Authors' Note: The first scene here is Jay's nightmare of what Joker did to him, and it contains extremely graphic violence, most of which is directly canon. We just made sure to follow all the implications of "beaten to death with a crowbar" to their logical end - and set up a few plot-critical elements. If you didn't know why Jay is so angry, or so triggered by Joker's continued existence, now you will.

That said, if you want to know who Jay really is, what he does in the face of his own death is a pretty good indication.

If you don't want to read the violence, skip to the first scene break. The handful of paragraphs above it are safe, too, once he wakes up.


The nightmare was late this time – Jay had expected it the night after he confronted Joker – but it came eventually. It always did. Not so much a nightmare as a memory, a horror he'd relived too damn many times.

The pain wasn't the worst part … but the pain was pretty goddamn bad, anyway. So many things broken he'd lost track of each separate ache, his whole body just screaming at him. Ribs, arm, legs, shoulder, hand, and his face, Jesus fuck his whole fucking head, everything felt just … smashed. Like his skin was a bag full of broken bloody glass, all the bones grinding against each other every time he moved.

He couldn't help moving. With each blow, his poor beaten body twitched, reflexively trying to evade. It was long past a conscious process; Jay didn't have a lot of consciousness left, and what he did have was entirely absorbed by the pain.

And the one thing worse than the pain, the utter helplessness. No one was coming. Maybe Batman, but he was too far away, Jay had made sure to muddy his trail so the big bad Bat couldn't stop him, and it was already too late. He'd already realized that no matter what happened, nothing could stop what was coming next – the next swing of the crowbar, the next kick, the next whatever else Joker decided to do. Jay had been overwhelmed and knocked out by gas the moment he got here, waking up with his hands and feet bound. Even if he were free now, it wouldn't do any good. The bastard had started with his legs, he couldn't walk, probably couldn't even crawl.

All he could do was … lie here, and take it. He couldn't even make snarky quips anymore, with his jaw broken and teeth missing, his mouth full of his own blood. Fuck, he'd even bitten his own tongue, but he couldn't feel that anymore. The shattered cheekbone took precedence.

The beating stopped, for a moment, and Jay was left just trying to breathe. Inhaling hurt, with broken ribs and a new star of pain in the center of his chest. And still the helplessness beat at him, the wild urge to run away, to do something that would stop this.

There was nothing he could do. Nothing. He was … fuck, he was just Joker's toy, to be mauled until the Clown lost interest. Knowing he was powerless – and knowing who held all the power here – made terror overtake pain, for the moment. He might've pissed himself; he couldn't tell, his belly a mass of pain.

Just when he started to think Joker might be done, he felt the Clown grab the front of his uniform. "Some Robin you are," Joker said, in that grating and horribly jovial voice. "Walked right into a trap, looking for your mommy. Pathetic."

Jay wheezed, and found he had some control of his voice. He was going to die here tonight, he knew it – but maybe he could fight back in some small way. He managed to mumble, half-coherent words.

"Sorry, kiddo, can't hear you," Joker said cheerily. "Must be that crushed larynx. Speak up a little?"

And then, as Jay hoped, the miserable bastard leaned in. Probably hoping to hear Jay beg for mercy, plead for his life.

Well, fuck that. Jay had never begged for anything. Shit, he'd stolen half of what he had, but he wasn't a beggar. And he wasn't as pathetic as Joker tried to make him believe he was. So as soon as the Clown was close enough, Jay spat a wad of blood and saliva right into his face.

Seeing his blood streaking that dead pale skin through the eye he could still open, Jay grinned fiercely. Fuck you, I'll die smiling, you sick twisted fuck.

Joker wiped the spit off, and for once, he'd lost his trademark smile. That was good enough for Jay to go out on, he figured he'd be bleeding out shortly, and he only wished he could tell Batman he'd wiped the grin off the fucker's face before he died.

But then Joker said, "That was rude. The first Boy Blunder had some manners. Guess I'll have to teach you some."

The next hit took out his kneecap, and it turned out he could feel some of those broken bones separately. The one after that was his face, his eye, Jesus fuck his eye was loose in a shattered cradle of bone, and please God let it end, just let it end.

No God. Just Joker's voice, disappointed. "'Fraid you just don't measure up. You're not even worthy of the ol' green and red and yellow, kiddo."

