The desert, Jason Todd discovered, was not silent at all.
It whispered. It sang. It told lies in the voice of his mother, and truths in the laughter of dead clowns. The sand beneath his broken body was the color of old bone, and the sky above was a blue so absolute it hurt to contemplate. He lay there, six-foot-five of shattered vigilante, and felt each grain of sand working its way into his wounds like tiny, patient teeth.
He had died before. He remembered the crowbar's kiss, the Joker's performance, the warehouse blooming into fire and twisted metal. He remembered the Lazarus Pit's embrace, green and screaming and wrong. He remembered becoming something else, something angry, something with his face but not quite his soul.
This death should have been heroic. Vandal Savage clutched in his arms, both of them tumbling through Klarion's black hole like moths into a flame that would consume universes. The Light stopped. His family saved. A good death, a meaningful death.
But the universe, he was learning, had a cruel sense of irony.
The slavers found him at sunset, when the desert was painting itself in shades of amber and blood. They spoke in a language that curled and spat, harsh and beautiful all at once. Jason tried to rise—six-foot-five of raw muscle and trained lethality—and managed approximately three inches before his body reminded him that he was, technically speaking, extremely dead.
Or should have been.
But his body had never been good at staying dead. The Lazarus Pit had seen to that, had written resurrection into his cells like a curse in a fairy tale. So he healed, slowly, painfully, while strange men in stranger clothes dragged him across sand and loaded him onto a cart that smelled of other people's despair.
He woke in chains.
The chains were real iron, heavy and crude, and they bit into wrists that had once worn kevlar and leather. Jason tested them once—a sharp, controlled pull that should have snapped inferior metal—and felt them hold. His strength was still returning, and these people, whoever they were, knew their craft.
A man bent over him, old and weathered as driftwood, speaking that liquid, foreign tongue. When Jason didn't respond, the man switched languages—tried four different ones before Jason's battered brain caught up.
"...understand? You understand me now?" The words were accented, strange, but recognizable. A cousin to languages he'd learned from Talia, from the League of Assassins, from nights in places where Arabic and Persian and ancient dialects mixed like wine and water.
"Where?" Jason's voice was rust and sand.
"Slaver's Bay," the man said, and smiled with too few teeth. "You're a slave now, stranger. Best get used to it."
—
They called the place Meereen, and it smelled like every hell Jason had ever visited, plus a few new ones.
The slave pits were ancient, carved from the same stone as the pyramids that clawed at the sky like golden fingers. The cells beneath were older still—stone worn smooth by countless bodies, air thick with copper and fear and the particular staleness that comes from too many men dying in too small a space.
Jason learned the language because the alternative was death, and he'd already done that twice. He was done dying. So he listened in his cell, listened in the training yards, listened while they fed him and beat him and prepared him for the arena like a prize fighting cock.
Valyrian came first—High Valyrian, they called it, though it sounded Low and dirty in the mouths of the slavers. Then Ghiscari, the local tongue, all hard consonants and spitting vowels. Then the Common Tongue of Westeros, which some of the trainers spoke, a language that sounded like English's medieval grandfather.
He was good at languages. Bruce had insisted on it, and Talia had refined the skill. Six-foot-five of lethal competence, and he could kill you in fifteen languages. Sixteen, now.
His first fight came three weeks after his capture.
They'd fed him, finally. Let his body finish healing into something combat-ready. He'd always been big—too big for Robin, Bruce had sometimes thought but never said, though Jason had heard it in the silences. Too big to hide in shadows, too threatening, too much. But here, in this place of professional violence, his size was currency.
The arena was smaller than he'd expected and larger than he'd feared. Circular, stone, surrounded by tiers of screaming faces. The sand beneath his bare feet was dark with old blood, and the sun overhead was the color of bronze.
His opponent was a veteran—scarred, competent, moving with the economy of someone who'd survived a hundred fights. He had a net, a trident, and the confidence of a man who knew his business.
Jason had nothing but his body and three years of rage he'd been storing like capital.
The fighter feinted left, threw the net right—a classic opening, and Jason moved on instinct, the same instinct that had kept him alive in Gotham's worst streets. He was too big to dodge cleanly, but big also meant reach, meant power. The net caught his shoulder, and he kept moving forward, closing the distance before the trident could find his throat.
His hands—hands that had once been a surgeon's tool in their precision—found the fighter's neck. The snap was clean and professional and utterly final.
The crowd roared. It sounded like approval. It sounded like hunger.
Jason stood there, six-foot-five and shaking slightly, and realized he'd just murdered a man for entertainment.
The Lazarus Pit writhed in his blood, green and approving.
—
The armorer worked in the free district, in a shop that smelled of leather and hot metal and honest sweat. He was Ghiscari, but old blood—his family had been freemen since before Meereen was Meereen, he said, since before the Harpy flew over pyramids.
Jason had been fighting for two years when he came to the shop. Two years, one hundred and forty-three kills, and enough coin to buy something he needed more than freedom: anonymity.
"I need armor," he said in careful Ghiscari. His vocabulary had expanded. His accent was almost passable.
The armorer looked him up and down—six-foot-five of scarred muscle, moving with a grace that big men shouldn't possess—and nodded slowly. "For the pits?"
"For surviving the pits."
"Ah." The armorer smiled. "You want to live. That's different than wanting to win."
"I want both."
They spent three hours discussing design. Jason drew sketches in the sand of the floor, trying to recreate from memory the armor he'd worn in another life. The armorer watched, asked questions, suggested modifications. Essosi fighters fought differently than Gotham's criminals. The armor needed to adapt.
