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Jason didn’t think of himself as sick.
He thought of himself as failing.
There was a difference — at least in his head. Sick meant something had gone wrong to you. Failing meant something had gone wrong in you. Character flaw. Moral defect. Lack of discipline. Weakness.
Jason Todd specialised in surviving things. Dying, apparently. Crawling out of pits. Crawling out of graves. Crawling out of the worst people in the world’s hands.
So if he couldn’t control something as basic as his own body, that wasn’t illness.
That was proof.
The Bats called him at 01:46.
“Red Hood,” Bruce said, voice crisp, neutral. “We’ve got movement on the west side. Need backup.”
Need.
Jason was already pulling on his jacket.
“On my way.”
He didn’t check the time. Didn’t check the weather. Didn’t check his body.
He never did.
He ran on adrenaline and stubbornness and the quiet belief that if he stopped moving, everything inside him would catch up.
Patrol felt wrong.
Not catastrophically — no missed shots, no blown covers — but his timing was off. Half-seconds late where he was usually early. His grip slipped on a ledge he’d climbed a thousand times. His lungs burned faster than they should’ve.
You’re rusty.
No, you’re sloppy.
No — you’re lazy.
The voice was efficient. Precise. It didn’t scream. It didn’t dramatise. It didn’t say cruel things in ways that sounded cruel.
It said them like facts.
He landed behind a gunman and disarmed him cleanly anyway, because Jason Todd didn’t get to be sloppy. Didn’t get to be tired. Didn’t get to be human.
He finished the patrol with bruises blooming under his ribs and a headache sitting sharp behind his eyes.
Bruce nodded at him afterward. “Good work.”
That was it.
No “you okay.”
No “you’re moving slow.”
No “when’s the last time you slept.”
Jason nodded back.
Left.
Loneliness, for Jason, wasn’t dramatic.
It wasn’t sobbing into pillows or staring out windows in the rain.
It was quieter.
It was the way his comm only lit up when someone needed muscle. The way no one texted him memes unless he sent one first. The way he could go days without anyone asking what he’d eaten, how he’d slept, whether he was okay — and realise that no one had noticed the absence because they weren’t used to his presence.
He didn’t resent them.
That was the worst part.
Resentment implied expectation.
Jason didn’t expect anything.
He just… kept showing up.
Like a fucking dog, his brain said, without even venom. Just observation.
You come when they call. You leave when they’re done. You don’t get invited inside. You don’t get checked on. You don’t get comfort.
You get usefulness.
Which, to be fair, was more than he deserved.
The scale wasn’t the problem.
The problem was what it said about him.
It sat in the bathroom, tucked beside the sink, quiet and unassuming. White plastic. Cheap. Easy to ignore.
Jason didn’t ignore it.
He stepped on it every morning.
Sometimes again at night.
Sometimes again if he ate something he didn’t plan.
Sometimes again if he felt bloated, heavy, slow, wrong.
The number wasn’t neutral.
The number was judgment.
Too high meant: You’re disgusting. You’re letting yourself go. You’re proving everyone right about you.
Too low meant: You’re cheating. You’re manipulating. You’re not actually disciplined — you’re just broken.
There was no good outcome.
Just different flavours of bad.
He didn’t talk about it because he didn’t have language for it that didn’t sound stupid.
“I’m scared of a number” wasn’t exactly something he could picture himself saying out loud.
So he didn’t.
He just kept stepping on the scale like it was a necessary evil, like it was data, like it was accountability — like it wasn’t slowly becoming the axis his entire sense of worth rotated around.
Jason liked patrol because it hurt in ways he understood.
Bruises. Cuts. Exhaustion. Adrenaline.
Those were simple equations: pain meant effort, effort meant value.
Internal pain was messier. Harder to justify. Easier to dismiss.
So when his chest felt heavy for no identifiable reason, when his head felt loud, when his body felt wrong in ways he couldn’t articulate, he just put on his helmet and went looking for something external to fight.
And Gotham always obliged.
