i was born to hold my hands up (open)

[reneger]

Who: jason todd reneger & whoever
What: downfall event prompts ; post-event happenings
When: late july - august
Where: excelsior, central city, nyc
Content Warnings: body horror, child death, child abuse, general violence, drug overdose, suicidal idealization, etcetc



prompts in the comments because.... i can.

Comments

excelsior, the battle. ( open )

[reneger]

( he hadn't planned on coming back to the west coast this soon. roy moved this way, jason got thrown onto an island prison just a little off the coast, and - he wasn't looking for a repeat. but the broadcast had been enough reason to travel cross-country with his new definitely-not-a-sidekick little big brother and--lend a hand. it's a mess, civilians running like mad to get away from the carnage, black holes turning into people, into things, weird creatures that shouldn't exist going around--doing whatever the fuck it is they do. jason cares only as far as it's relevant to take them down and keep them from hurting anyone else.

he's got a hood pulled up over his head, red domino mask up under it, cropped black jacket reaching just below his ribcage and the red/black stark-made suit he'd been mostly covering under other clothes up to this point.

the lenses of his mask glow a soft red, the only part of him visible in the shadows as jason makes his way from rooftop to rooftop, finding trouble and intervening when it looks like his personal brand of help might be useful: he's brutal to a fault, well-armed, and ready to take on damn near anything that crosses his path. )

[powercrept]

[Working alone has always suited Gojo. Part of it is helped along by the fact that some of his powers are so destructive that they can nearly kill anyone around him. Part of it is just that he doesn't always play well with others. His ego carries him to new heights. But don't worry: he's got the power and discipline to back it up.

He's just got some other flaws, too. You know. Some flaws. The lack of detail is because those flaws happen to fill a very, very long list.

When Gojo comes hurtling into Jason's periphery, it looks like he's walking on air. The monsters are a pain, but they aren't bad enough that they've forced him to lift his blindfold or even use his domain expansion. A pair are running from him and escaping into a black hole when he teleports next to them, whips them away from the hole, and decimates them. Very, very swift.

Then he turns, raising a hand in Jason's direction to greet him. No, he hadn't given any acknowledgement of his presence before, but Gojo is a great multitasker.] Yo! Where'dja get those made? I'd love a pair! [He raises his other hand up to his black mask, indicating what he means.

That domino mask is slick.]

[reneger]

( seeing someone walk on air isn't new, but it's enough to grab his attention. the glow flickers out as the hud interface turns off, and jason tips his head enough to make it clear he's listening to gojo. he'd been watching the city--checking cameras, seeing what's going on where, checking all the little dots on the map that show where each and every one of his planted trackers has wandered off to, on the off chance one of them stays still too long and warrants jason tracking down the person he'd attached the tracker to.

but gojo is an unknown, one who's casually displaying abilities most wouldn't have at all. jason doesn't know what his intentions are aside from being obnoxious--which makes him dangerous. and there aren't any current threats aside from him close by, given he'd taken out the two creatures that were dicking around in the area. so he gets jason's full attention. he raises a brow, evident by the way the domino mask shifts to accommodate. not that he's sure the guy can even see it, given the way his eyes are covered. that doesn't seem to be the kind of mask one can see through, but what does jason know? )

It's custom-made, an' the guy who put it together really ain't fond of putting effort into building shit for strangers.

the wreckage is keeping me up ( open; dreamverse )

[reneger]

( some people, when they dream, experience their teeth falling out, or they fly, they meet an old friend, they dream of being chased, being back in school, or they dream of simply--falling. endlessly falling.

jason's dreams are rarely ever that simple. he wishes he'd dream of falling into a void, or something as stupid as his teeth falling out. instead, he often goes through a replay of his shittiest moments. the worst days of his life, the kind of dreams that always has him waking up in a cold sweat, voice hoarse from yelling, grasping for the gun under his pillow or the knife on top of his nightstand. the kind he needs to take several moments to remember where he is, fingers gripping tight to metal, running across the fabric of his sheets to remember he's here, not there.

these aren't any different.

