The next few days were spent dutifully listening to the chatter that filtered through the bugs planted at the various outposts. It gave Jason the opportunity to shut himself in a safehouse away from the prying eyes he still couldn't shake, to sit at his computer rig and listen with some amount of smugness as drug-running lackeys bitched about Red Hood. It wasn't long before news came in about when Black Mask's equipment would be hitting the docks.

If it were up to him, he'd be there alone. Unfortunately it wasn't.

"This is ridiculously unnecessary," Jason said, crouched in the shadows atop one of walls of metal shipping crates. "You know what they say about too many chefs."

"This was our case too, you know." Red Robin groused through Jason's helmet.

"Yeah, and how was that going for you?"

"No fighting." Black Bat's voice was calm to the point of being toneless; frankly it was little eerie.

He hadn't even seen her or felt her presence all night.

"Uh huh. And what's your excuse for being here, princess?"

"She's here for back up. This equipment is based off of leaked designs for instruments commissioned by Wayne Pharmaceuticals. It represents billions of investment into cutting edge advancements in medicinal chemistry -"

"Ah, so that's where you rich boys get your intel. I had wondered."

" - and you can bet that Black Mask is going to have arranged for significant security for its transport." Red Robin finished.

"I could take 'em."

And he was reasonably sure he could. It would involve rigging up a lot of bombs around the docks, probably taking a bullet or two and then sinking that boatload of shiny tech to the bottom of the bay, but if the goal was denying Blackie his new toys...

"Can you be serious for five minutes?" Nightwing snapped. "I want to get this job done, not worry about keeping you from getting yourself shot!"

Jason felt his brow rise. Batgirl hadn't been exaggerating about Golden Boy's bad mood. He debated making a death quip because really, Dick walked right into it, but ultimately decided it wasn't worth taking a wingding (seriously?) to the face.

"Believe me, no one wants this to be over with more than I do," Jason said blandly, craning his neck to spy a caravan of vehicles rolling up to the docks. "And would you look at that. Right on time."

Conversation ceased as they watched the hired muscle pile out of their cars, loading their guns and grouching to one another about the cold. One man blinked a flashlight out into the black and across the bay another light winked in response.

"Everyone get into position."

The boat pulled up to dock, a small unlit freighter with peeling paint. The night vision setting on Jason's helmet picked out men from the jostling shadows on board.

"We've got about twenty armed goons, plus the fifteen by the cars. Submachine guns, mainly." Jason said, watching a group of men stand around something large and bulky. "What are we looking at, boys? ... Mounted turret. Fun."

"Still think you could have taken them?" Red Robin asked.

"Yes."

"Do you see the shipment?" Nightwing said.

"Not from here. They must be keeping it below deck."

A few men from the cars were starting to break away, probably to establish a perimeter. Easy pickings.

"Black Bat?"

"On it."

"Wait until after they've given the all clear to unload. Red Robin will lay down cover and disable the turret, then he and I will take down the men on the boat. Red Hood, you handle the men on the ground and make sure no one calls for reinforcements."

"Roger dodger." Jason readied his guns and eyed the men by the cars.

He was only packing rubber bullets tonight, but he wasn't too torn up about it. Rubber bullets hurt like a son of a bitch, could even kill if he was careless. Or inspired.

Jason dropped soundlessly to the ground and waited in the darkness, watching as heavy wooden crates were finally lifted from the bowels of the freighter on a crane. Black Bat would now be systematically taking down the perimeter guard, and Jason only just caught the slip of movement that marked Red Robin scaling up the shadowed side of the boat.

The smoke bombs popped in perfect sequence, drowning the entire deck in a thick dusky cloud. The shouting started and men snapped their guns towards the disturbance, leaving themselves wide open.

"It's the bats! I fucking told you -"

Jason punched the nearest thug in the throat and broke another's nose with his own gun before firing two brisk shots into another two men's knees. The rubber slugs made a satisfying crack against breaking bones.

He rolled smoothly behind one of the cars as a barrage of submachine fire rang into the night. Bullets hit the splintered wood of the docks and clattered loudly into steel crates; over on the ship were more sounds of yelled orders and cursing, accompanied by the echoing gunshots and dull thuds of combat.

