Jason Ficathon contribution number two: The things you can't forget
The things you can't forget
By Mary (thebitterone@hotmail.com)
Summary: In an uncertain world, it is important to trust in that which remains unchangeable.
Note: the continuity for the space of time this is set within is "special" to say the least. It's impossible to combine to canon of Robin with pretty much any other title without hitting snags, and since I wanted to use specific events from both Robin and Teen Titans I've tweaked and prodded the edges wherever it's been necessary to do so. In other words: I've stolen elements of the plotline in Robin, but modified the bits which just didn't gel with wider continuity.
Another note: recently, fanfiction.net banned all second-person pieces. While I'm not great fan of ff.net, I think this is a completely ridiculous rule.
He has the same scars.
That is the most difficult thing in a litany of difficult things. There is so much that is unfamiliar about this boy - the merriment in his eyes as he goes through a kata with Stephanie, the trusting softness of his smiles, the lean gymnastic shape of his limbs, the fairness of his hair. Each of these is a small distance, a comforting disappointment. This is not the boy who died.
Except that his scars are just the same.
"Robin," you say, and both turn at the name. The boy, realizing how habit has caught him, grins and goes over to grab his water bottle.
"I'll get out of your way," he says.
"You don't have to," Stephanie protests. "He doesn't have to, does he?"
"It's cool," the boy tells her. "Alfred's gonna want to give me the third degree until he's convinced I'm not some evil alien. I shouldn't keep him waiting."
He walks to the stairs, pausing in front of the case holding Jason's uniform for a moment and giving it a long glance. Then, with a shake of his head, the boy leaves the Cave.
"This is so cool. Isn't this cool?" Stephanie says, rocking back and forth on her heels and the balls of her feet. She hasn't washed her face since coming back to the Cave, and the tear-tracks are still visible on her cheeks. That her moods are so changeable and intense troubles you, and once again you damp down on a second-guess against your decision to train her.
"I don't know that I would include 'cool' among my first responses," you answer her. "Get ready. We're going back on patrol."
"You're kidding, right? I mean, Ja-"
"The world does not stop simply because we are faced with problems of our own. There's a killer striking whole families. Get ready."
For a moment, she looks as if she wants to protest, but in the end simply nods. "Okay. You're the boss."
-
Earlier in the night, Robin had a run-in with Superboy. It left her with reduced confidence and a bad temper, and you thought it best to send her home before responding to the signal in the sky.
"If I'm the real Robin, and not just some girl playing dress-up like S-boy said," she'd said sullenly. "Then I should be coming with you."
"For you, for now, being Robin means following my orders when I give them," you reminded her. "And I'm telling you to go."
Even with the mask covering her eyes, it was obvious that she was on the verge of tears. When she left, you met with the police and discussed the recent spate of multiple murders - seven families so far, no apparent connection between them.
Based on Robin's somewhat scattered recount of the next hour of her time, it appears that this was the sequence: on her way back towards the Cave, she came across a gang fight. More specifically, a fight between a gang and a lone figure. "And it's not like I'd gone looking for trouble. I was doing what you'd told me to. Trouble found me."
She joined in the brawl, but it was all but done by that stage. The gang unconscious on the ground around them, Robin had come face to face with a male of approximately eighteen years old, blond haired and blue-eyed, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt.
"Are you... Robin?"
"Damn right I am."
You didn't have to be there to know how much of a threat those words carried. Her need to adjust, and to have the world adjust, is a heavy weight. Time will reduce these pressures, as the new becomes familiar, but for now it is the largest chink in her armor.
"Excellent. I was gonna try and get to where the Batsignal was coming from and meet you guys there, but the streets are all different and I guess I got lost."
"Wait. Slow down. Who are you?"
"Well, I'm from here, kinda. But things went really crazy and there was a big panic and scientists were being all hysterical and babbling on the television about how the world, reality, everything, was all these little cups of water. And that the one we were in was being poured back into the bucket. There were diagrams and animations, but none of it really made any sense because nobody really knew how to describe what was going on."
"What is this, the weekend of drop-as-many-freaks-on-Robin's-head-as-we-can? Not only are you from another universe, but my universe ate yours?"
"Yeah, pretty much." During this conversation, both Robin and the boy busied themselves with the removal of the gang members' concealed weaponry. Robin made a point of telling you that.
"I'd be skeptical, but with the night I'm having I just can't be bothered. Why look for me, anyway? And I still don't know what your name is."
"My name's Jason, and I've been looking for you because I used to be you. To be Robin."
"Oh my God... You were after Dick."
"Yeah." The boy sighed with relief. "I gotta tell you, I'm so glad you're being cool about this. I was worried there for a while that I was gonna have a rough time."
"Why are you you? I mean, if the water's back in the bucket, shouldn't you just turn into. I mean. I don't even know what I mean. How come you're here?"
"Do I look like a qualified expert in dimensional absorption?"
"No, but. Look. Shit. We have to go back to the Cave, and we have to get Batman back to the Cave, and I'm sorry I'm freaking out and I'm sure this is worse for you than it is for me, or it will be in a couple of minutes anyway, but I think I just hit my limit for tonight. Nothing personal."
-
You stay out until the night is all but spent, grappling with an uncertain hope that things will have miraculously righted themselves upon your return. That the boy has been revealed as an imposter despite the dna match, or perhaps simply vanished.
When you arrive, he is in the Cave, flipping and spinning in a complicated sequence across the mats.
"Hi," the boy says, landing as deftly as a cat and smiling broadly. "Where's Robin?"
"At home."
"She doesn't live here?"
"No."
He blinks. "Oh, okay. She seems really nice."
Aside from their somewhat unconventional introduction, Stephanie and the boy barely spoke to one another before heading for the workout area together. It is another small spark of sameness and difference; Jason's preferred method of getting to know someone had always been through physicality, but he would have opted for sparring over a practiced routine.
"She's proving to be a challenge."
"Because you're known for picking easy paths," the boys retorts. His absolute faith that Batman is a friend and ally is the strangest thing about him.
