#Robin's Deathstroke debacle | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

amazingflyingdick · 5 years ago

Text

resuscitated.

WHO: Dick @amazingflyingdick and Jason @thatsjasonfkntodd WHERE: Wayne Manor’s library WHEN: May 16th, 2020, before the events of the toxin and after encrypted. WHAT: Dick reveals things Jason never knew about Joker and the events that happened during the time Jason was thought to be dead.

Dick: Dick gave them both some time before he even thought to revisit the conversation they started to have in the Batcave. There were things he wanted to tell Jason when they were calm. Tim's words, too, were turning over in his mind, and he thought about the danger of secrecy. It was something they resented from Bruce, yet here they were picking up the same bad habits. That wasn't what he wanted.

The library was the second room he checked. The gym was going to be next. Dick still wasn't sleeping and it showed on his face, but his voice was even. He'd rehearsed the words all the way from his apartment. "Hey, can we talk?" Jason: Jason was making good on his decision to come up with a job to lure in Deathstroke, but he was doing his part of that alone. He’d had it to Tim when he needed him. Otherwise, he’d kept to himself since the whole debacle in the Batcave, even though he’d poured over that conversation several times since. There were things that had been said that he hadn’t even reacted to at the time, details that hadn’t really clicked into place until he’d had some time with it.

Even after a day or so, he wouldn’t have sought anyone out on his own, and when Dick came to him instead his immediate instinct was to turn him away. He stared at the words on the page he’d been reading, but eventually shoved a bookmark in to mark his place and closed the book. “I guess.” Dick: There was a lot Dick wanted to say, but he also felt as if he'd already said too much, and he wasn't sure if Jason really wanted to hear anything from him. Jason was helping with the plan, he was grateful, but he also didn't know why he would go out of his way to do it now. Tracking down Deathstroke never seemed to matter much before. He wanted to ask, but he knew the question would come out all wrong.

He silently took a seat in one of the ridiculous stiff leather armchairs. They were worse than what Bruce had in Gotham. Dick shifted a little, trying to get comfortable, but then gave up and leaned one elbow on the armrest. "I'm sorry for the other day. The things I said, I wasn't thinking clearly. I was mad and I lashed out at you because you were... there." Jason: Jason hadn’t looked at him yet, and even as Dick started speaking he just looked down at the cover of his book and remained laying on the couch where he’d been for a couple of hours. The facilities at the manor were the only silver lining of being there. He’d missed having a library and real training room down the hall.

“You were pissed so you told the truth. It happens.” Anger gave all of it an edge that maybe Dick felt guilty for, but it had cut through the fat of his desire not to hurt feelings and showed Jason what he actually thought. Real honesty, not Dick’s brand of it. “Own it, for once. You said what you thought.” Dick: Dick frowned and looked up at Jason when he said that, blinking, but he wasn't wholly surprised that he would reach that conclusion. "Is that what you think? That's not how it works for me, Jason. I don't turn super honest when I'm pissed. I say things I don't mean. I lash out and regret it later. I'm not saying what I said came from nothing, but was I telling you the unfiltered truth? No. I was being malicious because I was angry. Or freaked out. Both, maybe." Jason: He ran his thumb along the spine of the book and fought the urge to roll his eyes. “So what’d you come in here for? Clarification? Forgiveness?” Dick didn’t live there. He had no reason to be in the manor without making pointed effort to end up there. Was he actually there just to talk? “I’m doing what I said I’d do. Tim will have the details soon and we’ll be ready to move.” Maybe that was what he wanted to hear. Dick: "No, Jason, I..." Maybe he shouldn't have led with the apology. Dick didn't expect Jason to make any of this easy, but he was here because he cared. Because he wanted to try. The effort he put into bringing Jason back into the fold had been constant for years now, but he knew even his motivations behind that were probably misinterpreted. "I'm here because of what you said. What you didn't say. You said there's things I don't know... about you. I want to know them." Jason: What did he think he was going to do? Give him a list? Jason wasn’t up for that conversation, certainly not with the way it had started in the Batcave. “You first. That’s how this got rolling, right? I don’t know you, I put you on a pedestal,” and whatever else. “I know what you decided I got to know.” And before he’d died, that had been next to nothing. After that? After that...it had mattered a lot less. Dick: He tried not to wince at the reminder of his own words. The way he saw it, he'd given them everything they wanted to know when he went through the details about Deathstroke. Dick didn't assume they would want to know anything beyond that, because he barely wanted to know it, and keeping negative or shameful things to himself was a difficult habit to break. "I know," he finally said quietly.

This wasn't why he was here and he was caught off guard. Even though knew it wasn't fair for him to ask Jason to talk to him if he wasn't able to talk to Jason, it still made him uncomfortable. The you first gave him some hope, at least, because if he started then Jason would go next. He'd done plenty of listening in his life, but it was rare that he had anything remotely resembling an exchange and it felt strange. It was hard to ignore the need to deflect. A long silence followed before Dick even said anything. When he finally did, his voice was quiet. "Did Bruce ever tell you why I stopped being Robin?" Jason: If he was being honest, he’d expected Dick to turn him down and let both of them off the hook. That would have been easier. Jason was not inept when it came to listening, or even being comforting if he thought there was a real need for it, but he was not the person that anyone went to for that. He’d crafted that image on purpose. The only time it didn’t work was on people who were virtually incapable of picking up cues, and that was part of the reason he’d ended up finding it so easy to be around Bizarro. It didn’t break down so easily around anyone else, and certainly not for Dick.

