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Jason knows love. He’s four, and love is the smell that clings to his dad’s jacket as he pulls Jason into his arms in the morning after a late night of work. Love is the Celtic Woman songs his mom puts on as she cooks, slipping Jason pieces of food while he makes towers out of old takeout containers they keep in the kitchen cabinets. Love is the fact that Jason always makes sure to tell his dad goodbye before he goes to work because his mom told him that his dad was being very brave for them and one day he may not come home for a long time.
Jason’s eight, and that day has come and passed, but Jason still knows love. Whether it comes in the form of apple slices being set in front of him while his nose is in a book or returning home to a quiet house with the dishes only half done on the drying rack. Sometimes his mom reads their stories to him, and sometimes he reads the stories to her now, but she always makes sure to tell him how good he’s getting at reading, and that’s love.
And Jason knows that love exists outside of their little apartment too. He reads it in his books—fiction and nonfiction. And once he checks out another book, love is the librarian who always makes sure to engage Jason in conversation about whatever he just returned. Love is the lady who always has food ready for them to take home on the Sundays that they make it to church, and God’s love is all around them if his mom and their pastor are right, but Jason loves his mom and dad first, the twins who go to both his church and school and always let Jason join their games second, and then God third.
Jason’s twelve, and he’d failed to save Catherine despite all the love they had for each other, but he’s Robin now. He finally has the power necessary to save people, and he loves it. He loves the views of Gotham at night from her highest rooftops and the way the wind whips at his cape as he leaps from window to window. He thinks maybe the city loves him back—her people definitely do.
He still loves Catherine and Willis, even though they’ve passed away. He still loves curling up in a chair with a book. He loves Bruce, and sometimes he’s pretty sure Bruce loves him back.
At school, he makes a new friend named Rena. She’s absolutely gorgeous and super smart, and Jason wants to be her favorite person so badly. He wonders if this is what that other love is like.
Jason knows love. Love is the shadow of a cape he can always find refuge in. Love is a cup of tea and a conversation about books. Love is the hand he reaches out to help someone to their feet. And love is being able to assure them that they’re safe now; they don’t have to worry about anything anymore because he and Batman have taken care of it.
But he’s read about another type of love, one that is a secret shared only between two.
With Rena, he wonders if maybe he has found his second half, but he doesn’t want to kiss her. Still, he likes hanging out, and he hopes that Rena and he can continue meeting up forever. Is this that other kind of love?
He tells Rena about his fears, and she tells him she doesn’t know if they’re in love. She thinks they might be too young to know. Whatever it is—love or not—they both agree that it works for them.
Jason’s seventeen, and he can’t help but love the world despite all it’s done to him. He doesn’t say this to Talia when she brings up the newest tutor to wind up dead or subtly inquires about a terrorist plot Jason foiled in Britain. She hears it loud and clear anyway. Their own love also goes unspoken, and he wonders whether it was always this way, or if she felt more comfortable expressing her love to that broken boy who couldn’t respond than to this broken boy who is liable to lash out at a love expressed wrong.
He still loves Catherine and Willis, even though they’re dead, and he doesn’t understand why Bruce hasn’t been able to do the same for him.
He hates that, for Bruce, it seems he might as well have never existed, but he still loves Bruce. He loves Bruce enough to want him dead over it. Or at least he thinks he does until he finds he can’t trigger the bomb.
He can’t kill the Joker either. He tries, but the Joker’s laugh reminds him of Sheila, who reminds him of Julia, who reminds him of Catherine. And suddenly his love isn’t enough to save anyone. It wasn’t as Jason Todd, it wasn’t as Robin, and it certainly isn’t now.
Jason needs to get out of here before he dies again.
Jason’s eighteen, and no one in the world loves Jason anymore. Batman’s batarang just confirmed it. But Jason still knows love. He knows dying alone in a warehouse isn’t what his mom or dad would have wanted for him, and so he makes it out.
Jason’s twenty by the time some of all the love he’s poured into the world finally returns to him. Roy and Kory watch his back when there are fights and keep him company when there aren’t. Love is Kory’s effusive declarations of companionship and Roy’s steady presence at his back. Love isn’t, at least for him, a committed romantic relationship sealed with a kiss. He’d tried with Isabella, and felt at best mildly uncomfortable.
