Renegade Part 1: Chapter 2
Series Title: Renegade Part 1
Part Title: Becoming Nightwing
Author: cat_13145
Rating: Pg-13
Disclaimer: If I owned them, you think Battle for the Cowl would have happened?
Warnings: Character Death fic, I'm sorry, you're all probably going to hate me.
Character: Jason, Roy, the Titans.
Summary: Jason copes with Dick's death.
Part 2 Becoming Nightwing. Or Anger
The rain drummed loudly on the roof, almost drowning out the sound of the alarm. The siren's wailing woke Lian, who started to cry.
“It’s O.K. baby. It’s alright.” Roy soothed, glancing at the security monitors, blinking. His eyes had to be wrong; it couldn’t be Robin, crouched on his roof in the pouring rain.
Carefully, he made sure that Lian was safe, knocked an arrow to his bow and headed on to the roof.
His eyes hadn’t been deceived; it was Robin, but not his Robbie. The new kid,-what was his name again? Jason- was crouching on his rooftop, apparently too exhausted to go on.
“Robin?” He called softly, cos it was never a good idea to sneak up on Bats.
“Roy?” The eyes behind the green mask squinted. “What are you doing in Gotham?”
O.k. something was badly wrong. He was about to argue with the young man, when he realised that there was something wrong with his left eye. From where he was standing, he could tell it was swollen, and there was something running down one side of his mask.
“Come on in.”
He was surprised that the kid offered no protest, and followed him down into the apartment.
Lian had apparently gone back to sleep as soon as the alarm had gone off, for which he was grateful. Especially when he turned to look at Jason.
The kid’s left eye was swollen, making it almost impossible for him to open it. Above the eye, just where it met the mask, a long cut bisected the kid’s eyebrow.
The flesh coloured tights that ran down from the Panties were torn, the skin underneath them covered with grazes and abrasions. He was soaked to the skin and shivering.
A hot bath, dry clothes, cleaning up the wounds and a bed for the night were what the kid needed. The first was soon in motion and the second proved surprisingly easy. Despite been nearly eight years younger than Roy, they were virtually the same height. He wasn’t sure if that made him a short ass or Robin large for his age.
Carefully, he dug in his drawers locating some sweats.
“Here.” He said, “Hit the shower, then put these on.”
Jason paused, blinking up at him.
“We’re not in Gotham.”
Roy shook his head. “Reason why they call your boss the World’s greatest detective. You’re in Star City kiddo.”
Something, and he wasn’t sure what, passed over the kid’s face at the mention of Batman.
“I should go back, they’ll be worried.”
Roy held out a hand.
“Kid, it’s four in the morning. You’re soaked to skin and hurt. Go swinging around in this weather and you’ll catch pneumonia.” He watched as the logic of this ran across the kid’s face.
“I’ll call Oracle, tell her to let them know you’re O.K., and you can set off back to Gotham at a resemble hour.”
He expected an argument, but the kid nodded slowly and headed towards the bathroom.
Frowning slightly at the odd behaviour, Roy headed for the kitchen. A hot drink would help avoid the worst effects of the weather.
He knew things hadn’t been easy for the kid since Dick’s death. He hadn’t seen either the kid or Batman since the funeral, but he’d heard the rumours.
How Bruce had broken down at the hospital, after seeing Dick’s body. How he’d been virtually Cationic for nearly three weeks, only going out for patrol, with the intentions as far as anyone could tell of getting himself killed. Alfred had had to make all the arrangements for the funeral.
For the little he had heard regarding the kid, Jason had had to be the strong one, keeping Bruce alive and Alfred together, while trying to deal with his own pain. It can’t have been easy, especially with the rumours he’d heard from the JLA about how much more brutal the Bat was getting...
Roy dropped the mug. It fell crashing to the floor, but he barely heard it. The facts all suddenly added up.
Jason turning up on his roof, cold, tired and injured. He was the only Titan he’d had any contact for any great period. The strange look on his face when he mentioned Bruce, the lack of fight about his staying here.
He was outside the bathroom door, his hands on the knob, when he paused. That wouldn’t work, he’d have to wait.
Slowly, he backed off and waited for the sound of the shower to stop, and Jason to head out.