“No. Bruce doesn’t tell anyone shit.” Surely he knew that. Whatever he knew, nobody else got to know unless there was virtually no choice. Dick: It didn't surprise him, but he'd wondered if Bruce crafted some vague explanation that contained the partial truth. It was more likely he just avoided the subject. "I didn't quit." That was what everyone seemed to assume, even though plenty of people knew better. No one talked about it. "He fired me. Twice, actually. I started up with the Teen Titans while I was still Robin. One time I was late for a mission. That was the first time. The second time was because I got shot." He made a vague gesture to his shoulder. "I almost died. He thought it was because I was too distracted and not as dedicated as I used to be. So, he fired me."

Dick paused, running his hands over his knees restlessly. His palms felt sweaty. "I found out he had a new Robin when I saw you in costume. He never said a word to me about it." Jason: Jason was quiet as Dick explained and he narrowed his eyes at the cover of the book without really focusing on it anymore. It wasn’t as if Dick would just make up a story, as though Jason couldn’t confirm its truth elsewhere if he needed to. Maybe Bruce wouldn’t give him a direct answer, but someone else would. Not that he saw a reason to bother.

“If he fired you, what was the point of trying to turn me into you?” Dick hadn’t even lived up to his own golden standard with Bruce. “I just assumed you quit.” Dick: Jason's claim that Bruce wanted him to be like Dick was something Dick would never understand. It just didn't make sense to him. "I don't know, but Bruce has this... idea of me. He always has. And maybe some of it is my fault, because I tried... really hard to be that for him. I wanted to be. I was afraid of what would happen if he realized one day that I wasn’t." Frowning, he twined his fingers together to force them to stop moving. "He didn't adopt me right away. I was sixteen when he finally had the papers drawn up. For eight years I was just his ward. My being there felt... conditional. Or performance based. I couldn't mess up or step out of line. I was terrified of what would happen when I turned eighteen." Jason: “Trust me, getting adopted wouldn’t have felt any different.” Maybe in a legal sense, but that was it. By the time Jason had met Batman in Crime Alley, he was a few years into being on his own and surviving. Naïveté or optimism or whatever it had been had made him think that being taken in by Bruce, by a fucking billionaire of all things, would have eased off some worries he had. On a basic level, it did. He’d known he was going to have food and somewhere to sleep, but that was about as far as it went. “Sometimes I actually missed Crime Alley.” Dick: Dick smiled wryly, but there wasn't much humor in it. "I thought it would be different for you. I really did. He adopted you. And he chose you to be Robin." This was the part that was hardest to talk about. "But I still resented him for the choice. He asked me to help train you. I agreed because I didn't want to take it out on you. You were a kid. It wasn't your fault, none of it, and you were my brother." Their training session hadn't... gone well, to say the least. "But I was angry and I... lacked the patience. I didn't think you deserved to be Robin because you didn't earn it. You were young. Reckless. But instead of being worried, I was bitter. I thought Bruce made a mistake and deserved to fall on his own sword." It suddenly felt harder to talk and he had to stop for a second, his gaze on the floor. "I cared more about seeing Bruce fail than about taking care of you." Jason: He pressed his lips together into a line, not offering him a response right away. Of course he’d been reckless. He still was. Reckless was the only way to get anything done when it had still been up to him alone to accomplish it, and it wasn’t a style he’d ever been able to fully leave behind. He planned more as he got older, of course. He didn’t go in blind, even if in the heat of the moment he still often chose the least cautious approach to anything. Dick hadn’t been wrong, exactly.

“I thought the Robin gig was my golden ticket. But all I did was work my ass off to be what Bruce wanted without ever hitting the mark. Even if you’d stuck around, it wouldn’t have been any different.” Maybe he would have been less bitter. Maybe Dick would have been what he said - a brother, rather than some unreachable goalpost - but did it matter anymore? Dick: "It would have been. You could have come to me. You needed me and I was... in Bludhaven, angry at Bruce." Dick seemed to collapse a bit in how he was sitting, leaning heavily on his elbow. "I know you're going to say it doesn't matter now because we can't change the past. I get that. I'm telling you this so you understand what it was like after you died." It was a topic he felt uncomfortable discussing, because it wasn't something anyone else talked about. Jason had been the one who suffered, who was still suffering, and bringing up his death outside of that context felt disrespectful. "Tim was right that there shouldn't be secrets. I'm not doing this because I need your forgiveness or understanding. I'm doing it because you deserve to know. That... standard Bruce holds me to, it doesn't exist. That person doesn't exist." Jason: “Honestly...it doesn’t even matter whether that person exists. It matters that Bruce thought he did.” And, with all the experience he had with Bruce, he’d clearly been unwilling to ever see otherwise even when it was staring him in the face. “But it would’ve been nice to know I was chasing ghosts while I was sill chasing them.” Because it didn’t change anything. It didn’t ease any of the burden that he’d felt then.