"You've spoken to Alfred?" you ask, pushing the cowl back from your face.
"Oh, yeah, we talked for ages. I think he's a little freaked out, which isn't really surprising, but it's okay now. He says I'm pretty different."
"Yes."
The boy looks in the direction of the case. "But that I'm kinda the same too. What does he mean?"
"Jason was a street fighter. You're an acrobat. Your muscle distribution is different. Your facial features are identical to his. Your voices match but your speech patterns do not."
"This must be weird for you." The boy rubs a hand against the back of his neck. He looks as if he wants to continue his tumbling, and is exerting a large amount of willpower to remain still.
He has pushed his sleeves up to his elbows and there is a thin white mark starting a few inches above his wrist on the right arm. Your memory throws up a series of flash images, the glint of a switchblade in the dark and the way Jason gritted his teeth and knotted a strip of cape around the cut before jumping back into the fray.
"How did you get that scar?" you ask, gesturing to it.
"What? Oh. I don't really keep track. I think that was a fight with a couple of muggers." The boy rubs at the mark thoughtfully, looking down at it. The angle causes shadows to cradle his face. "About six months before -"
Your breath catches and he looks up at you. "Before what?" you manage.
The boys chuckles. "Before I got measles, I was gonna say. But that's when I died, isn't it? When I was... what, about fifteen? A little older?"
"Jason was fifteen and two months."
"Wow. That's spooky. That's the same age I was when we decided it was time for a new Robin. That's really spooky." He shakes his head. "Makes you wonder, huh?"
"Why a new Robin?"
"I was too sick to be any use as Robin, and, well, there was this lady, and she used to send me birthday cards with twenty dollar notes in 'em when I was growing up, and I'd never really thought about her all that much. In the circus, you end up with a lot of unofficial aunts and uncles, you know? You don't wonder about why someone decides to care about you, because everyone's always doing it. Then at the same time as I was really sick, she died, and I found out that she was my birth mother."
The boy pauses, bending one leg and then the other up, stretching as a distraction from the memories the words are obviously stirring in him.
"It all just felt like a bit much," he goes on. "I'd spent so much time being Robin that when I had to face a big Jason deal without being able to suit up and forget about everything for a while it... well, it was too much. So you and I talked, and decided that I should have a couple of years to sort myself out, and then we'd see if I wanted back in the game. I let the black grow out of my hair, and you found another kid to be Robin, and that's about it. I'm in college now, but more and more it just feels like a way to pass the time. I've decided what I want to do with my life."
"This?"
His grin is bright and broad. "What else?"
The question is rhetorical, but even if it hadn't been you'd have no answer. You can't look away from him, from the small and constant movements of his arms and feet.
"Bruce, do you want me to stay in my old room tonight?" he asks, voice sounding slightly uncertain for the first time. "Until it doesn't seem so weird that I'm here? I mean, there's probably something in the human brain that stops people really being able to think about themselves being dead, but you've mourned me. That deserves some dealing time."
"Your 'old room'?"
He blinks. "Oh, right. We only changed things around last year, so it didn't have a chance to happen here. When I'm not away at school, I stay in your room."
He has Jason's mouth. Jason's hands. Jason's voice. Jason's scars.
"You can stay in my room. I need to enter tonight's events into the database. I won't be long," you tell him.
He breathes a sigh of relief and grins crookedly at you. "Okay. I'll do a bit more here until you're finished. The equipment on campus isn't nearly so good."
You nod, and turn away, and take two steps towards the consoles. Then you turn again. He's doing a handstand on the hanging rings. "It can wait," you say.
"Sure thing," he answers, dropping neatly, and smiles again. Neither of you speak as you walk up the stairs and through the manor to your room.
"This has gotta rate up there in one of my top ten weirdest days," he says as he lets himself fall back onto the mattress and toes his sneakers off. "Top three, even."
"Most would rank losing their entire world as number one," you point out, removing your uniform. Propping himself up on his elbows to watch you, the boy shrugs.
"Life is change. I'll deal. C'mere." He beckons. You move to stand beside him, watching his expressions as he works at the fastenings on your belt. Concentration and familiarity and anticipation. Heavy locks of fair hair fall forward over his eyes.
"Jason was already dyeing his hair when I met him. He thought being blond made him look too young. Too vulnerable," you say without being at all sure why. The boy's hands still on the waistband of your leggings and his gaze meets yours.
Then he slides off the bed to stand in front of you, so close that your first instinct is to take a step back.
"Bruce," he says, his breath a warm puff against your chin. "Look at me."
You look at him. There is an almost imperceptible scribble of fine white lines just below the lefthand corner of his mouth. Gravel rash, from when he was knocked off the bike. He swore as you pressed the antiseptic swab against it a lifetime ago.
"Wanna know why I'm not freaking?" he asks softly. The faint trace of his sweat on the air is making it hard for you to breathe. You could never forget that smell. "Because no matter how different the world was, I'd know you in an instant. And so long as you're here, things are okay. That's the only thing I've ever known for certain."
One of your hands moves up to rest against the side of his neck, your thumb stroking the pulse-point.
"Bruce."
He has gritted his teeth, and your name sounds almost angry on his tongue. You can feel his heartbeat through the heat of his skin. His eyes narrow in a glare.
"Bruce," he says again. "You know me."
You swallow. Your hand shakes a little as you move it up to cup his cheek. He leans into the touch and exhales against the heel of your palm, eyelids dropping so the lashes fan like dark ink etchings.
"Jason?" you manage to say, voice cracking and turning the question to a plea. His eyes flash, a smile forming on his lips. You trace its shape with your thumb. "Jason."
"Bruce." Jason reaches up to pull you down.
-
He sleeps just as he always did, with his cheek pillowed against the palm of one hand and his eyelids shifting with restless dreams. His other hand rests lightly on your abdomen and you can see the crooked angle of the smallest finger. He broke it as a young child, when a window sash came loose and fell onto it. The nail is ragged from idle biting.
