firecat

02:30 A.M.

Gotham’s sewer system is outdated, its pathways a claustrophobe’s worst nightmare, and the stench it emanates so foul it reaches the level of sickening.

One of the biggest reasons behind this failure of public service is the prey Batman chose for the night. The hunt, the pursue, lead him to the bowels of his city –knee-deep in its feces, sealed mask ripped out by a powerful claw, their putrid smell impregnating his senses.

It takes a long, brutal fight. A mutual display of dominance, and a damn close call. Killer Croc is not an enemy anyone should take on alone, fist to fist. His brute strength and his animal drive compensate for every other lack in him, be it astuteness, ingenuity, or any sense of caution.

Earlier that night, Bruce ignored two phone calls from Clark. He hung up on Barbara who, if she were so inclined, could’ve tried to reach him more than just the once. Then, he’d started the chase.

The result remains better than any other man taking on a monster could’ve hoped. Bruised ribs, instead of broken. A nasty laceration on his left thigh, clear from any vital organ or problematic artery. An even nastier concussion, in all likelihood. He has to put the car on autopilot and let it carry him home, as he struggles to regain his breath.

When he reaches the cave, he finds it empty, just as he’s come to expect. He takes care of his own wounds, as he’s done more and more often, now that Damian’s walked out on him. He doesn’t bother to call for Alfred, either; both men know he’d be worse than useless.

He looks at his ruined, stained uniform, unceremoniously dropped on the ground. He should shower, but he knows, from embarrassing experience, how likely he is to faint out of exhaustion, slip, and worsen his injuries. He needs to draw himself a bath, in his bedroom, to wash away the rotten tang he carried home with him.

Descending into the sewers feels like getting one step closer to the decaying core of his city, to the corrupt truth at the heart of it. Befitting, for each laborious breath to poison his lungs with it; for it to stain his skin, like it would his very soul if he allowed it. That’s what Gotham, cruel mistress, does to its people, if they aren’t watchful.

Bruce sighs. He walks up the stairs, and he makes sure not to glance at the memorial case.

One week earlier.

“Ah, fuck me.”

The last trap in the obstacle course Jason built for her caught Mia by surprise. She always swore to herself she wouldn’t let it happen again, knowing just how much he liked to add an element of unpredictability whenever he visited her. In her defense, eight new traps had to fit the definition of overkill.

Then again, didn't she know exactly who she was dating?

What counted was that she got out of the trap and finished the course within the time she set for herself. It wasn’t always a guarantee, and even if he’d really made her work for it, and even if every one of her muscles ached, and even if her lungs were practically crying for help inside her chest, she was damn proud of it.

“One of your best times yet,” Jason said, holding his stopwatch.

“You asshole,” she blurted out, with feeling.

Of course, his sole response was sending her a shit-eating grin. Those grins made it hard to stay mad at the guy: big and luminous, showing off his square teeth and his laugh lines, his eyes wrinkling at the edges. And well, it was Mia who always asked him to ride her hard (ha!) on these training sessions. He went above and beyond, and was more than a little bit unreasonable, confident she could beat it.

That's why it felt so good whenever she did.

Jason only approached when Mia dropped down her bow (wise man), engulfing her in a heated kiss.

“Ugh, come on, I’m all sweaty, I reek,” she complained, playful. He dropped his head to her shoulder, scratching her skin with his stubble, and licked her neck. “Ew, gross.”

Jason stepped back, smiling. “Wanna hit the showers?”

He casually removed his jacket as he said it, in clear invitation. The way that his grey shirt strained over his chest made it an enticing one, but before Mia once again lost her nerve…

“Let me catch my breath first, okay?” He raised his hands, palms up, capitulating. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

He looked at her, inquisitive, maybe a little wary.

“I want you to come to my birthday party. On Star City.”

Jason’s body was as still as a statue. “It’s this Saturday, right?”

“Yes.”

“With your whole family.”

“Yes,” she repeated, stubbornly.

“Are you sure?”

If he’d asked with skepticism, or scorn, or deflected with snark, Mia would’ve been annoyed. But his tone was wholly neutral. Just checking in.

It wasn’t unwarranted. Connor and Roy weren’t the type to make a fuss about her dating life, but she knew Ollie and Dinah each had their own opinions on the matter. Ollie was free and vocal with them, and Mia was equally vocal about how little she cared for any kind of condescending, paternalistic daddy-with-a-crossbow routine, so that was solved. Dinah kept quiet about hers, and respected Mia too much to intervene.

“I want you there,” she insisted, and that was all.

“Should I dress up?” he teased.

“There’s a non-zero chance at least one of the guys shows up with sweatpants, so… be yourself. But you know. Just a little bit would be nice. For me. For the eye-candy!”

“Noted.”

“You know, fucking Cheshire is coming. You’re not even going to be the person with the highest kill count sitting on the table.”

It was a tasteless joke that would’ve gotten her stern stares anywhere else, at best, but Jason snorted.

“I don’t know, isn’t she in one of your little hero teams now? In the path of redemption? Some would say that’s a step above me. Don’t try to take away my street cred.”

“Sure, sure” Mia waved that away. Then, careful, added, “You know, you can invite Sasha.”

“I’ll tell her,” he promised, “but don’t take it personally if she doesn’t come.”

It was hard not to take it a little personally. Sasha lived in the same city! The bus ride was twenty minutes! Mia prided herself on being pretty good at making friends and influencing people, but Sasha had proven to be a tough nut to crack.

Jason had taken to visit Sasha regularly, ever since she started studying in Star City, of all places. That’s how Mia and Jason had ended up crossing paths a second time, a little before Mia moved away to Chicago. She’d needed to see what the hell was up with that, and she helped establishing a truce between him and the others as long as he kept to the civilian side of things.

Jason's visits had been cut for the last month, ever since Mia had told Ollie and the others about the two of them. Jason had set up a trip for the two of them instead, but Mia suspected the lack of visits added to Sasha’s apparent dislike of her, and this birthday party was a way to settle that, as well.

“Sasha doesn’t like crowds,” he added.

“We’re gonna be eight people.”

“Your people. You’re a rambunctious lot.”

She couldn’t argue with that.

Your people, he’d said. Once, she’d asked him if he intended to tell any of the Bats about them. He’d look at her as if she was speaking gibberish. Why? he’d asked. They’re not in my life.

She knew that was not strictly true; that sometimes they crossed paths through mutual acquaintances, that he aided against a rogue attack here and there. She suspected that he sometimes even baited them with cases he didn't think he should take on by himself, as the Big Bad Red Hood of Gotham. But it was true enough. Meanwhile, Sasha had known from nearly the beginning. Jason’s friend Talia as well, though they had yet to meet. Mia wavered between being more than happy to delay that as much as possible, and being morbidly curious about the possibility.

“You’ll fit right in then,” she grinned. “Now, about that shower…”

6:52 A.M.

