Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jason had been doing great, all things considered.

He hadn’t missed an assignment in two weeks, hadn’t fallen asleep in class more than twice—all right, fine, three times, tops—and had even eaten something that wasn’t instant noodles or reheated takeout. Gotham U hadn’t imploded. No professors had asked too many questions. The world, miraculously, had not yet ended.

Until Wednesday.

The day started badly, if starting at all counted. Because Jason hadn’t actually slept.

The sun had been cresting the horizon when he’d returned to his apartment after a long night of helping Tim track down a drugged-out arsonist. By the time he’d pulled his helmet off and stumbled into his room, he had just enough time to brush his teeth and chug a protein shake while muttering the first paragraph of his mythology essay under his breath like a prayer.

He didn’t even remember getting dressed. One moment, he was grabbing his backpack; the next, he was sprinting halfway across campus, sliding into the back row of his 8 AM lecture, barely even winded.

Then his classmate gave him a look. Then two classmates did. Then three.

Then someone muttered, “Dude, if you’re gonna cosplay Red Hood, at least carry the helmet. Coward.”

Jason blinked.

He looked down.

There was a red bat across his chest.

Oh no.

He was still wearing the Red Hood tactical undersuit—minus the helmet, thank god, but still armored, visibly bulletproof, and bearing just enough scuffs to suggest he’d recently gotten in a knife fight. Because he had. His boots still had smoke damage.

For two seconds, he sat very still and considered simply ceasing to exist.

Instead, he smiled tightly and zipped up his jacket. Maybe if he slouched hard enough, he’d become part of the desk.

Jason
hypothetically
if one were to show up to class in half a vigilante suit
how fucked would one be

Steph
10/10 fucked
LMAO YOU DID NOT

Duke
are we talking helmet and all or like
partial ensemble

Cass
Photo please

Dick
Please tell me you at least took the helmet off 😰

Damian
You’re a disgrace.

Tim
why are you in class?? you were just out on patrol??

Jason
ur mom

Tim
why are you like this

Dick
Hey
You’re an adult now
You gotta learn to manage your time responsibly

Jason
aren’t you like 30 and still crashing at the manor sometimes

Dick
I’m 29
Fuck you
❤️

By the time class started, Jason had stuffed his holsters and utility belt into the bottom of his backpack, and was trying to channel the spirit of every sleep-deprived liberal arts major in Gotham.

Professor Castillo was mid-rant about unreliable narrators in modern fiction when her eyes fell on Jason. She paused.

“I see someone came dressed for battle,” she said dryly. “Planning to stage a dramatic defense of your essay?”

A few students chuckled. Jason, without missing a beat, said, “Only if you start slandering Marlowe.”

She raised an eyebrow, seemingly impressed. “Well, I’m glad someone’s caffeinated.”

He absolutely wasn’t—not yet, anyway—but he knew the text. He could do this half-dead.

Professor Castillo called on him twice. The first time, Jason accidentally answered in the same clipped tone he used with cops, and the girl across the aisle looked vaguely terrified. The second time, he managed to mumble something about narrative identity and mythmaking while chewing the inside of his cheek so he wouldn’t visibly panic.

By the end of the class, he’d been asked six times if he was available for “vigilante-themed photoshoots.” Three students asked for pictures. One said she wanted to send it to her brother “because he’s, like, obsessed with vigilantes.” Another asked if Jason was friends with Red Hood.

Jason, heart hammering, could only think to say, “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

They all laughed. Jason did not.

He caught his reflection in the vending machine outside the lecture hall. His domino mask had left a faint raccoon shadow on his face. His backpack—patched-up canvas, not tactical—was slung over one shoulder like that made him a real boy. Normal. Civilian. Totally someone who had remembered to change out of his vigilante gear before sprinting to campus.

Cool.

Great.

This was fine.

“This is fine,” he muttered to himself, willing the words to be true.

The vending machine declined to comment.

Later, he would discover that four students in the class had posted anonymously on the campus subreddit about the mysterious guy in body armor who quoted Shakespeare and smelled faintly of gun oil.

One post titled Red Hood goes to Gotham U? got over 900 upvotes.

r/GothamU

u/awkwardazlynn

Saw this guy in Lit dressed like Red Hood?? Is this performance art or am I in danger 😭

Not trying to sound paranoid but the dude in my class literally had body armor under his jacket. Like combat boots. Kevlar suit. Utility belt.

Either he’s in a VERY niche cosplay club or I just attended a lecture with a war criminal.

ETA: He drinks his coffee black and made an Iliad joke under his breath. I can’t decide if he’s hot or terrifying or both.

u/MetropolisMirth

Gotham’s feral energy never disappoints.

            u/shire_wanderer

            Gotham students are built different.

            u/capetwirler

            vigilante-core is trending, babes

u/dooweedoo

I would absolutely commit crimes for that man.

u/SilverChirp2006

his prose is immaculate but the vibes are like. emotionally haunted alley cat.

u/coffeeeandsarcasm

he looked like he was 3 coffees and one tragic past away from becoming a Greek myth himself

            u/deepfriedoreo

            I asked him about the outfit and he just said “it’s laundry day.”

            Iconic. Terrifying.

                        u/LiteraryVoyager

                        i think i’m in love

u/whimsical_wombat_waltz

you mean he ISN’T the Red Hood??? bc i’m not convinced

            u/stemsoverlords98

            I mean, it is Gotham. This could be a normal Wednesday.

            u/Jedi_Mind_Trickster

            nah fr i’d let red hood ruin my gpa

            u/CinematicSpecter

            Lol I wonder if Batman gives scholarships

u/RiderDan

If he corrects your MLA citations, just say thank you and back away slowly.

            u/pageturnerQuest

            do you think he does group projects or just threatens people into doing them?

            u/lavenderlunacy

            someone overheard him say “i kill for grammar” and i’m choosing to believe it’s literal

@haydenjones

midterms got everyone dressing like they’re prepared to go feral in the woods and eat god

—

@trishabakes

There’s a guy in my American Lit class who dresses like he’s expecting to be mugged and betrayed at any moment.

He gave me his last pencil. I will follow him into war.

—

@DrewMJ

me: what do lit majors even do all day

lit major: walks into class dressed like he has unfinished business and a body count

me: nvm

—

@janeatnorth

can someone explain how a guy who dresses in vigilante cosplay is allowed to just. roam campus??

no ID badge. no fear. only trauma and espresso.

—

@WriterMaven

okay but if I fail this course, I’m blaming the guy who showed up to class looking like a war crime in motion

how am I supposed to focus with that energy across the room

—

@Quinn_Lantern

the older guy in our fiction workshop wrote a short story about a kid who dies and comes back wrong, and when we asked what inspired it he said “my monday” and changed the subject.

is this just . . . his vibe???

Tim
hey so
anyone checked twitter today?

Steph
YOU GUYS
JASON IS TRENDING

Cass
He wore the boots
The loud boots 🥾

Duke
he’s trending under #GothamUCryptid
someone said he looked like if Edgar Allan Poe hit the gym

Tim
I saw a thread saying “that lit dude is either diet batman or his emotionally repressed son” and another one just called him “daddy issues in boots”
they have no idea how close they are

Cass
Many memes
They fear him
He thrives

Duke
do you think we can make merch out of this lol

Jason
no

Steph
WAIT YOU’RE A GENIUS
MERCH YES

Cass
Merch yes ✨

Tim
merch yes

Duke
merch yes

Jason
merch no

Damian
Merch yes.

