Chapter Text
Jason isn’t new to death. Even before the Joker, before Ethiopia, before the Bats, death was an old friend. Living in the Alley meant accepting that, sooner or later, everyone you know will die. Catherine was the norm, not the exception. Hell, when he returned, barely any of the kids his age on the streets with him were alive, and those that were somehow still kicking were on the same path that leads to tragedy everybody else was on. If you were making a joke, you could say he’s been aware of death since he was a Jason Toddler.
This is all to say, of course, that Jason knows death. Before he was the Red Hood, protector of Crime Alley, he was Jason Todd, young tragedy, and Robin, glorified child soldier.
Unlike most people, when Jason says he knows death, he means Death. Capital D. The all-knowing, caring, ageless being watching over the souls of the lost and damned. He met Death when he was fifteen choking on smoke in a warehouse, and again when he was nineteen choking on blood in a condemned building. He met Death infinitely more times in between and even more in the after.
Jason is immortal, and he doesn’t know how to feel about it.
Each death goes the same: he dies in some new, horrific way, and wakes up in a black void, nothing around him but the presence of Death. They would talk for a while and he would get sent back, body healed from whatever injury pushed him over the ledge.
Of course, nobody knows about this; he isn’t stupid. Coming back from the dead just once was enough to have Ra’s on his ass all the time back in the League, and he wasn’t keen to see what would happen if the old man knew he could come back indefinitely.
By the time he got back to Gotham, he was used to his immortality and never saw the reason to bring it up. What he does in the In-Between is his business, and the Bats have their own issues. He would have been fine spending the rest of his life without anyone knowing. He’d have been happy, actually.
And then Dick happened.
It goes like this:
Jason is having issues. He’s trying to improve the Alley but he’s hit a roadblock and has nowhere to go to sort his thoughts and work past it. Given that the closest thing to a good parent he has is Death, he drowns himself in his bathtub (not a quick death, but he’s used to pain and the clean up is always easy after) to talk to the God-Being-Thing. He gets his advice and gets sent back to the realm of the living, only一
He’s not in his bathroom.
No, he’s laying in a bed in the Batcave infirmary, staring at rocky cave walls and the too-bright white of the curtains separating the medical cots. Antiseptic stings his nose. Immediately, his skin prickles as he fights back the instinctual rise of anger he gets. He told them to leave him alone for the day, he would be busy, but, like usual, nobody listened to him because they apparently know better than he does about what he wants.
There’s the faint sound of conversation in the background, but when he focuses, it becomes apparent that it’s a one-sided argument.
It sounds like Dick is the one yellingー he was probably the one to find himー but he can’t tell who the other person is. Probably Bruce, based off of the pure venom in his brother’s voice. It’s a familiar thing, bringing him back to when he was twelve and new to the manor listening to the constant conflict between the other two vigilantes.
He always gets sentimental after revival. Curses.
Stretching every individual muscle he could to get used to his body again, Jason stands up, padding to where Dick’s voice is coming from. The scene he walks into is not surprising at all. Dick is in Bruce’s face, shouting about something or the other, as the man grunts in paltry defenses. Their arguments have only gotten worse with time, as Dick grew tired of the repetition and Bruce grew older and more jaded.
Neither man notices him walking in, but Tim, sitting in the swivel chair in front of the Bat-Computer (stupid ass name) does. Jason would be a liar to say he didn’t take joy in seeing the guy’s face go slack from surprise.
He’s too busy being shocked to actually say anything, which gives Jason a good moment to really listen to what’s being said.
“一your son, Bruce, your son! He’s dead again and you just want to一”
“Son, it’s not like that一”
“Well it sure seems so! You push him away and now he’s dead and it’s probably a suicide and, what, that’s okay because he killed some people when he was alive? He didn’t follow your rules in a territory you don’t own in a city you, again, don’t own?”
He only gets a wounded noise in response. Even after all these years, Dick still knows how to stab Bruce right in the heart. “No,” he starts. “No, I love him.”
“Well it sure doesn’t一”
Jason takes this moment to make himself known. The argument is one he hasn’t heard before, but that doesn’t make him want to hear it any more. Just that little bit is enough to make his chest ache, throat tight as he forces himself to breathe.
It feels weird to make actual noise when he walks fully into the room, but the two in the center of the room need to know he’s not dead, actually, he was just taking a nap. As he usually does.
Both of their heads snap towards him一 because Tim is still staring, himself一 and the gasp Dick just gusped was so loud Jason winced in sympathy. That had to hurt. His brother is running straight at him while Bruce stands stock still, arms locking around him in a too-tight hug that aggravates his ribs. Despite the natural healing he gets from the whole… dying thing, pain and soreness still linger, and his lungs feel like he gargled glass. Which, no, that might not make sense, but neither does immortality or soul swords or anything else that happens in his fucked up life.
“Jason?” Dick’s voice cracks and Jason has to hold back a snort, shoving the man off of him. “You一 you’re alive? But, you一 you were一”
“Napping,” he says plainly, face deadpan. If he has to deal with this, he may as well have fun with it.
“Underwater?” Tim speaks up.
“No, dipshit, in my bed.”
“You were in the tub.”
“I rest my case.”
He’s just barely able to refrain from laughing in their faces as they stare blankly at him. The bit is certainly lifting his mood, as messing with his siblings usually does.
There’s a rustling noise and Bruce is laying a hand on his shoulder, analyzing his face as if making sure he was real. Jason cringes at the touch but doesn’t pull away, stuck between Dick and Bruce. “Jason?”
“Hey, B,” he drawls, skin suddenly feeling too-tight. “Funny seeing you here.”
