When Jason hit the mat for the eighth time, Thomas Wayne offered him a hand.
"You're a little off your game today. I'll take your feelings into account, but the enemy won't."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Wayne."
"It's all right. I think I understand. Is it because he's back?" Helping Jason up, Thomas Wayne took off his judo uniform and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window.
The snow-covered glass hazily reflected the man's muscular, scarred body.
Outside, a blizzard raged over Gotham.
From the windows on Wayne Tower's top floor, the spectacle was clearly visible. Snowflakes swept along by fierce winds swayed and spun through the air, plunging down before soaring high again, finally disappearing from Thomas Wayne's sight. Perhaps they would melt in puddles, perhaps they would pass through the grating of a manhole cover and fall into the sewers, or perhaps they would drift into a passerby's collar and cling to the exposed skin at the back of their neck.
Who could know how they would end up? They were just like the uncertain lives of most Gotham residents.
Jason had finished showering. Dressed in the clothes he had arrived in, he rubbed his wet hair with a towel.
"Mr. Wayne, I'll be going, then."
"That gear is yours. You'd better take it with you tonight."
Thomas Wayne pointed at the equipment rotating on the wall: a bulletproof trench coat, a red Carbon Fiber Mask, and a menacing pair of pistols with owl emblems carved into their grips.
"This gift is too expensive." "That equipment was custom-made for you. If you don't take it, are you planning to leave it for me to wear after I put on some weight?" Thomas Wayne turned to look at Jason.
Jason thought the man was probably making a deadpan joke, but those brows,