"Jason," you whisper, the word like a drug to your system. You were speaking to yourself but he stirs anyway, giving you a sleepy smile as he blinks against the midday light. The curtains are open and the sunlight highlights the paleness of his skin, freckles faded to almost nothing on his shoulders and arms.
"Hi," Jason says. "Is it still morning?"
"Only just."
"G'morning, then." He sits up a little, rolling his shoulders. As he becomes more awake, his smile takes on a catlike satisfaction. He tilts his neck to one side and then the other, stretching out the cricks, gaze roaming over the room. "I've needed that for weeks. No wonder nobody expects teenagers to stay in long-distance relationships." He turns to you and his smile softens. "Are you okay? I keep forgetting, well, y'know. You're okay?"
You never did know what to say when he was near. "Yes."
"Good." He leans in for a quick kiss. You catch his forearms in your hands and hold him in place for a longer moment, and can feel his mouth widen into a smile. After a few seconds you let him go and he sits back.
"Are you hungry?" you ask. Jason sniggers.
"Are you kidding? I think I've been pining for one of Alfred's breakfasts nearly as much as I've wanted to see you. Hey, Bruce." His tone changes abruptly from joking to serious. "Did I have a journal? A notebook or something?"
"You kept a passworded folder on the computer system."
Jason nods to himself, thoughtful. "Cool. I don't..." He pauses. "I don't think I wanna see the coroner's reports or anything like that. Is that okay?"
You nod. "Of course. I wouldn't have expected you to."
"I feel like I should. But maybe the diary'll be enough. You've read it, I take it?"
You nod again. Jason grins. "I knew you'd say that." He shifts over until his thighs straddle yours, fingertips tracing random designs over your chest.
"I thought you said you wanted breakfast?" You ask with a smile of your own.
"Later. It's early yet. Lots of time."
-
"Jason."
He's sitting on the floor, police files spread in a fan of paper and crime-scene photographs around him, and doesn't look up.
"I found these. Hope you don't mind I'm looking at them."
"You finished reading the journal."
"Yeah." He still doesn't look up. "It was intense."
"I know."
"When my dad had just started seeing my mom, there was this guy who kept offering to double the amount in Dad's bank account with just a couple of nights' work. Shady stuff, you know. I worked out later, after I found out about my birth mom and all, that I must've been a tiny baby when all this happened, but when my mom used to tell me the story she never said anything about that - how could she without me finding out that I wasn't hers?
"Anyway, they're dirt poor and they've just met each other but they know it's love already and there's a little baby to think about, so what choice do they have? They went together to see the guy, my mom and dad, and on the way the car got a flat tire. They pulled over to the side of the road, and this other car pulls up to help. This is the part that made it a good enough story for Mom to tell it all the time: the car's full of clowns. Turns out the circus is in town for a couple of weeks, and it's looking for new acts. My Dad, he mentions that he was on his high school gymnastics team, and Mom can't believe it because she's been doing ballet since she was three. So they put an act together, get married, and live happily ever after.
"Dad always said it was the luckiest flat tire in the world. I guess he was right, huh?"
"I'm sorry, Jason."
He looks up at you. His eyes are red and damp, his face calm. "I feel so bad for them, you know? Even though what happened to them with Killer Croc was horrible and all, they were so happy before that. Even with that ending, it was better than this other life they could've had. Did have." He sets his jaw and blinks hard, refusing to cry. "But I guess you know what that's like, huh? Wishing so much that you could fix things for your parents, and knowing you never can."
You nod, and push some of the files out of the way so you can crouch beside him. He's trembling.
"I was really proud, reading the journal. Finding out that even when things were that awful, I still did what I could. It's comforting to know that about yourself."
You smooth his hair with your palm and let him simply breathe in and out while he collects his thoughts. He sighs, the shudder running through and out of him like grounded lightning, and picks up one of the injury reports from the police files.
"I think I've worked out the connection between these families. Look - they've all got sons between fourteen and eighteen. Dark hair, documented athletic achievement, slight build."
You look at the photographs of the victims. Jason is right. "They're hunting the old Robin."
-
Her costume is new enough for Stephanie to still enjoy the novelty of looking at herself fully suited up. She turns back and forth in front of the mirror, picking an invisible piece of lint off the shoulder of the cape.
"I want to come too."
"Are you sure?" you ask. Jason does his best not to roll his eyes too obviously.
"I wouldn't say it if I wasn't. I've got a stake in this too. All the Robins do."
"You want to be Robin again?"
Jason laughs. "I wish you could remember what happened last time we tried to pick a new name out for me. It was nuts. I'm so bad at choosing that stuff. Yeah, I guess I do want to be Robin again. Provided there's no objection." He turns to Stephanie.
"Two?" She looks thoughtful. "Yeah, okay."
"I don't want a cape," Jason tells you as you turn towards the closet area. "It's been too long since I was used to wearing one. It'd slow me down. You didn't design this with an acrobat in mind."
You hesitate. The capes contain a significant percentage of the costume's total kevlar.
"I'll be better off without it. Trust me," Jason says. His voice has softened, as if he's guessed the reason behind your hesitation, the reason for the uniform's extensive protective measures.
You nod agreement, and go to find something which will fit him.
-
By the time night falls they are both dressed and ready, warming up with a sparring match. Jason's trying to adapt to Stephanie's less controlled, wilder style, and Stephanie's doing her best to keep up with the quick precision of his movements. The result is a fascinating and fast-paced spectacle.
"If I wasn't holding back, I could kick your ass in a second," Stephanie says, jumping backwards with a yelp as Jason's foot misses her stomach by less than an inch.
"You wish," Jason retorts, barely dodging a punch to the jaw. "Keep on dreaming, I hear it's good for morale."
"Robins," you say. They both turn, obviously amused and pleased by the plural. "Let's go."
"I so would've won that."
"As if."
-
The home of Alan and Georgina Fitch and their son David is laden with expensive and ineffective security systems. While Jason and Stephanie move the boy to a secure location, you examine the possible entry points, predicting the killer's route through the rooms. The best attack will be to catch the intruder off-guard once they are in a containable space, such as David Fitch's room.
