Everything Can Stay The Same (Or We Could Change It All)

'To My Brother'

"Give me your hand, my brother, search my face;

Look in these eyes lest I should think of shame..."

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Jason ran hot - but he was always burning, even with his gear light and breathable. Sweat beaded on his brow, sliding down his cheeks and sticking once unruly curls to his forehead. Every now and then he would shed the helmet and frantically wipe away the perspiration before it ate away the adhesive that stuck the domino to his face and pooled at the base of his neck.

His normal relief came from the ice-cold wind that acted like a dying car battery; it started, spluttered, and stopped, leaving Jason high and dry when he needed relief a little more than usual.

But now, in the throes of a bitter and unmerciful winter, he'd much rather take the embracing warmth of spring, or even the gentle coolness of autumn.

"Thanks for the day off, boss," Kammy shivered after her briefing, rubbing her hands over the flimsy material of her thick coat that she hadn't worn before, "I can't think in the snow."

Jason nodded, handing over her daily pay and giving her a firm nod. He wanted to ask about her coat, wanted to tell her to get home safe, wanted to tell her that if she needed help he was ready to help and wanting to help-

He stood in silence, watching her forest-green coat sneak into the nighttime grit of Gotham, painted a ghastly minty green in the harsh lights of the fluorescent street-lights until he couldn't anymore.

Then he turned and left, having what he came here for but leaving a lot more emptier.

Here's the facts: Jason's body is nineteen, but he feels seventeen; he's a fucking tank - stopped growing at six foot and he packed muscle like a panther, probably from the classic Gotham brawler that lived in his very genes; he's more educated in the warfare of strategy, of how to make it hurt; he knows how to string along and cut off people when he needs to, and he can twist words and layer them with the poison required for the situation. He knows, he knows, he knows.

He knows he sees the world in a different, less filtered light. He sees the grey, eating and nibbling amongst the shaking hands that hold guns, or the sly and swift fingers of a person who makes items disappear in a flick of their wrists.

Grey, grey, grey. Grey is what he is, grey is what he knows.

And it is his super-strength, his flight, his invulnerability; the grey is his superpower, his key weapon and his secret trump, but most of all, his Russian Roulette.

Because being and living with other greys is like approaching the snarling dog that drools blood. The longing to accept help clashing with past paranoias, eating away and stroking the flames of irrationality and suspicion.

Because that's a fact; Jason is painted in a hundred thousand shades of black and white and everything between the two - he is a mosaic and the glass is fractured in a way that raw sunlight pours through hairline gaps.

It is a fact that Jason Todd is physically nineteen, lived seventeen years, and is as alive as he was when he was fifteen, making mistakes like he was fifteen, and as reactive back when he was fifteen.

It's the way his feet take him to the sounds of threats before his mind processes what is said, the flood of fear-turned-anger sizzling to a powerful protectiveness, as he spread his wings and flew over rooftops, a fallen angel over a forgotten city.

The grapple hissed as the rope curled back into its shell, leaving Jason on the ledge of a roof, adrenaline clawing at his veins and filling his senses, pointing at the scene in the alley below and whispering where it wants to be directed at.