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Teenybopper Jason, with his arms throbbing from trips to the Manor library and mouth aching from smiling all day, would’ve been so ecstatic at the thought of a bona fide Nightwing team-up that he’d probably declare it a minor miracle as he melted into a puddle of sparkly red-yellow nerd juice right then and there.
Presently depressed Jason, though, knew that it was just a Thursday.
He’d been very – no, extremely insistent that he didn’t need an extra set of hands in dealing with the latest group of sleazebags who thought they’d step in and use the apartment complex that’d been vacated from toxic fumes last month as their new base of operations. Normally, this sort of stuff could be dealt with by the HOA, or some equally ethically dubious authoritative organization, but rumor was that little kids were being snatched around these parts, which made it Jason’s responsibility to put an end to it.
And Dick’s, apparently, who’d been in the kitchen, eating Jason’s leftover scampi that he’d been saving, goddamnit, and hadn’t left his side ever since. Jason had tried to take it back before realizing that Goldie probably hadn’t consumed a vegetable since mullets were in style. At this point, it was honestly just a toss-up if he’d be done in by Two-Face or an early stroke before age forty. So it was up to Jason to be selfless and non-murderously generous, as usual.
Ignoring Jason’s altruism, he’d insisted on tagging along, even when Jason whipped out his pistol and threatened to shoot him, point blank. Especially when Jason whipped out his pistol and threatened to shoot him, point blank, because he’d taken the momentary distraction as an opportunity to peek at Jason’s maps and cheerfully shout that he’d meet him there.
And then he’d taken Jason’s tupperware with him. Damnit, Dick.
Frustrated even at the memory of losing his good pasta container, Jason felt his boots slam down in heavy footsteps before he took a breath and deliberately quieted them. Teenybopper Jason, he remembered, was also remarkably skilled at keeping his entrances into off-limits warehouses silent. His exits, though, tended to skew much louder.
Slowly, he worked another pistol out of his holster, until one was in each hand. The bullets they were loaded with were rubber, and while they remained nonfatal, Jason could still make them hurt like hell. He’d sent Dick toward a section of the base he knew to house the civilians, while he himself headed toward the makeshift conference rooms where the higher-ups plotted their transactions.
When he kicked open the door to the traffickers’ primary headquarters, though, it wasn’t full of the gruff, self-satisfied barks of a bunch of rich assholes who didn’t know what was coming. Instead, as he eased his way from one side of the threshold to the other, all that echoed in the space were aborted gasps and weak heaves.
The sole of his shoe slid across the concrete until he braced himself on the doorframe. Frowning, he lifted it up to see it absolutely dunked in blood. He followed the drip to where it ran, and grimaced when he saw how much of the floor was soaked in human remains. Those bastards had been alive as recently as twenty minutes ago, during his last sweep before launching the attack. Anyone who could take them down in such little time wouldn’t be fun to deal with.
He dove deeper into the glorified mausoleum, examining the bodies as he did so. Batman or Nightwing would probably be calling emergency services by now, but he didn’t see the point. It wasn’t his fault their own goddamn stupidity got them shot a dozen times over. Honestly, he hadn’t been completely sure he wasn’t going to go lethal when he came across the traffickers.
They’d probably want a name to put on the wanted list, though. That was the thing about vigilantes like them: as much as they claimed to be against revenge, they never conceded how warped their definition of justice got while in pursuit of the bigger fish. They always needed a head to roll, and Jason was the only one willing to admit how literal his own plans were.
When they inevitably bitched to him about the dead asshats, he’d wave vaguely toward the security cameras and make them take it from there. From the building’s schematics, every room had three to four shoved into each corner. Paranoid bastards, all of them. It’d be fitting that their very obsessions would feed into the pursuits headed by even more paranoid bastards.
A hand loosely wrapped around his ankle as he walked by, the owner’s kneecap a few feet away. He didn’t pause his stride for a second. Come to think of it, it was weird how most of the people in the room were alive. Barely alive, and soon to croak for sure, but still clinging on to this plane of existence. Their wounds must’ve deliberately aimed for places that would bleed out with time, blows that would draw things out until –
Behind him, a form lashed out, a hand reaching for Jason’s belt.
He pistol-whipped them in one smooth turn. They shifted on their back heel, avoiding it cleanly, but he didn’t give them the chance to recover. He pressed on their wavering balance and pushed closer, until every one of their steps were sending them closer to the wall. As he slapped the button that would send a signal to Nightwing, Jason shoved the dangerous end of his rifle straight into the other person’s chest.
Straight into Deathstroke’s chest. Fuck.
The mercenary fucking shoved the barrel of the gun with his bare hands toward the ceiling right as Jason fired. The spray of bullets hit the ceiling straight-on, pieces of drywall raining all over that stupid fucking leather jacket the other man was wearing. Jeez, steal Jason’s style much? Way to have your teenage rebellion right after your midlife crisis, Wilson.
The crumbling plaster made the small space between the two of them fog up in a blur of debris. In most fights, that would tip things to Jason’s advantage, but when both sides were decked out in high-end masks, the scales remained pretty even. Jason didn’t like this, so while Deathstroke was going for a weapon in the inside of his coat, he grabbed for the other man’s helmet.
Deathstroke’s hand snapped around his wrist like a snake. Before Jason had the chance to react, he wrenched it away, an involuntary scream pushing out of Jason’s lips. He could tell that there wasn’t any damage done, but he was forced to relax his grip at the risk of being completely incapacitated. In one smooth motion, he yanked his wrist forward, slamming his helmeted head into Deathstroke’s collarbone at the same time.
