#(and then relives his murder under fear toxin)

[navree]

if i had a nickel for every time a famous and influential batman story arc had both superman and jason todd playing a pivotal role, i'd have four nickels, which really isn't a lot but it is weird that it's happened four separate times over three decades

[whitealiice]

i rant about alice && beth kane ( a lot ) , under the cut. this post will contain spoilers regarding alice for those who haven’t watched batwoman.

elizabeth ' beth ' kane was born to gabi and jacob kane, and for thirteen years of her life, she was a happy child. she had a sister of kate kane, a sister she was close to. a twin, her mother, and her father. friends, and school. the perfect beginning into life. and then the car crash happened. in this crash, it consisted of herself, kate and gabi. gabi was killed in the crash, having been decapitated, which beth later witnessed floating in the river below. kate escaped the car, and standing there in fear, didn't rescue beth. beth went overboard when the car fell into the river.

beth washed up on the river banks. at some point, august cartwright found beth and decided to essentially kidnap her. for some unknown reasons, but seemingly to give his son, johnny, a friend, against her will. august was set on making a face to hide johnny's deformed face. when beth managed to get to a phone to call jacob and kate and when they showed up to the cartwright's house, august played it off as johnny playing a joke, who was good at mimicking voices. jacob and kate left the house, despite kate being one door away from saving her sister. except august had told beth that if anyone came looking for her, he'd kill them.

mouse, or johnny, gave her an alice in wonderland book, as a gift, to help. beth escaped into the fantasy world, and johnny also later gave her a pet kitten, which beth named the cheshire cat. when cartwright found out about it, he killed the cat, which beth had made a sweater for. using beth and her small hands, cartwright was able to finally make johnny a face to hide his deformities, by having beth stitch human faces together. this is the first major thing in beth's captivity time that caused her to develop dissociative identity disorder. following this, she asked johnny to refer to her as alice.

while mouse was a friend, a person who also had his own problems with his father, august, mouse is not completely innocent in making of alice. mouse wanted alice to stay, so that he had a friend.

in that moment, alice was created to deal with beth's trauma, what she had already experienced, and what she would experience at the hands of august cartwright, and his mother, mabel cartwright. at this time, alice wasn't the violent person she is now viewed to be. she was just stronger, than beth could be, and was there to protect beth from the cartwrights.

but things just got worse over the years. beth wasn't safe to come out, and alice became the dominant personality. but even alice isn't that strong, and the acts of the cartwright began to affect her. this includes mabel's physical and emotional abuse towards her, the burning of her hands repeatedly ( alice does wear the gloves on her hands to conceal the scars given to her by mabel due to pouring hot tea on her hands several times repeatedly) , and the discovery of her mother's head in a freezer, and mabel having her mother's earrings. the first violent act that alice committed, was the burning and killing of mabel cartwright. it's from here, that the house burned down, and alice was able to escape for the first time. however, beth never made it out of that house, not completely. not in one piece. the things in that house, beth wasn't strong enough for it, but to survive at all, alice had to take the reigns.

alice dealt with the trauma of the cartwrights, and it's a reason why she can't deal with experiencing her trauma again in "off with her head" because even she's not strong enough to relive her trauma again, why she has a hard time facing august cartwright in "grinning ear to ear".  but beth is there, in some parts. not the extent of the beth kane from the alternate earth, but there are bits and pieces of beth kane, but not to the extent that kate expects out of her. she wants beth as if the trauma never happened, but it did, and it's why beth kane is such a broken, and mixed up puzzle. when kate convinced alice to tell her where she was holding jacob kane when she kidnapped him in earlier episodes, she did tell her. i think it was beth that was able to appear, and tell her. i think beth is also responsible for alice not fatally stabbing jacob ( even though alice did have a longer plan for jacob, such as framing him for catherine's murder as part of her long scheme ).

