antebunny

[antebunny]

For the ask meme :)

K: What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with?

U: Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.

K - Actually! For a fandom way back, Rurouni Kenshin, wherein the main character has a vow not to kill. The whole premise I came up with was "...okay. So what would I have to do to make him willfully break that promise? How much of his life would I have to destroy first? Whose lives would I put on the line? Who would die?" The answer: most of the main cast, actually. It was a very dark idea with an enemy that would methodically go about shredding Kenshin's sanity and morals so that he would, in fact, become just a little murderous. (In the end, too dark for me to write more than a page-- I love reading dark, but unless it's a short one shot I need me a happy ending, rofl. There was none in sight for this one.)

U - I have a lot of favourites so I'm just gonna share three fic writers I have directly subbed:

Antebunny: First stumbled across in The Untamed fandom, an excellent writer who writes Wei Ying as extremely badass but not invulnerable, characterisation perfect, and writing beautiful enough I will occasionally see their name turn up in my inbox with a completely different fandom I don't follow and I'll be like "okay, let's check it out anyway". Highly recommended!

Mad and Thick as Thieves: I've mentioned this author before, introduced to me via my beta's rec list with a one shot possessed!Leo fic which was great, and they write a lot of one shots (and two- or three-shots) that are a great punch to the emotions, excellent action/adventure/side of horror/emotional fam feels!

paperxcrowns (or @crows-murder on Tumblr): Look, if my first introduction to an author is a fic where an amnesiac Leo wakes up handcuffed to a lab table and proceeds to badass himself across New York on a not-so-merry cat and mouse survival chase, I've imprinted on them for life, I don't make the rules. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This is only three. It's worth noting I follow 74 authors directly and most of them are brilliant for various reasons /o/

Thank you for the ask ♥

Fanfic questions here!

[antebunny]

SELKIE

Give me your top 10 fic recs of 2024. I must know :)

I will do my very best 😤 (All the recs I've included were published or began publishing on Ao3 in 2024).

🌸 a cuckoo in the nest by antebunny ( @antebunny )

🌸 Detachment by smilebackwards ( @smilebackwards )

🌸 Don't Go Far by Myrime ( @blancheludis )

🌸 Ground-Bird's Nest by bobbinrobbins ( @bobbinrobins )

🌸 Growing Pains by SalParadiseLost ( @salparadiselost )

🌸 Just How Long I'll Love You by SilverSkiesAtMidnight ( @sunflowersandink )

🌸 Lucky Number Three by Sohotthateveryonedied ( @sohotthateveryonedied )

🌸 Nobody by goldenraeofsun ( @goldenraeofsun )

🌸 Northern Attitude (I Was Raised on Little Light) by theskeptileptic ( @theskeptileptic )

🌸 What's in a Name? by Bog_Witch841 ( @ tag unknown )

&

Bonus 2025 Rec:

🌸 How the Apple Falls by Batbirdies ( @batbirdies )

I hope you enjoy these recs as much as I have, Stamp! Thank you for the ask, and I'm sorry it took me so long to answer it!!

I suspect some of these tags will not link back to the author's tumblr because tumblr has some arbitrary amount of tags you can include on one post, apologies to anyone looking to click through to these amazing authors.

[antebunny]

You put Tim in box? You BOX him like dog?? Oh! Jail for Jason! Jail for one thousand years~

Authour: antebunny

Subfandom: Batman

Media: All Media Types

Relationships: Gen (Jason Todd & Tim Drake)

Year: 2023

Rating: Teen

Warnings: None

Summary:

Jason tries a kinder method of getting Tim to give up Robin. It goes even worse than his original idea.

Submitted by anon

Submitter's comment:

Basically, RedHood!Jason tries to get Tim to quit being Robin by trapping him in small spaces, not realizing that A, Jack Drake shuts Tim in a closet regularly as punishment, and B, Tim is ENTIRELY FERAL and will only quit "If Jason himself came back from the dead and asked me to." Jason takes him up on this; shenanigans ensue. Fantastic for many reasons, not the least being a delicious mix of hilarity and hurt/comfort. The "third chapter" is a second separate fic addressing Tim blaming Lazarus Pit madness for Jason's Red Hood actions despite "Lazarus Pit madness" not being a thing in-fic-universe. Delicious.