"This helmet," the armorer said finally, tapping Jason's crude drawing. "You want to frighten them."
"I want them to see death coming."
"Death has many faces here. The Stranger wears them all."
"Then I'll wear one more."
The skull-face helmet took longest. The armorer was an artist in his way, and he understood what Jason wanted—something inhuman, something that erased identity and replaced it with archetype. The mask emerged slowly from leather and shaped metal, painted in layers of crimson that the armorer mixed himself. Deep red, the color of blood after it's dried on stone. The eye sockets were hollowed, backed with black mesh that let Jason see out but showed nothing looking in.
No expression. No mercy. No negotiation.
Just the promise.
The body armor was layered leather, supple enough for movement, reinforced with salvaged steel plates at the vitals. Jason specified the cut—close to the body, following his frame, nothing loose to catch or snag. He was too big to hide; the armor acknowledged this, used it. Every line emphasized his size, his reach, his physical threat.
The red slash across the chest he added himself, after his hundredth kill. He painted it drunk, alone in his cell, with pigment mixed from rust and his own blood. It dried in a jagged, asymmetric scar—a wound the armor wore, a tally mark, a warning.
The right shoulder pauldron was deliberately oversized. Jason had studied how Essosi fighters moved, had catalogued their patterns. They favored power strikes from the right, committed fully, left themselves open. The pauldron was a lure and a shield—catch the blow, deflect, counter with lethal speed.
Straps and belts crisscrossed his torso, each one functional. A gladius-style blade at his hip, short and brutal for close work. Throwing knives in easy reach, weighted for balance. A club, lead-heavy, for when finesse didn't matter. Everything matte black or dried-blood red, nothing to catch light or draw the eye until it was too late.
When he wore the complete armor into the pits for the first time, his opponent—a veteran of fifty fights—dropped his sword and fell to his knees.
The crowd went silent, waiting.
Jason killed him anyway. The pits didn't forgive mercy, and mercy was a luxury he could no longer afford.
They started calling him the Red Hood, though he'd never told anyone the name. Some things, apparently, followed you across dimensions.
—
Illyrio Mopatis arrived during the height of summer, when Meereen was at its worst—hot as a forge, humid as a drowning, cruel as a knife between the ribs.
Jason was fighting a triple match that day—three opponents, escalating difficulty, the crowd's favorite entertainment. He'd killed the first two efficiently, professionally, giving them quick deaths because he wasn't a monster, not quite, not yet. The third fighter was good, very good, and they danced around each other for nearly ten minutes before Jason found the opening and put his blade through the man's heart.
Efficient. Clean. The crowd's applause felt like rain on stone—wet and meaningless.
Illyrio Mopatis watched from the best seats, a mountain of perfumed flesh in yellow silk, and smiled like a man who'd found exactly what he was looking for.
Afterward, in chains again—always chains, as if they meant anything—Jason was brought before the magister. He stood in full armor, six-foot-five of weaponized death, while Illyrio circled him slowly, appreciatively.
"Magnificent," Illyrio murmured in High Valyrian. "Like one of the Stranger's own servants, walked out of legend. Tell me, Red Hood—do you understand me?"
Jason remained silent, motionless. The skull-face revealed nothing.
"No? What of the Common Tongue?" Illyrio switched languages effortlessly. "Ghiscari? Dothraki? I know you understand something, my large friend. You followed commands in the arena."
More silence. Jason had learned the value of silence from Batman, had perfected it in places where words were weapons and information was currency.
Illyrio laughed, a sound like heavy silk tearing. "It doesn't matter. You kill beautifully, and beauty in killing is rarer than you'd think. I'm purchasing your contract, Red Hood. All of it—your papers, your debts, your very impressive person. You're coming with me to Pentos."
Jason's hands flexed slightly, testing the chains. Strong, but not unbreakable. Not if he really committed. Behind the mask, he calculated distances, angles, the mechanics of violence.
"I wouldn't," Illyrio said mildly, noticing. "You'd kill perhaps a dozen men, maybe fifteen if you're as good as I think you are. But eventually numbers would tell, and you'd die in a foreign land in a pointless gesture of defiance. How Westerosi of you. How wasteful."
Jason went still.
"Yes, I thought as much. You understand more than you pretend, and you're clever enough to recognize hopeless odds when you see them. Good. Cleverness is undervalued in pit fighters. Now then—I'm taking you to guard the most important young woman in the world. A Targaryen princess, last of her line, beautiful as dawn and fragile as glass. She's to marry a Dothraki khal, savage business, and she'll need protection that looks impressive enough to give even the horselords pause."
Behind the skull-face, behind the mask, behind the scar tissue that covered his heart like armor, Jason Todd felt something stir. A princess. A girl in danger. The story was old as time, familiar as a nursery rhyme.
He'd always been terrible at walking away from those stories.
"Come along then," Illyrio said cheerfully. "We have a long journey ahead, and I want you presentable for the wedding. Well—as presentable as a seven-foot walking nightmare can be."
"Six-five," Jason said, his voice a rasp through the mask's filters.
Illyrio's smile widened. "Ah. He speaks. Excellent. I knew you were clever."
—
Pentos smelled different than Meereen—less blood, more flowers, expensive perfumes trying to cover the scent of salt and fish and human ambition. Illyrio's manse was a palace in miniature, all pale stone and flowering gardens and the kind of wealth that whispered instead of shouted.
Jason was given rooms in the guard's wing—actual rooms, not a cell, with a bed and a window and space to move. The luxury felt like a trap, like every good thing had felt since the Joker's crowbar, but he took it anyway. Adaptation was survival.
