metalogs | two birds on a wire (closed)

Who: Tim Drake

reneger
What: meeting the bonus big bro (part one)
When: mid-April or whatever
Where: Central City rooftops
Content Warnings: n/a so far

Since the other Tim confirmed that there's not only one but two living Jason Todds here, revived by Lazarus Pits, and then refused to give him too many details, Tim has started reconnaissance on the Red Hood as Robin. So far he hasn't been caught - it helps that his suit has a built-in stealth mode, but it probably helps a lot more that one of his new abilities here makes him incredibly difficult to notice - but he's not thrilled with what he's seeing, either. The Jason Todd he knew. Well, he didn't know him, did he? He followed Robin around when he was in Gotham and he took pictures, and he has stories from the Bats and Alfred and things the Team will say sometimes, but he didn't know Jason Todd. But he knew Jason was Robin, and he was a hero.

What the Red Hood is doing is more difficult to describe as heroic. He's not blind, he can gather that there's a method to it, but it's not the way they - he - was taught to deal with crime, and he doesn't know how to feel about that. He's not sure why the older Tim didn't warn him properly either, why he just dropped him in this with a name to do his own research. Is it a test, or does he just not want to influence Tim one way or the other?

The Jason he ends up approaching on a roof isn't the Jason he's been tracking, but he's a Jason, and he's got a cup of coffee and Tim has a bag of donuts, and he bought extra in case he was really hungry or saw someone else who needed them, so. Somehow, he finds himself landing on that roof and sitting down next to Jason and quietly offering over the open bag for him to pick out a donut.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Joker?"

He's met a few Jason Todd's at this point, some who haven't died (yet), some who got close but weren't given the reprieve of death and instead had an even shittier time, and the one here. But since they're lacking other shit matching up, he may as well confirm it.

"Yeah," he says before going quiet and waiting for whatever's next. Because for the most part, back home, you can talk about Jason, but you avoid talking about what killed Jason. If someone else brings it up, then the conversation can happen, but you're best off stepping carefully.

He's pretty sure that goes double when you're talking to Jason himself.

He's talked about Joker enough over the last bit of time that he--doesn't feel like getting into it again now. There's only so many times he can relive that before he starts getting bitchier, and he's not intending on getting into shit with this Tim yet.

So he rolls his shoulders, pulls himself up to his feet. "I died, got back out of the grave 'bout half a year later with my head fucked to hell and back. Got picked up by Talia al Ghul, took a dip in one of Ra's Lazarus Pits, and you can probably piece it together from there. The current Red Hood skipped having to dig his way out of the dirt an' went straight from dead to the Pit."

He stands up, too, partly to mirror the action and partly because Jason is pretty big compared to him already without him standing and towering over him while Tim's sitting on the rooftop on top of that.

That sort of follows with what he knew already, except for. Well. "The Lazarus Pit didn't revive you?" If it didn't, then what did?

"No. Couldn't tell you what did either." Jason remembers sucking in a breath of stale air, remembers how much everything hurt, how his body felt like it--well, was dead. He remembers the moments after he'd regained consciousness. Remembers the panic when he realized he was in a very small, very tight box, buried six feet underground with nothing on him to dig his way out. Remembers calling for Batman, and grabbing onto his belt to dig himself out in a rushed panic as he began running out of air. Remembers when he reached the surface, the sheer relief at being able to pull in fresh air.

Doesn't remember much else outside of that until he'd gotten dunked in the Pit. There's a few broken pieces of memory. A hospital. Calling out for Bruce, calling out for his father. Talia hitting him, looking out over the sunset, brief flashes of sitting in a chair doing nothing. But he's got more lost time there than memory, and Jason figures that's probably for the best. That's not time he really wants to remember.

Tim stands, and Jason starts towards the other side of the roof. He's not going anywhere in particular, but he figures Tim will follow him regardless. "Doesn't matter anyway, does it? 've been back for years, whatever did had plenty of chances to undo it by now, an' I'm still kicking."

He hangs back a bit, letting Jason have some space, but still following just closely enough that he's not hiding from the conversation. That's not a lot of information on what brought Jason back to life, and so far this line of questioning isn't that useful if he wants to figure out if his own Jason is alive. He's not like he's going to keep picking at a traumatic experience for questions Jason might not even know the answers to.

He's not really sure what to say - just about anything he can think of feels trite - so he just offers another crack at the now-dwindling pastry supplies.

He'll take another donut. Empty carbs on patrol sounds like a great idea--and he was starting to get a little hungry. Jason takes a good sized bite out of it when he reaches the edge of the roof and looks down to the next building.

"Anyway. Came back from the dead. Spent time with the al Ghul's, then took a training tour of my own. Heard there was a new little bird wearing the R, so I came 'round to investigate. Wasn't very nice about it, but I didn't come back very nice either. Staged a hostile takeover of a lot of the shit underground gangs rampaging through Gotham, 'cause you can't stop crime, but you can control it. Got into other shit too, but that's the basic gist of it."

"What did you do?" Tim asks, because he can't not ask. His older self was careful about not telling him too much about the Jasons, and he's not really sure why. Maybe he didn't want to talk about it, maybe it's a test, to see if Tim can find things out on his own. But there's clearly something that happened, from the way Jason phrases it.

"Does it matter?" It doesn't come off harsh just--tired. Jason has several regrets about the way the first couple years of him back in Gotham went. He's apologized for it, or tried to, a few times. It was messy, he shouldn't have taken any of it out on Tim, on Damian--Dick deserved it a little but not to the extent Jason pushed.

Eyes roll behind the mask, before Jason's shoving the rest of the donut into his mouth. "I started fights with everyone. B, Nightwing, you. Our littlest Robin when he came 'round. I was angry. Felt like I'd been replaced, like B'd learned nothing after what happened to me." Hand emptied of donut, Jason reaches back for Tim. Shoves his palm down onto his head to ruffle his hair. "Won't lie and say I'm over it, but I'm less angry about it now."

two birds on a wire (closed)

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