Jason
et tu, brat?

Damian
You have to pay for your useless degree somehow.

Dick
Hey let’s not fight in the chat guys 🥺🙏

Damian
I will not coddle Todd when he insists on embarrassing himself in public.

Jason
I was LATE
I was TIRED
I grabbed what was on the chair
it was DARK
also shut up

Steph
you’re lucky they don’t know you’re a vigilante
they think you’re just a brooding poet who deadlifts

Duke
actually kinda scarier

Jason
can’t talk
ignoring 47 dms
one guy asked if I was mourning someone or just built like this

Steph
LMAOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

@helenluvsbooks
omg you were so cool in class today!! are you doing the poetry open mic??? pls say yes

—

@serenadrawstoo
do you model
or kill people
or both
asking for a friend

—

@quillquirkster
Hi! You don’t know me, but can I interview you for my podcast on emotionally devastating literature and emotionally unavailable men?

—

@sneakychatterbox
hey just wanted to say i really vibed with your short story
also is it based on real events
also are you okay

—

@autumnleaves1989
Are you the guy everyone’s talking about from ENG214??
Please confirm. I need to win a bet.

—

@RevvedUpRuckus
i respect your vibes and your boots
pls send boot recs

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Quick Reminder About Classroom Attire ☺️

Hi everyone,

Hope you're all hanging in there! I know midterms are hitting hard, and caffeine consumption is at an all-time high.

Just a friendly reminder that while we at Gotham University encourage individuality and creative expression, the classroom is still a shared academic space, and certain choices—particularly those involving tactical bodysuits, utility belts, or anything that may or may not qualify as light armor—can be a bit distracting for others.

Please keep in mind that comfort, practicality, and basic adherence to classroom norms are always appreciated. Especially during lectures. Especially when everyone is already on edge from exams. Especially before 10 AM.

If your outfit could cause someone to ask, “Is the class about to get held hostage?” it might be worth reconsidering.

Thanks so much for your understanding, and good luck on the rest of your midterms! You’ve got this. Really.

Warmly,
Eric Sung
Teaching Assistant | Intermediate Fiction Workshop (ENG 214)
Department of English and Comparative Literature
Gotham University
Email: [email protected]

Jason
they’re calling me a war criminal
do I at least look hot

Duke
like if Hot Topic and a poetry reading had a baby
and the baby was wanted by the FBI

Jason
do I look hot though

Damian
Pennyworth says you look unwell. I agree.
If you fail to secure a 4.0, it reflects poorly on all of us.

Jason
get your own gpa, demon

Damian
I have surpassed the need for institutional education.

Steph
death is temporary
memes are forever

Cass
Poetic

Dick
Okay but how are you actually doing?
This bothering you?

Jason
nah
it’s just funny

It wasn’t funny.

It might have been—maybe—if it didn’t tap on that thing he carried. That old, sharp blade that scraped at his ribs whenever he played at normal.

Because he wasn’t.

Jason had grown up knowing what it was like to be hungry—truly, soul-sucking hungry. Had known what it was like to dig through dumpsters for day-old sandwiches. To sleep in alleys. To steal dog-eared paperbacks from street bins. He’d taught himself how to talk around adults in case they called CPS.

Gotham U felt like a mirage. Someplace other kids belonged, kids with planners and MacBooks and scowls that didn’t send professors twitching.

He wasn’t supposed to be here. Not really.

Kids like him didn’t end up in college classrooms with spiraled notebooks and overpriced paperbacks. They ended up in foster files. In mugshots. Under headlines.

He wasn’t built for normal. Never had been. He could fake it for a while, wear the student mask, jot down lecture notes, raise his hand when he remembered—but the real him always bled through.

Even now. Literal bloodstains under his sleeve. He’d had to scrub them off his knuckles in the school bathroom. Nobody noticed. Not yet.

But someone would.

They always did.

ginny_has_opinions

[A blurry photo of Jason standing in the hallway, arms crossed, looking vaguely pissed off at a vending machine.]

local man looks like he’s one espresso away from vengeance

—

lizzywritesstuff

[A short vertical video of Jason, walking down campus steps, combat boots clunking loudly. His jacket is zipped up halfway, with the top of the red bat insignia visible underneath. Camera shakes slightly. Mission Impossible theme plays in the background.]

Just passed That Guy again.

—

harrywithaplan

[A photo of Jason leaning on a campus railing, tired and disheveled, combat boots visible.]

when midterms feel like doomsday prep

—

sufferingsuccotash

[A thirty-second shaky zoomed-in shot of Jason resting his head on his hand, visibly exhausted, combat gear and all. The audio playing is a heartbeat sound followed by a faint explosion.]

POV: your writing workshop is about to peer review your story but Red Hood is in the front row

@ruby_is_stressed

I’m not even in the lit department but I saw that one guy they’re all talking about. I think I made eye contact and he saw into my soul.

—

@SomebodySaveMe

so are we not gonna talk about the dude who looks like a haunted action figure and quoted camus mid-debate without blinking

—

@whatisAPA

guy in my seminar turned up in full-on Red Hood cosplay and corrected the prof’s pronunciation of “Thoreau” like he was reciting obituaries

—

@terraincognita

gotham university’s sleep-deprived red hood is real and he’s in my lecture. he said “blood is the first ink” and then kept taking notes like that was normal.

—

@premedparker

Showed my mom a TikTok of #GothamUCryptid and she said he looks like one of Bruce Wayne’s kids.

Um.

            @PalpatineDidNothingWrong
            Replying to @premedparker

            literally went “lol ain’t no way” but then I googled it and now I need to lie down

            @kurtisknowsall
            Replying to @premedparker

            as in the dead kid?? the legally dead for five years dead kid???

Damian
Do they not have changing rooms in college?
Or are you incapable of time management even when not actively being shot at?

Jason
bro I got 0 sleep and a caffeine twitch that could kill god
let me live

Dick
Is the caffeine twitch why you answered a question about tragic irony with “you ever kill a man and regret it later”?

Jason
I WAS KIDDING
IT WAS A JOKE

Tim
“he looks like he killed a man at midnight and then wrote an elegy for him before breakfast”
is a REAL tweet
you're never living this down

Steph
you’re my hero 💖💖💖💖

Jason
I hate all of you
when I get my diploma then you’ll see
you’ll all see

Tim
see what
your student loans

Jason
rude
accurate
blocked

Jason didn’t check his phone on the train ride back from school.

Not because he forgot—he could feel the buzzing in his pocket like a second heartbeat—but because he already knew what he’d see. More memes. More screenshots. More commentary from the peanut gallery. Probably Cass posting a Red Hood sticker over some photo or a voice memo from Steph pretending to be his PR agent.

The meme storm had reached its peak around third period. He hadn’t looked directly at anyone the whole day. Just kept his head down and his jaw set, hands shoved in his pockets like maybe he could disappear into them.

He hadn’t. Obviously.

By the time he made it back to his apartment—a third-floor walk-up with uneven floors and a heater that hissed like a raccoon trapped in the vents—he was on the verge of collapse. His ribs ached. His eyes burned. He’d sweated through his gear in a way that was definitely going to require industrial-grade laundry detergent. But worse than the pain was the feeling.

The dread.

That slow-creeping rot in his gut that said, This is the moment you ruin it. The part where they find out you’re not supposed to be here.

