"No! No! NO. Please!"
Suri Mallory thought that she could handle anything and everything that life would throw at her. She's endured living on the streets, starvation, back alley fights, infected wounds, deathly fevers, Gotham winters, and boarding school. She has the scars—physical, emotional, mental—to prove that whatever she is faced with, she can handle, she can fight, she will survive.
This though.
Nothing could have prepared her for this.
"You're lying. PLEASE TELL ME YOU'RE LYING!"
Suri can't say she's been to many funerals but she knows a dead body when she sees one. She's seen the aftermaths of fights, shootings, and substance abuse. She knows what someone looks like if they've passed in their sleep or if there was a struggle—knows what happens to a body when there's no more life to fight for.
Even for deaths Suri's never seen before, the girl can imagine what they'd look like in the end. She's seen enough.
What Suri never thought she'd know, ever see, was what Jason Todd would look like.
"Mr. Wayne! ALFRED!"
Suri doesn't know the details. They wouldn't tell her—couldn't relive it, but Suri's smart. She manages to put the pieces together. She knows he was taken. He was beaten. Left for dead.
She's seen the bruises and the blood.
It was a familiar sight, really.
They've both grown up on the streets, fought for their life. They've had their fair share of beatings, sleepless nights hoping the pain would just go away with time when they couldn't patch themselves up.
Suri always thought Jason was invincible.
Always ready to fight again.
She guesses everyone has their limits.
No man can withstand a bomb.
Oh. God. A bomb.
"Jason! Jason, no! You can't—!"
Suri doesn't realize that her legs have given out. She only registers that someone has grabbed hold of her, keeping her from crumpling into the grass. She's breathing in short bursts and her vision blurs.
"C'mon, Jay. Wake up. It's me!"
The last time she saw him, he looked like he was sleeping. They'd cleaned him up and dressed him in a nice suit, the kind that he used to always complain about, tugging at his collar. Suri knows he's not sleeping. He would be curled up if he was, so used to fitting into a small space.
"Open your eyes. JASON."
Suri can't get up. It's too heavy. There's this weight in her chest that makes her feel like she's dying, like her life is so intertwined with Jason's that her body feels the need to shut down now that he's gone.
She thought it was a heart attack the first time it happened. She's read about it before, it's rare, but has been known to happen with people her age. She was scared but for a second, just a second, thought to herself that maybe it was okay, that this was supposed to happen. She'd thought she was going to do the one thing she's done her entire life—follow Jason.
"You can't leave me behind, Jason. You promised!"
They're lowering the casket into the ground. Suri's losing sight of it—of him now. The hand on her arm is keeping her up but she shakes it off. She staggers when she takes a step, the weight is keeping her here, unmoving, unable to get to him.
All she's ever done was follow him, go after him, look for him. Even when they were separated, they'd find their way back to each other, it's what they've promised, but now he's gone somewhere she can't reach.
She can't find him.
Author's Note:
Well, this is my second attempt at writing a Jason Todd fic and I hope I'm better prepared on tackling this story than I was 3 years ago
(Long story short. I posted a JTxOC fanfic on my old account and abandoned it after two chapters. yikes)
Suri Mallory is a character that's gone under a lot of revision-is still going through some changes, if I'm being honest-and I hope that with each chapter, we get to know her a bit more.
Although she's an OC, I try not to elaborate too much on how she looks like so that you can picture her however you want. (Old habits from writing Y/N fics on tumblr haha)
((I do know how I imagine her to look like so if you'd want to know, just tell me haha))
The story is set to roughly follow the Under the Red Hood comic&movie but it's really mostly from Suri's POV so those plot points aren't really elaborated on.
I hope you enjoyed this short bit and I hope to see you in future chapters!
I only own what I own.
(((fic title comes from "I Can't Carry This Anymore" by Anson Seabra)))