WARNING For Major Character Injury and Mention of (Previous) Character Death.

Also, some mild swearing, cause this is Jason we're talking about here.

This one's a little different then what I've written so far. I hope you enjoy nonetheless.

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Jason should have just kept his big mouth shut.

Jason should have just stayed in his tiny little safehouse, with his borrowed library book on poetry, and not of bothered with dealing with the outside world for the day.

Jason should have just dealt with the fact that sometimes one's pickle and cheese sandwiches had to go without the pickles, and moved on with life.

He should have.

But, of course, he didn't. That would have been far too easy.

But then again… there are precious few things Jason has enjoyed in this second life of his, and one of those things was sitting on a couch with a good work of literature in one hand and a pickle and cheese sandwich in the other.

So he had set out on a quest to his favourite little nook in the wall store. The place was crazy out of the way from his safehouse- a good two mile walk and several bus rides away- but, then again, everything was out of the safehouse's way. That was kind of the point.

Either way, it was worth it, because the place sold the best goddamn pickles in the entire country. This made no sense, considering it was a tiny little thing smaller than some of Bruce's walk-in closets, with one wall being reserved for ancient refrigerators that rumbled louder than any generator and the rest being stacked high with crooked shelves filled to the brim with random off-brand goods, but it somehow managed. Jason had found no pickles better anywhere else, and he highly doubted he ever would.

The store owner refused to give away where she was getting them, but Jason's constant prying was wearing her down. He could tell.

For now, however, the lady sat on a faded neon green stool behind a table and a cash register that had both definitely seen better days, lifting a hand in greeting as he entered, her smile bright and missing no less than three different teeth. Jason waved back and took the two necessary steps needed to get to the fridge, pulled the glass door open with a yank, and reached in to grab his prize. The interior of the fridge was hardly any colder than the outside air, but he shrugged it off: beggars can't be choosers, after all, and the tastiness of the pickles was good no matter the temperature.

But here was the thing. Jason was not alone in that store. There were two guys peering at some knock-off oreos, muttering quietly to one another, and Jason wasn't even really aware he was doing it, he just sort of absentmindedly listened in…

And then gave a start when he realized that the two guys were talking about a deal going down on his terf.

And look, look, Jason had a reputation to uphold, and a pact to all the street kids who camped down in Crime Alley, one that said he would keep them relatively safe.

Jason didn't go back on his word.

Also, if he was going to be really honest with himself, he was itching for a fight.

(He was itching for a fight, yes. But he was always itching for a fight- this scarred boy grown too fast too soon, this child who had been raging against the dying of the light since the day he came kicking and screaming into this world, who had never been gentle but will always try to be kind.)

He felt his hands clench at his sides. Felt the anger grapple at his chest.

It was something that had been carved into his small wired frame since he was just a street urchin himself, since he was young and terrified and staring at the woman who was supposed to be his mother, cold and dead on starch white bathroom tile with only a bottle of empty pills to her name. He had a skeleton of bruised knuckles, harsh words, and false starts that he swallowed whole and grew up around, an angry fire in his veins and something vivid and terribly alive in his heart that did not beat but did pound.

(This man, this child, this young warrior who was wise because he walked every trial made of fire and came out burned but still breathing.)

(This man, this child, this brave scarred hero who will always be wild because there is a fight in his soul that will not let go.)

(This man, this child-)

(This poor, poor boy.)

Jason was born into this world angry, and he will rage against every dying light because it was the only life he had ever known.

He raised fists first and asked questions later, survived on the skin of his teeth and sheer willpower and a hell of an amount of luck, and he knows it. He cocked guns at criminals and shot without remorse, but only when he thought they deserved it, only when they took down innoscents, when they took down kind men and kind women for stupid reasons, when they took down children -

He was someone who, when he heard about a deal going down on the territory he guarded, around the people he protected, grit his teeth and lit the flames of something like justice, like vengeance, like a flare of warning to all those who dare stand in his way, who dare try lay siege on the dying lights he vowed to protect.

(Because this was someone who killed the small minded people who formed the scum of this earth, but it was also someone who laid down his weapons and picked up his books, who taught small street urchins how to read with dinghy second hand children's tales bought from thrift stores, who killed but did not steal from those who needed it, did not hurt those who did what little good he could see in this life of his, a life that he raised up all to his own. He didn't often acknowledge it, but he has always been more than his raised fists.)

Jason heard the muttered conversation, and he did not see red but there was a monster in his chest and it snarled.

(Born into this world angry- angry at every injustice, every cruelty, and at every harsh word whispered into the undeserving ear. Jason was born into this world angry, but only at all the things he could not help.)

Jason heard the muttered conversation, the threat to his own, and really what could he do but try and prevent it?

