[Oh, it's him. They'd hit it off in the book store and Robbie'd wondered if he had a chance at a potential friend.]
[Of course that's ruined now.]
[Robbie is taken back out of himself again, because of what's happening, because of how sordid it all is. His horror only increases the longer he watches, the longer he feels the rage and despair and desire to end it all, to end all the hurt for good. No one protected Jason when he was young - and couldn't protect him later, from those wet thuds from a crowbar - and now he feels that he has to take it all into his own hands.]
[Robbie's parents had at times been distant, in some ways neglectful and self-involved. At times, he'd been so desperate for any attention at all that he'd provoked even negative attention just to get some. His father had been harsh and exacting on occasion, impossible to please. But his parents still had their moments of being loving. He'd still been safe and fed and grown up wanting for nothing material due to his parents' firmly upper upper class incomes.]
[There's a reason that, barring an outburst around the beginning and some accidental panic he'd inspired when Veil discovered his self-harm that Robbie had been a relatively good teacher to a group of at-risk teens.]
[His capacity for empathy and compassion. He'd had it before Stamford, back when he'd been a fun-loving teen that thought superheroing was a blast, because he'd always been well-meaning on top of being a joker and a ham. But after, after he started to feel again, it'd become even more finely honed. For all he was damaged and battered and scarred in so many ways, that was a rare instance of a part of him that had gotten stronger - even if he can't really see that it has or what it's worth.]
I know it means next to nothing coming from me, after everything I'm responsible for.
[Another wince and he stands again.]
But you didn't deserve that. When you were a kid. Or whatever it was that was done to you later. [The laughter, the tattered uniform, the sound of the crowbar...] You know that, right? And when that man attacked you...
You were protecting yourself. You were just a little kid. You didn't have many options besides the authorities and they would've put you in the system and maybe left your mom alone with that guy, which...it's understandable you were afraid of that.
[He knows the foster care system can be awful. The New Warriors have always hit a lot of street-level crime and that means running into broken systems and understanding social ills ]
And you don't have anything to be ashamed of, still being hurt by it all.
[In the visions of the beating and in the tattered uniform, he'd been... god, maybe around the age Robbie was when he first started being a superhero? But Robbie had been blessed to be taken under the wing of several older teens who'd done a good job of keeping him safe for quite a few years before disaster struck.]
[Disaster that was partly his own fault. He'd been the albatross around his friends' necks in the end.]
[Robbie instinctively holds out a hand, tempted to place a hand on the man's shoulder, but withdraws it again, thinking he won't want to be touched, possibly in general or touched by him specifically.]
[The sincerity radiates off him in waves, though. There is no barrier in this moment, no resistance, the way there'd been when they'd been trying to withhold things from each other. There is just the raw, pure belief that Jason had deserved better.]
I can't agree that what you're doing now, that what you've done recently, is the right choice to try to fix the things you want to fix. Even ignoring any moral arguments, there are so many reasons you're not even considering that there could be consequences that hurt innocent people.
That can tear off whole parts of you.
[He knows from experience as Penance how causing that kind of harm rips away chunks of yourself.]
But I at least understand why it's the one you're making. You just want it to stop, the things they're doing. And whoever that was - he's a hero you're close to, right? - you want him to start making it all stop for good.
And everyone wants to be worth it to the people they care about it.
[Robbie is not, to some of the people he loves. Maybe he still is to the New Warriors but his parents threw him away like trash and he can't even disagree with it.]
[He can at least understand without thinking it's the right choice, and get that the place it's coming from isn't as monstrous as the methods themselves are. It's certainly a better motivation for hurting people than the ones Robbie'd had in the Thunderbolts, where it had been more about hurting himself and trying passively to die than anything else. The actions are wrong but the desire to end the harm permanently is just human.]
[It's a level of understanding, empathy, compassion, and wishing to comfort that someone responsible for killing children, for killing over 600 innocent people, shouldn't even be capable of.]
no subject
[Of course that's ruined now.]
[Robbie is taken back out of himself again, because of what's happening, because of how sordid it all is. His horror only increases the longer he watches, the longer he feels the rage and despair and desire to end it all, to end all the hurt for good. No one protected Jason when he was young - and couldn't protect him later, from those wet thuds from a crowbar - and now he feels that he has to take it all into his own hands.]
[Robbie's parents had at times been distant, in some ways neglectful and self-involved. At times, he'd been so desperate for any attention at all that he'd provoked even negative attention just to get some. His father had been harsh and exacting on occasion, impossible to please. But his parents still had their moments of being loving. He'd still been safe and fed and grown up wanting for nothing material due to his parents' firmly upper upper class incomes.]
[There's a reason that, barring an outburst around the beginning and some accidental panic he'd inspired when Veil discovered his self-harm that Robbie had been a relatively good teacher to a group of at-risk teens.]
[His capacity for empathy and compassion. He'd had it before Stamford, back when he'd been a fun-loving teen that thought superheroing was a blast, because he'd always been well-meaning on top of being a joker and a ham. But after, after he started to feel again, it'd become even more finely honed. For all he was damaged and battered and scarred in so many ways, that was a rare instance of a part of him that had gotten stronger - even if he can't really see that it has or what it's worth.]
I know it means next to nothing coming from me, after everything I'm responsible for.
[Another wince and he stands again.]
But you didn't deserve that. When you were a kid. Or whatever it was that was done to you later. [The laughter, the tattered uniform, the sound of the crowbar...] You know that, right? And when that man attacked you...
You were protecting yourself. You were just a little kid. You didn't have many options besides the authorities and they would've put you in the system and maybe left your mom alone with that guy, which...it's understandable you were afraid of that.
[He knows the foster care system can be awful. The New Warriors have always hit a lot of street-level crime and that means running into broken systems and understanding social ills ]
And you don't have anything to be ashamed of, still being hurt by it all.
[In the visions of the beating and in the tattered uniform, he'd been... god, maybe around the age Robbie was when he first started being a superhero? But Robbie had been blessed to be taken under the wing of several older teens who'd done a good job of keeping him safe for quite a few years before disaster struck.]
[Disaster that was partly his own fault. He'd been the albatross around his friends' necks in the end.]
[Robbie instinctively holds out a hand, tempted to place a hand on the man's shoulder, but withdraws it again, thinking he won't want to be touched, possibly in general or touched by him specifically.]
[The sincerity radiates off him in waves, though. There is no barrier in this moment, no resistance, the way there'd been when they'd been trying to withhold things from each other. There is just the raw, pure belief that Jason had deserved better.]
I can't agree that what you're doing now, that what you've done recently, is the right choice to try to fix the things you want to fix. Even ignoring any moral arguments, there are so many reasons you're not even considering that there could be consequences that hurt innocent people.
That can tear off whole parts of you.
[He knows from experience as Penance how causing that kind of harm rips away chunks of yourself.]
But I at least understand why it's the one you're making. You just want it to stop, the things they're doing. And whoever that was - he's a hero you're close to, right? - you want him to start making it all stop for good.
And everyone wants to be worth it to the people they care about it.
[Robbie is not, to some of the people he loves. Maybe he still is to the New Warriors but his parents threw him away like trash and he can't even disagree with it.]
[He can at least understand without thinking it's the right choice, and get that the place it's coming from isn't as monstrous as the methods themselves are. It's certainly a better motivation for hurting people than the ones Robbie'd had in the Thunderbolts, where it had been more about hurting himself and trying passively to die than anything else. The actions are wrong but the desire to end the harm permanently is just human.]
[It's a level of understanding, empathy, compassion, and wishing to comfort that someone responsible for killing children, for killing over 600 innocent people, shouldn't even be capable of.]