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The world is a disaster.
The mission went so sideways it pretty much just went upside down. From Plan A to Plan H, everything that could have gone wrong had gone wrong. The sheer absurdity of it failing so massively is the only reason Red Hood is standing in the Watchtower, guns settled in his holsters, arms crossed.
He should be bothered, maybe, that he was a last resort security detail, but the clear frustration on Superman’s face isn’t directed toward him and it’s an amusing distraction.
Plus, being included as a security detail at least means he’s being included— on the Tower, no less.
“…then you should have thought of that before you used a damn motherbox,” Batman is saying to Green Lantern, and hell but it’s satisfying to hear him chew somebody else out for once.
It occurs to Jason, as Batman adds another item to his litany of reasons he’s furious with Hal Jordan, that he can’t actually remember the last time Bruce has verbally lit into him about anything.
Their relationship has settled into mostly just trying to ignore one another.
It stings but it goes both ways.
“We did, uh, find a guy,” Superman interrupts. He shoots such a glare at Batman that the other man actually snaps his mouth shut. Jason didn’t even know that was possible, to out-glare Batman. Maybe it’s the possibility that it could be backed up by heat vision.
There’s a sudden surge of pressure in the room, not a noise but a feeling like Jason’s ears have popped, and then something is standing in the middle of all of them.
“What do you mean you ‘found a guy,’” Batman demands flatly, a batarang in his hand. Jason’s hand is on his right gun, his left fingers twitching for the twin Colt on the other side— he finds it effective misdirection to thumb open the right holster first, but then actually draw the left. It takes speed, but he has that.
“Not a guy,” the thing in the middle says. It sounds amused. “I lack distinguishing genitalia.”
Superman looks positively pained.
“Who are you?” Batman snarls.
“Gary comes highly recommended,” Green Lantern breaks in. He, out of all of them, seems the most at ease. He has a swagger that Jason admires.
“Gary.” Batman doesn’t seem impressed. The batarang is still in his hand. “Recommended by who?”
“The Council of Oa,” Hal says, the same moment Jason gleefully corrects, “Whom.”
Then that thing turns all its attention on Jason, the trio of sparkling gold eyes honing in on him with razor focus. Its face shifts and vibrates in disconcerting ways, as if Jason’s brain refuses to comprehend it properly. It has fuzzy edges around the shape of the head and flat gray toothless mouth. The lack of teeth does not seem to impede speech.
“Gary’s a fixer,” Hal says, while Jason tries not to squirm.
“We do not mess with timelines,” Batman snaps, with the ringing tone of an order.
“It’s not messing,” Green Lantern fires back, annoyed. “I said he fixes things, and he’s the best at what he does.”
The thing— Gary, or whatever the hell— steps closer to Jason. It leans, peering at him. Jason feels something invisible wrap around him, uncomfortably tight, like a straitjacket he can’t see.
“Hey,” he says roughly.
“I do not fix things,” Gary says absently, but loudly enough that the argument abruptly dies. It keeps staring at Jason and in his peripheral, Jason sees Batman’s gloved hand jerk out as if to pull him back. But it stops. Jason doesn’t know if it’s a willful choice or an external force like the vice now squeezing him.
The flat mouth opens, in a gasp, and Jason catches a glimpse of double rows of flat, grinding teeth deep in the thing’s throat. Dread pools in him, dragging his stomach down to his ankles.
“I consume anomalies, the mistakes in time, the things that should not be,” Gary says, purring. Or something like purring. “And you are a very large mistake.”
“Gary, listen, the problem isn’t here…” Hal is saying, but Jason grimaces and growls.
“What the fuck are you—”
Jason cuts himself off because his gun is gone. His right Colt, the one he was just running his thumb over, is now in the thing’s hand and Jason is fully paralyzed.
“A very messy anomaly, indeed,” Gary says. “This will be wonderful.”
The barrel is pressed against his temple and Jason didn’t even take his helmet off, but there it is on the floor, and before he can take in another breath, the gun goes off.
Jason has killed enough men, in the execution style he learned from an ex-Yakuza member hiding in rural Australian farm lands, to know that there should be nothing left once the boom fills the room.
Somehow, impossibly, he still registers two things as his body falls:
His ears are popping again.
Bruce is screaming his name.
The world hinges on a ticking bomb nearby and the weight of a fully-loaded semi-automatic in his hand. Batman is facing him, feet planted, and the spittle from Jason’s shout is still clinging to his chin.
He waits, to see who Bruce will choose:
Him? Or the laughing maniac Jason is holding in place?
