Chapter Text
“You know, I’m a little hurt no one asked me to join this party,” Jason said, bursting through the warehouse window and immediately putting two bullets into two kneecaps.
The comms he hacked into went dead silent, which was definitely a little funny.
“Hood, what are you doing?” Dick asked, as someone that sounded suspiciously like Replacement let out a heartfelt swear.
“Imagine,” Jason said, turning the corner of the wraparound walk and shooting three times, “Taking on the Scarecrow in Crime Alley.” Another two goons go down screaming. “And not even bothering to send me an invitation.”
“This is our operation, Hood,” Batman growled and Jason bared his teeth as he finished clearing the upper floor and stomped towards the stairs.
“And this is my territory,” Jason hissed, ignoring the plumes of noxious smoke and bursting canisters as he put more bullets in bodies. The helmet’s air filters were more than good enough to withstand Crane’s creepy concoctions, which meant he didn’t need to worry about a rebreather or about whatever new grand-and-destined-to-fail plan Crane had cooking.
He had targets and he had bullets and if the Scarecrow—or the Bats—didn’t like it, they shouldn’t have come to Crime Alley.
Jason was getting a little tired of no one respecting his rules.
“So where is the pseudo-scientist in charge?” Jason asked the remaining conscious goon, kicking the bullet wound when the guy didn’t respond fast enough.
“Don’t know,” the thug shrieked, clutching his leg. What a baby. It was only a little shattered bone. “Don’t know, he was supposed to be downstairs, don’t—”
“You really should’ve opened with that,” Jason informed him before heading back to the stairs. All the shouting was coming from the ground floor and Jason never turned down an opportunity to stir shit up.
Who knew, maybe he’d get to see Batman high on fear toxin while all the baby bats tried to keep up.
At that pleasant thought, Jason leaped down the rest of the stairs, landing with a suitably dramatic thud. If anyone had been around to appreciate it.
He was still in on the comms, but clearly they’d all switched to private channels to talk about him behind his back. Jason kept his guns up as he edged forward—the haze was thick on this floor, weirdly colored and dense enough to severely impact visibility—but there was no one in sight. The sound echoed oddly off of the barrels and boxes around him, edges of beams and shelves poking through the fog and disappearing as he kept walking forward.
Something crashed in the distance and Jason cursed. He didn’t like the Scarecrow, and he especially didn’t like the Scarecrow after he came back with the Pit singing in his veins. The rage was difficult to control on its own—rage and fear? Jason did not want to see what that looked like.
“Come on, Crane,” Jason muttered, rounding a corner, “Why does everyone test their drugs in Crime Alley? Why are we the fucking guinea pigs every time?”
A chill ran down his spine.
“Population of convenience.”
Shit—Jason spun around, his finger on the trigger, but something crashed into his helmet before he got the chance to shoot.
Jason stumbled back, reeling, and didn’t get the chance to recover. His helmet was impacted again, harder, sending him to the floor and Jason twisted enough to see the metal bat swinging down and—
Crunch.
The visor had cracked, there was glass trickling like sand across Jason’s face, and—a low, waspish hiss fogged up his vision and Jason immediately stopped breathing.
He swung out against his assailant and caught nothing but air—the smoke was everywhere and he was running out of breath and—
It was too late.
Everything went green.
No. No. Fuck, Jason had put far too much effort and time into controlling the Pit for some madman with a few colored chemicals to ruin everything. He squeezed his eyes shut and staggered back until there was something hard pressing into his back. He kept his grip on his gun, but clicked the safety back on.
“Hood to Bats,” he hissed through his teeth, I’ve been hit, one of you fuckers bring me the antidote, he couldn’t quite force out.
Adrenaline response, panic, fear simulation—he’d seen all the reports, but it was really difficult to convince himself that the terror wasn’t real when his heart rate felt like drums crashing in his ears.
The comms were silent. That was wrong. The comms shouldn’t be silent.
Had they left him behind? Something twisted in Jason’s stomach—no, the fear wasn’t real, it wasn’t his, he needed to calm down.
The comms were silent. Dread pooled in his stomach.