Jason pushed a hand back through his hair, which was getting long enough by then to curl at the ends and look irritatingly unmanaged. He tossed the book down onto the end of the furthest cushion and finally sat up all the way. “You didn’t owe me shit, Dick. Not training me, not being my brother.” Dick: "It isn't about owing you," Dick said with a frown, leaning forward. He was wary Jason would just up and walk away. "I'm not here because I feel obligated to you or feel sorry for you. Even before... maybe I wasn't around often, but I was here, and I still thought of you as my brother. I just... I thought we had time. I took a lot for granted, including you." Taking a deep breath, he rubbed the back of his neck. "I know we're better than we were, but we're still not okay. You're angry with me, and maybe you have a right to be, I just... I want you to talk to me. I'm here, I'm not going anywhere, and I'm not asking because I want to do the right thing or because I think I should. I'm asking because I'm not willing to lose you." Jason: “Yeah, you say that about as easily as Bruce claims that I’ll always be his son, but I don’t think it’s supposed to look like it does.” And weren’t they too old to do it over? They were both fast approaching thirty. Jason had spent half his life angry at the same people, to varying degrees, and at the core of it he was just tired. It was easier to just toss all the expectations in favor of acknowledging it wasn’t ever going to pan out than to keep chasing something. He was a grown man. It was all done already, wasn’t it? “What do you want from me, Dick? An autobiography? You didn’t want me to know you, didn’t want to know me, and I didn’t know how to push the right way.” Dick: "I don't know how it's supposed to look." Dick knew how things were when Jason first came back. They came close to killing each other a couple of times. Once it was all over and done, however, he'd been the one to work at bringing Jason back to the family. "I don't know how to do things the right way with you, either. I try and it... comes off wrong. I did want you to know me. And I wanted to know you, too." Even as he said the words, he knew they wouldn't mean anything to Jason because it was in the past. "I don't want anything," he finally said quietly. "Other than to be part of your life. To know you now." Jason: He finally turned and looked at him for the first time since Dick had come in and started talking. It didn’t really matter whether he believed him or not, because it was over a decade too late either way. “Fine. There’s not much to know. But this isn’t a one way street.” It was a matter of principle if nothing else. Jason wasn’t leaving himself in some kind of position of vulnerability. Dick: Dick was taken aback by the agreement. It wasn't what he expected, at all, and he nodded slowly. "Okay. That's fair." That was why he was here, in a way. He wanted to tell Jason things he never knew about. Even though he didn't want to delve into the past, sometimes it was necessary in order to explain why things turned out a certain way. "I mean, you already know the main thing I was keeping secret. I only ever told Babs... and Tan." Jason: “You know, if you’d really wanted to quash that Golden Boy image you say isn’t real, it would’ve gone a long way to tell me, or us, whatever, about this guy. What’d you stand to lose? Not respect. Mine, anyway.” And Tim would’ve likely always had the reaction he’d had in the Batcave - concern. Dick: Laughing softly, Dick shook his head. "You and Tim aren't Bruce, but... it matters to me what you think. So as much as I hated it, it was safer. At least if you hate me it can be for something I'm not instead of something I am, right?" He shrugged. "You were right about what you said, even just looking at the dates. It wasn't just some nothing way to rebel against Bruce." Jason: “I don’t care who you sleep with. I would’ve had more respect for the truth than blindly siding with Bruce if you were questioning him. Because I was.” And it would’ve been nice to not be left on the outside for it constantly. That might have actually changed something. Again, it was too late for it, though.

When he brought up the dates again, Jason just frowned. “So you tell me what they meant, then.” Because Dick had snapped at him for it. Dick: "I know. I just wanted you to make up your own mind about him, I guess. He adopted you. I even told him that I hoped he was a better father to you than he was to me." Dick shook his head slightly, his breath escaping him in a sigh. "You were already gone by the time this happened, Jason. With Slade, I mean."

It was different to look back now that he knew the truth was something other than what he thought. "Whatever happened later didn't exist while it was happening, you know? It was always real to me. It felt real. And I was happy." Jason: “I probably don’t need to tell you this, but he wasn’t. Or at least I’m pretty sure he wasn’t.” It sounded like Bruce had just made the same choices but on the opposite trajectory, and hadn’t got his shit together enough to be a father to anyone until Tim came along. “And yeah. I put that together. For all you knew, anyway.” Because he’d been alive for most of it, but only in a technical sense. They couldn’t have known, because even he didn’t know. He’d been on autopilot, stuck in survival mode in a very literal sense, until Talia got to him.

Jason had accused Dick of naïveté more than once. He’d done it with Tanya when he said he wanted to propose to her, and Jason had been right then. It would’ve been an easy moment to rub it in his face again, but it didn’t feel right. The whole atmosphere felt too heavy to be a smart ass. “That was a long con for him to play.” A whole damn year. And for what? He still didn’t understand that part. Dick: Dick nodded. He wished he knew Jason were alive during that time. He thought about how different things would have been if he'd managed to get him back sooner. Or maybe it would have been worse. There was no way to ever know now, so he wouldn't bother speculating. "By the time you came back I was... overcompensating. Trying to prove myself to Bruce. Trying to be him. I know it's all in the past, but the past matters more than we want it to."

