Recovery

[badbutsadboy]

Who: Hunter badbutsadboy and his CR
What: Hunter recovering
When: After he gets out of the hospital
Where: Jason's Safehouse
Content Warnings: N/A for now

[He's only in the hospital a few days. Vascular injuries are bad but the artery wasn't completely severed, the muscle was only nicked, and the rest was mostly a flesh wound. It was a low speed, small caliber handgun of some kind.]

[Hunter spends a lot of his recovery sleeping on the pull out couch where he can be checked on. At some point, he plans to ask Nico if Will can heal him (though he wouldn't be shocked if Nico brought him around soon on his own) but Flapjack chases away everyone so he can sleep first.]

[So he spends a lot of time just knocked the hell out on pain meds, until one day he feels like he's rested enough.]

[And then he's left at a crossroads. Huvrye wanted him to stay with someone and he knows he meant an adult. But...]

[But he's still feeling so unsure about it. Even with adults rushing him to a hospital, even with them staying by his side while injured.]

[So whenever he gets a visitor they find him sitting up on the couch, in sweats and fuzzy socks, his arm in its sling packed with ice packs. He sits, staring forward at the TV, expression troubled, lost in thought.]

[The TV is off.]

[Flapjack is squished next to his thigh on the couch and the fingers of his good hand gently pet his fathers.]

Comments

cw: child abuse

[badbutsadboy]

[This is so hard because of the people he's closest to in this world, Jason is the one Hunter worries the most about facing rejection from. Huvrye knows already due to their misunderstanding and is very close to being the same thing. He knows that Luz told Eda about the Emperor's mind so she likely knows and doesn't care.]

[He's not sure about his friends but at least with Nico, he's already some kind of death semi-god, right? (He's gotten the idea that a "god" is a bit like a smaller human-shaped Titan, very powerful, humans believe in them). He literally can raise the dead himself so maybe he won't think Hunter is gross?]

[And Dylan clearly has gooey feelings and is from a family of equally gooey black Abomination-like demon-people called "aliens." He thinks he probably wouldn't care, wouldn't be easily intimidated. Not with a dad that's like 70% pointy teeth.]

[But Jason...]

[He doesn't really know his whole deal, just that he came from a rough past, that he has instincts to nurture, that...for some reason he seems to have an extra safe apartment that he doesn't seem to live at. A saferoom. He doesn't know why, doesn't know about psychotic rogues, or caves full of bats, or that he once lived with a man who dwells in the shadows. He doesn't know his threshold for scary kinds of weird.]

[He knows him enough to not want rejection, but not enough to know whether or not he'll get it.]

[All he can do now is push through it, though. Even if he says he doesn't want to explain it, he's worried Jason will wonder, and that it'll come out some other way. Some way that's worse than him explaining it himself.]

[He keeps hiding his face.]

Belos told me I was a magic-less witch but when I found out he was evil, I also found I'm really a Grimwalker.

A being made with magic.

[The next words are harder to say.]

...Out of someone dead. At least part of me was. All the books I could find about Grimwalkers said at least one ingredient is a bone of the original person.

They're... they're copies of the original. Of someone who died. Although, how close a copy they are - we are - depends on a lot of things. It's a complicated process to make one.

All the Golden Guards were copies of the same person. I think it was someone Belos knew from Earth, another human. I figured that was why I couldn't do magic, that maybe I was mostly human inside and he only made me look like a witch outside.

[He finally pulls his face away from his knee, dares to look at Jason. His eyes are a little wet but he's not actively crying. He's too used to holding it in to easily let go.]

[But he sounds desperate for Jason to understand. He's more concerned about that than about the fact he just dropped a truth bomb filled with unimaginable existential horror.]

[He doesn't think about how someone who grew up abused would see someone who was made for it. Made to be controlled, manipulated, and damaged when his creator saw fit, punished when he didn't dance the ways he wanted him to.]

Back home, there are scary stories about Grimwalkers, and-and I know humans have scary stories, too, about making monster-people, and the undead, and copies of people that try to kill the original, and people coming back but coming back wrong, but it's not like that, I swear!

[robintohood]

[Jason looks back at Hunter with sympathy. It hurts him to see how scared the kid is at being rejected over something that wasn't within his control.

