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Jason Todd is handling being resurrected from the dead enormously well, if he does say so himself.
He has goals for his future, and solid plans to put those goals in action. He’s physically fit and financially stable. He has a roof over his head, and he never falls asleep hungry. He has allies he can depend on, and backup plans should his own plans fail.
At first glance, Jason Todd is remarkably stable.
[Maybe his goals include killing psychopaths and maiming teenage upstarts. Perhaps his conditioning comes from months in fighting pits and years training with assassins. It could be that the water-stained and molding roof over his head and the food on his table were paid for by a few illicit drug cartels throughout the city of which he is now the kingpin. Possibly, Talia al Ghul is the only person Jason truly trusts in the world, and he’s not even sure he can trust her half the time.
It’s neither here nor there.]
But stability does not equate to happiness. Jason Todd isn’t sure he knows what happiness means anymore. He’s not so sure he ever knew what true happiness felt like to begin with. He thought he knew, once upon a time, when life was a fairy tale, when he was whisked away to a castle in the woods where he was given safety, shelter and something like love. When he flew through the night, wings spread wide, and was naïve enough to think he helped make the world a better place.
Jason thought he was happy, once upon a time.
Then, he died.
***
Jason remembers a story from homily one Sunday, back when he was little and Mom felt good enough, when she’d dress them both in their best clothes and walk down the street to St. Paul’s for mass. In the gospel that day, Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead. After four days in Hell, Jesus called to His beloved friend, and Lazarus walked, still wrapped in burial cloths, from his own tomb.
It was a miracle, the priest explained, the greatest miracle Jesus ever performed, until his own resurrection on Easter. Lazarus had been dead, and because of Jesus he rose again.
“But Jesus wept,” old Father Pat said that day, his voice solemn as the grave. “He wept, because He saw the pain, the grief in the faces of Lazarus’ family and friends. Jesus wept because He was grieving as well, lamenting the suffering of His own beloved friend. And I think, perhaps, Jesus wept, because though He is irrevocably and unquestionably God, in that moment He was also human. And Jesus knew had He arrived sooner, He could have healed Lazarus before he died and spared him the torment of those four days in Hell.
“But,” old Father Pat concluded quietly, “It was not His Father’s will. It was not God’s will. With Lazarus’ resurrection, Jesus cemented the trajectory of His own life and death. And Lazarus lived. He lived on after his first death, a long and important life serving the Lord, spreading the story of Jesus to the world.
“Lazarus lived. But so haunted was he by the terrible things he had seen in death, that Lazarus did not smile again for thirty years.”
***
Jason is fine. He’s not happy, but he is stable, and things are generally going well. His plan is working. His goals are set. The Red Hood is nearly ready to run. The Bats are clueless. Gotham won’t know what hit her.
Everything is fine. It’s just—sometimes Jason has these…moments. Moments beyond the verdant effects of the pit and the trauma and insomnia and general panic. Moments, flashes really, when the world turns cold and his stomach flips, his eyes burn for no reason and all thoughts in his head just float away. Moments of a deep and unrelenting sense of unbelonging, when his own presence, his whole existence feels like a liminal space.
Moments when Jason Todd knows he is not dead—not anymore. But he doesn’t feel alive, either. He’s stuck, in the space between spaces, the moment between moments, when he wants desperately to wake up, or to stop feeling anything at all.
It is possible, Jason concedes, that he needs quite a lot of therapy.
In the absence of trustworthy professionals, Jason picks himself up off the bottom of the bathtub where he’s been curled up in a ball for the last five minutes, or maybe hours he’s not entirely sure, drinks a glass of water, and leaves his apartment for a walk.
His current safehouse is in Crime Alley, only three blocks from the building where he grew up.
[Five blocks from where he first met the Batman, but again, it’s neither here nor there.]
Jason wanders aimlessly, taking in the familiar neighborhood in the light of day. Not much has changed since his childhood, but some things have. A few buildings knocked down, a new grocery store and urgent care center built beside the park. The diner that used to leave Styrofoam boxes of leftovers on their back step each night is now a bar. Jason frowns when he notices.
Consciously or not, Jason’s feet carry him down a familiar path, to a building that has stood the test of time in the harshest of habitats: the Park Row branch of the Gotham Public Library. It’s a gorgeous old building, one of the original Carnegies, yellow brick with big windows, shiny copper shingles across the roof and a huge staircase leading to the double-door entrance.
