As Talia prepared to proceed, Jason suddenly shifted his attention back to her.
"Oh, before you get started, there's something I remembered from one of my encounters with him."
That immediately caught her attention.
"You've actually spoken with him?" The revelation genuinely surprised her.
"Yes," Jason replied. "And trust me when I say it's a lot more disturbing than it sounds."
His expression darkened slightly as he recalled the experience.
"At first, I thought he was some kind of demon. Maybe a parasite. Some entity trying to take control of me."
He paused before continuing.
"But that's not what he is."
The chains rattled softly as he adjusted against the pillar.
"He's the darkest parts of me. Everything I've spent years suppressing and refusing to indulge in. The anger. The bitterness. The hatred. The violence. All of it."
His eyes lowered briefly.
"Bruce's teachings gave me a moral compass. They kept those parts of me in check. But after the accident... after the Lazarus Pit..." His jaw tightened. "It's like the Pit latched onto every negative emotion inside me and nurtured them. Fed them. Turned them into something else."
A humorless smile touched his lips.
"Something that wears my face."
Jason left out many details.
The near-death experiences caused by the other.
The moments he had lost control entirely.
The times he had found himself forcefully suppressed within his own mind.
Some memories were difficult enough to acknowledge without explaining them aloud.
"He carries the bloodlust of the Lazarus Pit without any of the restraint," Jason continued. "And he's willing to do whatever it takes to achieve his goals. That's what makes him dangerous."
Talia absorbed the explanation in silence before attempting to organize everything she had heard.
"So, in simple terms," she said carefully, "he's a darker version of yourself. One that fully embraces the influence and consequences of your resurrection by the Lazarus Pit."
She watched him closely.
"Am I missing anything?"
Jason considered her summary for a moment before slowly shaking his head.
"Not really."
His expression became distant.
"You could say he was resurrected that night too."
As the words left his lips, they hung heavily in the air.
"Born from rage. Vengeance. Every ugly emotion I was drowning in."
For the first time since waking up, genuine unease flickered across his face.
"Maybe that's all he ever was."
"Very well."
Talia stepped forward, deciding she had heard enough for now.
Reaching into one of her pockets, she retrieved a small pill and held it between her fingers.
"Sniff this. It should put you to sleep fairly quickly." Her gaze remained fixed on him. "I need a few minutes alone with this other you."
As she spoke, she crushed the pill between her fingers.
Almost immediately, a potent odor spread through the room.
Jason gave a faint nod.
With little resistance, he leaned forward and inhaled several shallow breaths of the resulting fumes.
The effects were nearly instantaneous.
His eyelids grew heavy.
The tension gradually drained from his body.
One hand slackened against the chains binding his wrists while his breathing slowed into a steady rhythm.
Within moments, his head dipped forward.
Unconscious once more.
Talia took several measured steps backward, placing herself beyond his immediate reach.
Then she waited as the room fell silent.
Her eyes remained locked on the motionless figure chained to the pillar as she watched for the slightest change in posture, expression, or presence.
Waiting to see whether the so-called "Todd who never was" would finally reveal himself.
The seconds slowly ticked by.
Talia remained where she stood, her gaze fixed on the motionless figure chained to the pillar. Yet nothing happened.
Ten seconds became thirty.
Thirty stretched into a full minute.
Still, Jason remained completely still, his head hanging forward and his breathing steady.
A faint crease formed between Talia's brows.
She had expected something. A change in demeanor. A shift in posture. Anything that would indicate the emergence of this supposed alternate personality.
Instead, she was met with silence.
Eventually, her patience began to wear thin.
Concluding that nothing was going to happen anytime soon, she turned on her heel and headed toward the door. If Jason awoke later, she could simply have the guards inform her.
As she took several steps across the room, intending to leave, the sudden sound of rattling chains echoed through the silence.
Talia stopped instantly.
The metallic clinking reverberated off the stone walls.
Slowly, she turned her head.
Her eyes settled upon the figure she had left behind.
Jason's head was no longer lowered.
He was looking directly at her.
