Jun 28
What a grumpy lad! I sure hope he achieves his dreams and nothing bad ever happens to him!
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What a grumpy lad! I sure hope he achieves his dreams and nothing bad ever happens to him!
“I’ll ask Dick to come help plan, then. No promises he’ll show, kiddo.”
Well, that’s something, at least. If Bruce can get his head out of his ass long enough to have a civil conversation. “Do you have any suggestions, though? Besides painting your room?”
Jason tilts his head back to stare at the Manor's dark windows; pupilless eyes all trained on him. “It’s too dark.”
The door to the mudroom opens, a faint triangle of light as Alfred waits for them. The angler lure of a fish before the mouth swallows its prey whole.
He shudders. “It’s too dark,” he says again, and steps inside.
Lupa meeting Jason for the first time, Seeing this small human pup and being reminded of her own human children, Romulus and Remus.
The child trembles, not from fear but from the cold. The image of two babies shivering from the assaulting winds of the wild, clinging on each other, comes flashing through her mind. They. He needs shelter.
The she-wolf is suddenly flooded with necessity of keeping this pup.
She trains him the hardest. She knows he is destined for something enormous, she can feel it. Just like with her other two. But Jason is young, too young. He needs more time under the fire to be molded into a proper child of Rome, someone worthy to call themselves the son of the Kings of the gods.
In the night, she allows him to lay by her side. She tells him stories, about the greatest heroes of Rome, about her children, how her Romulus founded Rome and became its first King, and how her Remus died by his brother’s hand. She doesn’t know if Jason truly understands the weight of the words as she talks about the demise of her child, but the toddler looks at her with a contemplative expression on his round rosy face and after a moment he wraps his small arms around her neck. The act takes the wolf by surprise and when she gains her composure, she bitterly orders him to go to sleep.
Despite the harshness in her tone, she lets him embrace her as he sleeps, covering him with her warm fur and nuzzling his hair.
Other demigods pups come and go but Jason stays. Until Juno comes for her champion.
To put it in mortal terms, it can be said that what came after the arrival of the Queen, is the godly equivalent of a custody battle.
Jason needs to learn how to be the leader of men, Lupa knows this. She also knows that there’s so much that Jason can learn at her side.
But in the end, he is Juno’s. Nothing can’t beat the title of Juno’s champion.
The Queen is eyeing them thoughtfully with an aura of superiority and the she-wolf stand solemn, but the child starts nuzzling her side and she can’t help but reciprocate the affection.
Juno comes and gently picks up Jason and strokes his hair.
As they take their leave from the Wolf House, Lupa watches as the child rest his head on the Queen’s shoulder.
She can’t help to remember the moment when that mortal shepherd took her two children away.
Jason waves goodbye to her as he is taken away. Lupa can’t look back anymore.
Young Hercules 1.2 Between Friends (The Treasure of Zeus: Part 2)
He Didn’t Want To
Publishing this one on my birthday so @the-shadow-of-atlantis cannot complain today. So enjoy this angst while I pout over here on my downward slide getting closer to 30.
Dick never wanted to be a big brother at first, often making young Jason feel as if he didn’t belong. If he was being true, it had more to do with Bruce and not Jason. He had regretted how he was to Jason after the young kid died. He tried his best to make it up with Tim. Even now as they were older he tried to be that big brother he wasn’t before.
Dick never wanted to be the Batman. But when they thought Bruce had died, he had no option. Gotham needed a Batman like a plant needed the sun. He never wanted to live in Bruce’s shadow, instead going to make his own legacy in another town. To grow into his own person away from the cowl. Yet in the end here he was, living the future he never wanted.
Dick never wanted to be a guardian so young. He was dealing with his own grief and now trying to keep this family together. He didn’t know the first thing on raising a child, much less one with so much anger. Damian and him struggled. So many times he felt he was failing the kid. He blamed himself every time Robin got hurt because Damian was his Robin and his responsibility. It wasn’t long though before they found their rhythm and truly became a team.
Dick never wanted another family after his parents died. He was young and hurting more than anyone could realize. Soon though he found a family with a bat and his butler. Then it became a family with many siblings, Bruce, and Alfred. He remembers how nervous Bruce was when he gave Dick those adoption papers as a young adult. Never wanting to replace his parents. Dick shook his head knowing he was lucky to have two loving families in his life.
And today as Dick sat in the back of the warehouse pressing down on one bullet wound, he knew he was going to do the one thing he truly never wanted to do. He was going to hurt his family in the worst way possible. For while the blood slowed down in one bullet wound, the one in his chest bleed more. The blood loss starting to hit harder as he heard his family calling over him in the commns. He did the one thing Bruce taught them never to do, he turned his comm off and cut off communication. They were too far away and he knew he didn’t have enough time.
He couldn’t let them hear him as he fought his final battle against himself. It was an ambushed that he walked into, nothing could have saved him. He knew though it was better behind the crates versus seeing the pain in their face. He saw it once back when he died for a few moments. He never wanted to see it again from Bruce. Maybe part of it was him chickening out to avoid their faces as this time he couldn’t fix their pain.
He swallowed and took a deep breath. Some part of him laugh at himself. He would finally get to see his parents again, but this time he didn’t want to. He wanted to stay with his bat crazy family. His little brothers didn’t deserve to lose their big brother. Who would watch out for them? Run interference with the big bad bat? Bruce? He knew how he became after Jason died and then Damian. How would he cope with Dick, the one who has been there the longest. Alfred, would this be the thing that finally cause the old man to leave? He threaten to before if one more died.
Slowing his vision went black and he found himself losing any fight left in himself. He was trying to fight it, fight for his family. To be there long with them, but this time he just couldn’t. As he drifted off for the last time, it was them he thought about. It was then his mind went one last time to an old conversation with Bruce during his Robin days as the last that was left in him gave out.
Hey, Batman, what're we gonna do once we finally get rid of all the criminals and everything? Move to another city?
I don't think that's something you# have to worry about,
Okay,so, then we'll just stay in Gotham and keep doing this, right? Forever and ever? We'll do this as long as it's effective. And feasible.
Right. Like I said. Forever...
It’s Friday the 13th so here’s a little Jason enjoying his new hat! He’s so excited for camp
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