Chapter Text
INLAND NEW YORK - 2049
Air throbbed from a passing hovercar. The wake of the vehicle sent a greasy blast of exhaust flapping Jason’s jacket open and the tail lights streaked colour across the slick black Inland Brooklyn streets. A sky train let off a bone-shaking, howling wail as it passed far above them.
The floating neon sign of the club flickered. Jason tapped his foot, fists clenched in the pockets of his jacket.
Finally, he reached the end of the line and stalked for the door.
A hand closed around his wrist and pulled him up short. “Hold it, kid,” the bouncer said. “Let’s see an Ident-card.”
“I’m thirty-nine, jackass,” Jason did not say. Instead, he ripped his wrist out of the meat-head’s grip. He pulled an expression of pure irritation and dug through his pockets to pull out a gently glowing Neo-Gothamite Citizen Identification card, with the false birth date of 2028.
The bouncer pressed the Ident-card against his black card reader, which flashed green. He frowned, and checked it again. It was approved again.
Jason snatched the card back. “Are you done?”
“Eh, you can never be too careful with you Neo-Gotham rats,” the bouncer said, but still stepped aside to let Jason through the doors.
A wave of sweaty warmth rolled over Jason’s face as he stalked through the crowd. Music thrummed in the air, but all he could make out was the hazy pound of the bass.
Someone grabbed Jason’s ass as he passed, and he pulled the questing hands off him with more force than was necessary. He searched the indistinct faces, every sense pricked like a hunting animal. His shoes stuck the floor. Only a moment ago, he had been unpleasantly cold, and now he was starting to sweat with the body heat rising around him.
Jason pushed his way through a knot of dancers, checking the inside of his wrist for the small computer screen pasted against his skin. He was getting closer.
A massive lava lamp cut through both floors of the club. Glowing, abstract shapes of wax, larger than a man, floated up like sea life on an alien planet. When the overhead lights changed, the glass of the lamp glittered and shone.
On the second floor, half of the crowd converged around the stinking bathrooms while the other half pressed one another against the walls. Jason wound through the lingering people.
Under the string lights, glass doors sliding doors had been pushed open to allow use of the smoking balcony. Jason checked his wrist again. Beyond the railing, the city night was blue. After the oppressive heat of the club, the cold night air was a relief.
Two women were occupied by a drunken, but passionate, conversation about an ex they both shared. An older man chain-smoked and stared down at the city with wet eyes. But Jason’s attention was drawn to long black hair falling over an elegant red dress, gold bangles on thin wrists.
“Hi handsome,” a boy with bleached hair, who was probably no older than twenty, tugged the open neck of Jason’s shirt towards himself.
“No, but thanks,” Jason said, feeling more than moderately uncomfortable. He brushed the hands away.
The woman with dark hair lifted her head at his voice. She had a rounded, oval-shaped face, broad cheekbones and freckles mostly hidden by face powder. Her eyes were black and deep, heavy with kohl. Jason searched her hairline for the cowlick curl above her eyebrow, but couldn’t find it—she must have straightened it out of her hair.
“Um, do you know him, Lian?” the bleach-haired boy asked.
Lian Harper ran a thumb over her lower lip. Without speaking, she beckoned Jason to follow her.
Jason tried to tamp down on his growing irritation as he followed her to the other end of the balcony. He could feel eyes following him. On the floor below, the DJ changed the track.
Finally, Lian turned around and leaned her elbows on the railing. The drink she held by the tips of her fingers glinted in the street light. “What is it, Jason?”
Jason folded his arms. “That’s my line. Been to Kodinsha recently?”
Lian frowned and shook her head.
“So, you never met with Jacob Luther?” Jason asked. “Never took any interest in his shell company out there?”
Lian gave an awkward, crooked smile as she shook her head again. “I think you’ve got the wrong girl, J.J.”
“Don’t try to shit me, Harper,” Jason said, icily. “You tried to decrypt the files on your phone, but you fucked it up and now it’s sending out an electronic flag with your live coordinates to Luther’s personal network. That’s how I found you.”
Lian went pale. She fumbled for her phone.
Jason snatched it out of her hand and it disappeared into one of his jacket pockets.