He let go. The mercenary’s shoulders slammed into the wall, just as Jason doubled down and further buried them in there. Everything was a weapon, he knew, even the fucking architecture.
As Jason ducked a surprisingly wild swing from the older man, his eyes widened as he realized how unguarded that left his base. He managed to dodge Deathstroke’s attempts at sweeping his legs but that forced him to back up, giving his opponent more space to maneuver than he would’ve liked.
Deathstroke reached into a side pocket and flung a trio of shuriken his way. The movement was easily telegraphed though, the type of thing that any halfway decent combatant would recognize and decipher in a heartbeat. Definitely not the type of work typical of the infamous Terminator. Jason barely needed to do anything to deflect; he raised his forearm maybe two inches, and the metal stars were flinging toward the corners of the room.
The mercenary didn’t capitalize on the time it took for Jason to block, either. It wasn’t as if he just stood there, of course, but it took a heartbeat too long for the man to launch his next attack. Enough time for Jason to recover and react to the fist flying right for his face – a stupid spot to aim, really. In big brawl movies, it was a visually impressive strike to land, but everyone knew that in real fights, it was all about playing dirty. Groin shots, the ears, the neck. Anywhere that could hurt the most for the least amount of effort.
Jason threw himself out of the pitch, but Deathstroke followed through on it, even when it was obvious that his target was long gone. They crashed into each other, Jason madly scrabbling for any sort of purchase he could get his hands on. He’d just managed to work a knife out of his sleeve when he felt his pockets lighten.
Deathstroke spun around, elbowing Jason in the gut until he stumbled away from him. A kick was planted square in his ribs, and Jason had to take a step back to dry heave. Lungs struggling, he took out a second knife, ready for Deathstroke’s takedown, but the mercenary didn’t take advantage of the opportunity. He just raised the gun he’d snatched from Jason’s belt – fuck – and flipped off the safety, aiming with a practiced motion, and he fired.
The security camera hanging from the wall split down the middle, a rubber bullet embedded in the glass screen.
Jason blinked. Every camera was shattered. One looked to have caved in with the rest of that portion of the ceiling, another studded with shuriken. He tightened his grip on his blades. There weren’t many good reasons why a mercenary would want to rid all sources of evidence in a closed environment.
Deathstroke kept his right hand on the trigger as his left messed with his helmet’s straps. He unclicked something, and in one angry jerk, tugged off his mask.
The most emo version of Dick Grayson post-teenage angst era glared at him, empty look in his eyes and empty eye.
Device: RH Burner No.14
Time: 01:22
Chat: meme war to win the inheritance
Online: insert demon brat charlie xcx joke (brainstorm w roy later), replacemental institution, lavender cuntry, nightwang, auracle
Offline: sigmal, welcome to the bat parade
insert demon brat charlie xcx joke (brainstorm w roy later)
Robbinsville remains quiet. Once again, I would like to insist that this is a trivial place to spend patrol. My time would be better suited in areas deserving of my prowess, such as Tricorner.
replacemental institution
lmao you want to go to the children’s museum don’t you
insert demon brat charlie xcx joke (brainstorm w roy later)
Stop. Sending me. To Robbinsville.
The joke has gotten old.
replacemental institution
you didn’t say no tho
nightwang
it comes with the name! come on, it’s funny!!
lavender cuntry
ong i’ll switch with you if you rename robbinsville in my honor
insert demon brat charlie xcx joke (brainstorm w roy later)
I would dedicate it to your plebeian background but I’m afraid I haven’t the right vocabulary to emulate “Verminous Sidewalk Trash.”
lavender cuntry
u literally do tho
insert demon brat charlie xcx joke (brainstorm w roy later)
Your mother wishes you were never born.
replacemental institution
jfc dude
take a chill pill
insert demon brat charlie xcx joke (brainstorm w roy later)
I will when you take 200 mg of morphine.
insert demon brat charlie xcx joke (brainstorm w roy later) HAS BEEN BLOCKED FOR [01:00]
auracle
Aaaaaaand Robin’s kicked out of the chat for the next hour
As you all know, in the event of having an emergency while temporarily blocked in the work chat, you may override this protocol by starting your message with SOS. If you use this feature inappropriately, you will be permanently kicked out of the chat :)
lavender cuntry
yes mommy I MEAN MOD
auracle
You’re on thin ice
lavender cuntry
D:
RH Burner No.14
Problem with the warehouse takedown
I’m not in danger yet but I need backup
nightwang
im on the south side of the building. do you need me in the hq wing?
RH Burner No.14
Yeah
The others too
Don’t tell Bruce
replacemental institution
@auracle can you delete the chat history
i’m on the way
robin is too
RH Burner No.14
RR and Robin stay by the perimeter until I call you in
N don’t come closer than the hallway
lavender cuntry
i’m covering bb tonight i can’t come
want me to run interference w B tho?
RH Burner No.14
No
Just
[Deleted Message]
[Sent: 01:24]
nightwang:
hood, confirm status
red hood
confirm status or i’m coming in there
replacemental institute:
robin and i are 5 min out
nightwang:
follow hood’s instructions. only enter if you don’t hear from me in 10
going offline
[Sent: 01:28]
Jason stared at the shattered remains of his burner, crunched neatly under Deathstroke’s heel. And the others wondered why he went through so many phones. Honestly, he was just being smart with his money. During his sophomore year of highschool, he’d gotten his screen cracked while making a risky jump over by the ports, and he’d just about lost his shit. Nowadays, he had a shoebox full of burners tucked under his bed that he refilled every six months.