it starts with a boy, black hair falling in curls over his forehead, approaching a woman who he calls mother. he tells her a secret, albeit one that sounds too muffled to make out the words. she leads him into a warehouse as he pulls off his shirt, leaving himself in his robin gear as he follows behind her. he's worried about someone still being around, but she tells him that they aren't.

the boy flashes, robin costume interchanging with another uniform every few steps before it stops and--settles on the bright primary colors. just as a man approaches - too tall, grin too wide, green hair, and a gun in hand. all the blurs around the edges come into focus. you are the boy. the woman, his mother, points a gun at him. she says "i lied. you chose the wrong person to trust." and the hurt that burns through you, through the boy, is worse than the gun that hits him across the face. it's worse than the boot he takes to the chest next, than the slap, the kick from one of joker's bigger goons straight to the gut as he falls onto the floor. he curls up tight,

"that wasn't a very nice thing to do to uncle joker. you've been a bad boy." the man with green hair says. he's terrifying. he has a crowbar in hand, he's saying you must be punished and the boy looks straight at him with the fear clear even through the domino mask over his eyes.

"this is going to hurt you a lot more than it does me." the man says. the monster known as joker, and he raises the crowbar above his head. he swings it down onto the boy--over, and over, and over again, until blood splatters over his purple jumper, until the crowbar is covered in it, until the fight has drained out of the boy; everything hurts too much, everything is too broken, he can't keep himself up, he knows he has to, but he can't. he waits for batman, waits for the person he knows will come save him, but joker leaves after putting a bomb close to shiela--the woman who he had called mother, the one who betrayed him.

it hurts so much. he can't tell what's broken and what isn't because everything aches. but he needs to get up, he needs to--to try. the boy groans, but manages to pull himself up to his knees. he can't breathe. he can't see; one eye is swollen shut, the other has blood from his head dripping down into it. he sees the bomb close to the woman's feet - she's been tied up, he needs to fix that because he can't - he can't handle the bomb, he can barely move his arms as-is, and when he unties her, it's with fingers that creak uncomfortably, stabbing pains shooting up his arms but he manages to undo the knots regardless. he has to, there is no choice.

". . i'll. . . save you. . . mom." his voice is barely more than air being pushed out from his mouth, and after getting the ropes loosened, the boy falls. his mother picks him up off the floor, drags him towards the door to try and get them both out. she puts his back up against one of the large boxes, tells him to stay there, she'll get the door and come back for him.

but the door is locked.

the bomb goes off, and it hurts for the very brief moment he's still conscious. it's too hot, too loud, but it lasts barely a moment before everything goes dark, and there's nothing.

and everything ends.

it's pitch black, too quiet, too empty. like a void, just waiting to devour you. )

[robintohood]

[Jason already knew that there were differences between him and older Jason. But fuck. witnessing some version of the incident is another matter. He could almost feel the pain as badly as his doppelganger. The similarities hit too close to home.

Jason almost wants to scream and fight the Joker off but it's like his legs have been bolted to the ground. He can only watch in horror.

Before he knows it, he's facing the void. It's... disturbing familiar to him. With a shaky hand, he reaches out to it. Was that real? Which has been the dream?]

Mom...?

[The word is carried by a small and scared voice]

[reneger]

( jason's alone, until he suddenly isn't anymore. robin sits in front of him, weight resting on the balls of his feet as he squats down and rests his forearms against his knees. there's blood dripping down into his eye still, the mask has fallen off entirely, and robin suit full of tears and rips. bruises cover a substantial amount of skin that's still visible, but none of it seems to bother robin any.

his arms shift so his elbows are pressed against his knees, cushioning his chin on the palms of his hands as his head tips up to look towards jason.

a bright burst of color in an otherwise endless dark void. )

It's your fault, you know.

[levelshift]

[Accelerator had gotten the story in brief, but hearing it is one thing. Practically experiencing it, even in a dream, is something else. It hurts, all of it hurts, especially that awful feeling about that kid's mom. He doesn't even have a mother, feeling any kind of familial betrayal is an entirely new and unwelcome experience for him.

