#here's one

What he can say is that on this day he was not able to wash the blood off his gloves; his military boots are tied too tight, so tight that the circulation almost stops. He has been wandering; he wanders. He’s in the Alley and it’s dark. It’s dark.

If it is indeed a Sunday, Jason cannot stand it. It feels like some kind of joke for there to be Sundays (or Mondays, or Tuesdays, or…) after everything. No, nowadays, Jason longs for something grand.

Which is why he is in Gotham at all, breathing in the ash; which is why again, he is trying to pinpoint where it all started; which is why his bag is heavy with the amount of weapons that could make for artillery for a small army.

Which is why he fights off the desire to hole up in a safehouse and sleep, despite the pressure building up in his temple and the burning in his eyes. Standing there, he thinks he could simply sit down and close his eyes, lean onto the wall.

After the cataclysm, or rather once the land was brought back to the man and the process of rebuilding the city started, the narrow passage became a dead end. Jason has walked into it before not once, and not even just twice. It was a betrayal of sorts, but it would be comfortable to pause here.

But there’s no stopping, and no falling asleep, and as he takes a step, there’s a blink and a shift, the world abruptly turning another hue. It is the first sign indicating that something is wrong; 

There is light. 

His childhood’s skies of baby blue.

_

THE PROTOCOL is to wait. 

Jason was not in the Batcave for the Powerpoint, but it was sent to all of his e-mail addresses. All of them that they could find, that is, along with a tik tok made by Booster Gold. He watched it curled up on his mattress, turning the brightness of his phone screen down; unfortunately, this did not affect Booster’s celebrity smile.

“As a civilian, there is not much you can do! And indeed, you should not do much. Getting yourself back to your time is unlikely, and even few years back the Justice League did not possess the necessary technology to assist in such cases. But worry not, someone will notice the displacement.”

“Time is a flat circle,” Booster Gold said in the video. “Or at least, you should aim to make it such.”

“And if you are not a civilian, follow your institutional recommendations.”

Jason drew- will draw, a loop on a margin of the file, propping it on the nightstand. The folder was way too thick, and the code spread from “recommendation” nr FC0.5 up to FC59, instructing, in different fonts and tones, to do nothing. 

Not reading all of that.

“Happy for you or sorry that it happened. Since when do we trust Michael on anything?” He texted Dick.

“don’t call him michael,” Dick will reply. “it’s weird!”

_

JASON FOLLOWS THROUGH with FC34 (Lose yourself in the crowd), which makes it difficult to stick to FC28 (It is unnecessary and dangerous to try to determine the exact time and date) as people push him in the direction of the high street and he finds himself standing next to a bodega. Thankfully, dogma does not speak to him these days, and so he does not feel guilty about glancing at the newspaper stand.

The headlines read “GARZONAS SEAL A DEAL IN GOTHAM,” “MAYOR THANKS THE DIPLOMATS’ FAMILY.” In the picture, the flawless cuts of their suits and polite grimaces make them seem more an assembly of wax figures than someone real. The perfect image of the idle rich that would not look out of place next to Bruce Wayne’s portrait. But he has seen them real, with all consequences that witnessing it entailed.

April 20th is the date.

The whole affair took a week, Jason realizes. His memory is good; it has always been good, so good that taking a stroll in Gotham streets felt like walking on shards of past events, feet bare. But somehow, Jason forgot it took only a week. In his mind, that single week stretched forward– Forward, forever.  

His tongue feels bitter. 

Jason is not a yes-sayer.

_

OF MANY THINGS UNFAIR, as Sundays, Tuesdays etc., the fact that the sky remained blue as Gloria Stanson died, posed as the most offensive. The little relief comes with the curtains covering the window of the bedroom, but that does not prevent the nausea curdling in Jason’s stomach at the sight he is met with when he slips into the apartment.

She is dangling. The corpse is fresh, and he notices it for the first time now. It is pale, but not gray, her face dazzlingly bright, neck unnaturally long in its brokenness. The pink lingerie exposes the litheness of her body. He should turn his eyes away, or he should not be here at all, or he should have been there earlier. He should have… There are many should haves. These are all should-haves of five years ago, but they are also should-haves of the last hour. It has not been long.

