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It was two weeks after he left and didn’t return when the notification popped up on her screen: the library books were overdue. The soft hum of the desk monitor and the gentle clatter of keys filled the quiet corner where she sat, behind the help desk, her usual post, wheelchair tucked close to the oak counter worn smooth by years of questions and returned books. She was about ready to just hit send on the automated email reply asking the patron to return the books, but then she realized the name on the account: Jason Todd.
She paused. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. She didn’t think she could wheel back to his room and find the books herself. She didn’t feel like she had the right to, and she didn’t know how to ask for them to be returned. So, instead, she went to his account and extended the loans on the books, knowing that in two weeks, the same notification would pop up again on her screen, and she’d have to deal with it then.
Oh, how her heart aches to see Jason, to ask him about what he was gonna be reading next, and her Robin was dead. Not the one that she saw the skies with, the one that she watched over, the one that she cared about. Because Dick was away, feeling replaced with the Titans, and Bruce was too much of a hard ass to give Jason the time of day. So it was up to her and Alfred to pick up the slack.
She didn’t know what to do. The days passed in cycles: book returns, help desk questions, the hiss of the old elevator doors opening and closing as patrons came and went. But again, in two weeks, the same message popped up.
"Overdue books. Send message?"
And again, she would go into his account, and she would extend his loan.
Now, Barbara could have just written a code that would have automatically renewed his loan every time it was about to be overdue, a few keystrokes and it would have been done. But it started to become something of a memorial to him. A way for her not to forget. To never forget that her little brother was dead, and that she wasn’t there to help him when he needed. A ghost. Years went by, and sometimes she did it without thought. But she always renewed his loan. Always.
So it came to her as a surprise when two weeks went by, and the loan notification didn’t go off. In fact, the books were showing as returned.
Maybe, she thought, Alfred had gone through his room and found the books and returned them at last, but that didn’t seem like him. That didn’t seem like something he would do. And definitely not without letting her know or stopping by and dropping off a treat for her at the library while she worked. He always brought something when he visited. Scones. Earl Grey. A little nod to her long hours.
So, wheeling herself out from behind the desk and toward the back room, she checked the return date timestamp on the book. Then she flipped through the library’s security cam footage, eyes scanning the grainy feed.
It wasn’t anyone she recognized, not that she really could, with his hood drawn up, baseball cap pulled low so his eyes couldn’t be seen by the camera as he returned the library books.
But who was this person? Because it wasn’t Bruce, Alfred, or Dick, and Tim would never go in there to get them out.
So who was this man who had broken into Wayne Manor, rifled through a dead boy’s room, and brought his books?
Accessing the broader CCTV system that Bruce had set up throughout the city, she followed this man as he left the library, trailing him across blocks of static and shadows, all the way back to a safe house.
The name on the safe house was Jason Austin.
She sped up the footage, fingers trembling slightly against the trackpad, watching, waiting, until he exited again. This time as the Red Hood.
Her stomach dropped. A dull thud of realization in her chest.
Picking up her phone, she sat motionless for a moment, the quiet hum of the library wrapping around her like fog.
She called Bruce, not sure what to believe, but there was no way it couldn’t be.
The phone rang. She thought she’d have to leave a voicemail.
But Bruce picked up.
And she said,
“I think Jason’s alive.”