Hello everyone! Welcome back! I swear I'm still planning on answering everyone's reviews, but I've worked every day since I got back home, and won't have a day off again for... *calculates* four more days. That should be the day I get around to it, unless I come home miraculously not tired.

The warnings for this chapter are: Jason theorizing about some unpleasantness, and being a bit of a dick. Really, that's it. We'll get into the nastier stuff as this goes on (but also the happier stuff!). Enjoy!

Morning comes, eventually. The first hint is the slow relief of the darkness in the kid's room, and the actual morning light finally spills in through the open door about an hour and a half later. Slow; the kid's room must be at an angle where the light doesn't immediately reach it. Lucky little bastard, I still remember the giant windows in the bedrooms at the manor. If you were really lucky, and knew the corner to sleep in, you could probably avoid light in your eyes for about ten minutes. Alfred had this awful habit of opening the curtains in the middle of the night, too, so there was no way to escape.

Part of the old man's eternal quest to make all of us get up before it hit noon. It worked sometimes, if we weren't dead enough to the world to ignore the light, or stubborn enough to bury our heads underneath the pillows.

Guess I should correct myself; it worked on Bruce.

Hypocritical, arrogant, old, bastard. I've never wanted to kill him as much as I did last night, and I have dreamed about, fantasized, and nearly tasted that particular murder before. God, how can he not see the shit he pulls, and if he does see it how the hell does he live with himself? This kid, Terry, seems like a decent guy. He doesn't like Bruce's bullshit, for one, which instantly kicks him up a notch in my eyes, but he trusts way too quickly, he's got no poker face, and he can't lie worth a damn. Everything he feels is on display, totally obvious to anyone who knows a damn thing about reading expressions.

Worse, but not his fault, he's not trained and is lacking the basic instincts of a vigilante — not talent, he's got that, but he doesn't have the automatic reactions of someone who knows what they're doing, and his pain tolerance is… average.

Either the world has seriously eased up on its standard of supervillains, or the kid's going to die before the year is out. And Bruce isn't fixing it. I understand him putting another kid in the field — I hate it, but I understand it — and I get him being his usual arrogant bastard self, but throwing the kid out there when he's so obviously not trained for it? I don't understand that.

The Bruce I knew would never put a kid in the field that couldn't hold their own, especially without him there to watch their backs. Where the hell was the point where Bruce either stopped caring if his wards died, or gave up on the idea that they wouldn't? What the hell happened between my time and this one? None of this is right, it all screams bad and wrong and just intrinsically not right, and I hate not knowing why it's like that. Forewarned is forearmed, and information and preparation will keep you alive where nothing else will. This feels like being stuck in sensory deprivation, where all I know is whatever I can feel on my skin.

Damn all of this.

I poke the kid awake on the hour mark, ignoring his snarling grumbles and the swat of hands in my general direction with ease. I've done this for every other Bat except the little demon and the old bastard himself, and Tim might sleep like the dead but Dick's got nastier reactions to people shaking him awake. The girls were even worse. Barbs wasn't so bad most of the time, so long as you stripped the bed of weapons first, but Cass and Steph? Never, ever again. Learned that lesson, thanks.

Hourly duty done, the kid back asleep, and my time cleared for another hour, I push my way to my feet and head out into the rest of the apartment. I've already moved and burned the car — no sense letting the kid's blood lead anyone back to me — explored the rest of the apartment, cleaned up when I got really bored, and caught enough sleep between the gaps that I'm really not tired. Besides, being awake at dawn either makes me really tired for no reason, or really antsy. Right now the second one is hitting full force.

It's not worth the risk heading out into the city, nevermind the fact that I could only go as far out as half an hour will take me, and I've got no idea how persistently Bruce is tracking me, or with how advanced a method. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that he already knows I'm at his latest kid's home. Wonder if he'll come around spitting threats at me, or do something more drastic like sending the cops in?

No, Bruce would never call the cops on me. If nothing else, he knows I won't let myself get caught, and a lot of them would get hurt for trying. I'm a little better than killing cops, most of the time, but accidents happen, and sometimes people don't get the care they need as fast as they need it. That's not my fault.

Pretty sure that even with how different and wrong this Bruce is from mine, he wouldn't put civilians on the line like that. Especially not after he gets the report of those gang members that I took down, which will be a real obvious clue that I'm pissed and not in the mood to be messed with. It might even help that apparently I'm the equivalent of Satan or something in the future, and Bruce thinks I'm capable and even inclined to things a whole lot worse than I actually am.

Either something really seriously awful happened, or I got driven insane by something. Not far to go, to be fair, but I've pretty much tamped down the pit madness. It's not an issue anymore.

Maybe someone threw me back into the Pit, or mind controlled me, or something else as decidedly fucked up. That, or Bruce did something so absurdly stupid and frustrating that I snapped and went after the Bats again. That, I can totally imagine. Bruce does stupid shit all the time, and most of it I try and ignore but every once in awhile I have to fight back the urge to go scream in his face and try to strangle him. Usually I just bury myself in Roy and Kori until the urge goes away, and if I'm nastier or more short tempered than usual, they let it go.

