Chapter Text
Jason’s ears are still ringing from the bullet he put in the fucker’s skull.
In the end, it was a tame matter: no explosion, no bartering with the bat (the scar on his neck reminded him not to try again), and positively no crowbars.
Nonetheless, Jason was content. He handled it with grace. A simple bullet through the temple was all it took— no banter, no small talk, just Jason crouching down and staring into the Joker's eyes as he splattered his brains on the wall.
Very tame.
He got away clean, of course. Unharmed too. It wouldn’t have gotten this far if he didn’t, no, he wouldn’t allow the clown to lay one single fucking finger on him. Jason wiped away the evidence hours ago, chopped the body up into little pieces, and is currently heaving them around in a black plastic bag.
Very inconspicuous.
His hands tremble as he rips his helmet off and ghosts his fingers over his domino, making sure it’s in place before dropping the bag to the floor. He sticks a gloved hand in, only faintly disgusted as he grabs a handful of… clown confetti, and stares.
He doesn’t know what he’s doing here.
The harbor is gorgeous at night, the water sloshes only slightly, and Jason takes a breath before heaving the handful of gore into the depths below. A sigh leaves him as he rifles through the bag, and a deeper, weary breath leaves him when he begins skipping pieces individually across the harbor.
It’s strange, but the plunk! plunk! plunk! as he heaves bits of the Joker's leg in the near-stagnant water reminds him of a summer with Bruce years ago.
He recalls it clearly, the sun was beating down on his tense face as he showcased his terrible stone-skipping skills. Bruce had smiled. Even more so when Jason succeeded.
This time isn’t very different; Jason still feels the same frustration when the chunks refuse to skip just as the rocks did. The moonlight shines down on him as the sun did all the same, and his smile mirrors the same one Bruce had— only a bit more crazed, sharp, not very happy, and, if he's being honest with himself, this is nothing like that summer day years ago.
Jason is alone. It's winter, he's shaking with adrenaline (and something else), and the chunks are far too squishy to skid across the water.
It’s okay, though, he prefers this, really. The stars smile down on him, and he imagines they're proud as he hurls globs of Joker meat into the harbor.
What a sentence.
But he stands by the thought— where the night looks at him fondly, the others (the bats) would probably be horrified, and rightly so. In spite of that, a sliver of anger still worms its way through his veins. Jason takes a deep breath, waiting for the rage to bubble up and explode through him as it usually does. He’s gotten better at controlling it; the detonation of green in his body is all the same, but now Jason staggers back instead of swinging with a Lazarus-laced fist.
He feels the simmer as it moves up through his body— pure heat roiling from his core to behind his eyes, but the eruption never happens. There are no whispers, no thundering in his head, no trace of the usual symptoms other than the initial flush that leaves as quickly as it came.
Huh.
Jason looks to the sky and back down at the shrinking pile in the bag. A piece of flesh so white it glows catches his eye.
Maybe if the arc is big enough, and the moon catches the chalk-white skin just right, it can replicate a shooting star. Maybe the Joker can be of use to him for once.
His hands tremble, but Jason doesn’t attempt to calm himself as he throws the flesh in large arcs across the harbor in quite possibly one of the most depraved moments of his life. He can feel the slightest bit of lightheadedness as the moment catches up to him.
Jason is quick to shove it back into the recesses of his mind.
He's too immersed in replicating a shooting star, as delusional as it is. He tries and fails, growing more irate as the pile dwindles and the soft wind begins to jostle the increasingly empty bag.
Jason knows that it's less about aesthetics and more about wishing it all away— he’s spent too much time reading to not analyze the actions of everyday life deeper, especially his own. He knows it’s less about how the light catches pale skin and more about carving out his dreams and desperately hoping to create his own personal miracle.
He wishes he didn't have to take the Joker’s death into his own hands. He wishes he didn’t have to ever see his face again after the initial gasp of breath after the Lazarus all those years ago.
Jason wishes that he were fifteen again and stargazing with his back on the hard docks instead of standing alone with his fist clenched around rubbery tissue.
He doesn’t want to be here anymore, to be an outsider, to have his own back. He wants to wish it all away.
Then again, he remembers wishing to see Sheila. He got his wish granted in full with Ethiopia.
