Oculus | J. Todd ✔

[06]

To say that Bruce Wayne was heavily disturbed would be an understatement. He had obtained a blood sample of the Red Hood after the fight alongside him against the Fearsome Hand Of Four. He had returned to the Bat Cave after a futile chase for Red Hood had vanished into thin air as usual but he had gotten what he needed to identify the man under the scarlet helmet.

The DNA had been extracted from the blood sample and Bruce had inserted the information into the Bat computer, scanning it alongside the entire database for a possible match. 

"You okay, Bruce?"

He looked up at the fifteen year old boy standing beside him, young blue eyes focused on the screen at the blinking green of the progress tab as he ran a hand through his messy dark hair that curled at the tips.

"Of course, Tim. What have you been up to?"

"The usual, school work," he mumbled, "exams are coming up next week."

"You can take an off from patrol."

"Thanks," he smiled and Bruce couldn't help but wonder how that smile was genuine and not yet tainted with the burdens that hung like a constant weight over the Bat vigilantes' shoulders.

Timothy Drake was just a boy. A new Robin. A young recruitment and it would take him some years for the lustre of his nightly patrol and heroic life to fade and the horrors to close in.

Just like it had done so with Jason.

He tore his eyes away from the boy because his face though not resembling Jason's in the least, as Tim's features were softer and not sharp angles as compared to the Robin before him, but still he seemed like a clear image of a young hero who was unaware of all the perils that lay ahead of him.

Perils that could take his life even. Bruce shuddered at the thought but managed to disguise it, keeping his expression neutral though deep down he still was dubious of letting Tim work alongside him as Robin.

He could not let what happened to Jason happen again to anyone. He had failed once. He could not afford to fail twice.

But then his attention got directed back to the screen as the progress tab completed to a 100% and the words flashing on the screen spiked up his heartbeat: Match Found.

Alfred had brought in the coffee and cookies so Tim had gone over to him, telling him about the latest new theory he had found on the internet while Bruce's fingers clicked the button that would reveal the mysterious Red Hood's identity.

An unnerving feeling of dread was clawing at his heart for everything about the Red Hood reminded him of Jason. The way he seemed to know Bruce personally, the way he cut through cords right before the grip went taut, the brash way he dealt with his opponents, his bloodthirstiness and most of all the way he always seemed to imply that Bruce had wronged him and had some past connected to him.

But there was no way possible that he could be Jason.

Bruce had himself carried the corpse out of that exploded warehouse in Bosnia, he had attended the funeral and almost each night he stopped by the grave that had the name Jason Peter Todd engraved on the tombstone.

The screen that opened next made his blood run cold for just like he had suspected, the DNA had matched with that of Jason's.

In tremendous shock Bruce stood up from his chair, eyes glued to the screen in disbelief. The clatter sounding from behind him indicated that Alfred too had been just as shocked for the tray had fallen from his hands.

Tim's blue eyes flickered from both their faces to the screen and the words escaped him, "he's alive?"

"No... It can not be possible."

Bruce could not take in the discovery and he was shaken up badly for how could Red Hood be Jason when he had himself lowered the coffin six feet under the ground in his own family's cemetery?

"Master Timothy, it's time for you to go to bed now," Alfred spoke up, gently patting his shoulder, "you have school tomorrow."

Tim noticed the slight urgency in his tone and nodded knowing that the two needed some privacy and it would be better if he left, "yeah... Good night, Bruce, Alfred."

He vanished up the stairs that connected with the Manor but Bruce stood as still as a statue, trying to absorb the recent revelation.

"How can it be, Master Bruce?" Alfred's voice too was reduced to a whisper.

"I don't know... I have no idea."

He turned at last and determinedly made his way up to the exit of the cave while Alfred followed.

"Where are you going, Sir?"

"To the cemetery," he replied vaguely.

He could not rest until he had solved the mystery of the dead Robin now walking out in the streets as the city's new terror, Red Hood.

Bruce sat behind the wheel of his excavator as he carefully drove it into the Wayne Cemetery stopping in front of Jason's grave while Alfred stood by the tombstone carrying a lantern to illuminate the dark of the night.

Carefully, he started excavating the mud from the ground, piling it aside as he went on and on in order to reach he coffin six feet below.

An hour seemed to lapse but Bruce had no intention of stopping. At last, he struck up upon the hard surface of the coffin's lid, so he moved the machine aside and climbed down inside the trench himself.

Alfred was holding the lantern so that he could clearly see down there and Bruce lifted off the lid with slightly shaking hands. In the coffin, Jason's body laid just like it had five years ago, his hands crossed over his chest and his eyes closed.

It was a surprise that it hadn't decayed at all and both Bruce and Alfred realized that it wasn't a real corpse. Bruce lifted the body by the lapels of his suit and a wig of black hair fell down revealing that the body was just a life size doll, tailored to match Jason's appearance.

A surge of rage and regret coursed through him and he dropped the fake corpse back, his eyes blazing.

"Master Bruce..."

He looked up at Alfred who had a hauntingly sad expression on his face, then breathed in a hoarse voice, "Jason is alive. How, I don't know. But he is the Red Hood."

He climbed out of the trench at last after closing the coffin though he had made up his mind to get to the bottom of the mystery. If Jason hadn't died in Bosnia, where had he been for five years and why he was back then causing havoc in Gotham?

There were a thousand questions thundering in Bruce's mind and he knew that the answer to his questions laid with only one man.

Ra's Al Ghul.

***