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The first thought Barbara Gordon has when she meets Jason Todd is street trash. Years later the guilt of thinking that will stick to her like glue but at the time she can’t think of anything else. It doesn’t help that the boy looks the part, wearing shorts that are at least four sizes too big and are being held up with a small piece of rope, a red shirt that looks it’ll fall apart if it even gets near a washer, and sneakers that were once white but have so much muck on them that it’s all you can see.
Barbara knows that she has a bad habit of judging people so she tries to hide what she’s doing, but from the way Jason’s looking at her she knows she’s not doing a good job. The boy’s looking her dead in the face, keeping his head up high, and crossing his arms over his chest. He’s looking at her like he’s challenging her to say what she’s thinking. For a split second Barbara wonders how many people have judged this kid, that his first reaction is to show them he’s not afraid of confrontation, but that thought makes it harder to judge him. It might make her a bad person but she doesn’t like the kid, she knows he’s going to be Dicks replacement, even if he doesn’t know that, and that’s not fair to Dick.
A small voice in the back of her head tells her it’s not fair to Jason either but she can’t bring herself to listen. It might make her an even worse person but it’s easier to blame a twelve year old boy that she’s barely met than a grown man.
“If you're going to be a bitch, at least have the balls to be a bitch out loud.”
Barbara can feel her eyes widen and her mouth slowly open. She wants to ask him who the fuck he thinks he is but Jason’s already let the room. Leaving her in stunned silence, she’s only just met him but something tells her he leaves people in silence often. If you're going to be a bitch at least have the balls to be a bitch out loud bounces around her head like a pinball.
(At the time she thinks it’s the weirdest thing she’s ever heard, years later she’ll think it’s the best piece of advice anyone had ever given her.)
“You’ll never be Dick Grayson.”
Dick Grayson is nothing more than a measuring stick to Jason and she knows that. She knows that he rarely comes to the manor and when he does it’s to yell at Bruce and look at Jason with nothing but disgust. Part of her hates Dick for doing that, another part of her knows that she’s a hypocrite because she doesn’t treat Jason much better. She treats Jason like that for the same reason Dick does: he's like a replacement. For Dick he’s a replacement that took his life but for Barbara he’s a replacement that she can take her anger out on.
She’s not angry at Jason, she’s angry at Dick but Jason’s here and Ducks not so she does the best she can. Jason practically slams the pencil in his hands down, and stands up. Barbara wonders if he finally hit his breaking point, if the talking down to finally got too much. He’s looking down at her, his eyes nothing more than angry slits.
“Congrats you’ve finally found the fucking balls to be a bitch out loud.”
His voice is so dark and sharp Barbara almost jumps, he sounds way too old. If she didn’t know him she would think he was at least fifteen from the way he sounded. He picks up his copy of The Great Gatsby that’s being held together with tape and spite and storms out of the room. His comment of finally finding the balls swearing around her head. The woman almost forgot about what he said when they first met, a part of her smaller than her left pinky is proud of him for standing up for himself. She knows she doesn’t get to be proud of him but what can she say. Brains are an odd thing.
(Years later it’ll seem like there was never a time she wasn’t proud of him.)
The thought of pushing a wooden stake through Bruce’s heart is getting better every second. It’s one thing to leave her in the cave with Robin even though they don’t get along, it’s another thing to leave her with a high on fear toxin Robin that won’t stop crying. She’s the first one to say she doesn’t get along with him but no one deserves to cry the way he is. He’s crying like something is burning him from the inside out, he’s crying like someone has thrown him into a vat of acid, in the end he’s crying like a thirteen year old who’s living his worst nightmare.
Trying to calm him down was not going well. For a while she was stroking his hair and that was working until he started begging her to stop touching him. She would take it to the grave but the way he was begging reminded her of a little boy that she found curled up in a ball in crime alley. The boy ran away before she could help him, she ignores the fact that the ages would line up, she ignores the fact that they both have black hair, and she ignores the fact that they both have blue eyes.
“Stop, stop, stop.”
