Burden of Engagement

It took some doing. Some hoping from satellite to satellite, through a proxy server or two, connecting via links and through dark channels of shadier communication to reach them. Would it have been easier to go there herself, to swing by in person, crashing through windows and breaking the bones of various guards and assassins standing in the way of her and them? Perhaps. Perhaps it would also put her in danger. And Lady Bat was very much tired of falling into traps. Seemed to her that was all she had done for the past several nights.

The screen on the Bat-Computer hummed into life as the connection was secured and she waited, quiet in the dark, for the other end to either pick up, or decline.

Ra's mountain castle was heavily guarded, and that precaution included the way it accessed information and communication signals. Similarly, the Bat Cave's coordinates were obscured. Ra's didn't know who would be calling, certainly, but Lady Bat felt that the scrambled coordinates and stream of numbers inbound to his lair would tip him off as to who it was..

When the screen finally blinked into existence, when the other end of the secured, dark call was picked up, Lady Bat was greeted with the angular, olive-toned face of Talia. For a moment, surprise in those brown, almond shaped eyes.

"Belinda.." she breathed.

"Ra's," Lady Bat barked, in return. Talia looked hurt, a flash across her face, but nothing more. Back to the emotionless, calculating façade that she knew so well.

"What do you want with h--?"

"Now."

Talia frowned. Lady Bat was prepared for her to cut off communication entirely.. Instead, she left the camera's sight, leaving the empty, stone wall of a study to be all that Lady Bat saw.

She didn't have to wait long.

Slipping into the field of vision, a man who was more corpse than human.

Dead grey eyes, an old man's grey hair, and the sallow, sunken cheeks of the same.. The Demon Head.

"This is a surprise, Lady Wayne," he said, and had Lady Bat not been made of sterner stuff, perhaps the smooth, coolness of his voice would have made her vomit. "To what do I owe this pl--?"

"What did you do to Jason?" she hissed, teeth grit.

Ra's stared at her, impassive. He leaned back, steepled long, bony fingers.

"I am surprised you didn't come to see me in person."

"I've grown tired of being in the company of death," Lady Bat retorted. "I know the coordinates of your manse. Clearly. If I wanted to do anything with them, I'd use them to blow it off the mountainside. What. Did you do. To Jason?"

"You remember when we last became embattled?"

Lady Bat scowled. Ra's wanted to talk. Wanted to play games.

"You were planning to blow up banks," she sneered, disdain dripping from her lips.

"Accurate, if inelegant. I was in the midst of toppling the economy of Europe. But you were on to me. I sought a distraction.. So I hired the Joker."

Lady Bat swallowed hard, a pit settling into her stomach as she listened.

"When you paths crossed in Bosnia.."

The night Jason died.

Ra's was behind all of it.

"It was to appear that you had stumbled upon him."

A trap. It had all been a trap, orchestrated by Ra's.

Everything was still fresh in her mind. The stink of the warehouse they found Joker and his gang in. The shrill shriek of his laugh. His yellow teeth..

What had started off as a simple raid, a take down, went dangerously array.. One minute Robin was with her and the next, he was gone, disappeared down a corridor. Ra's was still talking.

"You played extremely well into what was meant to be a wild goose chase.. But then, he murdered the boy."

Lady Bat watched his face. He seemed almost remorseful, taking a deep breath before continuing.

"That was not by design," he lamented.

"You sicced a rabid dog on us and were surprised when he mauled one of us to death," Lady Bat spat.

"I am afraid I underestimated my ability to control the Joker," he admitted. "Just as I underestimated his madness." Ra's looked at her, really looked at her, and Lady Bat felt a surge of ice water course through her veins. "It grieved me, my lady. To be a part of something so brutal."

"You've never shied away from brutality before," she countered.

"True," he said, with a shrug. "But always with a purpose. Always with greater goals. This was simply an unnecessary casualty."

He has a name, Lady Bat wanted to wail. His name is Jason.

Ra's forged on.

"As penance, I choice not to make war with you again. And to attempt to rectify this disservice."

"Rectify?" Lady Bat repeated, gritting her teeth.

"Yes," Ra's said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As if he had merely shattered a dinner plate, and sought to replace it. His grey eyes looked through her. "I sought to return to you what you had lost.."

That was what she had feared. What she had always known Ra's to be capable of, but had assumed him too selfish to allow its use on anyone aside from his own body..

