Work Text:
The apartment on the border of the East End and Coventry was actually pretty nice, if you could ignore the murder.
Jason lifted the caution tape left by the underpaid investigators at the G.C.P.D. and slipped underneath, stepping carefully past inventory placards and poorly preserved evidence, towards the center of the room.
This had been a bedroom once, not long ago. The carpet still held the indents of the bedframe, four postered, and the cops hadn’t bothered to clear the edges of the room. Jason would look through the desk and bookshelf later in case there was anything the cops had missed.
Slightly off from the actual center of the room was the bloodstain. Carpet fibers had soaked up the liquid into a long patch, stretching the length of a grown man and nearly as wide, angled diagonally with the walls. It would be a bitch to clean, especially if the property managers wanted to avoid the murder-discount, but it meant that Jason had something to analyze if all else failed.
He clipped a few strands from the bloodiest patch, brittle and dry with age, and dropped them into a vial of solute. The body was long gone, likely in the G.C.P.D. morgue and the caring hands of their morticians. The autopsy files could be recovered later if needed, but Jason suspected he already knew what those files would say.
This wasn’t the first apartment he’d investigated over the previous weeks, nor was it the first to show no signs of entry or struggle. It was like something simply appeared in the apartments and cut down the men and women before they could notice enough to be afraid. If it wasn’t for the sheer quantity of blood, or the way the victims eyes were leaking like veins, he could brush the deaths off as freak accidents.
Jason felt his molars grind together like a chain of rocks, as they did whenever a new roadblock appeared in a case. It was more than just frustrating, however. Every moment that went by without a lead was another person that might turn up dead.
He flicked his comms on and patched himself into the main feed.
Barbara was the first to notice. “Hood, do you need something?”
“Not unless you can tell me why I’m looking at another death from nothing.” Jason rifled through the desk drawers, turning up nothing of note.
“Another one? What’s that, five so far?”
“Six,” Jason corrected. “They wrote the first one off as a suicide.”
Barbara’s fingers danced over her keyboard, printing out a whip-quick correction. “Alright. I’ve got it to six. Who was it this time?”
Jason parroted the man’s information over comms. At the deep end of middle age, he was an accountant for several small-scale businesses. Nothing shady, but never holding steady work for more than a year or two. His desk was mostly old tax forms, a few personal items scattered through the pile. A letter from an old flame, a certificate of graduation for someone far younger than the victim, and assorted documents, none of which he cared for.
“Hmm. This is interesting,” Babs said after a long silence. “There’s a restraining order against your guy, years old but still active.”
That broke the pattern. Every other person who turned up dead seemed perfectly normal: no criminal record, community opinions ranging from neutral to positive.
“What kind of order?”
Another set of clicks, which left Jason acutely aware of how quickly he was breathing. The prospect of a lead, even one as tenuous as a restraining order, made his investigation seem worth it after all.
Bab’s sighed. “Domestic abuse. Looks like it was filed when your guy’s kid was around seven, and it’s held ever since. Doesn’t look like there were any violations, but you know how seriously domestics get treated. This doesn’t tell us much.”
“It’s more than I had before,” Jason said. “Can you send me details about the spouse and child? But even if we’re looking at a murder, it doesn’t explain the other bodies.”
“I’ll cross reference to see if the spouse knew any of the other victims. And Hood?”
“Yeah?” Jason was half-way out of the apartment, but paused as he passed by a door, painted a dewy pink and covered in stickers.
“We still don’t know what we’re dealing with. Stay safe.”
—
Jason tracked the ex-wife down to a bungalow in the suburbs east of the city.
He’d dumped his gear on the way. It was easier getting info out of people when they weren’t terrified you were going to shoot them, and even easier when Jason dropped his walls and slipped into the manners of a much milder person. His button down and slacks were purposefully non-descript, the kind that eyes skimmed over and memory rewrote with more interesting things - like watching paint dry. Perfect if anyone started asking too many questions.
The final few blocks were taken on foot, part to appreciate the scenery, part to watch for any signs of danger. If the woman was the killer - doubtful, given that the other victims were entirely unconnected - he wanted to be prepared for anything she might throw at him.
His target opened the door after a few knocks, wearing a long bathrobe over a pair of pajama bottoms and glaring at Jason over the frames of her narrow glasses. Jason tightened the clipboard - full of meaningless files - and quickly scanned the house for dangers.
The woman pointed to a sign next to the door, which read no soliciting.
“I don’t want to hear about your fucking lord or saviour. I’ve had enough of you assholes thinking that just because I’m a woman living alone, that means you get to try and pander your fucking bullshit religion-”
“Whoa, hey,” Jason said. “I’m not a fucking Mormon.”
The woman stopped ranting, looking Jason up and down again. Near his collar, she caught the edge of a small tattoo. The venom left her face.
“So you’re not. Sorry about that, I’ve had too many of those bible-thumpers lurking around. And you are kind of dressed like one.”
Ouch, thought Jason. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m with the city. We’re here about counseling services for your daughter, and we have a few questions regarding your ex-husband.”
A complete lie. A city like Gotham spent half its budget on a bloated police state and the other half on bribes, leaving nothing left for social services, no matter how badly they were needed. He could always badger Bruce into paying for services, if the kid really needed it, so he didn’t feel that bad about this particular carrot.
“Oh god, what has that son of a bitch done now?”
Oh, the cops hadn’t made the house call yet. This was going to be really fucking awkward.
“May I come in?”
“Yeah, yeah,” the woman said. “Want anything to drink?”
Jason wasn’t about to accept something from a potential murderer - though the odds were dwindling by the minute. Once the woman was seated, Jason pulled his face into something close to sympathetic.
“I’m afraid your ex-husband died two days ago.”
The words hit the woman like a shockwave. Her eyebrows blew upwards and her mouth dropped open in the seconds before the rest of her caught up to what Jason had said. She stared blankly, her whole face being carried away by her still-rising brows. Then she laughed.
“Well, have you given the guy who did it a medal yet?”
“I can’t share details about an ongoing investigation,” Jason said, just in case the cops came and realized the woman knew more about the murder than they did.
“So you haven’t caught them yet?” Clever girl, reading between Jason’s words. “Well I wish them luck, the old bastard had it coming. Are you here to interview me about the murder? See if I did it?”
“And see if you or your daughter would benefit from grief counseling. It’s a new program the city is piloting with Wayne Enterprises.”
“Oh, hmm. Lucky us,” she said. “Well, get it over with. Better a guy like you than a real cop, right?”
Jason liked this woman a lot. Her hard-edged persona was just that, a persona, but he could taste the fear that broke through the cracks in her mask, and he knew that she was a survivor too.
“Much better.”
Jason spent a few minutes establishing the woman’s alibi over the past few days, then moved to the character of the dead man. He’d been a real bastard, but only ever behind closed doors. Dredging up old memories cracked the woman’s mask further, but she was Gotham-wrought.
“The first time he beat me, I figured it was just what married couples did. My dad beat my mom, she hit back just as hard, there wasn’t anything to it. But I loved him, so I didn’t fight back, and he never did anything I couldn’t cover up the next day. But my girl, Lauren, I couldn’t watch him do the same to her.” Her voice cracked, and she fought to swallow the pain. “It was something stupid - a broken dish, I think, but I don’t even really remember. I’d learned to be more careful, but she was still a child. He hit her right across the face, as hard as he’d hit me.”
“I’m sorry,” Jason said, knowing exactly what that felt like.
“Not your fault, kid. So I got into it with him, pushing until he left me with damage not even the cops could pretend they didn’t see. Other than court, that was the last damn time I saw him - looking like he’d finally realized the only person he really wanted to beat was himself, but he didn’t have the balls to do it.”
“It’s unusual to have a restraining order for that long. Most end after a year or two.”
She snorted. “I couldn’t have him getting close to my girl, and I didn’t want to go to jail for killing him and leave her alone. So I badgered the assholes down in the courts to extend the period, back when Dent was still the D.A. and good things actually happened in the city. Shame about him.”
“Yeah, a real shame,” Jason said.
“You need anything else?”
He didn’t. It was clear that the woman had good reason to hate her ex-husband, but even better reason not to do something stupid like kill him. She had her daughter to look out for, and a level mind. The business card was for a private clinic in downtown Gotham, one Jason knew were more than happy to cook the books if asked.
