#(вимбачте за бскй мем на тумблері)

[redjaybathood]

Honestly, Jason was jealous of Duke. Not that he thought the kid had it easy. Their age difference was what, five years? Seven, okay. So Duke missed the first time Gotham was occupied and surrounded, with no escape in sight. But then Jason was either dead or almost brain-dead during No Man's Land. İt evened things out.

"So how do you do it?" Jason asked, vaguely gesturing at the surroundings, both of them perched on the roof, people trying to get him before dark running like ants before a rain, below them.

Duke paused in the middle of telling him about the last basketball game - Jason wasn't even sure how the local team was called, is the thing.

"Play sports?" he asked, amused.

"Play sports, watch sports, do anything, you know, fun. Do anything that isn't this. Do anything, period. Maybe it's that I'm old, but I never believed that there's anything after. A better life for us or anyone, should we stop doing what we do."

"But you're still doing it," Duke said, shrugging. "Because what else we can do? Stop? We will be buried out here. We and a million other people, who can't do what we do."

"They can. We weren't born with this either. Okay, I'm not talking about your meta gene, apparently it is hereditary. But I'm talking about your being here. You suited up long before you find out you has superpowers. You did it before you got training, too. That, they can do."

Duke suddenly lost his energy. Looked straight down, then back at the horizon. Pointed at 3 o'clock.

"See, here? Westwood cross subway stations. Defunct for four years now."

"Yeah," and Jason did, and he even heard the story, but...

"One of the guys I started with, he died there. And if there was more people with us, if there was someone staying with him, he would not be the only one who blew up."

"But we also die. And we are not enough. There's no way we can hold on for much longer. We're gone, who's going to replace us?"

"We are them. One of us dies, another raises up. Four. Thirty. Like Strike, right? There was no one to cover the hill during the Joker's War. She did it. She and her team. The team you're on now. So there's no us and them, there's no..." Duke shook his head. "We are them, and they're us, and that's why we do what we do, even if it's not going to stop. We cannot stop and just make these things happen."

He rubbed his chin, thinking.

"To answer your question, how do I do anything. İt's not about hope, really. İt's the satisfaction of knowing that the next time it all falls apart, it won't be today. But it might be tomorrow. So I train, İ patrol and solve cases and catch supercriminals. But I also rest. And talk to friends. Family, as much as I have it nowadays. İt's exactly because the future is so bleak İ do not dwell on it. And it's not even... İt's not a life philosophy or anything. İt's just how I am. And it's okay to feel like you do..."

Duke tried to clap Jason on the shoulder but with their height difference, even sitting together it was awkward.

Jason decided to turn it into teachable moment and scuffled with him. Both of them managed not to fall.

"İ know it's okay," Jason said later. "To feel this way. But I don't know what to do about it."

"Sucks," Duke offered.

And yeah, there wasn't much else to say about Gotham, or Jason's life. He didn't expect Duke to give him an answer. But it was good to be heard.