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Jason breathed in the fresh night air, grinning to himself as he explored New York City and looked for his next target.
His relationship with both Dick and Bruce had been complicated after he came back to Gotham. Jason thought that he understood, at first; after all, it’s not like he was very accepting of murder before he had been murdered. But that was before, and now was different.
He just couldn’t get why they didn’t care? They didn’t care and they didn’t understand. It’s like they weren’t even trying.
It hurt, hurt in so many more ways than just one, when he offered an olive branch to Bruce and was left bleeding and rejected.
All it took was one quick move, one small action, one insignificant death, and the Joker would be gone and all of this would be behind them.
But no. Bruce couldn’t even do that. He’s far too rigid in his thinking, far too stubborn to even begin to think about killing someone. It’s like they say, old dogs can’t learn new tricks.
Dick, though, was a different story. Him being not as old of a dog as Bruce could mean he’s more open to changes, more open to Jason’s philosophy and position on things.
Could mean that there’s still a chance.
A chance for what exactly, Jason didn’t entirely know. Family? Connection? A line to hold onto when everything gets to be too much and he feels like he’s drowning? Someone who understands him, really and truly understands him? A familiar face to not look at him with anger reserved for monsters and grief reserved for ghosts?
He didn’t know.
All he knew for sure were the rumors running in the streets, right alongside the rats and trash of Gotham. Rumors that a man was dead. Rumors that Nightwing had been there on the night of his death. Rumors that Nightwing killed him.
Jason had spent so long thinking that he was firmly cut off, that there was no way, after everything that had been done, that the connection he once had with anyone before he died could be rekindled.
But this, this changes things. Yeah, yeah, Bruce was too old and too stubborn to teach.
But Dick, not as old, not as stubborn. If the rumors were true, he could even be interested in learning and trying new things. Could be interested in rekindling what once was, what once could have been. Could be his chance for connection.
‘Yeah,’ Jason smiled as the blood hit his domino mask-covered face and the body in his hands started to lose its warmth.
‘Yeah,’ he thought, ‘there’s still a chance.’
He ran up the fire escape of the nearest building and rested on the rooftop a moment, taking in the sight of the fresh crime scene below him before his eyes yet again returned to the Manhattan skyline.
He looked over the city, wondering where Nightwing could be at that very moment – maybe in his apartment, maybe running patrol, maybe with that cute fashion designer, maybe thinking over the morality of killing and accepting the fact that some lives are better dead than left alive – before his eyes snagged on something.
A gap in the buildings that hadn’t been there before.
Jason hadn’t often gone to New York before he died, but he did have that brief stint on the Titans when Dick was gone that one time, and sometimes there would be work as Batman and Robin that crossed over into the nearby city, so he could confidently say that the nagging in the back of his head wasn’t over nothing, that something was different here than it was before.
Jason moved closer, curious but cautious, and when he was close enough, the answer clicked in his head and a question lingered in his mind: ‘where the fuck were the twin towers?”