“Hey! Give that back!” Lian snapped.
“You lied to me,” Jason snarled. “Not just now, you lied back in Gotham, and you lied to your father.”
Lian glared at him. “Give me my phone back, asshole. I made one mistake, that’s all.”
“What the fuck are you playing at? What do you think it’ll do to Roy when you get your head blown off by LexCorp assassins ’cause you’re too arrogant to learn simple cyber-safety?”
“God, you are such a hypocrite, it’s unreal,” Lian rolled her eyes.
“This is serious, Lian,” Jason said.
“You know what?” Lian said, raising her free hand in a dismissive wave. “Keep the stupid phone, just get out of my face, okay?”
Jason turned to follow her. “Lian, don’t be childish, this is—”
Lian threw her drink in his face.
Jason hissed as the alcohol stung his eyes. He shook his head, sprinkling the floor with droplets. When the turned to continue chasing her, his path was blocked by the broad chest of a security officer. He glowered down at Jason.
“Get out of the way,” Jason said, trying to push the officer aside.
“Give it up, man,” the officer said. “Trust me, she isn’t interested.”
“It’s not like that,” Jason snarled, righteous anger pumping through him. “I’m her…” Around the bulk of the officer, Jason saw Lian’s red dress disappear into the crowd. The last thing he saw was the flip of her midnight hair. Jason’s heart sank. “Nevermind.”
*
Taking the sky-train westbound, Jason leaned against the large cabin window. He was waiting for his call to connect, watching the ocean far below him.
In the previous decade and a half, the sea level had risen 34” to cut off the corners of Staten Island and drive a knife-slice between Brooklyn and Queens. Goodbye, Rockaway Beach and most of east New York. In the districts the ocean didn’t swallow entirely, highways and avenues became inlets and rivers.
Gotham had been hit worst, but had also adapted faster. Brooklyn had shrunk to higher lands, but Neo-Gotham had rised on its stilts like a startled cat, building looping and ambitious structures which connected the half-submerged skyscrapers, while the dark water canals far below were hidden from the daylight.
Sun sparkled over more sea than Jason remembered. Those original city streets existed only in his mind now. Fish darted through the lightless waters of the Narrows.
“Success!” Roy announced in his ear, startling Jason from his thoughts.
“Hi, Roy,” Jason said, moving away from the window.
“Yes, hello and all that shit,” Roy’s voice crackled down the phone. “I’ve finally found Jade, and she’s alright.”
Jason felt something unwind in his chest. “Jesus. I thought for sure she’d taken her last chance. Is she hurt?”
“A bit. I’m no doctor, but I managed to cross the border with her and take her to a hospital in Bialya and she’s been patched up,” Roy said. “Just sleeping right now, otherwise I’d put her on the phone. Think we’re going to stick around for a week or so until she’s more stable, then I’ll take her back to the states.”
“Hmm,” Jason said. “I was hoping you’d take the red-eye and come back sooner, to be honest.”
“Aw, you miss me ~ ~ ” Roy crooned. In the last few years, his maturing voice had grown deeper and gravellier, but he could still attempt a valley-girl swoon when the mood took him.
“Not just that,” Jason said. “You were right. Lian was the one who hacked into the LexCorp computers in Kodinsha.”
“Ah, okay,” Roy said.
Jason waited for him to say something else, but he didn’t. “What do you mean ‘ah, okay’? You aren’t worried?”
“Sure, a little,” Roy said. “I’ll have a chat with her when I get back state-side.”
“It can’t wait,” Jason said. “She accidentally sent a pinger sending her location to LexCorp. She could have died.”
“Jaybird, baby, I can either do my job, or I can micro-manage Lian. I can’t do both,” Roy said. “I’ve got more grey than red in my hair these days. You might be able to run around after her, but I’m a little too long in the tooth.”
“You aren’t old,” Jason insisted.
“Well, thanks, but I think you’re missing my point,” Roy said. “And anyway, she’s twenty-one. Something to be said for letting her make her own mistakes.”
Jason narrowed his eyes. “Not if those mistakes get her killed. I won’t allow it.”
Roy’s sigh crackled down the telephone wires. Ever the peacemaker, he switched tact. “Okay, then, the data she recovered… Have you been able to decrypt it?”
