The air ducts of the Al Ghul palace weren't designed to accommodate a grown man's body. Since Jason wasn't exactly lean of build, moving his large frame through them was a struggle. Worry that he might get stuck in them was becoming a real concern. It was difficult blocking out that small voice in his head that panicked at being confined, reminding him of past dreams of being trapped in a dark, damp coffin reeking of rot and death - half-formed memories of old nightmares of ripping fingernails as he clawed his way out of the wooden box.
His lungs screamed for air, in spite of it being plentiful. His mind knew it was plentiful. His damned psyche, however, was trying to suffocate him. Jason wanted to shout but he couldn't – at least, not without risking discovery.
Shaking his head, Jason attempted to free himself of his irrational fear. Years had passed since then, literally another lifetime.
Jay snorted quietly at his thoughts. The memories of his death continued to haunt him to this day, hitting him at the most inconvenient of times. Like while trying to crawl through the air ducts of an enemy's compound.
Shoving all that history back into the trunk he kept stashed deep in the recesses of his mind, Jason refused to relive the tortures he had experienced at the hands of that blasted clown another minute. He had spent too many nights waking up to the sound of Joker's laughter rattling around in his head. Even now, he would sometimes wake up fighting the phantom pain of broken bones or through the memory of the excruciating bite of the clown's damned crowbar.
No more!
The only way Jason could think of to banish his torment was through revenge. Batman had stopped him once before, but there was no one to stop him now. Unable to let it go, Jason researched as to why Joker had been in Africa in the first place. The discovery had led Jason here, to Ra's al Ghul's Middle Eastern compound.
It had been Ra's' fault . . . All of it! That he had been at the untender mercy of that clown, his torture, his murder, the fucking indignity of being dragged out of his grave only to be tossed into the cursed Lazarus Pit. He had been reborn into madness then abandoned by the bastard, left alone to fight his way back to some hazy semblance of sanity.
To this day, Jason was tormented by what he had done while engulfed in the madness, haunted by the memories of his failed attempt to murder the only man willing to be a father to him, of tearing a bloody path through Gotham, the carnage of his passing the proof of his return. And Joker . . .
Laughing, always laughing but this time his mirth had been over what Jason had become - a pathetic excuse of a human being, a half-crazed murderer, no better than the psychopath that had ended his life at the end of a crowbar. The mad clown had been smug when talking of what Jason had wrought upon his return, the blood on Jason's hands being a mere extension of the maniac's own. Was that a bit of paternal pride in his voice? Just the thought made him want to puke.
Why couldn't he have just been left in the ground, dead, like he was meant to be? His life and everything related to it was now in shambles.
Once the Pit's madness had quelled and he had been able to think more clearly, Jason had discovered all the pain that had occurred in time between his death and his resurrection. He had apparently been replaced with a new Robin while he had been gone. Dick Grayson, the first Robin, the guy he had just begun to think of as maybe a brother before he had kicked it, was wallowing in grief over the death of his best friend, unable to pull himself out of his funk.
It was pitiful, really . . . Two years and the guy was nearly in as bad a shape as Jason had been. Nightwing had practically saved the earth single-handedly and yet Dickhead was paralyzed with guilt, all because of a few lies. People actually had the gall to nitpick over how he did it! But then Dick was always one to take all the responsibility onto his own shoulders. The guy obviously had some kind of complex or something. Jason was sure he could blame it on Bruce with only a little effort.
Bruce . . . Jason cringed when he remembered facing Batman in that abandoned apartment with the Joker bound on the floor at their feet. Thinking back, he should have gagged the psychopath while he had been at it. It likely wouldn't have taken so long for the madness to have cleared from his mind if he had. And then Jason had realized what he had been asking Bruce to do, to go against the one unbreakable rule the man had in his obsessive quest for justice, the one thing he had ground into him from day one . . . Dick, him, and likely the replacement, too.
Jason had run then, fleeing like a scared child. He hadn't known where he'd been going - just away, from the apartment, from the Joker, from Batman . . . and his shame. Ironically, where he had ended up had been cowering in the filth of Crime Alley, the place where his life had begun.
Of all the people who might have found him, who perhaps should have found him, in the end it had been Artemis.
