Normally, in normal fights – normal as they got when most of them involved supervillains – the thing Steph felt most was the adrenaline rushing through her bloodstream. It powered the kicks and the punches that sent her enemies sprawling, made her flips feel more like flying, made her feel more awake and alive, even if she was only peripherally aware of it.

This fight was different, she still felt alive, but maybe a little too awake, a little too giddy for the beating down of a couple of people who'd just sucked in way too much of the drugs in the air after what might have been a long while of withdrawal.

Then again, she was fighting those guys and she did have to get through them to Jason who was on the other end of the tunnel trying to beat them back and pick the lock on a heavy steel door at the same time. So, not really the time to be thinking about how she was feeling different in the middle of a fight.

In a move that shouldn't have aggravated her shoulder wound, but didn't, she used the back of one guy as a springboard to carry her over about a dozen more and landed on the guy who'd been about to try smacking Jason over the head with a rock. "Your knight in dark, matte and not shiny at all armor has arrived!" She spread out her arms and grinned, though he couldn't see it in past the rebreather that covered the lower half of her face.

" You'll forgive me if I'm a little too preoccupied for swooning." His grabbed an arm that came to him and twisted it behind its owners back, then got out a length of wire to bind the guy's arms behind his back before kicking him away.

Steph had to duck a swing that grazed her rebreather, almost knocking it off her face before she could answer. "You can swoon," she used the momentum of the punch to spin around and deliver a roundhouse to the guy's chest and send him skidding into a huddle of his fellows like a smelly bowling ball, "later."

"Actually, I might swoon now." Jason sent his eyes heavenward, then fixed them on her like the most adoring puppy to ever adore a human being. "Can never get enough of a good roundhouse".

Steph hummed, and though it wasn't exactly the most effective move she had, spun into another roundhouse and kicked the next closest guy into the crowd, knocking them even further back.

"Okay, that's it, I'm swooning," Jason fell down to kneel by the electric locks on the door again. "I hope you're happy."

"Just get the door open." Steph held back a chuckle, even more giddy now, bordering on being a little nauseous even as she pulled out her staff to face their assailants.

Jason gave her a sloppy salute, not turning away from his work while Steph swept the feel out from under the dazed men trying to get at them. It was easy to keep them back without hurting them too badly, really easy, but Steph doubted Baker dumped them there to put up a fight. No, they were meant to stall, keep Jason and Stephanie in place for when the guys with the guns got to them. Steph kept her eyes peeled, watching the back of the tunnel closely, but there were no signs of the cavalry arriving.

"Hey, Jay, I was thinking." Steph struck out with the staff, this time hearing a very distinct crack when it made contact with a leg, "Sorry." She surprised herself by chuckling.

"Uh huh." Someone got close enough to make a grab for Jason, he ducked under the reaching arm, twisted and tossed the guy right into Steph's waiting staff.

"Maybe, we can go somewhere." There weren't that many left, but enough that Steph was really hoping that door opened soon, her shoulder wound may not have hurt right then, but she had a suspicion the pain would come roaring back at the most inopportune moment. When she was breathing hard and backed up against the door was very likely to be that moment.

"Howsabout, the other side of this door for now?" Jason kicked the nearest guy away and wrapped his arms around Steph to yank her with him to the other side of the door.

When he let go of her she stumbled her first few steps, the light nausea she'd felt before doubling over three times in the matter of a couple of seconds as the door slid shut behind them, trapping the red of the frenzy gas on the other side.

"I think maybe we can…" something was wrong, her mind was working too slowly even while the rest of her felt like she'd ingested a case full of energy drinks, and what could almost be described as euphoria was so extremely out of place in this situation, she couldn't… she fell behind.

"Sunshine?" Jason said softly, and turned to look at her over his shoulder, worry shining through his expressive eyes.

Steph chuckled through her heavy breaths. "That's, so cute…

Her world went sideways, the edges so soft and fuzzy, she half expected that the ground would feel like a pillow when she hit it. Ow, not a pillow, but it was still soft, still a lot softer than. It wasn't the ground.

"Hey, hey look here, look at me." His voice was soft, but the gentleness couldn't completely hide the edge as he rolled her over and snapped his fingers in front of her face. "What's going on, what'd he do to you?"

Steph forced her mind to cooperate, remembered the guy who'd gotten a hit in when she'd first joined the fight with Jason. "My rebreather." It'd already been a little banged up, that must've widened the crack too much.

Jason's hands felt around her head and he clipped the rebreather off her cowl, turn it around in his hands. "Fuck." He sounded angry. That meant he wouldn't say yes to going with her to Metropolis, huh? "Look here Stephanie." His hands holding onto her face.

She tried to look, really, but she couldn't, her eyes would barely stay open, never mind keeping them on him, and her head kept lolling to the side.

