Proving that I should not watch Jormungand and read Jason Todd stories at 2AM. This isn't a crossover, merely inspired by Jormungand. It's based in the Young Justice continuity, and the prologue takes place just prior to season two.
I have no idea when if ever I will continue this, but I am open to ideas.
00:30
Park Row, Gotham City
October, 31st, 2015 AD.
Batman found himself back where it all began. Park Row, otherwise known as Crime Alley. If it was anyone else, he would have thought that it was a mere coincidence. But if he was right about who it was beneath the red helmet, it was very deliberate.
Julia Todd. The second Robin. His soldier. His daughter. The one he had found stealing wheels off of the Batmobile. The one that had needed Bruce Wayne as much as she needed Batman. The one that he had failed. The one that was now haunting him.
"H-Hello.." The voice was almost hesitant in tone, but Bruce recognised it all the same. "So glad you could make it."
Steeling himself, he responded with. "This ends tonight. All of it."
"That's the plan."
And then they were fighting. The Hood tossed her own personal batarangs at Batman, but he dodged them all, landing behind a dumpster and less than a moment later sent it careening towards her. She leapt over it, but after Batman's thrown bolas wrapped around her feet and slammed her into the ground. She cut the cords with her knife, and scrambled to her feet. Before he knew what happened, Julia was climbing up the ladder of a fire glanced behind her for a moment to ensure that Batman was following.
She began running atop the rooftops. Batman knew, deep down, that she was leading him somewhere. But that was not what was important right now. He caught up to her, and made to grab for her shoulder. But she leapt forward, wrenching his mask off of his face, and turned around to face him again.
"Look at you." Julia chuckled, and tossed his mask back to him. "I suppose we should keep this fair, no?"
She reached up, and pressed something at the back of her helmet. She dropped it to her feet, and let her dark hair fall down. It was shorter than it had been when she had been Robin, Bruce noted. Now, it only came down to just past her neck.
"Julia."
"Father." She spat the word as a curse.
"...I don't want to fight you."
"Really now?" She smirked. "All evidence to the contrary."
"Please." Batma- Bruce said. "I can help you. I know what happened."
"Oh? I take it you got to talking with Ra's then." Julia stated. "I suppose it alleviates a lot of your guilt then, to think that a dip in his little fountain of youth is what turned me rabid?"
"That is what the Pit does, Jules.." Batman said softly. "The Pit causes madness."
"The Pit gave me perspective!" Julia snarled. "That I would never be good enough! Or smart enough! Or strong enough! Or DICK GRAYSON enough for you! For any of them!"
"..You cannot truly believe that." Batman replied ."The Team. The League. The family...they all mourned you...they all miss you.."
"Then where are they?" Julia retorted with a sneer. "They aren't here. Which either means you've not told them...or they simply don't give a damn."
"Jules-"
"I have heard ENOUGH out of you!" She yelled, and bolted across the rooftop and leapt across the street, smashing through the window of a building the other side. Once more, Batman found himself chasing after her again.
He landed into the floor behind her, and soon they were brawling again. But this time, Batman did not hold back. He could not afford to. This time, Julia was not as even a match for him. He slammed her against a wall, and tried not to seeth. "Enough! It is over!"
And with a single kick, he sent his daughter flying through the wall, the thin and rotting wood giving way easily. She let out a pained groan, and hauled herself back to her feet. She glanced around, and a thin smile appeared on her face. Bruce didn't question it. Not now.
"...I know I failed you." He said, in an almost gentle tone. "But I tried to save you, Jules. I'm trying to save you now."
"Is...Is that what you think that this is about? That I died? I don't know what clouds your judgement worse..your guilt or your damn...antiquated sense of morality." His daughter let out a harsh bark of laughter. "Bruce..I failed the mission when I died. So frankly, I don't understand why you feel so...guilty. 'The mission is all that matters', remember?"
And he did, and tried not to wince. That had been his credo when she had been Robin. The mission was all that mattered. And in that instant, he realised something that, were he anywhere else, would have made him weep.
Julia had died believing herself a failure.
"Regardless." She continued, and kicked down a side door, revealing the Joker, tied to a chair. "Let us not waste any more time."
The Joker looked around, his smile growing by the second before he broke out into his trademark hideous laughter. "You gotta give the girl points! She came all the way back from the dead to make this shindig happen! Ooh! Ooh! Who's gotta camera?! Get one of me and the kid first. Then you and me. Then the three of us. And then one with the crowbar. Then-aaack!"
Julia sent her fist into the back of the Joker's head, sending him to the floor. She slid a gun out from her waistband and pressed it against the Joker's skull. Even in the gloom, Batman recognised it as a M1911 pistol.