He didn’t notice — or didn’t let himself notice — that he was moving differently.
That he was slower to recover between fights. That his hands shook sometimes when he stood still too long. That he felt dizzy more often than not when he got up too fast.
He attributed it to sleep deprivation.
Or stress.
Or age.
Which was ridiculous — he was twenty-something — but it felt better than admitting something was wrong.
Wrong meant vulnerable.
Vulnerable meant weak.
Weak meant disposable.
Jason didn’t survive the Pit just to be disposable again.
It was Tim who noticed first.
Not dramatically. Not with confrontation.
Just — patterns.
Jason skipping post-patrol debriefs. Leaving faster than usual. Avoiding the kitchen at the Cave. Deflecting food offers with jokes that landed just slightly off.
“Not hungry,” Jason said once.
Tim nodded. Didn’t push.
Jason said it again the next time.
And the next.
And the next.
Not hungry. Not now. Later. Already ate. I’m good.
Each one plausible in isolation.
Together, less so.
But Tim didn’t say anything yet.
Because Tim knew Jason.
And Jason didn’t respond well to concern that felt like accusation.
The voice in Jason’s head wasn’t dramatic.
It didn’t call him names like in movies. Didn’t scream insults or hurl abuse in all caps.
It was quieter.
Sharper.
It spoke in statements.
You’re heavier than you used to be.
You’re slower.
You’re not as disciplined as you think.
No one wants a version of you that takes up more space.
You’re already tolerated — don’t push it.
It framed cruelty as realism.
As logic.
As concern.
As if it were trying to help.
And Jason, who’d spent most of his life listening to people who said cruel things like they were doing him a favour, didn’t immediately recognise it as abuse.
He recognised it as truth.
He didn’t plan to spiral.
No one ever does.
He just… started shrinking his world.
Meals got smaller. Later. Easier to skip.
Patrols got longer.
Sleep got worse.
The scale became louder.
The voice became meaner.
And loneliness — the quiet, ambient kind — became heavier.
Because hunger does strange things to your brain.
It makes everything sharper and duller at the same time. Makes emotions louder and motivation thinner. Makes small failures feel catastrophic and small successes feel unearned.
Jason started thinking in absolutes.
If he wasn’t useful, he was worthless.
If he wasn’t disciplined, he was weak.
If he wasn’t needed, he was nothing.
That kind of thinking doesn’t arrive all at once.
It seeps.
Bruce noticed later.
Not because he wasn’t observant — because Jason was very good at hiding.
But even Jason couldn’t hide physics forever.
His endurance dropped. His reaction time lagged. His movements lost their usual brutal economy and gained an edge of strain.
“You’re off,” Bruce said after a patrol where Jason took a hit he shouldn’t have.
Jason shrugged. “You say that every time I don’t move like a machine.”
Bruce frowned. “I don’t.”
“You’re thinking it,” Jason shot back.
Bruce studied him for a long moment.
“You’re thinner,” he said instead.
Jason’s spine went rigid.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re also slower.”
Jason bristled immediately. “Then don’t call me.”
Silence.
Bruce’s expression shifted — not anger, not frustration — something closer to recalibration.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?” Jason demanded.
Bruce opened his mouth.
Closed it.
“I meant,” he said carefully, “that something’s wrong.”
Jason laughed — sharp, humourless. “Yeah. Gotham. Crime. Trauma. Pick one.”
“I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
They stared at each other.
Jason broke eye contact first.
“Drop it,” he said. “I’m good.”
Bruce didn’t look convinced.
But he didn’t push.
Which, weirdly, hurt more.
Jason hated himself most in the quiet moments.
Not during fights. Not during missions. Not during adrenaline spikes or explosions or gunfire.
After.
In his apartment.
In his bathroom.
In front of the scale.
In the mirror.
That’s where the voice got loudest.
You’re disgusting.
You’re weak.
You’re wasting space.
You’re failing at the one thing you should be good at — control.
Look at you.
Look at your stomach.
Look at your face.
Look at how tired you look.
No one wants this.
