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There is no world in which Jason Todd does not suffer.
You are tired of it. Of watching it. Perhaps, to you, this world seems to be the worst. The one where his life is stolen from him through no fault of his own. Where he is ripped from friends and family like a piece ripped from a puzzle known as family, left to fester and bleed until a completely different piece was shoved into place.
This world has taken a child – a bright, warm, happy child – and chewed him up. Spit him out. And then punished him for daring to be angry about it.
You are pained to watch. The Jason Todd before you is not the Jason Todd that you remember. This one does not smile. He looks into a mirror and finds dead eyes staring back. A Jason Todd that is born to Willis and Catherine is a Jason Todd that will be born doomed. You decide, then, that there must be a world in which Jason Todd is gifted an ordinary life. Perhaps he is born to a Catherine and Willis that do not hate their lives and take their rage out on a helpless child. Perhaps there is a world where he is rescued, before he is forced to watch two adults self-destruct around him.
You find it. It isn’t hard. Jason Todd’s life could spiral in infinite directions, and there are infinite worlds. One where Jason Todd is taken away from Willis and Catherine. He ends up in the system. He runs away at 8. Becomes a street kid at 9. Steals the tires off the Batmobile at 12. Becomes Robin at 13. Dies at 14. Back at 17. Suffers. Fights. A hole has been ripped out of the puzzle, and it bleeds. It bleeds and bleeds and bleeds. You wonder just how much this puzzle can bleed, before there is nothing left to put together.
You move on to the next one.
A world where Catherine is not an addict. Willis still decides that anger is more valuable than love. Catherine dies in the bathroom. This time the murderer is her husband’s hand and the blood-stained tile, instead of a needle in her arm. Jason Todd watches his mother die. The cycle repeats.
Street kid at 9. Tires at 12. Robin at 13. Dead at 14. Back at 17.
Suffers. Fights. A hole is ripped out of the puzzle.
It bleeds.
You move on to the next.
A world where Willis Todd is a caring father. Where he sees his son and smiles. Where he ruffles Jason Todd’s hair and whispers words of love and Catherine does the same. A world where Jason is blessed. A world where Jason Todd is loved. Willis and Catherine are murdered on his eighth birthday, walking home from his favorite restaurant. Foster home. Runs away at 8.
Street kid at 9. Tires at 12. Robin at 13. Dead at 14. Back at 17.
Suffers. Fights. A hole is ripped out of his heart.
It bleeds. The ground is covered in crimson. You move on to the next.
You give up on searching out a world where Jason Todd is born happy. The rare ones that exist all end the same. You move on to ones where his life turns out just a little different. Where he goes to Crime Alley on a different day. There is a world for every day of the year that Jason Todd could have passed by that parked car. In some, there is no car. In some, he has neglected to bring the iron to pinch the tires. In some, he is never caught. In some, the Batman abandons him in that alley. In some, Jason Todd never becomes Robin. In these worlds, you breathe a sigh of relief. Certain that finally you have found what you are looking for.
Jason Todd dies anyway.
The methods vary. The pain varies. A villain is almost always responsible. You figure that it is Black Mask more often than it is anyone else. But there are occasions where it is The Penguin. Or Harvey Dent. Or Dr. Fries. He is simply caught in the crossfire, much of the time. A nameless victim in a faceless crowd. A boy, all alone in the world, whose absence no one will notice.
No one but you, of course.
Dead at 14.
You move on to the next.
Even in a world where Jason Todd avoids the mantle of Robin, he is killed by a man in clown make-up with a sinister smirk and a crowbar in hand.
You wonder after the reason. Jason Todd has done nothing, you think, to deserve this demise. You watch it unfold anyway. A dirty street rat, beaten within an inch of his life. He tried to steal something he shouldn’t have. The Joker tells him a joke. Cackling madly, like there’s nothing funnier in the world than this child and his suffering. The man laughs and laughs and laughs. He shrieks, at the top of his lungs, to a child that surely can no longer hear him and asks,
“Which came first, the Robin or the grave?”
You wonder if he is posing this question to Jason Todd,
Or to you. The one who has been searching for the answer.
Dead at 14.
You move on once more.
A world where Jason Todd does not become Robin seems to be a bust. You move on to ones where he does. Worlds where Robin suffers ever manner of horrific torment. Over and over and over again. Robin at 13. Occasionally death is staved off just a little longer. Occasionally he makes it as far as 15. Perhaps even 16. These worlds always steal him from you with a bang and a whimper and you must steadily move on to the next. The deaths become more and more brutal, the longer he manages to hold out. You are getting sick of watching this. You wonder if your search will ever come to an end.
