Jason Todd

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.

Jason's barely set Tim's feet in the direction of the Compound before he's off again, flying through the trees with his tail between his legs.  He almost falls more than once, too much anger, too many rattled nerves diverting his thoughts from where they should be, and by the time he reaches Bucky's hut he's carrying another set of cuts and bruises.

He doesn't feel them beneath the sting of the mace, and between the swollen, chemical red painting his features and his own angry flush, they're nearly invisible on his skin when he lands, walks the short distance to Bucky's porch and slumps down.

He hadn't made a conscious decision to come here, but he leans against the support post easily enough, comforted by the fact that while Bucky will probably bark at him or make him run some more, he can't make his face hurt any worse than it already does.  Sanctuary thusly claimed, Jason settles in to lick his wounds, rubbing his aching eyes until a fresh stream of moisture helps to flush the last of the mace away.