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Barbara comes back to Gotham in a state of morbid shock; she feels an aberrant sense of vacancy in her chest. The cacophony of the overhead speakers, the buzz of surrounding conversation, the obnoxious squeak of shoes on slick paved white floors, and the jarring rattle of luggage all feel like a feeble murmur as she looks for Dick in the airport pick-up lane. The familiar rancid stench of Gotham should be comforting, should be almost welcoming, but it’s not. Not at all.
Her plane touched down fifteen minutes ago and she already rushed through baggage claim just to get out of here faster. She didn’t plan on coming back here anytime soon; the stark bruised marks left from what happened to Stephanie and the collapse of everything in the aftermath haven’t stopped bleeding her yet, but Death never stops stealing people away with His frigid hands. On second thought, that’s a tad unfair. There’s someone else entirely to blame for this. Someone who came back and decided to take another in his place. Someone who was mourned, who was missed, who was loved. Barbara will never forget the message that sent her here, the message that cleaved her apart the way a butcher guts a carcass. Barbara feels like she's a pig, with her throat slashed and spilling gore on the filthy floor of a slaughterhouse.
Dick: Tim is dead. Jason Todd is Red Hood. Come home.
She sees Dick about seven cars down the lane. He’s dressed in a ragged black hoodie and ashy sweatpants, with a pair of worn and grimy sandals. His face is completely devoid of anything resembling a discernible emotion; an inane expression that causes Barbara to almost recoil. He doesn’t react to her presence, he’s submerged in grief and he mutes the environment with his own sorrow. The air feels damp, feels waterlogged, with an intense omen of catastrophe; an intuition that things will only spiral further downward beyond rock bottom. The rest of the world feels oblivious to it, though. What can you even say in a situation like this? What is there to say? What is there to do? Tim is dead.
Dick takes her luggage. She wants to protest, wants to say she can do it herself, but she can’t bring herself to utter the words. She remembers the aftermath of Jason’s death; the anguish, the rage, the hurt all melded into a deep trauma. This feels even worse. He looks like he’s decaying from inside. Every action he makes radiates pain, and his movements are languid and prolonged. She enters the passenger seat and Dick puts her wheelchair in the trunk, he still hasn’t said a word since she got here.
The drive to his apartment isn’t any better, and the only sounds made are of car horns, turn signals, and the gritted sound of tires on the road. Barbara can’t stand the silence anymore, it’s all so unlike him. She’s seen Dick joyful, she’s seen him irate, she’s seen him at his best and at his worst, but she’s never seen him like this. Dick feels things so strongly and never halfheartedly, it’s part of what made her love him. His presence has never felt so… empty. She’ll take anything over this overbearing veil of agitation, of gloom.
“Where is Jason now?”
He looks at her from the corner of his eye. The neon lights and ethereal glow of Blüdhaven comes into view on the road, but it’s completely overwhelmed by the shadows in the car; the black hole of joy that devours everything near with its gluttonous maw. He finally speaks after a pregnant pause of quiet.
“…He turned himself in a couple of hours ago. Bruce has him in the cave.”
“Oh. How do…how do you feel about that?”
Barbara feels the car swerve into the breakdown lane before it slowly comes to a stop, but she can see the rapid quiver in Dick’s hands, the wound-up tension in his jaw that threatens to rip open and scatter everywhere. He turns the keys and the car shuts off; the both of them are completely eclipsed in the cover of the night except for the occasional passing vehicle that projects faint white light onto the front seats. Everything feels cold and alien in a way it hasn’t before, from the stale urban air outside, the persistent rumble of city ambiance, the faint crackle of the off-station car radio, and the bumps on the musty leather seats. Dick puts his head in his hands with a slow and deliberate effort, but they still haven’t stopped their tremor.
“I do—… I don’t think I can ever forgive him.” The words come out panicked and frightened, as if he’s just come to the realization. Barbara was close to Tim, she remembers the times he helped her with a selfless little smile on his face, the times he looked at her with unmitigated warmth in his eyes, but it doesn’t begin to compare to how close Dick and Tim were. Their bond was forged in the midst of tragedy and pain, a brotherhood that mended grievances and stitched wounds created in the aftermath of death. They were family, but now Tim is gone. Jason killed him.
