Remembrance Day Special, Batman style. Enjoy! Part of the ARU. Also serves as a behind-the-scenes in Phoenix. Two in one story. Who knew?
For j schofield and Ebony Fire. By right, I owe you much more than one, measly story and my sincere thanks.
Also, to GlOmP3R: Thanks a bunch!
People, check out GlOmP3R's awesome story, Shadow Hood. It's good!
Red Flower
Black tux. Red poppies. And a colorless, unspoken sorrow.
Again. Another gash reopened in his bleeding heart. Another person he never had the chance to say goodbye to. A hero who gave his life to a good cause, they said. A martyr in this never-ending war. And he knew that he himself had been one of the lucky ones, the ones who actually made it through the crossfire. They were the front lines, the infantry, the archers, the cavalry, and the final stand. All rolled into one. The task was monumental.
"...This year, we'd like to hear from someone different. We'd like to invite his adopted brother, Mr Richard Grayson, to say a few words. Mr Grayson, please." Upon hearing his name, he was jolted back into reality, only to be numbed by the sudden request. There were hands on his shoulders, pressing into the small of his back, urging him forward onto the velvet-covered podium. The microphone whined in protest as he adjusted it, clearing his throat to begin. His fingers were twitching slightly.
Where do I start?
"... I'd like to begin, my friends, with a story. It concerns all of us here." He looked purposefully into the audience, his gaze boring into the eyes of the gathered. Kory met his gaze with the same, knowing, sad smile. He drew strength from that gaze, and began.
"It starts with a cookie." Nobody dared to laugh. "Or rather, a plate of cookies. It's funny, how the first thing about someone you think of is the last thing you tend to forget. That first impression. Contrary to what most may think, I didn't like him at first glance. It was kind of like having a baby in the house - the existing kid tends to get forgotten. Or so I thought. I was understandably jealous."
"I think I gave him a black eye the first time I saw him."
A long pause, in which his heart beat exactly twenty-three times. He'd counted. "After he was discharged from hospital, I was still thinking that he was bad news. But he came to my door, and waited there, with a plate of cookies. With a request of friendship. I took it."
He scanned the eyes of the crowd again. "But then life always has to shake you up, some way or another. I was shot." He gave a grim smile at the surrounding crowds, and there was a general, silent outcry of shock.
"He was shot!"
"Who shot him!"
"Why?"
He held up his hand to attract attention.
"Can't say the person who shot me liked me very much, but Dad wanted me to go away for a few years. To finish college." And there I found one of the best things that ever happened to me. The Titans.
"I made many friends at school. I finished college with a degree." If kicking the butt of Evil isn't a degree in our line of work, I don't know what is.
"And then when I got back, I heard the news. Jason had died." I was there. I saw him tortured within an inch of his life by the Joker. He died on my watch. In Kory's arms.
"I never got to say goodbye." That. That's true. Very true.
"I never get to say goodbye." That, too.
There were so many things he wanted to say. Too many. He was like a brother to me. We went through everything together! We fought side by side! He took a knife for me. I took bullets for him! He wasn't meant to die!
"Fate's all too cruel."
...
"Thank you." A polite round of applause, quickly silenced with glares and hushed whispers. Who were they to clap at such an occasion?
He walked quietly from the podium, each step driving a corkscrew deep into his soul. The blades of the ground bit deep into his feet, and the toes of his shoes pinched. He made a silent exit, through the door, through the veils of white tissues and damp handkerchiefs, through the waterfall of tears that lined the pews.
The storm raged in his mind. The service was quiet inside, still ongoing. He knew there would be people going up there, one by one, singing praises to Jason, calling him a hero.
He doubted that was the truth. Doubted Jay would like that, in fact. He was never much of the hero type. Not self-proclaimed, anyway.
He'd reached his destination. The ten-grand suit was damp and stiff against the earth as he sat down, legs hugged to chest, rocking slowly back and forth to stop the tears from coming.
...
"Dick."
"Hmm." He looked up from whatever he was doing, up into the eyes of his little brother.
"You say it's dangerous, right? This Robin business?"
"Yup." He'd just been kicked out of the Robin mantle, and now Jason was staring at the suit on his bed, looking longingly at the 'R' etched in bold on the uniform.
"But what happens... if we die?"
He'd shrugged. "Personally, I think that's why Bruce picks kids without families. So nobody remembers them." He'd made his voice as uncaring as possible, just to see how the new guy would react.
He watched, with self-satisfaction, the look on Jason's face. Then he felt bad. Who was he to try and scare the kid away? Bruce'd probably have his head.
"Just kidding, Jay!" He grinned, ruffling his brother's hair. "You have us. We're family! We care for you, Jay. Remember that." A smile had floated like a balloon into existence onto his brother's face, and he'd thrown his arms around Dick.