When you explain this plan to the Robins, Stephanie volunteers to hide in the now-empty bed. You agree because her plan has an element of surprise which will work in your team's favor. You and Jason will wait in an alcove opposite the door of the boy's room, in order to block the easiest exit once the killer is inside.
"Don't let the heat of the moment limit your future choices," you tell them when it's time to split up. It is the most important lesson, and the fear that they will not recognize all the things it means to teach makes your blood run cold.
Stephanie gives a playful salute. "Got it."
She thinks she understands. It'll have to be enough for now.
"It'll be fine, Bruce," Jason says, and you wish you could believe him.
As you expected, the killer enters through the plate glass window of the study. It wears full body armor and a helmet, the technology equal to that of the latest improvements on your own equipment.
It walks through the darkened house soundlessly, heading directly for the bedroom where Stephanie hides and approaching the bed.
With a feral grin, Stephanie sits up. "Boo."
The killer makes a grab for her, strength enhanced by the oil-colored armor's internal mechanisms, but Stephanie's already rolled off the side of the bed and landed in a crouch. Jason is tensed, ready to spring, but you rest your hand on his shoulder to keep him still. She'll never learn if she isn't given a chance to make some of her own mistakes.
"You're all wrong," the killer says, making another grab for Stephanie. This time the move is successful, and Stephanie is lifted up by the throat.
"Says you," Stephanie retorts between choked breaths, kicking at the point where the killer's armor plates connect. Jason shrugs your hand off his shoulder and you allow him to creep through the doorway into the bedroom. He'll know when to strike, if at all.
"You're not Robin. You're a woman. Not even that," the killer says. Stephanie bends one knee up close to her chest. "You're not very much more than a little girl."
"A girl who's going to kick your -" Stephanie gasps, striking out at the killer's helmet. The killer gives Stephanie's neck a bone-rattling shake.
"Stop that."
Jason does an easy handspring flip in close behind the two of them, striking down heavily on the arm holding Stephanie. The killer whirls, a zap of electricity arcing between two prongs on its glove as it strikes at Jason. He jumps backwards out of range, sparing a glance for Stephanie as she gulps for air.
"You're not Robin either. Hair could be dyed, but you're too tall."
"I had a growth spurt," Jason retorts, dodging another swipe and hitting the killer's ankle with a well-aimed shuriken. The blade creates a spark-edged crack in the shin plates of the armor.
"Behave, and you'll live through this. I haven't been contracted to kill either of you," the killer says, following Jason across the room. Its voice is flat and electronic, the familiar sounds of a scrambler. Telling who is underneath the armor, or even their gender, is impossible.
"You're after Robin." Stephanie is back on her feet, still gasping. "Well, here we are." There are bruises rising on the skin above her collar. The killer's attention is divided between the two of them.
"What, no banter?" Jason says, shifting his stance enough that the killer has to turn to keep him in view. "What's the point in stalking the Teen Wonder if you don't even bother with the bad jokes?"
"Neither of you are my target. We have no reason to fight." Even through the distortion, the fear in the killer's voice is obvious. Unpredictable foes are more dangerous, and Jason and Stephanie are as unpredictable as summer storms.
"You don't get it." Stephanie's voice is a hiss. "But that's okay. We'll explain."
They pounce in unison, knocking the killer down and aiming for the obvious weak points in the armor. Their suits are insulated against electrical shocks but neither Jason nor Stephanie shows any sign of remembering to protect their face or arms.
If either goes down, you'll enter the fight yourself. For now their respective weaknesses are covered by the other's strengths. Stephanie's punches to the comparatively weak covering on the killer's neck are keeping it distracted enough that Jason is able to pull the pronged glove off its hand.
They are bright and beautiful and vicious and they don't slow their attack as the killer's own strikes become less powerful. You hang back. If you halt them, they will not have to learn to stop themselves. You don't know what you'll do if they do not. They must.
The killer kicks at Jason, the shuriken still embedded in its leg slicing open his arm in a clean diagonal line above the gauntlet. He cries out at the pain and moves as if falling backwards. The killer follows the feint, and Stephanie takes the opportunity to unclasp her cape and throw it over the killer's head and arms before firing her grapple to tie the impromptu net closed.
They grin at each other, battered and victorious. You're loathe to intrude upon their moment of triumph, but it's only a handful of seconds before they both turn to face you.
"One freakazoid assassin, shrinkwrapped for your convenience," Stephanie says.
"Your throat," you say. Without the collar of the cape obscuring it, the number and severity of the bruises is shockingly evident. She makes a face.
"It hurts like hell, but I can breathe okay. Looks like it's turtlenecks for me for a couple of weeks."
"Your arm?" You turn to Jason. He has his palm pressed over the wound.
"Like Robin said, hurts like hell. I probably need a few stitches."
You send the Robins back to the Cave for first aid and make sure that adequate measures are taken to keep the killer incarcerated. Then, after retrieving David Fitch from his hiding place and taking him to the police, you head for home yourself.
Jason's standing in front of the case, looking at it with an expression you can't read. He's still wearing his costume, but has taken off the mask. You push your cowl back.
"It's all right if we keep this the way it is, isn't it?" he asks without turning. "I can see where there used to be a plaque, but I don't want you to put it back. It's better without a name. Robin's dead, long live Robin. You know?"
His shoulders have always fitted in your palms like they were made to be there. Your reflections look watery and uncolored in the glass over the empty uniform.
"How's your arm?" you ask him. He glances down at the bandage.
"It'll be okay. I know how to roll with that kinda knock, so it wasn't that deep."
"Good." You lean in, closing your eyes as you breathe the scent of him.
"You were frightened when I got hurt." It's not a question. Jason tilts his head back to rest against your shoulder.
"Yes."
"You're still frightened. I can tell."
"Yes."
He turns, and wraps his arms around your neck. The feel of the gauntlets on your skin makes you want to shiver. Jason's mouth is hot and hard against yours.
"See?" he says, endless minutes later. "I told you it would be okay."
-
Eventually, the cut on Jason's arm heals.