[antebunny]

i-??? i’ve been clocked??????

[antebunny]

ao3 users trying to leave criticism:

would you believe they edited this comment three times QAQ

[antebunny]

me when i get a runny nose right before bed: the night is finite but my snot is endless

[antebunny]

The Three JCs

[antebunny]

🐈‍⬛📦

[antebunny]

doctor who coded

will never understand all the vocabulary struggles star wars fanfiction writers talk about. what do you mean you cant use the idiom "a dime a dozen" because they dont have dimes in star wars? put the word "space" before it. a space dime a dozen. bam. skill issue

[antebunny]

Monster by JIN LH

[antebunny]

So she says it again: “I’m here.”

—7—

@artsy-alice @peaceheather @vinelark @sunflowersandink @op-sys-chaos @stiltonbasket @kurowrites

LAST LINE MEME

Rules: post the last line that you wrote and tag someone for every word in the line.

Tagged by: @sassydefendorflower!

Seeing as how I only posted a chapter last night, I figured this would be a great kicking off point for the next one. So here's the last line of the little bit I wrote tonight.

Quite abruptly, he loses his breakfast all over the cold floor.

Okay. That's eleven people: @antebunny, @batbirdies, @a-canceled-stamp, @goldenraeofsun, @elegitre, @theskeptileptic @bess3714, @byrambles, @cdelphiki, @cuephrase, @wildsofmarch 💕 (Please participate only if you wish, of course!) 💕

[antebunny]

a guardian is gained

[part seven of my fae!Tim AU. masterpost here]

~

Tim celebrates his new-found 75% of freedom by running away.

He returns to Wayne Manor, of course, maybe six hours later. But for one beautiful five-hour window Tim needs to be alone and so he flees, unthinking, to the streets of Gotham. Subconsciously heading to the last place he ever felt free. It’s been three long years since Tim roamed the rooftops at midnight, but the wonder and magic has not faded. It’s Tim who changed, his naivete destroyed and childhood joy annihilated. 

“Seventy-five percent. Every summer. Every summer.” Tim commiserates with the roof. The roar of the ventilator drowns out his voice; ideal when he’s trying to be totally alone. 

It’s exactly the deal that Tim would have made. In fact, he’d been planning on going to the Unseelie Queen with a similar deal. Since he’d fulfilled three out of four requirements, he ought to have three-fourths of his life to himself. I will spend one-fourth of my life with you, he’d practiced in the mirror, and his reflection, still a little out of step, nodded in approval. Then Batman returned with the news that he’d gone ahead and made the deal on Tim’s behalf.

Logically, Tim should be glad that Batman went to the Unseelie Queen for Tim. He only sort of believed that Batman found him useful enough to keep him around. If Mr. Wayne went out of his way to make a new deal with the Unseelie Queen just for Tim, he must value Tim more than Tim had thought. Yet for the first five hours after finding out, Tim allows resentment to fester and explode on that dirty old Gotham rooftop.

“I would’ve done anything! ANYTHING!” Tim punches the wall and immediately regrets it. His rage does not fade but his knuckles burn. What would Tim not do to make Batman love him? “What did Jason do? What did they do, huh?”

Sunset breaks the sky into orange and blue slices. Tim slips off the roof and into the emergency fire escape. All liminal spaces, such as sunsets and sunrises, are opportunities for the fae to cross over. There are no members of the Unseelie Court who Tim particularly desires to see at the moment, so he has no wish to be caught underneath the barren sunset sky. 

“What do they have that I don’t?” Tim curls up against the fire escape railing and weeps. 

If his parents were dead, would Batman have accepted him? Was it his association with the fae? But Jason was given a new life by the fae, and Batman welcomed him back with open arms. So what was it? Why could Batman not bring himself to love Tim?

Eventually Tim runs out of tears. His well of self-pity dries up, leaving behind the cracked, caked foundation of disgust.

