Nighttime in Gotham was a funny thing. From above, it looked like any other godforsaken shithole city occupying the planet—dirty, too many people in such a condensed area, sucking in power to fuel its light while polluting the rivers with its waste. Up close it wasn't much different either: Drug lackeys making deals, pimps beating their whores, girls too damn young turning out tricks, and then there were the motherfuckers who made it all happen. The latter in particular were what caught Red Hood's attention.
Red Hood had a funny way of making friends. The duffel bag hanging from his shoulder, tapping against his hip with the rhythm of his steps and its contents surprisingly heavy, was proof enough. He had been building up to this moment for months with careful planning. Taking in the loose gangs and bringing them under one banner, claiming territory one block at a time—blood paving the way with each ceded street—and monitoring the competition was hard work. It had taken him more than a year, but Red Hood was ready.
Time to go to war, he thought.
It was a cliché, he knew, but an abandoned warehouse on the three-way border of his territory in Crime Alley, the Bowery, and Burnley—an important cross-section that meant controlling the Narrows—was the meeting spot he'd chosen. Currently, the Narrows was held by his main adversary, but within two months, it would be his.
Goddamn right.
And then it would be on to the rest of Gotham's rotting carcass.
One step at a time.
Despite his heavy combat boots, Red Hood's footfalls were silent, barely rattling the catwalk he trod upon. He was shrouded in the dark—a helpful trick he'd learned from watching a certain Bat-freak in action—but he didn't need a light to see; his domino mask with its night vision was enough. He didn't have to go far to hear a cacophony of raised voices, getting louder as they sniped at one another. Adjusting the AR-15 in his grip, he stood watch, leaning over the railing, as the puppets below nipped at each other's throats.
"No one fuckin' invited you, Teddy," one of the men said, his red face a stark contrast against the white shock of thinning hair.
Warren White. Small-time smuggler and whacko extraordinaire. No empire of his own, he's always riding on the coattails of a bigger fish.
"Are you blind or just obtuse? Obviously, someone did, you ignoramus," said Teddy, a fat cigar hanging out of his mouth and a steady glare coming out from under a pair of thick eyebrows.
Theodore "Teddy" Donahay. Leader of the Free Men and one of the longest-running crime bosses. Also moonlights as a bottom feeder and the face of the Irish Mob in Gotham, and—where would we be without the stereotypes—a raging alcoholic.
"Big words for a motherfuckin' potato head," Warren snapped, face getting redder.
"What the fuck did you call me?"
The arguing rose until individual voices were difficult to distinguish as they echoed upward. But Red Hood listened intently.
"Whoever decided to invite you buffoons is certainly off their meds," Mei interjected quietly, her voice drowned out by the raging testosterone threatening to spill over into a fistfight as a manicured finger wrapped around a lock of black hair.
Mei Tzu, head of the Gotham branch of the Triads. Smart and savvy. Probably the most useful out of all these idiots. One of the best distributors of heroin in the city.
Red Hood had to stifle a laugh. To him, their bickering was a byproduct of a master leaving their dogs unattended. Because that's what they were: dogs.
"You're asking the wrong questions. If it's not our meeting, then whose is it?" asked another man, quiet up until that point. He spoke with an accent and wore large pants to cover up a leg brace as he glared down Teddy.
Jahan Shaddid. Leader of the Djinn—a wasted effort. Making his pathetic comeback in arms deals and, until throwing away seventy percent of his cut, he was on the verge of dying out.
And, as far as Red Hood was concerned, that was still a possibility.
"I thought this was offer to join Black Mask," said another man with a thick Russian accent. His head was shaved and probably shined with a buffer for how it seemed to refract every bit of light in the place like a goddamn lighthouse.
Vasily Kosov. Distant cousin of the Dimitrovs and the new head of what's left of their 'family'. Specializes in prostitution.
Red Hood's mouth twitched under his mask, almost curling into a sneer. If he didn't need them, he would've shot them all in the head and been done with the matter.
