letting them want for a home

[crusaded]

The lack of care that I've put into covering my tracks in Rapture might be inspiring. Time has won this battle; I grasp after every spare second with my hands, feet quiet as I race down the path, but not silent. I feel the sticky warmth of blood sliding down the length of my neck, the metallic tang clear against the line of my teeth, but I feel not the way that my lungs scream for air, or for the ache of bruises coming to the surface. Adrenaline has left no room for that. Somewhere in these depths, Jason is waiting, hiding, and there's a part of me willing to bet that he'd close himself down here entirely, given a source of food and water. But living by the skin of one's teeth has always been what I sought to help the boys avoid. Never letting them want for a home, for room and board, for a guiding hand.

And no matter how much I've failed with each and every one of them, there is always a greater depth to fall into.

I refuse to leave without laying a line.

Nearly an hour passes before I pick up the proper signal from the cowl. A young man of the right size, less than a block away. It might take me six minutes to get there. Five, if I press.

And every second counts.

Comments

[crusaded]

I weigh for a moment the possibility of dragging him out. Because I don't doubt that he'd set off the detonators. I don't doubt that he'd bring the entire world crashing down until it crumbles at our feet, no more than a pile of rubble. And, God be damned, the only thing right now that would leave things worse than as they are, with him as enraged as he's ever been, is if somehow he was physically hurt in the process. I've lost him once.

I know I wouldn't survive if I lost him again.

The only thing to do is turn my back on him. If he wants a clear shot, hell, there's nothing clearer than the one he has now of the back of my neck, the most vulnerable juncture of the suit. I make no effort to hide.

[prodigaljaybird]

He's crying.

He's standing in front of Bruce and he's crying, again, but this time it isn't Jason's throat that's bared, and it's not the Joker's finger on the detonator. This time Jason really does have control, and he hasn't worked to get it, he hasn't planned and schemed and orchestrated for the better part of a year. He has control because Bruce gave it to him, and he doesn't...

He doesn't know what to do with it. He doesn't know what to do with the fact that if he chose, he could kill them both right now. He doesn't know what to do with the way he wants to grab Bruce and make him stay almost as much as he wants to scream at him to run. So Jason stands there, stupid and silent and listening to the scuffle of Bruce's footsteps as, impossibly, he does what he's asked and leaves.

When the last of his cape has passed the threshold, Jason's numb fingers fall away from the detonator, but the whining doesn't stop, it just gets worse and worse, clawing out of Jason's chest and mouth in sobs so huge they hurt. "Get out of here," he murmurs, but he can't.

He just can't.