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Jason, despite what one might think, did not wake up all at once. Instead, his eyes blinked open, half-lidded, caught in that dreamlike plane of existence between awareness and the unconscious. It was… peaceful. He floated back to his body, his left arm numb with pins and needles.
It was dark. The sun probably hadn’t risen yet. He could get a few more hours of sleep before Bruce came to get him up for school—unless it was a weekend? He didn’t know. But he was so blissful, mind still in that place you go when you dream despite his physical waking state.
He was on his back. That was odd—he never slept on his back, his neck always felt weird afterwards. He rolled onto his side, tucking his right arm underneath him, content to rest for just a moment more… except, he hit something hard. A wall. Wasn’t the left side of his bed against the wall? Not the right?
His eyes opened as he squinted in confusion against the darkness, willing his eyes to adjust, but they did not cooperate. He went to sit up, but he only made it a few inches before his head hit something, bouncing back down to the wood he was laying on.
He wasn’t in his bed.
His brain immediately jolted to full consciousness. His heart pounded in his chest as his limbs shot out, flailing, desperately trying to find a way out, because he couldn’t see anything and everything was so small and cramped.
Breathing became harder with each thunk of his fists against the wood, and something irrational in his brain took over, overwhelmed with nothing but fear and the need to get out. His palms slammed against the ceiling over and over, as if something would change, the surface would vanish and he would have room to breathe, but it stayed there, stubborn, firm in its purpose. Splinters dug into his palms.
Despite the suffocating darkness that surrounded him, Jason could swear that the space was getting smaller by the second.
He banged harder on the wood, desperation overtaking him, but froze when a thin layer of dust or dirt or something fell down onto him.
His sleep-addled, panicked brain finally caught up with him, as did the realization that I’m in a coffin. Fuck. I’m in a coffin!
And with that came the horrible remembrance of the Joker, and what he had done. The swing of a crowbar. The tick of a bomb.
But, no, he wasn’t dead. How could he be dead? He wasn’t! He was awake, eyes open and unseeing and 6 feet under the ground.
Jason opened his mouth. “I can speak.” He startled at the sound of his own voice, the reassurance calming something in him that still insisted you are dead. And with that, Jason opened his mouth and screamed. He screamed as loud as he could, his voice hoarse from disuse, with the hopes that someone might hear him and get him out, because he shouldn't be here! He was alive!
“I’m alive!” He yelled, voice cracking on the final syllable. “Please, I’m—I’m alive, help! Help!”
But there was no answer to his hopeless cries, and he kept banging on the roof. And banging. And banging.
He didn’t know how much time passed, but his strength was leaving him, and bruises mottled the skiing of his hands, and so he began to scratch at the surface. Because he couldn’t give up. He couldn’t.
It was a slow process. But eventually, he began to feel an indent forming, and hope sparked in his chest.
Blood and splinters stuck under his nails; his left index finder nail was completely torn off.
But he didn’t stop.
He just kept scratching, and scratching and scratching…
Eventually there was only a thin layer left. He steadied himself, took a deep breath, and punched through the crumbling grain. Immediately, dirt began to sink down into the space.
And Jason pushed himself up, through the hole he had made, digging up.
Moist dirt sank into his nostrils as he resisted the urge to breathe, mud plastered to his clothes and his hair, eyes shut tight.
His feet found the top of the coffin as he continued frantically, hands cupping dirt and pushing it aside. He used the leverage to push himself up through the sludge.
The ground pressed in on him on all sides, and he began sinking. Ignoring the pounding of his heart in his head, he kicked harder, faster.
And then, lightheaded from lack of oxygen, Jason could swear that Catherine was right there, pulling him up.
Oh, he thought airily, dazed. It must be one of her good days.
She never left her bed on the bad days. Those were when he needed to find her medicine.
He squeezed his eyes shut even tighter, a tear leaking out. Her voice spoke loudly, clearly, the hair brushed away from his face, as if she was right next to him. Keep going.
And Jason did. He dug and dug and dug, almost losing sight of which way was up, until his hand broke through to the surface.
It was raining. The dirt was wet and loose, mostly mud, and he knew it would have been impossible for him to make it otherwise. He attempted to wipe away the mud clinging to his face, his hair, his eyelashes, his soul.
He collapsed, legs giving way beneath him, the grave right there. Right in front of him.
Here lies Jason Todd.
And so he lay there, utterly helpless, disoriented, as those words burned into his retinas. Here lies Jason Todd. Here lies Jason. Here lies. Jason lies here, catching his breath. Todd, Jason. Here lies her son. Jason. He is Jason. He lies.
The dirty air filled his lungs as they expanded and contracted at the speed of his heart, which was beating, because he was alive. He is alive. He is.
He was alive before, too.
That didn’t mean much.
Catherine was back. She caught his eyes, smiling slightly. Hello, Jason.
She sat next to him, leaning against the stone, with those wretched words carved into them, like the letter carved into his cheek, “J,” and then his mind was filled with pain and blood and laughing, and he couldn’t look at the cravings because they looked like the ones on his body.
He averted his eyes, groaning as he rolled upwards to a sitting position. He needed to go somewhere. He knew he couldn’t stay out in the rain, he needed to report, it had been trained into him by…
He had been trained by someone.