i think that that little part of beth is responsible and could symbolize that "little sanity" that alice has left. it's that little rational left to her. like august said, she's  plans, and tries to minimize human collateral damage. without beth as that rationale, she'd murder even more so without consequence. in that way, the fear toxin was an attempt to fully drown out beth. another thing is that, alice is very determined to live, and not to die. she went through so much as a child, so much for beth, and so much for herself, that she's not letting anything take her out. she wasn't letting crows take her down, she wasn't even letting cellular degeneration take her down, or nocturna bleed her out. so the fact that the trauma she went through, affected her so much that alice was willing to take her own life to avoid going through it again ? speaks volumes. kate telling her that she wasn’t worth saving, added alice into a downwward spiral when kate picked beth from the other earth over her, but despite the hurt she felt, alice picked herself, and wasn’t going to let her depression take her out of the earth either. as she stated “someone had to pick me for once.”

alice stated that she survived captivity for over a decade, and has stated it to be 11 years. so, with a slightly awkward timeline, alice killed mabel after eleven years since the car crash, and then for 4 years ( totaling up to her 15 total years missing ), was up in the air. her time since killing mabel and appearing in gotham is up in the air. but it's likely, over those years, she came up with her grand scheme of uniting her family in her own way, and taking out those and doing damage to those that she had reason to ( catherine faking her death, jacob who she blamed because he stopped looking for her, leaving her in the cartwright's house ).

as far as beth kane's DID goes, there are two differences. what remains of beth kane, and the current, and main host, alice. alice is the criminal and villain that people see in gotham's eyes. beth kane no longer exists as she used to, but she's the small rational part of alice now. the small times when alice gives up information, the only reason she attempted kate's "don't kill for 24 hours." for the most part, beth kane doesn't front as a personality, because alice hasn't let her guard down to do so. when she has, beth has only showed up for only seconds, minutes at the most. i think that alice also playing the instrument in jacob’s office in the early episode of the season, was also beth. beth learned how to play, alice never did. i think this is another reason why alice didn’t know where the necklace came from that she wore. because, she hadn’t received it. beth did.

alice is very skilled. she's skilled in manipulation, and thinking several steps ahead. she's skilled in throwing knives,and she isn't to be underestimated. she's been shown several times to be capable of handling herself, and getting into places that are deemed impossible to break into, such as jacobe and catherine's room in crow security. she's shown that she's cable of escaping heavy crow interrogation with just fishing line that kept the alice in wonderland book pages together. she's also capable of making things up on the spot, especially when it comes to weapons, having used garden sheers, and a trumpet, a laptop and medical tray as weapons in tight situations. she's capable of hitting hard and fast and taking opponents by surprise.

alice is methodical enough to know how to plan several steps ahead. such as the poisoning of catherine, she made it a point to use a poison that catherine had made, and knew that both catherine, and mary would drink the poisoned drink, resulting in a game of life or death. she’s very goal driven, and is capable of restraining herself so that things go according to plan, such as not fatally stabbing jacob kane so that he could be set up later.

as much as she references alice in wonderland, alice doesn't like to be taken as a game, and makes this clear when she cuts off a man's finger to send the message that she's not playing a game, and makes a point of doing eeny, meeny, miny, moe but choosing the next guy in the lineup to punish instead of the one the game landed on, because she ISN'T playing a game. alice also has a higher pain toleration than the typical person, and can suffer through minor injuries and a few major injuries without showing too much pain. 

alice does feel relief and satisfaction that both of her abusers are now deceased. however, the damage has been done and will be a very long path to actually healing from what was done to her over a decade. alice has nightmares, she doesn’t sleep much and she wakes up screaming. just because they aren’t there physically to torment her on this earth, they are demons in her mind that won’t vanish.

[mizmahlia]

Angst Prompt: You Broke Me

Taken from this list here. 

This was inspired by yet another play-through of Batman Arkham Knight. During the scene where Batman’s being hauled off to Arkham to confront Scarecrow, Alfred tells Bruce he’s being tracked through the city. Bruce insinuates that Jason is the one tracking him, and my brain went “WHAT IF JASON TRIED TO STOP THAT TRUCK TO TRY AND FOIL SCARECROW’S PLAN BECAUSE HE HAD A CHANGE OF HEART?”

And, well, now we have 4.4k words of angsty Jason Todd fic.

Spoilers for Batman Arkham Knight

I borrowed a few lines of dialog from the game, as I wanted to fix the ending. Because of reasons.

