Standalone: Writing Letters
Title: Writing Letters
Characters: Jason Todd
Word Count: 3000
Summary: It's January in Gotham and Jason doesn't know what he wants. Problem is, neither does anyone else.
-
Jason leaned back in the cheap aluminum and pleather chairs and flipped idly through a battered 'Suicide Girls' magazine. There were lots of stars. He cocked his head and tried to imagine the model's cheerful spray of five-point stars spread on his own skin and scowled. He rubbed his neck. Needles on the jugular, absolutely not.
Flipping the page, he sunk further in the worn chair and set his feet wide. Eventually, after too many tacky roses and gaudy sleeves, Jason tossed the magazine back on the low table and sighed. Flexing his hands, he leaned forward and pressed his fingers into his eyes. He had a reason to be here; Jason didn't know why.
There was a burn to remember, to sanctify, to - to notice. The problem was that Jason had no idea what. Did he mourn Robin? Of course, but life was different now. Not better, certainly, but Jason wasn't a bright bird in the evening sky and a cheap inkjob wouldn't change that. He missed the suit, but he had a new one and it was him, through and through.
Jason bounced his head limply and watched the pretty girl behind the counter laugh with her co-worker. She had a barbell through her nose and a set of rings in her left eyebrow and Jason imagined she grew up with a phone on her shoulder and a bottle of nail polish on her bedside table because her tri-colored nails were impeccably done. They chattered about someone's house party and an embarrassing session of Guitar Hero and Jason felt a pang of longing when he realized he should know what that was.
Apparently, it was the go-to hobby of the drunk and broke.
Jason didn't like being drunk. It was a release, but in the morning, when he woke up hungover on his couch, he couldn't help but imagine himself as Iano's worthless father. He and Jay would sneak into the livingroom for morning cartoons, but more often that not they'd be chased out into the morning sunlight by empty gin bottles and the occasional tumbler.
Jason couldn't say he missed those days, either.
He missed the smell of Alfred's cookies in the oven. He missed waking up and finding the kitchen clean and his mother (not his mother, but better) smilingly tiredly over her shoulder while she soaked the old bread in eggs and milk. She made the worst french toast, but he ate it anyway because those were always good days. He missed the public library. He missed class field trips.
He missed pretending to be asleep when Bruce watched him from the doorway. They both knew they were pretending, but that just made it better. It made it honest.
Jason missed laughing in the tower.
He thought about a trail of stars starting at the base of his spine, one for every memory he missed, but Jason knew it would never be done. Every day he'd remember one more and soon he'd have no more room for stars because he'd be covered in regret.
Jason didn't want to look in the mirror and see regret for the rest of his life. It was hard enough seeing it now. One day, he wanted to look in the mirror and be happy.
The girl at the counter called after him when he left, the door jangling behind him. Those bells always reminded him of the movies; people walking into tiny out-of-the way record stores or a Korean market run by their best friend.
The bells echoed across the snow as the door opened again, “Hey!” the counter-girl called, “Don't you want to talk to Eli?”
Jay smile ruefully, rubbing the back of his head, “Got nothing to talk about.”
“You sure?” She rubbed her arms against the cold, glancing down the empty street. “He's busy, usually. You should talk to him, ya know, if you wanna talk.”
He stuck his hands in his pockets and found his keys, curling his fingers tightly. Jason didn't pulled them out, just looked up at the streetlight. “You ever -” he started, but like everything else, it petered out. Because he didn't know what he was asking. Jason huffed and chewed his cheek angrily.
She was listening, though, “I ever what?” She shrugged.
“Forget it,” Jay shook his head and pulled out his keys, rubbing his finger along the rough edge. “I ain't got no idea.”
The door slide shut and he was alone.
Alone with the snow, two nine-millimeters, four boot knives, seven throwing knives, a k-bar tucked under his right arm, and three butterflies tucked in his pants pocket. Alone with himself.
“Why'd you come?”
Jason started, staring at the counter-girl. She hadn't moved from the doorway, still tucked under the bowed awning, but he hadn't even heard her breath. He should have; her teeth were chattering. She stepped out into the street, checking for traffic as she crunched through the heavy drift. “People don't just walk in with a reason and walk-out without it.”
“Yeah, right,” He laughed, “No one's thought 'Hey, maybe not today'?”
“Sure they do,” she shrugged, “but you didn't.”
“Like you'd know.”
“Maybe not,” she said as if it were that simple, “but you do.”
“I didn't have a reason,” Jason snapped, ignoring the salted sidewalk as he stormed down the line of cars. His bike was covered in inches of snow, but a swipe of his sleeve made it usable. Jamming his key through the ice in his ignition, Jay kicked up the stand and roared his baby to life. Flipping up the seat, he pulled out his helmet before he sat, slamming the bright red visor down.
