Chapter Text
Jason Todd had not been truly alive for a very long time.
Living, yes. He’d been living for about 22 years give or take– that is if you account for a tiny stretch where he’d died and then another period where he’d been so unaware that he was basically still dead. However, since he’d become conscious post “pit madness,” “rage,” “revenge rampage,” whatever you want to call it, he had just been surviving.
Jason ate and drank because he was supposed to, he cleaned his apartment because he couldn’t stand messes, he worked out to stay in shape, and he patrolled the city at night because he wanted to keep people safe– at least that’s what the big bad Batman told him.
To be entirely truthful, Jason was just going through the motions, and he wasn’t sure how much longer he could do it.
He had been living his life in avoidance, he went through the motions so he could avoid the little stirs of rage he got when things were really bad. He stayed away from certain places, images, actions, etc. just to keep it all at bay.
He was a ticking time bomb, and he wasn’t sure if he was about to detonate or be defused for good.
At the beginning of fall, Jason started taking naps. He was usually up until the wee hours of the morning, so he would come home, sleep until 10, get up and do the things he was ‘supposed’ to do for a little while, then get so exhausted that he would crash around 4. Then he’d sleep for a while, just to get up to patrol and start the cycle again.
He had quit volunteering at the library– he couldn’t handle the walk there anymore, too many people, too much noise, too many opportunities for ambush. He’d stopped leaving his apartment during the day entirely, deciding it best to get groceries delivered, rather than freak out in the check-out line.
Because of this, Jason had some spare time, and if he preferred to utilize that time by being unconscious, that was no one’s concern but his own. He needed the extra sleep anyway– his nightmares had been getting worse, waking him up, drenched in sweat, with the taste of bile surfacing in the back of his throat.
Jason happened to be in bed chasing unconsciousness when Tim stopped by unannounced.
He had been on the verge of sleep, having decided that he could afford another hour before getting up to get ready and patrol. His mind had finally gotten close to quiet when he heard the window in his kitchen slide open.
Unable to will himself to get up and investigate, he reached up and retrieved the gun that was strapped behind his headboard and slid it under the pillow where his head lay, listening for movement in his kitchen.
The footsteps were light and had a very specific weight to them, he knew it was Tim.
Tim made his way quietly through the apartment before pausing at Jason’s bedroom door. After a moment he knocked in a quick rap rap rap and waited for an answer. After a few seconds of silence he decided it best to just open the door.
Light flooded into the room through the doorway and Jason buried his face deeper into his pillow as Tim whispered a hushed “Jason?” into the all-too-bright room.
Jason grunted a reply of acknowledgement and Tim padded into the darkness.
“What are you doing, I could’ve been here to kill you man?” Tim was standing in front of where Jason lay, stomach-down, on his mattress.
“Knew it was you, figured I’d give you a chance,” Jason grumbled into his pillow, not looking up.
“If I wanted to kill you, you wouldn’t have heard me coming,” Jason could hear the eyeroll.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t hear you because you wouldn’t come. You’d send some gadget after me to do it for you.”
“Keep tellin’ yourself that. Keep your expectations low. Makes it real easy to kill you when I finally decide to.” Tim tells him, then with a quick change of subject– “Hey, I’m gonna use your bathroom real quick, couldn’t make it home and MAN I’ve gotta wizz.”
Jason mumbles a quick “Go for it,” but Tim’s already in the bathroom. With the teen out of his face, he snuggles back into his pillow, grasping for sleep that never really comes.
After a stretch of time that Jason is certain was much too short for Tim to pee in, he hears the door of the bathroom attached to his bedroom creak open and is faced by even more light– this is how he knows Tim grew up with money, no mind for the electric bill.
This time Jason looks up, peeking over the edge of his pillow at a puzzled looking Tim. Curious, Jason raises an eyebrow, giving Tim the go ahead to ask whatever's on his mind.
“What happened to your mirror?”
Jason wasn’t prepared for that question, he’d forgotten about the incident entirely in his drowsy state.
“Came home from patrol one night and was a little out of it, bumped into it by accident and it shattered.” Jason told him– a half truth. For good measure he added, “Just haven’t made it out to get a new one yet.”
Tim looked skeptical, but didn’t say anything.
Truth be told, Jason had bumped into the mirror, but he bumped into it with his fist after a nightmare. It was a few weeks ago and it really had been after patrol, but he had come home and slept for a little while before it happened. His room was dark and he awoke screaming and disoriented needing to vomit, so in the rush to his bathroom, and he was so caught off guard by the dimly glowing green eyes in his mirror that he smashed it, then bent over to puke in the sink.
After about a week, Jason realized he was better off without a mirror. He never really used it anyway, it was just there as a semblance of normalcy, but he never looked into it in the mornings, or while washing his hands, or just to look. In fact, as of late, the sight of his own reflection had been inducing such panic in him that after smashing the mirror in his bathroom, he took the one in his living room down too, putting it in the back of his closet facing the wall.
The image of himself– of what the world had done to him, a reminder of what he had done right back– was too much, reminding him of how close he was to snapping. The deep scarring slashes on his face, the capital “J” on his cheek carved by a man barring the same initial, reminded him all too well of the time period in which he took up that lifestyle, how good it felt, how angry his family was.
There were times now when he would slip up– get too close to breaking the Batman’s sacred rule. His hands would start to shake and he would have to cut the night short seeking the comfort of his apartment. Sometimes, he would rage and trash the place, other times he would curl himself into a ball and sob until the capillaries around his eyes burst and he had no voice– he really felt bad for his neighbors.
Yes, it might be killing him, keeping himself on such a short leash– holding himself back from killing those who deserved to die, causing the wound that the pit made inside of him to fester. It was pushing him into a state that he didn’t have a name for, but it felt a lot like being a zombie again.
Jason Todd must be dying again, because this is not what living felt like.