"If you could see where the tide is turning, you'd throw in with Black Mask," Mei said, jerking her chin up so she could look at everyone down her thin nose.
Red Hood stayed immobile at the mention of the competition, turning his head in curiosity. This might've been a meet he orchestrated, but intel was always valuable in his line of work.
"He's the only one who's been even slightly effective against the Bat. The police might've been scrambling before, but how much longer do you think that's gonna last? That bitch Hill's cracking down, Batman's hitting harder, and if you want to survive in this city—"
"Then it is your meetin'—"
"No, you idiot, I just finished saying—"
"Fuck all of youse. I'm gone—if you wanna stick around for nothin' be my guest—"
Fingers were being pointed, accusations thrown around until the tension escalated to a boiling point.
Good thing they left the guns and knives with the mooks at the door.
It was also a good thing that Red Hood killed them and took the weapons for himself. None of them were getting out of this unless he wanted them to.
Seems time to lock and load to me.
Pulling back the operating rod and flicking off the safety, Red Hood steadied his stance and fired over the heads of the gathered group below. Screams and chairs being knocked over were barely audible over the spray of bullets landing in the stained wood of the table as he emptied an entire magazine. Even through the faceguard, the smell of gunpowder filled his nose—it was an old and familiar one that seemed to be infused into his bones, something he'd never be able to take away.
"What the shit—!" Teddy yelled, face red and sweaty with fear.
Good. Best to keep it that way.
"It's my meeting. I invited you," Red Hood called out from above, placing a foot on the bottom rung of the railing of the catwalk and hoisting his gun back to rest on his shoulder. Only glimpses of the faceguard were visible, but he smiled when the flash of red was enough to make the cretins below panic.
"You have a death wish or somethin'? There are easier ways to kill yourself than this, pal," Warren said, recovering quicker than the others. But his legs still shook, hand reaching for his side holsters reflexively, remembering too late that he left his gun at the front door.
"Yeah. Like mouthing off to the guy with the semi-automatic." Red Hood made a show of changing the magazine, flashing that he had five more attached to the thick belt around his waist. "Listen up, fucktrumpets, and listen good: I'm offering you a deal."
The morons below looked at one another but still took a seat, righting their fallen chairs and glancing at the many bullet holes splintering the wood table between them. But they were paying attention, acting just like Red Hood thought they would. People like them were dogs—they wanted to run their own worlds, sure, but they were easy to bring to heel when there was a voice louder than theirs laying down the law of the land.
"You're all that's left of the old heart of crime in Gotham. Drug peddling scumbags, lecherous toads, and gun-toting morons—but you've done fairly well for yourselves, haven't you?"
The voice modifier built into his faceguard made it even deeper than his own, inhuman—almost robotic with hints of the real thing peeking through. It always gave the desired effect: Making his targets unsettled, wary. And—just as he saw from his studies of the Bat—afraid. But they had a whole lot of other reasons to fear him more than they did Batman.
Fear isn't enough.
"I'm going to be running things from now on. Everything. You'll run the basic operations as usual, with a few exceptions, and you will kick up forty-percent to me. That is a much better deal than Black Mask will give you."
The people below exchanged glances but said nothing. Red Hood wasn't wrong—he knew he wasn't. Black Mask was asking for seventy-percent. Seventy. If there was one thing that got these people's attention, it was money. Or, specifically, their ability to make more of it. They were simple and so was Black Mask: It's what made them easy to fight against and win. Not all of his adversaries were like that.
Only two.
"In return, you'll have protection from both Black Mask and Batman."
That caused a rising of voices again, people looking up at him, disbelieving, and confirming that they heard right with their neighbour. Red Hood was being serious. He didn't work up to all of this for so long to have it crumble because he didn't have a backbone. No, he was ready and Black Mask was going to feel Red Hood's boot on the back of his neck soon enough.
Then onto the next targets.
There was a chain—a strategy—that would lead to success. And, so far, he had nothing to prove his methods wrong.
"The clown offered a similar deal. He wanted half in exchange for killing the Bat—and look where that got us," Warren said, pulling at his collar and leaning further back in his seat.
