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Jason Todd isn’t even sure what time he got the call. It had already been a shit day—no, a shit few weeks, actually. Filled with team-ups, fights, and words that drained his energy faster than using the All-Blades.
He rubs his eyes as his apartment comes into view and reaches for the handle, quickly unlocking the wooden door. He can’t remember the last time he got more than three hours of sleep. It feels like it’s been eons since he ate something that wasn’t from a takeout bag or one of the convenience stores that dotted his route.
So when he’s finally back in Gotham, the exhaustion hits him full force. More than anything, he just wants to sleep. His eyes burn from the effort of keeping them open, and the half-healed bruises and cuts covering his body make every movement stiff in the cold air.
It feels like a breath of relief to be home. He stretches and throws his helmet carelessly on the table—so carelessly that it might've set off the bomb in his old one.
He’s halfway through unfastening the chest pads of his armor when a soft buzzing goes off in his pocket. He rolls his eyes as a wave of irritation rolls through him. Whoever was calling better have a damn good reason for bothering him at fuck-ass o'clock.
He pulls the phone from his pocket and blinks at the sight of Roy’s contact photo—hat pulled halfway down his face, middle finger raised toward the camera. The anger fades instantly. Something tugs at Jason’s chest.
They hadn’t talked in three months. Not since Kori left to handle something off-planet and Jason had been swept up again in the chaos that was Gotham.
He flips the phone to his ear and tries not to let his exhaustion bleed into his voice.
“Jay?”
There’s something in Roy’s tone that sets him on edge. Suddenly, he’s wide awake. The words sound muffled, and even through the digital haze, Roy’s voice is gravelly.
The next words are choked out—so strained that even through the static, Jason knows something is wrong. There are sirens in the background. Jason’s used to chaos surrounding Roy—he always seems to be the eye of the tornado. But something's different this time.
“I…” The word is short and clipped, followed by what Jason thinks is a sob—and it makes his blood run cold.
“Are you good? Roy, answer me, man.”
They were friends. Jason trusted Roy and Kori the way he trusted the sun to rise. If Roy was calling him now, something was wrong—bad enough that Roy needed help.
Jason runs a nervous hand through his hair and bites the inside of his cheek until he tastes copper.
“Roy, are you okay?”
Kori was always better at this. God, he wishes she was here right now. It’d make his life easier. The line goes quiet. For a moment, he fears Roy might’ve done something—relapsed, maybe. Something he couldn’t go to the others about.
Jason starts mentally preparing for the worst, grabbing the duffle bag he’d just dropped onto the couch. His muscles ache, his body is sore, and all he wants is to sleep for a solid week—maybe longer.
But Roy doesn’t cry. Not unless something is seriously wrong.
The other end of the phone is silent. Jason wonders if Lian is with Dinah—usually there’s background noise, maybe a TV show or the sound of her tiny voice chirping, “Who are you talkin’ to?”
But then again, it’s late. Roy might’ve already put her to bed.
“Roy, what’s going on? Are you okay?”
His voice softens without meaning to, and whatever silent spell Roy was under finally breaks.
“No—I—fuck, it’s… Lian. She’s dead.”
Jason freezes.
The pieces click into place. A wave of nausea hits him like a wall of bricks. He sucks in a breath, fighting the grief and guilt slamming into him harder than any fist.
That can’t be true.
He’d expected something else. He almost wishes Roy was calling about Oliver, or a relapse—not this. Not the death of his daughter.
Jason runs a hand down his face, willing the tears away. He can’t afford to break down. Not now.
“Roy, where are you?”
All he hears in response is another sob. He bites the inside of his cheek again until it bleeds. God, he wishes Kori was here. Maybe then they could fix this. Maybe she’d know how. Maybe she could fly them to a Lazarus Pit—hell, Jason would fight Ra’s himself if it meant bringing her back.
Because if anyone deserved a long, happy life, it was Lian. The girl who could talk for hours about fairies and colors if you let her. Roy’s entire world. And—Jason realizes now—maybe part of his too.
“I—I’m at our house,” Roy says, and the words sound choppy, distant, even to Jason’s ears.
He can’t leave Roy like this. He won’t. Not through this. Never through this.
Jason grabs the duffel from the table, snatches his keys from the counter.
“I’m coming, Roy. I’ll be there in thirty-five. Don’t go anywhere.”
And Jason doesn’t think he could, even if he wanted to.
“I’m coming. I’ll be there soon, okay? Just—just stay there.”
He doesn’t wait for Roy to respond. He’s already moving—half armored, still bleeding, not even sure if he locked the door behind him. Doesn’t care. He’s out the door and on the bike before the numbness sets in.
