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[prodigaljaybird]

It's strange to be outside again after so long spent indoors; first the endless dark of Rapture, and then the shuttered quiet of his own bedroom. He's seen the sunlight in bits and snatches, trickles through the slatted walls of the hut and shining through the door, but no more than that.

It feels good. Warm on his face when Jason tips it skyward, comforting. It feels good to know that in spite of the whole world ending, the sun and sky, the trees, the island is still here.

And going on as normal, if the sounds that greet Jason as he shuffles down the boardwalk are any indication. That feels good, too, and Jason feels better for every step he takes. In many ways, he feels like he's been ill, like it was a fever that's kept him indoors and not his own insurmountable dread. He feels raw and worn out, too hollow, but under the sun again...Bucky was right. He feels better.

He has no aim for where he's walking. There are faces he wants to see, but even now, he's afraid to seek them out. What will they say to him, what have they heard, or worse, what if they didn't care to notice he was gone?

The familiar hurt turns in Jason's stomach, and he takes the path not to the Compound, but down to Robin's Gym. Outside of class, the place is like a graveyard, but the wooden structures are familiar and sunlit. As ever when he's here alone, Jason thinks of Tim, and he smiles a little. "Way to miss the fireworks, little brother."

[ooc: wide open to familiar faces~ find him at Robin's Gym or on the way there]

Comments

[halfscarlet]

"Hey, stranger," Billy says as he closes the distance, grinning as he catches his breath. It's good to see Jason's face, tired as he looks. "Kinda missed seeing you around. You okay?"

[prodigaljaybird]

"Yeah," says Jason. He looks down at his hands, just as calloused as they ever were and not a line smoother, one week spent away from this gym not enough to erase half a lifetime of pulling himself hand over hand over one obstacle and the next. Why can't he just get over this one?

"Bucky thought there'd be trouble," he says and shrugs, knows full well that that's his doing, but he can't change the fact that when he came here bleeding out from a batarang, it's Bucky who sewed him up. "Wasn't much to see, anyway."

[prodigaljaybird]

"Yeah," Jason replies without embellishment. Okay is probably as much as he should hope for today, but still, he feels better for Billy's grin. "I got - there were too many people here from home all the sudden, you know?" he asks, then shakes his head, because of course Billy won't see it that way. The ones he has from home are glad to see him. "I heard your boyfriend came."

[halfscarlet]

Billy knows just enough about Jason to know that having people from home show up isn't the best thing for him, and he doesn't blame him for the disappearing act.

"Yeah, he did," he says, grinning. "He's been here just about a week and a half. We're still adjusting." Billy almost feels like a bad person for being so pleased Teddy's finally here when Jason had spent a week in Rapture to escape. But he figures Jason has better people to talk to, if he even wants to.

[irisewiththesun.livejournal.com]

It's good to see him, alive and seemingly in one piece. Zuko knows all too well about the kinds of scars and wounds that can't be seen, though. He thinks maybe Jason's got his share of those.

"Where've you been?" he asks, and it's not accusatory or angry, just curious. Just a question. Jason should know by now, Zuko hopes, that he's got his back whenever he needs it, but Zuko also knows there are things a person needs to do without backup - or things for which it isn't possible.

[teambatgirl.livejournal.com]

"Yeah." Bruce came out bruised and a little battered but not, she'd gathered, from Jason. Whatever actually happened between them, it wasn't her business. She wasn't a part of it. Which was fine, God knows she has her own issues with the Bat sleeping on the sofa. But Stephanie couldn't shake the feeling that she had a responsibility toward Jason. Whatever this twisted, dysfunctional thing is, they're in it together.

So she smiles with a cheer that's sincere if not quite real. "It's a good thing you're back too, I find I don't know what to do with myself if I can't regularly kick your ass at lap-running twice a week. If you'd been down there any longer I might have had to just start racing strangers."

[illuxinated]

"Me too," Lux replies, those two words enough to set her chin to trembling. He'd warned her, it wasn't as if all of this had come out of nowhere, but still she'd been so worried, so afraid for him down in that dark and lonely place without her.

