Chapter Text
Jason was no stranger to death. As a young kid, roaming the streets of Crime Alley alone and unsupervised, he’s had a quite a few encounters with it. The memories are hazy now, faded with time and jumbled from the pit, but he can still vividly remember the feeling of the life inside of him draining away. He can remember the painful stiffness in his cold fingers, can remember the way his breath fogged up in the bitter air of winter.
He can remember freezing to death many, many times in those three or so years he was homeless.
(And each time, he feels almost at peace, fingers gently carding through his hair.)
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By the time Jason became Robin, at the ripe age of twelve, he estimates his death count is already in the high teens. He doesn’t know why, and to be honest—he genuinely doesn’t care how. All Jason cares about is the fact that it consistently brought him back.
Life was easy, no, easier after moving into Wayne Manor. Jason doesn't have to worry about the cold setting in when the nights turn bitter, and doesn't have to wonder if he was going to get a meal that night or not. Jason had a soft, warm bed all to himself, and he really couldn’t ask for more.
For the first time in his life, ever since he watched the life slowly trickle out of his mother’s eyes, never to come back unlike how Jason himself would, he would say he was happy.
To Jason’s credit, he almost made it to the six month mark of adoption without a death. Of course, he wasn’t allowed to keep that streak. Of course he fucking wasn’t.
Jason technically wasn’t supposed to go out. Bruce had forbidden him from going on patrol for the meantime, too worried about the Joker’s recent break out of Arkham. Which, to be fair, he understood. However, it didn’t mean he was going to follow Bruce’s instructions. And plus, this wasn’t even for patrol!
Jason was just plain bored. School had let out a month prior, and while he definitely didn’t look forward to the grueling schoolwork, it at least gave him something to do. And, truth be told, Jason was really, really craving a chili dog.
All of this led to him slipping out of his bedroom window, clad in some of his rattier clothes Bruce let him keep from his life before the manor. Alfed was probably asleep by now, Bruce on patrol, so he wasn't too worried about them catching him.
The walk to get off of the property was relatively short, and it was only half an hour or so until he was firmly in the heart of Gotham.
There was a sizable crowd for this time of night–it only being a bit past 10pm–letting Jason slip into the masses with ease. He knows that the chances of Bruce seeing him are low, but he can’t help but be somewhat paranoid, tugging his hood over his head.
After only a few minutes of aimlessly wandering around, he finally spots it: the somewhat grimy chili dog stand he’s been coming to for his entire childhood. The stand itself just looks like the food it serves would poison you, but Jason honestly couldn’t care less—why would he, when he could just get back up again?
A childish grin creeps onto his face as he bounds up to the stand, a few dollar bills clutched in his hand. The stand worker, previously glaring out into the crowded street, grinned at the sight of him.
“Hey, kid. Haven’t seen you ‘round lately.”
Jason nodded in agreement, passing the man the money he held. “Yeah, I got adopted. Long story ‘nd all that. Can I get my regular?”
The man in front of him pauses, assessing Jason with a calculated look. “As long as you’re safe, bud.”
Jason hums in response, and before long, a warm chilli dog is being passed to him in all its greasy glory. He smiles, giving a quick “Thank you,” before joining the crowds. He quickly locates an unoccupied bench, moving to sit on it before he feels something push onto his face.
He drops his chili dog in surprise, panicking when he realizes the fact that a damp towel, wet with something that reeked with straight chemicals, was being used to actively smother him. Jason struggles, clawing at the hand that holds the towel, but the person seemed unaffected by his attempts. Infact, with each second that Jason fought back, the man just pressed it further into his nose and mouth, smothering him completely.
He can feel whatever it was that was on the towel start to take effect, his vision starting to warp and twist in the way only one thing could. Fear toxin.
Crap!
With this revelation, Jason began fighting back in earnest, kicking his legs back repeatedly, just hoping that one of them connects. But, to his dismay, the edges of his vision start to fade before the person behind him even grunted in pain.
Oh god.
Jason could feel his limbs get heavier, each attempt to break free needing more effort than the last. He can feel his movements getting more and more sluggish, each breath through the towel more labored than the last. His vision swam in front of him, black creeping into his vision gradually, before enveloping him whole.
Jason awakes to the monotonous sound of water dripping—at least, he hoped it was water. His eyes were still shut; it was best to try to retain all the information that he could before they knew he was awake. The room reeked, the heavy air carrying a metallic scent that Jason just couldn’t seem to get out of his nose. He could feel the fear toxin still in his system, and tries to fight off the mounting panic that seemed to be continuously building inside of him.
A constant flow of oh god, I’m going to die here and I’m not going to come back, what are they going to do to me? I’m going to die. I’m going to die. I’m going to die.
Jason can hear the sound of people moving around in the same room, around four or so if he had to make a guess. He tries to keep his breathing even, but he can tell he was beginning to hyperventilate, and he just can't stop.
