Chapter Text
Somewhere deep and forgotten in the reaches of the Swiss Alps, the snarling Head of the Demon, the dreaded Ra’s al Ghul, is writing a letter.
It is not the first letter he has written tonight, but he is fast approaching the end of the matter, and he knows with certainty that this letter will be the last. It will join the stack of fine stationery he has created on his desk, and it will be found in the morning, after the alarms have sounded, after his security detail has searched the compound, after he has disappeared in earnest. It is all arranged. The letters are the last piece of the jigsaw image, and they fit neatly into the hole that Ra’s perpetual life will leave.
Talia is prepared for her role as the grieving heir apparent, but even so, hers is the letter at the bottom of the stack, the ink now fully dried. There is a letter to young Damian Wayne, so that he will understand when he is older, when the time comes. There is a letter to the boy’s father, Bruce, who Ra’s was never able to sway– he does not trouble himself to attempt the feat now. The time for it is long since past, the letter likewise already finely sealed. Ra’s could not take the sentiment back now if he tried.
Besides, he does not need understanding from the Wayne family. Not anymore.
Ra’s slips his fine pen back into its inkwell and studies what he has written upon this final and most crucial letter even as he prepares the wax for its seal. There is much he wishes to say, but there are eyes upon him, both in this compound and in this delicate world. This will have to do.
He does not doubt his decision. He has not always been a good man, he knows, both by way of being more and less than good and likewise more and less than a man, but in this, at least, he has done right. He nods to himself, and then he pours the wax, closes the letter, and stamps the envelope simply with his signet ring as it cools.
There. He places it gingerly upon the pile with the other letters. The work of six hundred years, finally done.
Ra’s taps the letters together and gets up from his fine desk chair. Yes. The work is done– and now, there is only one task remaining. For a moment, he stands in silence and watches the wild snow whirl past the window, blanketing the compound in pure droves. He does not breathe. He does not blink. After six hundred years on the fine and leveled face of this world, he is at last able to think of nothing at all.
And then, as he leaves the room, one final thought presents itself: that it is a good night to drown.
Under the heavy, foreboding clouds of Gotham, a tinny bass guitar rumbles and crashes out of a phone speaker in a shitty apartment, and the room’s sole occupant sings along to the best of his ability as the introduction ends: “I don’t wanna feel better /”
This is, of course, Jason Todd, dressed in his boxer shorts and doing his best to make a smoothie out of whatever the hell he’s found in his freezer. Most of the food he’s pulling out is in plastic bags, and it’s all too covered in ice to really discern the shape of, so it’s a very slow process, and it’s not going well. He’s currently trying to tell if this latest item is cooked chicken or pieces of banana.
Shit. Oh, god, he really can’t tell, but he’s got a fifty-fifty shot, right?
“No one’s ever gonna love me like that again / I don’t wanna get over it / I wanna sit with you–”
“Hang on,” Jason mutters to himself, pausing the music so he can consider the contents of this bag more seriously. Whatever it is, it’s been cut into little discs, which implies that it’s a banana, but it could also be some of Alfred’s really fancy chicken that he stole a few weeks ago. Jason frowns.
He still empties the bag into the blender.
He’s examining what’s probably a bag of strawberries when his phone pings with Dick’s ringtone. He doesn’t check it at first, not until it pings again, and then with Tim’s ringtone, and then with Bruce’s, all in quick succession– the family group chat is raucous with recent activity when he finally abandons his smoothie to look.
DGrayson: I have news
DGrayson: Starting a video call I need everyone to be so extremely cool right now
RDrake: I’m cool I’m cool what’s up
BWayne: Ra’s al Ghul is dead.
What the fuck? Jason stares at the screen for a long time waiting for someone to tell him fucking anything else, but no one does. He opens Dick’s video call.
Tim is, predictably, already losing his shit, and has, predictably, angled his phone camera so that everyone can see up his nose. Jason steps in halfway through him freaking out. “–fucking way. There’s no way, this has to be a– a trick or something, there’s–”
He turns off his microphone and lets Tim finish his thought as he closes up the blender and presses the button to start it. “Like, have we gotten the autopsy report? Do we know anything except where he was found?”
Bruce and Dick seem to be coming in from different rooms of the house, with Bruce in front of his display in the cave, and Dick coming in from… his room, maybe? He’s clearly using his laptop, because his microphone is shit. “Tim, can you cool it?”
“I’m cool! I’m so cool!”
Jason’s smoothie is about as smoothie-d as it’s going to get, so he turns off the blender and activates his microphone. “What happened?” he cuts in, because he’s clearly the only one who’s capable of taking this seriously right now, nevermind that he’s in his boxers. He puts his phone down on the counter and angles it so everyone can only see his top half, anyway. “S’this a power play? Is there someone new we need to be worried about?”
Bruce’s face might be carved in stone, but he’s wearing a very strange expression, and he doesn’t answer for a minute. In his absence, Dick takes point. “It looks ,” he says carefully, “like it was a suicide.”
That shuts Tim up, but Jason only squints. Hm. “You guys aren’t convinced, though.”
Bruce’s expression gets weirder. He still doesn’t say anything, though, so Dick continues, his voice still oddly careful. “His security detail found him floating dead in a Pit yesterday morning.”
Oh, yeah. That’s why they’re being weird– mystery solved. Jason starts looking for a clean cup to pour his smoothie into. “Isn’t that kind of like blowing your brains out with a hairdryer?”
Over the camera, Bruce’s neutral expression splits into confusion. “Excuse me?”
