Archive of Our Own ^beta

It is cold. A dry kind of coldness, the kind that seeps into your very bones, passes through your skin, leaving it blue and rough, takes root in your muscles and passes through. The shivers start to make more sense than stillness, his muscles jump in irregular patterns, his teeth clatter. He doesn’t feel anything other than pain as the soles of his feet hit the ground. 

His limbs ache, not only from the cold, but from the injuries that have been left to fester untended to, and freely bleeding for however long has passed since he got them. The cold is numbing but he still feels the ache of every gash in his skin as if whatever weapon had inflicted them was still lodged in his body. His skin feels too tight over his bones and muscles, it feels like it’s ripping at the edges. There’s a cutting pain in his ankles as he walks, the crunch of his right knee is even worse, his walk is more akin to a dawdle because of it. There are splinters in his hands, underneath his nails. He remembers dirt, and dirt and dirt. 

There is nothing on his mind other than the fact that he needs to move, and that it hurts and that he’s cold. Those three facts intertwine until he can’t untangle them from each other, they are reality, all that matters, all that he can focus on without falling apart. He might be hearing something, he might see something getting closer and feel the wind picking up. But none of that matters, none of that fits into his web of consciousness. 

He thinks everything stops, or maybe everything is more. His mouth feels full and something thick is dribbling down his chin, or maybe his cheek. He feels wet, still cold but wet, and it hurts more, or maybe it doesn’t hurt at all. A door is slammed shut, a car? What is a car? Maybe there is speaking, maybe some other sound. Then there is only nothing. Or maybe still cold, and hurt and dark. At least it isn’t dirt.

Everything is dull, at times things clear up a bit, he is able to hear, to think. He hates when he can think, because then it hurts, hurts, hurts. It is easier during the dull. During the clear he keeps forgetting that there isn’t dirt in his mouth, underneath his nails, in his nose, that there isn’t dirt everywhere. Sometimes he is in the clear and the laughter from what must be down the hall just won’t stop, it always gets closer and closer, and louder and louder until he inevitably shuts down again. He never figures out who’s laughing. 

There’s damp sheets underneath him. He’s in a cold sweat, nothing is familiar. He needs to get out of there, he needs to get home. He needs his dad. He needs to breathe. He’s wearing a hospital gown. His body aches, it feels like he’s ripping from the inside and his insides are going to spill out any minute. He gets out. Nobody notices. He is quiet, he keeps his body steady despite the pain. He almost loses focus too many times. He zones out every couple of minutes, he forces his way back to consciousness until he is outside. When he starts walking on the cold asphalt he can’t keep the dullness from taking over anymore. 

His body is moving but it isn’t by his demand. He is watching from within a body that is moving. How is he moving? He eats from dumpsters, he knows which ones to go to, which ones to ignore. He wants to drink from the puddles but knows that he can’t. He exists, he has no name, he is dull and for a couple of seconds every couple of days, maybe weeks, maybe hours— he is aware, he is clear and he can think. He mostly thinks about how it hurts, how it’s cold and how he’s hungry. 

There’s cold rock underneath him, it’s dark, he feels lost in the dull. There’s a voice, it’s different. The voice keeps coming back. It hurts less. He can’t think but he can watch, he can smell and he is aware. Everything is muddled but there is no dirt and less laughter. Sometimes it hurts more again, it hurts after his body moves more than usual, when he is fighting. The hurt is familiar, the movements of his body are too. He doesn’t recognize any of the other bodies, but the voice is familiar. 

He starts to recognize the body of the voice. Their movements never get familiar, it moves differently every time. He doesn’t know what the voice is saying, at times his vision gets blurry when the voice is talking. Something about it gets too familiar and his cheeks feel cold and wet. He doesn’t like when the voice does that. At times the voice— the person— is sitting and speaking with something— a book?— on her lap. He likes that a lot better. The person starts to do that more often after he moves a lot, after he fights. He doesn’t mind the hurt if the person speaks from the book afterwards. 

