Welcome back! So, this is another chapter from Dick's PoV, coming in at a little under 7k. It's mostly a set up chapter, and an in between to not skip a huge section of time, but watch out for the twist at the end. Have fun!
Warnings for this chapter are: Just the general unpleasantness of being a Talon, nothing specific.
"Come on," Jason wheedles, half a grin on his face. His green-blue eyes are slightly narrowed, challenging, and he's moving backwards along the corridor in front of me, matching my pace. "Just once."
"It's not a particularly good idea," I repeat, for probably at least the hundredth time. "What would it prove, anyway?"
"I just want to know," the younger Talon says, repeating the same talking points he's been using for the last couple of months. "You're holding back, and I want to know what you can really do. Come on, Dick, fight me for real, just one time?"
I raise an eyebrow for his benefit, giving an outward sign of the tiny stirring of bemusement in my chest. Tamped down under years and years of repression, for my own safety, but enough for me to feel it. It might be me slipping, but I can't help but almost appreciate the small bursts of emotion Jason is capable of inspiring. I'll admit, training him is quite the project. I've felt more in the months since I met him than I can remember feeling in the last eleven years or so. Emotion is a weakness, it's dangerous, but I think I like it.
Jason's good, there's no denying that. He doesn't have the same natural acrobatic ability that I do, but considering I spent my first years as part of a circus, that's not surprising. There pretty much isn't anyone that has my kind of acrobatic skill, no one I've met anyway. Not even Bruce was as good as I was, though part of that was definitely his metal suit. It's easier to move without that kind of weight holding you down. What Jason does have is impressive instinct, when it comes to fighting. My ability to predict what people will do, and how they'll react in a fight, comes mostly from the length of my training, but his seems to be entirely instinctive. Even when I switch things up during our spars by taking my style of fighting and flipping it around, he still reacts correctly more times than not.
To be honest, it's nice to be training again. At least, the softened version of what Bruce called 'training'. Exercise isn't the same, and there was only so much I could do to keep my skills intact by myself. I was a little rusty, I knew that. Going up against Jason is forcing me to hone myself again, to get back to the peak of how good I was. It's also interesting relearning how my own body works. When I hit my growth spurts I adjusted my exercises to compensate for the added height, mass, and muscle, but I never really got the chance to figure out how it would translate over to fighting. It's small adjustments, but important ones.
"A real fight?" I echo, slowing my pace a touch to give us a little more time before we reach the large common area of the Jokester's underground base. "I'm training you, what's the hurry? We'll get there."
Who knows? When I get him trained to the same level I am, more or less, he might actually be able to teach me a few things too. It's hard to say if Bruce trained us identically or if we each have skills or moves the other doesn't, but if we have any differences then we can probably learn from each other. If nothing else, Bruce might have changed a few things during the four years I was 'dead', and Jason might know them. Even if he didn't, Jason is still a good sparring partner, and we could theoretically figure out some things between us.
"I want to know how far I have to go," he argues, and then his grin gets a little wider. "What, afraid you can't handle me if I really go at you, Dick?"
I'm starting to figure out Jason's methods of attack, including those that are only verbal. When persuasion, however brief, is ineffective, he goes straight into manipulation. Goad an opponent into attacking, into doing what he wants them to in response to his challenges and taunts. Against anyone else, I'm sure it works wonders.
"Not particularly," I reply, adding a touch of dry sarcasm to my voice. It's actually kind of freeing to be around people that don't require me to act. The Jokester's group knows who I am, what I am, and of course Jason has a better idea than any of them. I don't have to act like a normal person around them, put up the facade of Richard, or Grayson, or whoever I decide to be for the day. All of that has been purely manual for a long time — my natural state is a blankness that rivals Bruce on his coldest days — and what little emotion I still feel doesn't have any effect on that. It does mean that I have to choose to change my expression, or tone, to give them some idea of what my mood is like, or what my words are intended as. I don't mind that, not when the exchange is not having to keep up the — honestly exhausting — task of behaving like a normal person.
"So then, what? Is there not anything else, are you that rusty?" I glance up, over his head and towards the heavy metal door behind him that we're approaching, as he continues. "Four years is a long time; I guess it's understandable if the great Grayson has lost some of his skill to inactivity. Hm?" He stops right before the last step, the one that would have had his back hitting the door, and his grin lowers to a small smirk.