Jason had pulled on his sweats, and sat down on the couch, his head hanging.
Roy sat down on the chair, sensing somehow that he shouldn’t sit next to Jason.
“Jason.” He said, softly. “What happened to you?”
The blue eyes stared back at him, furious. “Nuthin”
“”Nuthin” Doesn’t leave you with a black eye and a cut eyebrow. And it doesn’t leave you in Star City without a clue how you got there.”
Jason’s eyes remained on his lap.
“Jason.” Roy hated himself for doing this, but he had to know. “Did Bruce cause this?” he reached out and touched the skin around eye, wincing, as the kid did so.
“He didn’t mean it.” Jason’s voice wasn’t much above a whisper. “It was my own stupid fault.”
Roy felt his temper rising.
“The guy hits you hard enough to give you a black eye and a cut that needs snitches.” He suddenly realised that despite his plans to the contrary, the cut is still bleeding. Quickly he hands over a cloth. “Here. Keep pressure on it.” The kid obeyed. “You want to tell me how that’s your fault?”
Jason’s hands pushed the cloth against his eyebrow, shrugging as he did so.
“He was taking down a bad guy. I got in the way.”
Roy wasn’t sure what terrorized him most, the action itself or the matter of fact way that Jason said it.
“What had this guy done?” He asked, hating himself for wishing it was drugs or rape, or something like that to justify the force that must have been involved.
Jason shrugged. “Graffiti I think.”
Graffiti! Roy forced himself to stay calm. Something was definitely wrong with the kid, but with a cut eyebrow, a black eye and both of them almost dead from exhaustion at 4 am, he wasn’t going to get it out of him now.
Carefully he put butterflies over the cut. He’d been right, it really needed stitches, but he knew from experience that he didn’t stand a hope in hell of getting this kid to an emergency room.
There was nothing he could do about the eye, except pass a bag of frozen vegetables over, and the legs were dealt with quickly.
Slowly, he showed Jason to the guest room, promising to call Oracle. It was as he stood in the door that the idea occurred to him.
“How you’d like to come to Titan’s Tower this weekend?”
The blue eyes blinked incomprehensively at him.
“I’m not a Titan.”
Roy smiled. “The little lady in my room might say different.” He sighed. “Look, just look at it as a break, alright? I know you bats. you’re too godam serious.”
“Not according to Bruce.” the face was creased in a frown, and Roy added.
“It’ll be O.K.” though he wasn’t sure of that.
“Look, just promise me you’ll give it some thought.” He planned to get Oracle (and through her Alfred) on side. Jason and Bruce needed some time apart and this was the only way he could come up with.
“O.K.” Jason was clearly eager for him to leave, and he did so, shutting the door behind him.
Once in the corridor, he called Oracle and let her know where the wayward Robin was. After that he paused.
“Hey, O, what can you tell me about Jason’s past?”
*
Jason had come that weekend, and most weekends since. Usually he arrived about noon on Sunday, and left on Monday in time for school.
The little he said, or rather didn’t say, told Roy that things weren’t improving between him and Bruce, and it made Roy glad that the kid had somewhere to retreat.
Even if occasionally some idiot would call him Dick.
After these weekends, Roy couldn’t see how anyone could think they were similar.
Dick’s hair had been midnight black, while Jason’s was a very dark shade of Brown.
Dick was fairly open and honest; telling you what was going on in his life (once he’d got over the bat educed paranoia). With Jason you had to read between the lines.
Both loved fighting, but for different reasons. Dick loved the physical contact that came with it, where as Jason loved fighting for the sheer hell of it.
Jason’s accent was pure Gotham, where as despite school’s best efforts, Dick had never lost the Romany twang.
Dick was sunlight, but Jason was a volcano, all passion and fury that seemed ready to explode in a moment.
Dick’s motivation for his involvement in this had always been love of Bruce. Jason on the other hand... there was a fire, a passion, a love in his eyes and his voice when he spoke about Gotham, spoke about protecting her people. The only person who he’d ever met who sounded like that was Bruce.
Maybe that was the root of the problems between him and the Robins. Dick was too different, Jason was too similar.