Of course, this alerts the men to the fact that Jason is awake.
Great going, dumbass.
Well, at least now he didn’t have to keep his eyes closed.
The first thing he sees when he opens his eyes is still-fresh blood pooling on the floor. He blanches, a new wave of fear washing over him. The second thing he sees is the man looming over him, brandishing something extremely sharp in his face.
Jason flinches hard at the sight, squeezing his eyes shut again. The men around him snigger, undoubtedly amused by his fear, the sound bouncing against the grimy walls. The laughter slowly tapers off, the room quickly falling silent—almost eerily so—before Jason feels the stinging pain of hand slapping his face. His eyes fly open, a sharp, biting pain radiating from his warm cheek, and an attempt to close them again is met with a second slap.
They wanted him to see what they were going to do with him.
Jason glares up at who he dubs ‘the main man’, and the man responds with a gloating, smug smirk. God, this guy's face is so punchable. He turns around to face the other men in the group, and Jason takes this moment of inattentiveness to test the bindings on his hands.
Rope, somewhat thick and hard to cut. Jason worries his lip, another fresh wave of fear shooting up his spine. He’d need at least five minutes to get out of these, and he clearly wasn’t going to be left alone.
He’s forced out of his thoughts when one of the lankier men barks out a laugh, causing Jason’s attention to lock onto them. The same man speaks up, and his words make Jason feel like he had ice-cold water dumped onto him.
“So what you’re saying we just–I dunno, cut ‘im up? You sure nobody would miss ‘im?”
One of the other men slaps a hand down onto the lanky man's shoulder, a cruel grin stretched across his face. “That’s exactly what I’m sayin’. Nobody realizes when those kinda kids go missin’. I mean, just look at his clothes. That’s a street rat, through ‘nd through.”
The other man barks out a laugh, motioning to a camera set up in the corner, one Jason didn't even realize was there until now. “Just trust me on this one, man. We're ‘gonna make a killing.” The corners of his mouth twitch up with his last words, as if this was all some sort of joke.
With each additional word, Jason feels worse and worse. Bile threatens to come up with each little jeer the men make, an overwhelming rush of fear, disgust and nausea making him lightheaded.
It didn’t even matter that he was going to die again. Well, it did, of course, but that wasn’t what Jason was so upset over. No, it would be that these men took away the sense of safety and security that Bruce had lulled him into.
He thought he was finally safe.
He’s once again startled out of his thoughts, but this time with the feeling of a cool blade against his cheek. Jason flinches away, hissing when the movement causes the metal to bite into his flesh. It didn’t seem too deep, but the man who was holding it immediately pressed it further into Jason’s cheek.
The man’s eyes seemed to light up at the look of pain on Jason’s face, and he moves to slide the knife against Jason’s skin, seeming to revel at the sight of blood dripping from the wound. Jason hisses with each cut, biting his lip hard enough to draw blood to avoid grunting in pain. He can feel the gaping cut on his cheek now, can feel the warm rivulets of blood now running down the side of his face. He can feel the searing pain of the wound, present enough for him to be aware, but not enough to make him visibly show it.
The main man seems to clue into this relatively quickly, as he’s now instead bringing the knife down to Jason’s torso. He slashes at his chest, the fabric tearing at the first swipe, flesh tearing on the next.
This time, Jason can’t hold back the scream.
The men seem to relish in his pain, slashing at his chest until he can’t tell where one cut starts and the other begins. Blood flows freely from the gashes, his previously red jacket stained almost black with the amount of gore seeping into the fabric. Jason stares down at his chest, nauseated at the bubblingly, yellow fat he could see beneath the torn skin.
The man holding the knife backs up for a second, as if admiring the agony etched into Jason’s face, and goes back to work. Jason can feel the sharp, stinging pain of each new slash, spread randomly across his upper body, and he can’t help but just cry from the sheer torture of it. Jason squeezes his eyes shut again, can’t stand to have to choose whether to look at his own mutilated body or the man actively mutilating it.
Unfortunately for him, this seemed to be the worst possible thing that he could do.
You see, Jason isn’t a stranger to pain by any means. He’s had his fair share of beatings throughout his life––be it from the other street kids or the victims of his tire jackings—but this wasn’t just pain. Pain was scraping your knee, busting your lip, or hell, even the cold that penetrated all the way down to your bones.
This wasn’t pain.
As soon as Jason let his eyes slide shut, he could hear a disgusting squelch echo in the crowded room. Jason’s eyes open blearily, tears blurring his vision, his head hung low. Which, conveniently allowed him to tell exactly where the sound came from.
A knife, buried up to the hilt is firmly buried in the flesh of his stomach, sunk right below the belly button. Jason gives out a choked gasp, unable to even tear his eyes away from the object lodged in him.