“…Bruce has been going on and on about how it ‘Isn’t Jason’s fault’ he did all those horrible things but I can’t bring myself to believe him,” Dick’s voice cracks and frays at the edges, “I can’t bring myself to believe that Jason meticulously planned everything out, executed it, but wasn’t in full control of what he was doing.” He turns towards her, his eyes pleading and glassy as his speech becomes even more frantic.
“Trust me, I want to believe it, I want to believe so fucking badly that this wasn’t his choice. I desperately want to believe it’s mind control or possession or even an evil clone,” Barbara can see the sheen running down his cheeks, can see the way misery’s serrated nails tear at his face, “but I don’t think it’s true. I think that Jason chose this. I know I was a shitty brother, I know what happened to Jason was horrible, but he was such a good kid and I can’t understand why he did this.”
There’s a ton of things Barbara wants to correct him on, she wants to shut down his perpetual state of self-blame and loathing, wants to comfort him and make sure he knows he’s not being fair to himself, but there’s things she needs first. Oracle is an information broker, she needs knowledge, needs a fuller perspective, before she can act.
“Why does Bruce think Jason wasn’t in control of himself?”
“…I don’t know. I think he mentioned something about a Lazarus Pit but he was borderline rambling and it was unlike him. We’ve only talked to each other once since—” Dick cuts off his words with a pained choke, as if they barb themselves in his throat and asphyxiate him. He bites down on his knuckles until she can see bright red on his teeth before he speaks again, “…since everything that happened yesterday. The thing is…even if Jason wasn’t in control of himself and was under some kind of manipulation, I don’t… I still don’t think I’ll be able to forgive him. I still won’t be able to look at him, not after what he did—what he did to Tim. I know I should forgive him. He went through hell and he’s gone through unimaginable pain, but I can’t. He died trying to save his mother, he’s my younger brother and yet I can’t bring myself to forgive him.”
Barbara lets the ensuing silence stretch for a moment, she gives herself some time to word her response. She has an idea of what to say, but she needs to be careful in how it’s said. It’s a delicate situation.
“…I don’t think you should have to forgive…or even try to forgive him, if you don’t want to or don’t think it will help. I remember some time after I was shot, I heard a story. It was about a man, a man who quit his job to become a stand-up comedian…” Barbara hears Dick’s breath hitch at the mention, but she’s unbothered by the story now; she’s had time to process the unfairness, the depression, the hopelessness that came with it. She’s happy with where she is now, who she is now, despite the changes she's had to make. “…He failed miserably, and was struggling to make ends meet. He had a pregnant wife and was desperate for cash, so he helped some burglars break into a chemical plant.”
Dick’s face goes pale and starts to sweat uncomfortably, the front of his hair is starting to stick together and his breaths become concerningly shallow, “Barbara, I don’t want to hear thi—”
“Dick, just please let me finish, I promise I have a point to make.”
He opens his mouth like he wants to retort, wants to say something, but decides to close it and he nods. It’s a show of trust, a show of care. She continues.
“…The man’s wife dies in an accident and he doesn't want to be a part of the scheme anymore, but he’s forced into it anyway. They put a Red Hood and a costume on him. The man is double-crossed because the burglars just wanted to divert attention from themselves. The robbers are killed by the cops when they botch the break-in, but the man in the Red Hood comes face to face with Batman. He then falls into a vat of toxic waste that changes him, that bleaches his skin white and his hair green. He becomes someone different after that day.”
She steels herself; this is the important part, the point she needs to make. “The thing is, after I heard that story…nothing changed for me. It changed absolutely nothing.” Fire flares in her tone; the remnants of burning coals that ignite at the memory, “It didn’t make me feel sympathy or empathy or anything remotely close. It didn’t change what he did to me or what he did to so many others. It didn’t make me hate him any less. It didn’t help me with closure or healing, and certainly not forgiveness. I still want revenge for what he did, even today. His tragedy changed nothing for me. I don’t care that he used to be someone different. I don’t care that he had one bad day. People want to create explanations, want to create narratives that try to make sense of what happened or to make things feel a little less awful, but sometimes it doesn’t help.”
