Chapter Text
All Jason wanted was revenge.
All he wanted was to be loved.
At some point he was starting he would get neither, but he does, at least one of them, the one he least expected to achieve.
He knew Talia was using him in the beginning, she wanted something from him, to use his anger somehow, he doesn't know when that changed.
Her voice which carried the usual hint of manipulation started to actually sound genuine, like she actually cared about him.
Damian adored him; maybe it may be because of that? The little brat didn't like him at first, but when Jason began treating him with kindness, actually treated him like a kid even though the boy said he didn't like it, the boy started to call him of “akhi”, the kid would fidget awkwardly at his side, not knowing how to ask for a hug, Jason knew though, so he would couch, pick him up and as Damian ‘complained’ he’d hug his little brother tightly.
Talia started calling him “Habibi” one day, it was so genuine and she hugged him so tenderly that it made him melt into the touch even though he was wary.
Then the other day she apologized, Talia fucking al Ghul, apologized to him, admiting she was going to use him but when she saw him with Damian, when the woman spent more time with him as months went by, she couldn't help but love him as her son.
He couldn’t believe her at first, because none of the parents he had previously cared about him, not even Bruce apparently, so why should Talia care? But she was determined to make him believe her, believe this was real, and she succeeded after a while.
But Jason still had this anger that wanted to get out, to get his revenge, so since Ra’s wanted him dead and Talia had desperately pleaded for Jason to leave for his All Caste training they have been planning for weeks, he took this as an opportunity to get stronger.
He would get his revenge, then he would come back to the people who cared about him.
Essence and Jason butted heads in the beginning, but in the end they ended up caring for each other, as much as the woman would never admit that.
Ducra was not what he expected, she was firm with her training, yes, she had wisdom beyond her years, but she was soft with him for some reason, it was not pity, but something like a mother looking after her child.
They both cared for him, somehow, and again he did not know why, but he could not dare to turn them away, to deny himself the tender touches and soft words.
After he finished his training with the All Caste, Ducra had offered him to stay, to not go after revenge, that he had a home with her and Essence.
It made him feel conflicted, part of him wanted to go and get revenge, the other yearned for a home where he would be loved. He felt guilty over leaving Talia and Damian, and now he feels guilty over his hunger for revenge pushing him away from another family.
It was then that he felt immeasurable pain, making him fall to his knees and clutching his chest with both hands in agony.
While Ducra seemed surprised but not panicked, Essence seemed just as shocked but was more concerned as she kneeled on his side.
Jason felt like he was dying, like something was clawing its way through his body and was trying to get out by ripping his chest wide open with its claws.
He doesn't hear his own screaming, but at the end his throat hurts like hell. Darkness started to fill his vision, and soon he was unconscious and the pain finally faded.
Jason feels lighter when he wakes up, mentally that is because there are two heavy weights on his whole body, his head resting on something soft and warm.
Opening his eyes he finds Essence looking at him with a soft look in her eyes.
Ah…so his head was on her lap.
“Greetings brother” She whispers as if trying not to wake up someone.
“Sister” He murmurs tiredly. “What the fuck happened?”
She snorted, always amused at his potty month. “Remember when mother told us your ... strong emotions, may result in manifesting part of your soul with the training?”
He arched her brow at that, feeling confused. “Yes?”
She glances over to where the two weights on his body were.
He follows her gaze, blinking slowly as he finally notices two wolves sleeping peacefully on his legs, they were huge, one was white as snow, the other black as the void itself.
“Ah…” He blinked strongly as if that would make them go away, when it did not he stared.
“Let me guess…the black one is all my dark emotions and the white one is my more tame ones? That’s kinda racist…”
Essence rolled her eyes amusedly. “It’s quite the contrary actually”
Jason chuckled. “For real?” He was taking this surprisingly well, uh, well, Ducra had told him about the possibility, he just wonders why it happened to him specifically.
Essence studied the flicker of confusion in his gaze and exhaled, her voice softening as if explaining something sacred. “The soul is not a singular thing, not for those who have known war within themselves, your emotions were a storm, your desires a clash of wills.
She looks at the wolves who had awakened, both looking at her with varied emotion. “The ritual calls forth one’s truest self, and yours… yours refused to be contained.”
Essence’s gaze lingered on the twin wolves, their forms pulsing with the raw energy of Jason’s soul. She gestured to the spectral wolves, their forms mirroring the duality in his heart.
“One beast is born of hunger, the need to claim, to conquer, to devour life rather than be consumed by it, the other?” Her fingers traced the second wolf’s outline, its eyes burning with something colder. “That is the part of you that resists, the defiance that would rather starve than kneel, two hungers, two truths.”
She leaned closer, her hand outstretched toward the first wolf, its fur stained shadow-black, eyes red as blood yet so soft and sorrowful, it whined pathetically as it leaned into her hand.