The walk back to his bike was slow, even as he shed his disguise. Back at square one, with a mystery killer on the loose. He’d go back over the evidence, comb over the data to see if there were any connections they’d missed, but otherwise, Jason was stuck waiting. He hated waiting.
—
There was one connection, overlooked in the data but obvious once Jason knew the last victim was a wife-beater. Everyone who died was a massive piece of shit.
Dead-bored between patrols, Jason decided to dredge through the social media accounts of the deceased, which ended up being more than he bargained for. Babs being great at scraping websites was no secret, but it genuinely baffled Jason how much of their lives people shared online, and what they said under the pretense of anonymity.
One guy was a massive misogynist, posting on a number of online forums about his beliefs on women, parenting, and the ‘man’s role’ in a household. Another was a self-admitted pedo, just not in a place the cops would check. Jason ran down the list and one after another, every name came up red. Gross.
So the murderer was targeting a bunch of assholes. Well then, the case was suddenly starting to look like none of Jason’s business, so long as the killer kept to murdering those without any redeeming qualities. In fact, Jason wished them well. Gotham could do with a few less scumbags, and wasting the cops’ time was always a plus.
He’d put the case from his mind by the time the alert came through, a wailing tone blaring from his phone, computer, and helmet all at once. A work emergency. What had those assholes done this time?
A clip was waiting as he opened his laptop. Security footage, branded with a Wayne Security logo on the bottom corner, taken inside one of the tower’s elevators. The camera focused on Bruce, surrounded by a few staff members. He was all Brucie, a dazed expression permanently stuck on his face like bad botox, his hair too shiny to be natural.
Jason tapped the fast forward button as the elevator sank, stopping when a woman appeared to phase into the empty space next to Bruce. Jason paused the video, then replayed the clip. The air shimmered before the woman entered the space. A teleporter? But why were they targeting Bruce?
Dumbstruck, Jason watched as the woman inserted a long, hazy-looking, knife into Bruce’s chest and swiped down. Blood welled over the light grey suit fabric and Brucie vanished from his features. So did the woman, without so much as a word, phasing back into the ether and leaving an elevator full of civilians to try and help Bruce.
He’d never hopped on comms so fast, projecting straight from his laptop speakers. It was chaos, everyone’s voices overlapping, and no one with a clue what the video meant.
“What the fuck is going on?” Jason snapped, cutting through the noise. One benefit of everyone still being a little bit scared that he was liable to start chopping off heads again meant that when Jason talked, people listened.
“Bruce is alive,” Dick said. “On his way to Gotham General. One of the employees was a medic, thank god. But it’s not looking good.”
No shit, Dickwad. When did a gaping chest wound ever look good?
“And the woman? Any lead on her?” Jason asked.
“Of what woman do you speak?” Damian was quick to answer. “There were two in the elevator. Are you inquiring about the one who saved Father? I believe she is with the police now, giving her statement.”
“No. I’m talking about the one who stabbed him. Obviously.”
The call went silent.
“Jason, what woman?” Babs said. “I’m not seeing anything on the cameras.”
He couldn’t believe this. “Babs. You sent me the damn file. She's standing right there, with her damn knife cutting Bruce up like he’s a goddamn Thanksgiving turkey. Can you run some facial I.D. So can we hunt this sicko down?”
“Jason,” Dick said, really slowly. “There’s no woman.”
“So what, you think his chest just did that? Are you trying to be dense to piss me off? ‘Cause it’s fucking working.”
“Hey, calm down. The last thing Bruce needs is for us to fight when he’s still in critical condition,” Babs said. “Dick, Damian, you two meet him at Gotham General, make sure he ends up in the right suite. Tim, Jason, you’re going to figure out who did this, and you’re going to catch them.”
Tim grumbled something that sounded like an affirmation. Jason was glad to be stuck with him. Out of all the assholes he called family, Tim was the most likely to do more than panic like a headless chicken whenever Bruce got hurt. He was a dick, and too damn smart, but it was better than playing therapist for Grayson.
“Right,” Jason replied, not bothering to bring the woman up again. Whoever she was, the rest of them couldn’t see her. That was fine, and not the first time something like that had happened. “Mine or yours, bird-brain?”
His phone pinged with a text. Yours. I’m out of milk.
—
Jason had hoped it was (somehow) just a screen issue.
It was not a screen issue.
“I believe you, man,” Tim shrugged at the screen. “It would explain a lot, especially how Bruce didn’t react at all. I know his reaction time is better than that, he should have dodged or caught the knife.”
“I mean, he did catch it.”
Tim thought for a moment, then his lips dropped back into his perpetual frown. “That’s not funny.” He sighed. “It’s only a little bit funny, but don’t try that on Dick until we know Bruce will be fine. I don’t want to deal with his hysterics when it comes to Bruce.”
“No kidding. Pinky-promise, Timmy, I won’t tell a soul. But Bruce’ll be fine.”
Tim looked back dubiously.
“He will,” Jason insisted. “Remember when Bane snapped him in two? This is way better than that, and he was like, three minutes from the hospital this time and not in some fuck-off pit.” He put a hand on Tim’s shoulder. “Seriously, don’t get in Dick’s way. We have the real job.”
Popping the lid of his laptop, Tim pulled a feed up. Jason didn’t look to close, focusing on his own monitor, zoomed in on the face of the ghostly woman. Metas were less common in Gotham than the rest of the world, but there was still a small community if you knew where to look. Most were villainous - by choice or circumstance - and most knew that steering clear of the Bats were their only chance of survival.
He studied the woman’s face. Who was she? Why target Bruce?
The connection to his other case wasn’t lost on him. Her ability to phase through walls would explain the lack of forced entrance and the knife fit the theorized weapon, long enough to do serious damage to some very vital organs. To Tim and the rest of them, it was like Bruce’s chest really did just do that. Jason didn’t know why he was the exception.
“Is this really all you’ve got on the case?” Tim said, after downloading Jason’s case files. “This is like, half of a real lead.”
“Plato’s lead, maybe?”
Tim stared at him, slack-eyed.
“Shadows of a lead? Like the cave?” Jason shook his head when Tim went back to his laptop. “Ignore me. You’re right, we don’t have time for my fantastic jokes, you damn dropout.”
Tim flipped him off, but his lips were turned upwards.
After half an hour - filled by the sound of Tim’s light-speed typing and occasional slurping of his second energy drink - Jason’s laptop pinged with a new file. The generic Bat-algorithm had matched not only the locations and estimated times of death of the victims, but also their social history. Jason already knew they were bad people, but, wow.
“So she’s targeting assholes. Tell me something I didn’t know,” Jason said.
“There’s got to be a pattern. What did you say she looked like?”
Jason described the pale woman, the way her glassy hair pooled like mercury and her eyes were filmy and white. A jacket covered most of her torso, rendered faded and foggy by the recording. The knife appeared a moment after she did, long handled and sharp on one edge, a kitchen tool, not a fighter’s weapon.
“But why’d she go after Bruce? I mean, one’s a wifebeater, one’s a closet pedo - which I alerted the G.C.P.D. to, by the way,” Tim said.
“Way ahead of you.”
“But Bruce isn’t like them. He’s a damn hero.”
Jason felt like the goose who laid a golden egg. A hundred perfect responses rushed through him, but he discarded them one after the other.
Tim, with stars in his eyes even after losing Robin, wouldn’t listen. He knew precisely why Bruce had been targeted. The woman - or ghost - was targeting people who hurt children. He’d bet his good helmet that every name on that list had done something terrible to a child, at least once.
He’d died once on Bruce’s watch, and almost again at his hand. And he knew Dick was hiding things too, things Jason needed years away to fully grasp, and which Dick might not even realize were wrong. Their fights had always been explosive and Dick gave as good as he got, but that was as a grown man. He’d been Robin since he was twelve, and a twelve year old couldn’t hit back, not really.
“Who knows?” He settled for something neutral. “Maybe she thinks Batman’s an asshole too? If we can figure out who she was, maybe we’d know more.”
Tim grabbed another drink, a tower of pink and green. “You still think it’s a ghost?”
“Sorry, am I supposed to pretend that ghouls and goblins and everything else that lives in the shadows aren’t real? Even though we’ve both met that asshole John, and I literally died and became one? Would that help you sleep at night? Yeah, I think it’s a fucking ghost.”
