“Of course not. I’ve been to your place before and I kept it in my patrol routes - I know how far it is from the manor…” Damian retorted. “I just wasn’t sure if you walked or not.” He added shortly and thought for a handful of seconds on how he wanted to travel. “I’ll just ride with you. It’s faster that way instead of you having to wait on me.” He shrugged and followed after him.
Jason tossed the extra helmet toward him once they reached the bike and wasted no time leaving the manor behind them. He didn’t like being there, even if he’d agreed to hang around for Alfred, and (much like Damian) would’ve rather been just about anywhere else, doing anything else.
Once they reached the safehouse, he led him straight back to the workshop room. As promised, all the material was there, and the blueprints they’d drawn up before were still spread out on one of the work tables. “What do you want to start with? Pick your poison.”
“You look like such an asshole in that thing,” Steph said with a smirk, adjusting her own mask as she shuffled up to the edge of the roof. She’d already given Dick the typical ribbing, but this wasn’t the first time seeing him in the suit. It was her first time seeing both Jason and Tim in it, however, and she couldn’t resist a jab or two.
Holding dual roles turned out a lot easier than she expected. Steph didn’t have to change a lot to adjust from Robin to Batgirl and vice versa. If anyone could handle the role solo it would be Tim, but she didn’t think it was right that he be the only Batman without a Robin. With Jason she got to be Batgirl, who basically just wore a tighter costume. “What’s the situation, Bats?” Surreal. Here she was, taking orders from Jason, and somehow it felt normal. It’d been like that with Tim and Dick too, but there was something eerie about standing next to Jason specifically, who was similar in build to Bruce.
When the question had come up of how long they were supposed to keep filling the role of Batman, nobody really seemed to have an answer. Jason sure as hell didn’t. He’d do it until he wasn’t doing it anymore, and that was the only handle he had on it. Regardless of if it lasted for a month or ten years, though, he didn’t know if he’d ever actually acclimate to it. It wasn’t that he had never headed up a team before. He had. He’d had people answering to him at a variety of different levels, but that was Red Hood. They’d been working with or for the persona he’d made himself, not the one he was trying to fit into.
“And you look like a twelve year old playing dress up in that one,” he answered without missing a beat, “so we’re even.” There was one benefit to the cowl. Jason hadn’t had much chance to work with some of the others before. They’d all mostly fallen in line with the League, so he’d antagonized more than helped until recently, and he’d steered clear of most of the shit they did back in Gotham unless he couldn’t help it. He and Steph hadn’t done much of anything together in an official capacity. Part of him looked forward to it. Of all of them, she was the one he expected to adjust to the easiest.
“We’ve got a lead on Bliss production. It’s the first local hit we’ve had. Everything else has been coming in from the outside, and the last shipment in was a bust.” He didn’t go into details. That was between him and Dick. “But if they’re cooking the stuff up in Star City, whoever’s behind it is getting more ballsy.”
Tim knew that he and Jason weren’t close. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be. It just seemed like every time they tried something got ruined. Well… he didn’t need them to be close right now. In fact, maybe it would be better that they weren’t. Jason wouldn’t try to talk to him, about Bruce or otherwise. Jason didn’t like talking. Tim could relate sometimes. He did a lot of thinking, but talking… words failed sometimes. Often. And right now he couldn’t think of anything to say that didn’t sound arbitrary.
“Will you fight me?” he asked the other. Stephanie had asked Jason to spar, and at least she might stand a chance of hitting as hard as Jason did. Tim, when he had first been taken on by Bruce, had been so desperate to be as good as Dick and Jason that he had pushed himself until his body gave out every time. Over and over. He’d gotten there eventually. Or as close as he would get. And he had done it all without Bruce having to say a word. Tim was hyperfocused like that. Still, he probably wouldn’t win. But if Jason hit him hard enough, maybe it would give Tim something else to think about. Something better than what he was thinking about currently.
“Please.”
“Fight you?” Jason was already plenty warmed up. He was well into the session, but not so far that he was tired yet, given that he typically wiled away two or three hours a day doing exactly what he was doing. It was always a way to clear his head, a dependable thing to focus on, and he needed it right then even more than usual. “Well, you don’t have to ask me twice, Timmy.”
That was all the warning that he offered before he went at him. If Tim wanted something to do, he could give it to him. Jason had the height and weight advantage, but he knew Tim was fast. None of them were slouches. Bruce never let anybody go out half-trained, and Tim was too stubborn to do it even if he had. He didn’t expect to wipe the floor with him that easily.
Since he’d been on the bag for awhile, Jason kept things in his upper body to start with, immediately going for a hold that would get Tim down on the mat. “Hope you didn’t need to stretch first.”
Who: Jason Todd & Roy Harper ( @ibroughtanarsenal )
Where: Jason’s room at Wayne Manor.
When: Immediately following the SHARED LEGACY thread.
What: Jason tells Roy he’s going to be wearing the cowl. Roy has questions.
