Chapter 24
Red Hood: The Lost Days
Chapter 24 - Death of Robin
"The first thing they told you about me was how I died." - Darko
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You don't know this, but in the next three hours, your life is going to end.
You won't feel the explosion, the splinted wood piercing through your left thigh, the heavy ceiling collapsing on your torso, the burning scorch of flame licking through your body inside out, the pressure of air being forced away from your flaming lung. You will not know any of these.
Because you will still believe HE will come.
Just like always. Just like the last time. Just like the beginning.
You will keep hearing the something break, something snap, something twitch. But you will not know that they are sounds of your own bones being crushed. You will not realize that the pipe hitting dead-on on your body, on your elbows, on your rib cage, on your knees, at the side of your head; they are breaking every joint, every portion, every inch of your bruised form.
You will not know these. Because you will be concentrating on coming up with an appropriate apology to him when he comes barging in, an apology for not being fortunate son, comes running to you, an apology for not being golden boy, picking you up, an apology for not being just like first Robin, and running out of there, an apology for not listening to him, carrying you in his arms, an apology for him meeting you.
You don't know this, but in the next three hours you are going to realize that once you're alone, you're always alone.
And there is no one to save you.
And somewhere in the distance, a boy will cry.
You don't know this, but in the next three hours he will not going to make it. He is not going to come. He is never going to be in time. Never going to be on time.
He will always be late Late LATE LATE
Always a little too late. A tad bit too late for you.
You will want to close your eyes but instead you will open them wide, E/C eyes will stay fix on the ground, fix on the blood, fix on a puddle of blood, YOUR BLOOD, fix on that spot. The spot where you were moments ago. While waiting for him to come, you know he will. He will save the day. Save yourself. Save your soul. This is what he always does. He will always save you from yourself. He will always save you. He has to because no one else will.
You don't know this but in the next three hours, these will all turn into a big fat bundle of lies.
You will get beaten up, blown down, driven through, blasted away. And he will not make it in time.
HE WILL BE SO, SO VERY, VERY MUCH TOO LATE.
The last thing you will see is going to be the number, the clock, the device, the bomb. And you will embrace it. Because he will not make it in time.
He will hold your battered, bruised, broken body in his arms, and he will cry. He will cry but he will not understand why, he will not see the big picture, he will not cope. He will only know that you are gone.
That you are never to come back.
Never to open your eyes.
Never to smile again.
Never ever to smile at him.
Never. Ever.
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THIRD POV
Y/N: "Smells like fucking French fries in here.
Y/N told to the person infront of him as he sniffed. He was currently sitting on a sofa, in a room on 4th floor, which had big window, over looking the streets of Gotham. It was a day time so you could clearly see a blimp flying in a distance more clearly.
He wore a grey shirt with red jacket over it, black pants with yellow outlines and red shoes.
???: "Wednesday is my cheat day."
The person in the room spoke to him. That person is Doctor Leslie Thompkins. A psychologist and psychiatrist. A friend to his adopted family.
Y/N: "Still big fan of the emotional shit, right?"
He asked as eldery woman smiled at that question.
Leslie: "Always."
She responded which made Y/N chuckle. He stayed silent for a second before asking next question.
Y/N: "Same routine?"
Leslie knew what he meant. He is asking about their routine they always had when he was Robin, but was suprised that he came to her for that.
Leslie: "Bruce tells me you aren't very opened with your... trauma."
Y/N lets out a shaky breath. He looks down at his feet for sometime before looking up towards her.
Y/N: "Maybe it's time... I open up... about it."
She stares at him, looking over every detail of his body stature, face expression, hand movement.
Leslie: "You sure you want to do this?"
She asks him calmly, with a tone that she knows he finds honest and trustworthy, no pushing up to talk like Bruce's voice.
Y/N: "I'm ready."
With that, Leslie takes out her notebook and opens it up, while clicking with a pen, as she starts.
Leslie: "Mother?"
Y/N: "Gone."
Leslie scratches with a pen on a paper the answer he gave her.
Leslie: "Father?"
Y/N looks to the side, as Leslie realizes her mistake.
Leslie: "Sorry. Father figure?"
Y/N: "Bruce."
She writes that down too. She then starts to ask more personal questions.
Leslie: "Bosnia?"
Y/N: "Pain."
Leslie: "Friend? Friends?"
Y/N: "Raven. Cayla."
Leslie: "Robin?"
Y/N: "Freedom...Damian."
She writes that down before stopping for a moment before asking her final question.
Leslie: "...Red Hood?"
Y/N darts his eyes away from her as he drops into his own thoughts. She spoted that he has stoped playing with his fingers. Y/N sits still but when he finally decides what to say, he turns to her.
