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[ On one hand, it makes more sense that it would be someone other than Bruce. On the other, Talia is someone he wouldn't expect to do this. Unless it was some sort of manipulation? 'I brought back your son, so now you owe me'?

Dick can tell that Jason doesn't want to talk about it really. Does it matter if he knows why? (It's going to bother him, he can already tell, but what's another unanswered question at this point?)

Instead, he sits up a little straighter and tries to seem a little less upset. ]

I still think she's a terrible person.

Yeah, she didn't do it out of the goodness of her heart.

( dick grayson in all iterations is a nosy little brat, and him being an actual little brat likely does nothing to change that. and jason's--gone through this talk so many times lately, he may as well add another one to his list. )

Our stories differ, between me and Junior. I don't have all the details behind his. But I came back before the pit. ( skipping over the very traumatic memories of digging his way out of his own grave while also suffering through over forty fractures, flash burns, a collapsed lung, and all the other bullshit that was fucked with him after the joker and the explosion. those are unnecessary. ) I just didn't come back all the way. My body was alive, but my head was empty. Talia found me, tried to pull me back out, gave up, then threw me in the Pit. Pretty sure she thought she'd get some brownie points for trying to fix the Robin he'd lost.

[ There are dozens of ulterior motives Talia or Ra's could have behind Jason's resurrection, and Dick's mind flips through them automatically. 'Brownie points' is the most generous assumption he could come up with. Given his recent experiences? Turning Jason into a weapon or a sleeper agent would be more likely, though not necessarily doable. He doesn't bother voicing any of it. It doesn't matter. Besides, Jason has probably done the same mental calculations Dick's doing now dozens of times over.

Instead: ] What brought you back?

Don't know. I was dead and then I wasn't.

( it's a nicer way of putting it. jason doesn't want to get into it, not with a kid. )

Whatever it was, it happened. Doesn't really matter what it was at this point, right?

[ He knows it's not that simple, but Dick isn't interested in dragging stuff to the surface. It's already a lot to take in, and he's sure it's not an easy thing for Jason to talk about, no matter how calm he seems.

So he just nods. ]

Thank you. For telling me.

[ Because that is one thing where not knowing could be... a little challenging. And he'd rather learn it here and now, and from the person it affected. ]

Usually people find out in a less. . easy way, figured we could avoid it like this.

( and while they're sitting down, jason's going to lean back so he can pull out a burner brick phone out of his pocket. so he can hold it out to dick. there's several numbers already programmed in it, all labeled by last name except for one: barnes, damian, drake, drake2, grayson, hawke, rayner, stark, strange, todd, todd2, wayne-- )

Figured this might come in handy. Barnes is a friend, he can kick my ass in a fight. If you ever need ground back up, you can ring him in. Stark owns the building, he's also known as Iron Man. Strange is a sorcerer, you can yell at him to get places as needed. He can create portals, and he's used to being yelled at. Barnes lives on the floor below ours, as does Hawke. Stark and Strange are upstairs. They all know about our night hobbies.

Edited 2023-07-18 02:13 (UTC)

[ Dick scrolls through the contact list as Jason talks.

It's weird to think that so many people know when it's a closely-kept secret back home. But he supposes that it might be hard to keep it a secret here, what with so many people now. He follows along but he notices Jason didn't mention one of them. ]

Who's Rayner?

( dick is still just a baby, and kyle came around--later. him not knowing isn't really surprising. he probably should have taken that into account, but ah well. )

Kyle Rayner. He's a Green Lantern. Comes around here often enough. He knows where the tower is, lives in Newark.

[ Having a GL as an ally is always a morale boost, even if Dick doesn't know him. ]

What about Hawke?

Connor, Green Arrow's son. He's easy to get along with. Strong.

( weird as hell, but he'll keep that opinion to himself. )

[ Connor Hawke, not Queen or Lance? He's sure there's a reason for that, but it's not really his business, is it? Whatever his parentage, if Jason say's he's trustworthy, that's what matters. ]

Is there anyone else here that might know not-me back home? Just as a heads-up.