He liked school. That was the problem. He liked his classes. He liked the coursework and the smell of the library and the sound of chalk on the board. He liked writing essays and arguing about books and sitting in seminars where no one knew he used to sleep in alleyways. College was the only place where he felt like he could want things.

But every so often, all it took was a look or a comment—and now it was photos online of him looking like he'd just walked out of Arkham—and the illusion cracked.

Jason kicked off his boots, peeled off his jacket, and collapsed onto the couch face-first with all the grace of a dead body being dumped into a river. When the ceiling didn’t collapse on him, he considered it a win.

Then, because the universe hated him, there was a knock at the door.

Three raps. Pause. Two.

Annoyingly familiar.

He debated faking sleep. Maybe death.

But then he heard the jangle of keys.

Jason bolted upright. “Don’t you dare—!”

Too late. The door opened with the distinctive creak of betrayal, and there was Dick, grinning smugly and holding up the emergency spare key like it was a winning lottery ticket.

Jason threw a pillow at him. Dick sidestepped it neatly.

“Normal people text first,” Jason said.

“You weren’t answering your phone,” Dick said. He looked like he’d jogged the last block: windswept hair, jacket slung over one shoulder, and a brown paper bag in his hand that made Jason suspicious on principle.

Jason groaned and let himself fall back into the couch cushions. “Yes, I was.”

“You sent me the skull emoji.”

“That’s basically ‘I’m alive.’”

“You sent it with sparkles. That’s mixed signals.”

“I was feeling festive.”

Dick toed off his shoes and closed the door gently behind him, as if he thought the place might shatter if he made too much noise.

“I come bearing gifts,” he said, holding the bag up. “Chicken shawarma. Hot sauce on the side.”

Jason eyed the bag like it might explode. “You remembered the pickled onions?”

“Am I Tim?”

“Touché.”

They ate on the couch, paper containers balanced on their knees, sitting in silence like they were back in the cave post-patrol, thirty hours without sleep and too tired to fake small talk. The city outside buzzed with low, distant traffic, the muffled pulse of Gotham filtering through the walls. Neither Jason nor Dick had thought to turn the lights on, so the apartment was soaked in the gold-grey of late afternoon. Warm. Quiet. Too quiet.

Dick, predictably, was the one who broke it. “So. You’re famous now.”

Jason groaned again. “Don’t.”

“I mean, the memes did hit the Gotham subreddit by noon. Going viral for your vibe alone? That takes talent.”

“I went to class in my gear and forgot how to smile. That’s not a vibe. That’s a breakdown.”

Dick grinned. “Well, the internet disagrees.”

Jason fought the urge to throw another pillow at his head. “Don’t make me regret not ghosting you all.”

“You already regret us daily.”

Jason smirked despite himself; he felt it flicker across his face, there and gone. He glanced at the ceiling, then at his untouched water glass on the table, then back again. His head buzzed from the day. Too many people, too many stares. A whole afternoon of pretending it didn’t get to him.

He didn’t want to talk about it.

Dick didn’t say anything else right away. Just leaned back, relaxed, like he wasn’t here to poke and prod. Jason appreciated that. Or would, if he let himself admit it.

“I think you scared some kids,” Dick said eventually. “I saw one post that said, and I quote, ‘He looks like he’s killed someone with a fountain pen.’”

Jason snorted. “They’re not wrong.”

He’d looked in the mirror this morning and seen the same thing he always saw. Dark circles. Tension in the jaw. That look behind the eyes that made him seem older than he was. The one people never commented on directly, but made them keep their distance. Even now. Even on campus.

Especially on campus.

Dick elbowed him gently. “You’ve heard worse.”

“Yeah, and most of them were from you.”

“Sibling privilege.”

Another beat of silence. Jason leaned back and closed his eyes. Let himself breathe for a second. The cardboard box in his hands felt too heavy for what little food was left inside.

He could feel Dick watching him. Not pushing, not pressing. Dick rarely did anymore. He just sat there, waiting, probably looking at Jason like he was trying to read a closed book.

Jason didn’t say it out loud, but he liked the quiet that came with Dick’s presence. The way Dick could just be around him without poking at the raw edges.

“They think I’m some kind of dropout ex-gangster or something,” Jason muttered. “I walked in and half the room stopped breathing. Like they thought I might explode.”

“They don’t think that,” Dick said, casually enough to sound believable.

“Don’t they?”

“Does it matter?”

Jason wanted to say yes. He wanted to scream it. Of course it mattered. He’d worked hard to get here—to claw his way out of everything, to sit in a classroom and pretend he could still be something, someone, that all the years hadn’t calcified into something too heavy to carry.

He opened his eyes again. “Not really.”

Dick nodded like he knew anyway.

“You’re intimidating,” he said lightly. “It’s part of your charm.”

Jason exhaled sharply through his nose. Made a sound that might have been a laugh.

He wished he could say it—explain what it felt like, being in a room full of kids who were younger, softer, whole in a way he hadn’t been since he was ten. How they joked about trauma and true crime podcasts, and he was sitting two rows back thinking about how blood smelled when it was fresh.

But he didn’t.

He didn’t know how to say, I wanted to be like them, I think I still do, without sounding pathetic.

He didn’t know how to explain that college had once been a dream—one of the only ones he’d allowed himself—and now it just felt like a costume. Another thing he wore, another place he didn’t quite belong.

So instead, he said, “I’m too old for this shit.”

“You’re twenty-three.”

“Exactly.”

Dick smiled faintly. “I was still wearing a spandex onesie at twenty-three.”

Jason glanced at him sideways. “You still do.”

“Hey. It’s tactical now.”

Jason hummed, half a laugh. “You know Bruce would’ve given me the ‘you’re drawing too much attention’ talk, right?”

Dick snorted. “Yeah. You’re lucky he’s not in town.”

“Silver linings, I guess.”

But even as he said it, Jason felt his chest twist a little. He didn’t want Bruce to lecture him, but there was something quietly jarring about Bruce not being here. No check-ins. Not even a phone call. He was probably in some backwoods jungle doing recon for a League op or some important Wayne Enterprises business deal or whatever—Jason didn’t bother to keep track these days.

He wasn’t mad. Not exactly. Just . . . aware. Like a kid noticing that the porch light wasn’t on when it was supposed to be.

Dick nudged him with a socked foot. “You’ve got that face again.”

“What face?”

“The ‘I’ve mentally committed five murders and three arsons’ face.”

Jason smirked. “Only five?”

“I’m being generous.”

Jason looked down at his hands. He hadn’t realized how tightly he had been gripping the takeout box until he set it aside and saw the shallow crescents where his nails had dug into the cardboard.

“You ever think it’s too late?” he asked before he could stop himself.

Dick turned to look at him. “For what?”

Jason shrugged. “Whatever you wanted to be. Before.”

He didn’t clarify what before meant. He didn’t need to. Dick was good at reading between the lines. He always had been.

“I think sometimes the dream changes,” Dick said finally, gently. “And that’s okay.”

Jason let that sit. He didn’t agree. Not really. But something in his chest unwound a little. It was . . . comforting, in that annoyingly Dick way.

“Yeah,” he murmured. “Maybe.”

They went quiet again. The kind of quiet that was safe, where it felt okay to just exist and be seen, truly seen, by someone who wasn’t afraid of the parts of him that hadn’t come back right. Even when he was a mess. Even when he was pissed off and tired and one bad day from putting his fist through a lecture hall projector.