“No,” Jason said, glancing at his laptop which was still chugging away on the cabin’s side-table. “I’m giving it a shot, but think it might be beyond me. I was only ever okay at the cyber side of things.”
“I know a professor in Star City U who might be able to help you,” Roy suggested.
“No thanks,” Jason said, wrinkling his nose. “I know who you’re talking about, and I’d have to wear a uniform and pose as a student to get to her.”
“Oh, I think you could pull it off.”
“No, I know I could pull it off, that’s the problem.” Jason said, a bitter note entering his voice.
“Ahh, look at me, I’m Jason Todd and my biggest problem is that I’m stunningly handsome and both my knees still work~ it’s not my fault my ageless body is still sexy and young~~”
Despite himself, Jason snorted. His dark mood dissipated. “You’re such a prick,” he said, without any heat.
“Love you too, cowboy,” Roy said, and yawned. “Catch you on the flip side.” The line disconnected.
*
Jason could hear the crash and sigh of the surf in the streets below. Through the office’s white blinds, he saw 5th Avenue and 10th clogged with buisnessmen riding their waverunners through the late-morning traffic, frothing the water white. Sun gleamed on the spray thrown up by their wakes.
The glass door closed behind him, and Jason turned.
Tim Drake watched him with an oddly bemused expression, before he pressed the intercom. “Harris, please cancel my morning meeting. Something’s come up. Thank you.” He muted his office phone. “Jason. You know, I had a dream about you the other day. It’s been too long.”
“Maybe it has. You look old,” Jason said.
Tim actually chuckled. In the intervening years, his body had thickened and rounded. He actually looked like a normal person now, and now an underweight cage fighter. When he had been Robin-age, he had looked eerily like Dick Grayson, but that had changed with the years. Through his twenties and now, in his thirties, Tim’s face had rounded, his eyes growing hooded, he had started wearing his thin black hair shorter and now silver had even touched his temples.
“I can’t say the same for you. You look good,” Tim said. “But I’m assuming this isn’t a visit about my health…?”
“It isn’t,” Jason said. He pulled out the phone from his jacket pocket. “I’d like to ask for your help. You’re the best hacker I know—I need some LexCorp files decrypted.”
Tim frowned. “Oh. Babs didn’t tell you?”
“I haven’t talked to the Commissioner in years,” Jason admitted.
“Right. Well, I’m sorry, Jason, I don’t do that kind of stuff any more,” Tim said. He rubbed the scars on his wrist. “All of this, my job, my marriage, my family… it isn’t a double identity or anything. It’s all I have now. I don’t want to jeopardise that.”
For a full three seconds, Jason wasn’t sure what to say to that. “You quit? Of all people?”
“I know, it’s kind of ironic,” Tim said. “In many ways, I’m the only one of us who actually chose that life, but I think that’s why I can leave it. I had something none of you had, even though Jack and Janet weren’t perfect, I still had a normal-enough childhood. I’ve known a different life, and after what happened at the old Arkham building…”
Jason avoided looking at the restraint scars on Tim’s wrists. He felt a pinching in his chest.
“I hope you can… understand that,” Tim said, sounding truly apologetic. He tilted his head forward. “I know it’s not really an option for you. Ducking out.”
“Don’t apologise,” Jason said, and it sounded like an order. He had to put some sort of stopper into the flow of conversation before they started talking about feelings or something. It made him feel vaguely ill. “You’re much less fun to hate when you look like a third grade teacher.”
“I’m happy to hear that,” Tim said. The assessment was accurate; Tim had a starched collared shirt underneath the softest, muted blue cardigan and wrinkly slacks that were half a size too large. He picked up a datapad and pulled up an email. “I’ll give you a contact for this tech specialist I know. She’s a lovely woman. She teaches at Star City U for underprivileged youths.”
Jason looked down at the datapad and, after a moment’s hesitation, tapped it to his wrist computer to save the contact details. “Thanks. Well, see ya.”
“Wait, Jason,” Tim held up a hand. “I just wanted to say… if you ever do want to give me a social visit that would be—”
“Thanks. I’ll think about it,” Jason said, and ducked out of the office. His skin felt tight and slightly itchy. He felt like he had been on the dancefloor for too long and someone had switched the music off and the lights back on. The world was brightly lit and silent. He waved down a watercab and took it back to his motel room, head full of heavy thoughts.
