Rating: R (no swearing, just darkness, violence abound, and did I mention the darkness?)
Story Synopsis: After BftC Part Two. Never listen to Jason Todd. Nothing good comes of it.
A/N: Thanks to Kim for doing the beta-ering.
“The Reason”
I’ve been told we’re all put on
this Earth for a reason. I’ve come to believe that. Alfred’s was to keep Bruce
alive through the years. Jason’s was to test Bruce’s will. Tim’s was to save
it. Bruce’s was to save
I didn’t know mine. I once thought, years ago, it was the same one as Tim’s. I was wrong. It was for this one moment.
The fire’s heat slicked my cheeks and reddened my exposed skin, but I hardly noticed it compared to the pain of the batarang that sunk into my bicep. Gritting teeth, I elbowed Jason in the face, spurting blood onto his already crimson-tinted face. As he fell backwards, I slammed my foot into his stomach and helped him through the glass door of Bruce’s office. The shards split his skin, stabbed his shoulders, and drenched his Batsuit with blood—or more of it.
Good.
I shouldn’t think that, but…times changed. People changed.
Relationships changed.
I changed.
Jason wiped the blood from his lip as he regained his footing with the help of Bruce’s desk. “Nice hit, Grayson. Too bad you still prove you don’t have what it takes.”
After tearing the batarang free from my arm—hurt more than wished it to—I treaded slowly into the room, my black boots crunching the glass underneath my heels. I wore a simple black outfit, much like Jason had when he first came back. I’m not proud of it, but I wouldn’t, couldn’t, have worn any of the Batgear. Not for this.
“Big and bad, aren’t you, Jase?” I sneered, not even recognizing my own voice by the cold tone. It would have chilled the air about gravestones. “You can stab a seventeen year old and shoot a ten year old. What’s next? Taking candy from a baby?”
“Would be harder.”
“Not as tough as me.”
Jason, cowl-less, narrowed his eyes and motioned to the insignia over his chest. “And you think you can be Batman?”
“No.”
Not anymore.
As an
angered scowl overcame Jason’s face, he lunged forward, a gun appearing in his
gloves. “Good. You wouldn’t make it ten minutes under the pres—
My roundhouse kick he never saw, and I took an evil pride that. He did manage to block my elbow and get a shot off, but I followed through a chop. “One thing you’re missing, kid. I was Batman once, and guess what?” I kicked away one of the guns, but Jason rolled to keep the other. “I kicked ass.”
“Doesn’t matter. The villains kept coming back. The Joker kept coming back, and it’s time someone dealt with this plague.”
“And you do that by killing your younger brothers?”
Jason threw a batarang. “They weren’t my brothers.”
The ‘rang was nothing more than a distraction for his second gun. He didn’t think I saw it. Dumb ass.
I threw my own, hitting him in the wrists, the shoulders, and the knees. Ruthless, yeah, I know, but that’s what I’ve become.
That’s what he made me.
As the gun fell from Jason’s hand, I snatched it and delivered a crushing blow across my little brother’s cheek. What the ‘rangs failed to do, that hit did, dragging Jason to his knees. I whirled with the gun barrel pressed against Jason’s forehead.
“You were their older brother. You were supposed to be their protector, you sick bastard, not be their Cain.”
“I taught
them a lesson: only the strong survive in
“Too bad that’s not you.”
“Or Bruce,” Jason shot back, the blood once more dribbling down his chin. “No matter how much you wish to deny it, he embraced my thinking in the end. He killed Darkseid, Dick. Killed him, so all those rules and orders and decrees were for what? All that you worship has been proven sacrilegious.”
“I can’t speak for Bruce,” I said, eerily calm. Again, surprise, surprise. “But I do know something, Jase. I finally understand how you feel.”
His pale and pain-contorted face brightened just hint. Disillusioned jackass.
“You’re
right. There is no way of saving
“I’m not one of them. I’m here to stop them.”
“See? That’s where the line of sanity is crossed. I know I’m one of them. You’re just in denial.”
“Burn in hell, Grayson.”
“Oh, I will, but I’m taking you with me.”