The warehouse was cold, and the frigid air seized Jay's skin as Joker sliced the uniform. He tried to struggle, to squirm away, but he was about as effective as a stepped-on worm, half-crushed and writhing on the pavement. It turned out there was something else worse than pain, right up there with helplessness and making that worse: humiliation. He couldn't stop even this, now pitifully naked under harsh fluorescent lights.

"No fashion sense at all," Joker sneered, flinging the uniform aside. "I need a better trophy than that, birdie. Let's see…"

New pain, huge, exploding through his wounded head, his ear on fire. No, not his ear, because from what little he could still see, Joker had that. The sick fuck cut off his ear. It was enough to distract him from the fact that Joker had cut his uniform off.

"Wonder what Batsy will think, when he finds you," Joker mused. "I mean, will he know it was me? You pissed off a lotta guys, after all. I know – I'll make sure he knows I was the one." And he grabbed Jay's face, just that movement set off every broken bone from the neck up, and there were too damn many of those.

Jay tasted metal for a second, then a new gush of blood, then … air? Oh God, no, a line of fire from the corner of his mouth racing up his cheek, and before he could scream the knife was back in his mouth again, cutting the other side. Jay tried to howl, but he couldn't get breath for it, and now he couldn't move his lips into the right shape either. What came out was a toneless gurgle, a noise more like a clogged garbage disposal than a fifteen-year-old superhero-in-training.

The final insult, now he wore the same scars as the Clown, and Joker stood up with a regretful sigh. Jay honestly didn't hear his parting words, but he caught the mocking tone. This was the part where, in reality, he'd passed out, and only woken up a year later in Quaker Medical Center.

In the nightmare, he didn't black out. He just stayed there, in pain and degradation and horror, knowing he was worthless, knowing he'd failed, knowing that Batman was going to find his naked, broken, maimed body. And as badly as he wanted Batman right then, wanted the pillar of strength that Bruce was, even more he wanted to disappear, wanted no one to ever see him like this. As if death wasn't bad enough, as if it hurting every long moment of his dying wasn't bad enough, Bruce was going to see him and know just how badly he'd fucked up, how badly Joker had hurt him.

Naked. Broken. Maimed. And still, not dead, still horribly aware that this moment was all he was and all he ever would be.

At some point, the horror swelled to a point where he broke through into awareness, scrambling up out of bed, grabbing for his gun and his knife. There was light enough coming through the windows for Jay to see instantly that he was alone, but even so, it took ten minutes for him to be able to put the weapons down.

Eventually he realized he was in the Manor, in his old room, and fuck, wasn't that a head trip? The room was still exactly as he'd left it, the walls and bookshelves a testament to his fifteen-year-old interests. Part of Jay wanted to reach back in time and tell that angry, rebellious kid to give up on the search for his birth mother. He'd had a good mom, that was more than most people got, loneliness and inadequacy issues shouldn't have sent him searching for more. That quest had gotten him almost-killed.

Hell, why weasel around it? The kid Jay was had been killed, had died there. What lived … he had only the murkiest memories of the year he'd spent with the al Ghuls, but that hadn't quite been him. Too many parts of his mind were missing. The Pit brought him all the way back, brought something back anyway, gave him the height and strength he would've never gotten thanks to half-starving on the streets when normal kids were hitting growth spurts. Too bad it couldn't give him back his mind in one piece, all those broken and missing parts filled in with balefire green.

Another part of him wanted to reach back into that nightmare, and shoot his younger self in the head. Preferably before Joker really got into the swing of things with the damn crowbar, but any time before cutting off his uniform would've been good. People said you couldn't really remember pain, and maybe that was true, but Jay could remember his fear and the taste of sharp steel.

The worst part was, there was no comfort to be found. Yeah, sure, the whole Bat 'family' would mourn him and miss him, but they wouldn't do a fucking thing about it. Maybe Babs, if she got the chance, would put a bullet in Joker. Wasn't like she could hunt him down, though. Bruce wouldn't do it, neither would Dick or Tim.

A new thought cut across his mind. Kala would do it. If Bruce hadn't stopped her, Kala might've killed the Clown a few days ago, for talking about having hurt him. Kala was a killer already, he didn't have to feel guilty for that, and Joker wouldn't expect laser-eyes straight to the brain-pan. And that thought, dark as it was, gave Jay a shiver of … relief, maybe? Nothing he could put a name to.

