Jason Todd (
prodigaljaybird) wrote2011-10-04 07:27 pm
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Jason's lungs feel like they're trying to turn inside out.
He takes a rattling breath through his teeth, gives up and curls his lip, lets the air blossom full and sweet in his lungs. It serves to stay the faint buzzing between his ears, but he's still dizzy, frustration and rage and a hurt he's too keyed up to realize is childish warring in his head and heart.
Fucking Batgirl. Fucking Robin. It's bad enough that Tim is gone and they're on the island instead, creeping in his periphery far more often than his temper can endure, and now she's in his class? Both of them, with Bucky? Jason could have pulled the parallel bars down with his bare hands this morning. He settled for oneupping her in every exercise he could, and in cardio, running harder, faster, better, pushing himself to the point of exhaustion and then harder still.
He can't tell if she's impressed or not. He doesn't care, and it doesn't mean a damn thing that he keeps looking at her, that he can't hold any expression on his face that isn't a sneer or snarl. She can't touch him in class, not in combat or in quality, and if she thinks she can come in just to spy on him, to see if he's 'doing anything she has to stop,' she's fucking wrong.
Fury renewed, Jason unfurls his hands and takes a step over the sand, eyes on Steph where she's detached from the rest of the dispersing students.
He takes a rattling breath through his teeth, gives up and curls his lip, lets the air blossom full and sweet in his lungs. It serves to stay the faint buzzing between his ears, but he's still dizzy, frustration and rage and a hurt he's too keyed up to realize is childish warring in his head and heart.
Fucking Batgirl. Fucking Robin. It's bad enough that Tim is gone and they're on the island instead, creeping in his periphery far more often than his temper can endure, and now she's in his class? Both of them, with Bucky? Jason could have pulled the parallel bars down with his bare hands this morning. He settled for oneupping her in every exercise he could, and in cardio, running harder, faster, better, pushing himself to the point of exhaustion and then harder still.
He can't tell if she's impressed or not. He doesn't care, and it doesn't mean a damn thing that he keeps looking at her, that he can't hold any expression on his face that isn't a sneer or snarl. She can't touch him in class, not in combat or in quality, and if she thinks she can come in just to spy on him, to see if he's 'doing anything she has to stop,' she's fucking wrong.
Fury renewed, Jason unfurls his hands and takes a step over the sand, eyes on Steph where she's detached from the rest of the dispersing students.
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"You. Me. Now."
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"Why?" Jason barks. "I did good in class." He fucking did, he was perfect, better than, even. Better than Batgirl, that's for damn sure.
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"You really wanna play games with me, kid?" he asks, just loud enough for Jason to hear and no one else, getting right into his space. "Or do you just think I have moron stamped across my forehead?"
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Bucky might be in his face, but Jason's world has narrowed into two distinct points, and the new little brother and sister are hard to see past. They're the ones who are dicking everything up, not Jason. "Why are you in my face?"
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"Why'd you let her in? She's weeks too late. She - sucks."
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"No, see, this isn't how this works," Bucky replies with the ghost of a laugh, shaking his head, once. "I don't have to explain myself. I'm in charge! This is my show to run. You, on the other hand..." Another smile. "Tell me what the hell your problem is before I decide to get creative."
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"Said I had to prove myself to her, and it's bullshit. They're so fucking stupid, clinging to him like - like he knows anything. Like he's somebody to follow." There's a moment when Jason realizes he doesn't know what he's mad about anymore, but he recalls one thing. "I'm not wrong!"
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"Batman," he surmises, not a question, but close enough.
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"He's the one who's wrong. Not me."
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"Wrong about what, Jason?"
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What's worse is that he might be, that this Jason, the one on the island right here, right now, might be someone else at home. A guy who'd hurt children. He shudders. "I think," he says, swallowing, "that's what he tells them. That I was just a bad seed." He'd tried so fucking hard, and somehow, this scar on his throat is the sum total of what he deserved.
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Jason didn't have that.
"Then you're right," says Bucky, eyes flicking back upwards. "He was wrong."
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"They're watching me. Her and the little one, the new Robin. I don't know what they expect to happen." And Jason honestly doesn't. There's no crime to fight here, no Joker or Two Face or Riddler, no Batman. There's nothing to rail against but the remnants of home the island keeps sending him, and sometimes Jason doesn't even want to do that. He just wants to move along. It's all he knows how to do.
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"You want my advice?"
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Still, he wants to know what Bucky thinks, oftentimes more than Bucky would clearly prefer. That's not going to change. "Yes."
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If they're expecting Jason to go off the deep end, it stands to reason, then, that the best thing Jason could do is to keep on the straight and narrow. To continue living his life the way he has for months. Eventually, his two new stalkers will find themselves bored. Or, ideally, experiencing a change of heart.
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"Do you think I'm gonna do something?"
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Finally, he says, "Not if you don't have cause."
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"You do fall off the deep end, though, those kids aren't the ones you'll have to worry about," he replies, and though there's a slight wryness to his tone, there's truth to what he's saying. Jason's more or less been his responsibility since the kid fell from the sky a year ago, for better or for worse. "Just so we're clear."
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"Only one that really fucks me up is him, anyway," he admits in a quieter voice. "And the Joker. But you said you'd kill him." Jason looks at him, harder than he means to, the conversation taking a turn he'd not meant to steer it, but now that he's here he can't stop. "Do you still mean that?"
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Bucky holds Jason's gaze. "I do."
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"Then it'll be okay. I'll leave'em alone, long as they leave me alone."