Beautiful.

He leaned out of cover to strategically fire a few shots, just enough to give him an opening to launch over the car and plant a boot right in some poor bastard's face. A pistol whip here, a punch to the temple there - it was the kind of fun that made the nights of tracking and eavesdropping worth it.

Glass shattered as bullets skimmed past and into the windshield of another car. One of them scraped paint off his helmet and Jason fired rubber into the shoulder of the goon responsible, causing him to drop his rifle with a scream.

The whole thing must have lasted maybe five minutes.

Men lay around him in varying states of agony, clutching injuries or just flat out unconscious. One good hit was usually all it took to make a normal person stop fighting. It wasn't like in movies where the bad guys could and would keep going with lead in their sides or blood streaming down their faces; it was a little disappointing, frankly.

So when Black Bat descended from literally nowhere to begin cuffing and zip-stripping people, Jason couldn't help but roll his eyes behind his mask. Over on the boat the smoke had mostly cleared, leaving Red Robin to putter around doing the same to the defeated men there. Nightwing was probably searching the boat for hiding runaways.

"So much for Black Mask's heavy security, hm?" Jason asked, giving an unconscious brute a harsh nudge with his boot.

"It's the four of us," Black Bat said simply. "Different than if you had done it alone."

Jason snorted. She tilted her head at him and pointedly tapped the line scraped on the side of his helmet.

"One lucky shot. Big deal."

"Mm."

"The job got done, didn't it? Maybe now Nightwing can dislodge that escrima stick from his ass. Not that I'm one to hope for miracles."

"He's upset."

"No kidding."

Black Bat made an impatient-sounding huff. "You - "

Her words were cut off by the sudden sound of unrestrained screaming. The both of them whirled to see the incapacitated criminals were writhing and blubbering uncontrollably. Jason hadn't hurt them that bad, what in the hell-

A thin hiss of decompressing air was suddenly impossible to ignore as thick clouds of red smoke began to form all around the shipyard.

"Oh fuck."

"What's happening!?" Red Robin demanded.

Cars were roaring down the crate-lined gravel road to the harbor. Black Mask's muscle drove around in sleek black cars with reinforced paneling, but these looked like average Uptown clunkers. Unremarkable, but as they neared and Jason squinted past the glare of headlights, he could just make out the burlap masks the men were wearing.

"Scarecrow," Black Bat said coldly.

"Get out of there and regroup, now!"

From an unknown source a smoke grenade clattered across the rotted wood of the docks, stopping right between them. Time slowed and Jason didn't even pause to think before he was unbuckling his helmet. If what he'd heard about Cain was true, the absolute last thing they needed right now was for her to go fear-rabid two paces away from him.

The Red Hood helmet was comically too big for her as he forced it over her head, the airtight seal activating far lower on her neck than it did on his. Her eyes probably didn't even align with the visor holes, but whatever. She could get by without them.

The device burst a split second later, pluming a tower of red smoke at their feet.

Jason staggered backwards, but the familiar chemical scent of fear gas was already in his nose.

He didn't feel a thing when he hit the floor, didn't even know he had fallen until the world violently shuddered from impact. He vaguely grasped the sound of Cain's light and impossibly quick footsteps moving away from him, and could only distantly regret that he wouldn't get to witness Black Bat making a full-tilt charge while wearing what must've looked like a red jack-o-lantern.

But the sounds of combat and shouting were already fading away as the marina began to warp and melt. Blaring lights burned in his eyes, drowning everything else out in a wave of white.

Then the clip show started.

He was 6 and a beer bottle was shattering against the wall two feet to his left, the rain of brown glass sparkling.

He was 9 and getting beaten bloody by one of the bigger kids behind a dumpster.

8, his mom wasn't able to get out of bed.

15, or so he thought, and clawing through his own casket.

17, running through the woods with Talia's death grip on his hand.

9, huddled in a freezing alley and sure he wasn't going to see morning.

11, hiding from the cops as they beat and hauled away the kids who hadn't been fast enough.

15 for real and watching from a bloodstained floor as a rusted crowbar came down again.