It was too early to be up, but no way was he going back to sleep. Jay scrubbed his hands over his face – he probably should've shaved, but he'd gotten used to the scruffy look while being Big Tommy. Fuck it, he'd grow it out, this was no kind of morning to have a razor near his throat.

In his apartment, he left the TV on for background noise, and now it was too quiet. Jay reached for his phone and checked the news feeds. The usual assortment of crimes, Gotham events, cape sightings … and KLK's show last night in Boston. His research into Kala's day job had put her shows onto his news feed algorithm, and Jay had never gone in to mess with the settings and keep them off. Partly because he did click on the articles, sometimes. She'd pulled a fifteen-year-old girl up on stage in their first show of the tour and sung the refrain to one of their songs with her. Jay thought that was almost too wholesome.

He decided to click on this one, and found a link to a video of most of the performance. Jay shrugged, and clicked on it. Her music wasn't his style, but seeing her onstage – and in a corset, why was he not surprised? – was a damn good distraction from his nightmares.

It was also kind of mind-warping, watching that black-clad made-up singer hitting every note, and knowing she was the same girl who'd damn near gone after Batman a couple nights ago.

Watching her strut around with the microphone, all that confidence, a wave of yearning washed over him. He missed her, he wanted her … and he was totally turning into a puddle of mush. "Snap out of it," he growled at himself, and closed the video.

Kala might've almost killed Joker, but she still hadn't called him back. Evidently the way she returned that kiss at the airport didn't mean what Jay had thought it meant – or she'd just come to her senses the minute she landed in Metropolis. "Let's face it, I'm a classic fuck-up," he muttered. "K dodged a bullet getting out when she did."

But he was not, absolutely fucking not, gonna sit around and mope about it. Jay was done being the family entertainment. Big bad Red Hood and his cute little puppy-dog crush on the Super – ha ha, how about no. He'd been led around like a dog before, and wasn't gonna do it again, no matter how much parts south might be on board with the idea.

He could still work with Kala if she made her way back to Gotham. She was still the best damn partner he'd ever fought beside. If she wasn't gonna say anything, then he wouldn't either. No sense chasing the unattainable.

She was too damn good for him, anyway. And how twisted was it that he could think that, and it finally enabled him to fall back asleep.

Kala woke with the sun, disoriented. She started to sit up, and bonked her head on the ceiling, which at least reminded her where she was. On the tour bus, in the little loft section just above the driver – the space she and Sebast always called dibs on. They were in motion, the whole bus subtly rocking as it ate up the miles between last night's show and their next destination.

A sleep-heavy male arm was flung across her hip, and Kala knew it was Sebast – but for some sick reason her mind murmured Jay and sent a shiver down her spine. No, not Jay, she told herself firmly, flipping her pillow over as Sebast snored on. Not Jay, and not gonna be Jay. Not now that he's seen my psycho side. Get over yourself.

She squirmed to get comfortable again, and Sebast rolled toward her, tugging her body close against his. They'd always fit so well together, going back to the days when they shared a room and a bed on the road to save money. Now they could afford all the rooms they wanted, but she was so used to the sound of his heartbeat and the warmth of his arms that she rarely slept well without him. The only reason she'd gotten through the summer without becoming an insomniac was total training-induced exhaustion.

Kala lay awake, letting the sun peeking through the darkened windows percolate through her. They wouldn't stop until lunch time, the rest of the band still deeply asleep. She might as well doze off again…

Sebast yawned, snuggled her closer, and murmured, "So what happened in Gotham, mi amor?"

Damn him for the way her heart skipped at that. He didn't mean it that way – they did love each other, but her life was not one of his mother's freaking telenovelas. "I told you already," Kala mumbled, sounding sleepier than she was. "Charity. Waynes. Lotsa really good food. The Waynes' butler is a god-tier chef."

He couldn't sit up in the low space, but he propped himself on one elbow. "There's something more. You've been on edge since you got back; your nightmares got kicked up again something fierce. Shit, you almost laid Derek out the other day."

"Little prick deserved it," she grumbled, squinching her eyes closed in hopes he'd get the point.

"And that's another thing. You've never been like your stepmom, but damn you swear a lot more since you've been back. You said 'Jesus fuck' the other day and I thought Derek was gonna have a fuckin' stroke."

