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The air that wove through the busy streets of downtown Gotham was incontrovertibly disparate from the fresh, crisp air that filled the lungs of residents comfortably situated in Gotham Manor. Fortunately, for his constitution if not for his pleasant memories, Jason Todd was quite accustomed to the fashion in which city air — soiled by factory smoke and filthy public walkways — curled around one’s nose and tainted the senses. If Jason could not delight in Gotham’s urban ambiance, he could at least tolerate its more lurid details in the same way a visiting son could tolerate his family’s idiosyncrasies better than might his accompanying fiancée.
Some few but productive months had passed since Jason first took residence in Gotham Manor as Damian Wayne’s tutor. Jason had been blessed, he felt, with a particularly brilliant (albeit wickedly inclined) pupil. Following Jason’s official introduction to Damian, he began educating the boy at an unrelenting pace, sympathetic to neither Damian’s precocious reasoning abilities against his own cultivation, nor discouraged by his infernal tantrums. Alfred Pennyworth, the Manor’s upstanding housekeeper and overseer, enumerated to Jason with refreshing honesty all the tutors young Master Damian had driven mad to the point of self-termination. Jason, not one to be intimidated, acknowledged such a temperament as a stroke of divine luck: surely, had not the privileged youth had a better disposition, Jason would not have obtained such hasty employment at this sophisticated of an estate.
As it was, Jason had had a quieting effect on Damian unprecedented by the adults in his short life. Young Master Damian had always had the Devil in him, claimed Mr. Pennyworth, but his behavior had worsened following the deaths of his parents. Richard Grayson, inheritor of both the Manor and the son, had likely been Damian’s sole companion during the late Bruce Wayne’s life. But tragedy had made Mr. Grayson’s presence sparse. Mr. Pennyworth, unwittingly echoing Jason’s internal belief in timely providence, remarked upon the lucky appearance of Jason’s ad in the local newspaper. Mr. Grayson, on the occasions he was home, would not heed talk of sending Damian to boarding school; nonetheless, the wayward youth was wearing on everyone’s nerves.
That fateful day marking Jason’s arrival at his new home, Mr. Pennyworth had invited him to tea with more warmth than courtesy considering it was midnight when Jason’s coach finally pulled up the drive. Jason, grateful for any reception at all, accepted the aged man’s hospitality. As Mr. Pennyworth raised his cup from its porcelain plate, a shadow fell over his eyes. “I must warn you, Mr. Todd, that although Wayne Manor has the potential for joy, it has been a somber place of late, possessing a subdued atmosphere interrupted only by turbulence and tragedy. I neither wish to scare you off nor keep you in the dark regarding Master Richard’s expectations. We hope that you will help Damian Wayne regain his composure and guarantee him a future as a sensible gentleman. As the late Master Wayne’s only natural son, Wayne Manor’s fate rests on his cultivation. Refining him will be no small feat, but you will be amply rewarded by our employer. Master Richard is a good man with a code that favors fairness and compassion.”
Jason doubted the veracity of a statement that attributed compassion to a man who abandoned a child at its most vulnerable, but he kept this thought to himself for the sake of propriety. Knowing very little of Damian’s circumstances, Jason nevertheless supposed they were similar to his own. His heart thus rallied for Damian’s eventual success after the condemnation of adults who saw wickedness in a child where there was actually desperation.
And so, Jason devoted himself to Damian’s enrichment. Jason was reluctant to share the greater consensus on his pupil, yet even he had to admit in the privacy of his secret thoughts that the challenges posed by Damian were unprecedented in the whole of Jason’s career as a tutor. He was headstrong as Jason had been in his boyhood, but carried a mean streak that would keep Jason awake in his bed after the sun had melted into the land and blackened the sky. Once, during a session wherein Damian refused to speak English, spitting his rebuttals in several languages until he landed upon one Jason could not effectively communicate in. When Jason went to rap Damian’s hands, the feral child revealed a tiny blade and darted forward. Jason had stumbled backward, palms clutching his wound while Damian escaped his lessons.