Roy, at least, knows what it's like to have a disapproving father figure. Though, most of the time, I don't think Roy wants to kill Oliver. Yell at him, sure, or get whatever pound of flesh he's due, but not kill him. Roy's better than that. I'm not.

I need a smoke.

I head to the window in the kid's living room and pull it open, ditching the holster on my left thigh to the ground before I swing that leg outside and press my back against the frame. The fresh air — well, fresh as city air can be — feels good, and I take a deep breath of it and angle my head so the sun isn't directly in my eyes, watching the streets below me. This Gotham is a lot cleaner, even though I'm pretty sure 'cleaner' just means they paved over the things they didn't like. But it's strange, wrong like Bruce, and the kid, and everything else about this future.

For one thing, the civilians have totally lost all sense of how to deal with villains. What the hell happened to the Gotham-wise people who treated hostage situations and criminals in the streets like an everyday thing? When did they stop behaving like that was normal? Where the hell are the criminals, for that matter?

Alright, Bruce's generation of big names is probably mostly dead, considering how old Bruce looks, and maybe the rest are finally actually secured somewhere that will hold them. But what about the younger ones, or new ones? Worlds don't just stop having villains, that's not a thing. Ra's, at least, should still be alive, unless something weird happened. If not him, then Talia should be around somewhere. This version of Gotham feels too quiet; I don't like it.

There's the gang I took apart, I guess. The 'Jokerz,' as they helpfully identified themselves.

Fucking really? The real Joker has to be dead and gone because there's no way that he'd ever let a bunch of lowlife idiots like that use his name. He would have carved them all apart by now. They're just thugs, they didn't even have the decency to pretend they were actual threats outside of the numbers. Even the kid barely blinked an eye at the group he took out, before I took him out.

If I'm stuck here, I have to get the hell out of Gotham. I don't think I'll be able to handle seeing that many mockeries of the psychopath son of a bitch, not regularly. Maybe it felt good to take my frustration out on them, and it definitely felt good to take them all down, but I'll be seeing clowns in my dreams for days, I know it. Luckily the sleep I've snatched between waking the kid up hasn't been long enough for me to really dream. Still, I've got no illusions.

I lift my left leg, balancing it on the ledge of the window with my knee drawn up, countering the shift of weight with pressure from where my right leg is inside the apartment, foot braced against the ground. My hand shakes just a little bit as I retrieve a cigarette from the carton inside my jacket, holding it between two fingers as I also grab the lighter from the same pocket. I haven't lit one of these with a normal lighter in a long time, usually Kori is around and she just snaps her fingers together instead. Maybe lighting these off an alien's ability to make balls of suspicious energy, that might pretty much be the power of the sun, is a bad idea, but no one has ever really credited me with making smart decisions all the time.

Luckily, snapping a lighter really isn't a skill that you forget. I tuck the lighter away and angle my head and the now-lit cigarette so any ash will fall outside of the window. It's not like I give a fuck if the kid doesn't like me smoking in his house — I'm being nice, I opened the window and everything — but I try not to mess up peoples' homes if I don't have to. Especially when they're letting me stay without any real kind of payment, and feeding me on top of it.

The kid's deal was that I tell him who I am and what happened with Bruce, and I'll give him that. I'll give him more than that, actually. He's decent enough, and I get the pissed frustration of Bruce not telling you jack shit. As long as I'm sticking around his house, I'll tell him whatever he wants to know, within reason. Untrained or not, the kid's a Bat at the end of the day. There's not much I could tell him that would do any real damage anyway. Except, maybe, to whatever respect the kid's got for Bruce, and as far as I'm concerned the old bastard doesn't deserve the kid's respect or the trust he seems to have. So, fuck him.

I take a drag off of the cigarette, letting the smoke fill my mouth and enjoying the taste, leaning my head back against the frame of the window. I hold it for a while, then slowly let it back out of my mouth. The taste lingers, clinging to the back of my throat and intensifying as I take in a normal breath of air that's tainted by the smoke.

Habits I never totally shook.

Bruce forced me to quit smoking when he brought me in off the streets, and I took it as a price I had to pay to stay in the manor — forget trying to fool him into missing that I was smoking behind his back, let alone fooling Alfred — but after I died all bets were off. It felt like just one more flipped finger and shouted 'fuck you' at the bastard's memory, and it still helps me calm down. I don't need it like I did when I was fresh from the Pit, when sometimes a cigarette was the only way I could make my hands stop shaking and slow down the racing of my heart, but I still enjoy the act. It's not like I'm going to live long enough to see it fuck me up.

Anyone naive enough to think I'm going to live that long is just plain stupid.

I can't say I'm surprised that Bruce is still alive after however long it's been — the bastard's always been good at being paranoid enough to survive — but I didn't think he'd live past the rest of us. Where the hell is everyone else? Dick, Tim, Damian, Babs, Cass, Steph? Even that fucking dog. Where the hell is everybody who isn't the paranoid old fuck?