He trained in the mornings, running through katas in full armor, keeping his body sharp and his mind sharper. The other guards gave him a wide berth—some because of the armor, some because of his size, some because they'd heard stories from Meereen about the pit fighter who'd never lost, never hesitated, never shown mercy.
None of them knew he'd been a hero once. That he'd worn a different mask, a different armor, fought for something more than survival. That somewhere in a world he'd never see again, there was a family who'd either mourned him or forgotten him, and he wasn't sure which was worse.
He saw Daenerys Targaryen for the first time through a window, and something in his chest—the part that hadn't quite died, hadn't quite given up—twisted hard.
She was small. Delicate. Sixteen or seventeen at most, with silver-gold hair that caught sunlight like water, and eyes that held the particular kind of fear Jason recognized from Gotham's worst nights. The fear of someone who knows they're powerless, who knows what's coming and can't stop it.
She was a child being sold to a warlord by her own brother, and Jason had spent enough time in the Batcave, around Dick and Tim and Steph and Cass and Damian, to know what a kid in trouble looked like.
*Not your problem,* he told himself, watching from the shadows. *You're not a hero anymore. You're not even alive, not really. You're a dead man in a dead man's armor, and this isn't your world.*
But then Viserys Targaryen struck her.
It was at dinner, three days before the wedding. Jason was standing guard in his full armor, silent and still, playing the role of intimidating statue. The family—if you could call it that—was dining al fresco, Illyrio playing host with obscene generosity, Viserys drinking wine like it was water and boasting about dragons that had been dead for a century.
Daenerys said something quiet, something Jason didn't quite catch. Viserys's hand moved fast, cracking across her face with enough force to snap her head sideways.
"Don't you dare—" Viserys started.
Jason's hand was on his blade before conscious thought intervened. Six-foot-five of muscle memory and protective instinct, moving with a speed that shouldn't be possible for someone his size. He didn't draw—that would've been execution—but the rasp of steel on leather was loud in the sudden silence.
Everyone froze.
Viserys stared at the Red Hood, at the skull-face mask, at the hand resting on a blade that promised arterial spray and a quick death. "How dare you," he whispered. "I am the Dragon. I am your—"
"You're a drunk child playing at kings," Illyrio interrupted smoothly, though his eyes were on Jason, calculating. "And the Red Hood serves the princess, not you, Your Grace. Perhaps we should all remember our places, yes?"
The moment stretched. Jason's hand didn't move. Behind the mask, his jaw was clenched hard enough to crack teeth.
Finally, Viserys laughed—high and brittle and slightly unhinged. "Keep your pet monster, fat man. See if he can protect her from a hundred thousand screamers."
The dinner ended shortly after.
—
The wedding day arrived with cruel sunshine and the sound of Dothraki drums in the distance.
Jason stood in the manse's courtyard in full armor, the Red Hood in all its grim glory, while servants scurried and Illyrio orchestrated chaos into ceremony. He'd been scrubbed, polished, made as presentable as a six-foot-five death's-head could be. The armor gleamed dully in the sun, the red slash across his chest the color of old murder.
Daenerys Targaryen descended the steps in a dress that looked like liquid silver, and for a moment—just a moment—she looked like royalty. Then she stumbled slightly, caught herself, and looked twelve years old and terrified.
"Princess," Illyrio said grandly, sweeping forward with his arms wide. "You look radiant. Absolutely radiant. Now, before we depart—I have a gift. A wedding gift, for you."
He gestured, and Jason stepped forward. Six-foot-five of armored threat, moving with that particular grace that big men develop when they train hard enough, long enough. The skull-face regarded Daenerys with hollow eyes.
"This is the Red Hood," Illyrio continued, his voice warm and proud. "Champion of Meereen's fighting pits. Two hundred and seventeen victories, not a single defeat. I purchased his contract at considerable expense, and I gift him to you, Princess. Your personal guard, sworn to your service and your protection alone."
Viserys sneered from where he stood nearby, but said nothing. Illyrio's influence—and money—ran deep.
Daenerys stared up at the Red Hood. She was small enough that she had to tilt her head back to meet the empty eyes of the mask, and Jason saw her throat work as she swallowed fear.
"Can you..." She paused, tried again. Her voice was soft but steady. "Can you understand me?"
Jason had planned to stay silent. To play the mute bodyguard, the mindless weapon, give himself space and anonymity and distance from whatever fresh tragedy this world was preparing. He'd planned a lot of things.
But she was sixteen and scared and being sold to a stranger, and Jason Todd—who'd been Robin, who'd been a street kid in Crime Alley, who'd died for people who didn't deserve it and come back angry—couldn't quite kill that last bit of hero in his chest.
"Yes," he said, his voice rough with disuse, filtered through the mask into something inhuman and hollow. "I understand you, Princess."
She flinched slightly at the sound. Most people did. The Red Hood's voice was designed to unsettle, to disturb, to promise violence with every syllable.
But she didn't look away.
"Will you..." She paused again, choosing words carefully. "Will you truly protect me?"
Behind the mask, Jason Todd thought about crowbars and clowns and black holes. About Dick's disappointment and Bruce's silence and a world burning while he fell through darkness. About three years in chains, three years killing for sport, three years dying slowly in a world that wasn't his.
About a scared girl who reminded him, just a little, of every person he'd ever failed to save.
"With my life," he said. "What's left of it."
Daenerys studied him for a long moment, silver-gold hair moving in the breeze, eyes ancient despite her youth. Then she nodded, once, decisive.
"Thank you," she said quietly. "I think... I think I'll need you."