She hadn't questioned how he'd come back, rather had taken him back to her and Wally's old apartment, cleaning him up and feeding him. As Jason recuperated, Artemis had gone on to explain all that had happened while he had been – away. Everything. How Tim had become the next Robin, how the world almost been ended by a plot that Vandal Savage, with the help of Lex Luthor, and Ra's, had created to rule, get this, the galaxy by framing the Justice League and manipulating an alien race.
The good guys had won, of course, through the strategic planning of Nightwing and Aqualad, but the plan had nearly gone awry. If not for Kid Flash's sacrifice, the world would have ended for everyone - instead of just for Artemis when Wally had died.
Dick had been practically crippled with grief and guilt after that, as though losing the speedster had been the final straw. He blamed himself in typical Dick fashion but, worse, was that the team had blamed him as well. As a result, Dick had quit, shutting himself off from everyone. He had thrown himself into his job as a cop for Bludhaven PD with reckless abandon and, if Nightwing appeared at times, the hero was shown to be sloppy, taking risks with his life that were worrisome.
Jason had decided that very night that everything that was wrong in the world, all the pain and suffering that he personally had endured, could be laid upon the Demon's Head. He had determined at that point that he would make Ra's pay, with interest, and Jason would be the one to hand him his receipt.
A low growl rumbled in his throat at the memories. They spurred Jason forward through the too-tight air ducts until familiar voices grabbed his attention. He followed them.
"Neither the detective nor his eldest have discovered Vandal's secret, I see."
Ra's . . .
Jason focused on that voice as he continued through the ventilation system to the source, listening intently to the words that were drifting through the vent. His heartrate increased as the dark stain on his soul lurched in an effort to rip away Jason's control. For one tense moment, it took every ounce of his strength to push it back down, holding the madness at bay until he could calm himself.
"Savage is playing his hand close to his chest, Father," a woman said. Talia. "Even among those of the Light, very few know of the speedster's return."
Speedster? Artemis had told him that Barry was still the Flash, still with the League. There's some new speedster, too, a kid from the future. Impulse, or some such title . . . Could they be talking about him? But no, he had heard reports about the new sidekick as recently as last week and knew the kid had taken Wally's place with the Young Justice team shortly after Wally's death.
The vent cover lay just ahead. Jason angled himself so he could see the occupant's in the room.
"Yes, yes, I am aware. Do the heroes mourn him still?" Ra's asked with mild curiosity.
"It would appear so. You know, Father," Talia murmured, "if Savage manages to pull him free of the speed force, those heroes will be fighting their friend."
"Hardly, daughter," Ra's corrected her.
"But the immortal claims that in only a few days he will have speedster in his possession," she said. "Once that happens, it will merely be a matter of time before he is broken in both mind and spirit and then, he will be able to be molded into a soldier of the Light."
"The young man has more value than that of a mere soldier," Ra's retorted, but he was interrupted by the opening of the door. A child, no older than five, entered at a run.
"'Am 'ana hazamah," the boy said in Arabic.
"Wala bd li 'an 'adhkur lakum, Damian, 'ann al'abatirat la taemal," Talia said, not unkindly.
"Aghfir li, al'umm," the boy nodded.
The only word Jason could translate was 'mother'. He stifled a snort, wondering what poor bastard had been stupid enough to sleep with Talia. He pushed that aside as inconsequential in order to think about what he had just overheard. The two adults followed the child out of the room, unaware they just left their unseen guest reeling.
The speedster they were speaking of could have only been one person . . .
Jason scrambled to pull a couple of transmitters from his belt to leave behind. They were new technology he had picked up on his most recent scavenger hunt through Wayne-Tech's R&D department. If Bruce was aware of Jason's occasional forays through the department's goodie bag of upgraded Bat-toys, he never let on. In any case, there might be a chance to catch some other tidbit before anyone was able to discover the foreign tech.
Ra's should be thanking him. Jason had come with the sole purpose of blow Ra's and his entire compound to smithereens, after all. At least, that had been the plan . . . Now, however, Jason had discovered a new list of priorities with the top spot being to find his brother.
Estranged or not, it was time for Dickhead to be dragged out of his self-imposed funk.
REACTIONS?
Surprise! Jason has returned as Red Hood. Come on. Let me hear what you think of this . . .
Special thanks goes out to Goingdownwithmyshipz who wrote the first 12 chapters with me for giving me permission to repost and then carry on this story on my own when life got in the way.