"I have walked this world for nearly six centuries. As you know, I achieve this by bathing in the rejuvenating waters of the Lazarus Pit. Along with its healing abilities, it has long been rumored to be capable of an even greater feat. To raise the dead. Procuring the remains of your partner had not been difficult. You had come to Bosnia under the guise of Belinda Wayne, and you chose to depart as such. You even concocted the story that young Jason died in a bombing in Saravejo. This made it simple for me. All it took were a few pay-offs to replace his body. I felt confident you would not perform an autopsy. Even if you had, we would have bought enough time. But, my plan.. well, Detective."

Ra's looked over his steepled fingers at her.

"It had unfortunate results."

A thousand nightmare scenarios played out in her mind. Jason's body, battered, in the earliest stages of decay, without the benefit of the embalming at the embassy, sloppily dumped into some primordial ooze where the damned went to stave off the devil himself..

"He returned to this world, yes, but he returned.. damaged."

Lady Bat could have strangled him. This perverted attempt at an act of reconciliation, to "Rectify" his error in hiring the Joker, to make up for Jason's torture and death, just caused the poor child yet more torture, but this time without the benefit of the rest of death.

How frightened he must have been.. that the last minutes of his conscious, consumed with the pain and fire of an explosion, be followed by the abject terror of being forced BACK.. Was it even really Jason? Was it even really Jason's immortal soul?

"My army searched for months, but we were never able to find a body, or pick up a trail. I thought him dead, yet again. But I hear you've been having.. trouble at home?"

Of course Ra's would have his finger on the pulse of Gotham, despite his "vow" not to make war with her any longer.

"I have returned your son to you as a blight upon your house."

The familiar ache of her empty womb seemed to grow to the size of a fire ball at his words.

Her son.

Her son.

"He burns the very kingdom you ---"

The connection was severed.

On his end, Ra's sat alone in his study, watching the blank screen.

"Protect.."

On her end, Lady Bat sat, in the darkness, and listened as Alfred made his way deeper into the cave.

"Ma'am," he said, every bit the Alfred that she knew and loved. He had set aside his pain, for now, clearly. "Please take this to heart.. Who Jason was before, how we lost him, and this dark miracle or curse that has brought about his return, it is not your fault. I know that you view his death as your greatest failure, but –"

"His life and his death are my greatest failure," she said, shaking her head. "Do you remember how he was when I found him?"

"Of course, ma'am. Fearless. Arrogant. Brash. And gifted."

"Yes. Different than Dick in so many ways, but still so full of potential. And power. But I knew, even from the beginning, he was dangerous. If I hadn't made him into Robin, he would have grown to do wrong," Belinda said, pulling her cowl off to look Alfred in the eye. "Then I got him killed. My partner. My solider."

My son.

"My fault. I own that. I'll carry that, like everything else. But now there's this. He's taken everything I've ever taught him and turned it on me. It's a hell of my own making, Alfred."

Alfred shook his head, adamant.

"Ma'am, this is not your doing, you loved him, he knows that. It should be enough."

Bel hung her head.

" . . . It's not."

They sat in silence for a time, before the dull beep of the Bat Computer cut it in two.

Bel thumbed the blue button and listened with a frown.

"Reporting live from Gotham Bay Bridge---!"

Pale blue eyes widened slowly as they surveyed the scene.

"No," she breathed.
 
Red Hood removed his helmet and jacket in an alleyway, shoving them both into his saddlebag before continuing to make a few wide loops on his bike. Making sure he wasn't being followed, he eventually made his way back to his hideout, in an abandoned subway station underneath the Gotham Police Department. It had been a rather ingenius idea, he'd thought.
He'd been here for a year, and he'd made it his home. It had some creatively acquired things, like his computer setup-- something similar to a batcomputer, but not nearly as advanced. Not yet, anyway.
It also had some more legitimately purchased items, like a cot and a bunch of tools.

He access the tunnel through a variety of closed construction sites, many of which he had to clear paths for. None of them were wide enough for a car, to make it less supicious, but all said and done, he had a maze of a bike path toward his home, where he parked the bike near to his ESD bench. His helmet was unpacked and placed on said bench, where its speaker played one of the last conversations between Black Mask and his assistant.

"Time to change up the ground war."
"How so, sir?"
"I'm being forced into negotiating with a psychotic."
"That doesn't sound good."
"No.... It's going to be a nightmare."


He pushed the button to turn the reception off, not needing to hear any more. This had been his plan all along- wring Black Mask until he would free said psychotic from Arkham Asylum. It's take some time to actually orchestrate the break-in, so Jason was confident it wouldn't happen in the wee hours of this morning. But even if it had, no doubt Joker's big show would wake him up in time for the next step.