No one needs this.
No one would notice if you disappeared — except when they needed something.
Which was the worst part.
Because he believed that one.
The night everything cracked wasn’t dramatic.
No collapse. No hospitalisation. No cinematic breaking point.
Just… accumulation.
It was a warehouse fight that went wrong in small ways. Jason misjudged a jump and slammed hard into concrete. Lost his breath long enough for someone to get a hit in. Had to be pulled out by Nightwing instead of handling it himself.
Humiliating.
Embarrassing.
Inexcusable.
“You okay?” Dick asked, crouching beside him.
Jason waved him off. “Yeah. Just winded.”
“You’ve been off all night.”
“Drop it.”
Dick frowned. “Jay—”
“I said drop it.”
Dick hesitated. Then backed off.
Which Jason immediately regretted.
Not because he wanted the concern — but because something inside him twisted painfully at how easy it was to be left alone.
Back in his apartment, Jason paced.
Couldn’t sit. Couldn’t lie down. Couldn’t relax.
His body felt wrong — too heavy, too light, too much, not enough.
His head was loud.
His stomach hurt.
The scale sat in the bathroom.
Waiting.
He stepped on it.
The number flashed.
Higher than yesterday.
His vision tunneled.
There it is, the voice said calmly. Proof.
You’re slipping.
You’re weak.
You’re failing.
You’re getting worse.
You’re disgusting.
Jason stumbled back like he’d been hit.
“No,” he muttered. “No, that’s not—”
You’re lying to yourself.
You’re out of control.
You don’t deserve to eat.
You don’t deserve comfort.
You don’t deserve space.
You deserve discipline.
He leaned over the sink, breathing hard, hands shaking.
This wasn’t about food.
It was about worth.
And right now, the scale said he had none.
The next few weeks blurred.
Not in a cinematic way — in a quiet, grinding way.
Jason withdrew more.
Skipped more meals.
Pushed himself harder on patrol.
Got more reckless.
Not suicidally — just… carelessly.
Like he didn’t particularly care what happened to him as long as he was useful first.
He got sharper with everyone.
Shorter fuse. Less patience. More sarcasm, less warmth.
Dick noticed.
Tim noticed.
Alfred definitely noticed.
But Jason deflected every attempt at conversation with practiced ease.
“I’m fine.”
“Drop it.”
“Don’t psychoanalyse me.”
“Not your problem.”
And the worst part was — they let him.
Not because they didn’t care.
Because they knew pushing too hard made him bolt.
So they hovered instead.
Watched.
Waited.
Which Jason interpreted, incorrectly but sincerely, as indifference.
Alfred was the one who finally broke through.
Not with confrontation.
With tea.
Jason came into the Cave after a rough patrol, ribs bruised, head aching, patience nonexistent, and found Alfred in the kitchen.
There was food on the counter.
Actual food.
Warm.
Smelled good.
Jason’s stomach twisted painfully — hunger, yes, but also something sharper. Panic. Shame. Irritation.
“Not hungry,” he said immediately, without being asked.
Alfred looked at him calmly. “I didn’t say you were.”
Jason scowled. “Then what’s that?”
“Dinner.”
“For who?”
“For anyone who wants it.”
Jason crossed his arms. “I’m good.”
Alfred studied him for a moment.
Then said, gently, “Master Jason, when was the last time you ate?”
Jason’s jaw tightened. “I said I’m good.”
“I didn’t ask if you were good.”
Jason opened his mouth.
Closed it.
“Not your business,” he muttered.
Alfred nodded. “Perhaps not.”
Jason turned to leave.
“However,” Alfred continued, “it becomes my business when someone I care about is visibly unwell and insisting otherwise.”
Jason froze.
“I’m not unwell.”
“You are thinner.”
“So?”
“You are slower.”
“Wow, thanks.”
“You are exhausted.”
“I fight crime.”
“And,” Alfred said softly, “you are hurting.”
Jason laughed, sharp and humourless. “You psychic now?”
“No,” Alfred replied. “I am observant.”
