Chapter Text
“Do not stand
By my grave, and weep,
I am not there,
I do not sleep–”
‘Immortality’ by Clare Harner
~`✧.~
Before all, gather intelligence.
Batman thought he taught him that. But the simple truth was he always knew to lay low and watch first. Knowing whose face to turn his mother's away from so the week’s groceries cash will stay in her pocket. Knowing what smell, what shifting balance means for his first-father's mood that night. Knowing when the driver wasn't going to come back to his wheels in Jason's arms, one notable exception notwithstanding.
He was doing recon long before he had to name the habit, and it wasn't one to ever break.
His first visit back in Gotham was to the library, looking to confirm what he’s been told. The building was cleaner than he remembered, renovated with a small silver plaque holding an inscription he forcefully ignored.
Keeping his head low, he moved to the computer section noting the improvement over the single beat up one that he frequented in his childhood, before filing it away to the little drawer in his mind angrily labeled ‘So What?’
He sat down in front of the furthest screen, his back to the wall and eyes to the entrance, and clicked for the advanced search.
Daughter of Commissioner Gordon Paralysed by The Joker
“That scum of the earth,” Jason bared his teeth at the words. Batgirl- Barbie deserved better than this. Batman’s negligence, Joker’s insistence to constantly prove there is no soul to redeem, headline after headline. We all deserve better.
He continued in his search, going a little bit further in the timeline.
Breaking news: Bruce Wayne’s son found dead
Jason Todd-Wayne, adopted son of billionaire Bruce Wayne, found dead overseas. “The circumstances of his passing are still under investigation,” commissioner Gordon said in the recent press release, “The family asks for privacy in their time of grief, which I personally ask you all to respect.” The Wayne estate refused to comment.
Jason's fingers curled into themselves as he forced his breath to still. ‘Time of grief’ his ass.
Another digital copy of a few months later revealed what he already knew,
Robin Spotted for the First Time in Months.
Months. Not even a full year before Batman enlisted another kid to his damned crusade.
And worse, dated less than a year ago-
Joker Caught and Returned to Arkham Asylum Following Latest Breakout.
Replaced. Forgotten. Unavenged. Talia didn’t lie about any of it after all.
Jason’s breath was rattled, furious and out of control. Battling every single tense muscle in his body, he deleted his search history and walked away before he gave in and wrecked the place.
“Excuse me,” he stopped by the front desk, his voice holding more gruff than intended. “I’m looking for your physical copies of past newspaper publications, do you mind pointing me in the right direction?” Jason tried his best impression of a mild tempered curious man. By the librarian’s reaction, he succeeded just enough to not make her call the cops.
“It’s down all the way and to the left. There’s a cart by the shelves for the papers you pull out, please return them there when you’re done.” She wore a polite, if strained smile, pointing behind him.
He said his thanks and followed her instructions, verifying what he’d already read online. He went page by page, publication after publication. The grey thin pages wrinkled under his fingers as he turned each one, reading every confirmation.
Perhaps it was overkill, but the buzzing of his skin didn’t recede until he put the selected newspapers back in their place on the shelves and pulled out random ones to put in the cart.
The librarian at the front desk turned her head away from him as he passed her on his way out.
It didn't matter he drew attention to himself, all high strung and clearly furious. There was plenty of anger in Gotham, and enough practice in her people to look away.
The next steps were buying a laptop and renting an apartment whose closest neighbour got lazy with his wifi password. Research doesn't end with a few scanned pages and the threat of defacing public property.
From further news outlets, to hacked police reports, to Internet forums that were surely monitored by The Bats, he learned more of the past few years. None of it good, none reassuring.
StaticStick: Is it me or has there not been a Batgirl sighting in a while now? [posted 02:47, 05/15]
> BatmansA33: Robin too. Guess Batman decided to go at it alone again? No need for sidekicks lol [commented 03:17, 05/15]
Batman Brutality on The Rise: Was it Ever Justified?