"Hold on." Jason said, and the next thing Steph knew she was being lifted up, his arms closing around her. "I'm taking you outta here."

"But Baker." Steph dragged her mind back into place; they were supposed to be doing a job, that was why they were there.

"Fuck Baker." He didn't hesitate a second before replying.

"No, Jay, we have to get 'im, f'we don't…" If they didn't, the whole thing could have started all over again, more rooms of dead people, more rooms of people so deep into withdrawal or so high, they were little more than attack zombies. Even if she couldn't think properly, she knew how terrible that would have been.

"No!" Jason barked the word out, startling Steph, then he held her closer, pressed her head into the crook of his neck, and whispered again. "No."

"Have to, 'll be… fine, doesn' hurt." It didn't, it made her nauseous and giddy and slow, but there wasn't any pain, not yet.

"Okay." He knelt down and gently laid Steph on the ground. He clipped his half-mask of and pressed his lips to Steph in a kiss that was so soft and brief is shouldn't have burned the way it did. "Okay." He slipped his mask onto Steph's face, and she tried to push it away.

"You need…"

"I need to know you're safe, just in case the gas leaks through the door."

This was wasting time, Steph slowly unwrapped her fingers on his wrist and let him adjust a dial on the mask so it would close around Steph's jaw.

"Back soon, and we'll go somewhere, okay." He cupped the back of her head and pressed his brow against hers. Steph did her best to nod. Then he was gone, taking all of his warmth with him.

000

Baker. A familiar name, but it didn't spark much in Jason, not enough to change what was going to happen when Jason got his hands on him.

Green licked at the edges of Jason's vision as he ran through the tunnels, blocking out his peripherals, but that was fine, he knew where he was going, what he was doing. If he was going to do it without ripping that bastard to pieces, stitching him back wrong, and tossing him into a lazarus pit, the less Jason could see, the better.

He tried not to focus on where he'd left her, on her eyes, blank and too bright at the same time, her body gone lax. Every step he took away was like trying to run through a current, every muscle in his body rebelling against getting further away from her. Against not stopping and going back before she was cold and stiff, gone beneath one of the worst places on Earth.

She wouldn't have been stiff though, not for hours. She'd probably still be warm, warm enough that he'd think she was still alive right up until the medics took her away and never brought her back, just like…

Jason picked up his speed even more, he shouldn't have, it was stupid, and he could feel the uncomfortable pull of his stitches against the skin they were meant to be holding together, coming close to tearing apart. The alternative was slowing down, so he ignored it and kept going.

It wasn't long before he heard the harried footsteps ahead of him, just a few seconds later and he got a look at his quarry, running from him in his old outfit, the red of the mask glinting in the sparsely set light bulbs. Jason had never let it get that shiny unless he's wanted to be seen.

Dick had painstakingly made some very extensive maps of the areas he'd explored, maps Jason had studied closely before going back to Arkham, and according to those, there were only two ways this path would branch too. The pretender was trying for the one that would lead out and into the open, Jason tossed a grenade in his path and Baker turned to sprint the other way just as it shook the place with a resounding BOOM, to a records room. No way of knowing if it was really a dead end as Dick's maps had indicated, but Jason was sure he'd catch up to the bastard before he got out. Baker wasn't getting away.

Baker turned, and fired a gas canister over his shoulder, red exploded out of it, obscuring Jason's vision for the three seconds it took him to run through the cloud, breathing into his elbow to keep from inhaling any of it. It was enough time for Baker to reach the end of the hallway and vanish through the door that had been so graciously left open for Jason to burst through.

Just as he was about to pull down his goggles to search the darkness for where amongst the maze of filing cabinets his quarry had vanished though, one of said cabinets dropped down from one of the higher stories. Jason fell into a handspring, rolling out of its path and right into the path of another, shit, one of stitches had definitely popped after that.

Jason growled as his feet settled on the second cabinet as the deafening clang's of them crashing to the ground faded out. No need for the goggles, he got a good look at the man standing above him.

"New costume, or just new?" His voice was metallic; the voice modulator cranked up so high it removed any trace of emotion. "You know who you're working for." He heaved another filing cabinet over the edge, one Jason dodged, then leaped over to grab the railing to begin pulling himself up. "You know what they did?"

It took Jason couple seconds to get halfway up, then Baker just had to fire at him with another canister of gas, forcing Jason to release one hands grip and cover his mouth, leaving one arm to carry all his wait. "Damnit." Jason muttered, feeling another couple stitches come undone.

"It's better to work for him, he would have agreed with what I've done, he would have been proud." Baker loaded the gun with yet another canister, readied it to fire.

Yeah, fuck that. Jason swung his legs up to clear the remaining space with one flip and kicked the gun out of Baker's hand, stitches be damned. "Don't know what the fuck you're talkin' about, but its over."