Warnings: Mentions of torture, some swearing, Jason does shoot some people, and there are some mental health issues depicted.

Jason ripped his helmet open and leaned against the fire escape, trying to catch his breath. The sensor on the building where Scarecrow demanded Batman turn himself over was tripped five minutes ago and he'd sprinted over the rooftops from halfway across Bristol. He knew he didn't have much time until the truck left, taking Batman to Arkham for his unmasking, but he knew he had to try to stop it.

He hoped Bruce noticed the red Bat symbol hastily painted on the building when he'd gone in. He climbed down the fire escape and crept across the street to a deserted SUV that somehow hadn't been vandalized yet, breaking the driver's side window. He got in, hot-wired the engine and brought up his gauntlet screen to check the GPS tracker. At the same time, he tapped into the audio feed from the back of the truck. He was already listening to the audio feed from Bruce's cowl and had been most of the night.

The red dot on the screen began to move and Jason put the SUV in gear and pulled out into the street after it. He heard Alfred tell Bruce the truck's movements were being tracked. Well, that was quick. What no one knew was that Jason installed the tracking device and microphone to make sure Scarecrow didn't double-cross him. He'd wanted his chance to end Bruce, after Scarecrow had his fun. But after their confrontation at the mall, Jason's mission objectives changed drastically and it went from being an assassination mission to a rescue op. Oh, the irony. So between the hacked comm feed and the microphones in the truck, he could hear both sides of the conversation. He rolled his eyes when Bruce replied. "I knew he would." He stomped his foot to the floor and took off after the truck, chasing it out of Kingston and over Mercy Bridge. He knew the fear toxin levels in the back of the truck were rising rapidly. He listened as Scarecrow taunted Batman, telling him the nightmare was almost over and his failure was almost complete. Jason's gut rolled at the thought he'd helped orchestrate this. He knew he had a lot of shit to work out now, but he couldn't allow Scarecrow to finish their plan. Not after what happened earlier. Not after he'd seen the look on Bruce's face. You can't fake that kind of shock, not even if you're Batman. He raced over the bridge and through the side streets of Bleake Island, the truck only a few blocks ahead of him. He just needed to stop the truck before it crossed onto the bridge to Arkham Island; if it reached the bridge, there was no cover and no way to get Batman hidden long enough for the fear toxin to work its way out of his system. As he rounded a corner, he spotted the truck at the next block. He needed to nudge the bumper with the SUV to force it off the road. He grit his teeth and gunned it through the intersection, ignoring the blaring horn from a car that had the right of way. The car clipped the rear passenger side of the SUV, sending him careening off course. "Fuck!" The SUV fishtailed as he tried to keep it from sideswiping a burned-out garbage truck. He cranked the wheel and caught up to the truck. "Brace yourself, Bruce," he muttered. Jason mashed his palm against the horn before colliding with the rear bumper, watching as the truck swerved and hit the curb, rolling into a vacant lot before coming to rest on its roof. He parked the SUV behind an empty school bus and climbed out, staying low and in the shadows as he crept toward the truck. In his ear piece, he heard Bruce groan, apparently still in the back of the truck in range of the microphone. "Mother, don't go. Please.." Jason froze and flattened himself against the side of a building, guilt and panic and fear churning in his stomach. He sank to his knees and clawed at his helmet, gulping in the cold night air when it opened. Bruce was reliving the night his parents died. He closed his eyes and inhaled slowly, trying to pull himself together. It had only been a few hours since their confrontation, since he'd learned Bruce actually believed the Joker had murdered him almost three years ago. Hours since he realized every single reason he had for planning this entire op was bullshit; that the Joker and Harley had beaten him and scrambled his brain until he honestly believed Batman would give up on Robin. That Bruce would give up on him. He scrubbed his hands over his face and choked back a sob when he realized how thoroughly fucked up this all was. He was furious with Batman for seemingly abandoning him, for letting this happen and replacing him. He'd been through absolute hell- the beatings from the Joker, the meds Harley forced down his throat, the days and weeks of isolation. While most of it blurred together, he remembered the day he broke with absolute clarity. The exact moment he knew he was never going to go home, when he wished they would just kill him. It was the day the Joker showed him the photo of Batman and Robin. A