Vasily crossed himself, muttering in Russian under his breath as the others at the table looked grim. Saying he could keep off the Bat was a big claim, but Red Hood was still operating unimpeded—and had been successful in evading the Dark Knight and a good deal of attention for over a year, barring recent developments, and still expanding. That was more than any of them, including Black Mask, could claim.
Red Hood had retroactively learned of the Joker's initial offer, when he had been useless in a hospital bed across the ocean as he watched his city burn. It had been these worms that unleashed the madman—had let him terrorize millions and sat back, waiting to get fat off the fear, until things hadn't worked out so well for them either. Red Hood almost wanted to thank the Joker for that—for landing a bigger blow against the organized crime groups in the city than anyone else had ever managed to do. He still might as he slit the clown's throat.
That'll be what comes at the end. But first, he'll know what "suffering" really means.
"Do I look like that clown to you? Don't tell me you haven't heard of me," he said, swinging his gun around to rest the barrel in his hand. It was important to keep reminding them of who had the advantage here—and it wasn't them.
"We've heard plenty," Shaddid said, keeping his head down.
Red Hood had to laugh. They would've been stupid to not know who he was. And that meant they knew what he could do—and it didn't involve blowing up hospitals, mowing down his partners, turning the city into a boiling pot of murderous mobs killing without thought and torturing the innocent. The latter two in particular struck a nerve. It made him angry and eager to act, but he'd managed to be patient. He did nothing the clown had. No, Red Hood was relatively quiet about his work. But the right people still got the message—he'd made sure of that—and now was the time to be loud.
"Good. Then you know I'm not fucking around."
They knew what he could do, but they didn't really know—not deep in their bones. Not yet. Most of his moves had been against the lower level enforcers, taking them out as he expanded his territory and took in their rivals. The threat was still too far from home.
Not for long.
"I hope you paid attention, half-wits, 'cause here's the catch: Stay away from kids and schoolyards. No dealing to or with children—if you do, you're dead. You sick fucks with the unwilling and underage girls working for you, that stops. No exceptions. You don't follow the rules, and I'll know. Every. Time. Do I need to repeat any of that?"
Only a beat of silence passed before their expressions changed, taking on the look of smug superiority that twisted their faces. They thought having rules that didn't actively fuck over the vulnerable made him weak—someone they could leverage. But they didn't know what Red Hood did—what he could do when the mission called for it.
Bathe the city in blood to wash away the filth. Do everything necessary.
"Uh, OK, crazy man. This is all very generous, but have you lost your fuckin' mind?! Why the fuck should we listen to youse?" It was Warren shouting again. Red Hood almost wished they could see his smile—how the edges curled and his eyes hardened. He laughed again.
I'm glad he asked.
Hoisting the heavy bag over the railing, Red Hood threw it onto the table below. The smell was the first clue, but when they pulled back the zipper and had a good look at some of their best-paid employees, the reactions ranged from dry heaving, frozen shock, to straight-up terror.
"Holy shit—"
"Inside are all the heads of your lieutenants. That took me two hours. You wanna see what I can get done in a whole evening?"
He knew the answer already—they don't want to see what would come for them. They might be the new heads of their gangs, but they were only half-baked replacements for the old cats in the game. They didn't have the stomach or the experience to outlast the ugly of Gotham because they didn't understand her. And they never would.
Leaping over the edge of the railing, Red Hood landed on the table, the duffle bag between his feet, with a loud bang that shocked the others into flinching backward. They really looked afraid then. Red Hood did make for a bloody sight—one that would be seared into their brains permanently. Red mask and eyes that seemed to almost glow, a large dagger strapped to his thigh and two handguns that they could see, and the titular red hood pulled over to hide the upper part of his face in shadow. The bloodstains on his brown jacket—fresh from his task of relieving the scum underneath him of their heads—were enough of a reminder that he did his own work, and that "mercy" was a word he refused to know. He hoisted up his gun, turning to look at them each in turn. They couldn't see his eyes with the domino mask on, and that was fine by him.
