"Would it kill you to say something before you barge in?" Roy complained, and Dick rolled his eyes and laughed.

"That's not his style," Jason growled out. They looked too comfortable together in front of him. With Dick and Roy acting like the old Titans buddies they were, there was no place for him. He was so tired of having no place. "He doesn't want you to know he's there, which makes me wonder: Why the Hell is he here?"

"You told me to call Nightwing and Batman," Roy said. "So I called Dick and told him to alert the Big Man about our problem." Batman narrowed his eyes at the nickname and chose to ignore the conversation.

"I don't have an antitoxin, so you'll stay here with Starfire while we track Deathstroke."

"No!" Jason yelled, and he couldn't help but notice he sounded exactly like before, when Bruce had told him he needed time off from Robin. "I'm going, and I've changed my mind. I don't want you here. We can take care of ourselves."

"Jay, calm down," Dick started, but Jason stood up, frantic now, the toxin and the family reunion coursing through his veins and messing with his mind.

"You've been here for three seconds and already know I'm poisoned? And you're giving orders? No way. We're out of your jurisdiction. Get out."

Batman took a step forward, trying to calm the ex-Robin down. His nose was bleeding, and the over-exertion was pumping the poison through him rapidly. The detective wasn't sure exactly how it worked, but it had to be stronger than fear toxin to still be affecting him. "Jason, you're injured and not in your right mind. Let me help you."

Bruce's calm voice only agitated Jason further. He took two long strides to stand right in the other man's face. Jason was only shorter by a couple of inches. Dick tensed, waiting for a fight.

"You should remember, before I met you, I was just a kid stealing to survive!" Jason yelled, and there were tears welling in his eyes. Batman noted a lowering of inhibitions as a possible symptom; he couldn't imagine a normal Jason would tell him this. "I didn't want anything from you. I didn't want a home and I didn't want a father! I knew what I was doing. I was just Jason Todd. You made me this. I was just. . . I was Jason. I didn't want anything. . ." Jason's voice broke and he collapsed into Batman's arms, but shoved the older man roughly when he regained enough strength to stand on his own. "Give me back my gun," he ordered Roy, who had picked it up off the couch during the fight.

Roy shook his head no. "Sorry, Jaybird, but you Batboys are shaving years off my life as it is. I'm not throwing bullets into the mix."

Jason glared at his teammate. "I don't need a gun to kill you," he said dangerously, in the most intimidating voice Roy had ever heard coming from him. "And I don't need that gun. I've got plenty of others."

Batman's hands were fists at his sides.

"You know what I think?" Dick asked, and he and Jason locked eyes. "I think someone should check on Kori." Dick began to leave for the bedroom, and lightly brushed Jason's shoulder with his own as he walked past, conveying as much comfort as his younger brother would allow. With Dick gone and Roy still in the room, it tipped the scale in Jason's favor.

Jason sat back down, taking a deep breath, more at ease now. Dick looked back one last time, and wondered somewhat sadly how it was possible for someone to be more relaxed when their family wasn't around. Roy had been right; Jason was a better person outside the Gotham City limits.

After a bit of silence, Roy sat down next to Jason, who seemed to be more in control of his emotions. "So," he said, and gingerly placed the gun on the coffee table. "Do you know when you were dosed?"

Jason sighed. He really didn't want to play along, knew it would be more in character if he didn't. "I'm not sure. It could have been on the blade. Deathstroke cut my arm before he kicked me to the mercenaries, but it was shallow. It doesn't matter, anyway. I wasn't the target, Starfire was."

"We don't know that for sure. You were poisoned by something that has been affecting your mind for almost an entire day. That matters." Batman took one more step inside, but didn't sit down.

Roy thought it over, but Jason seemed to know better. "He meant to kill her himself. I was pushed to the side, probably dosed to keep me even more distracted. What he did to her was personal. What he did to me was collateral damage."

"How can you be so sure?" Roy asked, eyeing the closed bedroom door.

Jason dropped his eyes to his hands before looking up directly at his old mentor. "After I came back, I looked at a lot of serial killer profiles, criminal psychology papers, things like that. What the Joker did to me screams personal. Beatings usually do. Poison does not. The main target was Kori. Trust me, I know."

Roy put a hand on his shoulder, but Jason weakly shrugged it off. Batman just stood, staring at Jason, and every part of him was screaming my son, my son, but he stood stoically and made no move of comfort. "Can you tell me the symptoms? How you're feeling?" he asked instead.

Jason weighed his options. Tell him, and become vulnerable in front of a teammate and a man who pretended to love him. Don't tell him, and leave all this crazy in his head to mingle with all the other crazy that was already there. Jason almost smiled; he was sure there was a picture of him next to "no-win situation" in the dictionary. "Headaches, I guess. But that could still be from head trauma." He paused, trying to remember everything. "Losing consciousness. Vivid dreams. Not like fear toxin dreams, though. It's really hard to tell what's real and what's fake. That's probably the biggest symptom."

"Tell him how you figure out if you're dreaming, Jay."

"No. That's irrelevant." Jason glared at Roy, praying he'd shut up.

"Tell me," Batman said, in the softest voice he could muster behind the cowl.

"I kill myself." Jason looked back down at his hands. "Add lack of self-control to that symptom list."

"Well, that's the opposite of healthy behavior," Dick said as he came of of Kori's room. "You're lucky you haven't made a mistake yet."

"Or maybe I did and now I'm in Hell," he scoffed. "I'd say this is pretty nasty punishment, right? Stuck in a room with a brother and a father you almost had once upon a time?"

"Jay," Dick started, but Jason held up his hand.

"I can safely say those are the drugs talking," he said, but his voice was strained and sad. "Now, who's up for finding Deathstroke?"