A con. Because that's what it was, wasn't it? "Yeah," he said quietly. "Guess so. Maybe he was just bored." That reasoning didn't sit right with him. Maybe he was trying to make a joke, but it didn't come out that way. Jason: “By the time I came back, I didn’t give a shit what you were doing or why,” he shrugged. “I had other priorities.” And that had been true for a long while. Even if Dick had tried to reach out to him then with his truth, he wasn’t so sure he would’ve listened or cared. Probably neither.

“Bored?” Even Jason didn’t buy that. “No. I don’t know what it was, but it wasn’t that.�� He didn’t know Deathstroke well enough to guess, but he’d certainly encountered enough mercenaries and assassins in a different capacity than Dick had. He knew the type. Dick: Everything had been a mess when Jason came back. Dick didn't even know if there had been another way to handle it. It was bad enough that Bruce wasn't here for a good portion of the conflict with Jason. He nodded, but didn't say anything more. He wanted this to be reciprocal, but he also wasn't going to push.

"He figured out who I was early on. He knew I was Robin. Knew my real name. I never told him who Batman was, but... Slade told me recently that he figured it out during that time. Right before it ended, he tried to catch me into letting it slip that Bruce and Batman were the same person. I didn't fall for it, but..." He trailed. "Maybe it wasn't a coincidence. Maybe it was all to get to Bruce." Jason: “If it was all to get to Bruce, he’s had nearly a year since the Carnival.” As Jason said so, he paused and stared ahead toward a wall of books. “Is the hit on Bruce? The one he came here for?” Dick didn’t know the answer, probably, but it had to be someone big if Deathstroke was taking so long to get to them. Dick: Dick frowned, but the question made him remember a consideration he'd had. "I wondered if it might be on us. I mean all of us. You, me, Tim, Damian... Bruce. He told me the night Joker revealed everyone that he now knew who we all were. He repeated the names back to me. That would be a reason to stick around, observe, and take your time uncovering everyone's identity." Jason: Jason furrowed his brows. He wanted to say that was insane, that someone would take out a contract on the whole lot of them and expect anyone to take it, but if anyone would...it would be someone like Deathstroke. “You might be right.” All the more reason to see all other parts of the plan through. “Fuck.” Dick: "It would definitely be playing a long game." Slade would have to be careful if he intended on taking them all out. He would have to move quickly and avoid a confrontation with, ideally, more than one of them at a time. Deathstroke was a formidable opponent, but years of working with each other (and against, in Jason's case), they operated at a level that would be difficult to combat. "But I'm still trying to figure it out. Even if he goes to jail and it all... works out, I want to know."

There was a specific reason he was here, even though he’d successfully put it off so far. "There's one more thing, Jay. You and Tim were in my file. If you read further, there's something else you would have seen. It's about the Joker." Jason: “If he goes to jail and they don’t bury him under it, we need to know. If there’s a contract out on us, Deathstroke falling to complete it doesn’t mean that nobody else will pick it up and try.” Was there an assassin better than Deathstroke? Probably not. But that didn’t eliminate the possibility that somebody would get lucky.

The sudden change in subject had him turning to face Dick again. Mentioning Joker always had his attention, but he didn’t know what would be in Dick’s file that didn’t show up in anyone else’s. “What about him?” Dick: "Exactly." There were ways to kill them. Sniping would be the best way to do it, even though it was an easy way out. Not all assassins cared about the craft.