But the biggest difference, in his opinion between Dick and Jason, was that he’d been too caught up in his own shit to save Dick. That, he vowed, watching Jason shovelling down breakfast before Alfred arrived, wouldn’t happen this time.
*
He could hear what was going on, long before he reached Jason’s room. Most of the Titans were gathered around the door, apparently trying to get up the courage to knock. He glanced at Raven, who shrugged.
“He is very angry. And in pain.” She said, as though the noise from the room wasn’t a hint enough.
Sighing, he placed a hand on the door, “Jason. It's me, Roy Harper. Can I come in?”
There was no response, except for the continuing sounds of things breaking.
Roy breathed deeply, praying that Jason hadn’t locked the door, and thankful for all the times he’d sparred with Dick, and that he was an archer with good upper body strength. He placed his hand on the door knob. It turned easily and he stepped in.
Jason’s room always looked like a hurricane had hit it, but today it looked more like a nuclear explosion had happened. Everything that wasn’t nailed down seemed to have overturned on to the floor.
All the papers, clothes and anything that had been inside the furniture were covering the carpet.
In the middle of it all, Jason stood raging. He flung himself at the walls, fists flaying.
Breathing deeply, Roy moved and grabbed Jason. The screams grew worse and worse.
Keeping his voice calm, he repeated. “Jason. I’m not going to let you hurt yourself.”
“Fuck off! Let Me Go!”
“I’ll let you go, when you calm down.”
The moments passed, while Jason’s curses and blows slowed down. The screams eventually reduced to whimpers and the whimpers to sobs.
Roy nodded, to let the rest of the Titans know that it was O.k. and held the sobbing Jason against him, enjoying the few moments before Jason would pull himself together and pull away. He admitted it, he missed hugging Dick.
“You wanna tell me what this's all about?” he asked softly. Jason sniffled and pointed to three bits of paper on the floor.
Roy leant over and picked them up. The first was a formal letter address to Jason, letting him know about the death of a Sheila Haywood, aid worker from Ethiopia. According to the letter, she had been killed in a terrorist explosion. The letter said that she had left a letter to be delivered to Jason in the event of her death.
The second and third pieces were the letter. Roy glanced at Jason to check he was O.K with him reading, but the second Robin seemed grateful, despite the letter being highly personal.
It was the last brutal words of a woman who knew she was about to die. A woman who’d made a deal with the devil.
She was honest, about the illegal operations on teenager girls, about her relationship with a married man, about the adoption, and about her dealings with the Joker. She’d known what she was getting herself into and she’d refused to hide.
Briefly Roy wandered which was hurting the small broken bird worse.
“Why?” it was so low that he almost didn’t hear him.
Why this woman had got into an alliance with the Joker? That he never know. Why she gave up her baby when he was only a few hours old? That he didn’t know either, he could never imagine giving up Lian.
But he did think he could say something that might help.
“When I first went to live with Ollie,” he said, slowly. “I called the Navajo my people.” He smiled slightly. “Bit weird, given that there aren’t that many Navajo with red hair.”
Jason sniffed.
“It created a lot of problems at school. They erumm, they’d make Red Indian noises at me.” He paused. “I still think of them as my people, despite of everything and Brave Boy as my father.” He put his head on one side. “A Wiseman once told me that family’s what you make it. And” He added. “I know something else.”
“What?” Jason asked, wiping his nose on his sleeve.
“She must have really loved you.” At Jason’s confused expression, he expanded. “She was arrested and thrown out of Gotham for performing illegal abortions, right?”
“It’s what the letter says.”
“Then if she hadn’t wanted you, she could have got rid of you. So she must have wanted you.”
“So why she'd give me up?”
Roy shrugged. “Why did Cheshire give Lian to me? She must have thought that she was giving you a chance at a better life.”
He didn’t add that from the little Oracle had been able to find out about Jason’s life before Robin, she had probably being wrong. Well, he thought as he hugged the sobbing robin to him, none of us are perfect.
“You want me to call Bruce or Alfred?”
Jason shook his head. “They don’t know.” The blue eyes, rimmed with red, rested on Roy, a challenge written into them.
“They won’t hear it from me,” Roy promised silently. “And neither will the rest of the Titans.”
