Jason’s rules are simple.

Don’t touch his weapons.

Don’t lie to him.

Don’t get kidnapped.

Honestly, the third one should’ve been the easiest.

Instead, Gotham currently has helicopters circling downtown, Bruce is somewhere upstairs yelling into a comm loud enough for the entire safehouse to hear, and Jason is sitting at the weapons table cleaning blood off a handgun with the kind of terrifying calm that makes even hardened criminals start praying.

Nobody’s speaking to him anymore.

Not because they’re scared of interrupting.

Because they already tried.

“Jay,” Dick had started carefully ten minutes ago.

Jason didn’t even look up. “Not now.”

Then Tim attempted logic.

Then Bruce attempted authority.

Now everybody’s wisely leaving him alone while Gotham’s crime families collectively realize they may have accidentally triggered a city-wide extinction event.

The safehouse smells like gun oil, blood, and rain dragged in from open windows. Jason sits leaning forward slightly in the chair, sleeves shoved toward his elbows, bruised knuckles moving with slow mechanical precision while he reloads magazines one after another across the table in front of him.

Too calm.

Way too calm.That’s always the worst sign.

Bruce storms downstairs halfway through another argument over comms, frustration written all over his face. “We are handling this strategically.”

Jason finally laughs quietly under his breath.

It’s not a nice sound.

“Oh yeah?” he says without looking up. “How’s that workin’ out for everybody so far?”

“You are not going on a killing spree through Gotham.”

That finally makes Jason lift his head.

There’s something genuinely frightening in his expression tonight. Not rage exactly. Rage would almost be easier. This is colder than rage. Sharper. The look of somebody who already decided violence is happening and now everyone else is simply wasting time arguing logistics.

“They took my person,” Jason says calmly.

Every light in the cave suddenly feels too bright.

Bruce steps forward carefully. “Jason..”

“No.” Jason stands so abruptly the chair slams backward against concrete behind him hard enough to echo through the entire room. “You know what? I am really tired of everybody acting shocked every single time Gotham reminds us what kinda place this actually is.”

His voice never gets louder.

That somehow makes it worse.

Jason grabs another gun off the table and checks the magazine with terrifyingly steady hands while Bruce watches him like somebody trying to defuse a bomb, already counting down.

“You wanna know the crazy part?” Jason says quietly while holstering the weapon against his thigh. “I told ‘em the rules.”

Then finally, finally, some of that calm cracks just enough for the real emotion underneath to bleed through.

Fear.

Pure ugly fear disguised as fury because Jason Todd has never known how to survive helplessness any other way.

“They were supposed to stay safe,” he mutters, almost to himself now. “That was the whole goddamn point.”