ROY:
The smell of coffee was what woke him. Dick's rapping on the door had made him groan and roll over, but Roy was a deep sleeper. He didn't even know Jason left the room until he realized no one was in the bed next him. That was when he finally forced himself to sit up and grab his phone to check the time. It was a little after one.
Yawning, he tossed the covers aside. He reached for his pants and yanked them on before he wandered out of the bedroom and into the adjacent living area. Just these two rooms were larger than his whole apartment. Wayne Manor was ridiculous, but it was difficult to have a sense of humor about it when Bruce Wayne was dead. It was still hard for Roy to wrap his head around. He didn't think the man could die, but apparently not even Batman could withstand a nuclear bomb. As guilty as it made him feel, he couldn't help but be relieved that Ollie had been shielded from the blast itself. He was injured, but not dead.
As expected, Jason's feelings on it seemed nonexistent, but he knew better than to believe it. At some point he'd be hit with the reality of the situation, and Roy knew he had to be there when it happened.
"Oh, good," he said when he saw Jason actually in the room. "I was about to call you." There was no way he was wandering around this gigantic ass house trying to locate a single person.
JASON:
Jason had slipped back into the room after talking with Dick. There hadn't been much more to say beyond telling him that he'd share the mantle with him. The details were something they could deal with later, and he had no idea yet what any of the others would have to say about it. There was no way they were going to pull it off without a whole other family conference about it. He might be willing to hear a reason that they shouldn't do it, but doubted he'd be getting one that was more convincing than what made him offer in the first place.
He heard Roy get out of the bed before he ever came into the room and sat the coffee aside. It was getting cold by then, and he'd kept forgetting that he was holding it. "I figured I'd let you sleep." That was partly true. He'd also just had enough on his mind that he hadn't wanted an interruption. He was glad Roy was there, glad that Ollie was fine and he didn't also have something more serious to handle, but he'd still needed a little time after the deal he'd just made.
There was plenty of room beside him on the couch, but Jason moved a little more to one side anyway and left the space beside him open. "Dick woke me up earlier."
ROY:
Roy took the seat next to Jason, reaching for the coffee out of habit. He hadn't expected it to be cold, especially since it was the smell itself that woke him up, and he made a face as he set it back down on the table.
"Oh yeah?" That didn't surprise him, even though he'd had no idea until now what had gotten Jason out of bed. He was well aware of his own tendency to be dead to the world when he was in a deep sleep. "What did he have to say?" Last night had been weird, but it wasn't as if Roy hadn't seen Dick through tragedies before. At least he was speaking to people this time.
JASON:
Jason delivered the news in the same unceremonious way he tended to say anything that actually mattered. He cut right to the point, without preamble. “I’m going to be Batman.” A Batman, true, but the distinction hardly mattered. He’d be in the cowl, he’d have the title. He also fully expected Roy to think he was joking, because that’s what he would have thought. When he’d made a grab for the Batsuit in the past, it was out of spite and malice, mostly, but also out of a desire to turn the persona and symbol into something else. He’d never intended to uphold Bruce’s ideals, but to tear them down and do something better (better by his own assessment, anyway). Now...that wasn’t what he’d signed up for at all.
He looked at the nearly full cup Roy had sat aside and seemed to move right past his own announcement. “You want a fresh one?”
ROY:
Roy laughed. He couldn't help it. The response was instinctive, partially from shock alone, and his immediate thought was that Jason couldn't be serious. "Yeah right." He expected an immediate follow up - some sort of retort, at least. When none came, he started to get a little nervous. Of course he'd heard about what happened in the past. The battle for the cowl or whatever conflict went down in Gotham had been during his absence. That had probably ended up for the better. As it turned out, he hadn't been around to ever see anyone else take the cowl in any capacity. Even the thought of Dick doing it was weird, and he'd teased him before about being too much like Batman. The thought of Jason taking on that role was almost impossible to imagine.
Trouble was, Jason wasn't laughing. He wasn't following up a bomb like that with any assurance that he was kidding. That made Roy nervous. "Uh, you want to run that by me again?"
JASON:
It was the reaction he’d expected, and he couldn’t exactly blame him for assuming it was a joke. It sounded like a joke, it definitely felt like a fucking joke. Even when he’d said the idea aloud and agreed to it, some tiny part of him wondered if he’d been briefly possessed. He knew what it felt like to be edging toward rock-bottom though. He knew what it felt like when he was actually on the brink of being a little out of his mind, and he wasn’t there right then. If anything, he was the furthest from it that he’d been maybe his entire adult life. That kind of made it worse.
“I decided not to let Dick play the self sacrificing game this time.” Partly true. “So I volunteered. Dick and Tim did, too. I guess Batman’s a part time gig now.”