*
The silent intruder alarm vibrated his pillow and Jason’s eyes snapped open. For a moment, he just listened. Quiet apartment. The gentle hum of his a/c. Then, the almost silent crunch of glass underfoot in the other room.
It had been years since Jason had slept in his armour, and tonight had been no exception. Cool air rolled across his bare back. He rose quietly, pulling his gun from bedside table. He cocked it with a click.
Jason prowled through his dark apartment, gun at the ready. He turned the corner, weapon raised, but pulled it back just as quick. “Lian?!”
An arrow embedded in the wood above his head the moment after he ducked. “Jesus, Lian.”
“Just go back to your bedroom,” Lian said, crossbow still raised. “Pretend you didn’t wake up.”
“You’re a thousand years too early to give me orders, Harper,” Jason hissed, still ducked behind the doorframe. He looked down at his gun and unloaded it with a practised twist of his hand. The empty weapon and the bullets were dropped onto the side-table, which left him nearly naked and defenceless with an armed hostile in his living room.
“You had no right to take me off the case,” Lian’s voice came from the other room. There was the a commotion as she searched his cupboards for something. “It had nothing to do with you!”
“I promised your father I’d keep you safe,” Jason grumbled. He snagged a few loose trick arrows from the countertop.
“I can keep myself safe,” Lian said.
Yes, Jason thought to himself. Keeping herself safe, like breaking into a crime lord’s house in the middle of the night.
He closed his eyes and visualised his living room. The pieces of furniture that would hold his weight during the attack, the distance between them. He took a deep breath. Then he launched himself forward.
Through the doorway, over the couch, swinging his fist before he had even landed. Lian blocked his blow and swung for his head. At close quarters, she lost her advantage, but that didn’t mean she was helpless.
Jason caught a flash of light. On Lian’s left hand she wore Cheshire’s articulated Bagh nakh, a fistful of razor-sharp claws. If she landed just one strike, it end the fight for good.
Lian tried to punch him in the ear, but he wove out of the way and kicked the back of her knee. She faltered but didn’t fall. When she tried to hit him again, she left her right side open, but Jason didn’t press his advantage.
He should have kept his mind in the fight – he was three decades too old to let attention to wander at a time like this – but he couldn’t help but be back there, bare feet slapping on training mats, bright yellow lighting of the local dojo, Lian’s rumpled little kid’s gym clothes, rolling her big brown eyes at Roy’s stupid jokes. Every punch she threw reminded him. He had taught her that dodge and roll.
Jason ducked underneath her swing, the breeze of the blow ruffled his hair, and he snapped the trick arrow against the railing. Handcuffs broke out and wrapped around her wrist.
It was the reflex he didn’t expect; the automatic lash-out of a cornered animal.
Lian’s claws cleaved his face open.
Jason’s head snapped back at the force of the blow and his knees crumpled. Blood splattered onto the carpet.
“Jason!” Lian took a sharp, horrified breath in. Her handcuff rattled against the railing as she tried to reach him.
Jason half-rose. All of a sudden, he was covered in blood. He braced a scarlet hand against the glass top of the coffee table to push himself backwards at a half-crawl. It felt like his brain had been knocked offline. He couldn’t feel a thing, only a dizzy numbness, but he knew that there was a lot of blood. Something very bad had happened.
“Fuck! I didn’t mean— just try to keep still, okay?” Lian’s voice was shrill with panic. She yanked and yanked against her restraint. “Is there anything you can use to, shit, cover it? Oh, god, your eye.”
Jason’s legs stopped working and he sat down, hard. The pain was starting to come in. It was like someone was pressing his face against a hot stove. It was so painful he wanted to be sick. He jerked his head and squeezed his eye shut, making a low groan.
“Shit!” The handcuffs were loud against the railing. She was breathing hard. “Jason, you have to let me out. Is there a key? Jason, please. Please.”
His hands were sticky. Waves of tiredness washed over Jason. His thoughts weren’t lining up anymore. He thought about going under in the bathroom, sedatives charging through his veins. He thought about a burning warehouse floor.