Dinah might, but experience taught him he could rely on Dinah to keep her mouth shut.
“Thanks.” It was muttered so low that he had hardly heard it. And he knew he had no chance of getting him to repeat it.
He nodded. “You want some help cleaning up?”
At the shaken head, he got up.
“Just remember, little Wing, Titans together. You don’t have to go through this alone.”
Jason nodded vigorously, though Roy suspect that was simply to get him to leave.
“See you later short Pants.” He noticed the faint wince on Jason’s face, before the response came.
“Bye Arrow breath.”
*
The room was in darkness when he entered.
Robin had arrived at the Tower earlier than usual and had been spoiling for a fight all day. As a result Roy had suggested a training session that afternoon, figuring that if the kid wanted, needed, to beat someone up, it might as well be in the confines of a sparring exercise.
But Robin hadn’t shown up.
The costume lay on the bed, its bright colours looking garish against the cover. His heart was in his mouth, as he looked around.
“I can’t do it.” The voice came from the chair, and he turned to see Jason coiled up there, hugging himself. “I can’t go on.”
Roy slowly lowered himself on to the floor.
“So what you’re going to do?” he asked. Jason shrugged.
“I don’t know. I just know I can’t be Robin anymore.”
There was a pause.
“Do you want it all to stop?” Roy asked uncertainly. The dark curls moved vigorously.
“No. I just can’t be Robin any more.”
“You have any idea who you want to be?”
There was a pause, before the head nodded. Roy had a pretty good idea of who he wanted to be too.
“Can I help?” He asked, expecting a fairly firm No.
“Yeah.” Robin had pulled himself off the chair, his face determined. “Can you contact Superman for me?”
*
He breathed deeply and got to his feet.
This was it. Roy had offered to be there, for this, but he had refused. This was something he had to on his own.
He had redesigned the costume, there was more black in it than the original, and the mask was a domino, but it was still obvious.
Slowly, he stepped out into the cave. Batman was at the computer. He turned around at his entrance.
“Robin.” He began.
“Not Robin.” He said, firmly. “Call me Nightwing.”
Part Title: Becoming Nightwing
Author: cat_13145
Rating: Pg-13
Disclaimer: If I owned them, you think Battle for the Cowl would have happened?
Warnings: Character Death fic, I'm sorry, you're all probably going to hate me.
Character: Jason, Roy, the Titans.
Summary: Jason copes with Dick's death.
Part 2 Becoming Nightwing. Or Anger
The rain drummed loudly on the roof, almost drowning out the sound of the alarm. The siren's wailing woke Lian, who started to cry.
“It’s O.K. baby. It’s alright.” Roy soothed, glancing at the security monitors, blinking. His eyes had to be wrong; it couldn’t be Robin, crouched on his roof in the pouring rain.
Carefully, he made sure that Lian was safe, knocked an arrow to his bow and headed on to the roof.
His eyes hadn’t been deceived; it was Robin, but not his Robbie. The new kid,-what was his name again? Jason- was crouching on his rooftop, apparently too exhausted to go on.
“Robin?” He called softly, cos it was never a good idea to sneak up on Bats.
“Roy?” The eyes behind the green mask squinted. “What are you doing in Gotham?”
O.k. something was badly wrong. He was about to argue with the young man, when he realised that there was something wrong with his left eye. From where he was standing, he could tell it was swollen, and there was something running down one side of his mask.
“Come on in.”
He was surprised that the kid offered no protest, and followed him down into the apartment.
Lian had apparently gone back to sleep as soon as the alarm had gone off, for which he was grateful. Especially when he turned to look at Jason.
The kid’s left eye was swollen, making it almost impossible for him to open it. Above the eye, just where it met the mask, a long cut bisected the kid’s eyebrow.
The flesh coloured tights that ran down from the Panties were torn, the skin underneath them covered with grazes and abrasions. He was soaked to the skin and shivering.
A hot bath, dry clothes, cleaning up the wounds and a bed for the night were what the kid needed. The first was soon in motion and the second proved surprisingly easy. Despite been nearly eight years younger than Roy, they were virtually the same height. He wasn’t sure if that made him a short ass or Robin large for his age.