Leslie drives all the way to Wayne Manor with the same sense of dull dread that has accompanied her near daily visits for the past year.

She knows she’ll find a yet again diminished Alfred once she arrives, living yet haunting the place with his presence, a prisoner in the home he once ruled –or at least, ruled to an extent. On top of that ever-present heartache, she has to add the whispers she’s heard in the neighborhood about Batman fighting Waylon Jones, of all people. The very idea has her sick with worry.

When he allows her in, Bruce looks like he hasn’t slept a wink all night. Silent, somber, he replies to with one-word answers to her prodding, never giving an inch.

He walks her to the kitchen, not to the bedrooms. That’s a good sign. It meas Alfred is up an about, at the least, perhaps seeking out old routines for comfort.

When they enter the room, the picture it offers is quasi tragicomic. Alfred stares at a plate of toasts –goat cheese, honey, walnuts– with a barely restrained despair that should struck anyone as disproportionate for the occasion. When he sees them, he contains his expression, greets her with a mere nod, and walks out of the kitchen with a half-hearted excuse.

Leslie hates that. The stiff upper lip, Englishman routine always made her want to rustle the man, shake him loose; anything just to get any emotion, any proof that he’s as red blooded as the rest of them, out of him.

She looks at Bruce for an explanation, but it remains unsurprising when she doesn’t get one.

She doesn’t imagine she needs one. Time-shifting is a relatively recent development; so far, the few times they’ve observed it, it always centers around a young Jason. Whatever this business with breakfast is, it’ll certainly be about him.

At the beginning, any distress Alfred exhibited was easily curved by telling him the boy was still at school, but that doesn’t always work anymore. Once, Leslie asked Jason —through quite a few intermediaries—, to come for a visit, eager to see if that could help. Jason begrudgingly accepted, under the condition that he wouldn’t see Bruce during his visit.

He had walked into the house with the curiosity of a newcomer, looking at it for all the world as if he’d never stepped a foot in. It only hit Leslie later that technically, he hadn’t: Bruce rebuilt the manor after the earthquake; she had simply gotten used to all its changes, year after year.

Jason hadn’t. He had stopped in his way to Alfred’s new bedroom –though in his sickness, he sometimes still wanders to the servants hall he’d always insisted he should occupy—; a chuckle escaped his lips, as he stared at an empty piece of the wall.

He spent a few hours with Alfred. Despite the endless, precious patience Jason displayed, Leslie found herself disturbed at the sight of a man with a size that could engulf Alfred, with muscles that could lift him and carry him far, far away from this cursed place, calmly speak to him about homework and extracurricular school activities. She left them alone after the first thirty minutes.

When she walked a pensive Jason out, she told him I think… his brain wants to return to that time. Those memories, when you were still living here, before…

The words floated around them, a heavy presence whenever Jason was near. But like the rest of them, she couldn’t quite bring herself to speak them.

Jason hummed. I have a different theory, he told her. It’s not about me, not really. He misses who Bruce used to be, before my murder. Acerbic, he’d added, but unlike me, that man is never, ever coming back.

Jason and Mia had decided to make a trip out of their journey to Star City. Mia refuses to ride a plane with Jason, no matter how many times he insists he has his ways to camouflage his veritable arsenal of illegal weapons for transport. 

Instead, they take their motorbikes across the country. They race each other on the road like the competitive assholes they are. They indulge in a about dozen tourist traps. They fuck and fall asleep in only moderately seedy motel rooms along the way.

Mia wakes up with her face pressed against Jason’s back, her fingers clinging to his shirt. He only has two modes of sleep: erratic and easily shaken, due to nightmares, or absolutely dead to the world. This morning fits the latest, and Mia takes great pleasure in waking him up with a pinch.

Star City is only a few hours away.

Alone with Bruce again, Leslie pushes aside the memories and looks him up and down, assessing his state.

His knuckles look to be the worst of it, absolutely shredded. The brutality that would’ve gone into it, against Waylon’s sturdy skin, and for it to be Bruce (thankfully, oh, thankfully) the last man standing… Leslie is tempted to leave him as is. Let him brood and withstand the pain he so eagerly seeks as he so eagerly deals it to others. But acting in such way isn’t in her nature, so she takes his hands, deaf to his muttered protests, and opens the med kit she wisely brought with her.

“How did this happen?” she asks.

“Routine patrol.”

“That’s not what I heard,” she says, biting.

“Then why even ask?” he snaps.

Leslie continues her ministrations, stubbornly keeping her calm. “He may look enough like a monster for you to allow yourself to let loose like this, but we both know that’s not all that Waylon is.”

Bruce merely locks his jaw, refusing to be chastised.

As Leslie finishes, he changes the topic. Predictably, it’s the same opening he always uses.

“Alfred is getting worse, Leslie.”

She hums.

“Your visits do him good.”

Much good they can do, when Alfred barely withstands the sight of her half the time.

“You know you’ll always have a place here.”

And there it is. That offer first came when she was pushed into retirement, when she and Alfred started seeing each other again. Lost was the giddiness of youth, but a more grounded companionship rewarded them. In those days the now dreaded offer was sporadic; as well as ironic since, behind Bruce’s back, Leslie had tried to convince Alfred to move in with her.

Behind his back, she scoffs. How had she allowed that to be the status quo, as if Alfred was a teenager sneaking out on his tyrannical patriarch?

But Alfred started showing signs of dementia, and so the offers became more insistent. Bruce needs a caretaker for Alfred. Bruce needs someone else to be a caretaker for Alfred.

And he needs a caretaker that won’t be a security risk. Not for Alfred, but for Batman. Because Alfred can no longer be trusted to keep his many, many dark secrets.

Lately, the offers bring her back to the day of Jason’s visit. He will never let Alfred leave, he told her. Just make sure you don’t get trapped in here with him.

Jason was the child who best took to Bruce’s violent teachings. What Bruce saw as crossing an invisible line of no return, Leslie thought of as the inevitable, tragic, extreme conclusion of such acts his entire brood engaged in. But in that day she lost count of how many times Jason proved that, through it all, he’d retained the unflinching empathy and kindness she'd seen him so often display in childhood.

“I like my neighborhood, Bruce,” she replies. As she always does.

11:45 P.M.

The chili's almost ready. Oliver, as usual, made two different pots, leaving for himself the much, much spicier one. He made extra this time, not just for Jade, whose taste buds probably need a bucket's worth of spice to experience the joy of any dish, but because he definitely plans to give That Fucking Guy a ration. He's willing to play nice, and he’s seen and heard enough to admit he might deserve some good will on Oliver’s part, but he isn’t above getting just a little bit petty. It's his damn house, after all.

The doorbell rings, and Oliver opens the door to Mia and, of course, That Fucking Guy, looming large behind her.