Settled instantly in Jason's lap, her fingers skim their way across his stubbled jaw and up, lingering at the bit of pale hair just beginning to peek through at his hairline. Her eyes narrow a moment and then shift back down to Jason's.

"Where is he?"

[prodigaljaybird]

A week ago, he'd have had a quip for that, would have returned fire and with gusto, but now Jason can't do more than drag up one corner of his mouth. "Yeah," he says, "maybe."

He pushes his hands over his eyes with a sigh, well aware that he's acting like a goddamn zombie. "Is Damian - " he says and stops. "I guess he's glad to see his dad."

[prodigaljaybird]

"Cool," says Jason, able to muster a real smile for that, if a small one. "I wanna meet him. Is he the..." Lifting his hand, he motions towards Billy's ears. "That time you were caught. Teddy?"

[prodigaljaybird]

"Rapture," Jason replies, and thinks for a moment he won't say anything more but...it's Zuko. Jason needs look no further than the scar on his face to know that the other boy will understand.

"My dad came. I just wanted to disappear for a while."

[prodigaljaybird]

"Rapture," says Jason. As much as he doesn't want to talk about it, he wants to worsen her distress even less. He doesn't even have the heart to peel her away. "I just needed some time to myself," he says and adds, much quieter after, "Batman's here."

[prodigaljaybird]

"I don't know," says Jason, touching her hair. He can't keep still any better than she can, eager to relearn everything he's missed about her in the last week. "I thought I heard Natasha say he was staying with Damian and Batgirl."

He shakes his head, resting it briefly against Lux's shoulder. "I'm just gonna stay away from him." Jason certainly can't take Bruce on on the island, even if he wanted to. He doesn't have half the resources he'd need, and even less of the will. "I don't know what else to do."

[prodigaljaybird]

Jason slows to a halt in front of her. He wants to see Grace as much as he wants to see anyone he cares about, which means he craves and dreads it all at once. But he's outside, he's on the path, and she is too. There's no room for anymore running away.

"I was," he says, simply. "My dad's here. It's been...weird."

[curiously-cora.livejournal.com]

Coraline normally would have stressed at the unfairness that he got to go exploring Rapture but she was too busy hugging him. He'd de-cling her eventually or she'd let go for now she was quite content to make sure he was all there.

"Well, next time you leave a note saying 'Hey Coraline, I'm going to Rapture and I'm bummed you can't come because people suck but I'll bring you back a keyring or a magnet or something.' You don't just go," Coraline said looking up at Jason with big eyes when he said Batman was here. She knew it. She knew he was Robin. So cool. "Batman? As in Batman-Batman?"

[backward]

Thin arms cross over her chest as Effy watches Jason climb the bars, helping himself to where nothing rests but strength, but power, even as it shakes with the ground shifting under his feet. He's different, now. Less sure of each step, but there's no less grace for them, and Effy trusts in that. She wants to believe that he'll be capable of continuing with one step in front of the other, in a way that she trusts no one else in her life to be capable of. Backing up to a nearby pole, she rests her weight against it, the surface cool against her spine.

"Fathers are shit when they don't care," she says, her voice quiet, dark. "I hadn't seen mine in over a year, and before that, it was just yelling. Crashes a car, doesn't check to see if I'm okay. Didn't fight for custody. Probably didn't know I tried to kill myself, and when I woke up in the hospital, I didn't want him there anyway. So. Sometimes, you get used to it."

Her gaze rises up to him again. "And sometimes it hurts like nothing else can. It's not fair."

[halfscarlet]

Billy mirrors Jason's motion without meaning to, trying not to think about the pain and horror that memory threatens to flood him with. He'd almost forgotten he'd told Jason about it, that entire night still a haze.

"Yeah, that was him. He showed up in Rapture."

[prodigaljaybird]

Jason watches the misery flash over Billy's features, would feel worse for it if his own stomach could stop rolling. Showed up in Rapture. "He must've come in right before it closed," he says. "Before my dad."

