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

[torchbearer]

But you pulled back.

You could do it again. You have done it.

[reneger]

And?

( no point in denying it. jason's pulled the same shit here with the other robins, too. )

[torchbearer]

And . . . [ kyle squeezes his shoulder. ] . . . that's good enough.

[reneger]

The hell's that supposed to mean?

( there's context here that he's missing, and he's not sure what it is. )

[torchbearer]

It means instead of thinking about how far you went, consider that it's enough that you pulled back. Flip the script on beating yourself up on it.

[reneger]

I'm not beating myself up over it.

( he is, but. )

I'm just saying. It's hard enough having people 'round who get it, let alone people who're. . not involved in our side of shit.

[torchbearer]

. . . I don't know if that's the issue.

[reneger]

I'm at least slightly less likely to keel over if shit came up.

( it's hard to put what he means into words especially because kyle's a little out of his league as is. in the sense of--jason's only human. a human who died and came back to life, but human regardless. kyle is, too, but he's a lantern. significantly above jason's paygrade. it's not a status jason really gives two shits about; he keeps his feet on the ground because he knows it's what he's best at. that they have heavy hitters to handle everything above jason's level.

and jason wouldn't have considered sharing his space with kyle if keeping him alive was even slightly a concern. he trusts kyle to know his own limits, trusts that any enemies jason makes, kyle could handle if they came after him. anything less, and he wouldn't be here. )

[torchbearer]

[ and that was a sort of security, wasn't it? to know someone would still be there. to wake up and realize they were still around. to wake up and remember that alex was dead. donna was gone. jenny was spacedust.

but that's not all there is to it. there is something kyle is on the cusp, something that beats on within him. his connection to life and love is so tenuous, it's ready to snap. ]

I know.

[reneger]

( alternatively, they could turn it around and say all the training in the world isn't going to do jack shit against darkseid, that jason survived apokolips once before on sheer luck alone. that someone in their field is more likely to get themselves into shit, because they just can't help themselves. that understanding and being part of it also just means watching them hurt themselves more.

but jason's trying not to read that deep into it. no need to turn himself off from making connections ever again, right. )

Being human's hard.

( not that he imagines it's any different for kryptonians, or amazons, or anyone else capable of experiencing loss. )

[torchbearer]

[ for some reason, that makes kyle chuckle. ]

Yeah. It's always going to be, no matter what you're doing. But being human is . . . well, where everything comes from.

[reneger]

Says the guy who was Ion once to the one who'd dug his way out of his own grave.

( a cosmic horror and a once-dead robin. clearly they're both doing great at this. )

[torchbearer]

[ he shakes his head. ]

Being Ion is like . . . being everywhere. Being everything. It wasn't a bad thing, it was just . . . overwhelming.

When Jenny gave me the starheart back, Ion came back to me. And it's still here.

[reneger]

My bad. ( the grin on his mouth just barely curves up the corners of his lips.) The ex-dead guy and the semi-god.

[torchbearer]

[ kyle huffs. ]

Quite the pair.

[reneger]

I've seen worse.

( jason shifts his weight--moves so he's slouching in against kyle's side, only half paying attention to the tv now. )

Between the two of us, we might make half of a functional human.

[torchbearer]

[ dryly, but he's smiling. ]

That's the dream, isn't it?

[reneger]

Mm, yeah. Something like that.

( being functional is overrated. look at jason: he's running off of minimal sleep and still able to sit here and hold a conversation, which is clearly enough. )

We're gonna have to up the security on this place. Retina scanners are a no go, given, ( his hand raises, gestures up to his face--where jason's mask would be if he was wearing one. removing his domino mask to get inside sounds stupid. ) I was thinking biometric scanners on the entrances along with keyfobs.

( because normal locks are too easy to break into. )

[torchbearer]

[ kyle blinks. ]

How long are we staying here?

[reneger]

I'm keeping the apartment, even when we head back to NYC. It'll be handy to have in case shit happens and we need a secondary place for a while.

( usually he prefers his safehouses to be less... homey, but with dickie sticking to his side like a bad tumor, jason'd rather have something comfortable. )

[torchbearer]

Out of curiosity, just how many "secondary" places have you accumulated?

[reneger]

Here? Three.

( kyle's first apartment, the apartment he shoved kyle into, and now this one. )

I'm working on finding a West Coast place next.

[torchbearer]

I think at this point, you could become an overbearing landlord.

[reneger]

I had safehouses all over back home.

( because he goes all over. but-- )

Most've them are shitty condemned buildings on land owned by companies people won't look twice at.

[torchbearer]

Yeah, that's no longer the case though.