But he pays him no mind as he engulfs Mia in one of his trademarked bear hugs. “Happy birthday, short stack!” he says, raising her from the ground, making her belt out one of her loud, beautiful cackles. “Oh man, you’re heavy! Did your muscles turn to steel while I wasn’t watching?”

He puts her down and Mia laughs, flexing her biceps. “This guy here rides me hard… in training!” she jokes, anticipating Oliver’s grimace and not the least bit sorry for it.

“She can dead-lift me,” Todd adds, deadpan. Oliver refuses to be amused by this.

But he extends his hand for a quick handshake, surveying the guy. He’s dressed simply, with jeans, a green print shit with vines, flowers and damn butterflies that he somehow pulls off, and despite the warm weather, wearing precisely the kind of leather jacket, not quite trench-coat long, Oliver always pictures him with. He can’t see any suspicious bulges under it, but he’d eat his own arrows tip to tail if he isn’t packing.

“Seriously, you need to come and see the training course he’s built me. Insanely elaborate, you’ll love it.”

“You’ll have to show me next time I visit you.”

Which might come as soon as a week from now. Ever since Mia moved away, he’s been feeling lonely. He wouldn’t go as far as to say that he has empty next syndrome; he's no damn Batman and he has no desire to hunt down the next vulnerable child to saddle with a bow and arrow, thank you very much. He just misses Mia’s company, Mia’s specifically, terribly. But he doesn’t want to smother her, now that she’s finally trying to step out of the aforementioned nest once again.

Oliver walks them to the garden, where he’s set the table. It's sunny, with just the barest hint of wind to keep the worst of the heat at bay. A perfect spring day, as the date demanded.

After some small talk about Mia’s renewed studies and some teasing about Oliver’s depressing lack of a dating life, Mia announces she has to go to the bathroom. She always does that, no shame whatsoever. She kisses Todd on his brow as she stand up, and squeezes Oliver’s arm before walking inside the house.

An anticipatory silence engulfs the two men. Oliver looks him over one more time. He's clean-shaven, a contrast with the image Oliver built up in his head. The earring and the bracelets are a bit of a shock as well, making him look almost too normal, too earthly. But he's more surprised to see, up close, that he has brown eyes, a rich dark color that turns a little golden under the direct hit of the sunlight.

He expected them to be blue, he realizes. Maybe because of his predecessor as Robin, much more familiar to him. He thinks his successor is blue-eyed, as well.

“From one to ten,” Todd tells him, “how much do you want to shoot me right now?”

“Zero,” Oliver recovers quickly, “because Mia would wax my beard off if I did anything like that.”

“Come on,” he insists with a teasing grin, grabbing a large green apple from the table. He walks to the old tree in the garden and stands as tall as he is, placing the apple on top of his curly mane. “Call it target practice.”

Oliver never quite got a handle on the zen teachings many tried to impart him, so with no small amount of glee, he readies the bow and arrow case that he'd hidden under his seat at the table. In less than five seconds, in an angle that makes him very aware that Todd has a couple inches on him, he spears the apple right in the middle.

“See? Cathartic, I bet.” He rips out the apple from the arrow, taking a large bite of the fruit.

Oliver doesn't have it in him to contradict him.

Todd keeps eating the apple. Loudly. “You know. Less than twenty feet, a still target… my training dome is much harder.”

Oh, it's on.

“You think you can do better? Come on,” he mirrored, grabbing a dark purple plumb. “I don’t believe for a second you’re not strapped right now.”

Jason pulls out a gun –small and discrete, but no less lethal for it— and a silencer, and walks to the other extreme of the garden. Once there, Oliver throws the plumb the plum into the air, and the guy hits it right in the center.

The resulting explosion has wet pieces of fruit falling on Oliver’s hair and on his blue polo. Shit.

The two of them look at each other across the garden. They approach the table. Jason hides his gun, and Oliver follows suit with the bow he’s left resting on the chair.

Mia comes out of the house. “Did you guys heard a shot? Ollie, what the fuck man, can’t you eat fruit like a normal person?”

The two men looks at each other again. Oliver erupts in laughter, while Jason, more discrete, chuckles.

Mia narrows her eyes. “Did you try to put the daddy-with-a-crossbow routine?”

“In my defense, he literally asked for it!"

Jason’s expression is positively angelic, dimples and everything. It knocks down ten years from his face, easily.

“He is very good at taunting people into shooting him,” Mia mutters.

“You do know me.”

01:10 P.M.

Kara invited me to go out with her in Metropolis. I think I’m gonna stay for the week. I’ll text you when I get back.

That’s all Steph’s voice message said, when Cass woke up alone. It’s been a while since Steph even bothers to infuse her tone with fake cheerfulness for those kinds of updates; they have turned matter-of-fact, even distracted, with no endearments or well-wishes or her sweet Love you! tackled at the end. She always says goodbye through the phone, to avoid being seen face to face.

Cass knows the message is, if not an outright lie, a half-truth. Kara invites Steph over plenty, and invites herself to Gotham even more often, but Cass hasn’t heard anything about this specific weekend. She suspects that Steph is the one who decided to leave, to take a break from Cass, and Kara the one who eagerly welcomed her.

Barbara would tell Cass that she sounds jealous. Tim too. She is. Not because she thinks there is anything romantic in Steph’s getaways –despite herself, Cass is probably more attracted to Kara than Steph is.

No, it’s because of how easy friendship is between the two of them. How uncomplicated, joyful, effortless. Cass doesn’t know if she and Steph ever had that, and if they did, when they became… girlfriends, they lost their chance to recover it for good.

So. Steph, once again, has decided to up and leave. Cass does the same thing she would’ve done, even if Steph had stayed: she goes to see Bruce.

She hides in the shadows of the cave, in full Black Bat regalia, to observe him freely. He makes no sign that he’s noticed her presence; the fact that he isn’t trying to disguise any of his pain, his exhaustion, his despair, palpable on each micro expression and stiff muscle, confirms her assumption. Even after all these years, when he knows it to be both hopeless and hurtful, Bruce’s first instinct is to futilely try to hide from her.

You keep burning yourself for him, there’s not gonna be anything left, Steph told her once, trying to hide how seriously she meant her next words: and I’m a selfish woman, so I’d like to have something to keep for myself.

Cass doesn’t know when things went wrong again between Bruce and Steph. He hasn’t disavowed her again, he approves of her, he still respects her as a hero. But at some point along the way, Steph lost all respect for him, and never gave her a reason for it. Cass is convinced that if it wasn’t for Barbara, Steph would’ve dropped Batgirl’s mantle by now.

“Hasn’t Mia taught you anything?”

“I suppose it’s not bad for a newbie.”

“I hit the fucking target nearly every time, what are you talking about.”

“Eh…”

“There was just no style to it, babe.”

“I'd like to see you all do better with my kind of weapon. I bet Harper’s the only one who could beat me with some guns.”

“Give me one gun you could beat me with.”