The atmosphere feels a smidge lighter, like her recollection has shone a light on the awful past and present. It’s just the two of them hurting together now, connecting with each other through their shared pain. A budding sense of catharsis, perhaps.
“Jason isn’t the Joker, Barbara.”
“I know it’s not a one to one comparison, but what I’m saying is …while we can try to rationalize or excuse what people like Jason do, sometimes all it does is hurt the people he affected, the people who suffered because of him. What Jason went through doesn’t make his actions less awful or less evil, and who he was before isn’t who he is now. Trying to excuse, or mitigate, or reduce the responsibility of what he did only ends up hurting people like Tim more, even though he’s gone now. Don’t forgive him if you don’t want to. I know he was a good kid and I know you blame yourself for not being there or not doing enough, but that’s the past and nothing was your fault.”
Dick leans his face on her shoulder, and she can feel the wet spot seeping through her clothes, but she doesn’t mind. She puts her hands over his. They both stay there for a few minutes, and the muffled sounds of sniffling coming from Barbara’s side does nothing but serve to cement her feelings. She doesn’t think she’ll be able to forgive Jason, either. Dick takes his head off her shoulders and rubs his face. When he starts the car again, he asks her one more question.
“What…what do you think? Do you think Jason chose to do this? Maybe Bruce is right and it wasn’t his fault. Maybe…maybe I’m just being cynical. I can forgive him if I try hard enough and with enough time.” There’s a quaint sense of hope in his voice, the slightest possibility that this could still be salvageable. Barbara knows the answer already. It isn’t.
“Jason made his choices, Dick.”
Barbara gets a call from Bruce the following day and she’s been asked to meet with him at the Manor. It’s “important business”, apparently. Bruce hasn’t called Dick once since he told him that Tim died. He left Barbara to the duty of caring about him, since he’s too busy. Bruce can’t be bothered with him, so he leaves Dick’s ex of all people to pick up the slack? Barbara tries to be level in her tone, tries to be professional despite the caustic feeling that seizes her. She addresses him in the living room. This better be “important business”.
“What do you need, Bruce? I don’t feel comfortable leaving Dick alone in his apartment for a long time, you know how he tends to ruminate. The past forty-eight hours have been…tough, on everyone.”
In fairness, Bruce doesn’t look good. In fact, he looks awful. He’s completely unkempt and still wearing his costume. Barbara doesn’t think she’s ever seen Bruce look so… old, so blatant in his age and the traumas he's suffered. His hair, graying on the sides, is almost slick with grease, and the wrinkles on his face look carved into him with a blade as if they’re deep gashes or wounds. His skin is ashen and spotty in a way that accentuates every blemish he has, every scar that he’s ever received. The somber look on his face weeps into the room’s atmosphere with streaming trails of shed tears.
“…I need your assistance in creating Tim’s death report for the public. I also need you to corroborate my theory on Jason and his actions. The Justice League is going to discuss how to proceed soon and I require your support.”
A lead ball sinks to the bottom of her stomach and smashes it with a booming thud. What does he mean by theory? Why did Jason decide to kill Tim? How did Jason come back? Who provided Jason with the means to do what he did? If Bruce came up with some half-baked theory on why Jason can’t be held accountable for what he did, Barbara won't be able to keep her cool. She tries to respond neutrally.
“…What is your theory on Jason, Bruce?”
“Exposure to the Lazarus Pit drove him mad and influenced his thoughts, which caused him to do things he never would have done in his right mind. I spoke to him after he turned himself in, and he confirmed that he was put into one to restore his mental faculties. He was catatonic after he was initially resurrected and Talia put him in one to rectify that. The Lazarus Pit has a known tendency to incur heightened aggression and insanity after an individual is put into its waters. Jason is suffering from these effects and it influenced his decision making. That’s why he—” He pauses, almost stutters, as if he was gored mid-sentence; Barbara can feel the wound form in the aftermath, “that’s why he killed Tim. And did everything else.”
