The Queen and Her Detective

"He never acted differently in front of you," she corrected, "I'm something of an expert on aliases, and the first rule is always to keep your cover in front of everyone who needs to believe you're who you appear to be. Get it?" She didn't think she had to spell it out, but his emotion could be clouding his head.

My emotion could be clouding my head, too, she reminded herself. This could be wishful thinking. She didn't want to think it was, though. Jason, the Jason she knew, couldn't be this person James described. The pieces weren't there. Her theory was the only one that made sense to her.

James took a deep breath.

"I was the one who acted differently around him," he quietly said. "He never picked up on it during all of the times we interacted. Someone who knew we were in a story would have known that I really wasn't Dick Grayson, and would have said something. Ja-Tim figured it out the first time that we met."

"Jason's a moron," she said flatly, "He actually thought I would let him die of a poison I just told him he was infected with, after he saved Eddie's life." She rolled her eyes. Sure, there was more to the situation to lead him to that conclusion, but that was the gist. Not to mention the idea that she wouldn't know autopsy scars when she saw them.

The comment made James falter for a moment, but he wasn't remotely convinced.

"Our world is cruel," James softly said. "I'm not sure he ever told you how he had died, but he was beaten by a crowbar before being blown up. His killer beat him with the crowbar, and left - letting him think that he'd survive."

James paused.

"Then the bomb started ticking," he finished.

She faltered. She really had to check her cruelty sometimes. Some other, more cynical part of her was thinking about his scars. The explosion and the beating would explain quite a few of them. His killer had been thorough.

She shook her head. "That doesn't mean much to the main question here. I met him after he came back, he had the autopsy scars to prove it, so even that couldn't explain this...person you're describing to me. That isn't who I met. That isn't Jason."

James glanced at Jason's empty grave.

"He met Eddie, didn't he?" he asked.

"He saved Eddie. I screwed up, I wasn't there, and Eddie was in trouble. Jason saved him." Megara was trying hard to persuade him, but there didn't feel like there was a point. She didn't know if she could, or if she was just throwing words.

He let out a quiet sigh.

"...Jason always had a soft spot for kids," James softly said. "Even if he's different now, that's one thing that stays constant. And Jason does save people. He just-"

"Why are you talking about Jason?"

He faltered.

When he turned around, he saw Tim standing a few feet away. Tim, who's Robin suit had been replaced by a regular outfit, and who currently looked like he was growing increasingly closer to breaking down. He had only seen him do it one time before, but that one time had been one time too many.

"She knows Jason," James said.

"Knew Jason," Tim quietly corrected.

James shook his head. "Knows Jason. Megara and Eddie met him after he died-"

Tim, who had been glancing in between Megara and James, suddenly went pale. "You-You told her, didn't you? You told her the truth about us."

Megara shrugged, "He hardly had to." Eddie trotted up to her side, apparently done with his game, and clung to her good leg, watching. "Have you found anything?"

Tim gaped at Megara.

"What do you mean?" he whispered.

James turned to him. "Did you find anything we could use-"

"Not that," Tim hissed. "How could she have known? I-I'm good at pretending to be Tim Drake. What did I do wrong?"

"Jason isn't," she answered, "You did fine. Also, you and James need to learn to keep your voices down when you try to have conversations in the rooms adjacent to the one where you've left an unsupervised guest, amateurs."

Tim somehow managed to turn even paler. It didn't seem to occur to him that she had mentioned Jason - he was too busy fretting over the realization that she had eavesdropped. "This is bad," Tim whispered. "This is really, really bad. How-How is this going to affect the story? No one is supposed to know..."

He let out a shaky, nervous laugh.

James gave Megara an apologetic look.

"Tim, it's okay," he reassured him. Even though Tim was the older one out of the two of them, James felt like he was comforting a small child. "They're going to be gone soon. The story can go back to normal."

"Yeah, if you find a solid way to get us there. If it's risky it'll work for me, sure, but I'm not letting Eddie be subject to anything you don't know is safe." They really should get home, less for her and Eddie's sakes than for the Gotham boys. Tim, in particular, seemed quite stressed about it.

Tim took a deep breath.

"Okay," he said. His voice still sounded shaky and uneven, but at least he wasn't on the verge of another mental breakdown. James was grateful for having at least that. "I found a device in the cave. I'm not sure what Bruce uses it for, but it should send them back to their world."

"You're not sure," Megara said skeptically, crossing her arms. She didn't trust 'not sure', no matter the context. It never ended well for anyone.

For example, Briar was 'not sure' what many of her toxins would do before she slipped them to Megara. Then she was sure and Megara was hospitalized, then punished for being hospitalized.