The boy clearly had not predicted that Jason would return an hour later, sufficiently bandaged, to renew their studies as if no such incident had ever occurred. Foiled, Damian sat at his desk sulking but cooperative for the time being. Later that night, lying in bed and watching the ceiling, Jason reflected upon his original guardian and his loathsome headmaster. Jason had long dismissed their criticisms as shoddy excuses meant to absolve themselves of their responsibility in nourishing Jason’s antipathy. Had those adults, cast in villainy by Jason’s involuntary passions, been correct all along in their beliefs that children can be born evil? Or was Damian’s mean streak a testament to how rapidly adult carelessness can erode away a child’s empathy until there is a trench of darkness in their malleable souls?
Was Jason’s student, the young Damian Wayne, the legacy left behind by the former master of Wayne Manor — ? And — if so — could the new master, Mr. Grayson, be equally vicious from years spent in Mr. Wayne’s care?
Time would soon provide Jason with answers, as Mr. Pennyworth announced to household staff that a letter had come in signaling Mr. Grayson’s homeward travels. Cassandra Cain, Damian’s nanny, broke the news to her charge shortly after and the boy was in the highest spirits Jason had ever witnessed him in. All day, he pranced around the Manor, ordering the staff around with puffed chest because he insisted that everything be perfect for Grayson’s return.
The next day, Cassandra urged Jason to excuse Damian from his studies and allow him a vacation. Jason initially snorted a laugh at the preposterous suggestion of a child as privileged and coddled as Damian might need a vacation. Cassandra did not seem pleased by this response, although Jason struggled to discern emotions any which way from her stoic face. Cassandra was a pretty woman, perhaps a few years younger than Jason in physique but certainly not in wisdom. She carried herself like Jason imagined a lady might, despite what he conjectured to be her humble origins. She had fine black hair which she kept unfashionably short. The stark length, however, did accentuate her high cheekbones in a way that was almost becoming. Her dark eyes bore an intensity that had unsettled Jason his first week at the Manor until he grew to accept what was simply Cassandra’s manner.
“I disagree, with all due respect, with the belief that Damian does not require a vacation on the grounds that he is in possession of a wealth which, at his age, he has no concept of or real claim to,” Cassandra argued placidly. Jason was beginning to realize that Cassandra was not deficient in passion like he had originally surmised from her reticence. Instead, Cassandra possessed a nature akin to that quiet flame, as may spill from a neglected candle, that does not need to crackle or roar like a forest fire to conquer its surroundings with equal fervor. “Nevertheless,” she continued, “if you object to a vacation for his sake, you should still consider one for yours. I have no doubt Damian tires you more than you tire him.”
Jason was therefore convinced to afford himself and Damian a brief reprieve, if not for either of their sakes, then at least for Cassandra’s. He did not plan ahead for his first full day of vacation, figuring that, having been deprived of a day off his whole life, he would appreciate a morning empty of obligation. He had assumed wrongly, however, for within an hour of waking he was listless and impatient to relieve himself of relief’s ill effects. He dressed himself and hurried out the door, having surveyed the household staff about any possible items he could pick up for them while out in the city.
Timothy Drake, whose duties Jason was unclear on, was the last one to be inquired. Drake cut a trim figure in attire that was always finer than Jason felt was required for any job at Wayne Manor. The two rarely spoke or even happened upon each other, for Tim preferred to keep to the many shadows that cloaked Wayne Manor. Sometimes Jason would turn a corner and there Tim would be, exiting a room and closing the door before Jason could peek inside. Tim was always polite but the politeness felt thin as the threads that dangled off Jason’s cuff sleeves. Jason did not care for the airs that Tim appeared to put on during their interactions. He had made the mistake once of mentioning to Mr. Pennyworth his wariness of Tim — Mr. Pennyworth, lips suddenly pinched, said only that Mr. Drake was a fine young man well-respected by Master Richard. Jason had since deterred himself from developing loose lips.
Upon Jason offering to heed shopping requests, Tim regarded him with a strange, perhaps suspicious, look. He delicately took the paper list from Jason’s hands and scrutinized the items before finally saying, “That’s very courteous of you, Jason. Thank you.”
Jason took the list back with less delicacy. Tim made him uneasy. “Of course,” he said without the certainty his words might have otherwise indicated. He felt not only that he was asking a question, but that Tim knew what that question was and did not want to answer. “Uh, did you want anything then?”