He pulled out the chair from the bench, its wheels squeaking over the uneven concrete as it rolled. Jason sat down in it with a sigh and took the helmet into his hands, fiddling with some of the buttons and opening a hidden compartment in the mask. He then pulled out a vial from one of the many tiny drawers on the workbench and loaded it into the compartment. After putting everything back together, he left the helmet on the bench and walked to his cot, where the springs eeked out in protest at his falling into it.

He put his gloved hands behind his head, his blue eyes staring up at the concrete cieling before he finally drifted off to sleep.


.
.
.


He wasn't sure how much time had passed, but he was awoken by the sound of several cars in the garage above him squealing out of the station with their sirens on. Jason jumped up and to his computer, flipping through closed circuit camera channels and broadcast television to figure out just which event this was: the Arkham Asylum break-in or Joker's Entrance.

A few more key presses found it to be the latter, one of the news channels showing live copter footage of a speed chase. Several police cars were following a big rig. When a small photo of Joker appeared in the corner, Jason grabbed the mouse and flicked up the scroll wheel, raising the volume to a level he could hear.

"Reports are coming in that the Joker has kidnapped several people and is now fleeing Gotham. Police are in hot pursuit and have already set up a barricade--"

The six-wheeler plowed through cars as it made its way to Gotham Bay Bridge, where the exit from Gotham had already been barricaded by the police. Seeing this, the truck attempted to make a sharp U-tun, but instead, jacknifed and rolled to its side. Just as Jason was running through several ways he could control this problem, he was blessed witht he stoppage.

He grabbed his helmet and jacket, put them both on quickly and sped out of his home and toward the bridge, eager to get to the scene before Lady Bat could. He rode as fast as he could without getting too out of control, splitting lanes and going through any opening of cars. There were several times he could've died on the road, but he was too excited, too determined: the moment was finally here. His plans were finally coming to fruition.

He dropped the bike at the docks and used a grappling gun to get up to the rooftops, and again up to the top of one of the supports of the suspension bridge. Taking a moment to catch his breath, he was able to look down below at the scene: police SWAT coming in and kneeling behind some downed vehicles while the Joker was atop the eskew truck, pouring gasoline into a hatch of the trailer.

The helicopter's spotlight was on the psychopath as he then tried to ignite a lighter, but before he was able, the spotlight shifted to Red Hood's own position, greenlighting his own big entrance, and garnering the attention of the madman.


"Hey, look at you! Mr. Hood," he grinned, looking up to the new object of his attention. "Or do you prefer Red?" he threw his hands up in a questioning stance, the lighter still in his right hand.
"You know I used to wear an outfit a lot like that," he continued, a violet gloved hand giving an accusatory point toward Red Hood.

Yeah, you did, the vigilante thought to himself. Was a bit of an inspiration, really.

"Mine was more flashy maitre d' than motorcycle fetish." He threw his hands down and grimaced. "You kids today."

His right hand idly began flicking the lighter again, and he turned his attention to it again. "I'm sorry, could you hold on?" he projected, lifting a free finger up to signal his audience to wait. "I was just in the middle of setting fire to your gang," he said, his expression visibly agitating as he continued to have trouble with the lighter, the spark never quite catching flame. Hod gloved hands both went to the lighter, and his gripped seemed to tighten in growing frustration.

"Go ahead," Red Hood called back, the spotlight having left him to focus on the Joker again. "You think I care if that scum dies?" Hell, if he had a lighter on him, he might toss it to the Joker.

"Don't know," Joker answered, still fussing witht he lighter. "I just wanted your attention."

"You've always had my attention," Red Hood held back a chuckle. "What I really wanted was an audience with you."
This was it. It was really happening. Everything he'd worked for had all come up to this point. He almost didn't know what to do with himself, the adrenalin was already beginning to race through him.

The Joker quirked a green brow, his attention looking up from the lighter for a moment as he looked toward the vigilante once more. "I'm sorry, that seems to imply that YOU organized this little clambake."

"I did." Red Hood affirmed, standing a little straighter. "Sure, I had lots of plans..." So many fallbacks, contingies, possibilities... "... But the end game was getting Black Mask so desperate that he'd cut a deal. He was the only one with the connections to get into Arkham and get you out.."

Red Hood could've done it himself, of course. But he didn't need all that spotlight on him. Lady Bat would've been on him within minutes, no matter how covert or how much money he thought he'd dropped. Black Mask had much better connections, and much larger sums of money though... It was a roundabout way of getting it done, of course, but it was good enough. Afterall, here they were: Black Mask five minutes from death and Joker, freed and in front of him. What more could he really ask for?


"Sooo... I've been bamboozled." Joker side-eyed Red Hood, his voice sardonic. His arms fell flat to his sides as his wide eyes looked up to Red Hood again. "Oh. My."