My blood runs cold for a second, and I take in a sharp breath that catches in my throat as I squeeze my eyes shut.

Please, say I didn't kill them. Bruce did mention 'what I'd done' to Tim, Dick, and Babs. God, I hope I didn't kill any of them. That would explain some things though, wouldn't it? Bruce hating me, and them not being around. Maybe even his new disposable attitude towards this kid.

But wait, no, that can't be it. If I'd done something that awful — he also mentioned me crawling out of a grave for the second time, so I must be dead — Bruce wouldn't just have demanded I leave. Not even Bruce is that cold. He would have set the cave's security systems on me and done his best to kill me, wouldn't he? Then again, Bruce has a pretty awful record when it comes to avenging people. I would know.

Still, maybe Bruce didn't give a fuck about me — chose the fucking Joker over me, so there you go — but the rest of them were his real kids. Dick, definitely. The two of them had their fights, but at the end of the day Dick was always going to be the precious golden boy who could do no real wrong. None of us ever mattered to Bruce as much as he did. Especially not me. I can imagine Bruce not avenging him, and it sickens me, but I'd like to think he's at least a little bit better than that. That maybe a second Robin dying — even if Dick left the green shorts behind a while ago — might snap him out of this stupid, bullshit, 'no killing, no matter what' rule.

I take another deep breath of smoke, letting some of it trickle back into my lungs — which still burns a bit, but it's minor — and holding it there until my body starts protesting the lack of air. It's only then that I shove it back out, making sure the stream of smoke is aimed out the window. The sick feeling lingers in my gut, and I wish I could say I'd never kill a Bat, let alone more than one, but I can't. I'm not sure. I hope I didn't, but… I can't count it out as a possibility.

I tap the fingers of my free right hand against my thigh, beating a pattern and keeping track so my mind has something to do, anything to focus on apart from whatever horrible things I might have done. Not that it works.

What could possibly drive me that far? Roy and Kori would try and hold me back, wouldn't they? At the least I'd try and use them to hold myself back, and that's always worked so far. What the hell could Bruce have done — or what was done to me? — that would be bad enough for me to snap that completely? To make me so furious and throw me so far back into pit madness that I'd actually kill a Bat, or more than one?

No. I take a third drag and shake my head, gritting my teeth. That's the worst part, isn't it? If I killed any Bats, then I was in my right mind. Pit madness made me stronger, and gave me a higher ability to ignore pain, but it fucked with my head and my strategy. I was still more than good enough to deal with anyone normal, but I wouldn't have been good enough to take down any of the Bats. If I did this, I had to have done it while I was sane.

If I took out three of them, or everyone but Bruce, then I would have had to be in pretty much the best shape of my life, which I guess I am, but also more ruthless than I think I've ever been before. That's a hard balance to strike, between furious but cold enough to do something like that. There's no way I could have gotten through even a single Bat on just rage. Killing them would have required planning, stalking, and staying out of sight long enough to catch each of them on their own and vulnerable, ideally all within a night or two so there wouldn't be time for anyone to build a real defense.

I've thought about it, and there were definitely times — during the fight for Bruce's position — that I planned it all out on paper and figured out exactly how I'd take Dick, Tim, and Damian down, but I was never going to go through with it. I've had Bats at my mercy before, I've had most of them pinned under a gun and one pull of the trigger away from death, but I never took that last step. I'd like to think I never could.

But what if I was wrong?

The cigarette really isn't the relief I thought it would be — wanted it to be — but I finish it anyway. I want to light another one, but I'm damn well not a chain smoker so I crush the urge. Besides, who knows if there's even still cigarettes around anymore? I'm not down to run out and then find out that they've been replaced with some kind of high tech shit. I'll ration the most of a carton I've got left.

I turn my head to face into the apartment and look up, above the flat screen of the kid's TV, to the digital clock proudly displaying its numbers. I watch the numbers count up, getting closer to the hour, and shove myself off the window's ledge when it shows two minutes to eight. Time for the hourly duty.

I put the cigarette out — the tiny little stub left of it — on the outside ledge of the window, and then flick the last bit of it onto the street below. No one's around anyway, and even if they were why would I give a fuck? What're they gonna do, arrest me? Stare disapprovingly? Yeah right. I'm still pretty obviously not a civilian, even if I took the holster off the thigh I had outside the window so I wasn't screaming that fact, and no one's going to piss off someone who looks like they might stab you. Not even these idiot citizens.

Fuck, I miss my Gotham. I never thought I'd miss Gotham.

I leave the window open — I'm just going straight back to it, so who cares? — and head through the kid's living room and to the door to his bedroom, pushing the door open with one hand. The kid is mostly buried underneath his blankets, halfway curled in on himself and also with his back to me, since lying on his right shoulder is a pretty painful thing for him at the moment. He doesn't stir at the door opening, or when I cross the room to stand over him, but he sure as shit wakes up when I casually grab his injured shoulder and pull him onto his back.

