Red Knight - Jason Todd x Ariana Wayne (OC)

Chapter 3

It was a little over an hour before Ariana returned to the tower. "I'm back," she called out but got no response. She looked about and saw a passed out Garfield on the couch. No doubt the celebration wrapped up and everyone went to bed. Ari chuckled and decided to go to bed. On her way she gave Dick a call to find out when he was coming over. It was just ringing and Dick wasn't picking up. She dialed again and heard a faint ringing come further down the hallway from near Kori's room. "What an odd coincidence."

Ari went towards her friend's bedroom and the ringing got louder then stopped. That's when she heard the moaning. "Kori are you --" She stopped mid-sentence and stared in disbelief. Dick was standing just outside Kori's room kissing her and not just some sort of innocent friend type kiss like she'd given to Jason's forehead. He wasn't trying to back away and neither was she. "Richard John Grayson, how could you?" She whisper yelled then turned and ran.

Dawn came and there was no sign of Ariana anywhere. Jason called Dick and asked if he'd seen her, but he hadn't. Dick sounded guilty as he told Jason that he hadn't heard from Ariana in over two months. Jason explained that it was odd since she'd called him the night before and asked him to meet her at King's Court and then never showed up.

Bruce and Dick didn't seem to share Jason's concern. Not at first. Not until it had been over a week without anyone hearing from Ariana. The search started in earnest but turned up nothing after a few months of searching. It seemed that Ariana had just up and vanished without a trace.

Eventually the search had to be stopped as Dick and Bruce had their cities to protect from the various criminals within. Jason however kept up the search. He didn't need to worry about patrolling since he was on cave duty so he could put his whole focus on finding his friend and crush.

~~~*~~~

Several months had passed before there was a video message that came through to the Batcomputer from an anonymous sender. There was a written message that said Batsy, lookie what I found! A video played of various moments of Ariana being tortured and beaten. Then came her screaming and the sound of flesh being burned. Joke laughed and looked to the camera. "Come get me Batsy!" He left a location for him to follow.

Jason gave a quick call to Dick and Bruce, but they were too busy to answer at the moment. He wasn't going to wait for them. He couldn't. Joker would no doubt kill Ariana and he wasn't going to let that happen. Especially to the girl who'd done nothing but comfort him when he needed it and no one else would. Unfortunately it lead to the Boy Wonder being beaten by the psychotic clown and being left for dead. Batman was able to track down Jason's location, but he made it to the warehouse that held him just in time for it to get blown up. Batman broke and furiously tried to find his sidekick. No, his son. He was able to quickly get Jason's body back to Gotham. By the time he did and got back to the Batcomputer, another video was sent.

"Have you got something to tell the nice man Ariana?" Came the Joker's voice.

A hoarse sounding female voice answered, "my name is Ariana Wayne."

"Who do you hate my girl?"

"Batman!" She spit out, almost venomously.

"Excellent. Of course you do. Hear that Bats? Kid's not yours anymore. She's mine! Mine mine mine!" Joker laughed and turned to look at Ari. "I never asked. Who's the big bad bat? Tell me his name."

Ariana's head head remained handing down as she spoke. "Of course sir. It's--"

Joker shot her and then looked into the camera. "Never could stand a tattletale. That's why I work alone. No one to spoil the punchline. You should try it sometime. After all, you've seen what happens when you dragon your friends into this crazy little game of ours. Oh! I'll let you do the honors of telling ol' Brucie that his kid's dead. That makes two little bat brats dead." The camera shut off after the Joker giving his signature insane laughter and the video ended.

Now Bruce was shattered. "Consider him told," he whispered and fought not to cry. Tears wouldn't serve anyone right now. Even though two deaths weighed heavily on his conscience now. Bruce took a moment to collect himself then called Dick. "You need to get here now. It's about Jason and Ariana... They're both dead." He played the video when the former Boy Wonder made it to the Batcave.