“You really had to take that during the most dramatic moment, huh?” He glared at Deathstroke, who returned the look evenly. “I make one stupid fucking spelling mistake, and while I’m fixing it, you decide you’re the shit. Wow, look at me! I’m Dick Grayson and I have a gun, so therefore I’m untouchable! Asshole.”
Flatly, Deathstroke drawled, “We both know there aren’t real bullets in this piece of crap. If you didn’t want me to have your phone, I wouldn’t have it.” Then he tossed the gun Jason’s way, who did not almost fumble it, thank you very much.
Fuck, he even spoke like Slade Wilson. That exhausted, almost lazily slow drone, as if the situation was so unbearably below his skill level that he was bored. It didn’t sound like an act. There was no conscious choice to sound that way, it was just how he talked.
He didn’t look like a cross between the Deathstroke and Nightwing Jason knew today. For the most part, if Jason squinted, he might not even be able to tell the difference from his Dick. They had that same build, muscles corded tightly onto a lithe subject, though Nightwing’s hair was a bit longer than the grown out buzz cut Jason was studying at the moment. Honestly, without much convincing, Jason might even believe that the person in front of him was the Dick he knew and tolerated, and his new wardrobe was from one of Jason’s spare safehouses.
If it wasn’t for the eye, of course. As funny as anything might possibly be, Dick wouldn’t go that far.
“Eight billion years on the force and you still know fuckass about gun safety,” he grumbled as he shoved the weapon back into his holster. Without tearing his gaze away, he tucked a small taser into the folds of his gloves. It was a tiny thing, definitely not enough to take out another man, but maybe capable of stunning him – literally.
Deathstroke didn’t react besides a casual, “Your version was a cop too?”
Was. Not anymore, but he had been. Interesting. Jason filed that neat little tidbit away. “Unfortunately. Don’t know why he thought the best way to take out pigs was by heading straight for the farm, but hey.” He shrugged. “Live and learn.”
“You can say that again.”
Jason visibly looked Deathstroke – Dickstroke? No, absolutely not – up and down. As if the thought just occurred to him, he asked, “You got one of me wherever the fuck you’re from?”
“Yeah,” he said, clipped. Not helpful at all.
“And where’s that?”
Deathstroke grinned, but it wasn’t a nice, thousand-kilowatt, Nightwing-patented smile. It was fake, and it knew it, and so did the owner, and so did the recipient. It was just a pile of thinly veiled misery that didn’t try to be anything but that. Against all odds, it reminded Jason of the glimpses he’d got in the mirror back when he first pulled back the hood. “Didn’t get the address.”
Jason returned it tenfold. “Got to say, I’m great with directions. You help me, I help you. I’m sure you’d love to be bashing skulls back home right now.”
“Shit,” he huffed out a laugh, and a hint of true humor snuck into his expression. It was still harsh, though, and bitter despite anything else. Like pressing on a bruise and relishing when you felt the ache. “I knew you would’ve been fun to fuck around with. Second time’s the charm, though, right?”
Again, his word choice stuck out. “You’ve been around here before?”
Any levity in him disappeared. In an instant, he was cold again, so much so that Jason almost thought he’d put his mask back on. “Daddy Bats didn’t tell you.”
“That’s sort of a recurring theme here.” Jason stamped down on the instinctive ire that flared whenever Bruce’s dumbassery was brought up, which was every five fucking seconds in this city. “Want to fill me in?”
A thousand possibilities flitted through his head; cloning, alternate reality, time travel. Jason had a preference or two over the best case scenarios, in his humble opinion, but he kept circling back to Bruce knew. Bruce knew. Something horrible happened to Dick and Bruce knew and I didn’t.
It could be a lie; what Deathstroke said, what he’d implied, maybe even this entire setup. All of it could be designed to get under Jason’s skin. Stranger things had happened. But if it wasn’t, then that meant that somewhere out there, a hundred years or a hundred feet away, there was a Dick Grayson who wore the colors he’d sworn to thwart at all costs.
If the Jason of day could meet the newly inaugurated Nightwing, who swung by visits to a teenybopper Jason with clenched teeth and clenched fists, would his brother have the same reaction? Would he hear the alias Jason was going under and gag a little bit, disgusted by the future in a way the Jason of today simply couldn’t give a shit about?
Would he want to hug Jason the way that he wanted to hug Dick?
Long ago, Jason had thought that the only thing worse than being young and hungry was being dead and buried. Then he’d grown up and sunk down and realized that there were worse fates than a tomb. What came after was less metaphorical and more of a literal, cloying, melting sensation boiling down his bones until his stomach ached and he wished he was young and hungry again.
Today, Jason’s stomach turned, and he remembered how fates worse than death were more common than people figured.
“I’m from another dimension,” Deathstroke said easily, completely oblivious to how worlds were crashing and seas were burning and everything was wrong because Dick wasn’t supposed to look like this. If Dick wasn’t even safe from inescapably abominable outcomes, what did that mean for shitbags like Jason? “Must’ve come back here by accident. Whoops.”
He swallowed. It felt like there were nails in his throat. “You’ve been here before?” he said again.
“About a year back. Your Bat Brigade said there’d been multiple anomalies snatching people from all over.” Deathstroke didn’t hesitate over the story. Either it was something he’d rehearsed a dozen times over – or it was true. “Ask your Damian and Tim. They were around too. I even went on patrol with the stabbiest Robin the multiverse has ever seen.”
Jason narrowed his eyes. Distantly, he remembered running into one of the weirdest imaginable setups while making the rounds one night some months ago; Robin had been side-by-side with Deathstroke, who’d had access to their comms, somehow. He’d said something weird, something about his Jason. It’d made his skin crawl, but he hadn’t had time to think about it. Something had caught his attention, something that he couldn’t possibly remember what it was now but had seemed so important at the time.