“Stop sniveling,” Tim tells himself firmly. “You were here to trick your way in, and Batman knew that, of course he didn’t like you.”

Tim picks himself off the fire escape and clambered down to the asphalt below. By the time he makes it back home to Wayne Manor the sun has long since set over the horizon. He finds the Wayne family halfway to panicking, worried about Tim because he left without any way of contacting him. And Batman is the only one who knows what upset Tim enough to make him run away. He’s left telling the others about Tim’s new deal up to Tim. Perhaps the first pure act of kindness he’s done for his new ward. 

Of course, Tim can still slip through shadows like nobody’s business, and even before he was fae, he was never afraid of the dark. Only the things that lurk in it. Now that he is fae Tim knows better to waste his fear on imaginary problems. But the Waynes forgot, at least temporarily, that he is fae. The thought delights and terrifies him. 

Tim won. His place in the Wayne family is secure. Yet even as Tim slips into his spot at the dinner table, a happily-settled cuckoo in the home of the Bats, a seed of resentment lingers.

~

This is to certify that the undersigned, TIMOTHY DRAKE, is the legal ward of BRUCE T. WAYNE. 

Tim, though he has no knowledge of human legalese and last went to school at age nine, reads the official document over and over. His gaze skitters away from two signatures at the bottom. Jack Drake and Janet Lynn Drake. He can’t bear to look at them, yet still he wonders: did they ask for hush money or did they simply sign their parental rights away?

Eventually, Tim slides the paper over the desk back to Batman. He keeps his head down, but Batman places both hands flat on the wood surface so they’re visible to Tim. How strangely thoughtful, he marvels, then banishes the thought. Part of Batman’s job is to analyze every person and situation and react accordingly. Of course he knows that Tim is scared of him. It’s just that Tim hadn’t expected him to do anything about it. 

Batman clears his throat. “You need to sign your name.”

Of course. Tim’s cheeks redden. He ducks his head even further, hiding Batman’s face which is surely judgemental from view. One arm snakes out and pulls the document back to his side of the table. With one of Batman’s fancy pens, Tim carefully writes his name on the indicated blank space. He wants to mimic the pretty scripts of the other signatures, but he has not yet learned cursive.

When he finishes, Tim sets the pen down and swallows. “Thank you, sir.” He remembers his manners, even if he cannot raise his voice above a whisper.

“Don’t thank me,” Batman rumbles. “And.”

Tim finally chances a glance up, in time to catch an awkward half-smile on Batman’s face. It looks painful.

“Don’t call me that.”

Tim drops his eyes to the table. “Then what would you like me to call you, s–uh.”

“I am your legal guardian now. You may call me Bruce.”

~

Bruce files Tim’s papers next to his documents for Dick and Jason. It doesn’t feel right to set Dick’s legal guardianship next to Tim’s when Dick is his son (in his head, at least) while Tim is a rescue. But they were all rescues at some point, and Bruce is beginning to suspect that Tim’s case may be more like his sons than previously thought.

It was depressingly easy to pay Jack and Janet Drake to sign away guardianship rights for a son they hadn’t had in years. Bruce imagines that the real Timothy Drake had a difficult life when he was alive. But the Drakes’ public story of a freak accident and a young boy dying far too young quickly falls apart in the face the Drakes’ behavior. Specifically, their lack of surprise at the idea that their son might be alive. Bruce has a lot of investigating to do. But first, it is important to make sure that Tim settles in with a stable home life. School, vaccinations, optometrist appointments; Bruce had not missed the chaos of acquiring a new child.

And this one is somehow proving the most difficult one yet.

~

“I don’t wanna go back to being Robin.” Jason announces this at the dinner table one night. Despite his confidence, he eyes first Dick and then Bruce warily. “Can’t do it. Not my thing anymore.”

Tim, who has been eagerly awaiting the night Jason returns to his streets, is ashamed to say that his jaw drops. 

“Okay,” Dick says easily. “I understand. Trust me, I understand. What are you going to do now?”

But before answering, Jason waits on a response from Bruce. He won’t say so, or even show it overmuch, but he picks at his food with his shoulders drawn up high and stubbornly stays silent.

