AN: Formatting is being stubbornly uncooperative. Best version is on AO3, because it lets me keep my pretentious formatting.
son of Gotham
Jason breathes again.
wake up
Here is how it goes:
Boy dressed up in red and yellow and green, all rebel fire and snarky quips and vulgarities, a drive to grant unto others justice he was denied. Boy with eyes like a nightmare, all wrath and the fear of god in the hearts of criminals, at the pretender-nightmare's side. Boy called Robin, Robin for hopeless hope and raging flame, light and warm that comforts in the dark and the cold, not because of the pretender-nightmare's mission, but because he cares. Cares so very much, cares like few others have, like few others can in the cesspit that is Gotham City. Madness seeps into him, but he does not bend, does not yield to it. In the end the boy-in-red is indomitable, as only either the impossibly strong or the irreparably broken can be.
And this boy Robin, this boy-in-red, can almost feel it. Almost brushes against it, the nightmarenightmarenightmare, when an alleyway leads out to a street that should be a block away, when a thug or a creep chasing him manages to trip over a pothole that wasn't half as big before, when the hovels and alleys he makes his bed in always wind up somehow shrouded in shadows and darkness enough to obscure him, when he manages to stumble upon the sleek black tank-car that would set him for life, conveniently unguarded and unoccupied. When things that are impossible but closer to improbable always occur, the boy-in-red sits up and takes notice.
(Bruce Wayne cannot quite say the same. Creature of logic, self-made pretender-nightmare, with just enough madness in him to keep from ever becoming more. Grounded in the detective's mind, which can accept improbability but never the outright warping impossible that this living, breathing corpse of a city deals with in spades. Perhaps that denial grants him power. Perhaps some unbreakable faith in humanity carries him through, makes him strong enough to deny even the Gotham-madness everyone else has fallen into. Perhaps deep down he is Gotham-mad himself, but he went mad in just the right way while everyone else cracked in all the wrong ones.)
(Never say it to his face, but the only other creature that has managed to quite harness that impossible, that undeniably nightmarish twisting, is the Joker, Gotham-mad down to his bones. Not quite the son of Gotham, no, but perhaps her most favorite pet. Perhaps her royal fool, perhaps even her most earnest, loyal, repugnant disciple. Acolyte worshipping at the altar of sorrow and ruin, man who somehow woke up himself, and in so doing has become invincible. Tell it to Joker, tell the monster his secret weapon, and watch him laugh loud and long and dedicate your murder to his nightmare benefactor with a triumphant grin.)
Takes notice, and in that ever-resourceful way of those forced to grow up under Gotham's shelter of torment and anguish, uses it. Perches always perfectly stable, even the narrowest corners of the most run-down, ragged, derelict buildings. Walls suddenly slightly closer than they should be, when he knocks a criminal into one. Alleyways suddenly leading into dead ends, impossible dead ends, when the Robin hunts, and twisting into sudden, impossible openings when he needs to run. The very layout of the city, not changing, not exactly, but shifting just enough to shave seconds off his movement time. So many little impossibilities, not quite enough to be obvious, but obvious enough to one who knows what to look for.
(The Joker watches, and the Joker smiles. Seems his darling corpse-city had found a new pet.
He'll have fun breaking it.
her eyes should be on him, after all. it wouldn't do to have an inattentive audience.)
It is a symbiosis between them, mother and her son, even with the (presumptuous) guardian looming over the boy-in-red's shoulder, halcyon days of the corpse-city and her darling child, one awoken and granted the chance to stretch her reach, and all new heights of suffering to feed from; the other kept safe, given every advantage he needs to fight, to survive, to keep going in the face of overwhelming odds, so long as he continues to obey. But oh, Jason Todd has never been one to keep quiet and obedient, and oh, but a corpse-city is no kind of mother for a lonely and hopeful boy. Rotted hands don't hold him close at night, don't keep him warm and safe and comforted in the face of darkness and fear. Gotham can protect him in her own twisted way, but what is protection without comfort? Comfort longed for, sought after, especially in the face of emotional distance and a face practically carved from stone.
And oh, but Jason's always wanted a mother.
(The city tries to hide it with water damage, in that decrepit apartment building her child first woke her up in, but Jason Todd has always been more determined than anyone else in Gotham's grasp. He finds his (false) mother's name.
disobedient child, it seems mother will have to punish you.)
(Oho? Is it finally time to play? Heeheeheeheehee!)
Jason Todd dies afraid.
o son of Gotham, what need have you for fear? don't worry.
mother will bring you home.
