Chapter Text
Blood. There’s blood everywhere.
Jason coughs, and it’s a low noise that grates painfully against the insides of his throat. Still, there’s very little he can do aside from lessening the impact of the blows raining down on him from all directions, the stiff gauntlets built for long-lasting damage. Bruce—Batman, Batman, right now he is more myth than man, human—is absolutely merciless, his rage so tangible Jason can almost taste the iron in the air; in that moment, when Batman’s fist dislocates his lower jaw, something becomes very, strikingly clear.
He’s going to die here.
Jason had sent Roy ahead thinking he would be able to get out of Gotham before Batman was on his tail, but somehow...somehow he had managed to completely underestimate the man before him, underestimate the raw power Bruce held despite not being a meta. And for that mistake he will die, alone, on this rooftop beneath the heavy hands of the man who claimed to love him a lifetime ago. This is not a fate Batman deemed even the Joker worthy of, but here he is, about to dole out the death sentence to Jason.
A joke. Everything is a joke.
When everything flashes white for a second, Jason knows his time has come once again and he rages at the parallelism of the situation: a beating, an explosion, a parent who doesn’t care. His blood soaking the ground beneath him. The utter hopelessness in his heart.
The only difference, really, is he's not waiting for Bruce—his father—to save him this time, for Bruce is the one swinging the crowbar, the one locking the door, the one setting the bomb.
Everything comes full circle, he supposes. He prepares himself for the inevitable end, for the burst of fire, for the despair—
But then there is a yell that doesn’t belong to him, and Bruce is stumbling backwards, momentarily stunned. In his shoulder, right between the chinks of the armour and one of the only vulnerabilities of the Batsuit, is a dagger. It’s buried deep enough that Bruce’s arm goes stiff in an effort to stall the pain, and Jason so desperately wants to look at who’s brave enough to step into a fight between Batman and the Red Hood but the pain racing up his spine is too much for him to move.
“What in the name of the Gods do you think you’re doing? ”
Jason recognizes that voice.
The hope that bursts in his chest is so painful he could cry, but at this point his body is too mangled to do more than moan in response. He can vaguely hear soft footsteps approaching him, and in the back of his mind he knows she’s only making noise so he knows she is coming closer and to save him from a bout of anxiety.
“Talia,” Bruce snarls, a dangerous and feral sound. Jason still feels as if he’s caught in a maelstrom, memories of a childhood long buried underneath a mass of new traumas resurfacing. “What are you doing here?”
“Stopping an execution,” she spits back, and Jason is left reeling at the fact that it isn’t his own, twisted narrative perceiving this all as an execution; it’s the truth, left bare and dangerously out in the open. Verbalized, for anyone willing to listen, for any stray witnessing the rooftop showdown. “Have you gone mad?”
“He killed the Penguin,” Bruce barks back, not taking the accusation laying down.
“And your response was to...what, exactly? Kill him in retaliation?” Talia snaps, all the while helping Jason to his feet. He tries to keep as much weight as he can on his own feet, but he thinks one of his legs is broken and one of his lungs is punctured because he ends up all but limp in Talia’s arms, who takes his full weight with ease. "Aren't you the saint of trials and 'innocent until proven guilty'? Did you even check to make sure the Penguin was dead before beating Jason within an inch of his life?"
Here, Bruce pauses; for a second, he has nothing to say, and instead seemingly fixates on the gentle manner that Talia handles Jason with. She has turned her attention back to the son in her arms, and there is unspoken love in the way Talia runs her fingers through Jason’s hair, the way she whispers soft promises into his ear.
This is a love Bruce doesn’t understand.
“Gods, Bruce,” Talia finally speaks up again, after Jason is safely tucked into her side and breathing a touch easier. The horror in her voice is easily recognizable, especially since she isn't trying to hide it. “Did you even realize who you were about to murder in cold blood? Did you even realize…”
Bruce inhales sharply, and behind the whiteout lenses of his mask, blinks once. Twice. Comes to focus, in a way, and sees the picture for what it is: his son’s blood on his hands, his body now a near corpse in the arms of his mother. He suddenly feels nauseous.
Hero, indeed.
“Talia...J—”
“No more,” she interrupts him, and her tone is glacier enough to freeze the sun. “No more of this...facade of parental authority. You may have Damian fooled for now with this charade of fatherhood—and I promise you, that, too, will end in due time—but Jason...Jason is mine . And I swear upon my own life that this is the last time you lay a hand on my son.”
She carefully maneuvers them back in the direction of her jet, leaving Bruce thunderstruck in her wake; Jason is barely coherent through the process. She isn’t even sure if he heard the gauntlet she’d just thrown down, but there is too much fury racing through her veins for her to care at the moment.