Jason curls around himself like he was trying to hide from the world; Barbara almost wants to join him. “Shhhh.” Barbara starts running her fingers down his arms like her dad did when she was in the hospital because her appendix burst. She was out of it and that was the only thing bringing her comfort so she was hoping it would have the same effect on Jason even though she assumed he would hate it. He hated the last time she touched him but it was the only thing she could think of doing.
Surprisingly the boy starts to lean into the touch in a way that she’s never seen before and uncurls a little bit, Barbara’s heart has a warm feeling that she can’t tell if she loves or hates. Testing her luck she picks herself off the ground and moves so that she’s sitting on the couch next to him, when he doesn’t immediately move she gently grabs him hand, testing that waters a little bit more. The girl was not trying to make anything worse. She can’t bite down her smile when he laces his fingers with hers, for the first time she doesn’t see Dick she sees Jason.
Without thinking she pulls Jason into her lap and tucks his chin under hers wrapping her arms around him trying to protect him from the outside world, it’s not hard, he's a lot smaller than her. She wants to protect him from everything bad in the world because Jesus Christ he’s so small and how could anyone be mean to someone this small.
(Later she’ll decide that was the moment Jason became her baby brother.)
“Barbie, look at this shit.” Jason bursts into her room like a hurricane, he’s excited, she can tell from the smile showing his gapped teeth, the our happiness in his voice, and the way he can’t stay still. He’s practically vibrating from excitement and the piece of paper in his hand is impossible to read even though she’s two feet from it with her glasses on. She’d be lying if she said his excitement wasn’t contagious though because she doesn’t even know what’s going on but she’s getting excited. It takes a lot to make Jason this happy, so it must be good if he’s this happy. Her two guesses are a good grade or a break in a hard case.
“A motherfucken plus.” Bruce asked Barbara to correct Jason on his language every time he cursed in front of her in an attempt to stop the habit but she only did it when she knew Bruce would find out. She was his sister, not his parents. She wouldn’t get on his case for small things that don't matter that much. She grabs the paper and perks up when she figures out it was the math unit that he was struggling with. Jason could devour English like she was a starving peasant and it was food but he would look at math like it was a glue trap and he was a mouse.
“Good job.” She knows how hard Jason worked to understand it, the hours he spent in the library trying every sample problem she could find. Barbara tried to get him to take a break but every time she tried he refused, commenting the only way he was getting out of this chair was someone lifting up his corpse.
“Look at mini James Dean, doing good in math.” Barbara gave Jason the nickname mini James Dean after she caught him smoking, she promised him she wouldn’t tell Bruce but that didn’t mean she wasn’t on his case about it. There was no way to bring it up since Bruce would somehow find out so she did little things to remind him she knew. Jason just sticks out his tongue and flipped onto her bed with the grace of a dying whale. Barbara couldn’t help but throw her head back and laugh, joining him on her bed.
The time they were practically enemies melting away every time they have moments like these, moments being brother and sister. They both know those days will never disappear, the venom they shot at each other will never go away but they will be funny stories to laugh at when they’re drunk together and everything that’s ever happened is funny.
(She'll never be able to look at that memory without smiling.)
“You don’t get to judge him.”
A year ago Barbrara would have agreed with Dick about what he said about Jason but she grew up. She grew up and stopped seeing a replacement and saw a little brother, she hoped that Dick would grow up to. She should've known that he just didn’t spend enough time around Jason to change his opinion.
Barbara has sympathy for Dick, Bruce was acting insane and it seemed like he didn’t want his relationship with Dick to ever improve. But, that was all her sympathy she was pissed off that he was acting like Jason was nothing more than an angry kid, he was so much more but he refused to see that.
“Oh, abandone me too. Choose the shiny toy, can’t wait for when he gets replaced.”
It was easy to forget Dick was nothing more than a child begging for his dad’s attention when he acted like this. A lot of people would say he was acting like a little kid who didn’t get the toy they wanted, but he wasn’t. He was a child whose dad got a new kid two months after he left, and it didn’t help Bruce adopted Jason after a little more than a year when dick was still a ward more than ten years later.
