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

[reneger]

( 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. )

[robintohood]

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]

[reneger]

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.

[robintohood]

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]

[reneger]

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. )

[robintohood]

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]

[reneger]

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.

[robintohood]

[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]

[reneger]

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.

[robintohood]

[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.