Bruce sets his fork down. “Alright,” he says slowly. “Jason, is your physical therapy–”

“Nope. Nuh-uh. I’m doing great. I just…I’m done with Robin. I loved being Robin but I’m not it anymore. I was thinking, actually, uh.” And here Jason side-eyes Dick obviously. “Maybe it should be passed down to Tim. I mean, if he wants it.”

“That’s a great idea!” Dick declares. He turns to Tim, all sunshine and smiles. “Timmy, whaddya say?”

And there was really only one answer Tim could give to Dick Grayson asking him if he wants to be Robin.

[antebunny]

a guardian is gained

[part seven of my fae!Tim AU. masterpost here]

~

Tim celebrates his new-found 75% of freedom by running away.

He returns to Wayne Manor, of course, maybe six hours later. But for one beautiful five-hour window Tim needs to be alone and so he flees, unthinking, to the streets of Gotham. Subconsciously heading to the last place he ever felt free. It’s been three long years since Tim roamed the rooftops at midnight, but the wonder and magic has not faded. It’s Tim who changed, his naivete destroyed and childhood joy annihilated. 

“Seventy-five percent. Every summer. Every summer.” Tim commiserates with the roof. The roar of the ventilator drowns out his voice; ideal when he’s trying to be totally alone. 

It’s exactly the deal that Tim would have made. In fact, he’d been planning on going to the Unseelie Queen with a similar deal. Since he’d fulfilled three out of four requirements, he ought to have three-fourths of his life to himself. I will spend one-fourth of my life with you, he’d practiced in the mirror, and his reflection, still a little out of step, nodded in approval. Then Batman returned with the news that he’d gone ahead and made the deal on Tim’s behalf.

Logically, Tim should be glad that Batman went to the Unseelie Queen for Tim. He only sort of believed that Batman found him useful enough to keep him around. If Mr. Wayne went out of his way to make a new deal with the Unseelie Queen just for Tim, he must value Tim more than Tim had thought. Yet for the first five hours after finding out, Tim allows resentment to fester and explode on that dirty old Gotham rooftop.

“I would’ve done anything! ANYTHING!” Tim punches the wall and immediately regrets it. His rage does not fade but his knuckles burn. What would Tim not do to make Batman love him? “What did Jason do? What did they do, huh?”

Sunset breaks the sky into orange and blue slices. Tim slips off the roof and into the emergency fire escape. All liminal spaces, such as sunsets and sunrises, are opportunities for the fae to cross over. There are no members of the Unseelie Court who Tim particularly desires to see at the moment, so he has no wish to be caught underneath the barren sunset sky. 

“What do they have that I don’t?” Tim curls up against the fire escape railing and weeps. 

If his parents were dead, would Batman have accepted him? Was it his association with the fae? But Jason was given a new life by the fae, and Batman welcomed him back with open arms. So what was it? Why could Batman not bring himself to love Tim?

Eventually Tim runs out of tears. His well of self-pity dries up, leaving behind the cracked, caked foundation of disgust.

“Stop sniveling,” Tim tells himself firmly. “You were here to trick your way in, and Batman knew that, of course he didn’t like you.”

Tim picks himself off the fire escape and clambered down to the asphalt below. By the time he makes it back home to Wayne Manor the sun has long since set over the horizon. He finds the Wayne family halfway to panicking, worried about Tim because he left without any way of contacting him. And Batman is the only one who knows what upset Tim enough to make him run away. He’s left telling the others about Tim’s new deal up to Tim. Perhaps the first pure act of kindness he’s done for his new ward. 

Of course, Tim can still slip through shadows like nobody’s business, and even before he was fae, he was never afraid of the dark. Only the things that lurk in it. Now that he is fae Tim knows better to waste his fear on imaginary problems. But the Waynes forgot, at least temporarily, that he is fae. The thought delights and terrifies him. 

Tim won. His place in the Wayne family is secure. Yet even as Tim slips into his spot at the dinner table, a happily-settled cuckoo in the home of the Bats, a seed of resentment lingers.

~

This is to certify that the undersigned, TIMOTHY DRAKE, is the legal ward of BRUCE T. WAYNE. 