This was the part of the movie where the insightful female lead tracked down her troubled love interest and showed her wordly wisdom by giving him an inspiring monologue about life. Jason didn't wait around for his, pushing off the curb and blaring his engine through the stiff snow.
The side streets and alleyways were empty and Jason liked it that way. The beeps from the interstate rang hollow in the heavy air, muffled by the clouds and gentle haze. The lights spread foggily through the weather, dull and soft.
Once, when he was younger, he'd spent a Christmas watching the lights through the snow, pretending they were angels delivering presents. He knew they were just cars, but in the morning, when his mom was still sick and there were no presents, Jason still felt forgotten. He never counted angels again.
Today, he pulled to a stop at an empty four-way and watched. He didn't count, not beyond the absent minded 'one-two-three, four-five' with half a dozen passing in between.
He pulled off his helmet and cut the engine.
Jason didn't count angels.
He didn't count the low, orange angels that came from an 1989 station wagon.
He didn't count the bright white halogen angels.
He didn't count the scattered red angels that floated above and below and behind.
Jason didn't count angels but he watched them drive by all the same and in the insultated dark, he didn't mind being alone.
A battered old El Camino pulled up to the four-way and waited for him to go, but Jason just sat there with his engine cut, staring at the interstate. Eventually, the driver eased through without so much as a finger out the window and Jason was back, no longer insulated and still alone, eyelashes covered in heavy drops of melted snow. His cheeks were wet as well, but rubbing his sleeve over his face just smeared the water uselessly.
Jason pulled the collar of his tee-shirt out from under his jacket and wiped off his face, rubbing his forehead dry and abandoning his hair. He wedged his helmet back on and restarted his engine, glancing at the interstate one last time before he turn right.
There should be a point, shouldn't there?
A reason for this and that, for tattoos and angels, but Jason didn't have one. He wanted to have a reason, but his loose thoughts brought back memories from his childhood, from the roof tops, to the shitty couch he'd slept on one time when he couldn't find his way back to base.
Suddenly, he imagined a tattoo spread across his shoulders, letters written brightly in his mind:
Jason Todd
1987
A gravestone on his back, with no end; just a testament to his existence.
It would be a dumbass thing to do, of course, and Jason wasn't narcissistic enough to turn his bike around, but it was like counting angels. It was just an idea he didn't really believe that, for a moment, made life something else.
It made Jason want to turn his tires towards Bristol,but there was nothing there. No one would open their arms and pull him close when he stood on the stoop. The family wasn't sitting together in the living room with a fire blazing, little Tim reading a book while Dick and the brat fought over cookies and cocoa, Bruce helping Alfred in the kitchen and sticking his fingers in the food.
On impulse, Jay turn left and followed the narrow one-way street down through the ratty neighborhoods until it turned industrial. He knew this particular shelter; it had been here long before he'd used it as a kid and he hoped it stayed after he died.
It was eight o'clock and a bundled attendant stood by the door, turning away late-comers with a sad shake of her head. She watched Jason warily when he stopped his bike in front of the door, but he just pulled out the roll of bills he had in his pocket and tossed it her way. Six hundred dollars for a tattoo, he'd decided. No tattoo, no money. He pushed off again without a word.
Sometimes, Jason wanted to write a letter.
It changed, who he wanted to write to. Sometimes; most times, it was Bruce. Once, Jason even sat down with a notebook and pen and wrote his name. After that, he didn't know what to write. He felt things, happy things, mad things, sad things. But the didn't have any words or pictures. Just glimpses, flashes, ghosts. Jason still had that page somewhere, empty except for a name.
He'd tried writing Tim once, too, but that had ended in violent slashes across the page until the paper ripped and shredded. Jason had thrown the whole notebook out the window then. He never bought a new one.
Jay's bike rolled to a stop - when had he slowed down? The architecture here was less gothic and more aluminum siding, but he recognized the leaning power lines and rusty mechanic’s sign. He'd met Robin here, recently.
“You're not frightening,” Robin had jeered blatantly, stiff little nose stuck pertly in the air.
Jason remembered Damian. He remembered him stretched across the night sky in red, green, and yellow. He remembered him scared and trussed, betrayed and every bit a child. He remembered him young, too, younger than Jason remembered most people, when he still sat in his mother's lap and asked for lullabies.
“I've been forbidden to confront you,” The boy'd scoffed, arrogant and noble, “I was told you embraced the most vicious talents of the League. Obviously, I have been misinformed.”
“Yeah, well, life's tough,” Jason replied “Big brother just wanted to cover the fact I fucked your mom.”
True; it had been completely childish.
Also true; his face was totally worth it.
Of course, Jason did not appreciate walking his bike home and he'd nearly lost fingers to those sharp little teeth before Damian wriggled free and escape into the night.
