Neon bright green dancing through his vision, like a toxic liquid spread around like a plague. Deathly white skin that is so unreal, so...unusual and creepy. Red, poisonous lips stretched into a nasty smile. Teeth tainted yellow and rotten, like a moldy banana. The mouth opens a bit and the worse sound in the history of the universe comes out.
Laughter.
--
"...GAH! ACK...HUUH...HUH...HUH...Huh...Huh...huuuh...huh...huh...huh..." the upper half of his body quickly moves up in bed and he's sitting, his chest expanding wildly like a unstable balloon at each breath. At each rapid heartbeat. He could hear nothing except for crickets and occasional driving going around on the roads. Maybe a homeless man playing poker with another homeless person who is way too excited about the game, sometimes.
Green, trauma-filled eyes stares at the blank, white bedsheet he is resting on. Trying to find a way to calm himself down, to tell himself that he is here and safe. No one is going to hurt him, the Prince of Crime isn't coming after him again. Suddenly, another presence on his left shuffles a bit and yawns, also sitting up in bed. Long, luscious locks trickles down their back. Light colored eyes, maybe the color blue or blue-green, blinks itself open before tiredly dragging itself to meet his face.
"..Jason, are you alright?"
Jason doesn't respond.
"We went over this last time, I can't help or provide any kind of support if you don't talk to me."
Jason still doesn't respond.
"Hellooooo, earth to Jason? It's Artemis here! Want me to call up Scarlet? Your bat-fam...FOR FUCKING SAKE JASON, TELL ME WHAT'S WRONG! I CANNOT CONTINUE PLAYING THIS GAME ALMOST EVERY NIGHT! I CANNOT DO THIS ANYMORE!"
Jason finally blinks his own eyes back to reality and breathes once, trying to use his voice to speak, "Ar-Ar-Artemis...I..."
Instead of listening to Jason, which him talking is what she wanted, she got up and put on her dark red shirt that Jason gifted her last year. A shirt with a white dove on it, a shirt that she wanted. After making sure she looks at least decently presentable, she looks for her belongings and gathers them, heading for the door. Before she left the bedroom, she turns to face Jason, believing that he at least deserves her "last words" to him along with an explanation.
"We should've listened to ourselves back then and not gotten together. This is a perfect example of perfect opportunity but wrong timing. You still have your issues to get through or at least manage, I still have mine. I can only do so much, I'm not equipped yet with the proper tools and emotional stability to deal with your panic attacks, nightmares, mood swings on a particular day each year for some reason, and so on. I still love you. But it's because I love you that I believe that we should end this now as a couple before it gets too ugly. I know it will be awkward for a while, but we can be and are still friends."
Jason looks down at his trembling hands, "I just needed your presence and your love. That is it. But if you don't want to be with me, that is fine. I will let you go. I know how...I can get a bit too much sometimes. You're right...we should've listened to our past selves. I know that no one...never mind. Bye Artemis."
"Bye." She leaves the bedroom and his safe house altogether.
--
Jason closes his eyes at last after staring at the ceiling for ten minutes. He bows his head and just stays in that position, his body shaking occasionally for a few seconds. It lasts for half an hour, when he finally lifts his head, his face is flushed with a mix of pink and red, his eyes took on a more bloodshot red color with only a few patches of white. His face is drenched in what seems to be tears.
"I...I'm not enough. No one is able to handle me and love me. I don't blame them...I'm..unlovable. Just look at me..."
His voice cracks at those four words as his hands clench in fists.
Suddenly, his phone starts to ring at the nightstand next to him. He sighs and glances over, groaning when he sees who is calling him. But nevertheless, he takes a deep breath and grabs his phone, answering the call. "What do you want, dick-bird? It's literally," he briefly moves his phone away from his ear to look at the clock before returning back to its original position, "seven in the morning. Not everyone works at a smurf station! Hop off my di-" He was soon interrupted.
"Please stop with the "Blue Lives Matter" jokes, don't rope me in with those idiots. I'm not like them, I swear to you Jay! Besides...what's up with "dick-bird," what did I do this time?!" Jason huffs and tells him 'nothing' and for 'Dickie' to have a good day at work.