ROY:
A prickly nervousness was starting to work its way through him. Roy tried not to give over to that anxiety, at least not yet, since he was still expecting some sort of follow up to news like that. An explanation. The one he received didn't feel sufficient. He was left just sort of staring at Jason with sincere bewilderment, working through the news in his head as he struggled to make some sense of it. Of course, he knew all about the literal battle over the cowl. That had been a long time ago. It was also the last time he would have expected Jason to want to be Batman.
"So you're saying that you're all three going to be Batman?" That seemed slightly less insane, but not by much. "Tim too? Are you kidding? Jason. Why would you want to take that on? Batman? Jesus fucking Christ."
JASON:
Jason finally gave in to some physical signal that he wasn’t completely at ease with it either. He pressed his lips together and let out an audible breath through his nose as he sat back on the couch more fully. It wasn’t like it was an ideal situation for him in any sense. The only time he’d wanted to be Batman was when he’d intended to turn it into something else. Now, he knew he’d agreed to play by the old, standard rules that he’d always thought made the gig ineffective in the first place. Why did he want to be Batman? He didn’t, really.
He stared forward, trying to work out how much he wanted to say. Dick and Tim hadn’t pressed him for a reason, though maybe Dick would eventually, and he’d not had to delve much into it. Had it been anyone besides Roy asking him questions right then, he’d have probably told them it was none of their fucking business. The words were on his tongue anyway, but he didn’t say them. It was Roy’s business, at least partly. Jason had already made the decision and acted on it by himself, as he usually did, but for the sake of not repeating mistakes...he tried to offer an explanation after the fact.
“They were going to do it anyway, with or without me. I’m already more involved in all this crap than I ever thought I would be, so it’s mine as much as it’s theirs. You should know by now that I don’t do anything halfway.” Was that an explanation? Maybe not. He wasn’t doing it for Bruce or the symbol or whatever dramatic speech got drummed up about it. “I’m doing it so nobody else could be enough of an idiot to try to handle it alone.” That was still such new reasoning to him that it felt strange to hear himself say it.
ROY:
Roy expected to feel better, not worse, when he saw some sign that Jason wasn't as gung-ho about this idea as he seemed to be. It seemed impossible to think (or even hope) that this might not affect them in any way. The news of Bruce's death was jarring, but he hadn't really had the chance to consider the long term implications of it. He hadn't thought about who would be Batman - and even if he did, the assumption would have fallen on Dick. Because that's the only one of them who'd ever done it long term, although it wasn't like Roy had been around for that.
But he at least expected Jason to have a reason. A good reason. The one he offered bordered on acceptable, and that was if he used his imagination. Jason was never forthcoming about why he did things, but he wasn't as difficult to figure out as he thought he was. Roy knew he didn't want the cowl because of spite. That brand of motivation he wasn't shy about announcing. He wasn't doing this to make things harder for his family. It sounded like it was exactly the opposite.
"It's one thing to half ass something and it's another to be fucking Batman." Roy scoffed softly, folding his arms across his chest. "I dunno, dude. It seems like the kind of thing only one person should have to handle, not three." Was that supposed to make it easier? Maybe that was the point. Still, it also made it easier to spread around the bullshit.
JASON:
Jason got back up suddenly, moments after he’d seemed like he meant to stay sitting. He didn’t fidget around restlessly like Dick did, but everything about what was happening sucked. He felt like he needed to do something, to put it somewhere, and there was no immediate way to do that. He’d just started to get used to being halfway in the family again for more than a fleeting moment. He hadn’t expect to end up so damn involved, let alone to feel like he needed to be. He’d made the call on his own though. Even before Dick called them down to the Batcave, he’d already thought about it. That was why the suggestion had come so quickly. Even so, it was far out of the norm for him and he knew it. Roy did, too, or he wouldn’t have been looking at him like he’d grown two new heads.
He raked a hand back through his hair, pushing away a white curl that was just visible to him and in the way. “No. None of us owe him being the only one to carry it.” He knew Dick and Tim, and probably all the others too, wouldn’t see it in that same cynical light, but it was true anyway. “It doesn’t get to just fucking,” he tightened his fingers a little against his scalp for just a second before dropping his arm down, “take over everything for somebody. We’re not him.” And that was a good thing, as far as he’d always been concerned. Batman was Bruce Wayne, Bruce Wayne was Batman. Just because somebody else put on the cowl didn’t mean they had to become it that same way. A year earlier, he’d have left Dick or Tim or whomever to make that dumb call and suffer the consequences for it, but that was then.
“If you don’t want to deal with it, I get it. Not what you signed up for.” He knew, too, that he kept doing that. Throwing shit at him that Roy couldn’t have really seen coming.
ROY:
Roy jumped when Jason stood up again, then blinked and watched him with a faint frown. He wasn't used to seeing Jason act this on edge, restless, although he knew he could hardly blame him under these circumstances. Bruce was dead, and their relationship might be more fraught than what Roy had with Oliver, but that didn't mean he didn't care. It didn't mean that he wasn't experiencing all of the emotions Roy was experiencing when he heard about the nuclear bomb and knew Ollie had been in its radius.