So he needed to go somewhere, to find someone, but he didn’t know where, or who, but it was probably better to go somewhere than to go nowhere, right?
The presence of Catherine stayed close as he began to stand, finding his footing beneath him. But he froze, jerking to a stop when his eyes fell on the grave next to his own.
Sheila Haywood.
All of a sudden the sky seemed to tilt as his eyes zeroed in on the name. He stumbled out of his squat, falling back into the dirt. His entire being went tense, his vision blurring everything but the words, as he stared at the memory of the woman who had given him life, who had given him death.
His biological mother.
A comforting hand fell on his shoulder, and Jason's head jerked to the side, pulse skyrocketing, only falling slightly when he found no one other than Catherine, who was staring at him mournfully.
I’m sorry.
And then she was gone.
Blonde hair flashed in the corner of his vision, attached to Shei— to her face, and Jason turned away. He couldn’t see her, but he just knew she was circling him, a vulture, and why did he ever trust her—
His hands came up to tug at the tangles in his matted hair, and his grief grew to be bigger than him, leaving him heaving, gasping for breath as he curled into a ball, shoulders shaking with hiccuping sobs. His ribcage was too small for his lungs, as he couldn’t get enough air in, and for his heart, since the odd, delicate organ was beating so erratically, too wildly, he thought it would burst out from his chest.
It was raining still, and he flinched at every drop on his bare skin.
Slowly, the cacophony roaring in his ears raised to a crescendo of despair, and he stumbled to his feet, running from the noise and the anguish and her.
He was limping.
With the adrenaline lighting every nerve on fire and giving him unprecedented strength, he hadn’t noticed the pain, but the Joker had hurt him, and he was still hurt, each inhale sharp and he clutched at his abdomen. His ribs were definitely broken.
He finally reached the gate to the cemetery, and he pushed it open with a creak, finally escaping. Free.
Except, not really. He didn’t know how long he wandered, trailing through the twisting streets, going somewhere. He also didn’t know where he ended up.
His mind was elsewhere.
What he did know, however, was that all of a sudden, there were arms around him, and he didn’t know how much time had passed, but it had been so long, and so he craved the touch.
But then he heard a woman’s voice, soothing, near his ear, and he jerked away, his limbs stubbornly uncooperative as he struggled against her hold.
She lifted him, shushing him softly. “It’s alright, Jason. My name is Talia al Ghul. I mean you no harm.”
The voice reached his ears, piercing his brain, and he struggled to comprehend the meaning. But even so, he gave up the fight, going limp against her as she cradled him against her chest, taking him somewhere.
There were more words, and more arms, and more uncooperative limbs. Jason hurt, but she said she could make it better, and he didn’t think she could, but he hoped despite that fear. He had to. What else did he have control over?
His memory was frustratingly spotty. One second Talia was there, holding him close, singing to him in another language (it might have been English, he was too out of it to process words at the time), the next he was staring blankly at your average stereotypical ninja, which, Jason had seen some weird things, but ninjas? Really?
Jason was afraid and weak and utterly helpless, but he clung to Talia through the journey, latching onto the weak strand of comfort, of familiarity, that she offered.
There were words, too. He couldn’t make any sense of them, but they were there.
“The bat…”
“The city is…”
“…he can’t…”
“...could be useful!”
“...training…”
“My son is only…”
“...need more time.”
He couldn’t piece the snippets together, but he could try, as there wasn’t much else to do in the darkness that engulfed him, always in the background of his head.
When he was aware enough, Jason studied her face. He catalogued every detail, mentally memorizing each feature. Her brown skin and hair. Her green eyes. That black bodysuit that she always wore, with too many weapons to count strapped to her person.
Sheila was a fuzzy memory, blurred against green hair and red fire, almost a figment of his imagination, considering how different his image of her must have been from the real thing. He had thought that she would be far kinder. He thought that she would care.
And Catherine, she was hot chocolate and burnt cookies and soft hands and telling him stories and lying unmoving in bed and staring at the ceiling and she was gone. She was a legend, the only source of light in his childhood, and yet simultaneously the cause of some of his worst moments.
So Jason watched Talia carefully, stubbornly committing each and every moment to memory, because he refused to remember her as anything other than what she actually was, when she eventually left.
Because she would leave.
They all did, sooner or later.
Jason tried to remember, he really did, but he was so tired, all of the time, and he felt delirious and feverish.
Of course, he panicked when he reclaimed consciousness in a dark room, illuminated by an eerie glow.
“W-where—” he rasped, arms scrambling for purchase against the ones holding him.
“You need not worry, little one,” Talia soothed. “I will make you better. Stronger.”
That… sounded wrong. He was hurt, and he didn’t want to hurt anymore, and he was already so strong. But being strong was so tiring, and he just wanted to rest.
“Tt.” She tracked his wild eyes disapprovingly as her hands carefully brushed the hair from his face. “Calm yourself. All is well.”
And, if she said so, it must be true, right? He had been lied to before, but this wasn't like that, it felt different.
And then Jason was lowered down, down, down.
Sheila sneered at him from the corner, Catherine watching with love in her eyes from the other.
Green.