For a brief moment, neither spoke.
Something about him felt... wrong.
The change wasn't dramatic enough for an ordinary observer to notice immediately, yet it was impossible to miss once seen. His posture had subtly shifted. The relaxed heaviness that had lingered around him moments ago was gone, replaced by a taut stillness that felt almost predatory.
Most noticeable of all were his eyes.
A faint darkness now lingered beneath them, forming subtle shadows beneath his gaze. Combined with the stern expression on his face, it gave him an unsettling appearance, as though exhaustion and madness coexisted behind those eyes.
Then he spoke.
"And what exactly do you think you can do... Daughter of the Demon?"
The voice was Jason's.
Yet somehow it wasn't.
Every word carried a cold certainty that immediately set him apart from the man Talia had been speaking with moments earlier.
The room seemed to grow quieter.
He remained chained to the pillar, completely restrained and unable to move more than a few inches, yet the oppressive feeling that settled over the room made it seem as though he were the one in control of the situation.
"I see. That's quite a disturbing trick," Talia said as she studied the chained man before her. "But regardless of what you are, it's quite clear you're the one responsible for shedding the blood of my men earlier."
Rather than deny the accusation, the figure merely regarded her with an indifferent stare.
"You mean this watered-down version of the League?" he asked. "If your father were alive to witness what the League of Assassins has become—what his legacy has become—he'd be greatly disappointed."
His tone remained unnervingly calm.
There was no anger.
No mockery.
No emotion at all.
The criticism was delivered with the same detached certainty one might use when commenting on the weather.
"And how exactly is that your concern?" Talia asked.
"It's not," he replied with a slight shrug against the chains. "Just an observation."
The restraints rattled softly as he shifted his weight.
"Now, if we're finished with the small talk, let me out of here. I have no business being here."
Talia's expression hardened.
"Jason came here of his own accord seeking a way to rid himself of you. Hell would freeze over before I released you before that wish is fulfilled."
For the first time, a faint trace of amusement flickered across his features.
"Yeah, no one enjoys sharing headspace with a roommate."
The corner of his mouth twitched slightly.
"But getting rid of me isn't nearly as simple as he thinks."
His gaze remained fixed on hers.
"For him and I are one and the same. Different perspectives. Different priorities. Same person."
The amusement vanished as quickly as it had appeared. "One could say we're merely opposite sides of the same coin."
Talia folded her arms. "Then I'll simply weld and remove one side of the coin." The declaration earned a brief silence.
Then came another faint smile.
"Well, good luck with that." His response carried neither concern nor defiance.
If anything, he seemed mildly entertained by the idea.
Despite being restrained by enough chains to hold down a metahuman, he treated his situation as little more than a temporary inconvenience.
"And while we're discussing it," he continued, tilting his head slightly, "how exactly do you plan to accomplish that?"
The question struck closer to home than Talia cared to admit.
The truth was that she didn't know.
Not yet.
She wasn't a psychologist. Nor was she particularly versed in the treatment of fractured identities, assuming that was even what she was dealing with. Jason's condition sat somewhere between psychological trauma, Lazarus Pit corruption, and something she couldn't quite define.
Even so, she refused to reveal uncertainty before him.
"And why would I tell you?" she countered smoothly.
The dark-eyed version of Jason regarded her for several seconds before leaning back against the pillar as a low chuckle escaped him.
Not because he had received an answer. But because her response had told him everything he needed to know.
"Come on," Todd said. "It's not like I have anything else occupying my time right now, seeing as you've got me chained up and all. Humor me."
The chains rattled softly as he shifted against the pillar, though the restraints seemed to bother him far less than they should have.
Talia regarded him in silence for a moment before exhaling through her nose.
"At this particular juncture, I am at a loss as to how exactly to proceed," she admitted. "Truthfully, I don't understand what he was thinking by coming to me for help in the first place. It's not as though the League maintains its own psychiatrists."
Her eyes narrowed slightly as she continued scrutinizing the figure before her.
The more she studied him, the less certain she became of what she was dealing with.
