AN: Don't get me started on that fucking case. 'A good soldier'? Seriously? Gee, and he wonders why I maintain that he abandoned me…could it be that, instead of literally ANYTHING else, THAT'S what he put? Wow.-J.
This is like, three years old. Not bad!
Do not stand on my grave and cry…
EchokittyCat-Maybe. Maybe.-J.
Not many people can say they've stood on their own grave.
This being Gotham, Jason's sure there's somebody else who can make the claim, but it's an exclusive club. He doesn't want membership, either-it's…unsettling, standing here.
The stone matches Bruce's parents; shiny black, with engraved letters. He's tempted, a little, to kick it over. S'gotta be bad luck, right? He's not there (and really, Bruce, this being fucking Gotham, maybe find a body before you go putting up grave markers).
He won't. He won't, because Alfred will be exasperated with him and Bruce will just set it back up anyway. But it's tempting all the same, to get a running start and slide into it. Or maybe just bludgeon it. Or shoot it…no, no, he might get hit with the ricochet. Though then they'd have somethin' to put under it. S'kinda useless right now.
He wants to touch it, a little, but at the same time he doesn't because what if touching it reminds the universe that oh, yeah, gravestones mark a corpse and this one's for you!
Why's it shiny. Yeah, it matches the Waynes', but…he's not one. Wasn't then, sure as hell isn't one now.
He needs to touch it. He needs to touch it, as some sort of middle finger to its existence.
Heh. His life is built on flipping off someone or something. When he dies properly, he kinda wants it to be giving the finger to the thing responsible. Unless it's old age, 'cuz that's not really possible, but he doubts that'd be it anyway.
Not that he wants to die, mind. Not anymore. S'this stupid stone, makin' him all morbid.
Maybe he'll feel better if he smudges it.
He takes a few deep breaths, pulls a glove off, and rubs a finger over the death date. It doesn't smudge and he yanks his hand back, half-expecting a skeleton (Robin, maybe, the spirit of Robin) to burst out of the ground and yank him under the dirt. Obviously, that doesn't happen, and the stone winks up at him.
He scoffs at it and lights a cigarette. Then, just to prove that he's not freaked out by it, not even a little, he settles down on the grass and stares at it. Wonders whose idea this thing was in the first place. Bruce, probably, with his damned guilt (should've channeled it, old man, looked a little harder). Yeah, it had to have been Bruce. He can feel the my fault practically seeping from the engraved Jason Peter Todd.
"Fuck you, Bruce," he says conversationally to the stone, smoke catching in his throat and making his voice waver.
The stone doesn't answer. Of course it doesn't. Jason rolls his eyes at it anyway and eases himself onto his back, head a few inches away from it, and looks up at the sky. It's not too awful gray today. Well. For Gotham. It's not actively raining, and sometimes the clouds thin enough to let a patch of blue peek through.
He stretches, spine cracking a little, and closes his eyes. S'there a coffin down there? Or is it just the stone? Bruce is exactly the type to bury a wax dummy or a weighted coffin or somethin', but Alfred might have been able to talk him out of it.
The grass is cool under his ungloved hand and he rubs his palm across the manicured blades. What was the service like? Was there one? Probably; there had to be an explanation for his disappearance. Kidnapping or something, maybe. Or maybe there wasn't anything, after all. Not like it's any great secret that he was always Bruce Wayne's charity case. Maybe they let people assume he ran off or something.
The idea's a little painful, and that makes him angry. It shouldn't fucking matter. It doesn't fucking matter. This isn't his. This was never his, this was always for weak, naive Robin. Robin did die, choking on his own blood and screaming for Bruce in Arkham's basement. Jason Todd didn't.
The weight the stone put on him, the feeling of truly being six feet under, dissipates and he stands up.
"Tell Bruce I said hi," he tells it, reaching out to pat the top of it before putting his glove back on. "Since we both know he visits every week to reaffirm that it's his fault."
The stone remains silent. He grins at it anyway and walks away, breeze tousling his hair.
I am not there-I did not die.
THE END