meadowlarklogs | those who died are justified;

( jason has never been a favorite. it's--something he's learned to live with. even with roy, roy had dick first. kori had dick first. babs had dick. bruce always preferred him. hell, damian loves dick best, and that's just. how life is. he's learned to accept it. never being someone's number one in life, always being second best or less.

being. . a best part of someone's life is.

god, damian must have really had an absolute shitfest with it if that's true. jason knows what kind of kid he was. how he never listened. how he started shit without thinking about consequences, the amount of hope being robin brought into his shit existence. he remembers his mother before that, the efforts he went through to protect her, how much it hurt when he found her on the bathroom floor. the shift in his life after dick had handed over his old suit, gave him a phone number to call just in case, because bruce couldn't talk worth jack shit.

that's his biggest problem. don't let it be yours. )

I get it. ( he says finally, turns himself over and sits up to look to damian. keeps his expression carefully neutral. ) What it feels like to have a temper you can't control. How much it hurts when it spills over and you lose it. When you realize how much you've fucked up and you can't take it back. Apologies don't fix that shit. So you just--try and cover it with other shit. Sarcasm. Pretend like it didn't matter at all.

( a breath in, deep. )

I know what being the outcast feels like. The one no one knows how to deal with, so they just--lock you away, throw out the key. Trying to talk about it just comes out a fucking mess, because everything feels like a mess and you don't know how to deal with it. The hurt, the pain, the anger. ( and he lowers his breath, lets the hurt bleed into his expression and tone. ) I don't want that for you. Not ever again.

I know.

[ He gestures, asking if he can sit. He's terrible at this, but - but if he makes it more about Jason, about reaching Jason, he can do it. ]

I become a worse person without you. [ It's true, and he knows it. That Jason's death was the catalyst that made them all worse. It shut Bruce down, it drove Dick and Tim further away, it left him unmoored and without a guide for a world he truly didn't understand. His childhood ended the day they found Jason. ] You can bend over backwards to try to protect me, but that isn't what I need. I don't need to be saved. I don't need you to break yourself or get yourself killed to make my life better, I just need you here.

( this is different. this--is an entirely new set of emotions tied to being around jason todd, menace to society. annoying asshole, crimelord. he's not used to this. to people saying they need him like this. want him around. damian asks to sit and jason moves to give him a little more room, at least.

but jesus, he can't handle conversations like this. )

I fucked up big time, before getting kidnapped here. ( maybe he'll just try and fuck himself over instead. ) I made a promise, a genuine one. I wanted to be part of the family again, after years of--not being around. I promised not to leave blood in Gotham, promised myself. No deaths. But I tried to break it the moment shit hit the fan.

( this damian doesn't care about killing shit, though. )

If I can't even keep a promise I made to myself, I sure as hell can't keep any I make to you. I can't promise to be here, 'cause I am a piece of shit. I'm not trustworthy. I'll fuck everything up again.

You're not the one who isn't trustworthy... but disappointing yourself is worse than anything I or my father could ever say or do to you.

[ He sits. Resting his elbows on his knees, knotting his fingers tightly between them. ]

I'm not going to abandon you over a little bit of bloodshed. Some people deserve to die. Honestly, truly deserve it and the world is better off without them.

[ A glance up. He doesn't see any indication that Dick is here - and despite the thrill of anxiety that it gives him not to be able to see him, he lowers his gaze. ]

I keep forgetting you have no context for why.

You don't have to tell that to me. Grew up in the gutters, remember? I've seen--well. enough.

( that's forgetting his own death, even. the kind of bullshit he's seen joker pull after. just the crap he saw as a kid was enough to make jason realize some people really do deserve to die. that not everything can be fixed by bars or drugs. that a bullet would save so many other lives in a lot of cases.

jason doesn't go into it. instead he leans into damian a little, raises a hand to ruffle his hair. )

's not what I did that's bad. It's that I swore I wouldn't. That I abused what little trust I'd earned back, and for what? Letters written by my piece of shit old man, for crusty revenge that wouldn't help anyone, especially not me.

I know. [ He tolerates it, as he always does. ]

You shouldn't have done it. If you made that promise to yourself, you shouldn't have done it for your own sake. But what's passed has past.

[ He exhales. ]

And you matter more than your mistakes.

( considering how hard damian holds onto his own mistakes--hearing him spout out this is--surprising. but jason understands the sentiment behind the words. understands what he's getting at. )

Make you a deal, D. ( hand slipping out of his his hair to wrap around shoulders, instead. )

I'll work on believing that if you do the same.

[ He should have expected that. He looks at Jason briefly at the contact, then away. To the floor. ]

Not all of mine were mistakes.

Not all of mine were either.

( softly, leaning into damian. this is still fucking weird, but he can handle it--for his snotnosed baby brother. )

I won't leave you, promise.

[ He exhales slowly. Leaning against Jason's shoulder, going quiet. All of this started because Jason thought he needed to do something to get him to talk. ]

We've killed a lot of people, Jason.

Dick doesn't need to know that. 'least, not about you.

( everyone already knows jason todd is the fuck up. that's fine. damian presses in close and jason sure as hell isn't going to stop him. just. rests his cheek against the top of his hair. )

We didn't kill anyone. We just executed the garbage. It's different.

No.

[ He goes quiet again. ]

Jason, I'm not a good person. I haven't done good things. They were all for the greater good, but...

You are a good person.

