Chapter Text
Moonlight dispersed through layers and layers of thick clouds as faint sirens hummed through the city.
Chink-vhrrrp
Red hood swung off another grimy building towards crime alley, falling into the steady rhythm of grappling.
Don't get him wrong, he’d never regretted guns as his main weapon of choice but boy did it suck to watch all his sixteen bullets get squashed mid-air and punted sideways as if they weren't personally selected and perfected by the Red hood.
Chink-vhrrrp
He’d already spent half of his precious night helping Nightwing fight a magic wielding lunatic— or as they called, a mage.
Seriously, what was up with all these mages invading Gotham recently?
What is this? Mage town?
Well. in retrospect, Gotham DID look like an ominous mage town but that's besides the point.
Point is, Jason hates them and they should probably leave as soon as possible.
…Not that he’s racist or anything— but there was absolutely no need for an almighty mage to see a regular-schmegular-acrobatic vigilante running around and blast him with a literal MOONBEAM (?!) which had turned Jason's twenty minute patrol help into a two hour rescue mission.
Chink-vhrrrp
Jason landed atop a crumbling building at the mouth of crime alley and surveyed the grounds with careful scrutiny as the recent storms had totally wrecked the already scarce lamps in the streets.
He blew a slow, long breath.
He’d rather die a second death than admit it, but… Jason liked working with the bats again, he really did.
But—
It felt awfully off, as much as he’d like to ‘see the bright side of things’; he couldn't help but notice the cracks, the little slips in their demeanor. (It was hard not to.)
They always seemed to walk on eggshells around him— giving him strange oblivious backhanded compliments, and cherry picked their words as if he were a time-ticking bomb ready to explode on cue, as if they'd never lived with him before, as if they'd never protected their city shoulder to shoulder once, a s if he were a stranger.
Intentional or not, they sure did hurt a lot. More than he's ever willing to admit; He would much rather prefer to swallow a cup full of jagged glass shards down his throat thank you very much.
There was an unspoken barrier between them ever since he'd returned, one he’d desperately wanted to break. He wanted to rip his chest open and spill everything there is to see, he wanted them to untangle the wires that coiled impossibly in his ribs, he wanted them to dip their hands in the void that consumed him and dissect his moldy organs, he wanted them to see, to feel what he feels.
This is who I am now, I am Jason Todd.
His thoughts were promptly interrupted as a shadow disappeared behind an alley blocked by heaps of stacked crates but Jason caught it because well, he was bat-trained and all that jazz.
It could be a regular small fry making a deal but— there was an innate feeling of wrongness, something odd in his movement that just didn’t sit right with Jason.
Acting on instinct, he leapt off onto the adjacent building and tucked in a roll. He dropped down its fire escape eyeing the same discreet alley with its now-disturbed crates thanks to mystery shadow man.
The alleyway in question was way narrower and jagged than any other alley in crime alley (wow that's a lotta alleys). The alley was damp, littered with crushed cans, glass and cigarette butts; urban decay soaked in the fading light.
Jason hunched low and crept silently, mindful of all the splintered glass sprawled on the ground. Despite it being crime o’clock, the area was unusually quiet. A looming sense of dread seeped in his chest but he soldiered on.
He was the red hood goddammit.
Right around the corner, Jason pressed his back against the wall and discreetly peered forward.
There were a series of abandoned buildings surrounding a dull concrete courtyard and in the center stood Mr. Shadow guy himself in an ominous cloak.
He incoherently mumbled numerous strings of words Jason couldn’t recognize at all. The man pulled a stick of chalk from the jacket beneath his cloak and started drawing geometrical patterns on the concrete.
Yeah, the flags could not get any redder.
Jason clicked the safety off his pistol and leaned slightly further to catch a better look when—
Crunch
Well, shit.
Glass cracked below his boot, sending the shadowed man’s head whirling at him.
“HEY!”
The man’s hood fell off his head and Jason immediately recognized that face—
It's one of them wizard freaks!
Oh hell
Jason brought his grappler up but there was nothing to grapple on, not even a distant ledge due to the passage’s crooked placement. Shooting the wizard was futile (he’d already emptied a whole mag on the other magical wimp earlier tonight)
Guess running was his best bet now.