The black void is a goddamn welcome after all of that. Accelerator is on his hands and knees, panting hard. While he's gotten better at taking a punch after his fight with that Level 0, but he's still a small kid sorely lacking in both muscle mass and experience feeling pain. It all reminded him too much of the night of September 30th, of Kihara beating the shit out of him twice, his choker battery dying, of feeling so desperately low that he was willing to do anything to - to --

He closes his eyes, sinks down onto the ground, and after rolling onto his back he breathes in deeply. It's all a black void but it's familiar, this is what makes up his own dreams most nights (minus the endless blood and bodies), so this is weirdly comfortable for him.]

[reneger]

It's over.

( the voice comes out of nowhere, before color flashes just to accelerator's left--and there's robin. little pixie boots balance his weight against the nothing that's functioning as a floor. there's not a mark on him, what damage had been done clearly hadn't been done yet; he looks a little younger, too, bending over at the waist so he can reach down for accelerator and wrap fingers around the fabric of his shirt. )

You need to get up.

[hackingyoursensors]

[ The dream can't settle on what to do with him. Sometimes he's Dick, sometimes he's Robin, sometimes he's standing behind Jason or floating overhead. No matter where or who he is, he sees everything. He feels everything. The terror, the rage, the guilt, the small flame of hope.

The woman's change of heart is too little too late. There's nothing but the timer counting down, a surge of fire and shrapnel, and then darkness.

It's only then that Dick is somewhat aware. The moment he has control again, someone screams. Is it him? Or the last screams of the dying boy, screams he couldn't get out? He doesn't know. Everything is dark and he's alone with nothing but traces of the smell of smoke and echoing laughter.

He awakens to a blood-curdling scream. ]

[reneger]

( his heart's racing.

it's a reoccurring nightmare but it's never a fun one. he feels it every time; the betrayal, the pain, the fear, the hope--and this time is no different. jason wakes up tense, shoulders tight, fingers gripping hard onto bedsheets and sweat soaking into them. eyes open quickly, and he's going through the motions of remembering he's here, not there. the surface under him is soft, not hard concrete. he takes a breath in, and it doesn't hurt. on the nightstand next to him is a knife, under his pillow he feels the gun he'd stashed there before laying down. daylight filters in around the blackout curtains, and the room around him isn't--it isn't the warehouse, it's his room.

and then he hears the scream, and his priorities shift from trying to remember he's here to immediately taking that gun under his pillow and running across the apartment, blinders filtering out everything aside from the path between his room and dick's. another robin might take a few moments to make sure it's secure, safe, that no one has broken in, look for signs of a struggle, take account of everything going on around them. jason isn't that robin, he doesn't reach for the door handle so much as shove his shoulder into the door and force it open, gun raised and safety off as he strong arms his way in and--

stops. it's just a kid. it's just--it's not damian, it's dick. right. because he's here. because they're here, on this other earth, where joker's also somewhere out there and--jesus.

jason sucks in a breath. tries to calm himself down. doesn't move any closer, just stays in the doorway, arm up against the door frame. )

Dick. ( voice soft, quiet, because he's putting real effort into keeping it low. )

i'm a powder keg, waiting to explode ( open; dreamverse )

[reneger]

( he's eighteen, sitting in a dingy old bar with a bottle of wine and two glasses on the table. talia al ghul sits in front of him, and they're talking, but most of it blurs into background noise. it's all unimportant, up until talia says she has new business and pulls a folder out of her bag. she hands it over to him, and he opens it to find several images inside. talia tells him - one of them is less than 72 hours old. jason's careful to keep his expression - steady, blank, as she tells him that his name is timothy drake. she asks him if he's alright, and he asks her why wouldn't he be as his heart breaks. he takes the pictures back to his equally dingy one room studio. nails them up onto the wall, looks at them.

hits the wall with a hand.

cries.

they're in a graveyard. he's got bandages covering his face as he drags robin along with him. wraps an arm around robin's throat to hold him close as jason pulls the bandages off of his face. and he's so, so angry. the kind of anger that could eat someone alive. that would make them throw everything, yell and scream until their voice broke and keep yelling because it hurts, he's been replaced, he died and--there's some asshole, timothy drake, barely younger than him running around wearing the r.

