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Jason was a boy once. A naïve boy who ran around in a Robin costume, looking up to his big brother that wanted nothing to do with him, he knew his older brother hated him in this family, but Jason didn’t care. He was just happy to get any attention at all. He was never hit or ignored so it was okay. Bruce was nice too, even if he was a bit odd and babied him a bit in some instances. Probably because he extremely malnourished and was the size of a 10 year old at 15. Nevertheless, he loved his new family when he was a child.
Then the accident happened, the one that Bruce had finally failed to come save him from. And then he was dead. And in his last moments he couldn’t help but think about how Bruce had always promised to save him and yet, the one time it mattered, he didn’t. Even if Jason died that day, his trust also died. And when Jason woke back up 6 feet under in his own grave, alive once again, his trust stayed dead. For how could he forgive someone who made him crawl himself out of his own grave, choking on the dirt as it dug under his fingernails as he so desperately tried to get out. By the time he got out of the grave his knuckles were bleeding and his fingernails were practically ripped off his own hands, making his hands more bloody.
As he watched the blood pour out of his hands when he got to the surface, he decided it was best that if his hands were already bloody then it wouldn’t matter if they stayed that way.
When he found out the Joker was still alive, his heart was crushed more. Bruce – his father - hadn’t wavered his ‘no killing’ rule just to make sure the man that killed his own son will pay. He felt the blood on his hands grow thicker as his emotions grew duller and were filled with nothing but anger. Because what could he do in that situation. He knew that if the roles were swapped Jason would do nothing but follow the Joker to the end of the earth until that garbage man was dead and in the grave instead. Nothing could’ve stopped him. But it was clear that Bruce’s own morals were worth more to him than his sons own life and through to his death. Jason believed he couldn’t be worth too much to him if that wouldn’t even waver his rule.
What was so important about a rule that his own son was the cost of it.
As Jason followed through the streets and found himself in a nice little alley he thought about his life.
Why would God let him die if he didn’t deserve it?
Why would God allow his father to hold a moral over his own son?
Why was he back alive after he lost everything?
Jason’s own mind was shattered beyond recognition after he died and now Jason was just a vessel of the boy he once was. The little boy that would laugh with his brother or bake cookies with Alfred or even do his schoolwork with Bruce. That little boy looked exactly like Jason and yet it wasn’t Jason at all. Cause now Jason couldn’t recognise the little boy smiling in his memories. He felt as if he was a third person hiding behind the fourth wall in his own life. Watching as the boy in his memories played with his family that he believed to care about him. But Jason now knew better. As he closed his eyes, watching the little boy from further and further away, he could feel himself slipping from the reality of what his life once was. What it can never be again.
Because Jason will nerve be able to go back to that little boy that was such a life filling happy boy. Instead he is the vessel of the boy he once was and now was a man filled with hatred and anger and blood that gets thicker on his hands the more he kills people. But he can’t help it. Killing people meant he was nothing like Bruce and saved people from danger that was actually there by ending the danger forever.
Jason knew that Bruce would be angry with his self discovery of his love for killing, but Jason didn’t care enough for his opinion anymore.
Never again will he be gentle.
He will be bloodied knuckles and scuffed elbows.
He will forever remain rough.
For that’s what he has to do now that God and his father had failed him.
Because he knew his father didn’t love him the moment he realised that he wasn’t going to come back for Jason.
But when he was brought back to life he knew that God didn’t love him either. For why would God make him come back to a life that did nothing but constantly ruin it over and over again. Nothing in his life ever stayed good and for that he turned to God and prayed to him everyday. And everyday he lived to regret those prayers to God. He didn’t believe God ever listened to him if Jason’s life continued to be wreaked into ruins and turned worse than he already believed it was.
As he got older he still remained naïve and trusted people despite what he’s been though. But when he died, his perspective was forever changed and he realised that he will never return back to the same person he once was.
For when he thinks back to when he was dying, all he can think about was his final thoughts to God, begging him to bring his father to him. To save him. To hold him and cradle him like a baby just so he knows he is now safe.
“I will take a crowbar and pry out the broken pieces of God in me, just please save me”
He begged as the Joker bashed into his skull with the crowbar and ripped out his skin and broke his bones. Destroying what Jason believed to be the sin inside him that he needed to be rid of.
However, even as he watched the bomb countdown slowly get closer to 0, he still prayed to God despite him never listening to Jason.
“My bones are smoldering, broken and bloody. And my knuckles are shrivelled to nothing. Forgive me. Forgive me God. And save me from my sorrows as you had always promised.”
Yet as Jason knew now, God did not keep his promise and instead just made everything worse. God was never with him in his heart.
God had only failed him.
Even with his eyes closed in the alleyway he cannot help but to pray in the back of his mind.
“Forgive me.”