#there’s a sort of narrative here of. jason had to die in order for Tim to become Robin. sure.

[tbcanary]

thinking about jason and dick. thinking about how when jason was robin, dick was too hurt and angry at bruce to really be there for jason as a mentor and older brother. thinking about how dick is with tim, how he very clearly wants to take him in as a younger brother and show him the ropes, and how he and jason could have gotten there, too, if they had more time to figure it out.

[watchtower-feed]

Death Do We Part (Part 5)

SSA Spin-off ✧ Jason Todd ✧ Physical Link ✧ 1 ✧ 2 ✧ 3 ✧ 4 ✧ 5 ✧ 6 ✧ 7 ✧ 8 ✧ 9 ✧ 10 ✧ 11 ✧ 12 ✧ 13 ✧ 14 ✧ 15 ✧ Notes: (NSFW) WARNING: No rape but the narrative sort of resonates it. Don’t let the summary fool you. This is not a happy one. For the benefit of those who can’t read this, I’m going to mention the events of this part in the next one so you don’t need to read this to appreciate the whole story.  Words: 2,000+

      You bite your lips and rest your head against the back of the chair. You pinch yourself twice. You still know how each blow felt like and sometimes your muscles would spasm when you see it in your head. The moving room. The floor meeting your face. That crowbar that you now know was used to beat up Jason.

      You can still feel the sudden sucking air before the huge blast knocks your body away and the loss of all feeling before you even hit the ground. You lost your consciousness mid-air. You wonder if it was because of the strength of the blast or the sensitivity of your link, but from what Dick had told you, your body was thrown against the wall by an invisible force.

      You hug yourself and watch new writing appear.

      Did it hurt?

      You lay your head to the side. Exhausted from this conversation. Already tired of this second life.

       Jason, please. Come home.

      Jason didn’t stop talking to you after that. When he finally realized that you had nothing to do with everything, that you were just a victim, even more than he was, he felt that he could trust you more. It also helped that his memories were slowly returning ever since he found out about his death.

      At least I never accidentally called my friend’s mother ‘mom’.

      How? Are your memories back? Do you remember everything now? AND THAT WAS ONE TIME.

      More than ever, he tries to avoid any topic of where he is and you’re more than upset by this. Most of the time the past was all you talked about. He would boast about his Robin days and tell you how exciting it felt and the fulfillment he experienced from putting bad guys away.

     Sometimes he would talk about his exercises with the League but lying about its nature and intensity. At least you finally realize why your body always feels fatigued. 

      However, he did become more careful after that. There were no more cuts, not even a bruise or a stinging slap. But not because Jason was getting better. No. It was because he stopped putting himself in danger, just dodging and retreating.

      This made Ra’s Al Ghul very disappointed.

      “At this rate, the boy will take over the Bat with old age on his side.”

      Talia purses her lips, “Jokes, father? I thought that was beneath you.”

      “No, daughter,” Ra’s approaches his daughter, “this boy is beneath the League. We need to take him out of his comfort zone and release the anger simmering inside. The same anger that got him killed.”

      “But father--”

      “With our training, daughter, it won’t get him for a second time.”

      Talia stands silently by the sidelines until Ra’s approaches her on his way to leave the balcony where they watch Jason and Sensei training. “Do it now, daughter.”

      Jason sees them and he knows they know he’s slacking off. The moment Talia approaches them, Sensei has already finished training Jason and walks off after a bow to the Demon Head’s daughter.

      She stands with her arms crossed and looking down at Jason.

      “Let me guess,” he starts, “Not enough shoulder in my punches?”

      Her eyes narrow, “We are not teaching you how to maim, Jason. We want you to act on instinct. Be resourceful. Be merciless. So you can kill your enemies before they can even breathe your name.”

      Jason clenches his fist, “There’s only one person I want to kill so I can get my life back.”

      Talia raises an eyebrow, “And you think you can take him on now? With the way you are? You would be dead a second time before you even meet his eyes.”

      He turns away from her, gritting his teeth. Talia sighs and places her hand on his shoulder. “There is another thing you have to know. Follow me. Please.”

      There’s a sudden change in Talia’s demeanor. Her voice is softer and she never says please. Jason could already feel it in his stomach that this is not good news. He follows her down the corridors until he’s in an unfamiliar room.