Once she has placed Jason in the cot, though, she makes sure to turn back towards her once beloved, and says:
“Perhaps this is why Miss Kyle left you alone at the altar. Tonight I will go home and thank my Gods that we never got that far.”
With that, she is gone.
Everything is touch and go, for a while.
Jason floats in and out of consciousness, aware long enough to take into account the warm breeze on his face and the smell of ocean water in the air. There is pain, immeasurable amounts, but he is never really grounded enough to feel it; the blood in his veins seems chilled, and everything...everything is a blur. It feels like he’s submerged in a racing river, everything muted by the rush of water, and he…
God, he so badly wants to let go and drown .
It’s pathetic, he knows, for someone like him to crave the sweet embrace of death so viciously, but Bruce had carved out what was left of him and thrown it into the wind, left a hollow shell of a boy behind in his wake.
It was murder, but Jason doesn’t have the conviction—the hate—to let the punishment fit the crime. A voice that sounds suspiciously like Talia calls for exile, but he…
Even after all this, Bruce is his—
“Sleep, my son,” a soft voice whispers, paired with calloused fingers running through his matted hair. His cheeks are warm with tears, pillow soaked, a phantom heart aching.
Bruce can’t be anything anymore, not without an apology, not without rebuilding the bridge he had so painstakingly dismantled. And it is a truth that, unfortunately, is not surprising.
Jason sleeps.
When he finally manages to stay awake for more than a few minutes, three weeks have passed and Roy Harper is holding his hand.
The archer is asleep upright in his seat, mouth open as soft snores fills the air. Jason watches him for a second with the utmost adoration, surprised for but a second to see him at his side before it subsides into fondness.
Roy has always had a painful habit of staying through the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.
“Hey, Roy,” he manages to wheeze, but the sound is barely there because of how parched his throat currently is; he ends up squeezing his boyfriend’s fingers instead, and the Titan alumni wakes with a start.
“Jaybird?” Roy asks, winded. His eyes are unfocused, but it's more than enough for Jason, who manages a smile at that. “Are you...holy shit, you’re awake!”
Next thing he knows, he has a boyfriend draped across his chest, his heart rate monitor is going insane, and a familiar woman is walking through the doorway with an eyebrow arched.
“I thought I told you to be careful, Roy,” Talia admonishes, reaching over to gently smack the back of the man’s head. “My not so little one has just managed to wake up and you’re already throwing yourself at him?”
“Tals,” Jason manages, sipping at the water she suddenly holds up to his lips. “I...where are we?”
She sets the cup down on the nightside table and sits down next to him, taking his free hand between her own; suddenly Jason is very aware of how... mortal she looks. She doesn’t look her age per se, but her skin is pulled taut and the bags under her eyes resemble bruises, smudges of darkness curved around her bottom eyelids.
“My son,” she murmurs, and Jason manages a barely-there smile for her, because he won’t mention the way her voice catches, the glassy sheen of her eyes, the tremble in her bones he notices only because he was looking for it. “For a moment I thought we had lost you again.”
He can’t deny the claim, because he had thought the exact same thing while Bruce’s fists rained down on him. Jason can barely stand to think back on the fight, and briefly wonders what it must have felt like for Talia to stumble upon it.
“It killed me in many ways,” she says, almost as if she can read his thoughts. “To see him...this is a man I love, beating our eldest son to death with no fear of consequence. Very few times has such feral rage overtaken me.”
“I’m sorry,” Jason says, if only because he isn’t quite sure what else he could possibly say to such a revelation. Roy squeezes his hand in comfort. “I...I’m not sure if I should’ve…”
“Stop,” Talia’s voice is firm. Unwavering; hell, even a touch angry. “Do not apologize for something that is not your fault. I did not raise you like that.”
Jason flinches, just slightly, and Talia relents. They sit there in quiet contemplation, all three of the room’s occupants stewing in the reminder of what exactly had happened in Gotham. The reminder of just how poorly Bruce treats those he claims to love, and the lack of control he has over his rage.
It’s enough to curdle Talia’s lunch.
“No more Gotham,” Talia finally whispers, but there is steel in her tone. She isn't focused on Jason, or Roy, or even the injures; there is distance in her eyes, and she is turned towards the window. Only when Jason reacts does she look at him, long hair moving across her shoulders to settle against her back. A queen with no crown, a protector in every sense of the word. His mother. “No more Dark Knight. From now on, you will go by a different name, linked to me , and we will take care of the world however you wish.”
A fresh start.
A new beginning.
“Azazel,” Jason decides after a moment, turning his burning eyes onto his mother. She nods her approval over the strong, resilient choice; it suits him.
Roy, in the background, grins in delight.
“The Demon’s Fang,” she christens, as the sun rises beyond the horizon.