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“Have you ever visited your grave?”
It catches him off guard. The chilly air of Gotham ruffles the white tufts of Jason’s hair as he chokes on his cigarette smoke. He snaps his head to stare at the tall Kryptonian hovering beside him. Superboy Prime, the younger, dangerous, and allegedly “evil” version of Superman from an alternate universe. On Jason's apartment fire escape. Wearing a Lego Batman shirt that's a few sizes too small on him and gray sweatpants hanging low enough on his hips that you can see the waistband of his bright blue Superman-patterned boxers. His head is innocently tilted to the side as Jason still stares at him in disbelief.
“What?” Jason coughs out.
“Your grave,” Prime answers simply, “I mean, it's still up, for whatever reason. Have you ever visited it?”
“No.” Jason replies curtly.
He had never even considered doing it. If anything, he avoided it. He didn't really know how he'd react upon seeing his own headstone. Would he be angry? Scared? Would he tear the whole thing down? Would he break down and sob? Or-
He cranes his head up to look at Prime, who was currently hovering a few feet above him.
“Would you want to?” Prime suggests.
“What? Right now?” Jason scoffs and takes another drag from his cigarette.
Prime floats down to stand directly in front of Jason. Jason is tall himself, but he still has to tilt his head up to look at Prime.
“Sure. Why not? We need to keep the readers engaged,” the Kryptonian replies with a smirk.
Whatever that means.
Jason thinks about cursing him out. Telling him to shut the fuck up and drop the subject. He knows Prime will if he asks him to. But for some reason, he doesn't. The big blue eyes staring down at him are compelling him to say yes. Say yes and go stand in front of an empty grave. With Superboy Prime of all people
“Okay.” Jason replies, finally.
He plucks his cigarette from his lips and angles it towards Prime’s face. There's a glint in Prime’s eyes as he tilts his face, showing off his neck. Jason presses his cigarette on the man’s neck, staring directly into his eyes as he does. Prime smirks smugly at him as the cigarette dies down.
“Tickles.”
Jason tears his gaze away from Prime’s face and chucks what's left of the cigarette on the ground. The snarky look on his face, the shirt fighting for its dear life around Prime’s biceps, his raven black hair tousled by the wind… It was all giving Jason an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach, which he was choosing to ignore. He ran a hand through his hair and gestured back to the apartment.
“Come on, get dressed.”
Once inside, Jason grabs his leather jacket and his keys as he waits for Prime to join him at the door. Prime does join him a few moments later, wearing a red hoodie (probably Jason’s) and holding a box in his hands. Jason raises an eyebrow.
“Wha’s that?”
Prime maneuvers the box away from Jason’s reach and smiles.
“You’ll see.”
After a relatively short motorcycle ride, in which Prime had chosen to fly beside him, smiling without a care in the world as the wind hit his face, they arrived at the grounds that surround Wayne Manor. Jason takes off his helmet and looks at the looming building that is the manor. It’s late, but he can see the light pouring out of some windows. He knows Alfred probably heard his motorcycle. He knows if he looks back at the manor, he might see Bruce’s silhouette in a window, searching for him in the dark. Before he has the chance to confirm this, he feels Prime pull his ear.
“Let’s go, idiot,” he smiles, a little too endearing for Jason's taste.
He shoots Prime a nasty look but nods nonetheless. He doesn't look back at the manor as they walk away.
They walked through the cold and dark grounds, well, Jason walked. Prime always preferred hovering beside Jason. They stroll past the graves of Thomas and Martha Wayne until they finally reach it. A tall weeping angel of stone; moss adorning its shoulders, wings, and hair; standing over a tombstone that read 'Here Lies Jason Peter Todd'.
Jason snorted.
“No, he doesn’t.” It was meant to come out as a joke, but there was no hiding the shakiness in his voice.
They both stare at the words written in stone in front of them. Jason felt his fingers begin to twitch and his mouth sour. He could picture Bruce standing exactly where he was, crying quietly, Alfred leaving treats and flowers, Dick visiting on weekends… He wants to throw up. Maybe this was a bad idea. He fishes a cigarette out and holds his lighter between shaky fingers; he fails to flick it on once, twice… Prime takes the lighter from his hands and grabs Jason by the chin, leaning his face towards him. His eyes flash red as he angles his heat vision to hit the cigarette between Jason’s lips, effectively lighting it. Nicotine fills his lungs as he sighs in relief. Prime sneaks the lighter back into Jason’s pocket and turns back to stare at the grave.
“Do you think we should've brought flowers?”
“What? For who?” Jason answers, brows furrowed.
“You, I guess?” Prime shrugs.
“Don’t be-” before he finishes, Prime puts his mystery box down and leaves in a gust of wind, reappearing a few seconds later with a couple of disgruntled flowers in his hands. He steps forward and lays the flowers in front of the headstone. He hovers back beside Jason, a little closer than before.