Because if he lets it hit him now, he’ll fall apart.
And Roy needs him.
And Lian’s gone.
And nothing feels real anymore.
————————————————————————————————————————————————
He doesn't know what he was expecting, when he arrived, maybe an accident, anything but this. There’re pieces of rubble surrounding the area that only makes his heart pound rapidly. he arrives closer and closer to the house. And Jason feels like he’s on autopilot. His brain carries him and his bike to the location. Without him even having to think twice and
n and when he turns the corner on his bike, It feels like his entire world has frozen over and is burning alive at the same.
Roy had told him he was at the apartment.
What he hadn’t said was that their apartment—the one he’d once shared with Lian, filled with old furniture and children’s books and leftover birthday streamers from a party no one had wanted to take down, full of memories of Kori patching them up after a mission gone wrong, the same apartment where he and Roy had shared one to many drinks, and secrets.
Jason sees it before he sees Roy: the yellow crime scene tape fluttering like cautionary wings in the wind, stretched across what was once a door frame. There’s no roof. No walls left standing. Just charred concrete and smoldering ash.
Roy stands at what used to the door frame, and suddenly everything clicks into place.
The back of Roy’s head is visible, shoulders curled forward, green eyes bloodshot and unblinking. It’s easy to put two and two together, and Jason almost wishes he couldn’t—almost wishes his mind didn’t immediately conjure the image of what Lian must’ve felt in her final moments. The pain of fire licking at injuries, the fear that comes with losing he ability to breathe because of the smoke. Suddenly he feels sick.
Ash coats the air thick enough to taste. The world smells like smoke and melted insulation and grief.
Jason approaches slowly, making sure his boots scuff the broken concrete loudly enough to be heard. Roy doesn’t look up. Doesn’t blink.
“Roy,” he calls out, softly—like raising his voice might shatter what little is left.
Roy doesn’t flinch. His entire body is locked in place like something barely holding itself together.
Jason stops behind him, placing a careful hand on Roy’s hunched shoulder. His fingers twitch with the urge to squeeze—to offer something tangible—but he doesn’t press down. Doesn’t speak again, not right away. What do you say when the world ends? When is someone’s heart turned to ash in front of them?
Roy breathes—shaky, ragged—and Jason can hear how close he is to falling apart. He glances at the rubble again, where the window used to be. The one with the blue curtains Lian had picked out. All gone. Gone in fire and smoke and silence.
“If she was in there when it happened…” Roy’s voice finally comes, hoarse and low. “If she was in there—”
Jason’s throat tightens. His mind flashes, uninvited, to a warehouse. To the smell of gasoline. To the sound of a crowbar. The way fire eats skin, muscle, memory. He blinks hard and swallows it down. He can’t spiral. Not now. Not when Roy is already drowning.
“Roy,” he says again, firmer this time.
This time, Roy turns. His eyes find Jason’s like he isn’t sure if he’s really there or just another cruel dream his mind conjured. Jason hates the look on his face. Hates that he knows exactly what it means to lose a child. Hates that Roy has to understand that now too.
“I’m sorry,” Jason says, the words ripping out of him like they’re caught on a blade.
And Roy crumples.
It isn’t graceful. It isn’t slow. His knees buckle and he hits the cracked pavement hard, fingers digging into the ash-streaked ground. Jason is beside him in an instant, not even feeling the gravel bite into his own knees as he wraps both arms around Roy’s shaking form.
“I’m sorry,” Roy repeats, voice wet and breaking and soaked in guilt that Jason knows shouldn’t be there but is anyway. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”
“You don’t have to be,” Jason mutters, voice cracking, but Roy keeps saying it like maybe if he says it enough, the timeline will change. Like maybe if he takes all the blame into himself, the fire will spit Lian back out unharmed.
The front of Jason’s shirt grows damp with Roy’s sobs. It sticks to his chest, and he lets it. Let's Roy cry into him with the sound of sirens long gone still ringing in the distance. Let's Roy scream into his collarbone and tremble and curl in on himself like if he folds tight enough, he’ll wake up from this.
Jason holds him tighter. Tighter, because if he lets go, there might be nothing left to catch.
The sky is gray, the air bitter, and Gotham offers no mercy—not even now. But in the hollow of this moment, between the silence and the sobs, Jason makes a vow he doesn’t speak aloud:
Roy won’t fall apart alone.
Not this time.
t
————————————————————————————————————————————————
Roy hasn't moved from the couch.
Not once.
He's been stuck there since Jason had half-dragged him to the apartment safe house on the outskirts of star city , arms limp, face slack, eyes vacant. The fire might’ve stopped burning days ago, but its aftermath lives here spilled across the floor in cigarette ash, tear stains, and silence so thick Jason swears it has weight.
