Alfred woke Hailey in the morning. He told her to get ready and head downstairs. There were a couple of officers waiting to speak with her. He made sure to tell her not to worry because Bruce would be present as well. Hailey nodded and went to the bathroom to clean up. She couldn't do much with her hair other than letting out the braids and putting it up in a messy top bun. She washed her face and brushed her teeth. Then changed out of her formal wear she fell asleep in and into a comfy house dress before slipping on some flats. Alfred was waiting in the hallway to walk downstairs with her.

When Hailey walked into the front room where Bruce and the officers were waiting, she noticed that Bruce looked tired as if he hadn't slept at all as of yet.

"Dad?" Hailey said hesitantly. Bruce smiled at her softly and held out a hand for her to come closer. They sat down and faced the officers. Bruce introduced them and told her they wanted to show her some pictures to see if she recognized anyone from the benefit. Then he told her that she didn't have to if she didn't want to. Hailey shook her head. "I don't mind."

"Okay, sweetheart," said Officer Bullock. Hailey frowned at him. She didn't like the term especially from someone she didn't know. "We're going to show you some pictures. Take your time looking at them and then let us know if you see the man you saw at the charity."

Hailey nodded. The other officer, Montoya, held up a picture before her. Hailey shook her head. Bullock sighed.

"Take your time. Get a good look."

"It's not him," Hailey insisted.

Bullock gestured to Montoya to show the next one. Hailey quickly shook her head as soon as she saw it. When they showed her the third picture, she pointed at it.

"He was at the charity with his wife. But that's not the guy I was talking about."

"Okay," Bullock said a bit impressed. He took the picture from Montoya and made a note on the back.

They showed her a couple more before Hailey stood up and walked up to get a closer look at one. This picture was taken at the benefit. It wasn't a headshot like the others. Hailey noticed part of the banner in the background. But the man at the forefront… she hadn't forgotten that creepy face or those cold eyes.

"That's the creep," Hailey said to Montoya.

"Are you sure?" Bruce asked her before Bullock or Montoya could.

"I remember his eyes."

"Thank you, Hailey," Montoya said. "This will help us find him."

"You mean, you haven't found him yet?"

Bruce stood up and put a hand on her shoulder. "It's okay, Hailey. The police are doing everything they can to apprehend him."

"But, dad, he'll just change his face."

"Change his face? What do you mean by that?" Bullock asked her with a frown.

"Look at the picture. His eyes are set too deep. Like he has extra thick skin. Because he's wearing a face over the real one."

"Well, I'll be…" Bullock said as he looked at the picture.

Montoya took it from him and then looked up at Hailey. "How'd you notice that?"

"At the charity, I knew there was something creepy about him. And when the news said the bad guys were robots, I kinda started thinking this guy was one too. He wasn't there anymore when the masked men started shooting. But maybe he was and just took off his face," Hailey said and shrugged. "So when you showed me the picture, I figured I should take a better look."

Bruce became very quiet. The officers traded looks.

"We need to look over that security footage again," Bullock said and sighed. "Thank you, sweetheart." Bullock stood up and looked at Bruce. "We're done here. Thanks for letting us talk to your kid."

Bruce simply nodded but didn't answer.

"Thank you, Mr. Wayne," Montoya said following Bullock's lead. She stood up and looked down at Hailey. "We appreciate the help, Hailey."

Then they were gone.

Bruce turned to look at Hailey. "Do you remember everyone at the party, Hailey?"

"Um, sort of. I had to talk to a lot of people. So I made it a point to watch everyone there. Just in case."

"In case of what?"

"I don't know," Hailey said pitifully and let out a shuddering breath. Her throat got tight and lumpy. She had a hard time swallowing. When her eyes started to burn, she let the tears fall just to feel some relief.

"You're safe now, Hailey. You're home," Bruce told her and hugged her.

"Where were you?" Hailey asked him. Bruce grimaced but didn't answer. She felt his arms tighten around her. "I was scared that I would never see you again. I'm sorry I ran off. But Tim needed help."

"Didn't Alfred tell you? I had some things to take care of since the charity was a Wayne event. It was my responsibility to talk to the police," Bruce said and pulled her away to look at her. "You did good, Hailey. You scared me too. But I know what it feels like to see someone in need and want to help."

Hailey nodded and hugged him again. She was glad he wasn't mad about what she'd done. But she couldn't help being upset with him for not touching base once she was with Alfred. At the time, it had made her feel like he'd forgotten her and didn't care. But the way he was holding her now, she thought that maybe she'd been wrong.

Bruce had breakfast with her before excusing himself to his den. Hailey understood that he had work to do. And so she retreated into her room. It was a few hours later that Jason knocked twice and entered without waiting for her to say come in or anything.