Lian’s eyes were bright with tears. She was saying something he couldn’t hear.
Nice going, jackass, Jason thought to himself with a bitter sting. You made your little girl cry.
His vision faded to black.
*
Jason had a nice dream.
He was sleeping on Roy’s chest, cheek to those grizzly grey-red hairs that blanketed the archer’s pecs. It must have been after a night jumping rooftops, because Roy had that post-patrol stink, somewhere between garbage man and wet dog. Thankfully, Jason’s brain had his wires crossed, and he liked the stench.
Well, that couldn’t be right. Jason knew that even as he dreamed. Roy hadn’t patrolled in almost a decade—like professional athletes, thirty-five seemed the cut-off for any hero with a mind to seeing grey hairs. But there were questions not worth asking.
*
Streetlight painted dim walls. A hawk-eyed cat, not Monday, watched him from the top of the wardrobe, the end of a black tail twitching. A Bodhidharma charm hung in front of the window, disturbed slightly when a hovercar passed outside.
Jason stared at the ceiling fan. He felt his face and the thick padding of bandages there. He was wearing someone else’s yellow pyjamas, and his own underwear. The pyjamas had been starched and crinkled loudly whenever he moved.
Pristine carpet. Not even cat hairs. Jason pushed his feet into soft, clean pile carpet and walked through the guest bedroom.
A man sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee despite the black night outside. “Jason,” the man said, holding his mug in greeting. “I’m impressed you’re up and walking so soon.”
The stranger was lean and tall, copper-toned and handsome. His hair was a soft yellow, cut close to his scalp apart from perfect curls at the front that reminded Jason strikingly of… someone. Jason’s head still hurt.
“Where’s Lian?” Jason asked.
The stranger checked his phone. “She went to the store to pick up some groceries, but she should be back soon.”
“Why are you helping her? Why do you care about her?” Jason asked.
“Well, that should be pretty obvious,” the stranger said. “Probably for the same reason you care about her.”
“I promised her father I’d keep her safe,” Jason said.
The stranger raised a pale eyebrow. The look in his green eyes was a little too knowing. “Huh… a promise. That’s all?”
Jason stared at the stranger, trying to place him. He must not have been subtle, because the man put a hand to his chest. “Connor Hawke. Sorry, we haven’t been introduced, but I’ve heard a lot about you from Roy.”
“You know Roy?” Jason asked, eye narrowed.
Connor smiled. “Well, he’s my brother.”
“I don’t believe you. He’s not mentioned you at all,” Jason said.
Connor just shrugged and took a sip of his coffee.
Jason prowled around the small, modern kitchen. There wasn’t anything suspicious in the glass cupboards of plates and cups. Almond milk, left-overs in tupperware and half-used blocks of tofu filled the fridge shelves.
“Are you looking for something?” Connor asked. “I can make you some oatmeal if you’d like, and there’s still some coffee in the cafetiere.”
Jason found a baby photo, which had been clearly folded and smoothed out half a dozen times, inside a frame on the counter. A very young Oliver Queen, fresh-faced and uncharacteristically nervous, holding a tiny newborn that was very clearly Connor. Ollie & Connor - Day One, was written on the photograph in loopy cursive.
In one of the kitchen draws, there were a few broken arrow heads and tight rolls of spare bowstring. The shallow draw clearly had a hidden compartment, but Jason couldn’t find the latch to release it. His fingers ran along the edge.
“It’s on the bottom edge,” Connor said, at Jason’s side. He reached around and pressed his forefinger into the bottom of the draw. “Also, it’s coded to my biometrics.”
The draw unfolded to show neat ranks of perfect emerald-green arrows and a slim box of trick arrows, as well as a row of organised tools. Spare, razor-sharp arrowheads gleamed at him.
Jason wanted to smack Connor. He was too placid, like a cow in a meadow, and it made Jason feel messy and irrational by comparison.
“Why do you have so many damn—Oh, my God,” Jason interrupted himself as a thought struck him like a bolt from heaven as his sluggish brain caught up with the present, “You’re the new Green Arrow.”
“Yes,” Connor said.
“What the hell are you doing, living in Neo-Gotham?” Jason asked.