Tim, though he has no knowledge of human legalese and last went to school at age nine, reads the official document over and over. His gaze skitters away from two signatures at the bottom. Jack Drake and Janet Lynn Drake. He can’t bear to look at them, yet still he wonders: did they ask for hush money or did they simply sign their parental rights away?

Eventually, Tim slides the paper over the desk back to Batman. He keeps his head down, but Batman places both hands flat on the wood surface so they’re visible to Tim. How strangely thoughtful, he marvels, then banishes the thought. Part of Batman’s job is to analyze every person and situation and react accordingly. Of course he knows that Tim is scared of him. It’s just that Tim hadn’t expected him to do anything about it. 

Batman clears his throat. “You need to sign your name.”

Of course. Tim’s cheeks redden. He ducks his head even further, hiding Batman’s face which is surely judgemental from view. One arm snakes out and pulls the document back to his side of the table. With one of Batman’s fancy pens, Tim carefully writes his name on the indicated blank space. He wants to mimic the pretty scripts of the other signatures, but he has not yet learned cursive.

When he finishes, Tim sets the pen down and swallows. “Thank you, sir.” He remembers his manners, even if he cannot raise his voice above a whisper.

“Don’t thank me,” Batman rumbles. “And.”

Tim finally chances a glance up, in time to catch an awkward half-smile on Batman’s face. It looks painful.

“Don’t call me that.”

Tim drops his eyes to the table. “Then what would you like me to call you, s–uh.”

“I am your legal guardian now. You may call me Bruce.”

~

Bruce files Tim’s papers next to his documents for Dick and Jason. It doesn’t feel right to set Dick’s legal guardianship next to Tim’s when Dick is his son (in his head, at least) while Tim is a rescue. But they were all rescues at some point, and Bruce is beginning to suspect that Tim’s case may be more like his sons than previously thought.

It was depressingly easy to pay Jack and Janet Drake to sign away guardianship rights for a son they hadn’t had in years. Bruce imagines that the real Timothy Drake had a difficult life when he was alive. But the Drakes’ public story of a freak accident and a young boy dying far too young quickly falls apart in the face the Drakes’ behavior. Specifically, their lack of surprise at the idea that their son might be alive. Bruce has a lot of investigating to do. But first, it is important to make sure that Tim settles in with a stable home life. School, vaccinations, optometrist appointments; Bruce had not missed the chaos of acquiring a new child.

And this one is somehow proving the most difficult one yet.

~

“I don’t wanna go back to being Robin.” Jason announces this at the dinner table one night. Despite his confidence, he eyes first Dick and then Bruce warily. “Can’t do it. Not my thing anymore.”

Tim, who has been eagerly awaiting the night Jason returns to his streets, is ashamed to say that his jaw drops. 

“Okay,” Dick says easily. “I understand. Trust me, I understand. What are you going to do now?”

But before answering, Jason waits on a response from Bruce. He won’t say so, or even show it overmuch, but he picks at his food with his shoulders drawn up high and stubbornly stays silent.

Bruce sets his fork down. “Alright,” he says slowly. “Jason, is your physical therapy–”

“Nope. Nuh-uh. I’m doing great. I just…I’m done with Robin. I loved being Robin but I’m not it anymore. I was thinking, actually, uh.” And here Jason side-eyes Dick obviously. “Maybe it should be passed down to Tim. I mean, if he wants it.”

“That’s a great idea!” Dick declares. He turns to Tim, all sunshine and smiles. “Timmy, whaddya say?”

And there was really only one answer Tim could give to Dick Grayson asking him if he wants to be Robin.

[antebunny]

it's wednesday i'm in the time loop

it’s monday i’m in the labyrinth

[antebunny]

There’s something wrong with Jason. 