"You're one to talk," Kala replied, mentally kicking herself. That was all Jay's fault, and his level of cursing was nothing she could attribute to the well-bred Waynes.

"Yeah, well, I've always been profane," Sebast said with a shrug. "Who'd you hang out with that put 'Jesus fuck' in your vocabulary? Mi madre will wash your mouth out with soap if she ever hears that, by the way. She just complains when I say 'motherfucker' but you don't diss Jesus in her house. Not unless you want a chancla upside your head."

"I'll have time to clean up my act before we get home again," Kala assured him.

He wasn't going to be distracted, unfortunately. "Still. Who talks like that in the Wayne house? The little brother? He looks like the quiet but dangerous type."

Kala couldn't help snorting in disbelief. "Tim? God, no. He never swears. No, I … I hung around with some friends of the family, too. The Waynes have more connections than you think." Her mind raced, trying to make this plausible, looking over her shoulder at Sebast's perplexed and doubtful expression.

"What kind of connections?" Sebast asked thoughtfully.

"Well … there are outreach programs on the bad side of town. I got to meet some folks who work down in the Bowery. It's a rough neighborhood, and the language is rough too." It sounded weak even as she said it, but it had the advantage of being true … for a certain value of truthfulness. She added, "One of the Bowery guys teaches self-defense, so I re-upped my blue belt while I was there."

Sebast sighed, and snuggled down behind her. "I guess hanging out on the bad side of town would make anyone jumpy. Can't believe they stuck you down there, blanquita."

She elbowed him. "It wasn't a hardship. And don't call me blanquita, I have some street cred." More than he could imagine, but he didn't have to know that.

"Still pasty as hell," he teased. "You should get out in the sun more."

"You know I don't tan," she replied, resisting the need to wince. He couldn't know that she didn't tan because her body stored sunlight to fuel her superpowers. It was safer for Sebast not to know everything about her, but she hated keeping something so important a secret. He was her best friend, they worked and lived together, and he had no idea what she was. He was one of the very few who knew about her nightmares and what had caused them – because he'd been there when she ran away and when she was rescued – but he didn't know the whole truth about that, either. All he knew was that Luthor hated her mother because of Superman; he had no clue what Luthor had wanted from her.

She couldn't even tell him about Jay, when she'd always talked to him about guys. His insight was obvious, of course, and he had her best interests at heart. Kala needed that sounding board, but coming up with another explanation for who Jay was and why she trusted him was just too implausible. Leave out the whole part about both of them being vigilantes – about Kala herself being a superhero and half-alien – and the whole thing made no sense. She didn't even want to start talking about the mystery middle Wayne brother. That just made it sound like a classic bad boy crush, and Kala hated to be that much of a stereotype. He wouldn't believe it, anyway.

Sebast cuddled close, wrapping his arm around her waist, and Kala laced her fingers through his. Just as she thought she'd dodged a bullet, he murmured, "You know you can tell me anything, right?"

Except that I'm half alien. And I put on a mask and a suit and beat up bad guys. And I'm in the middle of some kind of complication with Red Hood.

Oh yeah, she could tell him anything, all right. Kala pretended to be asleep already, and hated herself a little for the evasion.

She'd almost managed to get to sleep for real when her phone buzzed. Kala answered it quickly so it wouldn't rouse Sebast. It was a text message from Dick: Congrats! Ur gonna be the best aunt.

That, at least, gave her a little laugh. So Jase had spilled the beans to the boys – she figured Tim must've known almost as long as she had – and Dick was, as ever, delighted by the good news.

By now, Kala herself had completely gotten over the momentary flicker of jealousy. Jason was the one in position to have kids now. He and Elise were working on their degrees, but they had a stable home and stable jobs. They could absorb the stress. Kala herself would be more than happy to love and spoil the twins when they made their appearance, much the same way she'd loved Kristin. She chuckled softly, remembering Daddy Richard faux-complaining that the little redhead would never learn to walk if no one ever put her down.

Memories lulled her for a while. Kala privately thought that she'd make a decent mother, when the time came. Maybe someday in the future, way in the future, she'd adopt. She certainly had the money, and if relationships didn't pan out – which, let's face it, they weren't so far – she had a supportive family and a band that was like family.

That hazy future dream almost sent her back to sleep, but she remembered she needed to reply to Dick. So she typed in, Thanks, you can be an awesome uncle too ,since Tim is.