I mirror the expression, and Jason's flickers in response, gaze immediately transferring to studying in the second or two before I speak. Trying to figure out the change, what my angle is. "I suppose you can find out," I counter smoothly, "if you can get Harlequin to agree to allow it."
His eyes widen a little, and then he gives me a nasty scowl. "That's not fair," he nearly hisses.
"Was fair a requirement?" I ask, letting one corner of my mouth stay in that smirk. If Harlequin had final say — and since we're basically living off her charity, she pretty much does — she'd never let what Jason wants happen. She doesn't even like the training we're doing now, and that's about as tamed down as either of us can work and still gain anything. Any slower, or gentler, and I'd never be able to teach him anything.
But a real fight, even if we keep our sparring rules? No way. She'd definitely try and kill me if I went at Talon with everything I'm really capable of, or at least do her very best to hurt me in some fashion. I am, after all, not Jason.
Most of the Jokester's group are content to ignore me, and I actually prefer that, but the Jokester and Harlequin — especially her — have taken up what almost seems to be some kind of parental role. Mostly for my younger replacement, Jason, but, to a lesser extent, for me as well. But as much as that might apply, not that I really understand why they're even bothering to try with me, it will certainly not protect me if I go after their new, younger charge.
Perhaps it's the lack of my kind of history with them, or perhaps it's just that youth seems to be the ultimate blind spot for heroes, but they've certainly taken a real liking to Jason that isn't mirrored in their interactions with me. I'm waiting, fairly curiously, for the day they really grasp the fact that he is a Talon. I wonder if this newfound protective streak will survive that realization, or if they'll develop the same strained, distant kind of connection they're trying to make with me? If I thought just telling them would make a difference, I'd try and remind them of what I know Jason is capable of, and the things he's doubtless already done. Bruce wouldn't have ever allowed Jason into the field if he wasn't sure that my replacement could torture, or murder, without hesitation. But even if my word was one that held any real weight to the Jokester, or Harlequin, words don't seem to get through to them.
They'll realize, eventually.
To some extent, Jason is my responsibility anyways, not theirs. After all, I'm the one that convinced him to betray Bruce, and in doing so to permanently set himself on one of the most dangerous hit lists out there. Right now, as far as I know, the word among the other heroes and villains will just be that Owlman's latest Talon vanished. He might be presumed dead, it's not an unlikely fate, but Bruce won't have given out any official information. He'll want Jason dead before anyone figures it out, or he says anything about it.
Having his first Talon die was one thing, but having the second straight out turn on him? I might be at the top of his list — if it comes out what I did, there will be some serious hell to pay — but Jason comes in a close second.
I got my replacement into that situation, even if he is the one that technically chose it. He didn't have much of a choice to speak of, not really. He didn't escape the Jokester's gang when given the chance, and didn't immediately leap to help when Bruce went after me. Regardless of his injuries at the time, those aren't things that Bruce would have forgotten, or forgiven, easily. I honestly don't know how bad the punishment would have been, but given my own past experience I'd say bad. Extremely bad.
In light of that, even if it was Jason's hesitation, it was me who really convinced him to turn. At least my presence, if not my words. With that kind of fate waiting for him, how could he choose anything but to cast in his lot with me?
He scoffs, rolling his eyes, and turns his back on me to open the door. It opens out, and I take a step forward and towards him as it swings fully open.
"Surprise!"
I tense reflexively, my weight rolling back onto my heels in preparation for some kind of escape, before the situation registers in my mind. Jason jerks back at the same time, colliding into me with slight pressure, as his shoulders draw forward into the beginnings of a combat stance. He realizes what's going on just after I do.
The bright colors are generally normal for the Jokester's group, but the multi-colored party hats are most definitely not. A fair amount of the gang is here. The Jokester and Harlequin, of course, but also some members of the group that are generally more sporadic in their appearances. Especially around me and Jason. Harvey Dent, Croc, Ivy, Enigma, there's even the slim figure of the doctor that their group uses, Leslie Thompkins. All wearing hats, and looking varying degrees of enthusiastic.
Jason takes a cautious step forward, not quite relaxed but no longer on the edge of leaping into combat. "What's going on?" he asks, slipping through the open door. I follow him, but halt inside the arch of the doorway.
