Steph had a lead, one measly lead she'd intimidated out of one measly thug from the 'auto-shop' across from the building Jason had shot up. Turned out for all the trouble it had caused her, being knows as the Red Hood's 'sister' still gave her a little pull. Especially now with them thinking he was back.

'You're amazing Steph.' He'd never called her Steph before. 'You know you are.'

She shot out her grapple; let it carry her over the gap from one skyscraper to the next.

'But it's okay because he's 'ridiculous and easy to tease', right?' Tim had been livid, angrier with Steph than he'd ever been as far back as she could remember.

'You're bright, and you're tough as hell, and whatever happens you'll come through it fine.'

But she wasn't fine. She landed wrong on a rooftop, too much forward momentum, her feet skidding, stumbling along the rooftop. She slammed her hand against a ventilation shaft to catch her balance and almost immediately spun on her heel and smashed her fist into the metal a second time, making a shallow, circular dent in the shiny surface. Her knuckles felt the shock even though her gloves, but it wasn't enough so she hit it again and again and again until her knuckles ached worse than they had when she'd been trying to meet Bruce's crazy standards for Robin preparedness.

'When you find out… please don't…'

Cass wouldn't talk to her, whatever her friend was feeling, how things were going with the rest of her family, Steph was sure they hated her right now, all of them.

'… hate me.'

Steph pulled her fists to her side, eyes burning. She should have known, should have known something was wrong when he'd asked that. But she'd been so elated, so bolstered and warmed by the other things he'd said, the complements and reassurances that everything would work out. He'd just sounded so damned 'confident' aside from those few short seconds. He'd made her think she could do anything, and then left her all alone.

Steph dropped her head against the vent with a dull, empty thump that echoed all the way down. It wasn't helping, sitting around moping like a little kid. Her gloves creaked when she balled her shaking hands into fists at her sides tightly enough to pop her knuckles. He didn't get to leave things like that, didn't get to up and disappear on her again.

With a growl low in her throat and another hit of the airshaft, Steph pushed away and carried on with her trek through the city. No one else would work with her on this, let her know what they did, if they there was anything they did, but that was just fine with her. Not like working alone was a foreign concept, she was a detective too she could investigate just fine on her own.

Too bad for whatever idiot had shown up to her investigation grounds before her.

They were loitering around the outer edges of the buildings like they thought they were being stealthy. The heads ducking in and out of the partly boarded up windows of an apartment in a scrappy seeming building that was a 'lot' nicer on the inside, at least when compared to the not-boarded up windows she could see pretty clearly.

From her perch crouched low on a rooftop higher up and across the alley with a pair of binoculars an d some listening equipment, Steph followed the concentration off goons, none of them wearing any gang colors, well unless the guys in suits counted, but most of those were kind of dead anyway, so… God, she really hoped Gotham instinct crept in to keep the other tenants inside their own apartments, that they were 'safe' in those apartments even then.

She caught the glimmer of a red helmet right before she switched her binoculars to thermal. Sure, great she'd take on Mister Red Hood if she had to, beating the crap out of the asshole might've even been therapeutic if he was one of those idiots who tried to keep his goons out of fight's he considered 'his'.

He has his hand wrapped around someone's throat, pressing them hard against a wall as he growled at them for answers in a voice that was both modulated and more gravely than the one Jason made fun of Bruce for.

'… worker, didn't get told specifics, never knew…'

'You really believe I'm that stupid!?' Oooh, and he was super angry too judging by the shaking of his shoulders and, well, his screamy voice. 'If you didn't know I wouldn't have come here. You HAVE to know, now TELL ME BEFORE I THROW YOU out of this window."

'What do you want me to say!?' The guy yelled back, his hands scrabbling at the hands wrapped around his throat. 'Heard he came in, and killed everyone, don't know who he was, nobody knows!'

'Then why are you alive?' Fake Hood yanked the guy over to a window and called over two of the men to pry the planks apart.

Steph turned her goggles and got her first good look at the lot of them. Fake Hood's helmet was a lot shinier than anything she'd seen Jason with, his shoulders shuddery and tense with the effort of forcing his begging victim over to the window. There was something familiar about him though, about the set of his shoulders maybe a little in his voice if she changed the tone, took away the distortion, but she couldn't place it.