JustASmallTownBat: anyone else getting kinda scared? my mom’s a nurse and she told me to blame Batman when she comes home later than usual [posted 19:36, 07/30]
> NightwingApologist: get off the internet kid [posted 21:55, 07/30]
>>BatmanIsDracula replied to NightwingApologist: shut up they got a point [posted 22:18, 07/30] [thread closed by moderator]
Birdfan007: Robin spotted! I REPEAT Robin spotted!1!! [posted 03:04, 03/22]
>superheroName: pics or it didn’t happen [posted 09:14, 03/23]
>> Birdfan007 replied to superheroName: lol I wish [posted 14:36, 03/23]
Robin’s Presence’s Effect on Batman’s Violence and Brutality, a Statistical Analysis Via Relevant Hospital and Police Records [posted by anonymous]
RiddleMe7his: Hey, so I was having a late night smoke and I sort of overheard Robin calling for an “Oracle?” Is it like a new vigilante? I'm new to the forum so pls be nice [posted 04:26, 06/14]
> StaticStick: yeah man we can tell you're new lol Oracle has been around for a while now. Longest working theory is that they're like the guy in the chair if you get what I mean? Like how in cop drama shows there's the smart one that gets them all the info and shit? (Also holy shit?? did you meet Robin???) [commented 10:34, 06/14]
Jason closed his laptop, rubbing his palms against his eyes at the emerging sun. He didn't notice it setting, but the new light filtering through his broken blinds was hard to miss.
Useless, all of it. Sure, this information mostly served to triple check what he was already debriefed on, but it didn't help him understand.
~`✧.~
Getting into Titans Tower proved easier than it had any right to be. Jason didn't dare use his old code, sure it would trigger a breach alarm. Still, the old man was nothing if not a control freak, one to leave himself a back door in case of emergencies.
Himself and Jason.
The camera interference should hold as long as he needed it to, leaving no obvious trace. Hopefully. If it doesn't, well. His nondescript clothes and the fact he should be dead would probably hide his identity well enough. He even painted the white streak in his hair black to match.
He stalked through the tower, knowing it stood empty at the moment with the team dealing with an emergency. He made sure it would take them a while, especially with the new little bird back in Gotham at the moment. He's yet to learn enough about the kid, but he knew that at least Dick back in his Teen Titans years would have seen straight through the distraction and rushed them all back here. And, as any unlucky sonofabitch eventually learns, you can't take your chances with the bats.
He didn't linger as much as wander the long corridors.
Those halls weren't his place of rest, but he was a wraith all the same as he searched for all the places he haunted still.
The common place, which might have been called a living room were it anywhere but here, felt eerily silent without the teenage commotion that left its imprints scattered along the space in abandoned game controllers and framed group pictures.
He picked up one of the photos. It showed the current members of the team grinning in the satisfaction of a fight well won, all linked together in various poses that shone closeness. It would have been a good one, really, were it not for the distinct red of future bruises and landed hits along the visible parts of their skin.
“Still with the goddam child soldiers,” Jason tsked to himself, his teeth trapping the sound.
He moved from room to room, committing each calendar and personal detail of these strangers to memory. Some of them might actually manage to grow into adult superheroes, best to gather intel early.
He pushed open the door to the next room, hand instinctively reaching for the gun as all of the lights turned on. He crouched behind the nearest object and surveyed the room.
Automatic light system, he felt himself relax before the realization of this room tensed him up again.
The Tower's Hall of Fallen Titans.
He didn't want to see his child self etched into a monument, didn't want to read what words they reduced him to. Nausea compelled him anyway, passing each death commemorated in stone.
Aquagirl, standing straight and tall, eyes hollow. Hawk, his stone wings never at rest, even in death. Troia, her suit still shimmering. Jason passed by each statued death, staring into the blank eyes of who he, a lifetime ago, could have called his peers. Omen, Dove, Terra, Kole. One after the next. He stumbled as he felt as if the floor itself fell from under him along with the realization-
He wasn't there. He wasn't there.
Forgotten. Erased. A disappointment swept under the rug. A cautionary tale falling on deaf ears.
His face burned in indignation, eyes stinging for the first time in years. He distantly felt his joints ache under the stress of his fists.
He wasn't a ghost, no. He crawled out with meat on his bones and his soul still trapped within them. Free in the world, there was nothing to tie him to this place.
He felt vengeful and untethered all the same.