"I wouldn't undersell it," the vigilante replied again. "It took a lot of work to bring about our reuinion."

At this, the Joker's brows furrowed, emotion returning to his face once more. "Reunion? Have we met before?"
He brought a finger to his chin, overacting his question as he entertained the populace of Gotham who watched him on TV.

"Yes," Red Hood answered, darkly. "We have."

"Well," Joker responded, lifting his arms up again. "Here's to warm memories!" The lighter finally ignited, and with a grim look, he dropped it into the cargo trailer below him. The people inside began to scream as the insides caught fire. Red Hood remained still, watching the scene unfold.

He hadn't lied about not caring if they died.

As the trailer began to smoke, the faint beeping of the Lady Bat proximity alert was beginning to grow inside his ear. Red Hood narrowed his eyes behind the helmet. He'd have to act quickly now, to get the Joker before she did.
He'd been too selfish in his need for attention. He fell into the trap of entertaining his audience, just like the Joker had always done.
 
He had done it. The son of a bitch had actually done it.
Lady bat felt the chill air against her face, either that or she imagined it. She felt cold, cold all over. Vastly different from her usual, white hot rush of adrenaline before a big fight. Especially a big fight with him.. The Joker always seemed to light her on fire, and in the most despicable way. He had threatened before, he had been a lecherous, sneering caricature of a human man. But after he killed Jason, all of that took on a new, even more disturbing facet.
He was never supposed to be free. Never able to steal a child from another mother.. She had beaten him within an inch of her life. She only stopped when she got his fetid blood in her mouth, spurting from an artery that had burst from a compound fracture. His right arm. She had cracked the elbow backwards, screaming like a wild animal, a guttural, despicable sound.
He was never supposed to be free again, but Sionis, the great fool, the pitiful bastard, had unleashed a mad dog onto Gotham, had set it loose, and Lady Bat deduced it was to try to use Joker in the same way Ra's did, as a mere tool against his enemies. In this case, Black Mask had tried to use the Joker as an even bigger, meaner monster to battle the monster he precieved the Red Hood to be.
Closing in on the bridge in the Batwing, she was almost surprised that the Joker and Red Hood didn't seem to be paying the roar of the engine any mind. No, the Joker was too busy with his theatrics and Red Hood was too busy with his brooding.
The flash of a lighter falling into the tractor trailer caught her eye and she swore, pushed the throttle forward, diving the Batwing and thumbing the controls for the extinguishing agent to fall from the bottom hatch, soaking the trailer and the Joker.
She swung the Batwing back around, searching, craning her neck.
Where was Jason, where was Jason, where was Jason...
He was watching her. At least she could still command his attention.
Bringing the Batwing back around, she deployed a grappler from its underside and aimed, carefully, to hook the Joker's jacket. She had to, first and foremost, get that bastard out of an area where we can harm others, and also, hopefully draw Jason away as well...
 
The Batwing came overhead and dropped AFFF over the Joker and the trailer, ruining his performance and ending the peril of his victims. Red Hood was almost disappointed, but didn't have time to really feel as the jet came back around and tethered Joker with a grappler hook, flying over the Bay with him.

The vigilante had to move fast, running down the bridges support and jumping onto the line which precariously held the Joker. Once he'd gripped it firmly, he unsheahted his knife and cut it, holding onto them both in their respective hands as he and the psychopath fell into the water.

Once covered by the Bay's calm waves, Joker attempted to make his escape, only for the Red Hood to wrap the arm witht he line around his neck, both taking positive control of the man while tangling up his feet. Red Hood sheathed his knife and began to swim back toward Gotham, the adrenalin rushing through his veins giving him enough energy to spring the whole way without coming back up for air. The same didn't hold true for the Joker however, who became limp in short time and easy to tug along to shore/

He was able to surface near the harbor, pulling his psycho baggage to shore, tying him properly with the line from the Batwing, and then tossing him over the front of his bike. He drove to an abandoned apartment building in Crime Alley and carried the clown up a few flights of stairs to a room he had prepped long ago. He doubted Lady Bat would remember, as this one was a callback of his own design: his old apartment. When his mother was still alive.
He was going to bomb the whole place down when he got back, but never did pull the trigger. Then... He'd found a better use for it...

He dropped the wet, still unconscious pale and green heathen to the floor and left him for a minutes, going back down and hiding his bike a little further away, making sure his jacket was stocked with his own little armory from his saddlebags. Then he tapped into the Batwing's frequency - of course she'd still use the same one - and finally said. "I got him. You want him? Meet me at Crime Alley." You know where.
Of course she'd know, too. He was sure she hadn't missed all the throwbacks to mess with her head.

