Izuku bounces on his feet as Kacchan steps off the platform, unable to keep the smile off his face as red eyes catch sight of him. He waves, a tad manically.
"Kacchan!" He yells, ignoring the looks he gets. "Over here!"
Kacchan is followed over by several other, familiar looking people. A man that can only be Chargebolt leans forward.
"Oho! Who's this?"
"My pet stalker."
"Kacchan, that's not very nice," Izuku says absently.
Kacchan ruffles Izuku's hair with more force than necessary.
"I'm not very nice."
"That is true!" Chargebolt grins, stroking his chin faux-thoughtfully.
"So," Kacchan says next. "What's new in nerd-land?"
"Oh! Um, well... Did you read that paper I sent you?"
"That thing on fuckin' Freezerburn?"
"Yeah, about the indicators! Like how you've got your mom's skin-"
"I don't want to hear about my mom's skin." Kacchan groans.
Too bad.
"- Your mom's skin" Izuku continued, "as well as your quirk in your palms and-"
Izuku cuts himself off this time. Red Riot (his hair's not that bad, Kacchan) is waving his hand in the air like a student. So was the Alien Queen, with a shit-eating grin on her face, and then Chargebolt also started to flail about and nearly hit-
"Oh my god! Are you Cellophane?!"
"Not if he knows what's good for him." Kacchan mutters.
"It's an honour to meet you! I'm a big fan! I really loved what you did last week in that fight with Athenium- actually, um, wait, I think I have-"
He starts to rummage through his bag, but Kacchan is faster and snatches his notebook out with a hiss.
"No. They don't know you. We're not doing this."
"Kacchan." Izuku frowns.
"No."
Red Riot seems unable to contain himself any longer.
"Bakubro, who is this guy?" he shouts, at the same time as Alien Queen cheers.
"This must be that guy that Katsuki's always-"
Kacchan whirls around and slaps Izuku's notebook over her mouth, because he is an oaf with no respect for other people or their property. Izuku is what, Kacchan?
Whatever. Izuku brought extra notebooks today, just in case. He pulls one out, and a pen, and then Cellophane takes the pen? And Izuku's notebook? Oh, he's signing the notebook, that's nice of him.
"Here you go," Cellophane smiles, handing it back.
Izuku already has three Cellophane signatures that Kacchan mailed to him through Auntie, because Kacchan is the best but also weird, but this is cool too. Izuku will have to cut it out and paste it in his album later.
What he actually wants to know is-
"Um, what's your name? I can't call you Cellophane when you're on vacation..." He flips open to a new page, ready to start writing...
The silence stretches too long. He looks up to find Cellophane looking at him uncertainly.
"Actually..." Cellophane starts slowly-
"That's what we wanna ask you!" Chargebolt shouts excitedly, and then Kacchan steals Izuku's notebook, again, and his bag, and Izuku has more important things to worry about than social niceties.
"Bakugou Katsuki!" he screeches. "Get back here!"
He starts running after Kacchan, who must have lost his mind on the train ride over if he thinks Izuku is going to let him get away with this. He'll tell Auntie! He will!
Auntie will just laugh at him if Izuku tells her that Kacchan has taken up purse-snatching but she'll laugh at Kacchan too, and then Kacchan will be really annoyed, just like Izuku is right now, and he's taking up running as a hobby first thing tomorrow because he's tired now already and curse Kacchan's longer legs, Izuku is going to cut them off-
They leave the Bakusquad blinking in their dust.
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in your fic “paint it over” is that how you imagine jason making it out of the explosion at the end of utrh? not exactly the events that follow, but the preferable characterization of bruce digging jay out of the rubble and carrying him to help. and how do you think jason made it out canonically (without the help of bruce) also!!! what are your thoughts on the specifics of jason’s scar and how he’d behave toward it. i liked the part of your fic where jason was temporarily unable to speak due to the trauma his neck received. i think the scar is something that rests on the junction of his shoulder/neck, and that can be hidden with whatever clothes he wears -> no one knows he has it (or how he got it) either. i like to imagine while bruce knows his batarang made contact with jason’s throat it’s never fully registered to him that it scarred until he sees it for himself (and while i believe bruce would turn the moment in head over and over again until it’s engraved in his brain, his delayed realization—to me—is due to his repression of the occurrence)
oh i adore this whole ask. some of it i explained in my notes, but this fanfic is quite dear to me, so i will elaborate.
short answer to whether this is how i imagine jay making it out of the explosion: not exactly?
the premise that i wanted to explore with paint it over is almost the opposite of a fix-it, and definitely not what i believe it should be in canon.
what i wished to explore there is, however, the part of utrh that is perhaps the most shocking to many readers: that bruce leaves jason to die.
in-universe, i think the answer why it happens is surprisingly simple enough: bruce does not come because he is just... not there. my understanding is, that in a way, the events of under the red hood did not happen. there is nothing to follow. that purple mist in the finale of the utrh, that is often read as a force resurrecting jason (not technically wrong, either)- i believe that is the timeline already rewriting itself, making the whole story into something that was not.
and the reason for the above is the infinite crisis. if i'm not wrong, it's also the inifinite crisis miniseries where bruce meets dick right after the explosions in (or of) bludhaven-- that in batman clearly happens in the background of his confrontation with jay. however, in infinite crisis (#4, just checked it now), bruce tells dick: "i wanted to make sure...you're alright... i was in new york when it hit. got here as soon as i could." which could be a lie or a matter of the editorial not being synced enough- but i'm willing to give them a benefit of the doubt given how it ties with that sudden, stunted ending of utrh.
this makes sense for canon for several reasons. in the animated movie, since it spares us the infinite crisis tie-in, bruce says of the whole incident: this changes nothing. it changes nothing because although aditf isn't, utrh is a tragedy; it changes nothing because since his death, jason is necessarily always pushed at the peripheries of the narrative, no matter how much the fate itself tries to fix it, becoming a tragic footnote. the dead have one right and it's the right to remain silent. and that is ironically ensured on a cosmic level, with his violent attempt at being seen hidden in the folds of the timeline. you can also see it clearly in canon -- i believe it was not until the infinite frontier that the events of utrh got just tangentially mentioned (before that, even lobdell barely touched upon it). other than that, they have no consequences; they are barely ever spoken of; they seem to slip out even from jay's solo comics.
this move was necessary for batman, as a character and as a title: let's say bruce does hold red hood as he does in the alt cover of annual 25 (and the cover of the deluxe edition of utrh.) that would implore a reckoning with his failure and his (suddenly non-productive) grief that would either reconstruct the whole myth or lead to some terrifying implications. these terrifying implications are, essentially, what paint it over is about. it's about the worst happening and about there being no way back from it. and jason, in receiving what he wanted (his father's love and care) wants to deny that reality. they both want to. yet even jay cannot ignore it completely -- and i chose to use the batarang injury to emphasize it.
and about the scar: i mentioned it briefly before, but in the au jason aggravates the wounds on purpose, hence it will scar worse and cause long-term issues for his voice. it's a theme i also keep in some of my other stories (to come...) and i very much think this is what would happen in canon if he had to take care of that injury. yet as it healed, i believe he'd take to hiding it, mostly. still, as it stands, my primary take might be that in canon (if it was to follow the interference into the timeline from the crisis at least) jason would simply end up with no scar at all, and only memories for evidence of what happened, which is perhaps worse for him too (but of course better for bruce. and as it happens, this is bruce wayne's story and everyone else is just living in it- or dies in it- for better or worse. and if we're ignoring that metaphysical timeline bullshit, as you said, i believe bruce would repress it all anyway.)
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