nothing about redemption

this is a tumblr for an independent jason todd, second son of bruce wayne. orphaned son of parents he never knew. orphaned wayne boy left alone with no one but death. resurrected son. brightest yet darkest mistake. the only boy who will shoot a gun, will kill a man. the son who was buried under the red shroud.

[sweetysnightmare]

[sociopathmoose-deactivated20180]

[hellskitchens-deactivated201609]

➢ character aesthetic: jason todd.

can we start from the beginning now?                 it feels like I’m really living now.  

[thehulk]

DC Aesthetics [1/?]: Jason Todd - “It didn’t surprise anyone when I died. When I failed. I failed… but I’m still beating you.”

[eventhedeadcry-blog]

the more you turn away // jason

[eventhedeadcry-blog]

She could trace the exact path of the conversation and when she could start to hear him fumbling for small talk. It didn’t matter how long she’d been here (2 months) or if she was working for herself (she never was). He knew that, respected that, and didn’t care about any of it. So she pulled the bacon she was frying out onto a neatly folded little paper napkin and turned the stove off. She sat the pan of hot oil on a cool burner at just about the same moment that his coffee cup was sat down with a resounding little noise.

She looked at him. She watched him fret for a moment, and watched him tense to run. Jason didn’t seem like a runner if you didn’t see this side of him. He was all cocky bravado, absolute fearlessness. They didn’t see when the hood came down.

"Jason, stop it." she said quietly. He’d listen to her. He always did. She waited until he’d stilled enough to look at her. She was petite and small framed. She didn’t look like much, standing there barefoot in yesterday’s clothes.

They were both fragile prickly things. But in a lot of ways, she was wiser. Her cruelties had a finality to them. Her father was dead, her mother had never been a part of her life. She was her own separate being, made of her own two hands. He was a creation of madmen and fools.

"We are neither of us normal, Jason Todd. We wouldn’t know how to be if we wanted to." she said to him simply.

[undertheredshroud]

His shoulders loosened when she stopped him. Jason sat down at the table and drained his coffee. He pulled a crushed pack of cigarettes from his front pocket, focused on removing the cellophane wrapper, and lit one. He put the trash in the bottom of the mug and ashed once in it to stake his claim.

"I saw Bruce." He kept eye contact broken. "Probably for the last time in," he shrugged, "I dunno. A long time." He set his jaw, fell silent. The room waited for a moment. She scrapped a chair across the fake tile and sat across from him, put a hand on his. He wanted to tell her he appreciated it, thank you, but he knew himself, he knew he had his one chance to say it before it would be buried like so many other things.

"He didn't want to see me. That was obvious. I thought that since, well, since then. He would have been able to think about it. I wasn't going to ask him to choose. Not again. I could only take that once. I couldn't hear it again. But, jesus Sonya, he made sure I knew his choice, again. He tried to lecture me. Tell me how he could help me. Help me! Can you believe that? He was going to try and fix me like all those goons he throws to that fucking rock in the harbor. He. He said he'd try and fix me. Make me better. This is who I fucking am, Bruce! You made me this. You let this fucking happen! And if you can't deal with that? If you can't look at me without disgust, without disappointment. Without fucking shame? Don't even bother looking at all."

Jason threw his second butt in with force and shoved away from the table. He took the two plates Sonya had made and carried them over to the card table. He slid one to her and kept the other. He began to eat in silence.

With one egg down and one remaining, he looked, caught her eye. "Another coffee?"

[eventhedeadcry-blog]

the more you turn away // jason

[eventhedeadcry-blog]

  She heard him up and moving around about the same time that she put the bacon into the pan. She was hoping that he’d take some time to himself, collect himself and maybe grab a shower. He didn’t. That told her he wasn’t over last night; he’d never be over it, not really, but he hadn’t even pushed it that far away yet. That was okay. He was just lucky she’d been to the grocery store the day before.

"It’s nothing." she said lightly. She moved the bacon around a little and sat the fork aside before turning around, resting her back against the counter next to the stove. They’d both seen some pretty brutal things. They’d both been some pretty brutal things. But they were still vulnerable to certain kinds of pain. Rejection was a big part of that.

Sonya knew that she didn’t have many people she could rely on. She didn’t have a father or mother, or siblings. She didn’t have anyone, really. But she had a few touchstones.

Jason was one of them.

She hated seeing him like this.

"Make yourself useful. Two cups of coffee. I bought some creamy caramel coffee creamer, too, if you’re into that sort of thing." She turned back to her bacon. "Scrambled or fried eggs?"

