#clownntm

[gothamincarnate]

[ @clownntm ]

-- "We're going to have a talk, and you're going to listen." He recites as he clatters up the stairs. "You're going to sit and listen. No." No, because he wanted answers. This was going to be a conversation.

"You killed me. Then you saved my life. Why?" No. "You killed me. I came back, then you saved my life. Why?" Better.

(Was Joker part of bringing him back? He doesn't know, Bruce hasnt said anything. The universe didn't hate Jason Todd that much, did they?)

Well, you do tend to be the universe's chew toy, kid. Willis isnt fucking helping.

His ears are ringing, a phantom blast pushing across his skin and making him trip, lose his balance for a second. He grabs for the banister.

He freezes, making sure it was fake.

Stairs ascend and descend, its dim and empty and dangerous somehow.

Why is he doing this? Go home. Put this all behind you.

But he can't, because Dad is still fucking hanging out with him and that's already fucked up.

Then there's the feeling, the detective instinct nagging. Jason shifts, continues heading up the stairs.

Joker is part of this somehow. The thing that had brought him back had led him to that alley, same as his grandparents. Sent them careening towards each other again.

He hopes it's like a bullet from a gun. But what if Joker did this? Some... fucked up way of... tormenting him again?

He walks down the halls. It looks like his old apartment. Or maybe he's hallucinating again.

But you weren't the first time, were you? It really had been zhim.

And zhe really did help you.

- zhe's trying, and I need zhim to keep trying. Zhe's not a threat at this point. Zhe just needs... support.

- I'm working on it. I just need time. I haven't seen zer in a month. I'm getting better.

- A lot happened while you were gone.

This is all so fucked up.

He didn't want to talk. He wanted an interrogation.

He's at the door. He remembers it vaguely, carried and yawning over his dad's shoulder. Waving blearily at the man who'd saved his life before his dad's car rumbled him to sleep.

He knows where the first aid kit and the coffee mugs are. He knows the couch fucking sucks to sit on.

He rings the doorbell. Shuffles his feet, come on come on-- bites his cheek and pounds on the door with the side of his fist.

He'd been mostly calm but now that it's in motion he feels explosive. Sadness, anger, fear, terror, horror-- oh this was a stupid idea but you cant back out now, you coward.

[gothamincarnate]

Plotting got out of hand

[gothamincarnate]

[ @clownntm ]

-- The explosion is still ringing in his ears. He’s been walking for thirty minutes. It’s only been an hour and a half since he fell asleep in agony under the afternoon desert sun. But it’s Gotham at night.

Robin woke up underground on the other side of the world. Back home. He-- he-- he was in a coffin. He hadn’t passed out. He’d died.

And he’d dug his way out.

Now, he’s a vaugely human shape covered in mud. It’s like a poor costume of Clayface. Hair sticks out of the cakes of mud on his scalp. Tears wet the mmud that crumbles off his cheeks.

He wants to be home, he wants his dad, he wants to be safe. He wants this to all be a dream.

He’s limping, dragging, shambling like the zombie he is. One foot in front of the other, mind clouded with tobacco and blood and the burns that had once been on his arms.Nothing but broken bones now. Good? Probably.

He stumbles, shouts. Lands wrong and clamps down on his tongue to swallow the scream. Whatever he’d been able to walk on had just shifted out of place.

Breathe through it. Come on, Robin. Can’t die now.

He forces himself up, stumbling on his feet and teetering, catching himself on the alley wall.

Someone’s moving in the shadows.

[gothamincarnate]

@ bruce : Do you think I'll ever get better?

[ @clownntm ]

-- Better means a lot of different things here. Better mentally? Better behaviors? Better social relationships?

"It won't change what you've done. It won't make anyone forgive you. For what it's worth, I hope you do."

That's why hes doing all this, this just sitting and talking weirdness. Not out of sympathy, the farthest thing from forgiveness. But if Joker wants to get better, Bruce isn't about to tell him no.

"I want you to get better. I want you to try. I want you to stop hurting people."

And it just keeps spilling out because this whole weird relationship is a lot to handle.

"If you were to stop here and now and get actual help, and never hurt another person ever, I'd give you fucking anything. Anything. Money. Gadgets. My absolute undivided attention. Myself. Name your price."

"If it means you would just stop hurting people, and god, stop killing my family."

He rubs at his face, leaning back and staring at the cave up above. "They're just fucking kids. They're my kids."

He has to take a second to clear away the crack in his voice. His voice is flatter, still full of emotion but less painful. To say its encouragement feels misplaced here but, yes, thats exactly what he's doing.

"I think you can, if you really want to. I think if I help you, maybe you can. But if we did... No, if we do this... theres a chance that I put in all this effort, and you decide to change you mind. I think I'd be the one to break. If I helped you, after everything you've done to my family, and you spit in my face by hurting someone?

"I think Batman might just give up. So, if you do this... if I give you anything and everything, you'll need to at least keep trying. There'd be plenty of stumbling, and I know that.

"But I think you could. Eventually."

[gothamincarnate]

@ jason - what do you remember about coming back?

[ @clownntm ]

-- Should have gagged him earlier. Jason leans against the ratted couch, flipping the knife between his fingers. "Fuck you."

That's all he says for a while, but he's shifting, obviously thinking of a response. "Broke my neck landing in the rubble. It was dark. It was finally over. It was over." Why him? Why fucking him? Why was he the one to die? "Everything you did to me. It was finally done. I saw the rubble, saw I was going to hit wrong. And I was fucking ecstatic."

He doesn't want to tell him. But who else? Who if not the man hes going to kill in a week?

Who to tell about the eldritch nature of his resurrection than a madman?

"Something wanted me. Because I'm... Batman's son. You are my second finest creation, returned to me! They... it... the orange thing called me the grandchild of Gotham.

I opened my eyes, gasped in a breath. I was in my coffin. The one you put me in." He stabs the knife through the web of Jokers thumb.

"I beat you. I won. I'm fucking alive." He laughs. Laughs and laughs. It's young but pained.

"You, all you had to do was beat me to death." Knive comes out of the hand. The tip presses against the underside of his jaw. "It was easy. It was fun."

The teen leans in close, Robin's round and hopeful face is still there, contorted in traumatized anger. "I dug six feet up, counting every breath."

He holds up his hands, three nails are bruised, three still growing back. "I had to claw through an inch of oak, splinter by splinter. I had to spit out mouthful of dirt just to keep breathing.

"Oh! Did you know they wire corpse's mouths shut? There's a burning when formaldehyde replaces blood. I pulled myself out of the mud and had to hold my jaw shut to keep from screaming.

"I survived. I'm alive. I win. Not you, not Batman. I WIN."

And he drove the blade upward, through skin and tongue until he hit the soft pallet.

[mctherly]

clownntm replied to your post: 

joker vc : does she like to feel tall?

esme vc: what do you mean by that? I am the tallest