While Tim was busy responding, probably saying something obnoxiously rational about science and reason, Jason turned his attention back to the ghostly woman. She hated those who hurt children, but she was clearly fully grown.
He snapped the lid of his laptop closed, and ignored the horrified look on Tim’s face. “Can it, I’m going to do some footwork. Pull up a list of women between twenty and thirty-five who died within the last two months and send them to me. If we can figure out who she was-”
Tim cut him off. “Not your secretary.”
“If you don’t want to help, I’ll phone Dick and tell him you’re too distraught about poor old Bruce to do anything helpful. Try getting any alone time in the next three business weeks after that.”
“Fine, asshole.” Cute, he was finally learning that the best defence around Jason was offence. “But you’re keeping me in the loop. I want to get her as bad as you do. I don’t need to see to do a what, an exorcism?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s demons. God, Tim, it’s like you never went to church.”
“You didn’t either,” Tim shouted after him. “You read that in a freakin’ book.”
—
Turns out there were over five thousand women in the demographic Jason had named. Jesus, this city was a cesspit. From that five thousand, he’d managed to narrow the list down to a little over two hundred women, but that would still take weeks to canvas correctly - more than just visiting their old abodes, Bruce - weeks which neither he nor the other shitheels of the city had.
Plus, there was always the chance that the woman would attack again. All her other victims were long dead before anyone noticed and Bruce’s continued survival was a break to that pattern. If Jason were in her shoes, he’d make sure the job was done right. But who was he to tell phantasmal killers how to operate?
Children were the key, he decided after another long scroll through the list of names. If the woman was working by ghost rules and was carried forth by some terrible trauma or unfinished business, that meant that the method was the motive. More so than the living, the dead were sutured to their final moments, their roads always leading back.
“Hey, Oracle.”
The comm buzzed. “Bruce is stable, Jason.” Babs sounded like a livewire, frazzled to the point of snapping and like to shock him too if he lingered.
Jason decided to avoid his usual tactics of winding people up. If Babs gave, he couldn’t predict what might happen.
“Okay,” he said, thinking anything but. “But I’m calling about the list Red Robin sent you. The connection has to be kids. Everyone she’s hurt shares that link. Could you-”
“Cross-reference the list with people who’ve had serious childhood trauma, or some other child-related incident? Hmm. I could, but it will cost you.”
“Cost me? You’re fucking extorting me?”
“Hood, if I start doing favours, regardless of how innocuous and innocent, people are going to start expecting them. If I make a trade on the other hand…”
God, she was such a bitch. Jason loved it.
“Fine, what does her highness want? I can swing an extra patrol later if Dickface needs more time. Or do you and your gang of terrifying women need someone to do some grunt work?” Jason added the second more for himself than anything. They were just so cool, but treated Jason and the others like they had the turbo-plague or something. “Whatever you need, I’m your guy.”
The longer Babs’s silence stretched, the more worried Jason became. He didn’t say anything, but he couldn’t stop a cold sweat from breaking out across his neck.
“Dick’s going to need a break, before he winds up in the ICU next to Bruce. If you want the information, you’re going to have to tag in.”
Jason recoiled, nearly stumbling off the edge of a roof.
“No.”
Babs hissed a laugh. “It’s this or taking care of both of them in a week.” She melted, like butter on a stovepan. For all her walls, there was a reason she’d been Batgirl before this. Bab’s cared, enough to put herself at risk without the training and tech offered to the other kids. “Look, I know what you think of Bruce, and I won’t begrudge your opinions. You’re right, even in that the woman is going after people who hurt kids.”
“I’m right?” Jason coughed out, and decided to stop jumping between roofs until the conversation was over.
“I was there for most of Dick’s time as Robin, and we were pretty darn close. Bruce hadn’t-” She cut herself off. “No, he still hasn’t learned how to be a guardian. But it was worse back then, even if those two didn't see it.”
“Geez, Babs. Sounding a little spiteful there.”
“Jason.”
“Sorry, sorry. But really, that bad? I thought I saw the worst of it. Dick wasn’t exactly nice, you know.”
She hummed non-committal. “It wasn’t good.”
For a moment, he absurdly hoped that Babs knew about how Bruce had treated him. How he’d left Jason with the bomb and the blood. But no, he knew better. The footage would have been wiped from the cowl’s memory drives. If Bruce kept it at all, it would be locked away on some hidden hard drive at the bottom of the Pacific, or buried in a volcano. But more likely, it was simply gone.
Time to stop dwelling and start negotiating.
“Fine. How long do I have to stay?”
“Just until the cavalry arrives.”
“How long?”
“Jason, just go. The sooner Dick and Damian are out of there, the sooner you’re free. And besides, it’s not like Bruce will be making much small-talk.”
“Jesus, Babs. That’s dark, even for me.”
Her laugh was short and heavy, an anchor plunging through her well-built facade. “No, it really isn’t. You’ll have your list by morning, Batgirl’s honour.”
—
At Bruce’s bedside, who was more of a tube-laden octopus than the man Jason knew, he found Dick with his hands balled in the rough bedsheet, face down but still very much awake. Damian was nowhere to be found, but the kid looked after himself almost as well as Jason did. He would be back.
“Hey. Dickface. Shift change.”
Dick jolted, hand going to his side before realizing that he wasn’t in his armour, and that it was Jason talking to him. He relaxed, but jerked like he was being electrocuted when his gaze re-focused on the bed.
“I’m not leaving him,” Dick said, eyes stained red from sleeplessness, tears, and a sudden, furious anger at Jason for suggesting he do something sensible for once.
“Yeah, you are. Babs said so.”
“I’m not leaving him.”
“Mm. Okay. So there’s two ways this goes.” Jason slid the doors closed. The security feed in this room had been diverted from the minute Bruce wheeled in, so there was no need to mince words. “You’re exhausted, and I’m pretty sure you’ve cried the fucking Atlantic in the last few hours.”
“Have not.”
“Right, sorry. You’ve cried the fucking, what, Lake Superior? But you’re dead on your feet, Dick, and I’m not. You want to fight me, it’s not you who’s winning. I don’t give a shit if we fight in front of Bruce’s comatose body,” Dick flinched. “But I’m pretty sure you do. Or you can leave, go back home and take Damian with you, knock back some drugs, and get some fucking sleep.”
“You want me to just abandon him? Leave him alone, again? What if he wakes up? What if the killer comes back, and stabs him when there’s no one to help him this time?”
Jason felt that reminding Dick that they were in a hospital would be a bad move, even if it was the best place on earth to get stabbed. It would just upset the poor boy.
“Yeah, Dick. The ghost. The ghost who stabbed him. The ghost you can’t fucking see. How are you going to fight that, huh? Pull a fucking horseshoe out of your ass? No, don’t look like you’re considering it.”
The hospital suite was larger than it had any right to be, enough to fit three beds and leave enough room for the whole Gotham Knights team too. Fucking rich people. Jason crossed the space until he was right next to Dick. He looked even worse up close, actually verging on slightly ugly for once.
“It’s fucking pathological, you know that? He’s not gonna get any better any faster, even if you flay yourself for him. But I’m here. Go. Home.” He poked Dick’s arm.
“Wait, Jay. You’re staying?”
“What does shift change mean to you?”
The fight left Dick, who eventually allowed Jason to carry him over to the pull out bed (fucking rich people), and crashed harder than a sorority after spring break. Jason let him sleep. Damian had already made his way to Tim’s apartment, and thankfully hadn’t pitched a fit at hosting.
Soon, only he, Stephanie, and Cassandra were awake, and while the girls were busy keeping Gotham safe, he was busy looking anywhere but Bruce.
At some point a nurse in light blue scrubs popped the door open and startled a bit at the sight of Jason. He waved her into the hallway, and explained that he was another of Bruce’s kids. She did not ask for the proof he couldn’t provide, thank god. That could have been messy.
She checked Bruce’s vitals (stronger than they should have been), and re-dressed his wounds. Jason couldn’t look, even though he had a matching scar along his torso, and knew exactly the kind of pain Bruce would be in if he wasn’t sedated to heaven and minimally functional. God, was he actually feeling bad for the man.
