Chapter Text
Jason rolled over. Lying on his side was slightly more comfortable than trying to fall asleep on his back, but it still wasn't happening.
He sat up, rubbing a hand roughly over his face. Talia had sent him the details of his new teacher earlier that day; he'd gotten on a train from Berlin to Warsaw as soon as he had all his supplies and could buy a ticket. Warsaw would connect him to another train to Białystok. Unfortunately, by the time his train pulled into the station, it was late enough that he couldn't get a connecting train to his final destination.
There was no point driving the three hours to Białystok when he could just catch the earliest train. Maybe get some sleep in the bargain.
Except sleep apparently wasn't in his schedule.
Should have taken a damn plane, Jason thought.
He grabbed his hoodie from where he'd been using it as a makeshift pillow and pulled it over his head, then picked up his backpack and walked outside. If he wasn't going to sleep, he might as well enjoy the fresh air after being cooped up in a train most of the day.
Jason pulled out a cigarette and lit it. It was a bad habit, something he'd mostly kicked back when he was Robin, but sometimes he still itched for a smoke. It wasn't like he was overly concerned about lung cancer, either; the evidence had already shown that he was far more likely to die young and bloody than he was to live long enough to have to deal with the consequences of a few smokes here and there.
Jason stared up at the sky, stars mostly blotted out by the lights of the city. He would check in with Talia a few days after he got to Białystok. He didn't doubt that she would know when he arrived, but this way he could at least pretend to himself that he had some control. Plus, he could use that time to scope out the situation before meeting his teacher. Win-win.
He exhaled, let his head lean against the station's wall and his eyes flutter closed, the most relaxed he could make himself. It was a nice night.
Even if his eyes had been open, he wouldn't have stood a chance against the alien strength that dragged him away.
("This one is interesting," the Scientist told the Reach Ambassador. "It is unlike the others. I do not think it is an inactive metagene, not quite, but neither is it human or Atlantean magic."
The Ambassador stared through the pod’s containment field at the unconscious teenager. No physical signs of any powers, unless the streak of white in his hair counted somehow, and the Scientist would have mentioned an active metagene. And yet...
"Interesting," the Ambassador said. "Carry on."
The Reach never met with the Light face-to-face. They had never had the chance to feel the energies surrounding Ra's al Ghul.
Both Ra's and Jason could have told the Reach the energy they felt was from the Lazarus Pit.)
Jason didn't know how long he had been here. All he knew was that he couldn't escape. Nothing he did had any effect on the prison he was confined in, and the aliens holding him were only doing the bare minimum to keep him – and the other prisoners – alive in between their experiments. Every day their chances of escape slipped further away.
One of the aliens stepped into the room. They headed toward Jason's pod. He squeezed his eyes shut.
Let it end, he prayed. Let it end, let it end.
Just let me die!
At least with the Joker, it had finally stopped.
Jason had never thought he would long for the peace of death again.
Jason looked dully out into the room, distantly wondering if he could muster the will and energy to look for some source of escape he hadn’t tried yet (even if it was a more final escape than he would have considered when he first arrived here), which was the only reason he saw it.
A thread of lightning snaking through the room, brushing past each pod. Vague impressions of yellow and red, left in the wake of—
A Flash.
Jason stumbled out of his pod, catching himself with one hand. Around him, what other prisoners were left climbed out of their pods as well. There were far fewer than when he had been brought here. He knew what that meant.
“We need to go, now,” Jason said, making himself stand straight. A fine tremor ran through his whole body, leftover remnants of electricity and lack of food, but he hid that and the dizziness because there were more important things to deal with at the moment.
It was good to know that he could still use the voice and authority of Robin to get civilians moving. They rallied quickly, grabbing onto each other for support as needed, and Jason headed for the door.
He led his fellow prisoners quickly and quietly out. Other superheroes were here; they had to run into them eventually. They just had to not run into the aliens first.
A pair of sentries rounded the corner.