“Bazooka, grenade launcher…”

“It’s so convenient we don’t have those around right now.”

“Name a time and a place!”

She finally descends from her perch, silent. She knows the exact moment he spies her reflection on the computer screen.

“Black Bat,” he says. After the initial tension, the initial attempt to hide himself, a wave of relief becomes visible in his posture. Cass regales him with a small smile for it.

“Good afternoon,” she says. “What are you working on?”

“I’m just finishing last night’s report. I had to chase down Killer Croc.”

You’re not supposed to fight Killer Croc alone, she doesn’t say. Bruce already knows that.

“Fun,” she replies instead. It would’ve been, for her. Killer Croc’s body language is different enough from regular humans that, in combination with his raw strength and general viciousness, it makes for a bit of a challenge for Cass, even if he is, as Grace Choi would say, “dumb as rocks.”

Then she says what is expected of her to say: “Do you want to spar a bit, before lunch?”

She sees him hesitate, assessing his own wounds. But predictably, he accepts the challenge. She has to be careful enough with his injuries –watch his bruised knees avoid his left leg, never ever hit his head— that she won’t aggravate them, but go hard enough that Bruce won’t feel condescended to, managed. It’s a difficult tightrope to walk.

Once they exhaust themselves –once she’s exhausted him— she might convince him to go up. She’ll spent the day with him, providing solace and distraction alike, and then companionship during patrol, the way he forbade the previous night. He won't say the words ‘thank you’, but to Cass, that is still a foreign tongue. What matters is that his expression, the angle of his shoulders, the relaxed posture of his hands, will scream his gratefulness loudly enough.

04:25 P.M.

If Lian doesn't hear anyone tell her trauma isn't linear ever again, it will still be too soon.

You're supposed to get better as you get older. Better equipped to deal with the shit life throws at you, better at controlling your own damn emotional responses. Just better.

And yet, it’s now, years after the fact, as she skyrockets towards teenagedoom, that the horrors of the past have come back to haunt her.

The nightmares about the trafficking ring started three months ago. It happened because an older boy smiled at her in the park. Not even really older. Three, four years at most.

That’s not even the whole truth. That's just the edited, carefully curated truth she's shared with the grown-ups in her life. It happened because that older boy smiled, and Lian, flustered, shy, smiled back. And then later she caught that boy sneaking a look up her skirt. 

She should've kicked him in the face. She should've at least screamed at him in anger. Instead, it paralyzed her. She didn't react at all, when the boy laughed it off and walked away.

That's when the old nightmares returned. When she tossed aside all her childish dresses and skirts, and started getting nervous, vigilant, around strange men. Not always, not with any logic to it. Not when they were particularly old, or particularly rude, or particularly ingratiating. It happened even if she'd been in a good mood all day. It was unpredictable, and that was the worst part of it.

Dad keeps telling her to talk to Mia. That she would understand. But Lian feels nothing but shame towards the idea. Next to everything Mia went through, Lian only experienced a few scary hours before returning home safe and sound. She should be able to carry that at least with half the grace Mia does everything.

In contrast, Lian's disproportionate reactions, too big or too small, always leave her feeling ridiculous, stupid, paranoid. You’d think after experiencing death, nothing else could quite measure up in your terror-meter. But the truth is, she barely remembers dying. She was and then she wasn’t and then she was again, from fading out as the ceiling fell on her to awaking in her mother’s embrace, to her father’s tears, in a matter of heartbeats instead of years.

Returning to life made her body a tabula rasa; scars like the one on her chin from the first time she fell off her bike, or the nearly invisible dent in the back of her hand from that time a playful puppy sank his needle-sharp tooth in her skin, all disappeared. Those, she missed, but death did her the kindness of erasing the brand they marked her with. Yet the memories persisted.

There are many things worse than death; things that leave death in the dust. 

Maybe he would understand that.

She feared the inclusion of a stranger would make it happen again during the birthday party. She knows her father anticipated it, because a few days ago he dropped a comment about how Red Hood fed him and her mother some intel three years ago, when the group who once held her captive tried to resurface, despite Tanner, its leader, remaining imprisoned. 

That works well for the rational part of her brain, but Lian can’t help but be keenly aware of every one of his movements. He’s barely paid attention to her all day, greeting her politely when she arrived and not much else. All his focus is on Mia; on shooting the shit with Dad and Ollie; on having quieter, yet no less impassioned conversations with Uncle Connor; on Mia again.

She can tell, because in all the time he hasn’t paid attention to her, she’s only pretended not to pay attention to him. She needs to know where he is at all times. In a moment of distraction she’d lost sight of him and it rattled her immensely. 

She’d been talking to Mom, at least. Her lethal presence next to her at all times still fills her with guilt, but now more than ever, it also reassures her. She gets the feeling Mom and Red Hood are relatively simpatico, but she knows how little that would matter to Cheshire, the moment she suspected him of anything untoward towards her daughter.

Nonetheless, her raised heartbeat doesn't calm down until Ollie starts bitching when Todd ate his hyper-spicy chili without breaking eye-contact, or a sweat. It’s a quintessential Ollie moment that gets her to snort and finally breathe easy.

When things start winding down, Lian feels relaxed enough to actually read the book she brought, instead of just using it as a shield to hide behind. She notices him looking at the cover with curiosity, and it doesn’t make her nervous. He probably doesn't understand the title; Uncle Dick had made a crack about it when she translated it to him.

“I read one of the author’s short stories a few months ago, in a collection. Do you like her?” 

That awakes her curiosity, something rarely stirred these days. But all she can muster is “It’s the first one of hers I read.”, shyly.

She thinks she used to be such a precocious child. She’d talk the ear off of any adult with whatever was on her mind at the moment, never failing to endear herself to them, to marvel them, to make them gush about how cute and smart and mature she was. That Lian would tell him about she likes to read the last book of an author first, and only then, if she likes it, she’ll try the rest of their work in order. Or about how this past year she’s been devouring Vietnamese authors, compatriots from her mother's motherland. She started learning it on her own, before dying, and it feels as if she's regained something from her past, even if it was Chinese, the language of Jade's surrogate father, that she first spoke to Lian and turned then into a mother tongue. 

She would've told him all this and more, easily showing off her dominion of four languages, adding Navajo from Dad’s side to the mix. She would’ve asked him things, and told him many others, freely and happily and without care for what he’d do with them.

That is beyond her now.

“But I like the book so far,” she manages to say. “Did you like her story?”

She is so lame.

“Yeah, I made a note of her name and a few others in that collection, for later. I don’t think my reading level is up to par for longer works yet.”

“You know Vietnamese?” she asks, switching to the language, nerves fully forgotten for a moment.

“I speak it well enough,” he replies in kind, truthfully. “I pick up languages easily as a speaker, but reading is a bit tougher. And I like to read things in the original language, because I’m an unapologetic snob.”