Alright, 'pull' is a gentle word. It's not enough to be called a 'slam,' but there's definitely some force involved. More like a shove or a yank, I guess.

He flails, eyes snapping wide, and yelps as he jerks up. He then pretty much immediately collapses back to the bed again with a low groan, and I let go of his shoulder. It's not like I grabbed it hard enough to make it bleed again, he'll be fine. The kid could use some practice managing pain anyway, if last night was any indication.

Concussions are one thing, and the fuzziness from that was pretty normal. Don't blame him for that. But stitching closed that hole in his shoulder nearly made him scream, and that's just kind of pathetic for anyone calling themselves a hero. Sure, no anesthetic or painkillers or anything like that, and the bruises on his throat and face definitely made holding back the sound way more painful than it should have been, but if the kid really wants to be Batman he needs to be just a little better at taking pain than what I saw last night. That suit is doing more harm to this kid than good, I swear.

"Son of a bitch," the kid groans, sort of in my general direction, and I flash him a wide grin that's really got more teeth in it than is friendly.

"Sun's up," I inform him, as he shifts, grimaces, and breathes through his teeth. "I'm going to keep waking you up every hour, but whenever you decide to actually get up I'll give you painkillers or something. Tempting to sleep forever, I know, but it's not going to get any better, kid."

"I hate you," he grumbles, prying his eyes open to look up at me.

"Told you." The kid pretty much looks like he took a serious beating, which I guess just means I'm strong enough to get him even through that suit. Point for me.

He's got dark bruising all along the left side of his face, a fairly impressive streak of it across the front of his throat, and his nose is a variety of interesting colors but at least it's straight. It'll suck, and he'll be in pain for a while — also, not real capable of going outside without getting a massive amount of attention — but he'll heal just fine. The shoulder might scar, the graze to his ankle definitely will. Turns out I shaved a chunk of flesh out of it, and close enough to bone that it's pretty much guaranteed to be a scar.

Whatever, it's not like anyone is going to be looking at the kid's ankles, or at least studying them that closely. Besides, it's weird seeing a hero, especially a damn Robin, without any scars. It might be pretty fucked up of me, but knowing he's going to have a couple actually makes me ease a little bit to the idea of him as 'Batman.'

He's not Batman, but maybe he could be. Someday.

"What time is it?" he manages to say, turning his head and then cringing a bit before going completely still. Thought better of the moving, apparently.

"Eight," I answer, and he groans a little louder and almost unconsciously seems to curl into the blankets. "Alright, go back to sleep, kid. See you in an hour." He doesn't answer me, not that I'm really expecting him to, but he doesn't spit curses at me like he did a couple times during the night either, so that's an improvement. I leave the door open a little bit, just in case, and return to my spot in the open window.

I resist the urge to have another cigarette, and end up just studying the skyline instead. I got a pretty good grasp on the city last night, so for something to do I match up where we are in my mental map with what would have been here back in my time, and then continue it with the skyline I can see. Most of it is behind a bunch of other shit, bridges and stuff because apparently in the future we just build up, but some of the old skyscraper locations of downtown Gotham still match up with the massive buildings I can see in the background. It almost works.

It's about five minutes before I hear movement from the kid's bedroom, and I don't bother smothering my grin as I look over and watch him shuffle out from the dark of his room. He looks like a mixture of Dick the golden boy after a night of getting his ass handed to him, and Tim the bastard replacement after a forty-eight hour emergency that he stayed awake for the entirety of. Granted, for Tim, that could be anything from a missing dog to a pile of paperwork. Replacement never was real great at the whole sleeping thing. Basically, the kid looks like the walking dead.

Oh, great way to kill my mood. Fuck my head sometimes.

He glances up at me, squinting at the light and leaning against the wall. I offer him a mocking wave, which he glares at me for, and I see him take a deeper breath and brace himself before straightening up and heading across the empty space between him and the doors and archways on the opposite side of the living room. His hands are clenched, he's limping a bit, and he's really obviously in pain, but he makes it. He veers towards the corridor he pointed me down for the bathroom, and I take a brief glance out the window before speaking.

"If you're going to take a shower — which you probably should — try not to get the stitches wet. At least dry them off really well if you're not going to keep them dry to start with." It's also going to hurt like a bitch to get water on them, but I don't bother telling him that. He'll figure it out, might even wake him up a bit. The faster he's up and moving around, the faster I get breakfast of some kind. I could probably figure out where around his house will deliver something, and maybe even steal or hack whatever kind of currency this future has got, but it's really not worth the effort. I can just wait.

He doesn't answer me, but I get something like a nod before he disappears down the corridor. I can hear the door shut, water start, and count the seconds before a shouted curse echoes down the corridor. The grin that curves my mouth is totally real, and I relax back against the frame of the window and resume my studying of the skyline. There are things I could be doing, maybe even things I should be doing, but I don't think the kid would take that kindly to me rifling through his house. Seems like he might be a private kind of person, or at least a 'don't touch my shit' person. That, I understand.

