood". Jason had hesitated a long time before answering to Babs' question, but considering what had happened to Jim, she deserved an answer – independently of their own history. Of course, it was bound to be incomplete, but Hell.
After having answered at last, he decided to distract himself by doing something more directly good for once. This was more Batman's stuff, but Batman never went far enough, so he could as well take the matter into his own hands.
He had heard of a club offering special services. It had taken a while before confirming it but the girls in service weren't from around here. Actually, they were imported from Far East, mostly Korea and Thailand. Though their fake papers put them between 19 and 23, Jason wasn't positive how fake they were.
He had been digging intel for some time and was finally ready to make his move. Incidentally, the matron operating the whole thing answered to Black Mask which meant putting them down would be entirely funded by Maroni: two birds, one stone.
Jason made himself ready then went straight to the warehouse where the girls were held outside opening hours. The last shipment had arrived a month ago so security wouldn't be as severe as when fresh prisoners had just arrived. By now, the girls were subdued into obeying.
He gritted his teeth and slipped inside.
There were about ten guards; the rest of the hired muscle was on the other side of town to bring last week's money at the bank, directed by the matron's first lieutenant. The matron herself, Mama Chow, was in her office at the top of the warehouse with three more thugs serving as bodyguards. They would be ready to evacuate her at the first alert, so he had to play this one smooth.
His first sleeping dart caught a guard right at the neck. He fell without much noise. Jason grappled him, tied him up, then hid him in the false ceiling. He had to act quickly; next round would relieve this group seven minutes later.
He caught the next two together, chatting at a corner instead of going their own way. Number four was at the upper section of the warehouse. Jason got number five just in time, straightening up his pants while coming up from the basements, where the cells were hidden. Spoiling the merchandise, mh? Maybe Jason was doing him a favour by catching him instead than letting the boss find out. Or not.
He had forty seconds left. Good. There was a vent going from the main room to the resting room. Jason could only get in the first half, after which the conduct narrowed, but it was close enough for him to throw the sleeping grenade in the last section. In no time, they were all asleep. It took him five more minutes to tie them all up and hide them with the others.
Now, the big fish. Jason didn't need to bother with subtlety anymore but, since he had started, he could as well go on. He well intended to burn the whole place around the mobsters as soon as the girls would be evacuated. Those scums deserved to be alive when that would happen.
He walked up the stairs, careful not to make it creak. The office's door opened in one big kick. The bodyguards didn't have the time to react before being put to sleep. The matron's horrified expression was like balm on Jason's mood.
"Hello, Chow. 'afraid this is payback."
She opened her mouth. He didn't give her the time to talk – one line had already been already indulging himself. She fell on the ground like the others, gracelessly.
He tied them all up efficiently then took the time to bobby-trap the main entrance, the back door and the hidden way in, in case her lieutenant came back early. Only then he browsed her files for evidence, just to confirm what he already had on her.
He assembled the whole lot in the main room, now rigged with explosives, and headed downstairs for the girls.
That's when surprise struck. There was always a moment like this, even in the best prepared operations. Someone going off routine, a door locked, a lover in the closet.
The girls were in the basement alright. Most of them were pregnant.
"What the hell…"
They looked well taken care of, too, despise their haunted eyes. The cells were clean, they were warmly clothed, heating was on, beds and armchairs available.
"Is he a new one?" he heard one of them whisper to another in Korean.
Not the language he mastered the best, but he could manage.
"I'm an enemy of this clan", he said, loudly enough to be heard by them all. "I have no business hurting you. Do any of you have papers?"
The girls froze, mute. Some of them obviously hadn't even understood, so he repeated in Thai – with an even worse accent, hopefully understandable enough. The girls still didn't dare to react.
Then, after several seconds of silence, the one who had whispered bravely came forward. She looked like one of the oldest, maybe 22 or 23.
"They took them" she said in Korean. "Even opening these doors won't bring us freedom."
"Some of their money will be made available to you", Jason answered. "Those who'd rather stay and burn with them can make that choice."
People had to help themselves. Or ended up gothamites. He would give them a chance, not force them out.
