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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

[teambatgirl.livejournal.com]

"Sorry," she says, suddenly apologetic. About making him worry and think there was something wrong. About worrying in the first place, when they haven't exactly been on the steadiest ground, and maybe it wasn't her place. Which is stupid, she's not going to apologize for caring about someone, but maybe she should be sorry about thinking between him and Bruce someone might get blown up.

"I heard it went..." She shakes her head. Physically unharmed is not the same as things going well. "That it could have gone worse." A pause and then. "I wanted to come down, but they shut off access, didn't want anyone going down. The ITF, I mean. And well, Bruce, but screw him."

Guilt, that's what this is. Wonderful.

[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."

[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."

[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."

[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."

[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."

[prodigaljaybird]

Tortured to death. It's not the point she's making, but he can't help but think about it. A person can't die slowly and in pain without remembering, without a small part of themselves being trapped in that moment forever. She's showing him hers, and in a strange, sad way, Jason feels kinship there.

"Tell him," he says, "he'll listen to you. They both will." Batgirl, who can do what he can't, who can make the same furious point without burning a city down to do it. "Protect Damian." Whatever else the kid might be, he's the child of two people Jason loves in helpless, equal measure.

[teambatgirl.livejournal.com]

"I've tried. I'm trying." For a moment, it breaks and all that exhaustion comes out. How hard it is to be the voice of reason and put aside all her past shit to deal with Bruce on a daily basis. Weathering Damian's crisis. She is being worn down to her peppy, optimistic bones, and it's only been a few days.

It only lasts for a moment though, and then she's offering Jason a humorless smile. "You vastly overestimate how much either of them will listen to anyone, especially me." Her expression sobers. "I won't let what happened to us happen to Damian. And I'm not doing it his way, I'll do it our way, which involves way less bullshit."

Now, she looks at him and smiles slightly, and this manages to have a bit of good cheer. A comfortable sense of conspiracy. Children never get along so well unless united by common cause. "So if you see him in danger of being attacked by plush clowns again, I rely on you to step in and save him. Keep up our respective ends."

[prodigaljaybird]

Jason knows all too well how hard it is, bending that iron will once Bruce has set it, but for some reason, he thinks she can do it. Stephanie's not like him; faced with the same road home, Jason picked a winding one, and Batgirl will again have to do what Jason can't. He can't convince Bruce of anything, but he'll be there for the fallout.

"I'll help," he promises. "Just you, just Damian. Nobody else."