Harlequin and the Jokester share an honestly confused looking glance, before she answers the question. "It's your eighteenth birthday, sweetie!" she announces, and though I can't see his face I can see the reaction in Jason's muscles to the statement. They lock for a moment in surprise, and then he eases out of combat readiness, straightening up the last inch or so.
"Birthday?" he echoes, sounding more confused than anything else. "Is it August?"
"The sixteenth," the Jokester says with a wide grin, confirming it. He steps forward, holding out his hands, with one party hat in each, to the two of us. The one he offers Jason is a dark green, and mine a dark blue. Did he actually color coordinate, or did we just get the luck of decent colors? "We're having a party for you, kid! Cake, presents, the works! Come on!"
Jason takes his hat with slight hesitation, and I shake my head at the Jokester's expectant look towards me. He shrugs, and easily shepherds my younger replacement into the crowd of heroes with just a little bit of Harlequin's help. I watch them, glancing around the common area and seeing, as promised, a rather large cake — that I honestly don't know how they got down here — and a pile of wrapped presents. They head towards the tables, chattering among themselves and, mostly, around Jason as opposed to with him. Not in exclusion, but because the younger ex-Talon is silent. The hat is still in his hands — I doubt they'll get him to actually wear it — and he's, at least to my trained eyes, obviously feeling something like discomfort. He's back to that same level of tense, on guard but not committed to a fight yet.
I know why, but does the Jokester know what he's doing? When you become Talon you cease being a person in the true sense of the word. Weapons don't have names, and they certainly don't get praised for their deeds, or for the date they first existed. I have no idea who Jason was before Bruce found him, or what his life was like, but I do know that for the four years he spent under Bruce's heel, celebration simply wasn't something that occurred. A party would never have happened.
Even I, as the public figure of Richard Grayson, didn't get birthdays in the sense of a celebration. They were for show, and attending them was work just as much as training. Worse, sometimes. I have some memories of parties from my time before Bruce, but they're fuzzy, and I try not to think about that portion of my life any more than necessary. Jason might have clearer memories since he was older when Bruce found him, if he had a life where things like this happened, but it definitely isn't something that he's used to. At least, not anymore.
Having attention focused on him, being celebrated purely for existing, and being given things without expectation of either investment or return? Those are impossibilities in a reality like the one he and I know.
I step fully into the room, closing the door behind me, and make my way to the table they've gathered at, around the enormous cake. There's some cheering, and a rather loud whoop of laughter, as the first slices start getting handed out to people on small cardboard plates. They're still talking, laughing, and I observe the easy interactions with curiosity. Clearly, the Jokester's group truly is what he'd called it when he initially invited me to join them. Family.
Harlequin comes up to me, offering me a plate with a small smile. "Care for some?" she asks quietly, beneath the chatter from the others.
I shake my head. "No, thank you." The smell itself is sweeter than anything I want to try putting on my tongue, and I feel my throat clench a bit in reaction to just that. The cough builds in the back of my throat, but I hold it in until she turns back to the group before raising one hand to smother the burst. Luckily, it's one I get under control fairly quickly, not prompted by anything other than the muscles of my neck tensing, and I head for a corner of one table and away from the main cluster of heroes.
The tickle at the back of my throat is persistent, a constant hitch of my breath on every inhale. So minuscule that I know no one else has noticed — only partially because I'm absolutely sure they would have mentioned if they had — and that I'm only aware of due to the feeling of it. It's not dangerous, easily manageable to someone who has as much practice dealing with injuries as I do, but it is mildly concerning. I don't like anything happening to me that I can't control one-hundred percent of the time, and this definitely qualifies.
Initially, the damage from Bruce's chemical attack was catastrophic. Agonizing pain, and the inability to do anything more than lie still and carefully draw each breath past it, as slowly as possible to not set off another coughing fit. Most of that is gone, and what remains is small in comparison.
A slight, but apparently permanent, rasp to my voice, and that hitch to my breath.
Just under seven months after injury, if it's August now, long enough for all trace of every other injury from my fight with Bruce to fade, but those two symptoms persist. In fact, the hitch is slowly getting worse. It catches me by surprise sometimes, in the moments my attention lapses, and while I can always get the coughing under control fairly quickly, the fact that it happens at all is a problem.
Unfortunately, it's not something that I have any immediate solution for. I know the damage didn't fully heal, and I know that for some reason it's getting worse, but without a medical examination from a professional, or the tools to do one myself, I'm in the dark as to how bad things are. Or, more importantly, if it can be fixed. But with Bruce out for my head I'm pretty much confined to our underground safe house, and making my way to a doctor would be pretty close to suicidal.