There are muffled shouts in the apartment. “Gloria? Gloria!”

There’s a tingling sensation at Jason’s back as he recognizes the youthful, vibrant pitch of the voice. It does not belong here. “Everything’s okay! Where are you?”

What Robin does not know– He will learn in a moment. Jason ducks to crawl under the bed, now only Gloria’s elegant, bare feet in his sight. He breathes in the dust. There’s a faded scent of floral perfumes in the air still, and the damp smell of the mattress above him. The door handle clicks and light slices into the room, illuminating a triangle-shaped path of the worn-out, wooden floor.

The gasp feels inappropriate, as does the faint, boyish “No.” It surprises him, Jason thinks, because a more apt reaction would be to scream. Even more apt reaction would be murder. But the only thing that follows is another weak protest. The door shuts hurriedly, as if looking could cause harm at this point.

Jason shuts his eyes, forcing them so tight that the strain makes his vision flash with colours. 

For a moment, he cannot hear anything but the pound of his own heart. Then, Batman’s voice echoes in the next room. And again, Jason realizes something he has not realized before; in that moment, Bruce is calling the morgue, asking them to come to collect the body. Doing the only thing there is left to do. 

No. It is too late to fix this. But there is something that Jason can do still, and it occurs to him that time is running out, as it always is. Robin must have departed already, and he needs to reach Felipe first. The solution is simple. It is elegant. A bullet straight to the head– The endgame almost the same, but this time with no child on the scene.

The floor creaks slightly when he pulls himself from under the bed. He slips out of the window and notices that the neons flickered to life already, and the clouds turned orange. Gotham always woke up at dusk.

At this point it must be Jason’s terrible luck that he does not manage to reach the Garzonas’ apartment before Robin does; instead, he has to follow both of them in a discreet chase, one level above, on a row of buildings that is just close enough to remain in the shooting range and comfortably finish the job. 

Felipe Garzonas ought to die, and Jason might have the promise of fate that it will happen. Still, it is not enough. 

He takes the position, identifying the right balcony. Third from the right, second from the top. He has a perfect spot. There are seconds to check the magazine; he’s not risking failure. Perhaps it's this anxiety that makes his hands tremble slightly, but he manages to reload, briefly brushing the cold, familiar bullets. 

A tall silhouette appears, barely visible against the dim, pink background of the skyline. Right after it, follows a much smaller and graceful one, a flamboyant shadow. Jason does not have time to consider how strange it is to see his own, adolescent face. He can barely make it out from the distance, but still considers it a wonder anyone would tremble seeing an angry expression on a kid who has not lost the cherubic roundness of the cheeks yet. 

This is it. This is the scene. 

Felipe is looking around frantically when his eyes wander two stories above and lock with Jason's. Huh. People rarely look up. But it is not like the man has anywhere to run to, so a wry smile tugs at Jason’s lips as he waves his hand, ready to pull the trigger. 

For a split second, Garzonas appears frozen in place, expression switching from agitation to something else– Fear, Jason realises. The man who laughed into the faces of Batman and Robin, who seemed unfettered by the piling up accusations and the threat of deportation, that pathetic piece of shit who believed himself to be untouchable, reduced to helplessness. 

And the idiot- the idiot just takes a step back.

Jason blinks. He should have expected that– he has seen it happening before, but the thud of the falling body makes him flinch, mimicking the reaction of Robin on the balcony below.

And just like that, just like he has always been, Felipe Garzonas is dead. The corpse is splattered on the ground, a familiar view that has invaded his dreamscape too many times to count, but that Robin has to move forward to take a look at. The boy approaches the edge, staring. His hands are stretching out and curling into fists; and stretching out again, the whole figure bending forward in a motion that suggests that he wants to jump himself; or maybe just to crouch down to regain balance in the vertigo of the moment. His eyes are absurdly wide.

Jason’s breath catches in his throat. 

Step away, stupid, he thinks. Step away, because Batman is almost there, beyond the corner, and he will think that...