Of course, Jason thought. He ran, ducking at the last minute and kicking out as he slid. One of the sentries collapsed, dropping his staff weapon as he did, and Jason grabbed it as he rolled away from the other sentry. A staff wasn’t his favorite weapon, but Jason could make do.
The other sentry opened fire.
Jason could definitely make do if the staff was also an alien gun.
“Come on,” Jason said when both the sentries were out, jerking his head toward the next corridor.
Two more corridors, hopefully empty because members of the Team had passed through recently, and a flash of red hair leading other humans.
Babs!
“Go,” Jason said, ushering the rest of his group forward until they joined up with Babara’s. Yellow and black flickered over Barbara’s shoulder. Bumblebee. And behind the two of them –
A boy in dark shades in place of a domino mask, utility belt draped over his shoulder.
The Replacement.
Jason pulled the hood of his jacket over his head and joined up at the back of the group, as far away from Robin as he could possibly get. As far away as he could get from any of the superheroes who might recognize him, but he stand to even look at the Replacement.
They made it to the docking bay; Babs and the Replacement swung around to the back, holding off the sentries that had convened around them. Jason picked off a few, then left the rest to the Bats. He ducked his head as he ran past them.
“All right, people, let’s move!” Wonder Girl shouted from Miss Martian’s bio-ship.
Then, predictably, everything went to hell.
The black monster – Black Beetle, Wonder Girl called him – Jason recognized him. He had come by the labs. Not often, and by and large only in the company of a specific alien, but he had been there.
Laughing.
Jason fired at him without even thinking about it.
“Don’t!” Wonder Girl shouted, shoving him out of the way of Black Beetle’s retaliatory attack. Jason rolled with the movement, only training keeping him from dropping the staff. “Leave it to us!”
Like hell. He had just as much training, and they weren’t doing any better than him. At least he had a weapon that was made by the same species; it might stand a better chance of penetrating Black Beetle’s armor.
But he wanted to at least try to get out of this with his identity intact, and he wasn’t wearing any armor, and black was encroaching on the edges of his vision every time he moved too quickly. So he could stand to be a sniper.
Black Beetle roared as Jason hit him in the eye. He blindly swung out, sonic blast picking Jason up and slamming him against the wall. This time, everything went dark.
Water splashing his face woke up him. Jason coughed, icy salt water making a good effort to drown him, and for half a second he thought that when he opened his eyes, the water around him would be a poisonous green.
Someone draped his arm over their shoulder, and then they were in the bio-ship. The speedster who had grabbed him turned around and went straight back into the fray, heading for another unconscious ally.
Seawater was still flooding the hold of the bio-ship. Beast Boy swung in, the Replacement tucked under one arm. Jason backed away, fading into the crowd of the other prisoners.
The hatch sealed. The bio-ship took off.
They were free.
“Hey,” a blonde said, settling next to him where he was slumped in a corner of the bio-ship, away from the rest of the prisoners. She had the thin look of most of the prisoners that had been with Barbara and the Replacemnt; not as bad as the ones who had been held here for days or weeks already, but not healthy. Prisoners of a different sort, Jason supposed. Ones who were gathered to be taken here. “You were pretty slick with that staff gun thing.”
“Guns are basically guns,” Jason said, shrugging it off. “But thanks.”
The girl started. “…You sound like home,” she said.
Jason considered her. He hadn’t really registered it, but she sounded like Gotham. More than that, she sounded like him.
“You’re a Crime Alley kid, too,” Jason said. He grinned. “I haven’t been back in a while. Is it still as shitty as I remember it?”
“Probably worse,” the girl said.
Jason laughed. Yeah, that sounded about right. Not even Batman could ever really make a dent in that hellhole.
“Steph,” the girl said, holding out her hand.
“Jason,” Jason said, and took it.
Nightwing and Wonder Girl made their way into the hold of the bio-ship after twenty minutes or so, an unfamiliar redhead trailing along behind them. They split up and started to talking to all the abductees, who were clumped together in small groups around the hold.