“That was you?”
“In the flesh.”
“Fuck.” He’d been so wrapped up in the shitstorm that’d started, he hadn’t so much as stopped by the Batcave for weeks, much less touched base with the others on whatever the hell that was. It was suspicious how unavailable he’d been, and he’d bet a good deal of cash that it hadn’t been a coincidence. “And afterwards, what? You went home and continued on with your merry little life?”
He got a faraway look in his eye. As soon as Jason noticed, it vanished, and he was balling his fists at his sides. “Something like that.”
That wasn’t concerning at all.
Jason stilled. He heard something from the hallway. Or, really, the absence of something. The slightest blocking of the fainted breeze, artificially pushing from the AC units. Someone was there, and if it weren’t for forces out of their control, they’d be utterly undetectable.
But Jason could detect him. Jason, who’d grown up with an ear to the ground and a hand on his tire jack, who’d been taught skills most humans just weren’t capable of knowing by the world’s greatest detective. There weren’t many people up to par with him, but a similarly vigilante-raised individual with some sort of connection to an infamous mercenary?
Deathstroke’s lone eye snapped to the door.
Yeah, that would do it.
“It was smart not to go through the vents,” Deathstroke said, projecting his voice so that the person in the hallway would undoubtedly be able to hear. “But not smart enough. I’m not going to hurt your brother, so get over yourself and get in here.”
There was a short moment that had even Jason unsure as to what would happen, and then Dick was stepping in, hands loose at his sides, smiling the way he did to little kids when he wanted to assure them that everything was alright. He’d never smiled like that to Jason when he was a little kid who wanted to be assured that everything was alright.
His grin faltered at the sight of his double, who didn’t so much as blink. Wink? Jason debated asking for clarification before deciding that it’d be a stupider reason to be shot than he was willing to take.
“Shit,” Dick said brightly, still grimacing like nine out of ten doctors were preparing to beat his ass. “Something tells me you’re a long way from home, huh?”
Deathstroke didn’t laugh. He didn’t give that fake grin either. He just stood there, staring at Dick with vague displeasure, lips pursing. “You’re younger than me,” he said dryly.
Dick didn’t falter. “Sure looks it.”
“My Tim’s older than yours.”
“Can’t say I knew that.”
“Well, now you do.”
“Now I do.”
If they both fought, Jason realized, Deathstroke would win. Not because he was better or because he was stronger, but because Dick wouldn’t want to hurt Deathstroke the way that Deathstroke would want to hurt Dick. There was something inherently different about them, and it’d decide the end of any brawl that broke out.
If they both fought, Jason realized, Dick might die. And Jason could be left with this warped, twisted version that wore his brother’s skin. He didn’t want that.
“He showed up here by accident,” Jason filled in, and some of the tension dissipated at that. It wasn’t a lot, though. About the same amount as the steam that dispersed when he lifted the lid of the pot cooking on the stove. The second that he set it back down, it’d go back to boiling. “I was thinking that it’d be nice of us to help him back home.”
“It would be nice,” Dick agreed, and when he locked eyes with him, he knew that they were on the same page; they needed to get Deathstroke out of here before his presence led to something they couldn’t undo. “Let’s be nice.”
Hollowly, Deathstroke said, “I appreciate it.”
<hr
Jason was subtle about slipping his taser back into his pockets, but he made sure it was noticeable when he took out one of the few guns he carried that held real bullets. It’d been a bitch and a half to figure out how to get it to key into his DNA while still keeping his gloves on, because like hell was he going to make it that easy for the conspiracy theorists, but it was worth it for moments like these, where he got to white knuckle it and remind himself that he wasn’t that helpless little kid anymore.
“Am I the same age in your universe?” he asked Deathstroke, who was looking at the barrel of Jason’s gun like it was a staring contest he was determined to win. The mercenary’s gaze flickered upward, and Jason immediately wished it hadn’t.
“He’s older. Five, maybe six years, I’d say.”
“Weird.”
“You’re telling me.”
He flexed his hand, looking down at the way the glove’s fabric twisted and folded. They were made of some sort of material he could never remember the name of. It was relatively cheap while remaining water-resistant. Good to clean blood off of. “You weren’t surprised to see me alive, or with the new look.”
Sitting cross-legged on a storage container as he typed away at his phone, Dick hesitated for half a second before resuming his scrolling. He was contacting the others, as far as Jason knew. Making sure Deathstroke’s story lined up. They hadn’t discussed it, but they both understood it was on Jason to grill the other man for inconsistencies.
“You’ve been doing your Red Hood shit for a while back in my dimension.” Then, without prompting, “I looked you up, last time I was here. Wanted to see if you’d be willing to give me a hand.”
A year ago, Jason had been even angrier than he was now. Easy to trick, easier to manipulate. It wasn’t a question of if Deathstroke would’ve been able to coerce him into getting his shit done, but how much he would’ve done in some fucked attempt at regaining his older brother’s validation for something that would stick it to the old man.
The Jason today wasn’t a model psych patient by any means, but he liked to think that it wouldn’t be so easy to rile him up into something ugly. Did that mean he’d disappointed Deathstroke, by growing into someone less damaged. Or, more importantly, did Jason care? It was a difficult tightrope to stay even on, but that was most of his life, so really, he should’ve gotten good at balancing by now.
“You ran into me by accident,” he said instead of all the horrible things sitting on his tongue. “You were on petrol with Robin.”
Bruce let you patrol with his son, he didn’t say. Bruce lost a son and he risked doing so again. Because you’re Dick Grayson, and there are always exceptions for you.