Here is the story of Jason P. Todd, from the eyes of his mother:
(We do not refer to Catherine Todd. We do not refer to Sheila Haywood. When we say mother, take it as synonym to nightmare.)
Here is the line and here is the crossing it, here is the trust and here is the betrayal, here is the mind meets the matter pulls the trigger. Here is a corpse-city child, boy without fear, here is the eyes shut tight against something so wrongwrongwrong, here is every instinct screeching to flee, to run, for the trueborn son of this wretched city has come for you. Here is blood and mist, a crown for a broken prince, red, red, always red, red back then and red right now. Red like corpses, in an alley, in a circus, in a jail cell and an apartment, in a filthy fucking warehouse. Red tabard for the squire of the Dark Knight, broken at the court jester's feet, red hood for the revenant called up from hell, all gunpowder and blood and righteous fury.
And beyond the red, that vile and poisonous green, not from that wretched pit, but from something even older. Something once formless, waiting for someone to give it shape.
Something with a name like nightmare.
(There is a story: in the early days of the settlement, after a journey that left dozens dead of mysterious circumstance, when Gotham was Arkham, so called for her most prominent family, there was a woman by that very name, secretive and isolated and just a little bit angry and just a little bit sad, who worked with herbs, or perhaps poisons. And they called her a witch, and at the stake they burned her, and then came a plague, but only the children were killed. Their skin turned sallow and yellowed, their veins turned deep, unhealthy purple, their eyes turned brilliant, toxic green, and oh but they rotted from the inside out.
They named the city-that-was-not-yet Gotham in her name, out of fear, offered her tribute of passing traders and native tribes, out of fear, blood and agony in so many forms, out of fear. And thus ended the plague, and so began that seeping, creeping madness, all out of fear.
The city-that-was-not-yet-a-nightmare-but-soon-will-be ate and ate over the course of decades, until she could eat no more, but still she was not satisfied.
She had grown bored of physical torments, and so she sought new suffering, new anguish. Suffering of the mind, anguish of the soul, inescapable nightmare that bound its people in chains. And then even that was not enough, so it let loose a call, a howl like a wolf's, and summoned to it those with madness like its own, madness enough that the nightmare's chains were more than just a slithering sensation crawling over the skin, but real, corporeal, tangible things. Things that dragged men into the cold and the darkness, and kept them there, like butterflies pinned to the wall, a sick collection of human trophies. Trophies of madness and ruination, with a purple-and-green crown jewel sitting pretty at the top, set in a crown of filth and mire.
(There is no hope in Crime Alley, they say. They are wrong. There is no hope in Gotham, they should have said, and maybe then come closer to the truth. If they said there is no escape from Gotham, then they would have been right.)
And then one day, one dreary, awful day in a weekmonthyearyears of them, there came a child, one among thousands, who should have been insignificant to the world, to the nightmare, who would suffer and suffer and suffer, and despite it all would not bend to her madness, would not collapse, would instead become a boy-who-is-not-nightmare-but-could-be, and Gotham…
The city-that-is-nightmare sits up from her throne of sorrows
nightmares are not meant to wake eyes are meant to stay shut corpse-cities are not supposed to breathe son of Gotham son of Gotham son of Gotham what hell have you unleashed?
and wakes up.)
come back, son of Gotham. come back to your mother's arms.
you never should have left
("Hahahahahahah, you came back! She actually brought you back!"
"Shut up."
"What's wrong kiddo, don't like the truth? I wonder how dear old mama feels about that! Do you even visit for Thanksgiving?"
"Shut your mouth!"
"Oh, hahaha, it's just so funny! All this time I thought I was the favorite! Hahaha! Urk!"
"Be quiet!"
"Ya know, they call me a prince! Hahahaha! But it looks like –"
"Shut. Up."
"Heeheehee, hahahahaha! But it looks like that title belongs to you! Crown prince of Gotha –"
"I said shut the fuck up!"
deny it all you want, son of Gotham, but you are my child, my darling, precious child
Get out of my head get out of my head get out of my head get out of my headgetoutofmyheadgetoutofmyheadgetoutofmyheadgetoutgetoutgetoutGETOUTGETOUTGETOUTGETOUT)
Bruce Wayne dies. Gotham's claws sink deeper, deeper, ever deeper, until all Jason knows is greengreengreen, and bloodbloodblood, and ruinruinruin, and mothermothermother, and all he does is hurthurthurt.
