Pairing: Jason Todd x Female Reader
Genre: Angst, Romance, Drama
Summary:
You met Jason Todd in the chaos of Gotham, but your dreams of becoming a stage actress and his relentless fight to save the city pulled you together only to pull you apart. Inspired by the themes and tone of La La Land, this is a story of two people who loved each other deeply, but not enough to compromise the dreams they chased. Years later, in the soft glow of what-could-have-beens, your paths cross again older, wiser, and forever changed.
A/N: Before you continue reading please que "Mia & Sebastian's Theme" by: Justin Hurwitz while you read. Trust
Gotham was never kind to dreamers.
But that didn’t stop you from trying.
You arrived in the city with two duffel bags, a half-finished script, and a fire in your chest that refused to die out. Gotham was where you were going to make it. Not on the silver screen or some sun-drenched California stage, but in the city's tucked-away corners: underground theaters, rooftop poetry slams, basement jazz clubs where the lights were low and the audience held their breath with every word you delivered.
Jason Todd crashed into your life like a thunderstorm uninvited, loud, and impossible to ignore. He was late to your first show, slipping into a seat in the back just as your monologue began. You noticed him right away: leather jacket, bruised jaw, eyes like bottled storms. When it ended, he clapped louder than anyone else.
You saw him again a week later, leaning against a lamppost outside the same theater.
“You were good,” he said, offering you a coffee he didn’t ask if you wanted. You took it anyway.
You were chasing stardom; he was running from ghosts. In the quiet hours between auditions and patrols, you found a strange kind of peace. Jason would sneak into your apartment window at 2 AM with takeout and bloody knuckles. You’d read him your lines while he stitched himself up. He hated when you cried at auditions gone wrong, and you hated the way he flinched at loud noises.
Somewhere between the silence and the chaos, you fell in love.
But Gotham has a way of making lovers choose.
“Come with me,” he said once, on a rooftop overlooking the Narrows. “We can go. Anywhere you want. I’ll disappear. For you.”
You looked at him, eyes burning.
“No. You wouldn’t be you without it.”
And you wouldn’t be you without the stage.
So you stayed. And he stayed.
And the days turned harder. The silences stretched longer. The I love yous began to feel like bandages on bullet wounds.
Until one night, he didn’t come back.
You mourned him like a death. Cried until your voice cracked and you couldn’t audition anymore. But life didn’t stop. You kept acting. Kept breathing. Eventually, the grief folded itself into a quiet corner of your chest.
Your name appeared in lights. Your face on magazine covers. You smiled on red carpets and talked about the art of performance, never about Gotham or the boy who kissed you on fire escapes.
Then one rainy night, back in the city for a charity event, you ducked into a quiet little jazz bar to escape the flashing cameras.
Older. Still beautiful in that tragic, devastating way. He was playing piano something soft, something familiar. You didn’t think he played. But you knew the song. It was yours.
Just recognition. And something else: gratitude. Forgiveness. Love, perhaps, in the way only past lovers understand.
He played the song until the final note faded into silence.
Outside, Gotham rained gold in the streetlights. You hailed a cab. As you pulled away, you looked back once, just once, through the window.
Jason was still at the piano.
And you were still in love.
But some stories aren’t meant to have second acts.
Just beautiful first ones.
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