But to be Batman? It was a huge undertaking, even if they were... splitting it, for lack of a better term. Jason having to put on the cowl and patrol the streets in Bruce's old clothes felt like a sure recipe for disaster, especially with the Joker still on loose. It was something he wouldn't dare bring up, but he couldn't hide the anxiety in his expression or tone. "I know that, but... Why do any of you have to do it? Why can't you just..." He ran his hand through his hair and shrugged. "I don't know. Retire the suit. Hang it up. Have a ceremony. Like normal people do, you know?"
When Jason tried to give him an out, Roy's eyes narrowed. "What is that supposed to mean? You're not asking my permission. You think I'm just going to fuck off?"
JASON:
“If we retire the suit, some moron we don’t know will try to pick it back up again. It’s not that simple.” Part of him wished that it was, but he knew better, and so did the others. They could choke on legacy as far as Jason was concerned, but he wasn’t going to let either his brothers or some poor dumb sap get killed for Batman.
At Roy’s last question, his jaw tensed. It wasn’t exactly that Jason wanted his life to be routine. He didn’t. He couldn’t stand every day being identical to the one before it. Within that constant movement, though, what he did want more than anything was consistency. Not routine. Consistency. It was the one thing that seemed to constantly elude him, that either slipped through his fingers or stayed out of his grasp for what felt like his entire life. Some of it was his own fault and he was finally in a place where he could admit that, even if he couldn’t exactly stop doing it completely.
The last year had given him more of it than he remembered having maybe...ever. The bar was low, that was true, but he’d still gotten closer to meeting it than he had expected. Of course some kind of bullshit had to happen. That’s how it went. Every time, that’s how it went. Some part of him wanted to answer it by throwing the rest of it away, too, rather than just let it slip. It was better to have the control over it. At least then he knew what was happening, and why, and when. No surprises.
“Don’t know. Are you?”
ROY:
“So put him in jail! Boom, simple.” Roy knew what Jason was saying, but he wasn’t going to instantly agree to something he knew had every potential of going badly. Even though he wasn’t always known for tact, there were still some things he wasn’t going to say - especially because he knew it was just going to fall on deaf ears. Jason was a lot more stubborn than he was and would probably disagree just out of principle. It was clear he’d made up his mind already.
His grip tightened on the handle of his coffee cup. “Have you thought about what that’s going to be like? At all? You’ll be looking at his files, driving the car, fighting that fucking clown...” Fighting him and not killing him, if he knew Dick and Tim. Already he was imagining various situations Jason would have to face - and with a great amount of restraint that he hadn’t always possessed.
Roy forced himself not to snap a response, but it took an extraordinary amount of effort. He knew Jason well enough to understand his tendencies. It didn’t mean he wasn’t hurt by the question. People tended not to expect a lot out of him by default. Maybe Jason really did think he was shit enough to walk out, maybe he hoped he would, or maybe he was just afraid he would. All he knew for sure was that the question pissed him off.
Hooking his pinky in the handle of the coffee cup. He pushed himself off the couch. “I’m getting more coffee.”
JASON:
“None of this shit is simple.” Not one bit of it. Even if they’d never left Gotham and only had one city to think about it wouldn’t have been simple, but they didn’t even have that barely-there reprieve anymore. Memorials for Batman were going to be all over the place, Bruce’s name and face and death would be splashed across the news all over the world, most likely. They didn’t have that kind of reach. It was better, what they were doing. If it was still theirs, that was one less thing to deal with. Sort of.
“You don’t think that’s been running through my head for hours already?” Before the conversation, even, because he’d known what he was going to do. It just so happened to line up with Dick and Tim and they’d all agreed. “I know what kind of shoes I’m trying to fill, and I definitely know that nobody is going to be convinced I can actually do it. Trust me. Well aware.” Even he wasn’t completely sure he could, if he was being honest, but he succeeded at a lot of things through spite alone.
Jason was pushing and he knew it. Pointlessly pushing. It wasn’t like it was a new thing. Hell, it wasn’t even the first time he’d done it to Roy, though at least he’d phrased it like a question and not just made his mind up for the both of them. He was guilty of that, too. Before Roy actually had the chance to go anywhere, Jason reached out and wrapped his fingers around the other’s wrist. “Don’t. Just...” He let him go almost immediately and ran his hands down his own face instead, blowing out a hard breath through the spaces between his fingers.
ROY:
That was an understatement. It was a comment Roy kept in his head, along with a dozen others, purely because he knew this wasn’t the time. Bruce’s body wasn’t even cold. Or... well... was there a body? It wasn’t something he wanted to think about in depth, so he banished the colloquialism almost immediately. Regardless, the world was already losing its mind and it hadn’t even been 24 hours.