      It was a lot bigger and it looked a lot nicer than his room. He stands awkwardly near the door when he realizes it was Talia’s room. She pulls out a brown envelope from the drawer in her desk. She sits down on her bed and pats the space beside her.

      “You would want to sit for this.”

      All awkwardness had vanished and Jason is hesitant now. He wonders if it’s something he wants to know. Something he needs to know. Talia leaves the envelope on the bed and waits for Jason to open it himself.

      The moment he touches it, she speaks, “Why do you want to go back to your old life, Jason?”

      Jason instinctively pulls down on his sleeves, “Because it’s my life.”

      “The League can be your life now. We didn’t bring you back for you to simply die again.”

      Jason scoffs, “Trust me. I’m done dying for the next couple of decades.”

      She narrows her eyes, “You’ll die as soon as tomorrow if you don’t start taking your training seriously.”

      “I’ve already had training!” Jason blows up, “You’re training me to be an assassin. Not just any assassin but into one of your little drones here in the League. I don’t want this life.”

      “Jason, we do good work here. We help citizens trample their oppressors and help societies be reborn from the ashes of their failures--”

      “You mean the ashes of their families! Men! Women! Children! Guilty and innocent! You just kill everyone.”

      “We are trying to do good just like Batman.”

      He scoffs with so much disbelief that Talia would even say that, “He doesn’t kill--”

      “But you want to,” Talia holds his hands, trying to calm him with half-lidded eyes. “Once you kill the Joker, that scum on this Earth who kills for joy, Gotham can never be your home. Batman will never accept you.” Jason stays silent and Talia presses on, squeezing his hands, “If he asks you to choose, could you walk away from killing the Joker in order to have your old life back?”

      “I--” he stammers before he thinks about it. Then he really thinks about it and he doesn’t know.

      Every time he gets flashes of his last memories, his blood boils and all he can hear is the incessant maniacal laughter piercing into deep wounds that are no longer there. Then he remembers you. Feeling everything he felt. Every single blow. Every slam against the pavement.

      Before Jason could find his answer, Talia gently lets go of his hands and holds out the envelope to him. In a whisper, she says, “There’s nothing for you to go home to, Jason.”

      Jason’s thoughts melt away. He stares at the envelope and grabs it. He doesn’t know what to expect. He opens the envelope and his fist is already clenching the photos as he takes them out, “No--- what.”

      They’re images of Batman fighting crime in Gotham city with another Robin. There are no dates on it but he knows in his gut it’s not Dick Grayson and it’s not him. It’s a new Robin. His new Robin.

      To Bruce, it has been two years. But to Jason, he was his Robin just weeks ago.

      Jason keeps staring at the photos with his mouth wide open but no word could come out. Talia touches him. She waits until he looks at her.

      “This can be your new home. We can be your new family and the League always takes care of its own.” She watches something behind his eyes change, soften, no, break. Slowly, she pries his fingers open until the pictures fall onto the ground. Jason just keeps staring at her as her hands wrap around his neck and pull him onto the bed with her, above her.

      “I wish you would stay. Stay here,” she brushes his hair, her eyes half-lidded, making Jason’s do the same, “with me.”

      You’re down in the cave, listening to Tim tell you about school and ignoring Batman sitting by the computer when you feel it. You touch your lips to find that they’re quivering, or it’s your fingers that are shaking because that was definitely a kiss.

      “Hey. You okay?” 

      Suddenly numb to everything around you, you can feel soft lips pressing hard against yours, moving intensely, hungry. When a tongue forces its way into your mouth, playing with yours, it feels like something is lodged in your throat, making your body bend over to gag.

      “Y/N!” Tim holds your shoulders but you quickly slap them away. Bruce is standing now and making his way to you.

      “What do you feel?” he asks.

      What do you feel? You feel like vomiting. You feel like someone is invading your space. You feel like you’re growing insane because you don’t want this but at the same time, it’s making you feel good.

      “No… no…” you grumble. “It’s not me. These aren’t mine…”

      Bruce’s eyes narrowed, “Is it Jason’s?”