In the distance, the Dothraki drums grew louder. The khalasar was approaching, forty thousand screamers and one khal who'd purchased a dragon princess like men purchase swords or horses.
Illyrio clapped his hands together. "Wonderful! Now then, we should—"
"I have a condition," Jason said, cutting him off.
Silence fell like a blade. No one interrupted Illyrio Mopatis. No one.
Illyrio's smile didn't waver, but his eyes went very cold. "Do you, now?"
"I protect her," Jason said, and his hand rested on his sword casually, professionally. "Only her. Not her brother. Not you. Just her. And if anyone—anyone—tries to hurt her, I stop them. Permanently. You understand what I mean by permanently."
"I bought your contract," Illyrio said softly.
"You bought a pit fighter. You're gifting a bodyguard." Jason's skull-face tilted slightly, inhuman, implacable. "Decide which one you want."
The moment stretched. Viserys made a sound of outrage. The guards shifted nervously. Daenerys stood very still, hardly breathing.
Then Illyrio laughed—genuine amusement, rich and rolling. "Oh, you are magnificent. Yes, yes, agreed. Protect the princess, kill whoever needs killing. Just try not to start a war we can't win, hmm?"
"No promises," Jason said.
Daenerys was staring at him now with something like wonder, something like hope. It made Jason's chest ache in ways he'd forgotten were possible.
"Come then," Illyrio said, still chuckling. "The Dothraki wait for no one, not even dragons and their nightmares."
They walked toward the sound of drums, toward the khalasar, toward whatever fresh hell this world was preparing. Jason walked three steps behind and to the left of Daenerys Targaryen, six-foot-five of weaponized loyalty, the Red Hood reborn in a world of ice and fire.
And for the first time since the black hole swallowed him, since the desert tried to bury him, since the chains claimed him, Jason Todd felt something like purpose stirring in his chest.
He'd died to save his world once. Maybe in this one, he could do more than just survive.
Maybe, against all odds and common sense, he could be a hero again.
Even if heroes wore skull faces and painted themselves in blood. Even if heroes were dead men walking in borrowed time. Even if heroes were just someone who stood between the innocent and the dark and refused to move.
The Dothraki drums beat like a heart.
Jason's hand rested on his sword.
And somewhere very far away, in a cave beneath a manor, a bat dreamed of a son who'd died twice and a resurrection that had gone all wrong.
But that was another world, another story.
This one was just beginning.
—
Khal Drogo arrived like a storm given flesh.
Jason saw him first from a distance—the khalasar approaching across the plain like a living thing, forty thousand horses and riders moving as one, dust rising behind them like the earth itself was burning. The sound was thunder without rain, hoofbeats without end, the drumbeat of something vast and old and utterly without mercy.
The Dothraki didn't march. They flowed, they surged, they *were* motion itself given purpose. Jason had seen armies before—fought beside the Titans, stood against Deathstroke's metahuman strike teams, watched Superman redirect military forces with a gesture—but this was different. This was primal, unaugmented human violence refined over centuries into perfect, terrible form.
And at the head of that vast host rode a man who made Jason's tactical brain immediately begin calculating kill methods.
Drogo was massive—not quite Jason's height, perhaps six-three, but broader through the shoulders, all hard muscle and copper skin gleaming with oil. His hair fell past his waist, black as midnight, uncut because he'd never been defeated. He wore minimal armor—leather vest, belt, boots—because armor implied fear, and Drogo feared nothing. His eyes were dark and flat as a shark's, and when they found Daenerys across the field, Jason saw the exact kind of possessive hunger that made his hand itch for his blade.
*Carotid or femoral,* Jason thought immediately, his mind cataloguing targets with the cold efficiency Bruce had taught him and the Pit had refined. *He's fast—look how he moves, economical, no wasted motion. Muscle density suggests he's absurdly strong, probably stronger than me pound-for-pound. But big men have patterns. They commit. They believe in their power.*
*Fake high, go low. Hamstring first, sever the tendon. When he drops, spine or throat. Three seconds, four tops. Five if he's extraordinary.*
"Impressive, isn't he?" Illyrio murmured beside him, mistaking Jason's calculation for awe.
"He's a target," Jason said flatly.
Illyrio laughed, but it sounded nervous.
The khalasar stopped perhaps fifty yards from Illyrio's assembled party—the magister, his guards, Daenerys, Viserys, and the Red Hood standing like a crimson monument behind the princess. The Dothraki regarded them with the casual disdain of apex predators observing prey.
Drogo dismounted in a single fluid motion and walked forward. He moved like water, like violence waiting to happen, and Jason shifted his weight slightly, putting himself at a better angle should—
Drogo's eyes found him.
The khal stopped mid-stride, staring at the Red Hood. At the skull-face mask, the armor painted in old blood, the promise of death standing six-foot-five and utterly still. Something flickered across Drogo's face—not fear, never fear, but recognition. The acknowledgment of threat, of another predator, of something that didn't quite fit the script.
Then Drogo smiled—sharp and white—and said something in rapid Dothraki.
One of his bloodriders translated: "The khal says your champion looks like he crawled from the grave to fight. He asks if the dead man is for sale."
"The dead man belongs to the princess," Jason said in Dothraki, surprising everyone. His accent was atrocious, all hard edges where there should be flow, but comprehensible. He'd learned some over the past three years—Dothraki slavers passed through Meereen, and languages were survival.
Drogo's smile widened. He said something longer, more complex.
"The khal says dead men make poor guards," the bloodrider translated. "They're slow. Clumsy. He offers to put you in the ground properly after the wedding, so you can rest."
Jason tilted his head slightly, the skull-face regarding Drogo with hollow eyes. "Tell the khal I've put two hundred and seventeen men in the ground. There's always room for more."
