The Last Avenger [What If...? x DCAMU Crossover]

14. Everybody Deserves Somebody to be There for Them

Jason grew up on the streets. His dead-beat dad died in jail during a life sentence, and his mother overdosed. Some weeks he'd gotten on fine. Other's he didn't.

Some weeks rain soaked through his jacket, leaving him chilled to the bone because he couldn't find shelter. Some weeks he would go without food, his stomach shouting and trying to eat itself. Those weeks he was afraid to sit down in fear that he would be able to stand again.

Where had he gone wrong? He could've picked the lock to an apartment, or why hadn't he stolen the off the skinny kid that in the alleyway close to Main, and when he could've snatched that bagel out of that suit's hand and made a run for it. Or even stolen something to pawn off.

Sorry if that offends your sense of right and wrong.

Oh, wait. No, he wasn't.

Jason didn't have a problem with stealing. He did have a moral compass, but no one knew where it was pointing.

He didn't steal from just anybody. He chose obnoxious jerks who had too much already. If you're driving a BMW and you park in a disabled spot without a permit, then, yeah, he had no problem jimmying your window and taking the change from your cupholder. If you're coming out of Barneys with your bag of silk handkerchiefs, so busy talking on your phone and pushing people out of the way that you're not paying attention, Jason was there for you, ready to pick your pocket. If you can afford five thousand dollars to blow you nose, you could afford to buy him dinner.

Sometimes he'd think back to his parents. The worst kind of junkie is the one who thinks they're not the worst kind of junkie. His parents were woeful for a while there. Not in the way they looked, just the way they behaved. Not forgetting his seventh birthday, as such, just sleeping through it, that kind of thing. Booby-trap syringes and shit. He'd creep into their bedroom to wake them up and tell them that it was Easter, hop onto their bed like the joyful seasonal bunny and cop a junk needle in his kneecap.

A hot feeling would come over him when he thought of his father, so he'd shove it away. When he thought of his mother, a lingering warmth put out the fire ragging in his chest. He thought of how he'd nailed wooded boards across the room's two sets of windows. He'd dragged out the old bed when she was using, punching the thin fibro walls. The room was bare but for a thin mattress with no sheets or blankets or pillows. For seven days he kept his Mum locked in that sky-blue room. Jason would sit outside her locked door, listening to her screams, long and random banshee howls, as if beyond that locked door was the Grand Inquisitor overseeing some wicked variety of torture involving pulley systems and his mum's outstretched limbs. But he knew for certain there was no one else in that room but her. She howled at lunch, she wailed at midnight.

Jason had tried to be the son she needed, he cooked her food the best he could, tried to look after her, but in the end it wasn't enough. Nothing he did curbed her addiction.

Then, Jason would rub his arm and muttered words that would make a sailor blush, and he would trudge forwards, because sometimes it was the only way to go. Other times, the realisation that he had nothing left sunk in and his knees would buckle, sick and weak and tired, oh, so tired.

Eventually, during such time, he's walked right into the Batmobile and proceeded to steal it's tires. Instead of sending him to the juvenile hall, Bruce took Jason in, and that was how he became the second Robin.

Then he died.

Jason woke with a pounding headache. He shouldn't have drunk so much. But he'd felt safe last night on that rooftop, he'd had fun. Sure, it had been chaotic, and he had to check his pockets every so often, but it was... peaceful.