“I can take the sonic train to New Star each evening,” Connor said. “I like the separation between work and home life, and, besides, the Neo-Gotham street food is much better. Also, I used to date someone who lived in this district, though… unfortunately it didn’t work out.”
Jason glared at him for a long, extended moment while Connor just looked back at him. Jason shook his head sharply. “You’re way too normal. What’s your angle? Why do you dress up in tights and run around with a bow if you’re this well adjusted? It doesn’t make sense.”
Connor looked a little sad. “Well, Ollie asked me to.”
“Oh,” Jason said.
The breath left Jason’s lungs in a sigh. He slapped the draw shut and stretched his aching back. Lights gleamed across the window as another volley of hovercars passed them. On the counter, the watchful black cat had silently appeared to pierce them with its yellow eyes.
“Off, Gotami,” Connor said, waving at the cat. The cat just watched him. With a huff, Connor picked up the cat and set it down on the kitchen floor.
“Con, Jason’s not in my room,” Lian said, striding into the kitchen, “Did he--?”
Her face fell when she laid eyes on Jason. Her hair was a mess and her eyes were red from crying. She quickly looked away when Jason tried to catch her gaze.
Connor cleared his throat and stood up from the table. “I’ll give you two some privacy.”
“No-- We’ll use the balcony,” Lian said. She dropped her shopping bag on the kitchen table and crossed to a large, heavy curtain, pulling it back. A large pear tree in a ceramic pot was pushed to the corner of the balcony, the trunk tied with silk.
Jason followed her out, closing the door behind him. The night air was cold and smelled of hydrogen exhaust. He had to change which side he stood on so Lian was on the same side of his good eye.
“Nice view,” Jason said.
Lian didn’t even respond. She wouldn’t look at him. There were deep lines under her eyes. She kept tugging on her knotty hair, like she was trying to pull it out.
“Are you alright?” Jason asked.
“Am I--?” Lian glanced at him, looking agonised. “Jason, I-I, I could have killed you. Connor said-- you’ll probably never see out of that eye again. I could have given you a fucking lobotomy!”
“Yeah… I know,” Jason said, with a slight grimace, because what was he supposed to say, I don’t mind what happens to me so long as you’re alright? Or I’ve never been able to stay angry at you, so it doesn’t matter? The truth sat on his tongue like a stone.
Lian pressed her hands into her face, shaking slightly. But she was too tired to cry again. She peeled her fingers away and leaned heavily on the railing. After a glance over her shoulder at the empty kitchen, she fumbled in her jacket pocket.
“Sorry, do you mind if I…?” Lian pulled out a plastic baggie of pre-rolled joints. “There’s no tobacco-- it’s just weed.”
“Relax,” Jason said, with a wave of his hand. “I don’t care. I’m the “fun” parent.”
Lian startled, dark eyes widening.
“No, I didn’t mean--” Jason cringed internally. “I’m not your dad, obviously.”
Lian frowned.
“Well, I mean you already have a normal family: you have a dad, Roy, and a mom, Jade, I wouldn’t want to get in the way of that,” Jason said. His reasoning sounded painfully juvenile when he said it aloud. What am I, eight years old?
Lian stared at him for another few seconds before she sniffed thickly. “Okay.”
Briefly, a tiny flame illuminated them both as she lit her joint. She flipped her lighter closed and the end of her joint glowed cherry-red as she inhaled. Jason could smell it almost immediately: a pungent, thick smell of burning herbs.
“What’s the deal with this Connor guy? Is he really your uncle?” Jason asked.
“What?” Lian shook herself out of her thoughts. “Oh-- yeah. He grew up in a monastery or something, which is why he’s nothing like Ollie. He doesn’t really like knowing other capes out of costume. Um, I think that’s why Roy hasn’t introduced you yet, Dick’s been trying for years to get an official introduction so he can pull Con into the JLA.”
“The new Green Arrow’s not in the JLA?” Jason frowned.
“He’s a private guy. Really chill, but not into teams,” Lian said. She breathed out a cloud of smoke. “I didn’t really want you to talk to him because he’s not into keeping secrets, but I didn’t really… I didn’t know who else to call.”
