Talia waited in silence, her nerves wound tight as she anticipated Tom's verdict, the punishment he intended to impose on Damian for daring to conspire against his life.
"Bring him to me," Tom said at last.
"What—?" The word escaped her before she could stop it as her thoughts immediately spiraled. Handing Damian over to Tom felt less like delivering him for discipline and more like leading a lamb to the slaughter, an Abraham and Isaac situation type shit, except she couldn't bring herself to believe there would be divine intervention waiting at the end.
"You heard me. Bring him to me," Tom repeated, his voice came off flat and completely devoid of emotion. "If he has enough free time to plot my assassination, then he clearly isn't being kept busy enough."
His expression revealed nothing. There was no visible anger, no trace of amusement, and certainly no mercy, only an unreadable calm that made him impossible to gauge.
Unsure whether he truly meant it or was merely testing her resolve, Talia searched for another way. Logic had failed, so perhaps persuasion would succeed.
"Then... how about I offer you something else?" she asked, her voice softening into a more deliberate and alluring tone. She stepped into his personal space, close enough to test the boundaries between them, hoping temptation might accomplish what pleading could not.
A smirk tugged at the corner of Tom's lips as his eyes drifted over her. He recognized exactly what she was attempting.
"Oh?" he said with mild amusement. "And what exactly did you have in mind?"
"You look tense," Talia purred, gently wrapping her hands around his arm. "Why not let me help you unwind? Ease some of that stress... and in return, we quietly let Damian's little issue with the Sparrows fade into the wind."
She leaned in just a little closer, her voice dropping to an intimate murmur.
"So... what do you say?"
"I'll pass."
The rejection came instantly, without the slightest hint of hesitation.
Talia blinked, genuine disbelief washing across her face. Of all the responses she had expected, a flat refusal had not been one of them.
"I've reconsidered," Tom said after a brief pause.
"Instead of having the brat brought to me, I'll pay him a visit myself when I have some time to spare. It'll also give me an excuse to stop by the League's home base and see how my army of assassins are holding up."
Talia's eyes widened slightly. For a long moment, she couldn't decide whether Damian should begin planning a very long disappearance... or whether she should trust Tom enough to let the two meet face-to-face.
"...Alright," she finally said, though uncertainty lingered beneath her calm exterior. "But please... don't hurt him. I've made sure he understands the severity of what he did. He won't dare raise a hand against you again."
"Good," Tom replied coolly. "But that brat still needs to be disciplined. Otherwise, he'll keep acting on his own impulses."
Talia couldn't bring herself to argue. As much as she wanted to shield Damian, she knew Tom wasn't wrong. The boy's recklessness had nearly cost him everything, and if left unchecked, it would only lead him down an even more dangerous path. Letting out a slow breath, she gave a faint nod, her sigh carrying equal parts relief and reluctant acceptance.
The two remained at the edge of the rooftop for a little while longer, exchanging a few final words before eventually going their separate ways. As Tom walked away, he felt a burden quietly lift from his chest. At the very least, one question had finally been answered.
He now knew the identity of the mysterious benefactor.
More importantly, his identity as Ace remained secure. No one was actively hunting him—not because they had uncovered who he was, anyway. The only exception was Jamie.
And Jamie would come again.
Of that, Tom had no doubt.
He had slaughtered the man's entire crew, leaving their bodies behind as a message. As their leader, Jamie would inevitably seek retribution. Pride, responsibility, and vengeance would ensure it. He wouldn't stop until Tom's head paid the debt for the lives that had been taken.
- - -
[Jason Todd's POV]
Jason poured himself a glass of warm milk in the kitchen, hoping it would do enough to help him crash once he finally made it to bed. He had only just returned from his usual after-hours activities, and at this point, he'd take whatever scraps of sleep he could get.
Leaning casually against the counter, he scrolled through his phone with only half his attention on the screen, taking slow sips from the glass. The quiet didn't last. The distinct sound of the front door opening immediately drew his focus, his eyes lifting from the display.