Tim’s eyes abruptly met Jason’s. Jason had not even noticed Tim was not looking him in the eye previously. “A hairbrush — a fine one, if you can, as might be fit for a lady. And strawberries, too, for one should always indulge in the summer treats, or so I am told.” Tim smiled tightly, and because Jason could not fathom an event that could have distressed him, Jason had no choice but to infer that tension was a fixed trait of the odd fellow. Tim instructed Jason to follow him to his quarters, as Jason did. Tim rummaged through a drawer while Jason lingered by the threshold, intrigued to peer into the bedroom and divulge some discovery into Tim’s life, but not wholly willing to step inside and risk establishing a foundation for future familiarity between them.
When Tim returned to the door, he deposited a heavy purse into Jason’s palm. “That should be enough to cover everyone’s expenses and afford you some spontaneity in the market. I hear Damian is free from his lessons for a week. Cassandra will then bear the brunt of his animosity and hysterics.” Tim then shoved his hands into his pants pockets, a relaxed gesture Jason could not have predicted. But then, Jason did not know Timothy Drake enough to assume he might be anxious, did he? “I believe congratulations are in order,” said Tim.
“He’s a good kid,” replied Jason somewhat stiffly. He did not know what to make of the quiet insult that Jason might spend Tim’s coin, nor of the implication that such a ludicrous amount of coin was so inconsequential to a servant.
Tim scoffed and shook his head minutely, although this all seemed to be in good humor. “No, he is not. But you are admirable for pretending otherwise.”
Jason did not wish to discuss his pupil with anyone biased against Damian (although Tim could not be faulted in this area, for he was by no means in the minority holding that sentiment). Jason did not much like Damian, either, but he felt that he had earned his distaste unlike others at Wayne Manor. “Do you regularly pay for the whims and fancies of the staff here?” he asked instead.
Tim raised a thin, black eyebrow. He was a slender man and barely measured to Jason’s shoulders. His ebony hair was longer than Cassandra’s and parted messily in the center of his large, alabaster forehead. “Why do you ask? Would you like my generosity to become habitual?”
Jason could feel his anger rush in with the blood collecting at his throat. He stepped forward, relishing Tim’s immediate change in posture from relaxed to defensive. “The opposite, as a matter of fact. Perhaps you like to flaunt your comparable wealth to elevate yourself above your servile status — very well. It is in your best interests, I must warn you, however, to be less smug around me.” Imparting this, Jason took a step back. Tim remained with erect spine against the wall. “Unless you can assure me that the others let you pay for them, you can have your coin back,” finished Jason.
Tim nodded curtly. “They do. We have all known each other for some time now and are not offended by such trifles. Pay for yourself, if you like — I only meant it as a favor.”
Jason released his jaw from the harsh grind he had set his teeth into. “Very well,” he repeated, and walked off with Tim’s coin. As he navigated the grand halls and winding staircases of Wayne Manor, his thoughts circled the interaction like corvids circling what might be treasure. Tim’s bedroom was not near the servant quarters; although it was on the top floor, it had been on the opposite side of the mansion. Tim’s obvious preference for privacy warranted such exclusion, yet what could be the master’s justification for indulging Tim? Furthermore, how did Tim accumulate enough money to cover everyone’s shopping without the slightest reluctance to part with that wealth?
And why would he request a lady’s hairbrush? Certainly Tim had a lady in mind, but would he not prefer to pick out his gifts? Jason decided his lady friend was worth looking into, simply to inform her of Jason’s aid in their courtship.
Jason was contemplating how he might go about his research when he heard laughter peel through the vacant, spacious halls of the servants quarters. The laugh lacked genuine joy, or so Jason believed, and as such the soft hairs on the back of his neck did raise. His eye became keen as he tried to resume his walk with feigned nonchalance, glancing curiously but furtively at every door he passed, hoping to catch a shadow that might reveal a source. He sifted through his memories for the voices of each hand at Wayne Manor, as if he could match the laugh to its proper owner, but by the time he reached the door outside the laugh had almost completely faded in its impression like all echoes eventually do.
