Jason Todd

He had no idea what he was going to tell Dick, but he had every intention of keeping his word and not mentioning anything about Madalyn to him. There was just something about her that he could resonate with and if she didn't want Dick to know this was about her, he could respect that.

That just meant he needed to come up with the most believable lie he could. So he called Dick, no actual plan in the moment, and ready to work on the fly. His best lies were done under pressure.

The phone had just begun to ring when he saw movement from the corner of his eye.

Jason dropped flat to the sidewalk just in time to avoid the shot that had been fired, shoving his phone in his pocket as he rolled to the side to crouch by the building entrance wall. He looked around the corner and spotted two armed forms heading towards him, another running over from the parking lot.

"Fuck," he swore under his breath. His Robin suit was back in Madalyn's apartment and his extra smoke bombs were stashed in his bike in the parking lot. Even if he could get passed them to get to it, it wouldn't be worth it. He could always run into the building behind him and hope he got to his suit in time, but if there were men out here then there was definitely more inside.

Better to take care of these first and away from bystanders.

Instinctively his training kicked in; he was outnumbered and more or less cornered with no weapons and no back up to call for. He needed to get to a position where he had control; somewhere to keep his back covered and all enemies in sight. Technically he'd be cornered that way too, but with the right vantage point and distraction he could make it work.

He reached his hand into his other jean pocket, fingers gratefully curling around his bike keys. He pressed a button and an alarm sounded from the vehicle, drawing the attention of his pursuers.

Taking advantage, he ran for the tall tree hanging over the right side of the parking lot, pocketing a handful of rocks as he bent his knees to jump and latched on to a low hanging branch.

For a second he thought he'd miscalculated its rigidity as it pulled down with his weight, but he swung his legs up fast, wrapping them around the branch closer to the trunk and it stabilized. Careful not to make any movement that would draw extra attention, he managed to climb up one more branch to a thicker, sturdier one and crouched with his back against the tree trunk behind him.

Through the leaves, he could see glimpses of the men circling the parking lot and looking for him. While it kept him hidden, it wasn't the best vantage point for him; impulse won out over training as he threw rocks as hard as he could out into the parking lot. He smiled with satisfaction as he heard a car alarm blare and one of the men yelled for the others to check it out.

With their backs turned, he dropped down on the roof of another car, the alarm sounding beneath him just as he dropped back to the concrete, launched a rock at another car and rolled under the first. There was no alarm from the second car, but he heard a loud enough thunk that he knew it would draw their curiosity.

Sure enough, only one set of footsteps headed in his direction and stopped just beside the car. Without pause, Jason grabbed hold of the man's ankles and yanked hard, hearing and feeling the thump of the car above him as the man slammed into it before falling forward on the ground.

He half climbed out from under the car, grabbed the muzzle of the gun as it was pointed at him and shoved it to the side just before the shot was fired. Getting a firmer grip on it, he pulled and then pushed it back at his attacker hard, slamming it into his chest. The man let go as he took in a pained gasp and Jason slammed the gun into his face a couple of times until he was unconscious.

He heard the other two men yelling as they approached and he grabbed the knife from the unconscious one's belt before freeing himself completely to hide by the car bumper. With the last of his rocks, he tossed them over the trunk before rolling over to the next car and hiding on its other end.

He peered around the side of the vehicle, spotting both of his remaining assailants hovering over their unconscious colleague. Neither of them paid mind to his attempt at diversion, which left him no other option for what to do next. Preparing himself, he rolled his shoulders back and took a breath before jumping to his feet and sprinting towards his enemies.

One turned and noticed him just in time for Jason to launch the knife at him before he could shoot. The knife buried in the man's shoulder as he grunted and staggered back a bit. The second turned to Jason, face connecting with his fist and catching the man off guard. In the same instant, Jason launched himself into the air, knees up and colliding with the chest of the other.

The pair fell to the cement, Jason yanking the knife out of one man's chest just to jab it in the other's leg, crumpling him to the ground. With two hard knocks of his elbow to each of their faces, he was free to take a breather. Emptying the clips from each gun, he kept one for himself and headed back to the building.

He'd made it down the front lobby and turned the corner before he saw any sign of other enemies.

Halfway down the hall, two armed men stood guard across from each other, nearly seeming like statues. They turned at Jason's appearance, immediately alarmed by his possession of a firearm. Without a thought, he opened fire, startled by the kickback of the weapon and spraying bullets astray more than making contact with them until the clip was empty. The men moved in erratic motions in an attempt to avoid being hit, with little success.

One took a hit to his foot and side, clutching the latter as he attempted aim at Jason. Much to Jason's surprise, the partner called out to the other. "Non-lethal on this one! Hurricane wants to take care of him personally." The injured man grunted his response as he lowered his weapon, his partner raising his own.