She'd fallen asleep by the time he responded with a smiley face and a heart.

The nightmare had wrecked Jay's sleep schedule, and he dragged his ass downstairs way late – so much so that not even Alfred had saved him breakfast. That was fine, the rest of his dreams had been the usual nonsensical garbage, nothing to scar his already fucked-up mind, and he headed into the kitchen looking for sandwich fixings. By this time of day, Alfred was usually doing some of the thousand routine maintenance tasks on a house this size; they had a cleaning service come in twice weekly to dust, sweep, and mop, but Alfred trusted no one else to polish the silver or clean the glassware.

As he put together a leftovers sandwich with some ham, some roast beef, some turkey, some bacon, and just enough lettuce and tomatoes to balance it out, Jay reflected on the benefits of living in Wayne Manor. The food was beyond compare, and there was always plenty of it – something he didn't have at his bunker. Jay didn't cook much, he owned a microwave, but most of his meals came from takeout. Rich food made him uneasy; no escargot or vichyssoise for Jason Todd. If he couldn't spell it, or tell what it was at a glance, he wasn't down. He had eaten plenty of fancy of meals in his time, both here and while running with Talia, who gave the impression of never having set foot in a restaurant with less than three Michelin stars. But Alfred knew him well enough to make stuff Jay liked – roasts, casseroles, lasagna, mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, even meatloaf. Comfort food, sure, but Alfred did it a lot better than anyone else Jay had ever known.

There was also the way his room got cleaned and his bed got made without him having to do it. Which, ironically, meant he tried to do it before Alfred got to it, because that man was seriously overworked, but his apartment was a fucking wreck. It didn't bother Jay, because he was the one who'd made the mess and at least he had clean sheets on the bed. He'd lived in worse places. His apartment in Serbia had been above an all-night club, and the bass rattled his walls three floors up. Hell, right here in Gotham he'd lived in condemned buildings with peeling plaster and spiders as big as his hand running around the ceilings – spiders that got that big eating legions of roaches. By comparison, even if the Manor's luxury made him uncomfortable, it was still better than that.

Sure, there were downsides. Bruce would give him the judgy eyes if he hit up the liquor cabinet, but he could buy his own and only have to deal with Alfred's disappointed look when he woke up hungover. On the whole, he'd rather handle Bruce's disdain than Alfred's. As if Bruce wasn't self-medicating, too.

And of course, being at the Manor opened him up to extra commentary from Timmy, who lived there, and Dick, who had officially gone back home but still kept turning up. Jay really didn't need the look Tim gave him when he came into the kitchen and saw Jay's giant sandwich. "Are you even gonna have room for dinner?" he asked skeptically.

Jay scowled. "One, you're not my mom – she's dead, dude, I can eat what I want," he shot back, and saw Tim flinch. Shit, that was right, the kid's parents were dead too; and they'd taken their big bite of the ol' dirt sandwich after Timmy became Robin. This really was the most fucked-up orphanage in the country. So Jay continued in a much more jovial tone, "Two, I'm like a freakin' wolf, I can eat half my weight in meat at a sitting 'cause you never know when you'll make another kill."

"You didn't kill that sandwich by any stretch of the imagination," Tim remarked. "Alfred made everything in it – wait, how many meats are on there?"

"All of 'em," Jay said proudly, and took a large bite.

"You won't lose your man card if you eat a vegetable once in a while, you know," Tim said disgustedly.

"How would you know?" Jay laughed.

"He's dating Wonder Girl, he's out-manned all of us," Dick said, breezing into the room. "I'd say 'good morning' but it's three in the afternoon, Jay. I was afraid you were gonna miss dinner."

"What the hell is up with everyone worrying about what I eat and when I eat?" Jay asked, rolling his eyes.

Dick clapped his shoulder. "Did you forget what today is? I had to order two cakes today."

Jay realized with horror that, despite his best hopes, they hadn't forgotten his birthday in the few days since he'd spoken to Babs. "Aw, shit," he groaned. "Wait … two cakes? What the hell?"

"Yeah, the other one's going to Jason Kent," Dick said, rummaging in the fridge for his own lunch, or snack, or whatever this was. "You didn't hear? His wife's pregnant. With twins. I texted K earlier and said congrats on becoming an aunt."

"And you sent Jason a cake that says 'Congratulations on becoming a dad'?" Tim asked skeptically.