Jason had chosen to exit the grand residence through the great double doors that greeted guests, including himself that first night of his arrival. He noticed most of Mr. Grayson’s keep came through one of the many entrances to the side or behind the building. Such subtlety, Jason presumed, spawned from a set of formalities that — while not mandated at a place with sparse guests to happen upon distasteful staff — held a degree of precedence among Jason’s associates. Jason did not share their preference for modest concealment; his days as a student at the asylum, Lowood, taught him the bare essentials only of being an orphan: the teachers instructed self-effacement as a survival strategy, to avoid accidentally rising above one’s rank and offending those of higher blood. Jason memorized society’s expectations of him, of all unfortunate orphans, without internalizing them. He refrained from upsetting decorum when refraining benefited him; when his humility was tested, however, during extended exposure to the hypocrites of Polite Society, his practiced humility shed quickly and betrayed the well regard he held for himself internally.
Considering, then, Jason’s true disposition, his preference for finer things could elude no one. Jason utilized all resources within his sphere; his wealth could not afford him Tim’s affluent dress, but Jason planned to dedicate his first paycheck to a wardrobe that separated him from the plain garb that marked his years at Lowood. Furthermore, he was guilty of using Mr. Grayson’s reserved tea cups and silverware when serving himself. He discovered that bread was fluffier and butter creamer when distributed from a silver knife with ornate handle.
Wayne Manor’s foyer was of dark woods and exaggerated architecture that gave guests the impression of both opulence and oppression. The door itself, with its golden handles and carved detail, stood at the forefront like the master of the room. Jason paused before this earthen deity, this dancestor of some ancient and powerful walnut tree, and the final driftwood of that earlier laugh carried away as on a downstream river. What would it be like, he asked himself, to recognize this mighty master as another tool, no more or less elevated than Alfred Pennyworth or Cassandra Cain? The door permits entry to the house, and Mr. Grayson permits entry through the door. If Jason were to carry his musings farther back — he could fancy himself as Bruce Wayne, the estate’s original proprietor. Jason imagined himself not standing before the door, in plain clothes, carrying a collection of others’ coins, but wearing a gentleman’s suit as he spoke to a lowly worker about how he wanted thorny roses and chain-like patterns etched into this extravagant door. He would have had the time and the means to waste away on whims.
With a deep breath, Jason placed his hand — smooth from years in academia, interrupted by a few scars he weathered as a farmhand to the Woosan family — over the brilliant golden handle and pulled it open. Before him lay a manicured lawn, cultivated presumably for the Eyes of God alone since there was faintly ever a visitor in sight. The sky was a bruised blue that foretold rain, but not a drop soon enough to curtail Jason’s plans. He enjoyed the fresh air of Crest Hill until its boundaries eventually gave way to the plaza and its more condensed atmosphere. He paced his shopping so as to maximize his diversion and savor the day. Only once the clouds amassed over the heads of village shoppers, their gray bellies swelling with rain, did Jason conclude his meandering.
So begins our tale, dear reader, of Jason Todd, Mr. Grayson’s formidable tutor to the young Damian Wayne. At twilight a storm threatened the dry heads of everyone caught too long outdoors, and Jason braved the fearsome gales bending the branches of trees as he marched to Wayne Manor. He was nearly returned when tumultuous sounds — those of heavy thudding and barking, more or less animalistic, though wind and distance obscured the finer details — beckoned him to turn around. Behind him, a phantom had appeared up the road. In its quick approach, the phantom soon divulged its true form: a brown mare with a single rider charging at full speed towards Jason.
Ripe green leaves broke free and swirled across this tableau, catching the attention of the rider’s canine companion. Jason watched, transfixed, as the dog darted after a leaf and startled the mare. The beast threw itself back, front legs kicking the air. The rider was dislodged in the tumult some yards from where Jason still stood. He had barely registered the scene when two powerful paws slammed against his stomach, the shock of which caused him to stumble two steps backwards. The hound pawed anxiously at Jason, its tail in a flurry, and Jason flattered himself to think the animal might follow him home. Alas, the endearing creature pushed itself off Jason in the next second, pausing briefly only to ensure Jason would follow towards its fallen master. Experiencing the warmth only a loyal dog can heat in one’s chest, Jason jogged towards the rider.
At that precise moment, the gray clouds released from their cradle a full-body rain that drenched the involved parties instantly. The guilty horse, now nosing the rider with its snout, would have been totally obscured by a watery cowl to anyone of further distance.