He goes back to skipping. Maybe wishing isn’t a good idea after all. His movements are fuzzy around the edges, and his eyes feel like someone’s pulled a sheet over them, but he can’t stop.
After all, Jason's focused on getting rid of the clown completely, nearly dislocating his shoulder with how far he throws sometimes. The pile grows smaller and smaller, eventually reaching the last piece.
Soon, all that is left is a piece of the cadaver’s palm. It's not planned, not by a long shot, so Jason believes it’s fate.
Forehand or backhand?
“What about sink or swim?” he mutters under his breath and hurls it into the sky. He ignores the quiet splash of it returning to Earth and closes his eyes. He imagines he managed to break the barrier, forcing the man thousands of miles away and putting a planet between them. He avoids thinking about how the man who took everything is still near him, sinking into the depths below his feet.
He takes one last look and leaves. He can hear the swishing of plastic as the bag flies away. His mind is racing, but he feels himself go on autopilot, and he doesn’t stop himself.
—
Jason blinks.
It only takes a second to realize he doesn’t remember getting here. It takes another second to realize he suddenly has his helmet on and somehow trekked through Gotham without his bike— which he now realizes is still at the harbor. Jason blinks, again, again, and again, finding himself ‘teleported’ several times as he wanders.
He checks the time on his phone before shoving it back. He faintly realizes that he should go home, well, to his safe house. He doesn’t remember the path he took here. But before he can worry, he feels the empty state overtake him again, and he can’t help but sink back into the floaty feeling.
Another dissociative awakening in a seedy area snaps him out of it in an instant, and he turns to leave. Jason fails to realize where exactly he is.
A meaty fist slams into his jaw. The pain is minimal, but the impact caused by the swerve of his helmet disorients him even more than he is already.
He stumbles back and whips his gun out with practiced ease, firing off a couple of shots while he attempts to regain his bearings.
He wandered into enemy territory. Because, of course, he did.
It should be a simple takedown, really. He’s strapped, and has already taken out two of the— one, two, three, five, shit, eight (?) men, their moaning on the ground is evidence enough.
But something nags at the back of his mind, he's not feeling his usual self as he pulls the trigger, and as bodies hit the floor. He wants to feel something— wants to draw out the fight. Jason is not bloodthirsty by nature. It's just not in his code. It's righteousness that pumps through his veins. This fight started as self-defense, the violence an outlet, a reaction, like a cornered dog snapping its jaws.
But tonight... a yell alerts him that there’s more, and he smiles.
He sees a glint but doesn't move in time. His movements are too slow for his years in training; dazed or not he knows he is capable of better. He knows, yet when the glint becomes impossibly close, he doesn’t dodge. A blade swipes at his arm— a surface-level wound that hurts so good— and he relishes in the feeling. Through the oncoming swipes and punches, he sees the familiar shape of a gun.
Adrenaline surges through him. The slice was fine, but a bullet will make this dangerous.
Jason pistol-whips a man unconscious and shoots another in the chest; his movements are sloppier than normal— he trips over the unconscious man’s legs and accidentally shoots one of them in the bicep instead of the abdomen.
It was supposed to be a simple matter, a good fight, he broods as he uses one of the men as a shield against oncoming bullets. He hears more footsteps, and his movements stutter.
Something cold settles in the pit of his stomach; it’s not a simple matter. There are more voices, more people, more brandishing of weapons, and attempts to hurt him that make him anxious. He hasn't killed anyone in months— but as he already broke the streak with the clown, he might as well take advantage. He hates feeling like a cornered dog (or mutt in his case).
Jason reloads and fires four headshots.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
As the bodies fall around him in a macabre song of bullets and blood, he feels… off. A strange pain builds at the base of his throat and burns behind his eyes. There are so many bodies— moving and unmoving— that he’s starting to lose track.
He doesn't have long to worry about it, though. Jason grunts as a blade slides through his armor, settling neatly between his ribs before forcing itself deeper and twisting.
The pain burns and aches; yet, Jason relishes in it for a second because, finally, he’s feeling something familiar. He'd take anything other than the vacuum that’s been in him since the minute he began separating the clown’s head from his body— anything other than the strange, nauseating feeling of watching bodies hit the floor.
He shoots the man wielding the knife, still buried deep in Jason’s abdomen, between the eyes. The blade is pulled down with his body, and Jason lurches back at the feeling of being torn from the inside.