I take a seat, letting my gaze rest idly on the others as they settle down to eat. Jason looks a bit lost, but it only takes a few moments for him to take a first bite of the cake. He's still not quite part of them, but at least that's his own decision now, not one of theirs. I don't think the less naive members of the group really trust him, but I also honestly think they'd be fools to, with no absolutely concrete proof. Then again, I don't trust anyone fully. If I place even a little bit of trust in someone, I make sure I know exactly what their motivations are, and have a plan to take them out just in case. Paranoia maybe, but in Gotham, and under Owlman? It's really more like healthy defensive tactics.
Even if I could avoid Bruce, which is a slim chance, there's a whole list of other things that would be a problem. Getting caught on a camera, pretty much any camera, would mean Bruce would have me. Anyone recognizing me would be almost as bad. Sure, one person claiming they saw the dead Richard Grayson might not spark many inquiries among the actual news, but for Bruce? Same problem, he'll know. The odds only get worse when I consider having to actually then find someone to conduct the examination. Even if they didn't recognize me, having someone come in with as many scars as I have is a huge red flag. I'd rather Bruce not know that I was looking for medical help, that might clue him in to the remnants of my injury. If he doesn't already suspect.
There is the doctor that the Jokester has looking out for him, the Leslie Thompkins sitting two tables away from me, but that won't work particularly well either. Usually they go to her, and that once again raises the issue of my inability to be anywhere public, now that Bruce is looking for me. She does come by here, but in this seven month span that's happened twice, including right now, so it's not something I can count on. Besides, she only came with basic supplies the one time she came for an actual wound, and my injury is internal. She'd need whatever machines she has in her clinic to give me a diagnosis, not just emergency supplies.
Lastly, there is the issue of the others. If I'm going to investigate how bad this injury is, I'll need to do it quietly. Harlequin will overreact, turn the slight inconvenience into some massive crippling thing, and there's absolutely no need for that. It might be something I need to have checked, when possible, but it isn't nearly as bad as what she'll turn it into.
The other person that will be affected will be Jason.
If the remnants of my injury get revealed to the group, to him in particular, he could panic. This is getting worse, however slowly, and it's not particularly clear how far it might go before easing, if it ever does. Being left alone with the Jokester's group might not be a terrible fate for him, eventually, but he likely won't see it that way. Not yet.
He needs more time.
So, if I talk to Dr. Thompkins, I'll also need to be sure that it stays between the two of us. Considering my background as Talon, and my unfamiliarity with the doctor and how I might have affected both her and her practice during my time as Bruce's weapon, I have no guarantee she'll be willing to do that for me. The two times that she's looked me over I was firmly unconscious, and she was long gone by the time I woke. When she came down here that single time, I was around, but she was focused on stabilizing Dent and barely spared me a glance. She's looked at me this time, but not much more than that.
And if I do talk to her, what then? Assuming she agrees, I'll still have to plan to get out of here, up to wherever she works above ground, so she can do a real examination. That's exceedingly dangerous, though I imagine that given these heroes' usage of her as their doctor they must have some way of getting to her outside of Bruce's surveillance. If not, she would have been killed a long time ago. Bruce would never have allowed someone to help them like this, she would have become a public warning not to involve civilians in their fight, and, to the rest of Gotham, that anyone helping the Jokester would meet a slow end.
She wouldn't be the first. Most people only survive helping the Jokester's gang — or any other hero that comes by Gotham, for that matter — by virtue of then becoming one of them. Harlequin is a rather prime example of that phenomenon. The others, if Bruce ever finds out, don't live long. Though I have to believe that there are a fair amount of civilians that have helped them and gone unnoticed since, after all, it's hard to think that they've managed to get everything they need to live — food, mainly — without at least some help. I suppose the ones that have been caught are the unlucky ones, or the ones that didn't take the right precautions to avoid Bruce's close attention. Not that many of them would have the faintest clue how to do it the right way, most people don't have that kind of casual information.
I'm probably the only person who really knows how Bruce works, and what it takes to keep someone truly safe from him. First hand experience, after all.