She feels rolling waves of indignation crash over her. Barbara knows firsthand that this is a gross simplification and also an outright lie. Jason didn’t kill all those people and beat Tim to death because the pit drove him “crazy”. She’s not entertaining this bullshit.
“No. I’m not going along with this, Bruce. I’ve seen the Lazarus Pit and its effects firsthand, and I know it doesn’t work like that. I was on a mission with Dinah and she was mortally wounded in a confrontation against Ra’s and Talia, the superfluous details don’t matter. What does matter is that we put her in a Lazarus Pit to save her life. She experienced temporary anger and insanity when she emerged, but after I knocked her out she was fine. I even took extra precautions and didn’t put her on any missions for a week afterwards, despite the fact that she showed no signs of any lingering side effects when she woke up. You’ve been in a Lazarus Pit, too! When Ra’s killed you! Why aren’t you suffering from any effects? You want to know why? Because the effects from the Pit are temporary and Jason completely chose to do everything. You’re not telling the truth, Bruce. You want an easy scapegoat.”
Bruce’s eyes sharpen and his lips turn downward in a vicious scowl. It makes the shadows under his eyes all the more pronounced, the age on his face all the more stark. He’s furious.
“You and I both know the Lazarus Pit and its properties are contradictory, Barbara. Sometimes it can resurrect the dead, sometimes it can’t. Sometimes it can only be used once, sometimes it can be used as many times as you want. Sometimes it causes temporary insanity, sometimes it doesn’t. It is entirely possible that Jason’s exposure resulted in an extended episode of madness or permanently altered him in some way.”
Her voice can’t help but rise at the ridiculous logic. This is absurd. “There is a world of difference between madness induced by the Lazarus Pit and meticulously planning a takeover of the drug trade, taking the Joker hostage, and planning to ambush Tim who was thousands of miles away from Gotham. Jason went out of his way to neutralize Tim’s own team before killing him. This wasn't some kind of psychotic break from reality or a supernaturally influenced rage that stoked him into a frenzy, this was a calculated attempt to get Tim alone and hurt him. You don’t get turned permanently crazy or become forever changed by going into a Lazarus Pit once, and Jason wasn’t under any influence from the Lazarus Pit when he came back here. He fully wanted this. You have zero evidence to the contrary.”
Bruce’s face goes crimson and his teeth bare in an uncharacteristic display of unfiltered rage. He stands up to tower over her, to try and intimidate her. It doesn’t work. He still starts yelling at her anyway.
“Maybe if you were around to help we wouldn’t be in this situation! But you left. We could have figured things out sooner, stopped him before he hurt anyone, if you hadn’t decided to abandon us!”
Bruce might as well have thrown sizzling oil onto her face with the way those words make her burn; she can feel them blister on her skin. How dare he.
“You piece of shit. I left because I was sick of being treated like your glorified secretary, because my base was destroyed, because Stephanie died! I’m not your lackey, I’m not one of your kids, and you’re not my boss, so don’t you ever put the blame on me for your own son’s actions because you can’t handle reality!” Her voice hisses and spits at him; she lets the vile emotions welt him where they strike, “I didn’t blame you for Jason’s death even when you screwed up. I didn’t blame you for Steph’s death even when you screwed up again. And I don’t blame you for Tim’s death now even though you screwed up a third goddamn time. Maybe you should be looking at the person that murdered Tim instead of blaming me for your own shortcomings. Jason was the one who killed Tim. Blame him.”