But the Golden Boy wouldn't let him get away that easily, "Nopeeee. Stay on the line, cardinal. Me and you need to have a chat...I sense that something is wrong with ya. Lemme guess, nightmare? Insecurities?"
Jason rolls his eyes, "Ding! Ding! Ding! That's correct Dickie, congrats. Want a cookie?"
"Yes please! Chocolate chip cookie with both white and regular chocolate, please!" Dick responds back in a joking and fake enthusiastic manner. He chuckles when he hears Jason cuss at him. But he quickly calms down when he remembers why he called Jason in the first place. He sighs and says, "I love you, Jay. Everyone does. You are worth it, you are worth everything. Always remember that. I don't know what exactly happened to trigger your insecurities again but whatever it is, it doesn't matter. It's in the past. Also, you are safe, Joker will never get you. Ever. I know that you and Bruce have your differences but he loves you also Ja-"
Jason immediately becomes annoyed and hisses out, "No he doesn't! He is letting that lunatic live and others like him! I forgive Bruce for not saving me, but why on God's Earth is he still ALIVE?!"
...
...
"Jay...Joker died, really died, two months ago. Do you know where Bruce is?"
Jason sudden felt a sudden chill went down his spine, "...Where is he?"
...
...
"In prison, he is in prison Jay. He, as Bruce Wayne, killed Joker. So "Batman" is fine, but not..."
Jason yells out, "Why?! This is out of character for him! What about his precious code?!"
"Jason...baby bird...Bruce's grief, guilt and self hatred led him to a very dark place. Of no return. He felt like the world's most horrible father and human being in the world. When you two drew apart, it crushed him. But, in his point of view, he sees it as his fault. When me and him were talking on the night of Joker's death, he said something. He said that after me and Alfred, you were his greatest joy. He loved having you around and being his son. Not just adopted, but his actual son. Blood relation didn't matter to him. He says that he still stands by his code. That killing people will just make things worse, it will bring the person to a place of no return. They get addicted to killing, knowing the dangerous power they have. Of taking one's life. He also says that the cycle will just continue and new and more dangerous criminals will just rise up. Crime never ends. But he did say that 'just this once, I will make an exception. That I should've done a long time ago even if it means being hypocritical to my own morals. I have to do it for him. Goodbye Dick, thank you.' He then got up and went to his room. I never saw him again after that." Dick explains, taking a deep, shaky breath himself.
Jason felt tears returning to his eyes. Bruce really does care about him, even if he has weird or even frustrating and controversial ways of showing it. He threw away his reputation, his freedom, his life and his sanity, for Jason. Great, now Jason feels bad for the way he sometimes treated Bruce various times ever since he came back to life. Did he even want to kill Joker? Or did he just want to kill Joker for Bruce? So that the man he saw as his father wouldn't have to deal with this very burden and guilt, so that the man he saw as his father would have less blood on his hands through the use of murder. It was frustrating, yes, that he and Bruce didn't see eye to eye on a moral standpoint and whatnot. But he didn't truly despise Bruce for his views, he was just hurt, jealous maybe.
He also has to take into account that his mind is messed up in so many ways, the Lazarus Pit made his mental illnesses and mindset a thousand times worse. So maybe it was his emotions and inner voices that...
"See Jay? Even Bruce sees that you're worthy, of everything. Now, I want to try something. Do you trust me?" Dick asks softly.
Jason hums, which indicates a 'yes' as an answer.k
"Thank you, Jay. Okay, close your eyes and place your hands on your lap. Let it become limp and lifeless. Did you do it?"
Jason hums a 'yes' again.
"Okay...take three big, deep breaths for me. Breath in...1...2...3...4...5...Breath out...1...2...3...4...5. There you go, do that again. Breathe in...yes...breathe out..."
Jason listens and sucks in all the air his room has to offer before pushing it all out again. He does it slowly, intimately, as if he is healing and reconciling with his body and mind. An apology, as those spiritual soldiers march in and kill all the stress and negativity current inside his system with each round of breath.