His arm stings from the contact with the Joker’s taut body like he’s touching something poisonous. It’s psychosomatic and Jason knows it, but it doesn’t make it any less repulsive.
And then suddenly there’s another, a strange creature with golden eyes like bulging orbs. It takes the batarang from Batman’s hand and eats it, tossing the gleaming knife-edged metal back like a potato chip. A dull crunch is muffled by its throat.
“What the hell,” Jason exclaims, startled.
“Ooh, a surprise guest!” Joker shrieks, patting Jason’s shoulder rapidly like this is something to be excited about.
“You, you won’t remember me later,” the creature says to Batman. Two fat yellow tongues lick at its own lips and Jason’s gun is gone from his hand, the bomb stalls.
It looks at Jason, all three eyes blinking.
It shoots the Joker, blood and brain splattering Jason’s neck and jacket. Jason lets the body drop like a rock.
“You, you won’t remember that,” it says to Jason. “But my you are the best meal I’ve had in eons.”
The bomb beeps. Jason whirls to see it go straight from 00:23 seconds to 00:00.
His ears pop.
The world is green and full of fury. Jason comes up choking, roaring, ready to kill.
There’s a thing sitting on Talia ah Ghul’s limp body, perched between her shoulders. Its hands are wet and glowing, long legs sprawled akimbo on the stone floor of the cave.
Jason lunges at it without thinking, instinct driving him forward. He is forcefully frozen only inches from it, and it pinches his face gently with three long fingers.
“You are one of the worlds to have fast food,” it says, inanely. “But some meals ought to be savored. It takes time to pick all the meat off the bones.”
Jason is crying, confused and cold and suddenly so lonely that he doesn’t care about anything else. He doesn’t know where he is or why Talia is there, on the floor with a sword in her side. The last thing he remembers is the Joker and he wonders if he wasn’t killed, but sold somehow.
Sold twice.
The thing’s face is a chaotic jumble of flashing details, like a personified strobe light, but it sounds kind when it brushes the tears off his cheeks.
“Do you trust me?” it asks.
“No,” Jason sobs, reaching for the sword. He can’t move his hand. He tries anyway.
He struggles like his life depends on it, and then, right as his fingers close around the hilt, the sword vanishes.
The tip is at his throat and he’s kneeling beside Talia, his veins full of hard marble.
“I want you to know,” the thing says, “that this is like…hm. What’s a metaphor you’d understand. Oh, like sewing. You know sewing? It isn’t the wrong era for that? Say, you’re making a shirt, and you sew the wrong pieces of cloth together.”
“The fuck,” Jason hisses, his throat a stone that can barely grind out the sound.
“You’ll never get a shirt that way, it just won’t be done. You’ve got to undo it. Take out the thread, one hole at a time.”
Jason closes his eyes and concentrates, and then wrenches himself sideways. He only moves an inch, but it’s enough to drag the sword point across his neck.
“Oh, kejrusdjfh,” the thing says. “You shouldn’t be able to do that. You know what, you’re not going to remember this anyway. Conversation is just nice with dinner sometimes.”
There’s a blinding, searing pain between Jason’s head and his body.
His ears pop.
The entire world is dark and small in the coffin. Jason knows before he raises his hand that there’s a lid right in front of his face, the pressure of earth he can’t see above him. He doesn’t know how he knows, when all he can see is blackness, but he knows.
“This is my favorite part so far,” a voice says, right beside his ear.
Jason’s scream echoes densely in the tiny space.
There’s a thing beside him, not quite there for real and not really not there, either.
“It isn’t you,” the thing says, consoling. “It isn’t how scared you are that makes it taste good. Beings think that, sometimes, as if it has anything to do with any of you. No, it’s the juiciness of the fissure in time-as-it-should-be. Fat flavoring the roast.”
Jason whimpers and fumbles for his belt in the dark. He needs a tool and his pockets are empty.
“Not that I know what roast is like,” the thing says. “I’m told it’s an apt comparison, that’s all. Do you like roast?”
“Where…are we?” Jason demands raggedly. The thing has a light in its hand, like a luminescent marble. It gestures above him and Jason starts digging at the plush satin.
“It doesn’t matter,” the thing says. “Relax. We’re almost finished.”
One second, Jason’s trembling hand is shoving the prong of the belt into the material above him and the next, it is gone from his hands and his body is rigid against his will.
Leather tightens around his neck.
“I really am sorry about this,” it says. “The only way to do this is to just…poke the needle back through the hole. No way around it.”