There is another familiar person, a small one. The small one gets hurt a lot. He doesn’t want the small one to get hurt, the big person doesn’t either. The big person wants him to help. The small one starts to read for him, he likes when people read. 

The big one is Talia. He tries to form the sounds of her name with his mouth, it doesn’t work. Nothing comes out. He is as quiet as always. More and more words are familiar, it gets easier the more Talia and the little person reads for him. He keeps moving, he wants to know more, he wants to be able to make sound. 

The little person is Damian. He manages to utter one letter at a time. He calls her ‘T’ and him ‘D’. It works, they look pleased. He thinks that he might be Jason. He has a name. He doesn’t try to speak it, knowing is enough. 

Moving gets easier, he hurts less. His mind almost never gets dull, or maybe it does and he just doesn’t remember. He thinks he’s getting better. He doesn’t know what ‘being good’ entails, but he wants to know. He tries to read for himself, he feels displeased when it doesn’t work. He doesn’t understand. 

He is starting to be able to ignore the feeling of dirt everywhere. He no longer feels like he is choking on soil, dirt and debris. He starts to forget the feeling of dirt underneath his fingernails in favor of the feeling of blood and occasionally flesh, depending on how well he fights. And then comes the hot, scathing water. Then comes the green, or maybe the gold. The colors swirl and combine. It feels like his skin turns inside out, it feels like every atom is ripped away from his body and then slammed right back in, one by one with such force that he should explode. It is unbearable, it is suffocating. He is dying and yet he is able to think for the first time in forever. 

He is Jason Todd (Wayne) and he is alive. He died, his biological ‘parents’ are dead, his mother is dead and his father replaced him before his body got cold in the ground. Talia Al-Ghul saved him from the streets, just like Bruce once had, and now he is fully back. Talia— the daughter of Ra’s Al-Ghul, the demons’ head of the League of Assassins— reads to him. As does her son. Jason feels lost, nothing makes sense and yet it has to because his body is twitching for violence and everything breathing is wrong, wrong, wrong. 

Jason hurts a lot of people, almost all of them die. He can still feel the blood caking the skin on his fingers, he can still feel how it clings to his hands and keeps going all the way up his arms, he can still smell it. He reads for Damian this time around. Talia is around, she is caring, she is good, she is one mistake away from being hunted by her own father. Jason teaches Damian how to fight without lethality, no matter how much he himself wants to kill, how his mind is starving for death, he will teach Damian the way of The Bat. Jason doesn’t talk about his first or second family. Damian asked about his father once, Jason got punished, Damian never asked again. 

Jason doesn’t know what’s next, he doesn’t know anything other than that he should try to stay alive, that he shouldn’t give up. The Joker is still alive, Jason was never avenged and his death had changed nothing. If he thinks too hard about it he can’t stop the boiling rage that’s always soaring just underneath his skin. He wants revenge, he wants to get stronger. He wants Damian to get a better chance in life than being raised with violence and death at his fingertips. He wants Talia to be able to raise her son in such an environment that that’s possible. He wishes he never died so he could’ve gone to college. He wants to stop being so angry. 

The fighting gets increasingly intense. He fights against tougher opponents, against more people at once, they get to use weapons whilst he can only use his body. Just when it’s starting to get easier, the difficulty increases. His life is like a video game. He gets hurt, the ground gets painted red with his opponents’ as well as his own blood. Jason heals quicker than he used to, he doesn’t need as much food or as much sleep. He doesn’t feel as human as he used to, the Lazarus changed something deep within his soul and his body adapted to fit around its new host. 

Talia asks him if there’s anything he wants. She says that she will try to provide whatever he asks for. He thinks about returning to Gotham, he thinks about starting a new life where he could go to school. He thinks about becoming an author, about writing songs and music. He thinks about honing his assassin skills further and using his new body to kill and thus give in to the voice that’s praying for violence by his hand. That voice, it has made him do things in the heat of the moment he normally wouldn’t. It made him hurt Damian. He wants it gone. He wants to control it, not be controlled. “I want to learn how to be in control. I don’t think I can trust any other choice without knowing that it’s me choosing it.” Talia looked proud, she showed as much emotion as she could get away with, she still had to be careful. “I think I know just the place.”