Robin that wasn't him. He felt sick all over again at the memory and leaned forward, his hands on his knees. When he was sure he wasn't going to vomit he sat back against the building. He was shaking. The Joker did terrible and sadistic things to him just to spite Batman, because he wanted Batman's attention. And after everything Joker did, no matter how horrific, Batman never did what was necessary to stop him. It was a vicious circle of murder, terror and nightmare-inducing behaviour that Jason got caught in the middle of and had paid the price for. But then Bruce had seen his face and he'd been genuinely surprised. That's when the small glimmer of hope, hope that Bruce hadn't really forgotten about him after all, took hold and royally screwed everything up. Anger replaced the fear and the panic and Jason laughed, and it sounded so, so wrong. Suffice to say his mental and physical well-being were treading on some pretty thin fucking ice at the moment. A groan from the overturned truck drew his attention and he turned, leaning around the corner. The driver pulled himself from the cab and crawled toward the back of the truck. One of his legs was clearly broken. Jason took several deep breaths to ground himself and he stood up, drawing his sidearm and securing the helmet in place once again. He stalked around the corner and stopped in front of the driver, cocking his head to the side. The driver looked up at him, relieved at the sight of the Arkham Knight standing in front of him. "Sir. We got run off the road, I didn't see who it was." He pulled himself into a sitting position and looked up at Jason, the grimace when he jostled his leg replaced by a confused frown. "We heard you split after your fight with the Bat- you okay?" Jason flicked the safety off his gun. No, I'm definitely not fucking okay. "I'm fine. Change of plans. I'm personally escorting Batman to the Asylum." The driver nodded and leaned against the side of the truck. "You sound so different without the voice modulator. So young." He reached into his jacket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, lighting the last one and tossing the empty pack back toward the cab. "The guy in the cab is out cold and my leg's broke. Wish I could help you get the bastard to Arkham." The memory of Batman standing over him earlier, offering to help him, saying they could fix this, flashed through his mind and Jason flinched. "Your help won't be necessary." He fired a round into the driver's chest and he went still, the cigarette dropping to the asphalt next to him. Jason knelt behind the truck and pried the door open, revealing a semi-conscious Batman. He holstered the gun and reached in, dragging Batman out and clear of the truck. Jason knelt next to him and studied him. The suit was in tatters; in addition to the bullet he'd fired into Batman's abdomen hours ago that appeared to still be lodged there, there was now a new hole in the right side of the Bat symbol on his chest. The armor plating was scratched and filthy. The cowl was scuffed and dented, and Bruce’s nose was definitely broken underneath it. He had some nasty bruising forming along his jaw. The cape had holes in it and his gloves were coated in grime and blood. All to try and save a city that tried to kill him on a nightly basis. "You look like hell, B," Jason said quietly. "You just don't know when to quit." At the sound of his voice, Bruce's eyes opened and he looked up at Jason. His pupils were dilated, the blue of his irises almost non-existent; he was still deeply under the influence of the fear toxin. Before he realized what he was doing, Jason released the catch on his helmet and opened it again, allowing Bruce to see his face. His eyes widened and he reached a hand toward Jason. "It can't be..." "Yeah, it can be." Jason sighed and his chin dropped to his chest. "We've gotta get out of here; Scarecrow's going to realize the truck isn't on schedule. C'mon." He tugged on Bruce's arm to get him to stand, but he remained on his hands and knees. "You can't be him. I watched Joker shoot him." Bruce's voice went eerily quiet. "I watched Jason die." "I wish I had," Jason muttered. "But we don't have time for this." Bruce backed away from Jason and shook his head, like he was trying to clear it. "No. I failed him. I need to find him. He was right here the whole time and I..." His eyes darted frantically around the empty lot, no doubt searching for the car. "I need to tell him that I didn't know." His eyes met Jason's and the despair in them made Jason shiver. "I searched that asylum for weeks. How could I not have known he was there?" Jason bit his lip and closed the front of the helmet again before he lost control of his emotions. He's afraid he failed me? He heard the rumble of a large truck down the street. "We need to leave. Now." He pulled Bruce to his feet and led him toward the back of the lot, away from the street. There was a mechanic's garage the next block over that probably had a vehicle they could