Eventually, Jason stood up and stretched. The light had faded from the windows now. The room was soft with dusk and the dim blue cast of the hallway light.

“You staying or heading out?” he asked.

Dick blinked up at him. “You want me to stay?”

“Didn’t say that.”

“Didn’t say no either.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Don’t make it weird.”

Dick grinned and kicked his feet up on the table. “Fine. I’ll stay. But I’m picking the movie.”

“I swear to god, if you say Mamma Mia again—”

“Jason—Jay. You need joy in your life.”

Jason grabbed the remote and tossed it at him. “You’re lucky I’m tired.”

Dick caught it without batting an eye. “I’m lucky you haven’t stabbed me.”

“Yet.”

Dick’s grin widened. “Progress.”

Jason shook his head, lips twitching, and sat back down. As Dick turned on the TV, Jason leaned his head against the couch cushion, eyes half-closed, and let himself rest for the first time all day.

Tim
hey
you’ve seen the jason stuff yet?

Bruce
What Jason stuff.

Tim
uh
the thing where he accidentally turned himself into gotham u urban legend

Bruce
What.

Tim
reddit memes
tweets
tiktoks
insta
all him

Bruce
Send me everything.

Tim
you’re not going to like it

Bruce
I already don’t.

Tim
he’s not in trouble though right
right bruce?
bruce?

Chapter Text

Sometimes I think the earth spit me out because it couldn’t stand the weight. Like even six feet under, I was too loud, too angry, too much. I woke up to silence and stayed there, somewhere between memory and mistake. No place to be. No name that felt right in my mouth. I carved myself into something sharp, just to see if the world would bleed.

— Excerpt from “The Earth Didn’t Want Me” by Jason Peter Todd

Tim
don’t get mad

Jason
what

Tim
I said don’t get mad

Jason
yeah, I got that
I can read, asshat
what did you do

Tim
look
technically I didn’t do anything wrong

Jason
what are you talking about

Tim
he was going to find out anyway
so you’re not allowed to get mad

Jason
wait
are you talking about bruce??
drake
did you narc on me
DRAKE
did you tell him about the memes?
did you SHOW him the fucking memes???

Tim
I SAID DON’T GET MAD

Jason
YOU DID
YOU TOLD HIM
YOU FUCKING SNITCH

Tim
BETTER ME THAN THE PR TEAM

Jason
FUCK YOU
ANSWER YOUR GODDAMN PHONE DRAKE
I WILL END YOU

Jason hadn’t meant to end up at the manor the next day.

It had been a spur-of-the-moment instinct. Somewhere between leaving the library and remembering he hadn’t eaten all day, his boots had carried him past familiar hedges and iron gates, dragging him to the front steps like they had a mind of their own. He stood there under the grey afternoon sky, glaring at the door like it might sprout fangs and bite him if he knocked.

It didn’t. It just opened.

“I suspected it might be you,” Alfred said, holding a dishtowel in one hand. “You’re early.”

Jason grunted. “Didn’t realize this was an appointment.”

“Then it’s fortunate that I am always prepared.”

Jason huffed a laugh before he could stop himself.

Alfred sighed, fond and exasperated. “Come inside.”

Jason stepped over the threshold before he could change his mind. The familiar scent hit him: clean linens, old paper, and some citrus polish he could never quite place. It wasn’t that the manor smelled like home—it smelled like the ghost of one. The blueprint of a life he hadn’t managed to keep.

He shrugged off his jacket and followed Alfred into the kitchen, rubbing absently at the tension coiled at the base of his neck. He hadn’t slept well. Again.

Not that Bruce could throw any stones.

“Tea?” Alfred asked.

Jason gave him a look. “You’re offering. You already know the answer.”

“Some of us still maintain the pretense of polite conversation.”

Jason almost said no, but the quiet part of him—the one that hadn’t stopped buzzing since yesterday—gave in.

“Sure,” he said. “Tea.”

Jason sat at the end of the table, watching Alfred set the kettle on and prepare things the exact same way he had when Jason was fifteen and bone-tired after patrol and pretending not to be shivering. The kitchen had always been quieter than the cave, less performative than the parlor. No mantlepiece stares, no legacy on the walls.

Just warm ceramic and sandwiches and Alfred.

“I’ve been told you had an unexpected visitor yesterday,” Alfred said conversationally, slicing something at the counter—cucumber, maybe? Jason wasn’t sure. He wasn’t really looking.

He was trying not to think too hard about what it meant, that he was sitting here now like he hadn’t once tried to burn this whole life down.

“Yeah,” Jason muttered. “Dick dropped by?”

“He did. He also mentioned that you are, as the children say, ‘internet famous.’”

Jason groaned and scrubbed a hand down his face. “God. Not you too.”

Alfred didn’t turn. “It was difficult to miss. Master Damian found a compilation video on Instagram. Miss Cassandra attempted to add music.”

“Of course she did.”

“Something involving a Taylor Swift song and dramatic text overlays.”

Jason grunted. “She’s dead to me.”

“It was rather well-edited. And I thought you looked quite sharp.”

“I looked like I was either auditioning for a street gang or on the way to punch Nietzsche.”

“A versatile ensemble, then.”

Jason laughed again, though the sound caught in his throat. “I swear I didn’t plan it. I’d pulled an all-nighter. I’d just gotten back from—” He waved a hand. “Something messy. Didn’t even change. Just thought I’d sit in for the class and leave early.”

Alfred looked up from the counter. “But you stayed?”

Jason swallowed. “Yeah.”

Alfred nodded once. “Good.”

Jason blinked at him, startled. “That’s it? No lecture? No ‘you should’ve thought this through, Master Jason’?”

Alfred arched an eyebrow. “Would it help?”

Jason looked away. “No.”

“Then I’ll spare you the energy of pretending to listen.”

Jason snorted. “That’s honest of you.”

“I’ve found,” Alfred said, still mildly, “that when one of you bothers to come home without bleeding, it’s not the time for lectures.”

Home. Jason didn’t respond to that. He couldn’t. So he said nothing. Just braced his arms on the table and stared at the faint scratches in the old oak. He used to pick at them as a kid, back when sitting at this table meant afternoon tea and Alfred’s sharply worded reminders on elbows and posture.

Now it felt like a borrowed memory. Like he was slipping into someone else’s skin.

“Heard from Tim lately?” he asked after a beat, trying and failing to not sound bitter.

Alfred paused just long enough to make the silence count. “I believe he’s been . . . occupied.”

“Yeah, with guilt,” Jason scoffed. “He’s been avoiding me. Thinks if he stays quiet long enough I’ll forget he ratted me out.”

“He told Master Bruce because he was worried,” Alfred said delicately.

Jason didn’t answer. Didn’t say, I know. Didn’t say, that’s the problem. He didn't mention that Bruce hadn't called, hadn't texted. Hadn’t so much as sent a carrier pigeon to check in since the memes blew up.

But Jason told himself it didn’t matter. He didn’t expect anything. Not from Bruce. Not anymore.

“I didn’t come here to talk about Tim,” Jason said finally. “Or Bruce. Or—whatever.”

It came out sharper than he meant it to, but Alfred didn’t flinch. He just hummed, calm as ever, and brought the plate of sandwiches to the table like a peace offering. Jason took it, but he didn’t touch it right away.

“You think people here still bet on how long I’ll stick around?” he asked.

