Chapter Text
A monster lives in Jason’s basement.
Actually, a lot of liberties are being taken in that statement. Throughout his award-filled tenure as Batman’s partner in crime-fighting (four whole months of work after six whole months of training!) he’s seen and experienced a lot of monsters. Many wear a human face; some of them a face which would better fit on the silver screen than real life. The trait all these monsters have in common isn’t something as boorish as horrific appearances which make his gut go cold when he sees them, but rather, rotten souls. Something, fundamentally, is wrong with these monsters; something, fundamentally, is twisted out of shape and refuses to mirror humanity.
Bruce tries to keep Jason away from the nasty stuff, for sure. There’s a lot of times when he gets bundled away into the car and left with some menial task to complete while Batman goes out to deal with something terrible. Those are the times when Batman comes back with his cape dragging limply, often stinking of something Jason recently learned is the smell of sweet decay, and carrying a grim and impenetrable expression of quiet desolation.
But Bruce cannot pre-screen everything in Gotham. He can’t keep a child vigilante away from every terrible thing which happens in this city. So, yes, Jason knows monsters. They’re the people who make his blood the pressure of a critical nuclear reactor; when he thinks about them, a true and righteous fervor for justice threatens to make him catatonic. But they’re the kind of people Batman and his crime-fighting partner deal with swiftly and firmly, to be locked up in Blackgate or Arkham to face their punishment (and who will, inevitably, get back on the streets again to continue their monstrous behavior).
With monsters, there’s always something going on with their eyes. There’s a simmering there, such as hate or madness or cruelty or anguish or obsession. An intensity exists around them which begets scuttling away and hiding from their gaze, preferably under a rock and with a weapon in hand. Or nothing is in their eyes at all, and they smile their empty-person smile when they see you and commit their empty-person crimes to fill up all the absence within themselves.
In the basement of Jason’s home, the monster fits neither of these descriptions—in its eyes, Jason only sees the calm, indifferent, animal banality of evil.
Bruce isn’t really the kind of guy who typically brings home nightmares made physical. Bruce is a hound dog, and the justice system his master: he drops off the monsters at someone else’s feet and doesn’t bring them to where he makes his bed. This is something Jason is a strong proponent of, except for the part where the Gotham justice system is a sham—but the ‘not bringing work home’ thing? He’s in favor of that.
But something about this monster—this Talon—is different. The Talon inspires in Bruce a sort of chagrined grief, and though that isn’t too difficult to inspire in Bruce, there’s something special about it. It’s a sort of sensation Jason can witness firsthand when a strange something shudders through Bruce every time his eyes stray to look at the Talon. Special enough for Bruce, broken and bleeding, to show up to the Cave after destroying the Court of Owls, dragging a half-frozen sort-of-corpse behind him and tossing it into a containment cell while tragedy pursed Bruce’s tense mouth shut. It had brought up a very pertinent round of questions from Jason and Alfred both, such as: Who is this? Why is it here? Where have you been for weeks without contact? Why did you not tell us anything? How did you acquire all these injuries? Why are you like this, Bruce?
Jason had been laid up with a broken leg during the whole Court case (ha) so he had been benched very efficiently. Bruce’s only communique to Alfred had been a list of city officials in danger of assassination attempts by various Talons, most of which had been thwarted. Everything else remains mysterious. Whatever transpired in those tunnels and vaults beneath the city is between Bruce, the captive Talon, and the merry dead or incarcerated. Bruce, spooked, won’t talk about it and the case report is restricted to high heaven and back. If there is any footage of the week or so Bruce was gone, then it’s never going to see the light of a monitor.
All of this really freaking blows given the spooky monster in the basement. Just hanging out day-to-day. Sitting in the transparent containment cell. Staring. And staring. And staring. Never eating, never drinking, never breathing—a machine, if not for the wet shine of its animal eyes. The only time Jason sees the Talon move is when it turns its head to follow movement. The eyes don’t follow; the whole head twists to track figures as they move across the Cave. Sometimes, the Talon’s attention gets sharply drawn up to the bats on the Cave’s ceiling, and Jason can see those pinprick-tiny pupils blow out.
“You’ve got a plan for that thing, don’t you?” Jason asks Bruce, not for the first time, after three days of stagnation in regard to the situation. The Talon is watching them from the far corner of the Cave, and despite the distance, Jason's pretty certain it can see them in perfect detail. Jason has taken to staring back at it and is doing so even now. It’s a contest he never wins.