18. Holding a gun to the Joker's head and desperate for Batman to pull the trigger.

The highlight reel went fast, not allowing Jason much reaction aside from a gasp or flinch as he seized on the floor. It was only when he felt hands on him, grasping at his shoulders and arms, that he actually started screaming.

He was 10 and on scuffed bloody knees in a dim alley.

"Get the fuck off!" He struck blindly with his fist and felt it connect with something he couldn't see, his consciousness splitting between the alley and the docks. "Don't touch me!"

There was another set of hands grabbing his shoulders trying to help restrain his flailing limbs and he didn't know what was real anymore. The pain in Jason's throat grew sharp but he couldn't stop screaming, kicking and twisting, trying to curl and shield himself.

He was drowning. Green, green everywhere and burning -

A needle was pricking him in the neck.

"Jason," Something in him recognized that voice, deep and vicious but resounding in his chest comfortingly.

He felt his body relax against his will, sinking against the cold asphalt. The sound of his own pulse was thunder in his ears and he could feel the vibration of it across his skin. Jason blinked once, twice, three times and the alley was gone. He was lying on the ground beside the unforgiving black of the Gotham Bay, the harsh light of a nearby lamp eclipsed by the familiar black cowl filling his vision.

"... B?"

Maybe someone had called him when shit hit the fan or he'd been tracking Scarecrow. Or he had been there the whole time, lurking in the background. All were equally possible.

Batman's hold on Jason's wrists loosened somewhat.

"I'm here."

The second set of hands was still on his shoulders and Jason realized that his head was actually resting on someone else's lap - probably to keep him from braining himself on the floor in his struggle. He tilted back and saw Black Bat, hoodless but with the pointed tips of her domino slightly crumpled.

Jason's arms were heavy and uncoordinated in a way characteristic of the drugged or very drunk, and reaching up to wipe his face turned into basically slapping himself. His hand came away wet.

His head lolled to the side, making him belatedly realize that area had gone quiet. It felt like he'd only been down for a few minutes, but clearly it'd been much longer.

He cleared his swollen throat. "Crane."

"Scarecrow wanted the synthesis equipment for his own purposes. Nightwing is handling him now. Red Robin is taking care of Black Mask's men."

Jason nodded numbly even though the words were barely making it past the cotton that seemed to be clogging his brain. Everything was a dull hum around him, his head heavy with the nausea of the half-lucid. Right now nothing felt real, not the ground beneath his back or the living shadows holding him.

"B... why did you redact my file?" His voice was small and hoarse and didn't sound like him at all.

Batman was silent.

"Did you... did you think I was ashamed?" Jason swallowed against the pain in his throat. "Were you ash-"

"No."

The fierceness of the denial was enough to make Jason flinch, and Black Bat's hands held even more firm on his shoulders.

"No, Jason." Batman said, more gently. "I have never thought less of you for where you came from. I only wanted to protect you."

Jason huffed a weak laugh. As if protecting him hadn't long since been proved an exercise in futility.

Maybe Mike had been right after all - Jason was a Gotham kid. A real one, assembled and built with dirt and blood and dark alleyways, and he couldn't be washed clean of what made him. Was that why Batman took him in? To prove that if this ragged boy could be saved, so could the shadowed city he loved so much?

"You wanted it to be like it never happened." Jason sounded as tired as he felt. "But it did."

Batman's grip on Jason's hands tightened almost painfully for a brief moment before going slack.

"... I know, son."

For a moment they sat there in the silence.

"Are you," Batman hesitated. "Are you cold?"

Jason gave a shaky shrug. He was trembling but whether it was from the temperature or the lingering effect of the fear toxin was hard to say.

Black Bat helped roll Jason upright and he slumped against the symbol on Batman's chest, the cape draping around his shoulders. It was both jarring and comforting to be reminded that he wasn't the tiny underfed prepubescent of his hallucination, but 21 and just two inches shy of rivaling Bruce in height.

The suit was thermally regulated and Jason could feel some of that warmth seeping through. The adrenaline that had been keeping him awake began to fade as the Batmobile's engine roared closer.

AUTHORS NOTE:  Am i making the chapter to long? lol i keep getting caught up in the story.