Nothing. There was nothing else he could do- not in these eyes of his that burned with such raging fire.

So Jason turned around, jar of pickles in one hand and other clenched tight into a fist, only just resisting the temptation to grip at his gun. He walked up to the cash register, handed over a few crumpled bills, and then went outside and stood just around the corner.

And then, when the dealers came out behind him, Jason neatly placed his pickles down, opened his big mouth and called them over, smiled something more ugly than kind, and took great, visceral joy in socking the first guy in the face.

Predictably, everything immediately turned to shit.

The fight ran on a good fifteen minutes when really it should have been over in five, but in his determination to deal with the situation as quickly as possible, he may or may not have forgotten that he did not have on any kevlar.

And, because his luck was a two-faced asshole on the best of days, the two men just so happened to be packing. And had friends.

They got in a lucky shot.

Or maybe two.

…..or three.

Because the universe lovingly decided to express how much it hated him through the most peculiar ways.

So there Jason was, bleeding pretty heavily, six unconscious guys at his feet and a hell of a lot of annoyance in his chest. His safe house was too far away to get to in time before he passed out from blood loss, hospitals were a pain in the ass to deal with because of the whole, well, being legally dead thing, and sure there were other options but Jason was concussed, frustrated, and too busy bleeding out for him to really think things through.

But there was something pretty close by: the manor. A place he hated to visit at the best of times, and probably meant some annoying confrontations with Bruce, but was better nothing.

Also, if he went, it meant Alfred would probably be taking care of him, which meant in turn he wouldn't have to do his own stitches, which was always fun.

Small victories were the things Jason lived by.

So it was decided. He would go to the manor, get treated for the blood dribbling out of his body at a worrying rate, and then get the hell out of dodge.

But first, he was going back to get his pickles.

He earned them.

Fifteen minutes, one stolen motorcycle abandoned in the grass, and a few wet coughs under his belt, Jason was beginning to think this wasn't such a good idea.

Mostly because of the fact that the Manor was lit up with lights, reporters, and what seemed to be a thousand people, all dressed to the nines. Which in turn meant that Bruce was hosting a gala tonight, because of course he was.

Of course he was.

But there was no going back now, he'd come too far already, and Jason Todd always stuck to the plan.

Also, his vision was starting to go in and out at the edges due to blood loss, so he didn't really think he had any time to try anything else.

But that was besides the point.

Jason zipped up his jacket all the way, hiked around to the back, and crawled through a window with as much dignity as he could muster. He tripped at the tail-end, flipping and flopping down hard onto his back- which hurt like the dickens- but he breathed and he hissed through clenched teeth, swearing up a storm. A storm that was rather quiet and wheezy but still definitely a storm, oh yes, a storm-

….Maybe blood loss was affecting him more than he thought.

He levered himself up into a sitting position, and then got himself standing with liberal use of the wall. Both steps of this process were incredibly painful and absolutely awful to deal with, but he just gritted his teeth and did so anyways.

So now he was upright. Good. Good-

He had to, um, he had to-

Gods, his whole body was killing him. Again.

He had to find Bruce, or something. Probably. His brain felt like it was taking an unplanned vacation.

Uproarious false sounding laughter echoed from down the hall. Jason turned unsteadily, coughed up blood into his hand, frowned at it, and smeared it onto his pant leg. Then he made his slow, stumbling way down towards the direction of the sound.

Because, despite everything, Jason still remembered how Bruce laughed, even this fake crowd pleasing boisterous one, if only because watching the older man silently trying to summon the willpower to draw it up before every gala was amusing as hell.

Jason walked down hallways that were both familiar and unknown all at once, a half haunted ghost from an abandoned almost-childhood that he once had in this building, in these hallways, in the memories that were once painted gold in his mind and were now tainted an angry bleeding red from his scarred and pounding heart.

Jason walked down hallways, lost and almost delirious, coughing blood and feeling lost, leaving trails of crimson in his wake.

He felt sick. He felt tired. He felt pained.

He felt like he couldn't breathe, and he wondered if this was what it was to drown from the inside out.

(He was pretty sure his lungs were filling with blood, and he knew with a cold sort of knowing that his thoughts were closer to the truth than he really wanted them to be.)

And then, suddenly, he was out of the halls and lost among the tides, waves of people battering him around from all sides, and Jason wavered, wavered, stumbling but not falling down.

He blinked. Breathed.

Focus, Todd, focus.

Bleeding lungs and gunshot wounds. Jason's had worst. Jason's fought with worse. He closed his eyes for one second, two, opened them to scan the room.

Before, Bruce's laughter had been so distinct, but now that he was lost among the crowds all the laughter sounded fake and loud and terrible, grating at his ears. He could feel the stares start to latch onto him and his disheveled appearance, the weighted gazes clinging and dragging him down.

