Scarlet

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His breath catches in his throat when he pushes open the creaky old door. Bile rising in his throat while he takes in the scene in front of him still scratched on the record of his heartbreak.

It was 4 four in the morning, and he couldn’t even begin to process what he was looking at. He’d just driven 3 hours from Gotham to some safe house he had over state lines, north of Philly. It’d been almost a year since he’d last been here.

Almost a year since you left.

He swallows heavily as the reminder crosses his mind.

The half drank wine bottle was still on the coffee table, the maroon liquid almost as deep as the lip gloss you used to love to tattoo his neck with.

Tossing the keys to some corner next to the door, he picks up the wine bottle to put it away and tries to steel past the welcome area. But it didn’t matter, everywhere he turned- you were there.

The echo of your laugh lingered in the vents, the smell of your cheap perfume hung in the air, the imprint of your frame carved into your bean bag, and the hairs you shed were still littered on the wooden floor.

It’s like you’d never left- like you hadn’t shattered his whole world.

He can’t bring himself to relax within these four walls. Which is super counterproductive because that’s exactly what he drove here for. He needed to get away from Bruce, from everyone really.

There were nights where the crime in Gotham was too much. Nights where the little things broke something in him with small reminders of who he used to be.

Tonight, it was a kid who lost his mom.

Johnny, he’d learned as the boy’s name, had come up running to him in some alleyway while on patrol. He’d had some tear stains on the apple of his cheeks and snot running down his nose begging for help. He couldn’t have been older than six really.

His mom wasn’t waking up.

He knew before he got there what he would see. He knew that he’d be witnessing the ending to a film he didn’t like- a film he’d starred in before. He called in some of the others for help, and comforted the kid, then split.

He couldn’t do it tonight. It was like he’d been put in a time machine and forced to relive everything that shaped him into who he was. Once one memory leaked through the dam, the past he tried to drown started flooding him.

Tomorrow, he’d find the kid in whatever foster care they’d put him in and check on him.

Tomorrow he would help.

Tomorrow he would be okay.

But tonight, he had to get away.  

Tonight, he would be someone who wasn’t haunted by syringes on countertops.

Tonight, he would be someone who didn’t know what an overdosed mom looked like.

Tonight, he had to be somewhere where the name Jason Peter Todd didn’t mean anything to anyone.  

Nights like tonight were the times when your absence hit him the hardest. When the one person in the world who knew and understood him, disappeared into thin air. Even though he didn’t want to be anything for anyone, he always wanted to be something for you.

Taking a deep breath, he walks over to the kitchen. Opening some cabinet next to the microwave, he stuffs the wine bottle away and tries not to focus his eyes on anything for too long. Yet even if he only spared it a glance, he can’t escape the ghost of you. All the nights you both played music from your phone and danced in the refrigerator light. The times you used to sit on the counter while he’d try to cook something on the broken stove.

He still remembered the smile lines on your cheeks. The way you would throw your head back with a laugh as he said something stupid. How your hair would cascade around your face when you looked back at him.

How you used to look at him like he was worth something.

Then he makes the mistakes of looking at said countertop.

If his chest was tight earlier from patrol, he didn’t even want to think about what it was like now.

Pictures of you both were mapped out from the last night you shared here. You’d tried to find pictures of Jason from before fate ripped the belief of hope from a teenage boy.

His hand is shaking as he picks up the first one and despite the tears threatening to spill, he smiles. It was from your freshman spirit week at Gotham Academy. It was duo day or something like that. You were dressed up as the little girl from Despicable Me with a striped shirt, overalls, and ponytail- Agnes he thinks her name was- and he was in a unicorn onesie. He’d never forget how stupid he felt, but even at fifteen he couldn’t tell you no. He was so in love with you, it was pathetic- that’s what Dick told him at least. It was the only spirit week you’d both shared before he died. In the picture he’s hunched over fighting a smile and your arms are wrapped around his waist with a smile so bright, it could light up Gotham on the darkest nights.

He didn’t think he could ever forget the look on your face when he walked in with that itchy onesie. He almost instantly regretted agreeing to this idea when he bought it, but all that evaporated when he saw your reaction. You looked like he had offered you ten million dollars. Your laugh was a sound so pure it didn’t belong in Gotham, and it reminded him why he went out as Robin with Bruce. He did it to protect you, to protect the one good thing still left in this Godforsaken city.