There aren't any more shouts of pain from the bathroom, and no thuds or sudden crashes, so I ignore the sound of the water and stare out into the city to waste time. Mostly, I just appreciate the chance to feel the air against my face and not have to do anything for a while. There always seems to be some kind of crisis or something, and this isn't my city, it's not a safe place, but I let myself ease into it anyway. When I close my eyes, and lean my head back against the window, it almost feels like my Gotham.

The distant sound of cars — not quite the same, more hum than the engines I know — and the rush of wind that never smells good no matter what. This is a lot better than my Gotham's air, or maybe this is just what the more middle and upper class air smells like. I know it doesn't smell like Crime Alley, or the warehouse districts that I was used to once upon a time. I could almost let myself think that this is one of my safehouses, and the water is some person who shared my bed for the night. Or Dick.

Dick has this irritating habit of breaking into my safehouses to use my showers and eat my food when he's in Gotham. I don't appreciate it, but apart from the traps I put down there's not much I can do about it, and those never stop him. He's too good for that.

There's the slightly louder sound of a car, and I flick my eyes back open to watch a silver one slip down the street and pull up against an empty spot of sidewalk about a half block past me at the next apartment building over. I idly watch it out of my peripheral vision — not worried or interested enough to turn my head — as it shuts off and an older woman with short grey hair, glasses, and a long brown trenchcoat gets out. She moves a little stiffly as she crosses the street, and I stop paying attention. I'm a paranoid fuck, but not paranoid enough to crane my head around to watch some seventy year old lady walk down the street to her apartment.

I close my eyes for a second, taking in another breath of this Gotham's air, and then let it out slowly as I flick my eyes back open. I shift my leg on the window frame, adjusting to get the frame to dig into my back a little less, and that idle movement is the only reason I notice the still figure underneath me. I look down, and—

What the fuck?!

I reflexively jerk out of the window at about the same time there's a low whine that sounds electrical, a flash of light, and pain that burns into my lower left side as I roll and fall back into the kid's apartment. I grit my teeth and ignore it for now, reaching high enough up to grab the window and swing it shut again, plastering my back against the wall. Once it's shut and as latched as it's going to get, I pull my jacket away from my side to get a look. Whatever the hell the damn old lady shot me with, it wasn't a gun the way I think of them. That thing definitely melted through my armor and into my skin, and I'm pretty sure that's actually fused to my side now which is going to suck later.

I risk a quick glance up through the window, and the old lady is gone and I do not appreciate this shit.

I snag my gun from the floor, ignoring the holster for now and making damn absolutely sure that the gun is loaded before I get to my feet and take another glance out the window. Still gone, and son of a bitch if she just shot me on sight like that she's either totally crazy or knew I was here. A friend of Bruce's?

As if a friend of his would shoot to kill like that — or I guess it was supposed to be killing, I definitely threw the aim off by dodging — and as if the old bastard has friends. No way. Not even Bruce would send someone else to kill me off and do his dirty work for him, especially in his new brat's apartment. He's not that cold. Still, she just shot me without warning or anything, and she knew exactly where I was. If it's not a disguise I just got shot by a fucking old lady. Who the hell is she?

I hope none of the other Bats ever hear about this; they'll never let me live it down.

I automatically throw myself to the floor in front of the couch as the front door to the kid's apartment slams open — so apparently you can still kick down a door from the future; good to know — and shove my back against the arm as I take a look around the corner. It's the old lady. Shit, she not only shot me but she knew the exact apartment and booked it up the stairs too? And she's got that damn gun in her hands, and trained pretty much unerringly on me.

"Alright," I call around the edge of the couch, keeping half an eye trained on her and flicking the safety off my gun. If she just takes a few steps forward she can shoot me over the top of the couch, god damnit. "I'm not much for taking down old ladies but if you try and shoot me again I will not hold back, you got me?"

The voice that comes back almost sounds familiar, and she doesn't make the slightest move to stop being threatening. "Come out with your hands up and I don't shoot you on sight," she counters.

"You sound like a fucking cop," I complain, as some idle part of my head registers that the sound of the water has stopped.

"I am one," she all but growls at me, and I thunk my head against the arm of the couch as I bare my teeth and roll my eyes in pure frustration.

"Lovely." My voice is pitched just to me, or I thought so, but the old lady gives half a smirk anyway.

"You're not my type, but thanks anyway." Awesome, and I managed to grab the wisecracking cop on top of getting pinned by one at all. You know, I thought I was generally pretty lucky. What the hell happened to that?

I flinch back when she takes a shot at the tiny slice of my head that's poking out from behind the couch. I get out of the way in time — the movement of muscle to pull a trigger is the same, and I've had some practice recognizing that — and recoil as a beam of light slices past me into the carpet and sears a patch of it burned and black. Fucking great.

