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And last of all my dear,
Know the end is never near,
For even a bird with a broken wing,
Still find within its heart, the will to sing.
APoems
Jason didn’t know how long he lay there, on the cold, hard ground of that stupid warehouse, knowing Batman wouldn’t be able to find him. Knowing his dad wouldn’t be able to get there fast enough. He felt the lethargy of the blood loss finally catch up to him, his vision swimming as Joker became unfocused in his eyes as he walked toward him, that fucking crowbar scraping against the ground.
The noise was grating and sent chills down his spine, like the scraping of ice or the sound of nails on a chalkboard. Jason braced himself, knowing the hits would keep coming. His suit was torn and bloodstained, his domino beginning to tear. Jason just wants Bruce. He wants Bruce, and Dick. He wants his family. But Dick’s off-world, and Bruce won’t find him in time.
Jason feels a level of calm flood his body, and he knows that it shouldn’t be good. He knows that when the pain begins to dull, that he’s dying. He felt his ribs ache in protest when Joker came closer, his deranged laugh sending Jason into a muted panic. His legs twisted and bent the wrong way, twitched. He heaved his body, trying to drag himself away from the slow, taunting steps. He nearly screamed, the pain in his ribs and his legs agonizing, but he didn’t stop. He won’t stop. Jason was Robin. Jason was a fighter. He would not give up.
Bruce may not be able to find him, but someone else would. Joker steps closer, his cackling manic laugh filling the air. He pulls his arm back, telegraphing his next action so violently that Jason braces himself for the hit from the crowbar. He can see his blood dripping off the edge of the weapon, and it comes down with a vicious strength onto his abdomen. Jason refuses to scream, even when he knows that he broke another rib, and one of his other ribs officially snapped. He could feel the break bow inward. Could feel the shard of his rib pierce his lung.
Add that to his ever growing list of fatal injuries. He coughs, blood dribbling out of his mouth.
“What’s worse?” Joker cackles. “Forehand, or backhand?” Jason doesn’t answer. He merely licks the bead of blood that left his mouth, and clutches his ribs. He rolls on his back, but hissed when that made the pain in his legs worse.
“Any last words, Robin two?” Joker asks, leaning so close to Jason that he can see every wrinkle on his fucking face, count his yellowed and decayed teeth, and smell his disgusting acidic breath. Jason closes his eyes, and whispers.
“Superman.”
Clark Kent gets startled awake in the middle of the night by a whisper of his name. He feels his stomach churn. He knows he can’t respond to everyone who pleads for him, knows that realistically, he’s only one man, but that voice.
He can’t shake the trembling feeling that he knows that voice. He sits up in his bed, waiting, holding his breath to see if the voice comes again. He focuses on heartbeats. Hears Lois’, knowing she’s safe. His parents, knowing they’re asleep. But Batman, the one other heartbeat he knows nearly as well as his own, is erratic. He hears it begin to stutter, and Clark immediately gets up from his bed and begins to get dressed, praying to every god he knows that his friend is okay. But that’s not right, because the voice that called his name was young.
Superman. Please. It whispers again, and Clark hears it. The tremulous sign of a heart just about ready to give up. Clark doesn’t hesitate. He flies in the direction of the voice, one ear out for the kid and another for Batman’s heartbeat.
“C’mon kid,” He whispers under his breath. “Hold on.” He pleads. He doesn’t know to who he’s praying to. “Hold on. I’m almost there.”
He reaches a nondescript warehouse and he feels wariness rise up in his stomach. He closes his eyes and exhales, and begins to focus. He hears the tell-tale sound of the crunching of bone and a bone chilling laugh.
Oh.
Oh god.
He rushes into the warehouse, bursting through the wall without a care in the world. What he finds nearly sickens him. Joker sets a timer for a bomb to detonate, and Superman sees a bloodied and bent crowbar on the ground next to the kid.
Robin. He idly recognizes the body of a woman slumped over behind the boxes, but that’s not his priority. The woman is already dead. Robin isn’t.
Not the one he knew. Not the one who he gave his name to. Not Nightwing. But, the new Robin. The one he had only ever met in passing or heard stories about from Nightwing and Batman. The one who was described to have a smile as bright as the sun and an enthusiasm that most could only dream of.
But, he sees no traces of that Robin in the young boy. Superman sees red and flies to Joker before the man can even so much as think of making a witty retort. He holds the man against the wall, his hand wrapped around his throat and he squeezes.
Somehow, Jack Napier manages to make one anyways.