Maybe they were jammed. Maybe the crack to his helmet had broken it. Maybe there was an innocuous reason for this, an explanation, something that would—
Jason opened his eyes, and—the fog was gone. He could see his surroundings. See the shelving on both sides, the unmarked boxes, the shards of glass on the floor.
The bodies.
Jason looked down—blood, thick and dripping. The gun’s safety was off. His fingers were trembling.
No, he thought in distant horror, this couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t happening. He tore his helmet off and let it hit the ground with a clatter.
Everything was tinged green and it turned his stomach. He’d lost time. Like he’d had at the start, when the rage blurred everything around him until he was left with nothing but blood and the echoes of gunshots.
Jason stumbled forward a step, just enough to catch sight of a face grey and pale under a domino mask, throat slashed till the bone. He knew what the Replacement looked like, beaten and broken and near-death.
This wasn’t near-death.
He’d done this. The toxin, the Pit, the—he called them and they came and he cut them down like cattle.
Dick had a hand stretched out to him, a shattered vial in broken fingers. The antidote. They’d tried to get him back.
Jason jerked back, fighting the roiling in his stomach as the world spun around him. There was a smaller body tucked behind Dick. A pool of blood staining the floor. Bullet wounds dark against the Robin suit.
“No,” Jason choked out, “No, you can’t—I didn’t—no, you aren’t—” He dropped to his knees near the Replacement—the kid—and hovered over the gash in his throat. He would—he could—the kid wasn’t breathing, wasn’t moving, and Jason’s hands were so, so red—
He crawled over to Dick. Maybe he was—maybe Jason hadn’t—maybe—
Jason pressed shaking fingers to the side of Dick’s neck and waited for a pulse. And waited. And waited because Dick couldn’t be dead, Dick was stronger than him, Dick would’ve stopped him.
Unless he’d been too busy trying to protect someone else.
Jason didn’t need to go near Damian. There was blood, so much blood, and no one could’ve survived that. He didn’t need to see his bullets in a child.
“You should’ve stayed away,” Jason breathed out, his voice cracking. But he had called them here. He had—he did—they were dead and—
Everything in Jason’s body went ice cold. Oh. Oh no.
He raised his head slowly and the shadow in the doorway resolved itself into a familiar outline. Batman stepped into the room, taking in the scene at a glance.
“Hood.” The growl was cold and furious. “What did you do.”
Jason skittered back, away from Dick, away from the bodies, like the World’s Greatest Detective couldn’t look at the blood and Jason’s hands and reach the right conclusion.
“I—I didn’t mean to—” He knew the words were a shit excuse the moment they left his mouth. Batman strode forward, his presence dark and suffocating.
“You killed them.” The words weren’t quiet or confused. They were a verdict, delivered by this city’s closest thing to justice. “You killed my children.”
Jason squeezed his eyes shut—Batman didn’t make a single sound while moving, he knew that, but Jason could feel him getting closer, could feel him looking down at Jason in heavy judgement.
Bats didn’t kill. Jason knew that. He’d tested that. Batman wouldn’t kill him. Not even for this. Which meant—
“No,” the word tore itself from Jason’s throat. “No, please—” he looked up at the dark shadow and quailed, “Please, B, don’t—don’t send me there, I can’t—don’t send me back to him.”
Batman said nothing.
“I can’t go there—they’ll kill me, they’ll—I can’t hear his fucking laughter, B—I’m so, so sorry, I didn’t mean to—” He was babbling, he knew it, words tripping and slipping, but he had to make Batman understand, had to try to appeal to whatever part of Bruce was still left in that suit, “Please don’t send me there—I’ll turn myself in, I promise, I’ll go to Blackgate, I’ll go wherever—please don’t send me to Arkham.”
Batman stared down at him, unmoving. “You didn’t mean to kill them?”
“No, B, I swear, I—it was the Pit, I didn’t even know they were there—I’m sorry—”
“The Pit?” Batman’s voice ticked up. Jason froze. “You didn’t tell me you were still under the Pit’s influence.”
No—fuck, he didn’t—there was no way Batman would send him to Blackgate now, no matter how much Jason begged and pleaded, he’d be shipped off straight to Arkham and he—
He wasn’t going to go.