“I'm not abandoning you, I’m just saying you don’t get to judge Jason when you’ve talked to the kid less than seven times.”
Dick looks at her like he wasn’t sure if he loved her with every bone in his body or if he hated her with every bone in his body. Barbara just grabbed his hand and gently rubbed his knuckles, a silent I’m here for you, she used to do it when they were Robin and Batgirl.
“This is bullshit.”
Dick whispers like it was a dirty secret that would end his life if it came out, rubbing his forehead like he had a headache, looking way too old to only be nineteen. She wants to hug him and tell him everything would be okay but she couldn’t bring herself to tell such an obvious lie, so she holds his hand and rubs his knuckles.
(Barbara takes to the grave that she wanted to punch Dick when he called Jason street trash.)
“I have a little brother.”
It takes a second to remember she and Jason are not blood so some people will be confused. It’s weird to think that there was a time when she didn’t think Jason was her brother.
“What?”
The blond that gets on Barbara’s nerves because she never knows when to shut up asks. It makes sense she’s the commissioner's daughter, so if she had a brother it would be known.
“Not by blood, but he’s my brother.”
Nights of smiles and laughter have proven that more than once.
(That’s the first time she tells someone else Jason’s her little brother.)
“Well next time your going to commit murder fucking plan ahead so you don’t have to deal with the consequences.”
It takes two seconds for what she just said to hit her ears, and when it does it takes everything in her not to cringe. Jason came to her wanting to vent about everything going on and instead of being his safe space like always she snapped. She didn’t mean to but with everything going on it was hard not to. The same way it was hard not to picture Jason standing above a dead man.
Everything made too much sense, Jason was angry, Jason hated rapists, Jason knew how to plan, and Jason knew when Batman would appear.
“You don’t fucking believe me.” The pure pain in Jason’s voice made Barbara want to cry and she suspected he felt the same way, they had fought before but he never sounded so hurt before.
She never thought she’d say this but part of her craves for the old days when they were enemies, it would be so much easier to be mad at him if it was still like that. If it was still two people hating each other and not a little brother who just realized his big sister thought he was a murderer. His big sister who he would have walked through hell for without thinking twice, and who he assumed would do the same for him.
Barbara can practically see the threads of their relationship unfolding like an old sweater, the relationship they worked so hard to knit. The relationship that had small gaps, small holes, and random stains but it was theirs and they loved it.
“Ja-”
“Well, at least you still have the balls to be a bitch out loud.” That stung a lot more than Barbara wanted to admit, she never forgot that line ,because it reminds her of before, not for lack of trying.
“I’m so-”
“Shut the fuck up.”
Before she could respond to Jason he was halfway out the door, head up and high, a fuck you I will never stop being me. In the corner of her mind Barbara is proud, it takes a lot to take as many hits as Jason has and keep going. In the larger part of her mind she’s trying to find a way to make it up to Jason. She decides she’ll just talk to him at the next Police Department gala, she’ll apologize and get her baby brother back.
(That gala gets canceled because Jason Todd is dead.)
Jason Todd can’t be dead because he’s fifteen.
Jason Todd can’t be dead because he had so much life in him.
Jason Todd can’t be dead because he still hasn’t gotten to finish Harry Potter And the Deathly Hallows.
Jason Todd can’t be dead because he has a doctors appointment in a month.
Jason Todd can’t be dead because he wants to see Wicked on stage.
Jason Todd can’t be dead because he’s her baby brother and her baby brother can’t be dead.
(Jason Todd is dead.)
Jason Todd is dead and the sun rises.
Jason Todd is dead and the sun sets.
Jason Todd is dead and people are going to work.
Jason Todd is dead and people are going out to dinner.
Jason Todd is dead and dogs are barking.
Jason Todd is dead and planes are taking off.
Jason Todd is dead and the world is still turning.
(Jason Todd is dead, the world has ended but no one is acting like it.)