Dick understood the repercussions of what he was about to say and he'd weighed the pros and cons carefully. If this were going to be an open and honest start with Jason, then he deserved to know what happened. If anything, he needed to know because there was little doubt of it coming up again. Tim knew, Bruce knew, Steph knew, Babs knew, and Joker knew. He wasn't going to let someone else break the news to Jason, especially not if it risked driving a wedge between him and anyone in the family. Bruce took these actions and it was his responsibility to stand by them, not hide behind a code of silence. "Bruce and I were estranged during that time because I was angry with him. He got you killed, that was how I saw it, and he couldn't even tell me if Joker was dead. I wanted him dead." The words felt acrid on his tongue, but he forced himself to continue. "Eventually, we reconciled, sort of. You were still... I mean, you weren't back yet. Then Joker kidnapped Tim. I found Tim's suit in Arkham, and... we all thought he was dead, too. So I made a decision." Jason: A decision? What the hell was he getting at? The more he talked, the more Jason wanted him to speed it up instead of setting a scene. Granted, Jason had never cared to learn what exactly life had looked like for any of them in the period between getting beaten and blown up and his eventual return, so maybe the details were important. Tim being kidnapped and potentially dead did lend it a certain atmosphere. “A decision to do what?” Dick: "To kill him." Dick paused, then continued quickly. "I knew Bruce wasn't going to do it. He didn't do it for you and he wasn't going to do it for Tim. Babs tried to stop me, so did Dinah, but I didn't listen to them. I tracked him down. We were fighting, I had him on the ground, but I stopped. I don't know why. Then he said your name and I... lost it. I kept going. I beat him to death, Jason. Tim had to pull me off, I can barely remember that part." Jason: Obviously Tim hadn’t really been dead. He knew that part. The rest just sounded like Dick speaking in hyperbole. The fact that he’d gone after Joker at all wasn’t insignificant, and he couldn’t work out how to feel when Dick said that his name was what made something snap. He didn’t know what to do with any of it, really, except immediately clarify. “What are you talking about?” Joker was still walking and talking and fucking with them just like he’d always been. He sure as hell wasn’t dead. Dick: Dick exhaled softly and ran a hand through his hair, but he knew he couldn't stop there. "He was dead," he said simply. "Then Bruce showed up and he... brought him back. Resuscitated him." That was something he also barely remembered, but he knew it happened. At the time he'd been reeling from the shock of what he'd done and the blood on his hands. Jason: “What?” It was like his ears were ringing suddenly. Jason felt a flood of heat run through him. Dick wouldn’t lie, not about that, but about...any of that. And it made him sick how easy it was to believe when he’d said it - not that Dick had killed Joker, but that Bruce had brought him back. Still, he had to hear it again, because it was the only thing keep him from screaming. “Bruce did what?” he repeated, his voice strained. He was already looking at the door. Where was he? Down in the Batcave? Was he in the manor at all? Dick: Even though Dick couldn't predict Jason's reaction, he was smart enough to have this talk with Bruce out of the house. At the very least he didn't want him listening in on it. He was sure Bruce would watch the surveillance later, but this was a lot easier to do knowing there weren't any eyes or ears on them. "He resuscitated him," he said again. "He said it was because he didn't want any of us to live with being murderers." It was logic Dick still failed to understand, considering bringing Joker back to life didn't erase the fact that he'd taken it. Jason: If pressed, he couldn’t have come up with a word to describe the level of pure fury that he felt just then. His mind raced to even figure out where to start. Joker had been dead. Really, truly dead. Dick hadn’t gone after him for Jason, but the final blow that had ended it...he believed him when he’d said that was because Joker had his name in his mouth. There was no reason to make it up. The fact that it had been kept from him for so long was even more reason to think it was true.

His whole rebirth as Red Hood had been those words Talia spoke to him - You have not been avenged. But he had. He’d been avenged and not only had Bruce not done it himself, but he took it back. And for what? To save an image of Dick that he’d invented all on his own?

He moved before he really knew he was doing it. His open palm connected with the lamp by the couch and he sent it flying toward the wall until it shattered and sent glass flying in every direction. “He brought him back!” he growled, curling that same hand into a hard fist. Dick: As soon as he realized Jason was moving, Dick jumped to his feet. He wasn’t in time to save the lamp, not that he especially cared, and he didn’t make a move to restrain him even though it was a struggle to not reach out and do something. “Jason, I...” There was only so much he could say and nothing he could do. The past was past and Dick had no say when it came to the decision Bruce made. Had he been grateful at the time? He might have accepted Bruce’s gesture for what it was, but he also knew it didn’t really have anything to do with him. Bruce did it for himself, because he needed Dick to be something.

Any other time he might have defended Bruce to keep the peace. It was what he usually did, unless what Bruce did was so heinous that it wasn’t worth defending. “I’m sorry.” His tone was heavy and he was already picking up pieces of the lamp. Jason: He wanted to rip the whole room apart, the whole manor, and work his way down to the Batcave to leave it in pieces, too. The only reason he didn’t was that he’d managed to come far enough not to punish everyone for Bruce’s bullshit, but it was hard to maintain that when he could feel himself careening backwards. He’d been lost when he showed back up in Gotham as Red Hood, driven entirely by the idea of killing Batman, and it had taken him a long time to forge anything else. Now that felt like a mistake. He should have just fucking done it. If he’d known then what Dick had just told him, maybe he could’ve finished the job after all.

“Don’t apologize for him,” he pointed his finger at Dick and saw a trickle of blood from where the lamp had cut into his palm. It would heal and he barely felt it anyway. “Don’t ever apologize for him to me.” Dick: "I'm not apologizing for him." Dick tried to keep his voice calm. He knew getting defensive or coming off as if he were speaking for Bruce would only make this worse. What's more, he didn't even know if Bruce would be sorry for the decision he'd made then. He stood by his no killing rule stringently for years, never making an exception, and even if he recently seemed to let things go it didn't mean his personal views on the past were any different.

The sight of the blood made him stand instinctively, even though he knew the Lazarus Pit gave Jason a healing factor. "I'm sorry it wasn't finished." Maybe it was, on a technical level, but something was left incomplete if Bruce had been able to bring Joker back to life. Jason: “I should have finished it. I should have just...” Jason pushed his hands back into his hair, blood and all, and curled his fingers hard against his head as he tried to just stay in that room and in that moment. It was almost impossible. “I should have just done it.” And Bruce had pulled the wool over his eyes more than once since, because part of Jason was always going to be the kid in Crime Alley who wanted something from him without realizing he was never going to get it. It was even worse than he’d thought, though.