"i'll make it simple for you. you've got to get to me -- before i slit this pretender's throat. tell me, batman. you let one robin die. want to go for two?" there's malice laced behind every word, as anger bleeds into pain which bleeds right back into anger. his knife slides over robin's throat--but catwoman manages to wrap her whip around one of his hands, pulls it off, saves robin, right before batman tackles him to the ground. jason throws a kick, bruce throws a punch, and he's yelling while he fights back. "you saw me as second rate, you saw me as not being able to be as good as the other robin! how could you let me die?" and they--they fight, and it hurts. not the physical pain, but the rest of it. the fighting. it burns through him, it makes him so angry and it--fades away.

they're in a bar, jason todd and tim drake. jason asks tim if it was satisfying, to get to punch him - dick grayson. tim gets angry, for a brief moment, the words aren't important, but jason gets it. "really? you don't think i understand what it's like to be abandoned? forgotten? the robin nobody trusts?"

it doesn't feel good. it should, but instead jason's just left--feeling guilty. he sits back down at the bar, watches a table a little distance away. waits. )

[torchbearer]

[ kyle's dreams were usually more mundane. it often took place in an apartment. the justice league would be there. playing poker, drinking beers. there'd be a fridge in the corner. once, in another age, kyle had opened it. he doesn't do that anymore.

instead he takes a seat, next to jason. ]

You burned up.

[ all the anger, it seems to bleed through. he thought it was strange then. he still think it is. kyle and jason were both sharp edges, but kyle always handled his deftly, knowing which side he was on. jason always cut himself both ways. ]

[reneger]

Yeah.

( the answer comes quick enough. jason raises the beer bottle back up to his mouth, takes a drink. he keeps his eyes on the thugs fucking around for another moment, before remembering - right, this isn't important. this is a dream, this isn't real, he and tim aren't going to take these guys out front and beat them senseless until they spill. tim isn't even here anymore. it's just him, rayner, and--no, just them, the bar's empty, there's no one else. even the bartender is gone.

jason looks over to kyle out of the corner of his eyes. leans back until the bar digs uncomfortably into his back. )

Used to do that as a kid, too. But I don't think it was--as bad.

blow out the candles ( closed; kyle, j1, sleeper )

[reneger]

( they'd planned it out specifically to avoid any additional problems that may crop up, and even with all the other bullshit going on, well--better to keep to their plans rather than have it turn out worse later on, ain't it?

jason's bruised to hell and back from the void monsters, but it isn't bad enough to call it off. he's still standing, geared up and ready for the promised pummeling. he'd called rayner in a little earlier, told him to get his ass up and out the window so they could flit off to central city so jason could beat the shit out of himself. because that's a normal thing to bully one's partner into attending, right? feels normal enough for him.

and now they're--here, in the warehouse jason had been fitting out to be a safehouse but gave up halfway. there's still the mat down on the floor, a couple bike tires stacked up on one side, but he'd stolen the generator back when he'd abandoned it, so the only light trickling in is from the large upper windows and the hole towards the center of the roof.

and jason's leaning up against the back of an extremely ratty couch, one ankle crossed over another. )

Same set up as the time with the D'Amicos: stay out of it unless it looks like I might not make it out alive.

( he's got a knife in his hand, idly picking at the dirt under his nails as he keeps his head tilted towards kyle. )

And if you see Tiny Tim or any of the rest of them show up, tell 'em to fuck off and leave us alone.

[torchbearer]

[ kyle sighs but he nods. some things are better left to jason. ]

You know they don't listen to me.

[ but fine. he can manage that without any issues. ]

[robintohood]

[Not long after Jason and Kyle arrive, younger Jason and Sleeper arrive through a skylight.

Younger Jason is fully decked out in his Red Hood suit and armed again, just like the last time he fought his older self. Though he still has some bruises from dealing with the monster hordes days earlier, he's healed up enough to still give his best shot against older Jason]

They shouldn't have any idea what we're doing. It better stay that way.

youth lost kicks us to live (closed; bruce )

[reneger]

( he'd placed a bug in bruce's cave, a tracker in his car, and while jason doesn't keep an eye on those--consistently, he keeps an eye and an ear out long enough to realize bruce hasn't returned to his makeshift cave, his car's in central, and it hasn't moved in a bit. dick's message didn't leave much room for error in interpreting what happened to bruce, which also explains the lack of movement on the tracker's he'd slipped into bruce's cowl.