The Chamber of All is nothing like anything Jason has ever seen. It reaches out within the mountains, there are carvings within the walls, large murals spread out across the rocks. Trees and their large roots and branches curve around the staircases, around corners, across the floor. There are pools in different colors and of different temperatures, some of which are created from waterfalls. 

Hordes of cloaked people are fighting in perfect sync, one instructor standing in front and observing, occasionally adjusting someone’s technique. Everything is beautiful, it is controlled, it is breathtaking. There is something in the air, the hairs on his arms and neck are standing up, he feels at peace, he feels unnerved. This is where he will learn control. Being here will change him, he will never be the same, he walks in further, he doesn’t look back. Jason meets Ducra.

“You will be the death of many people, boy. Tell me, why should I help you when all that is evil is still allowing your body to stench with its inception?” Jason knows that Ducra is already aware of his reasons, he somehow knows that she has already figured out more than he feels comfortable sharing. This woman is wiser than anyone he has ever met and he knows it from only breathing in her scent and looking into her eyes. “I want to be in control of myself. I want to get stronger. And I—” he lets the words rest on his tongue for a couple seconds, he makes sure it’s what he really wants to say. “And I wish to see things for what they really are, with a clear enough mind that I can use my strength for what I think is right.” 

Ducra folds her hands together and looks into his eyes and past them, she looks into his soul and into his future. “I can smell the Lazarus on you, boy. I know that you will bring death upon many of this realm as well as the next. I will train you, and you shall become what you will.” She is not telling him everything, she is barely telling him anything at all. Jason will figure out whatever he needs to later, all he needs to know for now is that she has agreed to train him. 

Training with the All Caste is nothing like training with the League, nothing like training with Batman. No matter what he is doing— whether it’s eating, doing drills or trying to fall asleep— he has to hold tight onto his emotions, his soul. It’s difficult, it’s like constantly trying to hold onto a meditative state. At the beginning, he barely managed during meditation, a few weeks later he could handle it for hours at a time for as long as he didn’t have to fight. His concentration often slips during fights, when the Lazarus gets hot and heavy in his ears. Jason is a quick learner, he will manage, it will be fine.

For once everything went kind of well. He starts to get a hold of the meditation parts, being able to feel his own soul all the time, unconsciously and consciously. He starts being able to feel the souls of others, first only when he is meditating, and then all the time. Jason starts to love meditation, he loves being able to focus that clearly on everything, everywhere, as well as the nothing and what’s nowhere, all at once. 

After some time he doesn’t even have to try to be able to see souls, it comes as easy as thought. Feeling his own soul is like feeling a limb. He starts being able to sense the magic lingering in every breath of the Chamber of All, because the place is breathing, it is alive, it is magic. He starts being able to sense magic within his own soul. It gets stronger and stronger by the day the same way that his soul gets more and more refined. 

His occasional nightmare or intrusive thought starts to feel antithetical to his new state of consciousness. He tries to look further, to look past what is clouding his mind. He tries to look behind it, and to search within the darkness. He tries to do it all at the same time. Later that evening, Ducra speaks to him. “You have been able to see the past, present, and future all at once. You, dear boy, are ready to fight the Untitled.” 

Perhaps Ducra had only taken him in in order for him to fight for her agenda and further her goals. The thought has struck his mind many times, just like it had with Talia, like it had with Bru— with Batman. No. With Bruce. He has to be able to hear his name without freezing, he has to be able to let go. He has to look into the dark, past it and further. Jason will follow Ducra's agenda, he will not make it his own, at least not yet, but he will follow along. She has helped him get this far. 