The translation made the Dothraki laugh—huge, booming sounds of genuine amusement. These were men who appreciated threats, who respected violence, who understood the language Jason was speaking.
Drogo laughed loudest of all. Then he turned to Daenerys, dismissed Jason entirely, and approached his purchased bride.
Jason watched every step, every movement, his hand resting lightly on his sword. Daenerys stood frozen, silver-gold hair bright in the sun, while this massive stranger circled her slowly, examining her like a man examines a horse at market.
*Degrading,* Jason thought. *Dehumanizing. She's sixteen years old and he's looking at her like property.*
Drogo reached out, touched Daenerys's hair—she flinched, couldn't help it—and Jason moved forward one step before he could stop himself.
Every Dothraki warrior's hand went to their weapons.
Drogo turned, raised one hand, stilling his men. Then he smiled at Jason again, said something sharp in Dothraki.
"The khal says the dead man is loyal. This is good. A wife should have protection." The bloodrider's translation was respectful now, careful.
Drogo turned back to Daenerys, nodded once—approval, acceptance—and strode away toward his men. The inspection was over. The transaction was complete.
Illyrio exhaled. "Well. That went better than expected."
"He touched her without permission," Jason said quietly.
"He's about to do considerably more than touch her, my large friend. He's her husband, or will be shortly."
Behind the mask, Jason's jaw clenched hard enough to ache.
—
The wedding was held at sunset, in the traditional Dothraki fashion, which meant it was less a ceremony and more a prolonged festival of violence, drinking, and public sex.
Jason stood guard while the Dothraki demonstrated their courtship rituals—which consisted mostly of fighting, fucking, and consuming vast quantities of fermented mare's milk. Three people died during the celebration. Apparently this was a *small* number. A good omen.
Daenerys sat on a throne of carved wood, wearing silver and looking like she wanted to disappear into the earth. Drogo sat beside her, occasionally glancing at his new wife with the expression of a man contemplating a particularly interesting puzzle. Viserys drank and boasted and made increasingly grandiose claims about the army he'd been promised. The Dothraki ignored him.
Jason stood behind Daenerys's throne, six-foot-five of armored patience, watching everything. Cataloguing threats, exits, weapon placements. Old habits. Bat-training. The kind of paranoia that kept you alive in places where death wore a smile.
"She looks terrified," a voice said beside him—quiet, pitched only for Jason to hear.
Jason glanced sideways. A man had approached, middle-aged, weathered, with the bearing of a warrior gone slightly to seed. Northern features. Westerosi, definitely.
"Wouldn't you be?" Jason responded, his voice hollow through the mask.
"Aye. I would." The man studied Jason carefully. "Jorah Mormont, formerly Ser Jorah of Bear Island. Currently in the service of... well. Various interests."
"You're a spy," Jason said flatly.
Jorah blinked, then laughed—quiet and genuine. "Perceptive. Yes, among other things. I'm meant to watch the princess, report back to certain parties in Westeros who'd prefer the Targaryen line remained extinct."
"And you're telling me this because?"
"Because you're not what you appear to be either." Jorah nodded toward the mask. "That armor, that stance—you're trained. Really trained. Not like these pit fighters who learn to kill for sport. You learned to kill for war. Military. Maybe better than military."
Jason said nothing.
"I'm also telling you," Jorah continued, "because I'm tired of spying for people who want to kill a girl whose only crime was being born to the wrong father. So I think I'll serve her instead. Properly. And you look like someone who takes protecting her seriously."
"I do."
"Then we'll get along." Jorah paused. "You should know—tonight, after the feast, Drogo will take her. It's the Dothraki way. First time, immediately, while the khalasar celebrates. It's meant to be... forceful. Public. They don't have Westerosi sensibilities about these things."
Jason's hand tightened on his sword until the leather creaked.
"I thought you should know," Jorah said quietly. "In case you planned to do something stupid and noble."
Before Jason could respond, Illyrio approached in a rustle of silk, servants carrying a large chest behind him.
"Princess Daenerys!" Illyrio's voice boomed across the celebration, causing heads to turn. "Another gift, for your new life. Something special. Something unique."
The chest was opened, and inside, nested in velvet, were three stones. Eggs. Dragon eggs.
They were beautiful—one cream and gold, one green and bronze, one black and scarlet. They gleamed in the firelight like jewels, like dreams given form, like impossibilities.
"Dragon eggs," Illyrio announced grandly. "From the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai. Ancient beyond measure, turned to stone centuries ago, but still beautiful. May they bring you fortune, Princess."
Daenerys reached out, touched the black and scarlet egg, and something flickered across her face. Wonder. Hope. The first genuine emotion Jason had seen from her all day.
"They're beautiful," she whispered. "Thank you."
The celebration continued. The Dothraki sang their strange songs, fought their strange fights, coupled in the grass without shame or hesitation. Viserys got progressively drunker and more insufferable. Jorah settled into a position near Jason, the two of them forming an unofficial guard detail around the princess.
And then, as the moon rose full and bright, Drogo stood.
The khalasar quieted immediately. Drogo spoke—not long, just a few sentences—and the Dothraki cheered.
"He says it's time," Jorah translated, his voice tight. "He's claiming his bride."
Drogo strode toward Daenerys, reached down, and pulled her to her feet. Not roughly, but not gently either. The possessive grip of a man claiming property.
Daenerys's eyes found Jason, wide and terrified and pleading.
And Jason made a choice.
—
Jason moved.