It's been clear since the day they met that Hunter was abused by someone who was supposed to be a caretaker but this is much worse than Jason imagined. It's one thing to be abused. It's another to have been created and used specifically as a tool, with no regards to how they feel. Jason hasn't felt this level of hate for anyone since the Joker. It's a level of cruelty that only a completely psychopathic monster could commit. Belos doesn't deserve to be just six feet under. He should be given a long, tortuous punishment before death]

I know it's not always like those stories.

[Jason's voice comes out soft and calm, wanting to let Hunter know he's not repulsed by him.

Hunter mentioning the undead and coming back wrong hits a nerve much more personal for Jason than Hunter realizes.

Jason has mocked Bruce before for thinking maybe the Lazarus Pit permanently damaged his second adopted son and that he's become like a rabid dog. The truth is the Pit's madness was temporary. Jason's been perfectly clearheaded and has had full agency to his actions for years. He knows he can be cruel, cold, and full of rage. He's killed dozens of people with no regrets. He also knows he still has empathy and sympathy for others and he still tries to extend a hand to those who need it.

Maybe they're just beliefs Jason has chosen to take comfort in instead of some kind of awful truth but as far as Jason's concerned, he's still a person and not an abominable result against nature.

It's from those experiences Jason knows Hunter isn't a monster either]

We don't have control over how we came into existence or how we come back.

[Given how traumatic it was, Jason doesn't usually talk about his death and resurrection. The people who know some version of him before the Confluence already know the general details and Nico knows by accident because of his personal connection to a death god.

But this time, Jason's choosing to talk about it for Hunter's sake. He wants him to know the kid's not alone]

I can't say I know exactly what it's been like to be you but I can say we are more than the results of someone taking death and life into their own hands. I know I'm still a person even after coming back from the dead.

[badbutsadboy]

[It helps immensely. Instantly. His eyebrows raise almost to his hairline and his hesitation decreases just a little. He'd been nearly shaking with anxiety over it and he stills.]

[He doesn't know how that's possible but...well, he's possible isn't he? And so is Huvrye. So it's possible someone could die and be revived by something - maybe magic? - somewhere else, too.]

[But the prospect of remembering your death and being the same person that came back is horrifying in its own way. Not identical but...bad.]

And you remember it happening? That's awful.

[Even in this moment, Hunter's sympathy is there. Especially when it's something that painful, that Jason probably doesn't share often.]

[robintohood]

[For a moment Jason's mind is back at the cold, dark warehouse. Bloodied, beaten, and handcuffed, he's alone with a bomb and a timer counting down the seconds to his death]

Yeah. And it wasn't a peaceful death.

[In his mind, Jason also hears the Joker laughing and taunting]

I remember every second of my torture and murder. I also remember the moment I came back from the dead. That was just as painful. I'll always remember both incidents.

[A week doesn't go by without him having at least one nightmare about either events or both]

There are plenty of stories about people coming back as ghosts or something else to hurt the living. The stories are always about how they're shells of what they once were and now they can't pass on because the way they died wasn't natural or the way they came back had them coming back wrong.

But like I said before, we are more than what superstitious stories say we are.

[Again, it's perhaps a belief rather than a truth but Jason had long chosen to take it as reality.

Jason's well aware that he now spends much of his life trying to not be like Bruce and doing his own form of vigilantism instead. From that angle, it's like he's doing his own haunt.

But Jason also knows he's capable of doing things not related to vigilantism. He's even managed to have fun at times. So through that, Jason knows he's not some zombie or lich. He's still his own person]

[badbutsadboy]

[So Jason has no reason to be afraid. It's another way they're alike. An unnatural connection with death, albeit a different one.]

[Hunter wants to comfort him. Somehow. Some kind of gesture. But he spent a lifetime of physical distance between himself and others. People found the Golden Guard intimidating. His uncle wasn't often gentle.]

[He's started to have friends now that he's more comfortable touching, that he's more comfortable being touched by, but he never knows when it's okay. What's okay. There are times it's obvious like when Gus had been crying after they'd gone through the portal door to the human realm, and realized they couldn't go back.]