A frustrated growl of a sound worked out of his throat as he turned to leave the library and Dick behind. He didn’t know what he meant to do, exactly, except look for some kind of outlet. Dick: Dick suddenly wasn't sure if Jason was talking about Joker or Bruce. He moved quickly, taking the back of Jason's arm before he could leave the room and holding it tight. "Wait. Listen to me." The last thing he wanted was Jason giving way to his anger and hatred because of this. He'd come a long way and Dick didn't want any of that undone because of something Bruce did years ago. It wasn't worth losing all that progress.

But he didn't know if Jason would see it that way. "What he does and especially what he doesn't do... don't let that touch the life you've made for yourself in spite of it. In spite of him." Jason: “This is his fault!” Jason snapped, pulling his arm free. “Why am I the only one angry? How do you fucking look at him?” How could he stand it? Tim defended him, I’m sure he does care, and Damian worshipped the ground that Bruce walked on, but why did Dick still stand by him? Or any of it?

Jason drove his hand against the side of the doorway and gripped the wood so hard his knuckles went white with the effort. He’d spent years subsisting on spite and anger, he’d let it motivate him and make all his moves for him, all to get him back to Bruce. He should have listened to it. He’d been right the first time. Dick: "You're not. You're not the only one. I just can't hold onto it like you can. It eats at you, changes you, and it's not worth it in the end. Not to me and not to you. It's not." There were plenty of things Dick could never forgive Bruce for. He loved him, but that would never mean complete forgiveness or understanding for the things he'd done.

Jason's rage was always a force that Dick could feel. There were moments he could relate. He had a temper and there were things he'd said or done in the heat of the moment. That wasn't the same as this. "It doesn't mean I forgive him. I just don't want it to have power over me. Come on. Don't leave." Jason: “We don’t matter to him. Not really. Not past what he gets from us.” He saw now that Dick had been incredibly on point in thinking that the image Bruce had of him was the most important thing to him, to the point that Bruce had brought Joker back to maintain it, as though returning him to life somehow erased the fact that Dick had killed him in the first place.

If Jason had been able to walk away, really walk away, then maybe he could’ve bought into the line of thinking that it had no power over him. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t, because Bruce had made a choice that exposed all of them, forcing yet another one of his decisions on everyone else. “I can’t ignore this.” Dick: Sometimes Dick did believe what Jason said about Bruce, but it was only when he was truly angry. He didn't actually believe it. Then again, he didn't want to. There was no way for him to counter the claim because he didn't truly know what Bruce thought. "We still matter. You matter to me. Tim matters. Damian. Steph. Cass. Alfred. But I can't pretend I know what goes on in Bruce's head. I've stopped trying."

He frowned and shook his head. "I'm not asking you to ignore it." There might be no repairing the rift between Bruce and Jason, but Dick wasn't going to suggest that Jason should suppress anything. He just didn't want him to have murder on the brain. "What are you going to do?" Jason: “All of us? To him? Bullshit.” Absolute bullshit. Alfred, Tim, Damian, some made up Wizard of Oz projection of Dick, sure. Hell, even Superman might get a place on the list. But if Bruce gave a fuck about Jason, he could’ve never gone through with what he’d done and what he hadn’t done. There was no way.

“I don’t know. I’m going to do this thing with Deathstroke. And then I don’t know.” He didn’t want to stay at the manor, that much he knew. For the sake of everyone else he was trying to swallow the image of putting a bullet in Bruce’s head, but if he was having to look at him every day or every other day, could he keep doing that? Maybe not. Dick: "No, to me. And in general. My point is that Bruce doesn't decide who matters." Did Dick want Bruce to care? Absolutely. That was why he'd tried so hard to live up to the gold standard Bruce set for him. It didn't mean he wouldn't keep his distance. He built his own life, for a while in his own city, and the time was spent figuring himself out. Maybe he hadn't made the best decisions, but they were still his.

The thing with Deathstroke. Dick nodded, his expression stricken, but he was struggling to get his thoughts in order. "Stay with me until you find a place. You can bring your dog. It's too quiet." He never outright told anyone that he'd broken things off with Tanya, but that was the sort of thing Dick generally kept to himself. Or he used to. Jason: He’d spent a long time thinking that it was too little too late, but he’d never quite been able to fully separate himself from the family. Not for good. Something pulled him back in every time, and Star City was the most “in” that he’d been for a really long time. He’d managed to even get himself to talk to Dick about his relationship with Roy, of all things. It wasn’t like he was blind to the fact that things were better, or at least they’d felt like they were. Given how quickly he’d went zero to a hundred in the Batcave, maybe that was wishful thinking.

“Three’s a crowd. Four if you count the dog.” He also wasn’t blind to the fact that Dick hadn’t mentioned the woman he’d been so eager to marry. Jason might know more than the others, since he’d been the one to tell him that she was working kill jobs, but he had no confirmation that something had happened. Dick: Dick's place wasn't as fortified as the manor, there was no denying that, but he still had good security, weaponry, and a hidden room or two. He would normally be wary of the place not being as safe but, under the circumstances, it might actually be safer. For Bruce, at least.