use to get Bruce back to the cave. As they walked, he looked back over his shoulder at Bruce. He was completely lost in his own head and unaware he was being led through Gotham by the man who'd helped orchestrate everything he'd been through. But considering he was allowing himself to be led around meant he didn't believe himself to be in any danger. Something no one (apart from Superman) could do was force Bruce to follow someone he didn't trust. Jason wanted to cry at the irony. He picked the lock on the door of the garage and pushed Bruce through before closing and locking it behind them. He steered Bruce toward a chair and he sat the moment the backs of his knees hit the seat. "Hang tight while I find us a ride." Jason started rifling through the rack of keys hanging above the counter, momentarily forgetting about Bruce until he started talking again. He froze and dropped the set of keys he was holding. "I'm still in control, Joker. You won't get the upper hand." Jason turned and leaned against the counter, his hands gripping the edge tightly. "What did you just say?" Bruce looked up at him and Jason swore his eyes were a neon shade of green. He backed away from Bruce, knocking over a canister of rusted bolts. The sound echoed loudly throughout the shop and Jason flinched at the noise. Bruce was looking right through him and spoke to whoever it was he saw. "You won't break me, Joker. You can't." Bruce looked down at the floor for a moment before glancing up at Jason. His gaze was still vacant, his mind was long gone at the moment, but at least his eyes were back to blue. "I'm already broken." Jason picked the keys up off the floor and glanced out the window, using the key fob to find the Chevy they would use to get Bruce back to Alfred. It was parked just across the lot from the door and he breathed a sigh of relief. "Come on, Batman. We need to get you back to your butler." He turned back to find Bruce watching him. And he was lucid. "He'd love to see you, you know." Jason crossed his arms and leaned back against the counter. Despite Bruce not being able to see his face, his focused his gaze on the floor anyway, too embarrassed and ashamed to look him in the eye. "I highly doubt that, after everything that's happened tonight." Bruce stood, carefully making his way toward Jason. He stopped several feet away. "We all thought you were..." he trailed off for a moment, clearing his throat. "I meant what I said, earlier." It's not too late. We can fix this... Together. Jason felt the anger rising again. "Not that simple. You have no idea what he did to me." The look on Bruce's face said otherwise. Jason narrowed his eyes, forgetting Bruce couldn't see it. "Based on what I saw in the video he sent me, I have an idea." Jason shook his head and turned toward a sedan with its tires missing. He punched the trunk, leaving a considerable dent. To hell with being quiet any longer. "That was five minutes, Bruce. He had me down there for OVER A YEAR!" Bruce, to his credit, said nothing. "You have no idea what they did to me," Jason continued, trying to keep from getting hysterical. "I held out for six months before I gave anything up. Six months! And do you know why I finally gave up, after everything they put me through?" He retrieved a photograph from his back pocket and flipped it at Bruce. He reached for it and turned it over, his face growing even paler. "Yeah. I found out I was replaced. So it turns out you deserve all the credit for this one, Batman," Jason said, his tone pure venom. "You broke me. Not the Joker, not Harley. Not the guards who took turns beating me. It was you." "I'm sorry about all of this, Jason. But you need to know there's more to it than that. Consider the source. Please." Bruce put the photograph on the chair behind him. "You know what the Joker was capable of." "I certainly do now." Bruce sighed deeply and his hand went to the wound on his abdomen when the muscles tensed painfully. He looked much older and wearier after the events of the night. He sat down again and reached for the medical pouch on his belt, before remembering he'd removed it. Jason reached into his own belt and fished out a small bottle of pills, tossing it to him. "Here. It's hydrocodone. Should take the edge off." Bruce nodded and took three of them. Before he could speak, half a dozen members of the militia stormed through the door. "Sir? You found him! We're here to bring Batman to the asylum. Scarecrow is waiting." Bruce looked at Jason and gave a subtle nod, a look of determination back on his face. I'll do it for you, if that's what it takes. Jason turned toward his men. "Get him there in one piece, or you'll all wind up like the driver. Are we clear?" "Sir, yes sir." "And don't tell Scarecrow I had to round him up. He's got enough to worry about." Bruce stepped in behind several of the militia and headed toward the door. He glanced behind him before he stepped outside in time to see Jason nod once. You won't have to. I'll get there.

