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[ 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.

I'm not. Skip classes all you want, tell all the shit teachers to fuck off with the fake bullshit people throw into text books. I'll back you up. But you're still a brat, school's nice, an' if you spend all your time around the rest of us, you're gonna go even more batshit than usual.

( jason liked school, when he was consistently going. it sucked how many things he wanted to do but didn't, because he liked being robin more, but school itself was great. he liked learning, liked spending time around other kids who weren't brandishing knives and threats because that's all they knew. but jason also knows he's an outlier, and he was encouraging nico to skip out on school earlier. nico also isn't dick grayson. )

[ Dick snickers. ] You sound like you'd be fun at a parent-teacher conference.

School's fine, I was just teasing. But if it doesn't work out, I'll go with plan B.

[ He started school at age 9 with no experience at a brick-and-mortar school and he survived. This can't be that hard. ]

( it'd be funny as shit, showing up at a parent-teacher conference with a fourteen year old. jason's fairly sure he couldn't pass for bruce's age unless he put effort into it, and what's the point? though it's also not like he'd be stupid enough to put his name under parent on any birth certificate he fakes for dick. that's just asking for it. )

School's good for you. ( for more reasons than just--sitting in a classroom listening to someone drone on and on and on. ) Maybe you'll make some normal friends.

[ Dick laughs. ]

Normal is overrated. And highly subjective.

Yeah, well, our normal isn't great for anyone.

( considering they've all died at least once, for at least a few moments. he's not giving tim or dick credit for their i died phases. tim cheated and got zapped elsewhere, not killed. dick was only dead long enough to get the bomb off of him before luthor brought him back. damian gets to keep it, since he was dead long enough they had to chase his corpse all the way to apokolips. also not things he should tell a kid. even if damian was--what, ten at the time? eleven? damian's different. )

Older you's more fucked up than he'll ever let on. I'm fucked up. Both of me, Junior's just a few steps behind but he's also fucked. Tim's--Tim. Damian wants to kill his father, an' he's plenty justified in wanting it.

[ He has a response on the tip of his tongue, but the last statement has his brain come to a screeching halt. ]

He wants to kill Bruce?

His B is a piece of shit. Abandoned him when he really needed someone's support.

( because dick grayson died and everyone, including damian, blames him. )

Beats the shit out of him when they cross paths, too. He's got his reasons, they're--I can't blame him any. Hell, I've wanted to kill my B before.

( a loose shrug, before he reaches out and places a hand on dick's shoulder. )

He won't kill the one here. Probably.

[ Bruce is a complicated person. He can be demanding of his students, perfectionistic, paranoid, and emotionally constipated. But he's never, not once, been abusive or abandoned Dick. A Bruce out there somewhere who could do that to anyone, especially his own child, is difficult to understand. His heart sinks a little. ]

You have a bad Bruce too?

( this is what he gets, isn't it. for being honest and open about shit--even if the alternative would have been worse. letting dick find out the hard way wasn't an option. but his relationship with his own bruce is--complicated. )

Grayson and I come from the same place, I think. You should ask him about B, he knows him better.

( because jason is bitter and angry. because he knows his experience with bruce isn't universal, it's--jason's the problem. bruce just doesn't help any. )

So something else that's "complicated."

[ He supposes they all are. Even Dick, still so young, has a relationship with Bruce that's hard to define. Bruce is complicated and flawed, but he's still struggling to reconcile the Bruce he knows with Damian's Bruce and Jason's Bruce. It's a futile effort, he knows, but his Bruce is the only template he has for every other Bruce. ]

( there's a lot he can say in response to that. he could tell dick about all the bullshit he and bruce went through. he could talk about tim, about damian, about dick. or cass, duke, harper, steph--there's a lot he could get into. he's a good man is a response, and it wouldn't be an incorrect one even if would be an incomplete one. jason instead settles on what he knows to be fully correct and true, because it's--less weighty that way. )

I'm not a good person. There's been times when I was significantly worse than I am now, an' B and Tim got the brunt of it. Bruce did what he thought was best. But a lot of my. . opinions of Bruce're shaded by my own bullshit. I love him as much as you do, but any answer you get from me's gonna sound jaded, an' you should get it from Dick first before you get mine.

So you think he'll be the most objective when it comes to Bruce?

[ Dick only knows Jason from what he's seen here. He's complicated and weird and Dick doesn't think Jason is lying. ]

If you're looking for objective, I'd ring up Timbers. But I think older you's got the most experience with B, an' he's spent a lot of time dealing with his bullshit. And he's got a more--

( gesturing over to dick, because. )

You outlook, I'm guessing.

[ Dick runs a hand through his hair. ]

Yeah, that's going to take a lot of getting used to.

Tell me about it.

( this isn't even his first round with a mini me. it is, however, his first round with one this similar. and he hates it. hates seeing all the ways they're similar, hates the differenes even more because all they do is make him think about how much better junior is. )

The best I can hope is that we get along okay.

[ Dick has the benefit of being much younger than his other self. And he generally isn't consumed by self-loathing.

Still it'll cause a lot of problems if they can't at least tolerate each other. He assumes the others will side with the older Dick rather than him, if it came down to it.]

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