Secrets? Jason’s ears pricked immediately. What secrets are you keeping from me?
“Sorry,” Lian said, abruptly. “Sorry, obviously. I didn’t mean to hurt you like that. I’d never want to-- I’m so sorry, Jason. I-I don’t know why I did. I was so stupid. I know I should have never picked up a weapon I don’t intend to use, but I got so in my head about that stupid phone, I didn’t stop to think…”
Jason looked at her. Lian’s shoulders were drawn up and there was a shaky tension in her like a prey animal. She looked exhausted. Jason wanted to pull her into a tight hug and stroke her hair, but something told him she’d hate it.
Instead, Jason stretched out a hand and took Lian’s. Hesitantly, he interlaced their fingers and squeezed her hand.
“What happened to your wrist?” Jason asked.
“Are you serious?” Lian touched the thin bandages around her right wrist. “I had to cut the handcuffs off and I ended up nicking my wrist. It’s really nothing.”
“I forgive you, by the way,” Jason said. “I’d be a massive hypocrite not to. When I was your age, I tried blow my dad up.”
“Wow, really?” Lian raised an eyebrow.
“And I was only a couple years older than you are now when I stabbed your father,” Jason said. “Mind you-- I was under mind control. But the stab wound was very real.”
“The one he has here?” Lian asked, touching her stomach in the stop where Roy’s scar was.
“Yep,” Jason said.
“And he still stuck with you after that?” Lian asked.
“Like white on rice,” Jason said, proudly.
Hovercars rocketed passed, too fast to see any details of the drivers or passengers. They seemed like a ball bearing in a pinball machine, skimming along the sides of the sky-lanes.
Neo-Gotham had no Batman. Bruce’s heart was failing. Instead, it was patrolled by a piecemeal cast of seasoned JLA members and the greenest newbies Jason had ever had the displeasure of tangling with. In only another decade, they might be debating whether the Dark Knight had ever truly existed.
“I wish there was something else I could say, other than sorry,” Lian said. “I wish it sounded like I really meant it.”
“I know you mean it,” Jason said. “It’s not your fault. Yeah, you were stupid… but if you turn yourself into a weapon, you’ll misfire occasionally. It happens.”
Lian squeezed his hand. With a choked noise, she yanked him closer and threw her arms around his shoulders.
“It’s okay,” Jason murmured. He stroked her hair and pressed a kiss into her crown. “Everything’s okay.”
*
Jason stared at his own face in the mirror.
Behind him, the first glimmers of morning were shining through the gauzy bathroom mirror. The black cat was licking its paws in the bathtub. Water dripped steadily from the shower-head.
Dried blood, so dark it was almost black, clung to Jason’s stubble and behind his ear. It had soaked through some corners of his gauze.
Delicately, his fingers followed the medical tape to the back of his head, and scratched at the corner until it rose up. He held it between finger and thumb and began to peel.
It was a terrible idea. It had been less than twenty-four hours since he’d been hurt and disturbing a traumatic wound so soon after it had been dressed was only asking for trouble.
But since waking, it hadn’t so much as twinged.
Jason peeled away the last strip of tape. Dried blood stuck the gauze to his skin, so he wet it and gently pulled it apart. He dropped the dirty bandages into the dry sink, the looping curls of tape like pencil shavings.
In the mirror, the face was completely symmetrical.
Aside from the glue residue and dried blood, his face was completely whole. Both dark eyes were in perfect condition. His nose was straight and undamaged.
Jason touched his cheek. Felt his eyelid. He wasn’t exactly sure what damage Lian had caused, but he had felt it the extent of it, seen the blood soak his body, the horror on her face. But even a bruise shouldn’t have healed this fast.
The sly Gotham City thug stared back at Jason from the mirror, the same punk with a split through his eyebrow as his ancient mugshot, the kind of jackass who would try to lift the wheels from the batmobile and the kind of unlucky bastard who died a swift, brutal death. The street rat. The seventeen-year-old.
Jason’s fingers fell away from his dirty cheek.
His hands wrapped around the edge of the sink and he sagged forward, forehead hitting the mirror. Twenty-two years had passed since he had been that street kid. And yet, in his reflection, there was no evidence of any time passing at all.