Unlike the one in Jason's hands, his seemed sleeker; smaller but still lethal looking. It wasn't until the man missed his first shot, the dart sticking in the wall behind Jason, that he realized it wasn't a normal gun; it was a tranquilizer.

He smirked to himself as he made another split second decision.

Jason ran as fast as he could in his beat up converse and threw his empty gun at the guy with the tranquilizer as hard as he could. By some stroke of luck, it slammed into the man's throat, causing him to drop the tranquilizer.

Jason skid to a halt just a few inches away from the man with the gunshot wounds, spin- kicked his torso and flipped the man on his back. In the same, bent motion, Jason grabbed the tranquilizer from the floor, shot its owner twice before doing the same to his writhing companion on the floor. He waited for their movements to go from sluggish to still before continuing on.

Turning the corner towards Madalyn's apartment, he was surprised to find that there were no other guards waiting for him. However, before he could give it much more thought, he heard the sound of three actual gunshots behind a closed door and immediately knew where it had to be coming from.

Pitching into a hard run, his body collided with Madalyn's door as he threw it open, hoping to find a plant choking someone while she lectured them.

Instead, he skidded to a halt to find Madalyn on the floor, a pool of blood slowly growing out beneath her, an unconscious armored man impaled by a large glass shard and Hurricane kneeling beside her.

"Get the fuck away from her," Jason growled out at the sight. "Or I swear to god I'll fucking kill you."

Hurricane looked up at him with red rimmed eyes that looked like there was no soul left behind them. His face was paler than before and he suddenly looked like a man with nothing to lose.

Someone it would be dangerous for Jason to deal with in his current Robin-suit-less state.

"This is your fault," Hurricane replied flatly. "You're the reason this happened."

"I'm not the one who brought a hit squad with them—"

"I brought them because of you!" he bellowed, the temperature in the room suddenly dropping so much Jason could see his breath in the air before him. "If it weren't for you, she would've come with me! If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have had to try."

"Man, I don't know what you think you know about her, but I can definitely say she doesn't do anything because of me."

"Everything she does is because of you. Now I'm supposed to just leave her to die while you go on living, 'keeping her memory alive.' I won't allow it."

Jason's eyes narrowed in confusion as they danced between looking at Hurricane and Madalyn whose breathing was growing more shallow by the second. He didn't know why Hurricane would think Madalyn would do anything for him at all, as much of a stranger to her as he was. And then he remembered that their first encounter was while he was dressed as Robin; and Madalyn had clearly been in love with one.

Hurricane thought Jason was Dick, which meant he knew about Madalyn's past even if he didn't know anything about the shift in Titans.

"If she dies, it's not on anyone but you," Jason said, the air around him becoming harder to breathe in. "You brought them here. You got her shot. And whether I existed or not, she never would've gone with a douchebag as fucking big as you."

Thunder echoed loudly outside the broken window, shaking the foundation of the building as Hurricane glared at Jason. Lightning struck just outside and Jason knew it was only a matter of time before it struck him next. Hurricane's breathing grew rapid, but before he could strike Madalyn's weak voice called out "Daniel."

The glare dropped from Hurricane's face as he looked over at her. "Emmy?"

"Daniel...please." She coughed up a bubble of blood and Hurricane leaned over, tilting her head at an angle to help her breathe.

Jason watched the slightest twitch of her lips in a smile as she let out a breath, what looked like fire sparks dancing in the airspace between them until Hurricane breathed it all in. He blinked rapidly, his eyes dilating as he swayed slightly, still holding on to her.

Jason watched as Madalyn looked directly into his eyes as she spoke. "Daniel, please, just go. Leave me here; leave us here. Don't hurt him. For me."

A moment passed where Jason was sure Hurricane was going to do the complete opposite and he began to steel himself for it, trying to think of a way to get control. Then he watched in awe as Hurricane nodded at Madalyn, gently slid her head back to the floor and calmly stood on his feet. Jason shifted slightly into a defensive stance, but Hurricane paid him no mind.

Instead, he looked at Madalyn almost painfully, a misty fog rolling in from the window behind him and engulfing him. Within seconds, both he and the fog were gone.

Jason wasted no time in running and sliding to the floor beside her, trying to find a way to stop the bleeding.

As much as was pooling beneath her, he knew that there was hardly a chance of her survival, but he needed to try anyway. He couldn't imagine having to explain another dead loved one to Dick without at least being able to say he did all he could for her.

"You can't..." she said softly and for a second he thought she could somehow read minds too. "You can't tell Dick. Not now, he couldn't take it."

"Can't tell him what?"

"That I'm dead," she answered matter of factly. "He has enough going on...without that. Don't bring me...back into his life... just to pull me away again."

"If he cares as much as you say, he'll find out anyway and he'll find out I knew, that I was here—"

"Not. Now. Please." Jason sighed but nodded and she spared him a tiny, faint smile. "You're a good kid, Jason. A pain in the ass, but still." She laughed out a wet sound and Jason's hands fluttered over her, instinct still wanting to help in some way.

