THE RED HOOD.

So here he was. Bus bound. A little wary because first this was Gotham, Bus high jacking was hardly out of the norm. Especially when someone was already wearing a mask on the bus. Then again a real busjacker would be more inconspicuous. Then again, Gotham.

Wearing a motorcycle helmet on the bus was… interesting. Dick made the choice of concern over suspicion and instead offered help where he could. There was little to offer on a cramped bus. “If you change your mind the offer stands.” Dick told the stranger. “I really don’t mind, and that helmet is probably heavy…” Real smooth Dick, way to show you’re NOT suspicious. “I’m Dick.” He introduced trying to be friendly.

"My condolences. You willingly go by that? Name like that comes with too many opportunities, dickhead, dickface, dickiebird--" ...He did not mean to let that last one slip. Whatever. Rolling right past that. He waves a hand dismissively, or as much as he can on a crowded bus without accidentally whacking someone that is.

Seriously, though. How'd his parents ever get Dick from Richard? The fact still baffles him.

i still hit the ground and dream

jaybird

"who woke me up?" said lazarus.

"Pull yourself together, mate," he muttered to himself. "Time and place." He sniffed once, and walked around the car to the driver's side, got in, and pulled away from the pavement. Jason didn't say anything as they drove off, and Alfred decided not to break the silence. The lad clearly needed to think. He held in the countless questions he had, about where Jason had been, what had happened to him, why he hadn't come home. It could wait.

They spent the ride in silence. Alfred didn't put on the radio, or make conversation. He could sit in silence for hours. The army had taught him that. When they drove up to the gates of Wayne Manor, Alfred rolled down his window and typed in the code to open the gates. They whirred to life and slid smoothly open, and Alfred drove down the long path towards the house, trying not to think about the last time he'd done this with Jason in the back of the car. How he hadn't known, then, that it would be the last time. Until now.

"Thanks," He murmurs, because he's not a complete heathen and still has some manners, as he lets Alfred guide him out of the car and onto the front door step. Fuck. Is he really doing this? He pauses briefly, staring at the front steps as he numbly follows Alfred. For a moment, he catches a glimpse of that dead kid. Sees him laugh and duck away from Alfred before bounding up the steps so he can open the door for the older man instead.

Bruce is away on business. He won't be home for awhile. The thought is more reassuring than it ought to be. He wants to go home. He wants to turn right back around and run the several miles back into town. He wants to see if his photos still hang on the walls, if they were torn down in grief, if someone else had moved into his old room or if had been left untouched. He wants to never find out the answers to any of those flitting questions. He wants the ghost to stay dead.

He keeps his head low, as they enter. Mindful of the hidden cameras in the foyer. If Bruce wants to see his face properly for himself, he'll have to be the one to reach out. The thought makes him feel selfish, somehow, as if he wasn't the kid who died and was brought back into a world full of nothing but disappointment.

He remembers where the kitchen is. But a lot of time has passed since he was fifteen. So, he finally looks at Alfred again and nods for him to continue leading the way. This wasn't his home, no matter how many times Alfred might insist tonight. Home was someplace safe and nowhere would ever feel safe ever again. Not as long as that monster continues to walk away Scott free.

He grows still at the question. Almost imperceptibly, since he's so still in general. But inwardly, he feels it. Every word of Jason's, dripping in sarcasm, sends ice through his veins. The frostbite is sharp enough to sting. "I wouldn't know," he answers honestly. He sends gardeners to the gravesite, pays for its upkeep. But he doesn't go there. Even before Jason crawled out of it, that's not where his memory was. Not for Bruce. The shrine in the cave, that's what he has instead. It's private. It's his. But he doesn't say this aloud, doesn't tell Jason that. How could he? How can he offer any explanation, when he's failed this deeply? Failed to protect him. Failed to keep him alive. Failed to notice he had returned.

Bruce looks over at him. Because despite the cowl and the cape, this is a conversation between Bruce and Jason, not Batman and Robin. Both of them irrevocably changed by the other, never to be the same again. "Ra's," he repeats, nodding once. "I should've guessed he was involved." But his mind is spinning, spiraling, and he can't spiral. He's Batman.

"Alfred says he invited you to stay at the manor," he says, refocusing. "But you're not going to take him up on that offer, are you?" His gaze is steady, unmoving from the boy. He can't satisfy his own desire to reach out, to pull Jason close, but he can look at least. Assure himself that the boy is alive with his own two eyes. The silence between them is thick, fraught with tension. "You..." Bruce stops. Swallows hard to ensure his voice will stay steady. "You must have questions."

There's a small, terrible voice in the back of his head that whispers: did he never actually care? He doesn't want to listen to it. He wants those ice creams after patrol and good report cards and movie nights and the constant hovering whenever he was sick to mean something—

"Not really. It's clear to me that you had no problems replacing me," he spits out before he could stop himself, sharp and bitter and without any actual meaning. But then he thinks of the kid who's now flying around in Robin's colors, and he can't help but think that he does mean it, just a little bit, the part of him that's still that little boy laying broken and bleeding on the warehouse floor. That nothing really has changed. This anger isn't directed at Tim. Has nothing to do with the kid. Has everything to do with Batman and Robin. "Seemed to have no problems allowing another minor to put on the cape and tights, anyways. Like me dying wasn't enough of a discouragement."

He takes out the cigarette, lets it dangle between his fingers. The hand holding it falls to hang limply between them. "I'm not going to haunt your halls, old man. It doesn't take a genius to know a ghost is all either of you is going to see, if I did that." He still doesn't turn to look at Bruce fully, but he's still watching him out his peripherals. The itch to get up and bolt buzzes under his skin still. He doesn't give into it, not yet, but he might sooner than later. He takes a deep breath and shakes his head.