"Enough money for this?" the girl said, putting her hand on her own rounding belly.
Jason didn't answer for a while, thinking hard. He had to find money and fake papers – but for so many people? There were easily thirty to forty girls, most of them visibly pregnant. No wonder they had needed new shipments so regularly. And the kids…
There were no kids in sight. Either they were held somewhere else or, most likely, they'd been sold. Hopefully for adoption. Jason didn't want to think about the alternative. They were too long gone for him to find them.
That's when his phone started ringing. The music echoed strangely in the silent room, out of place.
He took a look at the screen. It was Babs. How did she know he needed help? He picked up.
"Yeah?"
"The Joker escaped."
Jason froze. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.
"And that concerns me… because?"
"I just thought it might." The artificial voice sounded especially flat today. "Considering."
Then Jason realized what Babs had just done. She had called a rogue vigilante to friendly warn him that someone who probably was his Nemesis – considering his name – was free. The same Nemesis who had put her father in a wheelchair. And she probably did so before calling Bruce.
She wanted him to take down the Joker.
He slowly digested the realisation. Then looked up to the girls, who were staring at him expectedly. Hell.
"Sorry, beautiful, I'm currently not available for the party. I kind of have a bigger problem on my plate right now."
"Bigger than him?"
There was no mistaking the rage in her distorted voice. At lot of rage. Jason felt himself shiver. He knew that kind of anger only too well. It drove you to get up in the morning to keep fighting, to bite at helping hands, to smirk at life, to hate everyone and yourself not to be better.
Shit, Babs. You were better than this.
"About thirty-five pregnant Asiatic women without ID, not talking English, in a warehouse. Does that qualify? Just send the Bat. For now."
It was a promise, which he hoped she heard. Not that he was sure he could take in the clown, who still regularly appeared in his nightmares. But – anything to wipe that rage from her voice.
Another pause.
"Robin should be able to pull some strings for the papers", she finally said. "First priority would be extraction. Do you have a place?"
"Yeah, but it wasn't supposed to handle emergency births."
"Bring them there, I'll send someone."
Dr Thompkins, Jason expected.
"Roger that. We should be there in 30. I'll send you the coordinates."
He hesitated. Taking the warehouse down would destroy any chance, however slim, to find the sold kids. He let out a sigh.
"The boss and her men are still alive. Send someone here too. Her first lieutenant is at Gotham Merchants Bank for a deposit. I think we still have fifteen minutes before they realize something is wrong."
"Hood, I don't know how it goes in your book but around here, when the Joker is on the loose…"
"Fuck the Joker", he interrupted. "If nothing exploded yet, he'll vanish for a few days to decide on a plan, before sending some kind of love letter to the Bat. Those people need help now."
He felt her hesitation. Then she swore.
"You're the worst son of a bitch… Alright. Location in 30. I'll take care of the lieutenant. »
"Send me news", Jason demanded, before hanging up. "Let's go" he said, switching back to Korean. "I'll have people take care of you all."
"Why should we trust him?" asked a woman to the one who had taken charge, not daring to talk to Jason directly.
Thankfully, the kid wasn't stupid. She gave a truthful, no-nonsense answer.
"We don't. But he seems better than the alternative."
***Barbara tried hard not to nibble her fingernails like her 9-year-old self used to. This was absurd. The Joker was out and they were running around to help the Red Hood.
And yet… Yet she felt alive. They were helping people, actually, actively helping. The contrast with her previous rage was stunningly relieving.
The rage, however, was merely buried – and not very deep. Because. The Joker. Was. OUT !
She breathed in, deeply. It was okay. He would soon be locked up again, safely back in Arkham. He would only have the time to, let's say, kill a dozen people in the meantime. Or put them in wheelchairs.
Damnit. She had to stop thinking like that. She hated to admit it but Bruce wouldn't know rest as long as the Joker was free. He would find the freak and stop him – at least for some time.
Anyway, he would as soon as the women would be safe, and the case closed. Bruce had actually accepted Robin's suggestion to call Nightwing back from Bludhaven to take it out of his hands even sooner, which was… astonishing didn't cover it. The Joker was that important.