“I am not—” Jason’s fingers were trembling as he choked on a sob “—going back—” he curled his finger around the trigger and tried to remember how to breathe “—to that fucking clown.”
The muzzle of the gun knocked against his jaw.
“I’m sorry,” he sobbed, his vision washing out to blurriness, “I’m so sorry.”
Something slammed into him right before the bang.
“Hood to Bats,” came through on the main channel and Bruce switched back over.
“Hood?” he barked, immediately going to the worst-case scenario. For Jason to actually call them—“Hood, status?”
Silence.
“Hood, did you get hit?” Dick’s voice crackled through. “Hood, are you there?”
“His helmet has air filters,” Tim pointed out.
“This is a new strain of toxin,” Damian countered, “We cannot be sure that Hood’s filters are up to date.”
Jason should’ve responded to that, at least a sneer and a growl. But there was nothing on his end.
Bruce had a bad feeling.
“Robin, Red Robin, get out.”
“What—”
“Out. That’s an order.” Jason hadn’t gotten tagged with fear toxin since his return as the Red Hood, and Bruce didn’t have the optimism to hope that the toxin wouldn’t interact badly with the aftereffects of the Lazarus Pit. “N—”
“Got Crane,” Dick responded with a grunt, “We’re getting out of the building.”
Damian and Tim confirmed that they’d left the building and Batman headed to Hood’s marked location.
“No,” Jason choked and Bruce’s jog changed to a flat-out sprint. “No, you can’t—I didn’t—” His voice broke and Bruce felt the pit drop out of his stomach.
He turned the corner to see Jason kneeling on the ground, helmet off, alone.
“You should’ve stayed away,” he breathed, and Bruce winced.
“Hood, status,” he growled, a touch lower than he was going for, and Jason snapped his head up, his face paling, as he flinched back.
“I—I didn’t mean to—”
“What did you do?” Bruce inwardly swore. Too accusatory. “Hood, status report.” He had an antidote, but Red Robin had confirmed that it was a new strain. If Jason had been tagged with it, they needed to get him back to the Cave to synthesize a new antidote.
Which he wouldn’t be able to do unless he calmed Jason down. Bruce sighed and stepped closer, hands raised, palm-out, “Hood—”
“No,” Jason burst out, his eyes wide, “No, please—please, B, don’t—don’t send me there, I can’t—don’t send me back to him.”
Definitely fear toxin.
“I’m not sending you anywhere, Hood,” Bruce said softly, “We’ll go to the Cave, get you an antidote.”
Jason was shaking now, trembling all over, still holding onto his gun. Bruce watched it warily as he edged closer, if he could only—
Jason started talking, a rambling mess of begging and flat-out terror, “I can’t go there—they’ll kill me, they’ll—I can’t hear his fucking laughter, B—I’m so, so sorry, I didn’t mean to—please don’t send me there—I’ll turn myself in, I promise, I’ll go to Blackgate, I’ll go wherever—please don’t send me to Arkham.”
Bruce froze. What.
“No one is sending you to Arkham, Hood,” Bruce said, feeling like he’d been rooted in place. Of all the things to be afraid about…
But Jason wasn’t listening to him. Wasn’t hearing him. “No, B, I swear, I—it was the Pit, I didn’t even know they were there—I’m sorry—”
“It’s okay,” Bruce tried, getting closer, “It’s just the fear toxin, Hood—”
Jason raised the gun and clicked the safety off.
“I am not going back to that fucking clown,” his voice broke as he wrapped his finger around the trigger and let the gun rest against his jaw.
Bruce felt his heart stop. “Jason. Jay—”
“I’m sorry,” Jason sobbed, tear tracks glinting, “I’m so sorry.”
Bruce lunged—the gun went off—there was an explosion of pain in his shoulder but the gun was out of Jason’s hands and his son was in one piece and Bruce patted his head and shoulders to make sure that nothing was bleeding.
“B!” Dick shouted, clearly having heard the gunshot.
“Hood got hit with the fear toxin,” Bruce reported, “Need an assist.” Jason was writhing under him and each movement was jolting the spreading fire in his shoulder.