(it's not the pit. not really. if it was, oh it would be so much easier to resist. ducra and the all-caste taught him to resist the pit-rage, the fury of death denied running rampant through the blood. this is not the pit-rage. this isn't the blind lashing out of death, exacting a price for escape; this is directed, intended, nightmare with a goal and knowledge and something that has been watching jason his entire life, and worst of all, thinks it knows best.)
Son of Gotham paying tribute to his mother, an offering of misery and death and pain, and it's all he can do to keep himself restrained to the criminals and his brothers, when all there is in his head is mother's voice, mother's dark and insidious voice, calling and calling and always calling, why won't the voice just shut up, makeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstop. Mother calls, and the Son of Gotham answers her, answers her in blood and death and devastation, answers her in indiscriminate swathes of destruction, answers her in the ones left behind to fear and mourn, answers her in the turmoil of those who would dare to try and take Gotham's tribute away from her. Mother calls, and it is all he can do to resist.
It isn't until he follows Nightwing to New York that the madness loosens, that the Son of Gotham returns to being more than that again, that Jason can breathe, without the nightmare's hands clutched around his throat, with mother's voice a mere whisper in the ear instead of a booming chorus. Jason can breathe again, can finally breathe clean air again, inhale oxygen that hasn't been filtered through the corpse-city's madness for the first time in what feels like an eternity, and oh, it reminds him, it reminds him so dearly, that strange sensation of being free on his international training tour. Like he had been bound in chains but hadn't even known it until they were loosened. It's strange. It's intoxicating. He wants more.
(oh, but jason's never really been a racehorse, running where and when he's told, blinders on and moving in a straight line, any deviation punished by his rider, his owner.
oh no, jason's a wild stallion, running when he wants, wherever he wants, free and fearsome and utterly unwilling to bow down and kneel.
and oh, but Gotham's almost broken him in.)
The chains tighten.
o, Son of Gotham, don't be afraid. mother has teeth and claws, and no harm shall come to you, not so long as you grant her tribute.
("Son of Gotham," Jason hears the demon brat whisper during a fight he decided to get himself involved in on a whim, (mother always has more room for tribute) shocked and unintentional and just a little bit frightened, when he thinks he can't hear, when a thug sneaking up on him is suddenly crushed by a gargoyle, fallen from a skyscraper, previously one of the most stable perches in the city. Looking later, there is no sign of any flaws in the structural integrity. As if the gargoyle had just fallen on its own.
(the al'ghuls have always been attuned to the ways of the world, to all the secrets of Gaia, and when one gifts unto thee a title, it would do thee well to listen)
Son of Gotham.
It, for a brief moment, pierces through the haze of green and bloodshed and death.
It feels right. It scares him.
(he'd almost forgotten. wanted to forget, deep down, put so much space and distance between him and this hellhole, and yet. Gotham calls, and her son must answer.
anyone who manages to escape her grasp always comes back eventually.)
(and he thought the haze was all him, all the pit-rage, that he was a failure, that he was a complete disgrace to the memory of Ducra and the all-caste, that he was little more than Son of Gotham, nothing but an Untitled dressed up in Jason Todd's skin, but now…)
Son of Gotham?
(what if it's not all him?)
don't fret, my child. all that is done by me is done by you.)
He's afraid.
(gotham-the-woman, not to be confused with Gotham-the-nightmare, had a son once. A bright and beautiful and stubborn and defiant son, sun-kissed skin and hair the color of blood, who loved a girl he should not have. That son died, pronounced a suicide, but anyone would have been able to see he'd been lynched.
blood and mist, that forms the red hood, blood from where he'd been bludgeoned, his skull cracked open and the blood seeping out, dying his face crimson; mist from that day, that wretched awful day, when gotham-the-woman found her son dead, strung up in a tree, mist from that gloomy eve, where the mother and the mother alone sees him buried, and that vile girl he was dead for married another man.
in the distance, she hears it, those vile cheers, from those vile people, who do not care that her son is deadeadead
There is a reason the Arkham family suffers so in Gotham. There is a reason their name is steeped in blood and sorrow.
Is it not only fitting that their line should face so much tragedy, when they created the monster in the first place? Is it not only just, that these agonies be inflicted upon them, when they themselves inflicted such agonies upon others? Upon her? Is it not right that fathers should see their daughters dead, and mothers watch their sons murdered, and children should see their parents driven mad? Is it not a just reward, a righteous avenging, for all the pain they themselves had created? Is it not?
Oh, and
her son was named Jason too.)
