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The Joker had been on him. His mom- no, Sheila . She’d betrayed him. And he’d tried to save her, and for all that he’d done for her - exposing his identity, coming with her, all of it - she’d turned him over to the Joker. And he’d killed her.
He’d killed both of them. Beaten him half to death when he was tied up, and then set a bomb to do them in the rest of the way, shooting his mother too for good measure. The sound of the shot rattled his ears far more than the explosion had, or even the sound of his fist, and the abandoned crowbar banging against the locked door before the smoke got to him after the heat and fire, and his body, broken and battered, finally gave up on itself.
So where was he? What was this place? The sun was just coming up - it had been nearly evening when he’d- well… he couldn’t have died. Unless…
A honk and the sound of traffic distantly sounded outside of the wall of this place, completely moving his assumption away from any kind of afterlife. It was a walled off courtyard. It looked like it should be an entrance, but there wasn’t a gate to walk through, only the door of the building. He walked in.
It was a nice place, big and spacious. Like a hunting lodge - Jason had been to a few with Bruce, and when he’d gone skiing with Dick that one time they’d stayed in one - but if the hunting lodge had been made for giants. He made his way to the front desk, where a man in a shabby uniform, who looked like a dressed up corpse rather than what he assumed to be staff, was polishing it with an old rag. His nametag read: Hunding.
“Hi,” said Jason, because he had no idea what was happening, but this was a good shot. “Where am I?”
“Checking in?” He flipped through an ancient looking book, with pages that suggested to Jason that they were made of animal skin, rather than paper.
“N-no, I just want to know-”
“Yes you are! Jason Todd, yes?”
His eyes narrowed, “How do you know what my name is?” Was this a symptom of Joker Gas? Was that what had been in the bomb? His hand went to rest on his utility belt, and Hunding’s eyes fell to it too.
“No need for that, sir. This is the Hotel Valhalla. Congratulations!”
“I don’t understand.”
“What are they teaching you children these days?” He held up a hand, “ Please don’t answer that. No, Jason Todd, you died what a Valkyrie would call an honourable death in battle with a weapon in your hand, and therefore you qualify to stay here. For a time. Please read the terms and conditions.”
“I’m dead?” He pinched his skin. It hurt, but not as much as it should have. And where were his injuries? He hoped that Bruce would be there soon to treat him for the Joker Gas he’d obviously inhaled, but maybe he was too far gone now and this was a final hallucination on his brain’s part as his body was tied up to breathing machines and his brain died away.
“Yes, sir. I understand this can be a shock.” Hunding sounded bored. “Your Valkyrie shall explain, but you’re our first arrival of the day, come with me. I’ll show you to your room. Would you like a key to the mini bar?”
“Sure. Why the fuck not?” He shook his head in disbelief and followed Hunding through the lobby, not missing the No Impaling Zone sign on three separate walls. What kind of hotel had a No Impaling Zone? Did that imply an otherwise Impaling Zone?
“Excellent attitude, sir.”
A guy died while they walked to the lift and no one even cared. Not even Hunding, who stared at it, a suddenly dismembered corpse, head rolling several feet from its neck. “Just wait for the wolves,” he muttered to Jason, who hadn’t stopped looking at it. “They’ll clean it up.”
The lift arrived though, so he didn’t see the wolves, but he heard them. And this place was really into wolves anyway. They were everywhere, etched into so many weapons, and the furniture, carved beside the fireplaces, and scratched into the walls. There was a… decorating choice going on. But he’d lived in a house with a man who had everything themed with bats for the past three years, so he couldn’t say he was unused to it.
“Hall 20,” Hunding said. “You’ll live there until well… the end of days. The twilight of the gods.”
That sounded so final. Jason didn’t say anything, just wordlessly followed through the hall - and it was a hall in the grandest of ways, all high ceilings, and lined with spears. The rooms they passed all had names on them: LIU, MICHAELS, WOLFSTAG, YUNNIS, ONJENYU.
The last room on the hall had a name on it too, in wrought iron like all the others: TODD.
Was there another Jason Todd who’d died recently, and had a permanent standing at this hotel and they’d just confused them? Or was he dead, and this was where he’d be from now until forever.
He gasped, holding onto the wall. Hunding handed him an angular infinity sign and left him, having just stepped through into the room. It was a library. Or most of it was.
It was one big room, circling round on three levels, packed with books. He spotted beloved first editions, and books he had wanted to read but hadn’t gotten around to yet, and books he’d only ever heard of, and titles that were a complete mystery to him, or ones he knew were lost to time. He spotted all volumes of Livy’s History, and a bound and translated copy of all of Sappho’s poetry - not just the fragments, and all of Pindar, and was that the actual Telegony next to Love Labour’s Won?