*^*^*
Commissioner Gordon had seen
gruesome sights in his lifetime; but this one would give him nightmares for the
rest of his life. The man’s—no, boy’s—body laid mangled in the crevasse of the
shattered Bat Signal, which had read “Batman R.I.P.” No older than his early
twenties, the boy in the Batsuit looked annoying familiar, despite the blood
splattered across his face and body. Though metal and glass impaled his torso
and legs, a bullet wound in his forehead was the obvious cause of death.
What truly made the bile heat Gordon’s mouth was the macabre message written across the rooftop in blood.
“He’s not Batman.”
*^*^*
Tim worshiped the ground Bruce and I walked on. Damian hated me and Tim for being everything in Bruce’s eyes he wanted to be. But in these last few months, we’d became…closer. I actually looked forward to teaching him and Tim in the cave. The sound of their laughter—though ill-frequent as it was— brightened my world.
When Bruce died, they became my world.
My boys.
They were my responsibility as was Jason.
Jason was their Cain, and I became his.
As the waves crashed into the cliff under my feet, I stuffed my hands in my pockets and watched as the sun grasped at the lightening sky and pulled itself over the horizon.
I should have saved him.
Bruce will never forgive me, and the funny part? I don’t want him to.
Soft steps crunched the blades of grass, but I didn’t turn from the harbor, even once the person stood at my shoulder.
“This, too, shall pass.”
“But when will it end?”
The words had slipped out before I realized it, and even as his hand firmed, I found myself spilling more.
“How many
people do we have to lose before it ends, Alfred? My parents. Bruce’s parents. Barry.
Ollie. Donna.
I couldn’t say your name anymore. I wasn’t worthy.
“That is what makes you strong, Richard. You have endured so much and still can meet the hope of a new day. We must survive, so that all that Bruce stood for will as well. That is his true legacy.
“You are his true legacy.”
I broke the gaze to meet Alfred’s tired and suddenly very old eyes. “Alfred, I’m sorry, but I’m really not in the mood for a—”
“Not a lecture, dear boy, but a fact. The heartache might last forever, but you will endure. We will endure because it is what we must do.”
He’ll hate
himself later for that. He doesn’t know the dirty truth—just what I’ve
sacrificed for
Banging at the front door caught his attention and only turned mine back to the harbor. He patted my shoulder. I closed my eyes to feel that hand forever, to have it hold me back from my fate, but I knew this day would come. I saw it back with Blockbuster, but you wouldn’t let me fall, would you? You had to believe in me, throw me a lifeline, and dare me to hold on.
I did.
I held on for as long as you would hold onto me, but…
You’re gone.
You’ll
never forgive me for what I’ve done, for what I’ve become.
For the first time,
The boys will have a chance at peace.
All that needed to be sacrificed was one soul, who will forever be damned to watch these maniacs and make sure they never escape from Hell again.
It was what I was born to do.
Your
mission was to save
Mine was to finish yours.
And now that it’s done, so am I.
*^*^*
“Commissioner Gordon?” Alfred greeted with a bewildered expression. “I hope all is well.”
“Not in the slightest, Mr. Pennyworth.” Gordon stepped over the threshold, followed by at least armed police officers. “Is Dick home? I need to speak with him.”
“Regarding?”
Gordon
inhaled a sharp breath. There was no point in hiding the awful truth. “Last night, sixty-seven escapees from Arkham
were gunned down in cold blood throughout
“Why would you ask such as thing?” Alfred took a step back, shaking his head in denial. “Master Richard—”
A gunshot echoed eerily through the walls of the manor.
“Richard…”
When Gordon and Alfred made it out to the cliff, a macabre body greeted them, void of life but covered in life force. A single note was all that was left.
“Sorry for the mess, Alfred.”
*^*^*
“…Al—Al…fred?”
A strong hand cupped his. “I’m here, lad. Rest now. The battle has ended.”
“B—But what about Jason? He’s—”
“Richard took care of him, Timothy, and young Damian awoke yesterday. You are safe now. Just relax.”
“…Dick? Where is he?”
The hand clutching his tightened, and rain pinged his cold skin.
“Alfred? Alfred, why are you crying?”
The End