Carefully, he dug in his drawers locating some sweats.
“Here.” He said, “Hit the shower, then put these on.”
Jason paused, blinking up at him.
“We’re not in Gotham.”
Roy shook his head. “Reason why they call your boss the World’s greatest detective. You’re in Star City kiddo.”
Something, and he wasn’t sure what, passed over the kid’s face at the mention of Batman.
“I should go back, they’ll be worried.”
Roy held out a hand.
“Kid, it’s four in the morning. You’re soaked to skin and hurt. Go swinging around in this weather and you’ll catch pneumonia.” He watched as the logic of this ran across the kid’s face.
“I’ll call Oracle, tell her to let them know you’re O.K., and you can set off back to Gotham at a resemble hour.”
He expected an argument, but the kid nodded slowly and headed towards the bathroom.
Frowning slightly at the odd behaviour, Roy headed for the kitchen. A hot drink would help avoid the worst effects of the weather.
He knew things hadn’t been easy for the kid since Dick’s death. He hadn’t seen either the kid or Batman since the funeral, but he’d heard the rumours.
How Bruce had broken down at the hospital, after seeing Dick’s body. How he’d been virtually Cationic for nearly three weeks, only going out for patrol, with the intentions as far as anyone could tell of getting himself killed. Alfred had had to make all the arrangements for the funeral.
For the little he had heard regarding the kid, Jason had had to be the strong one, keeping Bruce alive and Alfred together, while trying to deal with his own pain. It can’t have been easy, especially with the rumours he’d heard from the JLA about how much more brutal the Bat was getting...
Roy dropped the mug. It fell crashing to the floor, but he barely heard it. The facts all suddenly added up.
Jason turning up on his roof, cold, tired and injured. He was the only Titan he’d had any contact for any great period. The strange look on his face when he mentioned Bruce, the lack of fight about his staying here.
He was outside the bathroom door, his hands on the knob, when he paused. That wouldn’t work, he’d have to wait.
Slowly, he backed off and waited for the sound of the shower to stop, and Jason to head out.
Jason had pulled on his sweats, and sat down on the couch, his head hanging.
Roy sat down on the chair, sensing somehow that he shouldn’t sit next to Jason.
“Jason.” He said, softly. “What happened to you?”
The blue eyes stared back at him, furious. “Nuthin”
“”Nuthin” Doesn’t leave you with a black eye and a cut eyebrow. And it doesn’t leave you in Star City without a clue how you got there.”
Jason’s eyes remained on his lap.
“Jason.” Roy hated himself for doing this, but he had to know. “Did Bruce cause this?” he reached out and touched the skin around eye, wincing, as the kid did so.
“He didn’t mean it.” Jason’s voice wasn’t much above a whisper. “It was my own stupid fault.”
Roy felt his temper rising.
“The guy hits you hard enough to give you a black eye and a cut that needs snitches.” He suddenly realised that despite his plans to the contrary, the cut is still bleeding. Quickly he hands over a cloth. “Here. Keep pressure on it.” The kid obeyed. “You want to tell me how that’s your fault?”
Jason’s hands pushed the cloth against his eyebrow, shrugging as he did so.
“He was taking down a bad guy. I got in the way.”
Roy wasn’t sure what terrorized him most, the action itself or the matter of fact way that Jason said it.
“What had this guy done?” He asked, hating himself for wishing it was drugs or rape, or something like that to justify the force that must have been involved.
Jason shrugged. “Graffiti I think.”
Graffiti! Roy forced himself to stay calm. Something was definitely wrong with the kid, but with a cut eyebrow, a black eye and both of them almost dead from exhaustion at 4 am, he wasn’t going to get it out of him now.
Carefully he put butterflies over the cut. He’d been right, it really needed stitches, but he knew from experience that he didn’t stand a hope in hell of getting this kid to an emergency room.
There was nothing he could do about the eye, except pass a bag of frozen vegetables over, and the legs were dealt with quickly.
Slowly, he showed Jason to the guest room, promising to call Oracle. It was as he stood in the door that the idea occurred to him.
“How you’d like to come to Titan’s Tower this weekend?”