"I'm not Black Mask, and I'm not Batman. My rules are simple, but you fuck with them and it won't end well. I'm not exactly the forgiving type."
None of them were staring at him anymore. They looked at the heads, trying to figure out who was who—attempting to determine if they'd died in agony or not, but none of them asked because they knew the answer.
Yeah, they did.
"Ya dumayu, chto ty sumasshedshiy," Vasily muttered, hand over his mouth.
Red Hood's Russian was rusty, but he was fairly certain that it was at least part of an insult.
"Make no mistake: I'm not asking you to kick in with me." His voice scraped out in a low growl, artificial and guttural. Slowly, their eyes dragged back up as he levelled his gun at them. "I'm telling you."
He wasn't aiming to hit them and that, too, had its desired effect when he pulled the trigger, firing over their heads. They fell to the floor and screamed, covering their heads and begging for Red Hood to spare them from getting their own personal bullet to the skull. They didn't need to beg for long—by the time they had the wits to lower their arms, Red Hood was already gone.
Why am I here?
Batman often came after a long patrol, sometimes only leaving just in time for the sun to peek out over the horizon and filter through the trees. It became an unconscious habit, something he had found himself doing the motions of—making the right turns, following the winding roads, hiding behind the same line of trees—for months. Sometimes he wasn't even careful about getting caught. He just had to be there, to make sure.
The twenty-foot electric fences of Arkham Asylum didn't hide an outsider's ability to see the grounds, but they did make it harder to catch any glimpses inside. He'd long given up on using his amplifier—something was in the walls to nullify any capability to hear what was going on inside without being in the building itself or having access to their systems. That didn't stop him from observing.
Security at the Asylum was top of the line—expensive and well-funded by the taxpayers of Gotham; Arianna Hill made sure of that. And as more criminals and mentally ill were sent to Arkham Asylum under the city's newfound fear of any mind they didn't understand increased, so did the amount of security at the compound. The TYGER guards that paced the perimetre, holding their guns and looking more like a paramilitary group, were worrisome. A private security company that won the bid to enforce the city's prisons, form an emergency response taskforce and guard Arkham Asylum, Hill was taking extreme measures to ensure that what happened a year and a half before never did again. A mixture of ex-military and SWAT operatives that was too well-armed to be an indicator of anything good, Hill's new bolstering of the police focused more on punishment than preventing the crimes in the first place.
Despite the worrying signs building to something bigger he couldn't quite discern, Batman had no reason yet to risk going in. He also didn't have a reason to hide in the shadows and waste time that could've been spent patrolling, tracking down the leaders fuelling the upcoming gang war that could swallow them. But, night after night, he couldn't go back to the Manor without knowing.
The Joker was still inside, and he wasn't getting out.
That's what Batman repeated to himself, letting it be enough when he wanted to see it with his own eyes. He thought about him more than he wanted to since the Joker had been admitted—since his trial had begun and been postponed twice. First to gather new evidence and then again because of a failed psychiatric evaluation. And he couldn't help but think about the last time he'd seen him—the blood and pain and the crumbling of everything that mattered. It was gone and he couldn't touch the man responsible. And he couldn't tell if that was a good thing or not.
A small beep in his comms unit alerted him to the incoming call. Batman was glad for the opportunity to think about something else, turning away from the Asylum and getting back in the newest version of the Tumbler. "Speak."
"Hello to you, too, Mr. Wayne," Lucius said, sounding blasé and forging on like Batman had given a proper greeting, "Afraid I have some bad news—"
"You couldn't crack the encryption," Batman finished, starting the Tumbler and beginning the drive back to Gotham. He forced his mind away from the Asylum to the present—to the real, pressing problems.
"No. And, to be honest, it would likely take me several weeks even if I did have a clue about how to do it." Batman's mouth pulled back into a thin line, fingers tightening around the steering wheel. He wasn't the only one who was frustrated; Lucius sighed on the other end of the line. "Something tells me we don't have that kind of time."
"No, we don't."