The hound wove between Jason’s legs, nearly tripping him, and Jason had to prod him out of the way with his boot. “Titus, you ass!” the rider cursed as he pushed himself up with his arms. Jason glanced in amusement at the dog who now sat between the two men and stared intently at its master.
Jason leaned forward and offered the rider his arm. “Are you alright?” he asked, but even to his own ears the question was drowned out by the wailing weather. “Are you alright?” he shouted.
The rider clasped Jason’s arms with both hands. He slowly stood, his head ducked, yet ‘ere he reached his full stature when he faltered. His grip on Jason tightened and he slumped against his shoulder. Jason saw the rider’s mouth open and accordingly bent down so that his ear was level. “My apologies,” shouted the rider, “for I fear — ankle — bother you — please.” Even beside his mouth, Jason could only catch pieces of the man’s garbled speech. Hearing him correctly proved as easy as snatching a single leaf from the chaotic sweep of wind.
Jason inspected the rider’s body. Rain spilled over the man’s long, raven hair to perch over the bit of nose Jason could see. The fabric of his clothes sagged with the moisture they trapped, lending him a disheveled appearance — although Jason doubted his visage was any more pleasing to the eye. The rider’s pants clung to his legs, which were tucked into a pair of expensive-looking boots. One of those boots did not plant itself firmly to the ground, but instead curved inward, burdening the other half of the man’s body with his weight. “You are injured?” Jason inquired.
The rider turned more fully towards him, palms on either of Jason’s arms. He lifted his head and Jason observed the fine, high cheekbones, the ample lips, and the slight bent in the nose that on a less comely face might have been detracting, but on the rider’s only provided a certain uniqueness to his present beauty. Most bewitching, of course, were the eyes that brightened lovely dark skin like unearthed sapphires. “Please, if you could just help me onto my horse, I will show my gratitude with a ride to your destination before mine,” requested the rider.
Jason did not trouble himself with an audible response; he supported the man with an arm by his waist and a sturdy shoulder. He helped the rider balance enough to slip his limp foot into the stir-up. The rider properly mounted on his steed, Jason stepped away only for the man to seize his bicep. “Now where are you off to?” asked the rider. A grin struck his face at the same time that a bolt of lightning raked across the sky. “I believe I offered you a ride.”
Atop the mare, Jason could better discern the stranger’s other features. Aside from his singularly attractive mien, the man’s clothes — however soaked through — were indeed fine, and even upon sustaining injury his gait was that of a true gentleman’s. His implied status, paired with a smile so transparently intended to disarm, placed Jason on his guard. Jason had learned from young childhood not to trust those with any power, and what were fine clothes but a display of one’s accrued power?
Jason stepped out of the man’s touch. “No debt here, sir,” he replied with an uptilt of his chin, “you may be on your way.”
“Nonsense,” the man quickly dismissed. “That path continues for two miles; doubtless we are headed the same direction, and however much time I might delay my own destination by is certainly eclipsed by how much you delay yourself by merely walking.”
Jason was tempted to decline when another peel of lightning lit up the sky brilliantly. The man on the dark mare jerked his head upwards, his lips parting in awe as night became day and then night again within seconds. Jason, so focused on the man’s illuminated and open awe, jumped, forcibly torn from his preoccupation by another bolt of lightning. The second bolt did not light the sky; rather, it snaked to the earth like the primordial serpent and laid ruin to a nearby tree. A horrible, preternatural and electric noise accompanied the tearing sound of an ancient trunk, not wholly unlike what Jason envisioned the tearing of human flesh — or the flesh of anything alive — might sound like. Half of the tree fell to the ground across their path. Jason’s heart was disquieted.
The rider leaned as close to Jason as he could manage with his uncooperative leg. When the tree had fallen, Jason felt he could not wrench his eyes away — yet he could sense the man’s nearness, could sense his searching, and Jason instinctively turned his face as he knew the man wanted him to. He had been disarmed.
“You’re not planning to share that tree’s fate, are you?” said the man, still smiling, though his grin had lessened to a smirk which felt distinctly more smug than magnanimous. It was as if the man had ordered the tree’s destruction from the Heavens himself.
“Not especially,” Jason admitted.