“Maybe it hasn’t had enough time to ferment.” Okay, that was all he was going to say. It was. Already, Roy was biting the insides of his cheeks and glaring down at his coffee. “That job isn’t for anyone, Jay - except Bruce, and he’s dead. I saw Dick deal with this shit and pretend like it wasn’t eating at him, changing him, but he was just kidding himself.” Not that Bruce was infallible, but Roy was pretty convinced that no one could be Batman unless they devoted everything to that purpose. There was a dehumanizing effect to it. Then again, this was going to be different. There were three of them. Maybe it would be fine.
But maybe not. The information he had wasn’t exactly promising, though, and that combined with Jason’s singleminded determination was disconcerting. Last time he’d gotten himself out of jail, though, so the idea hadn’t panned out as badly as he’d anticipated.
“Just what?” He replied shortly, without actually looking directly at Jason. “What do you expect me to say to that? I might fuck things up, but I don’t ditch people.” People ditched him, for one reason or another, and maybe that was why he kept sticking around. “For the record, I never thought you couldn’t do it. I just know you don’t want to, so if I’m wrong for giving a shit about that? I’m not sorry for it.”
JASON:
“Yeah, you’re right,” though there was a bite to the words that suggested that Roy being right about anything just then wasn’t exactly a boon for him. “It hasn’t had time to ferment because it’s only been a damn day. How long do you think I should wait to make the call? Two days? A month? Six more hours or six more days isn’t going to change any of it. All of it still has to be done.” And Jason wasn’t one to sit around and lick his wounds if he could do something. That was especially true right then, when sitting around and thinking about it, any of it, felt a little like drowning. “I don’t figure any of us will be walking away from it untouched.” He wasn’t counting on that, not for Dick, or Tim, and sure as hell not for himself. “But so what? When the fuck is anything ever easy? What does that even mean?” It never had been for him, and at least this could be something he was walking into with his eyes open.
Just what? He’d bitten off the end of the sentence. Again, he was right, and Jason knew it. Roy didn’t ditch people. That knowledge didn’t exactly get to penetrate every level, though. Everybody had their breaking point, and Jason had always seemed to be so, so good at finding them whether he wanted to or not. Roy didn’t ditch people, but there was still that old, creeping thought that if he’d stuck around long enough the first time, he might have been the one to change that. He’d never completely shaken it.
“Just stay,” he finally said, much more quietly than before. He was exhausted, despite having slept. It wasn’t anything physical. “I don’t want to put on the suit, but I want it more than I want to do nothing.” Maybe that was more alarming than putting on the cowl.
ROY:
"Yeah, but it doesn't have to be done now." There was something about the rushed decision that made Roy uneasy. It was better than just one person being Batman, but couldn't be the only solution. "Did you even consider any other possibility?" Even as he said it, Roy had to wonder who else could take on a responsibility like that. If someone really had to be Batman, there weren't a lot of people capable (or willing) to give up their entire lives for a purpose so personal to Bruce Wayne. When he considered it in that light, it suddenly became a lot more complicated about why Jason would want to walk in those shoes. Maybe it wasn't really about Bruce at all, but lessening the burden for Dick and Tim. That made some sense, especially given his improved dynamic in the family, and some of his frustration began to fade.
Exhaling softly, he didn't argue. It was significant that Jason would outright ask for him not to leave - and give what he'd been through the past twenty-four hours, nothing would piss Roy off enough to ignore it. That was why they worked. He never let Jason drive him away - at least not further than the kitchen for more coffee.
"So how's it gonna work?" He asked, giving up the argument for the time being. "Three different suits? Does this mean you're giving up Hood?" It seemed like a conflict of interest, given that Batman and Red Hood had none of the same standards or mode of operating, but he didn't know what the plan was.
JASON:
“I’m not walking out of the door tonight to do it.” So as far as he was concerned, it wasn’t happening right then. “We had to talk about it. Already waited longer than some people wanted to.” And if they were going to talk about it, then it stood to reason that something would come of it. It wasn’t like anyone in the family was very prone to leaving things undone, even if they usually ended up at completely different conclusions on how to proceed.
When Roy seemed to relent, Jason let his shoulders drop a fraction, like a balloon letting out just a breath of air. He’d never been much of an asker, especially not for something like wanting someone to just stay in the room with him, but even Jason had his limits. He didn’t want to follow Bruce’s death and the conversation in the Bat Cave with some stupid argument with Roy. It didn’t mean he wouldn’t do it, but he didn’t want to.
“I’m not giving up Hood. He does things Batman can’t. Doesn’t stop being necessary just because I’ll be doing the other thing a couple nights a week.” He hadn’t worked out the exact logistics, but what he knew was that he was unwilling to completely and fully give up the identity he’d built himself. “You don’t seriously think Tim can share a suit with me. Please.”
ROY:
That wasn't the point, but Roy just scoffed under his breath instead of arguing it further. They'd still come to a decision and were moving forward with it without waiting for the dust to settle. There was always the risk of making a decision born from something other than what made sense. Maybe this was the best route, but it was hard to know that without trying it. The wait and see approach was one he'd done before, typically with poor results.