He wonders if Rena ever grew into the sort of real adult love they’d tried so hard to emulate, or if she was out there somewhere alone and loving it, just like him. Because the truth is, he’s not alone. Not anymore.
Now he has Roy and Kory, and Rose, and the occasional amicable teamup with a bat-ling, and a mural of the Red Hood that popped up on the side of the bridge where Lincoln meets Fifth Street the other day.
Jason’s twenty-two when he thinks he might be able to have Bruce’s love again. Jason’s still twenty-one when that idea comes crashing down.
His back collides with the roof. Jason rolls with the momentum, twisting, so it sends him over his shoulder. He lands crouched, but on his feet.
Above him, the Outlaws’s base continues shrinking, massive amounts of metal groaning as it spirals in on itself until it disappears entirely, taking Artemis and Bizarro with it.
His hands come up to scrub his face through the gaps in his helmet left by Bruce’s earlier beating. His body hurts, but it is eclipsed by the anguish in his heart.
Thousands of light-years away, the Zamarons take notice.
“You’re standing right behind me, aren’t you?” Jason says not bothering to turn around. He’d heard just the slightest whisper of the grapple kicking in, but he knows it’s Batman because Bruce wouldn’t have been content to let their confrontation end with Bizarro prematurely fishing Jason out of the beating.
Jason throws up a kick before he’s even fully facing Batman, but Bruce cannot be caught off guard, easily catching his attempt at an offense and throwing Jason into the roof.
Jason fights to get back onto his feet while Batman’s heavy strides close the distance between them. However, Batman stops before he can reach Jason when a sudden flare of pink light announces the arrival of a Star Sapphire ring.
“Jason Todd of the planet Earth, you are capable of giving great love.”
“What the fuck?” Jason murmurs.
Batman is still frozen, analyzing the scene in front of him.
“The loss of your friends and the betrayal of your father leaves a void in your heart, but your love persists. Allow us to fill that void, so your love is not extinguished, and empower you to fight for love across the universe. Will you accept this ring and become a Star Sapphire?”
Jason’s heard of the Star Sapphires: powers like a Green Lantern, sometimes go insane with love or some shit. The only one he knows about is in love with Hal Jordan, so he’d kind of assumed that that kind of love was a prerequisite, but apparently not if there’s a ring floating right in front of them here and now.
“And whose commands would I have to follow?” he asks.
“You would have one directive only: to follow your heart.”
Jason’s been doing that since birth.
And he knows how powerful a lantern ring is. He’d watched Kyle rock and roll his way through several different dimensions with a green one. How many more people could he help if he had one for himself?
For once, his love might be enough.
“Jason,” Bruce growls. “You cannot know if the ring lies.”
Jason flips him off. “I accept.”
“Welcome, Star Sapphire.”
The ring takes its place on the same finger Jason raised to show Bruce the bird. A happy accident. It activates the next instant.
Jason can’t breathe. He can’t think. And everything he sees is pink, pink, pink.
And then the violet crystals that encased him start to shatter, and Jason bursts forth from within.
The first thing he notices is that he feels better. The ring seems to be working to fix his battered body. The second thing Jason notices are the chunky black heeled boots complete with pink laces that go all the way up above his mid-calf that have appeared on his feet. Jason’s very glad the boots are magical because they would be a pain to take on and off.
A black skintight material clings to his legs, and Jason briefly mourns his pockets before remembering he can summon literally anything out of nothingness now. The same material encases his torso, though a pink and white Star Sapphire emblem takes up much of his chest, spanning from pec to pec and dipping all the way down to his belly button.
He can tell he’s wearing a helmet, presumably identical to his usual one, but pink this time, and the look is completed with a pink leather jacket cropped right above his waist.
“Jason.” Bruce’s tone demands he listen, but Jason has more important places to be.
“Ring, take me to Artemis and Bizarro,” Jason says, issuing a demand of his own. A pink thread appears, and suddenly Jason is yanked from the rooftop, pulled behind his arm into a portal. He puts up no resistance. He is following his heart.