The couch sags beneath Roy's body, and Jason watches from the kitchen table, chair turned just enough so he can keep him in his eyeline. Three days. Three fucking days. Roy hasn’t eaten, hasn’t changed clothes, hasn’t even tried to move. The only thing he’s done is occasionally blink. And check his phone.
Thirteen missed calls.
Jason counted.
He’d wanted to be gentle—had tried to be patient—but everything keeps coming in waves, pulling him down, shoving him under. Anger. Guilt. Frustration. An ache he doesn’t know where to put. For once in his life, he wishes he had Bruce’s cold detachment. That switch he can flip to bury things down so deep they never surface.
But Jason’s never had that.
Instead, everything simmers under his skin like coals.
Because Lian deserves a service.
She deserves to be mourned, remembered, honored.
And Roy can’t even sit up.
Jason clenches his jaw and presses his palm to his temple. The rage isn't fair—it’s not Roy’s fault. Logically, he knows that. But logic doesn’t make grief any easier to hold.
When Roy’s phone rings again—shrill and useless against the static of the room—Jason doesn’t wait for it to go to voicemail this time. He snatches it off the table.
The caller ID reads Dinah.
Jason exhales hard and brings the phone to his ear.
“Roy can’t talk right now.”
There’s a pause on the other end. Then: “Is he okay?”
Jason’s jaw twitches. “Define ‘okay.’”
When he hangs up, he moves to the living room. Roy still hasn’t stirred. Just lies there with his back to the room and his face buried in a couch cushion. His body has curled in on itself in a way that makes Jason’s chest hurt.
“Roy,” Jason says, voice low, frayed.
No answer.
He takes a step closer.
“Dinah called,” he says. “She wants to talk to you.”
Roy doesn’t even twitch.
Jason drags a hand through his hair. The frustration is building again, not because he’s angry at Roy, but because this… this version of him scares Jason more than anything. And Jason’s not scared of much.
“Tell her to fuck off,” Roy mumbles eventually, voice muffled and small.
Jason’s shoulders drop. “She just wants to know if you’re—”
“Fuck off then, Jason!” Roy snaps, and his voice cracks on every other word.
Jason recoils like he’s been slapped.
“Fucking fine,” he mutters, throwing his hands up—but the heat dies in his throat the second he sees Roy’s face.
What little of it peeks out from the pillow is hollow. Tear-tracked and dull-eyed. The kind of look that doesn’t register pain anymore. That’s past it. Jason knows that look. Knows it like the back of his own hand.
He turns away before he can let himself yell.
Because something still has to be done.
Roy can’t plan the funeral.
Oliver sure as hell won’t.
So Jason goes alone.
The funeral home smells like bleach and wilted flowers. He hates it.
The woman behind the desk is kind, too kind, like she’s practiced soft smiles and gentler tones for years. Jason doesn’t need any of it. He just needs to get through this. Needs to find something small enough for a girl who deserved the world.
He picks out a casket that feels too small and too real all at once—white ivory with a baby blue lid and gold trim.
The color catches him off guard.
Because it reminds him of a conversation from months ago. Not quite Lian’s bedtime, not quite Roy’s patrol. Jason remembers the sound of Roy’s voice on the phone, teasing about arrow designs and calling him a tech snob. Remembers the way Lian had chimed in off-screen:
“You little traitor,” Roy had laughed when she’d taken Jason’s side about arrows being outdated.
“Well, maybe if your arrows were blue and yellow, they’d be cooler!” she’d said proudly.
Jason had laughed too.
God, she’d been so proud.
So alive.
Now Jason’s signing off on her casket in the same shades she loved. His hand trembles as he scrawls his signature on the receipt. He doesn’t let himself cry. Not here.
He walks to the coroner’s office next.
Bruce’s card covers the gravestone—limestone and marble, solid and beautiful in a way Jason hopes Roy will appreciate when he can breathe again. When he can stand again. If he ever can.
The fire had been bad.
Jason’s seen bad fires. He knows what it means to die that way. What it means to burn from the inside out. Every nerve screaming until it just... stops.
No kid should have died like that.
Alone. Scared. With her entire world on fire.
A part of him wants to be angry at Roy—for not being there. For being on a mission instead. But Jason was there too. He was off chasing gang members and trying to clean up star city when he should’ve—
Should’ve what? Known the future?
He pushes the thought away.
If Roy had known, he would’ve crawled through hell to get back to her. Jason knows that. Just like he knows Roy’s guilt will eat him alive.