“You don’t know him like I do! ” Bruce’s voice reaches its peak, so overwhelming with intensity that Barbara can feel the vibrations of his voice rattle the floor and walls, “Jason knew he was loved, he knew how much I loved him even at the end! I still do. He died a hero, trying to save his mother even after she betrayed him to the Joker. Don’t you ever put that responsibility on me when they’re the only ones to blame.” His tone starts to crackle and Barbara hears the wetness in his voice, the sound of Bruce emotionally crashing. “Jason—…he loved reading and school and wanted to join the theater club. He was kind and selfless and so full of love. He helped people. He cared so much. Jason could never do any of those things by choice. He wouldn’t. Jason wouldn’t deliberately kill anyone. I know that Filipe Garzonas fell and I shouldn’t have blamed him, I know that Jason is a good person, and I know that he didn’t choose any of this. He's my son and I’m not going to hear you slander him.”
Bruce desperately wipes his eyes, and all of his ardor begins to recede; it leaves a brittle and hollow vacuum behind.
“…You don’t know what it’s like to lose your child, Barbara. You don’t know what it feels like to hold your own son's cooling body in your arms, and you don’t know what it feels like to find out your son has come back to life to put others—to put Tim— in the grave. You don’t get to tell me what's real and what isn’t, not when everything meaningful has fallen apart and I’m left scavenging through the rubble again. I know the truth.”
Bruce has completely lost it.
It’s clear now. He’s severed from reality; he’s allowed his trauma to cleave at him until his delusions have become his eyes. Barbara can’t ignore the deep sense of pity for him that emerges, even as the rage still lingers and broils her insides. His love has eroded his sight, and it has rotted his mind into some horrible cesspit. Trying to convince him of anything is a worthless effort like this, when he’s drowning in pain until he’s left gurgling on his own regret and misery. Bruce is a shamefully broken man; one who can’t look at the truth without it searing his retinas, and so he turns away to cower instead.
“…Let me talk to him, Bruce. I want to talk to Jason.”
The cell is padded with a soft white material, and it almost looks like the inside of a pillow. The lights overhead shine a muted yellow color on him. His back is turned to her and the reinforced glass door, but Barbara knows he’s aware of her presence. He’s not in costume, but rather a white shirt and gray sweatpants that feels reminiscent of something you’d see in a psych ward. His memorial is behind her, though a fair bit of distance away. She can feel its eyes watching her and Barbara cringes as a bout of nausea overtakes her stomach. How does she even begin this conversation? What can she say? What is there to say when every single emotion and thought is colliding and thrashing in a rabid spasm that leaves her feeling grotesque? She hates him, she feels pity for him, she hates him even more, she never wants to see him again.
“…Do you miss being Batgirl?”
The question, asked with a faint and tristful tone, catches her off guard. Jason turns to her and she sees the hollowed out look on his face, the soft amber light that sheathes him in a ghostly cloak, the misery that aches from every corner and creeps into her with silent mocking laughter. Barbara almost wishes Jason was unrepentant, wishes he was proud and wore every atrocity he committed with a gleeful sneer. She wishes he wasn’t human. It would be easier, it would be simpler, if Jason wasn’t like this. The shame he wears, the sorrow he conveys, it doesn’t dissipate the hate or dilute it into something manageable. All it does is complicate things. She still hates him, but it’s mixed into a putrid blend of heartache that makes everything feel worse. But she’s not Bruce. She still prefers this awful reality to a pacifying lie, so she’s going to steel herself and endure it.
“I was retired from Batgirl before I was shot, Jason.”
“I know that, Barbara. You know what I’m asking. Do you ever miss… before? The way things used to be?”
Jason’s hands are floundering and restlessly rub together as if he doesn't know what to do with them. It's almost funny in a morbid sort of way; he used those hands to hurt, to kill, with ruthless determination yet he staggers in unease and uncertainty when confronted with her of all people. She knows why, but it doesn't stop Barbara from feeling irritated at the implications. The two of them may have certain parallels, certain commonalities they share. However, she is not like Jason. Jason took his pain, his experiences, and used them to create misery. Barbara isn’t like that.
“I feel…nostalgic for those days sometimes, I guess. But I'm happy with who I am now, I don’t spend my days reminiscing or regretting anything and I do more good now than I ever did before. So no, I don’t miss them.”
