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“I don’t know. I just don't feel…here.”
Bruce froze, his face impassive but his body language stiff. His posture remained rigid and the silence felt suffocating. From an outsider’s perspective, the two looked nothing like a father and son. Even just glancing at Bruce’s dark gaze, someone could see the cracks and shattered pieces of their relationship.
“What are you trying to say, Jason?”
Jason’s eyes were a faded green, no longer piercing with Pit rage and vengeance. The light in his eyes was flickering, and his gaze was unseeing. Maybe if you looked closer, you could see the flecks of turquoise trying to fight its way to be seen, which Jason found hilarious because “Jaybin” has been dead for a long time. He doesn't know why Bruce still tries to stare past the neon green into the empty blue because Jason has accepted his death since Catherine Todd had passed.
Robin hummed quietly in the back of his mind, dormant and locked behind a cage that sounded like unbridled joy and warm hugs.
Jason closed his eyes, focusing on the beeping of the hospital monitor next to him, steadily counting the seconds his heart continued to beat and stay alive. Each chirp haunted him, reminding him that it was the last thing he heard when he died, and one of the first things that rang through his ears when he woke up. This time, the hospital bed felt itchy and scratchy against his cold skin and was as soft as the walls of his wooden coffin.
He let the rough tones of Bruce's voice wash over him, letting his voice mumble the words that he never had the courage to say.
“Feels like I never came back properly. S’ like I came back broken.”
But you were always broken.
Jason snuggled deeper into the sheets, the cotton-whites doing nothing to warm the frost forming around his slow, aching heart. He had shed no tears, and he felt no desire to do so. The feeling of eternal ache and an overwhelming numbness had instead taken over the workings of his emotions.
Jason had felt this way for so long, by the time he had let it consume him, it was a peaceful greeting rather than a bitter end.
“Is that why you tried to…” Bruce couldn't bring himself to say the word, instead biting his lip harshly until soft pink had turned a furious red. “Jason, this time death would be permanent.”
Jason curled into a fetal position, the world feeling too big for someone who never grew past fifteen.
“Why… Jason? You just…” Bruce paused, a rare moment of grief washing over his sad, sad eyes. “You just came back to us.”
He could barely hear his father’s sadness, and couldn't muster up the rage he usually felt toward Bruce. The scar on his neck throbbed, a permanent reminder of Bruce’s love more than any warm hug from his arms could ever bring. It was hard to stay mad when grief grasped his wrist and begged him not to leave. Jason had let it consume him, and his guilt only grew. He regretted every hour he wasn't able to patrol, regretted that he wasn't able to save every life that would tragically end in flames in Crime Alley, and regretted his inability to accept the fact that his family will never love him again.
Jason thinks of Dick’s wry grins, Tim’s witty remarks, Damian's scoffs, Steph’s cackles, Cass’s quiet smiles, Duke’s warm embrace, and he just wants to leave this world without coming back.
It was living in a world where his family exists and hates him, was what made Hell feel like home. The first time he had died, he remembered the blinding light of heaven and an inexplicable freedom that he never felt before.
-
The sun kissed his chubby cheeks, lighting the fields of flowers ablaze. He had recognized some of them, dandelions that blew softly in the breeze. He remembered broken Crime Alley, and how sometimes when the rare dandelions would grow among the other weeds in between the cracks of the sidewalks, Jason would make flower crowns. Each dandelion was carefully picked, the golden-yellow feeling too bright for the cries and screams from Gotham’s alleys. With his shaking hands, he had used the small amount he collected and woven them into small crowns.
Delicate things like flowers don't survive long in Gotham, which is why Jason cried every time the flowers would wither into nothing but blackened ash. Here, in heaven, the dandelions were of abundance.
Flecks of yellow speckled among the greenest grass he had ever seen and the clouds waved cheerfully along the bright-blue sky. He was fifteen, and the happiest he had ever been, as blood no longer dirtied the yellows of his Robin uniform.
“Jason.”
In the middle of the dreamy fields, was his mother. Her hair was not blonde, and her complexion was not pale. His mother’s eyes were hazel and her hair a deep-brown. Jason could recognize that smile anywhere. There were no suspicious bruises or purple dots on her arms, and instead she was outfitted in a long, white gown.
His mother was so beautiful, and Jason was finally able to join her.
His smile was too big for his cheeks and he ran closer to his mother, the birds chirping supportively and the butterflies chasing the path he had left behind. When he had finally wrapped his arms around her, she was warm and real.
Hours had passed and he had told his mother everything, picking the dandelions nearby carefully to make her a full crown. The ones in Gotham paled in comparison to the fully petals in heaven.
Jason missed being Robin and Bruce, but he was so happy to be loved by Catherine Todd.
It was like Catherine knew he was going to leave. She had pressed a gentle hand to his forever youthful cheek and smiled wetly, the tears in her eyes shining with so much love.
Jason could see her mouth move around the words I love you, before the shades of golden disappeared along with his mother.
-
The stale wood scent and the feeling of dirt beneath his fingernails never left Jason’s memory. It only fueled his anger and amplified the pain he had left among the flower crowns he had woven. Death chases him everywhere, and he runs as if he is afraid of Lady Death when she had only given him respite and comfort.
So after one chilly fall evening in Gotham, Jason jumped off his apartment building. For that small moment, he felt as free as he did running towards his mother in that flower field.
He still jumped even knowing that death would likely lead him to hell with Sheila. Either way, he would suffer in hell with Sheila or on Earth with Bruce. A small hope withered within him, hoping that Lady Death might lead him back to those warm summer days.
However, there was no happy ending for Jason Todd, the boy who lived with his grief for a long time.