Chapter Text
He didn’t know he found himself here. Maybe it was because of how many times he had been reminded of her in the past month. Or maybe it was her trying to call him back to the grave with her; deathly cold hands taking his arm with a false gentleness that wreaked of artificialness, the same false gentleness which led him to his grave the first time round.
His boots dug into the moist ground beneath them, dirt riding up the sides of his soles as if he were sinking into the very ground under him. Droplets of rain hit his face, miserably rolling down to his jawline where they desperately clung onto him for a few more moments before falling to their demise. His hair stuck to his forehead and some of the white and black strands obscured his vision. He didn’t care much to move them out of his eyes, he didn’t care much to do anything.
The solid grey slab in front of him stood slightly crooked in the weeded ground. The grave was surprisingly cleaner than he would have expected it to be, as if someone came round to clean it once a year or so. That still didn’t stop cracks from gouging deep into rock, green damp plants consuming it from the inside. In the middle of it there was a name engraved, gouged so deep that the letters spiderwebbed off into their own cracks.
Sheila Haywood.
The name read like the beginning of a death sentence; cold, grey, and lifeless. And right below it:
A loving mother.
The irony was not lost on him, Sheila was far from loving, and claiming her as his mother was quite a stretch considering he had known her for all but 2 hours. 2 hours in which she had already decided that he was not worth her love and directed him oh so convincingly towards the Joker.
And now they were both dead. Or, well, he was, now not so much considering his heart decided to kickstart on a random Sunday, causing him to wake up screaming 6 feet under the ground. Though, sometimes he felt like he was still dead, still a corpse rotting deep underground with nobody but dirt and bugs for company. 6 months of being so would do that to you.
Sometimes he woke up feeling the wriggling of worms on his arms, burrowing under his false skin. Other times he feared his skin was physically rotting off of his body, twisting and morphing in the mirror until he finally blinked and his face would snap back to normal.
The most prominent though, was the stench. Sometimes he would be out on patrol and all of a sudden the smell would hit him like a freight train — like rotting meat trapped inside of the helmet with him. It was so strong that he felt it radiating off of him in hot waves, but the people around him would never react, never signify that anything was amiss. So either they were darn good at pretending, or it was all in his head.
For his own sanity he always went with the latter.
Now, as he stood in front of Sheila’s grave, he smelt it all the more amidst the moistness of rainwater.
The air of death was so potent that the flower he had gripped in his right hand wilted downwards, as if trying to converse with Sheila through all those layers of caked soil.
It was a puny thing, its yellow colour dulled under the insistence of the rain. The previously ruffled out petals compressed each other in a team effort to make it look as miserable as possible, and he almost felt bad for it considering that this flower grew in a bunch with others which he separated it from on his way here.
Holding it now it kind of reminded him of Sheila — the stark yellowness of her hair, the frilly, short texture pattern. In a half attempt at what shouldn’t be humour he even interpreted the stem he ripped short to reflect on the short nature of her life. And people tell him they’re surprised that he’s a literature nerd.
He didn’t actually even know where he got it from, he thinks he might remember ripping it out from some random person’s flower pot, but he didn’t remember much about getting here in general so do with that what you will.
By its shape and nature he thinks it might be a carnation — he remembered his old neighbour grew a whole hoard of different colours in her room. To this day he still didn’t know how they survived in Gotham’s complete lack of sun.
She was a nice lady, albeit quite reserved especially after her husband passed away. Though he remembered one time she had caught him blatantly staring into her window trying to count how many flowers she had. In the end, after a hot second of him just smiling sheepishly at her, she sighed and asked him if he wanted to see some of them.
There wasn’t much from that conversation he recalled, but he knew that she explained that every colour had a different meaning. Now to remember what the yellow one symbolised. He thinks it might have been rejection? Disappointment? It didn’t really matter that much, either way life seemed to have a humour for accidentally making everything perfectly symbolic.
The grave in front of him reflected what was buried deep under. The only spike of colour was held in the weeds embedded into the nooks and cracks made available due to weathering, greedily feeding from the rainwater the stone had absorbed. The whole scene looked so sad and grey that he felt an itch to correct it.