Jason learns about the All Caste, about its long and tangled history. He learns about Ducra’s history tied to the Lazarus pits, to absolute evil. He learns about her brothers and sisters, about how Ducra was the only one who could resist the darkest energy in the world as its fingers reached for her soul. He learns how the siblings who couldn’t, became the Untitled. They seek to absorb the darkest of shadows, to enhance their immortality and embody the pure evil from the Lazarus that they once bathed in.

Jason is only to observe during his first missions against the Untitled. Essence, Ducra’s daughter, does all the fighting. She fights with the grace and talent of someone who’s been trained since birth, of someone who’s been involved with a war between good and evil for thousands of years. Jason keeps following Essence on missions, he observes and he learns. She has a wide range of abilities and techniques, some more tangible like healing, flight and some kind of shape-shifting, and others feel surreal even to him, who’s literally come back from the dead. The fatal touch, intangibility, scrying and energy projection are all more difficult to understand. And that isn’t even thinking about the Blood Blades. 

Maybe it’s the Bat in him, maybe it comes from his inner Gothamite, maybe it’s the time he spent being molded into an assassin worthy enough to interact with an assassin cult’s heir, but no matter what it is— Jason is interested in cool weapons, and the Blood Blades are cool. Jason can sense Essence’s soul flowing through the blades, they are glowing in absolute red, and from only the smallest slash their enemy seemingly evaporates into smoke and ash. Essence can make the blades take any shape through manipulating the shape of her soul. She fights with no outer source of power, only with herself, only with her own soul. It is stunning to watch.

Jason is starting to miss Gotham like a limb. He misses the smog and the pollution and the gargoyles. He misses the way the city seemed to whisper and lull him to sleep like a little child. He misses the sound of cars, fights and sirens. He misses Gotham like a brother, like a parent, like a part of himself.

Jason starts to practice the secret techniques of the All Caste. He feels warm and complete when tribal tattoos start to form on his chest as he meditates, they tingle as he imbeds his soul into the lines, he smiles wider as he feels flowery patterns bloom from them. His heart flutters as they start to glow, he feels how Essence and Ducra’s souls pulsate with content. He starts being able to sense the Untitled as well as other magical beings easier, he can sense their presence and the level of danger they pose. 

The Lazarus effects are still there, it still corrupts and influences. He can see it at the edge of his vision, he can feel it like a fog around his soul. He can tell how it shifts thoughts and memories around in his brain, how it strengthens some things and pushes others to the side. And yet Jason can ignore it easier, he can see things clearer than before, and he is fully aware about when he is compromised, and when he isn’t. 

Jason misses reading, he misses green eyes and soothing voices. Jason doesn’t miss the League or what it stands for. He misses Talia and Damian. He hopes she hasn’t had to fight her father, only because he fears she would lose. He wishes nothing’s gotten worse with Ra’s, because that would mean Damian having to go to his father, that would mean Damian becoming Robin and standing face to face with the Joker. 

Jason can think more clearly about his second family, about Bruce, Dick, Alfred, he can think about Barbara. It gets worse when he thinks about what happened with each and every one of them. He can keep it together about his successor, about Tim. It gets more difficult when he thinks about how Tim came to be, when he thinks about the role Alfred apparently played in ensuring that the mantle got a new pair of shoulders to rest upon. How Talia got that information, he has no idea, but he is thankful nonetheless. It gets more difficult the more he thinks about fairness, about comparing himself to who came before him, and who came after. So many things are so very difficult, but he doesn’t lose his mind. He can stay aware as he thinks about his first life. He cannot think too much about the Joker, that’s a line he is yet to be able to cross. He thinks he might not ever be able to breathe easily as long as he is alive.

Jason becomes intimately familiar with magic and its properties. He knows how it works, how it is used, how a magic user thinks. He knows more about magic than most. He can use the simplest of spells, he can erase the magic scent and trace of his own soul. He can become un-trackable, un-traceable and impossible to detect. He is more than sufficient in soul protection regarding his own body, he can enforce his body to strengthen his blows, protect it from harm, become faster and strengthen his senses. He trains his soul until the air around him starts to glow.