Dead at 14. Dead at 15. Dead at 16. Back at 17.
Suffers. Fights. A piece of you is ripped out.
There is little left, and blood is spilling across the floorboards.
You find one where Jason Todd does not die, and regret defining your criteria in such black and white terms.
Street kid at 9. Tires at 12. Robin at 13. Captured at 15. The Joker always seems to be the culprit. You watch Jason Todd suffer more than you have ever seen him suffer before. You watch him be stripped of himself. His dignity. His vitality. His passion. His mind. His identity. His very being. Blood is spilled across concrete floors. You hear the bang of the gun going off, and your heart sinks when you realize that it is a ruse, and Jason Todd will not be allowed out of his suffering so easily.
Captured at 15. Tortured at 16. Tortured to 17. Released at 18.
You watch the rare Jason Todd who has never known the taste of death on his tongue, and know that this Jason Todd has suffered just as much as any of them.
He suffers. He fights. He is ripped apart at the seams by beasts and monsters that do not know how to tell when their prey has given up. You cannot bear to watch anymore. What is left of you? What is left of him?
Can you take any more of this?
You move on to the next one.
You give up on worlds where Jason Todd does not die, and instead moves on to what he will do after he comes back.
He is universally struggling. There are worlds where he never comes back. Worlds where he never regains enough of himself to return to Gotham. Worlds where you watch him suffer until he is once again put out of his misery by a calculated hit and a set of cold eyes. Worlds where the pit does not choose him. Worlds where he is simply left to his fate. You move on from these, too. Thinking to yourself, at least in those, he is not made to suffer more.
Worlds where he returns to Gotham. Worlds where the Red Hood surfaces. Worlds where he enacts his revenge. No matter how satisfying they may be, they never end well. Your heart aches, watching Jason Todd be beaten black and bloody by yet another father. You wonder if Bruce Wayne forgets the scars that Willis left across Jason Todd’s body. You know that you never will. You have seen them enough times to have them memorized. You watch Bruce Wayne torment the boy who looked up to him. You watch Jason Todd be made to suffer for things that are not his fault, and wonder if anyone out there agrees with you, that this boy deserves something other than apathy for all that he has been made to suffer.
You being to wonder if Jason Todd’s misery is a necessity. Inevitable. A mark across the timeline that can never be undone. What has he does to deserve this? What has he done to warrant such a fate?
What came first, the Robin or the grave?
Perhaps this is simply the role he was born to play.
The floor is covered in gore. You can no longer tell if it belongs to you or him.
You move on to the next.
A world where Jason Todd dies again. A second time.
Street kid at 9. Tires at 12. Robin at 13. Dead at 14. Back at 17. Red Hood at 19. Dead at 20. Dead. Dead. Dead.
In this world, no one cries for him. No one except you.
You move on to the next.
The worlds begin to blend together. You are losing track of which is which. The original is starting to seem ideal. Jason Todd’s suffering makes you sick to your stomach. He stands opposite you, on that gore-stained floor, and smiles. You think that he is thanking you for your efforts. But you do not see anything to thank you for. You have not been able to spare him any suffering. You simply wish to see one world where he is allowed to live like the innocent child that he is. Your heart bleeds. His does too. His heart always did. Ever since he was a child.
How does one as good as him get chosen for a role like this?
You have run out of divergences. There are no other possibilities, and no other worlds. Each and every one has gifted him a fate worse than a simple death, and you are tired. So tired. Of watching him suffer. Perhaps there is one left. One more that you can try. One that you had not even considered.
You move on to the last.
A world where Bruce Wayne was never born.
A world where Batman never came to be.
A world where the cycle is finally allowed to break.
Willis and Catherine, in this world, are just as vile. His father disappears. His mother dies. He ends up in the system at 7. Runs away at 8. Foster home at 9.
Adoption at 10.
Big brother at 11.
Honor roll at 12.
Basketball Captain at 13.
Literature Club leader at 14. He always liked literature. You’re glad he has the chance to explore it further.
Big brother – again – at 15.
Alive at 16.
Searching for colleges at 17.
High school graduate at 18. You’ve never seen Jason Todd graduate high school before.
You wonder if, all this time, the solution was to wipe the puzzle off the table and start from scratch.
In this world, Jason Todd is happy. Allowed to be happy. He smiles like the world is made of air, and there are people to smile back. His anger has dulled over the years. Someone is there to listen, when it flares again. He is cared for. He is loved. He has all that he deserves. He has all that you have wanted to give him.
Your heart no longer bleeds.
You can return to the world – the Jason Todd – that you know. Content in the knowledge that, somewhere out there, he is allowed to smile.