I move, staying low and rolling to the opposite end of the couch's length, and come to the weird realization that I'm planning as if she's going to do what I would if our positions were reversed. Mainly, shoot at my head to cut off my vision and then take those two or three steps to shoot me over the top of the piece of furniture. Why the hell am I planning like she's got my kind of training? Anybody could have taken a shot at me in the window, and landing it just means she's better than average, not that she's got fucking Robin or assassin training.

Things get weirder when instead of coming over the edge where I was, I hear that same low whine and jerk around and in an automatic dodge fast enough to see the shot as it just grazes past the right side of my throat instead of hitting the back of my neck. Fuck, ouch.

She's standing mostly behind the couch on the side I moved to, and normally I'd take a shot at her since I'm halfway through spinning around but since she just moved from 'has a dangerous weapon' to 'actually a threat' I decide to dodge that second shot she hasn't quite fired yet. Which she's going to, I'm sure. I want to get that damn gun out of her hands first, which normally means go in fast and low, but if she keeps reading me like this I'm going to end up with a face-full of whatever kind of laser things that gun shoots. Not down for that.

She's only about a step and a half away if I stretch my legs out, I could probably—

I abandon the planning, just moving on plain, pure, instinct and slipping sideways and out of the path of her gun as I pull up and to my feet. More of a target but I'll take the advantage of range and movement over being a small target. The gun follows me — she's fast — and she takes a flowing step backwards as her muscles tighten and I spin around the second shot. It still goes uncomfortably closely past my already burned side, but now the couch isn't directly between us and I can close the distance. I'm a good shot, but hand to hand is always going to be my real strength. I let my gun drop on the couch as I move past it — I'm going to need both hands open — and she's matching my forward momentum with backwards but let's see her keep that up. Apartment's not that big and I've got longer legs.

There's the sound of a door slamming open — gotta be the kid — and she flinches but I don't. I take the reaction as opportunity to lunge forwards, only slightly angled with sideways movement so I'm not just charging her gun head on. I get around it, and the kid pops into view in the corridor — with a black robe wrapped around him that can't be his — right about as I grab and twist her wrist to try and get her to drop the gun. She grits her teeth, glaring at me, and does release the gun with that hand to promptly aim and release another shot at me with just her other one. Right into the wound I already have, but I jerk sideways and drag the wrist I've captured with me instead of giving into the urge to shout in pain.

She turns with me, damn her, and the kid gives a shout of surprise and protest as I duck low — the nails on the hand I've captured are raking over what they can reach of the exposed skin of my wrist, which fucking hurts — and manage to snap a kick up high enough to knock the gun from her hand. It goes flying, she somehow twists her wrist out of my grip, and I get a knee coming at my ribs all at about the same time. Now that she's disarmed I have got no issue with pulling back to dodge the knee, especially since I already lost my grip anyway. Not much to lose.

"Woah, wait!" The kid sounds a step away from frantic, and the old lady's eyes narrow but she stays focused on me. Shame.

"Stay out of this, Terry," she snaps, and my mouth curves into a sharp grin as I put together the connections.

"So the old man sent you?" I ask, studying her posture and her positioning, looking for a weakness. "Gotta admit, I didn't think even Bruce would send someone else to do his murder for him."

That's definitely anger that flashes through her eyes, which confirms all those suspicions in my head. Bruce sent her, whoever she is, or at least she knows him well enough to be offended on his behalf. I can see her studying me like I'm studying her, behind the glint of the glasses that might be necessary enough that if I knock them off it could give me the advantage.

"I'm here on my own," she refutes, with what's easy to recognize as irritation and maybe even something like disappointment. "Back down, Jason, don't make this harder than it has to be."

"Back down?" I echo, incredulously. "You shot me. You want to maybe take your own advice there? If you think I'm going to just sit off to the side and let you kill me without a fight then you're fucking crazy, and you obviously don't actually know who the fuck I am."

She glares, and beyond her shoulder the kid looks straight up shocked and maybe afraid, hard to totally say with that bruising. "I always ask." She moves first, throwing a kick at my injured side, and I slip out of range of it and watch her pull out what I'm pretty damn sure is a futuristic taser from inside her coat.

Fucking fantastic.

In response I draw my knife and she glances down at it with what I swear looks like disgust. If she knows Bruce the bastard, then maybe she knows whatever it is that I apparently did somewhere between this time and my own. That might explain the killing shot. There's not much that can make an ally of the Bat kill, but apparently I'm the devil or something so fuck the lot of them.

"Wait!" the kid yells, and there's actually something like a command in his voice which has to be a tone he picked up from Bruce. "Commissioner, stop! There's more to this, let's talk, alright?"

Commissioner? Okay, so obviously Jim is dead and gone but…

I take another look, narrowing my eyes a bit as she pauses, focused on me but maybe actually listening to the kid's plea. There's something about her eyes, about the way she's standing, the way she moves. Wait, factor in the time difference, aging, and…

"Barbara?" I ask, half incredulously.

