[OPEN/CLOSED] A Bird, came down the Walk

[robintohood]

Who: Jason Todd robintohood and you!
What: Catch-all for May
When: April 28th to May 31st
Where: Central City
Content Warnings: Potential mention of death, PG-13 level violence, child neglect, and abandonment. Will add more warnings if needed.

Jason:

[It's a new month but unfortunately for Jason, he's wrung out already. The fight he had with his doppelganger on April 27th has left him feeling raw. He and the other Jason confessed and screamed at each other several very ugly things to each other, some of it was heard by both Tim Drakes.

Now there are questions swimming in his head. They're questions he doesn't know if he should be asking or even wants answers to. He doesn't know what to do with the emotional shrapnel the fight left behind. He's feeling incredibly uncomfortable in his own skin.

He knows he's too distracted to do all of his usual work so he decides to take a weeklong break from Descendant. People can still call and text him for any Descendant-related issues but otherwise, he won't be in the building. It's also because he doesn't know if he wants to deal with his brothers yet.

However, a lightened workload also means more time to think about the things he doesn't know if he wants to think about. This leaves him restless. Kind of literally too as his sleep schedule has worsened.

But he has to keep trucking along somehow. So during the day, you might catch Jason browsing at a library or a thrift bookstore. He keeps hovering at the classic literature sections and near the self-help books, unsure about what to pick]

Red Hood:

[The Society gave Jason a hit job and a deadline. He intends to build good favor with them so he and his gang can’t dawdle for long.

It's twisted but compared to other recent events, Jason finds the work almost a breath of fresh air. As far as he's concerned, the lines are clear and he knows exactly what to do. And after confirming the accuracy of the Society's intel, he now just needs to get a clear shot of the targeted serial killer.

It's evening and Jason's dressed in his Red Hood gear and perched up on a rooftop with a sniper rifle. He's staking out a seedy pool hall across the street from him. Meanwhile, a handful of his lackeys have taken their positions in nearby dark alleyways or are on standby with their motorcycles. They're all waiting for the serial killer and his crew to walk out of the pool hall.

Jason can't risk taking a shot yet as he and his gang are trying to avoid civilian casualties. Plus, the Society wants proof of his kill so he can't just shoot and run. He'll just have to be patient and wait. Hopefully nothing tries to thwart his plan]

Wildcard:

((OOC: Got something else in mind? Hit me up! I always welcome new CRs as well. My contact information is on this journal's profile and I'm in the game's Discord server. Feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns as well. I also have a feedback post.))

Comments

[acroodawakening]

You say that like I bought into it in the first place. I'm used to saying what people in power want to hear. It's how we all had to survive.

They have things that are useful to me. Visits home, if they can make it work. I haven't seen my family, my mate [he briefly closes his eyes tightly and then opens them again, clearly pained] since I was taken.

[He looks down at the stone bracelet, fiddling with it.]

She and I had just moved into our own hut separate from our family the month before. We don't have marriage where I come from but if we did, we would have been...what do you call them here? Honeymoons? We were honeymoons.

[So yes, he'll say what he needs to for visits to see her.]

And they have the special money cards. It's not easy to get by in a world like this when you can't read and nothing is familiar.

[He knows he'd struggle even harder than most. He doesn't have a lifetime of familiarity with the culture, laws, and technology. He can easily be taken advantage of when he doesn't know what's fair to ask for work and can't learn things as easily since he can't just read them.]

But I don't think the way a lot of future people do and I don't think that's any different here. They overcomplicate things. And they're either too hard to be decent to others or too soft to do hard things that need to be done.

[He taps his chest.] You need a soft heart. [He taps his temple.] Hard mind.

[He holds out both hands, briefly causing them to waver and then steady, like scales balancing out. (He has never seen scales but at least knows how levers work.)]

Or there's no balance.

That's why I wanted to know how hard it is to keep it a secret so I don't lose the perks. If they really do believe in doing good, we have that in common, but there are right ways and wrong ways.

I don't trust systems so if they're relying on that [he lets out an expressive, extremely derisive snort that is pretty much caveperson for "Fat chance."]

[robintohood]

[Guy really is a good storyteller. Jason can say that much about him at least. Plus, for better or for worse, love can be a hell of a motivator for anyone. It's not hard to imagine someone willing to straddle between two sides for it. He's certainly guilty of it too. How much did he do for his adoptive father as a child? And then there was the agonizing pain when he learned Bruce didn't avenge his death after all. Heh. Love will make you do a lot of wild things.

After a moment of mulling over some things, Jason speaks again]

The Alliance believes in the appearance of doing good. They see nothing wrong with doing small things like stopping a purse snatcher and rescuing kittens stuck up in trees. Everyone eats up those kinds of stories. Makes the Alliance looks good.

But be careful if you question them too much. They like control too. They care more about how they look than doing long-term good. There's something else you need to know about their leadership too.

[Jason takes out his burner phone again and then pulls up video of Fantastic's speech from several months ago. It's the speech he made telling the Starfallen that they are soldiers, regardless of how they feel about going into a Confluence with unknown effects]

[acroodawakening]

[When the speech starts Guy sits back out of the squat on the roof, fully engrossed in listening. As it goes on, and gets...very very bad, his eyes glitter slightly but no tears fall. It is the kind of near-crying that comes with anger brimming over. His fists ball up, he briefly bares his teeth with a huff that sounds like a threat. His entire body tenses, and starts trembling with barely contained rage.]

