gclems:
colin hasn’t felt like a kid in – ever, maybe. certainly not since scarecrow. maybe not since the first time he took a beating meant for someone else. seventeen feels like thirty on his shoulders. colin sags a little, collapses in on himself until his chin rests on the knees he hugs to his chest.
her attention and care means more to colin than he can even verbalize to himself. he has – very few complicated feelings about hadlee. she isn’t like a mother. more of a big sister. his mother walks like she owns the city and makes him wonder if in another life she does. makes him wonder if there’s a life where she keeps him by her side. makes him hate himself for occasionally aching for that life.
“ thanks, hadlee. it’s on me this time. ” they both know he’s lying. his funds have dried up. but he feels bad always acting like he’s assuming someone else is paying. if he had the time, energy, or — willpower, honestly — he’d go get himself a real job. teen titans don’t get written a paycheck.
Their whole dynamic operates on an understanding. That work is work and their lives are their lives. That they don’t talk about the pills around other people. That they don’t talk about their reasons with anyone. That Colin doesn’t take charity and Hadlee doesn’t understand see the fine line between caring about someone and treating them like a charity case.
They’re both works in progress. Both building themselves up to be something bigger and better than what they were before. Or, at the very least, bigger than what they were. Better is negotiable. Subjective.
All of these and more are the reasons Hadlee agrees. “Sounds good, kid.” It’ll be her card that gets chipped, but there’s no need to point that out. Pride is a fickle thing, and she might as well at least let Colin have that. “We gonna go kick some ass, or what?”