( don't argue against him, nerd. there's a huff of air that leaves his lips, but jason's not moving away. doesn't try for eye contact. )

You do shit things for good reasons. I get that. Hell, I get that better than most. But you're trying.

[ ... ]

You can't say that without knowing context.

Then give me context, and I'll say it again.

[ A long, slow exhale. He looks up again, looks up to see if Dick is listening - even though he knows he isn't here, can't hear this. ]

( damian braces himself, and jason--waits. doesn't push. doesn't demand, because he knows how well that works out for them.

read: not at all. damian will open his mouth when he feels like it or not at all. )

[ He doesn't even know where to begin. There's been so much - and starting from the beginning won't do anything, not when there's so much to tell. ]

You died. You died and the old man did nothing. He let the Joker go, he let him keep killing. He let him you, and Lois, and eleven million people. Superman stopped him. He put his hand through the clown's chest and ripped out his heart, and my old man was so bent out of shape about it that suddenly Kal wasn't a person to him anymore.

[ ... ]

Kal went after Arkham. And you know how he is about it - what is that Bat going to do if all the freaks aren't getting sprung every other week? I told him that. Let him take them, let him kill them if that's what he wants to do, and he shut me out. I was dead to him that day. He fell out with the rest of the League and created his own little rebellion. He even took in the clown's sidekick, the one who helped him kill all those people.

[ He's leaving out details, but he doesn't need to say that part. Jason already knows the gist - not the why or the how, but the outcome. ]

After that we made changes. Big changes. We tore apart the world's governments and rebuilt it from the ground up, we made it all one Earth and not a bunch of broken parts. We ended war and poverty. But we were fighting a war - with the Insurgency. With the Green Lanterns. Apokolips. The Greek Gods. We killed, we joined up with the Yellow Lanterns, we rubbed shoulders with Ares. But we ended wars because we weren't afraid to end it.

But when I wasn't paying attention, Zsasz got out. He killed Alfred. Left him on the floor of the Batcave on his birthday. When we caught him [ ... ] I disabled the security cameras in his cell. And I tortured him. Slowly. For hours. Until he told me which cut was Alfred's. And then he bled out on the floor.

I killed so many people -- but I'm not ashamed of any of it.

( damian goes on, and on, and on, and jason's careful to keep a nice, neutral expression on his face. careful not to show exactly what's going through his head because god.

jason doesn't follow bruce's line of thought re: the joker. does think that assholes do deserve to be put down. but taking away an entire fucking planet's freedom for the sake of peace is absolute bullshit. that's not peace. that's a dictatorship. one that's absolutely bound to fail because people don't like their wings being taken away from them. he can't even fucking imagine what went through damian's mind to make him think going along with it was a good idea. he knows what it's like to be controlled. ended war and poverty--absolute bullshit. that doesn't happen. there's always war, even if it's not out in the open. always poverty, even if it can't be seen.

damian sounds like a goddamn lunatic.

but jason also realizes that he's not going to be able to hide his reaction long at all. and damian can smell a lie a mile away. )

You know how all of that sounds, right? To my ears. I don't give a shit about the bodies, I know where you stand on that line. But the overtaking governments. No poverty, no wars.

You sound like an asshole who came into power and abused the hell out of it. Who doesn't give a shit about anyone's way except his. Who gets pissed and gets rid of anything that gets in the way of their goddamn world.

( like bruce. )

[ And just like that, his walls are slamming down. He wrenches away from Jason's touch, his expression wounded before it shifts to anger. You can't trust anyone - not a single person - to see why any of it needed to be done. ]

You have no idea what the hell you're talking about.

( he gets that too. turning everything that hurts into rage. wow. damian really is jason's mini-me, just deadlier. but he doesn't--react in turn. stays on the couch, shrugs his shoulders. )

Yeah, I do.

But just because I disagree with your choices doesn't mean I love you any less.

( there it is, the "L" word. said actually seriously, not in jest. )

[ His hands ball into fists, so tight the nails rip into his palms. the word disarms him, leaves him unbalanced and hurting and unsure how to react. ]

... We did what needed to be done. [ And he knows that with the Regime gone, with a government built of his father's choosing, the world has gone right back to war. To destroying the environment. To reducing the planet to nothing.

it's not the regime that he's ashamed of. it's what came after. ]

You took away the freedom to choose.

( gently still, and jason--stands up. moves to make his way to the beer stash in some corner close to the couch. )

For what it's worth--sorry.

You talk like governments haven't been doing that for years. They turn a blind eye to the people suffering and dying to line their own pockets. They wage wars because they can only think of their own bottom lines - what about that is about the freedom of their people? Democracy became about just picking the lesser of two evils, based upon whoever in the one percent had more money and empty promises to throw around.

We made the world a better place. It wasn't about power. It was about stopping another Metropolis. And you never had to live that.

[ He's glaring. Defensive and tense... but he lets out a breath. forces himself to be calm. ]

Fine. It's -- fine.

( damian is right, but so is jason. that even what damian's talking about is one of two evils, just. take away the choice of it. democracy is a fucking lie. governments are just crime rings dressed up to look nice and pretty. that's not the point. )

I'm not gonna argue with you. Not now. ( not when he's still apologizing for fucking up, thank you. ) You're stubborn as hell and nothing is going to change your mind. I respect that. But I don't agree with you.

( fingers wrap around the lip of a beer bottle, pull off the cap before he's raising it to his lips. jason isn't drunk enough for this, goddamn. )

Dick's not gonna agree with you either, y'know.

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