Jason glances at her, or at least in her general direction. He can’t bring himself to look her directly in the eye. Barbara came here to say some things, so she may as well get it all out while she still has some semblance of emotional control, while she can still tolerate his presence. It feels like she’s getting ill just by being here; the cave reeks of disturbed soil and cigarettes, of blood and dusty air. She takes a deep breath.
“I’m genuinely sorry for what happened to you, Jason. You tried to help your mom, you tried to do a good thing, and you were killed for it. You didn’t deserve it. Not at all. You were a good kid who went through something horrific for absolutely no reason. It wasn’t fair that you had to suffer so much.”
Barbara can feel the pressure forming behind her eyes, the familiar burning, but she refuses to let the tears be shed. The burden has fallen on her to be steadfast, to anchor the tattered remains of Jason’s ruined family. She will let herself be angry, let herself grieve, but she won’t be consumed by it.
“But Tim was a good kid, too. He tried to help people, tried to help Bruce recover after your death, and he was killed for it. I’m not going to lie like Bruce wants me to.” She takes her glasses off and rubs her face tiredly. “Bruce wants me to tell everyone that it was the Lazarus Pit, that it was some confounding circumstance outside of your control that made you snap. I’m not doing that. You didn’t die and come back wrong, Jason, you came back and decided to do wrong, to be wrong. Bruce acts like you as Robin and you as Red Hood are two separate people, but you’re not. I’m not letting you escape your sins. The Jason who was once Robin, that Jason who made me smile, and the Jason who is a mass murderer are the same person.”
The words cause him to recoil, as if she struck him across the face or aggravated a seeping wound. She can’t bring herself to feel remorseful.
“The thing is, I can understand your fury on some level. I know how it feels to be treated as a prop, how it feels to be hurt and only ever seen as an accessory to someone else’s suffering. I can even understand your anger at Bruce, for thinking he doesn’t do enough and feeling the need to do something about it. But…why everything else? Why kill so many people who didn’t deserve it? Why kill Tim?” Barbara lets the hate, the indignation slither into her voice, but she doesn’t let herself devolve. “There comes a point where your own trauma, your own suffering, isn’t enough to explain the pain you decide to inflict onto others. It’s why I hate that Bruce asked me to come here today. He expected me to look at you and immediately sympathize just because we were both hurt by the same pathetic man. You had so many opportunities to kill the Joker and be done with it. You could have been a hero, but you didn’t do that, did you? Instead you concocted some nonsense plan and brutally murdered someone I cared about, someone a lot of people cared about. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to understand that.”
Jason looks at her, truly looks at her, for the first time since she came down here. It’s a look of resigned shame and self-loathing, but it does nothing to appease her or make the emotional bombardment lessen. His guilt is meaningless. She can see her own expression reflected on the glass of the cell door, also; it’s carefully stoic despite the hints of hurt in her voice. Jason finally musters up the will to speak.
“…It was an accident. I swear I didn’t go there with the intention to seriously hurt him. I know it doesn’t make things any better but I wouldn’t murder him on purpose! I was…I was angry and I wanted to prove something. I was going to rough him up a bit—I promise—but he kept saying things and I didn’t realize I was taking things too far until—”
“I don’t care.” Barbara lets the cold and curt words echo throughout the cave, letting them reverberate with her betrayal. “…It doesn’t matter to me, Jason. Your motives as to why you killed Tim, supposed accident or not, mean nothing. I’ll never be able to understand them on any emotional level. I didn’t come here to argue. I came here to tell you something.”
She looks at Jason directly; she’s not letting him avert her gaze, not letting him escape this.
“In a few days, the Justice League is meeting to discuss what to do with you and I will make sure to attend. I’m going to recommend that you be sent to prison, Jason. For a long time, maybe even the rest of your life.”
Barbara turns around to wheel herself out of the cave. She can feel his eyes on her, and she says one last thing before she leaves.
“What you did, Jason. It reminded me of him. Maybe you’re more alike than you thought.”
Barbara hears his choked gasp and can’t help but hope the words burn.