Getting shot doesn’t hurt because shock takes over the second your about to feel pain, or maybe she’s lucky and god decided that she didn’t have to feel anymore pain. A small part of her wonders what would hurt more, getting shot or losing Jason. She knows that the pool of the blood on the floor is hers but it doesn’t feel like it.
She feels like she’s watching a bad movie and is supposed to be at the climax we’re everyone is holding their but instead everyone’s laughing because what the fuck. Nobody loses their little brother and then gets shot by said little brothers murdered. If she had more energy she would wonder where the joker was but that was too much energy so she just lays in a pool of her own blood, getting ready to see her little brother again.
(She’s a little sad when she wakes up in the hospital.)
“I don’t think Barbara liked Jason. She never talks about him.”
Tim doesn’t know Barbara can hear him in the coms, and she’s not sure if that makes her happier or angrier. Tim’s right she didn’t like Jason, she loved Jason.
She loved her little brother who forgave her for being rude during the first six months. She loved her little brother who read like it was the only form of entertainment around. She loved her little brother who laughed at funerals because he was never taught how to handle emotions. She loved her little brother.
Part of her wants to respond to Tim, tell him to shut the fuck up he doesn’t know anything but another part of her knows he doesn’t mean anything by it. It’s a fair conclusion to come to, Bruce talks about Jason even though it’s only the bad stuff and not the good stuff. Not his smile, or his kindness, or his passion. No, his anger, he’s aggression, and he’s rebellion. She hates Bruce and Dick for soiling her little brother's memory but to be fair she didn’t stop it, she just shut her mouth and looked the other way.
It’s so much easier than letting everything out, letting the anger at Bruce who if he was just a little kinder this wouldn’t have happened and the anger at Dick who didn’t even know Jason and was talking about him like he was a demon. She’s lost track of the amount of times she’s had to grab a wheel as hard as she could so she didn’t flip out. She mutes the comm and breathes because she can and no matter how hard she wants him too, Jason can’t. Barbara never cried over Jason; he would’ve hated the fact he made her cry, or maybe she was just too numb to cry.
(She sobs in bed that night for the little brother she didn’t like.)
“If you ever talk about him like that again I will fuck you up.”
If Barbara wasn’t in the wheelchair she would stand up and grab Tim by his shirt making him look in her eyes, but she’s in the wheelchair. So, she can only look at him, with more anger than she’s ever looked at anyone. Apparently since Tim didn’t think she liked Jason, he would talk about a dead boy like he knew him.
Barbara knows what Dick and Bruce are saying about Jason, she knows because she hears it on coms during patrol. She can’t stop them, because if she stops them then she’ll have to talk about Jason. And, she just can’t because how do you talk about your dead little brother.
“Understand.”
Her voice is so cold that she doesn’t recognize it, she knows it’s not Tim’s fault. All he’s ever heard was bad things but it doesn’t make the urge to hit him any less stronger. Tim’s looking at her wide eyes and afraid but she can’t bring herself to care. He called Jason street trash. No one gets to call her baby brother street trash, except for her and at least she only thought that.
“I don’t care hey Bruce and dick say, he was a lot more than that so watch your mouth.”
She leaves before Tim can respond. She knows Bruce was hoping she would develop a Similar relationship to Tim that she did with Jason but Tim has Dick, Jason only had her. She doesn’t need anymore little brothers, Dick has a chance to have a little brother.
(Almost six years later she still hasn’t forgiven Tim for saying that.)
Red Hood is good, she can see his training from the footage. It’s league, street fighting, and something that reminds her of bat that she ignores. She ignores that he knows way too much to be a stranger. She ignores the fact that it’s too personal to be a stranger. She ignores that the man reminds her of Jason.
He can’t be Jason because Jason died weighing 100 pounds soaking wet and Jason was never this angry. Sure he had a temper, but eight heads in a duffel bag that’s just not possible. Barbara can hear Bruce moving behind her; she knows this case is not going to be like the others. It being a case is so much easier than it being an investigation, a case is open and shut an investigation has twists and turns that no one sees coming.