Bart Allen, Wally West, Kon. There's someone named Dana Tan who came at me about being from Gotham, I haven't followed up with her and I don't know what her deal is. Aside from them? Nah.

( there's roy, too, but roy still wants to be a secret, and jason isn't going to expose him. there's no harm in keeping it on the down low right now anyway; roy isn't a threat to hide from. )

I haven't tracked down the speedsters yet, they're not really my purview. Kon's fine.

[ Three of those names don't mean anything to him. Eventually his brain will link "Allen" to "speedster" and his Superboy isn't going by Kon-El yet. One of the names makes him light up. ]

Wally's here?

[ But he deflates almost immediately. ]

But he's not the right one, is he?

[ Because his Wally isn't known to be subtle. Dick would've spotted him by now. ]

I haven't seen him in person yet. You'd have to ask Grayson.

( given they're best friends and all, he's betting grayson has some idea when and where this wally is from. )

Yeah, I'll do that.

[ Maybe. Eventually. ]

( a sore spot, then. one he'll leave alone. dick has enough shit going on without jason prodding at him. )

Want to see your room? I've got empty apartments if you want one of 'em to yourself, but they're empty, so I figured-- ( a loose shrug; the manor's massive, but alfred's always close by. and he isn't here, it's just them. )

[ Dick shakes his head and stands. ]

An empty apartment sounds [ lonely ] boring.

I figured.

( forarms against his knees, and jason pushes himself up to his feet, too. turns to walk towards the half of the floor that still has walls left, and a hallway going between the two apartments on either side. one of them is--half destroyed, a room remaining with the door opened to what looked like it had been serving as a bedroom: there's a bed and a dresser in it, but nothing else.

and they're walking passed that anyway, down the hall to one in the center of two other doors. the apartment door's open, because jason knows damn well he can't break in without heavy artillery that'd wake up everyone. and the only ones authorized to come up here are either already here or plenty capable of breaking anything jason could put up on it. it does have locks, he just didn't bother closing the door before getting dick.

the apartment walks in facing the living room that has wide open windows on the far wall. there's a couch set up towards the center, facing a large tv that's mounted into the wall. the kitchen is smaller, appliances and cupboards up against the right but still in the wide open space - given the entire floor dedicated to kitchen shit and storage, jason didn't think leaving the other half of the kitchen was really necessary. it's got a stove, microwave, fridge, and space to snack hoard, clearly that's plenty. )

Far door on the left.

( where dick will find a room significantly smaller than what he'd likely had in the manor, but room for all the normal shit someone would need: a full-sized bed, a nightstand next to it with a lamp and a few sticky pads for shoving shit up onto the walls, but jason hasn't gotten that far yet. two doors against the left walls--one that leads into a walk-in closet that has a few approximately dick-sized outfits already in it, and the attached bathroom.

the rest of the apartment is barebones, only the essentials. dick's has a cactus in the window jason's fairly certain will die a slow agonizing death, a charge-port built into the bedframe, knives taped to every surface that one could reasonably hide something sharp and pointy, a desk with a shoddy laptop and various notebooks and pens on top of it, and a bookshelf next to the bedframe that's--mostly empty, but it has a few of the classics on it.

an effort was made. )

[ Dick follows along, eyeing the half-destroyed apartment and wondering if that's Damian's. Maybe he was doing renovations?

But he's more interested in his and Jason's apartment. It looks pretty average, but it's nice. Secure, well-stocked, has all its walls in tact. He's only ever lived in a train car or a mansion so he figures this is probably closer to what's average for most people.

Dick's not sure what to expect out of his room. When he sees his room, it's a lot more than he expected. It's not just a bed, but a desk and a bookshelf and even clothes. And a cactus that he will make an attempt to keep alive. Jason put effort into it. As he looks around a warm smile spreads across his face.

He turns back to Jason. ]

It's great. Thank you, Jason.

