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“Bruce?” It was the first thing Jason thought as he rose from the rubble. Bruce had to be here, right? That’s the only way he’d be standing here.
Jason could have sworn his legs hurt more than they did. There was an ache there, a different sort of pain he hadn’t ever experienced before. It was longing, dreadful. He stared out at the burning piles of rubble, doing his best to stand. It didn’t take as much effort as he predicted it would, and he moved as if he were nothing but the wind.
He caught his breath in his throat as he peered around, trying to assess the company. There was no one here. The only sound was the dreadful silence of hurt, the kind that falls after tragedy leaves its final scream. He stood, for what felt like hours, peering over the destruction.
Was Bruce coming? Was anyone coming? Where had everyone gone?
It took a moment before he heard the crash of metal behind him. He turned, relief washing over his face as he ran in the direction. Bruce was here. It was okay, he was okay. Everything was okay.
He stopped for a moment, terror bubbling inside his chest. Bruce wasn’t coming towards him, he was rushing towards the center of the rubble, and Jason felt his heart sink as he noticed his surrogate father fall beside a broken body.
Jason crept up behind him and stared at the brokenness of what he used to be. Oh god, was that him? Jason watched as Bruce removed the cowl, his eyes welling with tears. The broken pleadings of the cold-hearted man shattered Jason, as he watched him pick up a body he could no longer connect to.
He watched as Bruce held him tight, the tears falling onto every scrap of his torn robin suit. Robin is Magic. He had once said. Where was that magic now?
Jason tried to scream but found his throat closed with emotion. He tried to touch Bruce’s shoulder, assuring him that he was alright, but it hadn’t worked. Maybe it was because he wasn’t alright.
He followed Bruce as he carried his body back to the jet, his cowl held in his hands. Jason sat beside him on the batcopter, hoping to instill some sort of comfort into the older man.
“I’m here,” Jason whispered, in the strongest voice he could muster. “I’m not gone old man, I’m still here,”
The sobs continued for another moment before Jason made his way to the corner of the plane, trying to avoid the tears that threatened to fall from his own eyes.
He touched his face, the sensation of his skin missing.
Could he even cry? Did ghosts weep?
Jason knew he would always die young. He remembered staring into his mother’s eyes, watching as they slowly lost their life. He remembered the way his father shouted, the way the neighbors pounded against the walls at the noise. He remembered the things he did, the things he’d do. He always knew he’d die young. He just didn’t think this was how it’d happen.
Jason stared down at his hands, watching as they faded in and out of his sight. He moved easily, his body a weightless feather, floating in the wind.
The pain was gone, replaced with a chill of emptiness. The kind that came after he shouted his last words.
He stood, his eyes fixated on the world around him. Had anyone heard him screaming? pleading? It must have been hours, hours upon hours of torment. Did they care?
He followed Bruce home, sitting intently on the batcopter. After what seemed like hours of Bruce staring out the window, he moved to the back of the plane. There was no point in listening. There was no point in speaking, he couldn’t hear him.
When the funeral came around, Jason found himself screaming in what used to be his bathroom mirror. Dick wasn’t here. But then again, Dick didn’t know. He couldn’t help the curiosity that bubbled inside his chest. Would he have come if he knew?
He stood in the back of the room, avoiding the fact that only four people had been surrounding his filled coffin. At first, he had tried to get back inside of his body. Jump out of the coffin, scream “I’m still here,” But alas, he felt nothing but the cold sense of dread.
It was strange the way people spoke at funerals. Especially those who barely knew the deceased. Did other ghosts feel like this? Did they float awkwardly above their mourning loved ones, pleading for hours until resorting to cold silence? Was he the only one? He hadn’t seen any other ghosts.
They said they were sorry. People always said that, though. “Sorry for your loss,” As calmly as if you had lost nothing but your car keys. Or debit card. Something important, but replaceable.
Jason always hated the way people spoke of him when they thought he couldn’t hear them. At first, it was taunting. Jabs about the background he couldn’t control. Wondering about his place amongst heroes. Did he deserve it? Most people would have said no.