He half-heartedly tossed the flower forwards and it hit the patchy grass with an unceremonious huff drowned out by the rain. It looked a bit better he guessed, the flash of yellow a bright contrast to everything else. At least now it didn’t look completely abandoned. But despite the positive connotations, he couldn’t help but see the way the ruffled out petals lay dejected on the ground and think of lifeless blond curls splaying out on the floor, blood coating the body to which it belonged.
He was suddenly, harshly punched smack in the chest with a sharp sting of mourning. Mourning for the mother he never got to know, mourning for the hope that discovering Sheila’s existence brought, mourning for the boy who had thought that maybe, finally the world was going to present him with a good parental figure.
But beside all that mourning was anger. Sharp, scathing, loathing anger, and all at once he realised that he never actually came to terms with what Sheila did. Sure he could say all he wanted that he understood the situation at hand and that it wasn’t all her fault, but he never stopped subconsciously pinning the blame on her. He never was able to stop the rise of swirling, complicated emotions whenever he was to picture her face.
He didn’t know if the stinging in his eyes was from tears or from the rainwater but guessed it didn’t really matter much. No one was here to witness his misery anyway.
The anger slowly sapped out of his body in a steady dribble and all that was left was a feeling of sweltering guilt and resignation. He didn’t want to be angry at Sheila anymore. He didn't want to be constantly tormented every time her name was mentioned or something reminded him of her. And he most of all didn’t want to keep silently blaming her for his death.
He let himself remember his reason for saving her in the first place, let himself remember the strong emotions swirling through his being when finding out her predicament.
Silently, he put himself in her shoes. Blackmailed by the Joker for trying to do what it takes to survive and repay her debts. Forced to choose between your own survival and a boy you had barely known for an hour. And then dying brutally anyways despite everything you had sacrificed.
She was just trying to survive.
And he was just trying to help.
„I forgive you.”
The sentence was whispered to no one in particular, lost quickly to the rain and forgotten. But it was important to Jason. It was important to him that he got this off of his chest, even if no one other than the wind was here to witness it.
For the first time in his life he truly let himself believe that it wasn’t her fault. And maybe, just maybe, he could start to believe it wasn’t his either.
At that moment he heard a pair of shoes hit the ground behind him, barely perceptible but definitely there. He instinctively tensed, drawing up his walls before he found that he couldn’t find the energy to care. He was so tired. It was as he thought that, that all the tension drained out of his body, leaving him standing there like a flaccid balloon.
He distantly wondered who it could be, another mourner? A grave robber? Maybe even a rogue who decided to once more target a grave yard, as if the dead would care.
Jason kept his gaze fixed on the lettering on the grave, tracing over the word ‚mother’ with his eyes until maybe he could believe it as well. Out of the corner of his eye he could see how the mystery figure stepped forwards, planting their feet firmly in the wet ground beside him. The swish of a cape settling in the darkness told him everything he needed to know.
Ah. No, it's much worse than a rogue.
He shot a glance to the side and there he stood, all dark brooding knight. Bruce. Well, he seemed to be Batman at the moment — as he was the majority of the time Jason saw him. His cowl’s lenses seemed to be trained slightly downwards to the front of them both and he followed his line of sight right back to the grave.
He felt strange standing here, no tactical gear, soaked to the bone, with the Batman clad in black bullet proof armour standing tall right beside him. But he guessed that Bruce never really could separate himself from his persona.
Jason didn’t really feel like gracing the man with a reaction to his presence. He had no idea why he had come, maybe to laugh, maybe to scold, maybe to drag him away. But Batman didn’t do any of that. He just stood there, staring at where Sheila resided alongside him. And for just a moment he felt like they were just two random people standing side-by-side. Not Batman, not Jason Todd, just there, the pelting rain washing away all the grievances joining them together.
He let his attention slowly slip from the presence beside him, like water sliding down the side of a grave. His muscles felt trapped in a floaty space, arms uselessly hanging by his side and feet firmly stuck to the ground with something which felt like superglue. He noticed that the hollowness which started in his chest had spread out through his body, infecting his limbs until they felt like all but doll parts.
He felt as close to peace as someone like him could get, stuck in limbo with the total inability or lack of will to go anywhere at all. For all he cared at the current moment he could just stay standing there forever, with the rain splashing away the seconds, crowding his senses until he didn’t know what was real or not.
„She was a good woman.”