Based on the radio chatter he was listening to, Scarecrow had indeed changed the plan. The militia were now under strict orders not to let the Arkham Knight anywhere near the Asylum. Their orders were to shoot him on sight and shoot to kill. It didn't bother Jason in the slightest. Considering the one man who'd been kicking their asses all over Gotham that night was the one who originally trained him in the art of covert ops? 

He'd take those odds any day of the week. But one thing he wasn't ready for was how he'd feel being back on that godforsaken island and staring at the Intensive Treatment building. It wasn't even where he was headed; Scarecrow was set up in the mansion to the east, but in making his way past armed guards and sentry guns, he had to go the long way around Intensive Treatment to get there.

He barely made it to cover behind an overgrown hedge of ivy before he was throwing up, once again feeling the sting of the cold water they poured over his face and the phantom pains of a crowbar, and hearing the sizzle of a branding iron as it was held to his cheek. Strangely enough, it was Robin's voice in his ear piece when he spoke to Batman that brought him back to the present. He forced himself to focus as Scarecrow and Batman started talking. He shook his head and climbed to his feet when Scarecrow bragged about robbing Gotham of hope. He'd been robbed of that, too, once. There was no way he could let Gotham be robbed of whatever hope it had left after tonight. He was only a few hundred yards from the mansion and there were five men between him and the front door. Jason changed the display in his helmet to night-vision and quietly assembled his sniper rifle, taking position on his belly. On his next exhale, the man closest to him went down, followed by his partner ten yards to the right. And when the other three came to investigate he hit them with a smoke grenade before coming up behind them, choking them out. As he was dragging them into the bushes, he heard Commissioner Gordon and Scarecrow arguing, followed by a gunshot he heard both through the ear piece and through a broken window of the main entrance hall of the mansion. Jason froze. Gordon and Bruce were talking now and neither of them sounded like they were in pain, which means Scarecrow likely just shot Robin. Something in Jason broke loose, something he hadn't felt in a long time. An urge to protect someone. He knew full well Tim Drake could hold his own in a fight and he'd tested that himself on several occasions. But the fact a Robin was just shot so someone could prove a point? He didn't care who it was- the son of a bitch would pay for that. Jason sprinted toward the mansion, taking the steps two a time and running a thermal scan of the entrance hall. There were only four people on the screen: Gordon, Bruce, Tim and Scarecrow. He was about the kick the door in when he heard Scarecrow's voice, full of surprise and amusement. "Wayne? Bruce Wayne?" He was too late; he hadn't made it in time to stop Scarecrow from broadcasting Batman's identity to the world. Had he not panicked when he'd seen the Intensive Treatment building, maybe... With an anguished groan, he slid down the door and buried his head in his hands. But he heard Bruce's voice in his head, from when he was much younger and worrying too much about things outside of his control. What-if's don't help people, Jay-lad. Focus on what you can control. He opened his eyes and stared at the Intensive Treatment building, resolve replacing the panic. He could still stop this- he could still stop Scarecrow from killing Bruce, Tim or Commissioner Gordon. Jason stood and brought up an old floor plan of the building in his HUD as Scarecrow continued talking. "Now the world can see you for what you truly are. A legend laid bare. Powerless. Human. Afraid." He heard Bruce moan in pain after the telltale hiss of Scarecrow's injection delivery system pumped him full of the liquid fear toxin. He had to get in there as soon as possible if he was going to get them out alive. But he couldn't barge in the front door and risk Scarecrow shooting any of them just because he could. There was an old service entrance to the kitchen around back that he could use to gain entrance. He made his way around back through a maze of tangled shrubs, broken shutters and fallen bricks, listening to Scarecrow drone on to his live audience about fear and how necessary it is, and how useless Batman was now that he'd been unmasked. No wonder he'd been so insistent on killing Batman before their plan really got off the ground- the man talked constantly. Jason broke the lock on the door and carefully made