“Yeah, well.” He shrugged, what can you do? “Things didn’t go to plan.”
“They never do.” Jason pictured the world that would’ve crushed Nightwing into his present version, assuming he’d ever taken on the origin moniker to begin with. In his mind, it was dim. “Tell me about the Jason from your universe.”
Deathstroke snorted a little at that, a short little noise that reminded Jason of burning popcorn on the stove and shyly asking if they could go out for ice cream after patrol. It wasn’t always a happy sound. “You’re gonna wish you hadn’t asked.”
“When I died, did I come back?”
“Yep.”
“Then it can’t be that bad.”
Deathstroke fixed him with a hard look. It wasn’t angry or unpleasant by any means. If anything, it was the most Dick-like he’d seemed since Jason had the misfortune of crossing paths with him. “Fair enough. You're Batman.”
“Fuck you.”
The response was instinctive. For a moment, Jason’s hand remained on his gun, but he was hanging by a rooftop up north, Brown making some unfunny joke that got the Replacement cackling while Jason debated how much shit he’d be in if he pushed one of them off. Then he remembered where he was, who he was with, and he tightened his already ironclad grip on his weapon.
Deathstroke, for his part, didn’t seem very surprised by his reaction. He just leaned back, closing his eye for a moment, exhausted in ways Jason just couldn’t process, before jumping back to life with a wry, “Yeah, that’s about what I expected. If it makes you feel better, I don’t think he really understood what he was doing until the first time he pulled an all-nighter without remembering to take off the cowl.”
Jason Todd as the Batman. Fuck.
He’d never been one of the kids to pretend to be something he wasn’t. His childhood was spent quietly making his action figures do flips and jumps, an energetic puppet master but not one of the players themselves. At recess, he never acted like an astronaut or a cowboy or a superhero. He just stayed on the swings.
Sometimes, he wanted to ask if Bruce had been the same way. If Dick had, if Tim, Cass, Stephanie, Damian, Duke had. But he didn’t know which way he’d want them to answer, so he never did. There was something suffocating about fully realizing how similar he was to the other bodies scraping themselves off the pavement in search of something indescribably more.
There’d been a time when he thought he might become the Batman. During his more seasoned Robin years, watching Dick flit by and wondering if that was the next step in the journey or if he was destined to go straight to the top. Then it’d been a warehouse and a bomb, and he hadn’t thought he could be anything after that other than a bag of bones.
In that instant, when his skin was raw from the ropeburns and he could feel the fragments of his bones pierce new wounds, he would’ve sobbed with relief at the news that one day, he’d be the Batman. Because that meant that he would live past that awful moment.
With his free hand, Jason curled his fingers into a loose fist. It made his arms feel funny, one so tight and the other so lax. “Is Bruce…?”
“He’s alive.” Deathstroke looked away, and Jason couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. “As far as I know, at least.”
“The brats?”
“You mean Batman’s child soldier arsenal?”
“Sure.”
Stiffly, like it was something he’d say a thousand times before and he knew he’d say a thousand times again, he pushed out, “Batman only had three Robins. I told your version this. So whatever updates came out after, I never met them.”
It sounded convincing, was the thing. For all the flatness to his tone, Jason didn’t think he was lying. It was too bitter to be anything other than the truth. Still, Deathstroke was hiding something. Jason couldn’t quite make out its shape yet, but it was sticking out like a sore thumb.
“Tim, then?”
Deathstroke’s eyes flashed. “There aren’t any Robins anymore.” He gestured to Jason, then himself. “You see what happened to the first two. Take a wild guess where Robin #3 is now.”
A tomb, he didn’t say, but Jason got the message. A casket. An urn. A grave.
“So it’s just – fucked all around?”
He sucked in a breath. “About so, yeah.”
“That sucks.”
“Yep.” Then, harsher, breaking from that dry drawl, “Who are you texting?”
Dick didn’t look up from his phone, and Jason knew it was a deliberate choice. “Red Robin.”
Jason studied Deathstroke. There was a moment – a small, almost imperceptible scrap of a fragment of a second – where the man just stood there, uncomprehending. Then realization struck, and he nodded and hummed along and generally made it seem like he understood what they were talking about. Who they were talking about. But he didn’t.
“What happened to Red Robin?” Dick asked, faux casual, as if Jason hadn’t just asked that same damn question and been shot down. Because there were always exceptions when it came to Dick Grayson.
“There never was a Red Robin.”
“What happened to Tim?” he said instead.
Deathstroke murmured, like an oath, “Same thing that happened to the rest of us.” And it answered fuckall.
“Spell it out for me.”
Deathstroke’s eyes – eye – flashed. He got closer, a quick movement that had Jason scrambling to his feet, gun at the ready. Dick didn’t move. “Jason once told me that out of the three of us, he thinks he’s the one that got off easy. What more do you need to know?”
It wasn’t a conscious choice to lower the gun, but as he fought back bile rising in his throat, it was all Jason could do not to lose his shit. He remembered how it felt to claw his way out of his own grave, for his organs to restart as his frozen blood slowly began to circulate in his system once more. What in the world could be worse than that?
Dick didn’t flinch. He just snapped his phone shut – because of course he carried a flip phone, the dinosaur – and said, friendly as could be, “RR and Robin are incoming.”
If it was possible, Deathstroke got tenser. Jason probably could’ve traced the outline of a popping-out veins. “You’re an asshole.”
“I’m Nightwing.” Dick met his eyes, and Jason remembered just how he loved to start his infamous fights with Bruce back in the day. “I thought you knew what that meant.”