Another headshot. A pipe into someone's spine. He cracks some necks and plunges a knife into someone’s temple.
The fight only takes a couple of minutes, the last takedown only a couple of seconds, but Jason is still stuck with that deeply unsettled feeling rather than the usual relief of victory.
It’s not until he's standing over the litter of bodies— some left in open-mouthed screams, others gasping for breath— that he realizes what’s been nagging him so badly.
The pit is quiet. Deathly so.
Blood flushes from his throbbing wound, reminding him of its presence.
Jason. Well, Jason doesn't care about the cut right now. He loosely applies pressure, but his mind is anywhere other than the flowing blood down his gut. He should patch himself up, call for help, and maybe stop by Leslie's because this is definitely not looking good. But the pit is quiet, and for the first time, Jason stands over bodies he’s killed without the help of Lazarus whispering into his ears.
Well.
He takes one look at wide, dead eyes and staggers.
He’s never realized how quiet death is.
It’s always been a stormy thing, thunderous green rushing through him, mind blaring with whispers and thoughts that were only barely his. Lightning strikes of bullet crackles, and screams would back the thunder in staccatos.
But now, it’s silent. He can hear everything but in a different way— not in the ear-piercing thrums of green and pitches of gunshots and shrieks— instead he hears everything in the details, in the way blood trickles down from the cooling bodies, in the last whistles of breaths, the sound of fluttering of eyelids as they shut.
He doesn’t feel sorry— he doesn’t— but something in his stomach curls.
He hears a squelch under his boot and almost hurls.
Jason runs.
Each step he takes is heavy, pain shoots up through him with every crunch of gravel, but Jason lets his feet carry him anywhere. He knows he's limping more than running, that he’s leaving a trail, but he's too focused on getting away from the army of cadavers to care.
Jason bumps into a wall and frowns, only barely recognizing his surroundings as a small alley, a daze flushing over him. He flutters his gloved hand over the wall and runs his hand over the bricks as he lurches deeper into the alley.
Once he deems himself too tired to continue, he slumps against the wall, cringing slightly with the wear and tear of his wound. He feels a rush of warmth on his hand as blood gushes over his trembling fingers. He pauses for a moment, reconsidering, but slides down anyway— he still has time. Maybe.
He looks down.
He can’t see the exact state of his wound with the mess of blood and the deep red stain spreading on his suit. The blood flows slowly under the pressure he’s applied. He picks at the edge of his suit, attempting to get a better look, and winces when the gash throbs with the slightest movement— yeah, no.
He leans back and breathes, thumping the back of his head against the jagged wall. The helmet cushions the impact, and he takes it off for the second time tonight. He takes a deep breath and centers himself. What’s wrong with him?
He focuses on figuring out what’s going on with his body first. Lightheadedness, dizziness— Jason presses two fingers against his pulse point, eh, normal enough. He’s safe for now. He presses firmly against the laceration, just ten more minutes to stop the bleeding,g and he’ll get up.
He closes his eyes and takes as deep a breath as he can without straining his body. He's applied pressure but has yet to… do anything really. The green is leaving him. The rage, the anger, Jason's mind is clearer than ever.
Here are the facts: he came back to life, was thrown in Lazarus stew, found out he was replaced, found out the Joker was alive, and reacted accordingly.
Here is the other, probably more true fact: he may not have reacted so accordingly.
He had hurt Robins— children. Right now, as the Lazarus recedes from his mind, his senses are flooded with metallic smells and phantom screams. He sees bruised, mottled skin and blood on the Robins that succeeded him. Small limbs with their hands curled into loose fists and arms bared to him in defense.
They’re cordial now, more than he deserves, he thinks.
When he blinks, he sees red-rimmed eyes and entrails. He doesn't regret killing the scum he did. He's seen them before, harassing working girls. Back then, he let them off with rubber bullet-shaped bruises. But right now, he can't stop their corpses from haunting his mind, no matter how much he tries. He's never felt this way before. Despite the constant pressure, blood is soaking into his thigh now, and it fills him with nausea. He can't stand the smell of it.
He steals another breath from the world. Then several. Then he feels blood thundering in his veins as he begins to hyperventilate.
Gaped mouths and the smell of death.
