Author's Note: I thought I'd try something new with this chapter. For the last eight chapters everyone's been thinking and talking about Bruce, but he's had a total of one line. I thought I'd try to get into his head, scary as that is. Let's see how it goes. Enjoy and please review!

Sometimes it got to him.

Most of the time Bruce... no, Batman. He was Batman now. Most of the time he could file the pain away, put it aside into the darkest corner of his mind until he needed to channel it into the mission or the time he allocated to grieve came by. But sometimes things happened.

Like now.

He'd just entered Gotham airspace, intending to do surveillance from the skies on his way back from the Watchtower. It would be light out soon, but at least he could do that much. Flying low, he spotted a cluster of police cars and flashing lights. He put the plane in hover mode and landed silently behind the yellow tape in the shadows between the street lamps. It took seconds for him to survey and understand what must have happened.

Skid marks fleeing the scene, an ambulance, two cop cars, a man and woman huddled together under a blanket. The woman was crying, while the man had his arm around her, trying desperately to console her while fighting back his own tears. It took Batman less than a second to find the small body covered by a sheet in the middle of the sidewalk only a few feet away. The blood stain blossomed like a flower against the white of the sheet.

Sometimes thing happened. Something he would see or hear would trigger a memory when his guard was down, and then he'd be left reeling, like all the breath had been sucked out of his lungs, like he'd been rammed in the gut with a wrecking ball.

Gordon was walking towards him.

"Batman," the commissioner greeted him. "Good to have you back."

"Jim." He nodded at the scene questioningly, and the older man sighed.

"Drive-by. The victim is Jessie McCarthy. She was walking home from a friend's house after a late study scion."

"Any motive?"

"We don't think so. Probably a stray turf war shooting. Poor kid just got caught in the crossfire."

Kid caught in the crossfire... Jason... No, don't go in there! Jason, Jason, Jason...

Behind the lenses of the cowl, Batman closed his eyes against the images in his mind's eye. The time to grieve – Jason's time – had come and gone days ago, but suddenly he felt it all over again, as if some terrible invisible hand had reached into his chest and squeezed. But outwardly he kept calm and motionless. In his peripheral vision, Gordon was speaking again.

"Parents are devastated. Obviously. I tell you, every time I see this..." He shook his head. "No matter what that madman did, I just keep thinking how lucky I am that Barbara is still with me."

But Jason isn't, the Bruce voice in his head screamed. He took my son from me.

Partner, Batman reminded him, coldly rational. Soldier. Soldiers die on the field of battle.

Son! My child! Bruce rebelled at the lesser title. Impersonal... unacceptable! Rebelled at it with such force that the Batman voice was momentarily silenced.

But only momentarily.

Bludhaven was just as he remembered it: dirty, smelly, and dangerous. The sound of sirens was so frequent that it was part of the regular nighttime hum of the city, but Jason knew that no matter how many cops there were out in the field, it wasn't enough. Most of them were crooked anyway. They waited for the subway in a graffitied station that smelled like someone's – a lot of someones – bowl movements. If the boy wasn't still so tired, Jason was sure Damian would have been complaining. At that hour there weren't too many people on the train, just them and two sleeping homeless men. That was good. Jason remembered the general location of the neighborhood Dick had lived in, but he'd only seen it from above as he'd leaped from rooftop to rooftop over the city.

When they finally came up to street level, he looked around until he finally found an old phone booth. The pay phone itself had been practically ripped out, dangling by a few wires, but he was glad to see that the Yellow Pages was still intact. Ushering the boy inside the booth so as to easier keep an eye on him, Jason picked up the musty directory.

"Please still be here," he muttered, flipping through the pages. "Grayson, Rachel… Grayson, Rae… Yes! Grayson, Richard John."

Triumphantly, Jason tore out the page and snapped the rest of the book shut. There was an address and a phone number, though no phone to call from. That's okay, he thought, barely able to contain the excitement as he imagined the look on Dick's face when he just showed up on the man's doorstep.

"Come on, kid," he grinned, grabbing Damian's hand, "let's go find 'im."

Damian squirmed, annoyed at having his hand held, but Jason was having none of it. If he'd been worried about the child's safety in Germany, it was nothing compared to now. They wouldn't be safe until they reached Dick's apartment which, luckily, shouldn't be far, judging by the address and the cheap foldable map he'd snatched at an airport news stand whose owner should have been better about locking his supplies for the night. But between searching for the right area and waiting for infrequent late night trains, it was two in the morning before they emerged from the right subway station.

"It's this way," Damian pulled on his hand.

"Wait a sec," Jason said. "I really don't want to get lost here, and I don't know about you, but I didn't memorize that map."

Some of the street laps were broken, and Jason stopped for a moment, squinting at the street sign under the limited light. Were they supposed to turn right here or walk another block ahead and then turn? He pulled out the map again to study it. Ah, they had to turn, and now he didn't need the map anymore. Satisfied, Jason was just about to put it away when he stopped.

Damian!

He'd just released the boy for five seconds! Just to look at the God-damn map! Panic built inside his chest, as Jason's eyes franticly darted around the empty intersection. Where had he been pulling him before he went to check the map? He looked ahead and was rewarded with the sight of Damian walking briskly, already almost a block away. Jason exhaled and ran after him, catching up in a second. He garbed the child by the shirt collar. The boy yelped as he spun him around. Jason dropped to the ground in front of him, furious.