"Please I told you everything I know, I swear, I never did anything, never knew anything!" Steph could hear the guy's shouting without the aid of her equipment now.

"You KNEW what you did when you took your bribes!" He drew back his hand, ready to shove the guy out of the window. In just over two seconds, Steph had her equipment tucked away and her grapple out, ready to swing into the action.

Her boots planted into the chests of the two thugs, in a shower of half rotten splinters, Steph landed on top of them in the surprisingly nice apartment. One of them got over his shock pretty fast and made a grab for her ankle, but Steph danced out of the way, connected her foot with the side of his head before he could do much more than brush the edge of her boot. A handful of knockout pellets later and they were a non-issue. The one's outside however… Steph could hear them coming, but Fake Hood had a gun to the other guy's head.

"Batgirl." He said, his voice coming off even weirder in person than it had over a speaker. "You're not supposed to be here."

"Yeah, you'll find I am."She stalked a little closer, saw him twitch and all those lectures about staying clear of that red helmet should she ever catch sight of it had her hesitating for just a second, just one measly little second. She still got the gun away from the hostages neck, kicked it right out of Fake Hood's hand, but the bullet still got out, lodged itself in the other guys side.

Steph didn't have time to look at him too closely. Had to move too fast to keep him from following up with some other attack. Her palm strike was aimed at his neck, the only part of him that couldn't have been protected by any hidden armor. Giving him a good uppercut to the jaw would have been preferably, but that helmet looked 'hard' and Steph's knuckles were still sore. Hood stumbled back, clutching his throat and before he could come to his senses, Steph got him with a round house kick to his chest, Chuck Norris style, that sent him falling out through the now open door from which his men were trying to come to his aid.

She really didn't expect it to be that easy, so she grabbed hold of hostage guy, now whimpering softly and trying to crawl his way under a table. Her hands got him under his armpits and she hauled him to his feet, tried not to focus too hard on how terrified he sounded at the idea of her touching him, as she pulled him with her over to the wall, hearing his weak begging all the while. Damnit, he was too slow, too heavy for her to carry bodily herself. There was a click and Steph spun to keep the gun not trained on her in her line of sight, pushing hostage guy behind her.

"If you wanted to help." Hood said, rubbing at his chest with his free hand. "All you had to do was ask."

"Yeah buddy, I get you for reals need help, but there're some real nice doctors who'd be worlds better at it than me." She shifted her shoulders so her cape fell over them, cloaked her body. The fabric was bulletproof and she could have it covering her face in a second if that gun went off. Hostage guy however, was unlikely to be that lucky.

He growled under his breath, looking on the verge of losing his temper on her. "Come on now, just hand him over and I'll take care of it." He stepped nearer to her and she took a bigger step back, nudged hostage guy closer to the window with what she hoped was a reassuring smile and used the cover of her cape to reach for her grapple hook. "We're in his together, aren't we?"

He sounded almost hopeful, and it caught Steph off guard for about a second, but Hostage Guy groaned, pressed his hand harder against his wound, and he'd almost reached the window.

"My guy, only thing we're in together here is this apartment, and I got places to be." She backed up further as he approached, kept the distance between them from shrinking.

"You don't have to be scared of me." He said, the gravel falling from his voice so only the modulator remained. "Your brother…"

"Oooh boy." Steph cut him off, she was right by the window, Hostage Guy was right by the window, she could make her exit right now, but she couldn't let people think she endorsed this guy, or that he was Jason. "You really think I'm gonna be scared of some half assed rip off?" She snorted, her arms wrapping around the victim. "Try again."

She fell back wards out the window, grapple in hand, and pulled the bleeding man with her, followed seconds later by an enraged scream. She couldn't carry her guy far, he was heavy and she didn't exactly have super strength, so she didn't have the time to turn around and look at whether or not she was being pursued.

Her bike was parked one alley over, and as soon as they were back on solid ground, she dragged him over to it and powered up the engine.

Only ten minutes later, she was in the more spacious suburbs and confident enough in not being followed to park and alert an ambulance to their location's before she helped No-longer Hostage Guy off the bike and prop him up against the nearest tree.