There was a great table in the middle, and a couch as well as armchairs next to an open fireplace, roaring even though no one had been in here when he’d come in. There were a few baskets next to the fire: kindling and starters like paper and dry leaves, logs of dried softwood, logs of hardwood, and a smaller one of coal, though he dismissed that immediately.
The mantelpiece above the fire was beautifully carved marble - with wolves, because of course - and there were photographs there. Three to be exact. One of him and Bruce outside the courthouse when he’d been officially and legally adopted, one of him and his real mom - Catherine - holding him as a baby with such a proud smile on her face, and him and Dick with their arms slung around each other at that ski cabin. Jason remembered that day. He’d fallen right into the snow about twenty minutes later.
But that meant this was definitely his room then. There had been no mix-ups.
He kept wandering, finding a grand bathroom with a tub the size of a swimming pool, and a bedroom just like the one he’d left at Wayne Manor, at least at its bones. His algebra homework wasn’t lying out like it had been when he’d left. That was fine, he suspected he wasn’t going to need that from now on.
There was a kitchen too, not at all like the one in Wayne Manor, nor his old apartment. It was all wooden surfaces and carved cupboards, and an oven that looked easy enough to figure out how to use.
Maybe this was the real deal? Or maybe it was some hallucination, either conjured by the Joker in his gas, or Jason’s own dying brain as it gave up. Nevertheless, it was a pretty nice hallucination.
But if it wasn’t, if it was the real deal then… he could get back to Gotham, see how Bruce was, and Alfred, and Dick and Babs. Apologise for everything he’d done. Make amends. Or try to.
“This is a pretty nice place. You’ve got good taste.”
He whirled around to see who was talking, reaching for his belt again, pulling out a batarang. It was a girl, armoured with an axe at her belt and a shield strapped to her back, leaning against one of the wooden newel posts, looking him over with a critical eye. “Please don’t throw that, I’d hate to ruin such a nice room, and create work for someone else unnecessarily.”
“Who are you?”
“Helga. I’m your Valkyrie. I brought you here,”
“Why? How?”
“Why: because you died bravely in battle holding a weapon. Battle might be a stretch, but we’ll see what the Thanes say about it. Certainly the other things are true. How: pulled you onto a horse and brought you here.”
“Where is here?”
“Isn’t that a question? Technically we’re an offshoot of Asgard, but not really Asgard proper. Like PEI and Nova Scotia, you know?”
“That’s really specific. Also: Asgard? Like Norse Gods?”
She scratched her face, “Oh man, you have got so much to catch up on. Good thing you seem to be a nerdy type,” she took an exaggerated look around the room. Jason wanted to bristle, not at the nerdy thing, that was true, but her unwillingness to elaborate easily.
“Okay.” She took a breath, “Basic version: Norse Gods, Nine Worlds, all that? Real. You with me?” He nodded, “You died. I picked you up. You’re in Valhalla as an einherji, plural einherjar, until Ragnarok. You’ll spend your days preparing for it, until it happens and we’ll probably all die in the first five minutes anyway.”
“What the fuck?”
She made a face, “Yeah, that’s the usual reaction, not going to lie. Anyway, I’m here to take you to dinner so come hither or whatever.”
“Genuinely, what the fuck?”
It took him three weeks but he made it out of there. For a time. He’d probably have to go back, make appearances and so on, but none of his hallmates whom he’d met in his first few days, had really cared to see him every day, so he didn’t think he’d be missed for too long anyway.
His dinner presentation had gone down. Dead mother shot in the face tended to do that, even if she had betrayed him to the Joker. Apparently fire and explosions counted as an opponent, as an enemy sent from Muspellheim, or something, but the point was he got in. And there were no more secret parent reveals for him either by the Vala. Which was a relief, given that he was fairly tired of those now.
Dying in battle sucked, but he breathed it down, and killed with those same skills he’d been taught as Robin. It wasn’t the same as killing someone in Midgard - they came back the next morning - but it felt just as awful anyway. And he’d thought he’d seen violence, on patrol and on missions, but it was nothing to wading through bodies and blood and having to know that this was his Tuesday for the next forever.
He strolled into the Batcave, a practised explanation on his mouth, when he saw Alfred and Dick talking to Bruce again. Who looked terrible . His eyes had gone from bloodshot to straight up bloody, and his face was a devil’s sick o’ sin for sure.
But he brightened up when he saw him, “Jason?” He turned to the other people with him, who had whipped around, “Do you see him?” The hope in his voice was fucking heartbreaking.
“Who are you?” Alfred asked, “How did you get in here?” Dick had already gone for his tasers, both of them looked equal parts shocked and furious. Bruce just looked unbelievably sad. Sad enough that looking at him made Jason’s heart hurt.
He’d been prepared for this. Enough time as Robin had taught him all about clones and mimics and shapeshifters. But people came back from the dead too, so he still had a chance of making them believe him, “Hi guys.” He waved, feeling more than a little pathetic. “I’m back.”