“This one is born of your longing, the part of you that still hopes, still aches for love and acceptance. It is the child who believes in kindness, the man who yearns to belong, she is not just your need… she is love itself, given form”
Then her fingers turned toward the second beast, her fur shimmering like starlight, its growl a vibration in the air, eyes light blue so full of anger, it growled at the attention towards her.
“And this… this is the fire that keeps you standing when the world tries to break you, the rage that refuses to forget, the hunger for vengeance, the teeth bared against the dark, it is fury, yes, but also the will to survive”
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
“You are both, Jason, the hand that shelters and the hand that strikes, the tragedy is not that your soul split… but that you cannot yet see they are halves of the same whole”
He nods quietly, it is done, nothing he can do to undo it, they are his soul, and he will protect them as they will protect him.
“One more thing, brother of mine….your All-Blades will easier to use now, as your soul is now at your side, simply ask your twin soul to become it, and they will, but first…you need to know yourself”
And so he does.
Hati and Skoll he had named them, call him a nerd, but he loved norse mythology as much as he liked any other, it was interesting to him.
Skoll was loving and caring, yearning for love and acceptance, she loves, loves and loves so strongly, so genuinely… The new Robin should never have replaced him, he was just a child, what if he dies? Bruce did not bury him with his name, was he not good enough? His mother was buried at his side…has she ever loved him? The Joker was alive, he wasn't safe, he will never be as long as the clown lives.
Skoll whines when Jason feels sad, resting her head on his thigh, trying to comfort him, it usually works, but when it doesn't they stay like that for hours.
She is everything he hates in himself, that needy part of him, the part that cares and loves too much, the part he tries to bury deep inside his heart. But he couldn't bring himself to hate the poor wolf, not when she would ask for pats and glue herself to his side like a lost puppy.
Hati, is pure anger, she growls at anything she sees as a threat, overprotective of both Skoll and Jason himself, as much as she growls at the black wolf when Skoll acts needy, she still cares for her.
She is all the anger he feels, he has been replaced, how dare he? Bruce didn't bury him with his name, buried him with the mother who betrayed him, did the man really mean it when he said Jason wasn't his son? The Joker still lives, why? Was his death that unimportant? He wants to kill them, he wants to kill them all! Tear them apart, make them regret, kill the clown, refuse the bastard to be known for he is nothing but a parasite.
It was months later, months that delayed his plans to go back to Gotham, for his wolves did not want to go yet, and he understood, now that he knows himself, now that he sees his soul in front of him, bare and so truthful, he understands.
“What are we to do next, girls?” He asks, hands on both wolves heads, one whined, the other growled baring its sharp teeth.
“Protect, protect! Little brother, mother! Danger! I shall love them, I shall protect, I shall heal!”
“Kill, kill! Ra’s shall die, I shall feast with his deceased flesh! Tear, tear! Until he is nothing but bones!”
Then louder in his head.
Skoll's voice rang like a warped lullaby, its tone shifting between childlike desperation and divine command:
"Must shield...must save! Brother's breath is so small, mother's hands so warm! Guard their light, swallow their wounds, love them love them LOVE THEM—" Its howl fractured into a whimper "Cannot fail again..."
Hati's response came as a symphony of wet carnage, words dripping between gnashing teeth:
"Flesh-memory of his sins still hot in our jaws! Let me REMIND him—
—let me TEACH him—
—let me UNMAKE him bone by screaming bone!"
Jason seems satisfied by their answers, he smirked “Seems we have reached a consensus then”
Ra’s did not see it coming.
One moment, he stood alone in his chamber, the next, Skoll’s spectral form flickered into existence beside him, dumping Jason into the room before vanishing again, off to guard Talia and Damian. But Hati? She didn’t wait, she didn’t let the bastard so much as turn his head.
Her jaws clamped around his throat before his muscles could even tense.
A wet, ragged crunch split the air, cartilage and sinew giving way beneath dagger-like fangs. Ra’s didn’t scream, he couldn’t. All that escaped was a choked, bubbling gurgle as his windpipe collapsed, blood flooding his mouth in a hot, metallic rush. His hands flew up, clawing uselessly at Hati’s spectral fur, but she only bit down harder, shaking him like prey. Jason watched, frozen, as the Demon’s Head’s eyes bulged, shock, fury, then something almost like recognition as they locked onto him from the floor.
Then Hati wrenched.
Tendons snapped, flesh tore free in a glistening, crimson arc. Ra’s hit the ground, his throat a ruin of shredded meat and exposed spine, his body twitching as his life pumped out in spurts.
But Hati wasn’t done.
She lunged again, her maw splitting wide around his ribcage, bones splintered under the force of her bite, her teeth punching through muscle, through organs, ripping free great, dripping handfuls of viscera. She didn’t chew, just swallowed, gulping down ropes of intestine, chunks of liver, the ragged remains of his lungs. Blood painted her white muzzle, her chest, the floor, a spreading, sticky lake of it, flecked with fragments of bone.
And Jason?
He didn’t look away.