they need to come up with more words like necrosis and miasma and mausoleum and cadaver and morose and decrepit and stuff like that just so metal bands can expand their vocabulary
Love love love Jason's "fight or flight" reaction here.... Of course his first reaction would be to snap and fight because NO ONE could stay calm after that, but at the end he just ran away.... he ran away because he had to, because he can't stay.... Bruce told him "I'm still standing, Jason," provoking he to hit him again, and he just looked at Bruce, the man that he is, the man that Jason want to see and then he just ran away... he just wanted to ran far away from that place.... driving the car as fast as he can while tears running down his face.... ran far far far away because he can't stay at the place where he died any longer or facing Bruce any longer.... everytime Bruce hurt him he hit back but eventually he just ran away.... *incoherent and painful screaming*
âI trained you better than thatâ âIâm still standingâ âhit me!â
Iâm convinced that this was never about finding a way to revive Damian. The plan itself is far too much of a longshot compared to the other options available. Bruce wanted to hurt Jason simply because he wanted a fight. He wanted to take his pain out on someone and have it be justified as combat. He wanted to make Jason feel as low as he felt. Iâm glad Jason walked away, that he didnât play Bruceâs game. What a sick fuck.
When you go through sedation and the doctors explain what each drug is supposed to do and then it gets to "yeah the midazolam is just so you don't remember anything if you wake up during the procedure âșïž".
Dick and Jason developing a working relationship and mending the mass of grief and hurt between them, spending time together just the two of them. Dick's heart swelling, ease and openness returning to him with every moment of Jason's dimpled smile and melodious laugh. He's soaking up Jason's physical and emotional affection as much as Jason is practically kitten-faced and puppy-like for his.
Then, Jason finds out, perhaps through Tim about how it was Dick, not Tim that allowed the Titans to badmouth Jason in the first place. That let hatred for Jason brew. Jason tries to brush it off and move past it, Dick has already apologized for those things! Sure, Jason isn't exactly invited when Dick goes out with his friends and Dick doesn't really talk about how they speak about Jason, but healing takes time and Jason's more than happy to spend more time with just Dick.
Then Jason finds out that Dick wished he had died. What went down in New York was a mess, Jason capitalizing on Dick's already smeared reputation. But dead? Jason doesn't really believe it almost. Dick was furious and perhaps violently apathetic to Jason but dead? No, Dick would never want Jason dead.
But Jason sits with the thought. Even now, Dick has never said he's happy Jason is alive. Never said he's happy Jason's back at all. He never wants to talk about or do any of the interests Jason had as a child, and he says its in the name of "getting to know who you are now" but whats wrong with Jason still loving the same things and trying to find them again? Dick's never said he loves Jason, and maybe it hurts but hey, how often does he tell Tim or Cass or Damian he loves them? Jason is never invited when the four of them get together but he gets it. He does. He hardly knows Tim, Cass doesn't want to know him and Damian is a pensive, touchy case. They'd tolerate Jason if Dick would say something or ask it of them but he doesn't and its fine. It's fine.
The next time they are hanging out, in Dick's NYC apartment, getting ready to watch a movie Jason missed out on, Dick offhandedly mentions having already watched it with "his other siblings".
Dick's chest jolts, knowing he's made a mistake but also hoping Jason will just ignore or accept it.
Jason does ignore it. He asks Dick about the more important thing instead.
"Did you really wish I had died that day?"
Dick's heart drops into his stomach. No. How could he know that? He was never supposed to know that.
Dick's at a loss for an answer, because he never thought he'd need one.
"Where did you hear that?" Damn it. He should have worded that differently. Where did you get a crazy idea like that?
"So its true."
Dick's skin is starting to break into cold sweat. He hates that Jason doesn't sound angry. He opens his mouth. He doesn't know what to say.
Jason's eyes are wet but he looks ready to be resigned. "Do you still wish I was dead?"
From there, its a blame game. Dick doesn't want to feel shame over Jason, he can stomach guilt if he's in control of it but shame like this has no control mechanism. He can't win this type of shame, so he has to blame Jason instead.
He brings up Jason's actions in NYC, in Star, during UtRH. No one has any reason to trust Jason, how can he hold something like this against Dick when Dick is the only one willing to give someone as difficult as Jason a chance?
He expects Jason to lash out. An angry Jason may be hard to control, but he can win a fight against an emotional Jason, can manipulate Jason enough to get blows in. He just wants Jason to understand. Dick wants to force him down, hold him and do every possible action he can to prove that he's the big brother, the older one, the wiser one, the one who knows best.