"He would've…" Whatever he'd been about to say again was cut off when Jason lunged for him. Baker yanked a pipe out of the wall and swung at Jason with the grace of someone who'd taken two karate classes in middle school and promptly forgotten what little they'd learned.

Jason twisted his body out of the way and ducked, then drove his fist into the Baker's gut, right beneath the bodysuit's plating hard enough that the bastard went spinning away from Jason right after he got close enough to see his reflection in the ridiculously glossy hood.

Baker didn't squirm back when Jason approached to finish him off, he was… laughing. Not a good sign in general, in Gotham even less so. Despite the green clouding over Jason's vision, he could tell that much and refrained for getting too close until he could be reasonably sure there wasn't a bomb waiting on his next step.

Baker, if Jason thought, it didn't take too long for his mind to fish out the face of the awkward guard who'd dragged him to the cafeteria a couple times. The one who'd been far too fucking gleeful when he'd gotten his grubby fucking hands on Jason's books.

"You're him." Baker laughed, and pulled himself up. "Blood and mist."

So Talia hadn't done as good a job clearing out everyone who'd seen Jason in Arkham as she'd thought she had, or maybe this freak had just slipped through the cracks. Didn't matter, Jason would tear this one apart on his own.

"The punishment, the punishment fit the crime, brought you back c, cause I got…," he gasped in a breath, "her. Did you find her, did you see how I got Batgi…"

"Shut the fuck up!" Jason cleared the distance in one bound, fury flooding his system, the green spreading completely over his vision as he got his hand around the rat's throat. "You don't mention her, you don't even fucking mention her again you fucked up piece of shit!" He flung Baker over the railings, putting all the force he hand into his arm and feeling the trickle of blood from his reopened wound that it caused.

Baker, sprawled out onto top of the cabinets his fall had knocked down let out a croak. "So that's why th, they did it."

Still alive then, not for long. Jason gripped the railing and swung himself down to the ground floor.

"Make you weak, make you there's." There was just the lightest scraping when Baker's hand closed around his gun and aimed it right at Jason's face, for a moment, the green was overtaken by red, burning and painful, small though the amount was, what Jason breathed in burned its way into his lungs.

Jason reared back, tried to stem the coughing that was agony tearing its way down his chest and widening the trickle of blood.

"D,don't worry." Baker said, some emotion making its way through the modulator, gleeful as he stepped over the cabinets, he'd found the pole again. "I'll fix you, I'll bring you back, and I'll finish her, screaming for you to see, and you'll be..."

Jason grabbed the pole on Baker's swing and yanked it out of his hand. "I told you not to mention her again," Jason growled and swung the pole against the helmet with a crack that left his weapon uselessly bent and sent Baker sprawling yet again. Jason tossed it aside, and this time, didn't wait before getting his hands on the bastard again. "You're dead!"

Jason didn't remember much of the in-between, but when he came to, he was breathing heavily and Jason driving his fist into Baker's gut again, relishing in the gasp the helmet couldn't hide. His fist held so tight it hurt, the first few punches went to the same spot again and again, the others hit wherever just about everywhere else, every part of this fake Hood they could reach. The Baker wasn't making much of any sound anymore. Jason removed his dagger from its sheath and flipped it once before he plunged the blade into…

'Please stop. Please, please just stop Jason, it's enough.'

Into the wall besides Baker's head. Jason could see his reflection in the too glossy finish of the blood splattered hood, he looked cold, blank, his features not at all displaying the roar of emotion's dictating his actions, red mist swirling around him. He released his hold on Baker and the man sank bonelessly to the ground as Jason stepped away from him.

Was it enough? '…it won't be for me… I don't want that, okay, I don't want you to do that'.

"F you rreeealy hat, hated what I did, y'woulda…" Baker slurred, his hand already closing over a twisted piece of metal that had broken off the side if the cabinet, wearing the Red Hood's helmet, talking like he was some kind of… disciple.

"It's not about hate." Jason kicked the metal out of reach then yanked both of Baker's hands behind his back and secured them to the railings of the lowest steps. "But this," he reached down for the clasps of the hood and they released with a hiss, then he yanked it over Baker's head, "is mine."

Baker's face was plain, nothing striking or even a little memorable about it, without the hood, just another in the crowd. Nothing to say he was responsible for everything his drug had done. Jason didn't take the time to look down at it, he was all out of time, and he needed to get back to Stephanie.

On his way out, his foot crunched down on a gas canister that had been scattered in the fight and it started hissing out its red poison. Baker called out to him, begging, not for mercy, he didn't beg for Jason to take him out of the room, or to stop the flow of the frenzy. He begged for the Red Hood to go back to Gotham, to take the empire Baker had built and carry it on…

It made Jason sick, even the little of it he heard before he was out of range.