He was still awake, even pale and shaky as he was.

"You okay? Gonna hold out till the paramedics get here?" She asked, leaning over him, He flinched back violently, throwing up both his hands to shield himself from her. Hands that were supposed to be keeping pressure on the bleeding hole in his side.

"Oh God, and what do you want? I'm just a night guard, I just watch the storage, I fucking swear." Well he hadn't bled out so far, so he'd probably survive. Steph got a handful of sticky field compresses and pressed them against his bullet wound, then took his hands in hers and pressed them down over the bloody spot before she backed away, gave him a little space.

"Geez okay!" She held her hands in front of her, made her posture as non-threatening as she knew how. "I didn't save you just to hurt you more."

"He did! That crazy fucker, and oh god, insanity runs in families. Please god, don't kill me!" He was hyperventilating now, the hands moving away from his side again. Steph hastily yanked them back.

"Okay, firstly, I'm not related to that A-hole, okay. I just got a lead you might know something about a room of dead pimps, and was hoping you could make me know too." Steph said.

"I don't know who he was, those suits just wanted to off me so I wouldn't talk about the storage, but I don't know shit about what's in there, any…"

"Okay, so what 'do' you know?" She folded her arms and leaned against the tree he'd slumped against. How long had it been since she'd slept last anyway? "What bribes was that guy so mad about."

"I'm a security, papers say I'm s'pose to keep stuff from getting stolen, but it's really making sure no one's living outta them. So a couple guy's live in those things, cheaper 'n rent, and they pay me little under the counter to keep my mouth shut. So what? Who the fuck cares huh?" His breath was coming in short gasps, eyes getting that glazed look that came on when people were going into shock.

"Hey, no sleep." She slapped him once sharply across his face, it intensified the glare, but anger meant conscious and until the meds arrived, she was okay with that. "Which storage cell in particular were they mad about."

"Don't know, list in my booth." He said, starting to curl around the wound. "Please don't…"

"I get it; you'll be okay, okay?" Steph could hear the ambulance coming off in the distance; she waited until they made an appearance then took off to find the storage place.

O

O

O

'You're still good Jason, you're so, so good Jason. There's so much good in you even if you don't think so and I…'

What had she been about to say that night? He's torturing himself thinking about it, he knows. Remembering feel of her finger tips tracing along his scars, the soft smile that curled her lips when she stroked down the bridge of his nose and leaned in close to inspect him for freckle. Her hair slipping though his fingers…

The corrugated metal of one of the badly placed shipping containers he was tucked between scraped at the back of his hi-tec goggles as he pulled them off his eyes so he could look up at the sky with its light peppering on stars, unobstructed by their filtered lenses. It was a lot nicer than the sky hanging over Gotham.

He hadn't thought much of it back then, not until he'd played that conversation through his mind so many times it was like he could have sworn he almost heard her sometimes.

For all his learning he hadn't ever had the chance to learn what the hell he was supposed to do with the things crushing the air out of his lungs, hadn't believed they would ever come to apply to him so why bother thinking about it at all? Didn't know why he was thinking about it 'now' of all times when his prime focus was supposed to be the blind spots in the shipping yard's security cameras, but the catch of her voice back then, whether real or something his imagination had thrown in after he'd remained it too many times, it was 'haunting' him.

And fuck it all, he didn't know 'why'.

With a barely audible sigh, he dragged him eyes from the sky and the caught instead on the puffs of condensation that was floating across the thin beam off moonlight that cut across his hiding place and he was suddenly reminded of the smoke that had left her lips, glossy and pink that last night he'd seen her. A hand came up to grasp at the breaths, but paused when it came into his view. Covered in reinforced gloves, matte fabric patterned in shades of grey and brown camo that blended in near perfectly with the shadows he was hiding in. They were useful for a lot of things, but playing with the ends of her hair wasn't one of them.

Still he watched his misty breaths break against his fingers right up until the beeping in his ear reminded him that he wasn't crouched in that dark, cramped space for shits and giggles.