Silence.
Jason shifted uncomfortably.
“I’m fine,” he said again, weaker this time.
Alfred didn’t argue.
He just said, “You don’t have to earn food, Master Jason.”
The words landed like a punch.
Jason stared at him.
“I didn’t say I did.”
“You didn’t have to.”
Something in Jason’s chest cracked open — not cleanly, not dramatically — just enough to hurt.
“Drop it,” he said, quieter now.
“No,” Alfred said gently. “I don’t think I will.”
Jason’s hands clenched into fists.
“I said I’m fine.”
“I know you believe that.”
Jason flinched.
That was worse than being told he was wrong.
He didn’t eat the food.
Not that night.
He left the Cave and went home and paced and stared at the fridge and drank water and told himself he was fine.
He wasn’t.
But he didn’t know how to not be.
The intervention — if you could call it that — wasn’t a group confrontation.
It was slow.
Messy.
Frustrating.
It was Tim leaving protein bars in Jason’s jacket pockets without comment.
Dick texting, “You eat today?” with no judgment, just concern.
Alfred quietly cooking Jason’s favourite meals and pretending it was coincidence.
Bruce watching him more closely on patrol and pulling him out when he pushed too hard.
None of them naming the problem.
Because Jason hadn’t named it.
And because naming it felt like admitting weakness.
Which felt like failure.
Which felt like death.
The breaking point didn’t come from the scale.
It came from a fight.
A bad one.
Jason pushed himself too far on patrol — ignored dizziness, ignored shaking hands, ignored the way his vision blurred at the edges — and ended up pinned under a beam he should’ve dodged.
It wasn’t catastrophic.
But it was bad.
Bruce had to pull him out.
Not Nightwing.
Not Robin.
Batman.
Which was… humiliating.
“You hesitated,” Bruce said afterward.
Jason snapped, “I did not.”
“You did.”
“So what?”
“So you could’ve been killed.”
Jason laughed bitterly. “Join the club.”
Bruce’s eyes sharpened. “This isn’t a joke.”
“Neither is your overreaction.”
“Jason,” Bruce said, low and controlled, “something is wrong with you.”
Jason exploded.
“Oh my god, will you stop?”
“No.”
“I said I’m fine.”
“You’re not.”
“You don’t get to decide that!”
“I get to notice when my son is hurting.”
The word hit him like a brick.
Son.
Jason’s breath stuttered.
“You don’t get to use that when it’s convenient,” he snapped.
Bruce flinched — actually flinched — like Jason had slapped him.
Jason felt a flash of guilt.
Then crushed it.
“You only call me when you need muscle,” he continued, voice shaking with anger he didn’t entirely understand. “You don’t check in. You don’t ask how I am. You don’t notice me until I screw up. And now suddenly you care?”
“That’s not fair.”
“No,” Jason shot back. “It’s accurate.”
Silence.
Bruce looked… tired.
Not angry.
Not defensive.
Just tired.
“I should’ve noticed sooner,” he said quietly.
Jason scoffed. “Yeah. You should have.”
“And I’m sorry.”
Jason froze.
Bruce didn’t apologise often.
Especially not without qualification.
“I’m not asking you to trust me immediately,” Bruce continued. “But I am asking you to stop pretending nothing’s wrong.”
Jason swallowed hard.
“I’m fine.”
“No,” Bruce said gently. “You’re not.”
Jason’s hands trembled.
He shoved them into his pockets.
“Drop it.”
Bruce shook his head. “Not this time.”
Jason didn’t suddenly confess.
He didn’t say the words eating disorder.
He didn’t talk about the scale.
He didn’t talk about the voice.
He didn’t talk about shame.
He said, instead, “I don’t feel right in my body.”
Which felt like failure already.
Bruce nodded. “Okay.”
“I don’t feel… in control.”
“Okay.”
“I feel like I’m messing everything up.”
Bruce softened. “You’re not.”
Jason laughed hollowly. “You literally just said I was.”
“I said you hesitated. Not that you’re failing.”