“Well well,” Joker rasps, his smile so wide and his eyes so manic that it sends a chill down Superman’s spine. His eyes begin to bug out of his skull. Superman can’t bring himself to care. “ You’re not who I was expecting. Daddy Bats couldn’t make it, so he sent Uncle Supes?”
“You’re lucky that he’s still alive,” Superman snarls, tossing him onto the other side of the warehouse with a sickening crunch. Superman knows he’s alive, only just, and he can’t bring himself to care. The bomb is five seconds from detonating, and Superman rushes to Robin, gingerly picking him up.
The kid whines, a sob forcing his way from the back of his throat.
“I knew it,” He whispers, curling his body into Clark — because he’s Clark now, not Superman — suppresses the urge to vomit as he feels the boy's bones shift under his hold and he tries not to look at how his legs are twisted at wrong angles. “I knew you’d come.”
“I’m here, Robin,” Clark whispers. He cradles the boy gently and shields his body from the blast and the cold air as the fly. “I’m here. I’ve got you, kid.”
It’s a half sigh of relief and half sob that escapes Robin’s mouth as he claws at Superman’s costume.
Joker’s heartbeat is nowhere to be found.
Clark can’t find it in himself to care.
“T w’s my mom,” Robin mumbles, half deliriously. “She sold me out. I knew—knew B’tnm’n w’ldn’t make it.” So I called you, goes unsaid. Clark wants to scream. He wants to cry. He wants to make Joker's death painful, because he doesn't deserve the painless death of being unconscious and blowing up in a warehouse. Neither does that woman. But, he can't. That's not him. And he has this boy, this broken, sad, betrayed, boy in his arms.
Superman senses Batman nearby, and looks down. Batman’s in the rubble, frantically searching for Robin, and so, Clark flies down.
“Batman,” He says softly, and the man looks up, a frantic look on what Clark can see of his face and his body language the most heartbroken and stressed that Clark’s ever seen it. He’s never seen such relief, such heartbroken and pure relief, than when Batman spots Robin in Clark’s arms. Breath uneven, but still breathing.
He watches the Dark Knight, the Greatest Detective, fall to his knees and clutch his chest, sobbing in relief.
Clark feels his heart break.
“You—you saved him?” Batman croaks. Clark swallows the lump in his throat. He can only muster a nod.
“He needs a hospital, ASAP.” Clark said softly. Batman reaches his arms out, and Clark gently, ever so carefully, deposits Robin into his mentor’s arms.
“Dad?” Robin rasps, so broken, so soft, so young that Clark has to close his eyes and clench his jaw so his own sob doesn’t slip out.
“Yeah,” Batman rasps. “It’s me, Jaylad,” Bruce whispers brokenly.
“Hurts.”
“I know, son,” And Clark watches in awe as Batman takes off the cowl, and Bruce Wayne is in his place.
Bruce kisses Jason’s forehead softly, and looks at Clark.
“Thank you,” he chokes, his voice so full of emotion that Clark’s own eyes fill with tears. “I hate to ask you—”
“Ask me.” Clark interrupts. “Ask me anything, and I’ll do it.” For you. For Nightwing— Dick Grayson, for him. For Robin.
“Can you take him to the hospital?” Bruce whispers. “You’ll be faster than me.”
Clark wordlessly picks up Robin and he flies. Flies and flies, keeping an ear on his soft and fading but still there heartbeat, and he glares at every nurse and doctor with such venom until Batman can arrive and watches them work on the little Robin. Stays in the room while they do surgery to make sure none of them dare to remove the kid’s domino mask.
Superman takes up temporary residence in Gotham, when Jason's stable enough to be airlifted home. He knows the people of his own city and Batman’s are whispering, but Clark stays until Dick is back from his mission — watching as he cries and hugs and kisses his little brother’s too still body — and he stays until Jason opens his eyes for the first time post all of his surgeries, and smiles a dopey smile at Clark.
“I knew you’d come, Uncle Clark.”
Clark laughs, because of course this kid knows who he is, and smiles.
“Always, kiddo.”
And he means it.
Of course, some things are always meant to happen, and Jason Todd had been captured by the League of Assassins.
Tim Drake still becomes Robin, and Jason Todd comes back one foot taller, his eyes green, and a little menace named Damian Wayne in his custody.
But, Clark was always there. Always there to watch father and son and brother and brother reunite, and if his little family just got bigger, well, in Clark and Alfred’s opinion, they were all the better for it. Always there for Jason to look at Clark from around Bruce’s shoulder as they shared a bruising hug. Always there for Jason to smile his secret smile reserved for Uncle Clark, and he was always there to smile back at Jason.