[Robbie breathes in deep. Out. Thinks hard. He doesn't look at Jason yet. Weird, how they'd been straight up attached at the brain and just worked through it, but now he's struggling to meet his eyes.]
[He looks around instead, makes sure no one's close enough to hear the conversation.]
Well. Technically, I didn't see anything that suggests you've put anyone's head in a duffel bag in this world, so technically I don't have any proof whatsoever that you've broken any laws here.
And I hope you keep it that way. I don't want to -
I don't want to have to fight you on something like that. Or...at all.
[How many people have looked at the ugliest sides of him and not turned away? And of those people, how many have keened on to just how broken he still is?]
[It's also easy to not want to pile on someone who's been through all Jason has. It's easy to wish instead they'll just eventually find their way out of the dark.]
[Robbie had, at least through the worst of it, through the part where he was hurting others. The part where he hurts himself, he's still working on, but at least he got away from the Thunderbolts.]
So, for now, I guess I don't tell anyone you're causing trouble or try to get you in any legal trouble unless you do something in this world I can't look away from. And you don't tell anyone about how tenuous my past relationship was with sanity and that I used to walk around in a creepy gimp suit with matching spiked thigh highs.
[He says it in a very cavalier way, in his usual joking tone, but it's a bit more forced than usual. Gotta cover up that embarrassment and shame by making it sound like a joke.]
[Jason's gotten a peek under the curtain, though, enough to understand how much Robbie covers things up with something else.]
People back home, most of them don't know. They know about the suit and that I was in it, but...
[He finally looks embarrassed, can't help but duck his head.]
They don't know how Hot Topic the inside got.
And while I told the people at the Alliance about Stamford and that I was...unwell, at one point [Is still, but he's not telling anyone, let alone the people paying his rent], if they find out the specifics they might not let me superhero. I know I could be unregistered but I don't -
[He finally looks up.]
I wouldn't really know what to do. How I'd get by. Back home, the way I supported myself is having a really rich friend and being fine with living in a superhero base.
[He has some basic life skills like cooking because in a home with two very flighty and sometimes absentee parents you learn to cook and do your own laundry, but jobs? Taxes? Hell, he's not sure he even has a valid photo ID back home now that he and Vance ditched their identicards. It just hasn't come up.]
[All he's got is the superhero thing.]
[In the Alliance, he's at least getting paid for the only thing he's good for, and he's not even actually good at it.]
no subject
[He looks around instead, makes sure no one's close enough to hear the conversation.]
Well. Technically, I didn't see anything that suggests you've put anyone's head in a duffel bag in this world, so technically I don't have any proof whatsoever that you've broken any laws here.
And I hope you keep it that way. I don't want to -
I don't want to have to fight you on something like that. Or...at all.
[How many people have looked at the ugliest sides of him and not turned away? And of those people, how many have keened on to just how broken he still is?]
[It's also easy to not want to pile on someone who's been through all Jason has. It's easy to wish instead they'll just eventually find their way out of the dark.]
[Robbie had, at least through the worst of it, through the part where he was hurting others. The part where he hurts himself, he's still working on, but at least he got away from the Thunderbolts.]
So, for now, I guess I don't tell anyone you're causing trouble or try to get you in any legal trouble unless you do something in this world I can't look away from. And you don't tell anyone about how tenuous my past relationship was with sanity and that I used to walk around in a creepy gimp suit with matching spiked thigh highs.
[He says it in a very cavalier way, in his usual joking tone, but it's a bit more forced than usual. Gotta cover up that embarrassment and shame by making it sound like a joke.]
[Jason's gotten a peek under the curtain, though, enough to understand how much Robbie covers things up with something else.]
People back home, most of them don't know. They know about the suit and that I was in it, but...
[He finally looks embarrassed, can't help but duck his head.]
They don't know how Hot Topic the inside got.
And while I told the people at the Alliance about Stamford and that I was...unwell, at one point [Is still, but he's not telling anyone, let alone the people paying his rent], if they find out the specifics they might not let me superhero. I know I could be unregistered but I don't -
[He finally looks up.]
I wouldn't really know what to do. How I'd get by. Back home, the way I supported myself is having a really rich friend and being fine with living in a superhero base.
[He has some basic life skills like cooking because in a home with two very flighty and sometimes absentee parents you learn to cook and do your own laundry, but jobs? Taxes? Hell, he's not sure he even has a valid photo ID back home now that he and Vance ditched their identicards. It just hasn't come up.]
[All he's got is the superhero thing.]
[In the Alliance, he's at least getting paid for the only thing he's good for, and he's not even actually good at it.]