Lian snorts. “How many languages do you speak?”

“Fluently, or just enough to get by? A lot, really. I picked up bits and pieces as a child, from the people in my neighborhood. My father used to call it ‘Gotham’s melting pot.’”

“Batman said what?” Lian says, wrinkling her nose.

“No, no,” he laughs. “My biological father, born and bred there. Bruce has said worse about it, trust me.”

There’s a lull in the conversation, before Lian says, a bit awkwardly, “I can let Mia know what I think about the book, once I finish?”

“That’d be really nice of you,” he says. He has a quiet, kind smile. “I’ll leave you to it, won’t distract you anymore.”

And true to his word, he walks away.

Lian still follows him with her eyes from time to time, occasionally distracted from her book. She observes as Mia takes his arm for an impromptu dance he doesn’t hesitate to join, despite being accompanied by Ollie's un-danceable grandad rock (indistinguishable from Rose Wilson’s playlists, to be fair). 

Lian watches how he dips her, and flies her in the air, Mia's hair, growing long again, falling over her face in unruly layers. She watches how the two of them laugh and grab each other, as if unable to get their hands off their partner’s body.

With effort, Lian reaches the end of the page.

09:00 P.M.

Helena walks into the Clocktower 3.0 without much ceremony, unfazed upon encountering Barbara frantically divide her attention between five screens, talking with what seems to be at least seven different people, and texting probably another twenty. Must be slow day for the woman.

“Batman will be in a mood today, so steer clear,” Barbara tells her, skipping any form of polite greeting. Years ago Helena would’ve bristled, but it’s been a long time since she’s felt she needs to prove anything to that man.

“Isn’t he always in a mood?”

“It’ll be worse today.”

“Is there any particular reason for it that you’d want to share with the class?” she asks, nosy.

“Scheduled visit from the ghost of Christmas past,” she mutters, largely ignoring Helena. “Tonight I want you on the docks, Penguin’s moving something there. Either guns or some exotic species, who knows. Red Robin will back you up. Black Bat will stick with Batman.”

“Daddy’s little girl,” Helena says, just to wind up Barbara a little, but all she does is clench her jaw, refusing to take the bait. “No Batgirl tonight?”

“She’s out of town.” Pity.

“I called you early to give you this.” Barbara hands her a thick file, because she knows Helena is a clichéd old soul who’ll take analog over digital any day. “Those are from the bugs we put on the Maronis. You’ll make time to familiarize yourself with them. We think they’ll be making some move soon.”

Helena is about to jump on that, after the mandatory jab at such typical commanding attitude. But Barbara, still entranced by her interactive map of the city, tells her, with uncharacteristic hesitance, “And… tell me if you see, or hear about, Red Hood tonight.”

“Do you think he’s up to something?”

“No. I’m just concerned.”

For him, she means. Helena wonders if he has something to do with Batman’s 'mood.' He talks about Red Hood like he's somehow worse than all the other Rogues put together, but his attitude around the man… In anyone else, Helena would’ve categorized it as cowardly.

“What? How can you say that, kid, I saw you there—”

“Look, whatever Jordan showed you with his magical powers, you were probably just filling in details to the scenario with your previous knowledge.”

“I didn’t even remember you existed then! I’m telling you, I saw you in Heaven!”

“Magical. Powers. And no such thing. I’d know.”

“Are you seriously an skeptic? In this world?"

"I'm a skeptic because of this world."

“Sorry, Ollie, but I have to agree. There was no white light or pearly gates for me either.”

“See? Lian backs me up. Two zombies versus one. And what better proof? There’s no doubt she would've ended up flying with the cherubs if that was a possibility.”

“I’m telling you I SAW—”

“Will I ever get the story?” Helena asks, more than a little miffed. Is she in, or is she out? With this lot, she's always asking that question.

Barbara pauses her clicking. “Maybe you should,” she replies, to Helena's shock. “Come here after patrol.”

Huh. Weird. Is there something in the water today? 

Besides the usual, suspected toxins, of course.

09:43 P.M.

Dinah has been gearing up to leave the party for her hotel for at least thirty minutes. It’s been a good time, an objective success, but parties at Oliver’s home invariably end with everyone exhausted; especially when you have to tiptoe around your pining ex-husband.

As much as she loves seeing Mia, Roy and Connor, and all together to boot, she’s ready for a bit of peace and quiet. Although the plan for tomorrow is to stay in the city until late for a shopping day with Mia, to spend time with her, which she's excited about. Especially as it’ll be just them. And if Mia doesn’t bring up the topic by herself, Dinah isn’t planning to mention it, so it'll be breezy. Easy between the two of them, as always.

She knows what everyone probably thinks, but it’s not that she holds his past actions against Jason Todd, or even concerns about his different code of conduct. She’s no Batman.

The problem is that he has 'bad news' written all over him; Dinah can’t see a way for their relationship to end other than in tears. He’ll break Mia's heart eventually, act careless with it.

But heartbreak is part of life and something that Mia will have to open her eyes to. Oliver once had bad news written all over him too, and Dinah still had come to him, again and again. Maybe Jason Todd will be the last push Mia needs to move away from her bad boy fixation.

Though Dinah, remembering her last few disastrous attempts at dating, supposes that has its own risks too; the risk of dying of boredom, mainly.

She makes the rounds to say goodbye to everyone. Alone with Connor, she can’t help but ask, “What do you think?”

Without beating around the bush, Connor replies: “I think he’s good for her.”

Dinah looks at the happy couple. He has his arms around Mia, who sits with her back rested on his chest, laughing boisterously at whatever silly anecdote Roy regales them with, mimicry included. Mia’s hands possessively grasp at his forearms, as if she never wants to let go. Dinah recognizes that ease, that comfort, that passion. She used to feel it every time she was in Oliver’s arms.

“I don’t see that,” she tells Connor.

“Mia’s opinion is the one that matters here,” he shrugs, “but for what it’s worth, this is the happiest I’ve ever seen her.”

Dinah can see that. She sees how Todd’s attentions make Mia feel like she’s at the center of the universe. She understands how intoxicating that intensity can be. But she's just older, and jaded, and is keenly aware of its many pitfalls.

She says goodbye to Connor and approaches the kitchen like one would a war zone. Oliver is there, just as she knew he would be, stuck with the cleaning. Manually, because he’s still in a war against dishwashers.

“You’re leaving already?”

“I had a late night. I want to rest before tomorrow.”

“Okay,” he says, failing to hide his disappointment. “Thank you for coming down here, Dinah.”

“There’s no need to thank me, Oliver. Whatever else happens between us… we’re all family.”

He nods. God, it’s so difficult. He never says anything, never pressures. But Ollie has never been a closed book. You can read everything in his face. And every time they see each other, his face screams how much he loves her, how much he wants her, how much he needs her. And each time, it gets harder to remember why it’s so important to resist him.