It had taken thirty minutes to convince Bruce to let Robin out to pull the necessary strings to the creation of so many IDs, too. Tim had been even more eager to help that he'd known this would be his last time out for a long, long time. And had nothing to do with his current investigation on the Red Hood. Of course.
"I'm there!" the young man's voice declared in the com. When you thought of the Devil… "He's left already though" Tim added, to Barbara's relief. "My Korean is rusty at best… Oh, wait! You talk English? Good."
One of the women had approached him. He was able to give them the first information and to assure them medical help was on its way.
"Give them a com link", Barbara said on an impulse, not really believing she was doing this.
"What?" The kid sounded startled. "Is it really, err, appropriate?"
"Not for them to keep. For him."
Someone had told her, not long ago, to trust her instincts. The Red Hood wasn't a good guy. He had no reason to come back there. And yet, she had a feeling he would check on those women. If so, he deserved a more direct way to contact her. More official, too.
"As you wish", Tim agreed. "Someone isn't going to like it, though."
She loved how the young man himself didn't seem to mind at all, accepting to do as she asked without even wincing.
"Someone doesn't have to know."
"He already does", Tim pointed out rather truthfully.
"Then he should mind his own business", Barbara huffed without much hope.
She listened to Tim while he gave those last instructions, then followed his route through his mask, just to make sure he was making it safely back. When he arrived at the Cave, Bruce was out and Nightwing already there.
"Hello Robin!" he grinned. "So, on the bench until he's back in Arkham, huh? It was the same back in my time."
Not entirely true, but Barbara guessed Tim didn't need to know that.
"It's alright", the current Robin answered, and Barbara could hear his shy smile in his voice. "I'm not really ready to make much of a difference. But I'll help from here!"
"Optimistic of you", Dick laughed without malice.
"Oh, I'll help", Tim assured. "Trust me."
Barbara smiled, cutting the feed. Their new little bird wasn't as timorous as they gave him credit for.
Then she realized she was, indeed, smiling. Robin had finished the job Red Hood had started, just by being himself. The rage as forgotten – at least for today.
***Maroni wasn't as bright as he thought but he still wasn't stupid.
"You're supposed to stop the Bat, not to make friends with him."
Unfortunately.
Jason didn't shrugged, unfazed. He was back at the office at the Italian restaurant, sooner than he would have liked. This was a necessary though annoying conversation.
"He's a tool like anybody else. I was planning for a boom, though."
"He had you run away", the mob boss commented.
Jason couldn't help but to laugh. It sounded sincere, enough for Maroni to look unsettled.
"Let him think he can have me running away", Jason said.
The mobster looked at him intensely. He didn't manage to figure out Jason, which was fine – he could keep wondering as long as he played along with the game.
He probably thought the same of Jason.
"Very well, as long as things keep going as planned, who am I to complain?" Maroni said, like an echo to Jason's thought. "I would prefer you to concentrate on the matter at hand, though."
"Batman will become your first priority as soon as your power is restored", Jason pointed out, even if the mob boss certainly didn't need the reminder.
"Indeed he will", Maroni didn't try to deny. "But currently, he'll be busy chasing the clown. With luck, they'll end each other."
Wouldn't all mobsters in town party if that ever happened. But it wouldn't. Bruce wasn't going to kill, ever. Jason was starting to think his reaction wouldn't have been any different if Dick had been the one dying.
Now, that was a weird idea.
"Anything else?"
Maroni waved him away, going back to his papers. Jason slipped out, knowing the mobster would go back downstairs in the restaurant as soon as he would find himself alone. He left papers to his assistants, preferring to handle people than numbers. And he was good at it, too.
Well, it was still only 3 in the afternoon. Jason went back to his lair to face his latest dilemma, in the form of a still inactive com link.
He had been only half surprised to realize the Korean girl who had taken charge actually spoke English. She had listened to his whole conversation with Barbara, all the while pretending not to know anything about it, and had only dropped pretense when Robin had shown up. Apparently, the name was known as far as Korea – and was more reassuring than someone wearing a red hood. Figures. She thankfully had not commented while giving him the device.