'A burglar?' he wondered, setting the glass down with a slight frown.
A second later, he dismissed the thought.
'No... this isn't a break-in.'
Gwen—the house's security system—would never allow an unauthorized person inside. The only people with access were Tom and Leo.
And Leo wasn't even in town.
That left only one possibility, though it still felt strange. Tom was usually asleep by this hour, making his unexpected arrival unsettling in a way Jason couldn't quite explain. If anything, a small part of him had actually hoped it was an intruder.
The night had been complete garbage, and he was carrying enough pent-up frustration that beating the hell out of someone before bed sounded surprisingly therapeutic.
Curious, he wandered toward the living room, only for a familiar—and thoroughly unwelcome—voice to shatter the suspense.
"Relax, cowboy. It's me."
Tom sounded like he'd barely managed to stay awake long enough to make it through the front door, punctuating the greeting with a tired yawn.
Jason's shoulders visibly sagged.
"What's with that look of disappointment?" Tom asked, raising an eyebrow.
"You," Jason answered without missing a beat. "I thought it was an intruder. Turns out it's just you stumbling home after a late night at some strip club."
He turned on his heel and walked back into the kitchen, picking up his glass of milk while Tom casually followed after him.
"Throwing money at women shaking their asses is every guy's fantasy," Tom said with an indifferent shrug. "Been there, done that. Honestly? It's a waste of both time and money if it doesn't end with your dick inside her."
Jason froze halfway through taking another sip.
For a long moment, he simply stared at Tom.
...Yeah.
He genuinely had no response to that.
Silently, Jason finished the last of his milk in one long swallow and set the empty glass on the counter. Deciding he'd heard more than enough for one night, he turned to head upstairs.
He had barely taken a single step out of the kitchen when his entire body suddenly locked up.
Every muscle went rigid.
His limbs refused to obey him, frozen in place as though they no longer belonged to him.
"We've got business to handle," Tom said casually. "And by we, I mean you and Slade."
He didn't even spare Jason a glance, already rummaging through the refrigerator in search of a late-night snack as though freezing someone in place was the most normal thing in the world.
"You could've just asked me to wait," Jason shot back, unable to keep the irritation from creeping into his voice. There was something about having his body forcibly restrained against his will that always rubbed him the wrong way.
A moment later, the invisible force holding him in place vanished. Feeling returned to his limbs, and Jason flexed his shoulders before rolling his neck to work out the lingering stiffness.
"I hate it when you do that," he muttered, turning toward Tom, who was still inspecting the contents of the fridge. Folding his arms across his chest, Jason studied him for a moment before adding, "This has to be a Ghost job. Otherwise, what business would Slade and I possibly have together outside of Outlaws stuff?"
"Fair," Tom admitted as he finally settled on a cold drink and closed the refrigerator door. When he turned around, however, the easygoing expression he'd been wearing disappeared, replaced by a seriousness that immediately told Jason this wasn't a casual errand.
"There's been a minor problem with one of my suppliers in Morocco," Tom explained. "I need you and Slade to head down there, find out what's gone wrong, and make sure it's resolved. Quickly."
"Morocco?" Jason echoed with a puzzled frown. "I thought your supply line ran through Spain."
"It does," Tom replied evenly. "The people in Spain buy from the primary supplier, then move the product to me in bulk. From there, my organization handles distribution—selling by the kilo to dealers throughout Gotham and the surrounding areas."
Jason wasn't exactly thrilled to know the finer details of Tom's operation, but he didn't argue. He had drawn his own lines long ago, and as long as Tom wasn't directly targeting innocent civilians, Jason had chosen to look the other way.
Hypocritical?
Maybe.
But it was the compromise he'd made with himself.
"Alright, I get it," Jason said with a resigned sigh. "Looks like the one-eyed bastard and I are taking a little field trip."
He had despised Deathstroke ever since his days as Robin, and being forced to work alongside the mercenary now hadn't changed that in the slightest. They might occasionally find themselves on the same side of a mission, but that didn't mean Jason liked him any more than he used to. Some grudges simply refused to die.