( if he looks into the half-room, he'll figure out that it was jason's before dick showed up. it was the bed he'd slept in, the dresser might have an older shirt of his still in it, but it wasn't damian's. damian's is the last, locked door on the other side, labeled with a "don't B&E" sticky note just above the door handle. it's a fair warning, and he knows damian won't hurt dick if he does opt to ignore the sign--dick can figure it out from there if he does decide to fuck with it.

jason leans against the doorframe to dick's room while he looks around, crossing an ankle over the other and--he almost looks nervous. almost. he doesn't handle kids for longer than the time it takes to hand them off to someone else for a reason, including teenagers with a need to punch crime in the face. damian only kind of counts, and they manage to get into stupid fights every time they're in the same room as each other when dick isn't there to babysit them. there was scarlet, but that was different. so this is--mildly new territory.

but there's a smile on dick's face as he looks around, and without meaning to jason's own face mirrors it. )

I don't have Wayne pockets to dig into, but I figure this's better than Timmy's love hotel. ( speaking of - ) There's cash in the drawer to the right of the sink in the kitchen. They're clean bills, you can take whatever.

( left there specifically for dick, given jason mostly deals in dirty money, and there's no point in running it through enough to clean it when he just deals it right back out to thugs. the rest is just--pocket change. )

[ Dick is too focused on the room to notice any uncertainty or nervousness on Jason's part. When he sees the smile on Jason's face, his gets just a bit brighter.

But he wonders about the money, a little. ]

Do I want to know about the not-clean money?

[ If Jason is messing with gangs or taking down criminal kingpins, that's a perfectly acceptable way to make cash, in his opinion. Is it technically stealing? Sure. But gangs will just use that money to buy power to take over more areas to make more people miserable. ]

Nope.

( because dick doesn't need to know what jason gets up to when he skulks around in the shadows outside of his time in a mask. it's a work in progress anyway; he's working his way through the gangs, he hasn't gotten any useful info yet. )

It's not like I'd just get a day job. ( who do you think he is. )

[ Is it going to bother him not to know? Maybe a little. He's ~~nosy~~ curious by nature and he's still getting a feel for things around here.

But he remembers what he told Bruce, when asked if he trusted Jason.

Completely. Same with you.

That hasn't changed. So he'll let it go. For now. ]

Yeah, I don't think anyone's going to hire a fourteen-year-old either. Especially not a Starfallen.

Edited 2023-07-26 01:31 (UTC)

No one has to know you're not from around here, unless you tell 'em.

( jason doesn't care. jason's been dead for nearly a decade, he hasn't had something to protect under a mask. no one would think red hood, scourge of gotham's underbelly, would be jason todd, dead adopted child to bruce wayne. aside from black mask, and fuck if he knows how he got to that conclusion, but he's no longer an issue.

identity hasn't been important to him for years, outside being the red hood--and he doesn't have that anymore. so. )

We can fake IDs, fake birth records, fake enough history to build you into whatever you want to be. But you're a kid, you don't need a job.

( which is funny as shit for jason to be saying, given what he was getting up to before he was robin. )

'sides, you'll be busy enough as-is. NYC's a mess, and I could use a hand. Around your school schedule, 'cause you're going. ( or-- ) Or you could bully Stark into homeschooling you. He's smart, but he's a recluse and an asshole. I'm betting that wouldn't be an issue for you.

[ There's a very brief moment where Dick has the urge to push back, like he did when he went to live with Bruce. He was constantly pushing boundaries and crossing lines because he was angry and hurt and wanted Bruce and Alfred to know. Once he had Robin and the support and focus that provided, he did it much less. Even at 14, he chooses his battles carefully and fights them patiently.

Going to school isn't a battle he particularly feels the need to fight. So he pushes the urge to fight aside, somewhat exasperated that he's so thrown off that he's going back to very old unnecessary defense mechanisms. ]

I didn't think you'd be the type to be strict about schooling.

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