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Peter immediately started looking into the man who threatened his wife, finding nothing for months, until he got the news that Gotham was invaded and her protector, the vigilante Batman, almost killed.
And what do you know, he recognises the perpetrator's flickering helmet. The man from that night, he now knew, was a highly skilled Gothamite rogue with a long history of violence, according to the press at least. Having been so close to him, Peter could believe that.
His alias is the Arkham Knight, and no one has seen him since that night.
It makes a lot of sense now.
When he's not working or chasing after Neal's constant antics, he's trying to solve the case: who is this man who threatened his wife? El suggested it could be her ex-husband, who reportedly was murdered in prison, but Knight seemed suprised himself that El was alive so it was more than understandable if his death was greatly exaggerated.
This thinking quickly lead him down a rabbit hole of wondering if it could be the late Jason Todd behind the mask, which he quickly rejected and decided to never go back there, out of respect for El and her love for her lost child.
Evidently, he was losing his mind to the damn case, and Neal was beginning to notice.
Ever since his failure on Halloween, Jason had been at odds with himself. Even after Bruce forgave him, brought him back home, helped him plan to slowly recreate the Knight, Jason felt lost.
But he knows exactly how to fix it, without all the hate, without any bullets, the solution lives in New York, and he told her how her son was brutally killed. What a huge risk he's making, he thinks, as he rides up to NYC. He left a message for Bruce so he won't worry - or maybe he will, Jason has no clue what B'll think or do, especially considering that it's only December.
When he arrives, he drops in at a local mercanary bar. One of his old mercs were there, as predicted, and he's able to site an old favour from her, just in case something happens and he can't go home immediately.
He's about to leave, before something - or someone - catches his eye. There's a man at the bar, completely unarmed, and obviously bugged. It was probably the Gothamite in Jason that noticed these issues, but he's never seen such an undercover cop of a criminal. Must be an informant, but why come here?
It doesn't really matter, because the informant's being stared at by a group Jason knows to be dangerous - he was warned of them by Deathstroke himself. He adjusts his Gotham Knights cap and his facemask, and steps over to the man, sitting down on a stool next to him at the bar.
"Nice night, huh?" He spoke, quickly writing the situation on a napkin.
"I'm not interested," the man said at first, and Jason tapped the napkin to get his attention to it. "But I could be swayed."
Jason gestured with his head, clicking his tongue and winking. He leads the man outside, and as soon as the door shuts behind them, he grabs the man by the sleeve of his coat.
"Where's yer van?"
"Van?"
"Ye're doing a terrible job at bein' undercover, we all saw it."
"Thank you! I tried telling my handler but-"
"NEAL!"
A man rounded the corner, jogging urgently towards them.
"FBI, just as I thought."
"Freeze, hands up," the fed ordered, and as Jason followed his orders, he realized where he recognised him from.
"Peter, calm down, he helped me," the informant, Neal, explained.
"What happened in there?"
"A mercanary group callin' themselves the Carolina Reapers zeroed in on yer informant, I doubt they're gonna just let ya leave," Jason told the fed, "better run along back to yer bureau."
They didn't even seem to notice that he was still with them as they returned to their van.
"Have we met before?" Peter eventually asked, to which Jason shrugged innocently.
"No clue," he lied, then added an aspect of his true nervousness, "but, uh, by any chance is yer name Peter Burke?"
"Why's it matter?"
"It's nothin' to worry about, s'just, I did a DNA test a while back an' it linked me to an Elizabeth Burke, an' it also said she was married to a Peter Burke, it even had a picture of the two of you, an' I thought you looked familiar."
Peter looked at him for a few moments, and Jason removed his baseball cap, holding it to his chest.
"What's your name?"
"Jason. Jason Todd."
When he tells El, she drops and shatters a plate.
"What did you just say?" She asked.
"I met a man who claimed to be your son, Jason," Peter repeated.
She turned to meet his eyes, hands going up to cover her mouth in shock.
"Are you sure? What did he look like?"
"He had a facemask on, but his eyes were grey, his hair was black, a little longer than his shoulders, and had a few white sections. He also definitely had a Gothamite accent."
"My Jason had vitiligo, it turned portions of his hair white," El whispered. "Oh God, I have to find him."
"El, wait!"
Jason had told Peter where to find him, and he waited in that café for the next few hours, taking the time to work on a very old Sherlock Holmes fanfiction he never got to finish.
He didn't really expect his Mom or Peter to show up, truly, it was too good to be true, especially because when he met them as the Arkham Knight he told her that her son was dead.
Christ, what was he thinking back then? If he wasn't insane before going in that madhouse, he definitely was upon leaving it.
Eventually, the café had to close for the end of the day, and he packed up his stuff, thanked the people working at the café, and stepped out. He checked the time on his phone, then looked up, and-
"Mom?"
He wasn't able to maintain eye contact with Catherine, er, Elizabeth for too long before looking away. When he was able to look back, she was running towards him, arms outstretched in an open gesture. Every instinct screamed at him to run, but he held his ground, being enveloped in the biggest most warmest hug he'd ever experienced.
"Jason," she cried into his shoulder, stroking his hair, pulling back every few seconds to make sure it was still him. She cupped his face, pulling off his facemask. "There's my handsome boy. I've missed you so much, my son."
Jason couldn't help but burst into tears too.
Over the next month, he grows closer with his mom and step-dad, even spending the New Year with them. He learned so much about them, despite being wary of Peter being a fed. He learned about how his dead father was the Arkham Knight and had brutally murdered him apparently.
Frankly, Jason did an amazing job of not pissing himself laughing when he heard that.
But he also felt guilty for leaving Peter's personal case open, so naturally, he brought back the Knight armour for the first time since Halloween (Bruce wasn't letting him go out as a vigilante yet), and ambushed him on a night walk.
"Agent Burke," he greeted. Peter immediately pulled his gun on the Knight, and the Knight pushed it away. "It's been quite a while, hasn't it? I understand you have questions, now that your wife's son is back. You have five minutes."
"Why did you lie?" Peter asked instantly.
"I said what I thought I had to."
"What? Tell a grieving mother that her son died in agony? Only for him to resurface, it broke her heart all over again, she's terrified you'll come back and take him away again."
"I admit, I got carried away, but I thought that if I made it seem like he was definitely gone, then no one could hurt him. I know it doesn't seem like it, but I care too. I know of everything he's been through, I was angry on his behalf, I wanted to hurt Catherine because to me it looked like she'd abandoned him to live a better life."
"Is it true? That you're her ex-husband? Willis Todd?"
He allowed himself to roar in laughter this time, slapping his thigh.
"No, he's long dead, you can dig up his body if you need more convincing. Two Face owned up to that one himself."
"Then who are you?"
He shook his head.
"I can't exactly tell you. But, just know, I want what's best for all of us," he clapped a gloved hand on Peter's shoulder. "Oh, and if you want to bond with him, ask him about Edgar Allen Poe's literary works."
"Jason?" Peter asked him the next day.
"Morning Peter," he replied, taking a sip of his tea.
"Do you have a boyfriend?"
The tea comes back out through his nose like a jet.