[prodigaljaybird]

Jason sits, tight throated, trapped up on the perch he's chosen and listening to a tale that's somehow less fantastical than his own yet every bit as painful. His mouth is open, the plea on the tip of his tongue for Effy to stop, stop describing hurts so like his own, but he can't. There's too many kids like them who are never heard, and he won't be the one to silence her.

"How can you get used to it?" he croaks at last, bringing the heels of his hands up to dig at his too hot eyes. He'd thought he might be moving past it, so many new things in his life now, but now Bruce is here and Jason just..."I can't get used to it. I don't know how."

[halfscarlet]

"Yeah, just a couple days before," Billy confirms. He remembers hearing about everything, but so caught up in Teddy and everything between them, he hadn't realized just how big a deal Jason disappearing into Rapture had been. "So...your dad, huh?"

It occurs to Billy that he may, at some point, actually get to meet Batman.

[madeofstories.livejournal.com]

"Oh," Grace replies, realizing. If her own father showed up on the island, it'd be strange for her as well, because as much as she'd love to see him there, it would change things drastically for her. Grace is certain that he'd have something to say about her continued education on the island, for starters.

"So, you're not glad to see him, then."

[teambatgirl.livejournal.com]

"He is glad." That doesn't come out with more conviction, and so she tries again. "He is glad. It's just...complicated. Like everything else is where he's concerned." She hesitates and then goes ahead. Let Jason hear about their troubles, he already knows about the ugly parts of Batman. Failed Robins, dead or fired, that's all Bruce has here. Part of his punishment, maybe.

"He doesn't want Damian as Robin until he proves he's ready, which may or may not ever happen considering who we're talking about. " She sighs and pushes her hair off her forehead, a quick, frustrated gesture. "Indefinitely benches. Damian is not taking it very well. Everything is...tense," she says diplomatically then frowns. "It's actually complete and total fucking bullshit."

[prodigaljaybird]

"He doesn't want him to die." If nothing else in their conversation has done it, Batgirl has his full attention now. It took Jason years to understand it, and more than a few fraught arguments with Tim, but he gets it now.

He's more caution than person, more useful as a ghost than he ever was a son. "Why do you think he kept that case, why he wanted to stare at the uniform I died in day after day. To remind him why he can't let Damian go out there before he's ready. So he doesn't end up like you and me."

[prodigaljaybird]

Jason nods, head hung low as he shuffles along. Even now, he feels his heart stutter for every flutter of movement ahead or behind them. It's humiliating enough to share the island with his father; to have to face him with a friend at his side...Jason can't stomach it.

"Did you get along with yours?" he asks. "Back when you were home?"

[backward]

Her brows are furrowed, almost painfully so, as she watches him up on his perch, wiping at his eyes. It's the last thing that she wants to do, hurting him like this. But he asks her for the truth, and Effy can't find it in herself to do anything but give him just that, bare her soul out in a way that she always has around him. With eyes wide and blue, Effy steps forward, until she rests just under him, glancing directly up and wondering if she could find a way to raise herself to his level. Find the strength to climb to him. It looks a bit lonely, up there.

Then again, maybe it's better, seeing the world from a distance. Effy doesn't know.

"I told myself I would give up on love," she tells him, words clear. "It sounds so fucking stupid and melodramatic, but... when I love someone, it ends up hurting. They leave, or I just fuck them up. I fuck the good ones up. But then you find out that you can't stop it when you love someone."

She shakes her head, slow, her hair falling around her shoulders. "I don't know how to fix it, Jason. I wish I did. Wish I could fix it for you."

[teambatgirl.livejournal.com]

"Do you know how I ended up the way I did?" She wants to look away, but she doesn't, just looks at him with blue eyes burning and a clenched jaw. "I got fired. And I, ousted as Robin and hungry desperate to prove myself, desperate to somehow matter to him, did something stupid. It got a bunch of people killed and me essentially tortured to death. Because I got fired and I wanted to prove I was good enough for him."

Now she glances away and takes a breath. She feels like she's shaking all over even though it's all just in her head. "I too am a cautionary tale, but with a different lesson."