Six-foot-five of armored death stepped directly into Drogo's path, blocking the way to where the khal was dragging Daenerys toward the marriage tent. The Red Hood stood there, immovable, skull-face regarding Drogo with empty eyes.
The khalasar went silent. Utterly, completely silent.
"Move," Drogo said in Dothraki. Not angry yet, just confused. As if he couldn't quite comprehend the obstacle.
"No," Jason said.
Now anger flickered across Drogo's face. He released Daenerys, who stumbled backward, and squared up to face Jason fully. When he spoke, his voice was low and dangerous.
"The khal says you should step aside," a bloodrider translated, though everyone understood the tone. "The girl is his wife. His property. You have no right to interfere."
"She's sixteen years old and terrified," Jason said, still in Dothraki, his accent harsh but clear. "She's not property. She's a person. And I'm not moving."
Drogo stared at him for a long moment. Then he threw back his head and laughed—huge, genuine, delighted laughter. He said something rapid, complex.
"The khal says you have courage," the bloodrider translated. "Stupidity, but courage. He says he will give you a choice: move aside, or die. He is khal. You are nothing."
Jason felt the Lazarus Pit stirring in his blood, that green rage that never quite left him, that resurrection curse that made him harder to kill than he should be. He felt his training—Bruce's training, the League's training, three years in the fighting pits—settling into his bones like armor.
He thought about Daenerys's terrified eyes. About being sixteen and powerless. About having no one to protect you when the monsters came.
He thought about crowbars and clowns and a family who hadn't saved him in time.
"I choose to stand," Jason said.
The khalasar exploded into noise—shouting, laughing, the sound of warriors recognizing a challenge when they saw one. Drogo's bloodriders moved forward, hands on weapons, but Drogo waved them back. His eyes were bright with something like joy.
He spoke again, longer this time.
"The khal says this is good," the bloodrider translated. "This is the old way. You challenge him for the khalasar, for his position, for his wife. If you win, you become khal. If you lose, you die, and he takes the girl as planned. Do you accept these terms?"
"I accept," Jason said.
"Are you insane?" Illyrio hissed from somewhere behind him. "He's khal for a reason. He's never been defeated. He's killed men with his bare hands, dozens of them, hundreds—"
"I've killed two hundred and seventeen men," Jason interrupted, not looking away from Drogo. "I'm going for two-eighteen."
A space cleared in the center of the celebration. Dothraki warriors formed a circle, fifty feet across, the ancient arena where challenges were settled. Drogo strode into the center, rolling his shoulders, loosening his muscles. He pulled a curved blade from his belt—an arakh, the traditional weapon—and tested its weight.
Jason walked forward slowly, deliberately. He drew his gladius-style blade, shorter and straighter than an arakh, built for the close work he preferred. The sword felt right in his hand, balanced, familiar. A tool he understood.
"You can still walk away," Jorah said quietly as Jason passed. "There's no shame in it. He's killed a hundred men, Hood. Good men. Warriors."
"So have I," Jason said. "And I don't plan to die tonight."
He stepped into the circle. Forty thousand Dothraki watched in breathless silence. Daenerys stood at the edge, hands clutched together, silver hair bright in the moonlight.
Drogo was smiling, relaxed, confident. He said something light, almost friendly.
"The khal says you fought well in the pits of Meereen," the bloodrider translated. "But a pit is not the plains. A khal is not a slave. He will make your death swift, out of respect for your courage."
Jason raised his blade into guard position—the stance was old, older than Bruce's training, something Talia had taught him in the mountains. The stance of someone who expected to kill and expected to survive.
"Tell the khal I appreciate the sentiment," Jason said. "But I've died twice already. I'm not planning on a third time."
Then he removed the skull-face mask.
The movement was deliberate, ceremonial almost. Jason reached up with his free hand and unlatched the helmet, pulling it free and dropping it to the ground beside him. The hood fell back.
He was young—mid-twenties at most, with the kind of face that should've been handsome but was made harder by scars and experience. Sharp jawline, high cheekbones, dark hair sweat-stuck to his forehead. Six-foot-five of warrior in his prime, and now without the mask's inhuman menace, he looked human. Real. Mortal.
And absolutely, completely deadly.
The Dothraki murmured. Some seemed disappointed—they'd wanted a monster. Others nodded in approval. A man who'd show his face before a fight had honor.
Drogo's smile faded slightly. He'd been fighting a nightmare, a legend, a thing without humanity. Now he was fighting a man, and men were different. Men could be killed, but men could also kill you back.
"My name is Jason Todd," Jason said clearly, in Common Tongue so everyone could understand. His voice was rough, younger than expected, carrying the accent of Gotham's streets underneath the foreign languages. "I was a hero once, in another world. I died for people who didn't deserve it. I came back wrong. I've killed more than I've saved, failed more than I've succeeded, and I've got a curse in my blood that won't let me stay dead."
He met Drogo's eyes directly.
"But tonight, I'm going to save one person. Just one. That girl right there, who's sixteen years old and terrified and deserves better than being dragged to a tent by a stranger. So—" He shifted his grip on the gladius, settling into stance. "—either step aside, or find out exactly how hard it is to kill someone who's already died twice."
Drogo's expression changed—the smile gone, replaced by something colder. Calculation. Respect, maybe. He spoke one word in Dothraki, sharp and final.
"Athjahakar," a bloodrider translated. "Warrior."
Then Drogo moved.
—
Drogo was *fast*.
Faster than Jason expected, faster than someone that size should be. The khal closed the distance in three strides, his arakh singing through the air in a curve that should've opened Jason's throat in a spray of arterial red.
Should've.