Just as he sprang up, the wizard conjured an icy staff from his misty palms and struck the ground with it, lighting the murals he’d drawn.
Glass and wood crunched as Jason bolted at full speed, adrenaline fueling in his veins.
The only warning Jason got was everything going blue before the temperature plummeted to bitterly cold levels, far too cold even for January. The harsh winds seeped through his helmet and his jacket’s leather seams.
Jason huffed crystallized breaths through his foggy helmet as he reached the edge of the alley, when suddenly—
His lungs seized and muscles springlocked— an overwhelmingly strong force hurled him backwards,
Ice crept up his body like fractals, engulfing him in a shimmering, crystalline cocoon; Jason wheezed as he rammed hard into the crumbling brick wall— shards of thin frost immediately breaking loose on impact.
“Halt, you pest!” The icy mage sneered with a thick accent,
He loomed over Jason's slumped form, the blinking street lamp highlighting his sickly pale skin and angular features. Despite his circumstance, Jason couldn’t help but imagine this guy narrating a ford commercial.
Jason’s body screamed as he straightened, head high,
"Now listen here ya little cryptid fossil faced lizard—”
Wispy flecks of white mulled his lips shut in a thin sheet of ice under his helmet.
The mage crouched, eyeing Jason with a newfound amusement— his initial annoyance gone in a blink.
“...Marvellous” He scrutinized, wide eyed and fascinated. “I’ve never seen a stronger sense of longing like this before, it radiates off of you like— in waves, I tell you— waves!”
Oh great, out of all the people this is the one who notices it. What does that even mean?
Jason really hoped that's all he could do, the last thing he’d want is this weird wannabe magic man reading his pathetic thoughts with his pathetic wishes and pathetic emotions.
The ice on Jason's lips melted, dripping off his chin.
“My name is Niveus, the snow mage” The wannabe-mage sat on the ground opposite to Jason, making himself rather comfortable.
“May I ask you a question?” The wannabe-mage looked intently at Jason.
HELL NO
“Yeah.” Jason nodded stiffly. Anything to get the fuck outta here.
“If I were to grant any wish you’d like, would you take it?”
….A wish.
What on god's green earth was this guy on about? Did he think Jason was a gullible idiot? Could he really….?
No, there’s definitely something fishy here.
“Righttt, and why would you do that?” Jason attempted to sneer, hoping his helmet made it sound somewhat threatening.
The wannabe-mage tilted his head and closed his eyes in consideration.
Suddenly he clicked his fingers—
“Did you know; the strongest emotion I sensed to date was in the form of a delicate blanket, moving slowly….but for you-” he flailed his arms excitedly, “-it moves swiftly, in an astonishing speed as well, it moves wildly”
Again, Jason has no idea what any of that means.
He explained as if it was the most profound discovery he’d ever made and maybe it was.
But why was he telling Jason that?
“What’s that got to do with me?”
“You are far too sad, terrified and lonely just to name a few” The wannabe-mage placidly explained.
Jason winced as green washed over his vision.
Was it true? Yes. But he did NOT need to call him out like that holy shit.
“—Besides," He shrugged, "it is my job to fulfill wishes!” The stupid-wannabe-mage continued— wait what?
HIS JOB???
“What’re you? A fairy??” Jason blurted distortedly
The stupid-wannabe-mage had the audacity to chuckle, "I am but a mage— though, I am often called to grant mortal desires.”
Mortal desires
What does he desire?
To wash the dirt off his face and scrub his hands clean of blood— free of guilt, agony and pain.
So, so much pain.
He wanted his blue eyes again.
He wanted to be him again.
Jason Todd, the second robin, Bruce's son.
Jason Todd, beloved soldier, the red hood.
His chest felt heavy with invisible weight making it harder to breathe. Bruce’s son is dead. In fact, he died long ago and the Jason Todd of today is a living, walking, talking corpse that haunts the streets and minds of the guilty.
Jason mentally shook himself, the mage’s lips were still moving, he has to focus.