Dick grinned at them both. "No, I sent him a cake that says 'Congratulations on the sex'. I had to call three different bakers to get one who'd believe me and actually write it."

Tim rolled his eyes, and Jay groaned. "You're twisted, man. Why text his sister? K didn't have anything to do with it. I hope."

"No, it's so not like that," Dick scoffed. "She knew before we did and kept mum, so I had to tweak her nose about it. Of course, she texted me back and named us all honorary uncles through Tim."

Jay couldn't help pulling a sour face, his sandwich suddenly tasteless. "Oh joy," he muttered.

Dick was, as usual, entirely too perceptive. "She still hasn't called you back, huh? Look, try texting her. That's probably the only reason I got a reply – and it took twenty minutes for that. You know she's sucked up into this tour."

"She already texted me," Jay said, grumpy at discussing this in front of Tim. "Whatever, she's a freakin' rock star, K'll get around to talking when she can. What's grossing me out is this 'honorary uncles' shit. I am not set up to be anybody's role model, Dickie-Bird."

"But you were," Tim said quietly, which made Jay cut him an extremely skeptical look. "Yes, I knew Dick was Robin first. But you were the Robin I followed the most. You were the one I wanted to be like."

"No wonder you're screwed up, Timbo," Jay replied, at a loss for anything but vague deflection. "Everyone knows I was the fuck-up Robin."

To his absolute and everlasting shock, Dick reached across the table and swatted him none-too-gently upside the head. "Quit it," Big Brother scolded. "You were a good Robin. You had – and have – issues, but so do all of us. I'm the original Robin, so I'm the only one who gets to pass judgment on who was a good Robin, and all of us were. So knock it off."

"Dude. Don't hit a guy on his birthday," was all Jay could come up with. It just felt so off, to be getting … approval, or praise, or whatever the fuck this was, from these two. Maybe it was because it was his birthday? Or some kind of twisted pity from Dickie-Bird for K making herself scarce? Who knew. Today was gonna be all kinds of fucked up, he wasn't prepared for this happy-family shit, he'd been trying to forget what day it was and forget Babs' hints about the planned celebration, too.

Luckily Alfred arrived in the kitchen before the two of them could start trying to convince Jay in all earnestness that he was a good guy, and he decided they were both Stepford robots and ran screaming into the … well, not the night, the midafternoon. Alfred, of course, settled him right down with, "Good afternoon, Master Jason, and I hope I find you well on this birthday."

"Thanks," he said, finding affection easier to take from Alfred. "Did you know Dickie-Bird bought me a cake? I bet it says something horrible."

"Oh, of course, Master Richard ordered a cake for the occasion," Alfred said smoothly. "I'm afraid instructions for the inscription may have been a bit garbled. I believe the cake is on its way, and bears only appropriate felicitations."

Dick actually pouted. "Oh come on. 'Happy B-Day Little Bro' wasn't that bad."

"Master Jason is only the younger brother to one member of this family, and we all wished to convey our appreciation," Alfred reminded him. "Also, alas, it appears the bakery was all out of miniature cars with which to decorate the cake. You shall have to settle for frosting."

Jay laughed at the disappointed look on Dick's face. "Aww, you were gonna get me a cake with cars on it. Real cute. You're such a dork, D."

"Frosting works," Tim remarked. "We all like frosting."

"And we can still find some other way to troll you," Dick said with a great big aren't-we-all-having-so-much-fun grin.

Jay pointed at him with his sandwich and warned, "If you nutjobs try to sing 'Happy Birthday' to me, I'll shoot somebody. With a tranq, because I don't totally hate all of you, but I'm just giving fair warning. I will shoot you."

Alfred looked disapproving, Dick frowned thoughtfully, and Tim just shrugged. "Fine. We won't sing to you. But good luck convincing Bruce and Babs that they shouldn't sing just because you're being a weirdo about it. Also good luck shooting at either of them."

Jay sneered at that. "Yeah, Bruce would just dodge, but Babs might shoot back."

Tim scowled, but Dick scoffed. "Babs wouldn't shoot you."

"She does have a gun, y'know," Jay told him. "A perfectly respectable Glock 19."

Dick rolled his eyes. "I know. And she doesn't carry it here, Jay. She wouldn't shoot you, either, even if you did lose your mind completely and start laying down tranq rounds."