It didn't really matter that she'd believed for a while he could be good, did it? He bit hard on his lips as he lowered his tactical goggles over his eyes, snapped the hard plastic half mask over his mouth filter any out any of his breaths so they wouldn't give him away in the cold autumn air. Tendrils of green slipped a little closer to the front of his mind.

Jason was here for clean up, and the trash was on its way.

It was obvious they hadn't expected to be followed this far out from Gotham. He'd made a show of that, real big, real messy. Impossible to ignore as a torch dropped in a pool of gasoline. And like the rats they were they'd come scrambling out at the first signs of smoke. Too bad for them, they didn't notice how much of the fire they were tracking after them.

Still, his little performance had them travelling in packs of five even here where they felt 'safe'. Smart, but also really stupid because there were still 'only' five of them. The only problem Jason would have taking them down would be doing in before they scattered and warned their buddies bringing in the shipment to haul ass and move it.

They moved past his hiding place without incident, heading for the floodlights he'd disabled in preparation for that night, didn't notice the shadow that slunk silently after them.

The four up front were looking about skittishly, their eyes roaming around and you know, doing their fucking jobs, Jason suspected three of those four were more worried about their behemoth of a boss turning on them than anything else. Guy might've gotten his hands on some of that venom compound drug that had been going around for a while before Bruce had gotten it off the streets.

Jason'd have to make a note of asking Steph how that had… he bit off as groan and grit his teeth, pausing in his pursuit to make sure his stupid ass mind didn't make him slip up and give his position away. He took that second to look more closely at scumbucket number five, dawdling behind the rest of them.

The guy was well-outfitted, average height, a little lanky. He stopped every few meters to look at his cellphone screen, tap out a reply. Jason crept in close, near their paths, made note of how often the others looked back to see what Five was doing the answer, not very.

At the next corner, Jason went right to the edge of the shadows concealing him and grabbed the back of the man's armored jacket, is other hand clamped around the mouth before there was a chance for screaming. Not a second later, the blade of one of Jason's new flame daggers was rammed up the back of his skull. Jason held himself away from the brief spray of blood, while he lifted the corpse and laid it in one of the partly open shipping containers.

They hadn't even noticed by the time Jason was stalking them again. His next target was the smallest of the group. He waited atop some machinery that had been left behind for them to pass him by, a thin, triple reinforced cable in hand. The loop tightened around the man's neck and with the turn of a lever and a sharp crack, he was a dead weight on the ground.

This got their attention, but Jason had already stashed the body and moved on.

The big one whispered harshly to the others and they split off to search the rows of containers separately. Behind his goggles, Jason rolled his eyes. So much for them being smart, He appreciated the lack of screaming thought. That would have gotten in his nerves 'real' fast.

His next target, Jason grabbed from behind. This guy had better armor than the rest, by a pretty big margin, but he doubted it was anything his daggers couldn't handle. Jason sent a silent thanks to Talia for the weapons; they were strong and sharp as all hell, shredded through fibers and flesh easy as butter, 'whatever' her reasoning, he was… 'She's like, totally your mom!' The memory of her voice was so vivid, so startling, Jason jerked back. The knife still did what it was supposed, to cut through the man's neck like it was nothing, but it moved at a completely wrong angle and the man had time to let out a scream before Jason corrected it.

The remaining men spun towards Jason's location, shining there torches right at him. The sudden influx of light blinded Jason, and he reeled back with a curse. "Fuck." He'd have a headache burning behind his eyes the rest of the night for sure, probably the next say as well. By the time, he'd turned down his goggles they were almost out of sight, running the both of them. He'd thought at least the big one would have stayed and tried to fight.

"Fuck." Jason swore again and took off after the big guy first, having some kind of leadership role, he was more likely to know give Jason away. He could only hope the other guy was too busy pissing his pants to alert their bosses to what had happened.

Surprisingly for his size, Big Guy was actually pretty damn fast. Good thing Jason wasn't exactly looking for stealth anymore. He slipped the knives away and replaced them with the pair of red custom glocks he'd retrieved from his stores before leaving Gotham. Bullets found the back of his target's knees and the man dropped down with a scream that despite the lesser need for stealth was still way louder than Jason wanted to hear.

