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The bathroom lights were buzzing.
Like a hornet’s nest, Robin could hear them laughing at his blood-soaked body below them, even amongst the fog from the explosion. He could just barely see the cracked plastic from his position on the dingy ground, domino mask long burned away by an explosive light beyond the one that he could see. If it wasn't for the constant buzzing dragging its claws down his skull, Robin would’ve mistaken the dim lights for a descending hand from above, reaching down to pull him away from this constant cycle of misery like another one had not even a year prior. And yet the insistent humming continued like a group of flies slowly descending towards him with only one thought in their small insect minds - to eat the rot.
A few months beforehand, Robin had gone to Batman with the sole purpose of asking him if it was true that humans could rot from the inside like Willis used to snarl at him with growls full of spit, only to walk away with the response “only if they let it”. Robin had stewed over the answer for a while before getting distracted and ending up completely forgetting the ordeal in favor of flying joyfully above the Gotham streets. His excitement at his temporary flights seemed meaningless now as he felt the rot inside of him ooze with life, replacing the blood that he was steadily losing from his numerous wounds sketched across his already scarred skin. Sniffling mournfully, Robin tried to will himself to roll over onto his side, only to find himself unable to move without feeling tears pricking painfully at his eyes.
Every breath felt like nails dragging down the insides of his charred lungs, every blink made his inner eyelids ache with the need to fall shut indefinitely, every heartbeat pushed more blood out of an already wrung body even as he tried desperately to will it back inside. Panting frantically, he strained in an attempt to pick up the distinct whirrs of the Batmobile, but all that pounding ears could focus on was the buzzing above him. The buzzing slipped into his head to sink its teeth into his suddenly fragile skull, stained fangs pulling away chunks of his bone to little resistance. Grinding his teeth, Robin could feel a sob rapidly ascending from his stomach, coming out in a soft whimper that made his eyes well up in shame. Real robins’ wings never faultered and yet, this one was falling noiselessly, dragged down by the sadistic horde of flies that wouldn't stop tugging no matter how many tears ran down their prey’s dirty face.
A sudden child-like sense of desperation rammed itself into Robin, his body jerking forward slightly in a final attempt at life. Hope suddenly blossoming in his chest at the possibility, Robin took in a greedy breath, hand shooting out to grapple aimlessly at the half-gone toilet beside him. Bare hands met porcelain and he ignored the repetitive bites of agony as he focused on slowly pulling himself up into a sitting position. The air was still thick with invasive fog that wrapped itself around Robin’s insides to cling like a mother around her egg. Like a gunshot in the dark, the explosion had trapped all of Robin’s feeble senses in the blackened room, the vigilante unable to picture what the outside world looked like without feeling the hairy paws of a fly walking on his tongue and shuddering helplessly under its steps.
Jason Todd had been through a lot of new things as Robin, but this was familiar. The wet sensation of blood slipping down his skin felt like a shout from the past hitting him in the face until his sobs were more due to despair than pain. The only thought keeping him from collapsing again was the knowledge that Batman was coming. He was. Any moment now, he would burst in with his cape blowing and soft hands would pick Jason up to cradle him like he was important, like he mattered. With a sigh, he adjusted his hold on his abdomen carefully, eyelids heavy. The lights above him were still buzzing, but it was starting to feel comforting, like a quiet farewell.
As if it could sense the peace floating just above him, his new position only served to jostle his fragile intestinal wound, fresh blood drowning already stained hands until all that Robin could see was red. Not the light red of his cape, but the dark crimson of sin that promised that even in his death he would never be safe from the past. With a groan, Robin let himself collapse against the wall behind him, right arm loosely wrapping itself around his abdomen in an attempt to stop the steady blood flow. He panted heavily, throat constricting at the slow realisation that there was a weight against his arm, as if something slimy was trying to crawl out. It wasn’t until his breathing picked up, lungs breathing in more and more smoke that he finally registered what was wiggling out of his ragged wound and he felt his newly-found hope instantly seep out amongst the lake of blood. Robins couldn’t live without organs. How would he eat if he couldn’t digest?
A hysterical laugh erupted out of his mouth at the mental image, grip slipping enough that his small intestine fell into his eyesight. Laughter dying quicker than it started, Robin’s breath caught in his dry throat as he stared down with wide eyes at his moving, living organ in his lap. If it hadn’t been his own, he would've been squealing at the sight, but all that he could muster up was a distressed, bloody gurgle. There wasn’t any coming back from this, no matter who came. Robin had officially fallen, eyes stuck on the part of him that was fleeing from him as if escaping imprisonment. It seemed to wave tauntingly at Robin, showing off its freedom like a drug before it finally fell limp. Robin couldn’t even register the pain, his entire being utterly focused on the organ falling limply out of him and the reflection of it in the cracked mirror on the floor before him.
Inevitably, his gaze moved to watch himself struggling to pant, desperately wanting to look away but finding himself unable to. Maybe it was out of curiosity, maybe out of some sick fascination. All that he knew was that that was Jason crying in front of him, blood covering skin that he knew so well like a second layer. In fact, it made something inside of him let out a low groan at the realisation that this was how it was going to end. Even if he survived, then what? He would be put into a hospital bed for all bustling crowds to come leer at the failed Robin before he was eventually buried in an abandoned grave that even the press avoided until it collapsed into a ditch off the side of the road.
So this is what dying felt like. It hurt.
The thought made Jason sob roughly again, arm dropping limply to allow his wiggling intestine the freedom it oh-so-desired. What was the point? Batman wasn’t coming. He wasn’t going to put in all that energy to save an orphan who could barely talk to his own brother without upsetting him. He wasn’t worthy of being Robin, and maybe this way Nightwing would be happy again. Slowly, the pain around his wound fell into almost silent whirring until he could barely feel anything below his legs. As if they were connected to his weakening heartbeat, the lights above him flickered in warning, causing a suffocating wad of desperation to block Jason’s already tight throat. His hands scrambled desperately in a futile attempt to reawaken the lights and bring the spark back to their empty, glazed-over eyes.
The responding click of darkness made Jason let out his final sound, a guttural wail punctuated by a shuddering gasp as tears flooded down his cheeks. Without the light, he could only imagine how the water would mix in with his blood and pool around the organ still falling out until there was a puddle on the tiles around him, pulling him down until he couldn’t breathe, until the Robin costume, until everything was numb and he couldn’t breatheandohgodhecouldntbreatheohgodohgodohgod-
With one final breath, Jason sobbed mutely as the starving flies descended upon him, tiny teeth gnawing away until there was nothing apart from a lifeless body in the dark and the sleeping flies to greet a devastated Bruce Wayne.