A deep breath, in and out.
The feeling of brain matter under his boots.
A pang goes through him as he accidentally clenches the skin around his stab wound. Every attempt to calm himself is fruitless. These feelings of nausea and guilt are too far from the anger he’s been accustomed to. With every shut of his eyelids, he sees another scene taken from the most destructive moments of his life. He sees bubbling blood from mouths and blood-matted jet-black hair.
Please. Please, please, please, let him think of anything else. He heaves and claws at his thigh and rocks back and forth to no avail. He attempts to physically knock himself out, thudding his head against the wall, but he’s too weak with blood loss to control his head properly. It mostly just flops back, giving him a sweet, dull pain that doesn’t last long enough.
It takes him some minutes to gain some semblance of control of his mind again.
He looks down at the small puddle forming near his leg.
The red reminds him of the satin lining of his coffin. He steels himself— not much better than the earlier thoughts, but this, he can take this. He will take it over the gray-spotted skin of decay, over wide blue eyes behind domino masks and fresh blood.
He’s had years to mull over his death; he can take a couple more minutes. Maybe he’ll brainstorm— next time he’s definitely getting one of those coffins that have a bell.
Next time, huh?
He had always thought of how he would die. Again.
Most likely in combat, a wayward bullet straight through the head; maybe a dozen targeted at him directly. Most of all, he’d always thought he would die at the hands of the Joker again.
He actually… hadn't thought far into the future— life after the Joker. He really didn’t think he would pull it off alive. He thought of dying and the present, but never what happened after he finished what he set out to do. Of course, he planned to keep Crime Alley clean and be a general pain in the Bat clan's ass after killing the Joker, but he can't think of anything specific.
The thought strikes him— he doesn't know what to do from here. He looks down to where his hand cups his wound, towards the blood dripping down to the concrete.
Maybe… maybe the Joker was enough.
He digs out his phone with his other hand. The cracked screen reads fifty-five percent, and a quick glance at the time lets him know his ten minutes have passed.
When he looks down, it’s as if the pressure hadn’t existed at all; the steady stream of red continues pouring through the cracks between his fingers. Alarm bells ring in his head— it’s deeper than he thought. He should get up. But he’s tired.
Jason removes the pressure and lets his hand fall limply next to his side; he shoves it back into his pocket, but his movements stutter… he might not need it. He scrutinizes it for a moment, vaguely thinking about sending it flying towards a wall, before going through with putting it in his pocket.
He can't quite get himself to move— to get up towards safety. He knows time is limited, and he should be calling someone; Babs is just a click away, so he should call. He blinks.
Jason looks up at the night sky.
Usually, Gotham’s smog and fumes made for gorgeous sunsets, but at night, they blocked out the stars. Tonight they glow. He can feel his heart beating faster—his head feels light—dazed as he stares at the glittering night sky.
Effervescent.
He allows himself to smile; the reader in him had never left, and he's now realizing there are so many words he won't be able to make his own. It's okay, he tells himself, this was a good run, and he watches the stars intently.
He feels sick, even as for the first time in forever, he has the time to stargaze— Gotham gave him the chance to see them. He smiles even as nausea crawls up his throat.
The sea of smog parts for Jason and bears him a sight so beautiful, he can die just like this. Even with chills running down his spine and nausea sitting at the base of his stomach, he’s happy. Content.
Maybe.
Maybe he can die like this.
It's not like he hasn't had these thoughts before— in the dead of night when his safe houses were too quiet. When the green seemed to take a rest from pervading his mind. He’d thought of how he’d die thousands of times. But these specific thoughts were a different breed.
How he would die on a normal day? Easy— he thought of it at any passing moment, joked about it constantly. The scenarios came naturally.
But the thoughts that came at night, after rough days that left him aching inside and out, were different, also natural, but left him shaken and sick. Jason had thought of taking his own life those nights. Because how he wanted to die and how he thought he would die were two different things.
Jason prioritizes control, and always has, and he wants to be the one to put the final nail in his coffin. It’s just a matter of time.
He’d imagine blowing his brains out, not dodging a fatal shot in the middle of a fight, or flying off the tallest building and turning into Todd mush. Sometimes, if they lingered well into the next day, he let them influence his fights.