This was something he'd been dreading, but there was no putting it off any longer. He just wanted some time to process it before hearing I told you so, even if some people were too polite to say it aloud. "No, it's just me. It's over with Tan. I broke it off right before the whole Joker thing at the theater. I just..." He made some gesture with his hand. "A lot's been going on." Jason: The news about Tanya did momentarily distract him, if nothing else. “Yeah. Figured that was coming.” He nearly made a comment about Dick being alright with assassins until they acted like assassins, which was doubly true now that he knew about Slade, but he bit it back.

“You don’t want me living with you, Dick. When we’re done with this, I’ll set up a safe house. The manor was always good to be temporary, but I figured it’d last longer than this.” But he had to get the hell out of there. He couldn’t be around Bruce’s bullshit. Dick: The whole assassin link was also on his mind, but Dick wasn't going to vocalize it. Some things were better left alone. He would rather believe there was nothing more to it than coincidence, otherwise he had a larger problem that needed addressing.

"My place would be temporary too. Honestly, I might just be using you for your dog." Dick didn't like being alone. He never had. The silence was too heavy. Usually he left the television on all night just to have some noise in the background. Jason: “Ace doesn’t like her,” which was true, and annoying, “so maybe.” Better to stay temporarily there than temporarily around Bruce, probably. Dick was undoubtedly going to get on his nerves, but he didn’t send him into absolute rages. “Fine. We do this thing with Deathstroke and I’ll stay there for a few days.” Dick: The sound of Deathstroke's name made him flinch, but Dick didn't even realize it. "Okay. You know where I live, right?" At some point he sent out his new address, but that had been a while ago and he didn't think Jason would have bothered saving it. It wasn't as if Dick regularly entertained people or anything. Jason: Jason rolled his eyes immediately, still too irritated and frustrated to even play dumb. “Yes, I know where you live. I know the things I need to know.” And that included where to find everyone, even if he wasn’t always forthcoming with that information about himself. Dick: "That's ominous." Dick smirked faintly, amused, but he didn't push it. "I'll leave the alarm off." He didn't know when Jason would show up, but given how upset he was, he hoped it was sooner rather than later - especially now that he knew Slade wasn't going to show up on his roof without warning.

#c: discord #jason todd #dick grayson

4 notes · View notes

aion-rsa · 6 years ago

Text

Young Justice Season 3 Episode 22 Review: Antisocial

https://ift.tt/2Z64zvr

The quality rebounds as the focus narrows as Young Justice: Outsiders starts barrelling towards its season finale.

facebook

twitter

tumblr

This Young Justice: Outsiders review contains spoilers.

Young Justice Season 3 Episode 22

Grading on a relative scale, last week's episode of Young Justice was a debacle. It was too busy and too rushed. This week's episode, "Antisocial," fixes almost every problem with "Unknown Factors" by dramatically narrowing its scale. It sacrifices some action in doing so, but this episode really starts thundering towards the finale and pushing plot lines to their inevitable conclusions.

The action starts out focused at the Outsider's Hollywood headquarters. Everyone is recovering from their ordeal in Granny's X-Pit, but the only one nearing death is Dick. Batman grabs Oracle, Robin, Aquaman and Miss Martian for a private conference, and Black Lightning pieces everything together. He figures out that the resignations were staged, and that the team has been sent out on missions in conjunction with the League. He is...really pissed, and it gives us some terrific voice acting.

Khary Payton is best known for his work as Teen Titans/GO!'s Cyborg. He's a versatile, talented voice actor who's doing tons of work in Young Justice that is virtually unidentifiable from his Cyborg, and Cy in those shows is not especially prone to anger. So when he lets rip here, we get a little bit Cyborg, a lot of pent up rage, and he just uncorks in a really entertaining way that helps sell Jeff's fury at being used by Batman. And that rage and sense of betrayal contributes a lot to the most powerful moment of this story line, when Oracle takes Bruce down a peg.

Barbara Gordon is probably the only person on the show who is qualified to and can get away with pushing back on Batman. Yes, Jason Todd is alive and amnesiac and around, but Barbara in a wheelchair is the most visible, powerful and immediately available symbol of a failure of Bruce's mission, and everything this season has been part of or in service to that mission. The whole argument is great character work, especially for characters who have had less than 5 total minutes of screen time for the rest of the season, but it also wonderfully implies a richer world that's not part of the show. "Batman, Inc." was a throwaway line from Black Lightning early in the season because we assumed he'd be part of the actual Outsiders, but they've been operating this whole time while Dick was running his team, Beast Boy was operating his Outsiders, Miss Martian was overseeing The Team, Aqualad was in charge of the League, Wonder Woman had the space contingent under her command, Lex Luthor was starting up Infinity, Inc, and even more. This is a robust superhero universe and every time we get peeks at the greater world, it's exciting.