It leaves a scar.
By Mary (thebitterone@hotmail.com)
Summary: In an uncertain world, it is important to trust in that which remains unchangeable.
Note: the continuity for the space of time this is set within is "special" to say the least. It's impossible to combine to canon of Robin with pretty much any other title without hitting snags, and since I wanted to use specific events from both Robin and Teen Titans I've tweaked and prodded the edges wherever it's been necessary to do so. In other words: I've stolen elements of the plotline in Robin, but modified the bits which just didn't gel with wider continuity.
Another note: recently, fanfiction.net banned all second-person pieces. While I'm not great fan of ff.net, I think this is a completely ridiculous rule.
He has the same scars.
That is the most difficult thing in a litany of difficult things. There is so much that is unfamiliar about this boy - the merriment in his eyes as he goes through a kata with Stephanie, the trusting softness of his smiles, the lean gymnastic shape of his limbs, the fairness of his hair. Each of these is a small distance, a comforting disappointment. This is not the boy who died.
Except that his scars are just the same.
"Robin," you say, and both turn at the name. The boy, realizing how habit has caught him, grins and goes over to grab his water bottle.
"I'll get out of your way," he says.
"You don't have to," Stephanie protests. "He doesn't have to, does he?"
"It's cool," the boy tells her. "Alfred's gonna want to give me the third degree until he's convinced I'm not some evil alien. I shouldn't keep him waiting."
He walks to the stairs, pausing in front of the case holding Jason's uniform for a moment and giving it a long glance. Then, with a shake of his head, the boy leaves the Cave.
"This is so cool. Isn't this cool?" Stephanie says, rocking back and forth on her heels and the balls of her feet. She hasn't washed her face since coming back to the Cave, and the tear-tracks are still visible on her cheeks. That her moods are so changeable and intense troubles you, and once again you damp down on a second-guess against your decision to train her.
"I don't know that I would include 'cool' among my first responses," you answer her. "Get ready. We're going back on patrol."
"You're kidding, right? I mean, Ja-"
"The world does not stop simply because we are faced with problems of our own. There's a killer striking whole families. Get ready."
For a moment, she looks as if she wants to protest, but in the end simply nods. "Okay. You're the boss."
-
Earlier in the night, Robin had a run-in with Superboy. It left her with reduced confidence and a bad temper, and you thought it best to send her home before responding to the signal in the sky.
"If I'm the real Robin, and not just some girl playing dress-up like S-boy said," she'd said sullenly. "Then I should be coming with you."
"For you, for now, being Robin means following my orders when I give them," you reminded her. "And I'm telling you to go."
Even with the mask covering her eyes, it was obvious that she was on the verge of tears. When she left, you met with the police and discussed the recent spate of multiple murders - seven families so far, no apparent connection between them.
Based on Robin's somewhat scattered recount of the next hour of her time, it appears that this was the sequence: on her way back towards the Cave, she came across a gang fight. More specifically, a fight between a gang and a lone figure. "And it's not like I'd gone looking for trouble. I was doing what you'd told me to. Trouble found me."
She joined in the brawl, but it was all but done by that stage. The gang unconscious on the ground around them, Robin had come face to face with a male of approximately eighteen years old, blond haired and blue-eyed, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt.
"Are you... Robin?"
"Damn right I am."
You didn't have to be there to know how much of a threat those words carried. Her need to adjust, and to have the world adjust, is a heavy weight. Time will reduce these pressures, as the new becomes familiar, but for now it is the largest chink in her armor.
"Excellent. I was gonna try and get to where the Batsignal was coming from and meet you guys there, but the streets are all different and I guess I got lost."
"Wait. Slow down. Who are you?"
"Well, I'm from here, kinda. But things went really crazy and there was a big panic and scientists were being all hysterical and babbling on the television about how the world, reality, everything, was all these little cups of water. And that the one we were in was being poured back into the bucket. There were diagrams and animations, but none of it really made any sense because nobody really knew how to describe what was going on."
"What is this, the weekend of drop-as-many-freaks-on-Robin's-head-as-we-can? Not only are you from another universe, but my universe ate yours?"
"Yeah, pretty much." During this conversation, both Robin and the boy busied themselves with the removal of the gang members' concealed weaponry. Robin made a point of telling you that.
"I'd be skeptical, but with the night I'm having I just can't be bothered. Why look for me, anyway? And I still don't know what your name is."
"My name's Jason, and I've been looking for you because I used to be you. To be Robin."
"Oh my God... You were after Dick."
"Yeah." The boy sighed with relief. "I gotta tell you, I'm so glad you're being cool about this. I was worried there for a while that I was gonna have a rough time."
"Why are you you? I mean, if the water's back in the bucket, shouldn't you just turn into. I mean. I don't even know what I mean. How come you're here?"
"Do I look like a qualified expert in dimensional absorption?"
"No, but. Look. Shit. We have to go back to the Cave, and we have to get Batman back to the Cave, and I'm sorry I'm freaking out and I'm sure this is worse for you than it is for me, or it will be in a couple of minutes anyway, but I think I just hit my limit for tonight. Nothing personal."
-
You stay out until the night is all but spent, grappling with an uncertain hope that things will have miraculously righted themselves upon your return. That the boy has been revealed as an imposter despite the dna match, or perhaps simply vanished.
When you arrive, he is in the Cave, flipping and spinning in a complicated sequence across the mats.
"Hi," the boy says, landing as deftly as a cat and smiling broadly. "Where's Robin?"
"At home."
"She doesn't live here?"
"No."
He blinks. "Oh, okay. She seems really nice."
Aside from their somewhat unconventional introduction, Stephanie and the boy barely spoke to one another before heading for the workout area together. It is another small spark of sameness and difference; Jason's preferred method of getting to know someone had always been through physicality, but he would have opted for sparring over a practiced routine.
"She's proving to be a challenge."
"Because you're known for picking easy paths," the boys retorts. His absolute faith that Batman is a friend and ally is the strangest thing about him.
"You've spoken to Alfred?" you ask, pushing the cowl back from your face.