They really didn't. There was no telling when they'd find another body, or even where the others came from. This was only one lead; Batman was still searching through missing persons databases in an attempt to find something concrete. If they were dealing with a serial killer, then it was only a matter of time before the bodies would be stacking up without a suspect. He couldn't help but think about the victims—their expressions of terror.
What did they see before they died? Who was pumping them full of psychotropic drugs? What was the purpose of holding them in conditions that would cause those ailments?
The only person that Batman could think of getting off on that level of fear was Jonathan Crane. But that was an impossibility. He was in Arkham—locked up tight just like the Joker was. And, if everything went right, they'd stay in there and get the help they sorely needed while the rest of the world—and Batman—could breathe easier.
"What are the other options, then?" Lucius asked.
There were no easy answers to that question. Batman couldn't break the code on the chip and neither could Lucius. They had no other real leads, and Gordon was trusting him to have something to show for his interference. Batman could dedicate more time to this, see about bringing in someone else and risking them asking questions, or he could do something he really didn't want to.
"Miriam's back in Gotham."
Batman had to give Lucius credit—he only missed a single beat in between a sharp intake of breath.
"Why?"
"She told Alfred it was for work." He didn't say that he hadn't mustered the courage to ask her himself. The urge to see her as soon as her plane landed, something he had checked out but didn't act on, had been strong—almost enough to overcome his guilt. He knew the longer he left it the worse it would be.
"You haven't spoken to her?" Confusion was evident in his voice, and Batman didn't want to address his own inadequacies with Lucius.
"She might be able to—"
"Do I have to tell you all the ways in which that is a terrible idea?" Lucius rushed to interject. As much as Batman wanted to, he couldn't say Lucius was wrong.
"Lucius." He didn't like doing this in particular, but he didn't feel bad about it either. Lucius would do what he was asked, everytime, because he trusted that Batman would make the right decisions. His judgement wouldn't be compromised, not for anything. "Do you think she could? Given the right resources—"
"You'll have to ask her yourself. Technically, she's not allowed anywhere near this place. And, frankly, I'm not sure I want her here either way."
Batman sighed. Wayne Enterprises was Lucius' domain, and he couldn't blame Lucius for feeling that way—not after what happened, the aftermath and what he saw. Lucius had a brief—but telling—glimpse into the twenty-four hour period when Miriam had been missing. He told himself that he didn't ask for Miriam's benefit, leaving the opportunity for her to tell him what she wanted. But that wasn't entirely true; Batman was just afraid of what the answer would be.
"Alright," he said, thinking. They had a silent agreement after the drones: Bruce Wayne wouldn't interfere with the projects of the Research and Development Department and neither would Batman. Not directly—not like he had when he had asked Lucius to hire Miriam. But this would be different.
"Give the chip to Alfred." He didn't know how, but Miriam would work with him. She might be angry, and she was certainly upset, but she would. And he didn't like knowing that he wouldn't be able to do much else without her. "I'll call you."
"Now, I didn't mean—"
Batman hung up, his jaw clenched tight as his frustrations mounted. He didn't have time for delays, not with the rumours coming out of Crime Alley. It pained him, but Batman couldn't do this alone and he couldn't keep avoiding the inevitable.
He finally needed to face Miriam.
The streets of Gotham weren't so different from when Jason Todd was a teenager. At least, the East End and poorer boroughs weren't. Some of the shops he'd known as a kid—the ones he had stolen from and those where he had spent what little money he had—were still around, a new level of grime on the brick and stucco with signs washed-out by acid rain. Even if the faces had changed, the people occupying the streets hadn't. Apathy, wariness, self-defensive hostility, keen eyes looking for easy scores, curled fists ready to start a fight, the incoherent ramblings of those occupying the same, never-empty corners, people with their heads down as they marched on and hoped no one looked at them—those were all things that were achingly familiar.
And so was their fear. That hadn't changed at all.