Deathstroke grabbed him. In between one blink and the next, he had Dick’s uniform collar in his left fist, right hand slung back in a punch Jason knew would beat his lights out. The gun snapped back into place, headshot imminent if the bastard didn’t back the fuck up. He opened his mouth, prepared to bark out just as much, when –
“Nightwing!” Damian darted through the doorway, eyes wide behind the domino. It was clear the moment he processed the situation, because he skidded to a stop like an old-fashioned cartoon character. His bottom lip trembled, every bit the pre-teen he pretended he wasn’t, before the weakness vanished and he was unsheathing his sword, teeth bared. “Release him!”
It was impressive how fast Deathstroke dropped him. He backed up, hands raised. When Tim poked his head out from the hallway, he only frowned deeper. He’d said that he’d met Damian and Tim before, but what could have possibly happened back then to elicit this sort of reaction?
As soon as Dick was free, Damian was at his side, tugging him away from Deathstroke as he mumbled surprisingly tame threats under his breath. Either Alfred’s world-renowned glares were actually becoming effective for once or he was being lenient on Deathstroke. Well, a Richard was a Richard, Jason supposed as he clapped Dick on the shoulder.
Tim pressed himself into the little huddle despite not being invited, which was honestly a great metaphor for his whole shtick, and hissed, low, “Everything you said in the group chat checks out.”
Damian wrinkled his nose, and oh yeah, Jason had actually forgotten that the asshole had been blocked. Honestly, he was a little pissed it couldn’t have happened at a more convenient time. He’d barely had the chance to dunk on him for getting so bratty that Babs had to step in, much less for whining about getting stuck with Robbinsville. “What was announced there?”
“Not much.” Nightwing fished out his phone and tossed it Damian’s way, who caught it without looking. Freaky assassin kid. “I was just confirming that the information Deathstroke told us aligns with what you guys learned last time he was here.”
Damian gave an affirmatory nod but otherwise didn’t react, furrowing his brow as he scrolled through the chat history. Jason had the faintest urge to take a peak, to see what all their contact names were under Dick’s account, but he refrained as Damian’s grip tightened on the hard plastic to the point that he feared it cracking.
He must’ve not been the only one, because Tim said, cautious, “Robin? What’s wrong?”
Damian frowned. “You have incorrect intelligence. However, I am not supposed to enlighten you of the truth. Father forbade it.”
“What? No, I don’t.” Tim yanked the phone out of his hands, skimming the messages. “I was there when Deathstoke and the other Jason said what the deal was in their universe. I didn’t just forget it.”
“Grayson was – not entirely truthful with you. He was soft on you, as he often is.”
Tim froze, thumb hovering over a long paragraph. Slowly, he looked up at Damian, and Jason could practically see the gears turning in his head. “Damian, what did they not tell me?”
“I am not supposed to – ”
“Damian.”
It was easy, sometimes, to forget how young Robins were. Jason thought that he’d gotten that lesson to stick by now, but when Damian flinched back, something anxious slipping out, he remembered it all over again. He was just a kid, and he’d been keeping a secret for over a year now that Deathstroke had intentionally kept from Tim –
Jason’s eyes widened. He turned, pieces clicking together, and swore under his breath. Deathstroke was gone.
“Robin,” he barked, not missing the way Damian straightened at that into something more typical of his confidently brattish exterior, “Where did he go?”
It didn’t take long for the others to realize the gaping absence. Dick was immediately rushing forward, checking over the space Deathstroke had just been as if some glaring clue was sure to be lying there. Dumbass. Tim, though, didn’t so much as falter. If anything, he stepped closer to Damian, and Jason was inexplicably reminded of the glimpses he got of Bruce when someone was standing in the way of his case. An unstoppable force versus a very movable, if stubborn, object.
“How would I know?” Damian snapped. “You’ve spent more time with him tonight than I have.”
“He could have left any time he wanted to.” Jason remembered what he’d said as he smashed his phone under his heel. There’d been an unspoken compromise, and it was significant that it’d been broken all of a sudden. “The fact that he’s gone now, when we realized his story wasn’t adding up, means something. So what was it that he told you?”
Still, Damian hesitated. Jason found it hard to blame him for it. Defying Bruce wasn’t a simple task, as much joy as he took in it, and the order he’d been given couldn’t have been one delivered lightly. Jason opened his mouth to send the final push, but he was beaten to it.
“It’s about me, isn’t it?” Tim said. By the way he said it, he already knew the answer. Tim always did. That was the whole problem. “Damian, what happened to me in this other universe?”
Jason could pinpoint the moment that he caved; his shoulders loosened from their at-attention position, and he shut his eyes for a second too long. Then he cleared his throat and said, clipped, “He was tortured to insanity, then later took up the title of his abuser.”
After that, things got a bit screwy, because while Tim was undoubtedly turning over that bit of information in his mind, dissecting it, analyzing it, Jason was trying not to die all over again, because there was only one way that could happen, because Dick Grayson was Dick Grayson regardless of the colors slapped over his mask, because that meant that the night was heading in a direction that Jason just didn’t know if he could handle.
Because Deathstroke hadn’t seemed surprised enough at finding himself back in this dimension, because he’d been too prepared with his answers, because he hadn’t got here by accident at all.
Because while Deathstroke clearly didn’t give a shit about himself and Jason was already too far down his back to be helped back up, Tim was alive and well and that just wouldn’t go on if the timeline didn’t split further. That was what he’d been saying for years.
“He’s here to kill the Joker,” Jason mumbled, and a trio of voices rose up high enough that he almost thought he drowned.
It was easier to sneak out than Jason would’ve thought. He supposed he was better at that than he should be; historically, being unsupervised within the clown’s vicinity hadn’t ended very well. Sometimes, he wondered what would’ve happened in a timeline just a smidge farther to the right, where he was that much worse at getting into shit he shouldn’t.
