When Jason finally paused his rant, he sensed something was wrong. Grabbing his gun, he yanked the door open-and found Batman standing outside, where he had been waiting for quite some time.
Jason's face instantly turned green. Then, remembering what he had just done, it began shifting toward the color of his helmet.
"What are you back for?! Didn't I already give you the serum?! What? Suddenly decided you hadn't beaten me enough and came back to finish the job?!"
Batman did not immediately argue. His gaze settled on Jason's upper body, freshly bandaged and still bare.
That young body bore no fewer scars than Batman's, after all his years of guarding Gotham's nights. But unlike the varied scars on Batman's body, most of these looked strikingly alike. They had all come from the same weapon, or rather...
The same person.
Bruce had carried Jason's broken corpse back to the manor himself, then wiped the blood and grime from that poor, brutalized child, little by little, with his own hands. He had brushed his fingers over every wound on Jason's body.
The waters of the Lazarus Pit had healed his wounds, but they could not heal these scars.
Batman suddenly felt unbearably cruel-faced with a Jason who had endured such torture and pain, how had he found it in himself to hurt him, with words and with his own hands...
Again and again.
When he had confirmed that the Red Hood tearing through Gotham's gangs was his second son, returned from the dead-not a scheme, not an impostor, not a Clone, but the very child who had died so terribly far from home because of his mistake-Batman had thanked heaven countless times for giving him a chance to make amends.
He had even done something exceedingly rare: laid bare his