"Get up," Jason ordered and pointed at her tennis shoes. "We're going for a run."

"Isn't it kinda late?" Hailey said looking out the window closing her notebook. It was afternoon and it was the warmest part of the day.

"What? You're afraid of a little sun?" Jason teased and made his way back to the door. "Hurry it up, slowpoke."

Haley rolled her eyes and after putting on her shoes raced Jason out the door and down the trail they normally took when he took her out for a run. When they made it back to the manor, Jason didn't let her go inside. Instead, he took her out back and told her he wanted to show her something. That something was a few lessons in self-defense. He told her that if she was going to play hero, she needed a few skills up her sleeves. The first lesson was to teach her to get out of a hold. The second was to land a hit that would allow her to get away from her attackers. The third was to teach her how to get sick in case the first two didn't pan out.

"You want me to throw up?" Hailey said making a face.

"Hey, it works," Jason said. "No one is going to take a kid that's spewing chunks all over them."

Hailey sighed and heard Jason out but refused to actually stick her finger down her throat unless she was in dire danger. Besides, Jason was probably just messing with her. Regardless, she practiced over and over again until Alfred called them inside for dinner. Jason told her he would teach her more once she got the first two lessons down pat.

After dinner, Hailey received a phone call from Tim Drake. Jason made fun of her but she ignored him. She figured that Tim was only calling to give her an update about his mother. Janet Drake was released from the hospital with a clean bill of health. According to Tim, his father had taken her to a hotel upstate for her to relax after the traumatizing ordeal. Hailey thought it was weird but Tim said that his parents were a bit over the top about things. He wasn't going with them because of school. Hailey didn't question it. And since neither of them had anything else to talk about other than her talking to the police, they said their goodbyes.

A week later, more or less, the man who had enacted the attack at the benefit using robots was apprehended by Batman and turned in. The man was a scientist named Thomas O. Morrow. Bruce told Hailey as he read the morning paper that he wouldn't have been caught if it wasn't for her help. Hailey didn't think that was true but she appreciated the sentiment and the guarantee that when Thomas finally faced his day in court, she wouldn't be needed to testify since they had plenty of evidence stacked against the man. Jason muttered under his breath that she was lucky that the press hadn't gotten wind of her involvement. Alfred and Bruce both agreed with him though they didn't express their thoughts aloud simply made eye-contact and nodded at one another. The gesture hadn't escaped Hailey's noticed and she hunched in on herself trying to disappear. Luckily for her, Jason changed the subject reminding Bruce of the Knights game he'd promised to get tickets for so that the three of them could attend that weekend.


The wind was howling. It was loud and it almost sounded like words being shouted. Angry, bitter words from a son to a father. Hailey whimpered and snuggled deeper into the blankets. She wanted the wind to stop. She wanted the words to be fake. But they were telling. She whimpered and tossed in bed in a half-sleep half-awake state.

"There's no point talking to you! You've already made up your mind!"

Jason. That was Jason's voice. Hailey didn't understand why she'd heard Jason. And his words, however painful, didn't make any sense to her.

Hailey whimpered a little louder. Loud enough to be heard by whoever was in the hallway.

The howling stopped but a branch scraped against Hailey's window. Not that Hailey was aware that the noise she heard hadn't been what her dream made her believe was real. The true source of the sound was her door creaking open.

The bedroom door was closed as softly as possible. In her dream induced mind, the sound was amplified and distorted to sound like booming thunder. Hailey sat up with a gasp. She was suddenly wide awake.

Jason was in her room. His eyes glistened in the moonlight that peeked in between the curtains.

"Jason, what's wrong?" Hailey asked shakily, fear in her voice.

"Scoot over," Jason told her and climbed into her bed once she had. He didn't get under the covers, instead, he'd pushed them aside. He laid on his side and stared at her but wasn't really looking at her.

Hailey tightened her fists and blinked. Rapidly. Trying desperately to keep the tears in her eyes. Hadn't Bruce just told her not too long ago that he wanted them? All of them. Didn't Jason know that? She didn't understand what had happened to make Jason so sad.

Hailey hadn't realized she spoke her thought aloud until Jason sighed.

"Bruce doesn't want me to be Robin anymore," Jason said still staring into the void.

"Why?"

"He thinks I want to kill people."

"Do you-do you want to kill people?" Hailey asked uncertainly. She didn't think the answer was true but something deep in the pit of her stomach coiled and shouted at her that it was.

Now Jason was looking right at her.

"Yes," he said angrily. "The scum who hurt people deserve to die."