“I doubt anyone with sense would wager against you,” Alfred said.

“People without sense make up most of Gotham,” Jason muttered.

Alfred didn’t argue, and they lapsed into silence. Jason finally bit into one of the sandwiches, chewing slowly as he stared out the window.

Yesterday had been a blur—half the class pretending not to look at him, the other half very much not pretending. Photos. Tweets. Reddit threads that went from conspiracy theory to meme template in under twelve hours.

The meme stuff had slowed down by now. Mostly. But people still stared when he walked through campus. He still got the occasional side-eye from classmates who couldn’t decide if he was an art project or a mental breakdown in progress. Someone in one of his lectures had whispered, “Do you think he’s actually Red Hood?” loud enough that he’d turned and stared them down until they shut up.

The kettle hissed. Steam curled upward.

“Tea,” Alfred said quietly, placing the mug in front of him.

Jason wrapped his hands around it and let the heat sink into his fingers. Alfred, nursing his own mug, sat across from him. Silence fell again, long enough for Jason to get halfway through a second sandwich before Alfred broke the quiet.

“Forgive the observation,” he said gently, “but you seem to be doing quite well.”

Jason looked at him sharply. “You call this well?”

Alfred met his gaze, calm and steady. There was no pity on his face, no admonishment or reproach. Only that quiet, unwavering presence, looking at Jason with more fondness and patience than he deserved.

“I call surviving well,” Alfred said. “And I call persistence admirable. You’ve fought your way through far worse than rumors and poor internet humor.”

Something knotted in Jason’s chest. He looked away before it could rise too high.

Eventually, he said, “Everyone’s still talking about it, you know. On campus. They probably still think I’m pulling a prank. Some kind of—performance art or protest or something. Nobody wears a leather jacket to 8 AM lectures unless they want to be noticed.”

Alfred sipped his tea, his mouth twitching at the corners. “Perhaps they simply recognize your dramatic flair.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “You’re enjoying this way too much.”

“On the contrary, I find your flair exhausting.”

Jason cracked a grin despite himself. He huffed out a breath, shaking his head. “Got a paper due next week. Don’t even know why I’m doing this. The degree won’t change anything.”

Alfred’s eyes crinkled faintly. “Then why are you pursuing it?”

Jason stared at the steam rising between them.

Because he had something to prove, maybe. Because he wanted to finish something. Because some part of him still remembered being a kid who thought graduating college would be the last step in outrunning the streets he’d come from. Before Ethiopia, before the Pit. Before everything.

But he didn’t answer. Couldn’t. The words got stuck somewhere behind his ribs.

Somewhere down the hallway, the ancient plumbing let out a groan. Outside, a bird called once, then went quiet. Jason tapped his thumb against the ceramic.

“Hell if I know,” he said after a while, voice low. “I’m not an idiot—I know I can write a damn good essay. But what’s it for? Some stupid degree that won’t get me hired anywhere normal?”

Alfred didn’t respond immediately. When he did, his voice was soft.

“No degree guarantees usefulness, Master Jason. But it may offer perspective. And, occasionally, joy.”

Jason let out a short, dry laugh. “Joy, huh? Sounds fake.”

But he didn’t dismiss it entirely.

He didn’t get up to leave either.

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: Feedback on “The Earth Didn’t Want Me”

Hi Jason,

Thanks for your submission of “The Earth Didn’t Want Me.” I’ve finished reading it (at least twice now, actually) and I wanted to send you some feedback ahead of next week’s workshop.

This is a deeply affecting piece. Your writing has a clarity that doesn’t flinch, even when the subject matter is heavy. The opening image—the protagonist crawling out of his own grave, hands bleeding and voice lost in the dirt—is stark and arresting. You let the reader sit with the horror without embellishing it, and that restraint makes it all the more powerful.

The middle section—the one with the tank, the chemicals, the way language “comes back screaming before it comes back whole”—was a daring pivot. There’s real risk in metaphor that stylized, but you make it feel earned. The protagonist’s fractured perception of time and memory works especially well there.

I also want to commend the way you write about absence, particularly the mentor figure who never came. Not naming him, not explaining why he didn’t come, just letting that abandonment hang unspoken—that was a smart choice. There’s a weight to that silence that I think your classmates picked up on, even if they couldn’t fully articulate why.

I know this piece has prompted a lot of discussion outside class, for both its subject matter and your choice of in-class attire on the day of submission. But let me be clear: your classmates took this seriously, even when the hallway chatter got . . . memetic. That’s a testament to the work.

If I have one small suggestion: the ending lands emotionally, but I think you could give it just a bit more space to breathe. “The dirt came off. The silence didn’t.” is a haunting line, but I wonder what might happen if you let the emotional rhythm stretch a little before landing there. Even a moment’s pause could let the reader feel the weight of it more fully.

You’ve got something real here, Jason. I’m looking forward to hearing you talk about it in workshop.

And if you’re open to it, I’d love to nominate this piece for the fall undergrad fiction feature. No pressure at all. Just think about it.

Best,
Professor Nadine L. Castillo
Associate Professor | Creative Writing & English Literature
Department of English and Comparative Literature
Gotham University
Email: [email protected]
Office: 320 Hamilton Hall
Office Hours: Mondays & Thursdays, 9 AM–12 PM

@ethereal_echo

RUMORED sugar daddy. pls don’t sue me.

            @ethereal_echo

            was anyone going to tell me that Batman’s billionaire sugar daddy is visiting campus today or was I just supposed to find that out myself?

By the time Friday rolled around, Jason had resigned himself to being an internet cryptid.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t been famous before—infamous, really—but this was different. This was lecture hall side-eyes and half-laughed rumors, whispered mentions of “Red Hood Lit Guy” in the corridors and some junior with a liberal arts podcast inviting him to be a guest speaker on “vigilante aesthetics.”

He’d told them to eat his syllabus. Politely.

Now he sat on a half-empty patio outside the library, stirring the ice in a watered-down coffee he didn’t want. The café wasn’t much—just a counter and a few weathered tables shaded by an awning, tucked between stone columns and the grassy expanse of the quad—but there were a few students scattered around, pretending not to stare. The girl two tables over had taken a picture five minutes ago. He hadn’t said anything.

His fingers itched to fidget with something—a knife, a gun, his gloves—but he forced them to stay flat against the table. Just a guy. Having coffee. Not threatening anyone.

And then Jason saw him.

Dark coat, pressed shirt, neutral expression. Dressed down, for Bruce—which still made him look like he belonged on the cover of a GQ feature titled How to Run a Boardroom Without Raising Your Voice. A few undergrads actually slowed down as they passed, whispering like they recognized him. Maybe they did. Or maybe they just recognized that look: rich, powerful, the kind of guy who always had somewhere more important to be.

Jason cursed under his breath and turned away instinctively, feeling like a kid caught skipping class. Which was ridiculous. He was in his twenties. Legally an adult. Legally alive, even.

Still.

For a moment, Jason considered standing up and walking in the opposite direction. Looping around the library, diving behind the fountain, scaling the damn science building if he had to. Not out of spite—just instinct. A muscle memory of retreat.

But Bruce was walking straight toward him.

Jason didn’t stand. Didn’t run. He just . . . casually angled his seat toward the statue of an old alumni and pretended to be interested in a pigeon with a limp.

“Jason,” Bruce said behind him, voice low and even, like they were business associates meeting for a very awkward coffee.