“What are you talking about?” Jason begs, his cheeks and tongue numb. He’s sure he’s never been this terrified in his life and where the hell is Bruce and the last time he was this scared, the Joker was there and he died.
He…
Jason’s brain short circuits on that memory.
“Fhaje,” the thing complains. “That was the previous metaphor.”
Jason can’t breathe.
His ears pop.
The world is molten nerves and cigarette smoke.
Jason hurts too much to move.
Someone is screaming.
He’s on the dusty floor of a warehouse. There’s a pile of lavender pillows, of all things, stacked near his head. They’re splattered with crimson.
Jason nearly passes out just turning his head.
A blonde woman— Sheila, he remembers faintly— is backed into a corner, mouth open. Then her face caves in under the pressure of a crowbar. Jason looks around frantically, agony swelling up at the movement, and sees the Joker in a battered heap.
Dead eyes stare back at him.
“It’s not strictly necessary at this point. I just like ending that one when I have the chance,” a thing says, throwing the crowbar down onto the Joker. It bounces off the body and clatters across the floor.
The thing has arms that are not arms, thin tendrils that are shimmering like the flesh keeps missing the outline of the skin and overshooting. It squats near Jason, while his lungs begin to feel thick like he’s underwater.
“Who…” Jason heaves the syllable out of his chest, and can’t do more than it alone.
“There are exceptions,” it says, “that ruin the flavor, but I’m not a monster. Loopholes, when properly found, should be used. Don’t you think? I’m Gary, by the way. Or, I’m Gary here, anyway.”
The bomb in Jason’s line of sight is silent, the timer stalled at 00:11. He’s drowning, he’s drowning in his own blood inside of him, and his limbs won’t work.
“Jason! Jason!”
There’s a pounding, and a roaring at the door. The frame cracks as it begins to give way under the force. He can’t answer Bruce but he’ll be here any second, Jason just has to stay awake long enough to say…
“Goodbye,” the thing says, putting a hand on Jason’s head. “Until next time. You know, he really loves you, kid? You are a kid, right? Sometimes I’m bad with earth ages.”
The door gives way with a thunderous noise.
There’s a sensation like falling asleep, drifting off on the couch, warm and cozy and listening to music while Bruce works in his study.
His ears pop.
Jason’s hands are jammed into his pockets and he’s almost jogging he’s walking so fast. His ears are cold. He somehow ended up in this neighborhood again, without meaning to, just trying to blow off some steam.
He should call Dick.
If anyone will understand being benched, it’ll be Dick.
He slows outside his old apartment and stares up at the window. The building door opens while he’s standing there, to the back stairs over the alley, and for a second he thinks he sees his old neighbor in that ratty muumuu she wore all the time.
There’s a flicker of something, a blurring of his vision, and then nothing. She isn’t there. It’s just an empty alley, the door shut again. Maybe the wind caught it— it never has latched right, or didn’t when he lived there. Maybe he’s more tired than he thought.
Jason keeps trudging forward, a tickle at the back of his throat like he accidentally swallowed a piece of thread. He has to stop and spit into the sewer grating to clear it.
He’ll call Dick. He’ll give it a day to cool off.
It was Alfred, after all, pushing for a break and Alfred doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get what it means to be a Robin, as much as Jason loves the old man. Bruce’s word is usually iron, but if Jason can show him he’s responsible, can take the benching without acting like a little kid with a temper, things will work out.
If not, he’ll just go live with Dick for a while, whether Dick likes it or not. The Titans were all nice to him the last time he worked with them.
The street lamps flick on overhead and a car slows beside him, in the corner of his vision. Jason tenses all over, ready to yell or fight or whatever he needs to do to handle a creep on this side of town.
He hears a window roll down and sees a flash of gleaming chrome.
“Jay.”
“Bruce?” Jason stops.
“Alfred said you ran off. I thought I’d find you here.”
Jason picks up his pace and Bruce matches in the car, until he has to stop to avoid a fender bender. Jason figures he’ll goes another block, take an alley to lose the car, maybe go find Selina or break into the Penthouse to call Dick and eat emergency spaghettios.
But the warning beeps from a car dash interrupt his plans. Bruce is on foot, catching up with him, his business suit wildly out of place here in this part of town. He left the car sitting in traffic, still running.
Jason’s chest aches and tears spring to his eyes. He glares at the sidewalk and clenches his fists in his pockets. Bruce came looking for him. He’s half pissed that his breathing room is being invaded, half desperately relieved that someone came.