“Goodbye, Oliver. I’ll be in touch,” she promises, with a strained smile.

10:48 P.M.

Tim’s getting ready for patrol when Oracle, unsubtle, informs him that he’ll be spending it with Huntress. He isn’t sure whether he should feel relieved or insulted.

He’s spent the last few years training himself into no longer believing it’s his responsibility to manage Bruce's moods; admittedly, it’s harder on a day like this, but the younger generation has made it easier, for once. Damian keeps his distance, still staying in the rebuilt city of Blüdhaven; he'll have to deal with Dick's mood, Tim supposes, and that’ll be... he has no idea, of how that must be. For years, this anniversary remained solely about Bruce. Tim never talked about it with anyone else. Except Alfred, but that circled back to Bruce, as well. Talking with Dick would've probably meant much of the same.

Cass would be on top of it, but there’s that group of kids playing at Robin... although they seem determined to separate themselves from Batman. Tim’s unsure about whether that’ll spare them this particular night, if Bruce's repressed memories won't renew his determination to stop them. Maybe Tim should check up on that tonight…

Damn him. Old habits die hard.

Perhaps Jason would keep an eye on them. He seems to have bonded with at least one of them, who knows why. But it felt unfair, to make Jason, of all people, the one to manage Bruce's feelings.

Tim has no idea of what Jason does on this date. Last year, he crossed paths with him. Inevitable, when they both spend their downtime around Park Row these days; it was bound to happen sooner or later, and as per Murphy's Law it would have to be in the most awkward possible moment, but Tim really hadn't expected to see the man in a grocery store, just like any other day. Situation normal, nothing to see here.

Jason stared him down across the aisle for a good ten seconds, with a look that seemed to say, come here and say a single word to my face. I dare you to. Tim’s sure that if he’d have the nerve to express any amount of commiseration, of sympathy, towards him, Jason would’ve punched him in the face. Right there, next to the vegetables. That look was a threat. Or perhaps it was just the man’s resting bitch face.

So, yeah. He doubts Jason wants company today.

As he ponders the situation, he finally, at nearly eleven o'clock in the night, sees his calendar alert.

He almost missed one of his Titans' birthdays!

It happened often, hence the alerts. He has to kick himself whenever he forgets this one, because shouldn't it be easy to remember? He had repressed a wince, the first time Mia told him the date. He wisely kept the coincidence to himself.

Mia... how many months has it been since he talked to her? Three, four? Something like that. A text doesn't seem good enough, so late in the day. So he does something rare for him: he picks up the phone, looks at his contacts, and presses call.

"Uggggggh," Mia says, when she hears the phone. "I can't move, I'm too full... Can you answer?"

She lies on the couch, exaggerating her languid movements. Jason smiles down at her, shaking his head at her laziness, and moves her legs from his lap to stand up. When he reaches the phone and sees the screen, his face turns into the most evil expression she’s ever seen on him.

"This is Mia Dearden's phone. How can I help you?" he asks, in perfect help desk operator voice. Looking back at the screen, he adds, "Huh. They hung up."

Jason sits back down, putting Mia's legs in place, the phone still in his hand. Mia squints her eyes at him, suspicious.

Tim yelps. Every bit of his coordination abandons him, as he flails around to hang up the call.

What the fuck. What the fuck. What the—

The phone rings a second time, and Jason, who clearly loves chaos, puts it on speaker. "Yes, Tim open-parenthesis-Tee-Tee-closed-parenthesis?"

Oh shit. Mia covers her mouth with her hands, holding a snort at bay.

"What are you doing with Red Arrow's phone?"

The chilling tone in Tim's voice rivals the temperatures of Chicago's worst winters, but Jason's response is a placid "Wouldn't you like to know."

"I thought your time screwing with heroes was long over, Red Hood."

"I resent that. Didn't you hear what I did to Supergirl last month?"

What Mia put together from both parties is that Jason had been his regular asshole self (like father like son, if Batman had the sense of humor of the world's most annoying house cat, is how Kara put it), and then, through unclear means, helped Supergirl score a date with a cute guy. But Jason loves his spotty reputation.

"What are you doing to her."

Mia sighs. Better to get this out of the way. She grabs Jason's wrist and brings the phone towards her face.

"Fucking me for the last six months, that's what he's been doing. Still screwing heroes, if you think about it.”

They hear a sputter on the other side. "Hi, Tim. Why did you call?"

"I— I wanted to wish you a happy birthday?"

"Did you?"

"Err— yes. Yes. Happy birthday, Mia."

"Thank you, Tim! We should meet soon. With the other Titans too, whoever can come. And catch up, you know."

"Yes. Yes. We should do that."

"Okay! Goodbye, Tim! Have a nice night."

"Goodbye."

Mia hangs up, no longer repressing her giggles. Jason looks down at her, amused, his wrist still locked between her fingers.

"You think he'll tell people?"

"Nah," Mia replies. "Tim's discreet."

"Yeah," Jason says, lost in thought. "I suppose he is."

Immediately switching to something akin to mission mode, Tim mentally reviews what he knows about Mia's birthdays.

She always spends the entire day with family. That means Oliver, at the very, very least, that one year they were all falling apart. But these days Dinah comes too, even after the divorce; though, of course, with those two, who knows how long that'll last. Connor would also be there, and so would Roy; they had patched things up long before Lian's return, when Roy gave her his mantle. Lian would be there as well. He thinks so was Jade once, some years ago? Dick had yapped endlessly about it. Lian's resurrection was recent then, and it'd caused a bit of a comeback for those two. He has no idea if Jade still puts up with the suburban domesticity for her daughter, now that the romance is over. Probably not.

But most of all, Tim knows Mia would never renounce to all that, guy or no guy.

So, to recap: Mia and Jason are dating; if they’re spending that day together, it’s certainly more than just screwing. And while every one of the Bats were, each in their own way, stuck remembering, over and over and over, the day Jason was violently murdered he... spent it celebrating his... girlfriend's? birthday. Hanging out, partying, with her famously rambunctious family.

"Huh. Good for him."

11:36 P.M.

The two of them are alone in the living room. Ollie and Connor went out early, in what amounts to quality father-son bonding time with bonus projectiles, but even if her fingers twitch to pick up her own bow, Mia has decided to stay the night in with Jason.

"I have a confession to make."

"Ominous," Mia replies, with a flippant tone. Nonetheless, she turns around in the couch and sinks her elbows on its surface, supporting her weight on her forearms to look Jason in the eye.

"April 27th isn't just your birthday."

Mia tilts her head, tired and a bit confused. “Are you… missing out on anyone else’s birthday?” Somehow, she doesn’t think he knows about Lizzo and her sharing birthdays. The dork barely keeps up with mainstream musicians, so he's bound to have no clue of who Lizzo is.