“Because you’d, like, put it to your head, but it’s a hairdryer, so you’d…” He stops just shy of demonstrating. “It doesn’t work , is what I’m saying.”
Everyone is staring. “What?”
“Jason,” Bruce says levelly, “can you please put some clothes on?”
Jason grumbles, but that’s a pretty fair request, all things considered, so he turns off his camera and goes to find some pants. He can hear Tim through the phone, still trying to puzzle everything out. “Do you think maybe someone, like, hurt him and he tried to get the Pit to bring him back?”
“The official autopsy found water in his lungs,” Bruce tells him as Jason opens the door to his bedroom. Paper rustles over the phone. “Quite a bit of water, actually, but I’ve checked the report. All the evidence points to death by drowning.”
“Which shouldn’t be possible,” Dick clarifies. “Right?”
“It shouldn’t be possible,” Bruce echoes pensively. “It shouldn’t be possible at all.”
Jason picks up a pair of worn jeans from the floor and starts to put them on. There’s a spattering of blood around the hem of the left leg, but that’ll probably come out with some bleach. It’s fine. He’s able to take advantage of a quick lull in the conversation. “Why do we think it was a suicide, anyway?”
“Because he left notes.”
Shit, that’s pretty convincing. Jason makes his way back to the kitchen. “Which I assume we know because we got one?”
“Yes, I got one.” Paper rustles again, and Jason checks his screen just in time to see Bruce hold up a wax-sealed envelope. “So did you.”
Jason turns his camera back on so they can have this conversation face to face– or, at least, as face-to-face as the phone will allow. “We weren’t penpals or anything,” he preempts, but Bruce’s face only grows stonier. Jason rolls his eyes, but he thinks back, considering. “If you’ll recall , Bruce, we’re not exactly on speaking– wow, I haven’t talked to him in years.”
Ra’s is– was, apparently– a weird guy. Impeccably put together (and maybe responsible for Jason’s post-resurrection bisexual identity crisis), but also six hundred years old and obsessed with wiping out most of the planet, so, yeah, pretty weird. Their relationship, or whatever it was, could probably best be defined as ‘cordial,’ like a father towards his daughter’s boyfriend, except the daughter in question was an ancient, toxic fountain of youth. Pretty standard stuff.
Scratch that, actually. That makes it sound like Jason was sleeping with the Lazarus Pit. Gross. Reiterated: for several reasons, gross .
Jason opens the cabinet, wrinkling his nose a little at the thought, and pours his smoothie into a cup that’s mostly clean, just a little dusty. It’s weird thinking that Ra’s is gone, especially in light of the circumstances. “Isn’t he pretty notoriously hard to kill?”
Dick pipes up before Bruce can speak. “There’s still a lot we don’t know–”
“There is,” Bruce agrees, “which is why I’d appreciate it if everyone could make their way over so we can discuss this.”
Tim immediately raises a hand. “Can I be excused if I’m on patrol?”
“Tim–”
Jason sips his smoothie. Fuck yeah. No chicken. “Yeah, I’m actually hosting my book club today, so…”
Dick hides a grin– nice– and Bruce doesn’t roll his eyes, but he very clearly wants to. Double nice. “If you won’t be here, I reserve the right to open your mail.”
Checkmate. Damnit. He scowls, and hangs up before anyone can stop him. “What are we, Communists?” he says aloud to himself as he opens his messages.
Dick is already typing.
DGrayson: JFC drama queen are you coming over or not
JTodd: yeah obviously
DGrayson: oh cool nice
DGrayson: so are you ok?
JTodd: yeah why wouldnt I be
A pause. Jason finishes his smoothie. Look at him go, getting his daily servings of fruits. He’s crushing this.
DGrayson: do you want that alphabetically or chronologically?
JTodd: very funny
JTodd: yeah im so ok im the oldest guy i know
JTodd: *okest
DGrayson: you’re just historically weird abt hole stuff
JTodd: .
JTodd: Dicky do u want to rephrase that rq before I screenshot it
DGrayson: don’t you dare
Jason takes a screenshot.
DGrayson: youre the one who fucking named it the bad decision hole
DGrayson: do not pin that shit on me
JTodd: too late
He immediately sends it to the family group chat.
DGrayson: how could you do this to me
JTodd: easily lmao
JTodd: yeah fr I’m fine tho
JTodd: fuckin weird as hell that he drowned I didnt know you could do that
DGrayson: weird as hell indeed
DGrayson: do you want to see the autopsy report when you come over?
JTodd: are there photos
DGrayson: yeah
JTodd: are they gross
DGrayson: yeah he’s all pruney and junk
JTodd: fuckin bet
JTodd: yeah I’ll be there in like 20
Jason tosses the empty cup into the sink, grabs his earbuds off the counter, and makes his way out to his motorcycle. He’s so fine. The Lazarus Pit is like an old ex, one that he didn’t even sleep with– which is to say he doesn’t think about it. He doesn’t. It’s fucking nothing to him. He puts his earbuds in and presses play on his music, and lets the distorted bass guitar snarl like a junkyard dog as Penelope Scott’s singing-speaking voice drowns out anything he’s definitely still not thinking about. For the first time in days, his mind is stillwater placid as he mouths along. “I don’t wanna feel better / I’d do anything to miss you again / I don’t wanna get over it /”
He does not think about Ra’s al Ghul, or, indeed, about his Lazarus Pit as he turns the engine and starts at a breakneck speed towards Wayne manor. There’s just the silence of the wind and the rabid bass guitar: “I wanna get under it instead /”
Jason Todd thinks of nothing at all until one final thought presents itself: that Dick is absolutely going to kill him for not wearing his helmet.