Then again, there was a universe where Dick was like that, so maybe Jason would take what he could get.
Speaking of Dick: Jason was only really following in his footsteps. That was the curse of the cape, wasn’t it? What happened before would happen again, and it was all they could do to hope that when they inevitably fell, there’d be a better fate for them in the end.
So when Dick dipped out in the midst of a screaming fight between Damian and Tim, Jason waited half a minute before following him.
He was careful to keep his distance. He didn’t try to kid himself into believing he wouldn’t be spotted by the older vigilante, but he could do his part to draw out unavoidable for as long as possible. That was another thing he was good at. When he was little, he used to ration food until it lasted double its shelf life. Maybe that was why he hadn’t gotten very tall until taking a dunk. Missing nutrients, and all that.
The chase stopped at the top of a power plant a quarter mile from Arkham. Jason nearly dripped over himself when he realized that Dick was slowing down, and he barely managed to duck behind a conveniently-sized radiator before he was spotted. It didn’t take long to understand why Dick had come to a standstill; at the edge of the roof, Deathstroke was holding a gun aimed at a window too unremarkably conspicuous to be coincidental.
“I know you know I’m here,” Dick said, quiet enough that Jason had to strain his ears to catch it. Asshole. Speak louder, shithead.
“If I didn’t, would you have pushed me?” Deathstroke replied, casual as can be, as if he wasn’t preparing to shoot the Joker. “Is this man’s life important enough to end with another Flying Grayson smashed on the pavement?”
“His is as important as all the others. We don’t pick and choose who to save.”
“Maybe you don’t, but I do. And today, I’m choosing not to save him from what’s coming his way.”
Dick took a step forward, and Deathstroke switched off the safety. He backed up, but Deathstroke didn’t undo his own gesture. “I’ve been down this path before.”
He chuckled, dry. “Really? You’ve been kidnapped and tortured until you took up the mantle of your rapist? Small world.”
A green film slid over the world. Jason’s nails buried themselves into his fists so deeply that it was only the thick material of the gloves that kept him from drawing blood. Shit. That fucking bastard. He wished he could say he was surprised, but honestly, he’d seen the way Wilson looked at Dick. How he acted. The things he said. It wasn’t a nice reality to reckon with, but this timeline was closer to the other Deathstroke’s than Jason would like to admit.
This wouldn’t be shoved under the rug afterwards, he decided. As much as he loathed to include Bruce in this, it’d be fucking irresponsible to just let this go. They were in danger, and while Bruce liked to ignore that and hope that it’d all go away, this wasn’t a fairy tale. If he wouldn’t protect them, then Jason would. That was why he had the hood, after all.
“I meant that I’ve killed the Joker.”
His thoughts came to a halt. Fucking what?
Deathstroke must’ve shared the same sentiment because he actually turned around, leveling Dick with an impressive glare, even through the barrier of the mask. “Funny that he’s still wasting air down there, then.”
“Bruce brought him back.”
“Of fucking course he did.”
Of fucking course he did.
Dick shrugged, as if Jason’s entire world wasn’t threatening to spin off its axis, because certain things just couldn’t happen. Nightwing could never kill and the Joker could never die, and as much as Jason tried to yank and twist and pull them into place, that was that. “He almost got Tim, the way he got Jason. So I stopped him. For a while, at least, because acting like that doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t accomplish anything good.”
“Liar,” Deathstroke snarled. “It takes out a sick fuck that hurts other people for shits and giggles. Doesn’t accomplish anything? It keeps people from dying! It stops him from putting another body in the grave! Don’t tell me you actually believe that shit Batman’s been spewing?”
“Maybe,” Dick started, voice tight enough that Jason feared it shattering, “I just don’t want more blood on my hands.” He pushed forward again, steps heavier than typical for an acrobat, but Deathstroke didn’t react. He continued, “Maybe I’m asking you not to be selfish and make it my fault that I couldn’t save another person! Tim told me that you dealt with Blockbuster. You should know what that’d do to me – to us!”
“Don’t be a child,” Deathstroke scoffed. “When have we ever been hesitant to put ourselves on the line for the sake of others? There’s no difference between this and every other time we’ve sacrificed our morals.”
When Dick’s face crumpled, it made Jason feel very, very small. Some part of him was horrified at seeing the vigilante he’d grown up idolizing be so visibly taken aback. In his mind, Dick was untouchable. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t shake off with a stupid grin and an overly peppy remark. “What happened to me?” he said, and Jason couldn’t help but wonder when exactly the Dick Grayson of another world transformed into something so vile.
Deathstroke eyed him like he was dirt. “I got a kid.”
He froze. “What?”
Jason felt like he’d been kicked in the gut. All of a sudden, everything made sense. Deathstroke was right; no matter who he was, Dick never so much as faltered before giving up a piece of himself for someone he cared about. There was only one reason why he’d willingly come back to a place that sparked such revulsion.
“Your Damian told me to find his counterpart in my universe. I did.” Deathstroke took off his mask. His expression twisted into something raw, and he almost managed to mirror the Dick Jason knew for a heartbeat. “He’s amazing. Just – so talented and smart and incredible.”
Dick worried his lip, a small motion that Jason almost missed. “If – If you kill the Joker, the Justice League might not let you go back to him.”
Deathstroke’s eye flashed. He tugged his mask back into place, moment over. “You don’t think I know that? I’m doing this as a favor to you.”
“I don’t want it.”