For a very long time, it was Jason’s favorite place in the world.
Jason ascends the stairs in a daze, pulls open the wide double doors and enters the familiar, high-ceilinged foyer. The smells of paper and wood stain and old dust hit him like a punch to the gut, and Jason isn’t sure if it makes him want to laugh or cry, so he doesn’t do either.
“Can I help you, young man?” the librarian asks from her desk, and Jason realizes he’s been standing still, staring for far too long. He recognizes the woman vaguely, as if from a dream. She’s gotten much older, her skin turned to crepe paper, wrinkled and thin. The eyeglass chain around her neck is blue, now; Jason remembers it being vivid red.
“No, ma’am,” Jason finally says hoarsely. “I’m just looking.”
It’s the first words he’s said to anyone in three days.
He walks away before she has time to respond. Miss Linda, Jason suddenly remembers. Mom used to take him to story time with her in the library basement when he was very small. Jason turns into the atrium to the left and traverses the tall stacks of fiction, covers faded and titles worn, but stories just as comforting as ever. He pulls a few from the stack from memory: Austen, Dickens, Bronte. His favorite copy of Emma, a green hardcover with pink-pinstripes, is missing. He frowns.
Once his arms are full, Jason finds the nearest staircase and walks up and up again to the little-used third floor of the library and hopes his spot is free. He’d found the little corner when he was eight, hidden behind the shelves in the historical nonfiction section. There’s a window seat with squashy green cushions. As a kid, Jason could pull his knees to his chest and be completely hidden from view. It’s most soothing on rainy days, but the window has a beautiful view of the river when the sky is clear.
Today, it seems, is not Jason’s day.
There’s a man, a rather large man, squished into Jason favorite seat. He can just see the back of a black coat and an even darker head of hair through the historical nonfiction stacks. Jason sighs, then decides to press forward and try his luck; maybe the man will leave soon.
Jason turns the corner, and there is the man who has stolen his favorite spot; with a flare of irritation, Jason realizes the man is reading his favorite copy of Emma as well. It’s lying open and forgotten along the man’s leg as he looks out the window to the cloudy September day. The man is wearing a dark suit, with a black overcoat on top. His shoes are obviously expensive, his cuffs impeccably pressed, and Jason takes two seconds to wonder what on earth a man like this is doing in the Crime Alley library when the man looks up and meets Jason’s eyes.
Jason drops his stack of books with a loud thud and bolts.
He’s halfway down the staircase, jumping the railings and shoving doors open before he even has time to think, sprinting as though his life depends on it.
“Young man, what on earth--,” Miss Linda gasps, but Jason is already gone, out the doors, pushing people out of his way. He forgoes the front steps this time and jumps the zig-zagging ramp to the left instead. He nearly rolls his ankle once he reaches the street level. Behind him, the library doors blast open, and a desperate voice shouts his name.
He can’t be here. He can’t be here, Jason thinks, Jason tells himself, repeats and repeats as he turns around the block. He can’t, he’s not it’s not there’s no way—
There’s a car across the street.
A silver Porsche, gleaming with the recent rainfall, now propped up on cinderblocks. Some idiot was dumb enough to park his Porsche in Crime Alley and now his tires are gone.
Jason stops in his tracks. He stares at the car, the uneven cinderblocks, the tire iron abandoned carelessly by the curb. Out of the corner of his eye, Jason sees the dark man turn the corner at a sprint that turns abruptly to a funeral march as he closes in, his shaking hand outstretched.
As though afraid of spooking off an animal, the man pauses his fingertips inches away from touching Jason’s arm before he makes the final reach and squeezes. The man’s fingers clench in the folds of Jason’s faded red hoodie, and he emits a breathless sob. His fingers move up to Jason’s shoulder and clutch it in an iron grip.
“Jason,” he whispers, “Jason.”
Jason can’t bring himself to look away from the car.
“Someone stole your tires,” Jason says tonelessly. He can feel the corners of his mouth rising. His whole face feels stiff. The man at his side moans wretchedly, and Jason finds himself enveloped in his arms. There’s a large hand at the back of his head, a strong arm around his waist, and tears falling, mixing with the rain and sweat at the corner of his neck.