“Someone’s gonna steal your stupid car, you big boob,” Jason snaps, drawing an arm across his eyes and frick, Bruce noticed he was crying and he’s got that worried look. It’s the one that precedes things like him using his dumb soft voice and an offer to go get chilidogs and a bear hug. Jason hates how well it works, feels betrayed by himself for the time Bruce picked him up to hug him, and how he laughed when his sneakers left the floor even though he was angry.
Catherine was never sober enough to come looking when he’d slam the door and leave; he always had to go crawling back to her, when it got too cold and living with her and the needle in her arm and her empty apologies was better than freezing to death. Her hugs were chilled and limp. He misses them anyway, but he hates her a little for never coming out to look for him. Then again, he only left when she was high.
She sometimes didn’t notice he was gone until he wasn’t anymore.
Bruce’s hand is on the back of his neck, steering him toward the car, and Jason sags into his side with a sniffle.
“I’m too old for this,” Jason growls, shrugging off the hand.
“No, you aren’t,” Bruce retorts, opening the car door and ruffling his hair. “I’m sorry about how things happened. Let’s talk at home.”
“Fine,” Jason says, buckling and crossing his arms. “But I’m still mad at you. And I’m telling Dick you’re being an idiot.”
Bruce’s mouth curves in amusement and Jason realizes, startled, that he’s relieved. “I can live with that,” he says.
“You’ll have to,” Jason grumbles, slouching down. “Because I am.”
The traffic light is still red, and it shimmers like it isn’t there, ghostly for a second. Jason squints at it. It solidifies and he blinks, exhaustion creeping over him.
“Fair,” Bruce says, and the light turns green.
The world is a disaster.
The mission went so sideways it pretty much just went upside down. From Plan A to Plan H, everything that could have gone wrong had gone wrong. The sheer absurdity of it failing so massively is why there are two Green Lanterns on the Watchtower, instead of Jason back in Gotham babysitting Tim on patrol.
Even that plan is a grudging concession on Batman’s part, an exception to his no-metas, no-powers rule for his city. Jason doesn’t mind; he understands that the ring draws bigger guns and power to the city. He doesn’t want to put people in unnecessary danger, even if he does think Hal makes good points about the world outside of Gotham.
At least Bruce has gotten over that.
Hal shoots Jason a look while Batman is chewing him out and Jason shrugs and smirks. Just because he looks up to the guy, considers him a mentor, doesn’t mean that he doesn’t agree with Bruce occasionally: the guy can be an idiot.
A skilled and good-hearted idiot, but the kind of idiot that needed Jason’s help to set up automatic payments on his electric bill when Jason was supposed to be doing physics homework.
“We did, uh, find a guy,” Superman interrupts. Bruce shuts up at that. Hal has that gleam behind his domino like he has an idea, and a lot of those go as sideways as this past mission.
Sometimes, though, they are flawless, like the beautiful, racing roll of a jet that Jason had admired the first time he saw him really fly; when Bruce had gritted his teeth and muttered, “Just like Clark all over again,” even though Jason could tell he wasn’t really mad. Not then. Not like now.
“What do you mean you ‘found a guy’?” Bruce demands, and Jason spins the ring on his finger idly. He isn’t really sure why they needed backup for an argument.
“The Council recommended him,” Hal says. Jason hasn’t heard anything about it.
There is a sudden surge of pressure in the room, not a noise but a feeling like Jason’s ears have popped, and then something is standing in the middle of all of them.
“Gary!” Hal exclaims, and Jason feels a whisper of something at the back of his head, like something he’s forgotten to pack nagging at him while he drives down the lane.
“Gary,” Bruce says flatly, disbelieving, staring at the convoluted, pulsating shape with three golden eyes. Jason frowns at it, his mouth in a hard, flat line.
“I’m not a guy,” it says. “I’m here to eat an anomaly?”
Bruce and Clark argue some more, with each other and Hal, while the thing taps its clawed foot on the floor impatiently. It gives Jason a small wave, which he mutely returns with bewildered automatic motion.
The nagging feeling grows stronger while it stares at him, then it shifts its attention to Bruce and explains something. The metaphor it uses has something to do with a printing press.
Jason examines his ring and scrubs a spot off one of his boots, keeping a surreptitious eye on the thing the whole time. It makes him nervous and he thinks he’s overreacting until Batman glances toward him, and Jason can see the tension in his jawline.
The sensation of deja vu engulfs him and he squares his shoulders, his gaze hardening.
It looks directly at him, gold eyes sharpening with razor focus. Pressure builds in Jason’s ears until it’s almost unbearable. The thing smiles a toothless smile and the deja vu vanishes.
His ears pop.
Nothing happens.