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He stood in the meticulously pruned grass and stared down, directly at her grave. It was covered in items left behind by friends and family. Someone had left a small robin plushie, someone else left a framed picture of the family. But him? He hadn’t left anything.
Yet.
“I’m sorry,” Jason said, “I know you’d say it wasn’t my fault, but it was . I was right there and you still died.
That’s on me.
I’m sorry Marinette, I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry for letting Willis hit you that one time…”
Willis Todd was mad. Mad at the world, mad at his wife, mad at his son, mad at that random girl who always hung around Jason.
“Get outta here you little bitch!” he yelled at the girl, hiding pitifully behind his sorry excuse for a son. When neither of them moved, Willis took a menacing step forward. The girl flinched - so did Jason - and he smirked cruelly.
“You scared of me?” he taunted, hoping to get another reaction from her. When she didn’t flinch again, he took another step closer.
The sound of fist hitting skin echoed through the alley and the girl clutched her cheek. Willis’ eyes gleamed with malice, and Jason cowered for only a millisecond before raising himself up to his full height - which wasn’t very tall - and punching his father right in the stomach.
Jason couldn’t go back home for days, but he would say it was worth it.
“...and I’m sorry for leaving you that cold winter night when we were young…”
It was a cold night in Gotham, below freezing. The kind of weather that caused the street kids to huddle together, in fear of freezing to death. Marinette and Jason were no exception.
They were tangled together under a few ratty blankets, trying and failing to sleep. Though, maybe that was a good thing.
“I’ll get a better blanket tomorrow Pixie,” Jason said, his voice barely audible over the sound of the howling wind outside.
“You’re going to steal again, aren’t you?” Marinette said, in lieu of a reply.
“Pixie…” Jason said tiredly. They’d had this argument multiple times before. Marinette didn’t like it when Jason stole, her morals staying even though they were street kids now. Jason, on the other hand, said that they needed to steal to live.
“It’s immoral Jay!”
“It’s necessary !”
“Please...I don’t want you to get caught.”
“Well if I don’t, we could die !”
Jason’s temper got the best of him again, and he couldn’t stop.
“Fine, if you don’t want me to steal, then I’ll just leave!”
And that’s what he did. The boy stormed out, leaving Marinette alone.
He came back the next morning with some cash and a new blanket.
“...and I’m so, so sorry I couldn’t save you…”
The battle raged around them. Joker had made a new version of his Joker Venom, laced with Fear Toxin, courtesy of Scarecrow. The concoction drove people crazy, laughing uncontrollably and sobbing at the same time.
Jason, Robin, was getting civilians away from the carnage while Nightwing and Batman fought Joker and Scarecrow, as well as the goons and dealt with the many violent civilians who got dosed.
Jason only slightly envied them.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted some familiar pigtails. What was Marinette doing here? She was supposed to be at home and not mixed-up in vigilante business like she wanted.
Jason tried to usher people away faster while still keeping an eye on the girl. She was trying to hide behind some wreckage but was closer to the main fight than Jason would like.
He was just about to go help her when he got punched from behind. A civilian - who was probably dosed and under the influence of the Venom/Toxin combo - was trying to attack him.
Jason couldn’t just clock the guy in the head and be done with it, since B had said that could cause brain damage, so he had to incapacitate him.
He was about to punch the guy in the stomach when a shrill scream erupted from his right. He recognized that scream, and it made his blood freeze. Marinette .
Jason knocked the violent guy out, not caring about any possible brain damage. His Pixie could be hurt and that’s what mattered most to him at the moment. He ran, jumping over bodies and avoiding debris. The few hundred feet between them felt like a few miles.
He reached the wreckage that Marinette was hiding behind and his breath caught in his throat when he saw that it had collapsed, and that she wasn’t immediately visible.
Jason’s panic clouded his thoughts and he ran around the area, looking for any trace of her. She had either escaped before it crashed...or was under the rubble.
His pulse shot sky-high when he saw one of her ribbons on the ground, half hidden under a piece of plaster.
Jason started to dig with his hands, not caring about the battle, or about his gloves ripping. Finding Marinette was his number-one priority right now.
He dug until his gloves finally gave up, and until the skin of his hands was torn and bleeding, and until he finally found her, half-hidden by a chunk of concrete, with a nasty head injury.
He gently took her head in his hands and felt for a pulse.
There was none.
A young boy wept for his best friend, his sister, taken from him too early.
If only he could’ve done something about it.
“...and I know that you’d tell me not to blame myself, I know you would. You were always so forgiving and so kind, even to those street kids who tried to pickpocket us. But this was my fault. I was there, I was watching, and I could’ve gotten to you in time but I didn’t !
And I’ll never forgive myself, even though I know you would.
You were the best of us, Pixie.”
He carefully placed Marinette’s old, worn copy of Pride and Prejudice on her grave, right next to the little robin plushie. They had spent many a night reading that book, when they had nightmares or when the comfortableness of the Manor felt like too much.
It was like leaving a piece of them there.
“Pixie...you know I love you, right? I just lost a sister, but I can get back a mother.
I don’t think you’d approve…
...but tonight I’m going to Ethiopia.”
Jason walked away from her grave, off to an Ethiopian warehouse to find his mother.
The wind swirled around him, begging him to stay.
If only he’d listened.