And sure, it made him clench his fists and punch extra hard the night later, but he got over it. He expected it. He was nothing but a street kid from crime alley. Nothing but a charity case. One particularly noteworthy insult was the whispered, “He’s a ticking time bomb, One day, when he explodes, we will all burn in the flames,” they’d said. What a pity then that the flames got to him first.
But that hadn’t been the worst type of gossip. No, the worst type was the way they spoke of him now, when there was nobody left to set the robin legacy on fire. No street rat to dirty the Wayne fortune. No kid left to fill the suit. The once unworthy became a legend. A cautionary tale.
People never spoke of his recklessness after that night. No one dared to, and maybe it was because of Bruce. Maybe it was for the sake of the dead. Or maybe it was the guilt that no one could ever seem to get rid of. The hope that, if they spoke kindly of him now, they’d be forgiven. It’d all be water under the bridge by the time his corpse was nothing but bones in the soil.
He’d like to think they cared. He wanted to believe it, he really did. But there was a new kid running around in the same suit that took all he had left from him. The same thing that gave him magic took it away. If he was such a good soldier, such a great reminder of what they were fighting for, why was there another kid?
Was he really nothing but a placeholder?
He shook the feeling off, ignoring the way his chest tightened.
On days like these, Jason found himself wandering the streets of Gotham. Haunting people who never knew he ever existed. It was easier, easier than facing what could have been. Easier than dealing.
When he had gotten back to the cave that night, after what seemed like hours of patient pleading to deaf ears, he noticed the case. The fucking case.
The plaque was the worst. Jason knew, rationally, he was never anything more than a soldier. None of them had been. But seeing it written out? Actually seeing what had become of the people he trusted the most? Seeing the truth? It was different than knowing of its existence.
He could no longer pretend he was anything more than Jason the street rat kid, the one that Batman took in to hold his absent son’s place. He was a soldier, a victim, of a crusade. A crusade that maybe, in another life, he would have never been a part of.
After what seemed like hours of Jason trying to burn the case with his mind, a boy walked into the cave. He held a camera, and as he turned towards the case, he gave a slight frown.
The boy walked up towards the dreadful memorial, if you could even call it that, his eyes looking intently at the mask. There was something in his eyes, something that Jason had only ever seen in Dick’s and his own.
It was then that it all clicked into place. This boy was the new robin. Timothy, he had heard Alfred call him. The replacement.
Jason had known about him for some time now. He had watched him from afar, as the boy walked around in shoes no kid should fill.
The first time Jason had seen the new robin was after Dick had finally come back to the manor. Jason remembers the cold shouting, the way Dick had cussed out Bruce for leaving him out of the loop. For not telling him that his little brother was dead.
Jason had wanted to laugh, crack jokes at Dick finally snapping. But it fell flat. There was real venom in his self-proclaimed older brother's voice, a venom Jason didn’t wish to be near. This was nothing like the fights from before. It wasn’t Dick pleading to be his own person, this wasn’t Dick growing out of the robin shoes. This was Dick, the passionate son of a bitch he was, acting cold. Cold in a way Jason never wanted to witness again.
The boy had shown up mere hours later, already dressed in bright red and green. Jason had stopped at the sight of the new boy, a rage boiling inside of his chest. He wasn’t even sure who he had been mad at. Bruce? Robin? Dick? Himself?
This, however, was the first time Jason had been around to see the new kid without the mask. These days, Jason tended to stay in his room or near the library, two places no one seemed to go near. It was his way of staying close but at a distance. They wouldn’t come looking for reminders of him, and he wouldn’t go searching for them. It was only out of pure boredom that Jason found himself entering the cave tonight.
He found himself staring at the boy for a moment, as the kid turned back towards the desk. He removed the camera from around his neck, the camera sitting in his hands as if it were glass. He laid it down gently atop the black surface, before jumping back to look at the case.