He walked to the window to force himself to stop. From the tenth floor of Gotham General, the lights from the docks which followed the edge of the island were tiny constellations. Night had ceased most of the activity, but there was always a ship docking in Gotham. A long, high-sided cargo ship was pulling in achingly slowly, spotlights like beacons on both ends.
Good. He breathed out a knot from his lungs, wishing he could be out there instead of in the stifling hospital air.
Bruce groaned lowly. The mood soured as quick as milk, even as Jason rationalized everything as it happened. Stab wounds were painful, even to the near-dead. Especially to the near-dead.
The room door slid open, gliding silently down its track. Jason would have killed for these when Catherine was here, several floors below, for her radiation treatments. The grating screech of the curtains always woke her up, even from a drugged-out slumber.
Flagging the nurse down was simple. Jason waited with one eye on Bruce’s door for her to spot him, then told her everything. Some sensation was normal, she told him, but stopped arguing fairly quickly. Having a surgical unit named after your father really did open doors.
He was about to head back to the room to wait for the meds, when he caught sight of something strange. The hallway leading back to the elevators was glowing, like an emergency exit sign, except turned all the way up to a bright, shining blue.
Well that was fucking weird.
Jason’s danger-sense was always tingling, but now it was a full-on buzz. Like he’d fallen asleep wrong and filled his whole body with static.
Right. Back to the room then.
Jason barged in, but Dick was still dead asleep. So was Bruce, though the little of his body that was exposed thrashed slightly, as if even a coma couldn’t stop his compulsive need to fix everything but himself.
A pale blue arm reached through the door. Then a foot, followed by its leg. Jason already knew what he would see, as he looked up. Her face was seared into his brain. Not even happy to be right, Jason resigned himself to getting even. Pulling the gun from the seat of his jeans, and a knife - all silver, like a fucking professional - from his side.
The woman’s face pushed through the door, not bothering to look at Jason. Maybe she could only see her victims, but more likely, she didn’t consider Jason a threat. It wasn’t like anyone else could see her.
Checking her trajectory, he placed himself directly in front of Bruce. He might have hated the old man, but damnit, he wasn’t letting him die before apologizing, and maybe a little (a lot) of groveling.
“Step off, bitch,” he said. “He’s mine.”
Her gaze crystalized on Jason, as unsettling as the rest of her. Her wide-set eyes were glossy and doll-like, while the rest of her was simply transparent. Without her knife, she appeared far less threatening. Round-faced, she appeared almost maternal. The way she lunged for Jason was equally maternal, when one considered his share of mothers.
“Whoa, hey. Wouldn’t you rather talk about this?” Jason said, dodging her swipe without returning it.
The woman let out a ghostly tea-kettle wail. If that counted as talking, then Jason wasn’t sure he’d be any help. Dick was finally waking up, blinking blearily at Jason. He must have looked completely insane, dancing with nothing.
“Ghost.” Jason blurted out between dodges.
“Oh, shit.” Dick scrambled to his feet, cocking his shoulders while looking at entirely the wrong space. He’d be no help.
“Distract the nurse,” Jason said. “Can’t be seen knifing the air.”
Dick, thank all the gods, listened, leaving Jason alone between a pissed-off ghost and his sort-of dad, who he felt obliged to protect. How his life kept on getting worse.
“See… me..?” The woman droned, closer to a train horn than a human voice. Her lips were cracked and parted like the splitting of a continent, blackness beneath.
“Yeah, I fucking see you. Leave.”
The knife itched in his grip. She was no fighter, a cut under her guard, or even a simple stab would do the trick. The woman was too busy being perplexed to notice Jason’s arm move, how his grip on the knife handle tightened.
“He.. Hurt you…”
Questions for the dead were usually wasted, but Jason was hoping this time was different. “How do you know that? How do you know who to target?”
Apparently, the woman was real private about that sort of thing. She clammed up, outline solidifying and a knife appearing in her hand - left, he noted. Lunging towards Jason’s torso with the same deadly intent she’d had for Bruce, she narrowly missed as he stepped parallel with her. His silver coated knife pierced her side, a little below the ribs.
Ghosts in movies were real drama queens. When they died (or re-died, in most cases), it was to a chorus of wailing cries, an explosion of afterlife ecto-ooze, a rush of dark matter that left the room overturned but free of their malingering evil. The real deal was far less exciting.
Jason pulled the knife away, her form providing only a passing resistance, like stabbing through a curtain. The thick-framed jacket fell open, and instead of going where he had stabbed, her hands went to her stomach. Her rounded stomach. Her very fucking pregnant stomach.
Then with a pop of pressure, the woman vanished.
Dick slid the door open a moment later, waving to someone as he left.
“I just felt something. Are you okay?”
“Just fucking peachy, Dick.” Jason quickly hid his weapons, in case the nurse decided to make good on his request. “She’s gone, but not for good. Bruce can’t stay here.”
Dick sighed, but didn’t appear to have expected anything else. He looked even worse than earlier, hair squashed against one side of his face, stubble poking through his skin, and there was a crust of dried drool around his mouth.
“Where can we take him?” Dick asked, looking genuinely distressed.
Jason rolled his eyes. Wearing the helmet so often made him forget that people could see his face when it was off, but he also didn’t really care.
“You figure it out. Maybe the League has something, not like there’s ghosts in space.” Jason paused, considering the fact there very well might be space-ghosts, and he just hadn’t seen them. “But todaloo, I’ve got a ghost to bust.”
—
Jason killed the few hours Babs needed by napping on his couch. The sofa was deceptively comfortable - or it may have been the sleep deprivation talking - and he conked out in the half-instant between kicking his boots off and his head hitting the pillow. He woke to a dim, grey morning, and a message waiting.
Babs, in her technological wizardry, had done it. He’d have to remember to prostrate himself at the shrine of her genius later, when this was all over, for turning a multi-day job into a colour-coded spreadsheet.
The Murder-ghost had been pregnant when she died, and so long as one’s spiritual eternity matched their corpse, that gave Jason some clues. It also explained the whole murdering shitty parents thing, if she’d been robbed the chance to be any kind of parent at all.
He felt a little bad. If she weren’t trying to off Bruce, he wouldn’t even be tracking her down. Hypocritical, applauding the death of others while refusing to let his own asshole-dad meet the same fate, but inflexible morality was for people who could afford it, or who didn’t care who it impacted.
He further narrowed Babs’s list down to three women, all of whom had been pregnant at their time of death according to autopsy records. The rest he needed to do by hand, sifting through old police files and gravesites.
But something nagged at him. During all this, he’d never really asked why it was that he was capable of seeing the murder-ghost. He’d assumed it was an artifact of being dead, but then again, that was the kind of half-assed excuse that got people killed. Plenty of people died in the kind of tragic but entirely mundane accidents that happened every day, and none of them ran around ranting about the dead. Typical Jason-luck.
Before he could think twice, Jason sent a message to an unlisted number. Either she’d answer or she wouldn’t. He had a job to do either way.
The next several hours were the boring, dirty, and deeply unsatisfying slog that Jason considered to be the worst part of vigilante work. Records rooms were far from well-guarded, and there wasn’t even one security guard to threaten into silence. When his phone rang, it came as a relief.
An unknown number. Huh, he hadn’t actually expected her to return his message. He answered, waiting for her to speak first.
“How is it that every time I hear from you, it is because you need something?” Talia asked, though it sounded more like a statement.
“I missed you too, Talia. How’s Berlin?”
“Oh, I left Berlin weeks ago. The weather is much better here,” she said, failing to elaborate. “I must say, I was perplexed by your message. Are the dead truly attempting to slay your father?”
“Just the one, and it’s not personal. He just fits her profile.”
“What profile is that?”
For some reason he couldn’t think about, the words child abuser wouldn’t leave his lips, stuck on the scar low on his throat. Jason knew it was true, but admitting it to Talia seemed dangerous.
“Assholes, mostly. We haven’t quite narrowed down exactly why yet,” he lied.
“Curious.”
“Very,” Jason said. “I wasn’t expecting you to call. I know you talk to Damian, but I’m-” Not your son. “-nothing special.”
Talia hissed. “I did not throw myself at my father’s fury for you because you were nothing special.” If she had been any less refined, she would have swore. “You are spending too long with the others, it is making you think you are worse. You should visit, like I’ve offered.”