But he had to go back to the Joker for the time being. He was jogging back in just as the Joker was coming to. Red Hood grabbed a duffel bag that had been on the kitchen island and dropped it to the floor, metals clanking and thudding as their weight hit the tired, rotting wood.

While sloppy green haired goon coughed up the water from his lungs, he turned over on his side and began to laugh once his beady eyes set sight on Red Hood again. "So, what's the plan? Slumber party? Charades?" his voice cracked as he had yet to totally recover from his little oxygen drought. "A little truth or dare?"
He sat up, throwing his chin in Red Hood's direction, taunting him, as he his wet hair clung to his face, the bay's water dripping down and mixing with his white paint. "Yes! I'll start with Dare."

Red Hood was too into his own head, though, his own plans. He didn't care about Joker's pry for more attention. He simply kneeled and unzipped the bag, picking his first tool wisely. For even Joker would get a callback.
For him, Red Hood pulled out a crowbar.
He held it up close to his face, making a show of it. Joker would know why.
He should.

"Or maybe I'll just go with Truth," he said, his face showing worry for the briefest of moments as he shirked back a bit.

Red Hood stood, bringing the bar to sit in his other hand as he walked to the Joker on the floor.
The bastard didn't deserve a response, this time. He'd been too selfish before, trying too hard. Witty responses? That was Dick's thing. He needed to quit trying to be someone he wasn't.
You're becoming a crime lord, Lady Bat had said.
Lady Bat was right. She always was.
It was going to end tonight, though.

He threw his arm into the Joker with the crowbar, it smashing against his face. Reliving the moment in the opposite position was visceral. He lost himself in it, and re-enacted his past, but this time, Joker was the stupid boy Robin, and He - Red Hood - was the one who held all the power. All the cards.
Watching Joker squirm was all too pleasant. Each hit, the Joker gasped, spit, his legs writhing. Overhand. Underhand.
Was this what the Joker felt?
Maybe that's why he did such things.

"Tell me, how does that feel?" He stopped momentarily, his teeth grit as he stood up from his barrage.

Joker lay on the floor, his face bloody already, but he still managed to look back up to Red Hood.
Gonna spit? he thought.

But alas, Joker broke the script. "Well, you know... It only hurts when I laugh..." He tried to laugh, but instead groaned in obvious pain.

That's right. You've never felt pain before have you? Well. Get used to it.

"But, hey," the Joker breathed, recovering himself. "I gotta know. Who are you? You said we knew one another. And you do seem really familiar."

The man's head cocked, his hair slopping over his mouth as started taunting again. "We double at the prom? Or maybe blow up a school bus together?"
Bastard was just stalling.

Red Hood raised and lowered the crowbar in his hand. "No," he replied curtly. "I'm just something you helped make."

The Joker's eyes lit up with curiosity. "That's pretty cryptic," he grinned, his voice becoming a little more sinister as he bent into more of a fetal position on the floor, "But interesting. Tell me more."

Red Hood bent forward, all too happy to oblige. "Sure."
He raised the crowbar again. "Listen up."
 
He had cut the line.

Watching him plumet into the fetid, oily waters of Gotham Bay made her heart sink, but also light her very soul on fire in a blind fury. Whoever had given him that fucking blade, she'd force-feed them their own teeth.

Lady Bat pulled the Batwing around, switching the dash screen to sonar, watching the sweeping arm scan the watery depths. Her mind raced. Where is he, where is he, where is he...

Where were they?

Jason and the Joker were lost in the water. For so long, she had kept the monster under lock and key. Since Jason's death, all those years ago. And now, as if only to spite her, Joker was out, and all because Jason yearned to make a point.

As if reading her frantic thoughts, a voice cut across the closed frequency on the Batwing.

"I got him."

Jason. She wanted to scream out to him, to call him, to reason with him, but all the words she couldn't muster turned to ash in her mouth. For a moment, she thought maybe the eager-to-please young boy she had rescued from the gutters of Gotham City had come back to her. Memories of Robin crying out those exact three words as he tackled a criminal or a rogue died in her heart, just as Jason had died..

"You want him? Meet me at Crime Alley."

Her eyes narrowed. No. He was still Red Hood, still determined to make his point, to see his plan through to its end, whatever that end may be.

. . .

Lady Bat had, herself, been born in Crime Alley. The man that murdered her parents had done it here. She had countless battles here. And as she stalked the cold and quiet alley, she recalled, she had found him here. Somehow, in a moment of mild hilarity, she had returned to the parked Batmobile to find it up on cinderblocks. No one else had ever been so bold as to try, but scanning the alley, she saw him.

