2014.06.01 - His City, His Rules

It's funny how easy it is to wonder if it's all a terrible, horrible dream when he wakes up. The dampness of the cave, the quiet hum of familiar machines. It's like the last seven years have been a horrible, unhappy nightmare but he is finally up and free of it. When he rolls off the cot a foot taller than the boy he was when was last here, he knows it's not, and the thread of hope slips away.

Jason Todd; twenty-two; a year of that spent moldering in a grave. Another year, braindead and homeless. Five more years of constant training, wandering the world -- learning languages, demolitions, unlearning nonlethal combat and mastering a hundred thousand ways to kill a man if he had to.

He finds his way from the med bay to the the main platform, drawn to the islands of light. That's when he found the case. His old suit -- scaley underwear and all -- held still, a silent memorial to the only Robin to fuck it up so badly that he died in the line of duty. Dick managed years before he grew up, case aside the mantle, and became Nightwing. Jason barely lasted a year in costume.

His rage, however, is spent. That's the only thing that saves the case from being shattered, that suit from being reduced to ash. He leans on it, heavily -- sheds tears for the boy he'd been, and then, once it's past, collects himself in silence, and finds himself in Bruce's chair before the monitors, watching the news feed with unmasked eyes.

He waits for the Bat to return theo belfry, slouched and exhausted.

"Master Jason?" comes Alfred's voice from the top of the stairs, his footfalls echoing through the cave as he slowly walks down. Bruce had told him, of course, as soon as he'd figured it out for himself but he didn't believe it. Perhaps he did not want to. Halfway down the stairs he pauses, dressed not in his typical suit but rather a burgundy robe, pyjama bottoms and slippers. He tilts his head, thinning black hair a mess with the tell-tale look of a man woken up from restless sleep.

Honestly, if there was anything else that hurt more than seeing Bruce, it was this. Jason startled at the noise, up and out of the chair as if he'd been caught doing something wrong -- sitting in the boss's chair when he hadn't earned it. But he stepped around it; he was a fright, and he knew it -- what could only be politely called 'hood hair' making his black hair stick this way and that, his domino mask cast aside for the time being.

"Hey, Alf," he said; this, of all things, could make him that boy again. Batman was one thing -- but every young man, from Bruce onward down to the latest little Robin knew the truth of things: Alfred Pennyworth was the real heart of Wayne Manor.

"He had told me," Alfred begins, descending the last few stairs with swiftness and grace despite his advancing age, "But I must admit I had not believed it."

He strides across the platform towards Jason, taking a long and careful look at him. Though age weighs heavy upon him, his eyes still bore into the soul like they always did. He tilts his head slightly and, without warning, leans in to embrace the man that was Robin tightly.

"Welcome home."

Suddenly, the roar of an engine from the tunnel leading out to one of Bristol's heavily-wooded back roads echoes back into the Cave. He's home.

Home. Jason doesn't say don't get ahead of yourself now, alf because he can't bring himself to hurt the old man. He doesn't note that he's so much taller now, that he's not small enough to hide his face in Alfred's shoulder anymore, that he's grown up (crooked, but his own way). He just-- hugs the old man because he can do that much, even if it costs him another sliver of resolve.

The noise draws him out of the moment, though. He straightened up, eased free of an embrace -- didn't want to put Alfred into the middle of the squabble.

"Don't even know how much he knows," he admits. "Guess we'll find out."

Soon enough, the Car rolls out of the tunnel and to a stop on its platform. The hatch opens and Batman slings his legs out and walks towards the platform. He pulls his still-bloodstained gloves off and throws them to the side, peeling the cowl away with his bare hands and leaving himself clad in only the bodysuit of his uniform. He walks past Jason and Alfred in silence, leaning over the monitor and narrowing his eyes at the screen.

"I think it's time you found out," Alfred murmurs to Jason, giving his shoulder a squeeze and stepping away to scoop up the discarded pieces of the Batsuit.

"Fantastic," Jason said, voice falling flat. He patted Alfred's shoulder before he let the man go off to do his duty. He couldn't begrudge him that. Instead, he had to face the music.

"You return him to his box?" he asked, as he came up behind the chair.

"Minus a few teeth and an in-tact ulna," Bruce answers, stone cold and static. Already he's on to some new case. The information on the screen is not the Court of Owls. It's not the Red Hood. It's not even the Joker. It's information about the White Tiger and a kidnapping. A new case. There's always a new case.

"But he lives to kill again," Jason said. Not an argument -- just a confirmation of fact. The Joker lives. The Joker willl, assuredly, kill again. Someone will pay the price because Jason couldn't finish the job, and Bruce wouldn't. "So the next one's on both of us."

He glanced back at the case, muscles jumping in his throat. "There's not enough cases in the world for this."

"I'm not arguing this with you," comes his reply, flat as ever, "You know the Rules. My rules."

5tBruce taps a few keys on the keyboard, satisfied with whatever he's set into motion and stepping away. Should Jason wish to keep talking to him, he'll need to follow. He walks with purpose to the section of the Cave set aside for training, tapping a key on a small pedestal and looking up as a heavy bag descends on a chain from the gloom above.