The blue eyes blinked incomprehensively at him.
“I’m not a Titan.”
Roy smiled. “The little lady in my room might say different.” He sighed. “Look, just look at it as a break, alright? I know you bats. you’re too godam serious.”
“Not according to Bruce.” the face was creased in a frown, and Roy added.
“It’ll be O.K.” though he wasn’t sure of that.
“Look, just promise me you’ll give it some thought.” He planned to get Oracle (and through her Alfred) on side. Jason and Bruce needed some time apart and this was the only way he could come up with.
“O.K.” Jason was clearly eager for him to leave, and he did so, shutting the door behind him.
Once in the corridor, he called Oracle and let her know where the wayward Robin was. After that he paused.
“Hey, O, what can you tell me about Jason’s past?”
*
Jason had come that weekend, and most weekends since. Usually he arrived about noon on Sunday, and left on Monday in time for school.
The little he said, or rather didn’t say, told Roy that things weren’t improving between him and Bruce, and it made Roy glad that the kid had somewhere to retreat.
Even if occasionally some idiot would call him Dick.
After these weekends, Roy couldn’t see how anyone could think they were similar.
Dick’s hair had been midnight black, while Jason’s was a very dark shade of Brown.
Dick was fairly open and honest; telling you what was going on in his life (once he’d got over the bat educed paranoia). With Jason you had to read between the lines.
Both loved fighting, but for different reasons. Dick loved the physical contact that came with it, where as Jason loved fighting for the sheer hell of it.
Jason’s accent was pure Gotham, where as despite school’s best efforts, Dick had never lost the Romany twang.
Dick was sunlight, but Jason was a volcano, all passion and fury that seemed ready to explode in a moment.
Dick’s motivation for his involvement in this had always been love of Bruce. Jason on the other hand... there was a fire, a passion, a love in his eyes and his voice when he spoke about Gotham, spoke about protecting her people. The only person who he’d ever met who sounded like that was Bruce.
Maybe that was the root of the problems between him and the Robins. Dick was too different, Jason was too similar.
But the biggest difference, in his opinion between Dick and Jason, was that he’d been too caught up in his own shit to save Dick. That, he vowed, watching Jason shovelling down breakfast before Alfred arrived, wouldn’t happen this time.
*
He could hear what was going on, long before he reached Jason’s room. Most of the Titans were gathered around the door, apparently trying to get up the courage to knock. He glanced at Raven, who shrugged.
“He is very angry. And in pain.” She said, as though the noise from the room wasn’t a hint enough.
Sighing, he placed a hand on the door, “Jason. It's me, Roy Harper. Can I come in?”
There was no response, except for the continuing sounds of things breaking.
Roy breathed deeply, praying that Jason hadn’t locked the door, and thankful for all the times he’d sparred with Dick, and that he was an archer with good upper body strength. He placed his hand on the door knob. It turned easily and he stepped in.
Jason’s room always looked like a hurricane had hit it, but today it looked more like a nuclear explosion had happened. Everything that wasn’t nailed down seemed to have overturned on to the floor.
All the papers, clothes and anything that had been inside the furniture were covering the carpet.
In the middle of it all, Jason stood raging. He flung himself at the walls, fists flaying.
Breathing deeply, Roy moved and grabbed Jason. The screams grew worse and worse.
Keeping his voice calm, he repeated. “Jason. I’m not going to let you hurt yourself.”
“Fuck off! Let Me Go!”
“I’ll let you go, when you calm down.”
The moments passed, while Jason’s curses and blows slowed down. The screams eventually reduced to whimpers and the whimpers to sobs.
Roy nodded, to let the rest of the Titans know that it was O.k. and held the sobbing Jason against him, enjoying the few moments before Jason would pull himself together and pull away. He admitted it, he missed hugging Dick.
“You wanna tell me what this's all about?” he asked softly. Jason sniffled and pointed to three bits of paper on the floor.
Roy leant over and picked them up. The first was a formal letter address to Jason, letting him know about the death of a Sheila Haywood, aid worker from Ethiopia. According to the letter, she had been killed in a terrorist explosion. The letter said that she had left a letter to be delivered to Jason in the event of her death.