“This case is….special. I volunteer this time, because despite the anger….you have a bright, righteous soul and it yearns to be encased in familiar arms” The mage looked somber, like he hoped Jason would take it.
....Would he?
Often times on patrol, Jason would turn his comm on and just....listen. It didn't matter what they were doing, they could even be working on a completely different case; Jason would stay silent and they'd continue to talk, as if he wasn't listening.
It struck him on one occasion that if everyone he cared about completely forgot about him, this is exactly how they're lives would look. Their lives would be fundamentally the same but there would be something missing from his. There lay a profound cruelty in forgetting someone for that reason.
Strange trembles took over Jason's body.
There was a wispy sense of melancholy in his mind, a tired longing for something he couldn't identify. Sometimes it felt like the future he was supposed to be a part of simply forgot him here.
The desire for all desires is a desire for a sense of completion.
“I’ll take it.” Jason spoke before he could rationalize his thoughts. It was like throwing a bottled message in the vast, unforgiving ocean.
"Great!" the mage shot up and swiftly conjured his staff again, striking the floor once more.
Before he could process the movement, a striking surge of energy thundered through his nerves. It took Jason by surprise, he wanted to scream but his vocal cords seized as it pressed him against the ground with so much force that only a miracle could ensure him waking up in one piece.
The numbing ice burned through his armor, pressing and pressing until—
Nothing.
All the pressure dissipated instantly as if it were never there at all, Jason's muscles relaxed yet he could feel nothing. He was floating in an incomprehensible void with eyes too heavy to open and a muddled brain stuffed with cotton.
He felt weightless.
Was he dead again? Was that it? Did that wannabe-mage straight up evict him from earth?
The faint humming of his HUD said otherwise.
Jason bleakly opened his eyes to his HUD, blinking a thousand warnings at him. He felt sick, like the universe chewed him whole and spit him out.
Mustering all the strength he could, Jason hauled himself up and regretted it immediately.
His ears rang and the helmet’s constant buzzing was really irking him now.
He dusted off the flecks of snow on his armor. Gingerly, he scanned his surroundings and deduced; he was still in crime alley, on a random rooftop, and suspiciously close to his safe house.
Whatever.
Jason fished his grappler out and stood up, gripping the AC unit with all his might and forced himself to focus.
Emerald hues twinged around his vision.
There was no point in calling anyone, his safe house was just two rooftops away after all. With a deep breath, he stood as steadily as he could and shot the grappler.
He stumbled clumsily on his roof, his shoulder blades twitched from overuse. The mere thought of going down a fire escape and climbing in his window felt like the most monumental task ever.
He buried his face in his hands with a deep groan.
This is so stupid, why did he even have to engage with that rando? He should’ve gone his merry way with blissful ignorance but no— he just had to investigate it head first with no backup.
Jason spent over a minute gathering himself.
(In for four....out for four)
He hobbled over to the fire escape, his muscles were numb and his legs felt like lead.
He held the windowsill with a white-knuckled grip and unceremoniously yanked himself inside his safe house kitchenette.
He wasted no time in unlatching his helmet and threw it across the room. The armor was suffocating and he felt sweat clamming his palms yet his body shivered uncontrollably almost like a fever.
Jason stripped all his gear and crashed on the ratty sofa. He;d thought of showering first but the hallways were twisting and the world was tilting so he threw that idea out the very window he entered from.
His thin undershirt stuck to his skin and didn’t do jackshit for the stupid cold. Shivers spasmed through his nerves yet his skin burned.
He felt his forehead just like Alfred used to when he was sick many moons ago, it was blazing hot.
A fever. Phenomenal.
This is what he gets for trusting cryptids. Screw that magic bastard and screw him for even believing in any of that bullshit.
Jason huffed angrily and turned to his side, curling in on himself.
Amidst the buzzing in his mind he couldn't help but wonder,
How long can the lifespan of the past be stretched out? just as in the case of classic media, the more the old forms are resurrected, the more they dissolve into madness and nonsense.
Entropy always ends in decay.
Jason shut his droopy eyes and before he knew it, he was out cold in feverish slumber.