“And leave Gotham? The place would come crashing down without me.”
“That shambling police state is already crashing, with or without you.” She let the topic drop, having already fought over the exact topic too many times to count. “But you have intrigued me. Tell me more about this ghost.”
Jason did, leaving little out except the reason the ghost was killing.
“-but I’m the only one who can see her,” Jason said. “Weird, right?”
“Very unusual.” Talia thought for a moment. “I cannot say I know anything of this affliction. Your death and rebirth, perhaps, have put you closer to the dead.”
“But I haven’t seen any other ghosts.”
“If they were not trying to kill you, would you really know the dead from the living?”
A sobering thought. It wasn’t like Jason talked to many people, or sought reassurance when reality got a little strange. Anything that made him look anything but perfectly sane was to be avoided, even if the tarnish on his reputation would never vanish.
Before he could respond, Talia spoke again. “I will conclude my business here, and then I will travel to Gotham. Damian should have at least one parent in times like this, and it would be good to see you as well, Jason.”
“The penthouse, or the Manor?”
A rare laugh slipped through her mask. “The Manor, as if. My penthouse is more than accessible. You might stay there as well, should it serve you well.”
Then a sound echoed through the connection, loud enough to peak the microphone of Talia’s device. A ripple of noise followed, a shockwave.
“Chasing the good weather, huh? Sure sounds like it.”
“Ttch, some of us can do more than one thing at once, you know.”
“Thank you, for calling back,” Jason said, startled at his sudden turn into sincerity. But he was glad, a tension released from his chest. Talia would be there no matter what he did or who he became, and had already proven just that. “With everyone worried about Bruce, I-”
“Think nothing of it. But I do ask that you visit the penthouse before I arrive, just to check that everything is in order.”
Jason knew an order when he heard one, but he didn’t mind following this one. If there was anyone - besides England’s resident asshole - who could help him get to the bottom of this case, it was Talia. Spending a few weeks in her lavish clutches wouldn’t exactly hurt, either.
—
Talia’s hand gripped his chin, tugging it side to side as she inspected him. As she did, Jason felt for all the lab rats and petri dishes of the world. To be beneath such examination was as terrifying as it was exquisite, though the expression of dissatisfaction on Talia’s face was not promising.
She let him go, and Jason stumbled away. Wiping her hand against her pants, a coarse, practical fabric coloured a sandy beige, Talia turned to the flat plane of glass covering the nearest wall. Her nails were short, practical, and the slightly frayed ends of her hair told Jason more than she might have liked.
All things touched by the Al Ghul name were luxurious, and the penthouse was no exception. Seated just south of the city center, it was a two-level apartment that could easily fit three of Jason’s not-immodest safehouses. He was sure the price had been astonishing, and knew better than to ask.
“Look at what this city has done to you,” she said. “You are so frowny. And your hair, what products are you using? I must get you something better.”
Jason settled in for the kind of one-sided conversation he knew was coming. Talia could be plenty of things - charming, caring, even sensitive - but she preferred not to be. Stopping her thinly-veiled concerns was like trying to stop a train with your bare hands: pointless, time-consuming, and likely to get you killed. Besides, Jason was big enough to admit that he liked that she cared.
That didn’t mean he had to behave. “Dick got me this stuff,” he said, running his fingers through hair overdue to a shower. “It’s amazing. A bodywash, shampoo, conditioner, and floor cleaner all at once.”
It took Talia half a second to realize he was lying, but that half a second was full of anguish. She blinked very slowly, pearl-dark eyes reflected in the window.
“I would not put such a thing past Grayson, to be true. I do hope your influence has deterred him from corrupting Damian too much.”
“Oh no, Damian is still as prissy about hygiene as when he showed up here. Pretty sure his first real breakout caused some sort of crisis, there’s always some new skin-crap when I go over there.”
Talia smiled. Like mother, like son.
“I would have thought the others would not like that I am here. I know Grayson thinks I am a bad influence on Damian, but it appears only you know.”
“Who gives a shit if they’re happy? Plus, Dick’s still trying to find a ghost-proof box to store Bruce in. Harder than you’d think, apparently.”
“So you have not told them?” She didn’t seem angry, just confused.
Jason could never quite tell what she thought his relationship with the others was - and how much that was impacted by the time he’d spent in her care post-pit, but before he’d realized he could never have what he wanted. Hating had been so easy. Hating Bruce, for keeping the clown alive. Hating the new Robin, for existing at all. Hating fate, for all of the above. He’d been so angry, so angry that he couldn’t stop to wonder why.
Years of killing the hate later, and he still wondered why he was so different from the Jason everyone remembered. Half-saint to full-time devil.
But there was no worming out of Talia’s questions. He respected her too much to try.
“Damian knows, and I’m pretty sure Tim does too. But he’s not going to snitch, not unless he has a very good reason too. No one wants to upset Dick right now. It would be like kicking a nest of hornets. Big, sad hornets that sob all over you.”
“Acceptable,” she said, ending the conversation.
Later, after Talia had showered and changed into a far more fitting outfit, and Jason had taken another cat nap on the far less comfortable couches scattered throughout the lower level of the penthouse, they finally discussed what Jason knew Talia had really come for.
For all her talk of Damian and Jason, Talia was as hopeless to resist a good mystery as the rest of them. It was why she and Bruce had worked, for however brief a moment, and why she had housed, fed, and cared for Jason for more than a year against the wishes, then outright protest of the most powerful man alive.
A dead boy walking. A phantom killer. What was the difference?
“It can’t be the pit,” Jason said, taking a sip of the rich burgundy wine, then making a face. “Unless Ra’s is just really, really good at pretending ghosts aren’t real, he doesn’t see shit.”
Talia snorted into her own glass. Ra’s had a whole secret murder club of bootlickers, Jason wasn’t going to be one of them.
“No, I believe you are correct. Though I must ask, Jason, does it matter where this ability comes from? Is it not a boon? You saved your father’s life, after all. I might have been in Gotham to pay my respects had you not seen the woman coming.”
It was all true, which only made Jason less happy to admit it.
“I don’t want to see ghosts,” he said. “I’m not interested in becoming a problem-solver for the dead. The people still living need me to look out for them, and I won’t compromise that.”
“I do not ask you to, but do not rush to throw gifts away, even if they appear useless,” she said, with a wisdom Jason would have associated with someone ancient, and not in her mid-40s at most.
God, she even managed to make eating look like a dance, making Jason feel like a knuckle-dragging hominoid in comparison. Damian would be arriving soon, finally tired of sitting stoically (to hide his anxiety) at Bruce’s bedside, and Jason needed to be done before then. He wouldn’t take that time from Damian, not when he saw Talia so infrequently.
“I won’t, okay? But I still want to get to the bottom of this. You’d think in a city like Gotham there would be ghosts everywhere, outnumbering us living two-to-one, but I haven’t seen any other than the murder-ghost. That has to mean something.”
Talia wore a different expression now, one that made it clear she did not fully agree with Jason’s decision. But she would respect it, or so he hoped.
“I will aid in your investigation,” she decided, then, with some effort, continued. “It would not do for your father to meet such an inglorious end.”
“Aw, you do care,” Jason said, then fled before Talia could realize what he’d said.
—
Thankfully, reuniting with Damian was enough to distract Talia, at least for the night. They’d run into each other on the roof, one coming from Gotham General, one leaving to chase something more useful than feelings. It was better to chase the work than admit that he had more than his fair share of unsavoury feelings trapped in his chest.
A ghost? Really fucking cool, even if she was trying to off Bruce. The aching want that tried to choke him every time he thought of the love Talia had for Damian, way less cool. Jason chose the former.
On his way to his final destination, Jason checked his phone. Several texts from Dick, and a couple from Tim. Nothing urgent, beyond some truly shameless begging to come back and watch over Bruce. As if.
Jason let himself into the funeral home through a back door, frying the security system before moving quickly through the darkened halls. He’d been lucky. All three of his suspects had been processed by this facility. That meant there would be files about their post-mortem condition here that, unlike the similar files held by the G.C.P.D., weren’t filled with more retractions than answers. It was terrible for security, but Jason benefited from it, so he wasn’t going to complain.