"If at all possible, Master Jason, I would ask you to refrain from any sort of shooting indoors," Alfred said gently. "The smell of cordite does linger so. And any missed shots might cause irreparable damage to the furnishings."

"Well, since you ask nicely," Jay muttered, hunkering down.

Fuck. He was gonna have to go through with this bullshit. They all wanted to be a family, and everybody thought they knew best. Like somehow through the healing power of togetherness and cake, they'd fix everything that was broken in him.

Not happening. The kid he used to be was gone, dammit. The man he'd become was not the same, not ever gonna be the same. He could enjoy this, having this place for a part-time home base, and enjoy the company of people he liked and mostly trusted. Not a lot of that in his life before he'd come home; shit, not much at all. He'd trusted Talia, and look how that turned out.

But fucking birthday parties? Seriously? Who did they think he was?

And never mind that some part of him wanted this. He wanted to be part of a normal family, as normal as a bunch of orphans adopted by a rich vigilante could ever be. Jay just didn't trust that, because everything good in his life had always, always blown up in his face.

Fine, he'd take it. For Alfred's sake. But if any of these assholes tried to bring out a fuckin' party hat, Jay was gone. Out the door and fuck them all. Red Hood could throttle down for some cake, but he drew the line at party hats and confetti and shit.

Halfway around the world, Mercy Graves sat down across from Luthor's desk. "Roman Sionis failed to make bail," she told him. "It seems his accounts were mysteriously frozen just after his arrest."

He scoffed. "Batman has a very good hacker on his team."

"Someone named Oracle, who's also done piecework for the Suicide Squad," Mercy continued. "If only our IT department was as skilled."

That made him scowl. "If we had the AI stored in those crystals fully operational, I suspect we could go a long way towards hacking their systems. The processing power of Kryptonian crystal tech is … unprecedented. And in the right circumstances we could persuade the AI to find any information we needed."

"Patience," Mercy said. "Project Scion is going to get us everything we need. I don't care how good the JLA's pet hacker is, there's nothing he or she can do against something like Scion."

That earned her a smile. "I suppose we should be grateful for the crippled AI. If it was fully functional, it would probably try to convince us all to renounce our criminal ways. The Kryptonian justice system was nauseating."

Mercy nodded, with a slight smile. Lex leaned back in his seat, thinking. "A shame about Sionis. He just doesn't learn. What was it this time?"

"Organ harvesting," she replied, and Lex shook his head.

"How dramatic. You know, we could put an end to all that with the cloning technology. Just grow the organs you need, no rejection. But the world at large doesn't deserve access to immortality."

Mercy just smirked. They had several cell lines from different individuals preserved, and the cloning chambers were ready if Lex decided to put them to use. Not yet, however. There were too many other projects on board, such as Uplift. And Project Scion had been helpful in advancing their understanding of the process.

Talking about the situation in Gotham brought another interesting tidbit to mind. "The Blur was in Gotham this summer," she said.

Lex chuckled. "Oh, Kala. Speaking of dramatic. I wonder what her father thinks of her fashion sense? She murdered General Zod, but she still dresses like him."

"She was involved in the takedown on Sionis," Mercy pointed out.

"Maybe I should've sold him more kryptonite," Lex mused, then shook his head. "No, not after he lost the last batch to Red Hood. I'll overcharge him when he finally gets out and needs to resupply. Do we even know where that shipment ended up?"

"No, but I suspect Red Hood sent it to the JLA. He's working with them now," Mercy replied, curling her lip in distaste. They had followed that particular saga with interest, but now the Red Hood had settled tamely into being just another hero, which meant any possible future use for him was off the table.

"Pity. He seemed interesting. Certainly had the Bat running in circles," Lex remarked. "I wonder if our dear Kala intends to make a habit of hanging out in Gotham. We ought to see about expanding our market there, if she is. Her brother only visits occasionally, and unpredictably. She could drive the price of kryptonite up, if they knew what she is."

"I can leak that information, if you like," Mercy said.

Lex's keen gaze pinned her. "But you don't want to," he said, reading her more clearly than she particularly liked. "Why not?"

He respected her opinion, but she knew that would only last as long as she was worthy of it. The first foolish or sentimental choice would damn her in his eyes forever. So she took care to phrase her response as more than a hunch. "I dislike giving away information for free on general principles. Cobblepot is trying to be the chief information broker in Gotham, and we might learn a great deal if we traded knowledge with him, but we already know a great deal about a city in which we don't operate. We don't really need anything he can give us."