Even though his motorcycle was going at breakneck speeds, zooming past the other cars and weaving through traffic with reckless disregard for the risk of flipping and breaking his neck, Jason could still see everyone he passed. He never looked away, not even when it hurt. Much was still the same, but too much had changed while he was gone, and he wouldn't make the mistake of leaving Gotham again. He'd be buried there—likely sooner than he might have envisioned as a boy, but it wouldn't be until his work was finished.
This area of Gotham in particular—the Bowery—was more familiar than he wanted it to be. The entire East End was a never-ending nightmare of memory, one Jason dreamed of escaping for almost his entire life only to come back and defend it. The rows of dingy houses grew more decrepit by the day, the spring rain washing away any colour until they were just dirty white shutters against a wall of gray. One door, red and bright, stuck out against a hedge of green. It wasn't until he parked behind the beat-up, silver hatchback that Jason smiled.
Pulling his motorcycle under the tilted awning that barely covered the car, Jason took off his helmet and made his way to the door. He knocked in a familiar pattern—another callback to when he was a kid. It was childish, but he always did it when he'd come to visit. He saw the curtains shift, could sense her moving on the other side of the door, staring at him through the peephole. She was being cautious, and Jason couldn't blame her. He centred himself in front of the door, smiling bigger like he could actually see her face. It was another fifteen seconds before she undid the many locks, her eyes going over his shoulder to check down the street before landing on him. Jason's smile was harder to keep in place as he watched her.
"What're you doing here, Jason?" she asked, her brown eyes darting around, black hair pulled back tight in a bun. She had either just come home from work or was getting ready to leave. He knew she didn't leave for much of anything anymore. Not since the Siege.
Jason tried to sound light, cheery, even when he was bone-tired. "What, I need an excuse to see my sister?"
Isadora didn't return his smile, sighing instead and pushing back strands of stray hair behind her ears. He knew she wanted to correct him.
"Only half," she'd said in the past. They might've barely shared a mother, but they didn't share much else. Child Protective Services made sure of that.
Yeah, and I made it worse.
"You could've called," she said, sounding tired.
Still pleased as punch to have you around, seems.
"I wanted to surprise Val and the little guy," he said, using his height to look over his sister's head for his niece and nephew. His opportunities to visit them were rare with the line of work he'd taken on, but he still watched them from afar—making sure they were safe. Sometimes watching wasn't enough, and he wanted to be near what family he had left despite himself.
Isadora side-stepped, opening the door wide enough to slip through and nearly close behind her. "Look, now's not a good time—"
"Tío!"
Jason's face brightened in a way he hadn't felt it do in weeks. Valeria squeezed past her mother and wrapped her thin arms around his waist, jumping up and down fast enough to make her hair dance around her head.
"Hey there, little lady," he said, putting a hand on her head in a vain attempt to control the bursting energy. She'd grown since the last time he'd been over eight weeks ago. He dropped down to be at her eye level, smile turning into a smirk. "What've you been doing to grow so much? Find some magic beans or somethin'?"
"Beans?" Valeria asked, face scrunching up and her nose wriggling.
Jason chuckled through his nose, ruffling her hair until it was a staticky mess around her head. He laughed in earnest at her flustered attempts to fix it. "Don't tell me you don't know the story?"
"Psh—no! Probably some old people story for old people." All Valeria was missing was the stuck out tongue to complete the mock-scowl that barely hid a smile and the hands on her hips.
"Old people? Now, that's just rude, Val—you haven't even heard it yet! This one's a classic—"
"Jason."
He shut his mouth quickly, taking his eyes away from Valeria's excited face to Isadora's scowling one. Jason knew that look—it was one of the few things she inherited from their mother; the ability to command with just one word. Everything else in look and manner Isadora had Jason assumed she got from her father, though he hadn't met him. Her dark hair and eyes were from him, the brown of her skin, the other language Jason had learned to speak years later. He just knew she didn't get anything else from their mother; she wouldn't be as good of a person otherwise.
"Hey, go find your brother. I've got something for you two," he said, turning back to Valeria and smoothing down the remnants of her hair. Valeria barely gave him time to even do that, beaming and running back inside screaming for Eli.