Skinny. Dirty. Dark haired.

He had hidden the crow-bar behind his back, as if to hide it from her impenetrable gaze. An innocent child still, despite his wading into the waters of Gotham crime. She had sought to rescue him, to pull him out of the mess, and back into the light..

Oh, Jason, she thought, as the specter of memory vanished from her eyes..
 
He grabbed Joker's collar and pulled him into the crowbar, continuing to bludgeon the sad excuse for a man until his helmet started beeping again, indicating Lady Bat was close.

Red Hood threw the Joker down and tossed the crowbar to the floor, it loudly clattering against the tile. He kicked it out of the way with a grunt, shifting the bag as well. Reaching over, he grabbed a chair and then forcefully plopped the Joker into it, grabbing another rope from the bag he'd cast aside before and tying the man to the back of the chair quickly.

Once he finished, he went to a door in the hall, opening up the side closet and with a loud yell, threw everything out of it. Random trash and hobo clothes on rusted hangars fell to the ground. Grabbing Joker's chair back, he dragged it into the closet.

"Oh, we're playing Hide and Seek now? It's no fun when you see where I hide."

Red Hood's resentment quickly growing for the demon in the closet, he couldn't help but take the perfect opening. "Just wait til I count to ten," he growled from behind grit teeth, disabling the beeping in his helmet and running back down to Crime Alley.

He... knew Lady Bat was there. He could see her.
But. For some reason, he had thought she wouldn't actually show up.

This was it.
It was happening.

Everything he'd planned for.
He'd done it.
This was his conclusion.
He'd wanted nothing more than this... For years...

But he almost didn't want it to end.

"Hello?"
He finally spoke up, his voice wavering from the emotions he wasn't sure he wanted to feel.
This was... Different. Somehow.

Lady Bat had come here in her batmobile. She'd been looking at it before, transfixed. Probably thinking back to the time he'd stolen her tires, or tried to anyway. Or maybe back to her parents. That had happened in Crime Alley too. Or maybe down the street? Who cared to be that specific except her...
But this was about him now.

And, self-conscious of his voice, he stood taller and and spoke the next line firmly and with the sass his teenage self was more known for: "So glad you could make it."
 
Lady Bat turned to face him, buried as a child, but now a man grown. Thunder and lightning clashed over-head and rain began to fall. It was the pair of them now. This was it. This was the crescendo, the end of the waltz they had spun around each other these past few dreadful nights.

"This ends tonight," she said, her normal voice, speaking both to Jason and to herself. "All of it. Jason."
 
His body stiffened, his eyes narrowing.
"Going against the code now?" he hissed.
Using real names. So uncouth.

And "this ends tonight?" Of course it did. Nobody knew that better than him.
Not even Joker.

And, despite the situation. He wasn't going to stoop down to her level.
No, he knew she knew he knew who she was. He didn't need to say it out loud.

"So, tell me. What bothers you more?" He said, shifting to a fighting stance. "That your greatest failure has come back from the grave?"
He reached into his jacket and pulled out several shuriken, throwing them toward the Bat only milliseconds before running toward her as he yelled "Or that I've become a better Bat than you?!"
 
She wasn't going to verbally spar with him, not when he was dead-set on physically sparing her. Lady Bat had know this would be a possibility. She had hoped to have avoided it, but this was the path that Jason had chosen. Like all things to do with her boys, their choices were their own.. She just had to met out the consequences.

Lady Bat leapt out of the way of the shuriken, backflipping over a dumpster. Once behind it, she slapped a rocket disk to the metal frame and watched it gain speed, hurtling down the alley towards Red Hood.
 
His throwing stars clattered to the ground after losing their momentum. Once the dumpster came barreling toward him, though, he jumped up, somersaulting overtop of it and attempted to get closer to Lady Bat and get a legitimate hit in.
 
Lady Bat anticipated his jump, and sprung to action. She had studied the tape from their chase, nights before, and managed to lasso his ankles, synching it to a tight knot. He hit the concrete like a sack of bricks and Lady Bat braced for him to either thrash or try to break free.

She had looped her end of the metal cable around her forearm to brace.

"Enough!" She barked, though the tail end of her growl died in her throat as he turned his body on the ground, hand going into his coat..
 
Mid-jump, his ankles were lassoed. He didn't have enough time or room to correct himself before the cable pulled taut. He called out as he was pulled down to the asphalt of the alley, his re-enforced gloves and armored torso catching most of the force of the fall. Red Hood was quick to sit back up, however, turning his body to survey the situation and unsheathing his knife again. His free hand went into his jacket at the same time, taking out a tazer.