[And pain.]

[He really can't escape this, can he. This state of being. People constantly trying to make it so he's owned. When only one person really owns his entire self, the one that carefully holds his heart in her hands and only surrounds it with light.]

[Then the speech is over.]

[His throat is hoarse when he speaks.]

They keep doing this. There's always someone that keeps trying to make it so I don't belong to myself anymore.

[He needs to do more watching himself. When he's alone. To make sure everything this man is saying is true.]

[But...]

I understand appearances. I know how to pretend to be the image someone else wants me to be. They always want a picture, not a person.

[His expression twists into a mask of primal pain.]

But if I'm stuck here, I want to find a way to do something that matters. That's real.

[he draws up his knees and wraps his arms around them. At 5'7" he's already a little small, so it makes him look impossibly smaller. ]

I need to.

[robintohood]

[Jason softly sighs in sympathy. He recognizes Guy's reaction as one of exhaustion and frustration. He's certainly become reacquainted with those feelings recently. He gets it. Guy wants to make something good out of this trapped situation]

For what it's worth, you staying low tech could work in your favor. Phones and those "money cards" are how people can be kept track sometimes. I use them but I have to be careful about where and when to use them. And I'm always switching and using different phones and cards for different things.

[acroodawakening]

[It is a credit to Guy's resilience that he can go from angry to nearly the point of tears to taking a deep breath and moving on. Trying to consider what's being said, trying to problem solve.]

[As his brows furrow in thought, he taps his fingers in a little twiddling gesture on his knees.]

I don't need to keep things with me. The card I can just use around the place I live for food. [His expression is confused.] And I don't see why anyone would need to take a phone everywhere.

[It's novel but not necessary. And the idea that it might have a map on it is totally off his radar. That's why he's been climbing buildings to get the lay of the land. He'd memorized the layout of the Capitol over time too.]

[Belt was always the better navigator but Guy used to be a nomad. If you don't have a good sense of direction as a nomad and the ability to navigate a landscape you're in trouble, especially if you have to backtrack to get around difficult terrain.]

So that just leaves finding the...whatever it is I can do. Which will take some time. [He pushes a hand against his hair, pressing his bangs out of his eyes. They fall back in place even messier.] Some of the things I learned apply here. Like they also have the - the videos and screens. And phones are like comms.

But it's like I have to completely start over in learning how things work. [He shrugs one shoulder.] So I guess that's step one.

[It's going to be a rough adjustment period. Again.]

[He looks up at Jason, eyes soft, expression grateful.]

Thank you, by the way.

[robintohood]

[It feels strange for anyone to sincerely thank him while he's the Red Hood, especially when they don't know his civilian identity. He's not exactly a good boy scout like Superman these days.

But he guesses it's a sign that Guy's genuinely finding him helpful]

You'll be doing me a favor if you keep staying out of the Alliance's way. Follow some stuff they tell you to do to keep a cover.

[acroodawakening]

[It's concern, he thinks, the warning to keep a cover. Because he's taken time he didn't need to. Guy notices things like that, the things that matter as much as words. Or more.]

I will.

[Red Hood plowed past the gratitude, but Guy doesn't let him.]

Seriously, thank you. I would never have known how to find out about what that Fantastic guy said. And I've gotten into trouble before for not knowing something because I didn't even know to look. Or how to look backwards on the comm thingies.

You didn't have to take the time to warn me about all this.

[robintohood]

If this means one less naïve Alliance follower then it's worth it to me.

[Even though it's a risk talking to any Alliance member like this. He has to watch out for both guilds. Getting too chummy while bein a Society member could mean consequences for him]

You got any ideas on what you're gonna do next? Jobs?

[acroodawakening]

[Guy gives him a slightly shrewd look at the insistence it's just to avoid there being more naive Alliance followers. Sure, the guy who wanted civilians to be protected isn't doing it just to be helpful at all.]

[But he doesn't say anything.]

[Instead he thinks about this whole "job" thing.]

Oh yeah. Those exist.

[He knows at least some Capitol people had them. He hadn't had to worry about it there when he was basically a slave. He thinks back to Capitol TV and the modern ways they talked about work and industry on news, lifestyle, and drama shows.]

[Even if most of the Capitolites lived a life of decadence and indolence, some had jobs in the various power structures that ran everything. There were shows about moving up and gaining greater power at jobs.]

Well, I figured I'd maybe just live off the card but if also having a job as a backup thing is a good idea, I am definitely trying to make a lateral move away from professionally dying.

[It's a very dark joke but sometimes it's laugh or cry. In a weird way, it feels good to treat it like something a lot less dire he can just casually walk away from, no more serious than a job.]

There fortunately doesn't seem to be demand for that here anyway.

Beyond that, I don't really know what I could do. Most of my skills involve surviving in the wilderness and nobody needs that here.

I guess I could maybe work on a farm? I live on one back home. Even if the animals and plants are...entirely different. And... the whole thing is pretty new so they probably farm differently here.

We're kind of still at ground level with farming. My parents' best friends were the ones that invented it.

[robintohood]

["Invented" farming? Jesus, he really is very, very behind in the timeline]

Little Love is a farming community so you might luck out there. Might be good for you to learn about all the farming tech that's been made since your time.

And being a guild member means you have access to teleporters so traveling to and from there will be easy for you too.