Jason didn’t realise he had closed his eyes until now, blinking them open and locking his sight on the ‚S’ on the inscription. He wasn’t sure where Bruce was going with this, hell he didn’t even know why he decided to show up. Why not just let him stand there in the rain by himself? He was perfectly happy by himself, ecstatic even.
He resisted the urge to sigh as he elected to ignore him.
Though, after he had gotten past caring whether or not someone witnessed him like this, he could admit that it was nice to have another presence beside him, just a bit.
„You know, she told me you were a good kid.”
Jason blinked at that, mentally gripping onto that strange sentence with both hands and attempting to make sense of it. He slightly inclined his head towards Bruce and looked at him properly. He was still staring in front of him, the cowl shielded his face so much that he couldn’t pick apart any thoughts or emotions that the man was feeling.
Why would she tell him that? And when? Wasn’t she already dead when he finally arrived?
Sensing the confusion from the slight crease of his brows, Bruce elaborated. „When I was looking for you after the… explosion. I found her first. She was still alive — barely.”
Jason’s eyes darkened as he went back to looking at the grave. So she didn’t get let off easily. She was also forced to breathe through the rubble and aftermath of the explosion before being allowed the respite of death. He suppressed a shiver as he remembered how it felt to not be able to get enough air in, the smoke around him suffocating and ridding him of oxygen.
„She told me what happened with the Joker.”
His heart stuttered, so did Bruce know? Did Bruce know what actually happened between Sheila and the Joker? The plot and the betrayal? Did everyone else know as well? But then why would he leave that out when talking with Damian... Or did he? He couldn’t remember the whole thing all that well.
Bruce’s voice took on a softer tone, reminiscing. „She told me how you shielded her from the brunt of the blast.”
Oh. He remembered that. Too well in fact. He remembered throwing himself in front of her and trying his best to cover her with all 4’6” of him, spreading himself over her body and trying his best to shield her like all the times he remembered Bruce had covered him.
Then he fully absorbed what this new information meant.
Bruce was talking about her last words. And in her last words she spoke about… him? Not begging the Batman to save her, not saying she was scared to die, but telling him how good Jason was.
All the anger he had harboured for her in his soul over the years slowly soured into guilt. He had already forgiven her, but he was beginning to feel like it wasn’t her that needed forgiveness.
„She loved you, Jason. There was no doubt about that.”
The words ‚loving’ on the inscription seemed to jump out of the grave at him, trying to grasp at him with both clawed hands.
She…
Did she?
Was all the indifference he saw in her during his beating just a facade then? Was it all simply the head injuries getting to him?
„It’s just too bad she was pulled into all of this.”
He didn’t know if it was just his mind or not but he imagined the tone had shifted, almost imperceptibly sharpening. Jason almost flinched away from it, because it almost sounded like Bruce was blaming him. But that couldn’t be, he knew now that Bruce did know the full story, so surely he wouldn’t blame him for it if it wasn’t his fault.
Except… Maybe it was his fault. Maybe he was just simply too stubborn to realise it, too enveloped in self pity to see how his presence caused this chain reaction. The thought crashed into him at full speed, ridding him of his breath like the smoke had on that fateful day.
He saw it clearly now.
It was because of him they both died. If he had never been so selfish as to want to find her then this fate would never have befallen her.
But he couldn’t do anything about it now. And as dread began filling up the empty space in his gut, all he could do was continue to stare hollowly at that cold, cold rock. If he was able to move before, he certaintly wasn’t able to now. The realisation weighed down on his soul, pinning his feet ruthlessly to the ground as he lost all feeling of the rain now beating down on him.
Bruce didn’t say anything more, he just stood there beside him.
Jason looked down at the yellow flower again and wondered; was this what Bruce saw when he found her? Was her hair splayed out like this? Was the bright yellow of her hair dulled by the dirt and dust around them? Did she look him in the face as she told him about Jason? Did he watch as the life slowly drained from her eyes?
His thoughts spiralled into an abyss of fruitless questions and guilt as his vision blurred from tears and the rain.
I’m sorry Sheila, I’m sorry.
He didn’t know how long he stood there for, but at some point he was left alone, still soaked, still standing, but with an additional weight added to his shoulders. Even as the rain petered off to a stop he couldn’t find in himself the will nor the ability to move. All he could do was stare. Stare and just stand there like his body wasn’t even his own anymore.
It was all his fault and somehow, as always, he was the last person to realise that.