Yeah, has to be. She's trained, she's got some kind of ability to predict my moves, and she knows Bruce pretty well. Same color eyes, and these are different glasses but I still remember what those eyes look like behind frames and glass. The more I look at her, the more convinced I am that my guess is right. But then why the hell did she shoot me? Barbara wouldn't kill. Not ever. What the hell happened?

"Drop the knife, Jason," she snaps at me, and I do straighten up a little but I really don't let the knife go. She still feels dangerous, and I trust my instincts pretty religiously.

"Yeah, I don't think so. You shot me; twice, and you knew who I was. How about you drop the taser and then I drop my knife?"

"After what you did to Tim?" her voice is nearly a snarl, and I swear there's hate in her eyes. "I'd be insane. The last time I gave you a chance you put five bullets in me. You're not getting within ten feet unless I've got a weapon, bastard."

Shoot Barbara? No fucking way. I never went after the girls, not even when I was totally fucking insane and out for blood. I'd never do that, especially not after what the Joker did to her — which hey, she's walking again; guess medical procedures get better in the future — and the hell that put her through. If anyone understands my hatred for that psychopath son of a bitch it's Barbara. I can imagine hurting her, maybe even badly, but I'd do it with some goddamn respect. Shooting her would be way too impersonal, and way too likely to be fatal.

"I'd never do that," I argue, flexing my free hand into a fist. "I don't know what kind of fucked up future happens but I wouldn't."

"Yeah," she spits, "I heard about your 'thrown through time' excuse. Get off your high horse, Jason. You're a murdering bastard, and you put nearly a whole clip in me before you left me for dead."

I take a step back nearly automatically. Bruce spitting venom at me hurts, but I understand it. I can deal. But Barbara? She's never hated me. Then again, I'd never shot her either so there's that. Maybe… If I do that to her, if I do something awful enough that she wants me dead, maybe I do deserve to die. I might hate some of them, sometimes, but the other Bats are still family in the end. I don't usually agree with them, but I respect their opinions and pushing them far enough to kill is… I would have said it wasn't possible.

So maybe I deserve it. Maybe I more than deserve it.

I loosen my hand and let the knife drop from my fingers, and I can see the sharp flash of surprise in Barbara's expression. It slips quickly to wariness, and I wish I could say I don't understand it. If an opponent dropped their weapon I wouldn't just be suspicious of a trick, I'd expect one. If I'm enough of a murderously insane fuck — but still seriously deadly — in the future that they want me dead, and are actually willing to get their hands dirty, she'd be totally nuts to not expect I've got something nasty planned.

"Barbara," I try pitching my voice low, with a hint of pleading because Bats are always suckers for the 'please forgive me' voice, "last I knew I was pretty much on a truce with Bats as a whole. I know you didn't like me, but I was pretty sure nothing could actually make you kill. I'd really appreciate knowing what the hell I did to make you hate me."

Wariness, anger, and finally grudging acceptance. Alright, so she's not going to just tase me. Good.

She comes out of the ready stance a little bit, and I keep my hands open and to the sides. Non-threatening; not going to spook her when I'm finally, maybe, about to get some real answers. I take a second to glance at the kid, and then pray that he keeps his goddamn mouth shut and lets this play through. He should; he seems to have not gotten told much of the backstory and I don't think he's stupid enough to screw up a chance to hear it.

"The Joker took Robin," my blood runs cold, laughter echoes in the back of my mind, and I shove it away because she's still talking, "and you snapped. You tried to kill us all, nearly did, and we were trying to keep Tim together when we got him back but you nearly broke him, Jason. The Joker did enough to him, he didn't need you making him relive it!"

Oh god. That psychopathic bastard got a hold of Damian? God, I hate the little demon but no one deserves having that clown work them over, not even him. Not even Bruce. I—

Wait. She said 'Tim.' Keep Tim together. But she also said 'Robin,' without the Replacement's 'Red' in front of it. Tim wouldn't go back to being just Robin, not even if Damian left the role and Bruce offered it back to Tim. Not that the old bastard ever would, and Tim wouldn't take it anyway. He grew out of the role, he got better.

So when the hell was Tim going by Robin after my time skip, and when the hell did the Joker get hold of him?

"When did Tim go back to being Robin?" I ask, narrowing my eyes.

"Never," Barbara snaps. "Don't you understand, Jason? Maybe we could have helped him, but because of you we barely got him back to being sane!" Which is a terrifying thought, but apart from me Tim was always the least stable. The most capable of killing, or snapping under the pressure or the weight of that scary as hell brain of his. But that's not what I was asking.

"No, when did Tim drop the 'Red?' Replacement's a little suck up but he wouldn't go back to being just plain old Robin after graduating. No way."

She just looks confused, and behind her the kid is pretty obviously just as lost. " 'Red?' What are you talking about?"

This doesn't…

"Red Robin?" Nothing. Okay, what else? "Damian? Cass? Steph? Fuck, Babs, tell me you know any of those names."

"Jason, you're not making any sense."