“Same thing.”
“No,” Bruce said. “It isn’t.”
Jason looked away.
“You don’t get it.”
“Then help me.”
Jason shook his head. “I don’t know how.”
Bruce considered him for a long moment.
Then said, “Start with staying.”
Jason blinked. “What?”
“Tonight,” Bruce said. “Don’t leave. Stay at the Cave.”
Jason hesitated.
The instinct to bolt was immediate.
But something in Bruce’s tone — not commanding, not pleading — just… steady — made him pause.
“Why?” Jason asked.
“Because you’re not okay,” Bruce said simply. “And I don’t want you alone.”
Jason stared at the floor.
“…Fine.”
Recovery didn’t start with therapy.
It didn’t start with doctors.
It didn’t start with revelations.
It started with Bruce making Jason eat something small at the Cave and Jason wanting to crawl out of his own skin afterward.
Not because the food was bad.
Because the voice was loud.
You didn’t earn that.
You’re disgusting.
You’re weak.
You’re out of control.
Look at you.
Look at how easy it was.
Jason sat rigid at the kitchen table, jaw clenched, hands shaking slightly, trying not to panic while Alfred pretended not to notice.
“Good choice,” Alfred said mildly, as if Jason hadn’t just forced himself through something that felt impossible.
Jason muttered, “Don’t.”
Alfred nodded. “Very well.”
But later, quietly, he said, “I’m glad you ate.”
Jason hated that it made his throat tight.
The scale didn’t disappear immediately.
Bruce suggested removing it.
Jason refused.
“I need it.”
“Why?”
“So I don’t get out of control.”
“You already feel out of control,” Bruce said. “How is this helping?”
Jason didn’t answer.
Because he didn’t have one.
But the thought of not weighing himself felt like stepping into traffic blindfolded.
So they compromised.
Jason kept it.
But he agreed — grudgingly — to not step on it at the Cave.
Which meant he still weighed himself at home.
Sometimes obsessively.
Sometimes with shaking hands.
Sometimes with tears he pretended were from exhaustion.
Recovery didn’t stop the voice.
It made the voice angrier.
Because recovery felt like disobedience.
Jason still patrolled.
Still fought.
Still bled.
Still answered the comm every time it buzzed.
But now, people noticed when he pushed too far.
Bruce pulled him out of fights earlier.
Dick started sticking closer to him on patrol.
Tim watched his vitals more carefully than strictly necessary.
Jason hated it.
Not because it felt controlling — but because it felt like care.
And care felt dangerous.
Because care could be withdrawn.
Usefulness, at least, was predictable.
He relapsed.
Not once.
Not twice.
Many times.
Some weeks he ate regularly and thought, Maybe I’m fine now.
Then one bad patrol, one bad number on the scale, one bad comment from the voice, and he’d spiral again.
Restriction crept back in quietly.
Skipping meals.
Delaying.
Justifying.
“I’ll eat later.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I ate earlier.”
Lies that felt like protection.
And every time someone noticed, shame crushed him.
Because now he wasn’t just failing himself.
He was disappointing his family other people.
Which felt worse.
Dick was the first one to call it what it was.
Not gently.
Not cruelly.
Just honestly.
“You’re sick,” Dick said one night, sitting on the Cave steps beside him after Jason nearly passed out on patrol.
Jason scoffed. “No, I’m not.”
“You are.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You’re not sleeping, you’re barely eating, you’re pushing yourself until you get hurt, and you hate yourself constantly,” Dick said flatly. “That’s not ‘fine.’ That’s sick.”
Jason stared at the floor.
“I’m not,” he muttered. “I’m just… bad at managing stuff.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No,” Dick said. “You’re not failing at being normal. You’re dealing with something that messes with your brain.”
Jason swallowed. “Don’t psychoanalyse me.”
“I’m not,” Dick said. “I’m describing what I see.”
Jason snapped, “Then stop looking.”
Dick didn’t move.
“Jason,” he said softly, “I’m not going anywhere.”