“Yes, you know about my busy social calendar,” he jokes, ruefully. But he immediately turns serious again. “No it’s… April 27th is also… the anniversary of the day I was killed.”

Mia almost springs from the couch, wide awake. A shiver travels from the nape of her neck to the small of her back. If she does the math… could she figure out what she’d been doing, in the precise moment Jason first lost his life?

Probably not. Around that time, the men, the drugs… those days were an indistinguishable blur, one confused with the next. And she didn't exactly celebrate her birthdays, then.

It’s another link between them. Unexpected and undeniable, like so many others.

“That’s… one hell of a coincidence.”

“Coincidences happen,” he says. “There are only so many days in the year.”

“You didn’t want me to know,” she states, without judgement, but firm.

“I didn’t want to talk about it before the party,” he corrects. “I just… wanted a good day with you, I guess. I wanted to have a good day, period.”

“It could've been a good day, regardless,” she points, gently. She'd like to think so. That even if she'd known, she wouldn't have allowed herself to be caught up in it, when it's so clearly it'd be the last thing he'd want.

“It's just… Mia. That day… it's so, so far from being the worst day of my life,” he says it like it's a confession, and not something plainly obvious to someone who's spent time with him. “In Gotham… they act like I'm a time bomb, or make it about their own pain, or… I don't know. I guess I wanted the day to be what it feels like to me: one more among three hundred sixty-five days. One I have even forgotten about, before.”

He smiles, or at least attempts to. “Except now it has a good reason to be circled in the calendar.” 

Jason has that look in his face he gets sometimes. That look that said he expects to have gone too far, to have become unforgivable. Mia still needs to chew on this new revelation, but she hardly sees how it could fit.

She gets it. She’s a sharer, she knows this. What others would consider private, sordid details of her life, she speaks up about often; as a conversation starter, as a jumping point to get something important across, as a bonding experience. Jason wants to be a sharer, but has become more private with his pain, guarding it with a dragon’s zeal for his hoard after the ways it's been disregarded. And yet he’s shared with her intimate, horrifying details of his past. Including details from that very day; tragic, enraging details of which he’s the only remaining witness.

So she gets it. She’s humbled that he’s chosen to share something else with her tonight. If she’d known, she would’ve liked to do something for him too, for his memory. But as for that…

“We can make it a good day next year, too,” she promises him.

Jason gifts her his most private, subtle smile, and kisses her knuckles, grateful. 

00:03 A.M.

It's a rare night in for the two of them in their Blüdhaven apartment, because Dick's old knee injury has been acting up all week. Damian, who's taken to following him from the shadows in plain black robes, has been using the time to advance on his new suit. He's keeping it a secret, refusing to let Dick know so much as his new name, but Dick's sneaked in a few passing glances to Damian's sketchbook. 

The drawings diverge wildly, with the one strong commonality being full-head coverage. They all seem to favor fiery motives, wildly impractical, and wonderfully flamboyant. It's making Dick nostalgic for his early days as Nightwing. Maybe, if Damian ends up picking something like that, he'll redesign his own uniform something closer to the first Nightwing suit. The chest would have to be covered up, what with all the bullets usually fired in his direction. Although Black Lightning can pull the cleavage off quite well, so why not him?

However, Damian's been off all day. He seems more focused on Dick than on his designs, watching him like a hawk does his prey. Dick had decided to wait and see if Damian opened up on his own accord, but once it's past midnight, he straight up asks the teen to spill the beans. 

“I was… worried about you.”

“Have I given you any reason?” he wonders, baffled.

“No,” Damian answers, almost frustrated, “it’s just… it was April 27th.”

Dick looks at him, still trying to piece it together.

“Jason’s…”

And that’s when it hits Dick, like a ton of bricks. Damian sees it, plain on his face, judging by the immediate guilt and regret in his own expression.

“Father always acted…”

Yeah, Dick doesn’t need to be reminded of how Bruce behaves in the face of that particular topic.

“It’s different for me, Damian,” he says, voice suddenly hoarse.

Mia undresses, borrowing an old, oversized Great Frog t-shirt from the closet of her old room. Jason finds this deeply amusing. Pop-culture illiterate that he is, he wouldn't recognize Taylor Swift is she walked up to him in a sequin dress, but of fucking course he knows exactly what Roy’s shitty garage band was called. Just to better tease her about keeping their one and only piece of official merchandise. Roy once told her they sold a total of twenty-one.

The two of them fall asleep slowly, after their usual chaotic routine getting ready (“where the fuck did I put my meds—” before Jason hands them to her; the way the freak of nature that he is dresses up for the night, because otherwise he becomes an icicle). 

Usually, they start to sleep apart, because Mia feels caged in otherwise, and then drift together during the night, when either of them gets clingy. But tonight she hooks her legs around his, pressed against his cold toes, and burrows her head into his stomach. She falls asleep to the soothing feeling of his fingertips ruffling through her hair.

Damian sends an inquisitive look over his aquiline nose. It's a look that even the uninitiated would interpret as a demanding ‘explain.’

“When Jason died… I was on a mission, in space. I didn’t find out until I returned, weeks later.” He hadn’t found out until weeks after he’d returned, actually. “That’s when it hits me. Not really on a specific day, but… around mid May, I suppose. That’s when I remember how I felt those days. Not on the proper anniversary.”

Especially if he isn’t in Gotham when it arrives. There, he had to put up not only with Bruce’s mood, but with how it’d inevitably affect (infect) everyone else’s. But that happened little, even less the last couple of years. Somehow, he always manages to avoid Gotham during late April.

“Didn’t the Justice League have their alert system back then, for Father to send you a message?”

Dick had bitten his tongue over and over again while Damian still lived with his father, for many reasons (the words “alienation of affection” came to mind). He still censors himself a little, and he probably always will to an extent, but he doesn’t lie to the teen anymore. Damian has gotten way too good at spotting insincerity, or even well intentioned omissions.

“Bruce didn’t tell me, not even when I first returned. I had to find out by this guy who worked for the Teen Titans there.” Jason's file had been updated. Probably by Clark, who had known about it, but likely, optimist that he was, assumed Bruce would take it upon himself to inform Dick.

Damian is back to examining him like he’s a fly under his magnifying glass. What a creepy, delightful junior partner Dick has. He’s getting tall, though his complexion is closer to Talia's svelte figure than Bruce's brick wall quality. He'll probably surpass Dick, though hopefully not by much. He still lives in denial of the fact that Talia al Ghul is one centimeter taller than he is. It's probably just the heels.

It's hard not to think about the woman with her son in front of him. The similarities are striking, especially since Damian grew his hair long and took to braiding it. 

Dick has three missed calls from unknown number that he knows is hers sitting on his phone. He expects her to escalate soon, but he hasn't yet figured out how to tell the kid.

“Do you ever talk to him?” Damian asks. Lost in his thoughts, it takes Dick a few seconds to realize he’s talking about Jason.