“Did he say anything else to you?” She asks like she hasn’t watched the cowl footage like it was the best movie she’s ever seen.
“He said it’s too late.” Bruce sounds like he’s aged ten years in two minutes.
That opens a can of worms that Barbara would pay to re-shut, because too late means no fixing, just damage control. She swallows down the fear of what’s going to happen, it’s too late to do anything other than put all the clues into a folder.
(She also swallows down the hope that it’s somehow Jason, alive, even if he’s killing people.)
Barbara wants to hate Red hood. He kills people, he hurts her family, he creates chaos constantly, he gives her father stress every time his name is thought of, and he’s a bad person. But, Jason Todd is red hood and she can’t hate Jason Todd.
Her only little brother, all the other Robins are Dicks brothers but not hers, she loved them but not like she loved Jason. She once heard that love and hate stem from the same branch and that didn’t seem true until now. She wants to take back her wish that they become enemies again because now they are again and it hurts more than losing a limb. That small hope feels so long ago now but the past never dies, no matter what happens.
(Love and hate stem from the same branch but so does pain and happiness.)
Jason’s throat gets slit.
Jason’s in another bomb accident.
Jason’s missing.
(She says she’s mad he got away but she’s worried that her little brother is dead again.)
A small part of Barbara is envious that all the other bats get to see Jason, even if it’s only for a few seconds. The bridge between Bruce and Jason is slowly mending, and you get one bat you get all the bats. It’s still not good and nobody talks to each other but there’s no more attempted murder or arrest, so she’s happy.
Happy that there’s a sliver of a chance Jason will come back, that her lost brother will come back to her. At night when everyone is in bed or distracted she finds all the videos she can of that day and watches them. No matter how many times she sees it, her heart stops a little bit when she sees him without his helmet on.
Because, that’s her little brother, who died, and she never thought she would see him moving again. But, a video is not the same as in person. In a video you can see them move but in person you can hear them, smell them, hell you can feel them.
In the darkness of her room no one can see her tears as she holds out hope for her brother coming back. It’s a childish hope but it’s all she has, because she doesn’t get to see him in person.
(She has to talk herself out of breaking into his safe house at least twice a week.)
She doesn’t ask how she wound up back at her apartment, she doesn’t ask what happened to the men that took her, she doesn’t ask why are you still here, because she’s afraid that if she asks the wrong question Jason will leave. And she just got Jason back so she refuses to let him leave again.
He’s warmer than the average person, he’s taller than the average person, he’s angrier than the average person, he’s everything more than the average person but that doesn’t matter. All that matters is that he’s Barbara’s little brother and he’s back.
Like birds of a feather there back together, and never separating again. She’ll make sure of it.
“If you're going to be a bitch have the balls to be a bitch out loud.” He’s teasing and she can’t remember the last time she was this happy. She never thought he would tease her again so the fact that he is teasing her is nothing short of a miracle. The fact that they are laying on her couch together is nothing short of a miracles
“Whatever, mini James Dean.” She buries into him more, resting her head on his chest plate. It’s covered in dried blood. It takes everything in her not to burst into tears when Jason lets her get comfortable. It doesn’t help that Jason smiles at the old nickname.
“More like large James Dean.”
Barbara wasn’t expecting to snort so hard she lurched forward, Jason wasn’t expecting it either because he moved with her. Trying to make sure she wasn’t going to fall off the bed and crack her head open. If asked he will lie and say it’s because if she gets injured it’s his fault but the truth is he doesn’t want Barbara to get hurt, period.
Barbara starts laughing, so Jason starts laughing and they laugh and laugh until their blue in the face with tears streaming down their cheeks. For two minutes it’s like nothing changed. It’s like they never fought, it’s like Jason never died, it’s like Barbara never got shot, it’s like Jason never came back, it’s like Jason never became red hood, it’s like nothing changed. She vaguely wonders how many times they were in this exact situation.
Just being brother and sister, laughing over something stupid.
(Barbara Gordon will always be Jason Todd’s big sister, Jason Todd will always be Barbara Gordon’s little brother.)