He remembered looking at these people and thinking of vultures. He remembered looking at them and thinking of sharks, circling ever closer with sharp smiles that held more teeth than kindness.

He remembered a time when he thought Bruce could keep him safe from all this, when he'd cling close to blue tailcoats and think of blue whales and warmth and comfort and protection and home.

He remembered, and all those thoughts seemed so pointless to him, now, so far away. This was a life that dragged you down and broke you and it did not care who you were and what you did, it did not care , it will not care, and Jason will walk every day of this goddamn life looking over his shoulder and fighting for any minor respite there was to win.

He remembered, but now all he wanted was to do was find Bruce so that he could go home, not to his abandoned manor room but to his crappy hole-in-the-wall apartment, which was cold at night and had a leak in the roof but also had all his books and warm blankets and cheese and pickle sandwiches on good bread.

If he was going to be honest with himself, he was just really ready for this whole thing to be over.

The lights from the chandelier were too bright overhead, and he could feel sweat sticking to his skin along with all the stares. The whispers that swam after him and he waded through the ocean of people were too loud in his head, like crashing tsunamis or boats grating their hulls on sharp rocks.

That, or it was his blood rushing in his ears. He honestly couldn't tell.

And Jason wavered, wavered, stumbled and did not fall.

"Young man, I'm going to ask you to leave the premises. This event is for the … distinguished, only."

He looked up, met gazes with the old man looking down at him with no little amount of distaste in his gaze. The guy's eyes were gray and round, his face plasticy and swallow, his suit fine and well fitted and probably costing a small fortune, mouth set in a disapproving sneer.

And Jason, Jason, his clothes well worn and salvaged from charity bins and thrift shops or otherwise bought with hard-earned money, his face lined with burdens and pains and scars that should have never belonged to someone so young, his fingertips dripping red to white tiled floor from where he had coughed blood into his hands, frowned and looked and stared, and had thought you have known no hardship all your life.

It made him angry all the way into his bones.

And maybe if Jason were young and small he would have faltered, would have shook because his walls were made of sand, not stone and no matter how hard he tried the cruelties of the world pushing in terrified him more than he could ever admit.

Maybe.

But this was Jason grown and broken and brave, Jason who already faced every trial by fire and came out still breathing, Jason who took every abuse the world had thrown at him and stood anyways with ferocity in his eyes and a fight in his heart.

And this Jason? This Jason looked at this pathetic man who would have given in if he was forced to endure even one of these terrible trials, and he laughed.

He laughed, and when he choked on it, blood gurgling in his throat-

He grinned something more teeth than kindness and spat right onto the man's something-thousand dollar suit.

The outcry was immediate and loud, a cacophony of disgust and fear and overall giving off the general air of a school of fish scattering away to avoid a predator in their midsts.

Jason watched and laughed and choked and laughed , thinking who's the shark now, and did not regret.

Jason wavered, wavered, stumbled and-

And fell. Fell.

There was blood in his throat and no breath left to breathe. Sweat was getting into his eyes and the world around him was filled with encroaching blackness, and he stared up at the ceiling with unfocused eyes and resisted the urge to close them, because even now the fight was in his bones and it would not let go.

Somewhere, distantly, over the sound of the whispers, Jason could hear the sudden toll of a fire alarm, and knew it meant he should move, should get to it, should get out of there before the flames reached him and burned him alive again.

But his lungs were full of blood, and his body was proving to be uncooperative, and so as he slowly tried to help himself up from the ground, he imagined what the ceiling would look like engulfed with flames.

It wasn't hard. He's seen it before.

And suddenly everything was blue.

Jason blinked, blinked, thought of the ocean, thought of the sea, of gentle giants-

Bruce knelt before him, face set in a worried frown, hands fluttering all over, and Jason closed his eyes and thought about how none of this was fair.

The gala was in shambles around them, and suddenly he was jarringly reminded that pulling the fire alarm was one of Bruce's favourite diversion tactics.

Stupid, stupid, he felt stupid for forgetting.

He felt tired, so tired, bone deep exhaustion hanging from all his limbs. If he could just rest-

Bruce tapped his cheek, started hauling him up from off the floor, getting him onto his feet. Jason let him, slumped onto his shoulder, gurgled on his own blood.

"Stay awake, chum. I got you, you're going to be okay, just stay awake-"

And Jason, Jason-

Jason clenched his bloodied teeth, breathed shallow breaths of the air he was drowning in, and stepped forwards.

The next few minutes were a blur of sound and light, of hallways and then the Batcave and then the operation table, of Bruce calling for Alfred, of Alfred talking hurriedly on the phone to Leslie, of a thousand moments that spilled from his fingers and left him too far gone.

Jason's eyes rolled to the back of his head, and then there was nothing.