Hacking the computer was as simple as plugging in a thumb-drive and letting the code work. While he waited, Jason poked around the office. Anything to distract from the way his mind continued circling the events of the past few days.
Not even the sad, dry potted plant managed to distract him, and the program still had several minutes left, if he could trust the icon of a laughing Tim moving across the screen.
Why was this bothering him so much? None of it was news. Maybe the suddenness - Bruce nearly dying, seeing Talia for the first time in years - was to blame. But that didn’t explain why older, rougher memories were just as present, banging at the doors of his carefully constructed thoughts, begging to be seen.
The computer pinged, breaking Jason from his thoughts.
He thumbed through the system until he found the women he’d been looking for. The G.C.P.D. hadn’t had photos, but now the three of them were visible, photographed from a high angle, looking more asleep than dead. He knew immediately which he was looking for, more by the dark stain across her face than any identifying character.
Jason had been doing this job too long to be sickened by anything, but he felt as unease coiled around his guts. She’d been beaten so badly that she’d miscarried before dying, and they hadn’t found the fetus.
He’d dealt with far worse than a domestic-turned-murder (which was what this was, no matter how much the cops protested). Hell, he’d done worse, the creases of his palms still bloody.
He needed to talk to Murder-ghost. She was capable of speech, however limited. If he could just ask her why she was back, maybe he could help her channel her violence into more utilitarian ends. Or even better, help her not need violence at all. He wasn’t stupid, the parallels were obvious. Of course he had sympathy for her.
Unfortunately, to help her, Jason would need to find her. He didn’t know much about ghosts, but he knew that catching something without form would be like killing something already dead. He’d need help, and help was never cheap.
—
“He’s absolutely not coming,” Jason said, arms crossed, as past Talia’s shoulder Damian looked like he was figuring out every way he could kill Jason. “Neither of you can see this ghost, but unlike with the brat over there, I won’t be on both Bruce and Dick’s shitlist if you get hurt.”
“No phantom could harm me,” Damian said, before Talia cut them both off.
“Damian will stay a safe distance from any trouble, yes?” One of her perfect eyebrows rose in a perfect swoop, which was scarier than if she’d pulled a gun on them. “Yes?”
“Yes, mother,” Damian grumbled. “But do not try to dissuade me further, Todd. I will not be side-lined.”
Being around Talia had caused Damian’s old competitiveness to resurface, like he was afraid that Talia might abandon him. What for, Jason couldn’t guess. Maybe losing Bruce.
“For the last time, it’s Jason, you pint-sized menace.”
Talia sent them a look that shut them both up, and Jason reminded himself that Damian was still a kid, even if he was an adult-grade asshole sometimes.
Wearing an outfit halfway between a catsuit and something a stuffy old archaeologist might wear, Talia looked prepared for anything, with a practical hood pulled over braided back hair. In their matching clownsuits, Jason and Damian looked far less practical, and far more likely to be spotted.
“I hope ghosts don’t have good eyes,” Jason said. “But anyways, I’ve marked a few spots she might strike next. Lowlife and scumbags the system hasn’t dealt with, exactly who she targets. If we can intercept her, I want to try and talk to her.”
Damian wore a look of suspicion while Talia raised her palm to silence him.
“You wish to speak with her? Why?”
“I’ve got to be the only person alive who’s been in her shoes, right? If she can be reasoned with, I’d rather not treat her like a monster.” Or like Bruce had treated him.
Jason lived a life that spawned more regrets than most. Every day he fought off the urge to wallow, flail at the unfairness, and completely lose his hard-won cool. But he knew he couldn’t change them, not outside of daydreams that hurt more than they helped. There was only one thing Jason would truly change about his life - other than the whole dying thing - and even it was a pipe-dream.
The moment Bruce realized that Jason had been exposed to the Lazarus Pit, that his miraculous revival had been anything but, haunted Jason. He’d give anything to take it back, but there had never been a chance of hiding it, not really. Bruce didn’t believe in things like privacy.
Jason had gone from a vicious lunatic to an animal. Bruce had stopped attributing Jason’s crimes, justified or not, to Jason and began to blame the effects of the Lazarus Pit instead. As if he knew what it felt like. But it was too easy to blame any disagreement on something that was done to Jason, instead of who Jason had become.
He’d rather be hated. Better reviled than treated as if nothing you did was your choice.
Jason realized he had begun scowling and corrected his face to something less telling.
“You believe you can help her,” Talia said. “When she had done nothing but slaughter, however deserving.”
Damian’s brows clenched, probably at the implication that Bruce’s stabbing had been deserved. He wasn’t blind to Bruce’s flaws, but he was better with the younger members of the team. More tolerant of their mistakes.
“I need to try,” Jason said, then regretted it. “Plus, recruiting a ghost? Not even Bruce could do that.”
Later, as he soared through a gap between high-rises, his jacket flapping in the rush of air, Jason wondered why his first response to admitting he cared about this case was to bury it under a joke. Talia wasn’t a threat, not like Bruce and the others were. She’d cared for Jason for months, while he’d remained stubbornly catatonic and entirely useless to her.
The brush of her hand against his face, a warm spoonful of something sweet, the cold splash of water on his hair. He remembered that time in glimpses, more sensations than chronological events, like memories of dreams.
And Damian was… Damian was complicated. But not in a way that should have caused Jason to retreat behind his humor. At least he hadn’t turned to violence instead.
Landing on the roof, Jason rolled to catch the momentum. Standing, he dusted bits of old concrete and inescapable bits of gravel from his jacket then waited for two more sets of feet to touch down.
“Took you two long enough,” he said, when Talia reached him, followed by a dark blur he knew to be Damian. “Sightseeing?”
“This is the place?” Talia surveyed the roof like someone might inspect a bag full of rotten fruit, her nose wrinkled across the prominent bridge.
“Yes, mother. The ghost has the highest likelihood of appearing here, according to Todd’s analysis of the previous sightings,” Damian said, leaving out the bit where six previous victims were not exactly a robust number to analyze.
“Like he said, the Murder-ghost’s probably here. There’s a few apartments we can check. Damian, Talia, I’ll send you a few to stake out. I’ll take the other half.”
“Damian will go with his brother,” Talia said. She silenced the reply building on Damian’s lips with a look, before continuing. “Jason, you make sure he does not get hurt.”
“And what about you?”
Talia smiled, and a hint of something prideful pulled at her lips. “What about me?” From her back, she pulled a sword, long and sharp-tipped. One edge had an odd hue, as if moonlight had been captured and poured along it. “This is hardly the first phantom I have fought. But let us hope you are right, and that she might be reasoned with.”
She stepped towards him and out of instinct, Jason stepped back. She frowned, then once he had stopped moving, planted a gentle kiss on the peak of Jason’s helmet.
“Let’s,” Jason stuttered, before beginning the task of convincing a less-than-enthused Damian to work with him.
—
He managed to get them both to the first apartment, where they laid out a series of monitoring devices that were supposed to detect spirits. Privately, Jason suspected half of them were bullshit. What an EMF device was supposed to reveal about the undead, was unclear. But a normal camera had done the trick before, and all they needed was a heads up.
Jason finished mounting the hidden camera in the crack of the doorframe while Damian (sulkily) ran a wire along the baseboard.
“Not what you were expecting?”
Damian let out a harried sigh, like spending time with Jason was the boredom equivalent to renewing his license. His face was mostly obscured by his mask, but the way he was jabbing the wire into the socket told Jason that Damian was considering using a knife to finish the job.
“Hey, I promised your mother that I would look out for you, which means no electrocuting yourself.”
Damian continued to stab the wire. “Yes, my mother.”
Jason blinked. “Yeah. Talia? This tall, mean as hell? That’s who I’m talking about.” He wondered if Damian had somehow managed to give himself a concussion, then hid the evidence. “You confused or something?”
“No,” Damian shouted. “I would just remind you of your place, Todd. Just because Father decided that you belong with us, does not mean that applies everywhere you go. Mother is mine, am I understood?”
Oh. Wow. It had been a while since Damian lashed out like this, though Jason was rarely on the receiving end, being the black sheep and all.
“Oooooh, yeah buddy. You’re understood alright.” Jason wasn’t sure why Damian was acting like this, but wasn’t going to let him just be an asshole like that. “Mad that Mommy didn’t want your help?”