Dick had been surprised. Frankly, he had expected Jay to be triumphant about finally stealing the place of Robin from right under Dick's nose.
"Ahh, well..."
Jason looked up.
"Dick, promise you'll never leave me behind? You'll wait for me?"
"Yeah, Jay. I promise."
...
They'd parted ways, what with Dick having to go to 'college', and right before Dick left Jason had come into his room, holding a note with a birdarang attached to it,, wordlessly handed Dick the note, then hurriedly left. Dick had unfolded the note to read:
"Hey, Dick. I know you're not going to college, all right? I know you're running off to join the Titans. But whatever you do, wait for me. I'll be over as soon as I finish the rest of what I need to do here. And then I'll come join you, or Bruce will have my head for going before I'm done with everything he wants me to do. See you soon, bro. Don't have too much fun without me.
-Jay."
The birdarang had then squirted water into his face. He'd wiped it off dazedly, barely managing to keep the note out of the way of getting wet. He was gonna get the little squirt for this - ha ha, very punny, he thought to himself - but the note really made up for his wet uniform. And it was the only one he had, a prototype, too.
On second thought...
"Jason Todd! Come back here, now! I'm not even started with you yet!"
He'd gone to Jump soaking wet, shivering slightly in the Spandex.
Damn that Jason.
...
The pain. The pain was excruciating, cutting into flesh and bone, and the promise bit into him every time the Joker's crowbar came down on Jason's head. His mask and uniform were torn and bleeding, and blood flowed out of a gash in his temple. He was writhing and moaning in pain. Most of what he said was incomprehensible, but Dick had heard things like "Please... please no make it stop dick it hurts... ahh... hurts..." And seen tears of tightly fisted pain leak solemnly out of his brother's eyes. The rage had billowed up in him like bedsheets. How could he have allowed this to happen? It was a routine patrol, and they thought they'd had the Joker cornered. Instead, he'd dug a hole through the proverbial wall and came out blocking them from behind. Joker been waiting for them, and when Jason tripped over a floorboard, he'd fallen down, and gotten gassed. Dick had bent down to check on Jason, suspicious and then horrified as he'd seen the grin that stretched, too wide for his cheekbones, over his brother's face.
Joker had come from behind with the crowbar. When Dick tried to avoid the clown's wild swing, the Joker had stabbed him underarm.
When he woke up, he was hanging upside down above the pot of noxious stuff, and Joker had played pincushion with him, piercing his feet, arms, and torso, while simultaneously treating Jason like a pinata. Dick could hear his brother's tortured screams of pain, but not see him, through the veiled smoke, which was actually just as well, because Dick dreaded what he would see.
...
"Don't ever leave me behind."
"I promise."
...
"Robin! No, no, no! You weren't supposed to die! I promised, I promised! I promised I wouldn't let you die! Don't leave me! Don't go! Please!" Terror rolled in his eyes, reduced him to a distraught, begging mess, shaking his brother's body over and over again in distress, just as he had done with his parents. Just as he had done, once, with Kory.
"JAY!"
Dick sat up, the vivid images stiil playing through his mind like a repeating iPod playlist. Hellfire surged through him, searing the images into his mind, forcing him onto his knees.
Smoothing his hands over the marbled surface of the tombstone, the cold under his hands suddenly inversed, racing through his arms all the way into his heart. He slipped his hand into his pocket, and came out a second later with a small folded piece of paper, pinned together by a red birdarang. With trembling fingers he held it out over the earth; and spoke.
He didn't unfold the paper. he didn't need to.
"Jay," he whispered, swallowing. "Jay, whatever you do, wait for me. I'll be over as soon as I finish the rest of what I need to do here. And then I'll come join you, or Bruce will have my head for going before I'm done with everything he wants me to do. See you soon, bro. Don't have too much fun without me."
The sky swirled in pits of cement, dotted birds shifting, twisting and melting into the currents of the air.
"Jay... I miss you. Jay..." his voice wobbled, and he let the tears fall, his head down, back hunched against the drizzle, the suit undoubtedly ruined. He felt sudden hands on his back, and knew it was Kory. She sat there patiently with him, wordlessly smoothing her hands over his back, but only managed to line the edges of the huge rift in his heart. He didn't blame her. He couldn't. Jason was hers to lose, too.
The two huddled together, shielding each other from the sorrow outside, like moss creeping over a tombstone. All lost in this blizzard. The birds called in the trees, large and dark.
Not a short distance away, a rather different kind of bird watched the pair. For one, this bird wore a coat, and over his hips slung a belt full of guns. And upon his face, was a red helmet.
Quiet fell over the cemetery.
And all the birds flew away.
All but one.
-END-