"What the hell are you doing! I told you to wait!"

Recovering from the momentary start, the boy glared. "I know where we're going!"

"It doesn't matter!" He was so mad that Jason forgot to point out that Damian had gone in the wrong direction anyway. "It's not safe, do you get that? If it'd been anyone but me who just caught up with you... People around here will put a bullet through your skull and not think twice about it!"

"Got that right, bud."

Jason was on his feet in an instant, spinning so that Damian was directly behind him. His body tensed, ready for conflict, as he surveyed the youths that approached them. Five of them, he saw, early to mid twenties, armed with knives and crude metal pipes. Jason's mind flew through the math and came to the inevitable conclusion that unarmed and exhausted, there was no way he could take on all of them and protect Damian.

Slowly, Jason raised his arms. "Take it easy. I don't want a fight."

The front thug in the red bandanna smirked. "Wrong part of town for that."

Does Bludhaven even have a right part of town? Jason wondered, but he wasn't about to bait them. "The usual drill?" he asked instead. "You want cash, right?"

There was a rumble of laughter from the gang, and the leader spoke again. "Oh, lookie here, boys. We got ourselves a smart one. Come on then, smart guy: show us what you got."

I wish! But he tempered the anger, slowly reaching inside his pocket and pulling out all the remaining wads of money, everything but the passports. Unceremoniously, Jason tossed them at the gang, and another man with a tattoo over the left side of his face caught them mid air. He flipped through the bills, face growing hard and angry.

"The hell's this shit?" he flicked a wad of British notes back at Jason. "What're you playin' at?"

Fuck! Jason had forgotten that most of that money was foreign currency. There was still a few hundred American bills left over, but that didn't seem to matter as he'd apparently successfully pissed off the gang. He took a step back, one hand protectively reaching for Damian. It was the wrong thing to do as he saw that at least three of the men locked eyes on the child.

"Maybe shortie's got the real stuff," pointed out one of them and lunged forward. Jason easily caught him by the wrist.

"You don't wanna do that." His voice was low and dangerous. "Touch the kid, and I'll break the arm. Just take the money and go."

The thug yanked his arm back, his face already contorted in fury. A switch blade swished into sight and a pipe was raised, as he and two more of his friends lunged for Jason. Acting purely on instinct, he shoved Damian aside, praying that the boy would have the sense to stay down and out of the way. Two came at him, and Jason twisted out of the way, turning back just in time to bring their skulls together in a crack.

The rest of the fight was a blur. He moved so hard and fast there was barely any time to think. The first two went down fast, then another, clutching a dislocated shoulder as he writhed on the ground. Jason took a few hits but effectively ignored them. The forth came at him with a knife, and he weaved out of the way just as the blade sliced at his side. There was a stinging sensation, but Jason didn't have a chance to assess how deep the cut was. His attention was solely focused on the last assailant and the forty-five caliber he just raised at him.

No… not at him.

The thug was pointing the gun at Damian who stood wide-eyed and frozen only a few feet away. Jason's blood ran ice cold, and suddenly it wasn't him standing there. He was Bruce… no, Damian… Damian was Bruce. Bruce as he had been at eight years old standing in a dark alley as Joe Chill waved a gun at him. Jason was someone else, someone bigger, stronger, someone who could do something.

Several things happened at the same time then, so fast that Jason barely registered any of it. He moved, and the thug turned, the barrel rotating from the child towards Jason himself. But the man didn't get the chance to take aim before the sound of police sirens broke through. Startled, the man's hand jerked. Jason didn't actually feel the impact of the bullet, but he heard the gunshot, heard Damian scream. Then the gun hit the ground with a clank, and there was a patter of running feet as those thugs that were still conscious fled as the sirens grew closer and louder. He stumbled then slumped against the wall, more in shock than in any real pain.

This wasn't happening…

This was not happening!

He wasn't going to lie here and die! Not when they'd come so far and were so close.

"Jason!"

Damian ran to him falling to his knees on the concrete at his side, but he ignored the boy for a second as he assessed his injuries. He was shot, he knew that much. Where, though? The pain in his right shoulder was the first clue, and Jason gingerly probed at it with his left hand until his fingers found the bleeding entry point. Good, he thought. That's good. Shoulder wounds are nothing. Hurts like hell, but it doesn't have to be fatal. Jason tried to rise, but a new wave of pain stabbed at the left side of his abdomen. He lifted his shirt and cursed. The gash from the knife was far deeper than he'd thought. Jason knew that if he moved too much, he'd bleed out in a matter of minutes.

"Okay, kid." He took labored breaths but tried his best to give Damian a calm face. "It's okay."

"I'm sorry!" the boy cried. Jason could already see his eyes filling with tears. "Don't die!"

"I'm not gonna die!" he snapped, even if he wasn't at all certain. Fighting through the pain, he reached into his pocket for the torn page of the phone book. "You gotta to listen to me very carefully and do exactly as I say: run back to the intersection, turn left, run one block, then turn left again and run three more. Repeat that back to me."

Damian gulped. "Back to the intersection. Left one block, then left again and three more."

"Good." Jason thrust out the page and pointed at Dick's name. "It should be the second building. Find it. Find..." he had to fight a sudden wave of dizziness, "find Dick and bring him here. If he doesn't come immediately, tell him..."