Despite the surging adrenaline and Lazarus's wrath, sickly sweet whispers of how it could all just go away if he let his guard down— if he dived instead of dodged or ignored the outline of a gun- he never put his life completely at risk. He listened, to an extent. He’d let whoever he was fighting slice and bruise him in a way he’d know would hurt for as long as Jason needed, but never committed to anything lethal- until now.
It all led back to the Joker. He couldn’t, no, wouldn’t let the clown outlive him. He pushed through any number of bullets and batarangs to the neck to outlive him, even if by seconds. He survived and survived— never lived. But now the Joker is several feet under and Jason has no reason to keep on going. His goal was accomplished, not in the way he imagined, but accomplished nonetheless.
If anything, he has more of a reason to let himself bleed out here. Once news of the Joker’s death comes out, there’s no way it won’t lead back to him. Then he’ll be fighting a war on several fronts— his followers, villains fighting to take his place, bounties, and the bats.
His heart drops at the thought, and Jason drags his hands over his face. His skin feels cold, clammy, and now sticky because he forgot how much blood he had on his hands before accidentally smearing it on his face.
He snorts, a little right on the nose, isn’t he?
A sad smile forms on his face, blood runs down the crevice of his upturned lips, and he can taste the bitterness.
He’ll have so much work to do, so many emotions he’ll feel the full extent of now that the pit is nothing more than a whisper.
Jason is scared. He’s gotten so used to the always-there anger, the burning under his skin that he doesn’t know how to be normal again. He doesn’t know how to repent for what he’s done, he doesn’t know how to feel. His emotions were a complex maze, always have been, but the pit shot through the walls and kept him from figuring the maze out himself. It gave him an easy exit, even if it wasn’t the right one, the rage kept him from falling into the deep sadness that he’s kept at bay. Until now.
Jason isn’t scared, he realizes. No, he’s terrified.
Because he hasn’t talked to Bruce in months. Because he shot Dami- a child- in front of Dick. Because Tim (another child) still flinches around him. Because he doesn't know how to be better. Because he got his second chance at life and fucked it all up.
The thing is— he feels guilty. He feels shame curling in his gut and a clench in his chest as he thinks of all he’s done. But he still feels angry; Jason woke up with Lazarus green eyes and learned his killer was still alive with no outlet other than his finger curled around the cool metal of a trigger.
There are too many emotions swirling around inside of him, and he can barely keep himself from having a panic attack; it’s too much to have them all hit him at full force when they had been shoved to the back for so long.
He can feel the traces of green still lingering within him. A part of him wants to reach and pull that fury, to feel the one thing he could rely on since he was resurrected. They replaced you, killed you again, everything you’ve done and will do— they deserve it (do they?). He winces; it's clawing and scraping to reach the surface— to help him feel anything — trying to keep itself from dying with him like the parasite it is. But he thinks back to small limbs and looming over a Robin just as the Joker did once, and he pushes it back down.
This can end with him.
Maybe the universe is being restored this way; the least he can do is go along with the balance.
With another pulse of pain, he looks up. He can feel his eyes start to ache from the strain of holding his tears back. He swallows, and it hurts. He feels cold, feels something wet slide down his cheek, and can’t tell if it’s a cold sweat because of the blood loss or a tear. With a ragged breath, he strains his neck to look even harder— to find something, anything in the stars.
Because Jason loved looking at constellations when he was young, not that he would remember any of them now. In the cold of winter when he was on the streets, he hoped Catherine was looking down on him— wished she turned into a star. He hoped to become one someday, too. Jason smiles bitterly as he stares at the inky sky littered with glimmering spots of white.
He could never be one, he muses, he’d be much too dim. He would probably manage to find a way to fuck up being a flaming ball of gas.
No, Jason's more like space litter— scraps of broken and useless debris strewn around the galaxy— the large and heavy kind that people didn't want coming too close to Earth's orbit lest they get pulled in and destroy everything.
Yeah, space litter.
That’s… kind of a bummer.
It makes sense, though. He couldn’t even live as a human, right— he had to become a monster. He couldn’t be Bruce’s son right, Dick’s brother, everything was handed to him on a platter at fifteen and he had to run to Ethiopia. He fucked up being a Robin and a son so badly that Bruce replaced him on both fronts.
