Jason woke up slowly and found that the manor was quiet. He pushed the blankets to find that he was in his Robin uniform, but it was all wrong. It was soaked in blood, charred, and it the tears in it matched the burns and gashes on him that didn't hurt. Jason poked where a bone was sticking out of his arm and didn't feel a thing. He was a ghost.
Jason Todd was a ghost just like something out of Hamlet. No, he was dreaming. That's what it was he was only dreaming that he had gone overseas and that the Joker was there for some reason and his mom sold him out and he died. He was still closing his eyes when he saw Bruce come into his room. It was odd because Bruce knew Jason loved privacy. But this is a dream. Weird things happen all the time in dreams.
It seemed less and less like a dream when Bruce picked up the book he'd been reading and started to cry. Not the tears that are easy to stop, but the kind that makes you hurt afterward, the sobs that don't seem enough to put the agony of loss into real words. Ugly, fat tears fell all over the book Jason had almost finished. He wouldn't know how it ended now. Not that it mattered anymore. Dead boys can't read anymore.
Jason reached out and tried to touch him, "Bruce, I'm right here. I'm here. You don't have to cry," Jason said wanting to cry. Ghost's can't cry he found out. All he could do was helpless try to calm Bruce down and try to piece together what happened. He died.
Bruce was crying. He missed him. The street kid that no one wanted, before Bruce freaking Wayne. Bruce loved him like he was really his son. Jason lost count of how much time passed before Bruce collapsed on Jason's bed sleeping after crying himself out.
Jason wondered around the manor and then the backyard he couldn't stand to stay in with Bruce's crying and Alfred's stoic and silent tears. Jason saw in the backyard a woman and man watching the sunset on Gotham's skyline. It was upon closer inspection that he saw they were Bruce's parents. They were wearing the same clothes they were murdered in just like him.
"Jason! You poor boy! I hoped that we would meet you much later. Come sit with us," Martha motioned for him to sit on the bench.
It was strange to Jason to see that Bruce's parent's unchanged, to be honest, they looked younger than Bruce himself. They also had on bloody garments.
"You must be confused. You see when you die and are unavenged you become a ghost. Never to find peace, never to be content, always to wander around until your murderer is brought to justice or they die," Thomas explained. "As angry and hurt Bruce is it won't be long until you are avenged. Bruce really loved you."
Jason swelled with pride. Bruce did love him, he wouldn't have to be stuck as a ghost for long. The Joker was as good as dead.
Jason stayed around the manor waiting to be freed from the ghost prison and to have peace at last. It didn't happen. He watched Bruce almost kill the Joker twice, but he never went through with it. He saw Dick and Bruce fight and then he was free!
He was free! and then painfully pulled back just in time to see Bruce giving the Joker CPR. Ghost's can't cry, otherwise, Jason would have. Ghost's can't move things like they can in movies or Jason would have killed the Joker then and there. Ghost's can't scream and tell their Dad that they are begging to be avenged. Just the Joker, all he would have to do was kill one monster, but Bruce was never going to do it.
Jason stays angry. He avoids the cave. He avoids Martha and Thomas they were surprised that he hadn't been avenged. Bruce and his stupid unbreakable rule. Jason didn't know Bruce could hurt him anymore and then he was replaced. Replaced like the toy soldier he was. His replacement was everything that he wasn't. Bruce didn't love him as much as he thought he did.
He was stuck to stay around in his bloody, torn, and ruined reminder that he was stupid to believe Bruce's promises. He was cursed to never find peace.
And then he wasn't a ghost anymore.
A fragmented memory and an ax to grind with his so-called father.
This ghost was going to have payback.