Jason sighed, rolling his eyes as he muttered a simple, “here we go,” to himself. He had heard from Dick that the boy had looked up to robin. He ignored the swell of affection that rose in his chest at the thought of someone wishing to be like him, before shaking it away.
The boy turned to look at the case, but then adjusted his gaze down towards the space Jason had been occupying. He looked curious for a minute, before freezing and jumping back slightly.
“Holy shit,” The boy muttered, his face turning a pale white. He moved in closer, this time his eyes locking directly into Jason’s.
“Jason?” The boy whispered, his voice a strained quiet. Jason turned to him with wide eyes before quickly amending his eyes back into their usual glare.
Jason gave the boy a small wave, before smirking and standing to his feet.
“No way. Nope. I’m definitely seeing things. Oh god,” The boy mumbled, before closing his eyes shut and rubbing them profusely.
Jason considered walking back up the stairs, before the realization hit him. This kid, the replacement, could see him. How was that possible?
The boy opened his eyes, and when he noticed Jason still standing there, he jumped back.
Jason gave Tim a smug smile before walking over towards the chair perched in front of the array of computers.
“What the actual fuck,” The replacement squealed, and he shook his head in disbelief.
“Hell if I know,” Jason responded, turning his attention towards the screens. They were all filled with lazy reports on Batman’s latest fight, and Jason found himself just pretending to look interested.
Jason watched as the boy’s eyes grew wider, as he mumbled something that sounded a little bit like “but you're dead?” Jason, being the kid he was, smirked at that.
“Yeah got murdered and everything,” Jason responded, smiling a little as he watched the boy squirm. “Got myself an early membership card to eternity,”
“That isn’t funny,” Tim scowled, looking at Jason with the ever-present bat-glare. Oh yeah, this kid was definitely working with Bruce.
“Hey my murder, my jokes,” Jason said with faux annoyance. “Besides, no one but you has been able to hear them,”
Tim turned towards him, looking shocked.
“No one else knows you’re here?” Tim queried, looking both confused and unsettled.
“Nope,” Jason said, popping the p.
Tim just gawked at him. “God this is so weird,”
“Thanks for pointing out the obvious Timbo,” Jason joked, staring at the boy.
“So what are you exactly? A ghost? A poltergeist? Can you move things? Turn rooms cold?” Tim asked, looking up intently at Jason with wide eyes.
Jason turned to the boy, looking exasperated. “How the fuck would I know? Being dead doesn’t exactly come with a manual,”
“Right, it just comes with a membership card,” Tim responded, rolling his eyes.
“You know, we could always test what you can do,” Tim said after a few minutes of contemplation.
“Oh yeah? And how would we do that?” Jason asked, curiosity blooming in his chest. He hadn’t really thought about what he could do, he didn’t really care.
“I don’t know, but I’m sure we could figure it out,” Tim said, hopeful, “I mean you might be able to communicate with others if we can figure out how this whole ghost thing works,”
“Tired of me already?”
“No No, I just-,” He paused a moment before regaining his composure, “I just thought maybe you’d want to talk to Bruce?” Jason gave him a glare before Tim amended, “Or Alfred,” The look on Jason’s face must have conveyed his misery at the name because Tim responded with a pitying smile. Jason just growled and turned away.
“I don’t need your pity, replacement,” Jason spat, floating over to a less occupied corner of the cave.
“And I’m not giving it,” Tim replied, keeping his voice stern. “Look if you don’t want me here I can go, but I just, I mean don’t you want to figure this out?” He motioned towards the dark part of the Cave he assumed Jason had been sitting in, before dropping his hands in defeat.
When Jason didn’t move from his spot in the corner, Tim sighed loudly before letting his face fall into his hands. He mumbled a simple, “What is my life,” Before picking up his camera and making his way towards the cave’s exit, forgetting whatever it was he had come down there for in the first place.
Just before he motioned to leave, he spoke, “I’ll be around if you change your mind,” He then backed out of the darkness, leaving Jason alone in the place he used to call home.