"They don't need anything else," Isadora said, but the edge was almost gone, her boney shoulders starting to relax and come down from their position next to her ears. She'd lost weight in the last year and a half. Whether it was from stress or not being able to afford some decent food didn't matter—it still bothered him, made him want to help. But Isadora would only accept so much.
"I know, just…" he trailed off, rubbing the back of his neck. "Let me spoil them a little."
He knew by the change in her face that he'd said the wrong thing—triggered another argument that had defined most of their interactions from the day he turned seventeen.
"You could've if you hadn't left."
"Izzie—"
"You wasted years, so don't come around here tellin' me you suddenly wanna make up for lost time."
"Izzie—"
"You weren't there when Miguel—"
Isadora bit her tongue, her voice getting thick. Jason knew what she meant. He was gone when it happened—gunning down other men a continent away in the name of something he didn't believe in anymore; a sick twist of irony for what happened, Jason believing that he had finally escaped when he had just traded one hell for another.
"When Miguel died. They needed you. They need you when this city went to complete shit. When I—" Isadora's mouth shut quickly, bottom lip quivering once before she steeled herself and glared. "Where were you then?"
Jason didn't have an easy response for that, either. She was right, and excuses wouldn't make up for it. Instead of guilt, anger—burning hot rage grew in his chest. But not at his sister, his family—but at himself.
And those pieces of shit playing fucking dress-up.
"Isadora, you know I wanted to be," he said after a long minute, bringing his voice under control, shaking out his sore fists. Jason stared at her, willing for his face to look different than he knew it did at that moment. He wanted to show her he was sincere, but he knew—he knew his face was hard, showing the dammed up waves of wrath that made him vibrate.
"That isn't good enough—"
"Tío!" a small voice cried out. The sound of it snapped Jason out of the dark trail of thoughts that always waited on the periphery, always looking for the chance to swallow him. He smiled at the sight of Eli's head of black curls, the big brown eyes staring up at him.
"What'd you bring, tío?" Valeria asked, bringing up the rear and grabbing his arm so she could hang on and swing her legs. They were both clamouring to use him as their personal jungle gym, voices getting higher until they eclipsed the sound of the rain hitting the pavement.
"OK—OK! You'll only get it if your mom says you've been good," Jason said, relenting. Eli's legs were wrapped around his calf, Valeria still clinging to his arm. He looked to Isadora and saw her face soften, the worry-lines easing away as she leaned against the doorway. "What do you say? They been good?"
Valeria and Eli whipped their heads around, voices climbing over one another to tell her how they had been behaving and doing their school work. When Isadora smiled, Jason felt his own return. "Yeah," she said, running her fingers through her children's hair. "Mis amados han sido buenos."
It wasn't until Jason's phone vibrated in his pocket and he looked at the caller ID that he realized he needed to leave. His heart sank, but it still felt lighter than it had in years. Pulling out the wrapped package from the inside pocket of his jacket, he handed it to Valeria and watched them tear into it.
"A book?" she asked, holding it gingerly and looking at the art on the front flap.
"Yeah, one of my favourites. You'll have to let me know when you two finish it."
She held Jason's copy of Roald Dahl's The Witches. He'd stolen it from his school library, but he remembered reading it over and over again—finding his favourite passages and memorizing them when there wasn't much else he wanted to remember. He hoped Valeria and Eli would never need to use it for that, but that they could find something else in it that he had.
"Behave for your mom now. Don't wanna hear that you little gremlins have been kicking up trouble," he said, but Valeria and Eli were already gone, absorbed in reading the back and trying to figure out what it was about. Jason often brought books as presents for them; it was the one thing that made sure he gave them something good. He stared at the two of them a moment longer before raising his hand in a wave. "See you, Izzy."
The anger that was on her face before evaporated. As she ushered her children inside, he could've sworn that she was happy to have seen him after all. "Bye, Jay."
"Hello, apartment," Jason said to the empty flat. He had no one to greet him, so he'd long since made a one-man inside joke about greeting the only other occupants: his furniture.