Jason was not awake for the surgery, for the thrumming, desperate panic, for the almost too lates and everything else.

He was not awake for this, for Bruce with his head in his hands, all these almosts piling up in his head weighing him down far more than any wound. For the way his hands shook with blood spilt a lifetime ago, the way that they did not stop their tremors for even a moment.

He was not awake for this.

But there are many things Jason was not awake for, was not there for, things that slipped from his cold fingers when he was far too gone. He did not hear the arguments that shook the old manor to its foundations, did not experience the darkened days that hung in his absence, the days where this tapestry of a family looked at his ripped pieces and asked how do you go on and had no answer.

He was not here for all these shaking moments that were all far too human for a man grown scared of having something to lose, who swore never again and found himself surrounded by loved ones anyways.

Jason was not here. He was not awake. He was not breathing.

He was not awake for this, just this, for Bruce keeping watch by his bedside in the early hours of the morning, the white knuckled grip of this man's hand on the chair, the repeated mantra of almost too late again, almost lost him again, almost, almost, almost-

Bruce sat with him.

The world buzzed around them, medical equipment beeping and computers humming, but he felt shrouded in a bubble of silence. His chest was full of lightning strikes, a sharp crack of panic with every almost his mind came up with. Bruce breathed around it, and sat, and waited.

This boy, his boy, was so much bigger and stronger than he once was. Bruce used to be able to lift him with one hand, and now his kid had grown up taller than him.

His kid had grown up, and he was not there to see it.

His kid had grown up, and he was still so damn young.

Bruce breathed around the lightning strikes. He wondered how the hell they got here, the two of them. So estranged and entwined and lost, tangled in nets and knots, beached and gasping for air.

And Bruce thought, and he thought, and he thought.

This boy , he thought, this boy - this boy with just as much fight in his veins as there is blood, let him fight. Let him bleed. Let him go out into that deep dark night and bring the world crashing down, let him fill his every aching hour with bloodied knuckles and split lips, with bruises that cover him black and blue and a heartbeat that does not beat but pounds.

Do not let him go gentle into that good night, for he is not gentle. His hands are rough calluses and his words are harsh and his eyes are full of embers. He is not gentle, so let him be breathless and full of sharp edges. He is not gentle, so let him go raging and angry and filled with fire and filled wit t.

His grip tightened on the chair, loosened, released. And then carefully he reached out and grabbed Jason's calloused hand.

And he thought, let this boy fight, but also let him heal. Let the bleeding gaping wounds scab and scar and make constellations on his skin. Let those bruises turn from their molten purples to garish yellows and then pale down to nothing at all. Make him more than a heartbeat that pounds, make him a heart that is still here to thrum and shake and feel so much it spills over.

Let this boy fight. Let him rage against every dying light. But also let him laugh, let him cry, let his split lip pull at his mouth and let him smile anyway.

Let him rest, this boy filled with fire, let the sunset fade into the night sky full of stars. Let that be okay.

(Let him waver, let him stumble, but do not let him fall.)

Let him live , Bruce thought, viciously, pleadingly, let Jason Tod - once, twice, a thousand times in a thousand moments. This boy, this man, this child, this person who is so lost in all this darkness and still trying to find his way. This boy who loves his books and his sandwiches. This boy wh s, so fiercely it is a wonder he is even alive.

(And Bruce thought, He's died once for it already.)

This boy who was born into this world angry. This boy who was born into this world fighting. This boy who was born into this world trying to be kind.

Let him find his way, this boy who tries, who fights, who is not gentle but is still soft, who is not yet found but is stil e.

Let him swim up from the murky depths of his existence, break through the surface, and breath fresh air.

Let him live, in the face of all this, let him live .

And he did.

...

To my wonderful favouriters and followers, beingaverageisnormal, mad 4 the doctor, laneyfouts, TopazFireCrystal, Angelic Phantomcrow, CookieMonsterIsAwesome, xXxNightsilverxXx, Bellacatz27, Vaely, Black blood, BookXReader, Wolfcry04, XEROIE, Varcrow, BearUnicorn154, FireDancer109, saraiza, FangirlShipper-45, RedNekark3, Lee538, Strangersfalling, hotaru98, Goupixels, FangirlyDaydreamer, blurredface, Kylifrost14, Glorificate, aaaaaand AwesomeAllison1.

You see that list? That is a long list. That is a beautiful list. Thank you so much guys!

And now to my wonderful reviewers, of whom I love and cherish: Britt30 (YOU DESERVE THAT SHOUT OUT YOU ABSOLUTE ANGEL OF A HUMAN BEING), Fiercest Dreamer, and MuffinHipsta. Thanks for being so awesome you incredible souls!

Hope you enjoy this chapter. Hopefully, I'll see you all again soon.