Jason Todd's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Jason wanted one quiet night, and the coffin took it from him again. He stood inside the sanctuary Will had built, a pristine white room hidden behind a scorched brownstone. He had come for peace. Instead the memory hit like a fist. Wood pressed against his face. Dirt filled his mouth. He clawed at nothing and his knuckles cracked the smooth wall. He dropped to his knees, breathing hard. This was why he stayed away from Will. The flashes came without warning. His hands moved before his mind caught up. Last week he had grabbed Will's wrist and nearly broken it, thinking he was fighting his way out of the grave. He could not build a life with a man he might hurt. Will knelt in front of him. He held out a small action figure, a battle-scarred commando with one arm missing. Jason had seen it before, sitting on Will's workbench. "Look at it," Will said. His voice stayed level. "You gave me this the day I finished the anchor. You said it looked like you felt." Jason's eyes fixed on the broken toy. Real. Solid. Here. "The anchor lives if you live," Will said. "If you die, it dies. So you don't get to disappear on me." He pressed Jason's palm flat against his own chest, over the place where the tether burned warm under his skin. "Feel that? That's now. Not the coffin." Jason felt the steady beat under his hand. He counted it. The dirt taste faded. The wall stopped closing in. "Again," Will said. "Say where you are." "Your sanctuary," Jason said. His voice scraped. "White room. Rusted door." "Good. What do you smell?" "Nothing. Clean." He almost laughed. Graves did not smell clean. They did it four more times. Each time the flash rose, Jason named the room, named the toy in his hand, named Will's heartbeat. Each time it broke apart faster. On the last try, he closed his eyes and reached for the panic on purpose. He found only the quiet. He opened his hand. The commando figure sat there, chipped and steady. "I want that life," Jason said. "The quiet one. With you. Away from all of it." He had never said it out loud. Saying it felt like the first safe breath since the coffin. Will's jaw tightened. He looked at the sanctuary walls, at the fine gold door, then back at Jason. "Then you should know something," he said. "The anchor holds you here. But it drew a line to you that anyone with the right eyes can follow." Jason went cold. "Follow where?" "Here." Will turned the broken figure over in Jason's palm. "To us. The thing keeping you alive just told the whole city where you are."