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On the roof of a skyscraper, Jason Todd sits, tucked under a gargoyle. Dressed casually, only a couple weapons and no armor or tools. So unlike a Bat, not prepared should something dastardly happen. It's not one of his usual haunts, but it'll do to shelter him from the wind as he looks out at Gotham from his perch.
A beautiful city. A beautiful home.
As long as you don't look too close.
(As long as you look even closer than too close).
She sings to him, and he could never abandon her. Not all the crime-ridden alleys. Not all the people desperate for help, for a hand to give them a lift. For a body to shield them from the worst of the fire of guns and heat. To give them masks against the toxins.
Gotham is Jason's home, and for all the dirt and grime and pain, it's a city he just can't quit.
(He's much like Bruce that way. He knows it).
(He hates it).
(But he can't hate her).
"You're sure about this?" he whispers to the wind.
The wind whispers back in something less than words. Cooing, brushing his hair from his face. Silly, she says, cute, she says, don't doubt me, she says.
It's a quiet moonlit night. The soft light hidden behind clouds thinner than usual.
There really is no other choice than but to stand and listen to the city he loves, the city that has him leashed more than any symbol on his chest. Wires wrapped around his limbs, hooks digging into his skin. Pulling him back, back time and time again. Back to these streets.
It’s an itch under his skin. It can’t let him go. Jason has learned, during his travels, that cities really can be such possessive things. He bore her mark on his heart no matter where he traveled. Birthed from her twice, one from the womb and once grown from her graveyard dirt.
It’s only right that he give back when she asks.
Jason steps forward, onto nothingness, and falls.
He is no stranger to the wind whipping past his ears, through his hair.
But the grappling hook so often in his hand is now nowhere.
There is no one in his ear to yell, to call for him.
No one to come for help.
Her moonlight reflects from the dark,
empty glass of the building
as the ground
Approaches
Chilling laughter in the air as tendrils of shadow envelop his arms and is that real? Is that Gotham? Or is he wrong? Is he about to die for good? All of this, all of this, it’s
trust
And then the impact
S H A T T E R S
Jason Todd.
A smear of blood on the concrete sidewalk where no one knew to walk. Guided away by shadowed thoughts.
The city laughs in ears that shouldn’t be able to hear, to a brain that should not be able to understand.
Her shadows are dark, and her curses run deep.
If someone wants to make this city better, they must be ready and willing to bleed for her. To die for her. As many times as it takes.
Gotham has loved Jason Todd since he was a child hiding in her alleys. She has loved him as he stole her Knight’s tires, as he flew as her darling Robin. She screamed as he died outside her reach.
Every narrative must balance the heroes with the villains, and what is a city but a story?
But had he stayed in her grasp she could have protected him.
She had to drag him from the dirt herself, and he was so broken then.
Almost as broken as his body is now.
Broken, but in her grasp. Dead, but dead for her.
A sacrifice born of love and trust. An offering in her name.
It doesn’t matter that she can stitch his muscles back together. That she can realign and mend bone. That she can sew the skin into shape. He died for her. His dying blood will always stain her body. Fed into the depths of her heart. Death for life, for living.
For mending her. For Gotham.
Jason Todd is for Gotham.
Gotham is for Jason Todd. For all her Bats that fly in her skies.
But she cannot ask just any of them to die. Not even if it’s for her.
A boy just grown, already one who cannot be claimed forever by her friend Death?
He makes a sacrifice she can accept. All of him.
(All of him, hopefully time and time again. She wants him to give himself to her. To let the worms taste his heart. To water the parks with his blood. To wrap his soul in her dark tendrils and hold. To knit him back together time and time again. Time and time again, until her threads envelope him).
Jason inhales sharp and deep as his ribs pull away from his lungs, puncture wounds already healing.
Every inch of his body screams. Screams like he just fell 50 stories and hit the ground.
Likely because he just fell 50 stories. And hit the ground.
He spits out a tooth in his newly reformed mouth, feeling the new one grow in its place.
“Fuck,” he mutters.
He can’t move from his side to sitting up yet, but every part of him is on fire with energy. Wrapped in a touch of painful ecstasy.
It hurts. It screams in agony.
He needs it more.
A laugh escapes the mutilated throat, a glob of blood leaving a taste of iron over his tongue as he spits again.
Jason Todd loves Gotham, as she loves him.
“Got any other curses that need a death to break? I figure I owe you my nine lives.”
Oh my soul, Gotham sings, you have far more lives than nine to spend as you please.
Death could never do them part.