“B,” Jason said, not turning around. He sank a little lower in his chair. “Jesus Christ. Why do you look like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you’re here to buy the building and evict the humanities department. You’re supposed to be in Malaysia.”

“I just got back.”

Jason glanced over his shoulder, narrowing his eyes. “So—what, you just decided to drop in?”

Bruce looked back at him, eyes sweeping over him like he was trying to decode battlefield injuries under body armor.

“I thought we could talk,” Bruce said.

“You could’ve just called.”

“I didn’t want to do this over the phone.”

“And ambushing me in the middle of campus was a better call?”

“I didn’t think you’d say yes if I asked.”

For a second, Jason didn’t know what to do with that—Bruce admitting to any sort of emotional calculus. Jason almost wanted to make a joke, but it stuck somewhere in his chest, under the familiar ache.

Instead, he said, “If this is an intervention, you’re at least two memes too late.”

“It’s not an intervention. It’s a check-in.”

“Pretty sure those words mean the same thing with you.”

“They don’t.”

“It is when it’s me we’re talking about.”

Bruce didn’t wince, but his posture changed in that subtle, hard-to-name way. Shoulders tense. Chin up. Jaw tight. Not quite defensive, but like he was bracing for impact.

Jason reached for his drink, wishing he hadn’t noticed it.

“How did you find me?” he asked. “Let me guess. Tim snitched on me again?”

“You said you usually stop here after class,” Bruce said mildly.

Jason froze, his mind going blank. He didn’t know what to do with that either. He hadn’t thought Bruce was listening when he’d mentioned it. He’d mumbled it while dodging a question about sleep schedules. Hadn’t even meant to offer it.

Jason cleared his throat.

“Right,” he said and took a slow sip of his coffee, letting the silence stretch between them.

He hated this—the sting of almost being angry and almost being grateful and not knowing which one to land on. He wanted to tell Bruce to fuck off. He wanted to tell Bruce to stay. He wanted to scream and laugh and ask if Bruce had seen the one meme where Jason was Photoshopped into a Shakespearean tragedy poster.

A passing student slowed as they recognized Bruce. Jason saw it—the quick double-take, the half-whispered holy shit, followed by a poorly hidden phone camera click—and turned his back to the quad.

Bruce’s expression didn’t change. He was still standing there, his arms folded, glancing down at the pigeon hobbling past them like it, too, had midterms.

“You gonna just stand there?” Jason grunted.

Bruce tilted his head. “Would you prefer I leave?”

Jason had to take a breath before answering.

The honest answer was no. No, he didn’t want Bruce to leave. But he also didn’t want to admit that. Not here, not with the ache of missing things he didn’t know how to ask for still raw under his ribs.

So he pivoted.

“There’s this diner near the back gate,” Jason said. “You still like burgers, right? Or do you just eat sadness and unsweetened tea.”

The corner of Bruce’s mouth twitched, almost—but not quite—into something that could be mistaken for amusement. “Burgers it is.”

@realblorbohours

someone explain why the cosplay man is meeting Bruce Wayne like it’s a parole check-in

—

@mylast2braincells

Just watched Bruce Wayne walk across campus like it was totally normal. He met up with That Guy™ from lit.

The vibes were “visiting your son after his war crimes.”

—

@kenzie_sings

all I want is for someone to look at me the way bruce wayne looked at that man’s iced coffee

            @probsnotarobot
            Replying to @kenzie_sings

            Lol “that man” is GU’s Red Hood cryptid. Also he’s Jason Todd.

            @kenzie_sings

            I’M SORRY HE’S WHO???????

—

@tomnothanks

thought the english department had drama bc of their faculty infighting but turns out one of their students fake died and is heir to the richest man in gotham 🤯

—

@velvet_skies

the hot lit major who wore tactical gear to class is bruce wayne’s adopted son. why does gotham keep doing this to me personally

—

@terraincognita

me: man that guy in my creative nonfiction class is intense

also me: googles him out of curiosity

also also me: ???!?!?!?!?!? LEGALLY DEAD???

—

@KnowThySyllabus

saw bruce wayne outside the library and I thought I was hallucinating due to lack of sleep. turns out no. he's just casually hanging out with his undead son.

hazelPadilla

[A shaky, zoomed-in clip of Jason sitting outside the library, scowling at his coffee. Bruce stands in front of him as though about to deliver a eulogy, coat billowing in an unseen breeze.]

when #GothamUCryptid turns out to be a real-life Lazarus and his dad just showed up in $10k loafers to tell him he’s doing great sweetie

            Chrissy M 🦋

            You’re telling me the guy who told our professor that “revenge is a theme in literature because it is a fact of life” is ALSO a wayne?? THAT wayne?? bruce wayne’s DEAD KID??

            I want to drop out.

            janthonycruz

            me: wow jason todd's character work in workshop is really nuanced and haunting

            also me, finding out he’s bruce wayne’s long-lost-dead-and-undead son: oh. okay. that explains some things.

            Reed

            why does this look like a deleted scene from succession

                        🍜 noodles_and_notes ✍🏿

                        no cause i swear i saw him five minutes later arguing with a vending machine

            lobsterinspace

            somebody PLEASE explain how our grumpiest sophomore is a reanimated rich kid with a vigilante jawline

            TammyOrSomething

            i thought he was security or like. a rogue costume designer from the film dept 💀

Duke
uhhh
did anyone else know Bruce is back in the city?

Tim
sorry what

Damian
He arrived approximately forty-three minutes ago. I assumed one of you had summoned him.

Steph
i thought he was in malaysia or something for a board meeting?
OK HOLD UP
WHY IS HE TRENDING???????

Damian
What do you mean trending?

Duke
. . . you guys are gonna wanna check Twitter

Cass
👀

Duke
he’s on Jason’s campus
like right now
someone posted a pic

Steph
OH MY GOD

Dick
Oh no

Steph
WAIT I THOUGHT IT WAS OVER
ARE WE DOING JASON MEMES ROUND TWO????

Duke
we are absolutely doing round two
[Screenshot attached of a TikTok of Jason, coffee cup in hand, and Bruce walking across campus, with a text overlay that reads, “You ever look at a man and think: that guy definitely came back from the dead and his dad paid for it.”]

Damian
His jeans have holes.
Disgusting.

Steph
it’s called “depression chic.” let him have this.

Dick
Do we tell Jason? 😟

Cass
He knows

Damian
Good. He deserves to for turning off read receipts.

Duke
Bruce really pulled up like
“heard you were trending. want coffee.”

Tim
honestly? on brand

Dick
You think they’re talking about the memes?

Cass
Not out loud

Steph
“Jason. Son. What is a meme.”

Duke
“Are you being cyberbullied. Should I buy the internet.”

Steph
Jason: “I am the internet now.”

Dick
All right but real talk
Do we think Bruce is actually saying anything or are they just doing that thing where they make heavy eye contact and suffer in sync

Tim
absolutely the second one

Steph
they’re just standing there exchanging emotional repression through osmosis 🤣🤣🤣

The diner had a peeling Coke sign in the window and a menu that hadn’t changed since the ‘80s. It smelled like grease and burnt coffee and the kind of effort that kept a place open because no one had the heart to shut it down.

Jason stirred his coffee—fourth of the day now—without drinking it. He could feel the heat seeping through the ceramic into his palms, but it didn’t ground him the way he wanted it to. The table was sticky. The booth squeaked when he shifted. Across from him, Bruce sat too straight, like posture might make this easier.