"Oh, yeah, we talked for ages. I think he's a little freaked out, which isn't really surprising, but it's okay now. He says I'm pretty different."
"Yes."
The boy looks in the direction of the case. "But that I'm kinda the same too. What does he mean?"
"Jason was a street fighter. You're an acrobat. Your muscle distribution is different. Your facial features are identical to his. Your voices match but your speech patterns do not."
"This must be weird for you." The boy rubs a hand against the back of his neck. He looks as if he wants to continue his tumbling, and is exerting a large amount of willpower to remain still.
He has pushed his sleeves up to his elbows and there is a thin white mark starting a few inches above his wrist on the right arm. Your memory throws up a series of flash images, the glint of a switchblade in the dark and the way Jason gritted his teeth and knotted a strip of cape around the cut before jumping back into the fray.
"How did you get that scar?" you ask, gesturing to it.
"What? Oh. I don't really keep track. I think that was a fight with a couple of muggers." The boy rubs at the mark thoughtfully, looking down at it. The angle causes shadows to cradle his face. "About six months before -"
Your breath catches and he looks up at you. "Before what?" you manage.
The boys chuckles. "Before I got measles, I was gonna say. But that's when I died, isn't it? When I was... what, about fifteen? A little older?"
"Jason was fifteen and two months."
"Wow. That's spooky. That's the same age I was when we decided it was time for a new Robin. That's really spooky." He shakes his head. "Makes you wonder, huh?"
"Why a new Robin?"
"I was too sick to be any use as Robin, and, well, there was this lady, and she used to send me birthday cards with twenty dollar notes in 'em when I was growing up, and I'd never really thought about her all that much. In the circus, you end up with a lot of unofficial aunts and uncles, you know? You don't wonder about why someone decides to care about you, because everyone's always doing it. Then at the same time as I was really sick, she died, and I found out that she was my birth mother."
The boy pauses, bending one leg and then the other up, stretching as a distraction from the memories the words are obviously stirring in him.
"It all just felt like a bit much," he goes on. "I'd spent so much time being Robin that when I had to face a big Jason deal without being able to suit up and forget about everything for a while it... well, it was too much. So you and I talked, and decided that I should have a couple of years to sort myself out, and then we'd see if I wanted back in the game. I let the black grow out of my hair, and you found another kid to be Robin, and that's about it. I'm in college now, but more and more it just feels like a way to pass the time. I've decided what I want to do with my life."
"This?"
His grin is bright and broad. "What else?"
The question is rhetorical, but even if it hadn't been you'd have no answer. You can't look away from him, from the small and constant movements of his arms and feet.
"Bruce, do you want me to stay in my old room tonight?" he asks, voice sounding slightly uncertain for the first time. "Until it doesn't seem so weird that I'm here? I mean, there's probably something in the human brain that stops people really being able to think about themselves being dead, but you've mourned me. That deserves some dealing time."
"Your 'old room'?"
He blinks. "Oh, right. We only changed things around last year, so it didn't have a chance to happen here. When I'm not away at school, I stay in your room."
He has Jason's mouth. Jason's hands. Jason's voice. Jason's scars.
"You can stay in my room. I need to enter tonight's events into the database. I won't be long," you tell him.
He breathes a sigh of relief and grins crookedly at you. "Okay. I'll do a bit more here until you're finished. The equipment on campus isn't nearly so good."
You nod, and turn away, and take two steps towards the consoles. Then you turn again. He's doing a handstand on the hanging rings. "It can wait," you say.
"Sure thing," he answers, dropping neatly, and smiles again. Neither of you speak as you walk up the stairs and through the manor to your room.
"This has gotta rate up there in one of my top ten weirdest days," he says as he lets himself fall back onto the mattress and toes his sneakers off. "Top three, even."
"Most would rank losing their entire world as number one," you point out, removing your uniform. Propping himself up on his elbows to watch you, the boy shrugs.
"Life is change. I'll deal. C'mere." He beckons. You move to stand beside him, watching his expressions as he works at the fastenings on your belt. Concentration and familiarity and anticipation. Heavy locks of fair hair fall forward over his eyes.
"Jason was already dyeing his hair when I met him. He thought being blond made him look too young. Too vulnerable," you say without being at all sure why. The boy's hands still on the waistband of your leggings and his gaze meets yours.
Then he slides off the bed to stand in front of you, so close that your first instinct is to take a step back.
"Bruce," he says, his breath a warm puff against your chin. "Look at me."
You look at him. There is an almost imperceptible scribble of fine white lines just below the lefthand corner of his mouth. Gravel rash, from when he was knocked off the bike. He swore as you pressed the antiseptic swab against it a lifetime ago.
"Wanna know why I'm not freaking?" he asks softly. The faint trace of his sweat on the air is making it hard for you to breathe. You could never forget that smell. "Because no matter how different the world was, I'd know you in an instant. And so long as you're here, things are okay. That's the only thing I've ever known for certain."
One of your hands moves up to rest against the side of his neck, your thumb stroking the pulse-point.
"Bruce."
He has gritted his teeth, and your name sounds almost angry on his tongue. You can feel his heartbeat through the heat of his skin. His eyes narrow in a glare.
"Bruce," he says again. "You know me."
You swallow. Your hand shakes a little as you move it up to cup his cheek. He leans into the touch and exhales against the heel of your palm, eyelids dropping so the lashes fan like dark ink etchings.
"Jason?" you manage to say, voice cracking and turning the question to a plea. His eyes flash, a smile forming on his lips. You trace its shape with your thumb. "Jason."
"Bruce." Jason reaches up to pull you down.
-
He sleeps just as he always did, with his cheek pillowed against the palm of one hand and his eyelids shifting with restless dreams. His other hand rests lightly on your abdomen and you can see the crooked angle of the smallest finger. He broke it as a young child, when a window sash came loose and fell onto it. The nail is ragged from idle biting.