Trembling, he drops the picture back on the counter. He’s rifling through other ones and finds countless polaroids and printed photos of you and him over the years. One of you in the diner where you smudged his nose with whip cream (it wasn’t photographed but he remembers you taking the cherry from his shake that night), a photobooth strip from the fair he took you too in metropolis, a selfie he’d actually taken in the early hours of the morning when he got back from patrol and you were spread out like a starfish on the queen bed in your apartment. The last one he brings himself to look at was from your last Christmas together. You were both cuddled into each other on the couch at the manor. He remembers Tim was behind the camera, while Dick hold mistletoe over both of you from where you were sat on the couch. Jason was flushed almost as red as the sweater he was in- never being one for PDA in front of his family- with his lips pressed against yours, while you smiled into the kiss.

That was the final straw for him. He collected all the pictures together and put them in a stack. He had to look away. It hurt too much. He couldn’t take the immortalized evidence of your relationship in these pictures. Not when you were the only person he could be himself around- when you were the only person he could tell that he was hurt.

So, he walks around the counter and opens the first drawer next to the stove.

When he yanks it open to stuff away chapters of his life, a more recent one opens. The burner phone lighting up as a cruel reminder.

127 Missed Calls, 34 Messages.

His eyes shut again in resignation. Over the course of the past year, he’d call on the nights where he felt alone. It was a reach, but he’d done it to see if you’d come back. To see if you’d used the spare key he knew you kept.

He didn’t even want to think of what he’d said in the voicemails. He was half determined to wipe the phone, but he couldn’t even bring himself to touch it. It was ridiculous and he knew that it wasn’t like the phone was contagious. Jason couldn’t get the idea out of his mind that if he touched it, it would make it all more real. If he wiped the phone, he would have to accept that you weren’t coming back.

So, he tosses the pictures in and shuts it with a bang. Also making a mental note to buy a lock tomorrow for the drawer and to give Barbara the key.

Being back here makes him feel like he’s having an out-of-body experience. He’s not living in the moment, more so of watching himself walk through the house. His boots are heard stomping up the stairs, and he doesn’t even realize he’s carried himself to the bedroom. When his back hits the springy mattress another memory flashes through his mind. And no matter how hard the heels of his palm dig into his eyes, he won’t be able to erase it.

“Are you 100% sure you want to do this.”

Jason was propped up over you. His forearms caging you in under him while you were both laid bare in front of each other for the first time.

He doesn’t think he’d ever seen a more beautiful sight. You were flushed from your forehead to your collarbone. Your chest was rising and falling quickly with rushed shallow breaths. The hair he’d buried his face in every morning was splayed over the flat pillow beneath you.

It was a few weeks after your twentieth birthday. It was the first time you both had time to get away from the city. You’d only reconnected a few months ago, and it was the best few months of Jason’s life since he’d crawled out of his grave.

It was supposed to just be a getaway for the night. A bottle of cheap gas station wine and a cute picnic under the stars followed by a movie. Then one thing led to another and now he finds himself nestled between your legs.

The marks on your neck and collarbone were deepening from the red to a darker purple, and the crescent markings of your nails digging into the back of his biceps told enough stories of what you’d been up to. Even though you both had been involved and had taken a few steps into third base, neither of you had been with anyone- not completely anyway.

Your hand rests on his jaw line as you stare into each other’s blown pupils. “Yes, Jason. I want to do this,” you push up for a moment to give him chaste kiss that he reciprocates for a second before you pull away. “With you.”

And with that he leans down and kisses you, swallowing the moan when he pushes into you. He goes slow to avoid the pain. Your fingers pulling at the root of his hair and your head pushed back into the pillow. He watches every reaction while easing himself in, pausing when he notices discomfort and allowing you to adjust.

It was awkward and definitely not the best performance you both had ever had, but it was yours. It was messy, beautiful, and passionate. And once you found a consistent rhythm, it was magic.

In the aftermath of it, you switched places. You were lying on top of him and hummed while he his fingers mapped out the plane of your back. And here in this beat up house, Jason was convinced he’d seen heaven.

He didn’t think he’d ever forget what you whispered to him while you kissed down his neck.  

“If we died tonight, I’d die yours.”

He’s ripped from the memory at the sound of keys rustling in the door.

Frozen for a second, his hands are removed from his eyes. Stars still dancing around his vision from how hard he pressed, he shoots up from the mattress. He rushes through the doorframe to the top of the stairs right when the front door pushes open.

When he sees your frame in the front door, Jason realizes God must’ve decided to answer his prayers tonight.

Because now, he may sleep at night. Comforted by the fact that you finally came back home to the house north of Philly.  

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A/N: Jason Todd is Ethel Cain pilled! No, I will not be taking critiques on this.