Jason first creates the All Blades in front of three training groups. He is wearing the same hooded cloak as the rest of the participants, only slightly different than the instructor’s. He is standing in the middle row all the way to the left, he is doing the same katas, the same motions as everyone else, he has been doing those very same motions hundreds of times before. Nothing is particularly interesting, he isn’t doing anything differently than he usually does. They just appear in his hands, glowing in a dull, amethyst purple. 

At first, everything turns into chaos, people start fleeing, running, taking to fighting stances. Then comes Ducra, she simply appears in the middle of the chaos and speaks to everyone, telling them to rest, that everything was fine. The handles of the swords are solid in his hands, his heart is pounding, and Ducra is walking towards him. “Jason, boy, would you please come with me.” 

The Blood Blades Essence used was a type of All Blade, one of the most precious techniques of the All Caste. Hers, just like practically every blade that came before, as well as after, are designated to kill magic based threats such as the Untitled, or even Amazons, and cannot harm anything else. They are powered by the soul of the wielder, and might become lethal to a mortal like Jason because of the taxing way it consumes its wielder. Another way to use them is to let the blades feed on its user’s own blood. They always range in different shades of red or orange. They can only be summoned in the presence of absolute evil, which was why everyone in the hall had been so scared, they believed that the Untitled was attacking the Chamber of All. None of that explains why Jason was able to summon them within the halls of the All Caste, famous for being devoid of anything of absolute evil. None of that explained why they were purple. None of that explained why his soul wasn’t being eaten like a delicacy.

“Jason, boy, I want you to unsummon your blades.” Jason doesn’t know how, but he has to try. He tries to will them away, he tries to force his soul back into his body, he tries to simply breathe. The handles start to get warmer. “How do I even do that? They won’t go away!” Ducra’s eyes turn firm but her slight smile is still warm. “Usually, you would have to eradicate what evil summoned them in the first place, or will your soul to go back to rest.” The handles get even hotter, if they increase even more in temperature they will start to burn. “That didn’t work, and the only evil that could’ve been close is what’s inside of me.” 

Ducra closes her hands around his, Jason’s knuckles are starting to turn white from clenching around the handles, he only holds them tighter the more he tries to let go. “What were you thinking about when this happened?” Jason had been thinking about Damian, about how the kid would love learning those katas and the discipline they instilled. He had been thinking about how he missed the feeling of home. He had been thinking that there wasn’t a place he could ever call home the way he did with the streets of Gotham. He had been thinking about how resigned he’d become, how he still had so much to learn and how he might never learn enough to become satisfied. He had been longing. 

Now, he is thinking about how learning control had been his initial goal. He is thinking about how he has gained enough understanding to know when he is affected by the Lazarus pit, how he’s learned enough to know his tells and to overcome them. He is thinking that this might be enough. He doesn’t even realize how his hands have stopped burning, how the amethyst light has stopped shining, that his hands have dropped to his sides. “Good job, boy. You have a very special soul, be sure to tend to it and wield it to its fullest potential. Your training will soon be finished.”

The color of his swords change depending on what emotion he feels as he summons them. The properties of the All Blades should never differ, and yet his blades do, they change depending on the color they shine. His anger brings forth the usual fire red, and the usual effect of the All Blades takes place, with anger he inflicts instant death. When he feels tired and exhausted, a dull blue flame licks the blades, his opponent simply fall asleep from the smallest of cuts. Fear is toxic green, green like the Joker, green like the waves of the pit. Fear poisons his opponent, the poison has been different every time they have tested it. His fear level decides the lethality of the poison. 

Longing and loss, like when he first saw it, is an amethyst purple. It makes his opponent lose a part of their soul, releasing it to nature if it’s pure, and the deepest depths of hell if it isn’t. Happiness, a bright yellow, heals. He cannot kill, or hurt anyone— not even in self defense— if he is happy. There are an infinite amount of emotions, the spectrum of feelings is complex and endless. There are infinite shades of light, an infinite amount of colors. His power is limitless. The strength of his emotions change the saturation of the light, at times his swords burn so bright he feels blinded. Sometimes he can barely see anything other than air, only a sliver of color shining through. 