But not always. Like Jason (and the rest of the bat family, it seemed), he had a knack for landing on his feet every time. Still, he knew they weren't invincible, and it hadn't taken a nuclear bomb to make him understand that. The consequences to this were more than what they faced on a day to day basis. There were other things at play.
"No, he does things Batman won't," Roy corrected, his tone pointed. "Are you just going to adopt a whole different mentality a couple nights a week?" Dick did it, kind of, but his way of doing things was closer to Bruce's way than Jason's was.
JASON:
“What?” he asked as soon as Roy made that sound. “Look,” he took in a breath and folded his arms in front of his chest, “this whole thing was going to go forward with me or without me. Dick didn’t ask what we should do, he asked us to give him the go ahead to do it himself.” He could either react to that and take some of it, or he could step back and wash his hands of it. For the first time in practically ever, he hadn’t wanted to do the latter. He’d not wanted to leave it to Dick, or Tim, or some random idiot trying their luck and skill who’d die for it. “If it doesn’t work, then there’s not a damn thing stopping me from hanging it up.” It wasn’t like he was above walking away. Jason didn’t try and retry failed ideas to see if the second round got a different result. If something failed, he wanted a different solution, not to throw himself against the rocks he already knew were there. Usually, anyway.
“Fine.” He matched the tone. “He does things Batman won’t. I’ll compartmentalize. It’s a specialty.” He just typically didn’t have to apply it to work quite the same way. “If I need to follow up on my own time,” Red Hood’s time, “then I’ll do it. But it’s not like this is the first time I’ve pulled back. This might shock you,” it wouldn’t, but he was struggling to keep his temper in check, “but I don’t put down every single person I cross paths with.” Even Hood only killed the people that the world was truly better off without. He was plenty capable of incapacitating and subduing if he needed to.
ROY:
Roy didn't think it was the worst thing in the world for it to go forward without Jason, but he clamped down on the words before the point came out all wrong. It did occur to him that Jason stepping forward to take some of the responsibility was actually a good thing in some ways, ways he didn't want to necessarily draw attention to for the wrong reasons, and it made the whole thing a hell of a lot harder to argue against. His own reservations and doubts had more to do with what could happen down the road, which he knew had a likelihood of never happening at all. It wasn't like he'd never taken any risks, after all, so he didn't have a leg to stand on when it came to advising other people to be cautious. He risked sounding a little too hypocritical. Besides, if Jason were willing to hang it up should things go bad, then maybe it wouldn't be as big of a threat as he feared.
"Yeah, I know." He was a little too familiar with how Jason compartmentalized. Not that he would be making that point right now. It wasn't exactly the best time. The effort to laugh off what he could tell was the edge of Jason's temper fell a little flat. "Fuck you, that's not what I was saying and you know it."
JASON:
It was true that Jason tended to get tunnel vision sometimes. When he thought something would work or something was supposed to be done, he zeroed in on that one thing or that one method and tried to ride it out until the very end. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t or couldn’t change it, though, if it became clear that it wasn’t working. If him wearing the cowl turned out to be another bad call, then he’d leave it behind. Walk away. That was his other specialty, after all. There wasn’t much he couldn’t turn his back on if he felt like he needed to or if he felt like someone else he gave a damn about needed him to. He thought about pointing that out, but Roy was one of the last people who’d probably appreciate the quality after being on the receiving end of it.
“No, fuck you. If you don’t want me to do it, then give me the real reason and not some hypotheticals. What is it? Are you thinking about me dying? You don’t think just as many people want Red Hood’s head?” He couldn’t even go to fucking jail, apparently, without some of them seizing the opportunity to try and take it. “You worried?” Despite the challenge in his voice, he wouldn’t have asked the question if he didn’t want an answer. Why he wanted it right then, he wasn’t going to think about too hard.
ROY:
When Roy did make a decision to stand with someone or something, it was never a decision he made lightly. That was why he'd turned down Bruce's offer to join the league. If he couldn't commit to it, then he knew he'd just be a liability for the team. Fuck it up. It was what he tended to do unless he was 100% committed. The problem was, it'd been a long time since he'd been able to hand himself over to a larger cause. Just hanging it up and backing down wasn't an option he ever wanted to be faced with. Even when he'd been part of the Titans and they'd lost Donna, who'd been his girlfriend at the time, he was unwilling to abandon the group. It wasn't until things really went to shit that he left, and that was still after Dick. Jason wasn't him, he knew that, and he tried to tell himself that it would be simpler to give up a role if there were two other people sharing it.
"Of course I'm fucking worried, dude, jesus. Do you think I'm afraid to admit that? What do you think I'm arguing with you for? My health? Because I'm mad you're guaranteed to be busy at least... two nights a week? Obviously I'm a little concerned that the day after Bruce dies, you're ready to put on his cowl and go out there like it's the most natural thing in the world. We all saw what happened to Batman. I've seen what happens to Dick when he tries to be Batman. I don't want to see what happens to you."
