Be prepared. Don't ever assume you're safe. Even in your own home.
He taught me that. Words meant to keep me alive, I think, and they stuck, even if we all know how that turned out.
I've been working for weeks now, gathering food, clothes, water, light, whatever could sustain me in the deeps of Rapture, hidden and alone and alive. They were just supposed to be precautions. First Batgirl, then Robin. There'd been no reason for me to truly believe he would be next, but here he is, strapped upright into some machine smack in the middle of the Welcome Pavilion, his paranoia proven right yet again. I wasn't safe. I've prepared, but.
I'm not ready.
Is that sound coming out of me?
Curled low on the ground, Jason locks his arms around his knees. His body aches like he's fallen, but he can't remember, his palms raw and sore. He'd been on his way out, out and up into the sunshine, to Lux, to Bucky, to everyone he loves, only to stop dead at the sight of...Bruce.
Jason says it again, the same half-strangled whisper all that he's been able to summon since he got here. "Bruce."
Dad. Oh fuck, oh my god, not yet why did it take so long?
It's like a spell, some incantation Jason would not have uttered if he'd known. At his rising voice, the figure in the machine begins to struggle, and Jason knows to the depths of his soul that it's not Dick or anyone else to have ever worn the cowl. The rest of the world might be too afraid to see what's in front of them, but not Jason. He knows that jaw, that tip of nose, that particular curl of lip that comes when Bruce is truly angry.
Jason skitters forward across the stone floor, drawn despite not knowing what he means to do. The last time they met, he'd joked unto the last, traded a quip for every one of Batman's bellows until he had a gun to the Joker's head, but Jason can't think of a single thing to say now. He reaches for it, the persona he'd created to withstand the horrors of a life resurrected, but it won't come. It's Bruce, and Jason doesn't know who to be.
Red Hood. Robin. Jason. Jay. Son.
Stretching his hand against the metal, Jason breathes, and waits.
no subject
He taught me that. Words meant to keep me alive, I think, and they stuck, even if we all know how that turned out.
I've been working for weeks now, gathering food, clothes, water, light, whatever could sustain me in the deeps of Rapture, hidden and alone and alive. They were just supposed to be precautions. First Batgirl, then Robin. There'd been no reason for me to truly believe he would be next, but here he is, strapped upright into some machine smack in the middle of the Welcome Pavilion, his paranoia proven right yet again. I wasn't safe. I've prepared, but.
Is that sound coming out of me?
Curled low on the ground, Jason locks his arms around his knees. His body aches like he's fallen, but he can't remember, his palms raw and sore. He'd been on his way out, out and up into the sunshine, to Lux, to Bucky, to everyone he loves, only to stop dead at the sight of...Bruce.
Jason says it again, the same half-strangled whisper all that he's been able to summon since he got here. "Bruce."
It's like a spell, some incantation Jason would not have uttered if he'd known. At his rising voice, the figure in the machine begins to struggle, and Jason knows to the depths of his soul that it's not Dick or anyone else to have ever worn the cowl. The rest of the world might be too afraid to see what's in front of them, but not Jason. He knows that jaw, that tip of nose, that particular curl of lip that comes when Bruce is truly angry.
Jason skitters forward across the stone floor, drawn despite not knowing what he means to do. The last time they met, he'd joked unto the last, traded a quip for every one of Batman's bellows until he had a gun to the Joker's head, but Jason can't think of a single thing to say now. He reaches for it, the persona he'd created to withstand the horrors of a life resurrected, but it won't come. It's Bruce, and Jason doesn't know who to be.
Stretching his hand against the metal, Jason breathes, and waits.