Bruce is hunched over the keyboard of the desk computer. It’s the biggest computer Jason’s ever laid eyes on—a hulking, plasticky beast of wires and a gigantic buzzing screen. It’s connected to a bunch of other machinery too, one that prints documents, another that will scan documents, and a bunch of others that do… something else. Even after getting tech lessons, Jason’s leery about Bruce’s supercomputer; his old library haunt in the Bowery had only just gotten a computer, but the only thing it could do was let you search up books on a black-and-green screen. Bruce’s database, or whatever it’s called, is seemingly infinite. Right now he’s researching something-or-other located in Eastern Europe, eyes trained on the screen to avoid Jason’s scrutiny.
To answer the question, Bruce grunts. It’s a leading kind of grunt which invites the listener to draw their own conclusions—namely, the conclusions the listener wants to hear, and therefore the most untruthful conclusions.
Bruce, Jason suspects, doesn’t have a goddamn clue what he’s doing with Talon.
“Is it, like, a rehabilitation situation?” Jason pesters further, taking joy in how every syllable makes Bruce’s hunch deepen. “Because it’s been three days but you don’t even look at it sideways. Forget anything better than that. And imprisonment, well, I don’t think we’re set up for that kind of thing long-term. Now if you’re thinking roadside attraction—”
“How about you go run those tests for me in the medbay, lad,” Bruce painfully grits out as he hands over a flimsy excuse. Jason takes it and runs with it, because as one of the first children Bruce has had to put up with in a long-term setting, Jason knows when to push and when to pull and how to take advantage of the guy. Right now is a ‘leave the pot on simmer’ kind of moment.
Jason hobbles his way to the medbay, crutch shoved under one armpit and his casted foot making a tak shhh-thunk, tak shhh-thunk sound against the stone floor of the cave as he drags the bottom of it. He makes no pretense of doing anything other than rounding by the Talon’s fishbowl of a containment cell to gawk. Right here is probably the brightest area of the Cave, with floodlights to illuminate every dastardly, conniving shadow out of existence. The Talon is taking up residence within it, which Jason privately dubbed the Cell of Doom and Geneva Code Violations—meaning all four walls of the tiny cell are made up of unbreakable clear material, and the singular thing within the cell being a very low cot whose frame is made of nothing but sturdy cardboard with scraps of fabric masquerading as sheets, and that’s it. That’s all there is. It’d be disturbingly depressing and inhumane if the Talon were a person.
It’s not a person, though. Not really, not at all. Sure, it’s got the shape of a person: head, shoulders, knees, toes, and other essential accessories. But this thing had been down here for three days without a morsel eaten, a sip drank, a bowel passed, or a complaint had. People can’t do that. People don’t stay utterly silent and still for fifty-some hours. People don’t have black veins and paper-white transparent skin and dull golden eyes. The Talon is just a thing behind some glass.
Jason, like any boy when presented with an animal safely ensconced behind a protective medium, is morbidly enthralled by the Talon. When he stops in front of its containment cell, he engages it in its favorite pastime—staring—and intently attempts psychic communication like a Martian. Jason tries to beam the image of a pastrami sandwich into the Talon’s head. The Talon stares back, thinking whatever Talon thoughts it has, possibly pushing psychic communication images of murder and mayhem right back at Jason. It’s impossible to tell—the Talon doesn’t have any facial expression. Mostly, it just looks a little gormless and a lot bored.
Jason switches from psychic communication to physical communication. He waves tentatively. The Talon’s attention doesn’t even flicker to look at his hand—it just keeps on boring its animal eyes into Jason’s. Jason waves harder. The Talon does not wave back. The lack of participation is incredibly rude. This Talon is a terrible animal ambassador for its species.
The Talon must do something—anything. There’s something to the Talon which must be interesting enough for Bruce to drag this specific one back to the Cave out of all the dozens(?) of Talons that were… incapacitated. Even if Bruce won’t fess up to his plans for the Talon—or fess up he has no plans for the Talon—there’s got to be some reason it’s here, taking up space in the Cave and casting a gloom on the entire place. The monster in the basement must have some reason to be in the basement, and Jason wants to figure it out so he doesn’t lay in bed at night with visions of immortal zombie assassins breaking out of glass cells to come up the stairs and slaughter him and his new family in their sleep.
Jason looks furtively over his shoulder at Bruce, who remains hunched over the keyboard of the computer and tip-tapping away on the keyboard with his back to them. Even if he doesn’t seem to be paying attention, Bruce is probably painfully aware Jason is over here antagonizing—no, socializing the Talon.