“Tough shit!” he barked. “I’m doing what’s needed to be done. I have my own Damian now, and if anything happened to him…”
Jason had seen clips of the kind of damage the older man had wrecked immediately after Jason’s first-hand introduction to the ugly side of a coffin. From what he’d pieced together, he’d promptly lost his shit at the thought of Tim meeting the same fate. He thought of the borderline custody battles Dick had battled his way through with Bruce. Combine that all with a clearly unstable version of his cares-too-much brother, and the end result wasn’t difficult to imagine.
“I don’t give a shit about your universe,” Deathstroke said icily, “but I’d do anything to keep my Damian safe, and I thought that maybe you’d be the same. My world doesn’t have a Joker anymore, thanks to Timmy, but yours does. So will you let me do my fucking job?”
“If you want to keep our family safe,” Dick said, slow, deceptively calm, “then why don’t you take out the more obvious threat?”
Jason’s eyes widened. Fuck. There was no way he was that much of an idiot.
“I am – ”
“Why don’t you kill Slade Wilson?”
Of course he was. Fucking hell, Dick.
Deathstroke stiffened. Deathstroke stiffened, and Jason remembered the rotten chunks of the truth he’d let drop. Deathstroke stiffened, and Jason wondered what exactly it was that separated their timeline from his. Deathstroke stiffened, and Jason pictured the moment that the mercenary had let the mask sit on his own face for the first time.
“Come on, Nightwing,” he said dryly. “You of all people should know the priority we’ve given ourselves.”
Dick shut his eyes tightly before snapping them open again, as if something horrible was bound to happen the second that he looked away. “I don’t want this,” he said again.
The orange-black mask tilted a few inches to the left. “And you, Jason?”
Fuck. He got to his feet, resisting the urge to brush away the gravel clinging to his knees. Dick didn’t give any glaring reactions when he stepped forward, but Jason knew him well enough to know he could be hiding them, and not well enough to tell what he was hiding. Ignoring the way Deathstroke’s hand hadn’t budged from its grip around the trigger, he crossed his arms.
“I think the clown should’ve been offed years ago,” he said, traces of the way Catherine used to bend her words when she got well and truly pissed peeking through. “I think he’s a genuine, bona fide monster, and if anyone deserves to spend time as target practice for a round of angry survivors, it’s him.”
Beside him, Dick deflated. He knew, Jason was reasonably sure, that he wouldn’t be able to overpower the both of them before someone got a lucky shot in. There were tasks that not even the first Robin was equipped to handle.
“But,” Jason finished, “I’m asking you not to kill him.”
A year ago, Jason had been even angrier than he was now. Easy to trick, easier to manipulate. He would’ve seen the opportunity to bury the lime green dickhead and clawed his way toward it until he could rest assured that those painted lips would finally quit their smiling. A month ago, Jason would’ve agreed wholeheartedly with everything Deathstroke was saying. Hell, Jason still did agree. An hour ago, Jason would’ve stood by and let justice serve itself.
But a minute ago, Jason had seen Dick get scared, and he’d gotten scared. He’d seen a Dick who wasn’t Dick leave his bloody fingerprints on the shoulders of those he hugged. He’d gotten a glimpse into a reality that could never come to being, and he’d been told of a surefire way to prevent it. But it wasn’t true, because saving one former Robin to let the other plummet wasn't fair.
Life wasn’t fair. Jason knew that more than most people. People lived and died, and in between they starved and cried and learned and forgot and smiled and lost and lost and lost. And then there were people who did none of that. They just got to stand. But that was what being Robin was about; making things a little more fair, even if it was a bandaid over a bullet hole.
All Deathstroke said was, “Why?”
“You’re doing this for your brother.” Jason nodded to Dick, who was staring at him, jaw dropped. Dumbass. “Let me do this for mine.”
Behind them, a blood-curdling scream echoed from the asylum. None of them flinched, the only response being Deathstroke looking behind him for a moment, hand tightening on the gun. When he turned back, he said, “You better watch after Tim.”
“I will.”
“I’m serious. If you lose track of him, you’ll lose him.”
“I’ll be careful. No more dead Robins.”
“Don’t let him know what almost happened.”
Jason shook his head. “He doesn’t deserve to be lied to. Not again.”
Deathstroke faltered. He waited a beat too long before adding, “Tell Damian that I found him.”
He’d know what that meant more than either of them would, Jason was sure. “Alright.”
Deathstroke nodded, a small motion. Then he took out a small, boxlike device from his pocket and fiddled with it. Instantly, a blue-silver-black vortex swirled into existence. Jason almost laughed. Of course it’d be that easy once they got all the bullshit out of the way. That was how it always seemed to go.
There wasn’t any fanfare. One moment, Deathstroke was there, he stepped through, and then in the next, he was gone.
Jason took a deep breath. Sheesh, it was like he’d just ran a marathon. That was an experience he was very unwilling to repeat. He took a seat on the edge of the rooftop, letting the back of his heels smack against the worn bricks. A second later, Dick was next to him. Jason didn’t need to check to know that his brother’s gaze was practically boring a hole into one of Arkham’s windows. A very important window.
“Thank you,” Dick said quietly.
“Don’t.”
“Would you rather I apologize?”
“Maybe.” No. “Promise me you’ll ask for help before it gets that bad.”
“Okay. I promise.”
“Good.” Jason took out the taser from his pocket. Seemed a shame that after all that, it hadn’t gotten a piece of the action. “B knew.”
“Yep,” Dick said, and when Jason looked over, he was smiling tightly in that not-so-nice way. His fists were balled tightly. “Want to come with for the chat I’m about to have with him?”
He flicked the switch on, grinning grimly at the sight of unbridled electricity crackling. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”