And maybe, if Jason lets himself think too hard about it, his guilt will too.
—————————————————————————————————————————-
By the time the funeral comes, Jason’s running on autopilot.
He gets Roy into the shower with all the force of a man dragging someone out of a battlefield. Because that's what this feels like—war. The hardest kind. Not the kind with fists or bullets, but with silence and grief and the weight of everything left unsaid.
“Come on,” Jason urges, standing in the bathroom doorway as Roy slumps against the tile, eyes glazed over like he’s not really there. “You don’t want to go, I know. But you have to.”
Roy doesn’t move. Doesn’t even blink.
So Jason steps in and does it for him. He pulls Roy’s sweat-soaked shirt over his head, forces a comb through his long, greasy hair, and holds him steady as warm water runs down their arms. Roy shivers but doesn’t complain. It’s like all his fight has been drained out of him, and all that’s left is this shell.
When they’re ready to leave, Roy stops at the front door. His hand trembles on the knob.
“I can’t do it,” he whispers.
Jason reaches for his shoulder and squeezes, not gently. “You need to be there. Or the guilt will eat you alive.”
Roy turns to him, red-rimmed eyes glassy. “It already is.”
Jason exhales slowly, steadying himself.
“Then do it for her. She needs you there, Roy. One last time. Be her father. See her off right.”
That’s what does it.
Roy breaks. Sobs wrack his chest so violently Jason thinks he might throw up. But when Jason presses a hand to his back, he nods. Over and over again, desperate and broken and terrified.
The funeral is a small affair.
Jason doesn't know what he expected. Maybe a larger crowd. More community support. Some grand gesture. But grief doesn’t come with confetti or closure. It just comes.
There’s a soft breeze as they gather around the ivory casket. It’s small. Too small. Covered in lilies and roses—Jason had picked those, the way Lian used to describe them as “sleepy flowers for fancy girls.”
He scans the crowd and notes who’s missing immediately.
Oliver.
Fucking Oliver.
Jason bites the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste blood. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t have to. The absence speaks louder than words. Instead, he focuses on the people who did show.
Dinah. Connor. Wally. Dick. A few old Titans. Even Donna sent flowers.
Roy hasn’t said a word since they left the apartment.
They let him go first.
Jason walks with him to the casket, hand under Roy’s elbow, because he knows—he knows—Roy’s legs are seconds from giving out. And when Roy sinks to his knees, the grass stains his slacks and his fingers clutch the edge of the casket like he can pull her back through the wood.
“I’m sorry,” Roy whispers, over and over again. “I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”
Jason crouches beside him, silent.
Let him have this.
Let the whole world pause if it needs to.
Eventually, Dinah kneels next to them and wraps her arms around Roy’s shaking frame. Connor flanks his other side and offers a hand, a quiet squeeze. Between them, they lift him to his feet.
Jason steps back and watches as Dinah leads Roy away from the grave. Connor stays close, resting a hand between Roy’s shoulder blades.
“You need anything, call me. Anytime,” Connor says gently, voice low. “I mean it.”
Dinah adds her own quiet, “We’ve got you, Roy. You don’t have to do this alone.”
Jason doesn’t say anything.
Because he knows Roy won’t call.
He’ll go back to the apartment. Crawl into bed. Let the grief rot through his bones like an infection. He’ll sit with the ache until he’s forgotten how to live without it.
And Jason will stay. Clean the dishes. Take the voicemails. Patch up the pieces of a man who doesn’t know how to be whole anymore, at least until he’s sure Roy remembers how to be human again. Then he’ll go back to Gotham for a few months take out every bit of his anger, his grief on traffickers and murders because there was no greater evil who caused this, because unlike Roy, he doesn't have the opportunity, hell the ability to break down in public. A part of him wonders if that's something the Lazarous pit took away or maybe that had been another lasting result of the joker.
The casket is lowered into the ground.
There’s no body
Just ashes.
An empty casket and the memory of a little girl who loved blue and yellow arrows and called him “Uncle Jay” with a toothy grin.
And just like that, the affair is over, people filter out, offering condolences, moving around in what feels like slow motion. But he can't help but feel like the world his world has stopped.
————————————————————————————————————————==============
And then the affair is over,
Jason has to drags Roy home after the funeral like he’s carrying dead weight—because, in a way, he is. Roy doesn’t speak, doesn’t resist. He just follows, eyes blank, body moving like he’s been unplugged from reality, Jason hates how familiar it feels. because it reminds him all too much of needles and their effects.
When they make it back to the apartment, He doesn't talk, not really, just sits the suit jacket down, walks to the bathroom and turns on the shower.