his way in, listening as Scarecrow continued taunting Bruce, this time about his friends being hunted down and killed for his actions as Batman. It wasn't Bruce's reply that made his blood run cold, but the laughter that followed it. That cackle, the way it made his skin crawl and the hair on the back of his neck stand up. It sounded just like the Joker. Jason rushed to the sink and retched, the sound of that laughter too much to bear. His heart pounding in his ears muffled the sound of Bruce being injected with another dose of toxin. He struggled to breathe normally, growing lightheaded as he began to hyperventilate. He could hear Scarecrow getting angry that Bruce wasn't playing along anymore and Jason knew he didn't have much time left to intervene. He turned and studied the floor plan, following the maze-like hallways until they opened up into the rear of the main entrance hall. He stuck to the shadows and made his way toward the light thrown off by the bank of television monitors mounted against the eastern wall. Bruce was strapped to a gurney that was tilted upright, Gordon knelt on the floor next to an unconscious Robin, and Scarecrow was grandstanding in front of a lone camera. Jason watched in horror as Scarecrow turned from the camera and injected Bruce a third time. He chambered a round in his rifle and lined up his shot, but hesitated when he heard Bruce speak. "I'm not afraid, Crane." Scarecrow stepped back as if he'd been slapped, drawing a gun from his waistband and holding the barrel against Bruce's forehead. Now or never, Jason. Show him you're still here. Jason shouldered the rifle and looked down the scope, the laser sight landing on the gun in Scarecrow's left hand. One shot sent the gun flying. The second shot broke the restraint holding Bruce's arm. Bruce grabbed Scarecrow's wrist as he was going to inject him again, wrenching it around and forcing the maximum dose into Scarecrow's chest. "What's wrong? Scared?" Bruce towered over Scarecrow as the toxin took effect and as he let him go, Jason could see the panic on Scarecrow's face even from his vantage point. Scarecrow stumbled backwards, right into Gordon's fist, and wound up unconscious on the floor. Bruce looked up from where the shots were fired, immediately finding Jason's position. Jason froze, not knowing what to do or say. All he could manage was a nod. I'm late, but I'm here. For everything he'd been through tonight, Bruce managed a small smile and a nod in return. I knew you would be. With that, Bruce crouched next to Gordon and Tim. As Jason turned to leave, he heard Gordon tell Bruce that Tim would be okay. He made his way back out the way he entered and stood at the fence, looking out into the bay and back at the lights of the city. The skies were clearing and he could see the first signs of dawn off in the distance. "Are you going to be alright?" He startled when Bruce's voice came through his ear piece. That meant he was wearing the cowl again. Jason chewed his lip for a moment. "I really don't know." There was a pause and Jason could hear the jet approaching the other side of the island. He turned and watched Batman grapple up into the cockpit. "When all of this settles, whenever that may be, I'd like to talk. If that's okay with you." Jason's eyes watered and he swallowed hard before he answered. The jet hovered over the north end of the island and Jason would be money Bruce was scanning to see where he was. "I.. I'll be around. You'll know where to reach me." The jet banked and headed off toward the Manor, not back into the city. "I left something for you in our usual spot." Jason turned and began the trek back across the island, giving the Intensive Treatment building a wide berth. "The keys to the Bentley?" He could feel Bruce's eye roll through the comm link. "Information. Resources. Something to help you settle into life again." Jason stopped next to his motorcycle and shook his head. "When the hell did you have time to do that?" Bruce answered without missing a beat. "I have a butler, remember?" The link clicked off and Jason got on his bike, heading back into the city. He had some things to take care of before he went back to his safe house, mainly rounding up straggling members of the militia for the GCPD. Then he'd make a stop by the Gotham Knights baseball stadium, where they used to watch ballgames every Saturday, and see what Bruce left for him. He had no idea what his future looked like or what it had in store for him, but the very fact he was planning for one meant he was headed in the right direction. For the second time that night, he allowed himself to hope. And that felt pretty good.