“She is not your mother, Todd. Do not disrespect her as such.”
“No shit.” They probably could have picked a better spot than the hallway to have a fight - like the rooftop, where neither would need to hold their tongue - but fuck that. “Are you going to start fighting anyone who speaks to her? ‘Cause that’s a long list.”
“Stop speaking to me as if I am a fool, Todd.” Damian’s words were lilted with a British twinge, a remnant of his league childhood.
“You’re acting real fucking stupid, Robin. Tell me what’s wrong, or we can take this upstairs.” As a rule, Jason didn’t fight kids. When that kid was a trained assassin and a massive fucking asshole though, he could be flexible.
Damian growled and finished stabbing the wires into place. Then he drew to his full height (shrimpish, in Jason’s opinion) and turned to face him. A vein pulsed in his forehead. An actual, honest-to-goodness vein, pulsing with the irritation that was now turned full-force on Jason.
“You,” Damian said, stalking forwards and driving a finger into Jason’s chestplate. “Are not her son. I am, and I expect to be treated as such, and not as some side-event in the grand narrative of Jason Todd’s life. Mother came here for your mission, to hunt down your ghost, and I was simply a distraction, a tag-along that neither of you desire. Do not pretend that you are anything to Mother, other than the boy who should kiss her boots for saving him.”
“Damian, what the fuck are you talking about?”
“She came here for you,” he yelled. “Because you asked. Because you assumed you had any right-”
Jason was too busy panicking, trying to figure out what he could say to Damian to calm him down, to notice the shift in the air behind him. Then a pale hand, blue as midnight, wrapped around Damian’s chest and he vanished.
Shit. Shit.
Ignoring the screaming EMF (he already knew it was a damn ghost, but thanks anyway), Jason sprinted full-force down the hallway. Talia had asked one thing of him, and he’d managed to fuck that up. He rounded the corner. Nothing. Nothing around the next too.
By the time his brain caught up with his body and he realized searching by hand was pointless, Jason was two floors down. He knew what he had to do.
He flicked comms on, connecting to the private channel he shared with Talia.
“Hey, Talia. I may have lost Damian.”
“How does one lose a boy in an enclosed space?”
Jason sighed. “The ghost took him. I didn’t notice her until it’s too late. And I’m sorry, but I’m going to hold off on apologizing until I know what exactly I need to apologize for. Now do your gadgets work over long distances, or are we searching by hand?”
There was a long pause, during which Jason imagined all the things Talia was going to do to him if they couldn’t get Damian back unharmed. He gulped.
“His vitals are strong. I hope you are right about this ghost, but preparations make safer ends. I have something better than electronics, or God forbid, searching by hand. I am sending you the location now. Do not be late.”
—
The seedy looking building was not what Jason expected when Talia said she had something better. A pawn shop took up the lower half, and a door plastered with advertisements for a Real Psychic, whatever that meant, led to a narrow staircase that rose into darkness. But Talia was here, wearing a murderous expression.
“Jason,” she said. “You know what I will do if Damian is hurt.”
“He won’t be.”
Talia inclined her head in approval, then pushed the door open. The staircase only had room for one, so Jason followed her up the stairs, and tried not to stare at the collection of items that began as kitchy, but quickly graduated to outright creepy. When he caught the empty eye of a clearly human skull, he figured the floor was a safer bet, but even the carpet running up the stairs looked half-dead. He swore he could hear it begging for a mercy killing as his foot sunk into the loose fiber.
“What is this place? League?”
Talia breathed, too serious for a laugh. “Did you think the Al-Ghul’s know secret mysticisms to deal with the dead?”
Jason made a humming noise. Talia did say she had tangled with ghosts before.
“We are scientists, Jason. I have told you this before. We do not meddle with the unknown or unmeasurable, and certainly are not a sect of mystics. But I do happen to know some mystics.” She knocked twice at the upper door, the window frosted. “This is Lady Mother. Do not refer to her as such. In fact, do not refer to her at all, unless I am otherwise unable to speak. She will get us what we need, but it will come at a price.”
“So let me pay it. I let Damian be kidnapped, and it’s not like I have much to lose anyway.”
“You were always such a foolish boy,” Talia said. “You are dear to me. I would not see you harmed.”
The door opened before Jason could respond. The wave of perfume that came after was enough to knock the thought from his mind completely.
As instructed, Jason was a mute backup during the whole exchange. Lady Mother, despite her regal name, was a short, round old woman who tottered through the museum of evil artifacts she called her home cheerfully, poking Talia with questions that were left half-answered and offering both of them a tray of still-warm cookies.
Talia had motioned for Jason to decline. He did, but wondered why exactly Talia treated this woman with more seriousness than the Joker, when she seemed pretty damn harmless.
Eventually they settled in what made for a living room. Talia sat across from Lady Mother, while Jason awkwardly avoided eye contact with the taxidermied bear in the corner while he stood guard.
“Okay, okay. You’ve tolerated an old woman’s ramblings for long enough,” Lady Mother said. Then her face fell slack, and her one good eye rolled back in her head, leaving a cataract pearl in its place.
Jason jumped, but Talia seemed to expect it.
The room darkened, like someone had pulled a sheet over the sun, then patterns of light began to dapple the ceiling. Jason’s ears began to ache as pressure pushed them inwards. It was like they had sunk to the bottom of the Harbour. Or, more terrifying, the Harbour had come to them.
Lady Mother’s curly white hair and rabbit-slippered feet shouldn’t have scared him. Nonetheless, Jason felt the need to hold himself upright, and shrunk back to the kitchen, paying special attention to the tiny pictures of kittens pasted to the fridge.
“Demon’s daughter. We meet again.” Her voice was an earthquake, old and angry.
“Please, Lady Mother. This act does not scare me,” Talia replied cooly.
“But it scares him.”
Jason looked back and saw the wizened finger of Lady Mother pointing towards him. His pulse sped.
“But I like him,” she said. “It’s not often one of mine is so tenacious. Your Father almost cracked, you know. Closest he’ll ever come to it too. You really are something.”
“What-” Jason remembered a second too late that Talia had bid him to be silent.
“I am here about my son.”
“Well he’s right there, isn’t he? Come closer, little Jason. I’ve been watching you for some time.”
“I am here for Damian. And you will leave Jason out of this.”
Jason’s ears popped and breathing began to hurt, an invisible force holding his ribs tight.
“Will I? But he’s so much more interesting, and he’s right there.” Lady Mother fixed her single pearl-white eye on him. “Aren’t you angry, Jason? Wouldn’t it be nicer if everyone saw it your way for once? You’d save a lot of people, you know. I can give you that. I can give you everything you want. A father who loves you, a family who doesn’t judge you for doing what’s right. You’d be in control. And I’ll throw in your brother for free.”
Jason carefully shut his feelings away and slipped into the command and execution side of his brain that was usually locked away. He regarded Lady Mother, her trembling hands, the way her hair was the colour of seafoam, the way her lips were tinged with the scum that slapped the stony beaches.
He knew what she was, and he knew that what she offered was a lie. Gotham didn’t have favourites, it had victims and once had been enough.
“If you think what I want is for people to just magically agree with me, you’re even more senile than you look. Sure, I’d like Bruce to grow a brain and see that his way isn’t working, and yeah, maybe I’d like a little more fucking sympathy or at least some understanding, but I earn everything I get. I always have, and there’s not a damn thing you could offer me that would make me change that.”
Lady Mother looked gleeful, taking a long sip of mud-dark tea. She turned back to Talia.
“See, this is why I like him. So uncompromising. You’ll have your boy back, I’ll just need some of your blood.”
Talia pulled a vial from within her coat and placed it into Lady Mother’s outstretched palm. The blood within joined the rest of her suspicious tea.
After a slow sip, Lady Mother sighed. “Electric, as always. Your son is near. Do you have a phone that I could use?” The expression Jason was making must have been noticeable, because she laughed like water down a drain. “I’m old, not incapable of change, and you need directions.”
—
A shiver clung to Jason the whole way to the destination marker. His anger at Lady Mother had been real, but it had masked a much deeper fear. He’d yelled at a thunderhead, and Jason knew he was lucky she had found him amusing.
He’d asked Talia what Lady Mother was, but she had no answers for that, or for why she wanted her blood.