Names, locations, reassurances, Jason counted off. He knew it from personal experience. It was also easy to read in their body language; Nightwing was purposefully being very open and gentle, while Wonder Girl was a little inexperienced but enthusiastic enough to make up for it. The redhead at Wonder Girl’s side was just – watching. Fidgeting in the way that was characteristic in the way of speedsters, and only occasionally saying anything at all.
The speedster had been the one to drag Jason into the ship. He couldn’t help but feel that the speedster kept looking over at him.
Jason tugged at his hood, pulling it farther over his head. Steph, still sitting next to him, eyed him but didn’t say anything.
It was Nightwing that came to talk to them. Of course it was.
Jason’s hands curled and clenched in his sleeves, so they wouldn’t betray him by shaking. He ducked his head, peering through his bangs at Nightwing’s approach. The first Robin crouched in front of them.
“Hi,” Nightwing said, in his ‘frightened civilians’ voice. It echoed his body language, utterly calm and helpful. Jason hated it. He hated the way that he remembered practicing his own version of that voice, hated remembering working alongside Nightwing, hated everything that he had lost.
“You’re Nightwing,” Steph said, faintly awed.
“Yep,” Nightwing said cheerily, and no one who didn’t know him would be able to pick out how strained his voice was under that faked emotion. “And you are?”
“Stephanie,” Steph said. “Brown. I’m from Gotham.”
“Awesome,” Nightwing said, some real warmth seeping into his voice. For all Jason had heard that Nightwing had recently been operating more in Blüdhaven than Gotham – when he wasn’t working with the Team – Gotham was still the place where all the Robins got their start.
Nightwing’s gaze shifted. “And your friend?”
“I don’t know,” Jason said, dagger-sharp. He looked up and met Nightwing’s eyes behind the domino mask. “Why don’t you tell me, Nightwing?”
Nightwing went a very gratifying shade of white.
“Jason,” Nightwing said, like a prayer. “Jason.” He reached out, stretching to touch Jason—
Jason slapped his hand away, up and on his feet and backing away before his mind could catch up to what his body was doing. He kept his back to the bio-ship’s walls.
Nightwing stood slowly, hands held at his shoulders. It wasn’t reassuring; Jason knew how fast Nightwing could slip from one stance to another, knew the kinds of insane tricks no one but an acrobat could manage to fit into their fighting skills, and knew that right here and now he didn’t stand a chance.
The other abductees and superheroes were watching them. Wonder Girl’s eyes were narrow. The speedster was biting his lip and staring straight at Jason.
Jason’s skin crawled.
“Jason,” Nightwing said a third time. He didn’t take his eyes off Jason’s face. His voice was probably meant to be soothing, but all it did was make Jason start to shake.
“Piss off,” Jason said. His voice broke halfway through.
He’d thought he could do this, but he couldn’t. He’d thought he could pretend for long enough for them to get to land – because apparently they were being held in the middle of the ocean, a fact which the seawater and travel time had made very clear – and then he could slip away from them all, but he couldn’t.
They were in the air, flying in this tiny ship, and there was no escape.
He’d thought he was going to die there, just like he had with the Joker. If it had taken any longer for the Team to get there he might have. Now he was free, but he was still trapped.
Everything was burning down around him, and he couldn’t get away.
Nightwing edged one careful step closer, and Jason broke. He lashed out at Nightwing, and then the speedster – he is a speedster, but not West, not Kid Flash – slammed him against the ship wall and Jason thought he might be screaming and there was a quick pain in his arm and everything faded away.
(An interlude:
“What did you do?” Nightwing yelled at Impulse. Blood was trailing down from his broken nose, but he still staggered forward to catch the slumped form of his brother.
“I helped,” Bart said.
“Did you,” Nightwing said, vicious and flat, cradling Jason’s head in his lap.
Bart thought about Jason’s regrets. The stories he’d told Bart in the dead of night, the memories of what his family had been and how long it had taken them to reconcile. The way that Jason had made himself hard and dangerous so he could fight his one-time family.
He had told Bart the kinds of things he had done.