Jason was already moving—not back, never back, that was how you died against aggressive fighters. He moved forward and right, inside the arakh's arc, letting the blade hiss past his shoulder close enough to feel the wind. His gladius came up in a tight, economical thrust, aimed for Drogo's exposed ribs.
Drogo twisted impossibly, showing the flexibility that came from a lifetime on horseback, and Jason's blade caught only leather vest. They separated, circled, the Dothraki roaring approval.
*Faster than expected,* Jason's tactical mind noted. *Flexible. Combat instincts are excellent. He's used to opponents who commit, who trade blow for blow. He counters. Exploits openings.*
Drogo attacked again, a combination—high slash, low sweep, overhead cut. The arakh moved like a living thing in his hands, the curved blade perfect for the flowing, continuous strikes the Dothraki favored.
Jason met him in the pocket, that close-range space where most fighters panicked. He parried the high slash—letting the arakh slide off his blade rather than meeting it strength-to-strength—ducked under the low sweep, and caught the overhead cut on his armored forearm. The impact sent pain shooting up his arm, but the reinforced leather held.
He was inside Drogo's guard now, too close for the arakh to be effective. Jason drove his knee up toward Drogo's groin—
Drogo caught the knee on his thigh, absorbed the impact, and headbutted Jason in the face.
Stars exploded across Jason's vision. He tasted blood, felt his nose break, and his training kicked in before thought did. He let himself fall backward, turning the movement into a roll, coming up with space between them again.
The Dothraki were screaming now, worked into a frenzy. This wasn't the quick execution they'd expected. This was a real fight.
"Good," Drogo said in Common Tongue, surprising Jason. The khal's accent was thick but understandable. "Strong. Fast. But not khal."
"Not yet," Jason agreed, spitting blood.
They came together again—gladius against arakh, straight blade against curved, Gotham training against steppe tradition. Jason fought the way Batman had taught him: efficient, brutal, targeting weak points. Knees, elbows, throat, eyes. The vulnerable places all humans shared.
But Drogo fought like he'd been born with a blade in his hand, because he basically had. The arakh was an extension of his body, flowing from attack to defense to attack again in combinations that shouldn't work but did.
Jason took a cut across his ribs—shallow, painful, punishment for a mistake in timing. He gave back a slash across Drogo's thigh that made the khal grunt. Blood flowed from both wounds, dark in the firelight.
They separated again, circling, both breathing hard.
*He's good,* Jason admitted to himself. *Maybe as good as Deathstroke. Maybe better in some ways. He's been doing this his whole life, fighting men who are trying to kill him, leading battles, surviving challenges. He's got experience I can't match.*
*But I've got something he doesn't.*
The Lazarus Pit burned in Jason's blood, green and hungry. It was healing the cut on his ribs even now, knitting flesh faster than it should, feeding his muscles, keeping him strong. Drogo was human, purely human, and humans tired.
Jason just got angrier.
"You fight well, dead man," Drogo said, still circling. "But you cannot win. I am khal. I have never lost. Never."
"There's a first time for everything," Jason said.
He changed tactics. Stopped fighting defensively, stopped being careful. He attacked—really attacked, the way Bruce had always warned him not to, aggressive and relentless. He traded blows, took cuts to give cuts, used his size and strength and the Pit's healing to overwhelm.
It was reckless. Dangerous. Exactly the kind of fighting that had gotten him killed the first time.
But Jason Todd had never been good at playing it safe.
He drove Drogo back, pressing hard, forcing the khal to defend. The gladius was shorter than the arakh, which meant Jason had to get closer, had to take risks, but up close he was stronger. Six-foot-five of muscle and rage, pushing forward like a freight train.
Drogo's arakh opened a cut on Jason's shoulder. Jason's gladius caught Drogo across the ribs, deeper this time. They grappled, crashed to the ground, rolled through dirt and blood. Warriors, the Dothraki had called them. Two apex predators trying to kill each other with professional courtesy.
Jason ended up on top, his gladius pressed against Drogo's throat. The khal's arakh was trapped beneath them, useless. Drogo stared up at him, breathing hard, blood on his lips.
For a moment, the world held its breath.
*Kill him,* the Pit whispered. *End it. You've won. Take what's yours.*
But Jason thought about Daenerys's terrified eyes. About the kind of man who'd drag a sixteen-year-old girl to a tent while forty thousand people cheered. About violence and power and whether winning made you right.
He thought about what Bruce would do, and what the Red Hood would do, and realized he was standing somewhere in the middle.
"I don't want your khalasar," Jason said quietly, in Dothraki, only for Drogo. "I don't want your title or your position. I just want the girl safe. Untouched. Respected. You understand me?"
Drogo stared at him, something like surprise flickering across his face.
"Give me your word," Jason continued. "As a warrior, as khal. The girl is free. No one touches her without her permission. No one. And I'll let you live. We'll call this a draw, save face for both of us. You keep your khalasar, I keep her safe."
"And if I refuse?" Drogo's voice was hoarse, the blade against his throat pressing hard enough to draw blood.
"Then I kill you," Jason said simply. "And I become khal, and I probably fuck everything up because I don't know the first thing about leading Dothraki warriors. But the girl stays safe. Your choice."
Drogo studied him for a long moment. Then, incredibly, he smiled—genuine, warm, with something like respect.
"You are strange, dead man. Stupid. Weak. You win but ask for nothing." He paused. "But you are also brave. Honorable, maybe. The Dothraki respect strength. Respect honor."
"Is that a yes?"
"If I give word," Drogo said carefully, "I will keep it. The girl is not touched. Not by me, not by any man. She is..." He searched for words. "Sacred. Yes? Like mother of mountains. Cannot be harmed."