Spinning the guns in his hands, Jason skidded to a stop besides Big Buy and kicked out at the guy's jaw, damn near breaking it and successfully shutting him up. Jason then planted his foot on the man's chest, to keep him from getting up immediately to use his enhanced strength. Another bang and a round fired into the man's left eye and that was taken care of.

There was a click and Jason ducked aside just in time to avoid the bullet that whizzed past him. The last guy was trying to hide in behind a container, same as Jason had been; only he wasn't doing nearly as good of a job. With a leap, Jason scaled up another container and approached his final target, which was now spitting out curses, firing at any shadow that moved and even some that hadn't.

If not for him being, you know, the last man standing, Jason would have shot that one too, long before he had the chance to so much as touch the radio he was reaching for. Seeing as there was, however still information about the 'shipment' lacking, Jason forcibly pushed back the green trialing over his eyes and nailed his coherence in place.

Jason moved forward, both glocks at the ready; he aimed as he made the leap across containers for his target. He needed the guy alive, not with a working pair of hands.

The radio clattered across the ground, its holder falling to the ground an attempting to crawl on backwards without using his mangled fingers.

"You know what I'm here for, and I'm in a 'mood'." Jason rolled his shoulders as he walked forward, spinning his guns to watch the added fear the added fear they brought brimming in their target's eyes. "Make this easy for both of us and don't waste my 'fucking' time. Where are the rest?"

Ten minutes later, he had what he needed and there was a coagulating red stain splattered across the white paint of a green shipping container. It reminded Jason uncomfortably of Neapolitan ice cream. With a grimace that flooded his veins with disgust, he turned away from it.

They wouldn't be coming after him in some kind of revenge plot, wouldn't be getting word to their bosses. Wouldn't be getting their filthy hands near another…

Jason balled his shaking hands up tight enough that the only thing keeping his nails from ripping into his palms were the heavy-duty gloves. It was worth it, it was what he had to do, and there was no other…

'You're so, so good.'

No, he wasn't. In the end, it didn't really matter what she was going to say, did it?

Not like he'd get the chance to hear it.

O

O

O

Who saved a whole storage unit's worth of assorted fifty-year-old jams? Steph slid the door shut, too confused to truly be grossed out at the moldy, sickly sweet smelling unit; she made a mental note to check that there wasn't some new fruity supervillian on the rise. She's taken a walk around the inside already, just to be sure there was nothing weirder going on in there, but nope, it was just old jams.

Not so happily, she checked yet another row of the list she'd claimed from hostage guy's office. It was a large area, much too large for one guy to keep watch over even if he weren't being bribed to ignore certain parts of it.

It wasn't long before the smell hit her, probably would have been sooner if she hadn't still been ignoring her nose after that last unit. After all the years she'd been a traipsing around Gotham in a flashy costume, she'd both stumbled along and investigated enough dead thing's to know what they smelled like.

The movements of her feet came to an abrupt halt as soon as she recognized it, and her hand moved to warn the other bats that she was going into an unknown situation, only to remember that all she'd hear from her comms would be static. Soon, not even that. They'd come for the suit as soon as they could handle getting close enough to Steph to take it from her. The empty feeling that left in the pit of her stomach should have been easy to deal with by now. She made herself get moving again.

Four of the roller shutter doors had been broken, demolished was more like it. Almost as though someone had crashed a truck into them. Steph approached cautiously, hands reaching for her weapon, as the stench of death grew stronger and stronger. Her eyes were close to watering by the time she reached the one in the middle, where the smell was coming from.

The first thing she noticed was the black foam soundproofing that still clung to the ruined door. Then all her attention was occupied with what she'd found inside.

A kid's bedroom was the absolute last thing she would have expected to find. Complete with rumbled pink covers on the bed, toys scattered about and drawings pinned to the foam covering the walls. Under the bed, her eyes caught a sliver of what she quickly identified as a person. Steph hesitated before entering, tried to take in a deep breath of air to calm herself that had the opposite effect when they terrible smell had her gagging.

There was a lot of sick she saw in Gotham, but some things, thing's that Batman's very presence deterred most of the time, there was nothing in the world that could prepare her for them.