Hailey didn't answer. She wasn't sure if she should agree or disagree. People died all the time she reasoned to herself before she opened her mouth to speak.

"Does it really matter how someone dies? Once they're gone, they're gone."

"Yeah," Jason said quietly. "So if an idiot falls off a roof, what does it matter?"

"It doesn't," Hailey said not having a clue what they were really talking about. "He would've died anyway. Some other way. Everybody dies."

"Yeah," Jason said and swallowed hard.

"I should've died," Hailey said and closed her eyes.

"What?" Jason said reaching out to her but pulling his hand back before he made contact.

"I don't remember my mom," Hailey said opening her eyes. But she wasn't looking at Jason. She was looking past his shoulder at a shadow that moved on her wall. A tree branch that swayed in the wind. "She died when I was six. A lot of people died. But not me."

Jason stayed very still and quiet. He knew what had happened to her when she was a kid. He'd looked her up when she first moved into the manor. Bruce hadn't told him anything about her. And he hadn't given him a reason as to why he'd taken her in. But Jason thought there had been a bigger reason other than that of her dad being killed in front of her eyes. No matter what he'd uncovered about her, he still didn't know why Bruce had taken her in. Or how Dick knew who she was before he met her. Not that Dick admitted he did. No matter what it was they were holding back, Jason was happy Bruce had taken her in. He liked having a little sister.

"My stepmom told me that there was a huge accident because of a snow storm. My parents died instantly but I didn't because I was thrown from the car. She said it was the impact and momentum that chucked me out the window. And that there was another car with a family. The youngest—a little boy two years younger than me—was also thrown from the vehicle. She said it was weird that neither of us had a scratch on us. The difference between me and him was that he was missing an eye. He died before help arrived. Internal bleeding she'd said. His family suffered. They were trapped in their car and burned to death.

"My stepmom said it was weird that I survived. That there was something wrong with me. That I should've died like that little boy. I think about that a lot. And sometimes I think I did die. Because I don't remember anything from before the accident. So I think that maybe that's what being dead is like. No memories. Like maybe they're stolen from you." Hailey paused as if she was thinking back about something then sighed. "And if they are, the people who die forget everything. So when you're dead good people and bad people are the same. No one is good. No one is bad. No one has memories. No one has feelings. It's just quiet. Peaceful."

Hailey looked at him then.

"The man who killed my dad," Hailey said angrily. "I hope he never dies."

Jason frowned at her. He didn't understand why she would say that. If it was his dad, he'd want to kill the son of a bitch who did it. He had wanted that. But Bruce had talked him out of it. Two-Face was serving time in Arkham. Jason didn't think that was enough. His need for vengeance in that respect had waned though. Two-Face wasn't worth thinking about. And it was his dad's fault for working for that psycho. But Hailey's dad hadn't done anything to deserve what he'd gotten. Why wouldn't she want the man who killed her father to pay for what he'd done?

"If he dies, he'll be able to have that peace. He doesn't deserve any peace."

Holy fuck, Jason thought. That's a twisted sort of revenge. Though Jason was glad she felt avenged in her own way.

"I get it," Jason told her but he didn't think she was right. He believed in heaven and hell. The bad people didn't get peace. They suffered in hell when they were dead. It was what they deserved. He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply before letting out his breath in a rush. "Hailey there are some people that don't stop at hurting just one person because not even the law can stop them. Those people don't deserve to keep living. Because if they do, they'll hurt everyone within their reach."

Hailey didn't answer. She wasn't sure what Jason was talking about. But if he believed that certain people deserved to be dead, then maybe they did.

"You think I'm wrong?" Jason asked feeling defensive.

Hailey shook her head. "I believe you."

But that didn't mean she completely agreed.

"It's the only way that it could possibly work," Jason said. He needed someone on his side.

Hailey reached out tentatively to take his hand in hers.

"If I were to kill one of those monsters, would you hate me?"

"No," Hailey said quickly and closed her eyes.

"I wanted to kill him, Hailey."

She looked at him and squeezed his hand tighter.

"If you knew what he did, maybe you'd agree with me that it was for the better that he died."

"I don't want to know what he did."

"I wasn't going to tell you. I wish I didn't know. That I hadn't seen."

Hailey could almost taste his anguish and a tear slipped from her eye.

"Then it's a good thing he's dead," she said quietly.

"Yeah," Jason said and sighed. He didn't know why hearing her say that was so important to him, but it was.

The only problem was that there was more than one monster in the world.

Once Hailey's breathing evened out, Jason slipped out of her room and headed to his own. He knew he wasn't going to get any sleep. Bruce had taken Robin from him. If only Bruce would listen. If he could only see the truth. Why did he have to be so self-righteous all the goddamn time?