"Jason," you whisper, the word like a drug to your system. You were speaking to yourself but he stirs anyway, giving you a sleepy smile as he blinks against the midday light. The curtains are open and the sunlight highlights the paleness of his skin, freckles faded to almost nothing on his shoulders and arms.
"Hi," Jason says. "Is it still morning?"
"Only just."
"G'morning, then." He sits up a little, rolling his shoulders. As he becomes more awake, his smile takes on a catlike satisfaction. He tilts his neck to one side and then the other, stretching out the cricks, gaze roaming over the room. "I've needed that for weeks. No wonder nobody expects teenagers to stay in long-distance relationships." He turns to you and his smile softens. "Are you okay? I keep forgetting, well, y'know. You're okay?"
You never did know what to say when he was near. "Yes."
"Good." He leans in for a quick kiss. You catch his forearms in your hands and hold him in place for a longer moment, and can feel his mouth widen into a smile. After a few seconds you let him go and he sits back.
"Are you hungry?" you ask. Jason sniggers.
"Are you kidding? I think I've been pining for one of Alfred's breakfasts nearly as much as I've wanted to see you. Hey, Bruce." His tone changes abruptly from joking to serious. "Did I have a journal? A notebook or something?"
"You kept a passworded folder on the computer system."
Jason nods to himself, thoughtful. "Cool. I don't..." He pauses. "I don't think I wanna see the coroner's reports or anything like that. Is that okay?"
You nod. "Of course. I wouldn't have expected you to."
"I feel like I should. But maybe the diary'll be enough. You've read it, I take it?"
You nod again. Jason grins. "I knew you'd say that." He shifts over until his thighs straddle yours, fingertips tracing random designs over your chest.
"I thought you said you wanted breakfast?" You ask with a smile of your own.
"Later. It's early yet. Lots of time."
-
"Jason."
He's sitting on the floor, police files spread in a fan of paper and crime-scene photographs around him, and doesn't look up.
"I found these. Hope you don't mind I'm looking at them."
"You finished reading the journal."
"Yeah." He still doesn't look up. "It was intense."
"I know."
"When my dad had just started seeing my mom, there was this guy who kept offering to double the amount in Dad's bank account with just a couple of nights' work. Shady stuff, you know. I worked out later, after I found out about my birth mom and all, that I must've been a tiny baby when all this happened, but when my mom used to tell me the story she never said anything about that - how could she without me finding out that I wasn't hers?
"Anyway, they're dirt poor and they've just met each other but they know it's love already and there's a little baby to think about, so what choice do they have? They went together to see the guy, my mom and dad, and on the way the car got a flat tire. They pulled over to the side of the road, and this other car pulls up to help. This is the part that made it a good enough story for Mom to tell it all the time: the car's full of clowns. Turns out the circus is in town for a couple of weeks, and it's looking for new acts. My Dad, he mentions that he was on his high school gymnastics team, and Mom can't believe it because she's been doing ballet since she was three. So they put an act together, get married, and live happily ever after.
"Dad always said it was the luckiest flat tire in the world. I guess he was right, huh?"
"I'm sorry, Jason."
He looks up at you. His eyes are red and damp, his face calm. "I feel so bad for them, you know? Even though what happened to them with Killer Croc was horrible and all, they were so happy before that. Even with that ending, it was better than this other life they could've had. Did have." He sets his jaw and blinks hard, refusing to cry. "But I guess you know what that's like, huh? Wishing so much that you could fix things for your parents, and knowing you never can."
You nod, and push some of the files out of the way so you can crouch beside him. He's trembling.
"I was really proud, reading the journal. Finding out that even when things were that awful, I still did what I could. It's comforting to know that about yourself."
You smooth his hair with your palm and let him simply breathe in and out while he collects his thoughts. He sighs, the shudder running through and out of him like grounded lightning, and picks up one of the injury reports from the police files.
"I think I've worked out the connection between these families. Look - they've all got sons between fourteen and eighteen. Dark hair, documented athletic achievement, slight build."
You look at the photographs of the victims. Jason is right. "They're hunting the old Robin."
-
Her costume is new enough for Stephanie to still enjoy the novelty of looking at herself fully suited up. She turns back and forth in front of the mirror, picking an invisible piece of lint off the shoulder of the cape.
"I want to come too."
"Are you sure?" you ask. Jason does his best not to roll his eyes too obviously.
"I wouldn't say it if I wasn't. I've got a stake in this too. All the Robins do."
"You want to be Robin again?"
Jason laughs. "I wish you could remember what happened last time we tried to pick a new name out for me. It was nuts. I'm so bad at choosing that stuff. Yeah, I guess I do want to be Robin again. Provided there's no objection." He turns to Stephanie.
"Two?" She looks thoughtful. "Yeah, okay."
"I don't want a cape," Jason tells you as you turn towards the closet area. "It's been too long since I was used to wearing one. It'd slow me down. You didn't design this with an acrobat in mind."
You hesitate. The capes contain a significant percentage of the costume's total kevlar.
"I'll be better off without it. Trust me," Jason says. His voice has softened, as if he's guessed the reason behind your hesitation, the reason for the uniform's extensive protective measures.
You nod agreement, and go to find something which will fit him.
-
By the time night falls they are both dressed and ready, warming up with a sparring match. Jason's trying to adapt to Stephanie's less controlled, wilder style, and Stephanie's doing her best to keep up with the quick precision of his movements. The result is a fascinating and fast-paced spectacle.
"If I wasn't holding back, I could kick your ass in a second," Stephanie says, jumping backwards with a yelp as Jason's foot misses her stomach by less than an inch.
"You wish," Jason retorts, barely dodging a punch to the jaw. "Keep on dreaming, I hear it's good for morale."
"Robins," you say. They both turn, obviously amused and pleased by the plural. "Let's go."
"I so would've won that."
"As if."
-
The home of Alan and Georgina Fitch and their son David is laden with expensive and ineffective security systems. While Jason and Stephanie move the boy to a secure location, you examine the possible entry points, predicting the killer's route through the rooms. The best attack will be to catch the intruder off-guard once they are in a containable space, such as David Fitch's room.