In the corner of his eye, he can see the man in front of him grinning sadistically, gripping the handle of the knife with a single hand, and just drags it. His flesh gives way like butter, blood gushing out of the wound immediately. The man cuts from the middle of Jason’s stomach to the side, before repeating the process, leaving a massive gash.
Jason can’t think. Can’t talk. Can’t do anything but just cry, his screams tapering off into silence from the sheer amount of agony he was in. It seemed to almost consume him, every single nerve set slight, seeming to focus on the spot where his body was gaping open. The main man grins at the face of his torment, reaching a blood-slick hand to the wound on his stomach, reaching his hand in and pulls out the intestines within. Jason gives another scream, fat tears rolling down his bloodied cheeks, before gagging from the overwhelming smell of blood in the room.
Jason doesn’t even notice when the man steps back, admiring his handiwork. Doesn’t notice when the white flash of a picture being taken fills the room. Doesn’t notice when all the men leave, laughing and jeering like they just left the bar.
No, all Jason can focus on is the sight of his organs spilling out of him, his own blood still pouring from his cut-open stomach. He vaguely hears the choked cries of a child, before he realizes belatedly, oh, that’s me.
Similar to the times out in the cold, Jason can feel the life seep from him, each thought becoming more incoherent from the last, before the black creeping up on him finally overtakes him.
(He doesn’t feel at peace this time. All he feels is arms holding him to someone's chest, and the sound of his own choked sobs.)
Jason came too slowly, the first thing he noticed being the overwhelming smell of iron. Wrinkling his nose, he forces his heavy eyelids open, blanching when the sight that greets him is the image of his entire front practically coated in blood.
And, to his horror and absolute dismay, his innards still resting in his lap.
Jason gags, attempting to just…shove them back in, and nearly blacks out from the pain alone. Thankfully—to him, at least— the familiar darkness of death rose up once more, soothing him into the comfort of the abyss once more.
The next time Jason wakes, his organs are blessedly inside his body.
His hands are still tied with the rope, but without anyone else inside of the room, it only takes a few minutes to undo the knots binding him. As soon as his hands are free, the first thing he does is press them to his bloody stomach. Whether it was reassurance that he was here, that he was alive, or simply to check if there was no cut remaining, he didn’t know.
As soon as he calmed whatever urge that begged him to do that, Jason pushed himself to his feet, his vision going black at the movement. He sways from the sudden rush of light-headiness, stabilizing himself on the wall that was previously behind him, grimacing when his hand came away wet with freshly splattered blood.
Gross.
Jason feels as if he’s almost floating, the harshness of his reality dulled by this weird detachment to himself. If he was being honest, though, he didn't mind. It was nice to not think.
The door wasn’t hard to find, tucked away in a corner, annoyingly locked. Luckily, Jason spotted a knife laying on the ground nearby, still coated in his own blood. He feels nauseous picking it up, but jiggles the lock with it, the door soon opening with ease.
Jason steps out of the building hesitantly, shivering when the cold air of Gotham hits his bare chest. Thin ribbons of fabric still cover him, but for the most part, his hoodie is utterly ruined. He wilts at the thought, but hisses in pain when the action pulls on his stomach.
Jason trudges through the dingy alleyways slowly, to avoid pulling at the healing cut on his stomach. The moon was still high in the sky, just barely peeking through the thick smog, but Jason wasn’t sure exactly how long he was dead for. He just had to hope that he made it back to the manor before Bruce even realized he was gone, and pray that Alfred was none the wiser as well.
Jason hauled himself through his bedroom window just shy of 4 AM, with his entire body aching and his head pounding with the warning of an impending migraine. To his immense surprise, it seemed like nobody even noticed that he was gone. Luckily. Jason didn’t know what he’d do if he got caught, especially with how he probably looked.
He stumbles into the bathroom attached to his room, blanching at the sight of himself in the mirror. Jason could see the red-pink scars on his chest---most likely healed from his resurrection---along with the blood still caked onto him. His cheek was still bleeding sluggishly, the injury probably not enough to trigger his post-death healing factor (or atleast, that was what he thinks healed him).
The odd thing, however, was the growing swath of white hairs on his head. Few enough to be easily overlooked, but to Jason, he couldn’t tear his eyes away.
The thing is, Jason has had that small patch of hairs since he came to the manor. A small collection of hair, probably less than twenty strands, has been with him for a while. He wasn’t sure how he got it, but all he knew was that the patch was larger now.
Huh. Strange.
The main thing Jason knew he needed to check was his stomach but he just…didn’t want to. When he tried to pry the hoodie away from his skin, the amount of blood still on him prevented the action, the fabric sticking to his skin almost painfully. Jason grumbles, his annoyance building, and just decides to hop in the shower, clothes still on. Hopefully that would wash away the majority of the blood staining the fabric.
One thing was for sure, though. Jason is never sneaking out again.