"You'll never learn," he chastised, laying his blade down on the line, then cutting it and using the tazer to send a shock through the cable to Lady Bat with one smooth motion.

He didn't waste any time while she was shocked, either- he shoved the tazer in his pocket and went up the nearest fire escape ladder, knife still in hand. He expected her to follow him, embued with the chase, as she always did.

And when she got up, he'd be waiting, ready to pin her cape down to the roof of the building with his blade.
Silly Bat.
Always with the cape.
 
Lady Bat's entire body seized up, as though in one giant cramp. Her teeth grit, her head thrown back in pain. He had electrocuted her. The little bastard had exploited the one potential weakness of the braided metal chain, a weakness that hadn't yet been exploited by any other rogue.

She wasn't going to let him know that, she thought, as he had released her from the electric charge and made his escape. Her body slumped, small twitches ravaging her body as her muscles struggled to reach their normal chemistry again. He'd never let her live it down..

Stupidly, Lady Bat felt, if she could pursue him, best him in a fight, that they would have a future. That he just needed to get this out of his system, like all his tantrums when he was a tween, a young man...

Hand over hand, Lady Bat pulled herself up the fire-escape, following the trail Red Hood had left, her chest heaving as she tried to catch up. He was running away from her again... he was going to leave again...

Climbing over the edge of the roof, she scanned it quickly, looking for him.
 
And, just as predicted, she came up.
And, just as planned, he stabbed the knife through her cape and into the roof, pinning her momentarily. At least until the cape ripped.

While he had her pinned, he came out from behind her and turned to her front, attempting to throw punches at her face and chest. He wanted to get a few good hits in. He hadn't decided yet if he'd kill her, tonight. But fighting was cathartic, at least. Besting his mentor would be an ego stroke before the end.
 
Lady Bat lurched forward, but found herself pinned, literally, to the roof. Red Hood had his damned knife stabbed through her cape, and into the thick stone of the roof. She didn't have time to process it, though, because he came at her like a wild animal. A flurry of punches rained down on her, some to her head and face, others to her chest. She blocked a few, but several found purchase.

Jason was a big boy... His punches found their targets, and Lady Bat wasn't sure which hurt worse, the actual punches, or the fact that it was Jason delivering them.

Rage took over.

A raw, cold chord that wrapped tight around her heart and gut.

Lady Bat pulled a Batarang from her belt, throwing her arm wide, catching the armored back-knuckles of her glove against the jaw area of Red Hood's helmet. The motion also sliced through her cape, giving her the ability to move freely.

Little boy wanted to play? Let's play.

Lady Bat went on the offensive, pushing forward and slicing out at Red Hood, slicing a gouge in the hardened plastique of his helmet, and then swinging her leg around, catching his chest and knocking him far away from her, increasing their communal distance.

"ENOUGH!" She bellowed, the roar accented by a flash of lighting and clap of thunder. Furious, Lady Bat grabbed the front of her cowl and ripped it off, facing Red Hood as Belinda... Not the mother who OD'd on the couch, but the woman who buried him. "Enough... It's me." She implored, in a hiss. "I don't want to fight you, Jason. I can help you. Please, I know what happened to you..."
 
Red Hood didn't bother blocking the hits to his head, as he had the helmet to protect him. It was something nice to fall back on, really. More heroes should wear helmets, not capes.
Regardless, complacency had a tendency to kill and.. He wasn't expected her to finally go for his chest, pushing the air from his chest and his body backward.
Quickly recuperating due to the armor in his core, though, he rolled forward and grabbed the knife that was still stuck in the roof of the building.

But by the time he righted himself into a stance again, Bel had de-masked herself and was talking again.
His eyes narrowed, but he stood up straight and removed his helmet as well, dropping it at his feet. The gash had made it susceptible to collapse anyway, and he wanted to see the Lady without any more barriers.

"Talked to Ra's?" he growled. "Does it make it easier for you to think my time in the pit turned me rabid?" his green eyes glowered at her, the pouring rain sticking his short black hair to his face. Jason didn't bother wearing a domino mask under his helmet- there was no need. What identity was there to hide?
He was dead.

His black boot stepped on his helmet, squeezing it slightly as he looked down, eying it. "Or is this just the real me?"
Frowning, he kicked the helmet toward Bel, it slowly rolling to her feet.

He brought his gaze back up with a scowl. "Look at you," he said, pulling another switch from his jacket.

