Live to Rise

Dead and Living Part 1

I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING EVERYTHING BELONGS TO DC AND KAI MACIEL THE ORIGINAL AUTHOR OF THIS BOOK
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Unknown Island

November 17, 11:50

It had been a lazy morning.

After three days of dismantling a human trafficking ring, which included a lot of bullets, different kinds of arrows, fire blasts, broken bones, dead bodies and lots of bruises, Jason officially announced they were taking a few days off.

It wasn't easy to evade the Justice League and the Team from finding them, but Roy had recently discovered a new-found pleasure for technology and managed to throw them off. From the newspapers Jason read the next day, all the heroes had found were the terrified, yet free slaves and bodies of their captors. Captain Atom declared that they would find and apprehend the 'brutal vigilantes before their destructive nature caused more casualties.'

Thanks for nothing, Captain.

They wouldn't lose a night's sleep mourning over those poor criminals. Not after what they had done to those people, using them as slaves, sexual objects, stealing their organs only to discard them once they were of no further use like trash. It was the ugliest face of humanity.

Jason, Roy and Kori had seen a lot of ugly, perhaps too much. They saw so much ugliness in this world that it almost made Jason lose faith in humanity.

"It's important to take a step back and stare at all the goodness there still is in the world," Alfred used to say. "We need to see the good to remember why we are fighting in the first place."

Alfie. Good, old Alfred.

Leaning against a rock by the ocean, Jason smiled fondly. Despite everything, thinking of the old butler always made him smile, even if his chest ached with longing and regret. Alfred was the one who was there for him when he needed, be it food, medical treatment of simply to hear him when no one else bothered to ask Jason how he felt. Alfred was the glue that held the Bat Family together, without him they would all be lost.

Running down the beach, Jason remembered the one time he had honestly cried in shame. Not when Bruce figured out what he had done on the streets to buy food for his mother, not when he messed up on patrol for the first time, not even when Bruce yelled at him that he should be more like Dick. No. Jason Peter Todd had burst into tears when he let Alfred down.
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Gotham

December

4 years earlier

Only a few months after Jason started attending Gotham Academy and things weren't working out at all. Bruce had been inflexible on his decision to enroll him on the prestigious school, no matter how much the thirteen-year-old complained that he didn't belong on some fancy school with uniforms and filled with rich kids. After two years being home-schooled in the Manor until he reached his peers, the last thing Jason wanted was to be forced to go to a place where we would never fit in.

After a lot of yelling, cursing and punishments, Jason had no choice but put on the stupid uniform and go with Dick to that stupid school. Being the new kid was bad enough, but being Bruce Wayne's new ward and Dick's new 'brother' put him immediately under the unwelcome spotlight. It didn't take long for everyone to realize how different Jason was from the friendly and popular Dick Grayson and for the comparisons and criticism to begin. By the end of the first day, Jason had broken two noses and was sent to the Principal's Office.

There were no improvements the following weeks. Jason had a lot of enemies and no friends. All the teachers had met Dick and made Jason shake with rage as they consistently compared both boys and praised the oldest. Every time Dick tried to talk to him, it only made Jason angrier and they both ended up yelling at each other and regularly coming to blows. Bruce was furious, vehemently believing Jason was being difficult on purpose and refused to take him out of that school and enroll him in a public one. For the first time in a long time, Jason missed his freedom on the streets where he didn't continuously feel out of place and a big, failure. But he knew he was being selfish and ungrateful, which only made him feel even lower.