      You blink and your eyes are blurry with tears when you open them. Who else could it be? But this means. Jason is…

      When you feel it, the abrupt touch on the ghost limb between your legs, you know exactly what’s going on. “I can’t--”

      You run deep into the cave until you can no longer hear Tim or Bruce’s voice but you know at least one of them is chasing after you. “Please don’t follow me!” you scream as loud as you can and the last of their steps echo into nothing. 

      You lean against the jagged wall and the darkness envelops you until you can’t hear your own strangled cries, corrupting you until all you feel is Jason having sex. 

      Her touch on his skin. Her tongue on his collarbone. Her hand tangling in his hair, pulling him to her. Her wet pussy’s walls pressing down on him until Jason can’t hold it in anymore-- until you can’t hold it in.

      When he comes, it feels like ecstasy. Like you’re on cloud nine and your eyes are half-lidded in the darkness. You’re breathing loud and it’s labored with saliva pooling in your mouth. Then as the crash came down, all you’re left feeling are your own emotions. You feel violated. You feel repulsed. You feel cheated and betrayed.

      You weren’t the one having sex but your body didn’t feel it like it was its own. Like she was touching you.

      You drop onto your knees as you heave, vomiting every single remnant of your last meal until only acid is crawling slowly up your throat. You cough and retch some more, willing for everything to leave your body and your mind. This isn’t something you want on your skin. In your memories. You don’t want this.

      “Y/N,” Tim’s voice is a whisper in the darkness. You wouldn’t see him even if you looked. You push your face down closer to the ground, coughing and screaming. Screaming loud. “Y/N!”

      “Don’t touch me!”

      Your voice echoes in the darkness, like a shield permeating outward until it hits Tim and makes him stop in his tracks.

     “Don’t touch me…” you whisper.

      Tim doesn’t make a sound. He doesn’t come close. He doesn’t do anything but stands there in the darkness like another one of the cave’s walls. You scream at the ground again, your strangled voice laced with frustration.

      “I don’t want this link anymore!” you heave in breaths as words come out of your mouth like acid vomit, “I don’t want it! Take it away!”

      Tim waits patiently, his fists clenching and unclenching as your screams surround you like a blanket piled on top of each other. Words coming out before one was even finished. Until finally your words turn into murmurs and sobs. Intermittent sobs because Tim can hear now that you’re hyperventilating.

      He doesn’t touch you but he kneels down so close it almost makes you want to vomit again.

      “Y/N. It’s me, Tim. It’s just you and me here. No one else.”

      You close your eyes. To you, he’s lying. You can still feel the slender and soft fingers combing your hair and legs wrapped around your thighs. 

      You crouch lower, willing yourself to not adjust to the darkness. Still heaving breaths like you’re drowning.

      “Y/N, you can stop the link. You just have to stop thinking of Jason.” You stare at the ground in front of you. You can almost see it. Tim watches you and waits for your breathing to change before he keeps going. 

      “Feel the ground beneath your hands. Let your fingertips rub the rough surface. That’s it.” Some rocks become uprooted and they roll under your fingers. You can also feel the coldness and dampness of the cave. 

      “You feel that? Focus on how it feels. That’s all you. That’s just you.”

      Hours. It was hours before you sat up and leaned against the wall. Tim never moved a muscle while he waited. You can feel the cold wall soothing your back and you focus on that feeling. You focus on your feelings. Your breath, your heart, and the things touching your own skin at this moment. These are your own and no one else’s.

✧ 1 ✧ 2 ✧ 3 ✧ 4 ✧ 5 ✧ 6 ✧ 7 ✧ 8 ✧ 9 ✧ 10 ✧ 11 ✧ 12 ✧ 13 ✧ 14 ✧ 15 ✧

✧ Watchtower Masterlist ✧

[bigskydreaming]

LOL so I’m gonna say something that a lot of people are gonna HATE, because of what it does to the usually preferred canons or headcanons of how Dick goes to live with Bruce after his parents die.

But there is one more reason that I prefer the juvie origin for Dick, beyond what I’ve said in the past, and its that....

There is no possible way for Dick to go straight to living with a single billionaire in his early twenties RIGHT after his parents died, or even just a week or two after that....unless Bruce abused the FUCK out of the system himself, in order to get Dick in his house.