“I don’t— he doesn’t want me to.” It isn’t the whole truth. In part, Dick isn’t sure he wants to. He and Jason… their relationship is like a mountain with an intricate, subterranean cave system. You never know what you'll find there. And one single misstep…

Besides, Dick is self-aware enough to know that the few times he’s crossed paths with Jason hadn’t been an accident. That they were the younger man’s strange way to seek him out. And those attempts stopped abruptly months ago. Soon after the Joker’s last grand attack before he went underground again, around the time Damian had come to live with him and new, independent Robins started popping out like daisies.

“Maybe you should try to, anyway.”

“Do you know something?” he questions him. He’s surprised to hear Damian speaking so neutrally about Jason, when to his knowledge, the one-sided antipathy between them remained. One-sided because the meaner Damian is to him, the funnier Jason seems to find him. 

But Babs has long suspected that Colin, as Abuse, unsanctioned by Batman as he is, has crossed paths with the Red Hood once or twice. That they are friendly, at least. And Damian, certainly, is very interested in hanging around Colin…

“No.” Damian shrugs, “but what do you have to lose?”

Hmm. Dick will have to keep a closer eye on this.

The next morning.

Jason knocks on Sasha’s door, despite the copy of the key he keeps in his pocket. She opens it with that smile that pulls at her scars, greeting him with a quick hug before rushing him in.

“How was it?” she asks him. His mere appearance, in the morning, after spending the night at Queen’s house, calms down her concerns, nonetheless.

“A lot better than I expected,” he says. And he completely means it.

Dinah Lance could've been the sourest note of the day. Even despite the respect he holds for her, Jason can picture a scenario where her concerns had an echo on his worst insecurities, leading him to lash out with something low and unforgivable. He could've said something about how he wasn’t the type to sneak behind a partner’s back and end up surprising her with the news of an illegitimate child. And if he'd said that, he would've alienated the entire group, half of which was comprised by children born out of wedlock, Jason himself included.

But the cruel though only comes to him in the morning. At the time, he’d been in a genuinely good mood. He’d put Queen at ease early on, deactivating that potential minefield, and it all flowed easily from there. To his surprise, he even enjoyed the old man’s company. He's irritant and loud and incapable of withholding a single one of his feelings, but so is Jason. And the man is so different from Bruce in every way it counts that he hadn’t thought to compare them a single time in the entire day. All those years ago, Jason really got him wrong.

Harper, to his confusion, thinks Jason, and Jason and Mia together, are the funniest thing he’s ever seen. He even seems to think Jason's a pretty stand up guy, thanks to the few times he’s crossed paths with Arsenal, which just goes to show Harper’s low standards and little else, but Jason will take it. He's sure Jade Nguyen hasn't given him more than two thoughts in her entire life, but he can appreciate having someone in the table with an even rockier relationship with the in-laws, and the part of him that trained with poisons find her more than a little fascinating, even if he can't help but roll his eye every time he remembers she used to kill for something as pedestrian as money. And Lian is a small, sensitive kid who’s suffered more than her share in her short timeline. Jason has a soft spot for those, and if anyone had come to the party with the intent to harm her, he would’ve been ready to pull them apart with his teeth.

The one he’d actually been more worried about is Connor Hawke. Oliver Queen is probably the most important person in Mia’s life, but with that man, what you see is what you get. Connor's much harder to pin down. And Jason, through some conversations here and there, had gathered that Connor might just be the person who knows Mia best.

What he didn't anticipate, and is immensely grateful for, is that this could only mean he had the utmost respect for her, for her choices. He’d clearly been observing the two of them during the party with curiosity, but also with an open mind. And when he talked to Jason, instead of bringing up the relationship, the conversation had turned to philosophy, later landing on a heated political debate, once Oliver entered the scene; mainly featuring an exposé on what a joke the DNC's nomination process is!! featuring an attempt to youthful lingo along the likes of 'they did Sanders dirty' that made Mia mock him for five minutes, to a minor detour on Brexit. All conversation topics Jason rarely gets to indulge in with his usual circles, which was pleasant.

But most importantly, Connor clearly thinks Mia is happy with him. Jason tries to take her word for it, but he's an expert in getting in his own way.

One day with them made him realize that he likes these people. Even those who are, at best, on the fence about him.

So all in all, yes. The day was a success.

“Good,” Sasha says, even if just somewhat reassured.

Certain leftovers of possessiveness aside, Jason understands Sasha’s concerns. About him dating a hero. About what that could mean for him, for his mission. For his heart, in the long run. He even shares them. Tasting the sweetness of love and even partial acceptance can make it hard to let them go, if it becomes a matter of choosing them over principle.

But maybe it isn’t as partial as he’d feared. When he told Mia about what he did to the Joker, about what he’d discovered afterwards, she hadn’t shied away from him. Maybe, she's under no delusions when it comes to Jason and what he's willing and ready to do. Maybe she gets where his lines are, and that he's much more careful with them now than he’d been once.

Maybe optimism won't be the death of him, yet another time.

Sasha passes him a letter, breaking him away from his thoughts and demanding his attention. “Here, your one other friend sent this.”

It's no mystery, even without the glaring clue of the fancy stationary. Addressed to “Jason Redkin” and directed to Sasha’s apartment, the one physical place where he can be trusted to return sooner or later, it can only be Talia’s. Who else still sends handwritten letters? Talia could contact him in a myriad of ways, but despite Ra’s attempts to smother it, she's the one other romantic soul Jason knows.

It's a short note, this time. With no references to the anniversary date, because she still knows Jason better than he knows himself. The message's accompanied by two tickets to the opera for tonight, telling him to enjoy them with “Ms. Redkina”. Talia likes to cultivate Jason’s higher tastes, and though he doesn’t think Sasha has ever seen a live opera, he knows she's not above enjoying the fanciest things in life on someone else’s dime.

“The best seats, nice,” she says, when he shows her the tickets. “I think I have the dress for it. Wait here!”

While Sasha runs to her room, Jason's thoughts return back to the past day. That 'next year'… twenty four hours earlier, he thinks that sentence would’ve had him running for the hills, ready to self-sabotage a good thing rather than lose it without his control. He’d gone there with the vain hope of having a good time, and after having exactly that, he feels… light.

It was such a contrast from Gotham. God forbid he encounters any Bat there, on that day; even those who never knew him act like the specter of his childhood self haunts them, when it's actually living through him day after day. He thinks even if they’d known, Mia's family wouldn’t have made him feel that way. One could get used to their way of things.

Gotham is his place. Mia has invited him to spend the rest of the week with her in Chicago, but he’ll inevitably return to his roots. Despite her cruelty, despite her hard edges, it was home to him.

But maybe home didn’t have to be a chain, a prison, a gravitational force.

Maybe it could be a place to return, to rest; somewhere to lay his head. A comfort, with an open door to possibility.