[But Gus was so young and realized home - and his father - had been left behind. He'd been grieving in the moment and the pain was right there in his voice. The last thing Hunter had done before being drawn to this Earth was throwing an arm around him with Willow and holding him tight.]

[Jason is an adult. He's not grieving right now. It's an old hurt. And he'd been touched in ways he hadn't want to be touched before. He had even been tortured.]

[So the way Hunter reaches out is somewhat indirect.]

[He snags Jason's sleeve in the fingers of his good hand, winding his fingers into the cloth slightly. It's a substitute for putting his hand on his arm, something less intense and personal during a revealing moment.]

[He doesn't make the connection to the way Belos used to dig his fingers into his shoulder, into the cloth of his cloak, smearing it with slime. How intrusive that was. How this is its infinitely more gentle, less invasive inverse.]

[His voice is raspy with emotion.]

I'm so sorry. That still has to be a lot to carry with you.

[He doesn't ask why it happened, who did it, how he came back. It doesn't matter, if they're talking about the unpleasant realities of after. About what's monstrous or not, about whether something after death is unnatural...or just life.]

I was lucky in - in a lot of ways. I'm not...him. The original. I'm a copy, so I don't remember him dying because it wasn't mine to remember. That's the same reason I also fortunately don't have memories of the other Golden Guards dying, either.

[Remember how he talked about his predecessors in the past, Jason? The ones that suffered a horrible fate? Remember them?]

Just the ones I saw in Belos' mind.

[He hasn't let go of his sleeve, like a child afraid to lose a parent in a busy mall. And he's still filled with a trembling disquiet.]

[robintohood]

[Jason recognizes the gesture Hunter is doing and appreciates it. It's a sign of someone wanting to give comfort but not used to doing it and wanting to give respectful distance. It makes sense to Jason, given what he knows about Hunter. He's also coming from his own personal experience. It's been years since he received or done any affectionate physical gestures.

Jason gently places his own hand over Hunter's.]

No matter what that monster thinks and even though you look like someone else, you're your own person with your own memories and experiences. No one can take those away from you.

[badbutsadboy]

[He doesn't pull his hand away. He lets it be held. Then fingers wind their way through Jason's.]

I'm trying to think that.

[It would maybe he easier if he knew more about Caleb. About Grimwalkers. About the other Golden Guards.]

It would be easier to figure out if I could talk to them. Somehow. Find out what they were like. But he was never going to let that happen with the Golden Guards.

I at least know we have one thing in common, though, and I guess it's a good thing. All of us rebelled against him. I just...was the only one that survived doing it. Thanks to my friends.

That's what made him kill them. Every time he did, he just made a new one. He tried to do the same to me but Luz and the Owl Lady made it so I got away.

[He has a lot of complicated feelings about the others. The sheer horror of how they were made and what they were all made for. The sadness they faced such terrible fates. Even slight guilt he just happened to have the luck to survive and they didn't.]

[But maybe a little pride. Maybe there isn't just horror there.]

[Being in this world of heroes and realizing there are some that follow in the footsteps of others, he understands there is such thing as a legacy. If their legacy was rebellion alongside death, at least it wasn't death alone.]

I should thank her for that. I wasn't... I wasn't in a good place to. At the time.

[robintohood]

She probably already knows and understand that you've been occupied. You still have time.

It makes such a huge difference having people you can go to for support after something like that. I'm glad you have people who try care about you.

[Jason means it with all sincerity. Jason knows he's already spent too many years alone and has already set his own path. But at least another kid still has a chance for a better future with a true support network]

[badbutsadboy]

[He briefly squeezes Jason's hand before finally letting go.]

You have people that care about you too.

[robintohood]

[It's strange. Jason wants to focus on Hunter's recovery but he keeps getting words of support from him in return. It's not as though he's been looking for it. He's supposed to be the adult and trying to be one of Hunter's pillars.

But he gets that Hunter's a good kid and wants to help. He appreciates the intention. Though Jason's also feeling a twinge in his chest as even fewer people know what he does as the Red Hood. It's not something one shares with just anyone, much less a kid.]

Thanks, Hunter. That's still something I'm getting used to.

[It's a miracle he's managed a truce with some of the other BatFamily]