Was this truly a fractured psyche?
The lingering effects of the Lazarus Pit?
Or something far stranger?
Her thoughts drifted toward a familiar figure.
If Father were still here, surely he would have some idea of how to navigate a situation as peculiar as this.
The thought lingered briefly before she pushed it aside.
Across from her, Todd's expression remained unchanged.
"Clearly, this is becoming a waste of both our time."
His gaze settled directly on her.
"Put an end to this charade, and I'll consider not killing you when I get out of here."
The threat was delivered with the same detached calm he seemed to apply to everything else.
Then something shifted.
A suffocating presence slowly rolled off him.
It wasn't visible, yet it filled the room all the same.
The air suddenly felt heavier.
The predatory aura surrounding him intensified, carrying with it a dense bloodlust that seemed to seep into every corner of the chamber. It pressed against the senses like an unseen weight, awakening instincts that warned of imminent danger.
Even Talia felt it.
For the briefest moment, her muscles tensed and her pulse quickened.
Yet unlike many of her subordinates, she did not falter.
She had been raised by Ra's al Ghul.
Trained from childhood to stand before monsters and become one herself if necessary.
Compared to the pressure of her father's presence, this was unsettling but far from enough to break her composure.
"Don't get the wrong idea," she replied evenly. "This situation was simply dropped in my lap without warning. Given enough time, a solution won't be difficult to find."
The confidence in her voice was deliberate.
Calculated.
A bluff.
The truth was considerably less reassuring.
Even now, she had no clear path forward.
Her mind briefly wandered toward her father's private library. Somewhere within its vast collection of ancient texts, forgotten records, and occult knowledge, there might be something relevant to Jason's condition.
The problem was finding it.
Ra's had spent centuries amassing that collection.
There was no telling how long it would take to uncover anything useful.
Todd's eyes narrowed slightly.
Whether he saw through the bluff or simply didn't care remained unclear.
"Since that's how you're choosing to play this," he said, his voice lowering ever so slightly, "allow me to assure you of something."
The room seemed to grow colder.
"When I do get out of this..." A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
It wasn't a smile born of humor. It was the expression of a predator imagining the hunt.
"I promise your death will be slow."
The smile widened fractionally.
"And excruciating."
Unlike his earlier threats, there was no amusement attached to those words.
No attempt at intimidation.
Just certainty.
The kind that made even a woman like Talia pause and wonder whether she was speaking to a damaged man...
Or something far worse.
Despite the unsettling look in his eyes and the oppressive aura radiating from him, Talia held his gaze without flinching. The feeling crawling down her spine was impossible to ignore, a primal warning that urged caution, yet she refused to allow it to show.
For several moments, neither spoke.
His threat lingered in the air between them, heavy and unspoken now that the words had already been delivered. Yet Talia remained unmoved on the surface, her expression stern and unreadable as she continued staring back at him.
Eventually, she broke eye contact.
Without offering another response, she turned on her heel and made her way toward the door, leaving the chained figure behind.
The moment she stepped out into the corridor, her mind shifted away from the threat and back toward the problem Jason had placed before her.
There were only two people she could think of who might be capable of helping with a situation as unusual as this.
The first was Bruce Wayne.
As Jason's adoptive father, Bruce knew him better than almost anyone alive. More importantly, if there was a psychological explanation behind Jason's condition, Bruce would likely be able to identify it or at least point her toward someone who could provide a solution.
The problem was obvious.
Jason hadn't gone to Bruce.
Not when the situation first began.
Not when he started losing control.
Not even when he became desperate enough to seek help from the League of Assassins.
For whatever reason, he had deliberately chosen not to involve the man who had once raised him.
Talia wasn't inclined to ignore that decision.
Which left her with only one other option.
Her sister.
Nadia.
As she continued down the corridor, Talia found herself hoping her sister would have more insight into the matter than she did. Because after everything she had heard and witnessed today, one thing had become abundantly clear.
Jason Todd's condition was far more complicated than anyone had initially assumed.
- - -
Patrn/Da_suprememaverick