I spent most of my career as Talon studying Bruce's methods so I could escape him, and I doubt Jason was that focused. He won't have the same detailed information that I do, or the same knowledge of exactly how Bruce tracks the people he wants to find. Things have likely changed some in the four and a half years since I escaped, but I'm still probably the only person with anything close to that much information. The locations of security systems, and knowledge like that, is outdated and useless now, but everything else should be more or less intact.
The Jokester's gang might be accomplished heroes, but their evasion of Bruce is equal parts teamwork and scrounging. It's not tactical, and they certainly don't have the need to hide as well as Jason and I have to. They might be thorns in his sides, but they aren't the direct threats to his reputation that we are. They don't have the skills needed to protect Jason for long, and honestly I don't think that my replacement has the temperament to stay hidden down here forever, which will make things harder.
That's something else I'll need an answer for.
As far as I'm concerned, I'm fine with hiding Jason and myself for the rest of our lives, or Bruce's. I'd like not to tempt fate, or to put myself squarely in the center of my ex-mentor's sphere of attention. But what does the younger Talon want? Does he want to spend the rest of his life in hiding, can he even tolerate that? If he can't, which side does he want to join?
Jason can stay a criminal. Granted it won't be nearly as high level, since he'll need to stay out of Bruce's way, so it won't be particularly pleasant, and he'll need to keep his head down for the rest of his life, but it is one plausible direction he can take. The same path exists as a civilian. The inability to take any kind of job where an ID is required limits employment to small, under the table jobs, and among those, only the ones not dealing in places with too many cameras. I lived that life. Not particularly glamorous, but it was enough to keep me going.
Then, of course, there's the last option.
If Jason wants to, he can make no attempt to hide. He's young enough, and doesn't have enough of a reputation as Talon, that he could take his skills and join up with probably any group of heroes he wanted to. He's not recognizable as Bruce's sidekick without the suit and mask, if you aren't clued in enough to match up the black hair and specific skill set, anyway. Most heroes might be good at fighting, or working as a team, but most aren't amazingly observant.
That might be the most dangerous choice but it's also, interestingly enough, probably the safest. Among a group of heroes is a good place to be protected, even if it does throw him right out into the open. What it absolutely does mean is that we'll have to go our separate ways. No group of heroes would ever agree to take me on as a member, with the possible exception of the Jokester's, but staying in Gotham is just asking for it. Unlike Jason, I am well known. Even if people didn't recognize me as Talon, my particular set of talents is a very distinctive one, and that would betray me. The years of aging did do a decent enough job of changing me, and I don't look much like I did when I was Bruce's protege, but it still won't be hard to attach me to my previous identity. Especially if any hero caught me with my mask off, and given their ideas of camaraderie that's not an idea that's very far fetched.
Jason can get away with it but I can't, unless any set of heroes, still excepting the Jokester, is forgiving enough to accept me, and honestly I doubt that will happen. Even if I hadn't gained a reputation through Gotham itself, I did enough damage outside of it, to heroes and villains alike, that it's likely neither side will consider me worth risking themselves. What kind of worth does my word have, among those who consider themselves paragons of justice, and light? I'm a killer, a murderer, regardless of the reason I did it. I doubt that any of them will ever take a chance on Owlman's weapon, the Talon that was sent to disrupt so many of their plans.
I never truly considered it before, there was no need to, but I suppose my previous escapades did give me quite a crippling hand of cards to start with in my new life. Even before I came back for the Jokester, and Bruce realized I was alive, I still had to behave as though my old mentor was looking for me. In addition, the things I did as Talon have successfully alienated me to either side of the never ending skirmish war. I'm too damaged and bloodstained for the heroes, and the rare few villains that might be willing to go up against Bruce are also the ones that would probably torture and then kill me, just to deny Bruce the satisfaction of doing it himself. Not exactly an enticing option.
The Crime Syndicate might present a semi-united front to the civilians, and against heroes, but coming from inside of it, I know better. They don't outright fight, that would leave them far too open to their enemies, but they aren't anything like real allies either. They help each other as far as they have to, to keep the others from being defeated and taken out of play, but never for free, and never if it isn't worth it to them. Bruce, out of all of them, probably did the most for others. The information he could get, or the favors, were usually worth the effort of helping, or sending me to help. Sidekicks got traded around a lot, as extravagant weapons to be loaned out for use by other people. I was a valuable asset, so I spent a fair amount of time working under other villains.