Now it's just kind of sad, ain't it?
"Hello, couch," he said as he passed the beat-up leather sofa. His place was small, but it was enough to serve his purposes. Eating crap food that was quick, crashing after a long night to sleep for a couple hours before going back out, and storing his equipment in the locked cabinet hidden behind a false panel in the bedroom closet—his existence was a simple one, and he preferred it that way.
Walking into his bedroom, he dropped his bag next to his dresser, making sure it lined up neatly and didn't stick out to trip him later. Rolling his shoulders, he sighed, "Hello, bed."
Jason didn't get a response, of course, but that was alright. He still wasn't used to the quiet, being alone with his own thoughts that were always ringing in his head too loud. Sleep should come easy that night. He hoped, anyway.
Wishful thinking. Never does.
"Hello, pillow," he said, laying gingerly on the bed and suppressing a wince as his bruised back muscles started to unwind. Letting out a pent-up breath, Jason tried to close his eyes to sleep. He'd need to be up again in five hours and he needed to be sharp.
But his mind was nothing if not a complete asshole.
Jason couldn't sleep, couldn't stop thinking. Growling, he sat up and searched for his phone in the dark. Jason didn't know why he kept watching the video—why seeing it play out on a loop was something he needed to keep embedding in his mind.
He just added this to the list of things he didn't totally understand but did anyway, even if it made him angry enough to completely forget the need to sleep.
The video was of Miriam Kane, on some metal floor looking like an empty doll with clothes that were too big and buttoned up wrong, no shoes and bloody feet, leaning over a steaming pot of oil. Occasionally her mouth trembled, but that was only one sign of her duress. Her empty eyes, shaking hands, and the bruises and cuts were more than enough to show that only someone not in their right mind would be there willingly. She, more than anyone else, would understand what he was after—what Gotham needed to overcome that brand of evil. He'd seen it himself—a familiar pain that would only go away with vengeance. Jason understood that.
I really should stop watching this.
But he wouldn't. Perhaps he needed to keep reminding himself of his mission, why it was so important, be slapped with the reality of the heinous acts forever embedded in the memories of his family and nearly ten million people.
"As a bonus for today, and a celebration for over twenty thousand votes in yesterday's poll, I'm giving you something special, kids. Once in a lifetime chance to see the scum of the earth get what they deserve."
When he watched it, it was often without sound anymore, but it didn't matter; he'd long ago memorized the words—the sound of that psychotic freak's voice. Hate was alive and well in Jason, twisting in his stomach and making his muscles spasm.
"I'm releasing the names and last known locations of fifteen of Gotham's Most Wanted. You're not getting any help with those ones, the fun's all on you, on one itty bitty condition."
That was it. The death order that had nearly killed his sister and her children; a sentence handed down by a madman that people were too stupid and unwilling to question. That had nearly taken away everything Jason had left. It came from the man Jason swore he'd gut with his bare hands, would bathe in his blood as he sacrificed his soul to make sure it never happened again. And he'd do the same to the Clown Prince's ultimate enabler—the one who let it all happen. The Great Disappointment—the Dark Pretender.
Jason Peter Todd was going to kill the Joker, and then he'd be coming for Batman next.
AN: I hope you all enjoy the chapter! It looks like school will eat up a substantial amount of my time, so I'll have to keep the biweekly posting schedule. Thanks to everyone new checking this out and my wonderful and loyal readers for sticking around! ❤
Also, as some of you may recognize, the Valeria and Eli mentioned here are the same ones from "Crowd Control" in the 34th chapter of Everything Burns. The Joker's actions are going to come back to bite him in more ways than one, but how it turns out will be a mystery! Jason doesn't have much of a biological family in the comics, but I'm altering that to help make him fit into the Nolan-verse and the larger AU I'm mish-mashing. He doesn't have the Bat-Family to anchor him as he (occasionally) does in the comics, so I've had to play around with things since Nolan's Batman never takes in orphaned wards.
A big thank you again now and always to Khaosprinz for her help proofreading this!