While all of this is going on, Terra is taking notes to report back to Deathstroke, and Dr. Jace's story is finally paying off. There was some to like here and some to really dislike. Tara Markov's relationship with Slade is approximately infinity percent better than in the comics. Judas Contract's Terra/Deathstroke is supremely gross, the sole stain on an otherwise legendary story. Young Justice removes all the weird lasciviousness and makes them both better characters: Tara is a traumatized, neglected kid being shown a perversion of respect and care by someone who is a bad guy and in all likelihood using her, but at least is being decent enough to give her some paternal affection in the process. They're setting up a parallel between Slade and Batman here - Slade appears to care about Tara, but is really just using her to manipulate events in his favor, while Batman is manipulating everyone around him, but genuinely cares about their well being. It's nice, and pretty slick.

Slade also gives Tara a way to break the Starro-tech inhibitor chips that Jace uses on her and Brion to get them out of the tower and heading towards her "mentor," the Ultra Humanite. She grabs Halo on her way, and they meet up with the Ultra Humanite and Granny, who uses Overlord to take control of Halo, then drops everyone into the X-Pit to finish figuring out the Anti-Life Equation.

This episode has one of the most easy to understand explanations of Anti-Life I've ever heard. It's not a complex mathematical formula like it is in the comics or when I use it on Twitter: it's Life-Free Will=Anti-Life. Halo is a human Mother Box with the safeties ground off, so when she's exposed to the X-Pit's torture and activates her healing aura, that triggers anti-life and makes the person exposed to it a slave to Granny. In this case, Granny tests her observations by shoving Jace out into the torture of the X-Pit and having her explain her entire diabolical plan.

Here is the only part of the episode I didn't care for. Jace goes from brilliant, shady scientist to "WHY WON'T YOU LOVE ME" stereotype in the blink of an eye. She did all her meta-experimenting to make children for herself, and now Brion and Tara are her children and Violet, who isn't a meta at all but is a living, breathing Mother Box, is a disgusting freak who isn't good enough to date her son. And she was only sleeping with Black Lightning to stay near her children. This is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay over the top. She might as well be boiling Count Vertigo's pet rabbit here. It's not great. Eventually, Terra breaks away and frees Geo Force, so Granny and Violet boom tube one way, the Ultra Humanite and Jace boom another, and the kids head back to the tower to break the bad news to Jeff.

Jace's character developments are trash, but everyone else gets a pretty good episode. And the big surprise reveal at the end is that there are two Grannies - one on the space station with the Furies moving metas around the universe, and one running Goode World Studios on Earth - which has some fascinating implications. This was a solid start to the season's endgame.

OUTSIDER TRADING TIPS

- The three people from Luthor's Infinity, Inc. team talking to Stargirl I MEAN Courtney Whitmore are also from Luthor's Infinity, Inc. in the comics. The one talking is Trajectory (confirmed by the end credits), a super speedster. The bald guy is probably Everyman, and the woman in yellow is probably Fury. All three were introduced in 52, the weekly jam comic by Geoff Johns, Mark Waid, Greg Rucka, Grant Morrison, and Keith Giffen that grew out of Infinite Crisis. Trajectory was killed when Luthor turned her powers off mid-run; Everyman shapeshifts into another person by consuming a part of their body, turns into a cannibal who likes the taste of long pig, and was killed by Cupid in Green Arrow & Black Canary; and Fury is Ranma 52: a guy who shapeshifts into a super strong woman with claws.

- Despite being the best Robin, the modern world continues to do Tim Drake dirty. He's a key part of the story here, and he gets no dialogue and his contributions to the discourse amount to a shrug and a head tilt.

- About that ending: comic book logic says that the two Grannies could be anything - hard light projections, clones, time displaced copies, psionic ghosts from the astral plane, secret twins. Literally anything. However, there are two specific things from New Gods lore that could be the explanation.

1. Lump. The Lump was a giant blob created by Granny in the comics to trap Mister Miracle - she would link their minds together and he would be stuck in there forever. Later, Simyan and Mokkari would try and lock Batman in there in Final Crisis, but Batman convinced him to get up and help with an escape. Lump was also a popular theory for what was going on in Tom King and Mitch Gerads' Mister Miracle: that Scott was trapped in an anti-life loop by Darkseid, and Lump was his and Barda's child. That ended up being not the case in an emphatically brilliant way and if you haven't read Mister Miracle yet, you're missing out on one of the finest DC comics of all time and should buy it immediately.

2. According to Multiversity's map of the multiverse, the New Gods exist outside the Orrery of Worlds as platonic forms, casting different shadows down into each distinct universe. So it's possible Gretchen Goode is the Granny of Earth-16, while the Granny on the space station is the Ur-Granny hunting for Anti-Life from outside the 52 known universes. Probably not, but still a fun theory.

Keep up with all our Young Justice: Outsiders news and reviews right here.

Read and download the Den of Geek SDCC 2019 Special Edition Magazine right here!

Books

4/5

DC Universe

facebook

twitter

tumblr

DC Entertainment

Young Justice

Animation

Review Jim Dandy

Aug 13, 2019

from Books https://ift.tt/2KFWF6C

#aion-rsa #Books

1 note · View note