You’re going to save us all, Jason said, shortly before Bart left. He smiled. Unless you screw it up. Try not to. And – Jason hesitated. Try to stay away from me, kid. I won’t know you. I might hurt you. There was a time I didn’t care who I hurt, as long as I got what I wanted.
Did you? Bart asked.
No.
Bart didn’t know what ripples he had spread that landed Jason in the hands of the Reach. He didn’t like the implications of it; he didn’t like that it had happened, and he didn’t like that there were all sorts of things he could have set in motion by being in this time. Even so, a tiny part of him was almost glad this happened. The Reach Apocalypse was the most important thing, his whole mission, but for the man who had been a presence in his life and told him so much of the information he had needed to know about Earth’s superheroes as they had been—
Yeah. He couldn’t regret that it turned out this way. Even if this Jason ended up hating him for it.
“Yes,” Bart said. He swallowed any doubt. “It’s a sedative. He should wake up fine in a few hours.”
After they had landed.
Jason told him about his higher resistance to drugs after his resurrection, in case Impulse ever ended up against Red Hood. Bart took Jason’s warnings seriously and Jason knew it, but he was trained by the Bat. Always plan for every scenario.
Bart prayed that he had calculated the dose correctly. He’d had to do some very quick math before he moved. Future Jason knew his own tolerance, though, and Bart had compensated for the weight lost under the Reach’s torture. It should be accurate. It should be fine.
Bart would never forgive himself if he hurt the man who would one day grow up to have helped him so much.
Nightwing gathered Jason into his arms and stalked past Bart, into the cockpit with the rest of the Team. Bart retreated to his position by Wonder Girl and tried not to think about the future.)
Jason woke up in a white room, one hand cuffed to the bed he was lying on.
He was almost offended.
It was a matter of moments to slip the cuff, but the door was locked from the outside. Jason swept the room, then sat back down on the bed, staring disdainfully at the camera perched in a corner of the ceiling. He didn’t touched the water or the covered tray sitting on the table next to the bed.
He wasn’t exactly sure how long it had been – somewhere between a half hour to an hour was his best guess – before he heard a knock on the door. Black Canary stepped in, closing the door behind her.
“Dick couldn’t be bothered to come himself?” Jason spat. Or Bruce? he thought, but he shoved away the hurt.
Black Canary sat in the only chair in the room and pulled it towards the bed. Not enough to crowd Jason, just enough to mimic the therapy sessions all members of the Team ended up having with her eventually.
Jason really wasn’t looking forward to this.
“I thought it might be better for you to talk to me first,” Black Canary said neutrally. “Given your reaction to Nightwing earlier.”
Jason scowled.
“Jason…” Black Canary said. “I hope you understand this is a delicate situation. If it’s anything like Red Arrow and Arsenal—”
Jason laughed. He didn’t have a damn clue who Arsenal was, but he could hazard a guess that it was the real Roy Harper. Looked like they managed to find him after all. And it must have been fairly recently, because surely he would have heard something about it.
(It must have happened while he was—)
“Can you tell us what happened?” Black Canary asked. She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. Open, listening, supportive. Relaxed body language, to try to get Jason to relax in turn. “How did you end up in the Reach’s hands?”
When we all thought you were dead, remained unspoken. It hung heavy in the air.
Jason thought about the whole mess of it, the bomb and waking up in his grave and drowning in the endless green of the Lazarus Pit. He thought about the time – weeks, surely – that he had been out of contact with Talia; he wondered if she bothered searching for him. He thought about the Replacement, standing and fighting alongside Batgirl like it was his right.
“Figure it out for yourselves,” Jason said.
Everything was there, if they bothered to look. Talia found him in Gotham, and Jason knew she wasn’t lying to him. He wasn’t a clone. There was simply no time for the Light to have taken him, no reason to implant false memories of his death and the grave in his mind, no need for Talia to shove a clone into the Lazarus Pit when she could have simply grown one that wasn’t hurt like he was.
He was real, and not a single damn member of the superhero community had realized what happened to him.
Jason lay down with his back to Black Canary and waited until he heard her leave before he buried his head under the pillow to hide any betraying tears.