He doesn’t know how they got here, but Jason’s thankful for it. It’s not often that he speaks to Cass, when Jason’s passions are words and righteous murder and Cass’s passions are distinctly not that, but when they do speak, they manage to get along. Somehow.
“So, why don’t you kill?” Jason leans back on the couch, his favorite mug filled with Alfred’s hot chocolate.
Cass is curled against the arm of the sofa. She looks at him, head tilted. Jason knows she’s reading him, but he’s not sure what she’s finding. It’s humbling, and intimidating, to know she sees more than what he allows to show.
“I can see,” she says. “That one time… I killed. I saw. Pain. Fear. Desp- des- not wanting to die.”
“Desperation?”
Cass nods. One of her fingers fiddle with the material of the couch. Jason knows she’s allowing him to see the motion. He knows it’s her silent way of showing him trust.
“There is more. To dying. Like… like they see their lives-They think- remembers. Loves. Their life- regret, love, everything. It goes through-” Cass taps her temple.
“Their lives are flashing through their heads?”
“Yes. Good. Bad. Everything. I see.” Quieter, Cass adds “I know. I know them, then. I killed a life that I know. They love. Everyone, have something they love. I kill, I kill that love.”
“That must suck.”
Cass leans back. She nods, neck releasing their tension and eyes less hunted, more accepting.
“Yes. I don’t want to- I don’t want to be the end.” Cass swivels her shoulders towards him, now. “Why… why do you?”
“Me?” Jason… hasn’t thought about it for a while, nor too deeply. But this is Cass. And her honesty deserves an honest reply. “I kill because some people shouldn’t be left alive to hurt and kill others”
“Not about… Bruce?”
Jason took a sip of his hot chocolate. Cass settled more into the couch, her eyes clear and watchful.
“It used to be,” he admitted. “About him, I mean. It used to be about vengeance. But then I came back to Crime Alley, and then I saw the kids getting hurt instead of being protected. They’re innocent. And then, it wasn’t about Bruce anymore. Killing is just the means to an end now, for me.”
“Do you- not regret?” She makes a gesture at his leg, where on a normal day, his holsters would be.
“I try to make sure I don’t kill people I’d regret, no. Like, you know how sometimes you guys arrest muggers?”
Cass nodded.
“Sometimes,” Jason said, remembering the days of digging through trash for food and the lingering hunger that rumbled through his younger self’s stomach. “They mug people because they’re desperate. I don’t kill those guys. But people deal to kids? Who hurt sex workers? Rapists? They’re doing irreparable harm, with full knowledge of their actions. For profit, mostly. If they’re willing to ruin lives, then they should be ready for their own to be ruined. It’s justice, for people like me.”
Cass studied him. “Justice…?”
“The only kind us Alley kids could ever appreciate. Arresting an abuser, a threat, and having that stick is for the privileged. Having that threat removed completely is relieving.”
“Can’t trust the world to be fair. But death, is fair.”
“Yeah. I think if I saw as much as you do, it’d be harder to do. But I think I’d still kill, because one person’s suffering after a life of being evil is worth the safety of so many others. To know… well, I guess I’m glad I don’t know what that’s like.”
“I see.”
“I know you do,” Jason grins at her. “But not killing is an act of courage too. Even if B makes it seem like it should come instinctually.”
“Yes. He does not connect, with Damian. Does not understand, fully, how hard. To unlearn.”
“Yeah.”
They sit in silence for a while after that, listening to the sounds of their family clambering around in other rooms.
“Hey, Cass?”
Cass turned back to him.
“I would kill David Cain for you.”
He would. It makes the Pit seethe when he thinks about how much David Cain and Lady Shiva hurt Cass for her to get this insanely good at reading people. He hopes she sees the pure honesty and sincerity he feels at that declaration
Cass puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezed once. Twice.
“Okay. Thank you.”
“No objections?”
“… would not feel too bad.”
Jason snorted.
“Yeah. You and me both.”
He doesn’t know how they got here, but he’s thankful for it anyways, because he understands his sister just that much more now.
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MCFLY JULY ‘24 ⸺ 「 1 / 31 * MOUNTAIN DEW HAT MAN 」
November 12, 1955
“No, I can’t stay. I told Ronnie I’d be home after work to give him the news about whether or not Marty really existed or this was the longest-running prank in history. He’s been just as interested as we were ever since I brought it up.” Walter chuckles, scrawling his signature on the day’s log. “He’ll be happy to know he was right. Kept trying to convince me that he’d be there—you’ll see, Dad. Even had a little bet of our own going—”
“And you lost that one too.” Kenneth barks out a deep, rumbling laugh that very nearly shakes the foundations of the building.
“I still can’t believe it. How the hell could a seventy-year-old letter know the exact time, date, and location that some kid named Marty McFly would be standing there?”