She entered anyway, got out her penlight and stepped gingerly over the toys to crouch down besides the bed. She clamped down on the instinct to turn away at her first good look at the discolored flesh.

Adult, it shouldn't have made her feel any better to know that, but it did. Gathering up any semblance of professionalism she could, Steph leaned in to take note of the injuries littering the body. A broken bone poked at the fabric of a leg, not far below the knee, bruising covered the collarbone and that nose was most definitely broken. If she looked further, she knew she'd find more evidence of the brutal beating this person must have endured.

In contrast, the single bullet wound to the forehead seemed almost kind, despite the blood and grey matter now surrounding the head. Must have been there for at least a week and Steph had a feeling she knew the caliber of the bullet the crime scene guys would find once they checked it.

Without moving the corpse, she snapped a few pictures of it for later, then moved on to the rest of the room too. The drawings on the rumpled sheets, the arrangement of toys scattered seemingly at random, before she moved on to the single cabinet pushed off to the side. After scanning to make sure it wouldn't blow up in her face or something, Steph carefully slid the top-drawer open.

Clothes, but definitely not sized for an adult, and nothing a child should ever be wearing. Hand shaking, Steph reached for the lacey fabrics, the core of her chest gone numb, her fingertips stopped just short of touching it before she drew back in disgust, her head swiveling around for… for 'something'.

But the room was empty, just as she'd left it. Steph rushed for the other broken units, and though neither of them had dead bodies stashed under the beds Steph was no less horrified by the contents. She backed out of the final one, kept going until her spine pressed against the wall on the edge of the wall, her breaths coming in short and quick, eyes burning.

Minutes later, her breaths short and quick, comm's still less than useless; Steph left the storage facility at a sprint. That wasn't something she could deal with alone; she didn't have the resources, or the fucking, the 'self-control' for that.

She didn't see the figure that started trailing her halfway through the city.

O

O

O

Jason dropped into the hard mattress of the motel, all the adrenaline that had been keeping him going having sunk down not long after the small ship that had met the same fate not three hours ago. His body ached right down this bones, the hollowed out pit in his chest still unfilled and unlike the days before, there was no green struggling to fill it.

There was nothing, not even the satisfaction that should have come with completing the task he'd set for himself.

He ran a hand though his hair, and looked over at the laptop he'd yet to pack away. There was nothing keeping him from getting another job as soon as he felt he could move again. Not like he'd ever really run out of work, he could just keep going at it like he had after he'd listened to Bruce's 'last' words to him, keep moving on and on until…

Until he fucked himself up so bad he wound up shooting a kid in the chest again. Jason sighed, reaching instead for the brown envelope he 'still' hadn't gone through since he'd found it taped to his door in Gotham. His hands closed around the paper, careful to create not so much as a crease as he slid it from the nightstand to his face, only to return it seconds later. Safer he didn't, for both of them.

He pulled himself up on his elbow, dragged the laptop towards him and began logging into the accounts he had set up on the networks Talia had provided him. Before he could stop himself, he's started up another search on the happenings around Gotham's underground, barely even glanced at most of the hits, and soon found himself zoning in on anything that so much as mentioned Batgirl.

He knew it would mess his up if he didn't drop it, didn't forget everything about that city and move on to something else, but that didn't stop the too familiar paths his fingertips made across the keyboard. Hungrily, his eyes took in the words that let him piece together her exploits since his leave, a smile curling at his lips.

She was still moving along, at a much faster pace that she had when he's been around. He told himself it was good, should have eased the pangs of guilt and regret that bombarded him when he tried to close his eyes. It might have even worked had he stopped a few minutes earlier, powered down the laptop and gone to sleep instead of keeping at it long enough for his eyes to catch on to one glaring set of names.

Jason had bet her safety on the general hesitance most of the smarter high profile assassins had when it came to Gotham, should have taken into consideration those who'd take a job for the very same reason the others avoided it.

His mouth too dry to so much as utter curse, heart having moved to his throat, Jason slammed the laptop shut and leapt to his feet despite the protests of his sore muscles, scrambling to gather up only the items that were simply too dangerous to leave unattended. Jason would catch a few hours of sleep on the way there and pray to any god that would listen that it was enough, that he'd make it in time.