"That works," Jason said.
"But you must still kill me," Drogo added. "I have been defeated. Cannot be khal if defeated. The Dothraki will not follow."
Jason froze. "What?"
"Is the way." Drogo's voice was calm, accepting. "You won. You are khal now. You must take position. Must lead the khalasar. Is how we survive—strongest leads, always."
"I don't want—"
"Want does not matter. You fought me. You won. You are khal." Drogo's eyes were steady, unafraid. "Do it quickly, warrior. You have earned that much."
Jason looked down at the man beneath him, blade still pressed to throat. Thought about power and leadership and terrible responsibilities. About a scared girl who needed protecting and forty thousand warriors who needed leading.
About being a hero in a world that wasn't his, with rules he didn't understand.
*Fuck.*
"I'm sorry," Jason said quietly.
"Do not be sorry," Drogo replied. "Be strong. Be khal. Protect the silver-haired woman. She is..." He paused. "Special. The dragons know her."
Then Jason cut his throat—one quick slash, professional and clean. Drogo died without a sound, eyes open, something like peace in his expression.
The khalasar exploded into sound—screaming, shouting, some in approval, some in grief, all in chaos. Jason stood slowly, covered in blood—Drogo's blood, his own blood, the blood of a fight that shouldn't have ended this way.
He raised his voice, shouting in Dothraki: "I am Jason Todd! I have defeated your khal in single combat! I claim leadership of this khalasar by right of strength!"
The Dothraki quieted, watching.
"I am Khal Jason now," he continued, putting every ounce of authority he could muster into his voice, the way Bruce commanded respect in the Justice League meetings. "And my first command is this: the silver-haired woman is under my protection. She is *mine*—my wife, my responsibility, my sacred charge. Any man who touches her without permission dies. Any man who threatens her dies. Any man who looks at her wrong gets to explain to me why. We clear?"
Silence. Then one of Drogo's former bloodriders—massive, scarred, terrifying—stepped forward and knelt.
"Khal Jason," he said formally.
Another bloodrider knelt. Then another. Then dozens, hundreds, thousands—forty thousand Dothraki warriors taking a knee before a man who'd killed their leader and claimed their loyalty by right of strength.
Jason stood there, six-foot-five and twenty-five years old, covered in blood and utterly out of his depth, and realized he'd just become the leader of one of the most dangerous armies in this world.
*Bruce would be so proud,* he thought hysterically. *I finally got promoted. From Robin to Red Hood to... Khal. Because my life wasn't complicated enough.*
He looked across the kneeling warriors and found Daenerys. She was staring at him with wide, astonished eyes—silver-purple in the firelight, beautiful and young and alive. Safe.
Jason met her gaze and nodded once.
*Worth it,* he decided. *Probably going to get me killed. But worth it.*
"Rise," he commanded in Dothraki. "All of you, rise. We have a feast to finish and a marriage to celebrate—" He paused. "—my marriage. To Daenerys Targaryen. The dragon princess. Your khaleesi."
The Dothraki rose, and the celebration began anew—louder this time, more chaotic, with the particular energy that came from witnessing something unprecedented.
Jason walked toward Daenerys slowly, deliberately, giving her time to process, to react, to run if she wanted to. He stopped a few feet away and knelt—brought his bloodied, battle-worn self down to one knee before her.
"I'm sorry," he said in Common Tongue, his voice rough. "I didn't mean for it to go this way. I just wanted to keep you safe, and now..." He gestured vaguely at the celebrating khalasar. "Now apparently I'm in charge of forty thousand horse lords and I have no idea what I'm doing."
Daenerys stared down at him. At his young face, handsome despite the blood and scars, despite the broken nose and split lip. At the warrior who'd just killed for her, who'd claimed an entire people just to keep her safe.
"You're beautiful," she whispered, then immediately flushed. "I mean—I didn't expect—the mask, I thought you'd be—"
Jason laughed despite everything, surprised the sound still existed in him. "Horrifying? Monstrous?"
"Yes," she admitted. Then, softer: "Thank you. For... for everything. For saving me."
"I'm not sure I saved you," Jason said honestly. "I think I just made everything way more complicated. But you're safe. That's what matters."
Daenerys reached out slowly, tentatively, and touched his face—traced the line of his jaw, the curve of his broken nose, as if confirming he was real.
"Khal Jason," she said, testing the words. "My husband."
"If you'll have me," Jason said. "And I promise—no tent, no force, no... whatever Drogo was planning. We can figure this out together. Take our time. I've got no intention of—"
She kissed him.
It was brief, chaste, more promise than passion. But when she pulled back, she was smiling—the first real smile he'd seen from her.
"I'll have you," Daenerys said. "Khal Jason. My champion. My husband. My... hero?"
Jason stood, towering over her even now, and offered his hand. "I'm not a hero. Not anymore. But I'll try to be one for you."
She took his hand, silver-haired and dragon-blooded, and together they turned to face the khalasar.
Forty thousand Dothraki warriors cheered their new khal and khaleesi.
And Jason Todd—who'd been Robin, who'd been Red Hood, who'd died twice and been resurrected into anger—became Khal Jason, leader of a people he didn't understand, husband to a princess he'd just met, and protector of a girl who would one day birth dragons.
The story was just beginning.
And somewhere very far away, in a cave beneath a manor in a world he'd never see again, a bat was missing a son who'd found a strange new home.
But that was another story, for another time.
This one was about blood and sand and the choices we make when monsters come calling.
And Jason Todd, for all his faults, had always been good at making the hard choices.
Even when they made him a king.
---
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