For a while, neither of them said anything. That part was normal. Comfortably tense silence. It was their default setting. Familiar, in the way worn armor sometimes became.

Finally, Bruce said, “How’s school?”

“You mean aside from the unsolicited celebrity status?” Jason drawled.

“Aside from that.”

“Fine.”

A beat passed.

“I mean, I almost fell asleep during Chaucer,” Jason added. “But that’s a given. No one actually likes Chaucer.”

“And your exams?”

“Oh, you know. It’s going.”

“Specific.”

“Don’t push your luck.”

Jason regretted his curtness as soon as he said it. But Bruce only nodded and drank his coffee—Jason was willing to bet it was the first truly bad cup of coffee the man had consumed in years—as if acknowledging the shot without rising to it. A tactical retreat. Which was almost worse.

Jason shifted in his seat, uncomfortable. He didn’t want this to turn into one of those conversations. The ones where Bruce asked vague dad-like questions, and Jason tried not to read too much into them.

He was saved from having to come up with something else to say—or, worse, having to apologize—when the waitress arrived with their order. A platter of fries, refills of their burnt coffee, and burgers with enough carbs to make him feel briefly human.

They ate in awkward peace. Jason made a show of checking his phone and sighing at the number of memes still circulating. He read one aloud.

“‘Local meme icon in kevlar gear seen stress-smoking behind the English building. Is this what academia does to people?’” Jason looked up. “See? Totally normal college experience.”

Bruce looked faintly pained. “It’s not ideal.”

“No, really?” Jason said dryly. He tossed a fry in his mouth. “And someone on Twitter figured out I’m the ‘legally alive again’ Wayne kid. So now the conspiracy theorists are having a field day.”

Bruce sipped his coffee. “Do you want us to issue a statement?”

Jason waved him off. “No. Let it die. Campus attention spans are shorter than a TikTok. I’ll be back to being the weird older guy with too many marginalia notes by next Monday.”

Bruce hummed, low in his throat. “Alfred said you had a paper due. Something on Dickens?”

“Yeah. Trauma and redemption arcs.” Jason smirked. “Topical.”

“Dickens was one of your favorites. Back then.”

Jason shrugged. “Guy knew how to write sad little orphans. I felt seen.”

Bruce didn’t answer right away. Just folded his hands around the coffee mug, thumbs pressing into the porcelain like he could smooth something out by force.

Then he said, “You were always good at stories.”

Jason blinked at him. “What?”

“When you were a kid,” Bruce said. There was a too-careful tone in his voice, like he was stepping around a landmine he couldn’t quite locate. “You made up names for your bruises. Said it helped you remember which ones were worth keeping.”

Jason stared at him, caught between a scoff and something heavier. “Jesus, that’s bleak.”

“I thought it was clever.”

Jason almost laughed. Instead, he stared at the greasy burger he’d barely touched and felt the twist in his chest he hated. The one that always stirred up at the worst times—when Bruce said something human, or when Alfred remembered how he liked his eggs, or when Dick ruffled his hair like Jason hadn’t shot him once.

It was easier when he was just angry all the time. Or distant. But not this. Not . . . whatever this was.

“You don’t have to do this,” Jason muttered. He scraped at the edge of his tray with a fork to keep his hands from fidgeting. “I’m not a kid anymore. You don’t have to check in like I’m gonna fall apart the second people laugh at me.”

“I didn’t think you would,” Bruce said, still in that careful, quiet voice. “I came because I wanted to.”

Jason stabbed a fry with more force than necessary. He let out a long breath. “Look, it wasn’t some cry for help. I’m not doing bad, all right? I’m just—balancing stuff. It’s a weird time.”

“I know.”

“And I didn’t wear the helmet. It wasn’t a statement. I just—I had a rough night. Patrol ran long. Didn’t sleep. Grabbed the wrong jacket.”

“You don’t have to explain.”

“Yeah, I do,” Jason snapped. “Because when I screw up, you always assume it’s on purpose.”

Bruce flinched. It was quick, barely there, but Jason saw it. Felt it like a punch to his own gut. The words had come out too fast, too sharp.

“I didn’t mean—” Jason stopped himself. He dragged a hand through his hair, sighing. “Forget it.”

“I haven’t.”

Jason stilled.

“I haven’t forgotten what I did,” Bruce said, voice low. “What I didn’t do. After you came back. Even before you . . .”

Bruce’s voice faltered. Jason didn’t allow himself to look up, but he could feel Bruce still staring at him. Could feel the weight of that gaze, heavier than armor.

“I didn’t come here to apologize. I know that’s not enough.”

Jason swallowed hard. The diner was suddenly too loud—forks scraping plates, muffled laughter, the sizzle of the grill behind the counter.

“But I’m here,” Bruce went on, haltingly. “Because you matter. Because I missed too much already. I wasn’t there when you needed me. I want to be now.”

Jason’s first instinct was to deflect. Make it a joke, bat it back. But something in Bruce’s voice made the words stick in his throat.

Jason said nothing for a long while. He wasn’t sure he could say anything without giving away more than he wanted to. He leaned back in the booth, biting the inside of his cheek.

Bruce didn’t push. He just took more sips of his terrible coffee.

Maybe it was the way Bruce said it. Because you matter. Like it wasn’t some reluctant concession but a fact.

Maybe it was because Jason was tired. Because every class the past few days had felt like he was walking into an inside joke. Because every glance, every phone lifted for a not-so-discreet photo, reminded him he was building a life out of leftovers.

Or maybe it was the quiet getting to him. The heaviness of that silence, all the things they didn’t say filling the gaps between the words they did.

Whatever it was, Jason heard himself say, “I keep thinking about how this was supposed to be something real.”

He kept his eyes fixed on the peeling linoleum floor. Tugged at the frayed thread on his sleeve.

“I used to think college was the thing that would save me,” he said softly. “Way back then. Before I met you. Before Robin. I thought if I studied hard enough, read the right books, maybe someone would let me in. Like I could outrun everything that made me . . . me.”

Bruce didn’t say anything.

So Jason kept going.

“Now I’m here, and I walk into lecture halls with teenagers who ask if I’m the TA, and people stare at me like I’m a freak. And they’re not wrong, but still. I—I missed it, you know? The window. The chance.”

He remembered being ten, huddled in the library stairwell because it was warm. Remembered stealing a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo because he liked the title and the spine was red. Remembered reading it by flickering lamplight like it was holy.

He remembered dying.

He remembered coming back with every book he’d ever loved turned to ash in his head.

“I’ve been trying so hard,” Jason said. His voice suddenly felt too tight in his throat. “Trying to be okay. Trying to exist like a real person. Whatever the hell that means. And it’s like—I keep hitting this wall. Like I’m too late to everything. Like the world moved on without me. I look around and everyone’s younger. Smarter. Less fucked up. They don’t know what it’s like to come back and realize no one waited.”

“I waited,” Bruce said, barely above a whisper.

Jason looked up before he could think better of it.

Bruce held his gaze.

“I never stopped.”

Jason’s vision blurred.

He looked away again, fast. Rubbed a hand over his eyes. Something burned in the back of his throat, sharp and stupid.

If Bruce noticed—because of course Bruce noticed everything—he didn’t comment.

“I passed the English department bulletin board,” he said instead. “Someone taped a photo of you next to a poster for a poetry reading. You were labeled ‘feral campus cryptid.’”