Then comes the Outlaws, a trio of rebel souls bound together in the common cause of raising hell and shooting the breeze, and oh but Jason's been chasing that feeling from New York for a while now, and here he's finally gotten it, not just that small dose though, but the real deal. The nightmare's chains try desperately to pull him back, and oh he almost does, but then there's always something more pressing, more important; keeping Roy on the wagon, dealing with Kori's disregard for such trite human things as modesty and closing doors, Roy's utterly awful attempts at humor and Kori's complete misunderstanding of human customs, adventures all over the world, dealing with Ra's and the League and the Demon's Head's piercing and knowing eyes, and that shitshow in space, and.
He's free.
For the very first time in his life, he's free. He goes into space, and it's only when all the excitement is over and he's decompressing in Kori's ship that he realizes it: he doesn't feel those slithering chains.
Son of Gotham, where are you?
There are no chains, there are no chains on him.
(there are no strings on me)
Jason Todd, for the first time in twenty years, is absolutely free from the corpse-city's grip, from the corpse-city's whispers, from the corpse-city's madness, and his own madness, and he will never forget the feeling. And so when he comes back to Gotham City, he feels the chains come back, and yet. And yet. They try so hard to pull him down, pull him back into poisonous green and bloody crimson, tell him again and again that mother needs her tribute, where is her tribute, Son of Gotham, Son of Gotham, son of Gotham, son of gotham, WHERE IS MOTHER'S TRIBUTE?! and yet he doesn't buckle, doesn't break. He breathes, free and easy, no desiccated fingers grasping at his throat, inside his mouth, clogging up his lungs with filth and grime and crime and madness.
(He's remembered himself from when he was young, from even before he was Robin, even before he was the boy-in-red, when he was just a scared and sniffling child, surrounded by all the worst of humanity, and did not give in to the madness. He's remembered himself as the boy-in-red, who for a moment wore the mask that would become his legend, and in so doing struck down a pretender to the name Red Hood. He's remembered himself as Robin, bright and brash and bold, unwavering in his empathy and his drive to protect and avenge what he couldn't. He's remembered himself as Red Hood, violent and vengeful, but even so, unwilling to turn a blind eye to the suffering around him, unwilling to tolerate the abusers and oppressors continuing to live, and so became their nightmare.
He's remembered that he's more than Son of Gotham.
He's remembered Jason Todd.)
(Gotham doesn't understand until far too late, what happens when you try to stifle Jason, try to suffocate him, try to mold him into something he doesn't want to be.)
And even when the Outlaws all fall apart and go their separate ways, when he has nothing more to take his mind away from chains and corpse-cities and mother's calls, he remembers that sensation of freedom, remembers that he is more than Son of Gotham, and most importantly, he remembers
the boy-who-is-not-nightmare-but-could-be is waking up again
there are no strings on me
Something is changing. The trueborn son of Gotham is changing. Her voice barely a whisper in his ear, her clutching grip shrugged off, and he has become somehow slippery in her grasp, and so she must clamp down even harder, must reassert herself. The mother's hold only becomes tighter, more strangling, and isn't that the mistake everyone makes with Jason? The tighter you grasp at him, the harder he fights you off, until he's bristling at the slightest move and ready to bolt or kill to stay free. A pity that Gotham never learns, and when her dearest child starts to fight her, she only clings to him all the more, decaying fingers of the corpse-city broken off in the wake of Jason, yet still desperately clutching at him.
darling child of mine, what are you doing? can't you see that mother is only trying to help you?
(He gets it now. Gotham is alive, breathing.
Listen, Jason, and you can hear her heartbeat, that dark pulse of Gotham. Listen and you'll hear the wheezing breaths of the corpse-city, look and you'll see her miserable people like her bloodstream, open your mouth and taste her madness on your tongue.
Gotham is alive, Jason realizes.
Living things
(Jason's always hated Gotham. Not her people, never her people, but Jason has always hated Gotham as a concept.
He's convinced there's no saving it, no salvaging it, and he's half-convinced the same is true of the people within it, that they've forever been tainted simply by living in it.
A center of anguish and suffering, a dirty and filthy and grimy miasma of human agony and human horror and human insanity.)
can die.)