Airholes the size of a Coke can’s circumference are drilled through the walls of the Cell of Doom. With the unbreathing Talon as the only occupant they’re useless, of course, except for the purpose of communication.
Jason leans up and presses his mouth against one. “Bet you can’t do this.”
As a twelve-year-old boy, Jason possesses a deep understanding that the best way to get someone else to do something is through taunting, teasing, betting, and jeering. Those methods are how Jason gets his way, like, 84% of the time with Bruce. It works on boys of any age—and maybe on Talons, too.
Another furtive look proves Bruce is still at the computer.
Jason leans his crutch against the containment cell and unsteadily hobbles a few steps backwards. Then, trusting both his totally wicked Bat-training and also the laws of physics which say his atoms won’t slide through the atoms of the containment cell’s wall and make him land right at the feet of the Talon, Jason tilts forward with momentum, bending to slap his palms against the floor and heft his feet over his head. He teeters for a moment before the toebox of his left shoe thunks against the glass and his bare toes of his casted foot smash against it, too. Ouch. That wasn’t as thought through as Jason believed it had been. Still, it was a pretty smooth transition into a handstand, if Jason does say so himself. Especially with his balance being shot by the disproportionate weight of his leg cast. Booyah. Watch that dumb, mindless, terrifying Talon to this.
The Talon doesn’t rise to the occasion. It doesn’t look all that much different upside down, either. With the added support of leaning against the containment cell—it’s not cheating!—Jason shifts into a one-handed position so he can pull down the skin beneath his eye and stick out his tongue toward the dumb Talon. Unresponsiveness persists. Staring continues.
The lack of reaction from the human-shaped animal is… disappointing. Unnerving. Its placid face just tilts down to stare toward Jason’s increasingly reddening, upside-down face, despite Jason giving it the roast of a century. There’s not a flicker of emotion in those eyes. No irritation, no humor, no exasperation, no soul.
What’s Jason supposed to do about this unvanquishable monster without a soul in his basement?
He’s about to try and figure out a way back onto his feet when the Talon lunges forward. It moves like a snake; the burst of motion has no precedent, no little twitch of anticipation. There is only stillness and then, upside-down, Jason sees a blur of pale skin and ragged assassin’s uniform advancing with more speed than any human shape should move.
A shrill shout shrieks out of Jason’s lungs as he tumbles ass-backward onto the floor, forgetting momentarily about the protection provided by the cell wall. Or rather, convinced the Talon would be able to shatter through it like a rifle bullet through a single pane of glass. The Talon’s mental vacancy must have been a play this entire time, waiting for Jason to lower his guard in a moment like this. His casted leg bangs onto the ground. Jarring the healing bones within it makes tears spring at the corners of his eyes, but the pain is nothing in the face of the animal panic causing him to scramble backward, away from the containment cell, looking over his shoulder to see how close—
The Talon is sitting on the cot. Peaceably. Not a hair out of place. And if the slightest curl of amusement tugs at the corner of the Talon’s mouth, then it very well may be Jason projecting something that isn’t there.
Whatever the Talon is, Jason knows one thing. Anything that much of an asshole has to be human.
Not a moment later strong arms are hefting him up into the air, and Jason yanks on the collar of Bruce’s shirt urgently. “It moved! It fucking moved!” Jason tattles, jabbing a finger in the Talon’s direction. The shock of it makes his tongue dumb and the words fall out of his mouth in a stream of panic.
“You hurt your leg,” Bruce condemns. “Jason, I’ve told you to be careful—”
“—Bruce! It came at me!—”
“—and not to play games with him,” he continues, voice thick with disapproval and, frankly, far less concern for what Jason is saying than he ought to. In fact, Bruce doesn’t spare a glance for the Talon at all, which makes Jason yank on his collar harder. “Hey. Don’t stretch out my shirt.”
“You’re not listening, it—it—” It what? Twitched? Attempted an attack? Gave him a little scare? Everything happened so quickly; thinking back on it makes the memory blur in Jason’s head. In a small voice, Jason repeats, “It moved.”
A slight rock sways him back and forth as Bruce moves toward the medbay to check the cast and the bones and his head and probably everything else. “He…” Bruce starts and stops. That strange expression rises on his face once again, the same one which always darkens the firm lines and slants his eyebrows downward and makes tightness wrinkle the outer corners of his eyes. Bruce has only ever stumbled over his words when he’s talking about the Talon. And, sometimes, when talking to Jason. But it can’t be the same.