A lightning bolt of acid shoots through him. Ah, there it is. The last of the pit rage that had been pushed down for so long finally pushes through.
His heart begins to beat faster, an unnerving thrum under his skin he’s only slightly gotten used to. He taps his foot restlessly, wanting to fight it as it simmers, but being too tired to do so.
Now he won’t even be able to die properly. Again. He wanted it to be peaceful; he thought the pit was far too weak to break through. Another fuck up by Jason, what a surprise.
He guesses they were right, in the end. He was crazy, permanently altered by the pit, by the resurrection, by that stupid fucking clown. It’s by luck that they hadn’t thrown him into Arkham with a custom straitjacket. He can imagine it wrapped tightly around himself, 'Jason Todd- positively do not enrage’ printed in bold black across his back.
The final nail in his coffin.
The green surges straight through his body one last time, bursting through him like a bullet.
Because he tried, god damn it. He could be better, he knows, oh how Jason fucking knows he could be better. He won't ever be Dick or his replacement or Damian or even himself from all those years ago (being Robin gives me magic!), but he’s tired of this. He hasn’t killed in months, and no one has noticed.
He tried to get on their good side, stopped shooting heads, and went for limbs and knockdowns rather than lethal strikes. Even used rubber bullets here and there. And yet, he will never be good enough, no matter how much he fights against the painful electricity that nearly constantly buzzes under his skin. There will always be those wary stares, the constant reminders to not fuck up like he always does.
Jason grabs a piece of crumbled brick next to his lap and throws it against the wall in front of him. Adrenaline pumps through him and erases the pain for a moment; the weakness in his limbs is still there, but he relishes in the floaty feeling.
When he wasn’t thinking about killing himself, he always thought he would go out with a bang. Well, another one. Maybe take everyone with him, sucking them in like a black hole. Jason's rage was all-consuming like one— wanting to take more and more and more until he was content. He never was.
He’s tired of playing the Boy Scout, begging for his father’s love in the most unconventional ways. He’s tired of being cordial to those who replaced him before his body got the chance to rot. He’s tired of the arguments and fighting- of the pure rage that fills him when Bruce, even so, glances at him with that stupid goddamn look in his eyes. Jason will never be able to win the approval of Bruce, no, not when he lives in the shadow of his fifteen-year-old self.
He rips his comm out of his ear and hurles it as far out of the alley as he can.
He braces himself and can feel the desperate push of the Lazarus coursing through his veins as he forces himself up to stand, shaking slightly. Maybe he should take them with him. Fight. That’s all he’ll ever be good for, anyway. He couldn’t drag it out with the Joker, maybe this was the pit’s last push— his last chance at being a star— a supernova, no, to become a black hole and go out just the way they all expected him to.
Because they don’t expect any more from him, right? He can feel it in their eyes, in their tense body language when he’s in the vicinity, the quips, and snipes, the constant reminders about lethal force. Well fuck them, he’ll be just exactly who they think he is. Blood trickling down his body and limbs jerking with exertion, Jason laughs until his throat aches.
A full-body laugh, hunched over and squeezing the blood out of his body like a lime slice. He stumbles a bit with the force of his laugh, beginning to feel more like a scream than anything. He catches the glint of his helmet and kicks it, nearly falling back with the discoordination of his limbs.
He’ll show them in their cushy mansion, maybe he’ll set it on fire, throw a bat of chemicals, and light it aflame. He’ll demolish the place— destroy that stupid fucking memorial he knows is still there because their Jason never came back. His laugh dies, a choked noise coming out of him.
Their Jason never came back, he realizes, just a stranger wearing his face.
He takes a step and stumbles slightly, holding himself up against the wall. He’s beginning to feel the numbing feeling subsiding; it feels like he’s being ripped from the inside out, but the pit doesn’t care; it only supplies him with more anger, more rage, and more blood rushing through his veins and out of his wound.
His heart beats incessantly, and he vaguely realizes that maybe a pit-induced frenzy was not the best for his health. Another step, two, three, five, where was he— backward or forwards, he can’t even tell anymore, and he trips.
And Jason— Jason. The last thing Jason sees is the deep red of his eyelids.
—
A cold shiver runs through him when he opens his eyes. Where is he again?