When you explain this plan to the Robins, Stephanie volunteers to hide in the now-empty bed. You agree because her plan has an element of surprise which will work in your team's favor. You and Jason will wait in an alcove opposite the door of the boy's room, in order to block the easiest exit once the killer is inside.
"Don't let the heat of the moment limit your future choices," you tell them when it's time to split up. It is the most important lesson, and the fear that they will not recognize all the things it means to teach makes your blood run cold.
Stephanie gives a playful salute. "Got it."
She thinks she understands. It'll have to be enough for now.
"It'll be fine, Bruce," Jason says, and you wish you could believe him.
As you expected, the killer enters through the plate glass window of the study. It wears full body armor and a helmet, the technology equal to that of the latest improvements on your own equipment.
It walks through the darkened house soundlessly, heading directly for the bedroom where Stephanie hides and approaching the bed.
With a feral grin, Stephanie sits up. "Boo."
The killer makes a grab for her, strength enhanced by the oil-colored armor's internal mechanisms, but Stephanie's already rolled off the side of the bed and landed in a crouch. Jason is tensed, ready to spring, but you rest your hand on his shoulder to keep him still. She'll never learn if she isn't given a chance to make some of her own mistakes.
"You're all wrong," the killer says, making another grab for Stephanie. This time the move is successful, and Stephanie is lifted up by the throat.
"Says you," Stephanie retorts between choked breaths, kicking at the point where the killer's armor plates connect. Jason shrugs your hand off his shoulder and you allow him to creep through the doorway into the bedroom. He'll know when to strike, if at all.
"You're not Robin. You're a woman. Not even that," the killer says. Stephanie bends one knee up close to her chest. "You're not very much more than a little girl."
"A girl who's going to kick your -" Stephanie gasps, striking out at the killer's helmet. The killer gives Stephanie's neck a bone-rattling shake.
"Stop that."
Jason does an easy handspring flip in close behind the two of them, striking down heavily on the arm holding Stephanie. The killer whirls, a zap of electricity arcing between two prongs on its glove as it strikes at Jason. He jumps backwards out of range, sparing a glance for Stephanie as she gulps for air.
"You're not Robin either. Hair could be dyed, but you're too tall."
"I had a growth spurt," Jason retorts, dodging another swipe and hitting the killer's ankle with a well-aimed shuriken. The blade creates a spark-edged crack in the shin plates of the armor.
"Behave, and you'll live through this. I haven't been contracted to kill either of you," the killer says, following Jason across the room. Its voice is flat and electronic, the familiar sounds of a scrambler. Telling who is underneath the armor, or even their gender, is impossible.
"You're after Robin." Stephanie is back on her feet, still gasping. "Well, here we are." There are bruises rising on the skin above her collar. The killer's attention is divided between the two of them.
"What, no banter?" Jason says, shifting his stance enough that the killer has to turn to keep him in view. "What's the point in stalking the Teen Wonder if you don't even bother with the bad jokes?"
"Neither of you are my target. We have no reason to fight." Even through the distortion, the fear in the killer's voice is obvious. Unpredictable foes are more dangerous, and Jason and Stephanie are as unpredictable as summer storms.
"You don't get it." Stephanie's voice is a hiss. "But that's okay. We'll explain."
They pounce in unison, knocking the killer down and aiming for the obvious weak points in the armor. Their suits are insulated against electrical shocks but neither Jason nor Stephanie shows any sign of remembering to protect their face or arms.
If either goes down, you'll enter the fight yourself. For now their respective weaknesses are covered by the other's strengths. Stephanie's punches to the comparatively weak covering on the killer's neck are keeping it distracted enough that Jason is able to pull the pronged glove off its hand.
They are bright and beautiful and vicious and they don't slow their attack as the killer's own strikes become less powerful. You hang back. If you halt them, they will not have to learn to stop themselves. You don't know what you'll do if they do not. They must.
The killer kicks at Jason, the shuriken still embedded in its leg slicing open his arm in a clean diagonal line above the gauntlet. He cries out at the pain and moves as if falling backwards. The killer follows the feint, and Stephanie takes the opportunity to unclasp her cape and throw it over the killer's head and arms before firing her grapple to tie the impromptu net closed.
They grin at each other, battered and victorious. You're loathe to intrude upon their moment of triumph, but it's only a handful of seconds before they both turn to face you.
"One freakazoid assassin, shrinkwrapped for your convenience," Stephanie says.
"Your throat," you say. Without the collar of the cape obscuring it, the number and severity of the bruises is shockingly evident. She makes a face.
"It hurts like hell, but I can breathe okay. Looks like it's turtlenecks for me for a couple of weeks."
"Your arm?" You turn to Jason. He has his palm pressed over the wound.
"Like Robin said, hurts like hell. I probably need a few stitches."
You send the Robins back to the Cave for first aid and make sure that adequate measures are taken to keep the killer incarcerated. Then, after retrieving David Fitch from his hiding place and taking him to the police, you head for home yourself.
Jason's standing in front of the case, looking at it with an expression you can't read. He's still wearing his costume, but has taken off the mask. You push your cowl back.
"It's all right if we keep this the way it is, isn't it?" he asks without turning. "I can see where there used to be a plaque, but I don't want you to put it back. It's better without a name. Robin's dead, long live Robin. You know?"
His shoulders have always fitted in your palms like they were made to be there. Your reflections look watery and uncolored in the glass over the empty uniform.
"How's your arm?" you ask him. He glances down at the bandage.
"It'll be okay. I know how to roll with that kinda knock, so it wasn't that deep."
"Good." You lean in, closing your eyes as you breathe the scent of him.
"You were frightened when I got hurt." It's not a question. Jason tilts his head back to rest against your shoulder.
"Yes."
"You're still frightened. I can tell."
"Yes."
He turns, and wraps his arms around your neck. The feel of the gauntlets on your skin makes you want to shiver. Jason's mouth is hot and hard against yours.
"See?" he says, endless minutes later. "I told you it would be okay."
-
Eventually, the cut on Jason's arm heals.
It leaves a scar.