They’d spent the rest of the drive in silence, the radio alternating between ads for the new casino just outside of city limits and the live crime report most Gothamites relied on for safety. There was a robbery on the West side, but that wasn’t Jason’s problem tonight.
The directions led them to a cramped apartment tower in the rough half of the Village, where the force of gentrification crawling out of the middle island had yet to reach. Damian would be on the second floor, if Lady Mother was to be believed.
“I’m still going to talk to her.”
“Of course.”
“And I’m not sorry about what I said. She was fishing for something, and I wasn’t going to give it to her.”
Talia hummed, then pocketed her phone. Her sword hung between her shoulders, almost invisible against the black fabric. Hopefully, they wouldn’t need it.
The apartment didn’t have an elevator, so they climbed in silence. Talia in particular wore it like a shroud. Her breathing became faint, then vanished altogether, like she intended to sneak up on the ghost by pretending she was one too.
“You go in first. Try to reason with her. But if she has hurt Damian in any way-”
“If she hurt the brat, she’ll wish for a quick second death.”
The apartment was unlocked. Jason swung the door open, creaking open on poorly maintained hinges. The hallway was dark, but when Jason found the switch the lights responded. The hallway was bathed in a harsh, blue light, the cheap kind that the landlord chose to save a few cents.
“Mother, Todd, I am fine,” Damian yelled from around the corner of the hall.
“Just me, brat,” Jason replied, finding the switch to the next light and illuminating a stripped-bare living room. Brushed, uneven wood covered the floor, dotted with left-over carpet studs. Even renoed, a dark patch stained the wood.
Damian sat cross-legged on the floor, his hood fallen across his shoulder. He opened one eye to look at Jason, then closed it again.
“I do not wish to speak with you, Todd.”
“Well that’s a damn shame, Damian, cause I’m here to talk to you. But first, where is your kidnapper?”
Damian frowned even deeper, ears twitching in irritation. “How am I supposed to know? Unlike you, I lack the ability to see the dead.”
Okay, Jason had been worried about Damian, but now he was just pissed. “It’s not a fucking competition. Talia isn’t going to leave you if I have a problem she can help with. That’s not how that works.”
Whatever Damian wasn’t saying had caused him to start vibrating, his meditative pose looking more funny than anything. But Jason was a good brother, and he wasn’t going to say that out loud.
“Look. I remember what the League is like, even if I was never really in it. But Talia loves you, and that isn’t finite.”
“I know that,” Damian snapped. “Everyone always tells me that what I do or do not do will not change how much they love me. That love is not a competition. That I do not have to fight to be valued, to be kept. But that does not change that Mother dropped everything to help when you called.”
“I know she’s visited you.”
“Twice. Twice in three years, Todd. Thrice if we count this, which I am tempted not to, given the circumstance.”
“She’s your mother, Damian. It doesn’t matter how much she visits.”
“Exactly, she is my mother.” Damian opened and closed his mouth a few times. “If that is all you can say in her defence, then I am done here. I will see you at Father’s bedside, if you decide that you can stomach it.”
Damian stormed past him, and then Jason was alone.
He’d clearly screwed it. Damian was usually a tough nut, but here he was, spilling all those feelings he was trained to pretend didn’t exist all over Jason. And what he said about Talia. But she was Damian’s mother, and if Lady Mother could be trusted, she saw herself as something similar to Jason. She had a good reason for what she did.
Still, now that Damian was safe, he was here for something else.
“Hey, Murder-ghost, I don’t know if you’re here, but I’d appreciate it if you skipped the kidnapping next time.”
As he waited, he leaned against the wall, batting away the thoughts he didn’t want to think. The air was still. Too still.
Sure enough, a haze appeared near the center of the room, solidifying into the membranous outline of a woman. Now that he knew who he was looking at, her features were much clearer, and so much younger than they should have been.
“I want to help you,” he said.
“But… hurt… child…”
“Yeah, I screwed up with Damian. And he’s screwed up with Dick, and Dick’s screwed up with Tim. But I still love him, and I’ll make it better. But I’m here for you now. I know you lost your baby.”
She flickered out of sight for a moment, then reappeared.
“I know why you’re killing people, and I won’t say they don’t deserve it. They do. And I-” Jason felt stupid, being so open. Even if no one but the dead knew. “I did the same, not that long ago. It felt damn good to golden rule their asses, and even better to know that because of what I was doing, innocent people were saved.”
“But… stop.”
Jason bit his lip.
“Yeah. I stopped. I tried to change something that wouldn’t, and I knew to cut my losses before it killed me.”
Murder-ghost raised a spectral hand to Jason’s neck, just over where the scar sat concealed by fabric and makeup.
“Hurt…”
“You can’t kill Bruce. He’s a piece of shit, and the things he’s done because he thinks it’s right… I won’t excuse what he’s done, but I still love him. I wish I could stop, but that would hurt more than it already does. You want to kill some scumbags I don’t know? Go for it. I’ll even run interference. But come for Bruce again, and I will stop you.”
She regarded him. It was impossible to read her face, shifting too quickly to ever settle on a single emotion, but the room grew noticeably colder.
“Hypocrite… hate… him…”
“Yes I fucking hate him. He ruined my life before I was old enough to see it coming, and he chose the Clown and his stupid fucking code over me when I miraculously returned. He’s self-absorbed and more self-flagellating than a fucking saint, and he hurts the people around him because some asshole decided that shooting a kid was a step too far.” Jason threw his hands up, passing through her like smoke. “But I love him. It’s fucking complicated, okay? I can’t seem to avoid loving the people who destroy me, but I still don’t want them to die.”
Jason choked down a sob. “I already lost three parents. I won’t lose another one.”
“And… she..? Hurt… child…”
“What?”
Murder-ghost pointed to the door, through which Talia was waiting. “Hurt… child… Abandon…”
“She didn’t abandon Damian. Gotham was the only safe place for him, and he was prepared better than any of us were.”
She pointed again, more insistently. “Abandon…”
Jason was sick of this. First he poured his heart out to the ghost, and now she was throwing accusations at Talia that she didn’t deserve. She’d had a reason to leave Damian here, and her job kept her busy. Jason had been lucky she returned his call at all, and even luckier she had the time to visit.
Besides, he knew how Damian viewed love. He’d probably never called, just sat and waited for Talia to remember he existed, doing nothing to remind her of that fact.
“Tell me where your baby is. Let me put them to rest.”
That seemed to be enough to stun Murder-ghost out of her relentless pointing. She ruffled, edges blurring, which seemed to indicate she was thinking. Then she pointed deeper in the apartment.
Jason followed her to the bathroom, then to the mirror. At first he thought she was trying to communicate, but quickly realized that the mirror itself was the answer. Lifting it revealed a poorly plastered section of wall, bright white against the off-grey of the rest of the apartment. He broke through with the butt of his gun, already knowing what he would find.
—
The infant was buried under the boughs of an apple tree. The blooms had fled as spring ended, but Jason knew they would be back soon enough, a blanket of white for the baby.
Murder-ghost stayed with him as he dug, then placed the tiny, shriveled corpse into the makeshift grave. He didn’t know what faith Murder-ghost might have had, but he stayed with her as she droned a few words, then vanished. For good, he hoped, if for nothing but her sake.
He couldn’t shake what she had said.
Talia hadn’t abandoned Damian. She hadn’t.
His own words sounded wrong, even to him. Even if she had meant well, it was obvious Damian had felt tossed aside, enough to trigger a complete breakdown when confronted with the fact that Talia did something for Jason. His own relationship with her was in flux too. Both relief and an odd sense of distrust filled him when he thought of what Lady Mother had said.
He was her son.
Did he want to be?
He phoned Dick and told him that Bruce was safe. The minute Dick tried to guilt him into coming home, Jason shut off the call and threw his phone into the Bay.
He needed space. He needed to think about why he’d pleaded for Bruce’s life, and why in killing Murder-ghost he’d ended the only other person he’d met who understood.
Basically, he needed to think about a lot of things, somewhere without a bunch of goody-two shoes butting in and making a mess. He’d come crawling back to them eventually, once feelings stopped crawling under his skin like ants, and once he could separate mother and enemy, but he’d do it on his terms.
After all, he’d saved Bruce’s life. He was a damn hero. He was owed a little time, at the least.