When Conner got shot after saving him, Jason thought he felt like shit; but watching Madalyn's chest fall slowly, without raising again was worse.

Because this time, there was really nothing he could do.

He fell back to sit on the floor next to her, staring blankly at the body for a minute as his phone buzzed almost aggressively in his pocket. He knew who it was long before his fingers curled around its edges and pulled it free.

Dick.

Four missed calls. One voicemail. "Shit," he sighed, unlocking his phone to listen.

"Jason, I saw you called. I just wanted to check in, see if you needed something. If you're in some kind of trouble. Just, uh, call me back, let me know. If not, I'll assume something happened and track you down, so... call me."

"Shit!" he said again, kicking a nearby stool leg and sending it crashing into one of the potted plants by the wall. The pot broke, spilling soil on the floor followed by a single stretch of root.

As much as he didn't want to, and as much as he wasn't ready to, Jason called Dick back and closed his eyes as he waited. By the start of the second ring, Dick was on the line. "Jason."

"Yeah, man, I'm fine," he lied flatly. "I, uh, must've pocket dialed you or something, you know. It's been a crazy night."

"Robin crazy or Jason crazy?"

"Take a guess."

"Jason crazy," Dick replied without pause and with very little humor. "You've been drinking again."

"Never stopped," Jason shrugged. Dick sighed and Jason was hit with a wave of guilt. The guy was sitting there worrying about him, meanwhile his dead ex was lying on the floor beside Jason and he would never know. It didn't seem right. "Listen, I have to go. I have some stuff to take care of but...thanks, I guess. For checking in."

"Of course," Dick said and then paused. Jason got the sense he wanted to say more and stayed quiet. "When you're ready, you're always welcome back here, you know? This is your home as much as any of us."

"Yeah, sure. Bye." Jason hung up without anymore, gruffly shoving his phone in his pocket once more. Even if he did want to go back, after what happened to Madalyn he didn't think he ever could.

With his eyes still closed as he thought on that, he felt the weight of something push into him from his side.

The very same side as Madalyn's body.

His eyes sprung open with renewed hope only to find something curious and even slightly disturbing instead.

The various plants from both within and out of the apartment had grown out and begun to curl around Madalyn and pull her away from him. Stunned immobile briefly, he watched as the plant whose pot he'd broken used its freed root to embed itself in the veins on the back of her hand like some kind of natural IV line.

"What the fuck...?" he breathed out as the plants dragged her towards the outside. "Hey, give her back!"

He rose to his feet and made his way towards the retreating body and vinery only to be slapped back by another vine. He felt heat rush to his face as he grew angrier and pushed forward to try again. And again. But each time he was slammed back by a vine until they seemed to grow impatient of him.

He felt something wrap around his neck, cutting off air as he tried to fight against it to no avail. The last thing he saw before the dark being Madalyn's body dragged into a bush bed just outside her apartment window.

* * * *

Jason groaned as he began to wake up a couple of hours later, his throat sore and throbbing.

He sat up with his back to the couch, confused by the previous events. The apartment was as trashed as before but the plants had all disappeared or shriveled up and died in their place, as if they hadn't seen sun or water in weeks.

The image of Madalyn being dragged away flashed across his mind and Jason nearly gave himself whiplash as he turned to look out the broken window frame. He didn't know what he was looking for or expecting to find, but what he saw was definitely not it.

Standing naked and coated in dried blood and dirt, head tilted up to the sun and eyes closed, was a very much alive Madalyn. She seemed to all but glow in the light, completely unaware of his eyes on her.

"How the fuck are you alive right now?" Jason blurted, scrambling to get to his feet without taking his eyes off of her. He was almost sure that if he looked away for even a second, she would disappear like some kind of mirage.

Madalyn looked at him in surprise as he spoke, whatever spell she's been under suddenly broken. She looked down at herself, eyes wide as color flooded her cheeks and she ran fast inside, half crouched behind the kitchen counter.

"Don't fucking stare at me, I'm naked!" she nearly shrieked at him. "Toss me a blanket or something!"

"Naked?" Jason repeated in disbelief. "Bitch, you were dead! I think me seeing you in your birthday suit is the most least concerning issue right now!"

"Says the fully clothed guy!" she yelled back, hand outstretched and waiting impatiently. "Now toss me a fucking blanket!"

Imagine waking up to find the person you thought was dead was just standing, alive, naked sunbathing like nothing ever happened. Man, Jason has seen some shit xD

Thoughts on this chapter? What do you think is gonna happen next? Is Hurricane really a good guy or bad? Let me know in the comments!

Also, THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR 4K READS! You have no idea how much that means to me and I hope I can keep making this enjoyable for you all <3