"If this is one of those 'if you're going to live under my roof you're going to obey my rules' discussions, I got news for you: I'm not living here."

It was so very juvenile, but... honestly, it seemed like how it was playing out. He wandered after Bruce, heavy boots clinking audibly on the metal plating of the cave floor as he didn't bother to step quietly.

"The rules go further than my roof," Bruce answers, steadying the heavy bag before driving his fist into it experimentally, "They cover the entire city. I won't pretend I understand what you're going through, Jason. That's why you're here and not two cells down from the Joker. There's things you need to work through."

He fires off a flurry of blows at the bag, causing it to sway and shake on its chain.

"There will be no killing. Beyond that, I'm not going to try and bring you back into the fold. You made your decision to go your own way and this is me honoring it. I'll support you but you will follow that rule or I will bring you down."

"You aren't a king or a God, Bruce," Jason said, watching him begin to work through his rage. It stirred his own blood; he flexed his fingers in his gloves. "He's proof of that. You're a man. A man who can screw up, and those mistakes cost lives."

His life. But it was just one out of so, so many.

"This is as much my city as yours. You weren't the only kid who cried their heart out in Crime Alley. You won't be the last, either. But from this point on, if it takes a bullet to keep somebody from becoming like us-- then I'm afraid I'll more than willing to fire it."

"Then you're my enemy, Jason," Bruce answers, his voice like ice, "You stand there and you tell me that it's my fault what happened to you did. It is."

He strikes the bag. Smack.

"You tell me I'm not omnipotent." Smack. "I'm not. You tell me that there are people out there who deserve to die?"

Smack.

"You're right. There are. But what makes you the man to pull the trigger? The Joker hurt you. He beat you half to death then finished the job with a bomb. What about the hundreds of others that he's killed? Do their families have the right to kill him?"

Smack. Smack.

"Do they have the right to ruin and soil themselves by sinking to his level because he deserves it?"

Smack.

"I don't care how much you hate me, Jason. I don't give a damn how much you want to prove me wrong and how much you want to change my mind. I'll never break. I'll never bend. If I have to lock you in the deepest, darkest hole there is to save your soul then I'll do it."

Smack. Smack. Smack smack SMACK! The heavy bag swings wildly on its chain, the leather breaking open as sand pours noisily from the gash and to the ground below. Bruce stops, fists clenched at his sides with bloodied knuckles.

"Start running. I won't let you get away."

"I don't kill indiscriminately," Jason said, face flushing as the rage finds new purpose. "I kill people who I know are bad. Who I have investigated! Thoroughly! The way you taught me. And then I make a judgment call: will killing him honestly make the world a better place for anybody. Will the power gap be ugly. Who'll come knocking, what will they do? Don't think this is-- about revenge. It's not about me or what happened to me. IT's not even about you. It's about the ones who don't scare. The ones you can't keep locked up. It's about mitigation of damage! It's about doing what's right... and still being able to sleep at night knowing that a convoy of little girls isn't going to make their drop tonight because someone a little additive into some greedy shit's energy drink, and being okay with that."

He wasn't fifteen anymore; at his full height now, he was as tall as Bruce was -- training and genetics had filled him out -- Dick was the lithe acrobat, Tim the detective...

Jason was the Narrows bred street punk, and he'd grown into a big man, with hands like hammers and shoulders willing to bear the weight of his choices.

"I won't run from you. I'm not afraid of you. I know how you work, and I know your limits. I know the aces I have over you, and you know I can destroy you with a word. Stalemate, Bruce. You can't kill me. You can't put me in a box safe enough to keep me. But I won't let you continue to play a game with the city I was born to. Gotham's my home too. You may be a Prince of Gotham, heir to her fortunes, but I know her better than you ever will."

He's hurting; that much is plain to see. He didn't expect to be heard... but in the end, he's not sure what he could have done to reach him.

"You can lie to yourself if you want, Jason," Bruce answers, tapping the growing pile of sand with the toe of his boot, "But it's just that. Lying. Do you think you're special? That you're the first enemy I've had who knows my every move? Who knows how I think and how I act? You're not. They've been trying that since long before you ever met me. I change, Jason. I adapt. This isn't a stalemate. It's a war of attrition and if you get on the wrong side then you'll be the one to atrophy first."

He shakes his head, crossing his arms low over his stomach, "You told me I'm not a god. Are you a god, then, Jason? Is that why you're the one who gets to decide who lives and who deserves to die?"

"No. I don't believe in God anymore. Pretty sure Jesus doesn't have autopsy scars," Jason said, tone as dry as the desert. "Adapt, then. I did. If it's war... it's war."

He paused, before he turned. If Bruce wanted a go at him, he'd give him his back. Clear shot. Anytime he wanted it.

"If you're hungry," Bruce offers, not turning back around, "There are leftovers in the fridge. You can fire the first shots tomorrow."

That said he moves away from the ruined heavy bag, deeper into the training area. Whatever he had to say, he's said it.

First volleys already fired, Jason went up the stairs-- helm still sitting in the medbay-- and went down the halls to an old study that he'd favored in his youth, years ago. The couch was still comfortable, and he needed the rest.

They'd... figure out the rest in the morning.