Bruce shoulders his way into the medbay, where there are four walls and a door for the sake of sterility. The sightline of the Talon gets cut off as the door softly closes, and it seems to be what Bruce needs in order to unlock the words in his throat.
“All I’m asking of you is to give him space and time.” Bruce lowers Jason onto one of the exam beds, but doesn’t yet go on. His stare isn’t like the Talon’s at all. There’s a riot of emotions, all tangled up and mixed together, but it makes him just as unreadable. Jason can never hope to understand all the things Bruce keeps locked up. “I know his presence in the Cave makes you uncomfortable. It isn’t fair to you, but there’s nowhere… this is…” Bruce’s jaw sets itself, and he seems to solidify. Just a bit. The bare edge of that lost expression which keeps on haunting his face firms into resolve.
“You’re a brave man,” Bruce says, scrubbing at Jason’s hair in a way that’s merely a clandestine method to check for bumps and cuts. “Can you be brave about him for a little longer, son? I know he looks odd, and he may seem scary, but he’s not much different from you. Not deep down.” Before Jason can pipe up a complaint regarding the comparison, Bruce looks at him. Really looks. Being stared at with such profound sadness makes his skin itch. “A massive injustice has been committed against him. It wasn’t right, nor was it fair, and I… it’s my duty to provide him a way out of the dark. Our duty.”
His hand lands on Jason’s shoulder and, with alacrity, every moment he hadn’t been bundled away into the car floods into his mind. Where monsters tromp, victims are left in their wake. Hands, cast out from the shadows. Small, big, smooth, calloused, whole or bleeding; all grasp about for a lifeline to drag them back to a life where things make sense and they can leave things like hurt and pain in the dark where it belongs. How many of those hands has Jason grabbed onto in his four-month career? Dozens, already. Talon doesn’t seem like a victim—more like a monster perpetrator—but what does Jason know? Bruce is adamant about it, and Bruce is… occasionally… correct.
“This Court thing… they really messed it—him—up?” he asks, correcting pronoun usages hastily when Bruce’s dark eyebrows furrow malevolently. He continues quickly, “Like, you said he used to be like me. But they did all that to him? Turned him into a monster?”
“Jason,” Bruce scolds instantly.
“You can’t say he’s human,” he argues back, “not when he doesn’t breathe.”
“Regardless, yes, the Court of Owls has treated him with inhumane cruelty.” His mouth flattens into a grim slash—the Batman expression. “To what extent, I don’t know. I’ll return to the Court’s bases to uncover the extent of their tortures on him. Once I’ve put together a plan of care and it proves effective in deprogramming him, in giving him autonomy again… I’ll have him moved into professional care elsewhere. The Cave isn’t a suitable environment for the healing of a youth’s mind. But right now, it’s the safest.”
Safest for who? Jason wants to wail, kicking and screaming like a child. Sure, whatever Talon went through wasn’t fair. Victim, monster, whatever it is, it didn’t deserve whatever vague description of torture Bruce said it suffered. The same way Jason doesn’t deserve to feel unsafe in his own home because of the presence of an immortal zombie assassin in his basement.
An end condition exists now, though. Bruce finally spoke it out loud, regardless of how much it pained him to say the words. The Talon needs deprogramming or autonomy or whatever. Jason doesn’t know exactly what it means in whatever big-headed terms Bruce is probably thinking in, but he gets the gist. The Talon needs to be a real person again, as much as he can.
Maybe Jason can find a way to… move those plans forward. Jumpstart them. Assist. Anything, really, which will get the Talon out the door quicker.
“It did move, though,” he informs Bruce, because he didn’t imagine that.
“I’m sure he did,” Bruce replies conciliatorily, shuffling Jason backward on the exam bed so the casted foot is propped up. Apparently now once actual communication has been had, he really is going to do a wellness check. That blows. “And maybe you’ll even see it on film while you’re on duty to review surveillance tapes and put them through the degausser.”
“What! I hate using that stupid thing! You’ve got all this dumb fancy tech, why can’t you just get a surveillance system that automatically records over the tapes or something? Or a robot that’ll do it for you? Why do I even have to review them in the first place? No one ever breaks into the Cave. You never watch ’em.”
A half-smile ticks up the corners of Bruce’s mouth. “Because then you wouldn’t have a reason to keep your nose clean and away from the containment cell.”
“Seriously? You’re so lame—!”