Now it was lying on his table, unused.
Jason had never imagined getting one back, not even after realizing who Oracle was, not after receiving her phone number, not when he hadn't been arrested though she knew his hiding place. Yet here it was.
It was the promise his voice would be heard, the promise of backup – the possibility for him to be called, too, to help someone else.
That she would give something like this to a killer told a lot about how Gotham had changed in the past two years.
"Are you going to take it?"
Jason cursed internally for being taken by surprised. Had it been an enemy, he would have been dead by now.
"Talia."
The beautiful woman walked out of the shadows, graceful, lethal. She hadn't changed since last time he had seen her, little before coming back to Gotham.
"I didn't know you were in town", he said, removing his helmet to look at her face to face.
"I merely was in the neighborhood and decided to check on a friend. I didn't expect to find this."
"I don't intent to go back to Batman's feet, as you well know."
She smiled. Men killed to see women like her smile – which proved how little survival instinct most people had.
"I didn't suggest you would. Having a master isn't always a bad thing, however."
Jason snorted.
"Drop the recruiting talk. Having me as a sidekick is no picnic, anyway. And I prefer to work alone."
"You're going to throw this away, then."
Jason glared at her. He probably was one of the very few she allowed to survive such a glare, but then, they had history. And she knew this was how he acted with everyone.
"Stop pushing."
She laughed, coming closer. Maybe she liked people defying her authority. She knew it wasn't an actual challenge. Jason was good, but she could still twist him into a bretzel if she wished to.
"I'm just kidding. It feels good to see you so much better."
Jason sighed, bowing his head slightly. She had nursed him back to health, even using the pit against her father's order to bring him back and for that, he would always be grateful. Whatever her reasons had first been.
"Is there anything I can help you with or this really is a social call?"
She smiled again, her dangerous, snaky smile.
"It is. I had thought that maybe… But you settled right back in. I must say, this suits you much better than the Robin uniform ever did."
He carefully hid his internal wince. Regrettably, she knew him too well for that to work. She put a hand on his shoulder, delicate like a flower, strong like a claw.
"You made it yours, but it restrained you. This, you created yourself. You are unstoppable."
Damn that woman. He resisted the urge to grab her for a kiss. She let the moment last, this possibility hanging in the air like a perfume. Then she took a step back.
"Do call me if you ever feel the need. I am but a phone call away."
"You will pardon me not to make the same promise."
She smiled, indulgent, as if the idea of her ever needing him was highly amusing, before melting back in the shadows. Jason waited politely for her to be gone before reactivating his security system, patching up the opening she had found to shut it off in the first place.
When he left for patrol later that evening, he grabbed the com link and put the audio in his ear.
***Barbara was trying to concentrate on her day-work, but despise her best efforts, thoughts about her other life kept creeping out. She pushed herself for a few more minutes before surrendering and put the register back at his place, sitting at the computer instead.
As expected, there was no relevant news: the Joker had been loose for two months now without anyone finding as much as his shadow on a wall. She had received a distracting message from Dick who explained how annoyed he was to be back at the manor.
"Not that I mind Alfred's care at all", he wrote. "But I feel like someone is frowning at me each time I make a decision. And Bruce isn't even there."
Because he spent his days looking for leads and his nights in the Cave was left unsaid.
"I'm worried for Tim", Dick concluded. "His dad might have woken up from coma but he isn't well, and Bruce is being worse than usual. Tim, of course, only worries about him."
Ah, Robins. Barbara sighed. There wasn't much to answer to Dick's email. He probably had not intended to complain, merely writing to amuse her before his worries had taken the upper hand.
"Italian tonight?" she suggested. "Tim is welcome to come along."
The kid sure needed the distraction. She had seen his trace about everywhere she was looking herself. Being forbidden to get out on the roofs as long as the Joker wasn't back in Arkham, he had little other to do but to look for information through the Net. And he was good, too, better than Dick had been at his age.
She checked her other mail box.
The mail she found there was empty but for a triple X. There was a file attached. She double-clicked to open it, and smiled. Those were all Maroni's blackmail files on Gothamites upper class.
She had work to do.