He left, silently repeating to himself the manual authorization codes he found written in a folded note in one of the room’s mess of a drawer.
He'd be back.
~`✧.~
A plan doesn't have to be neat color coded strings pulled across a board, clearly labeled with instructions to follow.
He pulled at frayed edges of thought. What did he need? Batman? No, he hasn't needed Batman for a long time now. He wanted him though, wanted him to right his wrongs, to put an end to this carelessness. It was time to let the boulder roll down the top of the mountain without rushing back after it.
An eye for an eye makes the world blind, but stab one eye and watch the other open wide. And Batman, the cops, the system itself have all chosen to shut both their eyes to the needs of the city.
Gotham doesn't need a hero. It had enough of the goddamn Judge and Jury routine. What Gotham needs is an executioner and Jason would make the echo of his guns a banshee.
And so, he planned. Pulled mismatched strings across multiple boards. Welded metal around carefully placed wires. Redesigned stolen kevlar garb. Made lists of lists until a shape started to form.
He read it over and over until he could recite every detail by heart.
Tore it down and burned the evidence.
Jason leaped down one roof, then a second one, down dozens of high perches into dark alleyways night after night, fists drawn and guns at the ready. The script was always the same, painted red and bruising purple. Some lived to echo the message, most didn’t, amplifying it in death.
There was a method to the madness, they’d soon learn. There is a line drawn between surviving and rapacity, between stealing bread and blood. Cruelty will end in a grave, leaving lead as Charon’s payment. But hungry mouths might go unpunished, the young always survive.
Corner an innocent lamb and you might just find your neck snapped under the jaws of a guard dog.
His brown leather jacket over the grey body armor coupled with a deep red metal mask over his mouth and a black domino covering his eyes, made him distinct enough for the criminals of the city even without a name to fear. Yet.
For now he was but a rumor; a dark shadow of death, Lucifer’s eyes upon the alley,
the ghost of vengeance past.
~`✧.~
Bruce opened the doors to the open space before him. It was a private affair, relatively speaking. Already, the nameless faces blended to the back as his eyes found Dick and Alfred, before landing on the endless framed pictures of Jason hung along the walls.
“Yeah, I miss him too”, Dick suddenly appeared by his side, sympathetic in his sadness. “It feels like he's still here with us”, he leaned into his side, hugging his arm.
And he was, just not as Dick meant him to be.
“Hey B”, Jason said. Mocked, really. An invisible jester in his Robin uniform. A child ghost.
Bruce tried to speak, words failing him for the sudden need for air. He couldn't feel the heat on his face nor the pressure behind his eyes, still he heard the sobs starting to wreak his body.
“Oh, don't cry,” the ghost said, “not like it would save me,” he shrugged his phantom shoulders.
And it was wrong.
“You- Jason wouldn't say that” Bruce breathed out, numbly aware that this won't make any sense to Dick still standing by his side. “He was never cruel.”
Dick cooed at him, soothing and gentle.
But this was wrong too.
Grief poured out of him, understanding the dream he is in and resenting his mind for this cruelty.
Jason- ghost Jason frowned deeply, sad and confused. He was fourteen and smiling. He was Robin, bleeding and mutilated. Flickering between shining yellow and crimson red.
He was holding a bomb.
Bruce couldn’t move, couldn’t shout, couldn’t reach out. He could only stand there and watch, tears still streaming down his face.
Jason looked down at his hands, confused and agitated. He straightened his gaze, his eyes finding Bruce’s, mirroring a pleading stare-
Bruce woke up with a start, gasping for air. His eyes felt hot, his face wet.
Suddenly nauseated, he turned into his pillow, allowing himself to sink into the feeling until it drained out of him. He pinched his face to keep fresh tears at bay, a long practiced habit from the grief of his parents. One of many that Alfred had never managed to train out of him.
It’s been weeks since he last dreamt of Jason, longer still since the tattered mask of Robin looked back at him. In the cruelest, most morbid parts of himself he longed for those dreams, for the chance to see his son again. In the honest somber moments of the night, he feared their diminishing frequency.
Distantly, he wondered if his nose was bleeding or if the overwhelming scent of copper and ash was another trick of the mind.