Jason doesn't lash out. He doesn't say anything during Dick's deflection, stays quiet once Dick is done. He stares up at Dick from his place on the sofa, hunched in on himself. His sweet dimpled smile that filled Dick's entire body with adoration is gone. His sweet laughter that chimes through Dick's house is gone. His big, pretty eyes are wet and shiny like translucent glass marbles.
Dick can hardly hear his own breathing through the blood rushing through his ears, making his brain beat against his skull. Every breath is glass marble shards spiraling in his lungs.
Jason stands up from the sofa, stands before Dick. Dick braces his core, fingers twitching for the fight to come. Jason leans in, tilts his face and kisses Dick on the cheek. Gentle, chaste. It hardly lasts two seconds, more like a soft tickle of skin on skin than a kiss.
He pulls away. When his eyes meet Dick's, gone are those pretty shiny marbles reflecting the light. Those eyes are cold, hard slabs of sleek glass and they have none of the adoration Dick had let himself get used to again.
"Goodbye, big brother."
Jason leaves. Dick's chest is both hollow and heavy. He doesn't think this avoidant, cold behavior of Jasons will last. If Jason showed anyone in their family affection it was Dick. This was just a bad phase and it would pass and they could continue to mend. Dick's happiness would return.
Jason doesn't speak to him. Doesn't speak to anyone. He isn't outwardly rude, doesn't antagonize anyone if they happen to see him. If anything, he is polite in the way the exchange between business partners would be. He answers questions, he avoids confrontation, he complies with cursory inquiries. He has no hatred in his voice, in his actions.
Eventually, Nightwing gets a hold of him. He approaches Red Hood with the offer of working together on a case. Hood asks if he is in need of information. Nightwing says no, but that working together on it would make it go more efficiently, faster. Red Hood declines politely, like refuting a transaction or sending a contract back to be refined.
Nightwing keeps trying. He runs into Jason while in civvies at the grocery store, proposes making dinner together. Jason declines. No excuses, just kindly refuses.
And it keeps happening. Jason doesn't lash out, not as Jason or Red Hood. He doesn't even do anything that would cause the Bats or other hero groups to have plausible reasons to antagonize him. He's friendly like a distant neighbor, works well with others for a job to be done but never goes past the level of likability one would expect of a coworker.
It makes others realize that Jason's "likeable". Suddenly, more people want to work with him and get to know him.
Dick wishes he could be happy. Its what he wanted, maybe. For Jason to reintegrate into the community, to get closer to their family, get closest to Dick. But Jason doesn't want to be friends with anyone anymore it seems. Dick knows he was lonely, he must be still lonely. So why? Is he so petty as to hold this terrible mistakeâthis mistake that Dick himself is so hurt byâover his head forever?
He confronts Jason eventually. Enough is enough. They need to work this out if Jason is ever gonna come home, so that they can be a family and spend time alone together again.
Jason listens to him entirely, just like their last big conversation together.
In the end, Jason just awkwardly grins at him, tucks his chin in a boyish and bashful way and says "I don't want to offend you or anything, but it's a little weird to want to get close to someone you wish was dead. Sorry, Mr. Grayson, but I don't want a family that doesn't love me and I don't want to be in yours."
Its the last fucking nerve Dick had in him and its burst open. Its him lashing out now, accusing Jason of all sorts of things, of hiding secrets, of spending time with other heroes (he hasn't other than workplace type of hanging out), of pushing Dick away for "one bad mistake compared to your dozens".
Jason just shrugs. "I'm truly sorry for what I've done. I don't expect your forgiveness, Mr. Graysonâ"
"Stop fucking calling me that Jason. I'm your older brother, have some fucking respect."
"I don't have an older brother." Dick pauses. That tremble in Jason's voice is the most emotion he's heard from him in months.
Dick takes a shuddering breath. "People make mistakes sometimes, Jason. Please, let's just put this behind us. Your myâ"
"I am nothing to you. Give it enough time, and you'll feel nothing but apathy and disgust for me again. I am nothing to you and I cannot wait for the day you are nothing to me too."
Dick's whole chest pangs, stuttering and dropping. So that's what this is, then. Jason hasn't been punishing him. He's trying to cut Dick off completely.
It destroys something in Dick. How dare Jason think they can just let each other go like this? After all the pain they've put each other through? All the pain and misery Jason has put their family through? He's proven he can be better and now that he is, he dares to try and cut them all off?
"You don't mean that, Jay."
"I mean every word. One day we'll walk past each other, and you'll be nothing but a stranger."
"You look just like me. We'll never be strangers. Look, you may hate meâ"
"Hate you?" Jason turns away from him. "If only I could hate you as much as you have hated me. I don't hate you, I just don't want to love you anymore."
areudirty
jacobvanloon
snowghoul
origamiaround
amandla
tangentwithtanner