000

He'd taken too long.

Stephanie was still propped up against the wall where he'd left her, the banging from the door down the hall hadn't gone quiet yet, or maybe it had just stopped and started up anew in the time he'd been gone.

She was still conscious, at least conscious enough to flinch away from him when the first thing she was the hood looming over her.

"S'okay." Jason pulled it off and did his best to make his expression more smile than grimace when he knelt down besides her. "S'okay Sunshine, s'just me, I'm back." He dropped it on her chest, then gathered her up into his arms, almost melting in the little of her warmth that seeped through both there armor's to reach him, standing up again after that was much, much less of a pleasant experience.

Jason but back a gasp at the pain that shot through his torso and stumbled, the only thing that kept him on his feel was the wall his back fell against. She felt a lot heavier than she had the last time he'd picked her up, the fault of the blood he could feel gathering in his shoes, he was sure.

"Jay?" She blinked up at him, her brows furrowed, worried as one of her arms snaked around his neck and the other held onto the hood like it was a teddy bear.

He smiled down at her and breathed through it, adjusted her weight in his arms and pushed back from the wall. "I gotcha." He did, but she was trembling and now, so was he. Not a good combination. She did make an okay compress, but he doubted she would find that as amusing as he did, so he didn't say it. "Let's go."

Easier said than done. Jason's progress down the tunnel passage was slow, more of a shamble than even a walk, and with frequent breaks in between. The only exit he could reach from here was the one Baker had tried to escape through, easy to spot when they passed the red leaking through the passage halfway there.

The grenade he'd tossed made the tiling uneven, and Jason had to move extremely slowly to pick his way over it, too slowly, and by the time he was done, he almost couldn't remember what it felt like to have breathing not hurting anymore. He told himself that would be the worst part he'd have to get through.

He went down on his next step. His legs folding under him when, his body simply refused to keep going. This feeling, he knew, he'd felt it enough time to know what it meant. No. He tried to pick himself up, but his desperate, grasping hand couldn't fine purchase on the smooth, plastered wall.

He had to do it, had to keep going, because if he died down there, then what had been the point of getting out in the first place? Why had he lived through the last time he'd dragged himself through the place? But he couldn't, he just couldn't get the two of them up.

"Jay, stop." Her voice was soft, so very soft, very unlike the rough texture of the glove she pressed against his cheek. She lifted her other hand, clumsy and shaking too much to do it with any sort of ease, and took of the mask that obscured the lower half of her face. The smile she gave was watery and weak. "Not workin'."

"Sorry." Jason let his head drop down to rest against hers, pulled her as close as he could. He thought about The Dive, and movie nights watching the stars at the planetarium. Those weren't things he would have gotten if he'd been stuck in Arkham; they weren't even things he would have gotten if he'd gotten himself out instead of being dragged by her. It would have been worth it, for him, for all those months he never would have dreamed someone like him could have had. Worth it, if only he could have done the same for her. But he was too weak to save her the way she had him, and now all he could wish was that she had left him there, then maybe… "So, so, so sorry."

He tried to bury his face into her shoulder, to hide the trails of salty liquid he could feel flowing down his cheeks, but she pulled him away, dropped the helmet to cup his face in her hands.

"Did you get...," she gasped, then forcefully exhaled, "…hurt?"

"Nah." Jason smiled, the action causing his tears to drip down and land on her face. God he wished she didn't have that cowl off so he could see more of it again, as it was all he could do was brush his tears from her jaw, be grateful that his blood couldn't seep through his sturdy bodysuit. "Not a scratch."

"Then, t's fine. It's fine, long as…" a tremor ran through her body and her hands moved to grab onto the black and red camo fabric at Jason's chest, and held on until it passed. "Jus', don' leave me alone, she tried to smile again, but he could see how it pained her. "Kay?"

"Yeah, 'm right here Sunshine." He sighed, heard those footsteps again and curled himself over her as much as he could, heedless of the pain it sent racing through him, it was all the protection he could offer. "Not goin' anywhere, won't let you be alone, I'll be right…"

000

Beep… beep… beep…

She was being dunked in fire and ice, something that tasted like ash being shoved down her throat.

A million bugs crawling under her skin, scratching with their little clawed feet, biting away at anything soft enough.

A pinprick of pain that sent lava scorching though her veins.

No, no, no, no. She tried to scream, but there was something hard and plastic down her throat. Her arms forced down.

Screeching in her ears, terrible, too loud, it was too loud

Beep… beep…

'm right here Sun…

Where was he, he wasn't…

Beep…

"Jay…"

She got her eyes open, more beeping. Bed. Scratchy sheets. Those terrible, terrible clashing colors. Leslie's.

Jason wasn't there, she looked all around, at the window, and the empty seat besides her. No one was there. She was alone.