Robin wasn't here tonight.
Jay pat the from tire on his bike fondly and rubbed a thumb over the sealant-filled puncture wounds along the side. He should invest in another set of tires before too long. In this snow, his patch-job would start cracking.
He'd have to walk home again if that happened.
Jason pulled out his phone. It wasn't anything special, some bottom of the barrel flip-phone that only had reception because he tweaked the damn antenna. The screen was cheap pixels and the only thing that made it more pathetic was his address book. It had one name: Alfred.
His other sim card, the one he kept tucked in the lining of his jacket, had over a hundred names and phone numbers, each with a purpose and a use, but this one...
This was personal.
If Jason was stranded here, on the corner of Debarr and Bragaw, would Alfred drive down from his house on a hill in Bruce's fancy Rolls-Royce to bundle Jason into the backseat and tie his two-wheel monstrosity to the trunk so he could tow it home? Jason liked to thinks so.
He pressed call and held the phone to his ear. Three rings and crisp British manners answered on the other end.
Jason didn't say a word, just closed his eyes and listened.
“Excuse me,” Alfred moued politely, “are you still there, sir?”
Jason's number came up as 'unknown' on the caller I.D., he knew. He also knew that if anyone cared, they could trace it through the Bat computer and come up with one of his known aliases. Jason hung up.
They wouldn't.
“Hey!” A young woman called breathlessly from down the street and Jason peered over his shoulder. She didn't seem distressed. Shielding his eyes from the streetlamp, he recognized the attendant from the shelter. She dragged her feet tiredly, but her shoulders were set in a determined line, so he stood up and hooked his helmet on the handle.
“Something wrong,” he asked casually, sticking his hands in his pockets. They were numb, he realized with a start. He hadn't worn any gloves. The skin on his knuckles felt like paper rasping against denim.
The attendant, a slightly heavy middle-aged woman with a wool hat covering her brassy red dye job and ridiculous knitted mittens, panted through the snow until she reached him utterly out of breath. “You,” She started, losing track and waving in apology as she doubled over to breathe. Rubbing a mitten across her nose, she tried again, “You didn't let me thank you!”
Jason stared. A single woman in a jacket any of the homeless would kill for chased after him through the seedier parts of Gotham's industrial area in the dark because she wanted to say thank you.
He laughed.
“Yes, well,” She blushed pink behind the rosy glow of her cheeks, “It had seemed appropriate at the time and by the time it wasn't, I'd gone to far to turn back.”
Jason shook his head in bemusement, “We're fifteen blocks away.”
She looked over her head for a long moment and when she turned back, her chin was pointing stubbornly towards his nose, “I'm very grateful.”
Jason had lots of thoughts. Suspicious thoughts, cynical thoughts, demeaning thoughts, but above all, he was surprised. Not just by her, but by himself. The paranoia he expected, along with the jaded sneering, but there was a part of him, larger than he ever could have imagined, who was incredulously and inconceivably touched.
“Yeah, well, you're also alone,” Jason gruffed, pulling the helmet off the handle and pushing it at her, “And this is no place to be wandering by yourself.”
“I know that,” she drawled in southern discontent, pulling herself up to her full height of an utterly mediocre five-foot five. “I wasn't born yesterday.”
“Coulda fooled me,” He muttered, straddling his bike. Jason rolled his eyes as she gave the bike a dubious once-over. He slapped the seat impatiently, “Hurry it up, I've got places to be and I'm not leaving you here.”
“You know these things are dangerous,” She chided, “Why, my niece's sister-in-law's fiance died on one. Splattered his brains all across the highway.”
And this woman took off after a complete stranger in the dark. Jason had to admit, he kinda liked her contrary hutzpa. “Good thing I'm so good-lookin' then.”
“I don't see how that's supposed to help!”
“Easy,” he shrugged, “I'm too pretty to die.”
“Well!” She exclaimed, “that's exactly the sort of attitude that leads to drugs and gangs and all sorts of non-” She squawked comically when Jason wedged the helmet abruptly over her head. He slipped off the bike and shoved her on the back in one smooth swoop, sliding back one before she could complain or catch her bearings. Then, he wrapped her arms tightly around his waist.
He didn't miss her admiring rub of his abs, either.
With a reckless grin, he roared the engine and laughed at his passenger intimidated squeak, swinging the backend around with an impressive squeal of his tortured tires.
He didn't know what he wanted, Jason realized absently as he backtracked through the glowing streets.
It was awful, not knowing, but the world went on without him. Robin grew up and changed names and was reborn. Angels drove home every night on the interstate. Counter-girls played Guitar Hero. Maybe, one day, when he figured out what he wanted, Jason would do something about it.
Until then, he'd do as he'd always done; one way or another.