Chapter Text
The thought came to him on an autumn night after shooting a human trafficker seven times in the chest.
It followed him all the way from the docks to a cheap place away from tourist traps where he could eat a quick dinner on a red plastic table outside.
His gaze lingered on the waiters leaning against the wall, chatting and smoking. A group of college students around his age cursing an exam over empty beers. A family of four, the sisters laughing at something drawn on a napkin. An old couple bickering about going or not to a party, eventually agreeing over a chuckle to leave early.
I miss home.
The feeling wasn't new. At night, during his worst burst of melancholy and masochism he would jump to grab his phone and google Gotham.
It was very rare for the city to be mentioned in international news. European channels, as far as Jason knew, had only brought it up once when a gas attack left the entire population in mass psychosis for weeks. They had dedicated half an hour of commentators to discuss what the hell was wrong with that place before moving on.
Jason found it a bit funny. In the old continent, they were completely unbothered by demons, magic users, curses, the supernatural as a whole, but the idea of random people with colourful costumes running around committing and stopping crimes was ridiculous. Maybe they had a point, still, Jason wouldn't be so chill about having Cthulhu as a neighbour.
There was nothing new about the twist on his chest, except that it didn't ease. No matter how many pedophiles' bones he broke or trafficking rings destroyed or victims rescued, the itch under his skin, reminding him he wasn't where he was supposed to be, wouldn't leave.
Which was stupid, he wasn't where he should be because he shouldn't be alive. It had nothing to do with his geographical localisation. If it were an easy fix, he would have gone back to the manor post resurrection, he would have taken a look at the streets that raised him and known what to do with his life. Instead he spiraled and raged trying to teeter himself to a world he didn't belong to anymore while ruining any chances of a future in the process.
Gotham wouldn't fix him. Nothing would.
So it was better to burn out away from people who he could hurt and try to make his second life not a complete waste of time by getting his hands dirty when no one else was willing to.
He stayed in movement, did the bare minimum to keep himself alive and his mind away from the past. New country each week, always working on a case, never resting because rest brought thoughts he had to keep away to not crumble again. A ghost in all meanings of the words, no name, no connections, just a blurry figure in security cameras and a trail of blood.
Until a bullet gave him an ultimatum.
Jason dodged the knife aimed at his chest with an upper body twist followed by a kick to his attackers guts and a punch to the skull.
Another threw himself at his side, sending both of them tumbling on the tar. Hands found his neck. Jason groped blindly for the previous assassin's weapon.
As soon as his finger made contact with the metal he took it to the man´s neck.
Again and again and again.
No care for the fact that he was holding the sharp side and the blade cut into his hand at every stab. Blood gushed out like from a hose from the carotid, soaking his face. He kept going.
Adrenaline took control of his mind. All it mattered was to get back on his feet.
He stood up panting heavily.
There were around fifteen assassins, either dead or dying, lying on the small, steep alley. He had been coming back to his rented apartment when they jumped him like a pack of wolves. He kneeled in front of one of the least mangled ones. League of Assassins, of course. Neither Ras or Talia would forgive him so easily for putting a hole on their baby boy's chest. Jason was mostly sure they wouldn't kill him, but being dragged to Nanda Parbat to explain his actions wasn't in his plans.
His entire body felt like a giant bruise, he would have to flee the country immediately, his bag was always ready to go, train tickets, he could get some before daylight, he-
BANG BANG BANG
The world went white.
Cobblestone scrapped his bruised cheek, the blood from a nearby puddle right under his nose making him want to gag.
An assassin holding Jason´s own gun took a shaky aim again but it flew over his head hitting a pink wall instead.
At first try his hands slipped on the gore making him fall again, on the second he didn't have the strength to pull himself up.
He was shivering. It didn't hurt. His chest wouldn't move. Nothing would move.
Is this how Barbara felt?
He couldn't move, he couldn't move. The notion became an increasingly loud chant in his mind. If he was paralized…no help would come. He had to get up.
Air forced itself out of his lungs, none went in.
Asphyxiation.
He hit the ground again, that time slamming his chin on the stone, teeth clathering against each other. Still no feeling.
He was going to die.
He was going to die away from home again. He wouldn't be buried next to his parents. He wouldn't be buried. His carrion left on the wreckage for stray dogs to feast on.
No one would know.
There was smoke on his lungs.
No one was coming.
He couldn't breathe.
He couldn't-
.
.
.
When he woke up from his panic-induced fainting, Jason tested his toes, his fingers, willed energy back into his spent body and dragged himself up the street away from the carnage and the approaching blue and red lights. The assassin who shot him lay limp, apparently his last breath was spent trying to get revenge, Jason could relate.
He was not dead. He was not dying. He had gone into shock; it was fine, just embarrassing.
Back at the T0, he went through the motions. Lie down, elevate legs, put on a jacket. The wounds on his back weren't bleeding too badly, so he slapped on some bandages and left stitches for when he didn't feel like throwing up anymore. He could fish out the bullets tomorrow, if he survived.
The soft white glow from the screen of his phone shone bright in the dark room. He hadn't felt like turning anything on.