“I’m glad you are not dead anymore,” murmured low enough that Jason could have missed it. He didn't.
Jason blows a cloud of smoke directly to Prime’s face. He grimaces a little.
“Yeah, well, whatever.”
“I know I didn’t bring you back on purpose, but I- I’m glad it happened,” Prime mutters, eyes lowered, “I haven’t done much good. You are the one thing I got right.” He looked back at Jason, a shake in his voice. “You should've never died to begin with. The readers were so stupid to vote for that.” Jason can see his fists balled in anger.
“Well, it happened, and I’m glad you brought me back. So, thank you. You did more for me than this guy,” he says, pointing at the angel guarding his tomb. Prime chuckles.
It was a joke, but Jason knows there's some truth to it. Prime is no guardian angel, not even an angel. But he is an incredibly powerful being that looks down at Jason like he’s something precious. He talks about punching time and space, about hopping through universes, talking to “the authors”, seeing “the reader”… Jason is just some guy. Yet he’d like to believe that if it came to it again, Prime would bring him back once more. On purpose this time. It feels blasphemous to call Prime a god, but-
“D’you wanna see what's in the box?” Prime smiles at him. He sits down on the grass and pats down a space beside him for Jason to sit on.
“Sure.” Jason steps on his discarded cigarette and sits down beside Prime.
Prime opens the box to reveal a couple of old comic books. Jason picks a Green Lantern volume, taking a look at Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner on the cover. He looked back at the other comics in the box, Teen Titans, more Green Lantern, many “Crisis” variations, Shazam… His eyes moved from the box back to Prime’s face. Why would Prime carry this random box of comics?
“Last page,” Prime’s voice interrupted his train of thought.
He skimmed the pages of the issue he was holding until the very last one. It was Prime himself, sitting naked on a green cube, “S” burnt into his skin, red, raw, and ugly. Anger carved on his features. Jason looked back at Prime. He is clutching a comic titled 'DC Comics Presents: The Origin of Superboy Prime!' staring at it intensely. He is holding it so hard he’s almost shaking.
“What is this Prime?”
Prime tears his gaze from the cover art, where two almost identical Supermen are looking at each other, confused.
“This…” he gestures towards the box, “This is everything that happened to me… ever. In the history of everything.” He ran a hand through his hair. He pointed at the Green Lantern comic in Jason’s hands, “There I’m in jail,” he started digging through the box, “Here too. In this one I kill a lot of people, in this one I kill myself… actually I don’t even know what the plan was in this one, here uh- I killed the only person I cared about at the time,” he grimaces, “Attempt at redemption, descent to madness, jail again, blah blah… aaand my long awaited comeback.” He handed that last one to Jason, where he was met with Prime’s snarky smirk on the page. Prime sighed, “God bless Dan Mora for making me look so fine.”
“You went through all this? This happened?”
“Some of these date from the 80s, but yeah. To most of you, a new continuity means a new beginning, a new chance, your past wiped. I don't get to have that,” he takes a deep breath, “I remember all of this. The world restarts, and it feels similar, but a little off. The author of this fic doesn’t even know how to properly describe it,” he lets out a shaky laugh, “I became too aware.”
“Why are you showing me this?” Jason, having skimmed through the rest of the comics in the box, is looking at a panel showing a very young Prime, sobbing and covered in blood. The words ‘Please! I said I didn't mean to!’ in speech bubbles.
“You trust me enough to let me visit your grave with you; I trust you enough to show you my truth. This is everything wrong I’ve ever done, every fuck up, every crash out, every badly written mischaracterization…”
“Yeahhh, you kinda suck,” Jason replies playfully, “but you did do something right.” Jason winks at him, and Prime pushes him playfully. “Come on, loser. show me one that’s not incredibly depressing.”
Prime picks the 'Origin of Superboy Prime' back up and sits closer to Jason, laying his head on the man’s shoulder. Warmth spreads through Jason’s chest without his permission. He skips the first few pages until he gets to where he wanted.
“Those are my parents, Naomi and Jerry,” Prime points at a blonde woman and the man hiking beside her. The comic panels picture them finding a baby behind some bushes and deciding to take him home. Cute. Prime turned the pages, watching himself grow up, gaze lingering on a panel in which Naomi Kent pressed a kiss to her son’s cheek. Jason’s mouth sours as Prime skimmed through pages of him getting made fun of in high school. Not cute.
“Oh! That’s Laurie! She was my best friend and my first girlfriend.” He sounded sad. She had long, light brown hair and was wearing a mermaid costume. “I wanted to destroy the world just to get her back. It didn’t work, not really. Then I thought I had her back, but it doesn’t really work like that.”
“So they’re all…”
“Yeah, they don't really exist anymore. Not like they used to. I know I can’t go back home, I don’t have such a thing as home anymore.”
“Do you miss them?”