He looks around as best as he can without lifting his temple from the ground. The cool ground feels too good. Deep red puddles of blood surround him, he can feel faint wisps of wind hitting his bare face, not covered by the domino. He feels sticky all over,r and his gut hurts, and—
Oh.
Just as quickly and strongly as it came, the fight left, leaving Jason cold and empty on the floor like a bullet casing. Jason struggles to get up from where he’s lying on the ground.
He barely manages to sit up— realizing he somehow got deeper into the alley, tucked next to a dumpster, and fumbles for his phone again. The screen nearly blinds him when he checks the time. Fifteen minutes. He passed out for fifteen minutes.
With a shaky breath, he pulls himself up and leans against the brick again. He’s nearing dangerous levels of blood loss. But he just shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath. He takes one last look at his phone before sliding it away. It skids across the rugged pavement, and he prides himself on only slightly wincing with the movement of his arm. He can suddenly feel every injury, the bruises earned from his fight, the gash on his arm, and a dull headache from when he banged it against the wall.
When he looks up at the sky again, at the stars as they twinkle like a certain butler’s eyes, he wonders what Alfred would think.
He regrets not talking to him more.
Maybe it’s for the best; Alfred would hate to see what he's become. Even worse, Jason would hate to find out Alfred feels the same, because Alfred was strict but kind. He was caring in the way he’d let Jason keep food in his room when he first moved in, in pasting his school essays on the fridge, in letting him “help” by tasting the food as it was being cooked (as if it would ever be off), in patching him up whenever he got into fights.
He wishes he were at the manor, Alfred chiding him while wrapping a bandage around his wound.
‘Now, Master Jason, what took you so long?’ he would say, maybe— hopefully. Jason would smile and say something stupid, probably throwing a wink in for good measure. Alfred would stare at him blankly, but once Jason’s injuries were accounted for and he parted, he would look at him with a fond look and say, ‘You haven’t changed, my boy,’ and Jason… well, Jason knows that would never happen.
He laughs— he seems to be doing that a bit tonight.
He’s glad the fight left him when it did. He couldn’t imagine hurting them all again, but especially Alfred.
Jason imagines what color his eyes are now.
They’ve been more of a teal or green with the constant presence of the pit. When he first got out, they were an acidic green, but he’s prided himself in tamping it down.
Not that the others would notice.
There's no flicker of rage behind that thought, and he bites back a whimper. It can’t really be gone, can it? But he doesn’t feel anything other than exhaustion.
He limply raises his arm and attempts to shove his hair out of his face— when did he take off his helmet?— and grimaces at the damp feeling of his hair. He takes off a bloody, sticky glove and presses the back of his hand against his face. It’s warm and clammy, but somehow colder than his face, and he leans into the chill.
A pang surges through his chest as he realizes he’s cradling himself. He knows he’s moving into dangerous territory; it’s his last chance to get help before he breathes his last breath in some rotten alley. He’s sweaty, his heart rate is through the roof despite just sitting here, and he’s fighting off sleep with every blink.
He doesn’t know what he’s waiting for. He can shut his eyes and drift off forever, but he makes an effort to keep himself awake. He can feel his breath leaving him and fights to catch up, panting in his effort to breathe.
He wants to leave and doesn’t want to be a problem anymore, but his body is fighting to keep him alive. A small part of him knows it’s not just his body that wants to stay alive. But he’s done too much; he doesn’t want to see pitying or annoyed stares anymore. He doesn’t want to be anymore, no matter how much he has left to do.
Jason is dying. There’s not much to do from here but regret.
He regrets not stopping by for one last meal with Alfie. He regrets not letting himself be tangled in one of Dick’s octopus hugs. He regrets hurting the kids who didn’t deserve it. Most of all, he regrets not being good enough to avoid dying in the first place all those years ago.
He takes off his domino. He doesn’t want to die as Red Hood and wants to see the stars properly before he dies.
This time, he won’t die in a fury of flames as Robin, he will die gazing at the stars as Jason Todd.
It’s hard, but he takes one long, last look at the glimmer of stars above him and shuts his eyes.
“...has to be… here… the bodies… fresh…tire marks— …on foot.”
Jason’s ears twitch.
Through the haze of his stupor, he recognizes that voice. His head lolls as he tries to tilt it to hear better, and he gives up immediately. Right now he’s tired, they’re too out of ear range, and if it were important, he would remember anyway.