Early autumn of Cass’s first full year as Bruce Wayne’s daughter. Trees droop, browned and unbearably brittle, onto the cracked sidewalks. Children skip and slouch and trudge their way back into classrooms for another dull year of learning. The exception is Cass, happily at home with Barbara and Bruce, Tim and Steph and Dick and all the new members of her new family. None of them know quite how old Cass is, and resolutely refuse to have anything to do with Lady Shiva or David Cain, the only people who could tell them. But Barbara went to bat for Cass, arguing that the American education system was not beneficial for all American children, much less Cass, who was still adjusting, as Barbara put it. Learning to come out of her shell. So there’ll be no school for Cass this autumn or any autumn. Only apple cider and hot cocoa, safely tucked away by the fifth fake fireplace of Wayne Manor, curling up in window frames just to listen to the psithurism before the rain, and a flood of scarves and mittens and boots as every member of her family tries to prepare her for the incoming Gotham winter. 

Personally, Cass doesn’t get why introverts are always encouraged to become more extroverted. She thinks extroverts should be told to shut the hell up more often. Perhaps it is an American thing, she muses, but then, she loves her new family for their relentless positivity and inability to shut the hell up. From Steph, who drags her on girl’s night after girl’s night with Barbara, Harley, and all the other crazy girls of Gotham who want to paint their toenails neon purple with little stars and crack skulls open just to feel something. (Whenever Harley robs a department store she always sends Cass a dress she thinks she’ll like in the mail. Bruce always gives her a look, sends it back, then buys ten variations of the same dress). To Tim, who is hard at work learning ASL so they can communicate better and shares all of his embarrassing interests with her. Niche anime, questionable manga, decrepit video games, card games, board games, and a stash of Batman and Robin photos he swears her to secrecy over. To Dick, who remains upbeat and cheerful in the face of all her silences and stony stares. He always makes time to take her (and usually some of his other little siblings) to a pizza parlor, or an ice cream parlor, or an abandoned parking lot perfect for doing donuts. Dick Grayson is a busy man who gained most of his current family after turning eighteen and losing most of them beforehand. Yet his heart opens, bottomless and sincere, for every new orphan that shows up on Bruce’s doorstep. When he drops by Cass’s ballet studio, exhaustion crinkling in every forehead line and eye wrinkle, how can she not love him back? 

So she takes it personally when Jason continues to avoid them. Perhaps she could ignore it if it was clear that he wanted nothing to do with them, no matter how much the others missed him. But everytime they run into Jason it is clear to Cass that he misses them fiercely. She may not be an expert on the standard personality and behavioral ticks of Jason Todd, but she is an expert on body language, and everything about Jason screams bad, wrong, liar, liar, LIAR–

Cass goes to Barbara. 

These days Barbara spend the vast majority of her time in the Clocktower. Ever since the Joker, Cass has been told, and hung up the Batgirl cape. She rotates between the library and the tower, retreating from regular life while her law degree collects dust. And even though Dick gets sad whenever he see her, and Barbara feels guilty and helplessly furious, he never says anything. The two of them dance around in silent conversations–I love you, I know, I’m sorry–that start all over again the next time they see each other. As if Cass can’t tell.

“Cass! So good to see you.” Barbara smiles and wheels herself over to the window when Cass drops in unannounced. She’s in pain.

Cass is not a vigilante but she was trained to kill them. When she takes to the rooftops of Gotham, she wears a nondescript black mask. She shucks this mask off now so that Barbara can see her face and plods over to her dearest friend and surrogate mother. Steph tells her the term is “mom friend” and not to get weird about it, but Cass believes she’s well beyond the point of being considered weird. 

“Jason,” Cass announces. 

She leans down awkwardly to hug Barbara, so she misses everything that is said in response. By the time she straightens, Barbara’s face worries, deep emotional lines of someone whose loved ones spend 80% of their time in mortal peril, and her body twitches backwards, itching for the long row of computers and tech equipment on the far wall. Barbara is concerned about Jason, but she believes the trouble lies in whatever Jason’s doing right now. That she’ll know what to do with just a little cyberstalking. But Cass’s concern is more long-term than that. 

“Is there something wrong with Jason?” Barbara’s cadence indicates that this is not the first time she’s spoken. Oops. Cass missed her out-loud words because she was so busy paying attention to what Barbara was actually saying.

Cass points at the computers. She doesn’t know how to explain it with words.