- - -
Professor Anthony Ivo had spent years working under LexCorp, dedicating his brilliance to the development of quantum energy absorption technology. Everything changed the day he was confronted with the truth that his own body was running out of time.
Born with Hutchinson–Gilford syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that caused his body to age at an unnaturally accelerated rate, Ivo had lived his entire life under the shadow of an early death. Knowing his time was limited, he threw himself into scientific research with relentless determination, becoming obsessed with finding a way to prolong his life.
Every breakthrough, every failed experiment, every sleepless night was driven by a single desire, to escape the fate his own body had condemned him to.
That obsession eventually caught the attention of Lex Luthor.
Years earlier, Luthor had personally approached him with an enticing proposition. He offered to bankroll Ivo's private research, praising its revolutionary potential. A technology capable of regenerating dying cells, he claimed, would reshape the future of medicine and become indispensable when the time inevitably came.
To Anthony Ivo, however, it represented something far greater.
Immortality.
Without a second thought, he accepted the offer.
His work evolved into a far more ambitious undertaking, a project dedicated to creating an artificial life-form capable of rewriting the DNA of organic beings at the cellular level. If successful, it wouldn't merely cure disease or reverse aging.
It would conquer death itself.
Now, with Lex Luthor sitting behind bars, the pressure had only intensified. Despite his imprisonment, Luthor continued funneling staggering amounts of money into the project while demanding that Ivo accelerate its completion. He offered no explanation for his sudden urgency, but anyone familiar with Lex Luthor knew the man never invested that kind of wealth without an agenda.
Ivo recognized the warning signs.
He simply chose to ignore them.
Desperation had clouded his judgment, and greed made it easy to justify looking the other way.
Deep beneath the surface, hidden within an underground laboratory, the culmination of years of research awaited. The cavernous facility was bathed in an eerie green glow cast by rows of humming machinery and towering banks of sophisticated equipment.
At the heart of it all stood the centerpiece of Anthony Ivo's life's work.
Suspended inside a massive incubation chamber rested a humanoid machine, its unfinished exoskeleton concealing the marvel of engineering beneath. Silent and motionless as it awaits command.
Standing before the chamber, Ivo carefully entered the final lines of code into the system, his fingers trembling with anticipation.
"Finally," he whispered, a manic grin slowly spreading across his aging face. "My life's work... is complete."
He stepped back, lifting both hands toward the towering chamber before throwing his head back in triumphant laughter.
"Yes... yes!" he exclaimed, his voice echoing throughout the laboratory. "At last, I won't be shackled to this decaying body any longer."
His feverish eyes remained locked on the dormant creation before him.
"This... this is my ticket to immortality."
His triumphant laughter was abruptly cut short by the sound of a calm, feminine voice echoing through the laboratory.
"I see your work is finished."
Startled, Ivo spun around, only to find Mercy Graves standing quietly at the entrance. Her composed expression betrayed nothing, as though she had expected this exact moment all along.
"Excellent work," she said coolly. "We'll be taking it from here."
Before Ivo could process her words, the sound of heavy boots thundered through the chamber. A squad of operatives dressed in black tactical gear poured into the laboratory, surrounding him before he had any chance to react. Rough hands seized his arms, pinning them behind his back as they began dragging him toward the exit.
Ivo didn't waste his breath asking what was happening.
The answer was painfully obvious.
"Curse you, Luthor!" he shouted, struggling uselessly against the men restraining him.
"You double-crossing son of a bitch!"
His furious voice echoed through the laboratory until it gradually faded into the distance, leaving Mercy alone with the silent machine that had consumed years of Anthony Ivo's life.
Without sparing the imprisoned scientist another glance, she approached the nearby control console and calmly began reviewing the system diagnostics. Streams of data scrolled across the display, confirming that every stage of the project had been completed successfully.
At the very top of the screen, one designation stood apart from the rest, displayed in bold capital letters.
A.M.A.Z.O.