“Then up you go; with haste.” The man once again seized Jason’s arm with surprising strength for an ostensible aristocrat. Jason considered asking the man to abandon the stir-up temporarily, to allow purchase, but abandoned the idea in favor of jumping and then clambering over the horse’s rear — a far more efficient if less elegant strategy. The whole while, the man watched with pursed mouth and quirked brow. The horse, calm despite the weather, chuffed and shook its braided mane.
Jason looked down at the man’s hound. “How will he fair in this weather?” he questioned. “Seems improbable for me to get there with both feet, and he’s got four.”
The man twisted around before realizing where Jason’s focus was. “Oh, Titus?” said the man. “He’s been in worse. Or perhaps he has not, but he will have to bear this regardless. And once he has, I can then say he has been through worse. A worthy challenge and reward, eh, boy?” He addressed this final part to Titus, his voice not softening like most humans with their beloved pets, but nonetheless taking on a tone that struck Jason as slightly more juvenile and idiotic.
Titus gazed at his master and Jason with enviable stoicism.
The man grabbed the reins. Jason considered his waist for a moment until the man cried a rally and Jason had no moment further to deliberate. He clutched the stranger’s waist as the horse lurched forward, Titus aiming to keep pace.
“Where to, chap? — Never mind that, provide the directions as we go.”
The mare cleared the fallen tree easily, kicking out its hooves and using its powerful haunches to suspend them into the air: for a glorious moment that began and ended in reality — yet continued, between those points of concrete action, as if eternally within his mind — Jason experienced flight, however ephemeral and however wingless, as he had dreamt an angel or a bird might. When the horse landed, and Jason was tragically reunited with dirt and ground, he remembered the days before the asylum, ones spent with Lady Woosan and her impressive brood, as Jason trained and toiled in alteration beneath a hot sun that bore over him like the watchful, burning eye of a prison guardsman. Jason would have traded all the sunny days of his childhood for this one gloomy leap.
The harsh elements rendered conversation nearly impossible. The rider seemed unaware of this, however, and although Jason heard little of what he said unless he took the care to shout, he could discern that the man was moving his mouth regularly and, on the occasion, smiling. This attempt at friendliness, so willfully blind to why there could be none, irritated more than charmed Jason. Could the rider not hear the wind over his own verbiage? Was he talking to himself and, if so, did he find himself a more suitable companion than the passenger he pretended could hear him? Jason wanted to inform the rider of his speech’s futility, yet even that would be useless in the storm’s onslaught. He, instead, settled into a resigned silence that apparently satisfied the garrulous rider as well as if Jason had talked at all. Jason supposed the rider was favor enough; if this stranger liked employing Jason as an idea of a person, an idea of a conversational partner, then Jason should happily oblige considering it took no work on his part.
Their travels continued in that fashion as Jason instructed the rider as to which turns to steer his mare towards. At the last turn which would take them to the isolated, meandering road to Wayne Manor, the rider twisted his head to assess Jason with a furrowed brow that Jason thought made him unfairly handsome, as it is an unfairly privileged few whose features can be enhanced by distress. “Perhaps he recognizes the road and knows it will be a long journey,” Jason mused inwardly. “Or,” he thought with imp-like relish, “Wayne Manor houses an old enemy, as rich folk do like to war amongst each other, don’t they?”
Wayne Manor finally crowned over the sloping hills when the downpour intensified. The rider’s thick, shaggy hair blew into Jason’s face so that did get a mouthful. He ripped his head away and glanced over the rider’s shoulder to see a branch separate from its tree and fly over their heads. Beside them, Titus began barking fiercely at the unknown enemy and their horse released a cry that the rider hastened to soothe with niceties carried away by the wind and a stroking hand on the beast’s neck.
“Is this your residence?” the rider yelled.
“Yes!”
The rider nodded, declaring, “Then onwards!” Jason imagined him wearing a somber, determined frown to match the storm — then he revised the picture to match the man, so that he saw in his mind the rider sporting a gallant grin and sparkling eye. The horse pushed through the hail of cold, sharp rain that assaulted them like rocks flung from an aerial mob. The wind wailed with renewed anger as the rain pulsed against their bodies until the storm seemed as living and breathing a thing as they were. The full appearance of Wayne Manor, with its gargoyled terraces and grandiose entryway, must have reinvigorated the rider and his animal aids for it seemed that with a climatic thrust they pushed through the final bout of rain to land beneath a suddenly clear sky.