Roy couldn't wait for backup to arrive before turning back for Jason. The voice that had come through the link was. . .scary. It was a wake-up call for him, actually. He had had inklings of Jason's fragility, especially after the memory incident, but he pushed them down deep with his other fears of Kori waking up one day and realizing she was League material once. Besides, he used to remind himself, they were good for Jason. A team kept him sane, kept him grounded, kept him away from the memories he couldn't give away.
But Kori was staying behind in Gotham, Gotham had come back to them, and now memories were coursing through his mind, destroying it in the process. Roy sped up, ignoring protests from his burning calves. "Jason!" Arsenal yelled, trying to get a response from somewhere. "Jason!"
Arsenal jumped down to street level and kept running. Once he passed the bikes, he became stealth. Something seemed wrong and too quiet. Jason should have been shuffling, crawling, crying, anything. He turned one more corner, and there was the Red Hood, mask discarded next to him, sitting up on the concrete facing away from Roy.
He was leaning motionlessly on Deathstroke, who was injecting him with something.
Arsenal pulled out an arrow and let it fly quickly. Deathstroke, who was completely preoccupied with giving Jason an overdose of his new drug, was hit in the shoulder. He cursed as he pulled the arrow out and looked at where it originated, but Arsenal had turned back around the corner, climbing the fire escape for higher ground. Deathstroke pulled him by his ankle to the sidewalk, but he twisted in the air and kicked the villain square in the chest, scrambling to get to his feet as Deathstroke staggered back.
"You're too late," Deathstroke said confidently, sizing Arsenal up from his spot mere feet away. Arsenal chanced a glance at his fallen comrade. Jason was completely immobile on the ground, his arms and legs splayed out in snow angel fashion.
Which made Roy realize, Jason had probably never made a snow angel. Arsenal glared at his adversary. "What did you do to him?"
Deathstroke smiled, exuding pride and victory. "I used one of his many traumas against him. I made him what he was before."
Arsenal's eyes didn't betray his confusion, but inside his mind he was scrambling wildly to put everything together. There were too many traumas in Jason's past to target. Like most of the Bat-clan, it was his one great weakness.
"As I said before," Deathstroke sighed, "you're too late. He may not have regressed as far as I'd like, but he's helpless in this state. I'll kill you, then him. No problem." Deathstroke unsheathed a sword.
Arsenal didn't have time to wonder what Deathstroke was talking about before the man charged him. He flipped backwards, putting more distance between the two of them and loosed another arrow, which was sliced harmlessly from the air. He needed backup, fast. Jason was down for now, if not for eternity, and he was trying to outdo the deadliest assassin on the planet.
Okay, Roy, he thought to himself. New tactic. Suddenly, Arsenal ducked under a sword slice, swept his leg under Deathstroke to knock him down, and ran. He couldn't risk the slow-down that picking Jason up would cause, but Deathstroke didn't have any goons with him and Roy judged he would be safe. His legs still burned from before, but the adrenaline took care of that, so he pushed on, praying reinforcements would soon land.
He was not so lucky. He only got two blocks before Deathstroke caught up and hurled a small knife at his back. Luckily, Arsenal dodged to avoid a blade to the spine, but his right shoulder wasn't as fortunate. The bow clattered uselessly to the ground as he cried out. Arsenal was pushed into the brick of an abandoned building, and the blade was pulled out. He clenched his jaw as his face was ground into the building.
"The only reason you're not dead yet is because it wouldn't make me any money," Deathstroke said. "You're too late for Red Hood. I may not have given him the full dose, but he has regressed enough to seal his fate.'
"See, you keep saying that, and I still have no clue what you mean," Arsenal countered, hoping to buy some sort of time.
Deathstroke took the bait. "I did my homework on your friend. Everyone knows he used to be dead, but no one remembers how he was in a coma on a respirator shortly after crawling out of Hell. Which is the state I wanted to put him in before you joined the party."
Arsenal snorted. "You sound like a stalker. Isn't he a little young for you, grandpa?"
"Make all the old jokes you like, Speedy," Deathstroke sneered. "You'll be dead long before I-" Deathstroke groaned in pain and released the archer. He was clutching at his chest when Arsenal turned around.
There was the tip of a sword sticking out of it. Suddenly, the sword retracted and Deathstroke fell, still alive but seriously wounded, at the feet of a stony-faced Jason Todd.