He rolled off his bed, unwilling to let the pity sink into his bones and checked the time, 4:46 a.m blinking back at him. He’d ended patrol early tonight, yielding to Tim’s insistence on the importance of the W.E meeting ahead of him and allowing himself a full night rest.
He huffed, stumbling to the shower and washing away all evidence of the dream. The water didn’t energize him as it might have any other day. It never did after one of those dreams, who had a tendency to drain his blood of oxygen.
5:17 a.m blinked into the dark bedroom as he stepped back in. Bruce allowed himself a tired sigh, putting on his robe and heading down to the cave. He had plenty of time till the meeting, might as well make use of it.
He stopped by the white round candle in the library, its light gone to the evaporated wax. He felt a twinge at the memory of Alfred guiding adolescent hands for a custom born of respect for Bruce’s lost parents. The feeling turned cutting as the next memory resurfaced, of much older hands guiding Bruce’s to light another candle. “Every week,” he’d told him then, the tremor passing between their fingers, “we’ll light one for every week we remain alive to miss him.”
Bruce shook his head, pushing down the stray thoughts, and quickened his pace.
To say he was surprised to see Tim sitting in the chair of the batcomputer would be a lie. Exasperated, maybe, but he’s known his hypocrite son for too long now to be surprised. Tim’s legs were drawn up to his chest, his arms stretched to click at the keyboards. His face wore a pinched look of concentration.
Bruce ignored the glass case at his peripheral, coming to a stop next to the chair.
“I thought you were taking the night off for the botanical garden restoration meeting. Ivy will be pissed enough to act if it gets pushed back again”, Tim said, his eyes still pointed at the screen.
“I thought you were heading off to bed ‘soon’ ” he emphasized the last word, evading the question.
Tim glanced sideways at him, as if clocking what he’s doing. He didn’t press.
“There’s something strange,” he said instead, “I’ve been going through gcpd reports of Crime Alley of the past two months”, Bruce leaned forward to better see what he had pulled up, “and while homicide and violent assault rates are concerningly way up, all reports of sexual crimes as well as domestic abuse rates are down. Child endangerment too.
“People might be too afraid to report,” Bruce challenged.
“That’s what I was thinking, but look,” Tim pulled up a graph mapping assault and homicide cases of confirmed sex workers by week, “These are people who didn’t need to actively go to the station to report. I mean they were found beaten bloody or flat out dead and were left for the cops,” he said with bitter vigor, “the last few weeks show a sharp drop. The same trend follows for overdose in minors. It’s not a coincidence".
Bruce hummed, taking the computer mouse from Tim. He sat down on the now vacant chair, as Tim moved to perch on its arm, watching him reading the reports for himself. Tim was right, something was going down at Crime Alley that needed his attention.
“Good work Robin,” he said. The name stung on the way out as it always did these days. He tried not to let it show.
Tim brightened, subtly preening as he always did with the compliment.
6:28 a.m, it was too early to patrol now. “We’ll investigate tonight,” he told him, “now please go to bed,” he let the exasperation sound in his voice.
Tim rolled his eyes at him, a tired smile accompanying it. “Aye aye Batman,” he jokingly said, marching to the stairs and stretching a hand back to wave at him without looking back.
Bruce smiled at his retreating back, the dull ache in his chest soothed by a degree.
~`✧.~
“Robin, stop it.”
The sound of popping abruptly stopped, giving way to the silence of the night. Even the ever present noise of the city couldn’t reach them up here, settled between the grey gargoyles.
Tonight’s patrol had been a bust. No civilian had been willing to talk, no criminal would give him more than frightened ghost stories.
“B, I really think we should split up” Tim said, not for the first nor second time of the night.
“No”.
Batman knew he had... reservations about Crime Alley. Irrational fears, Dick had said once in an argument. Batman might have said that his tendency to somewhat avoid this area is probably a leading cause for his failure this evening, were he in the mood for self reflection.
“Seriously, I think we’d get better results if we split up. No offence,” Tim tacked on with an apologizing grimace.
Every Robin knew how to be annoying, it was a job requirement at this point. He hated when it was turned on him, nothing grated more than unflinching persistence in the face of refusal.