"Oh shut up before I shoot you in the damn head." She seethed. "God knows I'd be doing the world a favour."
"Party pooper." The Joker grumbled. "No cake for you."
She stood up, shifting her aim from the Joker to the Batman.
"I could have accepted things if you'd beaten him to within an inch of his worthless life." Julia told him, quietly now. "If you'd actually put him in hospital over what he did to me. 'The One Rule' is important enough to you and the League that even I can forgive you for not killing him out of vengeance."
"But you didn't!" She hissed. "You just...slapped him in cuffs and carted him to Arkham. Like you always do. Like it was just another night at work. L-Like my death….meant nothing to you. I-If..if it'd have been you he'd taken...if he had killed you...I would've done nothing but search the planet for this...filth...and sent him off to hell!"
"...You don't understand." Batman began, allowing sadness to fill his voice. "I don't think you've ever understood."
"..W-What?" She asked, her tone now filled with desperation and rage "That...that your moral code just won't allow for that? It's too hard to cross that line? Even once?!"
"...It would not be 'just once'!" Batman fired back "That is the issue. There isn't a day that passes that I don't think about subjecting him to every horrendous tortures he's dealt out to others and then end him."
Joker grinned. "Aww….you do think about me! I'm touched."
"...But if I do that." Batman ignored the clown. "If I go down into that place. I'll never come back. I'll never be able to stop."
"Why?" Batman winced at the pleading tone his daughter spoke in now. "I-I'm not talking about Penguin...or Scarecrow..or...or Dent! Just him! I'm not even asking you to kill him! I'm asking you to show that I actually mattered."
"I can't do what you are asking." Batman's gaze narrowed. "As much as it pains me to admit..Joker is the victim in this instance."
"AND THERE IT IS!" Julia let out a half mad laugh and gestured to the Joker. "You're trying to save him. From me!"
That set the clown off. He laughed and laughed like he'd heard the funniest thing he'd ever heard. The strange thing was, Batman wasn't sure that it wasn't. After all, how often did someone choose to side with the murderer over the person they murdered?
"I can help you." Batman told her. "Let the Joker go, and let me help. Please."
In response, Julia tossed the gun she was holding at his chest and pulled a second one from her waistband. She grabbed the Joker by the collar and leveled it against his head. "Oh no no. You are not having it your way today. This is what is going to happen. You are going to choose which one of us dies. The Joker...or Myself."
"I won't-"
"I'm going to blow his deranged brains out." She snarled. "So, if you want to stop me...y-you'll make the choice. And kill me."
Batman looked between his daughter and the gun, and turned away, tossing aside the handgun she had thrown at him as he did so.
"I-Is this your choice?!" Julia roared after him, but Batman ignored her and continued to walk away. "R-Really?"
There was silence, and Julia let out a scream, and fired at her father. But he threw himself to the side, and tossed a batarang that embedded itself into the barrel of her gun. It exploded, causing her to let go of the Joker and stumble backward, clutching her wounded hand to her.
"Hahahaha!" The Joker cackled with glee. "I can't believe you got her! You expert, rootin'-tootin' eagle-eyed goth-loving marksman! I love it! You found a way to win!"
"...always him." The detonator was in her hand before Julia even knew what she was doing.
"Jules." He began. "It's okay. Let me-"
"It's always HIM!" She stabbed down on the button with her thumb, and the telltale ticking of a bomb countdown filled the room. Batman looked to the fireplace, where the bombs were, only for the Joker to launch himself at him, taking him to the floor and wrapping his fingers around his throat.
"No! Don't spoil it, this is better!" He laughed. "I'm the only one who's gonna get what he wants tonight! Bing bang boom! We'll all go out together, don't you just love a happy ending?!"
Batman punched the clown off of him, and leapt over to Julia. He grabbed her by the collar and bodily dragged her towards the fire escape door, only for her to yank herself away from him.
The last thing Bruce Wayne heard before the bomb exploded was his daughter's voice speaking in an utterly defeated tone.
"You made your choice, Bruce."
It was dark and dusty and quiet when the ringing in Julia's ears finally died down. The bomb was small enough to not flatten the entire building. She wasn't crazy. But it was powerful enough to render the room she had hidden it and Joker in and everything above it little more than a pile of rubble.
She could hear a commotion somewhere above her, but she ignored it. Her father had made his choice. And it hadn't been her. Why hadn't it been her?
Maybe Talia had been right. Perhaps remaining with the League of Shadows really would have been the right path for her. They had brought her back to something resembling sanity. Training her. Housed her. Giving her a sense of purpose.
She supposed it didn't matter anymore.
Julia Todd let out a sigh, and surrendered to the darkness.