"I'm what this city needs!" He flipped the small switch, activating the nitroglycerin he'd inserted into the mask last night, blowing the helmet up at Bel's feet.
 
He didn't look too much different than he did as a child, a young man. He had filled in a bit, and not for the first time Lady Bat wondered who his father was, who he really was. The man called "Todd" that existed on paper on the birth certificate surely wasn't who had impregnated Kathy Todd..

One heeled boot lifted to stop the rolling red helmet that Jason tossed at her.

Empty eyes stared back up at her, her black bob becoming slick with rain.

While Jason spoke, using such hurtful words like "rabid," she pulled on her cowl and she felt that cold chord tighten.

Come back to me, Jason. That plea seemed to turn, morph into a different sentiment. Was this still Jason...?

I'M WHAT THIS CITY NEEDS.

A split second before the explosion, Lady Bat kicked the helmet high, the explosion creating a screen of smoke between her and Jason.

Bursting through the fiery haze, she yelled as she threw herself bodily into Jason, throwing the pair of them backwards and down, their kinetic energy causing them to burst through the molding wooden roof access door.
 
He found his plan had backfired, and Lady Bat had anticipated the blast, using it to her advantage and creating a smoke screen. In the haze, he was taken by surprise when Lady Bat tackled him, smashing him through the rotting access door. He dropped the knife in his surprise, it lay somewhere still on the roof while the two of them tumbled down the stairs.

Without his helmet, he tried to protect his head with his armored gloves, but was still having some issues. He finally stopped moving at some landing, and a quick glance to the sign on the wall made him realize the floor he wanted them both to go to was only one more level below them. Still somewhat dizzy and disheveled, he got up with a grunt and tried to run down the steps and into the hall of the abandoned apartment complex, swinging the unlocked door open, the heavy wood slamming on the wall on the outside as he ran in, hoping Lady Bat would follow him.

Once he reached the kitchen area of the apartment, he turned around, re-assuming his fighting stance and waiting for the Lady Bat to arrive. He used the little time he had to catch his breath, his dizziness dissipating as a small bead of blood ran down his cheek from somewhere behind his hairline. The concrete steps had done a number on him, and he was wishing he'd kept his helmet on.

It gave him no benefit to try and be Bel's equal. He was not her equal. He was better than her. Better at cleaning up the city. Crime was down beneath him.
He decided then, that, if she didn't do what he wanted her to, he would kill her. He'd kill them all. End the story here.
It'd be a good ending.
You can't stop crime.
 
Fighting Jason wasn't like fighting the Joker. It wasn't like fighting Catwoman or the Riddler. It wasn't even like fighting Bane. Somewhere along the god-awful fall down the stairs, the grunting and sharp screams as each impact shuddered through her armor, she realized that fighting Jason was taking more of a toll o her than the whole rogues gallery combined. It was taking the life out of her. It was draining her, mentally, emotionally, physically.

Finally coming to a stop at the concrete landing, Lady Bat found herself half on, half off of Jason's body. Moaning, she realized that he had regained his strength enough to clamber away. It took her longer. She felt old. Pushing herself to her hands and knees, she took quick stock of her injuries.

Bruised, cut, but her armor prevented the extent of the broken bones being what they could have been. Her mind went to Jason and how he survived the fall down the stairs.

She pulled herself to her feet and ran, followed him down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

Finding her way to the run down, condemned apartment he had sprinted into, Lady Bat found him in the kitchen.

"It's over! You need to stop this!" She yelled, realizing he was still prepared to fight. "How much longer do you think you can keep this up?!"
 
Jason's green eyes narrowed, his brows furrowing at the displeasure of the scene before him. He relaxed his stance and stood up straight.

"Is the Bat begging?" he scowled. The tumble had roughed him up, he might have a concussion even, but Lady Bat looked even worse for wear.
He wondered if she was getting old or if she was just on her period.
He knew he was better than her, but he didn't think he was that much better than her.

"This is just sad," he spit, his eyes wandering over to the toolbag on the floor in the living room. He cured his wandering mind and focused his attention back on her.

"You know, now I don't even want to fight you anymore." he tossed his hands up a bit, growling.
"If you had been a man, this would've all been over much sooner, and way more fulfilling," he continued on, his mocking tone covering up his disappointment.

That's how men solved things- with their fists. He had, apparently incorrectly, assumed Lady Bat would follow the same. Given her chosen extracurricular activities.
This was just disappointing.

It wasn't ideal, but it was fine. He'd recover. It wouldn't be the perfect ending, but his plan could still continue. And anyway, it just cemented his plans to kill her.

"You're too weak to protect this city anymore."
He'd do her a favor by putting her down.
 
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