Jason laughed bitterly. “Everyone says that.”
“I mean it.”
“You always do.”
Dick didn’t argue.
He just stayed.
Which was worse than being lectured.
Jason hated therapy.
Hated the words.
Hated the questions.
Hated how calm the therapist was.
Hated how none of it felt urgent enough.
Hated how much it hurt to talk about things that didn’t have physical shapes.
Hated how stupid it felt to admit that food scared him.
Hated how ridiculous it sounded to say he felt controlled by a scale.
Hated how real it felt when he did.
“I don’t want to be like this,” he said once, staring at the floor. “I just… am.”
The therapist nodded. “That makes sense.”
Jason frowned. “No, it doesn’t.”
“Yes,” she said gently. “It does.”
And that was somehow infuriating.
Because if it made sense, that meant it wasn’t just weakness.
Which meant it wasn’t something he could brute-force his way out of.
Which meant he wasn’t in control.
And Jason hated that.
The voice didn’t disappear.
It adapted.
When he ate, it called him weak.
When he didn’t, it called him disciplined.
When he gained, it called him disgusting.
When he lost, it called him fraudulent.
There was no winning.
Recovery wasn’t silencing the voice.
It was learning not to obey it.
Which was… harder.
Bruce struggled the most with not trying to fix it.
With not turning it into a problem with a solution.
He tried schedules.
Meal plans.
Monitoring.
Structure.
Jason bristled immediately.
“I’m not a project,” he snapped.
Bruce flinched. “I know.”
“Then stop treating me like one.”
“I’m trying to keep you alive.”
“I’m not dying.”
“You almost collapsed on patrol.”
“That’s not dying.”
“It’s close enough.”
Jason stormed out that night.
Didn’t answer his comm for twelve hours.
Didn’t show up to patrol.
Didn’t respond to texts.
Which terrified everyone.
And which Jason only realised afterward, when Dick showed up at his apartment with dark circles under his eyes and said, “Don’t do that again.”
Jason snapped, “I didn’t ask you to worry.”
“No,” Dick said. “But you did it anyway.”
Jason had no response to that.
Loneliness didn’t go away during recovery.
It got louder.
Because now Jason couldn’t numb it with hunger the way he used to.
He felt everything more.
The quiet.
The empty apartment.
The silence between calls.
The way no one texted him unless he texted first.
The way being included felt tentative.
Like he was on probation.
Which, in some ways, he was.
Not officially.
But emotionally.
Trust took time.
And Jason had broken a lot of it — not through malice, but through withdrawal.
The scale was the last thing to go.
Not because it mattered most.
But because it felt like control.
Jason stepped on it daily for months into recovery.
Sometimes multiple times.
Sometimes obsessively.
Sometimes with shaking hands.
Sometimes knowing exactly how much it was hurting him and doing it anyway.
The voice fed off it.
See? You’re worse.
See? You’re failing.
See? You’re weak.
See? You’re disgusting.
Jason hated the scale.
And also hated the idea of not having it.
Because without it, he didn’t know how to measure himself.
And Jason had spent his entire life measuring his worth in numbers.
Kills.
Wins.
Success rates.
Survival.
So a number on a scale felt… familiar.
Predictable.
Objective.
Even when it was destroying him.
The night he finally broke the scale wasn’t planned.
It wasn’t symbolic.
It wasn’t triumphant.
He’d just had a bad day.
Bad therapy session.
Bad patrol.
Bad mood.
Bad everything.
He stepped on it.
The number was higher.
His vision tunneled.
You’re disgusting.
You’re weak.
You’re losing control.
You’re failing.
You don’t deserve to eat.
You don’t deserve—
Jason slammed his fist into the bathroom wall.
Then again.
Then again.
His knuckles split.
Blood streaked the tile.
He was breathing hard, shaking, half-feral with rage he didn’t know where to put.
He looked at the scale.
And something inside him snapped — not cleanly, not neatly — just violently enough to act.
He kicked it.
Hard.
It shattered against the wall.