Jason groaned and slouched deeper into his seat. “God. Of course they did.”

“There was a student giving a tour to prospective freshmen. She pointed at your picture and said, ‘That guy once threw a Norton anthology at someone during office hours.’”

Jason let out a bark of laughter, loud enough to draw glances from nearby tables. He couldn’t help it. “Okay. That one wasn’t me. I don’t even do poetry readings. That was—I don’t know who. I’m being framed.”

Bruce gave a solemn nod. “You should clear your name.”

“Or lean into it,” Jason said, grinning now. “Build the legend. Get tenure by sheer meme inertia.”

Bruce didn’t smile, but his eyes did that thing. The quiet approval thing. The one that used to feel like a gold star and now felt like a bruise he kept poking.

“You belong here, Jason,” he said.

Jason’s smile slipped. For a second, he felt fifteen again. Sitting on the stairs, waiting for Bruce to come home and say anything that sounded like that.

But the words didn’t fit right in his chest. They pressed against his ribs, too sharp to breathe around, too soft to be real.

“You say that like it’s a fact,” Jason said as flatly as he could.

“It is.”

“Even if I screw it up?”

“You won’t.”

Jason snorted. “You’re awfully confident for someone who’s known me for more than five minutes.”

“I’m confident because I know you,” Bruce said. “You had a bad day. You’ve had a lot of those. You’re allowed.”

“You practiced that line in the mirror?”

“I don’t need a mirror to mean it.”

Jason looked at Bruce then. Really looked. At the man who’d raised him and failed him and still, somehow, made a point to keep standing in the wreckage.

The tension in his shoulders, the way his fingers curled slightly against the table. There were tired lines around his eyes. Lines Jason hadn’t drawn, but maybe deepened.

“You didn’t miss the window, Jay,” Bruce said. “You’re building your own.”

That hurt in a way Jason didn’t have the bandwidth for. He looked down again, blinking fast.

“I want this to work,” Jason said quietly. He wasn’t sure if he meant college, the whole civilian life thing, or this—sitting across from Bruce in a crappy diner booth, pretending they were a normal father and son grabbing lunch after a mildly catastrophic week.

“I know,” Bruce said gently. “I want it to work too.”

Jason picked at his fries. His throat tightened again. He didn’t trust himself to answer.

So he rolled his eyes and said, in grumbling tones, “Your small talk’s gotten worse. I liked it better when you just brooded and left cookies outside my door.”

Bruce’s mouth twitched. The faintest trace of a smile.

They sat there for a while longer, finishing the rest of their meal. The conversation drifted slowly to safer things—Jason’s professors, a stray comment about Dick trying yoga, Steph and Duke’s new obsession with sourdough.

Bruce didn’t press. Didn’t reach across the table or say anything else overtly sentimental. But he sat there, grounded and real, like he wasn’t going anywhere.

For the first time in a long time, Jason believed it.

@DrewMJ

THE meme guy is Bruce Wayne’s MIRACLE ZOMBIE SON and none of you thought to tell me?????

—

@spilledmycoffeeagain

Just found out Jason Todd is a real person, a literature major, AND Bruce Wayne’s kid. I thought he was like the university’s mascot

—

@v1rtuallyrad

honestly the most unbelievable thing about this whole #GothamUCryptid saga is that he’s wayne’s ADOPTED kid. like have you seen that jawline?? wdym it’s not genetic???

—

@janeatnorth

i was laughing at the red hood cosplay guy memes and my roommate goes “oh yeah that’s jason todd. he’s back now.” like. BACK from WHERE?????

—

@CallMeSydney

not jason todd answering a socratic question with “you ever die and come back with opinions” and i thought he was being metaphorical

i’m gonna scream

—

@PalpatineDidNothingWrong

thinking about how jason todd came back from the dead and enrolled in undergrad lit. like girl what are you doing here. go haunt someone.

—

@dreamscape_404

deadass thought jason todd was a fake guy y’all made up

r/GothamU

u/inked_imaginations

TIL Gotham U’s viral Red Hood cosplayer is Jason Todd aka Bruce Wayne’s formerly dead son

Yes, he was legally dead for ~5 years. Yes, he’s in the Lit program. Yes, I’m serious.

The lore is deep. This is a prestige series. I'm emotionally invested.

u/deepfriedoreo

That’s THE Jason Todd??? I thought that was just like . . . an internet rumor??

            u/ByteSizedGenius

            no he was declared dead in like 2018? and then undeclared two years ago or something. it was in the Gotham Gazette. very weird situation. never explained. rich people shit.

u/olympian_tales

source?

            u/SilverChirp2006

            bruce wayne was spotted with him on campus just this morning. it’s all over x and insta lol

                        u/Jedi_Mind_Trickster

                        can confirm. saw them in the quad today. they were just standing there. not talking. not moving.

                        like a cutscene you’re not high enough level to unlock yet

                        u/cloakanddagger

                        No offense, but if my billionaire father took the time to have lunch with me on campus I would simply pass away.

u/LiteraryVoyager

he sat through workshop while trending. king behavior actually.

u/cerealforbones

no bc now i feel bad for calling him gotham’s gerard way that one time

u/notaSTEMmajor

Jason Todd being in your creative writing seminar must be like submitting your diary to a knife.

            u/awkwardazlynn

            He told me my essay on unreliable narrators was “predictable” and “lacked teeth.” Now I find out he was literally declared dead 😬😬

            u/gothamghoul666

            he once said “closure is for people who don’t believe in revenge” during workshop. how am I supposed to process that AND the fact that bruce wayne is his dad??????

            u/shadows_in_the_nook

            this man annotates like he’s arguing with god.

u/MetropolisMirth

I’m BEGGING someone to explain what’s in the water over there.

            u/spillthematcha

            like you’re any better. your city mascot is a hunky alien in blue spandex.

                        u/MetropolisMirth

                        And yours is a furry in all black Kevlar. So who’s really winning here?

                                    u/spillthematcha

                                    the gays.

                                                u/MetropolisMirth

                                                Fair.

u/QuestingScribe

Lmao literally had a convo with Jason Todd about symbolism like two hours before he became the main character of the internet

u/chekhovsblunt

Someone in the bio department asked if he was reanimated via science or magic. He said “student loans” and left.

            u/fuchsia_fable

            he was my partner in lab last sem and all he said the entire time was “do not hand me the scalpel, i’m not emotionally ready” and then did the best dissection i’ve ever seen. what does it MEAN

Tim
hey
heard you and bruce talked
and it looks like no one died so . . .
are we good

Jason
fine
whatever
you’re unblocked, I guess

Tim
you never actually blocked me though

Jason
metaphorically, I did

Tim
oh ok
cool
is that what your degree is good for? metaphors?

Jason
eat glass, drake

Tim
right back at you jackass

From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: Feedback on “The Earth Didn’t Want Me”

Hi Professor Castillo,

Thanks for the feedback. And the re-read. And for not letting the hallway memes color your impression (though honestly, I think one of them did capture my better angles).

You were right about the ending—I added a beat. Just a breath, really. Might not change much, but it felt better leaving the door cracked instead of slamming it shut.

Also, feel free to go ahead with the nomination. Worst case scenario, someone screenshots it and I end up on the campus subreddit again. At least this time it'll be for the writing.

Appreciate you taking the story seriously. Even when I looked like a midterms stress hallucination.

Thanks again,
Jason Todd