"I don't deal with psychopaths," Lex replied flatly. "Gotham is Joker's town, and he's completely unreliable and unpredictable. I don't have time for that. Let all the crazed killers collect in Gotham, I'll deal with people who will at least only betray their partners for a reason. Joker will backstab anyone, just because he can. You heard what he did when Sionis broke him out of Arkham, a few years ago?"

"You don't have to convince me," Mercy replied. She remembered – word had gone around what passed for the 'villain community'. Black Mask had gotten Joker out and asked for his help killing Red Hood, Joker had coughed and politely asked for a glass of water … then shattered the glass, used it to cut the throat of one of Mask's men, snatched the guy's gun and shot the other four bodyguards just so Sionis understood who he was dealing with. He'd done as Sionis asked, too, coming very close to killing the Hood, but he'd used Sionis himself as bait.

Joker didn't play by anyone's rules. Sionis had let that story circulate so everyone would know that … and understand why he was offering a damn big bounty on Hood's head, but not Joker's. No one would take a contract on Joker, not anymore. The man seemed impossible to kill, and he had a bad habit of putting his attackers in the hospital or the morgue. Mercy happened to know that Deadshot had been hired twice – Deadshot, who was some kind of meta himself, the way he never missed – and had failed, an unheard of thing. Both times he'd been picked up by the Suicide Squad before he could complete the mission, and once Joker just completely changed his plans for no apparent reason, as if he'd known somehow that death waited for him. Deadshot had been heard to say that you couldn't plan around pure chaos, and had refused any other contracts on Joker. The rest of the assassins apparently felt the same.

Mercy shook her head slowly. She also happened to know that one of the contractors had been the Demon's Daughter herself, and that Deadshot had returned the fee. The fact that he was still alive after failing someone like the al Ghuls meant they considered Joker unkillable, too. His particular brand of madness came the closest to frightening Mercy, who lived with Lex Luthor, and Lex's last two paramours had either died or lived on the run in terror of him. Lex was dangerous, Lex was deadly, but other than his obsession with Kryptonians, Lex was sane.

Joker wasn't even insane as Mercy understood the term. He was way off the charts somewhere, past dysfunction, past any clinical diagnosis. He was madness, incarnate.

Mercy shook that off and turned her attention back to answering Lex. "I completely agree. If we ever find ourselves in a situation where Joker is our only possible ally, I'd sooner scrub the whole project and start over than rely on him for anything. It's a wonder no one's killed him yet, as many as he's betrayed – and as many have tried."

"Yes, it is," Luthor murmured thoughtfully, then shook himself. "Can't be easy for little Kala to run around with such a scary clown possibly popping up. She's not the most mentally stable, herself."

That reminded Mercy of a message that had come in a couple days ago. "Speaking of Joker, he's back in Arkham, for the moment. As often as Kala's been in Gotham, I wonder if she was involved. Capespotting had a feature the same night, that most of the individuals we know work in Gotham were out the same night Joker was taken in."

Lex had sneered at that name. "That ridiculous website," he growled. "They'll hero-worship anyone in a costume."

Mercy had already brought up that night's report, and her brows went up. "Looks like Blur and Red Hood were seen working together that night. Interesting."

"Hood's the one Joker keeps claiming he killed," Luthor mused. "Not that I trust the Clown, everything he says is exaggerated if not an outright lie. Still, interesting indeed, if Superman's daughter is working with someone who was racking up an impressive body count, not so long ago."

"We know she's capable of killing," Mercy reminded him. "Something you should remember, when our paths cross hers again."

Lex just smiled indulgently at her. "I don't intend to put myself in her sights again, never fear. That's what Scion's for."

"Speaking of Scion," Mercy said with a wry smile, "reports say he's having trouble sleeping. Perhaps you should go read him a story."

Chuckling at that, Lex asked, "Which is more appropriate, do you think? On the Origin of Species, or Principia Mathematica?"

"He's read Darwin already," Mercy told him. "Give him math, or maybe Shakespeare. A little culture won't hurt."

"The point is to insulate him from human culture," Lex reminded her. "Still. He has the AI for Kryptonian language and culture. And he's what, six now? We might as well let him see what kind of a planet he's living on. King Lear, I think, for human frailty."