metalogs | i was born to hold my hands up (open)

Kyle's one of B's. He's a Leaguer.

( kyle said he isn't trading their shit back and forth, but the fact that he was bruce's teammate first is always going to be something jason thinks about. that kyle's with him, sure, but he considers bruce a friend just as much as he considers jason--whatever they are. and people always put bruce first. )

[Right. Jason gets it. It takes a certain type of person to be a Leaguer. A type of person that Jason isn't. Plus, Kyle and Bruce having been co-workers makes things messy]

Guess it can never be that simple with us.

It ain't.

( a roll of his shoulders, and he's--walking towards the door. doesn't know where he's going, but he's going. )

Donna's one of Dick's. Roy an' Kori are, too. Artemis and Bizzaro were the only ones who weren't someone else's first. And I let them fly into a black hole without me.

[Jason follows. The yellow-accented shadow that was around him fades]

Why? What happened?

Long story. Artemis pushed me out. B was there.

( it's--a summary, at least. it's not worth getting into. it's over. he should have pushed back, should have followed after her. )

[Jason knows there's more to it than that but it's clearly a touchy topic for his double]

Sorry.

Don't.

( he's going down the hallway, but jason doesn't--he should remember what's down here, but he doesn't. it's blurred around the edges, memory filling it in as best as it can. )

It's on me, I don't want to hear it. Especially not from you.

Right.

[Jason's own memory tries to fill in the blanks. Once you've lived in and squatted at enough buildings, they all just blend together into one depressing blur. Same walls with old peeling paint. Same creaky floorboards. Same dirty broken windows.]

Lucky me for not having more team-ups.

You're better off alone.

( the hurt in his tone is--clear, ringing strong. he stops in place as the area around them does shift. the hallways turn more familiar, and instead of one of their shitty buildings they'd stayed at when they were by themselves, it's. . turning into one they'd been at a little longer. the one they'd stayed in with catherine, right up until they'd found her body. )

'cause when you're not, someone gets hurt. People do. Everyone around you gets fucked over. But you can't stay alone, 'cause you just get worse when you're off on your own. There's no right answer, everything you do breaks something in the end.

[Jason stops when he recognizes their surroundings. He hates it. He remembers clearly the say he found Catherine dead from an overdose. It was the day when his life sunk to another level of hell]

Most people don't understand where I'm coming from anyway. So why bother? They'll bitch about it and think it's so easy to do something else.

They're not gonna get it. They didn't live it like we did. They don't get how some people just--they deserve to be dead, they're not people, they're monsters wearing human skin.

( they should. look at joker, look at all the shit they've seen by now. jason may have had a headstart to seeing how garbage the world is, but they all have now. he gets bruce's reasoning, he gets why he is how he is, jason's seen what happens when he shifts gears, but it's. still stupid. and jason isn't bruce, they shouldn't bitch over his own choices. )

Crippling them doesn't fix it.

[There's a shift in the space and they're in a decrepit hallway with an old creaky staircase leading downstairs. It's where Jason made his first kill, when he got fed up with one of Catherine's drug dealers]

If it did, we wouldn't keep having these problems. Fewer innocent people would get hurt.

( it shifts, and jason's left looking down the staircase.

winces at the memory, before he's turning to look directly too junior. )

You, too, huh.

( this bit of their sordid history. jason wasn't in the wrong, he knows he wasn't. it doesn't make it any--less bad. )

Edited 2023-08-25 19:19 (UTC)

Yeah. Didn't really plan it but I'm not sorry about it either.

[Though he knows it's not a point of pride that he made his first kill before he was even a pre-teen]

I never want another kid to go through the shit we did.

( it's quiet, hesitant. there's a lot of shit jason lived through back then, a lot of shit he knows damn well kids still suffer through to this day. )

But it doesn't matter how many of 'em we toss in arkham, how many we kill off, there's always gonna be more.

Gotta do something though. If even one less kid suffers because of what we did, then it's worth it.

[It's part of how Jason can keep going with his work. It's not always about rage]

I know.

( it's what keeps him going, too. just one more kid, just save one more person from suffering. keep one more robin from going through the same shit he went through--even if he failed that. look what happened to tim.

jason doesn't rampage around gotham because he's angry. he does it because someone has to. because if being an asshole who goes around putting down monsters saves even just one person, it's all worth it. he does it for everyone who they hadn't been able to save. for every kid out there trying their damned best to keep their mom from falling apart, even though they shouldn't have to. if killing a dealer keeps them from going around apartment blocks, if it keeps someone from trying something they shouldn't, going down the wrong path--he's done his job. )

If being the "bad" guys is what it takes to get some shit under control, then so be it.

[It's like what he said to Bruce before. You can't stop crime, only control it. He already knew all too well how Gotham's seedy underbelly works so screw it. He can take the reins. It's more effective than what Bruce does with throwing monsters into a prison that might as well have a revolving door]

We are bad guys, y'know.

( there's an easy smirk on his face, one that never quite meets his eyes. it's practiced, works great under a domino mask, better under the hood when only the way his voice shifts when he's grinning is even mildly audible. )

Dick's never gonna spend his afternoon with a bonesaw an' a bunch of dead seconds. Tim's never gonna rip a body to shreds just to prove a point. They've got mildly normal relationships with mildly normal people, they can befriend people an' make it last years and years. Hell, Deathstroke's capable of making and keeping buddies. We can't do that. We're not gonna be able to go out into the world and live even mildly normal lives.

( or he won't. junior's managed a day job for fuck if he knows how long, because jason doesn't want to know. he's pulled himself together enough to exist as--an actual person, out in the daylight. he has a name he uses frequently with others, has people who depend on him.

jason hates it. because he doesn't know how to do that.

was it a skill he'd lost, sometime over the last few years? when he'd traveled around with the teachers talia'd given him, he'd been a nobody. intentionally nobody, just some kid they'd punch around and show a few things to. when he came back to gotham, he took on red hood. when he left gotham and came back again, he'd--learned to be jason a little more, but not by much. in new amsterdam, he used a false identity during the day to cover his nighttime crimelording activities. and now he's here, watching junior succeed in shit where he's failed so many times before. it pisses him off.

the building shifts around them again, and they're in the cave as it stood last time jason had seen it. there's the t-rex, the massive coin, and just a little in front of them, the glass case with his old robin suit in it. jason's still giving that same little smirk. )

We're gonna pull the same old shit, an' end up mangled and dead. We'll save a few in the process, but-- ( a jerky nod of his head over to the case. ) he's gone. A stupid shit dream that blew up in our faces.

[Jason's breath gets caught in his throat when he sees the case. This must be what his double talked about.

He slowly approaches it and raises a hand to try to touch the glass. His chest aches seeing the suit. It's a memorial to what he's lost and could never get back. Further hammering the pain is how unlikely he'll see his own case. He still doesn't see how he can return to Bruce or the cave]

Yeah. They're not like us.

[Jason's response is quiet and sad]

We're not like them. ( it's the same thing, words reversed, but it feels different. jason is the one who is in the wrong, he's the broken one. not them. )

This's all we've got.

[Jason gets what his older self is trying to get across. Still, he continues to look back at the case sadly. there's a brief shift as he now resembles his 15-year-old self wearing a different Robin suit. It's what he looked like just before that night at the warehouse]

And all we will ever be.

i was born to hold my hands up (open)

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