(he'll tear it all down, brick by brick if he has to, until he's torn out the nightmare-city's poisonous, ruinous heart and crushed it in his fist)
(The others don't quite understand what Jason's goal even is anymore, when the murders attributed to the Red Hood start to drop off, the unrelenting string of massacres dropping off rapidly. Criminals still die, the Bowery is still unmistakably the turf of the Red Hood, but something is changing. He takes a trip out of the city, breaks into Shadowcrest and briefly fights Zatanna, infiltrates Jason Blood's home and is only caught after he has finished whatever it was he was trying to do, even tried to make his way into the Tower of Fate before being expelled. He's after something, it's obvious, something magical, but the question is what, and since when has Jason had any relation to the supernatural side of the world, does it have something to do with his resurrection, too many questions, not nearly enough answers.
He robs museums boasting artifacts of the earliest Gotham, steals his way into the darkest depths of Arkham Asylum, makes dozens of excursions into the very roots of Gotham that the modern city grew out of like fungus, like a tumor. He hunts, oh how he hunts, but they don't know what he's hunting. Something to do with Gotham's history, her earliest days, but what could he possibly need to know from that? Some weapon, some enemy, something, anything?
Bruce goes after Ra's, interrogates him as to what Jason is up to, and all he gets is a brief moment of surprise that fades into a kind of wry, intrigued amusement.
"So. The Son is finally truly striking at the Parent. Hm. Prepare yourself, Detective. Your entire world is about to change."
Bruce assumes this means Jason has been holding back, has been preparing to attack him in true all along, that everything he's done has been part of some master plan to kill the Batman and the Joker, thinks Jason is about to try and change the entire face of Gotham with blood and fire.
(well…he's not wrong)
They batten down the hatches, watch Jason even more closely than ever before, try desperately to catch him, yet every time he slips away from them, just out of their reach, and sometimes it almost feels like he turns to mist beneath their hands.
"What are you planning, Jason?!"
Dick demands an answer, and Jason stills, cocks his head to the side, and Dick can almost feel the smirk beneath it, even as mist tinted faintly crimson starts to roll in out of nowhere.
"I'm going to end this nightmare."
Jason disappears into the fog. No matter how hard they try afterwards, they can never quite manage to find him again, only flashes of bloody red in the corner of the eye.)
Here is how it goes:
Son of Gotham, crown prince of this whole nightmare-city, heir to this throne of sorrows and woe, who has found it at last, center for this madness, for this misery, epicenter of ruination.
darling child of Gotham, what are you doing?
Jason won't be another puppet.
son of Gotham, what are you doing?
Jason refuses, because of course Jason refuses. Jason has always refused. No matter how comforting the strings, no matter how much they feel like a mother's embrace, Jason will not be strung along, not anymore, not ever again. He's had his fill of it.
my child...
Take up the knife, Jason.
my child, my son, my darling, what are you doing?
Except it is not a knife, is it? That is just the mental image Ducra taught you.
you are my son, now tell me what you are doing
Take up the blades of the desert sands, fire all along their silver edges, take up the blades that will kill absolute evil.
jason
Take up the blades, because you always have, because you must. Because whatever else you are, one who allows evil to continue unpunished has never been it. Whatever else you've done, you have always known justice as your core, and well over two centuries worth of justice is owed here to this abomination, this amalgamation of horror and pain and suffering and countless agonies. This is a very long time coming.
jason
Cut the cord
jason...jason enough…
Cut the cord, Pinocchio, and you'll be a real boy again. Let dawn break over this wretched city again, for the very first time in over two-hundred years, let this stranglehold be released. Can't you hear it? The whole of the people in this nightmare holding their breath, anticipating even though they don't know why. All they know is this: impending jubilation, among the dirt and the filth and the grime and the madness.
(Bruce looks up, and he doesn't know why. All he knows is a sensation of…anticipation, like the calm before a fall. Like he's been waiting all his life for this.)
jason, you will not
Cut yourself free from the tangled strings, that form a noose of fate, of what you are meant to be. You are the only one who can. Isn't that right Red Hood? You, who are demon of blood and mist, crown of crimson weighed heavy on his head, symbol like a bloodstain sprayed across his chest, all gunmetal and terror, all gunsmoke and fear, once broken and now returned.
jason, you cannot
No more puppeteers, not now, not ever, no more. I'm stopping it.
jason, i will not allow it
Like that's ever stopped me.
jason, what are you without me?
What I've always been, what I'll always be.
jason, darling jason, please, think this through
Ha. When do I ever?
jason, my son, stop
Don't you know? I'm no one's son.
jason please, please don't, i am your mother
My mother is dead.
i am a nightmare, fear beyond fathom, terror old as millennia and taken new form.
what can a mere child of man do to harm me?
(Here is a secret:
Red Hood is a nightmare too.)
The nightmare
Ends
(everything changes)