which also means there's a tiny little bruce wandering around in a city where he's fully aware the joker has likely taken off with a kid at a specific park that jason showed him where it was. jason had thought ahead--not for bruce, but for the other kids. handed out a couple burners with his phone number on them and some spare cash to some of the kids and asked for any news of more missing kids, or new kids from them. luckily, it panned out well for him: one of the girls sends him a picture of bruce among the rest of them, pointing him out as one of the new kids.

funny how jason's immediate what would i do in this scenario is exactly what he catches bruce doing: baiting joker into coming out in the open by being an easy victim. unfortunately, jason's tried that as jason without much luck, and he figures if anyone could pull out joker into fucking with them, it's bats' presence as well as someone he can fuck bruce over with.

tiny bruce is both of those, but it doesn't count unless he loudly identifies himself as--himself. jason's glad bruce didn't think that far ahead into it and made it relatively easy for jason to find him; his bike stops close to the park and jason climbs off of it, sauntering his way through the crowds of homeless kids straight to the one he can easily pull out of the crowd as bruce wayne, tiny millionaire with a massive chip on his shoulder.

he's fully geared up, domino mask on and lips twisted into an almost disappointed scowl. )

Now I know you shouldn't be here.

[batsymbol]

( if anyone thought bruce at this age was going to simply sit around dick's place and play video games all day when he has everything still in his head about this place and home, well. then they clearly don't know bruce.

this is, as far as he's concerned, "the perfect disguise" for keeping up with his trying to see if he can locate joker. he's a kid now — not batman or even bruce wayne, prince of gotham. just some nameless kid on the streets [supposedly] who no one would really notice missing if he were to be snatched by someone. he'd be stupid not to try this out and see what he can get from it.

of course, turns out, there's others that seem to think this might be stupid. others who have a tendency to keep an eye on him.

when jason approaches, he recognizes him right away, though he takes to looking off to the side instead, dressed in some of the new clothes dick had purchased for him that were more his current size. tugging his his cap down over his head a little more, he looks over to jason then. )

Sorry, mister. I'm not supposed to talk to strangers.

( what a brat. )

see me bare my teeth ( open; deaged ) 8/12-8/15

[reneger]

( considering the amount of caped vigilantes running around central city - one more can't be that big of a deal, right? even if that new one is the size of an average ten year old boy wearing a cape that covers more of him than anything else does? and is running around in pixie boots? clearly that's an entirely normal occurrence, isn't it? it doesn't really matter how he got here, just that he's--here, grapple gun shooting out from one building to another as robin launches himself across the skyline, stopping whenever he sees some shady stuff going on below him to intervene. otherwise? he tries to--mostly--stay out of sight of others running loose. mostly, given there is nothing even mildly subtle about the bright colors he's jumping around in.

don't mind him. he's just your average every day sidekick, getting into usual sidekick shenanigans. no need to get in his way or tell him to stop, he's fine. he's got this. )

[robintohood]

[There is nothing shady with an employer making sure his employees are meeting his standards. Though maybe pistol whipping a goon across the face in front of a dive bar might be a bit questionable but the Red Hood's got standards in other ways]

Been skimming off the top, huh?

[Yup. Just business as usual]

[levelshift]

[Even though Chaos Gate has been MIA Accelerator has been showing up to work every day. There isn't really any reason not to, he still has an incredibly amount of debt to pay off and besides, who would look after all her cats if he ditched?

Not that he cares or anything. Anyways.

While most of his work was typically catsitting, there were aspects of it that were a touch more villainous. Tonight is a good example of that, where he's received information from the Society about some bank armoured truck route transporting a large amount of money. It's a pretty easy job, interrupt the transport, steal the money, drop it off at Society's headquarters. It'll be ten minutes, tops.

