"...I do not expect you to trust me immediately, Red Hood," Nona said when a long, silent moment had passed.
"That's good," he replied sharply. "I don't trust anyone, let alone people who seem to be playing both sides of things."
"You don't trust anyone?" she repeated, lifting one eyebrow. "Strange. You seem very interested in what happened to Nightwing for someone who trusts no one."
His mouth tightened beneath his hood. Where was she getting all of her information? Some of it had clearly come from the Joker, whom Jason had to admit was disturbingly knowledgeable about everything related to Batman. The rest, though...the Joker couldn't possibly know that he'd been tracking down Nate Westing's killer for the last two hours, and even if he did there hadn't been time for him to get that bit of news to his newest lieutenant. No, Nona had to have her own network of spies, and good ones at that. But how...?
The woman stretched languidly, then leaned against a graffiti-stricken wall. "These last few weeks have been quite a learning experience for me, you know," she offered. "There is so much to absorb in a city like this, and the Joker has an...interesting...set-up besides. His little balance of power act with Batman and the rest of you...it's fascinating. Yet there's something I don't understand." Pushing away from the wall, she began to pace. Jason followed her with his gun, still half-expecting an attack. "...Why doesn't he just take over? He could, you know. He has quite the following. If he wanted to, really wanted to, I don't think even your Batman could stop him."
"First of all, he's not 'my' Batman," Red Hood grumbled. "Second..." He hesitated, unsure as to whether or not he should give Nona the information sitting on the end of his tongue.
"Answer my question, and I'll answer one of yours," she tempted.
"...Second," he started again, "the Joker's insane, but not stupid. When he comes out of Arkham, he wants to..." What was the phrase Dick had used all those years ago, when they'd both been teenagers and things had still been okay? "He wants to indulge his psychopathic revenge fantasies," he finished, finding the old descriptor buried in the back of his mind. "He can't do that if he takes Gotham over completely; he'd be attacking himself, and-" He gulped. "-And that's no fun."
"Hmm..." Nona paced, back and forth, back and forth, keeping her head down as she processed what had been said. "The same with Batman, then," she broached finally. "If he kills him, the fun's over."
It hadn't been a question, but Jason answered anyway. "...I guess so."
"Odd that he didn't extend that logic to you."
He bristled automatically. "What's your point?"
"Well, it's funny, isn't it?" She stopped walking and turned to face him. "He killed you. He would have killed the one known as Red Robin, by his own confession. And yet he seems to want to keep the other two alive. Why?" When he didn't reply, she went on. "It seems that he thinks Batman values them more than he values the pair of you, and therefore won't be driven beyond his usual boundaries by your deaths. But why?"
It was a question that Jason had asked himself on many sleepless occasions, although he always stood alone on the 'less valued' side in his own calculations. The answer he circled back to time and again was one of familiarity. Dick had come into the picture very young, and had become, for all intents and purposes, Bruce's true son. Damian, of course, was the billionaire's biological child, and shared Dick's benefit of having arrived at the house as a child. Tim, he grimaced, was in a situation closer to his own, having only taken up the Robin mantle as a teenager. But Tim had come from money, and he more than any of the others shared Bruce's detective bent; he had endeared himself in ways that Jason could not. The fact that the Joker had tried to kill Tim marked an error in the psychopath's judgment, an error that was attested to by the fact that an intervention had been made in time to save him. But no one came for me, he whispered to himself for the millionth time. No one came for the outsider. No one avenged the fifth wheel.
It was all much too intimate of knowledge for him to even consider disclosing to Nona, so he kept his mouth shut. After a minute she must have gathered that she wouldn't be getting a response, because she went on without prompting. "All right," she shrugged. "I don't need to know that right now. But I suppose that you want to know why I'm here at all?"
Shaking himself out of his reverie – hadn't they been great, those old weekends when Dick had a weekend off and would come home from Bludhaven so that the three of them could patrol together? – Jason gave a grunt of agreement. Nona's intentions in Gotham were more important than any other question he could ask save one, and he didn't dare give voice to that other query. She already knew he was interested in what had happened to Nightwing, although how she knew was beyond him; the last thing he wanted to do was hand her his emotions on a silver platter by actually inquiring about his brother.
"It's as the rumors say. I was in prison abroad, and I seized the opportunity to escape in the middle of all the shuffling of prisoners they've been doing since last year's earthquakes. I'm not the only one, you know; something like seven percent of all the convicts who had to be moved due to structural damage or nuclear dangers after the quakes have absconded. When I think about it, what you said about the Joker not wanting to have to rebuild his own playground makes sense. I tried to go back to the city I had been powerful in before – it doesn't matter which one it was, since it's little more than a pile of rubble now – but there was no point. I needed someplace intact, someplace promising. Something bigger."
She smiled and turned her head upward as if she might see Gotham's imposing skyline from the dark little side street in which they stood. "So I came here, to this legendary city. I had admired the Joker's ruthlessness from afar, although I was always a bit confused by his tactics. As you said, he is insane, and I simply had not realized how much so. But I do now, and I will tell you a secret, Red Hood; he is insane, but he is also vulnerable. He is vulnerable, and he will fall."
He blinked at her. "A minute ago you said he could take over this entire city if he just put his mind to it," he accused. "Which is it? Is he powerful, or vulnerable?"
"Both. He could have Gotham on its knees, I believe, but he won't do it. There are many in his employ who wish he would, though, who chafe at the fact that he does not. But they are not powerful enough to unalign themselves from him unless they can run to the protection of another ruling presence."
"...You?" Jason ventured doubtfully.
