and maybe she made him die twice

all that is blood was never once beautiful

One day your heart will burn brighter than the fury inside you.

And that day will be glorious. 

Chapter Seven

Five Years Later

It's always been hard for him to say goodbye.

So he never did. 

Not to the Titans, or her, as he spirited away to pay back both his executioner and the ferryman. Not to his double life as Red X when he stormed into Gotham, with no need to make the distinction between a thief and a murderer in a city that teemed with both. Not to Bruce, when he failed. Not to Joker, when he won.

Because he won, thousands of families would never have to say a premature goodbye ever again.

The first and only person who stuck with him after his non-goodbyes was Roy. He grew on Jason as arrows grew on him when guns were unavailable. Moving past the unresolved golden-child syndrome that sabotaged Speedy in the beginning, he became an entertaining, if not likable, smartass. Even got clean. All well and good, right?

Wrong. For right now they were in a submarine stuffed to the brim with explosives, mobbed by slime that wanted to give them one hell of a goodbye. 

"Give it up, Hoodie." Macho man. Fake gold chains swinging from his chin, all eyesores. If the guy wasn't trying to kill him, Jason would tell him to buy jewelry that didn't scream 'ringleader.' "Escape is impossible. We will die here together, like men." 

"There you go again..." Jason slit the smuggler's throat, took the bomb's remote from his now-spasming hand, and flicked it to Roy. "Underestimating me."

"Underestimating him, and just plain estimating pronouns." Roy fiddled with the wires that were making the missile count down to detonation, yawning. "Although yours will be dead/die 'soon as I'm done with this."

"No, idiot!" Jason watched helplessly as his partner scrambled the cables beyond recognition. Sparks flew. And not the good kind. "Don't try to defuse it. We were supposed to get the hell out here and then set it off."

"Oh." Water leaked from the pummeled hull of the ship was soaking them to the bone. It would dampen the rippling inferno that would reduce half the sealife to ash. But if they were swaddled in the center of the eruption, mother's nature's mercy wouldn't save them from being next. "Oopsie?"

"Come on." Jason yanked Roy by the collar and unscrewed the air pressure lock off the cabin, drowning all the corpses in a gurgling flood. The pale blue light reflecting the ocean's surface seemed to get ten strokes further away every swim stroke they completed.

Three.

Two.

One.

Boom.

A dive. A splash.

For his near-second death, all Jason saw was green.

-

BEEP.

BEEP.

BEEP.

Wake up. He had to wake up. If he didn't wake up soon, Alfred would pull off his covers, and Bruce would throw a fit at the breakfast table because fighting crime never takes a day o-

Oh. Right.

Why is the bomb still beeping? It should've gone off by now.

One eye twitched open. The steadfast beeping came from a heart monitor, his BPM transcribed in green code that could only be another language. Tubes penetrated his vitals and bandages were wrapped around his wrist. If Jason hadn't felt the rustling leaves and clumped sand tickling his toes, he would've thought himself to be in a hospital bed.