Blame it all on Ed Sheeran's Save Myself to bring me into writing this much angst because I just couldn't stop thinking about how much the song fitted Jason. NOT a songfic, initially inspired by the song, but then it just took another direction altogether. There's a part 2 coming along somewhere - kinda wrote down an outline but I'll write it sooner or later (as soon as I escape my homework screaming at me to write it instead of fanfic).
Jason has forgotten a lot of things in his two lifetimes.
When he was 5, he forgot to wipe his feet at the doormat, running so quickly into the house that he tracked the filth of the streets in. He received an earful from his mother, she said the house is the one thing she wants to be clean, "free of the dirt of the Alley." Jason didn't understand what she meant.
At age 7, there was a good day where he managed to steal a piece of cake from a bakery nearer to Gotham's CBD. It was just a sponge cake, with no icing or exquisite decorations that made it special, but to a kid from Park Row, it was luxury. The cashier chased after him futilely in her heels as he had already dived into the many shortcuts that only a child of the streets would know. He laughed and ran all the way back home, stopping a few streets away from home to get a taste of his work. That was when he heard the shuffle and clang of metal. He discovered a boy, not much younger than himself wrapped in a dirty blanket and scratching his head, in front of him the lid of the trash can. Turns out the kid had used the trash to help him get up, only for the lid to tumble onto his head instead.
The boy warily stared at him, yet eyed his piece of cake sadly. Jason noticed and tore the slice of cake into two, holding it out to the other boy. The boy looked at him as if he was insane, but accepted the cake anyways.
"Thanks."
He sat down next to the boy, "Jason. You?"
"Albert. Where'd you get this?"
"Stole it from Darling."
"Their stuff smells nice there. Did they give you a run for it?"
Jason smirked, "Adults can't outrun the kids of Crime Alley."
They spent twenty minutes munching on their small piece of cake, and Jason seemed to have forgotten that they were an orphan and a thief sitting in an alley. Five days later, Jason found out that Albert was hit by a car, and no ambulance ever sounded or even entered the area.
At age 9, Jason got out of bed, as if was any day of the week. He brushed his teeth and ate whatever that was available. On days when there wasn't anything, he'd take a smoke to kill the hunger. He walked pass his neighbours - they ignored him as usual. The street was just as always, cold and unforgiving, and the people gave him their usual ignorance or sneer. His mother was away, working whatever penny she could shove into her pockets. When she got home, she fell asleep on the sofa, unaware of Jason's presence. He had half a can of beans that night, cold from breeze that fluttered the dusty curtains, and went to sleep, as most logical people of Gotham would. The world didn't know the occasion, and Jason forgot his own birthday.
At 10, he started buying his own cigarettes, because his mother couldn't even walk out of her room when she was high, not to mention getting to the door. The cashier looked at him strangely, asking, "For your parents?"
"Yeah," Jason lied quickly but it wasn't difficult to hear the slight choking of his words and his stomach rumbling loudly. The cashier noticed, and with a slight scope of the convenient store, he handed the box and a packet of gum to Jason. Jason gave a grateful smirk and saluted the guy.
He hid the gum under his pile of clothes in the drawers. Then, he lit up a cigarette at the kitchen window, gazing out to the shabby old rundown houses across the street. Catherine Todd hated the view, but Jason found, even as ugly and moldy as the place was, it was calm, unlike the streets below. And he would much prefer the view from up here. Jason's stomach calmed then, too. The next few meals were the same.
After a year of being at the manor, he was beginning to forget the smell of his mother's vanilla 'perfume'. He tried digging through Alfred's kitchen to find the same bottle, but it didn't smell quite the same. It lacked the wet drizzle of the streets that soaked into the collar of her shirt; it lacked rusted metal pipes that creaked at the slightest wind; it lacked the stench of alcohol mixed the slight vanilla that she uses instead of a perfume because vanilla extract was cheaper and it worked just as well for her. He missed it dearly...
At 15, whilst on the ground bleeding, waiting and trusting Bruce to save him in time, Jason tried to remember to stay calm. But it was difficult because his diaphragm hurt with every breath, his head throbbed with every movement, and he could only feel pain from his leg and arms. He coughed out the blood that was filling up his mouth, and could taste the metal. God, he hated it! He thought about what he'd do when he gets home – to shove in his mouth Alfred's cookies because already he has forgotten the taste of it, and anything that Alfred makes is better than what's in his mouth at the time. The clock kept ticking, and he never even saw Bruce's face.
Two years later, Batman saw a man in a red helmet, swinging across the skyscrapers of Gotham with the ease of a vigilante. But the guns strapped to his belt and ankles only proved that he was out for blood. Batman didn't recognize him, or notice how he acted like Jason. Bruce has forgotten him; it was unsurprising, because when Jason looked in the mirror, he saw an unfamiliar face that moved as he did, and it looked too odd for him.
If Jason, himself, didn't remember the face under the hood, how could he have expected others to?