Depression, emptiness and numbness, is in grayscale. He is able to fully strip his opponent of their emotions, of their soul, leaving them an empty case of flesh and blood. 

Jason can’t help but wonder what it feels like to be a lantern. If the corp feels something like he does, only that they are limited to one part of the emotional spectrum. He wonders if his power is something like the lantern corp’s constructs, only that he is limited to creating swords and missing a ring. 

Jason is more thankful of his meditation than ever, he is more resentful of the Lazarus’ influence than ever, he always needs to be in control of his emotions right before he summons his strongest weapon. 

Jason fights the Untitled on his own, he fights the scum of the earth and he kills. It is easy to slip into thoughts about Sheila Haywood, it is easy to think about the hundreds of deaths that the Joker has taken since his death. It is easy to slip into thoughts about Ra’s Al Ghul. His blades almost always turn a dark, burning red. The only times it doesn’t, it turns into a burnt orange of betrayal and hurt. The Untitled still dies from burning orange, mortals turn into a depressive frenzy and won’t stop until they have made their own heart stop beating. 

Jason’s training is done, Ducra lets him leave with a nod of farewell. Jason leaves for Nanda Parbat and the League of Assassins. Talia is alone, Damian has left for Gotham. He isn’t Robin, not yet, and the Joker is still alive. Damian will inevitably run across Gotham's shadowy rooftops and he will do it breathing the same air as the person who took Jason’s life. Talia tells him about a blonde Robin, about a Robin who flew too far out of the nest, about a Robin who defied orders and got killed ‘because of it.’ Jason’s heart is racing, his soul sparks with the want to summon burning blades, his head sings with Lazarus. Talia tells him about rumors spreading about a spirit and a doctor in Africa. Jason leaves for Gotham, Jason has a plan and heads are going to roll.

Jason hasn’t felt at home in years. He’s been scared that Gotham would reject him, that he’s changed too much, that his soul no longer fits into Gotham’s puzzle. He is afraid that his affliction with the Lazarus pit, or that his new magical powers will make the city not fit anymore. No meta’s in Gotham. No magic in Gotham. Batman’s words scare him, they almost make him doubt his place at home. He is aware that he is no longer welcome at the manor, with his old family, not with the Waynes nor the Bats— but he wishes that he still has a home in Gotham. 

Gotham is reeking of old, dark magic. His soul is almost reaching out to it, it looks as if his soul is trying to embrace the magic with a hug. The strange thing is that the magic in the air, in the ground, in every building, every gargoyle, is reaching for him back. The air is  filled with pollution and smog, and yet it is easier to breathe than it has in years. Jason feels right for the first time since he bathed in the waters of the Lazarus pit. He’s home, and if he summons the All Blades, they would have been glowing yellow, or perhaps they would glow in the color of love, a color he is yet to summon. 

Jason’s most prominent emotion is anger. It didn’t use to be. He used to mask what he really felt with anger, but it was rarely what he truly felt. Now, it is safer to be angry, anger means safety, anger means an easy death for whatever dares to hurt him. Anger has always been easy. Jason’s anger is red, the All Blades has proved as much. Red has always been his favorite color. 

Jason wears red accents to his black League-inspired uniform to honor his anger. He wears a red mask to cover the bottom of his face, to cover what isn’t hidden behind the shadows of his hood. He would wear Talia’s symbol on his back if he wasn’t doing something this incriminating, if his actions wouldn’t break whatever small mercy lingers between her and Bruce. He wouldn’t do that to her, wouldn’t do it to Damian. 

If the Joker was easy to kill, someone would have done it already. Someone would have hunted his head for sport and left his body to drain from blood. Someone doesn’t have to be easy to kill in order for Jason to finish the job. Depending on his thoughts, anything can be an easy kill. Jason hopes that the Joker has forgotten his name, that his dying breath isn’t a recurring joke within that man’s twisted head. He wishes that the Joker doesn’t think about the hours he spent torturing a little Robin around the plumes of cigarette smoke. Jason wants those memories to be forgotten with him, he wants to reclaim his death. There is very little left of the Robin who died by the Joker’s hands, and what is gone is never coming back.