“I do miss them all the time, yeah, but believing I could have them back is what drove me crazy to begin with,” his gaze dropped to the pile of comics, “I became something he,” he pointed at the kid wearing a cheap Superman Halloween costume smiling from the comic page, "would've hated. Ugh, I wasn’t even that much of an interesting villain, Jason. I was a lousy one at best!”
“I’m sure you had some fans.” Jason rolled his eyes. Prime hid his face behind his hands.
“Jason, the author of this fic, refers to themselves as one of the fifteen Superboy Prime fans. The Prime enjoyers all fit in a bus, I’m so serious.”
“Whatever that means, Clark.” Jason chuckled. He immediately felt him tense beside him.
“What.”
“Your name is Clark, can I not call you that?” Jason tilts his head, his nose almost burying itself in the man’s hair.
“Nobody calls me that, not anymore. This universe already has its Clark.”
Prime Clark’s head was no longer on Jason’s shoulder, but he stayed pressed close to Jason.
“You do know people can have the same names, right? I’m not the only Jason on Earth.”
“I know, but-” Jason doesn't let him finish and grabs him by the shoulders.
“You are more than Superboy from Earth Prime, fuck that.”
Clark’s eyes shine, and he smiles at Jason. There’s a tinge of insanity in his gaze.
“You are more than that grave.”
Jason knows Clark hears his heart skip a beat. It feels like the tension between him and Clark that has been lingering ever since they first met has finally been broken. Jason can’t keep ignoring the pit in his stomach. They are so incredibly close, and Clark’s eyes linger on his lips. Their-
“ -eyes instantly met, and the cheeks of both were overspread with the deepest blush.”
“Jane Austen.”
“Yeah, just helping the author out a little bit,” Clark replied, lips already brushing Jason’s.
“Shut the fuck up,” Jason whispers, finally closing the distance between them.
Their lips crash, and Jason’s hands find themselves grasping Clark’s black hair. He knows he probably tastes like cigarettes, which most people don't find pleasant. But Clark wouldn't mind; if anything, Clark would let him put out a cigarette on his tongue. God, Jason needs to put that to the test.
Clark grabs Jason by the throat, pulling him impossibly closer. In response, Jason bites and tugs at his hair as he deepens their kiss, almost climbing on top of Clark. Clark grins into Jason’s mouth, hands skimming down to caress his sides. Jason lets out a very embarrassing noise as they slowly move apart.
Clark's hands move to hold Jason’s face tenderly. He presses a short peck to his lips. Then another, and another, and… Jason’s eyes are closed as Clark kisses him slowly, and he’s holding him by the wrists, making sure the warm hands in his face are there. This is real. This is happening.
Jason opens his eyes. Clark’s hair is messy, his cheeks flushed, and there’s that crazy glint in his eyes.
“Oh my god,” Jason breathes out.
“I thought you were gonna call me Clark,” he replies with a crooked smile.
And as stupid and cheesy as that was, Jason laughs, forehead pressed to Clark’s.
“Let’s burn them.” Jason sounds a little crazy and out of breath, but honestly, he doesn’t care.
“What?”
“The comics, let’s burn them. You don’t need them. You can keep the first one if you want.”
For a second, Jason thinks Prime is going to say no. That he’d rather keep the constant reminders of his mistakes. But Prime’s eyes are big as he stares at Jason, and he realises. Prime has never even thought of saying ‘no’ to Jason.
“Yeah. Yeah, yeah, let's do it.”
They grab the comics and throw them in front of the grave, alongside the long-forgotten flowers. Jason notices Clark’s hesitancy to keep his last piece of home, but he puts his ‘debut issue’ back in the box nonetheless. Jason knows he'll probably put it back in the plastic, like the nerd he is. He gives Jason one last nod and lights yet another cigarette Jason has placed between his lips. Jason takes a long drag, breathes out, and passes the cigarette over to Clark. He takes a drag himself and chucks the cigarette into the pile of comics.
The crackling sound of the pages catching on fire fills the comfortable silence, as they watch the faces on the covers distort as they burn up.
Here stands Jason Peter Todd, alive and well. The god who brought him back is standing beside him, nudging his hand so they can interlock their pinkies. They both stare at a fire fueled by the sins of an angry, vengeful boy who just wanted to go back home. A fire at the feet of a stone angel who weeps for a boy who no longer lies underground.
They stand there for maybe an hour.
The fire has long died. They both stink of cigarette smoke, and Jason is getting cold.
That night, Clark doesn’t sleep on the couch. Jason lets him crawl up in bed with him, and it's oddly comforting to be held like this. A man who could destroy the Earth, and has tried to do so before. A man who could rip Jason apart in a second if he wanted to. Was holding him like he was the most important thing in the world.
“And he is,” Clark breaks the silence.
“What?”
“Don’t worry about it,” he smiles, pressing his lips to Jason’s forehead.
The sound of gunshots and police sirens echoes through the building. Gotham’s lullaby. It doesn’t take long for them doze off in each other’s arms.