He wonders if he should know this lady. Something about her was tickling the back of his mind but he doesn't know what. He's been gone from Gotham since he was 15— so who knows what it could be, really. Looks can be deceiving, but doesn't clock as someone to be wary of to him.

He doesn't know what's making him linger. He really should just go.

Bruce steps out of the shadows. Comes to stand a few feet away, looking out over the city. His eyes slowly come back to Jason. Taking in the sight of him. He's older. There's that streak through his hair that wasn't there before. The look in his eyes, that fierce cold in them -- that hadn't been there before either. It's like staring into a black hole. "How are you here?" Bruce asks, voice measured, calm. He can guess, he has theories -- but whether Jason answers, how he answers if he does, will be very telling.

He could reach out. Put a hand on the boy's shoulder and pluck the cigarette from his fingers and pull him into a hug. He could picture each step in his mind, but he stayed frozen, still as the gargoyle beside Jason. "Put that out while we talk. Be a shame to come back to life only to get lung cancer, don't you think." The words sound almost human, almost like they had a thousand times before over dinner or training or during patrol. "Jason, are you even going to look at me?"

He doesn't put the cig out. He knows it's not going to kill him. He's quick to turn away again when Bruce looks back at him. Takes another drag out of spite. Exhales slowly. His eyes had a faint green glow to them, in the dark like this. He doesn't turn to face him directly, but he is looking at him. He's half tempted to blow smoke right in his face. But that would be plain uncalled for. Probably.

"When was the last time you visited my grave?" He asks in lieu of a proper answer, leaning back further against the gargoyle. "It wasn't even a year before I crawled out of it, I think. I dug through the coffin and six feet of dirt. Wonder if anyone noticed and just fixed the grass over it without saying anything."

He glances away, and focuses his gaze on the burning butt of the cigarette. He doesn't remember much. He thinks he wasn't all the way back in his body then. But he remembers being lost and confused and scared and hurting. He couldn't remember his own name but he remembered Bruce's. It was his dying breath after all. He remembers crying and crying and no one answering. Two weeks. Two weeks he haunted the streets of Gotham before the League scooped him up like some stray cat.

He sighs.

It was Jason. He's alive. I don't know how. Alfred's voice had been ringing in his ears for hours. He couldn't remember right now how the conversation had gone after that moment. Because as soon as he heard those words, a tidal wave of emotion had swelled up above him. So high it blocked out all the light, left Bruce completely in darkness. Holding his breath.

And then it crashed down around him.

Grief first -- he remembered holding Jason in his arms, limp, cold. The terrible weight of death like gravity pulled harder on the lifeless. Sometimes he still felt that weight in his arms, even now. But then joy, unbridled, wild, like a fire tearing through him, scorching, too fast, too much, too intense. Jason, alive. Alive again, with that attitude that couldn't be contained and a smile that would melt a room when he was really happy. How could Bruce not feel joy, remembering that? Remembering him as he was? But then crept in suspicion. Fear. Anger. Was this really Jason? How could he be alive? Oh, there had been plenty of cheated graves in Gotham, even bonafide resurrections -- but had anything good ever come of those? What if something else had taken Jason's place? What if... What if he was changed?

It was that last question that finally made him don the cowl and slip out into the city. He could've gone to where Alfred had said they ran into each other. But no. No, Bruce followed his gut and found himself at the belfry. Approaching a particular gargoyle. He stood there, silently, staring up at the figure while the tidal wave crashed over him all over again. Everything, all at once. "So. It really is you," he said finally, standing very still in the shadows of the belfry.

It's not what he had planned. But he already had to change some things as the years went by. It's important to be just as flexible as he was thorough. He can keep his purpose for being in Gotham separate from the Bats. His objective has shifted several times over the years — once more isn't going to kill him a second time.

So, instead of donning his usual gear, he slipped on his more inconspicuous dark red League-style fatigues. There'd be no use hiding the Pit's effects from Bruce — might as well rip the band-aid off. Alfred didn't need to know it, but keeping it from Bruce would just... well.

He's not that bright-eyed, bushy-tailed little birdie anymore. He fell from the nest and didn't get back up. He knows that Bruce and Alfred are wanting that dead little boy back. But he's not that kid anymore. He died and came back broken. And he's far from being that scrawny teenager anymore because of it. Some sort of wake up call needs to happen, before things spiral completely out of his control.

He's perched beside the gargoyle like he always used to. No mask, just Jason with a face marred by scars. There's a cigarette dangling from his mouth. An old habit that's also made a return. He glances towards Bruce when he approaches and tilts his head. Doesn't quite turn towards him fully, not yet.

The doctor had told Isabella that her odd spells would pass eventually, but she had been out of hospital for weeks now, and she still found herself getting confused or forgetting things. It had settled a little now she had Ed in her life, and she had been able to keep it from him so far, but she still walked into rooms and forgot why she was there. She still found herself drifting through life, walking to work and walking right past the front door, before realising and doubling back.

Today, she was sitting on a park bench as evening drew in, reading the open book on her lap. It was one of those wonderful books that fell open without needing to be held open, so her hands were free, and she was absentmindedly scratching at a loose piece of skin on the side of her ring finger. She felt something trickle down her finger, and tore her gaze away from the book, realising it was a thin trail of blood. She felt no pain, only a mild tingling sensation in her finger.

This is Gotham. There's really no reason for him to poke his nose in someone else's business. But before he could argue against himself much further, he breaks his stare to pull out some bandages. It's... the kind he usually keeps on him for the Alley kids, in an array of colors with cartoons on then, but they still did their job.

kill the part of you that is vulnerable