So off he goes, to the end of a deserted street that's on the truck's route. Having never bothered with any kind of alter ego or secret identity bullshit, the most he's bothered to do is wear a black hoodie with the hood pulled up so his hair isn't quite as obvious. It doesn't help so much with the silver arm cuff of his crutch still around his right forearm, but whatever. He's leaning up against a building boredly, and when he sees the truck turn the corner he hits the switch on his choker and takes a casual jump -

- Landing right on top of the cab. There's barely even a thump, and in the next second he's grabbing hold of the truck's vectors to suddenly veer it straight into a streetlight. The tires squeal at the forced change in direction, and the entire thing plows into the light with a loud crash as he manipulates more vectors to weaken the structure of the truck.

Accelerator, not being a complete monster, leans down to look through the broken windshield to make sure the guards are unconscious and not dead.]

Shit, you two are working late. You deserve a nap.

[That was completely unnecessary and they're out cold so it's not like they'll even hear him, but he's saying that out loud anyways.]

don't turn out the lights ( closed; bruce )

[reneger]

( bruce's tracker had gone dark, and jason hadn't thought much of it at first. a couple days off grid is no big deal, they all do it, bruce more than others. but a few days shifts into a couple weeks, and it's concerning. because joker might still be here. because bruce is so inexperienced, so young and new to all of this. because he'd just cried his heart out all over bruce, and him going missing now is--not ideal at all.

so jason starts looking, subtly. he's careful to make sure he's snooping in bruce's shit when dick isn't looking, because he doesn't want to worry him. they've all got enough shit going on as-is. but jason's efforts to find him don't turn up with anything, which is when he really starts to worry. and he hates that he worries, because he doesn't want to be concerned about bruce. unfortunately, jason knows damn well that's not going anywhere. he'd bitched to tim before, about how he keeps trying to get away from it all but he keeps coming back--because they're family, as tim had pointed out.

and this bruce is different, too. which is why, after jason gives up on trying to find bruce the old fashioned way, he shows up in his excelsior hideout. starts snooping through drawers, trying a few passcodes he's used to bruce using to try and get into his computer system, digging into everything possible to see if he'd left behind something jason can use to try and find him. )

[batsymbol]

( it's been a little over two weeks since he'd gone radio silent. since he'd left trackers behind here in excelsior and seemingly just disappeared off the map. if not for the fact that he'd recently dropped an envelope off at dick's place, there'd be absolutely no signs of his still being here in this place. in this corner of some multiverse they've all found themselves in.

he's not expecting anyone here when he comes back during the evening — doesn't expect any of them to really be concerned or go looking for him. they mostly stick to themselves. therefore, why would he think otherwise? so when he drives through the darkness of the shadows in his so-called batcave for the moment, the first thing he notices when he comes out of them are a couple things on that shouldn't be.

he doesn't arrive in the batmobile. she sits there in the shadows of the place, inaccessible, which could have either served as a sign of him still being here in this place or having been here, only to no longer, depending. what he arrives in instead is a midnight purple car of what looks like the skyline variety. the engine revs as he pulls into a vacant spot there and it cuts a moment after, as do the lights.

door popped open, he steps out, greasepaint smeared across his eyes, but not in the batsuit. still dressed in black, cap on his head and bandana around his mouth, bandages wrapped around his palms and fingers. keys dangling from a couple fingers, he rests an arm on top of the open door, pulls down the bandana away from his mouth, and stares off at the one who's turned his shit on. eyes narrowed. more out of confusion than frustration. )

What're you doing here?

a spark ignites ( closed; kyle )

[reneger]

( it's the middle of the day, which means it's jason's usual sleep hours. when he closes himself in his room with the black out curtains drawn to get a couple hours of sleep, twenty minute intervals. but he's not asleep right now.

no, he's settled into the new couch in their new apartment, curtains closed to block out the sunlight because it's too bright and he hates it, thank you. and on the tv in front of him, akage no anne plays through the second episode, subtitles off because jason doesn't need them, thank you.

he can watch an anime in the dark and quiet when the sun is shining bright outside, in sweats with his hair sleep-fussed, while everyone else is out. like a normal person, because this is clearly normal jason behavior. )

[torchbearer]

[ kyle is dropping in after a patrol, a bit listless. galatea is gone and he hopes, he dearly hopes that she finds her way. he gets the feeling life back in her own reality was . . . rough.

he's a little distracted when he comes in, briefly pausing because he knows that sound. the sound . . . of anime. ]

What are you watching.