prodigaljaybird | (no subject)

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]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

She comes at him like a tiny rocket, so present and so close so suddenly that for a moment, Jason's not sure he hasn't imagined her, but then her arms are around his neck, the familiar scent of her hair in his nose, and Jason grips her tight.

He doesn't feel steady yet, but he's stubborn, not releasing her even for the quick journey to the edge of the boardwalk where he can sit, Lux gathered up in his lap. "I'm okay," he says, letting her look, letting her see that he's unharmed. "I missed you."

"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?"

"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."

Lux nods, and slides her fingers into Jason's hair with a sigh. It all seems so final and she hates that, despite what Jason has told her. More than anything she wishes that there was some way for him to have something even close to what she'd ended up having with Baze, but in no way is Jason's life that simple.

"I don't think there's anything else you can do," she concedes, and kisses his dark hair. "If anybody's going to try to work things out, it needs to be him. He's the dad, here. It's not your fault he's a supremely shitty one."

Jason huffs out a breath, too tired for anything as exhausting as bitterness. "He won't," he says, simply. "His real kid's here." Were he anyone else, he might pity Bruce for the handful of trouble he's just inherited. "Damian's not exactly a kid who shares."

That may be true of Damian, but Lux doesn't want to believe it's wholly true of Bruce, that childish idea of Batman still lingering in the back of her mind even after all this time. She wants to think that, if someone just helped him see things more clearly, he could be better, do better by the people who really depend on him, not just anonymous citizens who will never even know who he is.

"I'm sorry," she quietly offers despite this, because regardless of how things shake out, it shouldn't be this hard. It should never be this hard to feel valued by the people who are supposed to love you unconditionally.