[undertheredshroud]

"Creamy caramel creamer?" Jason laughed. "Look at you, lady. You might be giving someone the impression that we're normal." He clapped his mouth shut and frowned as he turned away from her to her old refrigerator that hummed through the silence. "I'm sorry. You're ... we're normal enough."

He pulled the bottle from the shelf and held it by its neck. He kept his gaze focused on his actions, pulling down two mugs (one had a chip in the handle), and spooning in sugar. She always took one less than he did. When he splashed the coffee in the mugs, the creamer went darker, darker, disappeared into the strong brew.

Jason slid hers closer and held onto his tightly. "Fried. Always." He sucked down the hot liquid suddenly embarrassed. A regular boyfriend doesn't smell like sulfur and gun oil. Didn't ever needed to be sutured. Could speak openly about ... any of it.

He idly moved a cheap banana shaped magnet end over end. "Seems like this city is working out well for you." He was glad he wasn't facing her. It was such a weak line he rolled his eyes at himself. "How long you been here? Three, four months?" He had little idea. The rent checks all blended together. The skylines all looked the same. "Working for yourself again, I hope?"

Jason turned back around and held the bridge of his nose and then held out a hand with splayed fingers. "You know what, let's just ... We can pretend this conversation didn't happen. Try and talk about ... things? Aw, fuck it." He set the mug down and stepped over the kitchen tile into the carpeted living room. "I should just go."

He prayed she wouldn't let him. That she would wash the past way, with lye, with anything. Teach him how she did it.

[eventhedeadcry-blog]

the more you turn away // jason

Sonya didn’t come awake slowly, but there was that haziness that meant she’d spent the last night drinking pretty heavily. A weight heavy across her waist meant she hadn’t been drinking alone, and it only took a split second for her mind to remind her that the man who was holding her was doing so at her choice.

This wasn’t a job. The man was Jason Todd, friend and compatriot. They’d met years ago, and he was a touchstone in a world cold and dank and unforgiving. They had both of them been harshly used. Kindred spirits, perhaps.

Jason was still asleep, but she shifted and sat up. They hadn’t made it off of the couch last night. An army of beer bottles lined up on the coffee table and empty and half full bags of snacks were testimony of their night. He’d come in clean, but his hands were always covered in blood; she knew that well enough, she knew him well enough not to ask. He’d needed last night, and she’d always been willing to help him.

He’d been there for her often enough.

Still, she wasn’t an idle person in the morning. She stood up and started to clear out the beer bottles, headed for the kitchen. A pot of coffee would go a long way to clearing her head.

[undertheredshroud]

He had swallowed so much of his damn pride that it had choked him. It had been a mistake. A horrible, stupid, naive fucking mistake. Bruce had made his choice already, and Jason knew that. He knew that to the only man who had ever been family to him that he was ... he was just dead. And if he had come back then he was a mistake. And Bruce Wayne didn't like mistake. He washed them clean from his life the same way that Alfred had scrubbed the grease out of his hair with lye after Jason had tired to lift the wheels off the Batmobile. Jason's hair had gotten clean just like Bruce believed his hands were clean.

Running a hand through his hair this morning, Jason knew both of those things were bullshit.

Jason left Gotham not even an hour after he had arrived. Alfred tried to welcome him with open arms, but even his eyes betrayed his discomfort. The monster had returned -- not the prodigal son. Jason knew he should have left then and not let himself be ushered in with the soothing greetings for "Master Jason." Inside the empty cathedral that was built on the memories of dead parents and shattered childhoods, it was all the same, just like that night. Bruce barely looked at him, looked through him. Stood by the decision that Jason couldn't forgive.

He shot off the property on his motorcycle. Bruce yelled after him, not to help him, not to apologize, but to try and make him understand why that was Bruce's "only option."

Jason found that Sack of Sorry Shit's most recent rat hole easily because that fucking clown's laugh echoed in Jason's blood. Jason didn't think about the fact that thugs probably had no where else to go and that if Jason hadn't been bathed in lye he most likely would have grown up to be their friend. He didn't think about that or anything else as he beat them to a pulp until his knuckles were bloody beneath his gloves, he didn't think about how much he hated, just hated, as he strung them up for their boss or his little black and red slut to find. The violence, the energy let him forget, for a moment.

But with the wind whipping past him again, he couldn't push past it; he could only feel it. Feel it all. He went to her apartment, opened the door with a key and scratched her canine children with razor teeth under the chin, found her in the bedroom, wrapped her arms around her and kissed her.

He still hadn't washed his hands.

In the morning, Jason recognized her home faster than he recognized any wallpaper in the world. The smell of coffee lured him into her kitchen. Peaches and Ebi were trying to decide if they should snore or slobber more to win bacon.

"Thank you, Sonya." He touched her side and kissed her neck.