AN: So I had to wonder, a bit. In the DLC, Jason says 'It's all personal. *Very* personal.' And, y'know, kicks the guy out of a window and into traffic. Now, this *could* be just Jason getting emotionally involved/murder-y, because that's how he rolls. But, because I'm actually a monster, I promptly dismissed that. So what could have triggered that, I asked myself? Stephanie Brown doesn't appear to exist in this universe, which cuts out the possibility of 'fuckin' Bruce, losin' Robins right and left, I'll do the avenging then'. So. End result? Jason's not happy, and I have fun things to play with again.

AndAnotherOneBitesTheDust-Rocket launchers are a very important part of any self-respecting vigilante's arsenal and YOU WILL PRY IT FROM MY COLD, DEAD FINGERS. And you'd better fuckin' pray I don't respawn like everything else in this city, because I WILL hunt you down and take it back. And...well...they have their moments. We'll leave it at that.

McStaken-Pfft. He didn't find me when I was sitting patiently in Arkham. I doubt he'll track me down now. 'Sides, it's Gotham, there's a 100% chance of supervillain attack, 'n he's got all those helpless serial rapists to protect, y'know. So they can sit in prison and send taunting letters to people because THAT'S WHAT THEY FUCKING DO IN THIS GODDAMN CITY. He'll be busy. He's always busy.


Fucking Bruce. Figures. Nowhere to be found when Jason needed him, but the second he's not welcome? WHOOSH, there he is.

It's things like that that make Jason want to punch him. Repeatedly. With brass knuckles. Or at least a desk chair. A spinny one with lotsa metal.

He's shaking and he doesn't want to be, but Bruce's very existence does this to him. Especially on nights like this. Jason'd been begging for him, screaming his throat raw and bloody, and he never came. Li? Black Mask's fucking go-girl, and here comes Batman to save her from danger.

It's only because he doesn't want it to shatter that he doesn't hurl the flash drive against the wall.

Bruce can go straight to Hell. Sorry, useless, bastard…

Where were you?

It shouldn't matter. It shouldn't matter. He got on just fine before he met him, thank you very much,

I don't want this you sick sonofabitch can't you see I'm just a kid I can't

and he gets on just fine now. He doesn't need him. He never did, and that's final.

He breathes, or tries to, and ends up clambering back out the window.

Two deterred muggings and one…interrupted…attempted murder later, he can breathe again. Mostly, anyway. Easier. Less ragged.

He settles onto his bed, laptop balanced on his knees and Wile E. Coyote blanket wrapped around his shoulders, and picks up the drive. He's a little wary of it. Could have a tracer file. Could be a virus. Could, maybe, be a bomb. But all the coulds and maybes in the world don't erase the possibility that it's what Li said it was-important. The fact that it was in her purse is a point in its favor.

He slumps against the pillows, pulls the blanket tighter around his neck. It's been a long night and it's only now two. He hopes Bruce did something stupid that'll get him yelled at by Alfred. Doesn't have to be life-threatening, just monumentally dumb. Something that would earn one of the really scathing lectures, the kind were Alfred's whole self just screams, 'you stupid motherfucker, were you dropped on your head as a baby? Or did you eat paint chips?'

Somehow, those were worse than the looming ones, the ones that came because he was worried, because you jumped in the river to save a kitten and nearly drowned because your stupid ass couldn't swim.

Anyways. Bruce getting a 'you goddamn moron' lecture would make him happy. Moving on.

He flicks the drive open with a cheery click! and gets briefly distracted closing it and flicking it open again. For like. Thirty seconds. So sue him, he's easily amused. He likes pens, too. And not just because they used to annoy the shit out of Dick.

Don't go there. Focus, idiot.

He squeezes his eyes shut in case it's a bomb (What? He doesn't want to see his imminent demise, thanks.), fumbles a bit until he finds the USB port, and flips the drive around five times before managing to ram it in.

It does not explode. He cracks an eye open, doesn't see any timer counting down the seconds to his gruesome death, and clicks 'explore drive'.

And if maybe, for half a second, he reads that as 'explode drive', well…there's nobody around to make fun of him for it.

It's a full drive, and a well-organized one, he'll give Li that. Nothing blatant, nothing like 'criminal activities from June 3rd to August 4th', which would have been nice, but well-organized. Lotta numbers, lotta stuff moving through. At least half of it's probably legal enough-like Cobblepot, Sionis Industries flirts with legitimacy here and there-but finding out what is and what isn't is going to take…time.

Okay. Rex first. That just got in recently, so it's gotta be…STOP RIGHT THERE.

Staring cheerfully up at him in size ten Times New Fucking Roman are the words 'Jack White'.

Other people-luckier people-would cross that file off as some businessman or other. Jason knows better. What the hell…Sionis and…and…they don't like each other (to put it mildly), so why's he…

He opens the document with trembling fingers, dreading what he'll find and hoping it's like, blackmail or something.

It isn't.

It's old, dating back several years, but it's neat and orderly, with a small list of transactions between the two. Nothing specific, but Jason knows what everything is all the same.

He sets the laptop aside very, very carefully, discards the blanket, and takes three running steps to the bathroom to be violently ill, memories of his own screams bouncing off the walls and echoing in the shower.*

Stop please stop please not again please-!

That son of a…

He sinks to the floor, fingers scrambling for the flusher, and rests his head against the cold porcelain. That sorry son of a flea-ridden mongrel bitch.

It's not like he didn't know. That the only one still in the dark (willfully, Jason will swear on his empty grave that he got a replacement in a week) was Br-Batman. After all, Joker's birthday present for him was…well. He called it a surprise party. Jason prefers to think of it as the beating of a lifetime, plus chemical torture. (Fuck you, Crane.) But s'different. That was the main crew, the really sick, twisted bastards that do what they do for fun. It's not like he has great opinions of Sionis, but…

Breathe.

There's pain at the top of his head and he realizes that his fingers have buried themselves there, nails digging into his scalp and pulling his hair a little too hard. He wills himself to drop his hands and struggles up to rinse his mouth out. He's trembling again, limbs weak like they were when Croc nearly disemboweled him when he was fourteen, and for a second he's not sure he can walk at all.

But he manages, in the end, to stagger back to bed with a shuffling zombie-gait. Okay. Okay. This changes nothing. It's over, it's done, his end plans for the Black Mask have not changed. If anything, he's now doubly motivated.

He closes the document and opens the most recently-edited folder. Cybertron…okay…

"Please please no more just kill me please-"

He twists back for the blanket and pulls it around himself, shivering with remembered cold. This is Batman's fault. His presence caused the file to undelete or something.

It's tempting to delete it, but he leaves it there because old training says don't tamper with the evidence. And that's…that's evidence.

C-Cybertron's not. They didn't build that thing. They modified it, but they didn't build it. So where the hell did it come from?

"Make it stop make it stop PLEASE!"

Water. Water first, then exploration.


*Apparently you can hear some of this in Arkham VR. Some asshole nice person put a video on YouTube. Ask for the link and ye shall receive! (Don't ask. You don't want this. YOU DON'T WANT THIS.)