Chapter 1

She could see it. His movements were angry as his gloved fists cracked against the skull of the simple street thug, over and over until they became soaked with blood as red as his hood. "Well, isn't it the Baby Bat?" His voice was metallically coated with sarcasm. She stepped forward, planting her boot in a pothole filled with rain water.

"Causing trouble." Her finger was outstretched in his direction and he crossed his arms, leaning against the damp bricks of the alleyway.

"What? I'm doing what you all do, cleaning the streets of Gotham – just – better." Cass lifted up a body by the back of his collar, and directed her finger at the bullet hole through his temple.

"This is not better!"

"It's not?" Jason's shoulders thrusted forward when he pushed off the wall. "If I hadn't killed him, he probably would have gone months committing crimes. And if he gets caught, he'll be sentenced. After he gets sentenced, then what?"

"Prison," she answered.

"Then he'll escape or get parole, either way he'll be back on the streets." Cass's eyes watched his feet shuffle past the broken bodies and colored glass reflecting the clouded moonlight. His broad shoulders were confidently spread and his feet were planted into the asphalt, telling her he wanted her to be here.

"We – we cannot decide who dies. It is not our job."

"But it's our job to put on a costume?" When he asked, her stomach dropped like the now falling rain around them.

She blinked and answered with a heavy breath, "that's different."

"Is it?" Sirens drowned the silence in the rain and Jason shot out a line. She ignored the dancing lights on the walls and quickly followed, swinging through corporate buildings watching his body twist through the air. He wants me to follow. Her heartbeat pounded in her ears as she repeated his questions through her head. He was a lot like Dick, but he was more violent and deliberate with his movements.

His arm shifted, and she knew he would stop. Jason's body tumbled on the top of the Ace Chemicals building, but by then, she had already jolted and propelled herself where he was going to land. Before she could keep him in place, he flipped backwards onto his feet.

Jason stood in a stance watching her fluid movements. He could tell with every strike that she was holding back more than their previous fights. He blocked a simple high kick, but felt his balance falter. She had kicked his feet out from under him, and was now using what weight she had to pin him underneath her. He gasped for the air that he had lost from his lungs.

"Under arrest." She pressed her fingers into his wrists and leaned her face closer to his not understanding why he wasn't fighting when every muscle in his body urged to lash out.

"What's the matter?" She could feel his eyes on her through the hood, so she subconsciously moved her head back. At the first sign of hesitation, his knees lifted from under her and their positions switched. "I thought I was under arrest." Cass's stomach tightened, feeling his fingertips imprint into her arms and thinking that she shouldn't have turned off the com-link to Oracle earlier. "Are you listening now, Baby Bat?" The constriction on her wrists tightened, then he let go, taking off his hood and setting it off to the side. She knew he had put handcuffs on her – even though she was fully capable of leaving.

"He'll stop you." She watched his face darken.

"Bruce is too busy dealing with Scarecrow right now. And I'm sure his imitation bird is out with Dick in Blüdhaven, am I right?" Cass's jaw tightened knowing his questions didn't have to be answered.

"Then -"

"Why you?" He asked, before she could finish finding her words. Her muscles tightened, until he pressed his finger into the center of her chest where the emblem was outlined in her costume. As he stood she realized that he didn't know exactly why himself. But he wanted someone's attention.

She closed her eyes, remembering his Robin's uniform in the glass case, then opened them seeing Jason standing with his back towards her in his biker's jacket, and the holster to his handguns at his sides. He was alone. Even though she was there on the rooftop with him, she knew that he was alone in his mind. Tim's voice echoed in her head; "He expected Bruce to avenge him, but -" She remembered Tim looking up because Bruce had driven in the cave that night. And talking about Jason around him put everyone in a bad mood.

Cass held her breath then released it. "I'm sorry."

"What do you have to be sorry about?" Shock and anger was written over his mask as he turned around to look down at her.

"You're angry."

"Of course I'm angry I -"

"But you're hurt." She finished for him, and his Adam's apple bobbed when he swallowed. She could see that he hated himself for living, but his anger, his sadness kept him in Gotham, breathing. It kept him pulling the trigger on others, because he was fighting the urge to turn it on himself. As long as he made Bruce angry while following what he thought was right, made him feel like it was better than not existing at all.

"What would you know?" He knelt down next to her, leaning in on his knuckles until she could see the anger outlining the features in his face.

"You're body tells me. It says; worthless. You are worthless. I am here. I am angry. Fear and pain tells me I am here. Better to have an angry reaction than none. So I fight." His head tilted back and his eyes narrowed behind his mask when she answered.

"Why do you care?" His words cut through the raindrops, then she took a deep breath, but nothing came out of her open mouth. He closed his eyes, gritting his teeth. The sound of the rain and the sirens were all they could hear for a long while, until he spoke. "When the timer finally reached to five seconds left, I realized that I was going to die and he wasn't going to save me." Jason cradled his knees, reminding Cass of a scared child.

"You are here now so – I am happy." His head turned towards her as he tried to read into her mask, but he gave up and looked down at the city on his other side. His fingers were twirling a small object in them and he took a breath. Jason unlocked the metal on Cass's wrists, carefully watching her as she rubbed them.

"You were capable of unlocking yourself."

"I know."

"Then why didn't you?" She pulled back her cowl and smoothed out her hair to look back at him clearer.

"You wanted to talk."

"But I'm an enemy."

"He trusted you. So - I thought -"

"That you could trust me?" A smile parted his lips and he chuckled, but she shook her head slowly breathing in the smell of rain and exhaling clouds of heat.

"Second chance. Like you, I killed. But I came back, and Bruce accepted."

"What if I told you I didn't want that?"

"You're lying." When she answered a smirk came across his face.

"Like me, huh?" He stood up with his hood back in his hand and looked at her for a long second before putting it on. "Next time, Baby Bat." Jason hooked his heels on the side of the building and leaned back into a fall.

Cass shook her head and put on her cowl again, thinking about the way he moved. Her finger clicked the com-link in her ear back on.

"Batgirl! What happened? I lost contact!" Bab's shouting from the other end was almost inaudible, and it hurt Cass's ears.

"Nothing," she answered simply.

"You turned off your feed and your com-link!" Babs shouted back.

"Feed is an - annoying. And lots of rain. Static." Cass defended.

"C – Batgirl, you-"

"Sorry." Cass fired out a line when she saw signs of a robbery, two blocks away from where she was. "Robbers." A lopsided smile formed when she heard Babs sigh. Cass knew that her night was far from over, and Jason was waiting for another audience.