JASON:
“What happened to B could’ve happened to anybody else around him. He was just...unlucky this time. You could’ve got blown up at the bridge. A fucking dealer could get lucky and cut my throat the next time I bust into a warehouse.” But, even as he insisted on all of that (and knew it was true) part of him wanted the worry anyway. Somehow it was better than Roy not giving a fuck at all.
“I’m not Dick.” It was a phrase he must have said or thought about a million times in his life by then, though a great deal of the venom behind it was gone. It wasn’t an open wound anymore, just some old scar, but not one he was exactly going to up and forget about. “Even if I was doing this shit by myself, I’m not Dick. You think it’s gonna be worse? Why? Why can’t I handle a third of it?” If he had a reason, Jason wanted to hear it. He knew that he wasn’t always the most aware of his own shortcomings, could sometimes be absolutely fucking blind to them, but he felt like he was walking into this mess with his eyes as open as they could be. Maybe Roy didn’t agree.
Jason turned his back on him and walked to the other side of the room. His whole body was tense by then, enough that it was visible in the lines of his shoulders and the tightness of his jaw.
ROY:
"I'm not worried about that." It wasn't that Roy thought Jason was going to die, not really, because there wasn't a lot of sense in worrying about something like that. Batman was non-lethal. That didn't mean he wouldn't go up against bullets or people with a completely different agenda, but it wasn't as if being Batman was inherently more dangerous than being Red Hood. Batman was more prolific than either of them ever were, but if anything, that could almost go in his favor.
Rolling his eyes, he didn't even want to honor a statement like that with a response, but he knew he couldn't leave it alone. Whatever weirdness existed between Jason and Dick might have faded by now, but he knew that it would always be there in some form. Even if it was just a dull little hum underneath everything else. There was always that resentment of possible comparison, even when none existed. "I know you're not, fuck. I didn't say it was going to be worse for you than it was for him, or even that it'll be the same. Okay? Because I don't know. But neither of you want to be Batman, so I don't see why either of you should force yourself into it. It isn't something you just do casually, even if that's what you're trying to make it." Sharing the role might lessen the feeling of responsibility, but it didn't change how committed they'd have to be while they were doing it.
He grit his teeth and forced himself to stay where he was. "It's not up to me. Why does it matter what I have to say about it?" It wasn't like Jason would change his mind.
JASON:
“I don’t really want to do a lot of shit that I’ve ended up doing.” Or at least he’d done things that he didn’t relish and didn’t like. There had been a lot of ‘grit your teeth and bear it’ moments in his life. He only did it when involved something or someone that he thought mattered, when there was a thing he thought was more important than the action itself. For Jason, those were thin on the ground. “I’m trying not,” he pressed his lips together into a tight line and fell silent for a long few seconds before continuing, “I’m trying not to be selfish this time.” Or whatever word people wanted to use. Jason had never thought it was selfish, exactly, to take care of himself, but he wasn’t in the same position anymore.
He had no way to explain more than he’d already done. He’d given Roy the why. At the end of the day, though, it just came down to a choice. They were choosing, Jason was choosing to do it. There were compelling reasons but no hand forcing it, not even his own. They could’ve let Batman be buried with Bruce, but the choice had already been made not to. Maybe Dick or Tim would’ve been more eloquent or articulate or compelling in their explanations than he’d been, but they weren’t there.
Jason still had his back to Roy when he answered the last question. His eyes were locked on the wall, on some lamp that Bruce probably paid five grand for and never even saw a day in his life. “Because you’re my partner,” he muttered, his voice quieter than before. What Roy said mattered, even if he was shit at acting like it.
ROY:
It was exactly why Roy suspected Jason made the decision, which pretty much cemented where he was personally going to stand on the issue. There weren't a lot of people Roy did things for, not anymore, and he knew Jason lived his life similarly. However, being in Star City, surrounded by his old friends and reminders of why he'd been drawn to this life in the first place, was starting to get to him too. He didn't know how much longer he could stand by and watch the people he cared about risk their lives. Even though he hadn't brought it up, it was something that had been weighing on his mind for a long time.
So could he really begrudge Jason for taking the same route he was also considering? Roy wasn't about to be Batman, but how much different were his own motivations? When it really boiled down to it? They were on the same path before. At some point the path hit a fork in the road, but miraculously they'd both made the same choice separately. He just hadn't formed the idea fully enough to discuss it with Jason yet. Now didn't seem like the best time, either. "You're not -" Roy sighed. "I get it, okay? I do." He'd understood when Jason turned himself in, too, but that didn't mean he'd been happy about it.
He hadn't actually expected Jason to answer the question. If anything, he thought it would get him a beat or two of tense silence. To hear Jason respond so matter-of-fact took him off guard, and he couldn't help the smirk. "I'm your what?" He asked pointedly. "Not sure I caught that." Moving up behind him, Roy wrapped his arms around Jason from behind and rested his chin on his shoulder. "Business partner? Partner in crime? I think you need to be more specific."