Bruce, as Owlman, is far too useful a sometimes-ally to the other villains to risk antagonizing him by taking me in, regardless of how useful I am. Most villains wouldn't be willing to chance what Bruce could do to any of them. Identities, blackmail material, a straight out attack? Bruce could do any of that to almost anyone, it pays to be well connected.
I suppose, at least for now, there's not much that I can do. I'll have to wait until I get a chance to speak to Dr. Thompkins, alone. There's no telling how long that might take, and then how long it might take to get up to where she works. Assuming, of course, that she both agrees to help me and that it's somewhere I can get to without too much trouble.
After that I'll need to know how bad the injury to my lungs is, if it's treatable or will heal naturally, and what Jason intends to do. Preferably in that order. Without that information, my plans aren't worth creating, yet. Anything I consider now will likely not even resemble the final plan, once I have my required information, so thinking about it is really just a waste of time. There's not much to do but wait for the opening I need, and take the time in between to teach Jason whatever I can.
He's finished with his cake, looking moderately more relaxed than before, and leaned back in his chair, watching the conversation around him as the others finish their own pieces of the dessert. Jason glances back in my direction, and I meet his look when it turns to me. There's something considering in his eyes, an internal calculation not unlike the one he gets in our spars. For once, I have no idea what he's thinking about. I raise an eyebrow, doing my best to ask a silent question, and he turns back to the table.
"How did you know?" he demands of the assembled heroes, cutting through their small talk. I can only see about half of their expressions from my angle, though reading Croc is usually an exercise in futility anyway, but the gazes I can see flick to Dr. Thompkins.
"I looked you up," she answers, a smile in her voice, even though all I can see is the back of her head. "Black hair, blue eyes, first name Jason, there aren't too many kids in Gotham that fit all of that. Jason Todd, you ended up in my clinic a few times when you were young, before you went missing. I had your information on file, including a birth date."
Oh, I do hope she was careful. If Bruce finds out she looked up the name of his latest weapon, she's going to end up dead really quickly. Or part of the Jokester's gang, I suppose.
Jason nods, tapping his fingers against the plastic of the table he's sitting at, and I can see his shoulders rise a fraction of an inch with tension. "Then why not do this for Dick?" he asks sharply, in a tone that is highly accusatory. The silence is absolute, and I watch with mild interest.
So, this was what the look was about. Jason did the math. We've been here seven months, and my own birth date is the twenty-first of March. I've had one birthday come and go without a word while the both of us were first recovering from our injuries, I'm twenty now, to his eighteen. It's not like Jason's case, either. They might have had to look him up, but I was publicly adopted by Bruce, so as the heir to Wayne Enterprises my birthday was a largely public thing. It's unlikely that none of them would have known, or that it just slipped all of their minds. Jason knows, after all. It's far more likely they just chose not to do anything, since I'm certainly not in the same spot in their minds as Jason.
I really, honestly, don't care that they ignored it. I haven't looked forward to a birthday since I turned six and Bruce found me, it hadn't even really occurred to me to think about it. Ticking off another box in how old I am, that's all it's meant to me in a long time. Clearly, for some reason, Jason doesn't view it with the same lack of importance. I don't mind being more or less ignored by them, in fact it's actually something that I find refreshing. No expectations, no careful studying; I'm free to just live in whatever manner I choose.
"Grayson isn't in the same category as you," Dent hedges, his tone just shy of flat out hostile as he glances back at me.
Jason's shoulders stiffen, and he shoves back from the table and to standing. None of the heroes completely react to the sudden, threatening gesture, but some do tense a little bit, and the heroes to either side of his chair, the Jokester and Ivy, slide back a few inches to not be fully trapped against the table. Good instincts all around, really.
"What makes him different than me?" Jason snaps, hands in fists at his sides. "Why do you treat him like a threat, and me as a kid?!" His anger, the emotion that with Jason is never far from the surface, comes back full force. I admit, he has a point, though I understand why this particular group of heroes doesn't trust me in the slightest. I'm probably only here because I'm the key to getting Jason to stay as well, and because they've got definite proof that Bruce very much wants me dead.
Harlequin follows the younger ex-Talon to standing, raising her hands in a placating gesture. "Jason, it's not like that."
"No, it really is," he counters. "I'm not a kid. I was Talon, and Bruce nearly killed Dick! Did you miss that, or are you ignoring it?!"
