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Jason Todd doesn’t get lonely.
He’s been alone, sure, but it’s never really mattered; never affected him. He’s not quite like his brothers.
It didn’t matter when that building blew up, with Tim waiting for him at a diner, just down the street. It didn’t matter when he realized it was just a diversion, a controlled chaos built to snatch him when everyone else would be preoccupied. It didn’t matter when he was stuck, caught, trapped in a place he can’t remember with people who hurt him like he’ll never forget.
It didn’t matter that he was alone.
No one else needed to share this with him. He didn’t want anyone to share it with.
Jason Todd died that night. He wishes it could be that simple.
So it didn’t matter when he was saved; they were too late.
Dying doesn’t mean you’re dead.
It’s 2AM and Jason Todd thinks he might be lonely.
He chuckles as he thinks of his family’s common oddities, the way they all grieve at 2AM. Maybe they’re all grieving now, too. The thought doesn’t make him feel any less alone.
Jason stares up at the ceiling and wishes he could see the sky. He knows, logically, there are better options. He could open up the bay window and stare out at the darkness of Gotham at night, and he could see the sky. He knows he will never see it if he keeps staring at the ceiling.
But he does not want to get up and open the window, he doesn’t want to look out to see his city at night. He wants the sky, and he wants it from here, on his bed, while he wallows in his loneliness.
He hates the feeling of the walls around him, how they curl and they cave and they crumble and crack. He knows that all they do is stand, but they’d have to cave and crumble and crack to swallow him whole.
The walls swallow him whole.
It’s 2AM and Jason is lonely for the first time in his life.
He stares at the ceiling, and he paints. (In his mind, of course.)
He cannot pretend to know what the sky looks like from here, so instead he paints Tim.
He looks up at the ceiling and he sees his brother, crawling and clawing and scraping and digging with his bare hands to find Jason; to find any piece of his brother. He wasn’t there to see it, but he’s okay pretending to know what it looked like.
He paints Tim wearing one of Kon’s jackets, Damian on his shoulders so they can be taller than Jason. He sees their twin looks of pride and wonders not for the first time if they might be blood. He knows, for certain, that they are not, but sometimes the thought gets into his head and he can’t get it out.
He sees Damian take over, getting ready to go to the park with Jon. Jason is their chaperone of choice, because Tim and Kon are sick of babysitting and Jon has always had an odd comfort around Jason.
He can’t stand the kid, but he does love to be appreciated.
Jason knows he doesn’t have to be lonely. One text, or a simple knock on the wall, is all it would take to get Dick to come running to his side. It sounds nice, to have someone so caring and attentive at his beck and call, but sometimes his love can be overwhelming.
Loneliness is already far more overwhelming than Jason would like to experience tonight. This morning?
It’s 2AM and Jason doesn’t know who to call.
Roy isn’t an option on a night like this. He has enough responsibilities without Jason piling his shit on top.
Kori is. . . Jason doesn’t want to call her right now. (She’s got it in her head that he owes her an apology. He doesn’t see how getting kidnapped is his fault.)
He can’t think of anyone else that wouldn’t snitch to Dick, let him know his little Jaybird is spiraling.
Even Tim wasn’t an option tonight. He was already grappling with. . . a lot of stuff that Jason wished wasn’t his fault.
So Jason doesn’t call Tim, or Dick, or Roy, or Kori. He doesn’t call anyone.
It’s almost 3AM and Jason can’t stop staring at the ceiling.
He sees overlapping hands; Kori lacing their fingers together for the first time, Roy reaching out and holding one of Jason’s hands between both of his during a scary movie, Lian shoving her tiny fingers into his hand insisting she couldn’t lose him.
“Daddy will be very upset if I lose you!” she had whispered later in the ice cream parlor.
“I would be very upset if you lost me, too,” he whispered back.
She giggled, and it was the happiest Jason has ever felt.
He almost smiles, but Lian’s tiny hands in his suddenly fade, giving way to Tim again.
Tim, crying, his hands and arms bloody and his skin scratched and raw; desperately digging through wreckage for any sign of his brother.
Not again.
Yes. Again.
Jason can’t imagine everything Tim has felt since that night.
Jason Todd died that night.
Then why was he cooking breakfast when his family woke up the next morning?
He can’t imagine everything Tim has felt since that night. The image of Tim digging and digging and peeling and screaming and crying and searching for any sign of a brother who wasn’t even there.
Jason Todd wasn’t there.
A light comes on in the hallway, but Jason can’t move his eyes away from the ceiling long enough to analyze the footsteps.
He sees Lian again, with her pretty hair and her pretty smile and the way she shines like the moon. He sees Roy holding her in between them on the couch, while they watch a movie and Jason watches them, Kori on the floor getting her hair put in a “fancy lady braid” by Lian. He sees his own family, the one he built from scratch.
He sees his family, the one he didn’t let Bruce Wayne dictate; the one he really got to choose.
Bruce never gave Jason many choices in life.
The door slams open.
It’s Dick, because of course it is.
“Hey, baby bird.”
“I thought Damian was your baby bird.” He doesn’t care. He doesn’t.
“I can have multiple baby birds,” Dick scoffs.
“Like father, like son,” Jason mutters.
Dick doesn’t bother responding, mostly because he can’t hear Jason very well.
“Wanna tell me why you’re awake?”
Jason doesn’t know how to tell Dick he’s still awake because he keeps picturing his brother digging through the rubble of an explosion trying to find his brother’s corpse.
So, he doesn’t.
“I keep picturing Tim. Looking for me.” Yes, he does.
Dick sighs, something he does a lot of in conversations with Jason.
“Let’s see if there’s something else we can paint up there.”
“Together?”
“Yeah. Together.”
Jason Todd survived that night.
It’s 3AM and Jason’s not quite so lonely anymore.
“Are you grieving?” he asks.
“I’m not sure,” Dick replies. “I like to think I’d know if I was.”
“You don’t always know.”
Jason thinks of Tim, how he didn’t realize he’d spent so many hours grieving his brother until his grieving was allowed to stop.
Tim still grieves, even now, another 3AM spent missing someone who is only just down the hall.
Tim still grieves.
Dick wraps his arms around Jason, and some of the emptiness inside of him fills back up. He doesn’t return the hold, but he does wiggle in closer to the warmth Dick always seems to radiate.
He feels safe with Dick by his side, with his brother there to protect him from the nightmares he creates in his waking hours.
Jason Todd doesn’t get lonely.
He will pretend tonight is no exception.