"Yes. Me." She closed the gap between them without warning. As she drew up he could see that her cheeks were flushed with excitement, her eyes sparkling with the audacity of her plan. "I helped Batman to find Nightwing," she breathed. "The Joker has no idea that his file was leaked by a nurse in my employ. I had to kidnap Nightwing as I was ordered to do, but it was I who set him free, too."
"Why are you telling me this?" he asked, working to keep uncertainty out of his voice.
"Because I want you to believe that the Joker can be toppled. It's what you want, isn't it? To take the revenge that wasn't taken for you?"
He had stepped backwards in shock before he realized he was moving. "...What?"
"How much happier would you be if the Joker was dead, Red Hood?" she pressed. "How would it feel to put a bullet in his brain?"
She was spinning a fantasy, but he wanted to believe in it. Even as every sinew in his body cried out for vengeance, though, a tiny, doubting voice sounded above the din. To kill the Joker would be a dream come true, but what would Nona make of the power vacuum that would follow? There was something about her that struck Jason as being more dangerous than any characteristic possessed by the mad clown, and it was that single thread of caution that kept him from plunging headlong into whatever it was that she had planned. "...Why did you help Batman?" he frowned. "Why did you free Nightwing when he'd been put where he was on the Joker's orders?"
"It looks like foolishness on my part, doesn't it? But it isn't," she insisted. "It wasn't. Don't you see? They were doing something to the Joker that had never been done before. They locked him in a silent room three times a week, for an hour at a time. No sound, no light. The man in charge wanted to see what it would do to him, if it would make him crazier or not. But it didn't. It didn't at all. It did the opposite." She beamed. "It scared him, Red Hood. It started to make him sane. He felt it happening, he told me. He didn't care so much about coming up with schemes and ways to torture your Batman-"
"Stop calling him that!"
"-anymore, all he cared about was not going back into that room," she went on without pause. "He couldn't stand it, but the doctor didn't want to stop. He threatened to kill the doctor, and the doctor told him that if he died for any reason all of his notes would be made public. That would have done the Joker no good; if they knew that something was working, the entire city would scream for him to be left in silence until he came out as a mere shadow of himself. So he worked out a trade; a round-the-clock sane person in place of a thrice-a-week insane one. The doctor was delighted, apparently, and that is where Nightwing and I came in.
"But I want the Joker to be scared," she hissed. "I want him to be half-sane and unable to scheme. Nightwing has been rescued, and the blame placed on the lackeys hired by Ivory Jack; now the doctor will insist on continuing with the Joker, yes? And in a few more weeks – a month or two at the most – he will be so changed by that place that he will crumble under the pressure of the force I am building right beneath his nose." She broke off, her smile suddenly weary. "And then he can be yours, Red Hood. I will give him to you, freely and without strings. You may do as you please with him, and with your territory, as well. I won't interfere; the rest of Gotham is plenty for my tastes. You don't have to answer tonight, but...think about it, hmm?" Her voice dropped. "Isn't it everything you've ever wanted?"
She turned as if to go. "Wait!" Jason called after her. "...Wait." There was an element that she seemed to be leaving out of her plan, and no matter how hard he tried not to care he couldn't bring himself to ignore the implications of the omission. "You realize that Batman isn't going to just stand by and let you take over, right?"
Her face was silhouetted as she looked over her shoulder at him. "If I can defeat the Joker, why would I not be able to overcome the man he has been in a willing stalemate with for twenty years?"
"But..." It dawned on him that the sort of person who would murder Nate Westing and another innocent man just to keep their cover intact for a few more weeks wouldn't hesitate to kill someone who was directly opposing them. If it came down to it, he swallowed, who would the henchmen of Gotham fear more; Batman, who they knew would never take their lives, or Nona, who it seemed would end anyone she needed to without a second thought? If she toppled the Joker and ordered her forces to kill all who attempted to interfere, how many guns would be looking for shadows ghosting across rooftops? His stomach flipped; no one could dodge that many bullets, not for long. Not even Batman.
"But where does that leave you?" Nona filled in his silence. "...I like you, Red Hood. You're your own man, and you have made your own path. As I have done," she said proudly. "But it seems that you have been sitting on the fence for a long time now, yes? That is what I hear, at least. That is why I spoke to you as I did tonight; I want you to realize that it is time to choose. You say he is not 'your Batman'; if you mean that, then this is your chance to prove it."
With that, she walked away. He could have chased after her, ought to have demanded further answers, more details, something. But he'd heard enough already to leave him in the middle of a tempest of emotions; anything else she might give him would be lost in the wind. It occurred to him that he should shoot her, if not for Nate Westing then because a dead woman couldn't launch a successful coup. His gun hand rose halfway, then fell back. What was he thinking, trying to help the Joker? Besides, somehow he didn't think she'd be that easy to kill, for all that she didn't seem to be any less human than he was. A large part of him still wanted to seize what she had offered, too, and he would no longer have that option if he attacked her.
The Joker. Batman. Nightwing... He tried to weigh a dozen factors against one another at the same time, but it was so confusing... The Joker. Batman. Nightwing. Nightwing... Tim's voice, hated but vexingly right, broke in. 'We think you might be the only one who can help him...' He closed his eyes, but the younger man kept going. 'You know, your brother! The one who insists on loving you no matter what you do to him or anyone else!'
His choices stood before him in stark, sudden contrast. He could offer his complicity to Nona, or he could take the information he'd been given tonight to Batman. He could have the revenge he'd wanted for years, or he could – maybe, just maybe – have the family he'd wanted for as long as he could remember. He ached to have both somehow, but each one made the other impossible. It was a decision he could not make without betraying some part of himself, and yet it appeared that he had no choice.
"Goddamn it," he moaned brokenly as Nona vanished around a distant corner. "Goddamn it all to hell..."