Barbara takes the hint and wheels back over to her computer lab, where she pulls up all the surveillance footage she can of Jason’s usual haunts until she finds him disappearing up the fire escape of an old brick apartment building in the very edge of Burnley. Any further south and he’ll be in Gotham’s Upper East Side, and Jason can’t stand that neighborhood. 

As Robin, Jason had to be bullied into the Diamond District and the Upper West Side, but Bruce dragged him into Chinatown to practice his Cantonese and Jason went to Old Gotham willingly for the vibe. A lot of gargoyles, Cass has been told. Worn bricks, gothic spires, flying buttresses, and properly intimidating gargoyles for brooding. There is so much that Cass knows about Jason from other people. The reverse cannot be said, because Jason doesn’t really talk to them anymore. 

Barbara boots up a drone from the Bat-hideout closest to Jason’s apartment and flies it over. It’s a lovely little three-room apartment on the third floor of an old brick apartment building. One bedroom and one bathroom, which Barbara does not attempt to enter, and a kitchen/living room area. All the furniture in the living room looks new. A comfy armchair, two bookcases overflowing with newly-purchased novels, shiny new wood cabinets and a marble finish to the kitchen island. Three wooden stools, two of them as sturdy as the day they were bought. 

Remotely, she and Cass peer through the window as Jason makes his guns disappear before he reaches his kitchen island. Stripped down to a form-fitting black shirt and brown pants, Jason washes his hands, preheats the oven, and sets about making lemon and herb salmon.

“This looks pretty normal to me,” says Barbara.

Jason slides into one of the wooden stools around his marble kitchen island counter. He drums his fingers on the marble. He checks the time on his phone. The salmon, now covered in garlic, thyme, and rosemary and such, is still baking in the oven. 

“He’s just making himself dinner,” Barbara observes. She won’t call Cass a liar, but this isn’t worthy of the label “trouble.” 

She doesn’t see it. Cass is at a loss. If Barbara cannot see what is in front of her eyes, how can Cass possibly explain it? 

“Look,” Cass insists. 

After checking the time on his phone again, Jason gets up and paces. At over six feet tall, he makes his cozy apartment seems small. He picks a book out of his shelf, seemingly at random. He examines the cover. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. He puts the book back and resumes pacing the perimeter of his small home. 

Barbara sighs. “I don’t understand.”

She wants Cass to be able to just spit it out, but won’t say so because she knows Cass cannot. They’ve reached a stalemate. 

Here is what Cass cannot articulate: Jason Todd is lonely. Loneliness is built into Jason’s bones. It gathers in his bed at night like a soldier returning from war. It lashes at the confines of his self-imposed cage. When the loneliness threatens to break him, it explodes in the form of rage at anyone who dares to be near him. Ah, but what a liar that rage makes of him. Claiming he loves nothing and no one when all Jason has ever done is love. Raging against the state of his beloved city, fury at the father he will not forgive, and hate–blackened love–for those he once called family. A cruel, self-perpetuated cycle. The lonely drives him to rage which in self-delusion to hide his shame he lies about until everyone learns to stay away. Thus creating more loneliness for Jason to feast in until he inevitably withers away from eating nothing but emptiness. 

And Cass fears she is the only one who sees it. But Jason is a fool for thinking no one else understands. Is Cass not the unwanted daughter of a world-class assassin and the wanted weapon of a monster? Her first months in Gotham she did nothing but drive people away because she didn’t know any better. The only reason she has good people around her now is because there is something so irrefutably good about the Bats. Barbara never withdrew her hand even when Cass bit her literally and metaphorically. Bruce took her in without a second thought for her background. Tim tries his hardest to be a good brother to her even when he’s hurting. Steph and Dick didn’t blink twice at the half-feral, non-verbal, former assassin addition to their family. They bring their good cheer out for Cass even when she can tell it’s fake, and she can always tell. 

So why does Jason, who is hurting and so lonely that it hurts Cass to look at him, insist on pushing them away? 

[antebunny]

(by censoredartist)

[antebunny]

when your art program’s closing message hits you straight in the heart and makes you stop and contemplate the state of it all