Back at the apartment, he coaxes Roy into the shower. Not gently, not harshly—just… firmly. Enough to get the job done. Roy doesn’t argue. He just stands under the water like it’s supposed to erase something. Jason sets clean clothes on the counter and waits until Roy reaches for them before walking out. He tells himself it’s fine. This is what Roy needs. Space. Time. It's what worked before...
Later, he tries to get Roy to eat. There’s food stacked on the counter—casseroles and sympathy dishes from people Jason barely remembers. The flowers are dying. So are the notes, curling at the edges like they’re trying to disappear.
Roy picks at the food. Two bites. Maybe three. Then he pushes the plate away and mumbles, “I need sleep.”
Jason nods and lets him go. Because what else is there to do?
The next two weeks pass like a fever dream. Jason finds himself floating between roles—caretaker, bodyguard, guilt sponge. He loses track of how many times he wakes up to the sound of Roy crying, only to hear silence the second he moves. Sometimes he cooks. Sometimes he just sits on the couch and watches Roy breathe. And sometimes—too often—he has to leave the room and pretend the floor isn’t tilting under him.
Jason’s not a stranger to grief. But this? This is different. This is grief with no edges. Just endless weight.
Then, one morning, he walks past the bathroom and sees Roy’s phone vibrating on the counter. The screen’s unlocked, the message thread open.
He knows better.
He looks anyway.
“I’ll meet you at 8. Same spot.”
“Just a little something to take the edge off.”
Jason stares. His stomach drops.
And then something hardens in him, because how could Roy be so fucking stupid.
He finds Roy curled up on the couch like he’s trying to disappear into it. The same damn spot he’s been stuck in for fourteen days. Jason crosses the room in slow, measured steps.
“You’re meeting a dealer tonight?”
The words are clipped. Sharp. A gunshot of a sentence.
Roy doesn’t even flinch. Just stares blankly ahead. “What do I have to lose?”
Jason’s teeth grind together.
“You have Connor. You have Dinah. You have me.”
Roy’s laugh is bitter. Hollow. Like something scraping the inside of an empty well. “I don’t want to feel anymore, Jay. I can’t. I wake up and I still hear her. I see the fire. I see her room.”
Jason kneels in front of him, rage and grief burning through his spine like napalm, his eyes burn, and he feels tired and maybe this week had been hellish, but somehow, having something to do had given him a focus point. Now everything seemed to hit him at once. And his breathe hitches in his lungs. Lian was dead, he’d planned her funereal, Lian who only got five years,
“I know” he says and his mouth feels like it’s full of cotton. “But you’ll kill yourself escaping it, you know that”.
He doesn’t mean for it to come out so harsh, but then again maybe he does.
The room sinks into silence and Roy just looks at him with the same color eyes as lien, and Jason hadn't even realized that, not until just now.. And maybe it's been a long time coming, he’s sure dick would agree, but something in that small detail makes the carefully constructed wall break...
The weight hits him like a collapsing building, and he feels the warm tears slide down his face, because Lian was gone. And then Roy is right beside him, shoulders hunched and body shaking and so full of grief The kind of grief that rips through your throat like shrapnel.
He hadn’t even realized how much he loved that kid. She’d called him “Uncle Jay” once and it stuck. Every dumb video call, every cheesy voice message. The memory slices through him like broken glass, and he can't stop the tears from falling but neither can toy.
“I miss her,” Roy chokes out. “I don’t know what to do. - she was just here, -and I- she was just here.”
.and Jason doesn't offer words of comfort because he doesn't have any left to give.
“I miss her too,” he whispers.
Roy looks up at him. Their eyes meet, both red-rimmed, both wrecked and it feels like hell hurts like hell.
“She wouldn’t want this,” Roy murmurs. “All this sadness. She’d make fun of us. Say we were crybabies”
And Jason remembers when Roy had told him Lian got in trouble at school for telling a kid to stop crying and play gladiator with her.
“Yeah. She’d tell us to knock it off and go play Mario Kart.”
Roy wipes his tear strained face “She’d probably win.”
“She always cheated, wonder where she got that from”
Roy lets out a miserable, self-deprecating laugh that only makes more tears spill down his face. Jason offers a wobbly, half-hearted smile in return, and they both sit with it—the shared understanding that nothing is okay right now. Maybe nothing ever will be again. Not with the unhealing, ever-aching wound of Lian’s absence sitting between them like a ghost.
But Jason talked Roy down from relapsing. That has to mean something. They’ll survive this. They have to. Because even if Jason isn’t religious, he figures if there’s an afterlife—any kind of peace—Lian would be there, waiting.
And until that day comes, they just have to keep going.
.