“You are not to operate alone in Crime Alley,” he repeated one of the key rules he gave Tim when he finally allowed him to go on solo patrols.
“I’ll ask Oracle to listen in,” Tim stood up, walking back and forth along the edge, making Batman’s skin irrationally break out in hives in the process. “And I’ll only talk to civilians.”
“No,” hackles already raised, Batman let the ire sound in his voice.
Tim slumped back down, a deeply displeased expression coloring his masked features. “You are being irrational,” he said, looking out to the city, his arms crossed.
Better irrational than careless.
Batman didn’t say anything in return, letting the cool air mollify Tim’s indignation. It was a trait unique to Tim among the Robins, the ability to let go of anger instead of leaving it on a low simmer, letting it boil over at a later time.
There is no point in keeping anger within reach when you grow up with no one around to direct it at, the part of him that was always analysing supplied. He was being unfair, he knew, using the kid’s mannerism to his benefit.
“You can take the lead on the next witness we find,” Batman said into the cool breeze.
Tim- Robin gave a surprised sharp curl of his upper body, twisting to meet his face. “And you won't interfere?” Robin raised a challenging brow at him.
“I'll be your shadow,” promise. He didn't add. He no longer made any.
Robin smiled at him. It was not a toothy grin and no curls framed his face, but his black hair tousled in the wind and he was so bright, enough for the stars to grow jealous. It was like a lance to his body, the sudden memory of another boy in those colors. In green, yellow and red red red.
Robin’s eyes seemed to somber, as if Batman's reflected the ghost back at him.
“Come on, Robin” he took to the ledge, “we should go.”
By the time deep dark blue turned to dawn, they managed to gather the following information: It was a man, most likely human, though the uncertainty left them unsettled. He likely worked alone, his main weapons being brute force and firearms. And most importantly, despite his reputation, not all who encountered him feared him. There was an air of respect in the tight lipped civilians, a sense of pride Batman had only seen before in tenants refusing to snitch on their neighbours.
Nothing they couldn’t have guessed on their own.
Tim stayed silent as they returned home, it was an unusual behavior for any Robin. He often turned to contemplations, but even then Batman could catch the stray murmur of thought from time to time. Tim was angry.
“We would have gotten more if you’d have just let me go alone. They would’ve been more willing to talk without you there,” he said when they exited the batmobile into the hollow space of the cave.
Batman stayed silent, unwilling to revisit the argument.
Tim let out a long sigh, turning his back to him and heading for the showers.
~`✧.~
There was a room in the manor that never casually opened.
Tim opened that door not long into his role, just to see, to get a glimpse into his past hero’s life. The air was clean, but stale. The bed was made, the desk covered with the organized mess of a teenager.
Tim passed a finger along its wooden frame. Dusty, but not nearly as much as it should be. Tim had slunk into the late Wayne's bedroom before, if he had to guess, it was cleaned on the same day as this room.
Tim had stood there, the night’s silence wrapping around him, oppressing and all consuming. This room was a corpseless mausoleum.
He closed the door before Bruce could notice and get that horrible blank look in his eyes.
Jason was long dead, but he lived in the details of this house. In little traditions kept close to heart, in the snacks no one in the house liked, but Alfred kept buying anyway.
Jason lived in the new rules Batman put on Robin, the forbidden places Tim himself had once followed after Robin into, equipped with nothing but a camera and starstruck admiration.
Tonight was ridiculous. Worst part is, the only person who could potentially get through to Bruce to show him just how ridiculous he’s being would most likely end up agreeing with Bruce.
“Master Bruce can be stubborn at times. You don’t have to agree with him, but some.. sensibilities are better left unchallenged,” Alfred had told him, early into his tenure as Robin.
Tim landed on his bed with a huff, pushing the palm of his hands against his eyes. He felt a vibration on the mattress, a steady rhythm. He grabbed his phone, putting it to his ear without checking the caller id.
“Rough night?” the voice of Barbara Gordon filtered through the speaker.