And I don’t see any reason why Bruce would go to the lengths of bribes or calling in ‘favors’ that would be needed to expedite the OBSCENE amount of bureaucratic red tape he would need to navigate before any judge would let him become a minor’s sole guardian - especially considering he undoubtedly had no paperwork or had undergone any of the interviews or visitations or hoops demanded of prospective foster parents BEFORE they take in their first kid....

Unless he really truly had reason to believe that every viable alternative to him greasing the wheels like he HAD to have, in order to get Dick there with any kind of swiftness.....like, I honestly don’t see a mid-twenties Bruce Wayne, with his myriad of issues and his own self-image, honestly thinking that he’s SUCH a better candidate for taking care of this traumatized eight year old kid that he’s going to cut any corner he possibly can to speed up the process....unless he was utterly convinced the alternatives were so much worse.

Like say, if he found out that the system had decided the best thing for Dick was to be tossed into juvie.

I mean....the process for fostering a kid, becoming a legal guardian, ANY which way you go about that....its not as simple as just, signing a few papers. No matter WHO you are, UNLESS you leverage that ‘who you are’ bit to get people to step on the gas to a degree far beyond anything they’re supposed to allow. 

It takes TIME. 

And even in scenarios wherein Bruce takes Dick in as a kind of witness protection while Zucco is on the loose - first off, that’s far more unrealistic than even the juvie take because like....the police HAVE protocols for that sort of thing. They don’t just hand over a kid to the first civilian who steps up and volunteers.

Honestly, the canons and headcanons where Bruce just ‘arranges’ for Dick to come stay with him almost immediately after his parents’ murder....like, they honestly skeeve me even more than the juvie thing, because of how matter of fact people are about it? Y’know? Like nobody seems to see anything wrong with the idea that a billionaire just, with zero prior experience or qualifications just says “oh I’ll take this boy home with me” and everybody goes “yes sir, well you’re a billionaire so if you want him, you got him,” like....it treats Dick like a toy. That’s not how things work, and its not how things SHOULD work....and most importantly IMO, I can’t fathom Bruce thinking that he’s the best option for Dick to such a degree that he’d break all the rules in order to get custody that fast. For that matter, if he really could arrange all that, in spite of the way the process is supposed to go, then shouldn’t it beg the question “why couldn’t Bruce pull similar strings to ensure Dick could stay with the circus, the people there who clearly loved him and wanted him to stay?”

And honestly, I kinda feel like the way people have reduced that whole process to the shorthand of “well Bruce is the good guy and we know with the benefit of hindsight that he’s Dick’s dad in every way that counts, so of course Dick has to end up living with him, so why NOT quicken the process to just a few days”....like, I feel like that actually contributes a lot, albeit unintentionally, to this tendency to take Dick for granted both in universe and out of universe, because it lends this air of like...’only the destination matters, the end result.’ Which is usually how Dick gets screwed in most cases....because people only ever look at the end result of his stories, the last position he ends up with...and completely fail to consider any of the steps in between that happened along the way, and all the things that might have happened alongside each of those steps, that lends important context to his final position in a given story.

Like this idea that well Dick has to end up with Bruce, that’s the part that matters, so its not really all that important how or why.....I feel like that really has a lot to do with how it so often gets just accepted at face value that Dick’s the one in the wrong for keeping his distance from Bruce at later points in life, or for leaving the manor, or for digging in his heels with stuff....because it all loops back into this mindset that “everyone knows Bruce loves Dick, the best place for Dick is in the manor with Bruce, ergo, everything else - like how he comes to live with Bruce or his reasons for storming out of the manor - are semantics, irrelevant details, etc.”

Except...they’re not.

And so again, as an example like....you can’t really just cut out the entire process of Dick coming to live with Bruce...because it really, truly, EXTREMELY doesn’t make SENSE for Bruce to get custody that fast without having SOME kind of leverage.....and it similarly doesn’t make SENSE for him to think he’s so clearly the most qualified person to take in this traumatized kid (no matter how much he empathized with him), that he would circumvent the system he USUALLY is so militaristic about upholding as much as he possibly can, while still being a vigilante. And that last bit sure doesn’t feel in character for Bruce, from that particular angle.

UNLESS.