The second and third pieces were the letter. Roy glanced at Jason to check he was O.K with him reading, but the second Robin seemed grateful, despite the letter being highly personal.
It was the last brutal words of a woman who knew she was about to die. A woman who’d made a deal with the devil.
She was honest, about the illegal operations on teenager girls, about her relationship with a married man, about the adoption, and about her dealings with the Joker. She’d known what she was getting herself into and she’d refused to hide.
Briefly Roy wandered which was hurting the small broken bird worse.
“Why?” it was so low that he almost didn’t hear him.
Why this woman had got into an alliance with the Joker? That he never know. Why she gave up her baby when he was only a few hours old? That he didn’t know either, he could never imagine giving up Lian.
But he did think he could say something that might help.
“When I first went to live with Ollie,” he said, slowly. “I called the Navajo my people.” He smiled slightly. “Bit weird, given that there aren’t that many Navajo with red hair.”
Jason sniffed.
“It created a lot of problems at school. They erumm, they’d make Red Indian noises at me.” He paused. “I still think of them as my people, despite of everything and Brave Boy as my father.” He put his head on one side. “A Wiseman once told me that family’s what you make it. And” He added. “I know something else.”
“What?” Jason asked, wiping his nose on his sleeve.
“She must have really loved you.” At Jason’s confused expression, he expanded. “She was arrested and thrown out of Gotham for performing illegal abortions, right?”
“It’s what the letter says.”
“Then if she hadn’t wanted you, she could have got rid of you. So she must have wanted you.”
“So why she'd give me up?”
Roy shrugged. “Why did Cheshire give Lian to me? She must have thought that she was giving you a chance at a better life.”
He didn’t add that from the little Oracle had been able to find out about Jason’s life before Robin, she had probably being wrong. Well, he thought as he hugged the sobbing robin to him, none of us are perfect.
“You want me to call Bruce or Alfred?”
Jason shook his head. “They don’t know.” The blue eyes, rimmed with red, rested on Roy, a challenge written into them.
“They won’t hear it from me,” Roy promised silently. “And neither will the rest of the Titans.”
Dinah might, but experience taught him he could rely on Dinah to keep her mouth shut.
“Thanks.” It was muttered so low that he had hardly heard it. And he knew he had no chance of getting him to repeat it.
He nodded. “You want some help cleaning up?”
At the shaken head, he got up.
“Just remember, little Wing, Titans together. You don’t have to go through this alone.”
Jason nodded vigorously, though Roy suspect that was simply to get him to leave.
“See you later short Pants.” He noticed the faint wince on Jason’s face, before the response came.
“Bye Arrow breath.”
*
The room was in darkness when he entered.
Robin had arrived at the Tower earlier than usual and had been spoiling for a fight all day. As a result Roy had suggested a training session that afternoon, figuring that if the kid wanted, needed, to beat someone up, it might as well be in the confines of a sparring exercise.
But Robin hadn’t shown up.
The costume lay on the bed, its bright colours looking garish against the cover. His heart was in his mouth, as he looked around.
“I can’t do it.” The voice came from the chair, and he turned to see Jason coiled up there, hugging himself. “I can’t go on.”
Roy slowly lowered himself on to the floor.
“So what you’re going to do?” he asked. Jason shrugged.
“I don’t know. I just know I can’t be Robin anymore.”
There was a pause.
“Do you want it all to stop?” Roy asked uncertainly. The dark curls moved vigorously.
“No. I just can’t be Robin any more.”
“You have any idea who you want to be?”
There was a pause, before the head nodded. Roy had a pretty good idea of who he wanted to be too.
“Can I help?” He asked, expecting a fairly firm No.
“Yeah.” Robin had pulled himself off the chair, his face determined. “Can you contact Superman for me?”
*
He breathed deeply and got to his feet.
This was it. Roy had offered to be there, for this, but he had refused. This was something he had to on his own.
He had redesigned the costume, there was more black in it than the original, and the mask was a domino, but it was still obvious.
Slowly, he stepped out into the cave. Batman was at the computer. He turned around at his entrance.
“Robin.” He began.
“Not Robin.” He said, firmly. “Call me Nightwing.”