Harlequin trades glances with a few other people at the table before answering. "It's hard to trust someone who's done what Grayson has, Jason, that's all."
"What makes you think I haven't done the same?" Jason spits out, and I can physically see the flinches of the heroes. "Don't like to think about that, do you?" he asks viciously. I should probably stop him, but, honestly? They'd have to come to terms with this at some point anyway, it's not like I'd be doing them any favors by stopping Jason from telling them the truth of the matter. He straightens up, and I can see his muscles smooth out through likely conscious effort. Forced, though not complete, relaxation. "We're done with this," he states flatly, looking around the table. "If you're going to keep shutting him out like this, then you'd better do the same thing to me. I didn't do it to you, but just because you don't know what I've done doesn't mean I'm any less bloody than he is, hypocrites."
He turns on his heel, leaving the table full of uncomfortably silent heroes behind, and strides towards me. I follow him with my gaze, looking up as he comes to a stop in front of me.
"I want that fight," he demands, before looking back over his shoulder at the other table, "and none of you get to say a damn thing. I'm not innocent, I'm not a kid, and I don't have any obligation to any of you." He looks back down at me, crossing his arms over his chest. "Well?"
I study him for a second, then give a single nod. He steps back as I get to my feet, turning and stalking his way through the common area and towards the center, to the largest of the open areas where we do all of our training. The tickle at the back of my throat intensifies a bit as I follow, and I raise a hand to cover my mouth as I let the cough out before it can choke me. It's muffled, and I only let the one out before I strangle back the rest, but I feel speckles of something wet splatter onto my palm. As I pull my hand back, lowering it, I catch the bright red color of the specks. Blood. I shove the hand in the pocket of my cargo pants instead of letting it hang, wiping the liquid off where no one else will see. Not the heroes at my back, or the ex-Talon in front of me.
This changes things.
Whatever damage has been done to my lungs is getting worse, and has gotten to the point where I can safely classify it as serious and in need of attention fairly soon. It also means that I absolutely can't let anyone in this group know how bad it is, and especially not Jason. Not after this particular event. If there's enough damage to make me cough up blood, then it's highly likely this will continue progressing into crippling and then eventually to fatal, if I can't get it fixed. Maybe not soon, this might be many years away, but the chance that this will just go away, or that it will stay at minor coughing fits, just drastically lowered. If Jason finds out how serious this is, things could go bad pretty quickly. Especially since he's clearly not all too pleased with how the Jokester's group is treating him, or me.
I probably can't wait long enough to get a hold of Dr. Thompkins then; not to mention that her silence is significantly more important now, and I can't guarantee it. I'll have to come up with something else, some way to figure this out that will absolutely keep the information from any of the group until I know one way or another how bad my lungs are damaged, and if they can be fixed. Where do I know, that Bruce doesn't monitor as well as Gotham?
Well, obviously there's Metropolis, but I still can't go to any kind of a real clinic. Not with my face in Bruce's tracking programs; that's far too dangerous. And while it might be efficient, it's probably equally dangerous to force anyone to conduct an examination before killing them, to erase the evidence. It would be hard to know if I'd actually gotten rid of all traces of my being there, and anything might be enough for Bruce to tie it back to me. So, no real doctors, and any black market ones are probably being watched even closer. So, who else?
Well, what about Luthor? He's already helped me once, and while he might not be a doctor he is a scientist, that might be enough. Plus, I've snuck in and out of LexCorp enough times that I know for an absolute certainty that I can do it again, so that helps. He might be close allies, maybe even friends, with the Jokester, but I think he would probably keep this to himself if I explained things. He'll also likely know enough people to point me in the right direction if this can be fixed, or straight out give me whatever I need to do it myself.
He's probably my best bet, which unfortunately means that I'll have to make up a way of getting to Metropolis. I don't think anyone in the Jokester's group will stop me, though Jason might not like me leaving even on a temporary basis. That might take a while to plan out, but I'm pretty sure I can dodge Bruce's surveillance for one trip in and out of Gotham.
Jason reaches the center area and turns, eyes narrowed, as I stop as well. He slips into a ready stance, turned partially sideways and with arms raised to defend, and I pull my hand out of my pocket to mirror him.
"Sparring rules?" I ask.
Jason nods. "No broken bones, honor a tap-out," he confirms. "You ready, Dick?"
"When you are, Jason."