"Now Jaybird, you will use your hands this time. Place one hand firmly onto your stomach and the other firmly onto the middle of your chest." Jason stops his deep breathing and does one last sigh before doing what Dick told him to do. He can feel the firmness of his chest and how tense it is. He can feel the soft but flat stomach of his, the micro size flabs of fat squishing about as he sits, slightly crouched forward with legs crossed.
"Move them around slowly, touch every single part of your body, memorize it and map it out as if you want to explore a new place. But your body is not new, it has always been there, you were just so lost and hurt that you forgot that it existed. Truly. Now you're just connecting yourself to your body again. Re-learn that world...the body, called Jason Todd." Jason does just that. He feels the alarming heat radiating from his body, he feels the hairs of his skin standing up, as if shocked at the tenderness and love from the movement of his hands.
Jason continues to feel his whole body, even expanding the reach to his arms, neck, hair, and face. Dick, on the other line, can hear the small, quiet but labored breaths of Jason as they get shakier each slow, passing minute. Damian stops by his room and walks in, about to say something, but then he pauses and retreats. Seeing that Dick's face, though determined and "cold," is already starting to stain with tears.
Dick looks at a picture of Jason in his early Robin years, so happy and full of life. It was one of the few photos that he managed to find and keep for his own when he came back to Wayne Manor for a visit. "Jason...I want you to repeat what I'm about to say after me, okay?" He says.
"U-Uh H-Huh...roger that." Jason stutters out, his body shaking as he does his best to hold back tears, like his life depends on it.
Dick's heart was already broken just thinking about the suffering and trauma Jason went through. But it seems like it wasn't broken enough. His parents dying in front of him was bad, Damian being deprived of a normal childhood and instead be trained as a disposable but deadly warrior was horrible, Stephanie being abused by her father, pregnant by an ex in which she had to give up her baby and dying as she tried to prove her worth to Bruce...was sickening. For Tim...some may not consider some things that he went through as bad , but they were. However, with all due respect to his loved ones and himself...what Jason went through and is still going through tops the cake. Jason isn't just some "street rat," but a broken boy who has grown into a broken, young man.
"Okay...'I am strong, I am brave, I am wonderful, and I am worth it.' Say that."
If Jason was drinking water, he would've choked.
"What the fuck, Dick-wad?!"
Dick sighs, "Jay...say it and believe it to be true. You know that it's true."
"B-But I...FINE! Just," he takes a shaky breath, "I am strong, I am...brave, I...am...wonderful, and I...I...I...I am w-worth it."
Dick commands, "I am intelligent, I am kind, I am resilient, and I am worth it."
Jason freezes and hesitates," B-But I died because I didn't listen to Bruce when he told me not to go to that damn warehouse. I play a big part in what's going on with me and our strained relationship. I'm not...intelligent. No way."
"Jaybird, you only wanted to find your mother. As far as I could tell, your kindness was so overwhelming when you thought your mother was in grave danger. You dying was not from you not listening to Bruce. It was from Joker murdering you. He is the sole person in the wrong, not Bruce, and certainly not you," Dick doesn't care that a single tear streams down his cheek, he embraces it, "Now, repeat what I said before I explained this to you.." Dick commands once more.
Jason's eyes flood up and tears were soon pouring down his face as he whispers,"I am..intelligent, I am kind...I am resilient..and I am worth it."
"Do you believe that you deserve love, Jason?" Dick asks softly.
Jason whispers, feeling his throat tightening slightly as he struggles to not break down right then and there,"Yes..."
"Do you believe that I love you? That Bruce loves you?" Dick asks.
Jason face crumbles into despair as he continues to struggle, he chokes out, "Y-Yes.."
"Are you sure you believe that? I love you Jason. I love you. Bruce loves you too, always. He loves you with all his heart. Yes, he is not the world's greatest parent/guardian. Yes, sometimes he can go overboard and be an asshole. But dare I say this, I understand if this is very hard to believe, but he is just as obsessive with us family, than with crime. Jason, say that we love you. That Bruce loves you."