“He’s… long gone…B… not the type…one place… too long.”
Jason groans under his breath, their voices growing louder, and he can’t place their positions. It feels like they’re coming from all sides, close yet far.
He hears a thud above him and footsteps around the corner. He could barely decipher their words earlier, and now it’s almost impossible for him to tune them out with their rising voices and agitated tones.
“Todd has to know we’re searching for him, especially after that crude… display he left.”
“Names—”
“That’s what I don’t understand! He hasn’t done any of that stuff in a while! Something’s wrong here, which is why we’re looking for him, Rob. Babs— Oracle— said he wasn’t picking up.”
Is it too much to ask for one peaceful death?
His head throbs with each noise, and years of training make him extra sensitive to the movements: stomps all around him, the restless tapping of a foot, tuts, and sneers are thrown back and forth. It’s hard for him to decipher how many people there are, let alone why he should care that they’re here, but he’s tired and they’re impeding his death.
Jason squeezes his eyes tighter, not bothering to look around. He is just so tired, a type of bone-deep exhaustion he’s only felt once before. He knows the end is coming and wants to be alone.
A familiar growl makes a jolt of something shoot through him; he feels a flurry of emotions— fear, wariness, homesickness, and has to keep himself from throwing up. What is Batman doing here? It’s too much for Jason, whose eyes shoot open as he fumbles with his utility belt as best as he can with the little coordination he has. He’s sure he has a switch in there that does something, anything to keep the Bat away.
With a clammy hand, he runs his thumb over a small red button. After fumbling to activate it, he can barely see it with the darkness that surrounds him and the deep red of his blood smearing over the device. If he remembers right this was for some empty warehouse in fuck knows where. He takes a breath.
Click!
A cacophony of reds, oranges, and yellows explodes near him. It’s blinding, it’s beautiful. Maybe he’s going out with an explosion after all. The blast leaves a residue of bright, white light in his eyes, and he smiles a little to himself, dazed. Like an exploding star.
“What the fuck was that?!”
The small bite of shrapnel hits him seconds later, and he’s less happy about that. Bits of red metal stick out of his uniform and his hands. When he frowns, he can feel the sting of some on his face. More pain. He’s not as happy about the explosion anymore; his ears are ringing too loudly, and everything is starting to hurt again. He’s too hot and too cold all over; he can feel a mixture of clammy sweat and sticky blood all over, and most of all he’s tired.
“Down the alley! Hood? I don’t know what we did to piss you off this time but we don’t need to do this again.”
The ringing in his ears dies down, but the voices have gotten nearer, much to Jason’s displeasure. Too close for comfort.
“B… B! This is Jason's—”
“Names, Nightwing”
“You don't understand, it's Ja— a piece of Red Hood's helmet! Fuck, where is he? Hood? Hood?"
“So Todd broke his precious helmet— what of it? He's probably brooding wherever he goes to hide.”
“It’s bulletproof. Hood’s helmet doesn’t ‘break’ Robin,” a voice sneers, “It’s lined with explosives, that’s the only way…”
Huh. So that’s what happened. Jason smiles. It’s kind of funny. Nothing he does ever goes right.
“He wouldn’t— nonono— Hood? Where are you? Jay?”
“Names Night —”
“Fuck off right now, B!”
The panicked voices and footsteps grow closer, probably following the trail of shrapnel from his helmet. Jason should be worried; he should get up and move.
“There’s blood!”
But his body feels much too heavy, and to be honest, he can’t remember why he should be so scared of Batman and his new crew right now. He wants nothing more than to sleep. In the puddle of his blood, he lets himself go boneless.
He hears a silent landing near him, the padding of feet, and then a sharp intake of breath right above him. He opens his eyes, and it’s not an easy feat. His whatever-colored eyes look into sharp, blue eyes. He can feel the man’s shaky breaths as he stares from his position, squatted in front of Jason.
“Little wing?"
For what feels like the millionth, but final time, Jason closes his eyes.
The last thing he feels is a cool glove brushing his cheek, and he leans into it, ignoring the pained whimper that comes from the man above him.
The last thing he hears is an eruption of voices, rivaling the noise of the blast from earlier.
The last thing he thinks is that he always knew he would go out with a bang.