Nobody other than maybe Essence, Ducra, Zatanna and Martian Manhunter would be able to notice his presence. He put up magical seals all around his body and put up similar ones all around the cell when the clown was taken out for a scheduled brief medical check-up. He holds his breath, his heart is racing, he feels like throwing up. He can feel the Joker’s soul as strongly as he feels the floor underneath his feet or the air conditioning in the air. His soul is filthy, it is rotten and it is vicious. It feels childish to explain it with such terms, but no words are good enough to truly describe the monstrosity that is the Joker’s soul. 

Jason is standing in the same room as the Joker. The last time they were this close, Jason had died. His mind keeps flashing back to that warehouse, he keeps smelling the smoke, he keeps feeling the phantom hurt of a crowbar against his flesh and bones. Jason steps out of the shadows, there is no recognition in the Joker’s eyes, only curiosity. “Well, well, well. What do we have here?” His voice is too loud, it is cutting and nauseating, and too much. Jason can’t speak, his mouth is dry, his throat is too tight. Jason flicks his wrist, only one. The green perfectly matches the color of the Joker’s hair, Jason’s soul has curated fire in the color of Joker-green, and Jason is going to kill the Joker with his own color. “Are you not going to introduce yourself? How rude. At least the big, bad bat’s got some manners. ‘I’m Batman’ he says. You? Nothing. At least you did a magic trick, sorry for not clapping, my hands are kind of tied, you see.” He wiggles around in his straightjacket and laughs. If he had started laughing before Jason summoned the All Blades, they would’ve shone even brighter, the saturation would have been dialed all the way up to max. 

Jason is a soldier. He has been fighting all his life and all he wants is to be able to rest and truly live. Life and fate has never been that kind. Jason has always wanted to be a person first, and then a fighter. He wishes he got buried in the Wayne family plot instead of the common graveyard next to the woman who led him to his death. He wishes that they wrote ‘a good son’ or ‘a good person’ or anything better, anything kinder, than ‘a good soldier’ on his stupid memorial plaque. The Joker is still laughing, and Jason feels frozen to the core, he feels like he can’t move— but Jason is a soldier, and so he moves. 

Jason nicks his ear, it’s just a graze. With how the fire is licking against the singular All Blade in his hand, Jason knows that it’s enough. He watches as the effects kick in. He watches through every muscle spasm, he watches as the convulsing happens in every muscle of his body, starting with the head and neck. It looks like a version of Strychnine poisoning. Jason would love to take out one of his daggers and test if the convulsions get worse with stimulus. Instead he watches, and he allows his body to stand still like any of the gargoyles he’s been missing. 

Jason is still watching when the Joker’s backbone is continually arched. He is still watching as he suffers through seizure after seizure. Jason is still watching when the Joker dies of asphyxiation. How poetic, they both died not being able to breathe. After three hours and seven minutes it’s over. The Joker isn’t an Untitled and so his body doesn’t evaporate— but he is dead, and Jason can finally breathe. He feels like a weight is lifted off his shoulders. Jason finally feels safe. Damian is safe. Everything will be ok. Jason is breathing in the scent of blood and piss, Jason is breathing in the scent of Gotham, and the Joker is dead. 

Jason leaves, his magical seals will be gone in a couple of minutes. Soon, the news of the Joker’s death will break. Jason heads for his next victim, he is certain he won’t get to die by poison. Maybe if he was fighting his own mind, if he was fighting his own emotions and memories. Maybe if he was fighting dirt, and drowning or fighting the cold and not being able to remember, or if he was fighting being back with the dull— maybe then it would have been green. Black Mask isn’t someone who inflicts Jason with any kind of fear, he will be gone with a striking red.