Plastic cracked.
Internal parts spilled.
The display flickered and died.
Jason stared at it, chest heaving.
Then slid down the wall and sat on the floor.
Not relieved.
Not proud.
Just… empty.
And terrified.
Because now he didn’t know how to measure himself.
Recovery got harder after that.
Not easier.
Because now he couldn’t check.
And without checking, his brain spiraled.
What if I’m gaining?
What if I’m out of control?
What if I’m disgusting and don’t know it?
What if everyone can tell?
What if they’re just too polite to say anything?
He avoided mirrors.
Avoided tight clothes.
Avoided situations where he’d have to sit and feel his body exist.
Avoided food again, sometimes.
Which led to setbacks.
Which led to guilt.
Which led to more self-hatred.
Which led to more restriction.
Which led to more exhaustion.
Which led to more concern from the Bats.
Which led to more shame.
Which led to more secrecy.
Recovery wasn’t a straight line.
It was a spiral staircase.
Sometimes he was moving up.
Sometimes he was moving sideways.
Sometimes he was sliding down.
But technically — painfully — he was still moving.
The loneliness shifted.
Not disappeared.
Shifted.
He still wasn’t included the way he wanted to be.
Still wasn’t texted casually the way he texted others.
Still wasn’t invited to things unless he inserted himself.
Still wasn’t someone people instinctively checked on — not the way they checked on Tim, or Damian, or Dick.
But now, when he withdrew, someone noticed.
When he skipped patrols, someone asked why.
When he stopped answering texts, someone showed up.
When he didn’t eat, someone quietly sat beside him and did.
It wasn’t perfect.
It wasn’t consistent.
It wasn’t always graceful.
But it was something.
And Jason wasn’t used to something.
The voice stayed.
Months in.
A year in.
Still there.
Still cruel.
Still sharp.
Still convincing.
But Jason got better at recognising it as a voice — not truth.
Not always.
Not consistently.
But sometimes.
And sometimes was enough to eat anyway.
Sometimes was enough to rest.
Sometimes was enough to stay.
Sometimes was enough to text first.
Sometimes was enough to say, “I’m not okay,” instead of pretending.
Sometimes was enough to not answer the comm immediately.
Sometimes was enough to choose himself.
Which felt radical.
And wrong.
And selfish.
And terrifying.
And necessary.
The hardest part wasn’t eating.
The hardest part was believing he deserved to.
Not because he’d helped.
Not because he’d been useful.
Not because he’d fought.
Not because he’d survived.
But because he existed.
And Jason Todd didn’t believe in unconditional worth.
He believed in earned worth.
And recovery demanded he dismantle that belief.
Slowly.
Painfully.
Reluctantly.
Over years.
One night, months later, he sat on the Cave steps with Dick, legs stretched out, helmet beside him.
“You doing okay?” Dick asked.
Jason shrugged. “Depends.”
“On?”
“On the day.”
Dick nodded. “Fair.”
Silence.
Jason said quietly, “I still hate my body.”
Dick didn’t flinch. “Yeah.”
“And I still think I’m disgusting sometimes.”
“Yeah.”
“And I still want to disappear a lot.”
Dick glanced at him. “Yeah.”
Jason frowned. “You’re not gonna argue?”
“No,” Dick said. “Because that’s not how this works.”
Jason exhaled. “Great.”
“But,” Dick added, “you’re still here.”
Jason looked away. “Barely.”
“Still counts.”
Jason didn’t respond.
But he didn’t argue either.
Recovery didn’t turn Jason into someone soft.
Didn’t make him gentle.
Didn’t make him healed.
Didn’t make him peaceful.
It made him… alive.
Messily.
Imperfectly.
Reluctantly.
Still angry.
Still lonely.
Still self-loathing.
Still hurting.
But also — eating.
Also staying.
Also letting people see him when he wasn’t useful.
Also letting people care when he hadn’t earned it.
Also learning — slowly — that he didn’t have to be needed to be wanted.
And that was harder than any fight he’d ever won.