“Beats me.” Kenneth smirks, mischief glimmering in his deep blue eyes, and Walter rolls his eyes, knowing exactly the turn the conversation is about to take. “Maybe he’s an alien. Or a time-traveller on a secret mission and this kid’s his partner.”
Time-traveller. Those two words wind themselves around every nerve and muscle, rooting themselves so deeply into his mind Walter isn’t sure he’ll ever get them out of his head.
It’s crazy talk. Just like everything that Marty kid said.
Kenneth quirks a brow when the normally quick retort is nowhere to be found.
“—Yeah, right. And I’m a mind-reader.” Walter stands, retrieving his still-damp hat and coat from the coatrack by the door. “You’re watching too much Science Fiction Theatre.”
“I don’t see you offering any better explanations. And we know from that state of that old thing and the letterhead of the instruction letter that this wasn’t a joke. Or if it was, it’s a damn good forgery. Think about it. You said the kid started talking crazy after you gave him the letter, didn’t you?” Kenneth’s voice deepens, holding an air of secrecy and conspiracy meant for their ears only. He steeples his fingers, both elbows now propped up on the desk as his thick brows pull together in intense concentration.
“He’s a teenager. They’re all talking crazy. Even Ronnie, sometimes.”
There’s a look on Kenneth’s face that says he doesn’t agree, but if he has any further thoughts on the matter, he keeps them to himself, offering little more than a shrug and a drawn-out sigh. “Suit yourself. Go on, get out of here. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. The whole office is going to be waiting to hear about this, you know. Tell Ronnie I said hi.”
“I will. By the way, you think you can try and find the name of whoever it was that left that letter here? The box said it came all the way from corporate; someone’s name is attached to it. There must be a record somewhere.”
“You want me to dig through seventy years’ worth of records to find something that might not even exist?”
“If anyone can—”
Kenneth rolls his eyes, resignation flickering across his face and sagging his shoulders. “God damn—fine. Don’t get your hopes up.”
“Thanks.” Kenneth mumbles something that Walter doesn’t catch as he puts his hat on and steps outside to his car, letting the night’s strange meeting play out on repeat in his mind for the twenty-minute drive home.
The living room lights are still switched on and the moment Walter opens the front door, Ronnie all but leaps up off the couch, nearly losing his glasses in the process. “So? Was he really there?” Walter chuckles at his son’s enthusiasm, having expected exactly this moment he stepped through those doors. Ronnie had been almost more excited about it than the boys in the office, eagerly anticipating the night of 12 November with the same fervour as he would his birthday.
“C’mon, Dad,” Ronnie demands to his father’s back as he removes and hangs up his coat for what, hopefully, is the final time tonight. “Did that Marty guy show up?” Did I win the bet?
“He did,” Walter finally answers, dropping down into the armchair with a groan. Ronnie’s eyes widen and before he can get even a single one of the multitude of questions untangled from the knot they’ve twisted themselves into on his tongue out, his father continues, seemingly having plucked the questions right out of his mind.
“Exactly like the instruction letter said he would. Right time, right description, right place—everything.” Kenneth’s words rattle around Walter’s mind again as Ronnie beams, shouting triumphantly to the tune of I told you! I knew it!
“What’d it say? You saw it, right? You gotta tell me everything.”
—
May 21, 1986
That's him again, Ronald muses at the increasingly familiar sound of the thud of what three prior incidents already have taught him is hands grabbing onto the back of his Jeep.
Ronald glances over his shoulder and just like the last several times, the kid nods his acknowledgement and appreciation for the ride yet never says a word. This is becoming a pattern now, always on weekdays if his memory serves him correctly, and if nothing else, he should at least know the name of the kid he’s been ferrying around throughout the town.
“You ever think about getting a car of your own? They’ve got some cheap ones I’m sure even a student can afford.” Young kid, backpack slung over his shoulders—must be a high school student. He blinks, pulling the headphones off his ears. “You keep this up I’m going to start charging you for the ride.”
The kid throws him a winning smile. “Nah, I’ve got a car.” Ronald scrunches his brows together, wondering just what the hell the kid is doing grabbing onto the backs of cars and doing something so dangerous when he’s got a car of his own to get him around. If it were broken, maybe in the shop—
But this isn’t the first time.
“Did you ever—?” He eases into a left turn and behind him, the kid leans into it, unfazed. Ronald quirks a brow, waiting for him to finish whatever question he’d started, but he never does, continuing on as if the question had never been a thought in his mind. “Driving’s great, but sometimes I just—it’s not the same as putting on headphones and feeling the wind on my face as I’m skateboarding, you know? Helps me think.”
The kid almost looks surprised when he answers, “Yeah, I think I do,” and Ronald smiles at that.
“Oh—we’re almost at my stop. Hey, thanks. For, uh, not trying to shake me off or call the cops or something.”
He slows the car down as the driver ahead of him attempts to turn off onto a side street. “Before you go—what’s your name, kid?”
He hits the car twice with his hand before kicking off, shouting “It’s Marty! Marty McFly!”
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