My hands flex, and my mind is running on damn steroids because this can't be happening. How the fuck can Barbara not remember half our family? How can she know me but not remember Cass? Steph, for god's sake? Even Damian the little demon bastard. He might be a shit but I don't know anybody who could forget Damian after meeting him. Something is wrong here, but how the hell do I prove it to them? I guess naming off random names Barbara won't even remember isn't going to do it.

"How many Robins were there?" I demand, letting my hands drop to my sides and trying to ignore the tension in her frame. "How many Batgirls? Name them, Babs. The kid obviously doesn't know shit but you should." This is so wrong.

"Jaso—"

"Just fucking humor me, Babs. Please."

She studies me, and I try not to guard my expression, or prepare for a strike, or anything that old memory is making me want to do. If she's not going to just shoot or tase me then I need her to actually know that I'm kinda freaking out, and obviously when I freak out bad shit tends to happen. I tend to kill people, or at least hurt them. I really don't want to, they hate me enough as it is, but if I have to cut my way across the city to find out what the hell happened to the rest of my family, if I have to go through Barbara to do it… I will.

"Dick was the first, then you, then Tim. There was never anyone after Tim, Bruce couldn't put anyone else in danger like that. There's never been any other Batgirl but me, Jason." She actually almost looks worried, like she thinks I'm insane, or hallucinating, or high, or something. But I'm not, I know it. There is something very, very wrong here but for once it isn't me.

She really believes there was never a fourth Robin. Or a fifth. Or Spoiler, Black Bat, Batwoman, all the other crazy as fuck people who have gone in and out of our family. How the hell does someone just forget that?

"You seriously don't remember Damian? The little hellspawn demon, Bruce's actual son?" The surprise, and then confusion, is an obvious answer. "Alright, then either somebody seriously fucked up time again or…" It kind of all clicks in my mind, and I tilt my head a bit to the side and take a glance out the window, at Barbara, past her at the kid. "Or this isn't my universe," I finish quietly. "Well, that would explain a lot, wouldn't it?"

The kid sways a little, takes a step back to brace against the wall, and Barbara straightens up. I'm pretty sure the kid is just tired — plus the steam from the shower, and the adrenaline from this little face off, probably made him light headed — and it's not a reaction to what I just proposed. Barbara very slowly tucking away the taser on the other hand, even though she keeps her hand in that pocket and doubtless wrapped around it, is totally a reaction.

"Tell me what you're thinking," she demands. "What's the difference?" Yeah, that feels more like the Bat I know. Give everyone a chance, and when people start saying random, crazy bullshit, listen. They might actually be serious.

"In my time, and maybe my world if I'm right, Tim is just fine. Bruce kicked him out of the cave to give Damian, his ten year old little demon shit, the Robin name instead, and since Tim's a bit of a passive aggressive bastard he changed his name to Red Robin." I swallow, watching her to see if she's actually believing me, and I think she is. She's guarded, and she looks a little incredulous, but she's not shooting me or lunging at me with anything so at least I've got her attention for now.

"Joker never got him, he's off leading the Teen Titans. I put a knife in him once but we pretty much got over that, and now we trade information back and forth and share a meal every once in a while. Some seriously stupid, crazy shit happened recently and I don't trust Bruce for shit, but we're holding in a truce. I've got my own team; Arsenal and Starfire. I can keep going, but judging by the look on your face that's a lot of stuff that isn't ringing any bells at all. So, different universe?"

Her hand comes back out of her pocket, and she straightens up fully out of the ready stance. I can see her ease out, even underneath that trench coat. Alright, good. We're good. "It sounds like it. We should… talk."

She really doesn't sound comfortable with that idea, and I flash an empty grin on automatic. "You promise not to come at me with anything, and I'll shed my weapons. Deal?" And she damn well better recognize how much of a concession that is for me. Being unarmed — figuratively, anyway; she's totally crazy if she thinks I'm actually going to dig into all my hidden pockets and pull everything out — is a major source of discomfort for me. It's right up there with getting my hands bound behind my back or getting locked inside something dark and confining.

I can deal, I mastered my own fears — most of them, anyway — a long time ago, but I don't like it. Knowing how to deal with fear isn't the same as not feeling it.

"Deal," she agrees. "I promise not to shoot, stab, or otherwise injure you as long as we're talking." It might come out grudging, but at least it's something. Her teeth grit together, her eyes narrow, and then she smooths whatever the hell caused that expression and it slips away. "Terry, grab the first aid kit," she aims over her shoulder, without looking away from me. "I shot you, Jason; I'll treat it."

Ah, that's the face.

"Alright," I agree, and slowly bend down to pick my knife up off the ground. "Deal."

A/N: So, the bad news is this is the last chapter I have pre-written. The good news, is I know exactly what happens next. XD In fact, I have most of this story planned out (except an ending, naturally). So, here you get a few more hints about what exactly Jason did in the BB universe. Is it clear yet that we're not following canon in regards to Jason? 'Cause we're really, really not. Mostly because there is no canon BB Jason.

So, I'll see you all next week for... something or other. I haven't decided yet. XD