Jason stutters but does as he is told, "Dick loves me...Alfred loves me...Bruce loves me..."
"Again."
Jason whimpers but repeats, "Dick loves me...Alfred loves me...B-B-Bruce..."
"...loves you. He loves you, baby. We all do, even Tim."
That was it, Jason couldn't take it anymore. He lets out a loud, piercing wail before flopping back on his bed, his body shaking violently as his eyes scream out in discomfort. His tears drench parts of his face like a waterfall while his nose continues to drip and run with snot. Some go down to his lips, making it even more wet due to collecting tears. His heart throbs in his chest at a fast pace as he heaves and wheezes. Here and there, Jason's body forces out a few coughs. His head starts to squeeze his brain, giving it excruciating pain.
Dick weakly tries to get Jason's attention but to no avail.
"You m-must be lying! Howcany'allfuckinglovemeafterallthatI'vedone?!" Jason roars out, but the pitch of his voice is much higher than usual, like a mouse in pain. The temperature of the tears warm up slightly before turning back to being icy cold.
Oh, the answer is very easy.
"You're family, Jason. You always will be. Now, please calm down and believe what I say. Please believe that you're worth it, Jaybird."
"Shuddap fairy godmother! This ain't some 'bippity boppity boo' and done type shit!"
Dick sighs, "Jason calm down, you're not making sense and you're getting too overwhelmed."
"Suck my dick, Dick!"
Dick rolls his eyes, "Haha...very funny and original. But you seem to be very out of it right now so tell me when you're ready to talk. I will be on the line, right here. I promise, okay?" He hears Jason grumble something as a confirmation that he got the message. Dick sighs and puts Jason on hold, calling his day(sometimes night) job instead. "Hey it's Grayson, I have a family emergency that needs my undivided attention so I will be out for the next two weeks or so. Is that okay?" The officer on the other line accepts this and for Dick not to worry, that he can take as much time as he needed and they will let the chief and his partner know. Dick thanks them and hangs up, switching back to Jason just as Damian returns.
"Todd seems to be...in a lot of pain, Grayson. I can also see how much this is wearing on you. Is there any way that I can help?" Damian asks, looking straight as Dick's phone.
Dick smiles softly, tiredly. "I'm not sure if that's the right idea, Dami. Jason is not in a good mood right now and he might destroy you... in terms of feelings and ego. Plus, you two are still at each other's throats."
"I don't care about that now, if it's true that Father adopted him when he was younger, then though I hate to admit this, he is my brother. My family. I have to do what I can to protect my family, and not just through physical matters." Damian counters.
Dick purses his lips and looks back at his phone, finally noticing that Jason has gone quiet. He is reluctant but it wouldn't hurt to let Damian try. He beckons the boy over, who quickly gets to him. Dick hovers his finger over the button that will take Jason off hold. "Are you sure you want to do this? Are you prepared for the potential consequences?" Dick asks carefully.
Damian nods his head and Dick takes a deep breath, taking Jason off hold.
"...Dickie, you're back." Jason notes calmly.
Damian quietly gulps but goes for it anyway, "Todd...Dick isn't here just yet. But I have been listening in because you're so loud. It's literally destroying my ear drums. However, you sound...broken. Not like yourself, and I wish to assist you in recovery."
"Bah! As if, Demon Spawn! What do you know, anyway?" Jason seethes out, annoyed.
Damian is tempted to snap back at him, but then decides not to. His mission is to help Todd get better, not make things worse. "Well, I do know that we both had family who were involved in what some would say, shady business. Your father was working for Two-Face and your biological mother was working with the Joker and doing some other crime..stuff. We both were killed. We both had a father figure where we felt slightly abandoned by or at least were on major odds with. We both adore our loved ones and will do anything to protect them, but are too quick to anger. Though we sometimes refrain from doing so out of respect for Father's code, we believe that when necessary, a life has to be taken from a dangerous criminal. I can go on but do you see Todd? In some ways, we are the same. I might be seen as a inexperienced juvenile to you, but you can still come to me, please. I know we have our differences but I want to be someone who is reliable to someone and who is worth it. Especially in these kind of situations. Let me...Jason, please brother..." Damian starts fumbling with his fingers.