“No,” Jason was whimpering in between hitched breaths, “No, B, please—”
Nightwing skidded into the room at a run, halting as he saw Bruce pinning Jason down. “Some help?” Bruce grunted, huffing when Jason tried to twist out of his grasp.
Nightwing was already moving to pin down Jason’s shoulders and arms. “He shot you?” Dick asked incredulously.
“No,” Bruce said, and didn’t elaborate. He’d just gotten between Jason and his target.
Jason made a sharp, pained cry and then went limp under them both.
Dick stilled and Bruce scrambled up, worried that they’d hurt him, but Jason didn’t look like he had any visible injuries. He was staring up at the ceiling with glassy eyes, minute tremors wracking his frame.
“Okay, let’s go, Jaybird,” Dick hauled Jason up as Bruce pressed a hand to his shoulder and straightened. Jason let himself be dragged to his feet, his wrists in Nightwing’s grasp as Dick tugged him towards the door.
“Dick?” Jason whispered, so quiet Bruce had to strain to hear.
“Yeah, Little Wing?”
“I’m sorry for killing you.”
Dick froze mid-step.
“I didn’t mean to,” Jason said, and he sounded so heartbroken that Bruce wanted to wrap him in a hug and never let go.
“It’s okay, Little Wing,” Dick said softly, pulling Jason towards the exit, “I forgive you.”
Jason fell silent as they made their way out, face going startlingly blank, and Bruce had a sinking feeling he knew why Jason was so docile. He was…surprised. He hadn’t exactly expected Jason to begin shooting everything in sight, but he’d expected more violence than this.
Please don’t send me to Arkham.
Tim watched Jason warily as they stumbled out of the warehouse and towards the waiting Batmobile, but Damian’s gaze was fixed on him. “Father, you’re hurt!”
The bullet was definitely burning now. “It’s fine,” Bruce said, but didn’t have the strength to argue when Tim slipped into the driver’s seat. Damian joined him up front and Bruce got in the back so that he and Dick were between Jason and the doors.
Jason was crying.
It was quiet, but the Batmobile ran silent and the hitched sobs were audible. Jason had bowed his head in surrender—Dick was muttering soothing nonsense into his ear, but Jason didn’t act like he could hear them.
They pulled up to the Cave and Dick immediately tugged Jason to the medbay, Tim trailing behind them to synthesize an antidote.
Damian and Alfred stopped him from following with a pointed look at his injured shoulder.
Bruce sighed. “Make sure you use the medical restraints,” he called after Dick.
Dick turned to raise an eyebrow and look pointedly at a shaking, crying, compliant Jason. “He tried to hurt himself,” Bruce said quietly, “Use the restraints.”
Everyone’s gaze zeroed in on the bullet in his shoulder.
Dick looked like he’d swallowed something sour, “Got it, B.” Bruce nodded at him and let himself be led away to get treatment.
Jason fought back to consciousness with a throbbing headache. Danger—something was a threat, something had gone horribly wrong, something had—
The warehouse. Crane. The toxin.
Jason bolted upright—or tried to, his movements immediately arrested by cuffs around his wrists and ankles, padded cuffs—oh shit, oh no—
“Jay, calm down!” There was a heart monitor going crazy and Jason struggled against the cuffs, yanking at them frantically because he knew he couldn’t get out of them but he needed to leave, needed to run, needed to get as far away from that fucking laughter—
“Jason.” That—that was the Batman growl. Jason blinked up to see Bruce hovering over him, a hand curled over his shoulder to push him flat on the bed.
Jason didn’t know why Bruce was here, but he seized at the chance. “Let me out,” he whispered, his gaze fixed on Bruce. “Bruce, please, let me out!” If there was any part of him that cared, if there was any part of him that wasn’t Batman, if there was any part of him that still considered Jason his son—
Bruce looked worried, “Jay, you need to calm down—”
“Dad,” Jason begged, and Bruce froze. “Please.” He tugged harder against the cuffs but the metal refused to give and they would come back any moment and the laughter would start and—
“I’ll let you out, Jay, please calm down,” Bruce said hoarsely, and he was doing it, he was moving to the side and Jason held his breath as his cuffs clicked open, one by one.
