2014-04-11 - Cutscene: Bats Across The World

The world is different. No, not different, Jason Todd is only seeing it through different eyes. The rage is still there, the depression, the pain. It never really goes away. In the middle of the night sometimes it eats at you, and forces you awake screaming at the nightmares.

That doesn't mean that Jason will let it defeat him. He won't.

But it does give him time to reflect.

Should he cut his loses? The hit is relationship to Damian over an impulse was staggering. If Damian felt betrayed, so did Jason Todd. Double handed stab to the back, not even respecting him enough to do it to his face. He was a target, nothing more. Or so Jason thinks. Poor Dick, he took the brunt of it because they were dressed in each other uniforms.

Which reminds him, he is supposed to be helping right now in Hong Kong. He leaps into the air and flips, landing on his feet on a lower building as he takes off running. So he stole Nightwing's uniform to wear, come on, it's not that bad! And of course, he wore one of Batman's authentic older suits that went missing from the Bat Cave in Paris, and he dressed in a similar Robin outfit to Tim Drake's outfit in Moscow. Each time, he mimicked them, tried to get into their heads. But he didn't mimic Batwing and he sure as hell wasn't mimicking a girl (Red Robin)!

Still, he learned. He investigated criminals, stopped them the others way, and handed evidence over to police. It felt different. It wasn't quite him though. Some criminals, Jason still believed needed to die. Joker was still one of them, but that cut him too deep. He needed to try and let it go, he couldn't let it defeat him, he wouldn't let The Joker win.

The man in the Nightwing uniform leaps again, crashing through a side window into an apartment building and starts to dance as he knocks people down and hurts them, all without taking life. The gunfire blazes past him into a wall and he knocks the shooter beneath the chin and knocks him out. Drugs, what little these people have in this section lost to drugs. Gotham City isn't the only place with terrible, dark holes.

No, Jason lost something that he cannot reclaim by coming back from the dead, by being trained by Talia. However, he's no longer blinded by the rage and pain. He can see more clearly. Sometimes that line needs crossed, but he can see now that a lot of times, it shouldn't be crossed and he has the power now to see the difference.