(no subject)

[prodigaljaybird]

Sometimes, Jason thinks he feels too much.

He doesn't notice it often, but sometimes, he'll feel eyes on him. Gazes lingering too long after an outburst, mouths hanging open when it's Jason who's done the shouting. He feels too much, and he can't help it. Not even when he's asleep.

Nightmares are old hat. He had them before Bruce, before the desert and the Joker and his crowbar. He had them before he was propelled into a Soviet bunker to be stabbed to death by his best friend, and before he ever went back to Gotham and saw his memorial case. He's had them for so long that to sleep a night through is the exception, so Jason doesn't know why they're getting to him so much of late, why they're getting worse.

He's done so much in his life that others want him to apologize for, things that Jason knows in his bones were necessary and right. He's stubbornly fought every accusation of wrongdoing ever made to him, and so, it's with surprise that he finally comes to recognize the weight pressing down on him, interrupting his dreams, is guilt.

Jason wakes up in the dead of night. The hut is silent but for the breeze pressing in against it, and Jason is just as silent as he sits up, puts his bare feet to the floor and stands. He doesn't pull on more than a shirt to go with the shorts he'd gone to bed in, and when Jason slips out the door, he's foregone shoes, too.

It's a few miles to Lux's treehouse, but Jason walks.

It's not until he finally reaches it that he curses not bringing a gauntlet, but with or without his tools, Jason's still a skilled gymnast. He makes it through her window with ease, quietly calling almost instantly, "Lux?"

Comments

[illuxinated]

Lux opens her mouth to point out that, actually, it had been the fault of the criminals looking to kidnap someone in the first place, but she thinks immediately better of it, knowing it would fall on deaf ears. She's also curious about what he's talking about, and would hate to get sidetracked in a pointless argument about what does and doesn't fall under Jason Todd's purview.

"Okay," she tentatively repeats instead, eyebrows arching.

[prodigaljaybird]

The parallels would seem strange to anyone else but one who'd grown up with them. Jason hadn't wanted to be around when Dick came home because Dick moving heaven and earth to bring Jason down would embarrass him. It'd be like...an older brother pantsing the younger in front of his girlfriend, and that, far more than the threat of physical pain, had sent Jason running.

"I didn't want to see Dick because...because the last time I saw him, he thought I was an enemy. And I'm not, Lux, I've only ever tried to do things to make Gotham safer, but Dick, he doesn't see it the same way. He doesn't like me, anymore. He hasn't since I stopped being Robin."

[illuxinated]

They've been over this. Maybe not quite to this degree, but she's not completely dense; she'd been able to figure out most of what Jason's just said long before he crawled in her window tonight. She can extrapolate that he's not a bad guy, even if Dick Grayson doesn't agree with her. She knows Jason way too well to think anything else.

"Okay," she slowly says again, and then briefly pulls a face at her repetitiveness. "I believe you. I believed you before. Why am I getting the feeling that there's something really big you're not telling me, here?"

[prodigaljaybird]

"'Cause..." Because there is, and he's still not sure she's not going to turn tail and run, just like Katniss, who's seen the absolute worst in people and still had room to be horrified. Like pretty much everyone has done, save Talia.

"It's been a while, I mean...it happened a few years ago. It - " Jason makes himself stop to take a breath that does nothing to steady him, and he hates himself a little, for scaring her when she's already been through so much on his account. "I didn't stop being Robin because I quit. I stopped because I died. Somebody killed me."

[illuxinated]

The shock of that revelation doesn't leave any room to be afraid, if Lux would have been in the first place. She stares at Jason, jaw slack, her expression caught somewhere between disbelief and concern.

"…what?"

[prodigaljaybird]

"I died," says Jason. His fingers are twitching, wanting to reach for her, as if, for all his strength and skill, he could make her feel something she doesn't want. "When I was fourteen. That's why I stopped being Robin. That's why Tim is Robin now, not me."

[illuxinated]

"But—" Lux begins and falters, voice catching on the obvious: You were alive after that. Right now she isn't certain she can process the idea of Jason being dead in the first place; how or why he was brought back seems very inconsequential.

"What happened?" she whispers, instinctively reaching for him. "I mean, you don't have to say," she hastily adds, remembering herself. "If it's upsetting or whatever, you don't have to."

[prodigaljaybird]

She's reaching for him, and Jason goes, unable to stop once he's moving, face soon buried against her hair. It'd be kinder not to tell her, but he thinks it'll be better in the end. It's an ugly story, but Jason's whole world is ugly. She needs to know it, if she ever decides to question what he'd chosen to become.

"There's a man in Gotham. He's Batman's worst enemy, the worst fucking thing to ever happen to that town. He's crazy, Lux, and he - I got tricked." He'd gone to the desert to find his mother, had never in a hundred thousand years guessed she'd sell him out. That she'd watch as it happened. Jason's fingers reach, pushing past her hair and then his own to press against the long, white scar in his scalp. "I got left alone with him. He beat me to death."

[illuxinated]

Her mouth opens and a soft sound escapes before she stops herself from asking whether he means the Joker. Batman's worst enemy, he'd said; surely Jason couldn't mean anyone else, but she's afraid to ask and unsure of what to do.

So she holds him, tight, until the rise and fall of their breathing syncs. "I'm sorry," she whispers, the sound choked.

[prodigaljaybird]

"It's..." Not okay, and Jason can't bring himself to lie, settles for, "It was a long time ago," and clutches at her, fingers tightening one by one until he makes himself stop.

"Years, I just, I didn't want to tell you." Jason swallows and peels himself away just far enough to see her, search her for some sign that she's going to up and run, close off, be afraid of him. "I didn't want to scare you."

[illuxinated]

Lux's hands find Jason's face, fingers skimming over the worried crease in his brow and then settling against his jawline. "Why would you think that would scare me?" she asks, blue eyes holding his, searching. For the first time, it really hits her how much she doesn't know about him, this boy she loves so fiercely.

"You couldn't help it," she adds, confused but trying to be encouraging. "And you're here now, right? We're okay, aren't we?"

[prodigaljaybird]

"Yes," Jason breathes, "I want us to be," god, he wants it, and the part of him not washed away in a wave bone deep relief wonders if she really knows what she's promising, staying with him when he's...he's still a person people are afraid of back home.

"It's why Dick doesn't like me," he says. "Part of why. He thinks I came back wrong."

[illuxinated]

"I don't care what Dick thinks," Lux spits out, pulling an annoyed face. "He obviously doesn't know what he's talking about. Maybe if he bothered actually getting to know you now, he'd know he's the one who's wrong." Her eyes narrow as she scowls. She's never even met Dick and already she hates this guy.

[prodigaljaybird]

He can't help it. He still feels like shit, shaky like he hasn't felt in forever and hollowed out, but the look on her face is so indignant that Jason smiles. "You're the best person I know," he says. As long as she likes him, he knows he's okay, and it might not be the best moment to kiss her, but Jason does, still smiling when his lips find her own.