Unless he’d discovered the system had MASSIVELY FUCKED UP with Dick, and he no longer trusted it with him whatsoever....and so THEN he took matters into his own hands, and did whatever necessary to get custody of Dick ASAP - realistically helped along by the MASSIVE leverage Bruce would have had at his disposal if he threatened to publicize what they’d done to this eight year old orphan.

THAT, to me, feels far more realistic, and far more in character for Bruce....and it at no point takes for granted any of Dick’s own personal journey along the way, or renders it irrelevant or an unnecessary detail.

Idk, maybe its just me, but I’ve always been super uncomfortable with the level of detail fandom puts into fleshing out Jason and Tim’s backstories (and with precedent established by his taking in Dick, any of his later kids would have had very expedited custody arrangements....but that makes it MORE likely that the FIRST kid and the process of gaining custody of him would include hoops that later kids’ stories wouldn’t), while at the same time, hollowing out Dick’s origin story to a barebones outline of ‘well his parents died and then this and this happened and then he lived with Bruce and became Robin and happily ever after until he hit his teenage years and developed an attitude problem.’

Like, there’s just something very....unsettling about how much fandom has romanticized the idea that this billionaire with a quite frankly TERRIBLE public reputation, like this is a guy who has DEDICATED himself to appearing totally irresponsible as far as the rest of the world can tell.....and just....being like ‘oh hey, no big deal about this guy of all guys just being like hey I see you have an eight year old orphan there, howzabout I take him off your hands for you’...and fandom’s like....swoon. Y’know? I mean yes, WE know Bruce is a superhero, WE know that years of cute Batman and Robin and father and son bonding would lie ahead of those two after that.....but...ANY scenario in which Gotham is like....yeah we see no problems with just letting Brucie Wayne take a traumatized orphan home to live in his big old manor with him....like..yeah. 

I mean, even as I’m typing this out, I’m thinking that yeah, there is something to be said for streamlining the process in the name of escapism, so that there’s a smoother, easier transition for this poor kid and he doesn’t have to go through so much.....BUT like at the same time, its one thing when we’re talking cute fluff stories and others when the angst is clearly a focal point of the story and yet the story STILL romanticizes this....Daddy Warbucks swoops in to save little Orphan Annie and like, this is definitively treated as like....nobody should be raising objections to this or being like wait a second....

Because the latter feels less like its being done in the name of escapism and more, like....in that sense I was talking about where it all loops back to how often Dick gets reduced to a prop within his own narratives like...things happen because they HAVE to happen, not because like....he’s a person going through things that inform the choices he makes and the things that happen from there, yknow?

Or maybe its one of those things where its like....I feel like that story is one that’s meant for a different time, at this point? Like, there WAS a time when the billionaire swooping in to take the poor orphan off to live in a manor was the kind of escapism people were looking for, but we do live in a different time now where I think most of us would agree like...wait, a decision that big deserves more than being treated like the billionaire just stops in to shop around for an orphan to accessorize with, kinda?

Idk, I feel like I’m not explaining this well, the precise reasons this disturbs me so much, which is why I’ve never posted about this particular angle before, but its been on my mind a lot lately, so maybe it makes more sense than I think it does here? LOL.

*Shrugs* Idk, I just honestly do feel in the long run and in the big picture, Dick’s personhood is ironically better preserved in the scenario where he was definitively stripped of it by an uncaring system and thrown into the last place he should’ve been....with Bruce then, upon discovering this, moving heaven and hell to see that personhood or awareness of personhood, more accurately, restored to Dick, no matter what it took, even if he had to do it himself. Because again, I also think that there’s a heeeeell of a lot of hubris in Bruce thinking that he was equipped to care for this kid right off the bat....and its not even that I don’t think he is (because I think Bruce really was a good father to Dick in their early years, and the majority of their problems arose later, when Bruce was unable to reconcile that this kid he’d once thought himself so alike to was growing into a man with his own ideas and choices that Bruce couldn’t understand or relate to). 

Again, I think its more that I don’t truly see BRUCE actually having that degree of confidence that he’s truly a good fit for taking care of Dick, not being more worried that all his issues and his focus as Batman would be a deterrent....unless he had an external kick in the ass that made him feel like no, I don’t trust this job to anyone else at this point, so I HAVE to be up to the task myself, its that simple.