Two tabs open. One with plane tickets to Valencia, another to Gotham.
His thumb hovered over the confirm button.
There should be a thousand thoughts in his mind at the same time, but instead, he was left with static only.
Home or keep running.
When he left, it was never meant to be forever. He just wanted to get away.
If he had died, it would have been permanent. No one to lay his body next to his parents, just an unmarked grave in a strange land.
Face the music or hide.
Nothing good would come of returning.
They didn't want to see him again. He doesn't know what he would say. Another shot on the foot, another grief-induced despair.
Jason Todd, ladies and gentlemen, always coming back like a weed to ruin everyone's day. Come and see what grave he will dig for himself this time. Won't someone put the kid out of his misery?
Dick tried. Bats and birds didn't kill, so Arkham was the closest they could get to a definitive solution.
There was a big chance he would be thrown back into that hell as soon as he stepped out of the plane. They had allowed him to do his thing once, but that was before the murder attempts, before he lost his mind, before he was an escapee with a set sentence.
An invisible clock ticked above his head, telling him it was now or never.
Did he even have anything to come back to?
Did he deserve to go back?
He booked the six am flight.
Let it be said that for all his flaws Jason Todd wasn't a coward.
He resisted the urge to bold all the way from the terminal to his window seat. Panic was controlled with blasting rock music on his headphones and a healthy dose of sleep deprivation that left his brain too fuzzy to consider consequences.
The seven hours passed in a blink.
If asked he wouldn't be able to answer what the person by his side looked like or anything about the view. He went through the motions in a dream-like state. He grabbed his duffel bag, no checked baggage, he didn't own that many things, and made his way outside.
Gotham air was just as he remembered - awful. Enough chemicals to cause seven types of lung disease, and so beautifully familiar.
For a moment, he looked up, expecting Batman to jump from the nearest rooftop to deliver justice. He had used a fake name, fake passport, fake everything, even actor makeup to change his features just enough not to get flagged in Oracle´s cameras. Still a part of him thought the old man wouldn't be fooled, that he would sense Jason´s presence like a hound and go hunt.
Those were a child's delusions. Bruce was only human. Jason should have learned that years ago.
He got a cab to Crime Alley and had to pay extra to convince the man to actually get close to the Alley.
Trash filled the sidewalks, graffiti covered nearly every single wall and Jason counted four cars with broken windows on the way to his old safe house. Some things never change. He wondered if anyone had been taking care of the place while he was away.
Batman and the others would do the basic patrol that applied to all city zones, but the Alley alone was a full-time job. Left unsupervised for too long and new gangs would show up left and right just to end up causing wars or merging with pre-existing ones and make them even worse.
Someone had to keep dealers away from schools so the kids had a shot at a future, find shelters for the homeless that wouldn´t result in human trafficking scandals, and deliver money in unmarked envelopes every time the city hall decided to defund public initiatives to invest in luxury resorts.
There was some guilt at having left his home to fend for itself, but Jason rationalized he hadn't been helping much before.
Maybe at the start, but somewhere along the line, his priorities shifted from “help people and make the Bats see that I'm right” to “make the Bats see that I'm right and help people”. It sounded the same, but was a slippery slope into “I don't care who it hurts, they will see that I'm fucking right.”
He could try to blame Bruce's fake death but the truth was that ever since the batarang to the throat he had been going down. That particular disaster was just the culmination of months of isolation, paranoia and his own messed up mind. It would have happened anyways, one way or another Jason was always going to tear himself apart.
His place had been raided, unsurprisingly.
Batman must have gone through all his major safe houses, he did have a lot of time to find them.
Jason didn't go inside. Instead, he turned immediately around and found an abandoned apartment, just like the one from his homeless days, to crash in. If the Bats had been in his safe houses, it was certain they left alarms and wires in case Jason ever returned.
Deja vu hit him hard as he set his bag down and peered through the boarded window. Just like that, he was ten again, alone in an abandoned place, shivering with his warmest coat on and wondering how he was supposed to go through the next day while watching the city lights flicker like a million little stars.
His breath formed pale clouds in the frigid air. A cigarette would be nice, and a mattress, he would get those in the morning.
He laid on a semi clean spot, away from cigarette buts and empty beer bottles, no needles at least. With a bit of work he could turn it semi habitable, posters on the walls to hide the cracks, sweep the floor, get camping equipment and a brazier, scrape off the most concerning mold stains.
Talk about returning to origins.
What the hell am I doing?
Little Jason would be horrified to know that after all that struggle and hope, he ended up right back where he started.
His dad used to say something about circles. Willis' circle had been getting out of prison, trying to go straight, promising little Jason and Catherine he wouldn't drink again, failing, accepting goon work, throwing furniture in drunken rages and going back to prison. Jason would get confused why dad kept making the same mistakes and promises over and over again, in a sick way he was starting to understand.
If that had been Willis' circle, and Catherine´s drugs, did it mean Jason's would be loneliness and never having a place to call home?
Squeaks of rats on the walls lulled him to sleep; he would deal with them tomorrow.