Jason, on the other line, was in total shock. Hell seemed to have really frozen over because the BRAT is PLEADING to him! What the hell?! The kid does seem to have a point, once Jason briefly thinks about it. Especially when it came to having to prove themselves to others, along with having a better self image and worth. Oh well, if Damian the Demon is willing to connect with Jason instead of attempting to slash his throat open, maybe being a little vulnerable to his fa,ily and relying on them won't hurt that much after all. But, Jason still has one thing itching in his mind.
"Okay, I will play nice this time, Baby bat. But tell me this...how did 'Father' kill the prince of crime?"
He could hear the kid's breath hitched in a small gasp, but he waits. One way or another, he WILL find out. After a few minutes, Damian returns.
"I-I'm not sure if this is a good idea, Todd." Damian says hesitantly.
Jason wasn't having it and demands,"TELL. ME. NOW."
"Okay, I will! Hold on," Damian says quickly before taking a deep breath of his own, once he felt ready, he finally told Jason the truth, "According to Grayson who visited him, Father killed Joker with a gun. The same gun that you at some point as Red Hood, threw at him when you asked Father to either kill you since you were 'going to kill Joker' or Joker himself. Apparently Father said that it was only right and that he hopes that you will forgive him for everything and that you finally feel avenged." Damian then went silent.
Only to hear Jason curse and choking up with tears once more. Dick hears this and quickly intervenes, taking the phone away from Damian. "Jay? Jay? Jaybird, you there? Don't cry now, don't blame yourself. Bruce felt horrible and ever since you came back to life and went off at him on numerous occasions, the guilt and shame that he felt was eating away at him. But hey! We can go visit him, wanna go visit him Jay?" Dick was about to ask again when another hand plucks out his phone. Dick turns around and he immediately pales at the sight.
It was Tim.
The only family member Jason truly hates.
"Hellooooo Jason, this is Replacement here. I'm sorry that you are literally having a meltdown and that you feel like some sort of burden. Among other things. But don't you know that Bruce really loves you?! Like, after you died, he literally went into a downward spiral and was acting more reckless and violent than usual! He was FUCKING DEPRESSED because of the guilt eating away at him. He blamed himself for your death and not being a good enough father to you! He sworn to NEVER have another Robin again. That he was so stupid and selfish to bring kids into his line of work just so that he wouldn't be lonely anymore. Even when I came along and tried to convince him to take a Robin, he refused multiple times. This lasted for so many months, maybe even a year, I don't fucking know! So, he didn't replace you right away when you died, idiot! Nor was it his own plan, I MADE him change his mind. Robin is someone who helps balance out the darkness within Batman and assists him in anything that Batman needs help on, no matter the situation. Robin is Batman's anchor. Me, Dick, Damian, and YOU are his anchors. You, Jason! So please, stop going down a pathway where at some point, us family won't be able to follow anymore! YOU ARE WORTH IT, JASON! Say, 'I'm worth it' now!" Tim finishes, breathing a bit heavily as he listens for Jason's response.
Dick purses his lips and whispers, "Maybe that was a bit too much, Tim."
"I have to agree with Grayson here, Drake. Lashing out at him was unnecessary." Damian agreed. But Tim didn't care, okay, maybe he could've used better wording and cool it here and there. But this is tough love, Jason needed to know and it get it through his thick, stubborn head. To Tim, this was the only way to do that.
Jason was too tired and emotional to argue with 'Replacement', so he complies. "I'm...worth it."
"Again!"
"I'm..worth it."
"Again!"
"I'm worth.. it."
"Again!"
"I'm worth it."
I'm worth it...I'm worth it...I'm worth it...
I'm worth it.
~End~
A/n: Thank you all for reading! This took so many weeks to complete. Of course, it's not perfect but I hope you all enjoy this work!