“Are you injured?” His hand is heavy, bearing down on him. Being near Bruce had always made his skin crawl after all the… incidents, but it’s especially worse being so soon after a revival. Honestly, he doesn’t know what’s worse. Bruce knowing he can’t die and treating him as an exception to the rule for it, or Bruce thinking he really could die and doing it all anyway. When he doesn’t say anything, Bruce grunts. “Report.”
Jason watches Dick’s face fall in real time. Before the older man can start yelling, again, he finally manages to pull himself away from Bruce. “No, you don’t get to do this.” His head hurts. Everything is suddenly too much and he can’t breathe, throat closing up. He’s not choking, he’s not, he needs to get a grip. “You don’t get to do this.”
“Jaylad一”
“No.”
Dick is giving him a look, he can see that, but he’s so close to just shutting down he can’t make himself care. Indignation bubbles in his chest and he steps back, drawing his metaphorical walls tight around himself.
“This isn’t normal. As your father, I deserve to know what’s going on.”
“You haven’t been my father for a long time, old man,” he snaps, thinking back to Garzonas. Thinking back to you aren’t my son i don’t need your teenage rebellion. “You sure made that clear.”
Bruce’s lip twitches down. Jason can tell he’s upset, pausing as if trying to choose his words carefully like Jason’s a ticking time bomb with a short fuse. Actually, he probably is; God knows he loves pushing that narrative onto his kids. “You died. Your heart stopped.”
“What, like the time you一”
There’s a low, grinding noise coming from the side and Jason turns to look just as the elevator dings and doors open. He doesn’t care about who walks out, turning back to glare holes into Bruce’s face. It’s always the same. They’re scared of him, they’re disappointed in him, they disprove of him. It’s always something, no matter how much he may shoot himself in the foot to be something worthy of love. Rubber bullets, decreased use of guns, scrapping almost every plan involving explosions, nothing works; not with the Bats.
“Alfred took Damian and Cass out for groceries, and一 Jason?”
“Whuh一 Jason?!”
Aw shit, it’s Duke and Steph.
Jason breaks his staring contest with Bruce to drag a hand down his face, deflating as he sighs. He has a lot of explaining to do, he knows, but today has been crap enough.
He’s never had much beef with Steph and Duke. They came after his death and have their own heap of issues. Besides that, they do good. They try their best to help the Alley and Bowery, and Jason respects anyone willing to put up with its peoples for extended periods, let alone trying to improve the shitholes.
Alley loves Alley and all that jazz. Also, Duke is just plain cool to hang around.
“Heya,” he cringes, looking up at the two that just walked in. They’re just as shocked as Tim, who’s defaulted to silently watching everything go down, but not as shocked as Dick, who looks like somebody just stabbed his mother in front of him.
“But, you一 You died!”
“Yeah, that happens.”
Steph stares at him like he’s stupid, which, fair enough.
Before Duke can get another word in, Tim decides to use his words like the grown ass kid he is again. “Is this, like, a recurring thing? Has this happened before? Is that why you came back after Ethiopia? At first I just thought that Talia dug you up to use the Pits to bring you back as, like, a ‘fuck you’ to Bruce, but if this has happened before, then一!”
…
Jason almost forgot how much of a conspiracy theorist he can be when something catches his interest. Duke looks almost impressed and Steph looks like she’s five seconds from jumping off the railing and breaking her legs, which Jason relates to intimately. Dick, on the other hand, looks like his entire world just got turned on its head. Poor guy. He’s not paid enough for any of this.
Before people can start arguing again, Jason takes the quiet lull in conversation as the perfect moment to get them off his back. “Listen, this isn’t new, alright? I die, I come back, no I don’t know how. I kind of gave up on figuring that out after I dug myself out of my grave and got hit by a car.”
The noise that punches out of Dick’s chest makes Jason cringe. Shit, he did not think that through. “You dug yourself out of your grave?”
“Uh. Yeah?”
The cave is deathly silent, again, as everybody soaks in the information bomb he just dropped. Bruce is uncharacteristically silent, eyes locked onto the floor as he thinks so loud it hurts Jason’s head. It’s a good reprieve, not having to deal with his nagging and interrogations on top of having to break the news of immortality.
“You’re a meta?”
It’s Duke that speaks up this time.
“I mean, I guess? I never got tested for the gene, but maybe. That, or it’s magic. Or Death just really likes me.”
”Cool,” the guy breathes, nodding appreciatively. Jason takes that as a good sign as just shrugs, walking over to the elevator himself.
“Woah, woah, wait!” Tim shouts, scrambling out of his chair. “I have so many questions.”
“Yeah, well, I need a nap.” Jason sticks out his tongue childishly, mashing what he hopes is the right button to get up to the manor.
Dick just stammers something unintelligible before running over and hugging him again. “I’m always here to talk, littlewing. I一 I know I haven’t been the best older brother, but you shouldn’t have to deal with this alone and I really do want to get better with you.”
“Get off, Dickie,” he snarls, struggling against his octopus arms as Steph laughs at him in the background. Obviously, his older brother took this whole situation way too seriously.
Eventually, after a lot of petty insults, Jason manages to get out of the Wayne Manor in one piece, without additional emotional trauma from Bruce’s whole asshole dad shtick.
Well, that went better than he thought.
There’s no hesitation in taking one of Bruce’s more expensive cars right out of garage and driving off with it一 he’s a billionaire, it’s barely a dent. The drive to the Alley is short and he abandons the car on the outskirts for the Alley rats to pick apart like vultures.
When he finally gets back to his thankfully empty safehouse, Jason lets himself relax for the first time since his impromptu bath.
Grabbing a pencil and his Planning Notebook™, he gets to work.
Death had some great ideas, after all.