Tim rolled into his stomach, putting his face sideways to the bed so he could be heard unmuffled by the blanket. “You could say that,” any line with Oracle would be secure enough to speak freely, but caution had been drilled in him for every second of the hour for the last few years. Instead of relaying tonight’s events he simply said, “Bruce is being difficult.”
“Why do I get the feeling he’d say the same about you?” Tim could hear the amused eyebrow raise in her voice.
“It’s just frustrating, I’m more than capable of being out there on my own. Heck, I’ve been going out at night alone since I was a little kid. I think I earned some trust in my abilities.”
There was a soft hum as she gathered her thoughts. “It’s not that he doesn’t trust you- No Tim let me finish,” she cut the coming argument at his noises of dissent. “We all know you’re more than capable of going solo, don’t act like you don’t go on plenty of missions in and out of Gotham, but this-” the line went quiet for a moment, as if careful in her choice of words.
“Even in my time out there, he was overly cautious when it came to Crime Alley, and since Jason,” she sighed, the memory clearly heavy on her chest. “There are just some arguments you’re not going to win, whether you’re right or wrong”.
Tim rolled to his back, turning his head to look at the moon surrounded by dark clouds. He wouldn’t have known they were there, if it weren’t for the moonlight reflecting into them.
“I know,” he told her. He’s always known. Still, it was nice to blow off a little steam to someone who knew how it is. Dick sat him down once and said that it was a time honored tradition for Robins to complain about Batman. Tim imagined Barbara had been listening to Robins’ rants for years.
“Anyways,” he drawled out the word, “I thought you weren’t supposed to listen in without a hail”.
“Slow night,” he could just see her shrug her shoulders with a sly grin.
“B won’t like it,” he teased.
“Good thing he’ll never know”
Tim hummed in amused agreement.
There was a gentle knock on the door. “Wait a second Barb,” he told her before standing up to open it.
“I apologize for the interruption,” Alfred said on the other side, eyeing the phone in Tim’s hands.
Tim shook his head, giving his goodbye to Barbara before hanging up, “what’s up Alfred?”
“I noticed you are awake despite the late, or rather early, hour. Would you care for a drink or a light snack?”
“Yeah, thank you.” Tim closed his door as he stepped out, walking next to Alfred in the direction of the kitchen.
“Bruce went to bed?”
“He’s at the cave,” the corner of Alfred’s mouth twitched down in disapproval.
“Yeah, figures”.
They turned the corner to the kitchen, Tim taking a seat by the counter as Alfred moved to put the kettle on and pull ingredients out of the fridge.
“You seemed troubled when you returned from patrol,” Alfred put a plate before him, offering a sandwich as well as a listening ear.
Tim felt something in his chest warm at that, the care and consideration shown twice in one night over what is, by all intents and purposes, a minor hurt.
“Bruce is just being overbearing. You know how he gets,” he took a bite out of his sandwich, savouring the taste. He chewed until chewing became unbearable and swallowed.
Alfred put down a steaming mug next to the plate and took a seat with his own in hand.
“He seemed troubled as well”.
No one could read Bruce better than Alfred, not even Dick who Tim still sometimes thought had telepathy exclusively attuned to Bruce’s mind. As such, Tim scoffed, taking Alfred at his word. “If he’d had let me out of his sight for more than two minutes, he wouldn’t have a reason to be upset. He’d have a solid lead on a suspect”.
“As any man, Master Bruce has his faults, but I dare say his priority tonight was not one” Alfred predictably took Bruce’s side.
Tim found that he didn’t mind as much. His talk with Barbara calmed him enough that any lingering resentments washed away with a warm sip of his drink.
Alfred had cared for Bruce for so long now that the instinct was ingrained in him. In calm nights as tonight as well as in stormy ones, when Bruce was at his worst. Tim couldn’t fault him for it, not when it was how he became Robin in the end.
The memory of that night stayed clear in his mind, overshadowing every celebration or sorrow. Alfred handing over the Robin suit, the desperation passing between them. Alfred had protected Bruce the only way he knew how and he, who had felt so unworthy of the title at the time, had followed in his footsteps.
It was frustrating, working around Bruce’s hang ups, but he could privately admit it also felt nice, in a way. To know he mattered to someone.
Tim took another sip, enjoying the company.