JASON:
If he got it, he had no damn idea why Roy seemed to be trying to convince him to change his mind. If he got it then he’d know how rare it was for Jason to even find himself in a position to make decisions with the particular motivation he was using, especially for his family, which was never anything but complicated. But he seemed to be relenting, finally. Maybe he was just giving up. Roy wasn’t really the type to write something off as a lost cause that easily, but the decision was already made before they’d even started talking.
There was a moment between Roy touching him and speaking when Jason’s shoulders relaxed a fraction. Something in him eased. Of course, that only lasted about three seconds before he was rolling his eyes. He did pause very briefly to consider that if Roy had moved on to being a pest that things were obviously going to be fine.
“You’re about to be my deceased partner,” he countered, lifting one hand to reach over his shoulder and push at Roy’s head. It wasn’t hard enough to get him to go anywhere, really. “You know what I mean.”
ROY:
Roy could admit when he was being selfish. He knew not wanting Jason to go through with this plan didn't fully come from a place of solid reasoning, unless he completely deferred to hypothetical. Maybe that was why he made himself drop it. The choices weren't necessarily bad ones, the motivation behind it was honest, and it just made him look like an asshole. That didn't mean he didn't want a good excuse to be selfish.
Jason's response made him laugh, and just like that the tension left the room. "Okay," he said, his hand catching on Jason's hip so he could turn him around. "On the condition that you only get three free passes to scare me in that fucking Batsuit." How many times had Bruce appeared from nowhere and scared the living daylights out of him or Wally? Too many to count. It was going to be trippy seeing Jason in the cowl.
JASON:
They were just getting started with the hard stuff and he knew it. There was still a funeral, still his actual first night in the cowl...He didn’t want things to be fucking hard with Roy, too. Even Jason had his limits on what he could bear while he was standing still and couldn’t move away from it. He was glad, for once, to let the tension mostly drain away.
As Roy turned him, Jason slid one arm along the curve of his waist. “Three huh?” He wanted a distraction for a little while. Eventually he’d have to leave the room again, look at someone else, talk to someone else, but not yet. He pressed a kiss to the corner of Roy’s mouth and another more firmly against his lips. “You’ll regret giving me three.”
As the man opened the door, Kate let out the slightest of sighs at the sight that greeted her. it was as much as she expected - the man didn’t seem outwardly any different than he usually did. Those types of individuals - people like Jason whom could push themselves to act as if it was just another day; people like her father and herself that froze off emotional displays with an icy cold shoulder - were often the hardest to read and be there for in times like this.
“Nothing’s up.” She responded simply. “just wanted to check in on you since I got everything squared away in the manor for now.” She shrugged her shoulders slightly. “Everything good?” She questioned - as if he was just going to admit if there actually was something wrong. She wasn’t naïve.
“It’s peachy. You coming in?” Asking was the invitation, and he turned around to walk back into the living room, assuming Kate would follow him. “Shut the door behind you.”
The only thing out of the norm in his place was barely visible, but Kate might still catch sight of it. The door to the room he used as a makeshift workshop and office was open, and a half-finished Batsuit was on a stand. It had to be fitted perfectly, and neither him, Dick, or Tim were Bruce’s exact measurements. Jason was the closest, and he’d decided to make the alterations himself.
When: Months ago, prior to NOVA’s exit from the city.
@lxrna-dxne
Since NOVA had ramped up their efforts and interference in Star City, Jason had made it Red Hood’s personal mission to get in their business and in their face. He had other things to do some nights, sure. Star City didn’t have the same seedy underbelly as Gotham, but damn if it wasn’t trying hard to get there. Still, that wasn’t constant. Other people dealt with it, too, and that gave him plenty of time leftover to trail NOVA’s vans after curfew. It wasn’t like their inhibitors meant shit for him. He was plain Jane human, aside from the minor boost granted to him by the Pit.
He’d stayed on the high ground, literally, racing over rooftops as two of NOVA’s patrol vehicles followed one of their usual routes that he’d mapped out. They were hours past when everyone without a permit was meant to be inside, just hunting for someone to drag off to fuck only knew where. Even Jason hadn’t figured that part out. He just tried to keep it from happening in the first place.
The sudden whine of brake pads and red tail lights brought him to a stop. He edged toward the lip of the roof he was on and watched as three...four...six agents got out, all decked out in their gear like they were doing something important. Really, all they’d managed to do was corner a couple of people who looked like teenagers. Kids just screwing around. As one of the agents pointed the beam of their flashlight toward them, Jason saw that one of them had what looked like iridescent scales on her arms. Figured. They wouldn’t have bothered with that kind of show for a human. He’d found out that much.
“Seems like overkill, guys,” he called down, lazily reaching for one of his pistols. The sound of his boots hitting the ground was a heavy one as he vacated his spot on the roof to join them. “I think I should even up the odds.”
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