He scrambled off the bed the instant he was free, ripping the leads off his arms—the heart monitor stopped its infernal shrieking—and wavered on his feet, looking for the exit—
He was—this was the Cave. The medbay in the Cave. Not Arkham.
Unless they’d already given him something, unless he was already hallucinating, unless—
“Jason. You’re in the Cave. You were hit with the fear toxin. It was a new strain and it took us a couple of hours to synthesize the antidote. It’s been eight hours since the warehouse raid.” Bruce had one arm out, palm up, as though that was supposed to pacify him. His other arm was in a sling for some reason.
Jason couldn’t move. Couldn’t bring himself to try and find the lie.
“You’re not in Arkham,” Bruce said quietly, his gaze fixed on Jason, “I would never put you in Arkham.”
Ah, there it was.
Jason flinched back and Bruce paused. “Jay, I swear,” Bruce sounded choked, “I would never send you there. Not to the man who murdered you.”
Funny how Bruce hadn’t cared about that when Jason was freshly back from the dead.
Jason ignored him. If he wasn’t in Arkham, that meant what he’d seen wasn’t real. Of course it wasn’t real. He couldn’t take on all of the birdies and win, Pit rage or not.
But that meant he didn’t know what was real.
“Who did I attack?” he asked, hovering on the edge of calm. He needed to assess how badly he’d fucked up before he got out of here.
Bruce’s face ran through a complicated range of emotions before it settled into blankness. “No one,” he said softly.
“Bullshit,” Jason snarled. He distantly noticed that he was trembling. “I got hit with fear toxin. That, and the Pit? How many people did I attack before you could take me down?”
“Jason, you didn’t—”
“You had me in medical restraints,” Jason seethed, rocking forward, “Stop lying and tell me who I hurt!”
Bruce took a deep breath before answering. “You attempted to hurt yourself.”
Jason froze. He remembered the feel of the muzzle pressing into his skin.
He stared at Bruce’s bandaged shoulder.
Bruce followed his gaze. “I wasn’t going to let you,” he said gently.
Jason stepped back, because he didn’t do that, because he wouldn’t—
If it was a choice between Arkham and dying, a little voice in his head pressed.
Jason swallowed.
“I didn’t hurt anyone?” he asked quietly, needing the confirmation.
“No one,” Bruce answered, “Everyone will be down soon, if you need to confirm—ah, never mind.” He hadn’t even finished talking before a bleary Tim and sulking Damian stomped down the stairs, trailing behind Dick, who took one glance at the medbay before running over.
“Jaybird!” Dick shouted, and Jason barely had the time to brace himself before he was bowled over by the octopus someone let masquerade as a vigilante. “You’re finally awake!”
Jason remembered pressing his fingers to Dick’s neck and feeling nothing but silence and, just this once, wrapped his arms around his brother instead of tearing his grip off.
Dick squeezed, hard, before pulling back enough to look Jason in the eyes. His face had gone serious. “We won’t put you in Arkham,” he said. Jason tensed. “We will never put you in Arkham.”
“I didn’t—”
“Apparently it needed to be said.”
Jason resisted the urge to ball his hands into fists. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Dickhead,” he said roughly.
“Jay—”
“Maybe not today,” Jason cut him off, “Maybe not tomorrow. But what happens when I break your rules? When the Pit takes control?”
Dick held Jason’s head and stared at him intently. “I don’t know. But the solution will never be Arkham.” Jason let go and tried to step back, but Dick held on, his expression fierce. “Do you understand, Little Wing?”
Jason swallowed. “Yes,” he said softly.
Dick peered at him, nodded, and wrapped him in a tighter hug. Bruce came behind him, his expression quietly distraught, and cupped a warm hand around the back of Jason’s neck. He let his forehead settle against Jason’s, warmth to warmth.
“I am sorry, Jay,” Bruce said, low and gentle, “For letting you believe I would put you in Arkham. You are my son and I love you. We have had our arguments and differences, but you will always be my son.”
Jason squeezed his eyes shut, but he couldn’t stop the tears from leaking out. A large, callused thumb brushed them away with tender care.
“I love you, Jay,” Bruce repeated, and Jason clung to Dick and wept.