“You’re so big,” Bruce whispers into his hair. “Jason, you’re so big. Is this real, are you real? How—oh, God, oh my God--,”
Nearly against his will, Jason finds his own arms reaching up. Hugging Bruce back.
“Jason, Jason, Jason,” Bruce makes his name a litany, rasps it for seconds, minutes, hours like a final prayer as he holds Jason close. “We have to—I’ll call Alfred, he’ll come pick us--,”
“No,” Jason says quickly, stepping away from the embrace. “No, I can’t. I have to go.” He’s shaking his head, stepping back slowly. Bruce matches him pace for pace. There are wrinkles around Bruce’s mouth he doesn’t remember, bags under his eyes and gray streaks in his hair. His blue eyes are wide with terror, and a desperate hope that makes Jason want to weep.
“I’ll go with you,” Bruce replies immediately. “I’ll go with you, Jason.”
“No, you can’t, you don’t understand--,”
“Please, Jason.” Bruce begs. His hands are on Jason’s shoulders again. “Please, please, let me come with you, let me help you, please. Please Jason. I’ll do anything, anything at all, whatever you need, just let me come with you, please. Please.”
Jason looks up into Bruce’s eyes, takes a deep breath and remembers. This man left his murderer alive. He replaced him nearly immediately, gave Robin away to a newer and better model.
This man took Robin away from Jason to begin with.
“You would help me kill the Joker?”
He sees the moment of hesitation, the shock and horror flitting across Bruce’s handsome face. The fear and the agony written in his eyes. Jason knows with soul-wrenching clarity that he has won. He closes his eyes and waits for the uproar.
Gentle, calloused hands hold Jason’s cheeks. Thumbs brush the errant tears away.
“Whatever you need,” Bruce answers hoarsely. Jason opens his eyes.
“Bruce…”
“I’m not losing you. Not again.” Jason looks up. The sky is cloudy. A raindrop falls down the side of his nose. Bruce’s brushes it away like it’s just another tear.
“Why are you here, Bruce?”
Bruce’s Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. He smiles thinly. “I missed you.”
It’s not Jason’s birthday. It’s not his death day, his adoption day, a holiday or anything in between. It’s a Wednesday in September, and Bruce Wayne left work early, drove his Porsche into Crime Alley and read Jason’s favorite book in Jason’s favorite dusty, dilapidated nook of his childhood library.
“You shouldn’t,” Jason informs him. Bruce pulls him into another crushing hug.
“I love you,” Bruce whispers into his hair. “I love you, Jason. Don’t leave me again. Please. Please, don’t.”
“I came back wrong,” Jason admits, voice muffled by Bruce’s chest. “I’m not right, I shouldn’t be here, I don’t fit--,”
“You fit right here.” Bruce hugs him closer still. “We’ll figure out the rest together. Just stay. Please stay.”
“You don’t even know it’s really me, you don’t know I’m even telling the truth, you’re such a fucking idiot, Bruce, taking Porsches to Crime Alley and--,”
“I don’t give a damn. I know my son. I know you, Jason. I know you. Come home. Please come home with me. Stay.”
“Okay.” Jason breathes. “Okay.”
***
“Lazarus did not smile for thirty years,” old Father Pat had told them that sunny Sunday morning, “So tormented was he by the visions he’d seen in Hell. But after thirty years, as the story goes, Lazarus saw a man stealing a clay pot, and Lazarus finally smiled and whispered to himself ‘the clay stealing the clay.’
“Perhaps Lazarus was referring to the fact that we are all each of us but dust, and to dust we shall someday return. Maybe it was his own cynical commentary on the futility and inevitability of life, the downfalls and wickedness of mankind. Or, it could have been Lazarus recognizing that, like the clay pot once formed in a potter’s careful hands, so too were each of us created and formed by God and remembering that gave Lazarus great joy.
“I like to think it’s the third. And I like to think that, like the clay pot, each of us has a purpose. A form and function, a reason to exist. A reason to be here and live, even if perhaps we can’t always see it. We were all carefully created and made, breathed life from God’s lungs and pushed into the world by His careful hand. We are His clay, and He gave each of us a purpose, a special place in time. Even Lazarus. Especially Lazarus. Why wouldn’t that make Lazarus smile?”