Y/N: "Me."
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Y/N Peter Todd has never believed in God, in any god that is. As an orphan boy in the streets, a boy who rarely ate, a boy with nowhere to sleep, he didn't have enough strength to hope it could get better. And believing in a god would mean that this was intentional, that his pain was causing someone humor.
And if he was being honest, at that point, it would have been pathetic to believe in a god, in someone that looked out for him, when everything he knew had gone to shits. In someone that moved things around to make this happen.
Mainly this is why Y/N Todd didn't believe in a heaven or hell. It would have been unrealistic to expect a place better, a place in which hed be compensated for all the things he'd gone through. He didn't want to get his hopes up.
And to believe in a place worse... A place where he could possibly end up in, it was useless, it was torture. It wasn't Y/N Todd.
I did what I had to do. I'm not proud of most of it. For what it's worth - - I never hurt anyone. Physically. Can't say others were as nice to me.
So age six, Y/N Todd had come to a conclusion. Do not think about death, about what might happen afterwards. Heaven, hell, purgatory, no. Don't play with your mind like that. What comes after death will come after death.
So he ignored the subject, just for as long as he could. However, what brought him back to the thought wasn't the Joker beating him with the crowbar, several years later. It wasn't his voice, his laugh, a maniac laugh. It wasn't the Joker telling him that he was having so much fun, how weak Y/N was. Not the swing of his arms, not him asking Y/N which direction he liked getting hit. It was when he hit him in the eye, when Y/N knew that he was going to die. When he felt something in him crack, when he felt his own iris betraying him. His left eye, blind.
It was his left eye that brought him to think about what was going to happen next.
Was he going to hell, to heaven? Was there even a hell, a heaven? Would he be reborn on earth as a punishment? Wa it gonna to be a loop, his life on the streets? His mom, who he couldn't save, was he going to see her again.
It was the last question that made him stop fighting. Something he had never even considered before. His mom, could she be out there?
So Y/N Todd let it take him, the pain that came with his left eye. It wasn't peaceful, it wasn't graceful, it wasn't beautiful, him dying. It was heartbreaking, but he accepted it, embraced it.
The next thing Y/N remembers is light. Not a light 'at the end of the tunnel', nothing poetic like the shit-eating books hed read in the manor. Light that consumed him, that seemed to strip away everything Y/N once was.
He remembers a voice, a woman's voice, his mom's voice.
"I'm sorry, Y/N," she said. "I really am," she continue. "I should have told you earlier...I shouldn't have lied to you...I'm not...I'm...sorry, sorry, sorry, Y/N...sorry..."
His vision cleared, Y/N sat in the bathroom floor of his father's house. Grabbing his mother's wrist softly, with the other hand hugging her torso, crying softly. He didn't want to wake her up, she was just sleeping. On the bathroom floor, her heart not beating.
Like the light came to him, the darkness did as well. It was Y/N's last image, last memory. Whispering to his mom how everything was going to be okay, they were going to be okay.
Y/N Todd opened his eyes, he couldn't see anything. He wasn't with his mother, he never had been. He feels a bandage over his eyes, he felt it when he snapped his eyes open. He can only think about his mothers words, how they were all wrong. His mom was never supposed to apologize to him. It was him that should have apologized to her.
Y/N Todd opens his mouth, he screams. He chokes, he is underwater. Nobody can hear him, his mother cant hear him.
He recollects his senses, he tries raising his head. He is panicking, yet he's not doing anything.
He feels it now, something coming back to him. He can feel his legs, his arms. He raises his head, raises his torso. He feels new, repaired, reborn, cursed. He inhales, yet it feels so unnecessary. He remembers his mothers words to him.
"Im sorry, Y/N, I really am, I should have told you earlier...I shouldn't have lied to you...I'm not...I'm...sorry, sorry, sorry, Y/N...sorry..."
Y/N screams, and it feels so foreign. He whispers, "I'm sorry, mom." He really is.
Y/N Todd reaches for his face, for the bandage covering his eyes. He tries to tear it, he can only take out a piece. He can see now, with both eyes. There is a man and a woman, but they're not supposed to be there.
He's not supposed to be there. He's supposed to be with his mother, she must be around. This place, it was whatever came after death. His mother must be there.
Y/N looks at the woman, he looks at the man, and he understands. His mothe isn't here. Then his view went dark, as madness took over him. Something...no, somebody else, taking over control of his body. After that, he only remembers waking up stranded on the shore of the river, next to a bridge in a village.
The name of the moments after is something only Y/N knows, it's something that he hasn't bothered to tell anyone. They all gave it a name, anyways.
They call it pit madness.
Y/N Todd calls it grief.
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(WORDS: 2034)
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