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“Jason Todd”
Dick had yelled his name. He remembered that in the haze that was the games, the sound of his older brother shouting over the crowd. Dick sounded like someone had ripped off his hand, his yell brutal and pained. He remembered Dick reaching him from the section he was cornered off to, Bruce holding him back, his knuckles white. Barbra looked horrified, her mouth parted just slightly enough to resemble horror, her father with the same expression behind her. Alfred had gone very pale, the stiff upper lip vanishing for a mere second. Bruce just became a statue, his free hand hanging at his side, the Batman being held back by sheer force of will.
An urban legend of the night couldn’t have stopped it. Nothing could have. Jason knew that. But it didn’t stop him from wishing otherwise.
“Here are Tara Blake and Jason Todd, tributes from district Gotham. Everyone let’s give them a hand and let the odds be ever in your favor!”
Jason made it a goal to spit in every one of Effie’s meals from that moment forward.
***
“The food here is wonderful.” Those were the first words that Jason ever heard from his first tribute as a mentor. He had managed to get out of the first two years through ‘psychosis’ but with a clean bill of health, he had no other option but to tag along with Bruce. The “Boss Man” was helping with the boy tribute, trying to get the frail asthma ridden boy from the poor part of Gotham capable of taking a punch. The girl was better, clearly having spent lots of time with a knife in the slums, but there was no such thing as a sure victor when it came to the games.
That had been Jason’s very first lesson.
“It’s not that great kid,” Jason said, looking away from the broth the girl was slurping down. It had been his favorite when he first came here as well. Now he wanted to vomit at the sight of it.
“Better than grain and corn,” she mumbled, taking another big spoonful. “At least they’re treating us better than pigs to be slaughtered.”
Jason didn’t wince. He never winced. But he might have flinched at that comment, just a little. Because never had he heard anything so spot on.
Hell, the kid was smart, maybe she had a chance. If you know the game, you know how to break the rules.
She lasted for the first three days before being beheaded with an ax. He had never had worse nightmares.
***
Bruce trained him for all of the games during the pre-ceremony. Nonstop. Jason learned how to tie knots that weren’t for grappling, how to blend in darkness that wasn’t a city ally. He learned how to pretend he wasn’t scared, for Bruce’s sake more than his. Most of all he learned how to kill, to maim, to crush.
Bruce didn’t teach him that last part. Jason had always been good at adapting.
***
He went into the games with a bit of an anger complex and a clear head.
He came out of the games with third degree burns, only one leg, and blood cleansed hands.
That was all he remembered clearly, that and snippets. The other girl from his district getting torn apart by hounds. A girl by the name of Shelia who he tried to save from gas that distorted her face into the horrific smile. The crowbar that glistened with blood as it came back down in an arch by the only other tribute left.
He survived, by all accounts. Got beat up with a crowbar and still managed to make it safety with a concussion. Made it through till the end when the game maker, the Joker, got bored of the standing of and decided just to blow the whole arena sky high. Jason won because he was the tribute they managed to shock back to life. Jason Todd, the boy who came back from the dead, the survivor, the victor. It’s all a lie in Jason’s eyes.
The Jason Todd he knew died there.
***
He hated his family at first. He hated Bruce for not being able to save him, for Dick not being able to take his place, for Barbara always keeping an eye on him, for Cassandra knowing what kept him up at night and most of all for Tim daring to take his costume during his breakdown. To make the mantle of Robin his own and leave Jason with the ashes of himself. He hated them all.
Well, except Alfred. Because he was well, Alfred.
It last for a while, the bitterness. It rotted his bones. Ate as his mind. He made a lot of bad choices then, choices that would not always yield bad outcomes, but were still undoubtedly bad choices. He made some good ones in that haze; he found the demon kid while going after the Joker for one. But the bad always seemed to taint the rest of his deeds, the smudge of blood on every file he touched. He had killed people; somehow he couldn’t escape that.
That never went away, the nightmares still taunting him. But the hatred did, just enough to look past the veil. To see Barbara as worried, to see Dick as devastated he couldn’t take his place, to see Cassandra trying to give him a sister in arms, to see Tim as doing his best to help the land Jason so fought to protect. And soon enough, he started to see Bruce as the broken man he was; the boy who had been shoved into an arena only to watch his son being thrown in years later.
He hadn’t forgiven him. But it was a start.
***
His helmet is red for a reason. It was to match the invisible blood on his hands.
***
The first dream he woke up from after the games had ended with him screaming his lungs out.
He still hasn’t been able to stop.
***
“Come ‘on brat, you have to look somewhat classy to be potentially sent to your death,” Jason said, as Dick helped Damian button his shirt. The kid’s hands were shaking, shocking coming from the assassin child. Damian glared at him, his hands balling into fists.
“Shut up Todd.”
Jason shrugged. “Greater men have tried.” Dick didn’t pay attention to the two, still focusing on the buttons. Damian pointed at him, starting to shout abuse in at least three different languages. Jason just grinned.
He had pissed the kid off. So what? Anything was better than seeing him scared to death.
Even if it meant a high chance of the kid doing something to his stuff.
***
“I volunteer!” Tim shouted over the crowd. Jason groaned and shook his head, ignoring the blood flowing from his knuckles from when he punched the wall.
Tim always had to be the replacement, didn’t he?